Martha Wells's Blog, page 41
February 8, 2020
Writer Beware
My agent had a really nasty thing happen to her online. A scammer used her name and the agency's name to pretend to be offering representation and to scam money out of people:
https://accrispin.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-impersonation-game.html
Someone pointed out it's a little like the scammers who pretend to be the IRS to get personal information.
Pretending to be a real agent or agency is a long-standing scammer tradition, and there's also some cases of scammers who weren't doing it for money, just for the fun of fooling people and ruining their hopes. There was a case on Writer Beware several years ago of a scammer who pretended to be a literary agent in the UK for a dozen or so writers, met some of them in person, had an entire (sockpuppeted) agency staff, but never asked for money, they seemed to be doing it just for fun. To cap it off, they used another sockpuppet to report themselves to Writer Beware, I guess for the fun of being investigated and found out, and watching their victims realize they had been wasting their time for years.
Another horrific one was really personal. A young woman who had talked a lot about her writing and submissions and attempts to query agents on her blog got a letter (and possibly some emails) supposedly from a major lit agency (where she had actually submitted a manuscript) telling her they had not only agreed to represent her but had already sold the book for some large amount. She believed it for a bit, but fortunately people on her blog knew enough to tell her this was wrong. There was no money involved in this either, someone just wanted to fool this woman long enough for her to post about it on her blog and be called a liar, and to enjoy her disappointment, I guess.
comments
https://accrispin.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-impersonation-game.html
Someone pointed out it's a little like the scammers who pretend to be the IRS to get personal information.
Pretending to be a real agent or agency is a long-standing scammer tradition, and there's also some cases of scammers who weren't doing it for money, just for the fun of fooling people and ruining their hopes. There was a case on Writer Beware several years ago of a scammer who pretended to be a literary agent in the UK for a dozen or so writers, met some of them in person, had an entire (sockpuppeted) agency staff, but never asked for money, they seemed to be doing it just for fun. To cap it off, they used another sockpuppet to report themselves to Writer Beware, I guess for the fun of being investigated and found out, and watching their victims realize they had been wasting their time for years.
Another horrific one was really personal. A young woman who had talked a lot about her writing and submissions and attempts to query agents on her blog got a letter (and possibly some emails) supposedly from a major lit agency (where she had actually submitted a manuscript) telling her they had not only agreed to represent her but had already sold the book for some large amount. She believed it for a bit, but fortunately people on her blog knew enough to tell her this was wrong. There was no money involved in this either, someone just wanted to fool this woman long enough for her to post about it on her blog and be called a liar, and to enjoy her disappointment, I guess.
comments
February 6, 2020
Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire
This is an awesome thing to wake up to! The French edition of The Murderbot Diaries (translated by Mathilde Montier, art by Pierre Bourgerie) is nominated for the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire awards, in the foreign work category. Congrats to all the other nominees!
Lumières noires (recueil) de N.K. Jemisin (Nouveaux Millénaires)
Nouer des liens de Ken Liu (in Galaxies n° 61)
Ceux qui restent de Ken Liu (in Galaxies n° 58)
Son corps et autres célébrations (recueil) de Carmen Maria Machado (L’Olivier)
La Fille qui saigne de Shweta Taneja (in Galaxies n° 58)
Les Meurtres de Molly Southbourne de Tade Thompson (Le Bélial’)
ZeroS de Peter Watts (in Bifrost n° 93)
Journal d’un AssaSynth, tomes 1 à 4, de Martha Wells (L’Atalante)
You can see all the other nominations here: https://gpi.noosfere.org/gpi-2020/
comments
Lumières noires (recueil) de N.K. Jemisin (Nouveaux Millénaires)
Nouer des liens de Ken Liu (in Galaxies n° 61)
Ceux qui restent de Ken Liu (in Galaxies n° 58)
Son corps et autres célébrations (recueil) de Carmen Maria Machado (L’Olivier)
La Fille qui saigne de Shweta Taneja (in Galaxies n° 58)
Les Meurtres de Molly Southbourne de Tade Thompson (Le Bélial’)
ZeroS de Peter Watts (in Bifrost n° 93)
Journal d’un AssaSynth, tomes 1 à 4, de Martha Wells (L’Atalante)
You can see all the other nominations here: https://gpi.noosfere.org/gpi-2020/
comments
February 4, 2020
A few things
* A review of Machina on Women Write About Comics: https://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2020/02/machina-delivers-suspense-and-robots/
(new episode is tomorrow)
* I am in the Tor Roundtable on AI in Fiction https://www.tor.com/2020/02/03/artificial-intelligence-in-fiction-fact-and-our-dreams-for-the-future/ with Fran Wilde, Curtis C. Chen, Malka Older, Max Gladstone, Naomi Kritzer
* Interesting article: Looking Back With Corrective Lenses by Gary K. Wolfe https://locusmag.com/2020/02/looking-backward-with-corrective-lenses-by-gary-k-wolfe/
Then I asked a different question: who were we reviewing a decade ago, or at least who was I reviewing? The past couple of years has seen a lot of heated discussion about privilege and genre, in the last few months much of it centered around Jeanette Ng’s Campbell acceptance speech which characterized the legacy of Campbell as “Sterile. Male. White. Exalting in the ambitions of imperialists and colonisers, settlers and industrialists.” I’d never really counted up how many white males I’ve reviewed compared to other groups, but maybe it’s worth paying attention to. So I totted up some numbers. In both 2009 and 2019, I reviewed about 50 books for Locus, and this is what I found: in 2009, some 86% of those books were written or edited by white males, 12% by women, and about 2% by people of color.
