A new old splinter is up at Splinter Universe, with an author’s introduction. Find them both here.
Category: Blog
Books read in 2013
Wild Ride, Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer (e)
2012: Midnight at the Spanish Garden, Alma Alexander (e)
The Hummingbird Wizard, Meredith Blevins (e)
Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier, W.B. (Bat) Masterson
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny (re-read)
Creatures of Light and Darkness, Roger Zelazny (re-read)
Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo (e)
Ice Crown, Andre Norton (e)
Fair Coin, E.C. Myers (e)
Frost Burned, Patricia Briggs (e)
Through a Brazen Mirror, Delia Sherman
Protector, C.J. Cherryh (read aloud with Steve)
Eight Million Gods, Wen Spencer (e)
Promises to Keep, Laura Anne Gilman (e)
Miles to Go, Laura Anne Gilman (e)
Even Money, Dick Francis & Felix Francis
Magic Bites, Ilona Andrews
Sandman Slim, Richard Kadrey
The Diviners, Libba Bray (e)
The Eighth Succession, Don Sakers
You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, Tom Gauld
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold (e)
Hellspark, Janet Kagan (re-re-re-re-re-re-&c-read)
The Year of the Dog, Grace Lin
The Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi (e)
Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (a mostly true memoir), Jenny Lawson
How Dark the World Becomes, Frank Chadwick (e)
Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal
French Fried, Chris Dolley (e)
My Father’s Dragon, Ruth Stiles Gannett (read aloud w/Steve)
Fair Game, Patricia Briggs (e)
Nymph, Francesca Lia Block (read aloud w/Steve)
Oh, Myyy, George Takei (e)
Hunting Ground, Patricia Briggs (e)
Cry Wolf, Patriacia Briggs (e)
Alpha and Omega, Patricia Briggs (e)
Miss Buncle, Married, D.E. Stevenson (read aloud w/Steve)
Agatha Heterodyne and the Hammerless Bell, Phil & Kaja Foglio
Moonrise Kingdom screenplay, Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola (e)
Progress going forward
I have today hung pictures on the wall over my desk. Photographic proof is below.
In the process of shifting this to get to that other thing that always attends any project, though it’s never anticipated at the outset, I found and destroyed a cache of old Bulletins and SFWA directories, the Officers’ Guidelines from 1999 and 2000, a half-dozen Romance Sells containing ads for Lee and Miller novels, and four issues of Analog, containing reviews of our work.
I threw it all out! Except the Analogs. It felt wonderful.
So, a productive day.
I decided not to rehang some of the pictures I’d taken down. The Mouse and Dragon print and the kitty-under-a-blanket are holding place for the art for Carousel Seas, which will be along, so I trust, in the Fullness of Time.
You can tell that this is my work because everything is crooked.
Or so I imagine.
Everything I hang is always crooked, though I’m damned if I know how people can tell.
But! Enough fun for one day! Time to go put the bed back together and do some dishes.
Reminder, Explanation, Tour Schedule Update
Frequent auditors of this journal will recall that Lee and Miller will be embarking in the near future on a book tour. The complete tour schedule is reproduced at the end of this blog entry, for your convenience.
PLEASE NOTE that we have added one more stop, in Maine, at the end of the tour. We’ll be signing, reading, talking and doing who knows what other crazy things at Books-a-Million on Sunday, November 17, from 2-4 p.m.
Please feel free to distribute the schedule below wherever it may be of interest.
* * *
I’d like to take just a moment to clarify something about the book tour. The tour is in support of a few things: Lee & Miller, the Liaden Universe®, Baen — but it is in Direct Support of Trade Secret, the 17th novel in the Liaden Universe® which, yes, is scheduled to be “published” on November 5.
There seems to be a little bit of confusion regarding this word “published,” which more correctly ought to be rendered, “available in bookstores.”
See, the books have already been “published,” which in this usage means “printed.” We know this because Steve and I received our authors’ copies a week or so ago. This means that, even now, there are Trade Secrets in the S&S warehouse, and Trade Secrets on their way to distributors, and Trade Secrets directly on their way to bookstores. . .
. . .and Trade Secrets on their way, via the Sekrit Publicist Underground, directly to all of the stores where we will be signing, and! to the nice folks who will be escorting us during the various stages of our tour.
Which is the long way of saying that, Yes, Trade Secret will be on hand at our signings — even those signings that happen before November 5 — and if you come to one of our signings, you will be able to buy a book and see us sign it for you in front of your very eyes.
Which, you gotta admit, is kind of cool.
* * *
One more reminder — “Out of True,” a Liaden Universe® short story will be available to read for! free! on the Baen front page, starting. . .call it mid-day, Eastern Daylight Time, on Tuesday, October 15. You will have to scroll down a bit (fiction on the Baen front page is published, as we used to say in the newspaper biz, “below the fold”) to find it.
* * *
The Official Lee and Miller Book Tour Schedule
Thursday, October 31, 7-9 pm
Pandemonium Books and Games, 4 Pleasant Street, Cambridge MA
Friday, November 1, 7-9 pm
The Toadstool Bookstore, 586 Nashua Street (Lorden Plaza), Milford NH
Saturday, November 2, 2-4 pm
Barnes and Noble, 98 Middlesex Turnpike, Burlington MA
Sunday, November 3, 1-4 pm
Annie’s Bookstop of Worcester, 65 James Street, Worcester MA
Monday, November 4, 7-9 pm
Barnes and Noble, 7 Holyoke Street, Holyoke MA
Tuesday, November 5, 7-9 pm
Flights of Fantasy, 381 Sand Creek Road, Albany NY
Wednesday, November 6, 7-9 pm
Book Trader of Hamilton, 2421 Nottingham Way, Mercerville NJ
Thursday, November 7 (be careful! there are two events today)
Noon-2 pm :
University of Pennsylvania Bookstore, 3601 Walnut at 36th Street, Philadelphia
7-9 pm:
Chester County Book Company, 967 Paoli Pike, West Chester PA
Friday, November 8 — Sunday, November 10
PhilCon, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Cherry Hill, NJ
Sunday, November 17, 2-4 p.m.
