Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Our last note this month comes from Sarah Zettel, who explains why Sword of the Deceiver was an unlikely book:

I really didn't think I'd be going back to the Isavalta story after I finished The Firebird's Vengeance, but these characters wouldn't leave me alone.  They all but demanded I tell their story as well.  Of course, the fact that this gave me the opportunity to write about somewhere warm and beautiful while I was living in the depths of winter may also have had something to do with it.  I hope you will enjoy.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 02:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Next, John Moore talks about his new novel, A Fate Worse Than Dragons. (By the way, let me know if any of you would be interested in a major anthology of space-aardvark stories…)

I have far more ideas for stories than I'll ever have time to write, but one thing I can't do is generate ideas on demand.  An editor will email me with a request to contribute to an anthology:  "We are now accepting submissions for Aardvarks in Space Vol. II.  We're looking for fast-paced, cutting edge stories of no more than 7000 words relating to aardvarks and space travel.  Are you interested?"  And my answer is yes, I'm interested, but unless an aardvark story just happens to come to me, I can't contribute.

Except that once the idea is placed in my subconscious, it bubbles around until a story does burst forth.  Alas, this invariably happens five days after the deadline is past.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And here’s the author of our second Selection this month – Patrick Rothfuss talking about his first novel, The Name of the Wind:

I grew up reading fantasy. I loved it. Starting around sixth grade I read a novel a day, sometimes two.

But eventually I started to get disillusioned. I would pick up a book and find myself thinking, "Haven't I read this before? It all seems really familiar...."

I got more dissatisfied when I started college and didn't have the time to read everything I stumbled across. I found myself irritated when books were predictable carbon copies of the ones I'd read years before. I found myself wanting a different kind of fantasy, I wanted something new....
So I sat down to write my own novel. I wanted something that made people feel the way I used to feel as a kid when I read Dragonriders of Pern, The Hobbit, or The Chronicles of Narnia. I wanted to avoid all the fantasy clichés and tell a story that was different and new.

It took me more than a decade, but it's finally done. I spent many of those years living poor and working less so I'd have time to write. But the feedback I've been getting these last months has made it all worthwhile. People tell me, "I got bored with fantasy years ago, but I loved your book."
The additional good news is that I've already written the entire trilogy. So you don't have to worry about long delays for the next two books. You also don't have to worry about the series rambling on and on. This story has an end, already finished and set in stone. After that, I'll have fun telling other stories in this world. I've come to love the characters that live there, and I'm glad I get to introduce them to you after all these years.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 02:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another SFBC month is in the mail -- the June magazine started being addressed on Monday, so some of you may have it already -- and, as usual, I have a few notes about new books from their authors. First up is the author of our first selection, the irrepressible John Scalzi, who has horrible secret to reveal about The Last Colony:

I must ask your forgiveness, because, you see, because with The Last Colony, I have committed the gravest of science fictional sins.

Yes, dear readers: I have committed trilogy.

It wasn’t my intent, you know. The first book, Old Man’s War, was a stand-alone. But then I was told to write a sequel, and out came Ghost Brigades. And then my editor said “Well, you can’t just end it there. Here’s some shiny pennies! Write another one!” And I did. The pennies were very shiny, you see, and I’m all about the shiny objects.

But I said to myself: Well, if I’m going to commit trilogy, I’m going to do it right. With this last book, I’m going to challenge some of the expectations readers might have from the previous books. I’m going to test the characters in ways they weren’t necessarily tested before. And most of all I’m going to make sure this book has its own story to tell – it’s not just about wrapping up this universe with a bow, it’s about giving the book its own character and life and making it worth reading for itself.

It’s up to you to decide if I pulled it off, but I will say this: Yes, I have committed trilogy, but I am not sorry, because I got this book out of it. And I like it a lot. I hope you will too.

