Martha Wells's Blog, page 131
July 24, 2013
Wednesday
If you're reading this you made it to Wednesday! Go you! (Yes, it's been that kind of week.)
If you missed it, I posted good news yesterday: More Audiobooks
I was on a list! 100 of the Best Fantasy Authors from the Past Century I am generally not a writer who ends up on lists of anything (especially lists of writers) so this was a really nice surprise.
White Hot Room: [INSPO] What Would Leia Organa Wear? – The Razor’s Edge Edition
This is a blog by two cosplayers -- be sure to check out the photos of the various costumes they've made.
NYT: Welcome to the 'Sharing Economy'
While it sounds like Chesky is just a global rental agent with more scale, there is something much bigger going on here. Airbnb’s real innovation is not online rentals. It’s “trust.” It created a framework of trust that has made tens of thousands of people comfortable renting rooms in their homes to strangers.
Fun Vids:
* Nothing to Prove - Geek Girls & The Doubleclicks (by thedoubleclicks)
* Trailer for Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos
If you missed it, I posted good news yesterday: More Audiobooks
I was on a list! 100 of the Best Fantasy Authors from the Past Century I am generally not a writer who ends up on lists of anything (especially lists of writers) so this was a really nice surprise.
White Hot Room: [INSPO] What Would Leia Organa Wear? – The Razor’s Edge Edition
This is a blog by two cosplayers -- be sure to check out the photos of the various costumes they've made.
NYT: Welcome to the 'Sharing Economy'
While it sounds like Chesky is just a global rental agent with more scale, there is something much bigger going on here. Airbnb’s real innovation is not online rentals. It’s “trust.” It created a framework of trust that has made tens of thousands of people comfortable renting rooms in their homes to strangers.
Fun Vids:
* Nothing to Prove - Geek Girls & The Doubleclicks (by thedoubleclicks)
* Trailer for Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos
July 23, 2013
Good News - More Audiobooks
I have some other stuff I've been meaning to post, but for now, I have good news:
The Element of Fire, City of Bones, Wheel of the Infinite, The Death of the Necromancer, and the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy (The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, and The Gate of Gods) are all going to be released as audiobooks by Tantor Audio!
Yay! People had asked me about audio books for these for a long time, and I never thought it would be possible. Thanks again to my agent Jennifer Jackson!
At the moment, I don't know anything about release dates or who will read them, or what. I'll post more info whenever I get it.
Yay!
The Element of Fire, City of Bones, Wheel of the Infinite, The Death of the Necromancer, and the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy (The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, and The Gate of Gods) are all going to be released as audiobooks by Tantor Audio!
Yay! People had asked me about audio books for these for a long time, and I never thought it would be possible. Thanks again to my agent Jennifer Jackson!
At the moment, I don't know anything about release dates or who will read them, or what. I'll post more info whenever I get it.
Yay!
July 19, 2013
Friday
Let's see.
Writing: I am working on the first of four Raksura novellas that will be published in ebook by Start Publishing (don't know the dates yet). This first one is nearly finished because I actually started it last year, before I started the Star Wars book. I finished plotting the ending yesterday so I'm hoping to finish it in the next few days. I read a section of it at ApolloCon last month and I'll probably read part of it for my reading at WorldCon (hopefully I'll get a reading at WorldCon and I didn't just jinx myself).
The Slow House Apocalypse: We had rain a few days ago so naturally the front gutter started to come off. The gutter people are supposed to come today. We've had a dead smelly hot tub in the back yard for um, several years now, and I've finally got the spare money to have it removed. The people who deal with deceased hot tubs have come a couple times to stare at it, and I'm hoping if they come today again they'll finally move it out of the yard. Then we start phase II, begging the city to come get the remains. Last winter the furnace showed signs of being on its last legs, and the air conditioner also went from middle-aged to elderly, so we're having both replaced on Monday. It's expensive, but less expensive to do them together, and also will be less expensive in monthly costs since these will be more efficient units. After all this, the only appliance left that was here when we first bought the house in the late 90s is the dishwasher. :eyes dishwasher: It's never had anything go wrong with it yet. :knock on wood: Houses/appliances are like cars, they know when you get paid.
