Martha Wells's Blog, page 158
May 4, 2012
The Siren Depths December 2012
The Siren Depths (the third in the Books of the Raksura series, after The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea) is now scheduled for December 2012. It looks like you can preorder it as part of Night Shade's 50% off sale, but I think that still has a four book minimum, though it includes all the books in their catalog.
***
I think I'm going to try to get a new laptop this weekend. This one is still overheating and has started to make gasping noises. I'm going to get a 13 inch MacBook Pro with my husband's university discount, so hopefully we'll be able to find one in town.
I mailed off the books to the person who won them in Jim Hines' Rape Crisis Center Fundraiser drawing, so they should arrive in the next few days.
Oh, and GuysLitWire reported that the Book Drive for Ballou SR High School finished up with 175+ books sent to the school library. The wish list is still up at Powell's so people can still send books if they haven't had a chance before now. There's plenty of books still on the list. I know I said I wasn't going to send any this year but I broke down. I'm addicted to Book Fairs.
Uh, that's about it, unless you want to hear about my allergy headaches which nobody does including me. I'm hoping to have some bigger (not allergy-related) news later this month.
***
I think I'm going to try to get a new laptop this weekend. This one is still overheating and has started to make gasping noises. I'm going to get a 13 inch MacBook Pro with my husband's university discount, so hopefully we'll be able to find one in town.
I mailed off the books to the person who won them in Jim Hines' Rape Crisis Center Fundraiser drawing, so they should arrive in the next few days.
Oh, and GuysLitWire reported that the Book Drive for Ballou SR High School finished up with 175+ books sent to the school library. The wish list is still up at Powell's so people can still send books if they haven't had a chance before now. There's plenty of books still on the list. I know I said I wasn't going to send any this year but I broke down. I'm addicted to Book Fairs.
Uh, that's about it, unless you want to hear about my allergy headaches which nobody does including me. I'm hoping to have some bigger (not allergy-related) news later this month.
May 2, 2012
Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday
Last night I made skirt steak tacos and we caught up on Eureka. I love Eureka. We won't have time to see the Avengers until next week, so I'm desperately trying not to be spoiled. Someone already managed to spoil me for the entire plot of Prometheus and I'm not even sure the movie's been finished yet.
The tomato plants have grown like a rain forest, and I've picked the first few tomatoes. They're still green, but I love fried green tomatoes and I'll be making some tonight.
We have a friend staying with us who's working in town for the next few weeks, which we've been looking forward to.
***
There are some new friended people, so hi!
The book excerpts and free stories on my web site are here, the Three Worlds Compendium with the extra stories and fan art for the Books of the Raksura is here, the Information Links for Beginning Authors page is here, and
my Pinterest page is here.
If you have any questions, please ask.
***
Book rec: Powers by James A. Burton
Albert Johannson lives off the grid. He's forgotten more than he remembers about his past, but those snippets he's retained tell him two things: he's lived a long, looong time and he doesn't trust anyone, particularly gods. He's not any too fond of demons either, particularly the one that materializes in his kitchen wanting to hire him for a special mission. It's as deadly to cross a demon as to deal with him, so Albert reluctantly agrees to investigate, putting him in the path of a prickly arson detective named Melissa el Hajj with trust issues of her own.
YouTube: The New Flog episode - Felicia Day with a chain saw.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Mexican SF North There is a post at the World SF blog today in which I talk – together with Mexican author Gabriel Trujillo – about science fiction in the Northern Mexican border. It is a very brief article and I’ve decided to flesh it out by writing a bit more about this topic.
The tomato plants have grown like a rain forest, and I've picked the first few tomatoes. They're still green, but I love fried green tomatoes and I'll be making some tonight.
We have a friend staying with us who's working in town for the next few weeks, which we've been looking forward to.
***
There are some new friended people, so hi!
The book excerpts and free stories on my web site are here, the Three Worlds Compendium with the extra stories and fan art for the Books of the Raksura is here, the Information Links for Beginning Authors page is here, and
my Pinterest page is here.
If you have any questions, please ask.
***
Book rec: Powers by James A. Burton
Albert Johannson lives off the grid. He's forgotten more than he remembers about his past, but those snippets he's retained tell him two things: he's lived a long, looong time and he doesn't trust anyone, particularly gods. He's not any too fond of demons either, particularly the one that materializes in his kitchen wanting to hire him for a special mission. It's as deadly to cross a demon as to deal with him, so Albert reluctantly agrees to investigate, putting him in the path of a prickly arson detective named Melissa el Hajj with trust issues of her own.