Books-a-Million, South Portland, Maine
#SFWAPro
There’s not one Scot will mourn the loss of ye
Well, the Big News here is that my yoga instructor told me today that I’m ready to go on to the next level of yoga, if I’m willing to stretch myself. So to speak. I don’t think I’ve ever been told that I was ready to move on to the next level of anything, so, yay! Yogi Rolanni!
Understand, this would be a move from Gentle Yoga to Foundation Yoga — think ascending from kindergarten to first grade — and I’m not going to do any switching around of the Schedule-in-Place until we get back from the book tour — which may be gaining one more stop, in Maine. Watch the skies for more information on that!
After yoga, and stopping at the town office to fill out my absentee ballot, and, also, errands — honestly, where do all these errands come from? I can’t imagine how I had time to fit a day-job into my schedule — Steve and I decided to be grasshoppers and to dine at Jin Yuan on Temple Street. We had between us a crab rangoon/egg roll plate and pepper beef — and still brought leftovers home. After, as we took a small walking tour of downtown, somehow two mini-cannoli snuck into our pockets, which we dealt with properly upon our arrival home, thus making it a Truly International Day.
I believe I may have been remiss in reporting Trooper’s acquisition of A Box. Apparently, he had been wanting a box; possibly he had even requested a box, but the new Thumbs are a little dense. In any case, he finally took matters into his own paws, and adopted a box.
As you can see, it’s a little snug for him:
…but we don’t dare try to take it away from him:
Mark your calendars
Remember! On October 15 — hey that’s next Tuesday! — Baen will be serving up “Out of True,” by Lee and Miller on its front page. That’s right, free story!
Here’s a taste:
Squithen was gone from the forest clearing, which was good. The stench of the recent carnage was starting to reach him now and had it reached her she’d been here still, covering her nose as well as her eyes, counting or vocabing, one or the other.
That’s October 15, at Baen.com, front page, below the fold.
. . .In other news, I finished proofing the galleys for A Liaden Universe® Constellation Volume 2
Poor men wanna be rich; rich men wanna be kings
So, about a month ago, Eric Williams was kind enough to send me a print of the cover art for Carousel Sun. I took it to Framemakers to be framed — and it came back into my possession on Friday.
It looks nice. Really nice.
But here’s the thing — I long ago ran out of space to hang paintings. In fact, the cover art for Carousel Tides (also created by Eric) is kinda of hanging — well, see for yourselves:
…yeah, it’s a little crowded. Clearly, no room to hang the sister painting there, right? Also? Not only is there going to be a third Carousel cover, which I also hope to acquire, frame and hang, the cover art for Necessity’s Child, which was removed from the living room wall by order of the cats so there was room for their new, primo, cat tree? Has never been re-hung, so I — you see where this is going, right?
Because, so I said to Steve, there’s plenty of room to hang pictures over my desk. All I have to do is shift some things around.
For your information, this is what the wall over my desk looks like:
Because, I said to Steve, there’s room over the Narbonic strip for all those little things.
Here’s the Narbonic strip. Imagine about 18 inches between the top of the frame and the ceiling:
So, here’s what I want to hang on the wall over my desk:
. . .plus, I want to keep the Red Birds, and Kevin Dyer’s tree, and I have to leave room for the third Carousel picture.
No problem, right?
No, really — you can laugh; it’s fine. If this show wasn’t low-budget, I’d cue the laugh-track myself.
And the bitter irony is? That Steve, who has very fine spatial understanding, and who very well knows that this whole project can only end in tears, will get pulled into it against his better judgement and wind up making it work.
As he has done, many, many times before.
. . .I’m thinking I’d better make a pre-emptive Devil’s food cake. What d’y’all think?
Trade Secret reminder
Signed copies of Trade Secret, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, the sequel to 2004’s smash Liaden hit, Balance of Trade are now available for pre-order from Uncle Hugo’s.
Here’s the synopsis:
Jethri Gobelyn is unique; he’s a Terran adopted into a Liaden trading clan. Under the tutelage of Master Trader ven’Deelin, he has achieved his license to trade in Liaden space. Not all Liadens are thrilled by this, or convinced by Master ven’Deelin’s insistence that Liadens and Terrans must learn to trade together.
But, Jethri isn’t only unique because of his adoption and penchant for trade; he’s also the son of a far-seeing Terran trader, now deceased, the author of a secret Envidaria — a plan that could change the face of galactic trade, forever. Ruthless people are willing to kill to obtain the Envidaria, in order to suppress it, or to use it for their own profit.
And it’s up to Jethri Gobelyn, a man who is both Liaden and Terran, to protect the Envidaria, and to decide how — or if — to use the information it contains.
Art by Sam Kennedy
#SFWAPro
For cat fans
So, I was wandering around the house with my camera in my hand, taking pictures of Things That Were Not Cats. Which the cats, naturally enough, decided was Not Allowed.
Here, have some cat pictures.
In the mail…
We have here in our hands the Official Tour post cards and bookmarks. I especially like the tag-line on this one:
Star-spanning galactic trader Jethri Gobelyn returns!
It may, in fact, be my second-favorite Liaden tag-line ever. First place in my heart being always held by the inspired tag for Pilots Choice, which has, for Sheer Chutzpah never been equaled:
The new Liaden Universe® novel is here!
So! the front of the post card:
