Liz Williams's Blog, page 10
July 18, 2012
Helsinki
We arrived yesterday at lunchtime after a rather long and sleepless night (drove to H/row). However, it was a very smooth trip: M and K met us at the airport and whisked us into Helsinki, and a press interview in a lovely old cafe decorated with strawberries. After this, we had an early evening boat trip around the archipelago - very interesting to hear about all the islands, and the buffet on board was excellent (including tarred herring). The hotel breakfast was also pretty good - the bread here is fantastic.
I am enchanted to find that there is a bright scarlet tram which is also a pub. We went to a beautiful bar like an 18th century drawing room and watched bands and the rain.
Today, we're heading up to Tampere and Finncon. See some of you there, I hope.
I am enchanted to find that there is a bright scarlet tram which is also a pub. We went to a beautiful bar like an 18th century drawing room and watched bands and the rain.
Today, we're heading up to Tampere and Finncon. See some of you there, I hope.
July 10, 2012
In short...the joys of motoring.
Monday (last week): K-reg car failed its MOT. Must now go to the great Jaguar dealership in the sky.
Ancient Peugeot goes into garage for *its* MOT.
Tues/Wed/Thurs: T spends time online compiling a list of K-reg's replacement.
Friday: replacement appears! In Brixham. We go to have a look. We like it. It is cheap. We buy it.
Saturday: we drive it to Berkshire for a handfasting at which we are officiating. It's like driving an armchair and it goes like shit off a shovel....until we get back to Somerset, at which point, it develops a cough.
Hmmm.
Sunday: we drive to Cheddar to feed someone's cats. On the way back across the moors, miles from anywhere, the car decides that it Does. Not. Want. A nice man gives me a lift home to fetch the K-reg.
Sunday evening: the car is taken on a tow truck to the garage.
Monday: good news! It is a small matter of an air filter.
Bad news: the Peugeot has failed its MOT.
Monday evening: we have a tour guest, who is paying to be shown round Glastonbury, booked for Tuesday morning. We are, says T, going to be sensible and not take chances. We will hire a car.
Today: I collect a Vauxhall Astra. It makes a noise like a washing machine and drives much like one, too. I collect guest. We go up Cheddar Gorge. We go down Cheddar Gorge. Then we head to Glastonbury. Halfway across the moors, the car decides that it Does. Not. Want. Its clutch burns out. Guest, who thank GOD is from the Antipodes and thus robust in several ways, thinks this is hilarious. We walk into Godney, find a school with a phone, and call T, who comes to the rescue.
The same kind of thing has happened to S, and also to R, who has had a 4 hour wait on the motorway in the middle of the night. WTF?
Ancient Peugeot goes into garage for *its* MOT.
Tues/Wed/Thurs: T spends time online compiling a list of K-reg's replacement.
Friday: replacement appears! In Brixham. We go to have a look. We like it. It is cheap. We buy it.
Saturday: we drive it to Berkshire for a handfasting at which we are officiating. It's like driving an armchair and it goes like shit off a shovel....until we get back to Somerset, at which point, it develops a cough.
Hmmm.
Sunday: we drive to Cheddar to feed someone's cats. On the way back across the moors, miles from anywhere, the car decides that it Does. Not. Want. A nice man gives me a lift home to fetch the K-reg.
Sunday evening: the car is taken on a tow truck to the garage.
Monday: good news! It is a small matter of an air filter.
Bad news: the Peugeot has failed its MOT.
Monday evening: we have a tour guest, who is paying to be shown round Glastonbury, booked for Tuesday morning. We are, says T, going to be sensible and not take chances. We will hire a car.
Today: I collect a Vauxhall Astra. It makes a noise like a washing machine and drives much like one, too. I collect guest. We go up Cheddar Gorge. We go down Cheddar Gorge. Then we head to Glastonbury. Halfway across the moors, the car decides that it Does. Not. Want. Its clutch burns out. Guest, who thank GOD is from the Antipodes and thus robust in several ways, thinks this is hilarious. We walk into Godney, find a school with a phone, and call T, who comes to the rescue.
