Ordinary Day

The special Boosting the Signal week for the NIWA 2015 anthology Asylum continues! Today’s featured author is Pamela Bainbridge-Cowan, whose story is “Going Sane”—and whose unnamed narrator is seeking to escape The Facility. (And oh my no, a name like The Facility is not the SLIGHTEST BIT OMINOUS.) Before that, though, there’s a goal of figuring out how to cope with life, and Pamela’s sent me an excerpt in which her narrator and her friend Vo discuss how the narrator has had to cope with what life has thrown her up till now, via painting.

Asylum

I had one friend at The Facility, maybe one friend anywhere. Of course the universe, with its ironic sense of humor, made sure that he—the least likely to help me—would be the only one who could.

Vo Danielson. Unless you’ve spent your life beyond the Milky Way you’ve heard of him: the best musician of our time, maybe of all time. And also that guy who wrapped his hands around a transport slide wire which discharged, melting his hands into unrecognizable lumps of useless flesh.

I remember the first time we talked. It was late and we were the only ones in the community lounge. Earlier, the walls of my room had felt like they were shrinking. I was having one of my manic nights, a dish of self-pity served with a side of rage.

Brazenly I stared at his hands, balled up into fists on his lap. “They say you didn’t know the wire carried enough energy to fry your hands. Did you?”

I was sitting at one of the carved mahogany tables. Had been reading. He was sitting on the end of one of the tastefully horrific white and pink silk couches my mother had donated. Had been doing nothing. He looked up and smiled. “I knew,” he said.

Later, he asked about my family.

“My family…” I repeated as I thought about the question. “My family is brilliant and unique. My mother, before she retired to be my business manager, was in genetic R&D with Myer-Hoy. She designed me when she was sixteen and perfected her work at nineteen when she got her first breeding license. She hadn’t wanted me to be conventionally pretty—there were far too many pretty people. Instead, my pattern was a truly heteromorphic design. As you can see, she made my features stark and angled, my eyes sharply slanted and of course just this lovely slash across my face for a mouth. She also wanted me tall, but since my torso is about average she put most of my height in my lower legs. Then, to make things more symmetrical she designed my forearms to be extra-long. She thought she was creating a really new exotic, not an ugly freak who looks more like an insect than a human.”

Sometimes Vo made me forget what I was. Forgetting is a set up. It’s like drinking, or drugs, or dreams. It’s a temporary fix that takes you up and drops you so you hit the ground again. It hurts when you hit the ground because you can remember the last time and the time before that: all those bad landings. The aggregate should kill you—but it doesn’t.

Vo eventually asked me why I paint the things I do.

I didn’t want to talk about that, but I didn’t want him to go away again either. Finally I said, “When I was thirteen I saw a dead raven beside a garbage can. It was an old bird, feathers ruffled, not bleeding, not shot. I thought maybe it had a broken neck, some sort of natural death. I wanted that to be true. Someone had tied a wide pink ribbon around its legs. Maybe so they could carry it without touching it too much. I don’t know. And why a ribbon, something so pretty? It was death and beauty. It was black and pink. Rough and smooth. I ran home and painted it. Everyone thought it was amazing. My mother saw it as my first truly creative moment. It was proof that she’d done everything right. Not just my design but all of it—not marrying, giving all her passion to her work. It was affirmation.

“She took it to a gallery and they wanted more. So for five years, I painted dead birds. Dead birds with ribbons around their feet or their necks. Dead birds covered with flowers, hung from twisted ivy in the branches of trees, heaped on the shores of breathtaking lakes. I got sick of dead birds. One day I painted a bird without feathers. Raw sinews and tissue purple with blood, feathers torn off and thrown down. I was having a tantrum. And they loved it.”

Buy the Book: Amazon (Kindle) | Amazon (Paperback) | Kobo

Follow Pamela Bainbridge-Cowan On: Official Site | Facebook | Twitter

Follow NIWA On: Official Site | Facebook | Twitter

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Earlier this spring I featured fellow Carina authors Jenn Burke and Kelly Jensen, with their debut SF novel Chaos Station. Book 2 of that series, Lonely Shore, is now available from Carina, and so Jenn and Kelly return to follow up on the tale of Felix and Zander with a peek at another character–Zander’s brother, who is very motivated to track down his sibling and find out what’s happened to him! Check it out.