In 2019, the figures looked like this: 28% white males, 48% women, 27% people of color. This was not the result of any plan on my part, or of any policy shift that I’m aware of at Locus (although editorial interests do change over time). No one suddenly got woke. We did make an effort to cover more international SF this past year, but neither my predilections nor those of Locus‘s editors would be quite enough to account for this fairly dramatic shift. The point is that those books had to be available: they had to have gotten written, published, promoted, and review copies sent out, with some of those making their way into my hands. Between what Locus sends along, what arrives directly from publishers, and what I just buy, I can review far less than half the books that pile up, and there are many excellent books that I don’t see at all, or at least not in time to cover them. So, sure, there’s some selectivity going on. But it would have taken a pretty concerted, and pretty cynical, effort in 2019 to get back to anything like those 2009 figures. It’s not just Locus: in 2009, 15 of the 20 Hugo nominations for fiction were by white males; in 2019, it was just one out of 24 (congrats, Daryl Gregory!).
***
On February 14 - 16, I'll be at Boskone https://www.boskone.org/
Here's my schedule:
Friday
* Reading: Martha Wells
6:30 - 6:55, Griffin (Westin)
Saturday
* Panel: Is Sword and Sorcery Dead?
10:00 - 10:50, Marina 3 (Westin)
Some see “sword and sorcery” as a pejorative term applied to an outdated fantasy subgenre. “Sword” suggests a medieval-like milieu, and “sorcery” indicates magic. Typically, S&S protagonists of whatever gender are physically gifted (muscular, exceptionally fast, etc.); S&S antagonists are magically capable and deeply dastardly. But most of today’s adventure-fantasy heroes and villains tend to be a bit more nuanced. Are true S&S novels still written and read? If so, do they deserve the bad rap the genre sometimes receives?
Martha Wells, Darrell Schweitzer, Walter H. Hunt (M)
* Panel: Futuristic Pulp and P.I.s
11:00 - 11:50, Harbor II (Westin)
From high-tech data thefts to interstellar murder sprees, the future of science fiction crime solvers is bright ... and pulpier than ever! So what might our future P.I.s look like? What kind of mysteries do we have to look forward to when the entire galaxy is in play? And how might that change the rules when it comes to solving a futuristic mystery?
Nicole Givens Kurtz, Vincent O'Neil, Martha Wells, Brendan DuBois (M)
* Panel: Futuristic Societies in Science Fiction
2:00 - 2:50, Marina 3 (Westin)
Creatures that are part human and part machine. Sentient alien species. People living on ships and across time itself. The future is full of people. So what does it mean to be a person in the future? How might futuristic societies evolve based upon their surroundings and histories? How can we escape the perils and pitfalls of contemporary social norms in order to create societies that feel completely fresh and new?
Walter Jon Williams (M), Martha Wells, Kim Stanley Robinson, Karl Schroeder, Vincent Docherty
* Panel: Star Wars and the Rebel Legacy
9:00 - 9:50, Burroughs (Westin)
Skywalker has risen, and from one end of the galaxy to the other, the rebels have been fighting against the Empire for years. Rebellion is often a part of a good science fiction or fantasy story, but what makes a good rebellion? Does the Star Wars universe tackle the nuances of rebellion? Do the rebels ring true? How might the Rebellion grow and change, and even evolve, in time?
Mur Lafferty (M), Martha Wells, Pete Hollmer, Gregory Wilson
Sunday
* Autographing: John Kessel, Martha Wells, James Moore, Bracken MacLeod
11:00 - 11:50, Galleria - Autographing (Westin)
* Panel: 100 Years of Robots
1:00 - 1:50, Marina 4 (Westin)
In 1920, Karel Čapek wrote his groundbreaking play "R.U.R.” (for Rossum’s Universal Robots), which introduced the term “robot.” (From Czech “robota”: work, forced labor.) Čapek's play was prescient and far ahead of its time. Let's dive into the legacy of his creations, which have inspired both fictional and real robots alike — from HAL 9000 and C-3PO to Roomba and modern AI.