The same kind of thing has happened to S, and also to R, who has had a 4 hour wait on the motorway in the middle of the night. WTF?
July 4, 2012
Heads-up
One of my readers, who ordered something in the spring sale, has not recieved his stuff - this occasionally happens from the UK to the US, although it's probably the fault of our PO (never stellar). If anyone else is waiting for something from me, can you let me know? - and I'll sort it out.
July 3, 2012
A quick note
Some of you are waiting for the last instalment of A Thousand Li. I finished it a couple of weeks ago, and want to do a final proof-read - it will be with you tomorrow. Likewise those of you who ordered tarot readings - all done, just need to be sent. Thanks for your patience!
June 27, 2012
Poltroons
Reposted from FB. The SF community has been marked by a number of ill-tempered spats this year and most of them have been of a lamentably low literary calibre. I also feel that a return to a degree of 18th century robustness is called for.
It is therefore time to raise the game. I have been defriended on FB by a fellow writer, for mocking their online behaviour (one Mr R Hughes, if anyone is wondering, on whose Christmas card list I sadly no longer feature). This is the action of a veritable milksop, and I trust that my fellow Welshman, rather than proferring the level of emetic bile that I expect from one of our principal minority sub-genre scribblers, is now festering succulently in the squamous temenos of his own Facebook wall.
I demand better from the author of My Cholesterol Socks (forthcoming). I insist that he improves upon 'hippy' and 'patronising,' both of which are so milkwatery and timid as to barely feature on the offensive radar. Come, come! You can do better than that!
In future, therefore, if anyone wants to insult me, I would be most grateful if they could do so properly, so I'll lay down some guidelines. I wish to be insulted with elegance, wit and extreme opprobrium. Rather than feeble childish hissings, I should like to be addressed in extranoematic fashion as (e.g.) a crespuscular, vulturine harpy with a face like a cream cheese and the manners of a rabid leucrotta. If anyone selects the option of death threats, as in recent correspondence elsewhere, these will be greeted with an invitation in real life to the nearest car park at the next Eastercon, where we can duke it out like gentlemen (OK, not exactly in my case, as I rarely fight fair and the Marquess of Queensbury would turn in his grave, but the sentiment's there). In short, should someone take exception to my being, kindly deal with it as a proper writer should, rather than petulant ripostes hurled from beneath the cloak of anonymity or tiny pebbles of ire cast from the catapult of failure. Thank you.
It is therefore time to raise the game. I have been defriended on FB by a fellow writer, for mocking their online behaviour (one Mr R Hughes, if anyone is wondering, on whose Christmas card list I sadly no longer feature). This is the action of a veritable milksop, and I trust that my fellow Welshman, rather than proferring the level of emetic bile that I expect from one of our principal minority sub-genre scribblers, is now festering succulently in the squamous temenos of his own Facebook wall.
I demand better from the author of My Cholesterol Socks (forthcoming). I insist that he improves upon 'hippy' and 'patronising,' both of which are so milkwatery and timid as to barely feature on the offensive radar. Come, come! You can do better than that!
In future, therefore, if anyone wants to insult me, I would be most grateful if they could do so properly, so I'll lay down some guidelines. I wish to be insulted with elegance, wit and extreme opprobrium. Rather than feeble childish hissings, I should like to be addressed in extranoematic fashion as (e.g.) a crespuscular, vulturine harpy with a face like a cream cheese and the manners of a rabid leucrotta. If anyone selects the option of death threats, as in recent correspondence elsewhere, these will be greeted with an invitation in real life to the nearest car park at the next Eastercon, where we can duke it out like gentlemen (OK, not exactly in my case, as I rarely fight fair and the Marquess of Queensbury would turn in his grave, but the sentiment's there). In short, should someone take exception to my being, kindly deal with it as a proper writer should, rather than petulant ripostes hurled from beneath the cloak of anonymity or tiny pebbles of ire cast from the catapult of failure. Thank you.
