The Plot Bunny Farm

Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott

Elliott is another author who is amazing in her world-building. She makes it real, from her description of the giant eagles (about as intelligent as a pig — in other words, smart enough to respond to commands, but still animals) to the importance of various stages of life (such as Youth’s Crown and Chatelaine’s Belt) to the growing unrest in the Hundred.

That growing unrest is the core of the novel and of the trilogy. The Guardians have disappeared, no longer present to enforce their laws, and many are saying they never existed at all. A pair of reeves visits a high place of the Guardians (a place they are forbidden to set foot) and learn without a doubt that the Guardians did exist, and something has happened to them. Meanwhile, fanatics work to undermine the structure of society, despoiling temples, despising laws, and teaching that reeves are nothing special.

I will be finishing the Crossroads Trilogy, of which Spirit Gate is the first book, as well as reading everything else I can get my hands on, and I recommend all of you do the same. (I peeked at the excerpt from the second book, Shadow Gate, and I have to admit I wasn’t expecting that for an opening. Definitely worth continuing — though most of these TBR books will have to wait until I finish the A to Z series.)

About her writing, she says,

I’ve loved reading fantasy novels since I was a girl. When I was young, though, fantasy novels were mostly stories about boys or men having adventures, with few female characters involved and, if they were involved, all too often they were forced into narrow roles like the girlfriend or the aunt making cookies or the tavern wench or the girl who waits at home for the men to come back. So I promised myself when I was 16 that if I ever was able to publish novels, I would write stories that included the people who were usually excluded from these stories having the adventures, too.

For people who haven’t read my work, be aware I work in series, so it’s best to start with the first book in any given series.

However, you have four series to choose from:
JARAN (first novel in the Novels of the Jaran; I call this one Genghis Khan meets Jane Austen in a science fiction setting);
KING’S DRAGON (#1 of Crown of Stars, epic fantasy about how the consequences of an ancient cataclysmic war come home to roost 2000 years later, following the stories of a 16 year old girl whose magical heart has been hidden from her by her father and a 16 year old boy trying to find out who he really is);
SPIRIT GATE (mentioned here);
and COLD MAGIC (#1 of Spiritwalker Trilogy), my Afro-Celtic post-Roman icepunk Regency adventure fantasy with bonus airship, Phoenician spies, and the intelligent descendents of troodons.
The series are all different in tone and approach and setting.

COLD MAGIC is just out in mass market paperback. Its sequel, COLD FIRE, comes out next month (Sept 2011).

You can find Kate Elliott on-line at www.kateelliott.com.

No Time Like the Present by Carol Emshwiller

Emshwiller is currently concentrating on short fiction (although she’s not completely ruling out the possibility of another novel), and judging from this sample, she’s good at it. It’s not a light-hearted tale; it hints at a coming apocalypse, a time when things go downhill so badly, people will go almost anywhere to escape. The story isn’t terribly rich in description — aside from knowing that the narrator has bunk beds in her room, her house is pretty vague. However, the young voice of the characters, just wanting to be friends, to reach beyond who and what is expected, really appealed to me.

Carol Emshwiller has a home page on the SFWA site, but it does not appear to have been updated since 2008.

Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge

Although set against a backdrop of a corporation attempting to become an independent state (corporate states being a well-known trope of SF), Solitaire isn’t about politics or business or the shape of the world to come. Instead, this novel weaves together questions of identity, relationship, and self-discovery in a touching exploration of Jackal/Ren. What do you do when you find out you’re not who you think you are? What if people try to make you someone else you’re not? How do you find out who you are and where you truly belong?

Eskridge’s world is well sculpted, with webs of people interacting, with details down to the drinks (Brandy and orange juice? I’m undecided whether to try it for myself.), with wonderful prose (“It was a day like a painting: a hundred shades of green in the leaves and grasses and lily pads of the pond, in the vegetable tops waving from the brown grit of the soil; the sky that looked as if one of the blue colorsticks in her classroom had melted across it; the pinks and lavenders and sun-yellows of the flowers whose names she didn’t know, that nodded wild and rangy on their thin stalks because her father liked them that way. The pain, when it came, was sharp and orange.”), but it’s the people, the humanity, that really brings this story to life.

Here’s what Eskridge has to say about her writing:

Everything starts with character for me. I’m fascinated by what it means to be human, and I love the power of story to take us into the hearts and minds of characters as they make their choices and become themselves. I write about identity and relationship; about small choices with big consequences, and the big feelings they bring us: love, fear, hope, grief, joy. My work is exploratory rather than predictive: I’m not nearly as interested in the global impact of new technology as I am in the effect it might have on individual people.

SOLITAIRE is a deep consideration of choice and change, and what happens when everything a person believes herself to be is called into question. My short fiction, collected in DANGEROUS SPACE, runs the spectrum from fantasy to horror to science fiction. Both books are available in all the usual places, including DRM free ebooks at Weightless Books:
SOLITAIRE: weightlessbooks.com/genre/fiction/solitaire-a-novel
DANGEROUS SPACE: weightlessbooks.com/genre/fiction/science-fiction/dangerous-space

Interested readers can find free stories on my website:

“Strings”

“And Salome Danced”

“Dangerous Space”

You can find Kelley Eskridge on-line at kelleyeskridge.com.