Still Searching

Brennan Anatolius signed the holographic invoice and with a few key swipes sent it back to his assistant for routing to the appropriate department before closing his wallet’s interface. Darkness settled around him like an old, worn blanket. The emulated sunset beyond his office’s windows had come and gone God knew how long ago—he’d noted it, in the vague way you’d notice the air circulators switching off on their usual cycle. Nothing to worry about.

Leaning back in his chair, he rubbed the bridge of his nose. He should go home. His wife, Roz, was waiting for him and she’d been damned patient these last few weeks. She knew how hard it had been to almost catch up to his youngest brother on Chloris Station, only to have Zander avoid him so completely it couldn’t be an accident. But what, really, had he expected?

After falling into the black hole of Allied Earth Forces covert ops, Zed had stopped carrying a wallet. Any messages sent to his official, AEF-sanctioned account had gone unanswered. Then there’d been the viral holo of Zed and his team saving a bunch of civilians against orders—followed closely by the end of the war. Brennan had been sure that Zed would contact his family then. But he hadn’t. Six months had crawled by without any contact—until Zed’s override code had been used on their family-controlled station, Chloris.

Brennan slouched into his chair, a posture he’d never allow himself during business hours. He had to be calm, in control, a CEO worthy of his father’s legacy. Part of him knew that worrying about Zed wasn’t helping his health—the doctor had suggested his recent bout of insomnia was due to stress. Brennan figured it just gave him extra time to track down his brother.

He pushed forward and pulled out his wallet again. All right. The last lead he’d gotten was about a week ago, when the Chaos had passed through the gate near Mars. He tried not to think about how close Zed had been to their family’s home station of Alpha—Anatolius Industries’ oldest and most luxurious station, in orbit around Earth. Brennan had already established that the Chaos hadn’t docked on Hemera Station at the Hub—the central location where all the galactic gates led—but it wouldn’t hurt to check again.

In the back of his mind, he knew his search was fruitless. The only reason he’d found a trace of Zed before was that Zed had been desperate to get aboard Chloris to help an old friend. His little brother had skills. If he wanted to stay hidden—and clearly he did—Brennan wasn’t going to find him.

Still, he had to try.

When his wallet chirped with an incoming call, Brennan almost let it go to mail. Until he saw the name accompanying it. He scrambled for his wallet, fingers shaking.

“Zed? Zed? Please don’t have hung up!”

Buy the Book: Amazon | Amazon UK | Nook | Kobo | iBooks | Google Play | Carina Press

Follow the Authors On: Official Site | Jenn’s Twitter | Jenn’s Facebook | Kelly’s Twitter | Kelly’s Facebook

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Straight-up SF is a rarity in the Carina Press catalogue, and so I’m pleased to give some signal boosting help to Timothy S. Johnston, who’s been writing the SF thriller miniseries The Tanner Sequence. Book Three of this, The Void, releases on March 30th. And his protagonist, homicide investigator Kyle Tanner, has a very clear and very urgent goal: escape.

The Void

Lt. Kyle Tanner, Homicide Section, Security Division, CCF
2403 AD

They say in our society that if you just follow the rules and shut up, everything will be fine.

No one gets hurt.

No one dies.

No one’s hauled away for days of torture, the worst part of which is watching your own family slaughtered.

Just shut up and obey.

It’s easier said than done.

You see, when abuse of power is going on all around you every single day, it can get to you. You start to fantasize about what you could do. How you could hurt them. How you could make them pay for the things they’ve done. But most important, you start to plan. What would it take to get away from them? To just … run?

The military rules the human race now. They control every aspect of our society. From art to commerce to travel. It’s the most restrictive time in the history of humanity.