YouTube: The New Flog episode - Felicia Day with a chain saw.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Mexican SF North There is a post at the World SF blog today in which I talk – together with Mexican author Gabriel Trujillo – about science fiction in the Northern Mexican border. It is a very brief article and I’ve decided to flesh it out by writing a bit more about this topic.
April 30, 2012
Book Recs
The Shape of Desire by Sharon Shinn. I really enjoyed this one. It's technically categorized as urban fantasy, because it's set in modern day, and the main character is a woman who is in love with a shapeshifter. But it's not an action-packed story about killing demons, etc, though it is a mystery. The shapeshifter can't control what animal he turns into or when he transforms. It's on a cycle that has been getting increasingly short, so his periods of being human are getting shorter. Maria (the main character) has close relationships with the other women in her family and with friends at work, but has become an excellent liar to conceal her longterm love affair with the shapeshifter. Her relationship is contrasted with others, including a co-worker who has a violently abusive spouse. It's a very dark, sexy book, and a very realistic story about what it would actually be like to love a person who spends most of his time as something else. It's about love, obsession, lust, power and control, and being willing to do anything to keep the person you love/want. I think it's a series and I can't wait for the next one.
Carpe Demon by Julie Kenner. I missed this when it originally came out several years ago. It's basically what would happen if Buffy grew up, quit slaying, got married, and had two kids, then the demons came after her. It's funny and light and I really liked it. I'm in the process of tracking down the others in the series.
Dust Girl by Sarah Zettel. This a new fantasy YA, set in Kansas during the Dust Bowl, and it sounds really good.
links:
Black Gate: The Best of Modern Arabian Fantasy by Judith Tarr interview by Emily Mah.
Atlantic: The Ongoing Problem of Race in YA
Carpe Demon by Julie Kenner. I missed this when it originally came out several years ago. It's basically what would happen if Buffy grew up, quit slaying, got married, and had two kids, then the demons came after her. It's funny and light and I really liked it. I'm in the process of tracking down the others in the series.
Dust Girl by Sarah Zettel. This a new fantasy YA, set in Kansas during the Dust Bowl, and it sounds really good.
links:
Black Gate: The Best of Modern Arabian Fantasy by Judith Tarr interview by Emily Mah.
Atlantic: The Ongoing Problem of Race in YA
April 29, 2012
Erasing Women
The reason I worry about women writers being forgotten (erased) from history, is because one of the times that it happened wasn't all that long ago.
Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood by Cari Beauchamp tells the story of the women writers, directors, editors, and producers of early pre-Code Hollywood. Women who built studios, made stars, won Oscars, and who have been almost completely erased from history and the public consciousness.
....during the teens, 1920s, and early 1930s, almost one quarter of the screenwriters in Hollywood were women. Half of all the films copyrighted between 1911 and 1925 were written by women.
Growing up in the 70s, I remember hearing that Ida Lupino was the first woman director. She wasn't even close to being the first, but all the others had been forgotten, no one talked about them.
For example, Frances Marion. Beginning in 1917, she was Hollywood's highest paid screenwriter (not highest paid woman screenwriter, but highest paid period) for thirty years. She wrote 325 scripts, over 200 were produced, and she was the first woman to win a screenwriting Oscar. She was a director and a producer, the only woman on the first board of directors of the Screen Writers' Guild, and its vice-president. (As a war correspondent, she was the first Allied woman to cross the Rhine in World War I. She walked along a road through a deserted battleground, alone, and in the dark.)
As the 1930s ended and the 1940s began, Marion's scripts for MGM were uncredited, and she and the few other women writers still working there had to carry scripts in unmarked envelopes so no one would know they were writers. They were required to let people assume they were secretaries.
This is one of the reasons I wanted to do The list of non-European Fantasy by Women Writers. (It's now up to about 106 writers.)
If we don't list them, talk about them, remember them, prove to people they existed, they (we) disappear.
***
I also highly recommend Pre-Code movies, which you can catch occasionally on TCM. These were movies made before 1934 when the rule was there were no rules. There's sex, adultery, drugs, extreme violence, more adultery, bad people profiting from doing bad things, and some more adultery. Baby Face with Barbara Stanwyck is one of the signature movies from that period. A lot of them feature women as main characters.