 

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And our last “Author’s Note” for May is from Carrie Vaughn, about the three novels that I stuck together into Long-Time Listener, First-Time Werewolf (and she’s such a good sport she even liked my silly idea for an omnibus title – can’t ask for more than that from an author):

When I wrote the first short story about a werewolf named Kitty who starts a talk radio show, a little voice told me, "This is crazy.  No one will ever go for this."  But I did it anyway. It turns out I had a lot more material than just a short story's worth. A bunch of stories and novels later, Kitty is still going strong.

I've since learned that when that little voice speaks—"That's crazy, you'll never get away with this"—I'm on the right track. That voice recognizes the really wild ideas. It's the same voice that says I shouldn't ride that motorcycle, that I should have majored in accounting rather than English lit, etc. That voice hates risk.  But you know what? That's where all the good stories are.  (Like this one time, with the motorcycle...)

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kelley Armstrong is up next, with a few words about her new “Women of the Otherworld” novel, No Humans Involved:

One of the great joys of fiction writing is the chance to inhabit another life, perhaps not one I’d care to stay in, but one that’s fun to visit. The revolving cast of narrators in my Otherworld series lets me do just that, and with No Humans Involved, I had the opportunity to bring to life a character I’ve been dying to do since she first appeared three books ago. Jaime Vegas is a blast to work with—an irreverent, bawdy celebrity spiritualist who embraces life, yet struggles with the darker side that comes with seeing ghosts at every turn. A fascinating character to create and to inhabit and, I hope, to read about. 

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And here’s Joel Shepherd writing about his second “Cassandra Kresnov” novel, Breakaway:

I'm sometimes asked about the differences between Crossover and Breakaway.   Well, Sandy gets less sex in Breakaway.   No seriously.   She's not happy about it either.

That aside, it's been great fun to write a series about an artificial intelligence where the protagonist isn't much interested in chess, couldn't give a hoot about quantum physics, but becomes a keen surfer and gets into sex, drugs and rock 'n roll.   The actual plot aside, Breakaway's where Sandy's finally allowed to let her hair down a little.   And learns what that costs...

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Next, Allen Steele talks about his new novel, Spindrift:

Very often, my stories and novels are inspired by visual images. Spindrift is one such instance. Several years ago, while at a science fiction convention in Boston, I had a conversation with my friend and collegue, the science journalist Jeff Hecht, about an article he’d recently published in New Scientist. Jeff’s piece was about so-called trans-Neptunian objects – asteroids or small planets that astronomers believed existed in the outermost reaches of the solar system – and accompanying his article was an illustration depicting the surface of just such a world.

This image of a dark and ice-covered plain, far beyond the Sun, got stuck in my mind; I knew almost immediately that there was a story to be told about this place. At the time, though, I was just beginning work on Coyote, so it was put on the back burner. Coyote led to Coyote Rising, which in turn led to Coyote Frontier … and still, I kept thinking about men in spacesuits, trudging across a lightless world, their way guided only by the wan illumination of their helmet lamps.

During that same period, astronomers confirmed the existence of trans-Neptunian objects: first Sedna, then Eris, and finally the revelation – still controversial in many quarters – that Pluto is not a true planet after all, but rather just another resident of the Kuiper Belt. At the same time, articles were being published in science magazines regarding the possibility of rogue planets, something which had long-since been a staple of science fiction that now appeared to be real.

All this happened while I was writing the Coyote books. By the time I was halfway through Coyote Frontier, I was beginning to think that I might be able to continue the series beyond the conclusion of the trilogy, perhaps as a related novel set in the same universe, using the events on Coyote as background. And then I recalled that mental image which had been haunting me for so long…
Looking back on it now, I realize that I’d set up the situation for Spindrift within the first chapters of Coyote. Perhaps this was an act of my subconscious mind. All I know is that, once I finally arrived at the place where I’d imagined those lonely space explorers, it was with an eerie sense of familiarity. I’d been there before, and now I was getting a chance to describe what I’d seen.

