Martha Wells's Blog, page 136

I feel like April Fool's Day is one of those things that ...

I feel like April Fool's Day is one of those things that used to be fun and is now mostly a source of anxiety and irritation. Or maybe that's just me.

The Hugo and Campbell Award Nominees were announced! Congrats to everybody!

We had brunch yesterday for about four hours. We had so much brunch, we didn't even have dinner later. I think I had a cup of tea while I was watching Amazing Race, and that was it. I loved Doctor Who on Saturday, and even logged off the internet early in the afternoon to avoid all the people posting accidental/maliciously intentional spoilers. I saw a bit of the third Doctor special last night, but we recorded it to watch later. The more I see of the older series (before the new series, I'd watched a lot of the Tom Bakers, Peter Davisons, and Colin Bakers, but hadn't seen really any of the first three) the more interesting to see how many elements they've referenced or pulled forward into the new series.

Tomorrow, Emilie and the Hollow World comes out in paperback and ebook. (I'm not sure when the DRM-free version will show up at the Robot Trading Company but hopefully soon.) Good things to do if you want: adding it to your GoodReads or LibraryThing, or requesting it from your local library.

The trade paperback of The Cloud Roads looks like it's sold out again from Barnes and Noble and BAM and Powell's, but there are still five or six copies listed at Amazon. Hopefully more will show up soon.

Last night I made baked flounder with a hollandaise sauce...

Last night I made baked flounder with a hollandaise sauce and fried potatoes for dinner, and it was very tasty. I think I will do it again at some point soon.

Also got a really nice reader email about the Raksura books. Very good to read.

Had a couple of links I wanted to pass on:

* The Death of the Necromancer made this list of The Best Fantasy Novels You (Probably) Haven’t Read on Flavorwire! With its brand new ebook cover! (Thanks to Kyle Gillette for letting me know!)

* I think I forgot to link to this earlier (but maybe I linked to it and then forgot that -- it's been that kind of month), but: Rachel Neumeier reviewed The Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy Tremaine is my favorite character EVER! She is right up there with my other favorite-ever characters, like Miles Vorkosigan and Vlad Taltos and Eugenides. She is prickly, sarcastic, ruthlessly practical, sometimes insecure, occasionally suicidal, and doesn’t have a romantic bone in her body. You know that discussion a week or two ago about books with female protagonists but without a lot of romance? This is that book. I mean, there is romance — but it starts late in the series and it is never, but never, a gushy obsessive romance.

* And I posted kitten photos of Tasha on Tumblr.

I had kind of an active morning, and need to get to work,...

I had kind of an active morning, and need to get to work, so quickly:

* It looks like the Star Wars novel may have been moved up to October 15, which is good because then it will be out by Star Wars Reads day.

* If you missed it yesterday, The Cloud Roads seems to be available in trade paperback again, and people who ordered it over the past four months or so are getting their copies, which is a huge relief for me. I just don't think it happened in time to help The Siren Depths.

* The Death of the Necromancer is available in ebook (DRM-Free) at Barnes and Noble NookBook, Kobo, Amazon US Kindle, Amazon UK Kindle, Barnes and Noble UK, Kindle Canada, Kindle Germany, Kindle France, Kindle Spain, Kindle Italy.

Purchase of it or of the also DRM-free ebooks of The Element of Fire, City of Bones or Wheel of the Infinite helps pay for the plumbing disaster repairs to my house.


Links:

* World Expo Pavilions This was cool.

* The Secret Door This is the coolest thing ever. ProTips: 1) it has music, so if you're at work turn down your volume. 2) Don't start it unless you have some time to be entranced for a while. 3) Clicking on the white arrows sometimes gives you a very different view.

* Have You Seen These Books? More casualties of the dispute between Barnes and Noble and Simon Schuster. You can order these books at B&N online, but if you ask for them in a store, the employees are not allowed to order them for you.

* Plumbing update: The ceiling and wall holes were filled...

* Plumbing update: The ceiling and wall holes were filled in last week and are now textured, and waiting to be painted. The wooden column where the pipe was still needs to be put back together, and the area under the kitchen sink repaired, and the moldy carpet replaced. I'm really looking forward to getting rid of the moldy carpet.

