I think I may have a minor compulsive-book-buying problem, because I keep buying new novels when I am a) running out of a shelf space, and b) don't have time to read them. I buy faster than I have time to read right now, which is very annoying because there are so many books out there I want to read.
My current reading list, in no particular order, is as follows:
The Snow Queen by Joan D Vinge CURRENTLY READING
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke CURRENTLY READING
Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman CURRENTLY READING
The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden by Catherynne M Valente
Salon Fantastique a collection of fantasy stories
Vellum by Hal Duncan
Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey
Iron Council by China Miéville
The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake
Neuromancer by William Gibson
The Hopkins Manuscript by RC Sherriff
*cuddles books*
*glares angrily at Time*
Moral of the story: I shouldn't be allowed near bookshops. Especially not Forbidden Planet with its beautiful, VAST scifi/fantasy section. *purrs* But books are so purty!
So, Laurell K Hamilton has been helping to transform her Anita Blake books into comics (and by 'help', I mean refusing the artists/writers to deviate at all from the book which will be interesting once they hit the full-on porn that is book 10 onwards). She's also been going on about how she's going to revolutionise comics, open them up to girls and other wanktastic shit like that.
Enter Tamora Pierce, a YA fantasy writer whose work I still keep an eye on despite her Sueish characters. Along with her husband she too seems to be doing a comic, of something not from her previous works, and in an interview the hubby said something quite ammusing:
NRAMA: Have you talked to Marvel about any other projects?
TL: At this point, no. We want to get this first arc up the flagpole and see who salutes it before we Begin Our Master Plan To Transform Superhero Comics Forev-... oh, sorry! I was channeling Laurel K. Hamilton's agent for a minute there.
Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!
What's your sign? What do you think of astrology and horoscopes?
Capricorn.
Generally I think they're a load of bollocks, but I do have one interesting story about them.
When I was 8 or 9 or somewhere in that region, I read a horoscope
saying I would soon be getting married. Eerily, I had been
'married' to my fox beanie baby earlier that day (after marrying my
cousin to her cuddly toy).
This November I will be participating in the wondrous Nanowrimo, the aim of which is to write 50,000 words of a novel in a month. I'm going to bend that slightly. Instead, I am going to write a total of 50,000 words in November, with those words falling into any of the following projects:
- Painted Angels. I would like to have a complete first draft by the end of 2006, after which I can spend a few months polishing it off before submitting it to publishers.
- Our Green Fairies. This was originally going to be my Nano project but I realised I didn't want to limit myself to only one story. However, I would still like to write something for this novel, so it remains in the Nano ranks.
- The short stories featuring D'sil. They have deadlines of 15 and 31 January, meaning that I would like at least one polished and sent by the end of 2006. I hate rushing, so they're Nano projects too.
Now that I have said in writing that I will do this, I will, or I'll kill my vague attempt at a social life trying. *grins* I'm like that. Earlier this year I said I'd give up chocolate for lent, not to please the god I don't believe in but to make my ex give up alcohol for lent, and even when he utterly failed to keep his side of the bargain I kept mind. And a couple years back I said I'd eat only fruit for 5 days to support a friend who was going to do the same to lose a bit of weight, and even when she gave up after a day I still did it (well, except for the part where I figured going on a CCF overnight exercise and eating only fruit would probably kill me, so I ate the army ratpack on that). If I say I'm going to do something, especially if it's something mildly stupid, I do it.
November promises to be a productive month. Only 2.5 days to go.
Sidenote: Taking into
account the clocks changing, I got 11 hours' sleep last night. What the
hell? I do not need that much sleep! Wasted time, wasted
time. Grr.
Sidenote 2: Vox is playing silly buggers. I posted this earlier, then edited it to correct a spelling mistake, after which it refused to appear on my blog page despite appearing on Rhi's neighbourhood page and the number of my October posts clarifying its existence. Vox has also started not letting my type in the compose box unless I refresh the page.