So Spindrift is the title of a novel about a place called Spindrift. It has evolved considerably from what I first thought it would be – indeed, its greatest secret (shhh! … I’m not telling you here) literally came to me in a dream – but nonetheless it goes back to that magazine illustration, briefly glimpsed nearly a decade ago. I had a lot of fun getting there; I hope you will, too.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’m running late this month – I should have posted the May “Author’s Notes” last week – so I’ll forego any attempts at cleverness. Our first note this time is from Robert J. Sawyer, author of our Main Selection Rollback:

One of the most interesting panels I ever saw at a science-fiction convention had Larry Niven and Mike Resnick on it. The moderator asked them each to describe the kind of SF they wrote. Larry said he writes things that remind him of the stories that hooked him on the genre when he was a teenager. Mike said he writes stories that appeal to him as a middle-aged man. Of course, I immediately thought of counterexamples: Nivenesque stories by Mike, and Resnickish tales by Larry—but I’ve often wondered how one might do both, combining that grandly cosmic sense-of-wonder with the down-to-Earth and intimately human. I don’t know if it’s possible to succeed on both levels, but I do know that there’s no other genre that even tries to be fractal—to be fascinating and beautiful at scales large and small. That’s one of the many reasons I love being a science-fiction writer.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Our second (and final) note is from Brenda Cooper, about The Silver Ship and the Sea:

This is my first solo novel.  I started out wanting to write about difference and prejudice; The Silver Ship and the Sea also gathered a general anti-war theme as it went (one thing war represents is a superset of prejudice).  My heroes, Chelo and Joseph and their friends, are affected by a past they did not create, as are many of us.  They have to deal with a lot of choices that other people made for them.

I think we're going to spend the next few decades trying to determine what our boundaries are as a species.  How will genetic engineering affect our basic humanity?  What will we embrace, and what will scare us?  So that's part of what this book is about, too. I hope it is also fun.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Our last “Author’s Note” from March comes from Guy Gavriel Kay, whose new book is Ysabel:

The books that work are rarely those we force into the light. They are the ones that want to emerge, that demand it, actually, pushing everything else out of the way. That’s what happened with Ysabel.

During a year in the south of France, I started thinking about how some parts of the world still carry the imprint of what has gone before. How “yesterday” in such places isn’t so remote. And it occurred to me that “the past” can mean many different things. It can be twenty-five-hundred years or – in a family working through its scars – twenty-five.

Out of these thoughts and images, Ysabel – the book, and the woman named in the title – came to me.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 01:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

P.C. Hodgell tells us a little about her new novel, To Ride a Rathorn:

Welcome to the first half of Jame’s year at the military college of Tentir. Being Jame, she has more on her hands than maneuvers, including cadet intrigues, threats to the college’s honor, assaults on the Kencyr soulscape, and an erupting volcano, courtesy of the Burnt Man. Also, there’s a certain young rathorn (pronounced “rath-orn”) out for her blood and in danger of getting a taste of same. She may survive Tentir, but will Tentir survive her? I had more fun with this novel than any since God Stalk. Since these stories tend, in a weird way, to mirror my own life, here’s hoping for an interesting future, if only in the sense of the Chinese proverb. That, at least, sounds like Jame.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Next, here’s Kim Harrison, about her new novel, For a Few Demons More:

Instant communication between reader and writer.  I’ve been watching it develop, seeing most writers fall to one side or the other, either avoiding it to maintain the purity of their ideas, or embracing it to better tailor their work to what the reader wants to see.  It’s an individual choice, and both make strong, complete visions. 

For me, talking to readers in a relaxed format hasn’t given rise to the reader directing my plotlines, but it has shaped my work positively, hopefully making it purposeful faster than had I allowed only my thoughts to color my words.  Readers themselves have driven me to push into new areas of thought as they debate the ramifications of characters' actions, and I as a writer find an unexpected excitement in addressing their questions in due time—questions as to the depth and power behind human emotion, what is moral vs. what is just, and how the individual is still as powerful as the masses.

