martha wells

Only a few more days until the book launch and I am super stoked. This Sunday is my birthday and we’re going out for a special festive dinner, and then I launch into a week of frenzied activity in which I will be book shilling right and left for a bit.

Thank you SO much to everyone who’s pre-ordered or reviewed an ARC. If you would like a signed bookplate, this post has info on how to get one as well as preorder links for Powells, Amazon, Audible, Barnes & Noble.

Here’s what’s coming up next week for the book launch!

• Monday, November 15, 6:30 – 8:00 PM Pacific time Chaotic Storytime with Christopher Paolini & Friends
• Tuesday, November 16, 6 PM Pacific time University of Washington Bookstore reading
• Wednesday, November 17, 4 PM Pacific time Mysterious Galaxy conversation with Ann Leckie
• Thursday, November 18, 4 PM Pacific Time Copper Dog Books Event with Martha Wells
• Saturday, November 20, 10 AM Pacific time Parsec-SFF.org Monthly Meeting

Have you entered the GoodReads giveaway for a special copy?

I had plenty of travel time in August, so yay for reading. My primary focus this month was to read as many of the Dragon Award nominees as I could before voting, but there were a number I just didn’t get to or did not finish. I had read some before, luckily, and am particularly pulling for D.B. Butler’s Witchy Eye, which I loved.

Works that are bolded are ones I found particularly outstanding or otherwise remarkable and would recommend.

Robert Aickman, Cold Hand in Mine
Peter S. Beagle: Summerlong
Betsy Cornwall: Mechanica. I wanted to like steampunk Cinderella, but it didn’t feel very new.
Nathan Crowder: Ride Like the Devil (lots of fun for fellow Seattleites)
Pippa DaCosta, The Heartstone Thief
Robert Dugoni: The Trapped Girl (could have done without the complaints about the various restrictions the legal system places on police officers)
Patrick Edwards: Space Tripping
A.W. Exley: Ella the Slayer (I really did not expect to like Cinderella + zombies).
Kate Elliott: Court of Fives, The Poisoned Blade
Ruthanna Emrys: Winter Tide. If you like Lovecraft novels, you need this one.
Carrie Fisher: The Princess Diarist
Eric Flint: 1636: The Ottoman Onslaught
Amy S. Foster: The Rift Uprising
Theodora Goss: The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter FABULOUS and is the 19th century equivalent of Cat Valente’s The Refrigerator Monologues)
Brian Guthrie: Rise
Renee Carter Hall: Huntress (loved this, but book is structured in a frustrating way)
Elizabeth Hand: Aestival Tide, Icarus Ascending
Faith Hunter: Blood of the Earth
Shirley Jackson: Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings. Not enough writing on craft, but what there is, is solid.
Dennis Lehane: Prayers for Rain
Alison Littlewood, The Hidden People
Gabrielle Matheiu: The Falcon Flies Alone. Modern melodrama that pulls from all over the place in a way that is unexpected.
Robert McCammon: Gone South. McCammon is the frickin’ BEST at this sort of novel. Delicious.
Brian Niemeier, The Secret Kings
Richard Paonelli: Escaping Infinity
Lucian Randolph: The God in the Clear Rock (has my vote for most attention paid to a point of view character’s breasts in a book)
Delia Sherman: The Porcelain Dove (very pretty, but the structure makes it feel as though the book evaporates away just as you hit the end)
Shayne Silvers: Beast Masters
Dale Ivan Smith: Empowered: Agent
Safari Spell: Long Live Dead Reckless
Arkadi and Boris Strugatski: The Dead Mountaineer’s Inn
Anne Tyler: A Spool of Blue Thread
R.R. Virdi: Dangerous Ways
Martha Wells: The Edge of the World

Stuff I’m Watching: Big Brother (yes that’s my guilty pleasure and I don’t know which I loathe more, Josh or Paul), The Defenders, Orphan Black Season 5, Rick and Morty. Watched BRILLO BOX (3¢ OFF), which was an intriguing documentary if you have any interest in Warhol. Also Extraordinary: The Stan Romanek Story, which I thought was pretty silly.

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.