Swan Tower

(You have no idea how tempted I was to title this “Ni Presentas . . . Goal!” You have no idea mostly because I’m not sure whether anybody reading this blog even knows why the heck I would be tempted to say that in the first place.)

So, that Kickstarter I’m running? It made goal this morning. I woke up way earlier than I wanted to, because I had to drag myself to the airport for my Wiscon flight, and lo and behold: I found myself funded. In fact, we’re at $2060 right now.

Which is, in a word, refrackulawesome.

And if you’re familiar with Kickstarter, you know what that means: stretch goals! I have 25 days to go before this thing ends, so I might as well see how far we can go. If we hit $2500, I will share with all backers “The Music of Lies and Prophecy” — the track listing for the novel, with links to the songs (where possible) and notes on how and why I chose them. (I would share the soundtrack itself, but, um, copyright violations up the wazoo.) And if we hit $3000, I’ll write a short story in the setting!

If we go beyond that . . . well, you’ll just have to wait and see.

So if those sound tempting, you can mosey on over and back the project yourself. Or if you’ve already done that, spread the word to some friends! The more, the merrier.

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Fourteen and a half years ago, I completed the first draft of what at the time I thought was a stand-alone novel: Lies and Prophecy.

Within a year or two, though, I started getting Ideas. Fragments of ideas, anyway — bits and pieces about what would happen to Kim and Julian after the end of that novel. They piled up, and fed back into later drafts of Lies and Prophecy, until here we are more than a decade later, and those ideas have formed a can-can line and are performing choreographed routines in my head.

So I’ve decided to Kickstart them into reality.

My aim, if I meet my funding goal, is to draft the sequel of Chains and Memory this summer, while I’m doing the prep work for the fourth Memoir. In pursuit of that, I am offering a variety of book packages, plus other rewards like behind-the-scenes reports, t-shirts, tarot readings, and even the chance to appear as a character in the novel. Head on over to Kickstarter to check out the full list; it will be running for the next four weeks.

You can also help me immensely by spreading the word! Whether it’s on a blog, or Twitter, or Facebook, or messages stuffed into bottles and dropped into the sea, any and all signal-boosting would be absolutely wonderful. I’ll be posting more information here over the next few weeks, and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

You have no idea how excited I am about this.

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Seven and a half years with my books being only ink on the page or pixels on the screen, and now I have two audiobooks landing atop one another. :-D

Remember me mentioning that giant deal Book View Cafe signed with Audible? Well, now you can listen to Lies and Prophecy, too! Different narrator than A Natural History of Dragons (and by the way, I've listened to the sample for that one now, and it's fabulous), and it's likely that my other project will get yet a different reader -- especially since the pov in that one is male.

Did I mention that I have a third project with them? No? Well, you'll just have to wait and see what that one is. :-)

I do, by the way, still have plans for a print edition of Lies and Prophecy. I'm dependent on the assistance of others for that, though, so it will have to wait for a moment when somebody can spare the time and energy to help. In the meanwhile, the ebook isn't going away. :-)

Y'all, I have been sitting on this for months. You have no idea how good I've been, not even hinting at it before now.

Book View Cafe Signs Deal with Audible

This thing is huge. More than a hundred titles, and that's just the beginning; I can't divulge details, but we're going to continue working with Audible going forward, creating audio adaptations for more of our catalogue. (So while neither Lies and Prophecy nor Deeds of Men are part of this deal, there might be news about them at some point in the future. Maybe. <cough cough>)

And honestly, this is only the most publicly visible awesome thing that's been happening at BVC. We have partnerships with places like Overdrive, which supplies ebooks to libraries, and are even looking into selling foreign rights. Day by day -- thanks to the efforts of my fellow members -- the organization is growing into something really amazing.

(Oh, and check out our spiffy new front page while you're at it. Isn't it shiny?)

I forgot to mention that from now through December 17th, Dear Author has a coupon for Lies and Prophecy, offering $1 off purchases of that book at Book View Cafe. Get it while the getting's good!

Also, last week I participated in BVC's blog series Celebrating Ursula K. Le Guin. That link will take you to all the posts for the week; mine, "No Need to Apologize," tells the tale of The Language of the Night and how that collection changed the direction of my life.