Me: I've been kind of depressed lately and having anxiety issues, and really bad sinus headaches. Pretty much the usual.
***
I have a signing coming up on Friday July 26, at 6:30 for Emilie and the Hollow World at Murder by the Book, in Houston, Texas, with Joy Preble (The Sweet Dead Life), Mary Lindsey (Ashes on the Waves), and P.J. Hoover (Solstice). The store does do mail order, so if you want a signed book, you can call and order one.
***
Links:
* The Guardian: People of colour like me have been painted out of working-class history by Anna Chen
This is not an accurate portrayal of the British working class, either now or in the past. My own father, an ex-seaman, was a British trade unionist in Liverpool from the 1920s onwards, and helped found the Chinese Seamen's Union. It was necessary: Chinese people ran much of the merchant navy in the second world war, and plenty died for us in conflicts up to and including the Falklands war, and yet they suffered horrible discrimination. Their pay and conditions were inferior to those of their white counterparts. Adding insult to injury, many were forcibly sent back to China after the war despite having settled here with families.
* Black Gate: Readercon 24: "A Most Readerconnish Miscellany" by C.S.E. Cooney - a ReaderCon report with photos.
* Tumblr: Indirectly Inclined: Jackie Ormes was the first African-American woman cartoonist. This is the first of a series on women in comics.
At Jackie Ormes’ height as a cartoonist, her work reached one million people per week. In the 1940s and 1950s, she reached one million people per week.
Writing: I am working on the first of four Raksura novellas that will be published in ebook by Start Publishing (don't know the dates yet). This first one is nearly finished because I actually started it last year, before I started the Star Wars book. I finished plotting the ending yesterday so I'm hoping to finish it in the next few days. I read a section of it at ApolloCon last month and I'll probably read part of it for my reading at WorldCon (hopefully I'll get a reading at WorldCon and I didn't just jinx myself).
The Slow House Apocalypse: We had rain a few days ago so naturally the front gutter started to come off. The gutter people are supposed to come today. We've had a dead smelly hot tub in the back yard for um, several years now, and I've finally got the spare money to have it removed. The people who deal with deceased hot tubs have come a couple times to stare at it, and I'm hoping if they come today again they'll finally move it out of the yard. Then we start phase II, begging the city to come get the remains. Last winter the furnace showed signs of being on its last legs, and the air conditioner also went from middle-aged to elderly, so we're having both replaced on Monday. It's expensive, but less expensive to do them together, and also will be less expensive in monthly costs since these will be more efficient units. After all this, the only appliance left that was here when we first bought the house in the late 90s is the dishwasher. :eyes dishwasher: It's never had anything go wrong with it yet. :knock on wood: Houses/appliances are like cars, they know when you get paid.
Me: I've been kind of depressed lately and having anxiety issues, and really bad sinus headaches. Pretty much the usual.
***
I have a signing coming up on Friday July 26, at 6:30 for Emilie and the Hollow World at Murder by the Book, in Houston, Texas, with Joy Preble (The Sweet Dead Life), Mary Lindsey (Ashes on the Waves), and P.J. Hoover (Solstice). The store does do mail order, so if you want a signed book, you can call and order one.
***
Links:
* The Guardian: People of colour like me have been painted out of working-class history by Anna Chen
This is not an accurate portrayal of the British working class, either now or in the past. My own father, an ex-seaman, was a British trade unionist in Liverpool from the 1920s onwards, and helped found the Chinese Seamen's Union. It was necessary: Chinese people ran much of the merchant navy in the second world war, and plenty died for us in conflicts up to and including the Falklands war, and yet they suffered horrible discrimination. Their pay and conditions were inferior to those of their white counterparts. Adding insult to injury, many were forcibly sent back to China after the war despite having settled here with families.
