Ry Herman's Blog, page 14

70,000

Just hit 70,000 words on my current Work In Progress. With a few chapters left to go, this may end up being my longest first draft (I tend to underwrite the first time around.)

Pretty happy about that, considering it started as an “I will write at least ONE page a day because that’s doing SOMETHING” project during lockdown.

One Month To Go!

My new fantasy novel, Bleeding Hearts, comes out in one month! So, as time is currently measured, maybe about 300 years.

Queer vampire romance! Historic landmark-based witchcraft! Underwear sacrificed to unicorns!

And for non-UK readers:

https://www.bookdepository.com/Bleeding-Hearts-Ry-Herman/9781529406313

Favorite Books — April 2021

By a weird coincidence, my favorite books this time around were the very first one I read this month and the very last one I read this month, both of them new entries in epic outer space sci-fi series.

A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE, by Arkady Martine

An alien armada lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. In a desperate attempt at diplomacy with the mysterious invaders, the fleet captain has sent for an envoy. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass face the impossible task of trying to communicate with a hostile entity.

Following up as stunning a debut as A Memory Called Empire with a sequel is a difficult task, and choosing to go in a very different direction for the second book makes it even harder. But Martine pulls it off, presenting a first contact space opera that doubles as an extended discourse on identity – personal, cultural, philosophical, and how to maintain it (if it can be maintained) in the face of colonialism, political pressure, technological advance, and shifting paradigms.

FUGITIVE TELEMETRY, by Martha Wells.

Murderbot didn’t kill the dead human. If it had, it wouldn’t dump the body in the station mall.

MURDERBOT MURDER MYSTERY!!! Honestly, I have little more to say about this one. This already great series just keeps getting better.

Other books I particularly liked this month included THE EMPEROR’S KNIFE by Mazarkis WIlliams, THE PULL OF THE STARS by Emma Donoghue, LAST STAND IN LYCHFORD by Paul Cornell, THE WINTER DUKE by Claire Eliza Bartlett, THE SEVEN DEATHS OF EVELYN HARDCASTLE by Stuart Turton, BRIDGE OF SOULS by Victoria Schwab, RULE OF WOLVES by Leigh Bardugo, THE GALAXY, AND THE GROUND WITHIN by Becky Chambers, WINTERKEEP by Kristin Cashore, PALADIN’S STRENGTH by T. Kingfisher, and METAMOPHOSES by Ovid.

BLEEDING HEARTS now on NetGalley!

BLEEDING HEARTS is now available on NetGalley! If you have a blog, a podcast, or are a librarian, bookseller, or reviewer, I’d love for you to request a free copy.

https://www.netgalley.co.uk/catalog/book/222594

Bleeding Hearts comes out in June!

My next book, Bleeding Hearts, comes out in two months! It’s an entirely new Angela and Chloë adventure.

It’s hard to hold down a functioning relationship at the best of times – but it’s harder still when one half of the couple is on the wrong side of dead, and the other’s just discovered they possess powers that are definitely not of natural origin.

To be together at all, Angela and Chloë have had to overcome almost impossible odds, but their final obstacle might be insurmountable.

In the last ten months, they’ve searched high and low for a cure to Angela’s biting problem, and if they don’t find one soon, the chances grow higher and higher that Chloë might die. Is there a solution, or is the divide between the living and the dead too wide for them to cross?

Below is a Book Depository link for physical copies, and an Amazon UK link for those who live where ebook copies are available.

https://www.bookdepository.com/Bleeding…/9781529406313

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bleeding-Hearts-Ry…/dp/B08LB3BX45

Another Milestone Reached

60,000 words written on the current Work In Progress! I’m starting to believe I’ll get a draft of this done perhaps as soon as the end of May.

So it’s probably all right to, say, begin to mention some things about what it is, exactly:

It’s a fairy tale pastiche/retelling, based on one of the odder stories collected by the brothers GrimmIt’s queer (which I’m sure does not come as a big surprise to anyone who’s read anything else I’ve written)It’s funny until it’s serious and serious until it’s funny (again, big surprise, I know)

Anyway, onwards to the end of the draft!

Favorite Books — March 2021

March ended up being a particularly good month for books, possibly simply because I did a lot of reading. There were two stand-out books, but also quite a lot of very good ones among the rest.

The two picks of the month were:

LADY SUSAN by Jane Austen

Beautiful, flirtatious, and recently widowed, Lady Susan Vernon seeks an advantageous second marriage for herself, while attempting to push her daughter into a dismal match.

