kate elliott

I just got back from a trip that included a couple long plane rides. I’m a very fast reader and finding a long, well-crafted series immersive enough to make me forget that my back is aching, the kid behind me keeps kicking the seat, and all the other discomforts of travel. Airport bookstores are usually full of stuff I’ve already read, so I try to load my e-reader with an abundance beforehand. Here’s a few that have stood me in good stead in the past few months.

Most recently, Kate Elliott’s The Novels of the Jaran (Jaran, An Earthly Crown, His Conquering Sword, and The Law of Becoming), which come as a single ebook bundle that Immensely satisfying space opera mixed with nomadic life with the Jaran on their unexpectedly pivotal planet. Elliott has become one of my goto writers (another favorite is Walter Jon Williams) – I know anything I pick up by her will be a satisfying and sustaining read.

Martha Wells’ The Books of the Raksura is fantasy, following the adventures of one of the Raksura, Moon, as he finds a new home and family, only to have to defend them. Moon is a character who shines; you desperately want him to be happy, and his path towards that is deeply engaging. And the most recent book, The Harbors of the Sun, is out now!

Max Gladstone’s The Craft Sequence. I had read the first three of these, but another nicely-priced ebook bundle let me pick them up all together and read them that way, which I highly recommend. They connect in a interesting and convoluted way that makes the series do what a series should – create a whole that is greater than the sum of the individual books. Awesome fantasy with a modern flavor and a delightfully careful attention paid to economics.

Kristine Smith’s The Jani Kilian Chronicles is military-flavored space opera with a strong and engaging protagonist, games with linguistics, and plenty of action. A protagonist who is flawed, fearless, and feisty, and a romantic life that adds to the book but is certainly not the focus. Not quite military SF but close, I guess – I’m never sure where space opera ends and military SF begins.

Short stories are not something I would normally take on a vacation – they’re candy, not sustaining rations. But there’s a lovely series collecting all of Theodore Sturgeon’s work that I’ve been picking up book by book, using them as rewards. I’m up to Volume Five of those, The Perfect Host. And yay! All of them seem to be available on the Kindle. If you’re an F&SF short story writer, Sturgeon is one of the people you should read, in my opinion, to see how brilliantly and beautifully he does things.

Steampunk continues to manifest as a genre, although it seems to me it’s not as relentless in its novelty as it used to be. Perhaps once you have reached the point of being parodied in a Key and Peale episode, you cannot claim to be cutting edge anymore? Not to mention that I’ve found steampunk jewelry making kits at the local craft store and the local Value Village flyers featured “How to Make a Steampunk Costume” along with Pirate, Vampire, Zombie, Superhero, and Sexy Barista.

I love the texture of steampunk and have been enjoying seeing continued riffs on a theme that has a long way to go before it’s played out. Here’s six that I’ve enjoyed in the past couple of years. It is by no means an exhaustive list, but each of these bring in aspects of other genres in a way that showcases how much life such a mixture can produce.

Clockwork Lives by Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart The book description had me at “steampunk Canterbury Tales” and it’s got some of that adventure’s flavor as it moves along following the adventures of Marinda Peake as she strives to make her life worthy of her father’s legacy. I picked up the lovely hardcover version of the book, which is very prettily put together, complete with facsimile marbled endpapers, high-grade paper, and nice illustrations.

City of the Saints: A Scientific Romance in Four Parts by D. J. Butler There’s a frenzied genius to Butler’s cast of characters, which includes Richard Burton, Samuel Clemens, and Edgar Allen Poe, all turned into intelligence agents vying with each other and the agents of the Kingdom of Deseret against a background of a Utah transmogrified by the steampunk filter into something rich and tangily textured. This book is fun not just for the quick-paced story but as an alternate history that plays with a number of known characters in ways that only add to their legendary nature.

The Emperor’s Edge by Lindsay Buroker. Buroker is a great example of what indie publishing can be. I came to her Emperor’s Edge series because she’d offered the first one free for the Kindle. Smart strategy on her part, because they’re fun fantasy romps that are addictive as crack, with a cast of characters that are entertaining and engaging, and a slow simmering love story that stretches out over the course of the series.

The Clockwork Dagger by Beth Cato. The Clockwork Dagger is the first of a series; the sequel appeared this June. Another strong romantic subplot, but the focus is the journey of Octavia Leander as she struggles to understand her growing healing powers. It’s an unexpectedly satisfying book, and I’ve got the sequel queued up and in my TBR pile.

Cold Magic by Kate Elliot. The first of a terrific trilogy, this combines epic adventure and steampunk as the orphaned Catherine Barahal travels through a pseudo-Victorian world caught up in the middle of social upheaval. One of the joys of big fat fantasy book series is knowing that you’re in for a good, long ride, and Elliott delivers that in spades. (And if you haven’t read her before, you’re welcome. She’s one of the underestimated fantasy writers, IMO.)

A Thousand Perfect Things by Kay Kenyon. Kenyon writes some of the best social science fiction around, and here she turns that skill to steampunk. The warring countries of Anglica and Bharata meet on a mystical bridge that spans the sea distance between them, and the description of that mode of travel continues to resonate in my head as one of the most interesting landscapes fantasy has to offer.

Crooked by Richard Pett. Imagine Lovecraftian steampunk, with machineries of flesh and rot, and mysterious elixirs of immortality, and you might come close to Crooked. Eerie and wonderful, it’s a marvelous and chilling read that shows how steampunk Cthulhu can becomes.

And here’s a bonus that I ran across while researching links for this post, and found a must-buy: The Diabolical Miss Hyde, by Viola Carr. The description made it irresistible. I love books that pay tribute to classics by reworking them in interesting ways, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a particular favorite of mine. I’ve saving this read for sometime when I want to curl up and lose myself for a while.

#sfwaauthors #sfwaauthor

We spend a good bit of time in the Writing F&SF class on how to deliver information. Here’s a useful piece from Kate Elliott talking about how to give your reader what they need.

We also spend a certain amount of time talking about slush piles and how to break out of them. Here’s a story illustrating how hard that can be to do. In light of that, some useful advice from Hugh Howey.

Fireside Magazine is taking flash submissions through May 1.

A really interesting piece talking about neuroscience in fiction, using Ted Chiang’s story “Exhalation.”

Wondering about some of the gender breakdowns in publishing from last year? Here’s coverage of women on f/sf blogs in 2012. Read Renay’s piece talking about the project first. She also mentions a book I highly, highly recommend, How to Suppress Women’s Writing, by Joanna Russ. I found that book in college and it really shaped my thinking.

A Tumblr blog of paying markets, primarily non-fiction.

Another resource, listing writing contests, grants, and awards, from Poets and Writers.