* Black Gate: Readercon 24: "A Most Readerconnish Miscellany" by C.S.E. Cooney - a ReaderCon report with photos.
* Tumblr: Indirectly Inclined: Jackie Ormes was the first African-American woman cartoonist. This is the first of a series on women in comics.
At Jackie Ormes’ height as a cartoonist, her work reached one million people per week. In the 1940s and 1950s, she reached one million people per week.
July 16, 2013
Links
* Link from
vickita
: Names emerge from shadows of 1948 crash 28 Mexican citizens being flown to their homeland perished in a fireball over Central California. Woody Guthrie's poetry protested their anonymity. Who were they?
* Doctor Who: Malorie Blackman on why she LOVES the Daleks Malorie Blackman – Children’s Laureate and award-winning author of Noughts & Crosses – discusses her forthcoming Seventh Doctor short ebook The Ripple Effect.
* Coding Horror: The Bad Apple: Group Poison Invariably, groups that had the bad apple would perform worse. And this despite the fact that were people in some groups that were very talented, very smart, very likeable. Felps found that the bad apple's behavior had a profound effect – groups with bad apples performed 30 to 40 percent worse than other groups. On teams with the bad apple, people would argue and fight, they didn't share relevant information, they communicated less.
* Slate: I’m Not a Hero for Taking Care of My Kids I'm also not baby-sitting them. I'm their dad.
* Mail Online: Pennsylvania teens chase down kidnapper's car on their BIKES and save five-year-old girl
* FB Article: I Have Met George Zimmerman ...I am almost embarrassed to admit how amazingly personal this case is to me as black man who will someday have black children. That is because my brother is Trayvon Martin, and my future children are Trayvon Martin.
* Jim Hines: PC Monsters of Genre: Collect Them All!
vickita
: Names emerge from shadows of 1948 crash 28 Mexican citizens being flown to their homeland perished in a fireball over Central California. Woody Guthrie's poetry protested their anonymity. Who were they?* Doctor Who: Malorie Blackman on why she LOVES the Daleks Malorie Blackman – Children’s Laureate and award-winning author of Noughts & Crosses – discusses her forthcoming Seventh Doctor short ebook The Ripple Effect.
* Coding Horror: The Bad Apple: Group Poison Invariably, groups that had the bad apple would perform worse. And this despite the fact that were people in some groups that were very talented, very smart, very likeable. Felps found that the bad apple's behavior had a profound effect – groups with bad apples performed 30 to 40 percent worse than other groups. On teams with the bad apple, people would argue and fight, they didn't share relevant information, they communicated less.
* Slate: I’m Not a Hero for Taking Care of My Kids I'm also not baby-sitting them. I'm their dad.
* Mail Online: Pennsylvania teens chase down kidnapper's car on their BIKES and save five-year-old girl
* FB Article: I Have Met George Zimmerman ...I am almost embarrassed to admit how amazingly personal this case is to me as black man who will someday have black children. That is because my brother is Trayvon Martin, and my future children are Trayvon Martin.
* Jim Hines: PC Monsters of Genre: Collect Them All!
July 15, 2013
Weekend
I had kind of a mixed bag of a weekend.
The bad: Jack the cat had the symptoms of a kitty bladder infection late on Friday and Saturday morning, so since our regular vet was closed, I took him to the TAMU vet teaching hospital. They took about two hours to treat him, and it was kind of inconclusive, though they figured out it wasn't any kind of blockage. It was kind of stressful on both of us. And the sedative they had to give him made him high for about twelve hours. There was a lot of purring and cuddling and occasional confused biting. But he's been much better since, so hopefully it was just some kind of temporary inflammation.
The good: I finished Emilie and the Sky World, the sequel to Emilie and the Hollow World, and sent it off to my agent this morning. It's my fifteenth book, and will be out sometime next year from Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry.
And we saw Pacific Rim and it was awesome. I loved Idris Elba in it and Rinko Kikuchi may be my new lady-crush.