To try to answer them in such a way that there is no same answer for all has been the most exciting thing I’ve ever done, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to strive to meet the challenge.  I hope you enjoy the ride.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those who aren’t aware, the SFBC asks most of the authors whose books we use in the club if they’d like to write a short note to our members, and many of them do so. To start off this time, here’s Elizabeth Moon writing about the fourth “Vatta’s War” novel, Command Decision:

In 2005, while working on Command Decision, I was in Oslo, Norway for an SF convention. It was my first trip to Norway, and I was far too excited to plan any research aimed at this particular book. Besides, the book had stuck: I had designed the perfect "locked room" and couldn't get my characters out of it.

One night I turned on the TV. The only English language program happened to be about a situation similar to the one my characters faced. With the British Special Air Services explaining in detail how they'd handle it. Aha! I needed a different kind of "locked room."

After the convention, I took an overnight trip to Bergen, a tour called "Norway in a Nutshell" which involved trains, a boat ride down a fjord, a bus ride back up to the train line, overnight in Bergen, then the train back to Oslo. Beautiful trip, lots of fun. On the way back--between the stations where the outbound tour left the main line and returned to it--I saw the perfect location for the other "locked room." Aha!

I love it when that happens.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And last for this cycle is my “Editor’s Note” for The Jack Vance Treasury, a book I think every serious SF/Fantasy reader should own – and will love:

The line-up of stories in this book is simply amazing: there’s "The Dragon Masters" and "The Last Castle" and "The Moon Moth" and six Dying Earth stories and that's still only half of the Table of Contents. If you already own the Vance Integral Edition, you can smile and airily wave your hand in the air. Every other reader of taste and sophistication needs a copy.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Next is L.E. Modesitt, Jr. (one of the most dapper men in SF/Fantasy, by the way), who talks about his new novel The Elysium Commission:

When I started The Elysium Commission, I was thinking about internet-type communications and advanced medicine and what might come of that combination – particularly the impact on information and identity.  In a market-driven, information/tech society, information is power.  Why would those with information make it available, except to benefit themselves?  Could government compel accurate disclosure?  Would it? What happens when people adopt multiple electronic and physical identities?  Is anyone whom he/she says she/he is? For how long? How reliable is the information by which you judge them or their business?  Even if it’s accurate, what’s missing? Who really controls society?

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another month, another set of "Author's Notes": we ask most of the authors of new SF/Fantasy books in the club magazine if they'd like to write a short note to our members, and most of the ones we ask have something to say. This month is a bit thin, for various reason, but I do have a couple of notes for you folks. First is David Drake, talking about his first four "Hammer's Slammers" novels in this new omnibus edition:

You can call some of my stories either Space Opera or Military SF, but there's no question about the Hammer series. It (along with work by Joe Haldeman and Jerry Pournelle) has defined Military SF since I began it after returning from Viet Nam.

But war and good military fiction both involve more than people shooting at each other. These four short novels and the new novelet collected with them are about politics as well as combat.

And so is real war news. As you read an official's speech or see vehicles on TV burning after a firefight, think about what's behind the words and images--and what will follow.

If these stories help you find clues to today's truths, then I've succeeded.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our last note this month comes from Stan Nicholls, author of The Diamond Isle, who talks about ending a series:

For a writer, coming to the end of a book can be tinged with sadness.  It’s even more of a wrench when the finale of a trilogy’s reached.  You’re saying goodbye to characters you’ve lived with for a long time, probably years, and some of them you really like.  A few you love.  Employing the god-like powers of authorship, you seal their ultimate fate.  Who gets to live, and who’s going to die?  Can she find happiness?  Is he to be condemned to misery?  Will their great enterprise stand or fall?  There’s a certain melancholy in bidding farewell to people born in your head.  All you can do is wrap them against the cold and give them a decent send off.  I hope I’ve done that in The Diamond Isle.

