At any price?

There are a few TV shows I don't miss - my favourite right now is probably The Big Bang Theory, which is unusual for me because I don't normally go for sitcoms. But this one is just so funny. I used to love House but it's getting repetitive. Incidentally, both shows provide evidence for my theory that overtly atheistic characters on TV must be portrayed as either grumpy old men or weirdo nerds (viz. Becker, Bones, Dexter)*. (Futuristic shows are the exception, where religion seems to fall by the wayside on a regular basis.)

One show I tried to watch was The Mentalist. It's about a guy who once earned a living by using his keen sense of observation to pose as a fake psychic, but now uses it to help solve crimes. (This premise has been copied a few times since, e.g. Lie to Me and Unforgettable, and is itself a rip-off of the awesome show Psych, which makes the occasional hilarious meta-reference to The Mentalist.)

From what little I saw of the show, I gather the main character Patrick Jane (Aussie Simon Baker) is another atheist. He's not a nerd, and certainly not a grumpy old man, but he is an eccentric weirdo. This is probably because his wife and child were murdered by a serial killer. And that's why I couldn't stick with the show, despite being in agreement with Jane over the redundancy of the term "fake psychic". But Jane's background is just too much. As a viewer I can't recover from it. I can't watch a character with that sort of torment in his past. I think it's because in this story, the hero can never win.

Anyway, in an early episode I remember he came up against a "psychic" who held seances to contact the dead. At the end of the show, she gently tells Jane that she's talked to his dead wife, who told her his daughter was never scared during the double murder, that she never woke up. I waited for Jane to tell the woman to shove it. Instead, he listened stony-faced and cried when she left the room.

Such a cop-out.

Today I happened to catch a more recent episode and I'm sorry to say the cop-outs continue. A woman consulted Jane ten years ago when she was trying to conceive. He used his "gift" to tell her she would have a son called Connor and it came true - she believes in his powers even when he confesses ten years later. She does finally accept that it was all a trick. He says (from memory), "Sorry about deceiving you." Instead of replying, "Yeah, well, I was eager to believe", she says "Oh, but you gave me hope!"

To rub salt in the wound, after Jane points out to his cop partner that he didn't give her hope, he sold her hope, the cop says "I think hope is worth it at any price."

How nice it would've been to hear Jane retort, "I think truth is worth it at any price."

Oh well. The episode guest-starred Kelli Williams, who I've liked ever since seeing her on Earth 2.

*I've now found two examples of young, attractive TV atheists:

Dr Cameron from House (but she's kind of nerdy)

Britta from Community  (but she's kind of not always likable)

Guest blog and giveaway

Today I'm blogging over at Marie Treanor's Romantic Theme Party. Marie has a week of SF writers guest blogging, so don't forget to check back each day.

I'm giving away my books as well as an exclusive Children of Scarabaeus bookmark - just comment over on that blog post (not here).

Judges' report on Song of Scarabaeus

I found something today I thought must exist but couldn't previously find even though it's sort of in plain sight: the Judges' Report on the 2010 Aurealis Awards finalists, which is linked from the Aurealis Awards main page. I'm not sure when it went up but I only just stumbled upon it. Generally speaking I'm interested in what others think of my work, as I'm sure most authors are. In this case I was interested in finding out why Song of Scarabaeus was nominated. Anyway, the judges called the book a "well balanced" and "excellent debut" with "the feel of a contemporary thriller in the way it pulls the reader through a number of emotional and action-based conflicts."

The award went to Marianne de Pierres' Transformation Space. I'm reading the first in that four-part series now - unfortunately slow going because I'm concurrently reading three other books. This mirrors my writing process - I'm working on multiple things. Focus has not been my strong suit lately.

eReader recommendations?

My mum is about to go overseas and has been persuaded by friends that buying an ereader would be a good thing. I've never met anyone who owns an ereader who didn't find it indispensable, which means of course that eventually I'm going to have to get with the times and buy one myself.

There are loads of models around now, mostly around the $200 price range. I think my mum will end up with a Kindle but it seems to have just too many buttons and functions for my liking. I want an ereader that does what a book does: displays words on a page. The most popular options in Australia are the Sony Reader and the Kobo Wireless, about which I know nothing except that they seem to be very hard to come by. Either unavailable or sold out almost everywhere online that I've looked. (Hello, eBay.) And that both come in pretty colors (as well as more serious tones).

That's it, the sum total of my knowledge. I'm leaning toward the Sony Reader Pocket Edition (oh! but the Kobo has has a quilted back!), while simultaneously trying to imagine my life with bookshelves that no longer need to expand.

Recommendations?

Wildlife and wineries

MCP and I took a short vacation (following our long vacation - did we deserve it?) this week with our agent Kristin Nelson and her husband Brian while they were in Victoria. MCP and Brian, it turns out, are in the same industry (environmental monitoring). (Also, Kristin's dad was a chemical engineer like mine, and of course we both married engineers.) We toured the wine country - the Yarra Valley. Beautiful views, beautiful sunshine on the second day, wonderful food and some very tasty pinot noirs.

View across one of the wineries we visited.

Me and MCP, pondering lunch.

We went to Healesville Sanctuary on Monday where Kristin proclaimed the koalas to be "the cutest things in the world". It was a chilly overcast day and they were quite "active", which isn't saying much for a creature that sleeps 20 hours a day digesting toxic leaves, and barely moves from one spot the rest of the time while it munches.

Me and Kristin waiting for the "Spirits of the Sky" (parrots and birds of prey) show to start.

We stayed overnight in a couple of gorgeous cottages up the side of a mountain, in the middle of a forest and with a clear view to Melbourne's skyline 50 km away. The sort of place where I'd love to spend a week without Internet or baby to get some serious writing done. (Well, no, not without baby - I missed her too much for the 36 hours we were apart. I would have to take Grandma with me to babysit.) We talked a bit of business, not too much. The men proved eminently useful: MCP was our designated driver, and Brian saved our bacon at breakfast, or more specifically our pancakes, after my cooking efforts failed miserably.

Now, finally, we are back home with a chance of settling into our normal routine again.

Pick one

Met with my agent Kristin Nelson and her husband for lunch yesterday (both are, to use her word, exceedingly "nice") - Kristin is here in Melbourne for the RWA conference and after that on vacation, and what better place for a holiday than Australia (perhaps not in winter, but we are getting some sunny days at last).

We didn't talk too much about writing, which is a good thing as I don't have too much to say at the moment. "You do know that you don't have to write a complete novel before you show it to me," says she out of the blue. "Three chapters is enough." Yes, it's taken me a year to not come up with three presentable chapters, although I have in fact written more than that - just not all the same book. And it seems like there's always something else taking up my time - emigrating, Christmas, moving into a new place, overseas trip, organizing photos from overseas trip... And I have a part-time job (in addition to full-time mummy/mommy), which sounds minor on paper, in that it's only 10 hours a week, but those hours tend to come in 15 or 30 minute intervals spread throughout the day.

Plus we've had Game of Thrones and The Tudors to catch up on.

