Martha Wells's Blog, page 174
October 2, 2011
Back From Vacation
Got back from vacation yesterday. We had a great time, but now I need to finish up going over the copyedit/proof of The Serpent Sea. So here's some photos:
These are the views from where we were staying.
The Strand, with the art deco Moody Building at the end.
The view from where we had lunch one day at Fisherman's Wharf.
Fisherman's Wharf
Close up of the Moody Building facade.
1920s restored Star Drugstore and Soda Fountain.
Bishop's Palace. Yes, it does look like a medieval castle. Yes, it is virtually hurricane proof.
Someone's pretty house.
Moody Mansion. Not so hurricane-proof. They're still trying to get water from Ike out of the basement walls. Interesting in that it was built to be a formal Victorian house, with a very formal lifestyle, but when the Moodys bought it after the 1900 hurricane, they lived in it like a modern house, and let the kids run free over the whole place and hung a hammock on the front porch.
Sidewalk on Broadway.
Another pretty house.
ditto
My whole Galveston Gallery is there, if you want to see more pictures.
These are the views from where we were staying.
The Strand, with the art deco Moody Building at the end.
The view from where we had lunch one day at Fisherman's Wharf.
Fisherman's Wharf
Close up of the Moody Building facade.
1920s restored Star Drugstore and Soda Fountain.
Bishop's Palace. Yes, it does look like a medieval castle. Yes, it is virtually hurricane proof.
Someone's pretty house.
Moody Mansion. Not so hurricane-proof. They're still trying to get water from Ike out of the basement walls. Interesting in that it was built to be a formal Victorian house, with a very formal lifestyle, but when the Moodys bought it after the 1900 hurricane, they lived in it like a modern house, and let the kids run free over the whole place and hung a hammock on the front porch.
Sidewalk on Broadway.
Another pretty house.
ditto
My whole Galveston Gallery is there, if you want to see more pictures.
September 26, 2011
Chapter Two of The Serpent Sea Posted
I just posted chapter two of The Serpent Sea as a teaser for the book. The direct link is here. Chapter one is there too, but if you use the direct link, you need to scroll up to see it. Basically, it's early in the morning here, and what I'm trying to say is that chapter one and two are both there. Also the currently active preorder links.
***
I will be out of contact with the internet for large portions of the rest of the week. I have Cold Fire by Kate Elliott and Ganymede by Cherie Priest and I intend to read both of them. Probably not at the same time.
Oh, and The Cloud Roads was reviewed by Fantasy Book Cafe, who said The Cloud Roads was an engaging, absorbing novel.
***
If you missed it yesterday, I have a new guest post on the Night Bazaar: Don't Let Then Take Your Reynards
The Death of the Necromancer, published in 1998, was my third novel, and my first with a new publisher, Avon Eos. Everything went fine through the editorial process, right up until I received the copyedit, and found that one of the major supporting characters, Captain Reynard Morane, had been all but removed from the book. And it happened that Reynard was gay.
***
***
I will be out of contact with the internet for large portions of the rest of the week. I have Cold Fire by Kate Elliott and Ganymede by Cherie Priest and I intend to read both of them. Probably not at the same time.
Oh, and The Cloud Roads was reviewed by Fantasy Book Cafe, who said The Cloud Roads was an engaging, absorbing novel.
***
If you missed it yesterday, I have a new guest post on the Night Bazaar: Don't Let Then Take Your Reynards
The Death of the Necromancer, published in 1998, was my third novel, and my first with a new publisher, Avon Eos. Everything went fine through the editorial process, right up until I received the copyedit, and found that one of the major supporting characters, Captain Reynard Morane, had been all but removed from the book. And it happened that Reynard was gay.
***
September 25, 2011
Don't Let Them Take Your Reynards
I have a new guest post on the Night Bazaar: Don't Let Them Take Your Reynards
The Death of the Necromancer, published in 1998, was my third novel, and my first with a new publisher, Avon Eos. Everything went fine through the editorial process, right up until I received the copyedit, and found that one of the major supporting characters, Captain Reynard Morane, had been all but removed from the book. And it happened that Reynard was gay.
***
Yesterday we went to the Sherwood Forest Celtic Festival, on the Sherwood Forest Faire site. The site barely missed being burned down in the Bastrop wildfire, unlike almost all of Bastrop State Park. (The scary thing is Texas fire danger season does not actually start until November 1).