* I'm working on revisions for the Star Wars novel, which need to be finished asap, so I might not be around as much.

* Weirdly, and as a complete surprise to me, the paperback of The Cloud Roads seems to be showing up as available or in stock online again in Barnes and Noble, Chapters Indigo, Amazon US, Powell's, Books-a-Million, Book Depository.com, and Amazon.ca.

If anybody has managed to order or receive a copy within the last week or so, please let me know?

* I'm really looking forward to Psych tonight, and Elementary tomorrow, and Doctor Who on Saturday.

Upcoming Books

Books I have coming out:

Emilie and the Hollow World on April 2, next Tuesday.

Untitled Star Wars Novel is coming out this October. It has a blurb now:
Princess Leia Organa is on a mission for the Rebel Alliance when Imperial forces attack. Now she, Han, and Luke are on their own, working with pirates and dealing with traitors as they race the clock to protect the secrecy of a crucial meeting of Rebel conspirators.

and you can preorder it at:
Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon Canada.

Stories coming out:

I have a Books of the Raksura story about Jade coming out in The Other Half of the Sky anthology, which should be out in April but I don't think is up for preorder yet.

It has a lovely cover:


Book recs:

* The Age Atomic by Adam Christopher comes out in the US today.
"The Age Atomic," out Tuesday, is a sequel to Christopher's equally impressive "Empire State." Both books take place in New York City as well as its parallel but not quite mirror image, the Empire State, a version of Manhattan that exists in an alternate universe. The two versions of the city are linked together by a fissure, a fiery blue portal that allows characters to travel back and forth between universes.

* Cynsations: Author-Illustrator Interview & Giveaway: Demi These are gorgeous picture books for young kids:
The Nightingale and Gandhi have been named The New York Times Best Illustrated Books, and Gandhi also received an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award.

My husband, Tze-si Huang, and I represented the United States of America at the First International Children's Book Conference in Beijing, China, in 1992.

This year, a collaboration called, Master of Zen, Extraordinary Teachings From Hui Neng's Altar Sutra (World Wisdom, 2012), won 2012 USA Best Book in Religion/Buddhism.

Except for the Deeper Than Swords event, the last few wee...

Except for the Deeper Than Swords event, the last few weeks have been kind of really crappy in a lot of little ways. I won't go into all of it, but I mentioned here that my credit card payment for this month apparently didn't arrive, so the company canceled my credit card (even though I have never had a late payment in the entire time I've been using this credit card) and I had to make an online payment immediately to get them to take off the fees and give me back the card. Well, Friday, I found out my original payment had arrived, the credit card company had cashed the check, thus making me do a double payment and removing all the money from my bank account. They apologized and are giving back, eventually, sometime this week, when they get around to it.

But Emilie and the Hollow World will be out next Tuesday:


Links:

Stephanie Burgis: Caught in the Middle - Hard Publishing News A dispute between Barnes and Noble and Simon and Schuster is really hurting a lot of authors:
Well, I'm an S&S writer (and not a big name or a bestseller)...so I looked last night (it took me a day to work up my courage) at B&N online, to see how many B&Ns were stocking the paperback of Renegade Magic (which came out this month). For context, about half the B&Ns in the country, from what I could tell last year, stocked the paperback of Kat, Incorrigible and the hardcover of Renegade Magic. I think it might be normal to expect those numbers to go down a bit this time round, but I was hoping that at least 1/4 of the B&Ns I looked at would stock Renegade Magic.

Instead, I found...zero. Absolutely zero B&Ns, in any of the zipcode areas I looked up (and I looked up a LOT) were carrying the paperback of Renegade Magic - even stores that had always carried high stocks of the Kat, Incorrigible paperback and the Renegade Magic hardcover.

You would think that when it comes time to for the publisher to decide whether or not they want to publish more books by Stephanie, they would know the low sales numbers were a result of people not being able to purchase the book because they never saw it in B&N and didn't know it was out. I can tell you for a fact, that is not how the publisher will react. Low sales are always, always considered the author's fault, even when the low sales are directly attributable to a distributor failing to get the books into stores, or the publisher's dispute with B&N or Amazon, or a publisher not sending the book out for reviews resulting in low library sales.