The good thing is that my lack of progress hasn't quelled my excitement over the - um... five projects I'm working on. I know, I know, I must pick one.

I'm still here

On Sunday we returned from two weeks in the USA - a quick trip to visit family and friends. "Quick" sounds like "easy", doesn't it? Well, with a 1-year-old in tow everything was just a little more challenging, but she was an angel for the most part, adapting well to different locations, cribs, time zones and people. She's quite the social butterfly (unlike her mother) and had some wonderful new experiences such as playing the piano, pretend-playing with a tea set, and getting knocked over by waves in the Gulf of Mexico. She developed a new fascination for water bottles (ubiquitous in Arizona and Texas), airplane seat belts and graham crackers.

I took along my trusty Alphasmart but my trust was betrayed - it refused to switch on, so I got exactly zero writing done. Despite this, or because of it, we had a fantastic trip with no serious complications other than a diminished bank account.

This weekend it's the Romance Writers of Australia annual conference here in Melbourne. Agent Kristin Nelson is a guest speaker, and MCP and I will be catching up with her next week. Not at the conference, though - I failed to get my act together in time. Didn't book before the sessions sold out. Didn't even join the RWA in time. Next year, next year...

So the long and the short is that I have no writing news. MCP, on the other hand, received his signed contract from Tor this week so his SF book Fireaxe is 100% official. The publication date is 2013 so I doubt anything else will happen for a while. Trivia time: Tor rejected an early version of Song of Scarabaeus when I sent it unsolicited in 2005. Tor then made an offer on the book when Kristin was shopping it around in 2008 (we went with HarperCollins).

Five former jobs

I'm featured in the Writers Gone Wild Blatant Promo Weekend.

Find out what five jobs I've had and never want to have again. A couple of them are even vaguely related to writing.

Evil Editor flashback

Back in 2006, I sent my fledgling query letter for Song of Scarabaeus to Evil Editor, who snarkily savaged it. This is a free service provided by the sheer graciousness of the Evil One, for anyone who dares approach. Evil Editor just chose my query as the first in his new Classics line, and reposted it here. It's been almost five years since the original post - I've since got an agent, sold two books, had two nice award nominations, not to mention the baby, moving countries, and MCP's writing career taking off as well.

You'll notice there were three books planned at that time: Song 0f Scarabaeus (then called Scarabaeus), Children of Scarabaeus, and Soul of Scarabaeus. I amalgamated the second and third story ideas into one book, once I'd decided the series would be a duology, and wanted to call it Soul of Scarabaeus, but my editor thought Soul was too similar to Song. I'd felt compelled to name the books in an alphabetically chronological (or is that chronologically alphabetical?) manner so they'd appear in the correct order in a search engine. That's the editor in me being all anal retentive. Oh well.

Gritty sci-fi movies... with women!

Book Chick City is having a Women in Science Fiction Week and I'm guest blogging there today about a few sci-fi movies I love that feature not only women, but my other favorite thing - grit. Head on over there and comment to let me know what sci-fi movies have stuck with you over the years. I'm always interested in hearing about movies other than the usual blockbusters, although I'm a sucker for those too.

Excerpt and giveaway on RomCon

The RomCon blog has an excerpt of Children of Scarabaeus today, along with a brief intro by me and a giveaway. Head over there to check it out. (You know how hard it is to pick such a short excerpt that makes sense on its own and doesn't give away too much?) (Well, it's hard.)

2010 Aurealis Awards

Just got back from Sydney's Aurealis Awards - a very impressive event! Even MCP dressed up and he doesn't do that except for job interviews and his wedding. Caught up with some old friends from my Aurealis magazine days. Lost in my nominated category, best SF novel, but to the very worthy Marianne de Pierres who won for Transformation Space. It's the fourth in a series, so the first thing I did when I got home was order the first couple in the series. I have a space in my reading schedule coming up soon... Judging from a comment in her acceptance speech, I think she was as chuffed as I was that it was an all-girl finalist line-up for Best SF novel. How often does that happen?

MCP has a thing or two to say about our other Sydney adventures. I will say we had a great view from our sixth-floor hotel room, met some new and interesting people at the after-event party, and I even had the chance to give away my books to a couple of ladies at Sydney airport (who, like us, were caught up in the drama of a cancelled flight) (hi to Sharon and Robyn!). All in all, a lovely weekend...

...but I'm so glad to be back home again with my baby.

MC Planck is on the air

Check out the Nelson Literary Agency's updated client web page. Scroll down to the P's!

Another giveaway

Over the Edge interviewed me and is giving away two copies of Children of Scarabaeus. So, would I go forward or backward in time? (Duh!) Read all about it here.

How big is Finn, anyway?

Finn is about two meters tall, for the record.

On a related note, much genre fiction these days is written in first person or close third person. In this point of view, the character, not the author, is the narrator. It's as if the POV character sat down after the events unfolded and wrote what happened, as she experienced it, using either "I" as the main character, or describing herself as a "she". This narrator knows that others are going to read the story - in fact, she's writing for a presumed audience.

Which makes me think about why someone writing for others would write a dramatic account of their very exciting life hunting vampires or saving the galaxy or whatever... and include graphic sex scenes.

In certain contexts these scenes strike me as misplaced. Don't they belong in the narrator's diary, where no one else will ever see them? I know why writers include them. I'm just not sure why the narrator would include them.

Again, I'm talking here only about first person and close third person narratives, where the character is the narrator. If the narrator is someone else (that is, some unspecified author who knows what happened and may have been privy to certain characters' thoughts), there's no particular reason not to include details about the sex, if he's so inclined. He's the narrator, he's in charge, and he doesn't need the characters' permission to write their story or describe the ins and outs of how they make love.

So, back to our character-as-narrator. We've all come across the POV character who describes herself as gorgeous or witty. (Advice to writers pretending to be characters narrating their own story: probably best not to do that.) I find it a bit irksome. I'm more inclined to believe that she, rather than some other writer, is the narrator of the story if someone else tells her she's gorgeous, and if she demonstrates wit in her prose.

And by the same token, I'm more likely to believe she's the narrator of the story if she shows a little restraint with the sex scenes. In real life there might be people who don't care that everyone knows who they slept with and how good it was and even what positions were assumed and who came first and how often. If that's the kind of person our fictional narrator is, then fine.

But for most fictional narrators I've come across (just like most of us for real), making all this public would be very much out of character. Even if we don't keep the whos and wheres and whens private (and most of us do even that), we don't write and publish the hows. Especially not five times, fifteen pages each, covering every microsecond of every encounter and describing every last tab A and slot B.

I'm not suggesting that authors tone things down to a more realistic narration, writing only what that character would actually write given that she supposedly knows others will read it. This is a case of where we suspend disbelief. While it's unlikely anyone would actually write their autobiography that way, we choose to ignore that little fact because we want to read every juicy detail, dammit. We are especially lenient, I think, when the genre is romance - that is, when the relationship is the main point of the story. A character who sits down to write the story of the Love of Her Life might be forgiven for expending 700 words on her orgasm.

When I was writing Children of Scarabaeus (which *SPOILER ALERT* has a couple of sex scenes, if you didn't know by now), I thought a lot about how Edie, the only POV character, would write about what happened. The story is third person but we never leave her head - either she wrote that book with herself as a character, or she told her story to someone else who faithfully recorded it. She was aware that it would be read (not by you, but by readers from her own time and possibly even Finn). Given her personality, what would she tell her readers and what would she keep private? And would she really dish the dirt on how BIG Finn is?

I don't think so.

Understanding understatement

I was listening to an old recording in the car today: Maybe by Thom Pace, the theme song for 70s TV show The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. There's a You Tube version here (if you can handle the beard and lip-syncing).

Have a listen, and then listen to Firefly's theme song (written by Joss Whedon, performed by Sonny Rhodes) which you probably already know because how could you not?

The fugitive who finds sanctuary in nature. The captain of a starship who'll do anything just to "keep her in the sky." Separated by seven centuries, their core emotions are perfectly captured in these two simple songs.

What I love about both these pieces is the emotional punch they pack while being both musically and lyrically so minimalist. When it comes to deep-seated feelings, give me understatement over histrionics any time. It's something I appreciate in lyrics, in acting, in books, in art, and because I'm British (at least, that's my excuse) in life.

In writing, I think I gravitate toward that mode naturally - I write characters who don't give long speeches about their feelings and who don't fly off the handle or declare undying love at the drop of a hat. There are exceptions, because drama requires highs and lows and a good mix of personalities. Cat Lancer tends to say what she thinks even if it gets her into trouble. Haller has his little temper tantrums. Liv Natesa's infamous poise can be shattered. But even these characters don't barge through every page screaming "Here I am, and here's what I'm currently feeling!"

Understatement is of course most effective when emotions are running the hottest. Love, lust, anger, grief - for me, scenes that show characters struggling to hold in these feelings (because they fear the consequences, or because public displays are unacceptable, or because they're trained to be that way, and many other reasons) are more powerful than big splashes of overt expression. Holding it inside also builds tension - for the character and for the reader - and that has other interesting consequences. When will the character finally break loose (if ever)? What does all that suppressed emotion do to a person (if anything)? Most importantly, how will those emotions find their way out? Because it's bound to happen. I'm reminded of Colin Firth's Darcy, as uptight and controlled as they come. He's enjoying a quiet, humorous moment with Elizabeth at the piano when his aunt's overpowering voice from across the room ruins the mood: "What are you talking of? ... I must have my share in the conversation!" He doesn't lose his cool and burst open with all that suppressed upper class frustration. But the way he rolls his eyes... You know exactly what he thinks of her intrusion. Better still, he thinks that way because Elizabeth Bennet is in his life and in his sights. Last week it might not have bothered him at all.

And for the reader, or viewer - as I learned in a screenwriting class a long time ago - the fewer tears a character sheds on screen, the more tears the audience sheds. If the reader knows from other clues what the character is feeling but the character reins it in, all that pent-up emotion has to find another outlet... it's released via the reader instead.

And now for the problem in all this: I'm not so sure that the majority of readers would agree with me. I'm not sure the majority of people in life are like this. Depending on their tastes and culture and gender, a lot of people evidently like to watch movies exploding with anger and violence, and soap operas drenched in melodramatic acting. A lot of people like to watch out-of-control displays of emotion in "real life" too - see Springer, Dr Phil, and any number of reality shows.

How far this translates to reading, where there are no additional clues from actors (whether talented or overwrought), I don't know. I like to think the reader should work just a little bit to extract emotion from the page, instead of having it handed to her on a platter by characters who act out (or describe) every last gram of what they're feeling. I think it makes the experience interactive.

And that's what happens when I listen to the two simple songs mentioned earlier. Because the lyrics are understated, the onus is on me to feel the emotions inferred by them.

Cover blurbs - where do they come from?

With a baby-addled brain these days it's sometimes hard to come up with blog ideas, so once again I'm cribbing an idea from agent Kristin Nelson's Pubrants. This week she's posted about blurbs - those words of praise from other writers that you see on the cover of a novel.

This can certainly be a tricky area, with successful authors wanting to help new authors while at the same time not wanting to be inundated with requests they can't handle. I have no insights there but my advice to new writers is to have faith in your work and bite the bullet - just go ahead and ask. 

Firstly, ask your agent or publisher for contacts. They can approach their own clients and authors who may enjoy your book and will agree to blurb it. Kristin asked her client, successful SFR author Linnea Sinclair, on my behalf to read Song of Scarabaeus. Fortunately for me, Linnea was not only hugely gracious and agreed to read the book, but she gave me a fantastic cover blurb as well. Eos put it on the front of the book.

As my release date approached, the publicist at HarperCollins set me up with Borders' sci-fi blog Babel Clash. As luck would have it, Eos's bestselling fantasy author Robin Hobb had the same release date as me, so we were paired up for a discussion on the blog. HarperCollins sent us each other's books (hers was Dragon Haven, the sequel to the evocative Dragon Keeper - love those dragons!) and she emailed my editor with some thoughts on the book. We asked her if we could turn her email into a blurb, and she agreed. This came too late for the cover, of course, but was used in publicity material for the book.

I wrote to a couple of authors myself, completely out of the blue - they had no idea who this debut SF writer was asking them to read her book! As Kristin recommends, make the request personal - these should obviously be authors whose work you're familiar with, and who write a similar genre. In addition, think carefully about your wording: I didn't ask the authors to "please blurb my book." I asked them if they possibly had time to read it, and if they enjoyed it to consider blurbing it.

These authors could not, in the end, blurb the book due to their own deadlines. I told them I understood and that was that.

I did have one other contact of my own, but it was never planned that way. Years ago I joined the online critique group Critters.org. A call went out on behalf of a published author who had just converted her classic novel to ebook format, and she wanted proofreaders. With no idea who the author was, I volunteered my services - I was, after all, a book editor, and thought my skills would be useful. 

The author turned out to be Vonda N. McIntyre and the book was the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Dreamsnake.This was one of those serendipitous moments that life sometimes throws your way. Dreamsnake, along with Vonda's other novels and short stories, had had a huge influence on me in the 80s. This was the author who made me realize that science fiction didn't have to be space battles and high-tech widgets and talking heads (I'd been reading 50s and 60s short story collections and really didn't know that anything else existed). Her books had talented female protagonists and quieter stories, and I loved them.

I (and several others, to my knowledge) did the proofreading work for Vonda and she thanked me, and that was that.

But a year or so later, I wrote to Vonda, reminded her who I was, and asked her if she would read the book I'd just sold to Eos. And, if she liked it, to please consider blurbing it. I have no idea whether or not she'd have done so anyway without the prior connection, but I don't think it hurt. She did agree to read it and gave me a lovely blurb that Eos used on the back cover of Song and the front cover of Children of Scarabaeus.

“But that's not fair!”

Using the word morality in fiction is dangerous -- it conjures up images of high horses and religious dictates, which aren't really things we want in our fiction.

To me the word means just one thing: fairness.

Life, as they say, isn't fair, but that's not an excuse for people to not be fair. In fiction, protagonists who prioritize fairness are people I want to root for. Those are the characters I find appealing and the stories I'm interested in following.

A character might not know what's fair or she might be misled about what's fair -- she might have wrong or incomplete information, for example. She might have to revise her opinion about what's fair along the way. But to be appealing to me as a reader (or author), a character wants to do the right thing. If her world is small, she might only be concerned with doing the right thing for those in her immediate environment. As her knowledge of the universe grows, her priorities shift and she gains a wider sense of what "fair" can mean.

She has to be fair to herself, too, which may be how she avoids becoming overly self-righteous or self-sacrificing. We expect our heroes to make sacrifices, of course, even sacrificing their lives if it's "worth it", but only when they're backed into a corner with no options.

"But that's not fair!" -- it's the eternal whine of children all over the world, but sometimes those children have a point. A character who considers what's fair, and is concerned with making things fair, is far more appealing to me than a character driven by selfish or petty motivations, including righteous revenge.

Author copies are here!

I finally got my big box of author copies of Children of Scarabaeus this week, so I'll be sending out signed copies to the people who have won them over the past month or so...

... assuming they survive Babyzilla.

An octogenarian

This weekend was my dad's 80th birthday. We four children put together a little booklet with 80 things in it -- our childhood memories of him (like the huge bonfires he built every year on Guy Fawkes Night), his pearls of wisdom ("Never leave a wingnut in the gutter";  "Hamsters don't go to heaven"), and his little quirks (such as his obsession with logging every penny and cent spent on petrol, and charting the fuel efficiency of his vehicles over the years).

He's a retired chemical engineer, able to build and fix anything. In fact he spent yesterday afternoon re-engineering croquet hoops with a blow torch and sander so the grandchildren could play a game when they came over for his party. He's put up more shelving and cup hooks for us than any man should have to in a lifetime. He dug up and leveled our entire quarter-acre lawn at the house in England. I do not know why, but I'm sure his engineer brain drove him to it.

The above photo of the half-completed job was taken (in the late 70s) from the roof, which he was wont to climb on occasion to fix the tiling. No small task on a three-storey home. He climbed all the way up on a very long, narrow, scary ladder.

He's also an artist, lately expressed through photography, but he sculpted and painted when he was younger. When my sister, at a very young age, painted a face on the bathroom chair, he had to be angry, of course, but took a photo of it for posterity.

I dedicated my first book to him because of his willingness to answer any question -- a child's curiosity and a parent's patient indulgence help imaginations to grow. If he didn't know the answer, he took a stab anyway using logic (working it out from first principles) and common sense (drawing on his vast engineering knowledge).

He's had a huge influence on my life, which becomes more and more apparent to me as I get older.

Happy birthday, daddy!

Me and my dad, on a beach in England with "Black Cindy"

Kristin reading from my book

Norwescon has put up some videos from the Philip K. Dick award - see/hear Kristin Nelson reading an excerpt from my nominated book Song of Scarabaeus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOnT7oVdB74

It was kind of hard choosing an excerpt - it was supposed to be only 2-3 minutes (although some did go much longer, but I was being a good little nominee and sticking to the request) and I wanted something that stood alone and made sense without an intro within that time frame. I also wanted to choose something technical rather than a plain action sequence. In the end I went with the same passage that's excerpted at the start of the book (although that's a cut-down version). And Kristin did a great job!

Kristin at Norwescon

Well, I didn't win the Philip K. Dick Award but Kristin sent me this awesome pic from Norwescon, where the ceremony took place today (noon my time - I watched it via their live video stream).

Doesn't she look great? I was honored to have her represent me and she did an amazing job with the reading excerpt from Song. And, of course, I was honored to have been nominated. The winner was The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, by another debut author, Mark Hodder. Congrats to Mark!

Interview and Aussie giveaway at Kylie Griffin's blog

Today there's another Aussie giveaway of Children of Scarabaeus over at Kylie Griffin's blog, along with an interview with yours truly.

Don't forget these giveaways that are still running:

SciFiChick.com - win Children of Scarabaeus (closes 15 April)
Literary Escapism - win Children of Scarabaeus, Song of Scarabaeus, and a signed bookmark (closes 12 April)
Tez Says- win signed Children of Scarabaeus and Song of Scarabaeus (Aussies only, closes 14 April)
Reading Between the Wines - win one of two signed Children of Scarabaeus bookmarks (closes 22 April)

A punk for every occasion

So many punks! It all started with cyberpunk, which comes from cybernetics and punk. Wikipedia tells me one Bruce Bethke wrote a short story with that title in 1983, and the term was coined. These stories feature high technology and broken-down societies, with marginalized main characters who tend to be hackers of some sort. Well-known examples are William Gibson's Neuromancer and the movie Blade Runner.

Then came steampunk, which is currently a top trend. It features alternate (alternative, dammit!) historical settings, usually Victorian, where electricity was never invented. Anachronistic machinery and technology that we might recognize, such as computers and robots, run on steam power.

We also have clockpunk, which uses clockwork power instead of steam. I have never read any stories in this genre but apparently they tend to be set in the Renaissance, using Leonardo da Vinci-style inventions.

Biopunk is a term I only heard of this year but should have had a handle on sooner, because apparently my Scarabaeus books fit the bill. This subgenre focuses on biotechnology, genetic engineering and the like, and the consequences of such things going Horribly Wrong.

I heard about icepunk for the first time during DABWAHA last month, when Kate Elliott's Cold Magic was up against my book (she beat me, of course). It's "steampunk on ice" according to Kate. I've ordered this book and can't wait to read it.

And now we have bugpunk, thanks to Kameron Hurley and God's War -- which I must read even though it has a kickass female (I find kickass females a bit irritating). She uses this term in her tagline and, for all I know, invented it. The technology and fuel in God's War run on alien bug power, which sounds downright cool.

So did I miss any punks? What kind of punk should sci-fi writers turn to next?

SpongeBob celebrates my new release

At the Mall of America Barnes & Noble in Minnesota, celebrations are ON for the release of Children of Scarabaeus. As you can plainly see, SpongeBob SquarePants is jumping for joy, while Dora the Explorer and friends can hardly contain their excitement.

And here's my book among the new releases...

Many thanks to Lynn for snapping these shots! If anyone else sees Children of Scarabaeus in their local store, please send along a pic.

Another interview and giveaway

Crystal at Reading Between the Wines has interviewed me for her blog - check it out, and comment over there to go into the draw to win one of two signed Children of Scarabaeus bookmarks! Ends April 22. Crystal has included a couple of bits of artwork that I did from Song of Scarabaeus (portrait of Cat, and diagram of the Hoi Polloi).

I plotted it my way - guest blog and giveaway!

Tez Miller has a great UF & Futuristic review blog and she's kindly hosting my guest blog today. The topic is plotting and how I did (or didn't) plot my Scarabaeus books.

Aussie readers can enter to win a set of signed books, Song of Scarabaeus and Children of Scarabaeus. These books aren't readily available in Australia so here's your chance!

