Leigh Bardugo's Blog, page 623
December 6, 2013
Ruin and Rising mini teaser!
A little Darkling/Alina snippet for the holidays :)
“Why waste my anger on you when the fault is mine? I should have anticipated another betrayal from you, one more mad grasp at some kind of childish ideal. But I seem to be a victim of my own wishes where you are concerned.” His expression hardened. “What have you come here for, Alina?”
I answered him honestly. “I wanted to see you.”
I caught the briefest glimpse of surprise before his face shuttered again. “There are two thrones on that dais. You could see me any time you liked.”
Thanks for making this such a wonderful year. I maaaaay post another tiny snippet next week, but no promises!
WHHHHHYYYYYYY DO YOU POST THINGS LIKE THAT ABOUT KILLING CHARACTERS????? I'M TIRED OF WRITERS KILLING CHARACTERS FOR SHOCK VALUE. JUST STOP IT!!!! WRITERS SAY THEY DON'T "OWE" US BUT WE BUY YOUR BOOKS AND LOVE YOUR CHARACTERS. IF YOU RUIN THE END OF YOUR S
I’m assuming this is in response to the author q&a I posted the other day—though I’m not sure what I said to put you in FULL CAPS LOCK MODE. Then again, I’ve been getting messages like this quite a bit lately. I don’t usually respond to them, because it doesn’t seem like there’s much point, but oh why not, imma try.
1. I’m grateful for every reader, and as a reader myself, I know what it is to invest in a character, a ship, a world. You have every right to love or hate a story on your own terms and to be vocal about it.
2. Authors have the right to take their stories wherever they see fit.
3. The final book in a series is always tough and there is no conclusion that will make everyone happy.
4. Even if there were, trust me when I say this: You don’t want authors spending their time trying to make everyone happy. That’s how you get boring books. Scared artists make bad art.
5. I’m going to have you to deal with? Really? Tell ya what…
The ending you hate may be the ending someone else loves.
The ending you hate may be the only one that lets the author sleep at night.
And more importantly, the idea of threatening or bullying anyone into to giving you what you want—online or offline—is gross.
How do you pronounce Nikolai? I'm horribly bad at pronouncing names if I don't have it practically spelled out for me, so before I go around embarrassing myself talking about my favorite male character, you have to help me! haha :)
NICK-o-lie. But he’s happy to be addressed as Prince Perfect.
At some point, I’ll get around to updating the pronunciation guide on my web site!
December 5, 2013
So I was thinking...
In the spirit of the holidays… how about a teeny tiny Ruin and Rising teaser tomorrow?
justira:
onionhighonionandrenown:
peggingwithstyles:
shut
up
...
shut
up
….well. My goodness.
So here’s the thing! Nice clothes — suits, lingerie, or anything else — can make bodies look really good, but they do that in different and often (almost always) gendered ways.
I am reminded of nothing so much as superhero comics, where the male characters tend to be inteded as power fantasies — for the clearly all-male audience — and the women tend to be presented as sexual fantasies, likewise.
Suits tend to invoke as a power fantasy.
Lingerie tends to invoke a sexual (object) fantasy*, as well as an element of vulnerability.
So the analogy in the OP image is pretty thoroughly false. Both suits and lingerie do sexy, sexy things, but society codes them as very different kinds of sexy, and changing the gender of the wearer is transgressive in different ways (and each adds its own layer of hot for different reasons!).
In the end though, the clothes themselves can look great on anyone, because that is one thing good clothes do: flatter the body they’re on. We’re just very used to seeing certain bodies in certain clothes, and that’s a damn shame.
(* Society sadly frowns upon sexuality for women — the expected lingerie-wearers — as opposed to sexualization or sexual objectification. Lingerie is usually expected to be “for” other people, not for the wearer.)
(PS: The OP image can be read in two ways, as far as I can see: “a woman seeing a man in a suit is like a man seeing a woman in lingerie” or “a woman wearing a suit is like a man wearing lingerie”. I think both are wrong, but the first one gets bonus heteronormativity points.)
gobookyourself:
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
For more stories...
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
For more stories about teens dealing with fantastical situations, try these…
Legend by Marie Lu for a unique dystopia with heart-pounding action
Vicious by V.E. Schwab for a story that explores power as curse and gift
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater for beautiful give and take between hero and heroine
Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers for a dark twist on the teen assassin
This post was guest edited by author Leigh Bardugo. Her latest book, Siege & Storm, is out now.
Unicorns, Highlanders, and the characters that we kill!
There are a lot of great things about cons. The booths, the artistsâ�� alley, meeting new people, the cosplay â�� but one of my favorite things is being able to see panel discussions (itâ��s pretty fun t…
In which I talk about my policy on murdering beloved characters.
safaripoet:
German paperback cover for Shadow and Bone by Leigh...
German paperback cover for Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Another cover I’d never seen. I will have them all!