I am not, unfortunately, allowed to quote the whole Kirkus review for A Natural History of Dragons yet; they paywall it until two weeks before the book's pub date. I can, however, share this line: "Told in the style of a Victorian memoir, courageous, intelligent and determined Isabella’s account is colorful, vigorous and absorbing." And they really liked the whole memoir-style-pov thing. (Which is good, because it's one of my favorite things about writing this series.)

There's also a new review of With Fate Conspire, this one by George Straatman: "As has been the case with its three predecessors, With Fate Conspire is masterful in its depiction of life in London during the era depicted…both from a cultural perspective and from a geographic perspective, Marie paints a precise portrait of what it was like to live in the city during this tumultuous era."

And finally, a review for Lies and Prophecy, over at The Jeep Diva: "Ms. Brennan does a magnificent job of taking fantasy and weaving it throughout a story of typical college students, trying to find themselves not only in their pursuits of education, but in their personal lives as well."

Since three things only make three-fifths of a post, I will close out the remaining two fifths with something I've been forgetting to link to: my latest BVC entries. I diverted briefly from my discussion of folktale-like fantasy to lay out what tale types are (a subject on which I will have more to say later), and then came back to the point to talk about the grammar of a folktale plot. (Or, to put those posts in jargon shorthand: Aarne-Thompson-Uther, and then Propp. Next up: Luthi! Which reminds me, I need to write that post.)

Lies and Prophecy isn't the only book that came out from BVC last month, of course. I'd like to alert you guys to what comes out there going forward, but I don't want to spam you with book posts; ergo, I'm thinking that what I will do is put them up in monthly batches. (You can get this same information, plus various coupons and other deals, by subscribing to the monthly newsletter -- just put your e-mail address in the appropriate box on the right-hand side of the page.)

The other two things out last month were:

"Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand"

In a post-apocalyptic world, the young healer Snake ventures into unknown lands during her proving year. Her genetically engineered rattlesnake and cobra provide vaccines and medicines, while the rare alien dreamsnake eases pain and suffering.

“Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand” won SFWA’s Nebula Award. It is the first chapter of Dreamsnake, which won the Nebula, the Hugo, the Locus, and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. The story is presented by BVC as a stand-alone title, by request.


Some Enchanted Season

Kevyn Llewellyn, a struggling artist, must have the exactly right model for her next project, or she’s going to be fired. When she sees him—none other than Rusty Rivers, NFL player fighting injuries to save his career—she does the absolutely logical thing: she kidnaps him. Or rescues him… it depends on whom you’re asking.

Rusty Rivers is the kind of guy who’s squandered every opportunity, while Kevyn’s had to fight for every success. They’re as different as meteor and moonbeam, with nothing apparent in common, and yet… in this doomed, enchanted football season, dare they hope that anything magical can happen that they can believe in forever?


. . . and, y'know, this old thing. :-) Just in case you missed it the first half-dozen times I mentioned it.

I should totally have a "Piano Pieces Played" list to explain where the rest of my month went, except that it would get really boring as I listed "Solfeggietto" and "Roslin and Adama" over and over and overandoverandover again. (I've been practicing.)

Blackwood, Gwenda Bond. Picked this one up on the basis of her "Big Idea" feature on Scalzi's blog. Roanoke disappearances! History tying into the present! Alchemy! John Dee! It had so many elements I love . . . but it turns out the problem with that is, I have Opinions on the elements, and get increasingly ticked off when I think they're being used badly. I don't want to spoil this for anybody who'd prefer to avoid spoilers, so I'll rot13 my rant:

Wbua Qrr vf gur ivyynva. V pbhyq cbgragvnyyl pbcr jvgu gung, ohg hasbeghangryl, uvf ivyynval nyfb vaibyirf uvz npgvat ZNFFVIRYL BHG BS PUNENPGRE. Gur Ebnabxr pbybal nccneragyl pbafvfgrq bs n ohapu bs nypurzvpny phygvfgf naq jnf Qrr'f fpurzr gb znxr uvzfrys vzzbegny, naq ur jnagrq gb qb guvf fb gung ur pbhyq bireguebj Ryvmnorgu (hu, juhg) naq gnxr bire gur jbeyq be fbzrguvat. Vg snvyrq orpnhfr ur tbg orgenlrq, juvpu erfhygrq va uvf phygvfgf orvat guebja vagb fbzr xvaq bs nygreangr cynar, naq abj gurl'er onpx naq cbffrffvat crbcyr ba Ebnabxr vfynaq gb svavfu gurve arsnevbhf fpurzr, juvpu vf nyfb xvyyvat nyy gur jvyqyvsr va beqre gb znvagnva Qrr'f haangheny yvsr.