Today I think I'm going to give myself a treat and work on the Raksura novella that's due by September 1.
The bad: Jack the cat had the symptoms of a kitty bladder infection late on Friday and Saturday morning, so since our regular vet was closed, I took him to the TAMU vet teaching hospital. They took about two hours to treat him, and it was kind of inconclusive, though they figured out it wasn't any kind of blockage. It was kind of stressful on both of us. And the sedative they had to give him made him high for about twelve hours. There was a lot of purring and cuddling and occasional confused biting. But he's been much better since, so hopefully it was just some kind of temporary inflammation.
The good: I finished Emilie and the Sky World, the sequel to Emilie and the Hollow World, and sent it off to my agent this morning. It's my fifteenth book, and will be out sometime next year from Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry.
And we saw Pacific Rim and it was awesome. I loved Idris Elba in it and Rinko Kikuchi may be my new lady-crush.
Today I think I'm going to give myself a treat and work on the Raksura novella that's due by September 1.
July 13, 2013
Had to take Jack to TAMU emergency small animal clinic th...
Had to take Jack to TAMU emergency small animal clinic this morning for possible blocked bladder. Home with him now in wait and see mode. There for two hours, then I had a nose bleed. Not a great Saturday so far, basically.
July 10, 2013
I had municipal jury duty yesterday, but all three cases ...
I had municipal jury duty yesterday, but all three cases they had scheduled were postponed or dismissed, due to 1) witness not showing up, 2) defendant not showing up, 3) defendant changing their mind about wanting a jury trial. I did miss my aerobics class, which was kind of a pain, because I missed a couple of classes last week due to the holiday.
And I got some good news yesterday, which I'll talk about as soon as it's all finalized.
I'm so close to being done with the first draft of Emilie and the Sky World, I can taste it. Maybe today.
***
Next two appearances:
* Friday July 26, 2013. I'll be signing Emilie and the Hollow World at Murder by the Book, at 6:30 pm in Houston, Texas, with Joy Preble (The Sweet Dead Life), Mary Lindsey (Ashes on the Waves), and P.J. Hoover (Solstice). The store does do mail order, so if you want a signed book, you can call and order one.
* August 29-September 2, 2013. I'll be at LoneStarCon 3, the World Science Fiction Convention, in San Antonio, Texas. I'm really looking forward to this one; the Riverwalk is a wonderful site for a convention. (And if you're going, and you aren't from somewhere where you're used to 100-plus temps and very intense sun, seriously consider bringing a hat and sun block. The Riverwalk is mostly shaded and cooler than street level, but if you're doing any other tourist stuff outside it or walking around the city, a floppy camp hat that you can keep rolled up in your bag and pull out when you need it can really prevent a lot of sun-related problems. I'll be bringing one and I was born here.)
***
Why I'm not going to see Ender's Game: Tolerance For Intolerance: Boycotting Ender's Game
Still, what OSC supports isn't just him being a jerk: like I said, this is some high-octaine toxicity. This isn't just him being anti-gay marriage. It's him making troubling assertions about homosexuality. It's him supporting that with his money. It's him being an active political figure and fighting against human rights with his voice, his art, and his money.
I think this is the most important point, and one of the commenters, benjb, makes it again:
Orson Scott Card uses his money and his influence for bigotry.
It's not just a case of "this book has a hidden message of homophobia" (IMHO, it doesn't). But in a very real dollars and cents case, the money you spend on movie tickets can trickle down into anti-gay causes.
And I got some good news yesterday, which I'll talk about as soon as it's all finalized.
I'm so close to being done with the first draft of Emilie and the Sky World, I can taste it. Maybe today.
***
Next two appearances:
* Friday July 26, 2013. I'll be signing Emilie and the Hollow World at Murder by the Book, at 6:30 pm in Houston, Texas, with Joy Preble (The Sweet Dead Life), Mary Lindsey (Ashes on the Waves), and P.J. Hoover (Solstice). The store does do mail order, so if you want a signed book, you can call and order one.