June 7, 2012
Ray Bradbury
I never met Ray Bradbury, but his work had a huge impact on me as a young person: the evocative atmospheres that he dreamed up have stayed with me, even when plots and to an extent character have not. I suppose I started reading his work in my early teens, and it wasn't just the SF (The Martian Chronicles in particular) that affected me, but his characterisation of a small town America caused an enduring preoccupation with that country, dovetailing as it seemed to with the work of YA writers such as Elizabeth Enright. That America - a foreign country, to me - may never have existed beyond the page, and the reality is of necessity different and in no way mine, but Bradbury's world of dandelion fields and trains in the night is still what certain place names will conjure up in my imagination. And he proved to me, more than anyone else except Le Guin, that story did not require a sacrifice of style. I am glad that he had such a long life, but it is a great loss.
June 6, 2012
Beacon
Spent Monday lunchtime in the company of Ian W, H and K, in a fabulous pub called the Queen's Head at Newton in Cambridgeshire. This serves soup (colour coded: we had 'dark reddish brown'), which was excellent, toast and dripping, and sandwiches. And that's it, food-wise. The bar has not been decorated since 1945. In a case on the wall is a stuffed goose: Belinda, who used to patrol the car park and hiss at people.
Then we drove back to Glastonbury, celebrated T's birthday by going out to dinner, then went into town to see the beacon lighting. When we got there, even though it was still broad daylight, the beacon was blazing away: apparently someone lit it two hours early, thus pre-empting the Queen and indeed, the rest of the country. However, the ceremony went ahead and the whole Tor was strung with torches like a processional way. With the full moon rising alongside, it looked like an enormous liner sailing across the Levels. The crowds were so thick that we did not climb the Tor, but went and watched from the windows of the gallery, just down the road. Apparently everyone on top of the hill - the clergy, the Mayor, random occultists and the local Druids - all led the singing of Jerusalem.
Then we drove back to Glastonbury, celebrated T's birthday by going out to dinner, then went into town to see the beacon lighting. When we got there, even though it was still broad daylight, the beacon was blazing away: apparently someone lit it two hours early, thus pre-empting the Queen and indeed, the rest of the country. However, the ceremony went ahead and the whole Tor was strung with torches like a processional way. With the full moon rising alongside, it looked like an enormous liner sailing across the Levels. The crowds were so thick that we did not climb the Tor, but went and watched from the windows of the gallery, just down the road. Apparently everyone on top of the hill - the clergy, the Mayor, random occultists and the local Druids - all led the singing of Jerusalem.
June 4, 2012
Barges
We drove across the country in the rain yesterday to Essex, a part of the country which I don't know at all well, but this bit of it was extremely pretty. We had to conduct a handfasting, which was supposed to be in a meadow but which ended up in a boathouse instead, due to the weather. This all went smoothly except that in the pub beforehand, having changed my clothes, I lost the car key and found that I had inexplicably hidden it in a shoe.
It was a very English wedding, with cake, homemade cheese straws, elderflower cordial and tea. And rain. There were bee orchids on the lawn and the roses were out. After this, we reached Cambridge in the early evening and went out mob-handed to the Shanghai Family restaurant, one of our favourites, for Trevor's pre-birthday dinner out.
With regard to the Jubilee, we've just caught up with the pictures of the Thames flotilla, which looked great: lots and lots of little boats, chugging madly up the Thames. I liked the bell barge, which rung out the bells as they went and were answered by the churches. I also like the Spirit of Chartwell, with its decorations of Thames waterfowl: kingfishers, herons, cormorants. Having seen the alternatives to monarchy, I would rather stick with what we've got (the idea, e.g., of Cherie Blair as first lady gives me the cold horrors) and I am in favour of tradition: Glastonbury beat the bounds on Saturday, and there have been a lot of low-key, informal community events, fuelled by tea.
Tonight, we have beacon lighting, Her Maj "will trigger the lighting of the final beacon by placing a huge crystal into a specially designed pod." Followed by a fly-by on behalf of the British Space Corps and as La M has suggested, a loop-the-loop by the Duke of Edinburgh with his jetpack.