R.W.W. Greene (M), Martha Wells, John P. Murphy, Jeff Hecht, Cameron Roberson
comments
(new episode is tomorrow)
* I am in the Tor Roundtable on AI in Fiction https://www.tor.com/2020/02/03/artificial-intelligence-in-fiction-fact-and-our-dreams-for-the-future/ with Fran Wilde, Curtis C. Chen, Malka Older, Max Gladstone, Naomi Kritzer
* Interesting article: Looking Back With Corrective Lenses by Gary K. Wolfe https://locusmag.com/2020/02/looking-backward-with-corrective-lenses-by-gary-k-wolfe/
Then I asked a different question: who were we reviewing a decade ago, or at least who was I reviewing? The past couple of years has seen a lot of heated discussion about privilege and genre, in the last few months much of it centered around Jeanette Ng’s Campbell acceptance speech which characterized the legacy of Campbell as “Sterile. Male. White. Exalting in the ambitions of imperialists and colonisers, settlers and industrialists.” I’d never really counted up how many white males I’ve reviewed compared to other groups, but maybe it’s worth paying attention to. So I totted up some numbers. In both 2009 and 2019, I reviewed about 50 books for Locus, and this is what I found: in 2009, some 86% of those books were written or edited by white males, 12% by women, and about 2% by people of color.
In 2019, the figures looked like this: 28% white males, 48% women, 27% people of color. This was not the result of any plan on my part, or of any policy shift that I’m aware of at Locus (although editorial interests do change over time). No one suddenly got woke. We did make an effort to cover more international SF this past year, but neither my predilections nor those of Locus‘s editors would be quite enough to account for this fairly dramatic shift. The point is that those books had to be available: they had to have gotten written, published, promoted, and review copies sent out, with some of those making their way into my hands. Between what Locus sends along, what arrives directly from publishers, and what I just buy, I can review far less than half the books that pile up, and there are many excellent books that I don’t see at all, or at least not in time to cover them. So, sure, there’s some selectivity going on. But it would have taken a pretty concerted, and pretty cynical, effort in 2019 to get back to anything like those 2009 figures. It’s not just Locus: in 2009, 15 of the 20 Hugo nominations for fiction were by white males; in 2019, it was just one out of 24 (congrats, Daryl Gregory!).
***
On February 14 - 16, I'll be at Boskone https://www.boskone.org/
Here's my schedule:
Friday
* Reading: Martha Wells
6:30 - 6:55, Griffin (Westin)
Saturday
* Panel: Is Sword and Sorcery Dead?
10:00 - 10:50, Marina 3 (Westin)
Some see “sword and sorcery” as a pejorative term applied to an outdated fantasy subgenre. “Sword” suggests a medieval-like milieu, and “sorcery” indicates magic. Typically, S&S protagonists of whatever gender are physically gifted (muscular, exceptionally fast, etc.); S&S antagonists are magically capable and deeply dastardly. But most of today’s adventure-fantasy heroes and villains tend to be a bit more nuanced. Are true S&S novels still written and read? If so, do they deserve the bad rap the genre sometimes receives?
Martha Wells, Darrell Schweitzer, Walter H. Hunt (M)
* Panel: Futuristic Pulp and P.I.s
11:00 - 11:50, Harbor II (Westin)
From high-tech data thefts to interstellar murder sprees, the future of science fiction crime solvers is bright ... and pulpier than ever! So what might our future P.I.s look like? What kind of mysteries do we have to look forward to when the entire galaxy is in play? And how might that change the rules when it comes to solving a futuristic mystery?
Nicole Givens Kurtz, Vincent O'Neil, Martha Wells, Brendan DuBois (M)
* Panel: Futuristic Societies in Science Fiction
2:00 - 2:50, Marina 3 (Westin)
Creatures that are part human and part machine. Sentient alien species. People living on ships and across time itself. The future is full of people. So what does it mean to be a person in the future? How might futuristic societies evolve based upon their surroundings and histories? How can we escape the perils and pitfalls of contemporary social norms in order to create societies that feel completely fresh and new?
Walter Jon Williams (M), Martha Wells, Kim Stanley Robinson, Karl Schroeder, Vincent Docherty
* Panel: Star Wars and the Rebel Legacy
9:00 - 9:50, Burroughs (Westin)
Skywalker has risen, and from one end of the galaxy to the other, the rebels have been fighting against the Empire for years. Rebellion is often a part of a good science fiction or fantasy story, but what makes a good rebellion? Does the Star Wars universe tackle the nuances of rebellion? Do the rebels ring true? How might the Rebellion grow and change, and even evolve, in time?