The fact that I’m a lieutenant in the military doesn’t exactly make it easy for me. I try to tell myself that at least I’m doing some good. At least I’m helping people, helping families.

But they don’t really seem to care either. It’s understandable. After all, they’re in survival mode too. They just don’t want to get noticed for saying or thinking the wrong things. That would be bad.

I’m a homicide investigator. I try to set things right, to give families closure. It’s how I get some peace of mind in this life. But when civilians see me coming, wearing the jet-black uniform of the Confederate Combined Forces, it wrenches at their guts. They don’t see a savior.

They see a killer.

I want to run. I want to get out of this crazy society.

The fact that I’m an officer will help, along with the fact that on this final mission I have a way out.

“Transport this serial killer to Alpha Centauri,” my Commanding Officer had ordered me. “Take this ship — it’s a two week trip each way.”

Now they’ve given me a way to escape. My lover Shaheen wants to run too. She wants to get on that jumpship with me and just cruise into the dark loneliness of deep space. Disappear together.

But if I decide to run, I know they’ll follow.

They’ll hunt me down until I’m dead.

But I have to try.

I can’t handle this life anymore.

But I can hear them screaming in my head right now.

Run, Tanner. Run.

We’ll be right behind you.

Pre-Order the Book On: Carina Press | Amazon (US) | Amazon (CA) | Nook | iBooks (US) | iBooks (CA) | Kobo (US) | Kobo (CA) | Google Play

Follow the Author On: Official Site |Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Instagram

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Boosting the Signal continues to technically be on hiatus on the grounds that I am frantically trying to pull the last of Victory of the Hawk out of my head. HOWEVER, a few folks have asked me to run pieces for them anyway! And I said sure, as long as they could get me completed pieces without me having to make any tweaks to them.

One of those people is fellow Carina author Sheryl Nantus, who y’all may remember sent me a piece for her Carina release earlier this year, In the Black. Sheryl’s back now, because Book 2 of that same series has released! Folks, I give you In the Void. In this piece, we’ve got one of the crew of the Belle having a sneaky suspicion about the goals our next hero in the series had better be setting for himself. Take it away, Sheryl!

In the Void

Diego! Mon ami! How’s it going…yeah, I know it’s been a while since I got in touch. Been a busy few weeks on the Bonnie Belle but I guess you heard about that. Bad business, crazy business with one of the girls getting murdered.

You got it all? Man, that’s fantastic. Your buddy was cool but I told him I’d rather deal with you direct ’cause we’re buddies. Yeah it was a bit of a lie but he was getting a bit too greedy asking for a tip and between you and me I know he gets enough of a cut. Besides, I like dealing straight-on with my suppliers.

I’ll pass on your condolences to Bianca along with the new curtains. She’s taking it hard but who can blame her? Still life goes on like the Guild wants and we’re turning and burning hard for every landfall with Captain Keller taking us in the black and keeping us safe.

Keller? She’s a damned good captain, better now that she’s gotten a bit o’fun with Marshal LeClair. I know we’re not supposed to know but he keeps coming ’round to inspect the Belle and make sure we’re all fine and ends up in the Captain’s cockpit more often than not, if you get my drift.

It’s good for her and for him and for all of us—well, maybe not Sean. He’s one of the boys, a fine medic and a sweet Irish who’s been around almost as long as Kendra. I think. You know they don’t like to talk about where they been or what they were before signing up to be a Mercy man or a Mercy woman.

He’s got a look about him like when a gear’s been worn down, the edges catching but not quite right—you get what I’m saying? I know it’s tough for everyone out here on the edge but he’s looking a bit more frayed than usual. Sometimes he gets this look and I know he’s not here on the ship and he sure as hell isn’t a Mercy man. He’s gone elsewhere and it’s got to be an awful place from the expression on his face. Then he comes on back to us and makes a joke and tries to hide from the pain.

Can’t blame him for getting tired of being out here. He’s getting older and there’s not a lot of old Mercy men. I know, I know, mature men are better lovers and all that but Sean’s getting to the point where he’s gonna have to figure out what he’s all about without the Belle.