It was a good festival, but it's still in the 90s here and even with all the tree cover it was a little too hot. We honed our talent for finding a music group we wanted to listen to just as they were playing the last song in their set, but we had a good time.
The Death of the Necromancer, published in 1998, was my third novel, and my first with a new publisher, Avon Eos. Everything went fine through the editorial process, right up until I received the copyedit, and found that one of the major supporting characters, Captain Reynard Morane, had been all but removed from the book. And it happened that Reynard was gay.
***
Yesterday we went to the Sherwood Forest Celtic Festival, on the Sherwood Forest Faire site. The site barely missed being burned down in the Bastrop wildfire, unlike almost all of Bastrop State Park. (The scary thing is Texas fire danger season does not actually start until November 1).
It was a good festival, but it's still in the 90s here and even with all the tree cover it was a little too hot. We honed our talent for finding a music group we wanted to listen to just as they were playing the last song in their set, but we had a good time.
Don't Let Then Take Your Reynards
I have a new guest post on the Night Bazaar: Don't Let Then Take Your Reynards
The Death of the Necromancer, published in 1998, was my third novel, and my first with a new publisher, Avon Eos. Everything went fine through the editorial process, right up until I received the copyedit, and found that one of the major supporting characters, Captain Reynard Morane, had been all but removed from the book. And it happened that Reynard was gay.
***
Yesterday we went to the Sherwood Forest Celtic Festival, on the Sherwood Forest Faire site. The site barely missed being burned down in the Bastrop wildfire, unlike almost all of Bastrop State Park. (The scary thing is Texas fire danger season does not actually start until November 1).
It was a good festival, but it's still in the 90s here and even with all the tree cover it was a little too hot. We honed our talent for finding a music group we wanted to listen to just as they were playing the last song in their set, but we had a good time.
The Death of the Necromancer, published in 1998, was my third novel, and my first with a new publisher, Avon Eos. Everything went fine through the editorial process, right up until I received the copyedit, and found that one of the major supporting characters, Captain Reynard Morane, had been all but removed from the book. And it happened that Reynard was gay.
***
Yesterday we went to the Sherwood Forest Celtic Festival, on the Sherwood Forest Faire site. The site barely missed being burned down in the Bastrop wildfire, unlike almost all of Bastrop State Park. (The scary thing is Texas fire danger season does not actually start until November 1).
It was a good festival, but it's still in the 90s here and even with all the tree cover it was a little too hot. We honed our talent for finding a music group we wanted to listen to just as they were playing the last song in their set, but we had a good time.
September 23, 2011
Some links for Friday:The Myth of Easter Island's Ecocide...
Some links for Friday:
The Myth of Easter Island's Ecocide
Few historical tales of ecological collapse have achieved the cultural resonance of that of Easter Island. In the conventional account, best popularised by Jared Diamond in his 2005 book 'Collapse', the islanders brought doom upon themselves by over-exploiting their limited environment, thereby providing a compelling analogy for modern times. Yet recent archaeological work suggests that the eco-collapse hypothesis is almost certainly wrong – and that the truth is far more shocking.
LA Times The Cold, Cold Case of Jack the Ripper
In a surreal tribunal hearing in May, which saw a senior officer give evidence from behind an opaque screen and cite Judas Iscariot to support his point, the agency argued that laying everything bare would violate its confidentiality pledge to informants, even those long dead, and undermine recruitment of collaborators in the present-day fight against terrorism and organized crime.
World Fantasy is coming up in October, and here's the list of award nominations for best novel, etc.
Sarah Rees Brennan: Gay in YA, and the Circle of Suck
But I think that 'let's think of a way to keep the gay storyline, because there are too few of those around' should be a thing to consciously keep in mind.
The Myth of Easter Island's Ecocide
Few historical tales of ecological collapse have achieved the cultural resonance of that of Easter Island. In the conventional account, best popularised by Jared Diamond in his 2005 book 'Collapse', the islanders brought doom upon themselves by over-exploiting their limited environment, thereby providing a compelling analogy for modern times. Yet recent archaeological work suggests that the eco-collapse hypothesis is almost certainly wrong – and that the truth is far more shocking.
