Martha Wells's Blog, page 115
June 10, 2014
Good News for The Cloud Roads
I got some really good news yesterday. The trade paperback of The Cloud Roads is being reprinted. It's been increasingly hard to find since last year, so it's really good news that the publisher is going to reprint, rather than letting it just go out of print.
So if you've been trying to find a copy for yourself or for a gift, it should start becoming available again soon. It's nice to have it also available in ebook and audiobook, but a lot of people still do like actual print copies.
So if you've been trying to find a copy for yourself or for a gift, it should start becoming available again soon. It's nice to have it also available in ebook and audiobook, but a lot of people still do like actual print copies.
June 9, 2014
Weekend and Links
Parts of the weekend I spent scraping and washing the mud and dirt and mold off the siding of my house. (And it was especially awesome to do that while reading about everyone having fun at the Phoenix ComicCon this weekend.) But it has to be done, or it eats through the siding, or something. I have no idea, it's just one of those things you have to do periodically. Troyce had to climb up on the lower roof to get the especially bad siding-eating mold patch on second story, so that was kind of scary. But it's done and the house looks...about as good as it's going to, let's put it that way.
There's a huge storm front currently heading toward us, so I went ahead and put the new pond liner down even though it's not quite ready, to hopefully keep it from filling up with water again.
Otherwise this weekend I was reading The Shattered Streets by Paul Cornell, when my face wasn't glued to the TV watching Penny Dreadful. I just finished up Unspoken and Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan. (Very good gothic/fantasy/mystery YA, with kids trying to fight evil in a small town in the UK. The protagonist Kami reminds me in a very good way of Thelma from Scooby Doo, if Thelma was British and had a Japanese grandmother.)
The ebook version of Stories of the Raksura I is starting to show up for preorder on Kindle and iTunes, and hopefully it will show up on Nook and Kobo etc this week.
links
* Hugo voting is open now for attending and supporting members, so I'll re-post this link: For Hugo Voters: This link at Lorem Ipsum explains the rankings and how to rank a nominee below "No Award."
* Judith Tarr: Judith Tarr on the Intersection of Genre, Classical Literature and Myth
* NPR: The Muscle-Flexing, Mind-Blowing Book Girls Will Inherit The Earth
Like any important faction, the Book Girls are not a monolithic robot army marching in step, but a loose affiliation of human beings whose insistent individuality has somehow nevertheless allowed their shared priorities to bubble up and blossom. Who are the Book Girls?
* Caitri: Thoughts on Modern Fairy Tales: Movie Reviews for Edge of Tomorrow and Maleficent
* Barth Anderson: I’m Elliot Roger and So are You, Dude
* National Geographic: The Underwater World of Cleopatra
Book rec:
* Plumb Crazy by Molly Blaisdell
Small town country girl Elva Presley Hicks is about to attend her five-year class reunion with her best friends, Shay and Margarett. The discovery of an old fanfic manuscript stirs up memories of her summer job as a plumber's helper in Houston the summer before senior year.
There's a huge storm front currently heading toward us, so I went ahead and put the new pond liner down even though it's not quite ready, to hopefully keep it from filling up with water again.
Otherwise this weekend I was reading The Shattered Streets by Paul Cornell, when my face wasn't glued to the TV watching Penny Dreadful. I just finished up Unspoken and Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan. (Very good gothic/fantasy/mystery YA, with kids trying to fight evil in a small town in the UK. The protagonist Kami reminds me in a very good way of Thelma from Scooby Doo, if Thelma was British and had a Japanese grandmother.)
The ebook version of Stories of the Raksura I is starting to show up for preorder on Kindle and iTunes, and hopefully it will show up on Nook and Kobo etc this week.
links
* Hugo voting is open now for attending and supporting members, so I'll re-post this link: For Hugo Voters: This link at Lorem Ipsum explains the rankings and how to rank a nominee below "No Award."