Anyway, thanks for the supplies. I know the Dragons appreciate our business and you know I appreciate you coming out here to meet me. I’ll probably have a bigger list next time—got two cabins empty and I just know the new courtesans are gonna want to redecorate and that’s bad for me and good for you.

Buy the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Carina Press | Google Play | iBooks | Kobo

Follow the Author On: Twitter | Facebook | Official site | Goodreads Author Page | Goodreads Book Page

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

I gave y’all a heads up about this a while back, and now I’m quite pleased to present this Boosting the Signal feature on Cycling to Asylum, the new book by Su J. Sokol. It’s noteworthy to me not only because it’s queer-friendly SF/F, but also because it’s set in Quebec! Which, as I keep saying, is highly, highly relevant to my interests. Su’s character Laek has a goal of taking what began as a coping mechanism for dealing with a stark, painful childhood and turning it into a reality of justice for all.

Side note: Boosting the Signal remains on informal hiatus until I’m done with Victory of the Hawk, but Su had this piece ready for me and I wanted to go ahead and run it. More Boosting the Signal will be back in August!

Cycling to Asylum

The doctor says I have to stop going to New Metropolis. He said, “Laek, that thing you do…disappearing inside your mind. I knows it’s been an important survival mechanism for you, but it’s really very scary.” Then he told me that he understands. But he doesn’t. Not really.

I first created New Metropolis when I was eight years old. Living with “the Community.” Yeah, the cult. The one that lived in the dome. Where they had the weather experiments. We were cut off from the world, with no natural environment. And under the power of one powerful man.

Maybe I deserved the punishments. I was a stubborn kid. I wasn’t good at conforming. I’m just not made that way.

They called it the thinking place. An opportunity to consider the bad choices I’d made. My “decision” to isolate myself from the group. The place was a windowless cell. No one was allowed to talk to me. I don’t know when the hallucinations began. I was eight. I didn’t think to try to mark the time. Don’t know how I would have anyway. Day and night were one. The food tasteless, always the same. Even when I screamed, they still wouldn’t answer me.

One night I dreamed about New Metropolis. A place where people could live. A good place. They city would welcome me and would be filled with friends. I built New Metropolis from scratch. Named every street myself. I imagined the squares, the fountains, the parks. Things I’d seen on my mother’s screen. I imagined with my mind and my heart and when the details were clear enough, the city began to form around me.

One thing about New Metropolis, there are lots of playgrounds. Even now that I’m grown, I can still find them. When I was in the thinking place, I went to one every day, every night. I loved the swings the most. And the climbing cube. I met lots of other kids. Some were my age but most were a bit older. I liked older kids. They tried to help me. At night, we’d all sleep under the g-slides. Or in the sandbox. I could feel my friends all around me. They held me tight at night and they let me cry if I needed to.

He came on my last day in the thinking place. He, himself. The man who was everyone’s father or lover or both. I woke up and he was in the room with me. I had been so afraid of him, but when he opened his arms, I came. I clung to him shamelessly.

After they let me out, I was careful not to forget New Metropolis. I repeated the details of the place in my mind. I grew it larger, made it more real. I went back there many times. When I suffered other punishments. When the pain was too much. The city always welcomed me. Each visit taught me more about it. I carved the details into my soul.

I escaped from the Community when I was fourteen. Maybe I could have managed to do it when I was younger. I was afraid, though. Not of the world, no. Of being alone. It’s something I can’t bear. I learned that about myself. Learned it in the Thinking Place.

So what if I was still off the grid. I was in the world. The real world. I didn’t think I’d need to go back to New Metropolis. I was wrong.

I was fifteen the first time I was arrested. And still off the grid. Back then, they didn’t do the iris scan until sixteen. And I had no g-print. A gift from the Community. I wouldn’t give the cops my name. I wouldn’t betray my group. I went back to New Metropolis instead, so I could bear the beatings and…and the other things they did to me. The city kept my mind safe. My body would have to fend for itself.

