Things that ROCK.
Deadline accomplished, headway made on next deadline.
So, without further ado, I take this brief interval of free time to present the fruits of others' labor! All of these people are very dear to me.
First, and I hope Marianne and Cherie aren't offended that I am totally putting him first, Sargon has a story appearing in the pirate anthology Fast Ships, Black Sails.
Amazon order page.
Night Shade books order page.
It's edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, and features stories by Paul Batteiger (that's Sargon!), Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, Naomi Novik, Michael Moorcock, and Garth Nix. And others. No offense intended to those I left off the list. Those are just the names that made me sit up and say "HOLY SHIT, NAOMI NOVIK AND MICHAEL MOORCOCK! ELIZABETH BEAR! SARAH MONETTE! I AM NOW AWESOME BY ASSOCIATION!"
Ahem. Anyway. Now THIS is fun:
It's a video of some of the authors reading aloud from their stories. Sargon's is the opener (after the song bit) with the pirate poem and atmospheric candlelight and his growly growling, and the squeaksqueaksqueaking of my crappy camera, which we will totally overlook because the growling is cool.
Some of the other authors totally had fun with theirs, too. Like, right now the embedded YouTube clip is showing me a guy in a bandanna with a rubber shark on his shoulder. That is not Sargon, but it is still cool.
By the way, the poem does not appear in the story. The story has lots of snow and ice (it is about pirates that sail ON THE ICE when a mini ice-age freezes the Atlantic and . . . you just have to read it, it's really grim and manly). However, it was July when he shot the video, so he had to work with what he had. I think it came out pretty well. Oh, and lobanorth? You cannot see it, but your wolf pelt is the enormous thing in the background that, in fact, makes the background look black.
Here is a wallpaper I made to commemorate this piratical occasion:
That is the fullscreen version; the widescreen version is here. Download, enjoy, order! And if anyone with more time or more excellent graphic skills wants to make a wallpaper of their own to share with us, please do so. The original is here and it is huge.
Second, Cherie Priest's (cmpriest's) Fathom comes out in December.
What is it about?
A decidedly dark departure from Priest’s Eden Moore saga (Four and Twenty Blackbirds, etc.), this stand-alone novel is equal parts horror, contemporary fantasy and apocalyptic thriller. During a summer vacation to her aunt’s coastal Florida home, innocent teen Nia sees her cousin Bernice commit a brutal murder and then get dragged into the ocean by a monstrous water witch. Nia becomes inadvertently entangled in a conflict between primordial creatures that endangers the very existence of humankind. Entombed in stone for countless years, Nia eventually emerges from her cocoon transformed, only to realize that an old god is close to awakening and destroying the world. Priest’s haunting lyricism and graceful narrative are complemented by the solemn, cynical thematic undercurrents with a tangible gravity and depth. This is arguably her most ambitious-and accomplished-work to date. (Dec.)
That's what Publisher's Weekly had to say about it. I think it sounds rockass awesome, and my copy is preordered. You, too, can preorder right now at Amazon.
She gets the best covers, I swear.
And, finally, I do not have a nifty cover graphic yet, but I do have a fabulous book to recommend.
Kate Harding of Shapely Prose and LiveJournal's own Marianne Kirby, aka onceupon, have written a book about body image and body acceptance that I think is going to rock the world.
It is called Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body. I've been eagerly awaiting this for some months, and am so proud of both Marianne and Kate, and so eager to both read it and to have it out there where it can do some good.
You can pre-order it here! I really, really recommend it.
It's very well and good to be told to accept your body the way it is (which is a good thing to do), that being fat is okay (and it is), but it's another thing to really accept that. And that is what this book is about. Learning to make peace with yourself, and what you are. And that is such an important thing to do, oh my god, people, it really is. So please, if this is an issue that has hurt you like it's hurt me and loads of other folks I know, give this one a try. I trust Kate and Marianne implicitly, and I know that their book will be both informative and helpful. Also very funny, because they rock like that.
I think that about concludes my publishing day. I am exhausted, but also very happy, and I hope you don't mind the spamming too much. These folks are all really important to me, I love them all, and I really want to see them all get the love and attention and marvelous fans that they can possibly get.