The one I want to catch is Gentlemen's Agreement, which is about a woman and two men who agree to have a threesome relationship. TCM has teasingly showed a scene from it in documentaries, but I'm not sure they've ever actually aired it.
Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood by Cari Beauchamp tells the story of the women writers, directors, editors, and producers of early pre-Code Hollywood. Women who built studios, made stars, won Oscars, and who have been almost completely erased from history and the public consciousness.
....during the teens, 1920s, and early 1930s, almost one quarter of the screenwriters in Hollywood were women. Half of all the films copyrighted between 1911 and 1925 were written by women.
Growing up in the 70s, I remember hearing that Ida Lupino was the first woman director. She wasn't even close to being the first, but all the others had been forgotten, no one talked about them.
For example, Frances Marion. Beginning in 1917, she was Hollywood's highest paid screenwriter (not highest paid woman screenwriter, but highest paid period) for thirty years. She wrote 325 scripts, over 200 were produced, and she was the first woman to win a screenwriting Oscar. She was a director and a producer, the only woman on the first board of directors of the Screen Writers' Guild, and its vice-president. (As a war correspondent, she was the first Allied woman to cross the Rhine in World War I. She walked along a road through a deserted battleground, alone, and in the dark.)
As the 1930s ended and the 1940s began, Marion's scripts for MGM were uncredited, and she and the few other women writers still working there had to carry scripts in unmarked envelopes so no one would know they were writers. They were required to let people assume they were secretaries.
This is one of the reasons I wanted to do The list of non-European Fantasy by Women Writers. (It's now up to about 106 writers.)
If we don't list them, talk about them, remember them, prove to people they existed, they (we) disappear.
***
I also highly recommend Pre-Code movies, which you can catch occasionally on TCM. These were movies made before 1934 when the rule was there were no rules. There's sex, adultery, drugs, extreme violence, more adultery, bad people profiting from doing bad things, and some more adultery. Baby Face with Barbara Stanwyck is one of the signature movies from that period. A lot of them feature women as main characters.
The one I want to catch is Gentlemen's Agreement, which is about a woman and two men who agree to have a threesome relationship. TCM has teasingly showed a scene from it in documentaries, but I'm not sure they've ever actually aired it.
April 27, 2012
Clawed my way through to another Friday. I'm kind of not...
Clawed my way through to another Friday. I'm kind of not feeling well this morning; hopefully that will go away soon.
I mentioned this on Facebook but forgot to post it here: There is an 80 year old woman in my aerobics class. I hope when I'm 80, I can still do an hour aerobics workout with weights. That would be awfully nice.
***
If you missed it yesterday, The list of non-European Fantasy by Women Writers. It's now up to about 102 writers.
When I have some time, I'm going to go over the suggested additions and add some more. We did include a few books from Eastern Europe, that used Jewish or early Russian folklore, because we thought readers might be interested in them.
***
Locus: Tor Books has announced the company will stop selling e-books encrypted with digital rights management (DRM) software starting this July. This change encompasses the Tor, Forge, Orb, Starscape, and Tor Teen lines.
There are other publishers who already sell DRM-free ebooks: Night Shade (my publisher) sells them through the Baen Ebooks site here and Angry Robot does Robot Trading Company.
***
Future Fire has a signed books giveaway drawing here. Several fantastically generous and supremely talented authors have donated signed copies of books for us to give away to help encourage donations to the We See a Different Frontier peerbacker. We're holding a prize draw to let you win one of these titles, and all you need to enter is to back our (very worthy) project—we plan to publish a colonialism-themed anthology of new speculative fiction from outside the first world perspective, guest edited by Fábio Fernandes—to the tune of a few dollars.
I mentioned this on Facebook but forgot to post it here: There is an 80 year old woman in my aerobics class. I hope when I'm 80, I can still do an hour aerobics workout with weights. That would be awfully nice.
***
If you missed it yesterday, The list of non-European Fantasy by Women Writers. It's now up to about 102 writers.
When I have some time, I'm going to go over the suggested additions and add some more. We did include a few books from Eastern Europe, that used Jewish or early Russian folklore, because we thought readers might be interested in them.
