Martha Wells's Blog, page 126
October 6, 2013
Signing and Halloween
The signing in Austin for Star Wars Reads Day went very well. They gave away a bunch of prizes and there was some great costumes.
That's me and Aaron Allston
And if you've read Razor's Edge (or any of my other books), if you get a chance, please consider leaving a review on Amazon, B&N, GoodReads, LibraryThing, or wherever you leave reviews. Or just tell somebody else about it if you think they might like it. It really does help a huge amount.
And if you want to read a book at your library and they don't have it, remember that you can request that they buy it for the collection, or get it for you through interlibrary loan. And that lots of libraries now also have ebooks and audiobooks for check-out.
***
* Scare for a Cure is getting ready to get started in Austin! There are three haunted attractions this year, with net proceeds going to The Breast Cancer Resource Centers of Central Texas, and they are also collecting dog food and treats for local Animal Shelters. The massive interactive haunted attraction, (this year it's called Fairy Tale Nightmare) only sells tickets online and may already by sold out. The two others, Murder at Ghost Town, where you solve a murder mystery in a haunted town, and The Boneyard, where monsters chase the crap out of you, sell tickets at the gate as well as online, but you may want to buy in advance because these events are extremely popular.
That's me and Aaron Allston
And if you've read Razor's Edge (or any of my other books), if you get a chance, please consider leaving a review on Amazon, B&N, GoodReads, LibraryThing, or wherever you leave reviews. Or just tell somebody else about it if you think they might like it. It really does help a huge amount.
And if you want to read a book at your library and they don't have it, remember that you can request that they buy it for the collection, or get it for you through interlibrary loan. And that lots of libraries now also have ebooks and audiobooks for check-out.
***
* Scare for a Cure is getting ready to get started in Austin! There are three haunted attractions this year, with net proceeds going to The Breast Cancer Resource Centers of Central Texas, and they are also collecting dog food and treats for local Animal Shelters. The massive interactive haunted attraction, (this year it's called Fairy Tale Nightmare) only sells tickets online and may already by sold out. The two others, Murder at Ghost Town, where you solve a murder mystery in a haunted town, and The Boneyard, where monsters chase the crap out of you, sell tickets at the gate as well as online, but you may want to buy in advance because these events are extremely popular.
October 4, 2013
I'll be doing a book signing in Austin, Saturday October ...
I'll be doing a book signing in Austin, Saturday October 5 at 2:00 at the Arboretum Barnes and Noble, and Aaron Allston will also be there signing his books. http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/80608
***
This is Jack, but he won't be at the signing.
***
This is Jack, but he won't be at the signing.
October 2, 2013
Links:* Kelly McCullough: The Affordable Care Act & Makin...
Links:
* Kelly McCullough: The Affordable Care Act & Making Your Living In The Arts
The Affordable Care Act will almost certainly save the lives and/or livelihoods of people who are my very dear friends. Lives is obvious. Livelihoods a bit less so. Let me elucidate: medical bankruptcy, like all bankruptcy, treats copyrights as assets. Get too sick without proper insurance and you lose control of your life’s work. Further, I have friends who have died because of things that might not have killed them if they’d had this level of insurance.
Kelly says it very well here. This is a personal issue, because I personally know people who will die without health care they can afford.
* Ten Degrees Hotter: WiC (Women infants Children) Nutrition Programs To Be Affected By Shutdown: Food Apparently "Non-Essential"
I'm lucky. I've never known real hunger. I've never had to choose between feeding myself or my child. Or worse, not having any food to make that choice with at all. But I might have, if it weren't for the WiC program, short for Women Infants Children, a food and nutrition program which provides supplemental food vouchers to low-income families so they can eat. When I needed WiC, it was there. But due to the government shutdown currently keeping nearly 800,000 government workers home without pay, there will be new and expectant mothers who will be faced with hunger for themselves or their families as the program falls in with the countless other government-funded initiatives that are closing their doors. Some states have reserves that will last at most two weeks. Other states have already instructed WiC workers to stay home.
* The Atlantic: The Saddest Paragraph You'll Read About the Government Shutdown Today
With NIH furloughs, children with cancer are being turned away from clinical trials.