V pbhyq unir tbar nybat jvgu guvf vs Qrr jrer abg n) zrtnybznavnpnyyl cybggvat gb gnxr bire Ratynaq naq o) fubjrq erzbefr bire gur pbfg bs uvf npgvbaf; vg pbhyq unir orra cerfragrq nf uvz oryvrivat gung vzzbegnyvgl jbhyq or fb tbbq sbe gur jbeyq, gur pbfg (gubhtu erterggnoyr) vf jbegu vg. Hasbeghangryl, vg srryf yvxr Obaq, be znlor ure ntrag be rqvgbe, qrpvqvat gur nagntbavfg arrqrq gb or chapurq hc gb jbeyq-guerngravat fgnghf. Gur fgbel jbhyq unir orra orggre jvgubhg gung.

Right. Disappointing. I finished the book, but only through sheer bloody-mindedness (it's a quick read). There were other flaws, too, but I've ranted for long enough, so I'll leave it at that.

Tam Lin, Pamela Dean. Re-read, as a treat to myself on the publication of Lies and Prophecy (which, as I've mentioned before, was partially inspired by this book). I hadn't read it in a number of years, so it was interesting going back through it this time: I noticed so many details that had slipped past me before, like why Nick's and Robin's accents shift when they recite. This is very much a comfort book for me, so I'm not sure what I can say about it to people who don't already know and love it, but short form is: my favorite ballad, retold in the context of a 1970s Minnesota liberal arts college. With lots of excessively literate and well-spoken characters, and some phrases that have stayed with me for near on twenty years now.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print, Renni Browne and Dave King. maratai offered this free to the first person who asked for it a while ago, so I asked. I was sad when her marginal comments petered out, because those were entertaining me. :-) As for the book itself, it's trying to be a 200-level-ish "how to write" type thing -- going beyond the basic platitudes of writing books and into things like proportion (paying attention to, and trying to appropriately scale, how much attention you devote to certain things) or breaks (sentences, paragraphs, scenes, chapters). That part is good; the part where the authors seem to think absolutely everything should be done via dialogue was less so. (They are rather anti-description, anti-dialogue tags, anti-"beats" -- by which they mean descriptions of movement used to break up dialogue -- etc.) And then I got to the chapter on "voice" and ranted on Twitter about the meaninglessness of that word the way most writing books, this one included, tend to use it. Augh nonsensical platitudes aaaaaaaaugh.

So, very much a mixed bag.

The Gathering Storm, Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. Discussed elsewhere and else-elsewhere.

Towers of Midnight, Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. Yeah, I went ahead and read this one, even though I won't be blogging about it until November and December. I wanted to be able to read things like the wiki and Leigh Butler's recaps without hitting spoilers, and I was having a bad week where I really just wanted a GIANT BOOK I could trust to entertain me without requiring much from my brain. (That part kicks in when I do the analysis, later.) Also? I really just wanted to know what happens next. Which is a good feeling to have, going into the end of the series. Anyway, commentary will come later. [Edited to add: commentary is now here.]

My general incompetence with image manipulation continues. So: who wants to make me an icon for Lies and Prophecy? (You can find a large version of the cover here.) It can be animated or static, it can show the hand or just a card or whatever looks good at 100x100 pixels.

I'll pick one on Monday, to give people a little time to work. And the winning artist can have their choice between a print copy of Lies and Prophecy once I have 'em, or tuckerization (that is, the use of their name) for a minor character in the sequel -- presuming, of course, that L&P sells well enough for me to write the sequel, which I hope it will. I promise to make it a cool character, though.

Earle’s dining hall was a low and sprawling place, claustrophobic enough that I’d avoided it until now. I preferred Hurst, whose floor-to-ceiling windows made it feel more open and pleasant. But Liesel had recruited me for a social project tonight, and it wouldn’t kill me to eat here once, before I swore off it for the rest of my undergraduate life.

The space didn’t make it easy to find people, though. Liesel rose up on her toes to scan the room, then dropped down and shrugged. “I don’t see him. Let’s get food, then try to grab a table.”

Read the rest at the Book View Cafe.

And that's the last of them! But tune in tomorrow for an announcement . . . .