* August 29-September 2, 2013. I'll be at LoneStarCon 3, the World Science Fiction Convention, in San Antonio, Texas. I'm really looking forward to this one; the Riverwalk is a wonderful site for a convention. (And if you're going, and you aren't from somewhere where you're used to 100-plus temps and very intense sun, seriously consider bringing a hat and sun block. The Riverwalk is mostly shaded and cooler than street level, but if you're doing any other tourist stuff outside it or walking around the city, a floppy camp hat that you can keep rolled up in your bag and pull out when you need it can really prevent a lot of sun-related problems. I'll be bringing one and I was born here.)
***
Why I'm not going to see Ender's Game: Tolerance For Intolerance: Boycotting Ender's Game
Still, what OSC supports isn't just him being a jerk: like I said, this is some high-octaine toxicity. This isn't just him being anti-gay marriage. It's him making troubling assertions about homosexuality. It's him supporting that with his money. It's him being an active political figure and fighting against human rights with his voice, his art, and his money.
I think this is the most important point, and one of the commenters, benjb, makes it again:
Orson Scott Card uses his money and his influence for bigotry.
It's not just a case of "this book has a hidden message of homophobia" (IMHO, it doesn't). But in a very real dollars and cents case, the money you spend on movie tickets can trickle down into anti-gay causes.
July 8, 2013
Monday Links
My goal this week is to finish and revise Emilie and the Sky World, plus I have jury duty, and a bunch of other stuff to do.
If you were gone last week and missed it: All the parts of The Death of the Necromancer are now online at Black Gate Magazine, this month is my twentieth anniversary as a published writer, and IvieMoon did a gorgeous portrait of Kade Carrion from The Element of Fire on DeviantArt.
links:
* Jim Hines: How to Report Sexual Harassment, by Elise Matthesen
* NewStatesman: I Was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl
* Washington Post: How Venus Williams got equal pay for women at Wimbledon
* LadyBits: The Straight, White Dudes’ Guide to Discussing Diversity
* Finn's Wake: Policing Our Own in the Geek Nation
* Lifehacker: How Clutter Affects Your Brain (and What You Can Do About It)
* Tor.com: Jo Walton: Eight Books From the Last Decade that Made Me Excited About Fantasy
I'm not on this list, but one of the commenters (no. 24, scifibard) mentioned the Raksura books, and I'm going to quote that here because I'm already having that kind of week and this made me happy:
But the Raksura trilogy was far more breathtakingly original. She paints a vibrant world teeming with life and variety beyond what any other fantasy author I can think of has brought. It it is utterly itself in a way that shows up how very derrivitive so much of the fantasy genre has become. It is by far the best narrative about non-humans I have ever read (and yes, there are a number of good ones out there) and achingly poingant at times. Working with a different species (well, several, but the focus is on the Raksura), she is able, among other things, to subvert gender expectations though not with anything so straightforward as a reversal. She also gets to play with the tensions between instinct and reason and emotion in wonderfully defamiliarized ways.
* Tor.com: Leah Schnelbach: 8 Lessons MST3K Taught Me About Writing, Life, and Everything
Book rec:
* Thieves' Quarry by D. B. Jackson "A former sailor with a troubled past, Ethan is a thieftaker, using conjuring skills to hunt down those who steal from the good citizens of Boston. And while chasing down miscreants in 1768 makes his life a perilous one, the simmering political tensions between loyalists like himself and rabble-rousing revolutionaries like Samuel Adams and others of his ilk are perhaps even more dangerous to his health."
deftly blends history and fiction in a tangle of alliances (including loyalist Ethan teaming with a Royal Navy surgeon sympathetic to the rebels) amid Ethan’s moral conflicts over the uses of magic and drawing friends into the dangers of questionable work. Publishers Weekly
If you were gone last week and missed it: All the parts of The Death of the Necromancer are now online at Black Gate Magazine, this month is my twentieth anniversary as a published writer, and IvieMoon did a gorgeous portrait of Kade Carrion from The Element of Fire on DeviantArt.