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

We’ve been traveling a fair bit recently, and — having a modern minivan — we’ve played DVDs for the kids in the back. Sometimes, we make them use headphones; Looney Toons are fun, but “The Rabbit of Seville” loses a lot if you can’t see it. Other times, we listen to the DVD, too, and it’s given me a lot of food for thought.

As much as I enjoy the movie The Wizard of Oz — and who doesn’t like saying “Lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my!” or singing along with “We’re off to see the wizard”? — I can’t help thinking about how it changes the truth both of the book it is based on and the entire series. (Spoiler warning!)

Not only is Oz real, but it winds up being Dorothy’s permanent home, as well as Aunt Em and Uncle Henry’s. Yes, it’s an escape from their farm being foreclosed on, but it has its own dangers to face. The big, important thing about Oz for Dorothy (and Trot, Button-Bright, and Betsy Bobbin) is that she has found somewhere she belongs, with friends who understand her, somewhere she fits in.

Looking back on my childhood, I think that may be part of what I loved about these books, almost as much as the magic.

Finding somewhere the characters fit in is a theme in many stories, both in print and in movies. Goonies, the Ice Age series (“We look like a normal pack to you?”), Anne of Green Gables, even the Harry Potter books have it as a theme . . . on and on. As someone who grew up with only a few friends at any time (and rather unpopular with the world in general), I needed stories that said I would, eventually, find my place.

And that’s why I’m going to make sure my children know there’s more to the story of Oz than the movie shows. There is no place like home — but we all need to know we can find somewhere else to belong, too.

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

Carnival by Elizabeth Bear

You’re going to think I have a soft spot for espionage, double agents, and excellent science fiction. . . . You’d be right.

Michelangelo and Vincent (have to love the names!) are working for the Coalition. Maybe. Kidnapping, escape, branes, double-crosses, and unexpected allies make for a wonderful tale. As for the end — I agree with what Bear said about some people’s disappointment: if everyone expected it to go the other way, then she did choose the better ending.

I write the kinds of books I do because they’re the stories I have to tell–and also because they’re the kinds of stories I want to read. It’s hard for me to say just what is the best starting point, since I write such a wide variety of things–it will vary by reader. My most recent publications are Grail from Spectra and The Sea Thy Mistress from Tor. Those are each the final book in a series, however, so I’d recommend going back to the first book in each.

(Note from Erin: The first books would be Dust and All the Windwracked Stars, respectively.)

You can find Elizabeth Bear on her Website, www.elizabethbear.com, and on her LiveJournal account, Matociquala.

Passion Play by Beth Bernobich

I’ve met Bernobich at Boskone a couple of times. I fell in love with her writing when I read “River of Souls” on Tor.com, so I’ve been really eager to read this book.

Her world-building shines from the opening scene, which shows a word game between two friends, Therez and Klara, girls of the merchant class. She shows us their relationship as well as a wealth about the book in only a few pages, and it grows from there, as Bernobich includes details of religion, dress, parties, caravans, and more. As the book progresses, Therez runs away, leans magic, changes her name to Ilse, and works to find her place in the world.

One thing I found jarring in this world was that they worshipped a goddess (maiden, mother, and crone) but it was a heavily patriarchal society. In a book where the world-building was otherwise so well thought out (loved the life dreams and past lives), this felt to me like it didn’t fit. However, I still highly recommend this book.

I write all kinds of stories, but my favorite kind of story is where the character win through difficult situations to strength and independence. That strength isn’t confined to physical strength, but also emotional and intellectual, and the victory might be epic in scale or personal. Or both together. Because to me, while I love grand events, it’s the people involved in those events who matter the most to me.
A good starting place for my work in general would be my collection, A Handful of Pearls & Other Stories (available as an e-book from all the usual sources). For someone who wants a taste of the Erythandra Series, I’d suggest my story “River of Souls” (http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/09/river-of-souls).

You can find Beth Bernobich on her site, Through the Looking Glass (www.beth-bernobich.com).

“Until Forgiveness Comes” by K. Tempest Bradford

This story is a look at the aftermath of a bombing and the emotions and discord that arise in the remembrance of what happened. It is written as a feature piece by a reporter, one that offers glimpses of different people but not the deep involvement common to much fiction. It is, however, an effective technique — we have all read or heard such reports (without the magic), and we know how to relate to the people described.

Her choice of using a world where Egyptian religion is mainstream and Gaelic people are the religious extremists and not the majority flips the world we know on its head. Is what we know and believe about what’s right still true if we change places?

Definitely a strong story, and I will keep an eye out for other fiction by Bradford.

“Until Forgiveness Comes” is available on Strange Horizons’ Website. You can find K. Tempest Bradford on her Website, tempest.fluidartist.com.

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler

I haven’t read any of Butler’s novels, which is ironic, as the preface to this book begins, “The truth is, I hate short story writing.” For not enjoying it, she created some very powerful tales. This book includes five, as well as a couple of essays: Bloodchild, The Evening and the Morning and the Night, Near of Kin, Speech Sounds, and Crossover. I first read this book years ago, but both “Bloodchild” and “Speech Sounds” stayed with me.