Mousepad: We have a winner!

Using random.org I've drawn a winner for the Edie & Finn mousepad, and the winner is...

Sheila Dorsey

Sheila, I've emailed you for your mailing address and will send out the mousepad as soon as I receive it. Happy mousing.

Thanks to everyone who entered! I have a couple more cool giveaways coming up, so stay tuned.

Science Fiction: What’s in it for Urban Fantasy fans?

I'm guest blogging at Literary Escapism today. The theme du jour is "Science Fiction: What’s in it for Urban Fantasy fans?" If you're put off sci-fi by the impression that it's all tech-talk and ray guns, think again. UF fans may find much to like about gritty, action-packed, character-driven SF.

Enter over there for the chance to win a set of both Song and Children of Scarabaeus, along with a signed bookmark.

Game's on!

Reader Jessica Basset sent me just about the coolest thing last week. She read Song of Scarabaeus and was inspired to write a role playing game (based on Ars Magica 5th edn) using ideas from the book such as biocyph technology and the Crib and Fringe.

She's written up a player guide and it's wonderful. It includes lots of flavor images along with her unique take on biocyph, infojacks,  the Saeth, mash, the leash etc. She's even written some additional history for the eco-rads and the Crib and more, and expanded on that world-building with a detailed caste system (somewhat prescient because one of the books I'm writing now takes place on a world with a strict social hierarchy).

I know some authors are a bit uncomfortable about the idea of readers using their characters in fanfic, and it's a discomfort that goes beyond copyright or other legal issues. (Jessica's game is for her personal use with friends, so she's not profiting financially.) As for me, I'm flattered and thrilled. I love it that people are talking about the characters and places and story that I created. Not only talking about these things, but using them as a springboard for their own creativity. Anyway, you read it here first: bring on the fanfic! (I think here I'm supposed to say "For legal reasons I can't admit to reading it.")

I'm not a gamer but MCP is, and is always threatening to write a sci-fi RPG set in a world much like the one I wrote, so that I'll have no option but to play it. For now, I'm just happy that someone out there has enjoyed my book and incorporated some of its ideas and "essence", as Jessica puts it, into her own creative outlet.

O mother, where art thou?

Supernatural Underground and HarperCollins author Helen Lowe has just blogged about Three Fabulous Moms of SFF. It got me thinking about why there aren't more heroines with children in character-driven SFF and SFR.

I think the answer might be found in the Hero's Journey, which most genre writers follow to some degree -- even if subconsciously. The tale of someone who wants something, can't have it, goes on a quest to get it, and succeeds or loses, is an age-old storytelling structure. It's used because it works. That is, it provides a satisfying experience for the reader.

The hero of these stories wants something -- wants it so badly that she's prepared to leave her safe world and venture into the unknown. Her adventures -- the plot -- are driven by the decisions she makes. Often, towards the end, she realizes the thing she wanted isn't as important as something else -- often an ideal such as love, honor, truth, or the greater good -- and her priorities shift. A dedicated hero will risk everything for this ideal, even her own life if she deems the sacrifice worthwhile.

Now imagine our heroine is a mother. A mother's first priority is her children. Assuming the character is going to remain sympathetic for the reader, can a mother ever change this priority? Can she put something else first? Can she ever risk her children? Even when the galaxy's at stake?

A compelling plot gives the hero difficult decisions. Each option has to tempt her -- for example, will she choose the safe option with little reward, or the risky option with greater reward? But when one choice is her children, the decision is easy. A mother chooses her children over option B, every time.

Of course, a heroine can be a mother whose children are not involved in the main plot. But in genre fiction, where a large amount of wordage is already needed for elaborate, imaginative world building, there isn't space to give your heroine attributes that aren't directly relevant. And even if her children are sitting safely at home, what mother is likely to risk her own life to save someone else or to promote an ideal, when her children need her?

So if we want a sympathetic heroine and she's a mother, we're telling the story of someone who always puts her children first, never changes that priority, and won't risk her own safety. In genre fiction, those aren't usually the ingredients for a memorable story.

Somewhere between Cherryh and Czerneda...

Okay, as I can't be in North American bookstores right now, I need your help. If you see my book in your local store, please take a moment to snap a photo and email it to me (saracreasy@gmail.com). When SONG came out, I went to my local stores and signed copies and took pictures and generally hung around the area feeling special. I desire the vicarious pleasure of seeing my name on the shelves a second time around.

Another giveaway! - interview at Scifichick

Scifichick.com has an interview with me and a Children of Scarabaeus giveaway: here

Don't forget to read the posts over the last few days for other links to giveaways, and for my mousemat giveaway too. Follow the blog link tours on the right for interviews and stuff.

COSless

Once upon a time I had three copies - yes three (my big box of author copies hasn't arrived yet) - of Children of Scarabaeus. Now I have none. My mum took one. I sent one off as a prize. And MCP stole the last one to give to his boss, who is in the middle of book 1 at the moment.

So now I have no copies of my own book. At least there are none for my baby to rip off its cover like she's started doing with other paperbacks in the house.

By the way, I really hate that the abbreviation for this book is CoS... Church of Sc_. Ugh. SoS was livable-with. Henceforth they will be SONG and CHILDREN.

Reviews, interviews and giveaways

The Qwillery has an interview with me along with a Children of Scarabaeus giveaway, where I talk about research and favorite characters.

Angieville has an interview too, and another Children of Scarabaeus giveaway, with a discussion of my book covers and how I met my writer hubby (MCP).

And don't forget my mousepad giveaway (posted below).

Some early reviews:
My Bookish Ways - 5 stars
Dirty Sexy Books - 4 stars
Angieville

Supernatural Underground - WIN book and signed bookmark

I'm blogging at Supernatural Underground today. Head over there and answer a simple question for the chance to WIN a copy of Children of Scarabaeus along with a signed bookmark.

Celebrate release day: WIN Finn & Edie mousepad

Five hours to go until Children of Scarabaeus goes on sale in North America. To celebrate I'm giving away a Very Cool Thing!

For your chance to win a fabulous round mousepad of Finn and Edie, email me saracreasy@gmail.com with MOUSEPAD CONTEST in the subject line. I will choose one random winner.

The contest is open internationally and closes Tuesday 5th April (11:59PM EST) or Wednesday 3PM AEST in Australia. I'll notify the winner by email and post their name. (Mouse not included!)

Meanwhile, get yourself a copy of Children of Scarabaeus from your local bookstore or online store, and follow my blog tour (list on the right) for more chances to win.

Edie Sha'nim believes she and her bodyguard lover, Finn, could find refuge from the tyranny of the Crib empire by fleeing to the Fringe worlds. But Edie's extraordinary cypherteck ability to manipulate the ecology of evolving planets makes her far too valuable to lose. Recaptured and forced to cooperate - or else she will watch Finn die - Edie is shocked to discover the Crib's new breed of cypherteck: children. She cannot stand by while the oppressors enslave the innocent, nor can she resist the lure of Scarabaeus, the first world she tried to save, when researchers discover what appears to be an evolving intelligence.