Neal Asher explains why Brass Man brings back a fan-favorite character:

As I said in the acknowledgements to Brass Man, the book is due to all those who told me that they really liked Mr. Crane, but mainly because I did too. What is it about him? Is it his collection of toys and how he’ll forgo ripping you to pieces if he thinks you possess something interesting to add to it? Or is it because he’s anti-Asimovian? “But you are not supposed to harm a human being!” is the cry, to which Mr. Crane would reply, “Whatever gave you that strange idea?” if he actually said anything. He doesn’t say much at all, but I guess that when you can tear off someone’s arm and beat them with the wet end, you don’t have much need for eloquence.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And here’s John Birmingham on Final Impact, the last book in his “Axis of Time” trilogy:

You know that feeling you get when you finish a book and you just want it to go on, because you've grown so close to the characters. That feeling is about a hundred times worse when you wrote 'em. Sure, you mighta done 'em some damage in the story, even a killed a few along the way, but still it hurts to let go. I thought I'd finish this trilogy and leap into the air shouting “Free at last!” – but I didn't. The characters had become my friends and I was sorry to see them go. 'Cept for Himmler of course. I was happy to put the zap on that crazy little ratbastard. I hope you come to feel the same way.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I envision Magic as a primordial force, not independent of scientific law but wedded to it, as much a part of the natural world as plate tectonics and relativity.  Like fire it is neither good nor evil in itself, but can be wielded by humans in any number of causes.  And like fire it can burn the one that handles it, smolder where it was thought be extinguished, or devour the homes and possessions of those of those who believed -- wrongly -- that they could control it.   

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The last “Author’s Note” I have this month is from Melanie Rawn, from who we haven’t heard much the past few years. But she’s back now, with a contemporary fantasy named Spellbinder. Why contemporary fantasy? I’ll let her tell you:

Not what you were expecting, right? Magic present and accounted for. But — New York? Witches, Satanists, a U.S. Marshal, a biographer/novelist — and Bonnie Raitt songs? Is this really a Melanie Rawn book? Trust me: it really is a Melanie Rawn book. I know this because I'm Melanie Rawn, and I wrote it. While writing it, I discovered that I like playing in the world I actually live in, as opposed to playing in the worlds I live in inside my head. I like being able to reference people, politics, religion, history, world events — and Bonnie Raitt songs. Which is not to say I won't play in my other worlds again. But until I do, I hope you have a good time with Spellbinder.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our third Selection this month is a debut fantasy novel, Scar Night, by Alan Campbell, who has an interesting past and who maintains a blog, An Urban Fantasy. Speaking of urban fantasy, Alan, what is it, exactly?

Someone recently asked me to explain exactly what urban fantasy was. Because genre boundaries are porous and always seem to be shifting, I couldn't think of a quick and easy answer to the question. Contemporary fantasy? Fantasy set in an urban environment? Did it necessarily have to be dark or gritty? While some of the definitions appeared to be reasonably apt, at least with regards to what I was writing, none of them really nailed down this sub-genre for me. My dictionary had never managed to shed much light on the subject either, so I mulled the question over for a while, before settling on "the sort of fantasy which wouldn't be invited to the Queen's Ball." I don't mean to imply that the setting or characters have to be scruffy. But I'd like to think that if high fantasy asked you to embark upon a quest to find a magic stone, then urban fantasy would be waiting in the shadows, ready to mug you when you got back.

And now you get two notes for the price of one, both about Maelstrom by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough.

First, here’s Anne McCaffrey:

Annie and I go back several decades now as collaborators.  We met in Kansas City (her home town) when I was on a signing tour and, serendipitously, on the same day she found out that her first book on her infamous hearth witch, Maggie Brown, had been accepted.  Well, it was incumbent on me to take this newbie out for a decent meal, and that began a friendship, solidified by the fact that we are both kat staff and have many yarns to exchange.