***
Locus: Tor Books has announced the company will stop selling e-books encrypted with digital rights management (DRM) software starting this July. This change encompasses the Tor, Forge, Orb, Starscape, and Tor Teen lines.
There are other publishers who already sell DRM-free ebooks: Night Shade (my publisher) sells them through the Baen Ebooks site here and Angry Robot does Robot Trading Company.
***
Future Fire has a signed books giveaway drawing here. Several fantastically generous and supremely talented authors have donated signed copies of books for us to give away to help encourage donations to the We See a Different Frontier peerbacker. We're holding a prize draw to let you win one of these titles, and all you need to enter is to back our (very worthy) project—we plan to publish a colonialism-themed anthology of new speculative fiction from outside the first world perspective, guest edited by Fábio Fernandes—to the tune of a few dollars.
April 26, 2012
The List is Posted
The list is posted - Fantasy with Non-European Settings by Women Writers www.booktionary.blogspot.com/2012/04/recommendations-non-european-fantasy-by.html I think there are around 96 authors listed. Hopefully that will get longer when people start making additions in the comments.
April 25, 2012
I'm Making a Little List
Over the past couple of days I've been working on a list of fantasy novels with non-European settings, by women writers. This is because I feel like a lot of readers want more, but posts on it often focus on only a few books, usually well-known recent bestsellers, by men.
Marie Brennan has a long list here, but I thought I'd see just how many fantasies with non-European settings I could remember/find specifically by women. I've read a bunch of the books on the list so far (and written a few of them) and I wanted them listed where people can find them, and not have them erased from memory.
So far it has 85 women fantasy writers on it, and that's just the books we could find in a couple of days. (Which tells you that a list of all fantasy by women, including European-derived settings, urban and contemporary fantasy, etc, would be huge. Huger than huge.) I've asked a few people to look at it and I'm waiting to see if there are any last minute additions, then it's going to be posted for people to suggest more additions. Eventually I want to try to annotate it, though at the size it is now, that might have to wait until I can hire a librarian to help.
***
Monday I sent my agent the final revision of The Siren Depths. It'll probably have at least one more revision after the editor sees it, but for right now it's done. When I finished the first version of it earlier this year, I had a couple of weeks of depression. I've heard other writers talk about experiencing that after finishing a book, but this is the first time that had happened to me.
If you missed it, I posted the cover art for The Siren Depths last week.
This week has so far been the week of minor but compelling and expensive annoyances. The switch on the vacuum cleaner broke; the vacuum cleaner still works, but you have to hold the switch down to vacuum. If I had three arms, it would be no problem. The outside water tap for the hose is broken; it still works, but you have to turn it off and on with a screwdriver and that method is starting to fail. We're going to need a plumber to replace it. The truck (which was bought new by my father-in-law in 1991) is letting us know in various ways that it is very old now and would like to go to truck heaven.
Marie Brennan has a long list here, but I thought I'd see just how many fantasies with non-European settings I could remember/find specifically by women. I've read a bunch of the books on the list so far (and written a few of them) and I wanted them listed where people can find them, and not have them erased from memory.
So far it has 85 women fantasy writers on it, and that's just the books we could find in a couple of days. (Which tells you that a list of all fantasy by women, including European-derived settings, urban and contemporary fantasy, etc, would be huge. Huger than huge.) I've asked a few people to look at it and I'm waiting to see if there are any last minute additions, then it's going to be posted for people to suggest more additions. Eventually I want to try to annotate it, though at the size it is now, that might have to wait until I can hire a librarian to help.
***
Monday I sent my agent the final revision of The Siren Depths. It'll probably have at least one more revision after the editor sees it, but for right now it's done. When I finished the first version of it earlier this year, I had a couple of weeks of depression. I've heard other writers talk about experiencing that after finishing a book, but this is the first time that had happened to me.
If you missed it, I posted the cover art for The Siren Depths last week.
This week has so far been the week of minor but compelling and expensive annoyances. The switch on the vacuum cleaner broke; the vacuum cleaner still works, but you have to hold the switch down to vacuum. If I had three arms, it would be no problem. The outside water tap for the hose is broken; it still works, but you have to turn it off and on with a screwdriver and that method is starting to fail. We're going to need a plumber to replace it. The truck (which was bought new by my father-in-law in 1991) is letting us know in various ways that it is very old now and would like to go to truck heaven.