Once I met Janie, I stopped needing to go to New Metropolis. She kept me safe. She and Phillip. They held me fast in the real world. In New York, my adopted city where I had a life, a family, my kids, my work as a teacher. I taught social studies—history, geography, political science. I was still an activist, but I had to keep my past a secret. I was on the grid, more or less. I even used my real biometric data. The hack my group had done to my Uni—my ID—it worked. More or less. Until that day. That day when the federal cop found me biking home from the teacher’s union meeting. I had to let him…It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t really there. I went to New Metropolis and it was intact, waiting for my return.

Here’s my secret. Not the secret about my past but the secret of my heart. I believe that New Metropolis is real. It’s why I’m still an activist. Why I was willing to bring kids into a world that has so much pain and injustice. I don’t know exactly where New Metropolis is or how to get there, but in my heart I know it could be real if only we would work hard enough to create it. It has something to do with social justice. With solidarity and working collectively. It also has something to do with borders. With annihilating them. Or just not believing in them anymore. Maybe we can step across those false borderlines. Step across them holding hands and there, right there before us, will be New Metropolis, open and waiting and beautiful, ready to give shelter to all who need it.

Buy the Book (Amazon and B&N links include digital and print, Smashwords is digital): CreateSpace (direct from publisher) | Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository | Amazon US | Amazon CA | Amazon FR | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon ES | Amazon IT | Smashwords

Special purchase notes from the author: In Montréal, the book is available at Librarie Paragraphe Books, Librarie Drawn & Quarterly Bookstore, Argo Bookshop and Coop La Maison Verte. In New York, Cycling to Asylum can be purchased at The Community Bookstore. Libraries and bookstores can also order the book from Red Tuque Books, the distributer.

Follow the Author On: Official Site | Twitter

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

R.S.A. Garcia comes to me by way of Anna Kashina, who was one of the first authors I featured on Boosting the Signal. Anna is however also one of the primary movers and shakers with Dragonwell Publishing, and Lex Talionis is a new SF/mystery release from Dragonwell.

And, now that I’ve read this piece from the book’s main character’s POV, I gotta say, I’m intrigued! It’s official! And thinking I need to read this book just to see her mow down her enemies. Because after all, you don’t get much more basic or elemental a goal than revenge.

Lex Talionis

I would introduce myself, but I don’t know my name.

My life began a couple of weeks ago, when I died in the Emergency Room of the Mathis Clinic on the planet Serron. My doctor, Colin Mayfeld, was about to write his final report when a little humanoid alien broke into the room, sat on my chest and brought me back with one touch.

I don’t remember any of it.

I don’t remember being in an alley near Bradley spaceport, even though that’s where I was found, barely alive but still breathing. An unconscious girl in a bloody spacesuit, with no ID chit.

I don’t remember talking to the alien when it brought me back, but Dr. Mayfeld says I did. The funny thing is, he says I didn’t speak Universal—I spoke Latin. And I asked the alien for help.

I’ll have to take his word for it. About what I said, that is, not about speaking Latin. I know I can speak Latin because I have had the same phrase going round and round in my head since I was able to make a coherent thought.

Lex Talionis. The law of retaliation—of revenge.

That’s the other thing I know.

I want revenge.

Someone killed me. Someone beat me, tortured me, raped me and left me for dead in an alley. Someone is walking around out there thinking I’m gone and never coming back. Some bastard thinks my story is over.

Well, it’s not over.

I’m not an ordinary girl. I’m healing faster than Dr. Mayfeld expected. I’m getting better every day. It’s because I’m an N-gene. I was genetically engineered in vitro to be smarter, stronger, faster. Whoever did this to me might have over-powered me once, but they’re never going to get that chance again.

I’ve given myself a name—Lex. And I have help. The alien that saved me can’t speak, but it’s still with me. I think it knows something. I think it can help me remember.

Dr. Mayfeld is doing what he can too. He has friends who might be able to assist the Troopers as they investigate the attack on me. There are ways to work on getting my memory back. He’s going to do whatever it takes to help. I don’t know why he cares. But he does.