* Judith Tarr: Judith Tarr on the Intersection of Genre, Classical Literature and Myth
* NPR: The Muscle-Flexing, Mind-Blowing Book Girls Will Inherit The Earth
Like any important faction, the Book Girls are not a monolithic robot army marching in step, but a loose affiliation of human beings whose insistent individuality has somehow nevertheless allowed their shared priorities to bubble up and blossom. Who are the Book Girls?
* Caitri: Thoughts on Modern Fairy Tales: Movie Reviews for Edge of Tomorrow and Maleficent
* Barth Anderson: I’m Elliot Roger and So are You, Dude
* National Geographic: The Underwater World of Cleopatra
Book rec:
* Plumb Crazy by Molly Blaisdell
Small town country girl Elva Presley Hicks is about to attend her five-year class reunion with her best friends, Shay and Margarett. The discovery of an old fanfic manuscript stirs up memories of her summer job as a plumber's helper in Houston the summer before senior year.
June 4, 2014
If you missed it, I posted a photo of the ARC of Stories ...
If you missed it, I posted a photo of the ARC of Stories of the Raksura vol I
People are hopefully coming late this afternoon to give me an estimate on removing my dead tree collection.
Book rec:
The Tower Broken: Book Three of the Tower and Knife Trilogy by Mazarkis Williams
"Williams conjures a world with strong flavors of the early Ottoman Empire, medieval Persia, and Arabian legend. It makes for a rich and entertaining storytelling environment, and Williams creates a twisty and enjoyable tale. . . . Strongly recommended." —SFX
links:
* Publishers Weekly: #WeNeedDiverseBooks Announces Initiatives
* Amal El-Mohtar: Women Destroy Science Fiction: Texts in Conversation
People are hopefully coming late this afternoon to give me an estimate on removing my dead tree collection.
Book rec:
The Tower Broken: Book Three of the Tower and Knife Trilogy by Mazarkis Williams
"Williams conjures a world with strong flavors of the early Ottoman Empire, medieval Persia, and Arabian legend. It makes for a rich and entertaining storytelling environment, and Williams creates a twisty and enjoyable tale. . . . Strongly recommended." —SFX
links:
* Publishers Weekly: #WeNeedDiverseBooks Announces Initiatives
* Amal El-Mohtar: Women Destroy Science Fiction: Texts in Conversation
June 3, 2014
ARCs!
This is Jack, modelling with the advance reading copy of Stories of the Raksura: Volume I - The Falling World and The Tale of Indigo and Cloud It'll be out for real on September 2.
June 2, 2014
I spent the weekend finishing up the reading the proofs o...
I spent the weekend finishing up the reading the proofs of Stories of the Raksura vol. I and working on the backyard. We really needed the pounding rain we got early last week, but it set my pond and water lily moving way back. (The new pond is a nicely laid out mud pit right now.) I'm at that stage where I've done a ton of work but it still looks like an abandoned lot because you can't see how bad it looked before I started.
For Hugo Voters: This link at Lorem Ipsum explains the rankings and how to rank a nominee below "No Award."
* The Guardian: Science fiction's real-life War of the Worlds
Book recs:
* Lightspeed Magazine's Women Destroy SF issue is available.
* Barnes and Noble has a buy 2 get 1 free deal on the Hachette Books that Amazon refuses to sell. This includes the Hugo-nominated Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie, Dirty Magic by Jaye Wells, the Expanse books by James S.A. Corey, books by Brent Weeks, Gail Carriger, Mira Grant, Octavia Butler, The Spiritwalker trilogy by Kate Elliott, Jacqueline Carey, N.K. Jemisin, Daniel Abraham, and many others.
You can also preorder their new books (which won't be sold by Amazon) at
You can also buy them through Indiebound, which will let you search for the book and will locate the independent bookstore nearest you that sells it online.
For Hugo Voters: This link at Lorem Ipsum explains the rankings and how to rank a nominee below "No Award."