links:
* Jim Hines: How to Report Sexual Harassment, by Elise Matthesen
* NewStatesman: I Was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl
* Washington Post: How Venus Williams got equal pay for women at Wimbledon
* LadyBits: The Straight, White Dudes’ Guide to Discussing Diversity
* Finn's Wake: Policing Our Own in the Geek Nation
* Lifehacker: How Clutter Affects Your Brain (and What You Can Do About It)
* Tor.com: Jo Walton: Eight Books From the Last Decade that Made Me Excited About Fantasy
I'm not on this list, but one of the commenters (no. 24, scifibard) mentioned the Raksura books, and I'm going to quote that here because I'm already having that kind of week and this made me happy:
But the Raksura trilogy was far more breathtakingly original. She paints a vibrant world teeming with life and variety beyond what any other fantasy author I can think of has brought. It it is utterly itself in a way that shows up how very derrivitive so much of the fantasy genre has become. It is by far the best narrative about non-humans I have ever read (and yes, there are a number of good ones out there) and achingly poingant at times. Working with a different species (well, several, but the focus is on the Raksura), she is able, among other things, to subvert gender expectations though not with anything so straightforward as a reversal. She also gets to play with the tensions between instinct and reason and emotion in wonderfully defamiliarized ways.
* Tor.com: Leah Schnelbach: 8 Lessons MST3K Taught Me About Writing, Life, and Everything
Book rec:
* Thieves' Quarry by D. B. Jackson "A former sailor with a troubled past, Ethan is a thieftaker, using conjuring skills to hunt down those who steal from the good citizens of Boston. And while chasing down miscreants in 1768 makes his life a perilous one, the simmering political tensions between loyalists like himself and rabble-rousing revolutionaries like Samuel Adams and others of his ilk are perhaps even more dangerous to his health."
deftly blends history and fiction in a tangle of alliances (including loyalist Ethan teaming with a Royal Navy surgeon sympathetic to the rebels) amid Ethan’s moral conflicts over the uses of magic and drawing friends into the dangers of questionable work. Publishers Weekly
July 5, 2013
July Fourth
We didn't do anything for the Fourth of July, since I had to work. I finished the first-pass proofs for the Empire and Rebellion: Razor's Edge the Star Wars novel (and it now has an official description here) and then worked more on the ending of Emilie and the Sky World.
That evening I had an appointment to go get pictures taken for an article in the local magazine for their annual Arts issue. This was the photographer http://www.igorkraguljac.net/ who has done some really beautiful photos. We went out to a small private lake that belonged to an older neighborhood bit outside of down and took some really cool photos. I can't wait to see them.
That's pretty much it. I haven't been doing much of anything but working and occasionally playing on tumblr.
***
If you missed it:
* All the parts of The Death of the Necromancer are now online at Black Gate Magazine.
* This month is my twentieth anniversary as a published writer.
* IvieMoon did a gorgeous portrait of Kade Carrion from The Element of Fire on DeviantArt.
That evening I had an appointment to go get pictures taken for an article in the local magazine for their annual Arts issue. This was the photographer http://www.igorkraguljac.net/ who has done some really beautiful photos. We went out to a small private lake that belonged to an older neighborhood bit outside of down and took some really cool photos. I can't wait to see them.
That's pretty much it. I haven't been doing much of anything but working and occasionally playing on tumblr.
***
If you missed it:
* All the parts of The Death of the Necromancer are now online at Black Gate Magazine.
* This month is my twentieth anniversary as a published writer.
* IvieMoon did a gorgeous portrait of Kade Carrion from The Element of Fire on DeviantArt.
July 4, 2013
IvieMoon on DeviantArt did a lovely portrait of Kade Carr...
IvieMoon on DeviantArt did a lovely portrait of Kade Carrion from The Element of Fire. This is really gorgeous!