I only care about a few things right now. I care about remembering my past. I care about being fully healed. And I care about finding who did this to me.

Because when I do find them, I’m going to make them wish to all the Gods in all the galaxies that they had killed me right the first time.

Buy the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Dragonwell Publishing

Follow the Author On: Official Site | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Veronica Scott is one of my fellow authors from the Here Be Magic crowd at Carina Press! She writes the Egyptian Gods series for Carina, but she’s also got some indie work, and this post is about one of those! Wreck of the Nebula Dream is SF adventure with a side helping of romance, and if you’re a fan of the lore of the Titanic sinking, you may well find this book to your tastes–because it draws a lot of inspiration from that. This book won awards in 2013, and got a lot of highly favorable commentary from the SFR (science fiction romance) community.

You don’t need to stretch much to figure out what her hero’s goal is in this story: save lives. Check it out!

Wreck of the Nebula Dream

Captain Nick Jameson, Sectors Special Forces, reporting as ordered for the interview. I don’t usually talk about that time on the Nebula Dream–I think pretty much everyone in the Sectors knows the story of how she was the newest, most luxurious spaceliner ever built, destroyed on her maiden voyage, with a huge loss of life. I happened to be the right guy, in the wrong place – what was a solder like me doing hobnobbing with the rich and high powered on such a ship, you may ask? Asked myself that, more than once on the first few days of the voyage. Usually when I was getting drunk in my cabin, trying to blot out the memories of my last disaster of a mission. If the ship’s Second Officer hadn’t given me a tour, trying to impress me with the new tech, if I hadn’t met Mara Lyrae, first on the shuttle and then again in the Casino…well, I might have opted for finishing the trip in cryo sleep and then where would we all be? Dead or worse, that’s where.

Mara’s pretty amazing. She was a Vice President for Loxton Galactic Shipping at the time, doing big business deals, wheeling and dealing across the Sectors. But the moment the ship was in trouble, she was right there, brave as any soldier I ever served with, ready to do what had to be done to save lives. I tried to get her off in a lifeboat right after the crash but she wasn’t having any of that, no, sir. Mara is stubborn. There were some kids trapped in a cabin close to hers up on the next level and she wasn’t leaving the Nebula Dream without them. We had some pretty tense moments rescuing them, let me tell you.

Couldn’t have done it without Khevan, member of the D’nvannae Brotherhood. He’s just as scary smart and strong as the legends say those guys are, with a healthy dose of spooky stuff going on between him and the Red Lady his order serves. I don’t know if she’s a goddess or an alien or what she is, but she came through when we needed her. Of course then she tried to kill poor Khevan because she was mad at him but that’s another story. Talk to him about that.

Then there was Twilka, the Socialite. I gotta say I thought Twilka was going to be dead weight for my little group. Worse than the two kids! Spoiled rich girl, totally in her own version of reality, went off looking for her jewelry when we had to risk going down into the hold to find some gear I needed. But, she did pull her weight later when events demanded she step up. I’ve got no complaints about her and if she ever needs my help, I’ll be there.

Lady Damais? I uh, I still can’t talk about her, not in any detail. What she did for me, for all of us that night on the Nebula Dream, well, there are no words. I know she was an old lady, pretty ill by all the signs, but she had more guts than many a soldier I’ve served with.

So those were the people I was directly responsible for, while we were running around the Nebula Dream that night. The AI was trying to hold her together for me, maintain air and artificial gravity levels where I needed to be. My challenges? Find my gear, call for help, keep us alive till help arrived, fight off the enemy forces that showed up, ask Mara to have dinner with me if we actually did survive…yeah, long night. Not to mention various other surprises and developments that kept getting thrown at us. If only there’d been enough lifeboats. Lot of “if only” about the wreck.

Later some reporter told me about a shipwreck in ancient times, on Old Earth, where a lot of good people didn’t make it either. The Titanic, I think? Looked it up one day, sounds like her officers and a lot of brave people did the best they could too, against overwhelming circumstances. Freezing ocean or freezing outer space, innocent men, women and children in harm’s way, too many lost.

