Martha Wells's Blog, page 44

JoCo Cruise

So this is a very cool thing that is going to happen. I got invited to be one of the writers on the JoCo Cruise this coming March.

I've never been on a cruise before so I'm super excited, and very happy to be included!

https://jococruise.com/guests/

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Updating

Again, I'm going to try to post more here, but I always end up feeling like I don't have much to talk about. "Today I stared at a Word document for six hours but not much happened."

I am kind of supposed to be taking a break but I don't do well mentally when I'm not writing, so all the household stuff I need to get done this month (like cleaning the siding on the second story of the house) is not getting done either. So I need to start doing that.

If you like buying books for kids and libraries, here's a couple of links:

Mari Copeny's Gift Wish List for kids in Flint, Michigan: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/3AK339LVNNET?ref_=wl_share

Flint Kids' book wish list: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/315GEPQKFY5NK/ref=cm_go_nav_hz

And Ballou High School Library's Wish List: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2CU17Q38C3P68?type=wishlist&filter=unpurchased&sort=default (This is a library with almost no funding to buy books so every donation is needed.)

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End of Year Wrap-Up Post

Thanks to whoever gave me Dreamwidth points, that was really nice!


This seems like a good time for an end of the year post.


I didn't have a lot published in 2019:


* January - Hardcover reprint of The Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red

"Compulsory: A Murderbot Diaries Story" Wired Magazine, January 2019 issue. (You can read it here: https://www.wired.com/story/future-of-work-compulsory-martha-wells/)


* July -- "The Ups and Downs of a Long Career" The Writer's Book of Doubt, edited by Aidan Doyle. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-writers-book-of-doubt-aidan-doyle/1131928481?ean=9780648334224


* October -- "All Systems Red" was reprinted in Nebula Awards Showcase 2019, edited by Silvia-Moreno Garcia. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/nebula-awards-showcase-2019-martha-wells/1131029273?ean=9781733811972


* November -- And The Cloud Roads, Night Shade Books, was reprinted as a mass market paperback.


I did do a fair amount of writing, about 120,000 words, which is a little low for me, but I have the feeling I forgot some stuff.


Things I currently have coming out next year:


* January - "Obsolescence," in Take Us To A Better Place: Stories https://rwjf.ws/339feal

The Serpent Sea will be re-released in mass market paperback.


* Early 2020 - a guest chapter for MACHINA https://www.serialbox.com/serials/machina, written by Fran Wilde, Malka Older, and Curtis C. Chen


* May -- The Murderbot Diaries: Network Effect http://www.marthawells.com/networkeffect.htm


There's at least one thing complete and turned in that I can't talk about yet because the publisher hasn't announced it.


Other things that happened:

The Murderbot Diaries: Exit Strategy was shortlisted for the 2018 British Science Fiction Association BSFA Award, and The Murderbot Diaries: Artificial Condition was a Finalist for the 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novella.

I won my second Hugo Award (and I never thought I'd be saying that) for Best Novella for The Murderbot Diaries: Artificial Condition. I declined Hugo nominations for Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy. And I won a second Locus Award for Best Novella for Artificial Condition.

I got to go to Ireland for ten days and had an awesome time. I got to go on my first ever writers retreat in a very cool place. I was one of the guests of honor at Capclave and a special guest at ArmadilloCon. Also, not so cool, I had to go to the Emergency Room for a minor head injury and losing consciousness and then had a month of physical therapy. Back to cool again: All Systems Red got reviewed on NPR https://www.npr.org/2019/01/27/688354123/sulky-cynical-murderbot-is-one-of-sci-fis-most-human-characters I got to go to the ALA and do a signing and go out to Jose Andres' restaurant Oyamel. Cool: I rescued an awesome sweet cat from starving in my backyard. Not so cool: my other cats still hate him and he's not keen on them and we have to keep them mostly separated.

So, that's a lot, in what feels like an enormously long year, with a lot of depressing and infuriating news.

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New Free Anthology in January

This January, I have a short story, "Obsolescence," in a new 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 sign up at https://rwjf.ws/339feal and they'll email you when it's available for download on January 21st.