* The Guardian: Science fiction's real-life War of the Worlds
Book recs:
* Lightspeed Magazine's Women Destroy SF issue is available.
* Barnes and Noble has a buy 2 get 1 free deal on the Hachette Books that Amazon refuses to sell. This includes the Hugo-nominated Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie, Dirty Magic by Jaye Wells, the Expanse books by James S.A. Corey, books by Brent Weeks, Gail Carriger, Mira Grant, Octavia Butler, The Spiritwalker trilogy by Kate Elliott, Jacqueline Carey, N.K. Jemisin, Daniel Abraham, and many others.
You can also preorder their new books (which won't be sold by Amazon) at
You can also buy them through Indiebound, which will let you search for the book and will locate the independent bookstore nearest you that sells it online.
May 28, 2014
Audiobook, Links, Book Recs
Good Raksura news: Stories of the Raksura: Volume I will also be released in audiobook! Hopefully it will have the same reader, Christopher Kipiniak, as the first three books. Hopefully it will be out on or near the time of the book's release on September 2. I have a page for the book on my site, but it's still fairly incomplete. Volume II should be out in the Spring of 2015 sometime, and I should know more about that later this year.
This is kind of awesome for me at least, because almost all my books are now available in audiobook. You can see the list audible here, but they're also available on iTunes, Barnes and Noble, etc. There were a lot of years there where people would ask me about audiobooks and I didn't think there was any chance of that ever happening.
Right now I'm working on the first set of proofs for the final version, and it looks really good.
* If you missed it, I did a Comicpalooza report yesterday. One thing I noticed about the convention was that I wasn't as tired afterward, and I think it was because I never had a blood sugar crash like I usually do at some point at cons. Possibly this was because of the food and drinks sold on the convention floor, which actually reminded me that I needed to eat and drink things occasionally.
* Also if you missed it, Emilie and the Sky World is out, and if you've read it, reviews on places like GoodReads, B&N, LibraryThing, etc that post reviews are always welcome, even if you didn't like it.
* It rained here pretty much all day yesterday, which is good, as we're still in drought conditions, but I hope it holds off for a while today to give everything time to soak in so we don't get flash flooding. It rained a lot of Monday, too particularly while I was driving back from Houston, so that wasn't too fun.
Some Links:
* N.K. Jemisin's Wiscon GoH speech
* Hiromi Goto's Wiscon GoH speech
Book rec:
* Bad Luck Girl by Sarah Zettel is available now.
In this final book in the series, Callie's 16th birthday is marked by warring fairy kingdoms fighting for control of her magical gift: the ability to open gates between worlds. Set during the Great Depression, the fast-paced action takes readers from Los Angeles to Chicago to the very heart of the fairy world. Callie is the biracial daughter of a fairy prince and a devoted human mother, and in Chicago, she meets the "Halfers," beings neither human nor fairy. With her characteristic kindness and sense of justice, Callie befriends the shunned Halfers and realizes that her choice of allegiance is not just between the fairy and the human worlds.
* The Zen of eBook Formatting by Guido Henkel
* 7 Reasons to Preorder The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley
This is kind of awesome for me at least, because almost all my books are now available in audiobook. You can see the list audible here, but they're also available on iTunes, Barnes and Noble, etc. There were a lot of years there where people would ask me about audiobooks and I didn't think there was any chance of that ever happening.
Right now I'm working on the first set of proofs for the final version, and it looks really good.
* If you missed it, I did a Comicpalooza report yesterday. One thing I noticed about the convention was that I wasn't as tired afterward, and I think it was because I never had a blood sugar crash like I usually do at some point at cons. Possibly this was because of the food and drinks sold on the convention floor, which actually reminded me that I needed to eat and drink things occasionally.
* Also if you missed it, Emilie and the Sky World is out, and if you've read it, reviews on places like GoodReads, B&N, LibraryThing, etc that post reviews are always welcome, even if you didn't like it.