LA Times The Cold, Cold Case of Jack the Ripper
In a surreal tribunal hearing in May, which saw a senior officer give evidence from behind an opaque screen and cite Judas Iscariot to support his point, the agency argued that laying everything bare would violate its confidentiality pledge to informants, even those long dead, and undermine recruitment of collaborators in the present-day fight against terrorism and organized crime.
World Fantasy is coming up in October, and here's the list of award nominations for best novel, etc.
Sarah Rees Brennan: Gay in YA, and the Circle of Suck
But I think that 'let's think of a way to keep the gay storyline, because there are too few of those around' should be a thing to consciously keep in mind.
September 22, 2011
Writing and the I Cant's
I've had real problems writing this week, partly due to sinus headache issues, and partly because I had an attack of the "I can'ts" and I didn't realize I was having it.
It's kind of like imposter syndrome, where you're convinced that you're just faking your ability to do your job, despite massive piles of evidence to the contrary. The "I can'ts" is where you are convinced that you can't figure out the details of the next sequence of scenes even though you've already written 90,000 words of the book, plus a bunch of other books, stories, etc. Yes, it's illogical, no, it doesn't make any sense, but neither does imposter syndrome and writer's block and a lot of other things. (Things that are also aggravated by OCD and anxiety issues, both of which I have.)
And it doesn't help that sometimes you really do get stuck in figuring out a plot, because you're going in the wrong direction, you haven't set things up properly, because something is really wrong that needs to be fixed somewhere else.
So you know, there I am, with a sinus headache that is distracting anyway and convinced that this book would never be finished because I am suddenly rendered incapable of figuring out a sequence of action scenes even though I have done it like a million times before. (And of course, you don't articulate it to yourself because if you did, it would sound stupid and you would realize how stupid it is. It's just there in your head, an unexamined conviction that's paralyzing you, an invisible obstruction on a dark road.)
And then I decided to look at another file I was completely stuck on despite the fact that I worked on it yesterday, got distracted by something on TV, wrote a sentence and then wrote three pages before I really noticed what I was doing. Which made me start to suspect that what I was actually having was a case of "I can't do this" rather than a complete systems failure of my writing brain.
Then I went back to the book and forced myself to write the two sentences where I actually knew what was going to happen, and ended up blocking out the scenes I needed in about five minutes.
So if you are stuck, you really do have to learn to examine the reasons you're stuck, and see if there is actually a real issue that needs to be dealt with, or it's just an invisible roadblock that dissolves once you bang into it hard enough.
In the bad news department, I still have a sinus headache.
***
In case anybody missed it:
The Serpent Sea is available for preorder and there's new short story on the web site set in the same world as The Cloud Roads.
It's kind of like imposter syndrome, where you're convinced that you're just faking your ability to do your job, despite massive piles of evidence to the contrary. The "I can'ts" is where you are convinced that you can't figure out the details of the next sequence of scenes even though you've already written 90,000 words of the book, plus a bunch of other books, stories, etc. Yes, it's illogical, no, it doesn't make any sense, but neither does imposter syndrome and writer's block and a lot of other things. (Things that are also aggravated by OCD and anxiety issues, both of which I have.)
And it doesn't help that sometimes you really do get stuck in figuring out a plot, because you're going in the wrong direction, you haven't set things up properly, because something is really wrong that needs to be fixed somewhere else.
So you know, there I am, with a sinus headache that is distracting anyway and convinced that this book would never be finished because I am suddenly rendered incapable of figuring out a sequence of action scenes even though I have done it like a million times before. (And of course, you don't articulate it to yourself because if you did, it would sound stupid and you would realize how stupid it is. It's just there in your head, an unexamined conviction that's paralyzing you, an invisible obstruction on a dark road.)
And then I decided to look at another file I was completely stuck on despite the fact that I worked on it yesterday, got distracted by something on TV, wrote a sentence and then wrote three pages before I really noticed what I was doing. Which made me start to suspect that what I was actually having was a case of "I can't do this" rather than a complete systems failure of my writing brain.
Then I went back to the book and forced myself to write the two sentences where I actually knew what was going to happen, and ended up blocking out the scenes I needed in about five minutes.
So if you are stuck, you really do have to learn to examine the reasons you're stuck, and see if there is actually a real issue that needs to be dealt with, or it's just an invisible roadblock that dissolves once you bang into it hard enough.