But escape - for Edie, for Finn, and for the exploited young - will require the ultimate sacrifice... and a shocking act of rebellion.

One/two days to go

Tomorrow is sort of Children of Scarabaeus release day, except that due to the time zones it's really not until the day after. I can't wait! Meanwhile, here are the dates for my upcoming blog tour. I'll post actual links once each post is up.

29 March The Qwillery - interview
5 April Literary Escapism - interview and giveaway
7 April Reading Between the Wines - interview
11 April Kylie Griffin - guest blog and Aussie giveaway

Dates to come:
Tez Says - guest blog
SciFi Chick - interview
Angieville - interview and giveaway
Book Chick City guest blog - Women of Science Fiction Week 23-28 May

Edward's second chance

And now for something completely different.

The other day I was at my sister's place. She lives in the country with her 6 children, 2 goats, 2 cats, squillions of chickens, 1 husband and a rusty old dog. I was surprised - nay, shocked - to see someone she once loved lying on top of a pile of junk that was headed for the rubbish tip. It was Edward the giant teddy bear. He was a gift from our parents on her 7th birthday. He was hiding in the cloakroom when she came home from school. She went to hang up her coat and there he was in the dark corner, waiting for her.

Edward is - was - a bright yellow bear about 4 feet tall. My parents bought him second-hand for five pounds sterling, so he's of unknown vintage but is in his mid-thirties, at the very least. His seams are coming apart, his stuffing is leaking out, his nose has gone completely flat, his ear is half ripped off... But he's Edward! And my sister was just throwing him out! No room, she said. Too many toys filling up the house already, and she didn't have time to repair him.

When I was little, every stuffed animal I owned was a person with a soul. I loved them to bits, sometimes literally. I remember walking to school one day with my sister and seeing a garbage bin on the street overflowing with old stuffed toys that the local children's home was throwing out. We were devastated. We wanted to rescue them but didn't dare raid someone else's bins.

So I rescued Edward. I'm going to pull him apart, wash him and patch him, refill him with new stuffing (nice clean polyester from Lincraft instead of nasty foam chips) and stitch him up like new. Edward the giant teddy bear has suffered (in a good way, mostly) at the hands of my sister and her six children. Now he will be my baby's giant teddy bear so she can love him to bits all over again.

Aurealis Awards - SONG nominated!

The Aurealis Awards shortlists were announced today, and the judges have put Song of Scarabaeus on the Science Fiction Novel shortlist!

These are Australia's big SF&F&H literary awards, started in 1995 by the publishers of Aurealis magazine. There's a gala event in Sydney on 21st May to announce the winners.

Song of Scarabaeus is not (yet?!?) published in Australia but you can find it in online stores (see here for a list of retailers that currently stock the book).

Two features about the SF Novel shortlist this year: there are only 3 nominees, the other two both being for books by the ever-prolific and popular Marianne de Pierres (her 6th  & 7th nominations), and the fact that a woman therefore is going to win! Looking back over the 16-year history of the awards, only one other woman has ever won this category (Maxine McArthur in 2004, for Less Than Human -- NB. read her Time Future/Time Past books!).

For several years from about 1999 I worked on Aurealis magazine, as a copyeditor, slush pile reader, and eventually associate editor. It was a remarkable experience, helping me in both a writing/editing capacity, and in introducing me to the work of dozens of Aussie authors. Now that I'm back in Australia, I hope to reconnect with the SF community here -- when my little one deigns to give me time off -- and being nominated for an Aurealis Award is a fantastic way to come home.

Ideas and icicles

Well, I didn't make it through to round 3 of DABWAHA, but I'm astonished and grateful at such a respectable voting turnout! In the end, only two out of three people didn't vote for me - and when one is up against Kate Elliott, one clutches to one's heart (for dear life) every vote one gets. Thank you everyone!

Here's the kicker: I researched my opponent, as you do, aiming to rake through the dirt and uncover hidden secrets to use against her. Instead I became sidetracked - nay, fascinated - by her idea of icepunk, or "steampunk on ice" as she defines it (the subgenre of her DABWAHA book Cold Magic). So much so that I spent much of the day researching ice sculpting, glaciers and the Icelandic horse, and had no time left for dirt-raking and secret-uncovering.

And the far-future story that I was intending to set in a hot barren desert? It now seems sooo much more romantic and interesting set on a frozen plateau in a glacial age.

So thank you Kate for stirring my imagination with Cold Magic - and I haven't even read the book yet! (Just ordered it.)

DABWAHA Round 2

So I made it through round 1 of DABWAHA, but round 2 is even tougher: I'm up against Kate Elliott, mega-author. This is David and Goliath, folks, and I ain't Goliath.

Kate Elliott has written tons of books with beautiful covers. She has a fancy website with interesting articles. (Seriously, they are really interesting.) She has an author pic on the beach, for heavens' sake. So she's kind of amazing and I'm losing the vote right now. Okay, that's the extent of my trash-talking. Here's something she doesn't have. She doesn't have LOLbabyz.

Click here to vote for Song of Scarabaeus. Tell your friends! Do it now!

Interview about writing, babies, and secrets in the cellar

AmyBeth Inverness has started a new writing blog, and I'm happy to be her first interviewee. She sent me 20 questions and I rattled off some answers - read them here.

Help ME win!

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Song of Scarabaeus is DABWAHA's reader-picked nominee in the "Crossover" category of this 64-book showdown. The other 7 books in each of the 8 categories were picked by the Dear Author and Smart Bitches ladies, and Dear Author's review of the book can be found here.

If you've read the book and liked it, please vote for it. Voting for this round is open from noon, central time, Thursday 17th March, until midnight (I think that's about 4 AM - 4 PM on 18th, in Australia). You don't have to sign in or register or anything - it's anonymous.

Full disclosure: I'll win an iPad if my book wins. I don't actually know what an iPad is, but more importantly it's great exposure for my book as hundreds of readers are taking part.

If Song makes it through this round, I may bug you again for another vote. Until then... thanks in advance, and please spread the word!

UPDATE: Wheee! My book has progressed to Round 2. Whew. A long way to go, though... and I'm up against Kate Elliott in the next round *breaks out in nervous sweat*. Voting for Song will be noon to midnight on Saturday March 19th (CST) which is 4 AM Sunday 20th in Australia. Mark your calendars!

Interview - and WIN!

My Bookish Ways has a review of Song of Scarabaeus as well as an interview with yours truly and a giveaway. I'll send a signed copy of both books (Song and Children of Scarabaeus) to one winner - enter on that site (not here).

Starting 'em young

I got some author copies of Children of Scarabaeus in the mail yesterday - it's such a thrill to hold my book in my hands! My daughter was moderately impressed until she got stuck on the first word, and threw the book across the room.

DABWAHA - Vote!

Now here's a nice surprise: Song of Scarabaeus is a nominee in the 2011 DABWAHA Tournament. And it got there because readers put it there! DABWAHA is a showdown between 64 romance novels. There are 8 categories, each with 8 novels. One novel in each category is nominated by readers, the other 7 by Jane and Sarah of Dear Author and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. So first, a huge thank you to those who put me in the tournament - Song is in the "Crossover" category.