I've read Stephanie's books, Kat, Incorrigible and Renegade Magic and enjoyed them a huge amount. They're the kind of MG/YA that kids and adults can both enjoy, and I think Kat, the main character, is an awesome, forceful, adventurous protagonist, the kind I really wanted to read when I was her age, and couldn't find enough of.

***

* Grandfather of African Literature, Chinua Achebe, Dies Aged 82

* Author Rick Hautala has passed away

* World SF Blog: Monday Original Content: An Interview with Noura al Noman
Noura al Noman is a science fiction writer from the United Arab Emirates, author of new novel Ajwan. Here, we are delighted to publish the English-language version of an interview with her, conducted by Cristina Jurado, and published by permission of the Sense of Wonder blog.

* Elaine Cunningham: A Property of Light Elaine talks a bit about whitewashing covers, and asks for recs of SF/F with POC characters.

Deeper Than Swords Event Friday

http://marthawells.tumblr.com/post/46068124206/these-two-are-from-friday-night-the-cushing
I messed up the caption on Tumblr, but these two photos are actually from Thursday night, the Cushing library fundraiser dinner. Friends of ours did the table decorations, and they were all themed around the different houses from Game of Thrones.

Friday I got to tag along to lunch with George R. R. Martin and Ty Franck (he writes as James S.A. Corey with Daniel Abraham), Dianne who was Martin's guest host, her husband Scott, and Cait and Todd from Cushing. At the end our waiter asked Martin to sign a book, and I have no idea how he happened to have a book with him since the reservation was in Dianne's name. I think when the waiter realized who was here, he must have called someone to hurry and bring it to the restaurant.

http://marthawells.tumblr.com/post/46068393619/these-are-from-george-r-r-martins-book-signing
These are from George R. R. Martin’s book signing on Friday afternoon. It was scheduled from 4:00 to 6:00, and people, mostly students, started lining up at 8:15 in the morning. (They wanted to start lining up on Thursday night, but were told they really shouldn’t do that.) The line went down the side of Cushing Library all the way down and around the front of Sterling Evans Library.

http://marthawells.tumblr.com/post/46069034075/this-is-from-the-talk-and-episode-screening-friday
This is from the talk and episode screening Friday night. It was held in Rudder Auditorium, a 2500 seat hall. Tickets were free, but had to be requested in person at the Rudder box office, so students and University staff would have a better chance at getting them. The place was packed. We got seats up near the front, in the two rows reserved for people with the VIP badges. While we were waiting for it to start, they let George R. R. Martin peek around the curtain to see the size of the crowd and I think he was a bit shocked. The Dean of University Libraries, David Carlson, spoke briefly (I missed that photo), then Larry Mitchell, the director of Cushing Library, then Cait Coker, curator of the Science Fiction Research Collection. Then George. Then there was a short Q&A with George being interviewed by Todd Samuelson, the curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts for Cushing. (The exhibit was designed and installed by Cait and Todd.) Then they showed the first episode of season 3 of Game of Thrones.

Afterward there was a reception put on by HBO for the staff and the people who had the VIP badges from the fundraiser dinner. Again, the food was incredible. There was a free wine bar plus waiters carrying around plates of appetizers. I wish I was one of those people who take beautiful pictures of food but usually by the time I realize I should take a picture it's already half-eaten. I'd have lots of pictures of half-eaten food and empty plates. There were lamb chops with mint sauce, little bison sliders with fried onions, seared tuna with slaw on crackers (this was probably the tastiest thing of all the tasty things), bacon-wrapped shrimp, beef and sausage skewers, and fruit tarts. It was after 9:00 by this point and we had been on campus since before 4:00, and hadn't had dinner, so we were starving, and pretty much everybody else was too. The waiters were probably wondering why all these university people were eating like starving tigers.

http://marthawells.tumblr.com/post/46070243494/this-is-the-goodie-bag-from-the-vip-dinner-the
This is the goodie bag from the VIP dinner, the exhibit catalog, and some art cards with John Picacio’s art.

The post with links to the exhibit photos is http://marthawells.livejournal.com/539185.html

Deeper Than Swords Event Opening

We had a fantastic time at the opening of the Deeper Than Swords exhibit.