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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Network Effect ARC

So this arrived today: https://twitter.com/marthawells1/status/1199841865962606592/photo/1 The actual book will be coming out May 5, 2020.

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State of Me, part whatever

Let's see. Work I have to get done before Thanksgiving holiday next week:

1) finish reading over the proof of Network Effect. I am...not halfway done. Goal today is to at least get halfway there.

2) do a revision of the new thing before sending it to my editor and agent.

3) finish copyedit of my guest chapter of Machina.

I think that's it.

I finished physical therapy though they didn't discharge me yet, in case something else happens. I've tentatively started going back to my regular aerobics classes (except there was surprise P90x on Monday instead of just regular bar, but it wasn't too bad). The knot on my head from the fall is much smaller but still there. I bought a foam roller for my back because that was one of the things the PT made me do that I thought would be a bust but was really helpful. The stupid car has another bad tire and had to go in today to get it fixed.

I have also just been super stressed out, which is probably not surprising given everything that's been going on with me, the world, and everyone I know.

I'm trying some calming medication for two of the cats, because they've been getting progressively worse with each other and it can't be good for them to be on a constant rollercoaster of fear and aggression. We're still keeping the new cat, Max, separated so he's fine. (I had to take them to the vet at the same time to get the medicine so that was not exactly helpful for my stress.)

Anyway, that's what's going on. Now I need to get to work.

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The Harbors of the Sun Audiobook

I got some good news a while back that I can talk about now -- there will be an audiobook version of The Harbors of the Sun, the last book in the Books of the Raksura series.

The publisher finally got Audible to do it and finish off the series. We've asked for Christopher Kipiniak to be the narrator again but I don't know if they've got/will get him. It depends on whether Audible asks him and his availability, and I haven't heard anything yet.

I'll post when I know more, but literally, what I said above is all I know right now. And I know people are frustrated about this, but I am not in charge of this and I can't make the audiobook publisher do things it doesn't want to do.

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Raksura Day

The mass market paperback edition of The Cloud Roads, the first book in the Books of the Raksura series, is out Tuesday, November 19. It's already available in trade paper, ebook, and audiobook, narrated by Christopher Kipiniak. Cover art is by Matthew Stewart, who won the Chesley Award for Best Illustration - Paperback for 2012 for it.

Read an excerpt here: https://www.marthawells.com/compendium/cloudroads.htm

The second book, The Serpent Sea and the third, The Siren Depths will be released in mass market paperback in January 2020.

Reviews for the series:

"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


Find it at an independent bookstore through Indiebound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781949102185

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-cloud-roads-martha-wells/1130887140?ean=9781949102185#/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Roads-One-Books-Raksura/dp/1949102181/

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Book Rec Wednesday

(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.)


* Short Story Personal Rakshasi by Suzan Palumbo


* Silver by Linda Nagata
Urban is no longer master of the fearsome starship Dragon. Driven out by the hostile, godlike entity, Lezuri, he has taken refuge aboard the most distant vessel in his outrider fleet. Though Lezuri remains formidable, he is a broken god, commanding only a fragment of the knowledge that once was his. He is desperate to return home to the ring-shaped artificial world he created at the height of his power, where he can recover the memory of forgotten technologies. Urban is desperate to stop him. He races to reach the ring-shaped world first, only to find himself stranded in a remote desert, imperiled by a strange flood of glowing "silver" that rises in the night like fog—a lethal fog that randomly rewrites the austere, Earthlike landscape. He has only a little time to decipher the mystery of the silver and to master its secrets. Lezuri is coming—and Urban must level up before he can hope to vanquish the broken god.


* The Book of Lost Saints by Daniel José Older
Marisol vanished during the Cuban Revolution, disappearing with hardly a trace. Now, shaped by atrocities long-forgotten, her tenacious spirit visits her nephew, Ramón, in modern-day New Jersey. Her hope: that her presence will prompt him to unearth their painful family history. Ramón launches a haphazard investigation into the story of his ancestor, unaware of the forces driving him on his search. Along the way, he falls in love, faces a run-in with a murderous gangster, and uncovers the lives of the lost saints who helped Marisol during her imprisonment.


