P.C. Hodgell's Blog, page 19

Comics and other Inspirations.

Hurrah, I'm finally done cataloging my comic books and magazines. There are some 6-7000 of them ranging from the 60's to the 90's. Most aren't worth much but a few surprised me pleasantly, going by an old comic guide. Cindy at the barn says I've been using this chore to avoid writing, which is partly true, but it also had to be done sometime. Mind you, I'm in no hurry to do anything with them, but it helps to know what I have on hand.

Looking back, while I've outgrown most of the superheroes, some still move me. I have recurrent day dreams, for example, of Jame meeting Batman (this would be after the series, when on occasion she becomes destruction incarnate and has to go wherever the godhead sends her, including other worlds). I also sometimes glimpse her with the Shadow, Doc Savage, and Sherlock Holmes. These stories will probably never come to anything, but they're fun to play with and endlessly refine.

Then there are the ageless classics, among whom I include Sandman, various Death spin-offs, and Moore's Swamp Thing.

And the Spirit (forget that horrible movie: Eisner was a witty and entertaining story teller.)

And the nameless author of "The Monster of Dread End" who describes one of the monster's victims as "a balled-up thing ... like an empty wrapper thrown carelessly aside ... but still recognizable as having once been human." I've carried that image with me for nearly fifty years.

So many stories, so many images, so much pleasure these books have given me. Jame and her world would hardly be the same without them.

tagmeth @ 2011-01-18T16:31:00

Yike. I just heard from my agent. She hasn't yet read the summary for Novel 7 and Baen hasn't yet read Honor's Paradox. So much for turning it in early. I may yet have to do revisions. However, the extra time has allowed me to do some hard thinking about the rest of the series, so maybe it's to the good after all.

Many thanks for all of your suggestions. Some of them are addressed in HP and others at the end (I know: it's hard to ask for ideas when you haven't read the latest installment). That said, some thoughts leaped out at me.

1)I've just written a mini-scene where Tori thinks about there being three Knorth and about the coming the Tyr-ridan. Assuming he can get over the idea of being Shanir (assuming the Tyr-ridan are necessarily of the Old Blood), he can't figure out if he's supposed to be Creation or Preservation, the latter having been his role so far. Jame offers in HP to break whatever is rotten in the Kencyrath. For the first time, Tori wonders if his true role may come after she has done her job.

2)Someone mentioned games. That's a great idea! I'm thinking in terms of a contest among young Highborn that takes place every five years, so Tori hasn't had to deal with it before now. Each house puts up a champion (8, since Tori can't recall Jame from Kothifir). Each house also devises a competition that plays to both its strengths and those of its champion (eg Jaran = learning, Caineron = power, etc). Each test takes place at the house that proposed it – the home team, as it were – and is judged by the other houses. Its subject isn't announced until all contestants are there. These tests could be on-going over the year, ending up with the Knorth. They could cause a lot of competition, cheating, betting, tension, and fights. Kindrie organizes them. Tori is mostly a spectator until it's his turn to propose the last competition -- something that would tie together the lot. Perhaps the Women's World has its equivalent. It would be fun if Caldane proposed Lyra just to upset things.

3)I was just thinking about Mount Alban. What if Kindrie finds a note in the pile from Caldane saying that he intends to house-clean at the college, getting rid of the oldest, most confusing scrolls? He's always claimed that they were mere fables, not history. He assumes that if he doesn't heard to the negative from Tori by a certain date that he can go ahead with the Highlord's blessing – this, knowing full well that Tori is behind reading his mail. Tori sends a warning via Trishien and gets an answer from Kirien: "He's here."