Secondly, there are simply oodles of prizes to be won, so get involved! Until 15th March you choose which book you think will get through to the next round, and you win stuff for being right. Then the books face off against each other in polls over the next few days, and you get to vote on your choice for Book of the Year.

To vote in the polls (after Tuesday night), go to the DABWAHA blog or click the link below, which is the icon I'm proudly displaying as a DABWAHA finalist.

Zombies: I don't get it

Zombies: I don't get it. I don't get the appeal. I just understand why they're "it" right now. Is it because that's all that's left to explore in the monster-of-the-week Urban Fantasy/Paranormal genre?

I really don't get it.

That is all.

Ask me anything!

With the release of Children of Scarabaeus less than three weeks away, my publicist at HarperCollins has been helping me line up some guest blogs and Q&As. I already have a few in the works, but if anyone would like me to appear on their blog, go ahead and ask me: saracreasy@gmail.com. I prefer Q&As/interviews or specific ideas for guest blogs, because truly I'm all out of creative juices when it comes to thinking up topics, but I'll give it a shot if you can't think of anything.

The creative juices for my book(s) on the other hand are flowing freely. New mothers are advised to "sleep when the baby sleeps", and I certainly need to do that, with exhaustion a constant battle these days (make that these past 18 months). But instead of napping I find myself thinking up more weird and wacky plot lines for my WIPs.

Anyway, don't forget you can read the first chapter of Children on my website!

Or you could just look at this cutie, who was 9 months old this week and is cutting her first top tooth. Hard to write with this clinging to your knee.

Where Twitter led me today

A few tweets today led me to some interesting blogs and websites:

Trudi Canavan mentioned The Book Depository Live, where you can see what books people all over the world are ordering. Very cool, very addictive. If you care that someone in Belgium just bought The Early Rock Guitar Bible, then this is the place you need to hang out.

Bex Wicks, fellow HarperCollins author (Burqalicious - The Dubai Diaries), writes about meeting bestselling Aussie author Bryce Courtney, who gave her some advice on being a writer. Write commercially, he says, if you want to make money. It seems self-evident. But the fact is that many people want to be writers for the sake of the art. Cynical as it sounds, if you want to give up the 9 to 5 then writing commercially increases your odds of achieving that goal rather than writing a marvelous piece of literary genius (unless said piece of genius ends up on the state's high school curriculum). Of course, doing both at the same time would be nice!

And my most go-to site io9 has a trailer for Super. I don't really like the whole superhero genre but this is a parody, suitably due for release on 1st April (in the US), and it stars Rainn Wilson (aka Dwight from The Office) and Nathan Fillion (playing another superhero) - two great reasons to put Grandma on babysitting duty and take MCP to the movies for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long. (I can't find a release date for Australia, which makes me nervous...)

Why I don't believe

Paranomal romance is hot stuff in the publishing world (and I don't mean science fiction romance, although that genre has been unfortunately lumped into the paranormal category). While vampires and werewolves still seem to be the hottest, there are quite a few ghosts in the mix. For me, a ghost as hero or heroine will never be anything other than creepy, and by that I mean too creepy to overcome whatever warm & fuzzies the romance angle of the story is attempting to generate. But plenty of people evidently disagree.

I'm pretty sure you don't have to believe in ghosts to enjoy a ghostly romance, but the fact is that twenty-seven percent of Americans do believe in ghosts (disproportionately women and young people). The figure is even higher for Brits. I can't find a recent figure for Aussies (MCP says "Why don't you ask your spirit guide?") but I suspect it's in the same ballpark. It would take more than one blog post to list all the many things I don't believe in, but today I'm here to state that I don't believe in ghosts.

While I don't find stories of hauntings and the like remotely interesting, I do find it interesting to look into why people interpret certain very real personal experiences as "I see dead people."

This article by Richard Wiseman from New Humanist (UK) summarizes some research (oh nose! science!) explaining why people may have ghostly experiences. A brief excerpt:

In one study [researcher James Houran] took over a disused theatre that had absolutely no reputation for being haunted, and asked two groups of people to walk around it and report how they felt. Houran told one group that the theatre was associated with lots of ghostly activity and the other that the building was simply undergoing renovation. Those in the “this building is haunted” group reported weird sensations all over the place, while the other group experienced nothing unusual.

Blame psychological suggestion. Even I've been known to scare myself silly, alone in a dark house. Mind you, I always attributed the strange noises to someone trying to break in, which I think you'll agree is about a million times scarier than a bit of wandering ectoplasm.

A common language

Living in three different English-speaking countries at various times of my life has been confusing, linguistically. You'd think not, given that English is English. (Should I use US or British spelling on this blog?) I wrote my first novel using British English spelling because I had no idea it would end up with an American publisher, and because Microsoft Word is set up for British spelling. When I moved to the US, I switched Word to American English and changed the manuscript from top to tail, including the laborious process of changing all the single speech marks to double.

Now I'm back in Australia, and Microsoft Word gives me those red squiggly lines under all the American spellings in my new SF manuscript. I'm also writing a fantasy set in England and really feel like sticking with British spelling. More than that, I want to use English words and phrasing. The problem there is that I'm starting to forget exactly which terms are English, which are Australian, and which are American. Where does "dob someone in" come from? My American friends had no idea what this means. Australians dink and hoon and eat pavlova and pikelets, but I don't think the Brits do. They're busy eating crumpets and English muffins, which of course they call just muffins. American kids play with Legos (Lego) and put their babies in diapers (nappies) and cribs (cots) and give them a pacifier (dummy) to keep them quiet. Brits and Aussies have cars with bonnets and boots, not hoods and trunks, and they run on petrol not gas (except when they run on gas).

Here we live in flats and bedsits, or houses with nature strips. Water comes out of the tap (faucet) and we keep our clothes in a wardrobe (closet). We pay rates and wait in a queue to tick boxes and go on the dole. We barrack for our footy team (well, I don't).

What exactly is that thing that runs alongside the road (which is made of asphalt there, tarmac in Britain, bitumen here)? Aussies call it a footpath, Brits a pavement, Americans a sidewalk. The first floor of a building is one up from the ground, not on the ground. At parties we bring a plate and at pubs we shout (when it's our turn). We cook (bake) with self-raising flour and castor sugar, neither of which I could find in American shops (stores). Is it fairy floss, candy floss, or cotton candy? What is catsup? What's a freshman? And what the hell is a hoagie?

Today I made flapjack. I know that means something else to Americans, although I'm not quite sure what, but I think it's the same thing to Aussies and Brits. To me, anyway, flapjack (never plural) is rolled oats, golden syrup, melted butter and brown sugar. MCP called it a "granola bar" (muesli bar) although it's really not. I'm pretty sure most Americans don't know what golden syrup is but here's the recipe anyway.