* Houston Press:
Despite Glitches, Houstonians Are Flocking to the Obamacare Exchanges
"Who benefits from Obamacare?" asked Martha Vasquez-Delgado on Facebook. "Me, I have a pre existence condition called Multiple Sclerosis, my medications are $4000 a month. Yes, a fucking month .And we just switched insurance. Thank you, President Obama. And forget you opposers."
* The Atlantic: The Two Basic Facts That Should Be in Every Shutdown Story
1)If the House of Representatives voted on a "clean" budget bill -- one that opened up the closed federal offices but did not attempt to defund the Obama health care program -- that bill would pass, and the shutdown would be over. Nearly all Democrats would vote for it, as would enough Republicans to end the shutdown and its related damage. (And of course it would pass has already passed the Senate, repeatedly, unless the minority dared filibuster it, and would be signed by the president.) For illustrations of the wanton damage, see here and here.
2) So far House Speaker John Boehner has refused to let this vote occur. His Tea Party contingent knows how the vote would go and therefore does not want it to happen; and such is Boehner's fear of them, and fear for his job as Speaker, that he will not let it take place.
* Kelly McCullough: The Affordable Care Act & Making Your Living In The Arts
The Affordable Care Act will almost certainly save the lives and/or livelihoods of people who are my very dear friends. Lives is obvious. Livelihoods a bit less so. Let me elucidate: medical bankruptcy, like all bankruptcy, treats copyrights as assets. Get too sick without proper insurance and you lose control of your life’s work. Further, I have friends who have died because of things that might not have killed them if they’d had this level of insurance.
Kelly says it very well here. This is a personal issue, because I personally know people who will die without health care they can afford.
* Ten Degrees Hotter: WiC (Women infants Children) Nutrition Programs To Be Affected By Shutdown: Food Apparently "Non-Essential"
I'm lucky. I've never known real hunger. I've never had to choose between feeding myself or my child. Or worse, not having any food to make that choice with at all. But I might have, if it weren't for the WiC program, short for Women Infants Children, a food and nutrition program which provides supplemental food vouchers to low-income families so they can eat. When I needed WiC, it was there. But due to the government shutdown currently keeping nearly 800,000 government workers home without pay, there will be new and expectant mothers who will be faced with hunger for themselves or their families as the program falls in with the countless other government-funded initiatives that are closing their doors. Some states have reserves that will last at most two weeks. Other states have already instructed WiC workers to stay home.
* The Atlantic: The Saddest Paragraph You'll Read About the Government Shutdown Today
With NIH furloughs, children with cancer are being turned away from clinical trials.
* Houston Press:
Despite Glitches, Houstonians Are Flocking to the Obamacare Exchanges
"Who benefits from Obamacare?" asked Martha Vasquez-Delgado on Facebook. "Me, I have a pre existence condition called Multiple Sclerosis, my medications are $4000 a month. Yes, a fucking month .And we just switched insurance. Thank you, President Obama. And forget you opposers."
* The Atlantic: The Two Basic Facts That Should Be in Every Shutdown Story
1)If the House of Representatives voted on a "clean" budget bill -- one that opened up the closed federal offices but did not attempt to defund the Obama health care program -- that bill would pass, and the shutdown would be over. Nearly all Democrats would vote for it, as would enough Republicans to end the shutdown and its related damage. (And of course it would pass has already passed the Senate, repeatedly, unless the minority dared filibuster it, and would be signed by the president.) For illustrations of the wanton damage, see here and here.
2) So far House Speaker John Boehner has refused to let this vote occur. His Tea Party contingent knows how the vote would go and therefore does not want it to happen; and such is Boehner's fear of them, and fear for his job as Speaker, that he will not let it take place.
September 30, 2013
A while back, a local magazine did their yearly local art...
A while back, a local magazine did their yearly local artist's issue, and as part of it, I got to have some photos taken by photographer Igor Kraguljac.
I'm very camera-shy, and have holdover Issues from when I was a teenager about how I look, so no matter how much I want to look like I'm not in pain in a photo my face will freeze up. (At cons I'm fine with taking pictures with people, it's just I have to apologize for whatever my face is doing, it's not intentional.) But anyway, it's unusual for someone to be able to get good pictures of me. And you should look at Igor's site, and admire his other photos, they're gorgeous.