Shift to Kirien's POV and to my notes.
A Caineron scrollsman, on pain of being disowned, has provided Caldane with a list of ms to be destroyed, then killed himself. No one knew why.
And no one except Index knows where they all are.
Index is a Caineron Highborn, although he's long stopped thinking of himself as anything but a scrollsman.
Can he stand up to his lord? I think so, but what if Caineron orders him back to Restormir? He's too valuable to lose.
The Caineron have sealed off Mt Alban from Valantir and its Jaran protectors.
Caldane blandly points out that he has Torisen's tacit approval, not having heard to the contrary, so if anyone has to answer for this, it's Tori
The Jaran get word anyway and are about to storm the college.
Meanwhile, Ashe takes Index into the cells behind the college to hide him. There they encounter Bane. Index sees only the Book, but is prevented by Ashe from taking it.
Ashe stands off Bane.
The blind Director and Kirien stonewall Caldane. They wouldn't turn over the books even if Index could be found to tell where they are.
Caldane says that some of the works in question exist only in the memories of certain scrollsmen and singers, and he knows which ones. He hint that if he can't burn the books, he will burn them, particularly the ones who belong to his house.
The scholars meanwhile aren't defenseless. They find ways to inconvenience and drive off the Caineron, who aren't too keen on this job anyway.
Kirien stands up to Caldane as Jaran lordan. Her house is the college's protector. If he moves against it, she will declare a blood feud against him. What's more, Jaran have surrounded the college en masse and the scholars have incapacitated most of Caldane's men.
He leaves in a huff. Kirien messages Tori, "he's gone"
Kindrie comments that they have got to make Index accept a proper apprentice

And that's it so far.

Now back to sorting comic books, to which I was once addicted.

Tidbit and winter thoughts

Ho-hum. It's a snow day here and things are quiet. Too quiet. So below is a tidbit to amuse you. I could be induced to post the rest of the scene.

Currently, I'm working on the next novel, with about 25,000 words of notes (that's the way I think things out) and still a lot of questions. At the moment I'm puzzling over events in the Riverland while Jame is at Kothifir. Unfortunately, most of my ideas so far apply to the end of the series when everything blows up. I need events that show that the Kencyrath is under pressure to change, not necessarily in good ways if the Caineron and the Randir have their way. Also, Kirien has sent Kindrie to be Tori's scribe, re: all of that paperwork. I'm open to ideas. What problems do you see brewing?



Speckled with drying blood, the Coman scout panted up the ridge through leafless trees.
"Their headquarters are near Perimal's Cauldron," she reported. "They spotted us. Hurl got egged."
"The first cadet lost and it had to be one of mine," said the Coman master ten-commander Clary. "Still, that's useful information. We can storm them while we still have full sacks."
Jame sighed, her breath a cloud on the crisp air. Clouds scudded overhead against a bright sky, and the occasional snowflake drifted down. Spring, ever fickle, had turned to glance back at winter.
The Coman was annoyingly eager to leap ahead with the exercise. Perhaps uncertainty unnerved him, or maybe he wanted somehow to make his half of the team look good at the expense of hers, which was stupid. Of all houses to be paired with on this rare, much coveted double lesson, why couldn't it have been the Brandan or the Danior, her natural allies? Instead, she was set against both on the other side.
Anyway, hadn't she seen Clary talking with Fash before the class? Fash, as usual, had been jovial. Clary had looked uncomfortable. Everyone knew that the Coman lord couldn't make up his mind whether to support the Knorth or the Caineron who, after all, were his blood-kin. Awkward for him, unfair for his cadets, who couldn't decide where their loyalty lay.
Still, while at Tentir all were family, regardless of house politics. That, according to the Commandant.
Ha.
"Such an assault should only be out of desperation if we run out of time," she said, repeating the sargents' earlier advice. "As it is, we still have most of the day if we need it. No one has found the target yet, and that's the main objective."
"It would help if we knew what we were looking for," Clary grumbled.
He had a point, and made another one by not meeting her eyes, which also annoyed her. Surely she had gotten past that point at Tentir after two culls. Her ten-command stirred restively, picking up his tone and her discontent with it.
"The sargents say we'll know it when we see it," she said.



Oh, and here's one of my father's in-jokes. Note the critters in the background of Eden. Some day the Creationists are going to come after me.