* It rained here pretty much all day yesterday, which is good, as we're still in drought conditions, but I hope it holds off for a while today to give everything time to soak in so we don't get flash flooding. It rained a lot of Monday, too particularly while I was driving back from Houston, so that wasn't too fun.
Some Links:
* N.K. Jemisin's Wiscon GoH speech
* Hiromi Goto's Wiscon GoH speech
Book rec:
* Bad Luck Girl by Sarah Zettel is available now.
In this final book in the series, Callie's 16th birthday is marked by warring fairy kingdoms fighting for control of her magical gift: the ability to open gates between worlds. Set during the Great Depression, the fast-paced action takes readers from Los Angeles to Chicago to the very heart of the fairy world. Callie is the biracial daughter of a fairy prince and a devoted human mother, and in Chicago, she meets the "Halfers," beings neither human nor fairy. With her characteristic kindness and sense of justice, Callie befriends the shunned Halfers and realizes that her choice of allegiance is not just between the fairy and the human worlds.
* The Zen of eBook Formatting by Guido Henkel
* 7 Reasons to Preorder The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley
May 27, 2014
Comicpalooza!
I had a ton of fun at Comicpalooza. It was huge, with lots of celebrities signing (I saw Nichelle Nichols, J. August Richards, Peter Davison, Paul McGann, Billy Dee Williams, Ming Na, Erin Grey, Sylvester McCoy, and Colin Baker. Oh, and James Marsters and John Barrowman and Nicholas Brendan.), plus a huge Artist's Alley area (where artists sit at their tables and sell and display artwork) with all kinds of comic artists, a huge dealer's area, and a Maker Fair area with 3D printers and a bunch of robots running around and virtual reality game booths, and various exhibits (a replica of the car from Supernatural, a Batmobile, Daleks (that I saw also roaming the third floor programming area), a thing about a Bioshock movie, and more.
There was a children's play area with a giant inflatable slide (I know fans have been called sexless nerds for a long time, but I would like the people who say that to tell me where all these children and teenagers came from then), a sports area for quidditch and swords and whatever, a few food and drink places scattered through the dealer's area (we had real barbeque sandwiches for lunch there Saturday), roving musicians, and a guy doing a carnival sword swallowing act and balancing on a unicycle.
There was also a big gaming area on the third floor for table top games and other stuff, with a large set of 80s-era arcade games free to play, plus a ton of panel programming. The celebrities were doing panels in the bigger assembly rooms, but there was about 200 other panels throughout the four days, on writing, art, comics, steampunk, crafts, ghost hunting clubs, etc. The writing panels were well-attended, and a lot of people took notes and asked really good questions. I had two panels on Friday, both with about 15-20 people (though the second one was a two-hour workshop, and several people had to leave during the second hour), then a World building panel on Saturday morning with maybe about 40 people. (The room was nearly full.) There was a fourth one on Monday morning with only two attendees, but I found out later from Cassandra Clarke that the panel had been moved, and she was in one room with an audience of 10-15 people and me and the other two panelists were in the original room with our two people. I feel bad we made that mistake but it's also pretty funny, so no big deal. And Barnes and Noble had a booth in the dealer's area and was doing author signings and selling books by the attending authors.
There were also concerts in the evening and some late night celebrity programming, and a bunches of costumes. There were lines to get in every day, though Friday and Sunday were not nearly as crowded. On Saturday people said it was about an hour and a half wait to get in.
There were people of all ages and it was a diverse crowd, and we saw a lot of family groups, with everyone in costume. There was just a really happy excited vibe to the convention, and it made it easy to forget that your feet were KILLING you. They didn't have any padding on the convention floor, but that probably made things less complicated for wheelchairs and robots and daleks. I don't think Houston has had a big con like this before, and for a lot of people it was like Disneyland came to town for four days.