I'm very camera-shy, and have holdover Issues from when I was a teenager about how I look, so no matter how much I want to look like I'm not in pain in a photo my face will freeze up. (At cons I'm fine with taking pictures with people, it's just I have to apologize for whatever my face is doing, it's not intentional.) But anyway, it's unusual for someone to be able to get good pictures of me. And you should look at Igor's site, and admire his other photos, they're gorgeous.
The Death of the Necromancer Audiobook
The Death of the Necromancer is now available as an audiobook, narrated by Derek Perkins, from Tantor Audio, in MP3 or CDs. It's also available on iTunes (scroll down for audiobooks), Barnes and Noble, Audible, and Amazon, and wherever else they sell audiobooks.
(It's also available as a DRM-free ebook at Barnes and Noble NookBook, Kobo, Amazon US Kindle, Amazon UK Kindle, Barnes and Noble UK, Kindle Canada, Kindle Germany, Kindle France, Kindle Spain, etc.)
The Death of the Necromancer was my third book, and came out from Avon Eos in 1998. It was a Nebula nominee, and was also the book where the crazy copyeditor (the person who is supposed to check grammar, punctuation, and continuity after the editing process is done and right before the book gets formatted for publication) who decided to re-write the book and take out Reynard Morane, because he was gay. Obviously, her re-write was thrown out, because copyeditors are not supposed to re-write other people's manuscripts, plus she was a very bad copyeditor. So the version of the book that came out was the one actually written by me.
It's set in Ile-Rien, the same world as The Element of Fire, but sometime in the future, in Ile-Rien's Victorian/la Belle Epoque time period. The main character, Nicholas Valiarde, is a Moriarty-type figure.
September 27, 2013
Catching up on links
* I had a short story posted on podcastle, plus other stuff in this post.
* Roqoo Depot did a gallery of Leia Organa art
* NYT: Professor Says He Has Solved a Mystery Over a Slave’s Novel
In 2002, a novel thought to be the first written by an African-American woman became a best seller, praised for its dramatic depiction of Southern life in the mid-1850s through the observant eyes of a refined and literate house servant. But one part of the story remained a tantalizing secret: the author’s identity.
* Online color challenge
* Atlas Obscura: Ten of the World's Most Disorienting Places
* IO9: 10 Unsung Heroes in the History of Doctor Who
* Den of Geek: Why does female-leaning fandom come in for such criticism?
A further commenter picked up the baton: "anything with a fanbase mainly composed of teenage girls - One Direction, Bieber, Twilight etc - gets tons of these uber-macho comments from people desperate to prove that they don't like this sissy garbage". As such you get "homophobic slurs aimed at the artists and misogynistic ones aimed at the fans".
* IO9: The Science Behind Power Naps
Book rec:
Darkbeast Rebellion by Morgan Keyes
Betrayal threatens everything Keara dreams of in this fast-paced, exciting sequel to Darkbeast.
Keara, her friend Goran, and the wily old actor, Taggart, are fleeing for their lives. They have all spared their darkbeasts, the creatures that take on their darker deeds and emotions and lift their spirits. But their actions defy the law, which dictates that all citizens must kill their darkbeasts on their twelfth birthdays.
* Roqoo Depot did a gallery of Leia Organa art
* NYT: Professor Says He Has Solved a Mystery Over a Slave’s Novel
In 2002, a novel thought to be the first written by an African-American woman became a best seller, praised for its dramatic depiction of Southern life in the mid-1850s through the observant eyes of a refined and literate house servant. But one part of the story remained a tantalizing secret: the author’s identity.
* Online color challenge
* Atlas Obscura: Ten of the World's Most Disorienting Places
* IO9: 10 Unsung Heroes in the History of Doctor Who
* Den of Geek: Why does female-leaning fandom come in for such criticism?
A further commenter picked up the baton: "anything with a fanbase mainly composed of teenage girls - One Direction, Bieber, Twilight etc - gets tons of these uber-macho comments from people desperate to prove that they don't like this sissy garbage". As such you get "homophobic slurs aimed at the artists and misogynistic ones aimed at the fans".
* IO9: The Science Behind Power Naps
Book rec:
Darkbeast Rebellion by Morgan Keyes
Betrayal threatens everything Keara dreams of in this fast-paced, exciting sequel to Darkbeast.
