Kameron Hurley's Blog, page 29

THE MIRROR EMPIRE Gets a Shiny, Shiny Bad Ass Cover

Though I would not call it a LONG wait – as this deal was just announced in January - it felt like a long wait because things are moving along so fast (comparatively!) with THE MIRROR EMPIRE.

But here it is, the epic fantasy I’m seriously hoping I had the chops to write (you should always be writing the book you don’t quite think you’re ready to write). When I saw this cover all I could think was, “Egads, I hope I wrote a book worthy of it.” With ARCs now out to reviewers, it’s up to readers t...

INFIDEL: Out today in the UK (more blood! more bugs! more beheadings!)

Happy book release day to my second novel, INFIDEL sequel to the Clarke Award nominated GOD’S WAR,out today in the UK.

Nyx and co. are back. You get a beheading in, like, the first six or eight pages. It just gets better from there.

Still on sale through the end of today for 2.99 in eBook. Deal, my friends, DEAL, as this was a Clarke Award nomination special, and alas, that window closes in ohhhhhh… two hours? Snap it right up!

Thanks to everyone for supporting these books, all around the world....

On Writing the Good Fight: Hugo Roundup

In the first grade (3rd grade? whatever), my best friend ran for some student office, a rather innocuous one, I believe, like Treasurer or something like that. Treasurer was – I knew, even then – a good bet. He was an exceptionally gifted kid: smart, funny, brilliant; played violin and piano, read chapter books to the class, and had already skipped a grade.

He was a great pick for the office, but I remember being shocked at his chutzpah when he announced he was running and asked me to be his c...

Some Men Are More Monstrous Than Others: On True Detective’s Men & Monsters

Spoilers ahoy!

When I was sixteen, I dated a guy a with a madonna/whore complex. I had no idea what that was, at the time, being a young woman from a rural town where belittling women as sluts and whores was pretty typical. You were either “the type of woman men married” or you were… well, probably a slut. All I knew was that when he talked about me, he said I was some transformative goddess, superior to all other women – smarter, and sexier – and all other women he spoke about were bitches or...

I’ll Sleep When It’s May: Stop. Drop. And Write.

I’ll be in stealth mode throughout April this year. I’ve got edits due on THE MIRROR EMPIRE and a writing retreat later in the month exclusively dedicated to burning through pages on book 2, and the last thing I need to be doing when completing loads of work is chatting with other humans, even and especially on the internet.

The good news is I do have a few things I’ve already completed and/or have scheduled to go live in April, so I’ll swing by to share those when I can. But I’ll be far more...

If you liked ANCILLARY JUSTICE and GOD’S WAR you’ll love…

Much to my surprise, at least, both Ann Leckie’s ANCILLARY JUSTICE and my book GOD’S WAR have been shortlisted for the BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke Awards this year. Women on the shortlists actually isn’t as newsworthy a thing as perhaps it’s been touted in the media, but having two books that explicitly tackle tricky issues of gender, race, war, and colonialism all at the same time may be a little more rare.

That said, I was surprised to see someone on Twitter say that reading these books had “P...

Rage Doesn’t Exist in a Vacuum, or: Understanding the Complex Continuum of Internet Butt-Hurt*

I once stood at a bus stop in Durban while two young, drunk men murmured sexually explicit threats and promises to a young woman standing next to me. It was just the four of us – the woman being threatened, me, and the two perpetrators.

South Africa is not the world’s safest place, though with how often folks pull out guns to solve disagreements in the US – legally! – now, I’d argue it’s not so safe here, either. In any event, I kept my mouth shut. After all, they weren’t threatening her with...

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: On Empathy and the Power of Privilege

I had the questionable delight of hanging out with a 3 year old for the last week, and at some point, when I hauled off his pants so he could go “Pee-pee in the potty” he proceeded to sit on said toilet for a solid five minutes having an argument with me because I’d said “Hey!” when he tried to hit his mother.

“You YELLED at me!” he yelled. “We don’t yell in this house.”

“We don’t hit our mom, either.”

“We don’t YELL. You HURT my FEELINGS.”

At some point, this child will understand the difference...

Forgotten Fantasy Favorites: Illusion, by Paula Volsky

In this irregular series of posts, I want to highlight some of my favorite fantasy epics – gritty and otherwise – of the last twenty years.

I discovered Paula Volsky’s Illusion the traditional way – it was recommended by a friend in high school, who fairly forced it into my hands and said, “You need to read this.” Illusion was a revelation.

It was the first book I recognized as taking historical events and meshing them with a rich secondary world. In this case, Volsky took events of the most fa...

Die Hard, Hetaera, and Problematic Pin-Ups: A Rant

I watch Die Hard at least a couple of times a year; it’s one of the best written films out there. But there were always two moments in the film that confounded me from the very start, even when I watched it as a kid. There’s a moment when John McClane is upstairs in the floors under construction, and he’s trying to figure out how to get the attention of the police even though the phone lines are cut. During this high tension scene, the camera’s attention swoops with John’s to the building acr...