I love good fiction that plays with biology.

Rereading it for this post, I remembered how much I enjoyed “The Evening and the Morning and the Night” as well — also well written biology-dependent science fiction. What else do these stories have in common? They deal with family and our beliefs about ourselves (and how others’ beliefs might be different). Three of the stories are first person; two are in third. Each one explores how people adapt to limitations. The essays are also definitely worth reading; in one, she speaks of being the only Black woman (her capitalization) writing science fiction. Although there are others writing now, diversity in the field still has quite a way to go.

I mentioned that I haven’t read any of her novels. That’s a lack I really need to correct, although, honestly, if her novels are as powerful as her short stories, I might have to read them very, very slowly.

Octavia Butler died February 2006, but you can find some information about her on her SFWA member page.

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

I was going to start this post with a picture of my nightstand and intersperse it with other shots of reading material around the house. I even dusted my nightstand before taking pictures! However, there have been yet more computer problems Chez Hartshorn, so that’s not happening. I’ll post pictures some other time; sorry, folks.

This first non-existent picture is the state of my nightstand as I write this. There are three different stacks of books, including paperbacks and hardbacks. There’s a lot there, to be sure — but it’s not really what I read before I go to bed at night (because by the time I get to bed, I just want to sleep, and if I don’t, I’m reading whatever I wandered into the bedroom holding) or what’s up next in my reading queue. There are a couple books here that I dip into for a page or two before sleep occasionally, and books that if we had a tub instead of a walk-in shower, I’d be happy to take with me while I indulged in a bubblebath. There are books that I have there because I should read them, and books that I put there because my husband was trying to clean up the living room and I had books all over the place.

What you don’t see is the hundreds of books that I have available if I want them when I go in there at night. I carry my iPod Touch with me everywhere, and on it I have apps to read with: Kindle, Nook, Stanza, Air Sharing (which lets me load up PDF and RTF files, so that’s where I’ve got the current Hugo nominees), but not Kobo (not compatible with my old iPod, sadly). Last time I checked, I had 126 downloads to my Kindle app. Some of those are samples, some are freebies, and some are books I’ve paid for, prices ranging from 99 cents to $6.99.

In addition to those, I have other piles of books around the house, including the table by the entryway, littered with library books and magazines (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Black Gate, Weird Tales, Locus, SFWA Bulletin, National Geographic, and a few different alumni mags). (Another non-existent picture goes here, of that table with my son’s books on the left, two piles of my books in the middle, plus the magazines, and my husband’s books on the right.)

All of which rather makes one ask two questions:

1. How do I manage to read it all?
2. How do I decide what to read next?

The first answer is easy — I don’t. *sigh* Try as I might, I don’t get to everything. Somehow, though, that doesn’t stop me from acquiring more. Because, you know, if the mood isn’t right for whatever’s in the pile, I still might find something else fascinating.

The second is trickier. Sometimes, it really depends on my mood — I want something light, or something familiar, or the book I’ve been waiting for months to come out. What I’ve been doing the past few weeks (and anticipate continuing through at least the rest of this month) is alternating — something from the Hugo nominations packet, something from the library, something from one of the authors I’m including in my A to Z tour (although that might also fall under one of the other categories). I’m also trying to make sure I’m reading some nonfiction — Jackie As Editor, The Influencing Machine, The Psychopath Test.

All of that said, what are some of the books I have in the TBR pile?Embassytown by China Miéville (hold request placed at library), The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (borrowed from a friend, and should be read and returned), Hammerfall by C. J. Cherryh (Can you believe I’ve never read anything by her?), God’s War by Kameron Hurley, Witch-born by A. J. Maguire, and Starve Better by Nick Mamatas. I’ll probably also pick up Quantum Rose, Spherical Harmonic, and The Moon’s Shadow by Catherine Asaro since I enjoyed Ascendant Sun so much, but that might not be until fall — I don’t exactly have a shortage of things to read.

(Another non-existent photo here, with some of the books laid out to cover the surface of a card table, so you can actually see the titles and authors — The Courage to Write, A Forest of Stars, Miserere: An Autumn Tale, Half World, Passion Play, Jackie as Editor, Then Everything Changed, The Fat Man, The Copyright Handbook, Negotiating a Book Contract, Tracing the Shadow, Primal Branding, Bloodchild and other stories, Nylon Angel, Fire on the Deep, Quantum Rose, Seven Contemporary Chinese Women Writers, The Psychopath Test.)

So what are you reading right now?

(Today’s post was inspired by the topic “What Books are on Your Nightstand?” — the opening question in the inaugural cycle of the Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour — an ongoing tour where you, the reader, travel around the world from author’s blog to author’s blog. We have all sorts of writers at all stages in their writing career, so there’s something for everyone to enjoy. The next post in the tour will be on the 4th, by D. M. Bonnano. Be sure to check it out.

If you want to get to know nearly twenty other writers and find out what’s on their nightstand, check out the Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour. You can find links to all of the posts on the tour by checking out the group site. Read and enjoy!)

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.