In the bad news department, I still have a sinus headache.
***
In case anybody missed it:
The Serpent Sea is available for preorder and there's new short story on the web site set in the same world as The Cloud Roads.
September 21, 2011
The Serpent Sea Preorder
The Serpent Sea is starting to show up for preorder!
It shows up in a couple of other places, but there's a distributor glitch that has weirdly conflated it with The Tyranny of the Night by Glen Cook. If you're in doubt about what you're ordering, the ISBN for The Serpent Sea is 978-1-59780-332-8.
eBook The ebook version should be available in January (when the book is officially released) on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and in multiple formats on the Baen Webscription site.
(Things you can do to help authors: leave reviews on places like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, GoodReads, and LibraryThing. (not for this book now, since you haven't read it yet, but if/when you read it) The reviews on sites like GoodReads and LibraryThing help, but on Amazon they can actually help the book show up more often in the searches.)
And someone usually asks if preordering the book helps more than buying it when it comes out or vice verse, and I usually answer...I don't know. I suspect when/how the book is bought only becomes a factor for books likely to end up on the NYT bestseller list, and that isn't likely to be a factor.
I have a migrainish sinus headache that won't go away, and I've had it all night, and I'll have it all day. Hey, that rhymed. Anyway, now to work.
Oh, a link first:
The long list of nominees for the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards honor outstanding works of science fiction, fantasy and horror which include significant positive explorations of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered characters, themes, or issues.
It shows up in a couple of other places, but there's a distributor glitch that has weirdly conflated it with The Tyranny of the Night by Glen Cook. If you're in doubt about what you're ordering, the ISBN for The Serpent Sea is 978-1-59780-332-8.
eBook The ebook version should be available in January (when the book is officially released) on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and in multiple formats on the Baen Webscription site.
(Things you can do to help authors: leave reviews on places like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, GoodReads, and LibraryThing. (not for this book now, since you haven't read it yet, but if/when you read it) The reviews on sites like GoodReads and LibraryThing help, but on Amazon they can actually help the book show up more often in the searches.)
And someone usually asks if preordering the book helps more than buying it when it comes out or vice verse, and I usually answer...I don't know. I suspect when/how the book is bought only becomes a factor for books likely to end up on the NYT bestseller list, and that isn't likely to be a factor.
I have a migrainish sinus headache that won't go away, and I've had it all night, and I'll have it all day. Hey, that rhymed. Anyway, now to work.
Oh, a link first:
The long list of nominees for the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards honor outstanding works of science fiction, fantasy and horror which include significant positive explorations of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered characters, themes, or issues.
September 20, 2011
New Story Posted
Posted a new story to my web site: The Almost Last Voyage of the Wind-ship Escarpment. It's set in the same world as The Cloud Roads books.
Jai had thought this job was a good idea for a number of reasons, but watching Flaren's face as they waited to meet with Canon Hain, she was no longer so sure. Flaren was grimly trying to contain any emotion, but his desperation was leaking out of him like he was a sieve.
Jai scratched her lip beneath the curve of her tusk, and said, as if to herself, "We could jump over the side, swim for it, until Kiev could pick us up." Foreigners and exiles were only permitted to set foot on the floating city of Issila at the trading platforms, so that was where they waited, the fresh salt-tempered wind pulling at their hair and clothes, the sun warm and bright.
***
Not much else to report. No new rain here, no new fire that I know of. The library and the bookstore hath forsaken me on all the books I'm looking for, but I'll try again sometime this week.
I've been trying to do three bar aerobics classes a week, and mostly succeeding (except for WorldCon-ArmadiloCon week). We have our toughest instructor back for one class, and I am very sore. You can always tell when the instructors have been to an out-of-town seminar or convention; they come back with lots of new ideas for terrible things we should do to our muscles.
Link:
Malindo Lo: What does "authentic" mean, anyway?
Some of this is entwined with the wider discussion over the #YesGayYA situation, which prompted me to write last week's post on the statistics about the state of LGBT YA publishing. Some of this is entwined with discussions I had earlier this year during the Diversity in YA tour, when we were routinely asked questions like, "How do you write about diversity authentically?"
Jai had thought this job was a good idea for a number of reasons, but watching Flaren's face as they waited to meet with Canon Hain, she was no longer so sure. Flaren was grimly trying to contain any emotion, but his desperation was leaking out of him like he was a sieve.
Jai scratched her lip beneath the curve of her tusk, and said, as if to herself, "We could jump over the side, swim for it, until Kiev could pick us up." Foreigners and exiles were only permitted to set foot on the floating city of Issila at the trading platforms, so that was where they waited, the fresh salt-tempered wind pulling at their hair and clothes, the sun warm and bright.
***
Not much else to report. No new rain here, no new fire that I know of. The library and the bookstore hath forsaken me on all the books I'm looking for, but I'll try again sometime this week.
I've been trying to do three bar aerobics classes a week, and mostly succeeding (except for WorldCon-ArmadiloCon week). We have our toughest instructor back for one class, and I am very sore. You can always tell when the instructors have been to an out-of-town seminar or convention; they come back with lots of new ideas for terrible things we should do to our muscles.
Link:
Malindo Lo: What does "authentic" mean, anyway?
Some of this is entwined with the wider discussion over the #YesGayYA situation, which prompted me to write last week's post on the statistics about the state of LGBT YA publishing. Some of this is entwined with discussions I had earlier this year during the Diversity in YA tour, when we were routinely asked questions like, "How do you write about diversity authentically?"
September 19, 2011
It actually rained here last night, a heavy storm that la...
It actually rained here last night, a heavy storm that lasted about two hours or so and left two inches of rain. We're still over two feet short of rainfall for this year, but this does help. The state is getting sporadic rain in a lot of places; it's not enough to put out the wildfires, but it does make them spread much more slowly and makes them far less likely to get started from little things like sparks from cars or farm equipment.
I'm going on actual vacation for a few days next week, which is exciting. I haven't had an actual non-convention-work-related vacation since last year at this time. We're only driving three hours down to Galveston with a friend, but it'll be a lot of fun.
This would be a bad time for a hurricane.
New Story: Tomorrow morning I'm going to post a new story on my web site. It's set in the same world as The Cloud Roads but with different characters, set in a different part of the world. It'll be posted for free, but I'll have a paypal donation button on it, like I do for the other stories I have posted on the site. (And I really really appreciate the donations, believe me.) This is a story I wasn't able to sell anywhere (though not from lack of trying) so it's totally new, never seen before unless you're one of the editors who turned it down.
(For new friended people, The Forest Boy is also set in the same world as The Cloud Roads, though it takes place a long time before the book starts. And The Potter's Daughter is a sequel to The Element of Fire.)
links:
Scott Edelman: Read the story that almost caused me to quit Science Fiction Age
I edited Science Fiction Age magazine from 1992 through 2000, but what very few people know is that I almost quit before the first issue ever appeared. (Or perhaps it was during the space between the first and second issue. I can no longer be sure without doing that research I mentioned.) And the reason for my possible resignation is a short story that's just gotten published in the September/October issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, a story which you're only finally getting a chance to read nearly two decades later than you should have.
LA Times: Mysterious Galaxy Books opens in Redondo Beach today
YouTube: Funky Werepig: Writer Joe Lansdale Demonstrates a Martial Art great for people writing fight scenes.
Seanan McGuire: Across the digital divide.
The existence of ebooks means that people who can't store physical books can have more to read. It means that hard-to-find and out of print material is becoming accessible again. I means that people who have arthritis, or weak wrists, or other physical disabilities that make reading physical books difficult, can read again, without worrying about physical pain. I love that ebooks exist.
This doesn't change the part where, every time a discussion of ebooks turns, seemingly inevitably, to "Print is dead, traditional publishing is dead, all smart authors should be bailing to the brave new electronic frontier," what I hear, however unintentionally, is "Poor people don't deserve to read."
I'm going on actual vacation for a few days next week, which is exciting. I haven't had an actual non-convention-work-related vacation since last year at this time. We're only driving three hours down to Galveston with a friend, but it'll be a lot of fun.
This would be a bad time for a hurricane.
