The auction for the rare! leather-bound edition! of the rare! Lee and Miller original omnibus Pilots Choice (including the full text of Liaden Universe® novels Local Custom and Scout’s Progress) goes over tomorrow, Sunday, May 15, at 1500 PDT. If you were thinking about bidding, or just want to reserve a seat in the studio audience, time is getting short.
Here’s the link
Library Wars Volume 1: Love and War, Kiiro Yumi
The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Marie Pope
Edie Ernst, USO Singer — Allied Spy, Brooke McEldowney
Silver Phoenix, Cindy Pon
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (e)
Foreigner, C.J. Cherryh (read aloud with Steve)
Betrayer, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
Right-Ho, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse (e)
American Rose, Karen Abbott
The Bull God, Roberta Gellis (e)
Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott
Of Blood and Honey, Stina Leicht (e)
The God Engines, John Scalzi (e)
Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key, Kage Baker (e)
Unseen, Rachel Caine
Total Eclipse, Rachel Caine
Weight of Stone, Laura Anne Gilman
The Story of Chicago May, Nuala O’Faolain
The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Marie Pope
Edie Ernst, USO Singer — Allied Spy, Brooke McEldowney
Silver Phoenix, Cindy Pon
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (e)
Foreigner, C.J. Cherryh (read aloud with Steve)
Betrayer, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
Right-Ho, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse (e)
American Rose, Karen Abbott
The Bull God, Roberta Gellis (e)
Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott
Of Blood and Honey, Stina Leicht (e)
The God Engines, John Scalzi (e)
Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key, Kage Baker (e)
Unseen, Rachel Caine
Total Eclipse, Rachel Caine
Weight of Stone, Laura Anne Gilman
The Story of Chicago May, Nuala O’Faolain
1. Steve is on his way home. Last contact was from “someplace in New York.” First contact was from “above Harrisburg,” and I thought, “Well, he’ll be home in a couple hours, then.” sigh. All these years and I’m still not used to Harrisburg being a loooooong way from home.
2. The auction for the leather-bound edition is live until Sunday-coming! Take a look! Go on, you know you want to…
3. Today’s paycheck from the day-job makes available the news that honest labor pays about $6700 less thus far than setting up as a professional liar. This year, anyhow.
4. Still trying to work the brain down from overdrive. Haven’t had to cope with the full “can’t stop! gotta think!” for…years and years. I wonder if that means that the cpap machine blowing air into my skull is actually, um, working.
. . .and wonders, if so, if that’s what you call your double-edged blade.
5. In service of number 4, above, I’ll be on the couch, reading The Perilous Gard.
One of the things I tell beginning writers when I talk to them is to write what they love; that nobody sees out of their eyes but them; that the effort of raising their voice is worth any consequence.
Everybody saw xkcd this morning, right?
I’ve just uploaded the last of the chapbooks — twenty-five in all. I note that, as of the present moment, twenty-four of those chapbooks are available in DRM-free ePub format from BN.com; Endeavors of Will, which went up only moments ago is still in the review stage.
Amazon is “reviewing” six chapbooks, which means they’re not yet in the sales database. The account has, perhaps, been frozen, pending the resolution of the “Chariot to the Stars” issue, reported here yesterday; or it may just be that Amazon is slow this weekend.
I will list all of the elektrified chapbooks below. For the Liaden stories and the various questions of what appears where when and published by whom, I see that Someone has been very busy at the wiki and has gathered all that information into one place. Thank you, Someone.
