“Will-o’-the-wisp,” by Sharon Lee, the second Archers Beach story of January (this one actually set in Archers Beach), is now up and eager to be read, right here.

In case you missed the first Archers Beach story of January, which is actually set in the Land of the Flowers, it’s right here.

Next thing on my plate today is!

Revising a story, this one destined for the Alien Artifacts anthology.

Wait, you didn’t know about the Alien Artifacts Anthology?  Lucky for you — there’s still time to get on board.  Here’s your info link.  And here’s your ordering link.

“The Wolf’s Bride,” by Sharon Lee, is now on Splinter Universe, for your reading pleasure.

Here’s your link.

“Bride” is about Cael the Wolf, and is set in the Land of the Flowers, some very long while before Kate Archer is born a princess in the line of the Sea Lord Aeronymous.

Feel free to share the link — and enjoy!

So, today! the featured Boskone mini-interviews are from Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.  Here’s the link.  I should mention here that our interviews of part of an ongoing series, and if you haven’t been following it, you should definitely take the opportunity to start following them now.  I’ve been having a lot of fun with them.

Also! If you’re planning to attend Boskone, remember that rates  go up on January 20, so you want to buy that membership now!

*looks at calendar*

Well. . . I suppose it’s not too soon, really.

*clears throat*

Watch the Skies

. . .we’ll have a little something set out for you guys on Welcome to Liad, right around  December 24.

Also!  If you’ve been waiting for the third book in Alma Alexander’s Were Chronicles — and I know you have — it’s now up for preorder.  I think you all know what to do.

Today is Terrorize the Cats Day, as I intend to unleash the Cat Eating Machine.  The rest of the day will be devoted to The Gathering Edge.

Tomorrow is going to be a day off, very likely our last day off until we turn in the manuscript and head off to Boskone, early next year.

Hope everyone’s having a good day, surrounded by pleasant people.

Once Upon A Time, back in the late 1980s, it was difficult for authors and readers to get together.  If you were a science fiction/fantasy writer, you could travel to SF conventions and get face-time with readers, and sort of hand-sell your work.  If you were a fan of a particular book, you might, if you were Very Ambitious, or energized by the Magnificence of the Work, write to the author’s publisher, who might, or might not, remember to pass the letter on.

Book reviews were written by book reviewers and published, in hard copy, in various magazines and newspapers across the country, and if you were a genre writer of science fiction or fantasy, you could pretty well forget being reviewed anywhere except, maybe, Locus, which, by the 1980s, had completed its morph from fanzine to trade journal, or possibly (as we were) in Romantic Times (founded in 1981 as a print review magazine).

Reader reviews, except for reviews in fanzines were. . .not too common.

Eventually, came the internet, and it became easier for readers to connect with authors, and vice-versa.  Webzines and fan sites cropped up; listserves for enthusiasts came into being.  Readers could talk to readers, and compare notes and insights.  Readers could talk to authors, comparing notes and insights.  Authors could talk to authors, only think of that!

It was a heady time.

And into this heady time of connection, Amazon.com was born.  They realized that word of mouth was important, and that readers/customers find it valuable to compare notes on books — especially books, I’ll say, because I’m a writer and books are inordinately important in my life.

We here in the Liaden Universe® converted our paper newsletter to an email newsletter; we benefited greatly from a Liaden Universe® mailing list set up by a fan — a list that still lives today, administered by another fan, though, with all the other social media options available, a much quieter life than it enjoyed in its heyday.

Eventually, we migrated to other platforms, LiveJournal, where my blog, Eagles Over the Kennebec, has been posting for. . .12 years, come March.  We also moved to Facebook, and to a very lesser extent, to Twitter.  I understand that there are other, cooler, places to connect readers and writers nowdays — the point being that those connections are continuing, and growing.

Indeed, connection is what the internet does best.  Publishers understood it, at last, and began demanding that authors go out, connect with their fans, do a blog tour — promote their work!  The Theory of the Long Tail was espoused (we’ve talked about that before, here), and misunderstood, and continues to be both misunderstood and not quite accurate to this day.

Now, since my life has, perhaps, been stranger than most, I have readers, and friends, and friends who are readers, and people whom I’ve “known” for twenty years and more, whom I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting in the flesh.  I have friends who I only see at conventions; and readers, too.  And a whole lot of those people, and others, too — read my blog, or follow me on Facebook, or on Twitter or Pinterest or (as discussed here recently) on Patreon.

They do this because we have a shared history — be it high school, or the Liaden books, or a love of Things Feline, or an appreciation of Georgette Heyer, or because we’re colleagues — and want to stay in touch.

Connection is what the internet does best — for good or for ill.

Here’s a photo of one writer:

Sharon Lee is one-half of the writing team of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, authors of the Liaden Universe®, as well as other high-class science fiction and fantasy works.  Sharon is also the author of a contemporary fantasy trilogy set in a Maine resort town (Carousel Tides, Carousel Sun, Carousel Seas).  The next, 19th, Liaden Universe® novel, Alliance of Equals, will be published by Baen in July 2016.  Sharon and Steve are presently at work on the 20th Liaden novel, The Gathering Edge.

Hey, look what came in today’s mail!

The table of contents includes:

Tanith Lee
Mary Gentle
Carrie Vaughn
Ken Liu
Theodora Goss
Yoon Ha Lee
Tanya Huff
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Elizabeth Moon
Aliette de Bodard

. . .and others too numerous to list; 24 stories in all!

Now on sale (she mentions) at a bookseller near you.

So!  Audible lets us know in this morning’s mail that it’s conducting a Black Friday sale, which is starts right now and ends Wednesday, December 2, at 11:59 PM ET.  Many, many, many audiobooks in Every Genre On Earth will be on sale for $4.95 — among them, lest we forget FLEDGLING by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller — and?

You do not have to be an Audible customer to take advantage of this sale.

Here’s the link to the first page of the sci-fi listing.

Here we have something rare and precious — a sneak peek of the comp of the cover for Alliance of Equals.  Which is to say a suggested layout.  Sort of like the cover version of a first draft.

We are cautioned that the final cover may change, but this is where the Art Department at Baen is currently tending.

Art by David Mattingly, and yes, this does illustrate an Actual Scene from the book.