New Story: Tomorrow morning I'm going to post a new story on my web site. It's set in the same world as The Cloud Roads but with different characters, set in a different part of the world. It'll be posted for free, but I'll have a paypal donation button on it, like I do for the other stories I have posted on the site. (And I really really appreciate the donations, believe me.) This is a story I wasn't able to sell anywhere (though not from lack of trying) so it's totally new, never seen before unless you're one of the editors who turned it down.
(For new friended people, The Forest Boy is also set in the same world as The Cloud Roads, though it takes place a long time before the book starts. And The Potter's Daughter is a sequel to The Element of Fire.)
links:
Scott Edelman: Read the story that almost caused me to quit Science Fiction Age
I edited Science Fiction Age magazine from 1992 through 2000, but what very few people know is that I almost quit before the first issue ever appeared. (Or perhaps it was during the space between the first and second issue. I can no longer be sure without doing that research I mentioned.) And the reason for my possible resignation is a short story that's just gotten published in the September/October issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, a story which you're only finally getting a chance to read nearly two decades later than you should have.
LA Times: Mysterious Galaxy Books opens in Redondo Beach today
YouTube: Funky Werepig: Writer Joe Lansdale Demonstrates a Martial Art great for people writing fight scenes.
Seanan McGuire: Across the digital divide.
The existence of ebooks means that people who can't store physical books can have more to read. It means that hard-to-find and out of print material is becoming accessible again. I means that people who have arthritis, or weak wrists, or other physical disabilities that make reading physical books difficult, can read again, without worrying about physical pain. I love that ebooks exist.
This doesn't change the part where, every time a discussion of ebooks turns, seemingly inevitably, to "Print is dead, traditional publishing is dead, all smart authors should be bailing to the brave new electronic frontier," what I hear, however unintentionally, is "Poor people don't deserve to read."
September 16, 2011
We actually got rain yesterday! Not a lot, but enough to...
We actually got rain yesterday! Not a lot, but enough to make puddles. And it's 70 now and only supposed to get up to 92! This is a huge cold front, I may need a sweater. Actually, after months of 100+ days broken up only by killer-low humidity which helped spark gigantic fires, this is a huge relief.
I'm mostly writing and have nothing interesting to report.
![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380451598i/2033940.gif)
tingler
asked for more snippets, so here's a very short one from The Serpent Sea (coming out in January)
Later Moon went back to the teachers' hall, but found that in a frenzy of organization, the Arbora had moved everyone into newly-cleaned bowers. He found the one Jade had been moved into, a good-sized room on the far side of the nurseries, with a balcony looking out onto the stairwell and an intricately carved ceiling. Furs and cushions had been arranged on the floor for seating areas, there were warming stones in the hearth basin, and the blankets were piled into the big hanging bed. Moon found his fur blanket on top and took that as a good sign that he was living here too. He slung himself up into the bed for a nap.
Jade woke him sometime later, climbing atop him for sex before he had a chance to ask how things were going with the books. Afterward, she fell asleep, and he lay there stroking the frills along her back, thinking of how much he wanted to live here with her. He would live anywhere with her, but here was his first choice.
He drifted off again, and next time woke to Merit knocking on the bottom of the bed. "Jade? Flower says she found something."
link:
Marie Brennan: Followup on "Say Yes to Gay YA" This is a complicated situation, but this post explains it very well.
I'm mostly writing and have nothing interesting to report.
tingler
asked for more snippets, so here's a very short one from The Serpent Sea (coming out in January)Later Moon went back to the teachers' hall, but found that in a frenzy of organization, the Arbora had moved everyone into newly-cleaned bowers. He found the one Jade had been moved into, a good-sized room on the far side of the nurseries, with a balcony looking out onto the stairwell and an intricately carved ceiling. Furs and cushions had been arranged on the floor for seating areas, there were warming stones in the hearth basin, and the blankets were piled into the big hanging bed. Moon found his fur blanket on top and took that as a good sign that he was living here too. He slung himself up into the bed for a nap.
Jade woke him sometime later, climbing atop him for sex before he had a chance to ask how things were going with the books. Afterward, she fell asleep, and he lay there stroking the frills along her back, thinking of how much he wanted to live here with her. He would live anywhere with her, but here was his first choice.
He drifted off again, and next time woke to Merit knocking on the bottom of the bed. "Jade? Flower says she found something."
link:
Marie Brennan: Followup on "Say Yes to Gay YA" This is a complicated situation, but this post explains it very well.