It was a very English wedding, with cake, homemade cheese straws, elderflower cordial and tea. And rain. There were bee orchids on the lawn and the roses were out. After this, we reached Cambridge in the early evening and went out mob-handed to the Shanghai Family restaurant, one of our favourites, for Trevor's pre-birthday dinner out.
With regard to the Jubilee, we've just caught up with the pictures of the Thames flotilla, which looked great: lots and lots of little boats, chugging madly up the Thames. I liked the bell barge, which rung out the bells as they went and were answered by the churches. I also like the Spirit of Chartwell, with its decorations of Thames waterfowl: kingfishers, herons, cormorants. Having seen the alternatives to monarchy, I would rather stick with what we've got (the idea, e.g., of Cherie Blair as first lady gives me the cold horrors) and I am in favour of tradition: Glastonbury beat the bounds on Saturday, and there have been a lot of low-key, informal community events, fuelled by tea.
Tonight, we have beacon lighting, Her Maj "will trigger the lighting of the final beacon by placing a huge crystal into a specially designed pod." Followed by a fly-by on behalf of the British Space Corps and as La M has suggested, a loop-the-loop by the Duke of Edinburgh with his jetpack.
June 2, 2012
Jubilation
So, Jubilee weekend is upon us. Glastonbury is celebrating with music at the Abbey, a street party this evening, and a torchlit Tor on Monday - I rather like the whole beacon fires resonance about this. Since we're not big on street parties and it is, needless to say, raining, we have come back to roast lamb and a bottle of wine, but tomorrow we are heading to the other side of the country to conduct a handfasting and visit friends in Cambridge. It is very decent of her Maj to hold her celebrations on Monday, as this is T's birthday.
However, the countryside is looking glorious and there is some fairly restrained bunting all over the place. The council have hung the flag on the front of one of our shops upside down, and someone further up the High St has replaced their Union Jack altogether with the Lion of Judah. Hope everyone who is celebrating has a fabulous weekend!
However, the countryside is looking glorious and there is some fairly restrained bunting all over the place. The council have hung the flag on the front of one of our shops upside down, and someone further up the High St has replaced their Union Jack altogether with the Lion of Judah. Hope everyone who is celebrating has a fabulous weekend!
May 31, 2012
REPOST: NEW NOVEL AND STORIES
A big thank you to everyone who has already signed up! The novel and the first round of short fic has already gone out.
I am floating a new series of stories for the next year. I'm reducing the cost of this a little, with a further reduction for regular subscribers.
WINTERSTRIKE: there will be four short stories set in the world of Banner of Souls and Winterstrike, so if you’re after some far future Martian tales, this is the sub for you!
WORLDSOUL: again, 4 short stories, each set in the different quarters of Worldsoul – north, south, east and west, featuring some of the characters from the new novel.
CHEN: With the series eventually coming to a conclusion, although not an end, with Morningstar, which is now due out next year, this is an opportunity for me to explore the back stories of some of the other characters in the series, although Chen and Zhu Irzh (with added badger) will be appearing in them. At the moment, this will mean: Sergeant Ma, Exorcist Lao, No Ro Shi the ultra-Communist demon hunter, and Chen’s commanding officer.
The first set of these will be with you in June 2012.
Customised stories under the Story Garden imprint are also still available.
NEW NOVEL: THE MOON IN DAYLIGHT
And I have…a new novel!
“Outside the lighted windows of the church, London roared by. It was dusk now, ancient stone soaking up the November cold and breathing damp into the echoing air. The man stood, having long since tuned out the traffic, murmuring under his breath:
"...At this time that is not a time, in this place that is not a place, on this day that is not a day..."
He did not speak in English, but in old Welsh, the sibilance whispering through the vaults. Movement caught the corner of his eye, but he ignored it. He stared straight ahead, to the red candle. In the pool of its own light, it looked like a column of meat: the white wick a sliver of fiery bone.
Outside, London hammered on. Nothing to do with him, this modern twenty-first century world, and yet he had a place in it. Not as his own self, for most of the world had long since ceased to pay attention to his kind, long since ceased to believe. The real world, some called it. But that, he thought, was on the verge of changing.