Mur Lafferty (M), Martha Wells, Pete Hollmer, Gregory Wilson
Sunday
* Autographing: John Kessel, Martha Wells, James Moore, Bracken MacLeod
11:00 - 11:50, Galleria - Autographing (Westin)
* Panel: 100 Years of Robots
1:00 - 1:50, Marina 4 (Westin)
In 1920, Karel Čapek wrote his groundbreaking play "R.U.R.” (for Rossum’s Universal Robots), which introduced the term “robot.” (From Czech “robota”: work, forced labor.) Čapek's play was prescient and far ahead of its time. Let's dive into the legacy of his creations, which have inspired both fictional and real robots alike — from HAL 9000 and C-3PO to Roomba and modern AI.
R.W.W. Greene (M), Martha Wells, John P. Murphy, Jeff Hecht, Cameron Roberson
comments
January 31, 2020
Review and Events
I got a starred review of Network Effect in the February 14 Publishers Weekly, yay! I'm not going to link to it because it spoils a major point in the first third of the book. So if you don't like spoilers, avoid the reviews.
I have a few events coming up:
* February 14-16, 2020. I'll be a panelist at Boskone in Boston, MA. https://www.boskone.org/
* February 29, 2020. I'll be a guest at PopCon in San Antonio, Texas. https://guides.mysapl.org/sapopcon
* I'm also going to be on programming on the Joco Cruise, but I believe it's sold out: March 7-14, 2020 https://jococruise.com/overview/
It's early yet, but I'll be doing some events in May when the book comes out. I don't have details for most yet, but I will be at:
* Murder By the Book in Houston, TX on May 9, 2020, at 4:30. If you want a signed personalized copy, you can order one here: https://www.murderbooks.com/event/martha-wells
* And May 30, 2020, at 2:00, I'll be reading and speaking at Ringer Public Library in College Station, TX. https://www.bcslibrary.org/ringer/
Later in the summer, I'll be at:
* On July 24-26, 2020. I'll be a guest of honor at Confluence in Pittsburgh, PA. http://parsec-sff.org/confluence/
* August 7-9, I'll probably be at ArmadilloCon in Austin http://armadillocon.org/d42/
* And I'll be a guest at Elstercon http://www.fksfl.de/ in Leipzig, Germany, September 18-20, 2020
***
Can You Vote? Check your voter registration here: https://www.nass.org/can-I-vote
*
comments
I have a few events coming up:
* February 14-16, 2020. I'll be a panelist at Boskone in Boston, MA. https://www.boskone.org/
* February 29, 2020. I'll be a guest at PopCon in San Antonio, Texas. https://guides.mysapl.org/sapopcon
* I'm also going to be on programming on the Joco Cruise, but I believe it's sold out: March 7-14, 2020 https://jococruise.com/overview/
It's early yet, but I'll be doing some events in May when the book comes out. I don't have details for most yet, but I will be at:
* Murder By the Book in Houston, TX on May 9, 2020, at 4:30. If you want a signed personalized copy, you can order one here: https://www.murderbooks.com/event/martha-wells
* And May 30, 2020, at 2:00, I'll be reading and speaking at Ringer Public Library in College Station, TX. https://www.bcslibrary.org/ringer/
Later in the summer, I'll be at:
* On July 24-26, 2020. I'll be a guest of honor at Confluence in Pittsburgh, PA. http://parsec-sff.org/confluence/
* August 7-9, I'll probably be at ArmadilloCon in Austin http://armadillocon.org/d42/
* And I'll be a guest at Elstercon http://www.fksfl.de/ in Leipzig, Germany, September 18-20, 2020
***
Can You Vote? Check your voter registration here: https://www.nass.org/can-I-vote
*
comments
January 29, 2020
A few things
* There's a new online retailer, Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/
https://bookshop.org/pages/about Bookshop is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support independent bookstores and give back to the book community.
* The first episode of Machina is available today: https://www.serialbox.com/serials/machina by Fran Wilde, Malka Older, Curtis C. Chen, and me.
* There's also a whole free anthology Take Us to a Better Place available here: https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/research/2019/11/take-us-to-a-better-place-stories-coming-january-2020.html with stories by me, Karen Lord, Yoon Ha Lee, and a bunch of other people. (It's also available in Spanish.)
* And The Serpent Sea has been reprinted in mass market paperback:
https://bookshop.org/books/the-serpent-sea-volume-two-of-the-books-of-the-raksura/9781949102291
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781949102291
https://barnesandnoble.com/w/the-serpent-sea-martha-wells/1132405442?ean=9781949102291
https://www.amazon.com/Serpent-Sea-Two-Books-Raksura/dp/1949102297/
* If you didn't know, almost my entire backlist is available in audiobook: https://www.audible.com/search/ref=det_auth_1?searchAuthor=Martha+Wells
Like Wheel of the Infinite https://www.audible.com/pd/Wheel-of-the-Infinite-Audiobook/B00HG06ZVU narrated by Lisa Reneé Pitts
***
Can You Vote? Check your voter registration here: https://www.nass.org/can-I-vote
*
comments
https://bookshop.org/pages/about Bookshop is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support independent bookstores and give back to the book community.