Then, when she was in Europe doing research, Annie stopped off to visit me.  Well, for one thing, you can't have two authors at the same table without a lot of “what-ifs” in the air, and we agreed that there had been very few books done on ice-worlds...and since we both knew “inconvenient peoples”...the Inuits for Annie and the Travellers for me in Ireland, we decided they'd be the scapegoats. Then the planet which we named Petaybee (for the Powers that Be) wanted to know if it could have a say in the matter.  We diplomatically agreed as any sensible pair of writers would.  Annie and I share the same sort  of humor and so shared the disk which contained the meat of Petaybee while we worked on our other on-going novels.  It was a lot of fun matching wits, sharing jokes and creating an ice world.

I'm delighted to know that Maelstrom has been put at such a prestigious level.  Just goes to show you that two minds are better than one.

And here’s Elizabeth Ann Scarborough with her take on their collaboration:

I like Sky the otter best and working with the animal characters. He and the other animal characters, to me, personify Petaybee, in the same way that the stories of indigenous people that feature “talking” animal characters show their close personal relationship with the earth. The twins, kids on the land, seals in the sea, are like the planet’s liaison between humans and animals, even more than their father, whose human side is more fully developed. For contrast, I enjoy writing Yana’s viewpoint as “the little human” in her family coupled with her somewhat military style of mothering. It’s odd how hard it can be at times to imagine people who care intensely about their world and a world that cares intensely about its people, but this world is an echo of earth as some stories say it used to be, contrasted with a contemporary resource gobbling human universe surrounding it. And then there are those aliens. . .

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since another cycle is in the mail (see my post yesterday for the full line-up of new books in Winter), it's time to break out the "Author's Notes" that some of the writers featured there were kind enough to write for us.

First up is Orson Scott Card, writing about his new novel Empire:

I try to be honest with my readers — apart from the fact that you know I make all this stuff up — so I must inform you now: Empire is being offered to the Science Fiction Book Club under false pretenses.  Because, while I think it’s one of the best novels I’ve ever written, it’s ... shhhh ... don’t tell ... not sci-fi.

OK, there are futuristic weapons.  But they’re not that far from buildable.  And since it’s a thriller set in a year meant to be just like 2008, by the time the paperback edition comes out, this book won’t even be in the future.

When I write science fiction — like my Homecoming books, set 30 million years in the future — I don’t have to do any research.  Because who’s going to tell me that I’m wrong about how things will be that long from now?

And even with historical books, like my Women of Genesis, I’m working in such a murky area of history that there are lots of scholars with opinions, but none who can prove that my speculations are flat wrong.

But Empire is different.  I’m using soldiers who would already be in the service right now.  Politicians who would already be in office.  I have to show government and the military and the daily life of these people exactly as they would be if this story took place in 2008 in known cities in the real world.

You know what that means?  Yes.  It means I actually had to work.  I couldn’t just make up a name for the veeblefritzer personal foe-blaster, I had to find out what weapons real soldiers carry, how they use them, and what they call them.  And I’ve never been in the military.

I also don’t care about cars.  I don’t know many people who do.  So what would it mean if somebody drives, say, an SUV rather than a Mustang or Thunderbird or Honda?  (Here’s my secret: They use a lot of black SUVs on 24, so I figured I was OK with using them too.)

Worst of all, I actually had to come up with a terrorist plot to kill the President that my readers would believe might really work.

Think about that.  I’m a regular, nonviolent guy.  I have nothing against this president.  Even presidents I’ve detested over the years, I didn’t want dead.  And I had to drive around Washington DC trying to think of ways to get past the security and blow up the President, the Vice-president, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

I could have been arrested just for what I was thinking.

Near-future thrillers are just too hard.  I’m too old and lazy.  Next time, I’m back to sci-fi.  No, wait.  Fantasy!  That’s what I’ll do!  No research at all!  Just — shazam!