After all, real is what you make it, if you are a god.”
The Moon in Daylight is a full-length contemporary urban fantasy novel which has never been published in either short story form or novel format – it’s a new world for me. Set in London and North Wales, this is the start of the adventures of Siriol Jones – professional herbalist, Druid and magician – and her mysterious friend the Hermit. In this novel, Siri and the Hermit go in search of Siri’s addict sister, Non, and find more than they bargained for in a trip to the Celtic otherworld. It’s got magic, some very dodgy goddesses, London folklore, the club-going lord of midsummer and ancient boar spirits, and what I hope is a reasonably accurate depiction of the actual British pagan scene.
In tone, it’s closer to the Chen novels than my SF, and it is hopefully a light read!
The Moon in Daylight is available in Word and PDF format, and I can send this to you immediately.
Short Stories
Worldsoul stories x 4£16.00 GBP
Winterstrike stories x 4£16.00 GBP
Chen stories x 4£16.00 GBP
The Moon in Daylight£10.00 GBP
All of it!£50.00 GBP
All of it for regular subscribers£45.00 GBP
I am floating a new series of stories for the next year. I'm reducing the cost of this a little, with a further reduction for regular subscribers.
WINTERSTRIKE: there will be four short stories set in the world of Banner of Souls and Winterstrike, so if you’re after some far future Martian tales, this is the sub for you!
WORLDSOUL: again, 4 short stories, each set in the different quarters of Worldsoul – north, south, east and west, featuring some of the characters from the new novel.
CHEN: With the series eventually coming to a conclusion, although not an end, with Morningstar, which is now due out next year, this is an opportunity for me to explore the back stories of some of the other characters in the series, although Chen and Zhu Irzh (with added badger) will be appearing in them. At the moment, this will mean: Sergeant Ma, Exorcist Lao, No Ro Shi the ultra-Communist demon hunter, and Chen’s commanding officer.
The first set of these will be with you in June 2012.
Customised stories under the Story Garden imprint are also still available.
NEW NOVEL: THE MOON IN DAYLIGHT
And I have…a new novel!
“Outside the lighted windows of the church, London roared by. It was dusk now, ancient stone soaking up the November cold and breathing damp into the echoing air. The man stood, having long since tuned out the traffic, murmuring under his breath:
"...At this time that is not a time, in this place that is not a place, on this day that is not a day..."
He did not speak in English, but in old Welsh, the sibilance whispering through the vaults. Movement caught the corner of his eye, but he ignored it. He stared straight ahead, to the red candle. In the pool of its own light, it looked like a column of meat: the white wick a sliver of fiery bone.
Outside, London hammered on. Nothing to do with him, this modern twenty-first century world, and yet he had a place in it. Not as his own self, for most of the world had long since ceased to pay attention to his kind, long since ceased to believe. The real world, some called it. But that, he thought, was on the verge of changing.
After all, real is what you make it, if you are a god.”
The Moon in Daylight is a full-length contemporary urban fantasy novel which has never been published in either short story form or novel format – it’s a new world for me. Set in London and North Wales, this is the start of the adventures of Siriol Jones – professional herbalist, Druid and magician – and her mysterious friend the Hermit. In this novel, Siri and the Hermit go in search of Siri’s addict sister, Non, and find more than they bargained for in a trip to the Celtic otherworld. It’s got magic, some very dodgy goddesses, London folklore, the club-going lord of midsummer and ancient boar spirits, and what I hope is a reasonably accurate depiction of the actual British pagan scene.
In tone, it’s closer to the Chen novels than my SF, and it is hopefully a light read!
The Moon in Daylight is available in Word and PDF format, and I can send this to you immediately.
Short Stories
Worldsoul stories x 4£16.00 GBP
Winterstrike stories x 4£16.00 GBP
Chen stories x 4£16.00 GBP
The Moon in Daylight£10.00 GBP
All of it!£50.00 GBP
All of it for regular subscribers£45.00 GBP
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