* The Monstrous Citadel by Mirah Bolender
Amicae, City of Sweepers, survived the Falling Infestation which nearly destroyed it thanks to the efforts of Laura and Okane. While the ancient monsters have been beaten back for the moment, new and more monstrous dangers face them in the form of belligerent bureaucracy, dangerous gangs, grasping Sweepers bent on personal glory . . .And Rex, the City of Kings, who breed their own kind of monstrosity. Laura and Okane must go to Rex to reclaim the secret weaponry that keeps Amicae safe and come face to face with a horrifying truth about the Rex and their designs on all of Orien's cities.


* Life and Limb by Jennifer Roberson
Now no longer that wide-eyed child, Gabe is fresh out of prison, a leather-clad biker answering Grandaddy’s peremptory summons to, of all places, a cowboy bar in Northern Arizona. He is about to find out just how different he is from “most people”—and to meet the stranger with whom he will be sealed: life and limb, blood and bone, conscripted to fight an unholy war unlike any other.


* Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women's Fight for Their Rights by Mikki Kendall, illustrated by A D'Amico.
The ongoing struggle for women's rights has spanned human history, touched nearly every culture on Earth, and encompassed a wide range of issues, such as the right to vote, work, get an education, own property, exercise bodily autonomy, and beyond. Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists is a fun and fascinating graphic novel-style primer that covers the key figures and events that have advanced women's rights from antiquity to the modern era. In addition, this compelling book illuminates the stories of notable women throughout history—from queens and freedom fighters to warriors and spies—and the progressive movements led by women that have shaped history, including abolition, suffrage, labor, civil rights, LGBTQ liberation, reproductive rights, and more. Examining where we've been, where we are, and where we're going, Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists is an indispensable resource for people of all genders interested in the fight for a more liberated future.


* A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen
Six years after a global pandemic wiped out most of the planet’s population, the survivors are rebuilding the country, split between self-governing cities, hippie communes and wasteland gangs.In postapocalyptic San Francisco, former pop star Moira has created a new identity to finally escape her past—until her domineering father launches a sweeping public search to track her down. Desperate for a fresh start herself, jaded event planner Krista navigates the world on behalf of those too traumatized to go outside, determined to help everyone move on—even if they don’t want to. Rob survived the catastrophe with his daughter, Sunny, but lost his wife. When strict government rules threaten to separate parent and child, Rob needs to prove himself worthy in the city’s eyes by connecting with people again.Krista, Moira, Rob and Sunny are brought together by circumstance, and their lives begin to twine together. But when reports of another outbreak throw the fragile society into panic, the friends are forced to finally face everything that came before—and everything they still stand to lose. Because sometimes having one person is enough to keep the world going.


* Stonemaster by C.E. Murphy
It's good luck to earn the king's regard...isn't it? Seamaster journeyman Rasim's quick wits have helped to save his beloved home city and earned him the dubious honor of studying with the diplomatic Sunmasters. But not everyone is happy that magical knowledge is being shared, and when the king orders the guilds back to the Northlands on a sensitive political mission, it may well cost Rasim his life.


* Preorder The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs. But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity—and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death. Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki—near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire's greatest threat.


* Preorder And Other Disasters by Malka Older
Fiction. Poetry. ...AND OTHER DISASTERS, the smart and moving collection of short fiction and poetry from acclaimed author Malka Older, examines otherness, identity and compassion across a spectrum of possible existence. In stories about an AI built for empathy, a corps of fighting midwives traveling to a new planet, and a young anthropologist who returns to study the cultures of a dying Earth, Older's characters grapple with what it means to belong and be othered, to cling to the past and face the future, all while navigating a precarious world, riddled with natural and man-made disasters.

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MACH1NA

This is one of the cool things I haven't been able to talk about until now! https://www.tor.com/2019/11/12/serial-box-is-launching-three-new-sff-mystery-series/

I wrote a guest chapter on MACH1NA, a Serial Box story by Fran Wilde, Malka Older, and Curtis C. Chen

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