Honor's Paradox

I've finally heard from Baen. HP is scheduled for release next December. I'd hoped it would be sooner, but even so they're in a rush for publicity material. It's my devout hope that this time there will be a hardcover edition, but I have no control over that. Toni hasn't said anything about revisions yet, leading me to hope that she won't. After all, I'm focused on the next novel now, working title Sea of Time, or has that been used too much? I can only find it as a subtitle to a recent SM Sterling novel. Alas, Sands of Time is too identified with the Prince of Persia franchise. Anyway, I may yet come up with something better.

Deep snow here. A friend with a shovel and another with a snow blower helped me to dig out, my own blower being in the shop. Unfortunately, it all fell at night. I like to watch.

Back again, sort of

I guess I haven't posted recently, maybe because I've been hip-deep in plotting the next novel and floundering around a bit. Kothifir will be an entirely new setting. I'm beginning to see it as a sort of dysfunctional Tai-tastigon set on end -- a vertical maze instead of a horizontal one. Time plays tricks there as well as space and the population of gods is definitely unstable. I also want want to send the cadets on a rhi-sar hunt, meaning that I finally have to describe these mysterious beasts. As far as I can remember, I've only mentioned that they live in the Wastes. If there are time pockets there, they might be something like a former occupant of the green Sahara. I need to do some research.

Also, I've taken up beading. This was my second project. I call if the Frog that Loved the Moon.



No word yet from Baen about Honor's Paradox. Here's a snippet chosen with mud and sand in mind, although it's set near Gothregor after a terrific, prolonged downpour.

Rowan gave a stifled exclamation. Torisen turned to find her sunk thigh deep and floundering.
"Don't come near, my lord," she said hastily as he moved to assist her. "Perimal be damned … I've blundered into a shwupp pit.
"A what?"
"That's right," she said, as much to herself as to him. "You usually aren't here in the spring, nor has it ever been this wet before. Fetch me a pole and I'll be fine. Oops."
With that she sank again, up to her waist. The mud made obscene sucking noises, like a tongue exploring a rotten tooth. She lay back on the quavering bog to spread her weight and tried to wriggle free her legs.
That might work with sinksand. Torisen wasn't so sure about the present case. Expressionless she might be, but Rowan was taking her current predicament a bit too calmly.
"You might go for help," she suggested.
"And leave you here in your mud bath?"
He circled her, stepping carefully. The mud around the Kendar, agitated by her efforts to escape, was clearly more liquid than the surrounding earth. By now, water must be pouring into her boots. How deep was this pit anyway?
"I think you just want to get rid of me."
"Should you stay to laugh? Bad enough what they will say in the barracks tonight. Of all the stupid accidents …"
"What aren't you telling me?"
He risked a step forward, bent, and gripped her under the arms. It quickly became clear, however, that to pull her clear through sheer strength was out of the question; while the earth retained its grip, he was more likely to dislocate both of his arms if not to rip her in two. Still, if he could stop her sinking any farther until her natural buoyancy came to her rescue …
"What, for example, is a shwupp?"
Bloop.
Bubbles rose in a series of small, wet explosions, approaching.
"My lord. Blackie. Just go."
Bloop, bloop.
Here came more trails, from every direction.
Yce splashed toward them. Lighter than they, on huge paws, she ran as if through melting snow although spattered brown to the eyebrows. Then she paused, ears pricked, head cocked.
Bloop, bloop, bloop …
At the end of a trail of bubbles, she pounced and dug furiously. A slick head, eyeless and seemingly all teeth, burst out of the ground. Webbed claws churned the mud. It screamed as the pup's jaws closed on its neck. Then she was on to another trail and another, but there were too many of them, all converging on the hidden pit.
Rowan's legs came free, their boots shredded. The watery pit seethed with muddy bodies like some obscene ell stew. Tori dragged her clear and helped her up.
"Yce, come!"
The two Kencyr staggered back to their horses with the wolver pup mounting a furious rear-guard defense. Torisen gave Rowan a leg up into her saddle and swung into his own. Yce grinned up at him, white teeth, lolling red tongue, and blue eyes in a mask of mud.
"Good girl."