Ugh, MSN is playing silly buggers on me.
I managed to feel happy enough about The Beautiful Collection to send it off, but naturally the magazine I had intended to send it to currently doesn't accept submissions. Ah well, there is plenty of other choice out there, so I have instead submitted it to GrendelSong because they like stories about the fey and they aim to respond in 30-35 days (and they have a kickass name). I prefer the ones that try to respond in about that time, simply because it means I can re-submit sooner if the story is rejected.
I don't feel as strongly about this one as I do about A Shade of Yellow and Tansu, which I feel are very very good pieces. This one is good, but I don't feel it's my best piece; however, I don't think I can improve it so there's no point wasting time by leaving it on my hard drive. If it's going to take several rejections before I find a magazine that wants it, then the sooner I get started the better.
*crosses fingers and various other crossable appendages*
I'm stuck on PA again, though I'm not entirely sure why. I'm getting to some good stuff now - finding out something very important, and then Trifmara's reaction to that. And, soon, a big battle near Katina which will be followed by the final battle at Krak'vi.
I think maybe I'm worried it's starting to drag a bit, that I should wrap it up faster, even though the sensible part of my mind says to just write the damn chapters and then go back and make changes. Blegh. It's probably just the same "getting towards the end" mental block I get when I approach the end of anything long - happened with my finished piece of mystery crap that will one day be totally reworked, and also with Statues.
In the meantime, I've been working on short stories:
Statues - Still waiting for a response from Writers of the
Future. I reckon I'll hear from them January-ish, maybe
later. If they don't like it, I'll send it to Fantasy and Science
Fiction magazine.
A Shade of Yellow - Still waiting to hear back from Sybil's
Garage. No news is, I hope, good news; a suggestion that they're
having to think about what to do with my story. If they reject
it, I'll send to Apex Digest.
Tansu - This is finished and ready for submission, but I'm waiting for Sybil's Garage to respond because if they don't want aSoY then I'll send them this. If not, I intend to send this to Shimmer.
Snowdrop - A flash fiction of 99 words, submitted to Flash Shot. Still waiting for a response.
The Beautiful Collection - A fantasy short, just over 1,000 words, that I began in the summer and finished the other day. I'm not completely happy with it yet, but when it's done I think I'll submit it to Midnight Street first.
I'm also working on two pirate stories, one for Shimmer and one for Sails and Sorcery. Both feature my latest muse, D'sil, a mercenary-pirate type. He's certainly an interesting man to have around. And my cross-dressing muse will have a short story of his own, but I can't figure out quite how to start it.
My ambition is to have found a home for all of these stories by the time I submit PA to publishers.
In the immediate future, November is nearly upon us, which means that Nanowrimo approaches... I've pretty much decided to write a first draft of Our Green Fairies for this, simply because I feel that if I can get a first draft of it done, no matter how crappy it'll be, at least I'm one step closer to having another finished novel.
I am writing. Just slowly at the moment.
Something I've noticed about the world of science fiction and fantasy is an aspiration among some to strive for something noble and grand, to say something profound in their work. Take, for instance, this extract from the submission guidelines to Asimov's Science Fiction magazine:
"A good overview would be to consider that all fiction is written to examine or illuminate some aspect of human existence, but that in science fiction the backdrop you work against is the size of the Universe."
Why, exactly, does this need to be the case? Why should any
fiction strive to convey a greater message? Whatever the heck
happened to writing for the simple pleasure of crafting a story,
creating and developing characters, and watching it all come together
in a conclusion?
My stories have no greater meaning. I am not setting out to say something meaningful about humanity. If there are morals and themes to be found in my work, then that's because they crept in without my being aware of them. You can blame my muses for morality or lack thereof in their lives; I certainly don't decide that about them.
I find it annoying that Asimov's might reject a story because it
doesn't deal with profound statements about humanity. I think
they're underrating the simple joy of a story.