British (Aussie?) Flapjack

125 g butter

1/4 cup* golden syrup (I use half golden syrup, half treacle)

3/4 cup brown sugar

2.5 cups rolled oats

Melt butter, syrup and sugar in a saucepan. Stir in oats. Press firmly into greased 20cm square tin. Bake 20 mins at 180C. Cool completely before turning out. Cut into squares.

*A British/Australian cup measure is 250 mL, which is a couple of teaspoons more than the US cup measure, so Americans might want to use a bit more butter.

Jon Armstrong interviews... me

My first talking interview (yikes!) with Jon Armstrong, fellow Philip K Dick nominee - is up on his blog If You're Just Joining Us. Jon is doing a special series and interviewing all the nominees over the next few weeks.

Go on, laugh at my funny accent.

Made-up words

Been meaning to do this for a while - I've just uploaded a wordlist for Song of Scarabaeus to my website.

I tend to get a little disheartened to find a glossary in the back of novels. Even worse, a cast of characters, which is just a warning there are too many to keep track of. So I'm glad this list doesn't appear in my book. I would hope that the words I use are either self-explanatory in context or that I give sufficient explanation. This is just for reference.

It seems the words fall into four categories:

Words that sound made-up but aren't (lag, shiv, slater)

Real words that I've appropriated or redefined - consider them futuristic mutations (such as spur, drub, leash, the Reach)

Classic sci-fi words that someone else made up, or made up something similar (gravplating, magkey, nodespace, wet-teck, medfac)

Invented words (biocyph, nanofinds, neuroxin)

Firefly returns

Firefly is airing on the Science Channel starting March 6th. EW has a brief interview with star Nathan Fillion, who says "yes, yes" he would make more Firefly goodness if he could. The series will air with science comments by physicist Dr. Michio Kaku... Not sure that's really necessary. I mean, come on, how is Dr. Kaku going to explain Kaylee's super-duper twisty-turny engine thingy in scientific terms? In fact, the last thing Firefly had going for it was science. It had gritty ambience and lovable characters. It had Nathan Fillion. It had funky props and an actual dining room table - on a spaceship, for god's sake. It had life. Did I mention it had Nathan Fillion? Once, it even had naked Nathan Fillion.

If you've never seen Firefly, you must watch it now. No excuses. It's that shiny. Standout episodes are "Serenity" (created as the first episode, although it aired out of order), "Out of Gas", and "Ariel". Then of course there's the movie Serenity. It's a real shame this show belonged to Fox instead of a minor channel that would've accepted its lower ratings and given it a chance. When he should've been writing season six of Firefly, Joss Whedon was instead writing Dollhouse, which was kind of nasty.

How crazy is this?

Fishpond, a book, toy and game online store in Australia, is selling Song of Scarabaeus for only $7.95. That's 4 cents cheaper than Amazon (well, it's actually only 1.3 cents cheaper, taking into account today's exchange rate). And Fishpond has free shipping with no minimum purchase. They say free shipping is for a limited time, but it's been free since before Christmas.

They have to order the book from America so shipping time is 2 weeks, but as you can't even buy the book in Australian stores (other than, allegedly, a couple of city stores), it's a good trade-off.

No idea how long this will last, but their list price is $22.99. Yes, that's outrageous, but we Aussies are used to paying ridiculous prices for our books and CDs. (My sister used to order text books from the UK because it was cheaper than buying them here, even after paying shipping.) Actually, you can get it cheaper from some of the other online stores listed in my blog post here, anywhere from $10-$16, but you may have to pay extra for shipping.

Also, if you're the first person to review the book on Fishpond and write 50+ words, you get 20 cents store credit.

Thrice upon a time

I'm in idea-overload mode this week. It should be a good place to be, and it certainly feels good because I love this stage of the writing process. But it doesn't increase word count. I already had four completely different stories in three genres competing for my attention. Now I have a fifth. There's a chance I can merge a couple of the older ones with this new one, which takes me back to three.

Still two too many.

And how does one write with a baby anyway? I haven't figured that one out.

Up

For geeks like me who are into futuristic technology, io9 has an article on space elevators. I only mention it because Children of Scarabaeus features a space elevator, as a minor plot point.

Marketing departments need editors too

Ooh, here's HarperCollins's marketing department's description of Children of Scarabaeus:

Sara Creasy burst onto the sf scene with The Song of Scarabeaus—prompting Publishers Weekly to praise her as, “a significant new talent,” and her novel as, “a brilliantly conceived debut,” in a starred rave review. With Children of Scarabeaus she returns us to her boldly imagined universe for another ingenious blending of rich characterization, breathtaking science fiction adventure, fascinating speculation, and engrossing romance in the vein of Linnea Sinclair and Ann Aguirre. Children of Scarabeaus cements Creasy’s reputation as one of sf’s most exciting new practitioners—as cypherteck Edie Sha’nim and her bodyguard lover Finn uncover an insidious scheme by the tyrannical Crib empire that involves the enslavement of children and the destruction of worlds.

OTT or what! :) Guess I should write to them about the spelling errors in the books' titles.

Who's Hans Gruber anyway?

AB Keuser, a formerly fellow Arizonan who has an interesting blog about her writing life, has interviewed me. Find out why I love Hans Gruber and why I almost didn't answer the phone when agent Kristin Nelson called to offer representation.

(Meanwhile, who would interrupt a feeding newborn to answer the phone? Um, me. That was two years later, and it was Kristin again, this time offering my husband representation.)

My first podcast - coming soon

Yarn author Jon Armstrong is doing a series of Podcast interviews with his fellow PKD Award nominees for his blog If You're Just Joining Us. This morning he interviewed me! I think I worked my way around the technology, recording my voice with my webcam while speaking on the phone, while he did the same at his end. He edits the two halves together so it sounds like we're in the same room. That's cheating, huh? He has an lurvly "radio voice" and put me at ease for my first ever voice interview.

Check out his other podcast interviews - some really interesting people in there from across the publishing industry. My interview will be up in a month or so.

The singularity

io9, my favorite site for all things sciencey and science ficitonal, has an article on the singularity - not the gravitational singularity that created space-time, but the technological one, the future event beyond which technology becomes incomprehensible to our current selves. The example they give is trying to explain the internet to a medieval peasant. Imagine a future technology so unthinkable that it can't be explained to you and me. Hmm, if it can't be thought of it can't be imagined, but of course that's what SF writers try to do.

The typical hypothetical event is the emergence of artificial intelligence - not because we can't imagine it, but because we can't really predict what effects it will have on society and, Star Trek TNG notwithstanding, on our very definition of what it means to be human.  What would self-programing intelligence that surpasses human intelligence get up to in its spare time? Would it rather take over the world or play with Lego?

Children of Scarabaeus giveaway

Want to read Children of Scarabaeus early? Harper Voyager is giving away advance reader copies (presumably e-books) to those willing to write a short review. For your chance to grab a copy, see this blog post and email them toot sweet: Eos Blog Giveaway

Where in the world I am

If you're on Goodreads, Song of Scarabaeus is this month's Book of the Month for the SFR group read. Join the discussion here (I've been popping in with a few bits of trivia).

I've also written my monthly blog post at Supernatural Underground - read it here.