* The first episode of Machina is available today: https://www.serialbox.com/serials/machina by Fran Wilde, Malka Older, Curtis C. Chen, and me.
* There's also a whole free anthology Take Us to a Better Place available here: https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/research/2019/11/take-us-to-a-better-place-stories-coming-january-2020.html with stories by me, Karen Lord, Yoon Ha Lee, and a bunch of other people. (It's also available in Spanish.)
* And The Serpent Sea has been reprinted in mass market paperback:
https://bookshop.org/books/the-serpent-sea-volume-two-of-the-books-of-the-raksura/9781949102291
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781949102291
https://barnesandnoble.com/w/the-serpent-sea-martha-wells/1132405442?ean=9781949102291
https://www.amazon.com/Serpent-Sea-Two-Books-Raksura/dp/1949102297/
* If you didn't know, almost my entire backlist is available in audiobook: https://www.audible.com/search/ref=det_auth_1?searchAuthor=Martha+Wells
Like Wheel of the Infinite https://www.audible.com/pd/Wheel-of-the-Infinite-Audiobook/B00HG06ZVU narrated by Lisa Reneé Pitts
***
Can You Vote? Check your voter registration here: https://www.nass.org/can-I-vote
*
comments
January 27, 2020
Book Rec Monday
(If you've been following my book rec and new book listing posts for a while, you may have noticed this already, but while most book lists emphasize books by popular straight white men, this one emphasizes everybody else. I include books by straight white men, but in about the same percentage that other book lists include everybody else. I also try to highlight books that are less well known.)
(I only link to one retail outlet in the book's listing, but most books are available at multiple outlets, like Kobo, iBooks, international Amazons, Barnes & Noble, etc. The short stories are usually on free online magazines.)
* Preorder The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi
Séverin and his team members might have successfully thwarted the Fallen House, but victory came at a terrible cost — one that still haunts all of them. Desperate to make amends, Séverin pursues a dangerous lead to find a long lost artifact rumored to grant its possessor the power of God. Their hunt lures them far from Paris, and into the icy heart of Russia where crystalline ice animals stalk forgotten mansions, broken goddesses carry deadly secrets, and a string of unsolved murders makes the crew question whether an ancient myth is a myth after all.
* Preorder Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston
I loved her novel Will Do Magic for Small Change and I'm really looking forward to this one.
* Preorder Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang, translated by Ken Liu
This genre-bending novel is set on Earth in the wake of a second civil war...not between two factions in one nation, but two factions in one solar system: Mars and Earth. In an attempt to repair increasing tensions, the colonies of Mars send a group of young people to live on Earth to help reconcile humanity. But the group finds itself with no real home, no friends, and fractured allegiances as they struggle to find a sense of community and identity, trapped between two worlds.
* Preorder Stormsong by C.L. Polk
Dame Grace Hensley helped her brother Miles undo the atrocity that stained her nation, but now she has to deal with the consequences. With the power out in the dead of winter and an uncontrollable sequence of winter storms on the horizon, Aeland faces disaster. Grace has the vision to guide her parents to safety, but a hostile queen and a ring of rogue mages stand in the way of her plans. There's revolution in the air, and any spark could light the powder. What's worse, upstart photojournalist Avia Jessup draws ever closer to secrets that could topple the nation, and closer to Grace's heart.
* The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez
A solitary ship captain, drifting through time.
Nia Imani is a woman out of place. Traveling through the stars condenses decades into mere months for her, though the years continue to march steadily onward for everyone she has ever known. Her friends and lovers have aged past her. She lives only for the next paycheck, until the day she meets a mysterious boy, fallen from the sky.
* Novella Preorder Finna by Nino Cipri
When an elderly customer at a Swedish big box furniture store — but not that one — slips through a portal to another dimension, it’s up to two minimum-wage employees to track her across the multiverse and protect their company’s bottom line. Multi-dimensional swashbuckling would be hard enough, but those two unfortunate souls broke up a week ago. To find the missing granny, Ava and Jules will brave carnivorous furniture, swarms of identical furniture spokespeople, and the deep resentment simmering between them. Can friendship blossom from the ashes of their relationship? In infinite dimensions, all things are possible.
* Ruse by Cindy Pon
Jason Zhou, his friends, and Daiyu are still recovering from the aftermath of bombing Jin Corp headquarters. But Jin, ruthless billionaire and Daiyu’s father, is out for blood. When Lingyi goes to Shanghai to help Jany Tsai, a childhood acquaintance in trouble, she doesn’t expect Jin to be involved. And when Jin has Jany murdered and steals the tech she had refused to sell him, Lingyi is the only one who has access to the encrypted info, putting her own life in jeopardy.