Proof Reading Again

I'm not sure why, but every time a new edition comes out (in this case the mass paperback of BiB) I have to proofread it all over again. I know, quite a few of you volunteered for this duty and if I'd been more rushed for time I would have taken you up on it. As it is, I'm not finding much wrong, but there are little things that are hard to catch. On the whole, it reads well. Some of the sentences are too complicated or stylized, though. That's something to watch in future.

No word from Baen about Honor's Paradox. In a way that's good as I have to do a lot of thinking about the next novel before I start writing it and about the end of the series in general. At the moment, it looks as if there will be two or three novels after HP. I'm getting quite a list of loose ends that need to be tied up one way or another.

Meanwhile I'm slowly getting somewhat more comfortable with Countess. She either doesn't want to move at all or takes off like a cannonball. Riding her at a fast canter around sharp corners is hair-raising. Thank goodness she doesn't trip often, unlike Pip.

And so it goes.

Arcana -- Being a GoH

Well, I'm back from Arcana where I was Guest of Honor this year.

It was a somewhat strange experience. One steps out of oneself and one's normal environment at any convention, but especially at a con devoted to dark fantasy. The hotel was a displacement in itself. A steam engine sits outside and disused railroad tracks run through the lobby. Somewhere in the immediate area is a model train museum. Once the complex was also home to a jazz club, but that since has moved elsewhere. The general sense is that everything has left the station, somehow leaving the passengers behind. On top of that, my room's a/c breathed hoarsely, the complimentary frig clunked, the alarm went off at midnight -- every midnight -- and small, anonymous objects fell in the dark, not to be found in the morning. Add to that a fare of horror movies after breakfast, panels on ghosts and demons, and horror movies at night. Mind you, I'm fond of such things; I don't usually get such a heavy dose of them, however.

As GoH, I was also on stage much of the time, and found that I've forgotten how to speak in public without stuttering. That's one danger of a hermit's life. It didn't help that I was hoarse with a bad cold and trying hard not to sneeze my brains out.

What shall I say about my return to the UM campus? The place was almost unrecognizable. Without a guide, I would never have found the bookstore where I was scheduled to give a reading along with Pat Wrede and Lois McMaster Bujold, both nice people and fine writers. Down one street I did glimpse the building where I was a grad student all those years ago. It at least looked unchanged. I wonder if they're more tolerant of genre writers than they were in my day. One memory that sticks in my mind is of the head of the English Dept. telling the entire graduate body that "Literary critics are parasites. Parasites do not create." And we were all in training to be critics. They never realized, up to and through a 400 page Phd dissertation, that I wasn't one.

Other highlights: an inter-panel trip to the Mall of America which I'd never visited before. What a huge place. A reading at Dreamhaven bookstore. An expedition to a bead shop where I almost bought a piece of mammoth ivory but ended up with a cabachon of dragon-scale agate.

All in all, a fun, mildly surreal trip.

eBay

Oh, and by the way, thanks to everyone on the list who bid on the God Stalk 1st edition. You've helped give me some idea of what the market will bear, starting at the top.

This and That

First of all, I've just turned in Honor's Paradox, nine months early. There's no telling how long it will take the editor to get back to me, probably with revision requests, or if this will push up its publication date. Usually that's about a year after submission. Meanwhile my agent is asking for the proposal for the next one. I've got to do some hard thinking there as it involves Jame, Tori, and Kindrie, the Riverland and the Southern Wastes, the past and the present. Among other things, I'd like this one to be a sort of parallel for Tori of God Stalk, partly told from his POV as a boy in the past, partly from Jame's as she rediscovers it in the present. Tricky. Do any models come to mind?