It was also not that expensive. There were expensive VIP passes to get special places in lines and more celebrity autographs, but the base pass was (I think) $55.00 for all four days, or you could buy cheaper individual day passes. (There was a discount if you bought in advance online.) I think Saturday was the most expensive individual day, at $35.00 at the door. If I was going as an attendee, I'd buy a four day pass online and try to go pick it up Friday morning when the con opened. There were still lines, but they were much shorter.
The attached hotel was very expensive (so expensive that I probably won't be doing any more cons this year after the two I have booked in July -- as a regular author guest I just got a four day pass for doing programming) but it was also very very nice, with very very nice staff, and the food in the restaurant was actually really good. (The Sunday night buffet included cupcakes, lemon cake, red velvet cake, and the best churros I've ever had.)
Sunday we did run down to Galveston for a few hours, and I'll post about that later.
I posted some photos of the con on Tumblr:
* First set of Photos
* Second Set
* Third set
* Fourth set
There was a children's play area with a giant inflatable slide (I know fans have been called sexless nerds for a long time, but I would like the people who say that to tell me where all these children and teenagers came from then), a sports area for quidditch and swords and whatever, a few food and drink places scattered through the dealer's area (we had real barbeque sandwiches for lunch there Saturday), roving musicians, and a guy doing a carnival sword swallowing act and balancing on a unicycle.
There was also a big gaming area on the third floor for table top games and other stuff, with a large set of 80s-era arcade games free to play, plus a ton of panel programming. The celebrities were doing panels in the bigger assembly rooms, but there was about 200 other panels throughout the four days, on writing, art, comics, steampunk, crafts, ghost hunting clubs, etc. The writing panels were well-attended, and a lot of people took notes and asked really good questions. I had two panels on Friday, both with about 15-20 people (though the second one was a two-hour workshop, and several people had to leave during the second hour), then a World building panel on Saturday morning with maybe about 40 people. (The room was nearly full.) There was a fourth one on Monday morning with only two attendees, but I found out later from Cassandra Clarke that the panel had been moved, and she was in one room with an audience of 10-15 people and me and the other two panelists were in the original room with our two people. I feel bad we made that mistake but it's also pretty funny, so no big deal. And Barnes and Noble had a booth in the dealer's area and was doing author signings and selling books by the attending authors.
There were also concerts in the evening and some late night celebrity programming, and a bunches of costumes. There were lines to get in every day, though Friday and Sunday were not nearly as crowded. On Saturday people said it was about an hour and a half wait to get in.
There were people of all ages and it was a diverse crowd, and we saw a lot of family groups, with everyone in costume. There was just a really happy excited vibe to the convention, and it made it easy to forget that your feet were KILLING you. They didn't have any padding on the convention floor, but that probably made things less complicated for wheelchairs and robots and daleks. I don't think Houston has had a big con like this before, and for a lot of people it was like Disneyland came to town for four days.
It was also not that expensive. There were expensive VIP passes to get special places in lines and more celebrity autographs, but the base pass was (I think) $55.00 for all four days, or you could buy cheaper individual day passes. (There was a discount if you bought in advance online.) I think Saturday was the most expensive individual day, at $35.00 at the door. If I was going as an attendee, I'd buy a four day pass online and try to go pick it up Friday morning when the con opened. There were still lines, but they were much shorter.
The attached hotel was very expensive (so expensive that I probably won't be doing any more cons this year after the two I have booked in July -- as a regular author guest I just got a four day pass for doing programming) but it was also very very nice, with very very nice staff, and the food in the restaurant was actually really good. (The Sunday night buffet included cupcakes, lemon cake, red velvet cake, and the best churros I've ever had.)
Sunday we did run down to Galveston for a few hours, and I'll post about that later.
I posted some photos of the con on Tumblr:
* First set of Photos
* Second Set
* Third set
* Fourth set
May 21, 2014
Links:* Craig Laurance Gidney: Writing Advice: How to Avo...