* Preorder A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown
For Malik, the Solstasia festival is a chance to escape his war-stricken home and start a new life with his sisters in the prosperous desert city of Ziran. But when a vengeful spirit abducts his younger sister, Nadia, as payment to enter the city, Malik strikes a fatal deal—kill Karina, Crown Princess of Ziran, for Nadia’s freedom. But Karina has deadly aspirations of her own. Her mother, the Sultana, has been assassinated; her court threatens mutiny; and Solstasia looms like a knife over her neck. Grief-stricken, Karina decides to resurrect her mother through ancient magic . . . requiring the beating heart of a king. And she knows just how to obtain one: by offering her hand in marriage to the victor of the Solstasia competition.
* Preorder Liquid Crystal Nightengale by Eeleen Lee
Pleo Tanza is a survivor. Her father was broken by tragedy, her twin sister is dead—chewed up and spat out by the corruption and injustice of Chatoyance—but she’s going to make it, whatever it takes. She’s going to get off this rock. But escape is for the rich or lucky. Pleo’s framed for the murder of a rival student—the daughter of one of the colony’s wealthy, squabbling clans—and goes on the run, setting off a chain events that could destroy the fragile balance of the old colony forever...
* Preorder The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Seamlessly blending classic horror and a dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary, The Only Good Indians follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.
***
Can You Vote? Check your voter registration here: https://www.nass.org/can-I-vote
*
comments
(I only link to one retail outlet in the book's listing, but most books are available at multiple outlets, like Kobo, iBooks, international Amazons, Barnes & Noble, etc. The short stories are usually on free online magazines.)
* Preorder The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi
Séverin and his team members might have successfully thwarted the Fallen House, but victory came at a terrible cost — one that still haunts all of them. Desperate to make amends, Séverin pursues a dangerous lead to find a long lost artifact rumored to grant its possessor the power of God. Their hunt lures them far from Paris, and into the icy heart of Russia where crystalline ice animals stalk forgotten mansions, broken goddesses carry deadly secrets, and a string of unsolved murders makes the crew question whether an ancient myth is a myth after all.
* Preorder Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston
I loved her novel Will Do Magic for Small Change and I'm really looking forward to this one.
* Preorder Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang, translated by Ken Liu
This genre-bending novel is set on Earth in the wake of a second civil war...not between two factions in one nation, but two factions in one solar system: Mars and Earth. In an attempt to repair increasing tensions, the colonies of Mars send a group of young people to live on Earth to help reconcile humanity. But the group finds itself with no real home, no friends, and fractured allegiances as they struggle to find a sense of community and identity, trapped between two worlds.
* Preorder Stormsong by C.L. Polk
Dame Grace Hensley helped her brother Miles undo the atrocity that stained her nation, but now she has to deal with the consequences. With the power out in the dead of winter and an uncontrollable sequence of winter storms on the horizon, Aeland faces disaster. Grace has the vision to guide her parents to safety, but a hostile queen and a ring of rogue mages stand in the way of her plans. There's revolution in the air, and any spark could light the powder. What's worse, upstart photojournalist Avia Jessup draws ever closer to secrets that could topple the nation, and closer to Grace's heart.
* The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez
A solitary ship captain, drifting through time.
Nia Imani is a woman out of place. Traveling through the stars condenses decades into mere months for her, though the years continue to march steadily onward for everyone she has ever known. Her friends and lovers have aged past her. She lives only for the next paycheck, until the day she meets a mysterious boy, fallen from the sky.
* Novella Preorder Finna by Nino Cipri
When an elderly customer at a Swedish big box furniture store — but not that one — slips through a portal to another dimension, it’s up to two minimum-wage employees to track her across the multiverse and protect their company’s bottom line. Multi-dimensional swashbuckling would be hard enough, but those two unfortunate souls broke up a week ago. To find the missing granny, Ava and Jules will brave carnivorous furniture, swarms of identical furniture spokespeople, and the deep resentment simmering between them. Can friendship blossom from the ashes of their relationship? In infinite dimensions, all things are possible.
* Ruse by Cindy Pon
Jason Zhou, his friends, and Daiyu are still recovering from the aftermath of bombing Jin Corp headquarters. But Jin, ruthless billionaire and Daiyu’s father, is out for blood. When Lingyi goes to Shanghai to help Jany Tsai, a childhood acquaintance in trouble, she doesn’t expect Jin to be involved. And when Jin has Jany murdered and steals the tech she had refused to sell him, Lingyi is the only one who has access to the encrypted info, putting her own life in jeopardy.