Then too, the 1st edition God Stalk sold on eBay for $127.50, which is comparable to the price some book stores are asking for it. I don't know who ended up with it. I probably will set up a sales page on my website, prices to be determined in part by the going rate.

Yesterday I went out to the stable to find that Pip was gone. Marc had given him to another farm down the road. I hope he'll do well there. After that Countess galloped all over the field before allowing herself to be caught. Then Dandy reared on Liz and fell over backward on top of her. We were afraid that her leg was broken, but it only turned out to be mightily bruised.

And the NPR 3 minute fiction contest ended. I have no idea yet who won. My entry is below. About half the details in it are true.

The House Next Door

Some people swore that the house was haunted. They said so even before old Mrs. Fflewellyn died. Mrs. F used dim bulbs to save electricity and always turned the lights off behind her so that her nightly wanderings glimmered from window to window. Sometimes she could be seen, a squat, back lit figure peering out with clouded eyes. She never left home, however, and no one visited her. Meanwhile, the old house slowly collapsed around her with trees poking up through the eves and the rear rooms tilting on fallen pilings.
James and Georgina Tomlin, her neighbors, hated it. Their own little house was immaculate. Their narrow garden, however, languished in the shade of its hulking neighbor, out of whose shadows weeds crept.
"If only Mrs. F would die," they said to each other, "we could tear her house down and expand our garden."
But years passed and Mrs. F lived on, a bobbing light, a dumpy form dimly seen at a window. Groceries were left on the front steps. When a week's worth piled up, someone finally went in to look.
The Tomlins bought the house and prepared to tear it down.
"I want to go in first to see it," said Georgina. In all the time that they had lived next to each other, they had never exchanged visits. So in she went late one autumn afternoon.
James stayed outside to manicure the lawn.
Dusk fell and Georgina hadn't emerged. It must be very dark inside, James thought. Maybe she had fallen through the floor.
He took a flashlight and climbed in a downstairs window that boys had broken. Mrs. F's son had cleaned out everything of worth, which was to say virtually nothing. Here was her kitchen with dirty dishes still in the sink: there, a small side room bulging with garbage. Here, her living room with wooden chairs standing disconsolately around where the table had been; there, an empty bird cage with fresh seed and water in its dishes.
James climbed the tilting stairs, trying not to touch the water-stained wall paper.
On the landing was an overstuffed chair with an antique box camera resting on it.
A bathroom opened off the landing, its floor aslant, a full set of dentures beside the stained sink.
The upstairs rooms were dimly lit by tall, old-fashioned windows. One contained a disordered bed with a frumpy, soiled nightgown sprawling across it. Another was full of small unopened boxes showing handkerchiefs, ties, and underwear through yellowed cellophane. A third was awash in photographs. James stood on the threshold staring down at a sea of faces. Many were old family pictures(why had the son abandoned them?) but most were recent, taken at an angle as if from above, all of him and Georgina in their dining room. One snapshoot, larger than the rest, showed Georgina head on with dingy, oddly familiar wall paper behind her. She looked very surprised.
"Georgie?" he called. No answer.
Back on the landing, James picked up the camera. There was no film in it. The chair's seat was molded to the form of Mrs. F's plump bottom and strands of gray hair clung to the greasy headrest. The landing window looked down through his own bay window as if onto a lit stage.
Someone sat at his dining room table, a dim, dumpy, back lit figure with wild gray hair. It looked up at him through clouded eyes and smiled toothlessly.
James' legs gave out. He sank down on the chair, which received him like a mother.
Nothing was ever the same again after that.

eBay etc

There seems to be some confusion about the 1st Ed. HC signed God Stalk that I'm offering as a trial balloon on eBay. It's indeed the 1982 HC Atheneum edition. If you check ABE or any other antiquarian site, most of what they offer are book club editions. These are a lot cheaper. The last time I saw a 1st edition priced, (and this was awhile ago) it went for $90. This copy has a minimum bid of $50 and so far only one bidder. Of course, I have to pay 40% of that to the marketers. Ideally...