Keara, her friend Goran, and the wily old actor, Taggart, are fleeing for their lives. They have all spared their darkbeasts, the creatures that take on their darker deeds and emotions and lift their spirits. But their actions defy the law, which dictates that all citizens must kill their darkbeasts on their twelfth birthdays.
September 25, 2013
Short Story in Audio, Other Things
I have a short story up at Podcastle, "Thorns" read by C.S.E. Cooney. It was originally in Realms of Fantasy in 1995, and was the first short story I ever had published: http://podcastle.org/2013/09/25/podcastle-279-thorns/
* There was an interview with me about Razor's Edge at Geek Mom
* And Entertainment Weekly posted a book trailer for Razor's Edge: Shelf Life - EW.com (yes, I didn't know that was going to happen and it's pretty freaking exciting.)
* And there was another excerpt on IO9
* And I'm in this SF Signal Mind Meld: What Authors Influenced Today’s YA Writers When They Were Young?
We tried to watch Agents of SHIELD last night but the DVR kept re-booting during it, and we also had trouble trying to watch our recording of Sleepy Hollow. I am terrified the same thing will happen in the middle of Broadchurch tonight. I also made a pseudo-Moroccan chicken stew and it was delicious. And we had a chocolate cake.
New Books
* Soul of Fire by Laura Anne Gilman
This is the second in the duology with Heart of Briar: Three months ago Jan learned that elves were real, our world wasn't safe and it was up to her to save her boyfriend—and the world—from being englamoured into slavery. Now Jan has a new deadline—ten weeks, ten days and ten hours. That's when the truce she arranged between our world and the elves' realm ends, and the invasion starts.
* Untold (Book 2 of the Lynburn Legacy) by Sarah Rees Brennan
In this second book in the Lynburn Legacy, the sorcerous roots of Sorry-in-the-Vale have been exposed. No one in the town is safe, and a decision must be made: pay the sorcerers' blood sacrifice, or fight. Will the townspeople (magical and not) become "owned" by the sorcerers who believe it is their right to rule? If Kami Glass has anything to say about it, evil will not win. Despite having given up her own piece of magic, she is determined to do everything she can to make a difference. And whether they want to or not, her circle of friends (and potential boyfriends) will not be able to help but go along with her unusual tactics.
* Stonecast by Anton Strout
Alexandra Belarus was an artist stuck working in her New York family’s business…until she discovered her true legacy—a deep and ancient magic. Lexi became the last practicing Spellmason, with the power to breathe life into stone. And as her powers awoke, so did her family’s most faithful protector: a gargoyle named Stanis. But when a centuries-old evil threatened her family and her city, Stanis sacrificed himself to save everything Lexi held dear.
* There was an interview with me about Razor's Edge at Geek Mom
* And Entertainment Weekly posted a book trailer for Razor's Edge: Shelf Life - EW.com (yes, I didn't know that was going to happen and it's pretty freaking exciting.)
* And there was another excerpt on IO9
* And I'm in this SF Signal Mind Meld: What Authors Influenced Today’s YA Writers When They Were Young?
We tried to watch Agents of SHIELD last night but the DVR kept re-booting during it, and we also had trouble trying to watch our recording of Sleepy Hollow. I am terrified the same thing will happen in the middle of Broadchurch tonight. I also made a pseudo-Moroccan chicken stew and it was delicious. And we had a chocolate cake.
New Books
* Soul of Fire by Laura Anne Gilman
This is the second in the duology with Heart of Briar: Three months ago Jan learned that elves were real, our world wasn't safe and it was up to her to save her boyfriend—and the world—from being englamoured into slavery. Now Jan has a new deadline—ten weeks, ten days and ten hours. That's when the truce she arranged between our world and the elves' realm ends, and the invasion starts.
* Untold (Book 2 of the Lynburn Legacy) by Sarah Rees Brennan
In this second book in the Lynburn Legacy, the sorcerous roots of Sorry-in-the-Vale have been exposed. No one in the town is safe, and a decision must be made: pay the sorcerers' blood sacrifice, or fight. Will the townspeople (magical and not) become "owned" by the sorcerers who believe it is their right to rule? If Kami Glass has anything to say about it, evil will not win. Despite having given up her own piece of magic, she is determined to do everything she can to make a difference. And whether they want to or not, her circle of friends (and potential boyfriends) will not be able to help but go along with her unusual tactics.