So, without further ado, I take this brief interval of free time to present the fruits of others' labor! All of these people are very dear to me.
First, and I hope Marianne and Cherie aren't offended that I am totally putting him first, Sargon has a story appearing in the pirate anthology Fast Ships, Black Sails.
Amazon order page.
Night Shade books order page.
It's edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, and features stories by Paul Batteiger (that's Sargon!), Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, Naomi Novik, Michael Moorcock, and Garth Nix. And others. No offense intended to those I left off the list. Those are just the names that made me sit up and say "HOLY SHIT, NAOMI NOVIK AND MICHAEL MOORCOCK! ELIZABETH BEAR! SARAH MONETTE! I AM NOW AWESOME BY ASSOCIATION!"
Ahem. Anyway. Now THIS is fun:
Click to viewIt's a video of some of the authors reading aloud from their stories. Sargon's is the opener (after the song bit) with the pirate poem and atmospheric candlelight and his growly growling, and the squeaksqueaksqueaking of my crappy camera, which we will totally overlook because the growling is cool.
Some of the other authors totally had fun with theirs, too. Like, right now the embedded YouTube clip is showing me a guy in a bandanna with a rubber shark on his shoulder. That is not Sargon, but it is still cool.
By the way, the poem does not appear in the story. The story has lots of snow and ice (it is about pirates that sail ON THE ICE when a mini ice-age freezes the Atlantic and . . . you just have to read it, it's really grim and manly). However, it was July when he shot the video, so he had to work with what he had. I think it came out pretty well. Oh, and lobanorth? You cannot see it, but your wolf pelt is the enormous thing in the background that, in fact, makes the background look black.
Here is a wallpaper I made to commemorate this piratical occasion:
That is the fullscreen version; the widescreen version is here. Download, enjoy, order! And if anyone with more time or more excellent graphic skills wants to make a wallpaper of their own to share with us, please do so. The original is here and it is huge.
Second, Cherie Priest's (cmpriest's) Fathom comes out in December.
What is it about?
A decidedly dark departure from Priest’s Eden Moore saga (Four and Twenty Blackbirds, etc.), this stand-alone novel is equal parts horror, contemporary fantasy and apocalyptic thriller. During a summer vacation to her aunt’s coastal Florida home, innocent teen Nia sees her cousin Bernice commit a brutal murder and then get dragged into the ocean by a monstrous water witch. Nia becomes inadvertently entangled in a conflict between primordial creatures that endangers the very existence of humankind. Entombed in stone for countless years, Nia eventually emerges from her cocoon transformed, only to realize that an old god is close to awakening and destroying the world. Priest’s haunting lyricism and graceful narrative are complemented by the solemn, cynical thematic undercurrents with a tangible gravity and depth. This is arguably her most ambitious-and accomplished-work to date. (Dec.)
That's what Publisher's Weekly had to say about it. I think it sounds rockass awesome, and my copy is preordered. You, too, can preorder right now at Amazon.
She gets the best covers, I swear.
And, finally, I do not have a nifty cover graphic yet, but I do have a fabulous book to recommend.
Kate Harding of Shapely Prose and LiveJournal's own Marianne Kirby, aka onceupon, have written a book about body image and body acceptance that I think is going to rock the world.
It is called Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body. I've been eagerly awaiting this for some months, and am so proud of both Marianne and Kate, and so eager to both read it and to have it out there where it can do some good.
You can pre-order it here! I really, really recommend it.
It's very well and good to be told to accept your body the way it is (which is a good thing to do), that being fat is okay (and it is), but it's another thing to really accept that. And that is what this book is about. Learning to make peace with yourself, and what you are. And that is such an important thing to do, oh my god, people, it really is. So please, if this is an issue that has hurt you like it's hurt me and loads of other folks I know, give this one a try. I trust Kate and Marianne implicitly, and I know that their book will be both informative and helpful. Also very funny, because they rock like that.
I think that about concludes my publishing day. I am exhausted, but also very happy, and I hope you don't mind the spamming too much. These folks are all really important to me, I love them all, and I really want to see them all get the love and attention and marvelous fans that they can possibly get.