Well, this was amazing. In the unlikely event that anyone has ever asked the question, “What would have happened if Jane Austen decided to write Les Liaisons Dangereuses?”, then here is your answer. A character who would be a minor villain in any other Jane Austen novel takes center stage here, eager to flirt, manipulate, carry on affairs with married men, and ruin her daughter’s life. Set against her is her sister-in-law (men in this book exist largely to be manipulated, and usually fairly easily.) But one of the beauties of this book is that Lady Susan cannot, ultimately, be defeated, because she does not actually give a toss. If one of her schemes fails, she has another; if a former lover is left aghast at her dishonesty, she feels neither shame nor remorse, because she never really cared what they thought in the first place. And considering the alternatives left her by her society, seldom have I felt so much sympathy for a sociopath.

The only real flaw with this novella how abrupt the ending felt; it seemed almost as if Austen had suddenly become tired of it. A few more letters, perhaps as few as two or three, would have rounded out the book better than the abrupt departure from its epistolary style.

THE DARK BENEATH THE ICE by Amelinda Bérubé

Something is wrong with Marianne. It’s not just that her parents have finally split up. Or that life hasn’t been the same since she quit dancing. Or even that her mother has checked herself into the hospital. She’s losing time. Doing things she would never do. And objects around her seem to break whenever she comes close.

This one was just stunning. I started out thinking it would be an enjoyable YA (albeit one with unusually good prose), until I figured out what was going on — and then it became a stay-up-all-night-to-finish-it book. Highly recommended.

Other books I very much enjoyed during March included SOMETHING THAT MAY SHOCK AND DISCREDIT YOU by Daniel Lavery, THE WARRIOR’S PATH by Catherine M. Wilson, CASSANDRA AT THE WEDDING by Dorothy Baker, MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER by Oyinkan Braithwaite, AXIOM’S END by Lindsay Ellis, OUR LADY OF THE STREETS by Tom Pollock, ESCAPING EXODUS by Nicky Drayden, THE POSTHUMOUS MEMOIRS OF BRÁS CUBAS by Joaquim Maria Machado De Assis, THE FISSURE KING by Rachel Pollack, USE OF WEAPONS by Iain M. Banks, BLACK POWDER WAR by Naomi Novik, THE LIFE AND OPINION OF TRISTRAM SHANDY, GENTLEMAN by Laurence Sterne, and MEXICAN GOTHIC by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia.

So, um, rather a lot, actually.

Hamiltonian, The Musical

How does a self-taught linguist, learning his Persian and Coptic
Drop that to muddle with a forgotten branch of the mechanics of the optic?
This notable Hibernian
Would journey on, and he’d invent quaternions.

His new mission,
And his ambition as a mathematician —
To use his position to be a theoretician.
So he wrote a disquisition about optical transmission
Which gets used for everything from quantum math to photofission.

William Rowan Hamilton.
His name was William Rowan Hamilton.
The operator named for what he’s done
Generates quantum states …

Ode to Agatha’s Boots (Contains WandaVision Finale Spoilers)

It really was no miracle, what happened was just this: the car began to twitch, to roll and pitch, and suddenly the handbrake started to unhitch; just then, the witch, fed up with all the kitsch, went flying through the drywall as her plans unstitched.

And oh, what happened then was rich! The Hex began to glitch, while Vision made his pitch, and Wanda fought the wicked witch but pulled a bait and switch – which was not a happy situation for the wicked witch.

Favorite Books – February 2021

It belatedly occurs to me that if I’m going to be doing this monthly, I should add the year as well.

The standout book for February was definitely:

TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, by Virginia Woolf

The more Virginia Woolf I read, the more of a fan of her writing I become. She writes with such piercing insight into the human condition. This is a book where almost nothing happens – except in the middle section, where everything happens – and it nonetheless kept me riveted throughout.

Other books I very much enjoyed in February included DAWNSHARD and RHYTHM OF WAR by Brandon Sanderson, SUMMER OF SALT by Katrina Leno, THE BOOK OF THE UNNAMED MIDWIFE by Meg Elison, A VOID (originally LA DISPARITION) by Georges Perec, THE CALCULATING STARS and THE FATED SKY by Mary Robinette Kowal, THE TYRANT BARU CORMORANT by Seth Dickinson, and FANGS by Sarah Anderson.