I was drawn to this book because of this post, comparing Temeraire to Eragon and remarking upon the fact that, although they both have the same basic premise of "our hero finds a dragon egg and the dragon that hatches becomes bonded to him", the execution is SO different. Temeraire (known as His Majesty's Dragon in the US) is basically the Napoleonic War with dragons. Our hero, Laurence, is a captain in the English Navy. They attack a French ship, find an egg on board and realise it's close to hatching. Laurence makes his officers draw lots to see who'll get it, but when the dragon hatches it goes for him rather than the guy who drew the short straw. He names the dragon Temeraire, and has to go away for training in the Royal Air Corps.
What makes this book noticeably different from the other dragon books I've read is that it really was a short straw. Eragon thinks getting a dragon is cool, even though it leads to his uncle's death; in Anne McCaffrey's Pern books, getting a dragon is a great thing for all the viewpoint characters who have one. But here, Laurence is annoyed. It means he has to leave the command he loves, he can't marry the woman he wants and his position in landed society is lowered. I really felt sorry for him, and hoped everything worked out okay. I couldn't give two shits about Eragon.
Laurence is a brilliant character. Naomi Novik really exemplifies the art of showing and not telling - she doesn't need to tell us that Laurence is intelligent, generous, a good leader of men, and at times flawed. She shows us. Temeraire is also well rounded and interesting, with his own quirks; and the relationship between the two of them is very charming. By the end of the book they care for each other, love each other (no, not *that* way); it feels like a relationship between two equals, between two interesting people who have bonded on a very deep level. When the Air Corps try to take Temeraire away and give him to a better candidate rider, both he and Laurence are really upset; when the Corps realise this seperation won't work, and they are reunited, the ensuing scene was so sweet. Novik manages to make the relationship touching, never cheesy.
The other characters are also individual - they are people, not cardboard cutouts designed to fulfill certain roles (mentor/love interest/gruff companion) *coughPaoliniyousuckcough*. There are no 'roles'; obviously Laurence and Temeraire are trained, but there is no mentor figure, nothing like that. Just people.
The setting feels very realistic to this history student. Sure, I don't specialise in the era, but nothing felt out of place. It felt like a real world. From what I can tell, the development of the war parallels history; despite the dragons' presence, the outcome is the same. One reviewer on amazon didn't like this; for some reason he/she expected the dragons to be a tool to change history. I prefer the parallel. Guess this could be a personal preference.
What really brought this all together, making the book such a fantastic read rather than just an excellent one, was Novik's writing style. The words flow off the page like a gentle stream. Even when the characters speak with a formality suitable to the era, it feels natural. It's amazing.
Do I have any complaints to voice? Well, one: In the final battle, Temeraire saves the day by using a never-before-seen ability. It's a bit too much of a Deus ex Machina for my liking; but, hell, I could live with it. It didn't make me annoyed, like deus ex machinas normally do; I just felt it could have been done a bit better.
That aside, this was a brilliant read. I heartily recommend it to all fantasy fans and also to anyone who wants to dabble in fantasy but doesn't want hardcore specfic. A resounding 5 / 5
Update and paypal link for donations.
What kind of sick fucking bastard drop-kicks a cat?
I hope those arseholes die a slow and painful death. This is one of those moments I hope God exists, because He could condemn them to eternal suffering. That might just be punishment enough.
Earlier this morning I stumbled across this specfic magazine, Sybil's Garage. It looks really really cool. Submission guidelines for their current reading period are here.
After getting comments back from Rhi and Jave about my short story, A Shade of Yellow, I played around with it a bit and deemed it complete. I decided to send it to Sybil's Garage first because I think it's weird and wonderful enough to maybe get accepted by them, and I would love to be published in such a bizarre magazine. They reply very quickly - if they don't get back to me in 30 days, I'm free to query them about their progress. That means I'll have my rejection, if that is the result, in plenty of time to submit to the RLD anthology.
I am now in the Sybil's hands.