Links:
* Craig Laurance Gidney: Writing Advice: How to Avoid Stereotyping In Your Fiction
* A.V. Club: Decoy: Police Woman was a glimpse of things to come
* Kankedort: A round-up of the discussion over the dialect in a Long Hidden Story
Book rec:
Veil of the Deserters by Jeff Salyards
I read this in ARC form and gave it a blurb: "Veil of the Deserters is a gritty military fantasy with intriguing world building and grimly dark magic, as well as complex, interesting characters."
* Craig Laurance Gidney: Writing Advice: How to Avoid Stereotyping In Your Fiction
* A.V. Club: Decoy: Police Woman was a glimpse of things to come
* Kankedort: A round-up of the discussion over the dialect in a Long Hidden Story
Book rec:
Veil of the Deserters by Jeff Salyards
I read this in ARC form and gave it a blurb: "Veil of the Deserters is a gritty military fantasy with intriguing world building and grimly dark magic, as well as complex, interesting characters."
May 20, 2014
Nice review of The Other Half of the Sky anthology here: ...
Nice review of The Other Half of the Sky anthology here: http://manicpixiedreamworlds.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/review-the-other-half-of-the-sky/ (My story, “Mimesis” is a Books of the Raksura story) Aliette de Bodard’s story in it just won a Nebula. And there’s also a good review of the anthology in Analog: http://www.analogsf.com/2014_06/reflib.shtml
As a result we have a batch of stories here that don’t just feature women as protagonists, often characters of color and those with LGBT identities, but in which the societies within create wholly new ways of living: sociologically, technologically, ecologically. The social structures and worlds that these authors wrote are so unique and inventive that I kept forgetting that I was reading a book with a mission, that I was promised female protagonists, and thinking: Ah, yes. This is what science fiction should be.
As a result we have a batch of stories here that don’t just feature women as protagonists, often characters of color and those with LGBT identities, but in which the societies within create wholly new ways of living: sociologically, technologically, ecologically. The social structures and worlds that these authors wrote are so unique and inventive that I kept forgetting that I was reading a book with a mission, that I was promised female protagonists, and thinking: Ah, yes. This is what science fiction should be.
May 19, 2014
Comicapalooza Schedule
I'm going to be at Comicapalooza this coming weekend (May 23-26) in Houston at the convention center on 1001 Avenida de las Americas.
Here's my panel schedule:
Unexpected Heroes and Heroines
Fri 2:00 pm
Jacqueline Patricks, Ashley Nemer, Martha Wells
Fri 3:00 pm
No Right Way to Write: Techniques for New Writers
Rachel Caine, Kimberly Frost, Martha Wells
Saturday 10:00 am
Playing God – Building Your Own World
Panelists: Martha Wells, Stina Leicht, Cassandra Rose Clarke
Monday 10:00 am
It’s My Fantasy
Panelists: Raven Raye, Chris Lewis, Martha Wells, Cassandra Clarke
***
I did not have a good weekend. I had lots of self-induced stress and anxiety dreams, culminating in acid reflux. And I felt kind of blah and energy-drained all week from allergies.
I did get some work done on the new pond, and I'm going to be moving a lot of landscaping rocks today.
Here's my panel schedule:
Unexpected Heroes and Heroines
Fri 2:00 pm
Jacqueline Patricks, Ashley Nemer, Martha Wells
Fri 3:00 pm
No Right Way to Write: Techniques for New Writers
Rachel Caine, Kimberly Frost, Martha Wells
Saturday 10:00 am
Playing God – Building Your Own World
Panelists: Martha Wells, Stina Leicht, Cassandra Rose Clarke
Monday 10:00 am
It’s My Fantasy
Panelists: Raven Raye, Chris Lewis, Martha Wells, Cassandra Clarke
***
I did not have a good weekend. I had lots of self-induced stress and anxiety dreams, culminating in acid reflux. And I felt kind of blah and energy-drained all week from allergies.
I did get some work done on the new pond, and I'm going to be moving a lot of landscaping rocks today.