The story for WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM, a 2013 SFR Galaxy Award and Laurel Wreath Winner:

Traveling unexpectedly aboard the luxury liner Nebula Dream on its maiden voyage across the galaxy, Sectors Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson is ready for ten relaxing days, and hoping to forget his last disastrous mission behind enemy lines. All his plans vaporize when the ship suffers a wreck of Titanic proportions. Captain and crew abandon ship, leaving the 8000 passengers stranded without enough lifeboats and drifting unarmed in enemy territory. Aided by Mara, Nick must find a way off the doomed ship for himself and other innocent people before deadly enemy forces reach them or the ship’s malfunctioning engines finish ticking down to self destruction.

But can Nick conquer the demons from his past that tell him he’ll fail these innocent people just as he failed to save his Special Forces team? Will he outpace his own doubts to win this vital race against time?

Buy the Book: Amazon (Kindle edition) | Amazon (print) | Amazon (audiobook) | Barnes and Noble | All Romance eBooks | iBooks | Google Play | Kobo | Smashwords

Follow the Author On: Facebook | Twitter | Official site

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Because this, right up with Dara’s I’m going to sue the Internet for LIBEL!, is pretty much THE BEST ANSWER to the entire explosion going around the SF genre for the last several days.

I have called dibs on the “light brown apple moth”, Epiphyas postvittana, described by Wikipedia as “a highly polyphagous pest”. Because hey, I like all kinds of food! And if I get to be a pest, all the better!

Meanwhile whoa, SF Signal linked to me by way of linking to the excerpt from the Daily Dot that included my earlier link. So if you’re coming over from SF Signal, hi there. All of my posts on the current matter can be found under the tag “petitiongate”.

I’ll update this post today with further items of note as I see them!

ETA: And speaking of those items of note…

Popehat, regarding the threat to sue the Internet for libel, basically says “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no”.

Mark Tiedemann has very good commentary over here. That post was actually written last year, during last year’s SFWA explosion, but it’s still timely and pertinent since this one’s related to last year’s too. Tiedemann writes about how he didn’t get it at first–where “it” is what all of the people upset during last year’s explosion were upset about–and then he did.

Ann Aguirre is right up front about why she doesn’t miss SFWA in the slightest, for pretty much all of the reasons that have been voiced already.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

So I went to Third Place Books tonight for a reading and signing by the mighty cmpriest, who read one of the very best little bits from Boneshaker, and who then answered a lot of questions and signed quite a lot of books. Far and away, hands down, the best question answered was that yes, there will be a sequel to Boneshaker. Which I’d actually already seen her mention on her blog/LJ posts about its progress, but I hadn’t realized it was Boneshaker’s sequel! Anyway, it’s coming. It’s called Dreadnought. I will be waiting for it with bells on.

Also happened to see caitkitt there, so I thanked her for sending the e-arc of Street Magic to me, and picked up a couple more books of hers while I was there. In print, since I’m trying to keep the Seattle-based authors on the Buy In Print list!

But on a related note, I also asked the staff about their shiny new POD machine–with, of course, an eye to whether they could print Drollerie books. I had the guy at the info desk do a couple of searches, but sadly, it looks like Drollerie books are NOT in its database. So assuming that Faerie Blood joins the Drollerie print roster, the only option will be to order it. If the situation changes I will of course let folks know.

Meanwhile I must note that the following books have now been purchased by me:

In print:

• Demon Bound and Witch Craft, by Caitlinn Kittredge

In e-book:

• Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament, by S.G. Browne

And, since Fictionwise is having a massive and I mean MASSIVE sale for the end of the year (to the tune of everything between 40 and 60% off, so if you haven’t bought Faerie Blood yet now would be a REALLY GOOD TIME, not like I’m hinting or anything okay yeah well I am), I’m probably about to do another e-book run. A good chunk of this will be buying stuff by Morgan Howell, because I just read Book 1 of his Queen of the Orcs trilogy and liked it quite a bit.

Until then, the yearly books purchased tally is now up to 173.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.