No, wait.  The best fantasy writers are even making those realistic.  Don’t these writers realize that research is like homework?  Didn’t they get enough of that in school?

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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And here’s Alan Dean Foster to tell us a little of the thinking behind the latest “Pip & Flinx” novel, Trouble Magnet:

In his old age (he's 26) Flinx is souring on sentience.  In Trouble Magnet, he decides to spend some time on Visaria, a world with one of the worst reputations in the Commonwealth, to see if humankind is worth saving.  Much of what he finds there is expected, but a lot is not...and will cause him to come to some final decisions. 

I thought it would be interesting if, in looking for answers to everything else, Flinx encountered something that reminded him of...himself.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our other Selection this month is an interesting and complicated one: Mercedes Lackey’s Diana Tregarde Investigates, a 3-in-1 of contemporary fantasy novels a lot like those written by Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Charlaine Harris, and similar writers…except that Lackey wrote these books over fifteen years ago. I’ll let her explain:

The Diana Tregarde books were all written quite some time ago, and actually predate Buffy, Charmed, and a fair number of other “witch-centered” movies and TV shows.  While I would love to think that Diana had something to do with kicking off a trend, the truth is that it's probably just coincidence.  Though in fairness I think that they're probably the most “cinematic” of the books I've ever written, and I would love to see them on the big or small screen.  One of these days I might well revisit the characters.

One of the oddest of the coincidences around the books happened shortly after the publication of Burning Water, when several college students were murdered down on the border of Texas and Mexico around Brownsville, and early media reports were that the murders seemed to be related to a pagan cult of some sort.  The initial and very sketchy information made it look almost as if it might have been a copycat working from my book.  Now this is something that every author that describes violent acts in prose either should or does have to wrestle with — that someone might take what they had written and go out and actually do what was described.  So do you self-censor?  Or do you go ahead with what the story demands?  As it happened in this case, there was no copy-catting involved, and the case was far more complicated than those early reports suggested but still...it gave me, at least, pause — and a great deal to think about.

Here is a link to what really happened:

http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/constanzo.htm

Which in itself is certainly fodder for someone's book.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I started reading SF in the classic vein — Burroughs, Kline, Brackett — and I’ve always loved their visions of Mars and Venus, and the planetary romances of slightly later writers like Heinlein.  Unfortunately, the planets we actually got are barren and boring to anyone but a planetologist.  Hence I've worked mostly on Earth, doing alternate history, or set my SF in other solar systems.
Alternate History lets us access fictional worlds otherwise lost to us; a very ancient divergence-point gives us a Venus (The Sky People) and Mars (In the Halls of the Crimson Kings, the sequel) that offer a broader canvas for adventure — and for the mystery of how they got that way.  It was a bit of a struggle to find a home for the project; every writer I described it to loved it, but publishers seemed a bit more skeptical.  However it turns out, I’ve had a whale of a time writing it, and I think — hope — that it will connect with readers who’ve wanted that headlong glamour.

It also has the charm of happening to us, or to people roughly like us.  It’s surprising how late definite knowledge of our closest planetary neighbors came in; hints in the thirties, but no definite knowledge until the fifties.  From then, of course, things would get different, wild and wooly.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 03:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last for Thanksgiving, Jean Rabe explained how she worked with Andre Norton on A Taste of Magic:

Such an immense honor I was given—to complete Andre Norton’s final manuscript, A Taste of Magic. She’d gotten several chapters into the novel before a variety of circumstances did not allow her to finish it on her own.

It was the first long fiction piece I’d written in first-person, quite the challenge for me, and I strove to match her style. In the weeks before her death, Andre and I worked out the end to A Taste of Magic.

Andre was magic herself, a gifted writer who taught me more than a few things about the craft. I treasured her friendship through the years, and our writing and editing collaborations. A Taste of Magic is a project I will always remember with love and pride.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)