We got to Cushing Library about 6:00, signed in at the VIP table to get our badges, and met up with our friends who were there on the first floor of the library, where the pre-exhibit party was. There were about a hundred people there, mostly people who had bought the tickets to the fundraiser portion of the event, plus staff and university officials and special guests (me!).

The whole thing was catered by Chef Tai, who had made food based on the Song of Ice and Fire cookbook. The food was pretty incredible. (For the party, I think it was almond-chestnut soup, chicken meatballs with cumin and yogurt sauce, and steak and onion skewers. There was also wine but I didn't have any because I didn't want to spend the rest of the night falling down stairs.) We went upstairs to look at the exhibit, and I took some photos, before my stupid camera battery failed:

set 1: http://marthawells.tumblr.com/post/45984421661/photos-from-the-opening-of-the-deeper-than-swords

set 2: http://marthawells.tumblr.com/post/45984595976/photos-from-the-opening-of-the-deeper-than-swords

set 3: http://marthawells.tumblr.com/post/45984638582/photos-from-the-opening-of-the-deeper-than-swords

John Picacio had given permission for them to use his artwork for the Song of Ice and Fire Calendar, and you can see some of it displayed on the walls.

George R. R. Martin got there at about 6:30, and chatted with people and took pictures, and I don't think he got to see the exhibit. At 7:00 we all walked to the MSC for the dinner, which was held in one of the ballrooms. There were a few brief speeches about the history of Cushing, the SF/F Special Collection, how George decided to choose it as a repository for his papers, but it was mostly about the food. I don't think I've been at an event with food this good before. It was a buffet, with several different vegetables, three entrees, salads, potatoes, a little lemon tart cake and a blueberry cream. I'm not sure what all I ate. It was sort of like you got to the three entrees and panicked because they all looked good and you wanted all three but that seemed greedy.

Tonight is the VIP autographing, and then the free lecture and screening of the first episode of season 3. (It's free, but you had to get a ticket in advance, because it's in Rudder Theater which only holds about 750 people, and I think all the tickets are gone.) The food truck will be there with more Song of Ice and Fire food, which is where we're planning to have dinner. I've recharged my camera battery, so I should have more photos.

Deeper Than Swords Event

This has been kind of a stressful couple of months due to foundation work, plumbing explosions, publishing issues, money issues, and so on, but I have been really looking forward to the opening of the Deeper Than Swords George R.R. Martin event at Cushing Library.

We had our tickets to the free lecture and episode screening on Friday night, but we couldn't afford to go to the special library fundraiser dinner on Thursday. But then we got this from the Dean of University Libraries:


(Yes, the white feet in the upper lefthand corner is Jack trying to tear the box apart.)



So thanks to our friend at Cushing, we will be going!


(And some people have asked if I will be at AggieCon: I wasn't invited, so I won't be at the convention.)

Yesterday was kind of tiring. There was massive progress...

Yesterday was kind of tiring. There was massive progress in the plumbing disaster recovery. (photos here: http://marthawells.tumblr.com/post/45693225626/plumbing-disaster-recovery) All the holes in the ceiling and walls are filled in now, except for the one under the sink. There was sawing which produced a lot of dust again, but at least I was more prepared for it this time and the clean-up didn't take three hours. The contractor is going to have to come back to sand (which means another dust storm) and texture and paint, and then we need to replace the moldy carpet. So that's a relief, and it will be a bigger relief when it's all done.

In annoying news, I found out that the payment I sent in for my credit card bill had not arrived, so the company had of course immediately canceled the credit card, even though I've never been late with a payment before. I got that straightened out, but can't use the card for a couple of days. Also I had some bad cuts on my hands from various household disasters and one of them had still been hurting way after it should have healed up. Yesterday a small piece of wood popped out of it. Yeah, it feels much better now.

Book rec:

Stone Kissed by Keri Stevens
When Delia Forrest talks to statues, they talk back. She is, after all, the last of the Steward witches. After an arsonist torches her ancestral home with her estranged father still inside, Delia is forced to sell the estate to pay his medical bills. Her childhood crush, Grant Wolverton, makes a handsome offer for Steward House, vowing to return it to its former glory. Delia agrees, as long as he'll allow her to oversee the restoration.

Link:

Cracked: 5 Shockingly Advanced Ancient Buildings