Pinbeam Books (aka Sharon Lee and Steve Miller) chapbooks available in DRM-free ePub (Nook) and mobi (Kindle) format:
Two Tales of Korval: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number One
Fellow Travelers: AitLU Number Two
Duty Bound: AitLU Number Three
Certain Symmetry: AitLU Number Four
Trading in Futures: AitLU Number Five
Changeling: AitLU Number Six
Loose Cannon: AitLU Number Seven
Shadows and Shades: AitLU Number Eight
Quiet Knives: AitLU Number Nine
With Stars Underfoot: AitLU Number Ten
Necessary Evils: AitLU Number Eleven
Allies: AitLU Number Twelve
Dragon Tide: AitLU Number Thirteen
Eidolon: AitLU Number Fourteen
Misfits: AitLU Number Fifteen
Halfling Moon: AitLU Number Sixteen
Skyblaze: AitLU Number Seventeen
Calamity’s Child
The Cat’s Job
Chariot to the Stars
Endeavors of Will
Master Walk
The Naming of Kinzel
Quiet Magic
Variations Three
…My next task forward of this is to build a bookstore page, and elektrify The Tomorrow Log and also Time Rags. However! What I am going to do immediately, now that this part of the larger task is behind me — is proofread the galleys for Ghost Ship.
So, I’m getting the last chapbook — Endeavors of Will, by Sharon Lee, as the luck decreed — ready to be elektrified, and in doing so, I’m typing in the story history for the copyright page.
Stolen Laughter first published in Dragonfields, Winter 1983
The Winter Consort first published in SPAWAO Showcase, August 1982
Stormshelter first published in Worlds Lost, Times Forgotten, March 1981
The Pretender first published in Owlflight, January 1981
The Silver Pathway first published in Owlflight, July 1981
The Girl, The Cat, and Deviant first published in Star Triad, February 1981
A Matter of Ceremony first published in Amazing Stories, May 1980
The Handsome Prince first published in Fantasy Book, May 1982
Cards first published in Amazing Science Fiction Stories, September 1981
These stories aren’t just old enough to vote; they probably own their own homes.
Age aside, I do think that my very favorite magazine title ever is Worlds Lost, Time Forgotten.
Silver Phoenix, Cindy Pon
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (e)
Foreigner, C.J. Cherryh (read aloud with Steve)
Betrayer, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
Right-Ho, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse (e)
American Rose, Karen Abbott
The Bull God, Roberta Gellis (e)
Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott
Of Blood and Honey, Stina Leicht (e)
The God Engines, John Scalzi (e)
Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key, Kage Baker (e)
Unseen, Rachel Caine
Total Eclipse, Rachel Caine
Weight of Stone, Laura Anne Gilman
The Story of Chicago May, Nuala O’Faolain
Slow day at the day-job, waiting for the people who make decisions to make some so I can do what needs done.
Back at home, two more chapbooks compiled and converted (Variations Three, and Changeling: AitLU #6, for those who are counting), leaving me with just six more to compile. So that’s what? Twenty-five, told all. Then we’ll see if I’m tough enough to do The Tomorrow Log.
I have my talk for Thursday night in hand, the Trees of Maine are indulging in their annual spring effort to kill me, and the galleys for Ghost Ship have just landed. I’m guessing those are mine to do, since Steve just finished turning The Crystal Variation galleys (1184 pages of Crystal Soldier, Crystal Dragon, and Balance of Trade) around in truly heroic fashion.
At least Ghost Ship should be the last — no, I’m wrong. The mass market for Mouse and Dragon got added to October’s line-up. So! we’ll be seeing the galleys for that, bye-n-bye.
The fun? Never stops.
And! In celebration of the perseverance of the Trees of Maine, I’m going to go, I dunno — sit on the couch and read.
G’night.
I was talking with a colleague the other day about author bios, and, tangentially, the purpose that such exercises in sentence structure is supposed to accomplish.
I thought that there was a place, and an audience for, a breezier, flirtatious bio, like this one. My colleague felt that an author should maintain some distance, perhaps some dignity, in order to be taken seriously by potential readers, and was arguing in favor of something along the lines of this:
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller live in the rolling hills of Central Maine with three insistent muses in the form of cats, and a large cast of characters. Best known for their work in the Liaden Universe®, Lee and Miller have seen published seventeen collaborative novels. Baen Books is currently releasing all of the Liaden novels in several omnibus volumes. The next original Liaden novel, Ghost Ship, will be published in August 2011.
For more information about the Liaden Universe®, see http://www.sharonleewriter.com
So, what do you think? Should a writer keep their distance and their mystique in a bio? Does a playful tone make you doubt the author’s craft? Tell all! Inquiring minds want to know!