* Preorder A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown
For Malik, the Solstasia festival is a chance to escape his war-stricken home and start a new life with his sisters in the prosperous desert city of Ziran. But when a vengeful spirit abducts his younger sister, Nadia, as payment to enter the city, Malik strikes a fatal deal—kill Karina, Crown Princess of Ziran, for Nadia’s freedom. But Karina has deadly aspirations of her own. Her mother, the Sultana, has been assassinated; her court threatens mutiny; and Solstasia looms like a knife over her neck. Grief-stricken, Karina decides to resurrect her mother through ancient magic . . . requiring the beating heart of a king. And she knows just how to obtain one: by offering her hand in marriage to the victor of the Solstasia competition.
* Preorder Liquid Crystal Nightengale by Eeleen Lee
Pleo Tanza is a survivor. Her father was broken by tragedy, her twin sister is dead—chewed up and spat out by the corruption and injustice of Chatoyance—but she’s going to make it, whatever it takes. She’s going to get off this rock. But escape is for the rich or lucky. Pleo’s framed for the murder of a rival student—the daughter of one of the colony’s wealthy, squabbling clans—and goes on the run, setting off a chain events that could destroy the fragile balance of the old colony forever...
* Preorder The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Seamlessly blending classic horror and a dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary, The Only Good Indians follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.
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January 23, 2020
Links
* Confessions of a Hate Reader, or Bad Writing Habits I Picked up from Bad Criticism by Jeannette Ng
https://medium.com/@nettlefish/confessions-of-a-hate-reader-or-bad-writing-habits-i-picked-up-from-bad-criticism-190ef2aa2373
Another thing I’ve internalised is an obsession with the logistics of the plot at the expense of larger themes or structural awareness. The Critical Voice is deeply unforgiving about inconsistencies and anything left unexplained is a plot hole (though at the same time, the Voice hates “exposition”).
There is more to a narrative than the events that happen within it, how it is told shapes the story and the meaning audiences are meant to take away. They’re not just puzzle boxes to solve and unravel. But the Critical Voice wouldn’t allow that, it wants everything to clear and simple and explained.
CinemaSins is notoriously bad at understanding the films they’re scrutinising. They approach media in a fundamentally literal way and see no meaning in a story beyond what is happening on the screen. Numerous other commentators have tackled how illiterate they can be, but it is just nonsense to talk about Snowpiercer without understanding that it’s an allegory about capitalism. The point of the film isn’t to exhaustively explain what fuel the train is running on and the various circumstances of that; it’s to explore class dynamics under capitalism through the passenger classes within the train. This isn’t to say the film is good, or succeeds at doing that, but it is core to the film itself.
As an aside, I've also run across the idea that major changes to the character's lives, like life-changing decisions or say, having babies, somehow don't count as part of the plot.
* Cool fun thing: Zen Cho wrote a post-canon treat for Yuletide for her own novel, True Queen! https://twitter.com/zenaldehyde/status/1220321970539110401
https://archiveofourown.org/works/21892315
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https://medium.com/@nettlefish/confessions-of-a-hate-reader-or-bad-writing-habits-i-picked-up-from-bad-criticism-190ef2aa2373
Another thing I’ve internalised is an obsession with the logistics of the plot at the expense of larger themes or structural awareness. The Critical Voice is deeply unforgiving about inconsistencies and anything left unexplained is a plot hole (though at the same time, the Voice hates “exposition”).
There is more to a narrative than the events that happen within it, how it is told shapes the story and the meaning audiences are meant to take away. They’re not just puzzle boxes to solve and unravel. But the Critical Voice wouldn’t allow that, it wants everything to clear and simple and explained.
CinemaSins is notoriously bad at understanding the films they’re scrutinising. They approach media in a fundamentally literal way and see no meaning in a story beyond what is happening on the screen. Numerous other commentators have tackled how illiterate they can be, but it is just nonsense to talk about Snowpiercer without understanding that it’s an allegory about capitalism. The point of the film isn’t to exhaustively explain what fuel the train is running on and the various circumstances of that; it’s to explore class dynamics under capitalism through the passenger classes within the train. This isn’t to say the film is good, or succeeds at doing that, but it is core to the film itself.
As an aside, I've also run across the idea that major changes to the character's lives, like life-changing decisions or say, having babies, somehow don't count as part of the plot.
* Cool fun thing: Zen Cho wrote a post-canon treat for Yuletide for her own novel, True Queen! https://twitter.com/zenaldehyde/status/1220321970539110401
https://archiveofourown.org/works/21892315
***
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January 22, 2020
Machina
Here's a great post by Fran Wilde about the genesis of Machina (written by Fran, Malka Older, Curtis C. Chen and guest writer me) coming out on Serial Box on January 29.