* Stonecast by Anton Strout
Alexandra Belarus was an artist stuck working in her New York family’s business…until she discovered her true legacy—a deep and ancient magic. Lexi became the last practicing Spellmason, with the power to breathe life into stone. And as her powers awoke, so did her family’s most faithful protector: a gargoyle named Stanis. But when a centuries-old evil threatened her family and her city, Stanis sacrificed himself to save everything Lexi held dear.
September 24, 2013
Cats and Books
Reposting these for release day:
September 23, 2013
Tomorrow
Okay, this is (almost) it. Tomorrow, on 9/24/13, the Star Wars novel, Empire and Rebellion: Razor's Edge will be available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook.
I still feel sick! I think it's probably mostly nerves. I also have a bad burn on my arm from where I pulled a pan out of the oven and it overbalanced. It didn't hurt that much at the time but now it looks terrible.
I've also updated my website and listed all the recent interviews on the Interview section and new appearances on the Appearances section. And I listed all my cheap ($2.99) DRM-free ebooks on this section and if you scroll down it has links to a couple of the DRM-free outlets for the other books, plus a list of ebook retailers.
Other recent stuff out:
The The Element of Fire is also now available as an audiobook.
An eBook compilation of the Books of the Raksura is available on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo.
I still feel sick! I think it's probably mostly nerves. I also have a bad burn on my arm from where I pulled a pan out of the oven and it overbalanced. It didn't hurt that much at the time but now it looks terrible.
I've also updated my website and listed all the recent interviews on the Interview section and new appearances on the Appearances section. And I listed all my cheap ($2.99) DRM-free ebooks on this section and if you scroll down it has links to a couple of the DRM-free outlets for the other books, plus a list of ebook retailers.
Other recent stuff out:
The The Element of Fire is also now available as an audiobook.
An eBook compilation of the Books of the Raksura is available on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo.
September 22, 2013
Weekend
Yesterday I took a mental health day off and we went to the Sherwood Forest Celtic Music Festival. There had been torrential rain the day before (which we badly needed, though we've lost another tree (bringing the total to four) to the drought) and so it was overcast and cool in the morning and only around the mid-80s (as opposed the low hundreds, upper nineties). We walked around in the muddy woods, listened to harp music, played with Scottish terriers, and vigorously supported small businesses related to handmade soap and backyard-produced honey.
I'm still not feeling great - my stomach and everything directly connected to it is iffy and my sinuses can detect movements of air masses up to hundreds of miles away - but the weather has turned cool, which is nice. Though it'll probably turn back by the end of the week. Fall doesn't really start here until October or afterward.
I'm going to work some more on a short story today, and try to get it closer to a finished condition.
Also got my copies of the CD version of the audiobook of The Element of Fire, narrated by Derek Perkins. It's also available as MP3s but I've never actually had an audiobook come out on CD before. The three Books of the Raksura are all available as audiobooks, but just on MP3. So it's pretty cool for me.
Empire and Rebellion: Razor's Edge comes out Tuesday, and I'll be doing a book signing in Austin Saturday October 5 at 2:00 at the Arboretum Barnes and Noble, and Aaron Allston will also be there doing a signing.
I'm still not feeling great - my stomach and everything directly connected to it is iffy and my sinuses can detect movements of air masses up to hundreds of miles away - but the weather has turned cool, which is nice. Though it'll probably turn back by the end of the week. Fall doesn't really start here until October or afterward.
I'm going to work some more on a short story today, and try to get it closer to a finished condition.
Also got my copies of the CD version of the audiobook of The Element of Fire, narrated by Derek Perkins. It's also available as MP3s but I've never actually had an audiobook come out on CD before. The three Books of the Raksura are all available as audiobooks, but just on MP3. So it's pretty cool for me.
Empire and Rebellion: Razor's Edge comes out Tuesday, and I'll be doing a book signing in Austin Saturday October 5 at 2:00 at the Arboretum Barnes and Noble, and Aaron Allston will also be there doing a signing.