April 23, 2012
World Book Day/Night
It's World Book Night
World Book Night is an annual celebration designed to spread a love of reading and books. To be held in the U.S. as well as the U.K. and Ireland on April 23, 2012. It will see tens of thousands of people go out into their communities to spread the joy and love of reading by giving out free World Book Night paperbacks.
In honor of World Book Night,![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380948985i/3477173.gif)
thanate
is having a book giveaway for The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea on her LJ here: Free ficton! Winged shape shifters! What's not to love? I will send a randomly selected commenter one copy each of The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells. Please comment before Tuesday (4/24) at noon EST.
Even if you didn't sign up to give out books, there are a lot of ways to celebrate. You can buy a new book and give it to yourself (this is the one I picked), you can give a used book to a friend, you could buy a book for a struggling and desperately underfunded high school library, or you can click to help give free books to kids at the literacy site.
If anyone knows of any book giveaways to enter or book-related charities or libraries that are taking online donations, please post them in the comments.
World Book Night is an annual celebration designed to spread a love of reading and books. To be held in the U.S. as well as the U.K. and Ireland on April 23, 2012. It will see tens of thousands of people go out into their communities to spread the joy and love of reading by giving out free World Book Night paperbacks.
In honor of World Book Night,
thanate
is having a book giveaway for The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea on her LJ here: Free ficton! Winged shape shifters! What's not to love? I will send a randomly selected commenter one copy each of The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells. Please comment before Tuesday (4/24) at noon EST. Even if you didn't sign up to give out books, there are a lot of ways to celebrate. You can buy a new book and give it to yourself (this is the one I picked), you can give a used book to a friend, you could buy a book for a struggling and desperately underfunded high school library, or you can click to help give free books to kids at the literacy site.
If anyone knows of any book giveaways to enter or book-related charities or libraries that are taking online donations, please post them in the comments.
April 20, 2012
New Fan Art!
I just got new fan art from Jessica Peffer (her site is Neon Dragon Art)
This is the Fell, in all their forms. We talked quite a bit about this in email, so this is very accurate.
This is the one she did of Moon.
This is now on the Three Worlds Compendium too.
This is the Fell, in all their forms. We talked quite a bit about this in email, so this is very accurate.
This is the one she did of Moon.
This is now on the Three Worlds Compendium too.
It's Friday! There were times this week when I didn't thi...
It's Friday! There were times this week when I didn't think I would make it this far.
links:
USA Today: Any kind of physical activity lowers Alzheimer's risk My mother had Alzheimer's, and if you can prevent it by any means necessary, do it.
World Book Night is Monday April 23: Shelf Awareness: Booksellers Embrace World Book Night, Part 2
The inaugural World Book Night in the U.S. takes place Monday, April 23. We checked in with booksellers to see how they're gearing up for the nationwide event, during which 25,000 volunteers are giving away 20 books each in their communities. A half a million specially printed copies of 30 different titles are being distributed as part of the organization's mission to spread a love of reading and books.
World Book Night was launched in the U.K. in 2011. April 23 commemorates three literary anniversaries: the birth and death of Shakespeare and the death of Miguel Cervantes. It has been designated World Book Day by UNESCO in the two scribes' honor.
If you aren't signed up as a giver, you can still participate by buying and giving a book to somebody you know. (or just give one to yourself) (or give one to Ballou SR High School Library)
links:
USA Today: Any kind of physical activity lowers Alzheimer's risk My mother had Alzheimer's, and if you can prevent it by any means necessary, do it.
World Book Night is Monday April 23: Shelf Awareness: Booksellers Embrace World Book Night, Part 2
The inaugural World Book Night in the U.S. takes place Monday, April 23. We checked in with booksellers to see how they're gearing up for the nationwide event, during which 25,000 volunteers are giving away 20 books each in their communities. A half a million specially printed copies of 30 different titles are being distributed as part of the organization's mission to spread a love of reading and books.
World Book Night was launched in the U.K. in 2011. April 23 commemorates three literary anniversaries: the birth and death of Shakespeare and the death of Miguel Cervantes. It has been designated World Book Day by UNESCO in the two scribes' honor.
If you aren't signed up as a giver, you can still participate by buying and giving a book to somebody you know. (or just give one to yourself) (or give one to Ballou SR High School Library)