And she's doing a raffle for season passes and discounts.
https://franwilde.wordpress.com/2020/01/22/wanna-race-to-mars-join-machina-giveaway/
I’m a huge nerd, and a former programmer (although not this kind — and I’ve totally lost my chops, sigh) and I’ve seen up close the impact development crunches and long game projects have on teams, and dreams. I wanted to create a big-cast drama that reflected the personal stories behind the race farther into space.
https://www.serialbox.com/serials/machina
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And she's doing a raffle for season passes and discounts.
https://franwilde.wordpress.com/2020/01/22/wanna-race-to-mars-join-machina-giveaway/
I’m a huge nerd, and a former programmer (although not this kind — and I’ve totally lost my chops, sigh) and I’ve seen up close the impact development crunches and long game projects have on teams, and dreams. I wanted to create a big-cast drama that reflected the personal stories behind the race farther into space.
https://www.serialbox.com/serials/machina
comments
January 21, 2020
Take Us to a Better Place available now
Today, I have a short story, "Obsolescence," in a new free collection called Take Us To A Better Place: Stories.
It's a collection of original art and short stories commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with the goal of "using the power of fiction to help us imagine, explore, and talk about what a culture of health looks like and how to get there."
There's a forward and intro by Roxane Gay, and Pulitzer-prize winning Pam Belluck.
The eBook is free. You can download it at https://rwjf.ws/339feal
Other authors in it are: Achy Obejas, Mike McClelland, Karen Lord, Yoon Ha Lee, Frank Bill, Calvin Baker, Hannah Assadi, Madelyn Ashby, and David A. Robertson
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It's a collection of original art and short stories commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with the goal of "using the power of fiction to help us imagine, explore, and talk about what a culture of health looks like and how to get there."
There's a forward and intro by Roxane Gay, and Pulitzer-prize winning Pam Belluck.
The eBook is free. You can download it at https://rwjf.ws/339feal
Other authors in it are: Achy Obejas, Mike McClelland, Karen Lord, Yoon Ha Lee, Frank Bill, Calvin Baker, Hannah Assadi, Madelyn Ashby, and David A. Robertson
comments
The Serpent Sea reprint
The Serpent Sea, the second book in the Books of the Raksura series, is available today in mass market paperback. It's been sold out in trade paperback for a while, so I'm glad people are finally going to have a chance to get it.
It's also available in ebook and audiobook, narrated by Christopher Kipiniak. Cover art is by Steve Argyle.
You can read the first chapter here: https://www.marthawells.com/compendium/serpentsea.htm
The next book, The Siren Depths will be reprinted in mass market paperback the first week of February. The Edge of Worlds, Stories of the Raksura Vol. I, and Stories of the Raksura Vol. II, are currently available in trade paper, ebook, and auidobook. The last book, The Harbors of the Sun is out in trade paper and ebook, and it supposed to be released in audiobook, but I'm not sure when.
The series was on the ballot for the Best Series Hugo in 2018.
Some reviews:
"The venerated pulp spirit in science fiction and fantasy has dwindled since the golden age of the 1920s to '50s. Yet an atavistic craving for adventure remains, and it is this need that Wells's books in general and the Raksura books in particular satisfy. The stories are straightforward adventure, but what makes Wells's "new pulp" feel fresh is its refusal to take the easier storytelling routes of its forebears. Rather than thinly veil an existing human society as alien others, for example, Wells - a master world builder - creates a multicultural world of humanized monsters...The result is breathtakingly surprising and fun. So for readers who missed earlier entry points to this delightful series, now is the time to get on board."
- New York Times
It's quite unlike anything else in the genre - with a core cast of non-human characters, it creates an entirely fresh, matriarchal fantasy world with its own biology, ecology, technology, and magic.
- Barnes & Noble's New Book Round-up
Martha Wells' books always make me remember why I love to read. In The Cloud Roads, she invents yet another rich and astonishingly detailed setting, where many races and cultures uneasily co-exist in a world constantly threatened by soulless predators. But the vivid world-building and nonstop action really serve as a backdrop for the heart of the novel--the universal human themes of loneliness, loss, and the powerful drive to find somewhere to belong.
- Sharon Shinn
I loved The Cloud Roads so much that I begged Ms. Wells and Nightshade Books to let me tell you--Yes! You! You, the one who is looking for a new book to start!--to read this marvelous science fantasy series. With excellent, inventive world building and wonderful characters I adored spending time with, it is completely fabulous.
- Kate Elliott
The Cloud Roads has wildly original worldbuilding, diverse and engaging characters, and a thrilling adventure plot. It's that rarest of fantasies: fresh and surprising, with a story that doesn't go where ten thousand others have gone before. I can't wait for my next chance to visit the Three Worlds!
- N.K. Jemisin
Available at:
An independent bookstore in the US through Indiebound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781949102291 (enter your zip code to find a store near you)
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-serpent-sea-martha-wells/1132405442?ean=9781949102291
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Serpent-Sea-Two-Books-Raksura/dp/1949102297/
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