Penric 15 impending
Sep. 20th, 2025 03:11 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
lois_mcmaster_bujold_feedI have just today finished the first draft of a new Penric & Desdemona novella, to be titled "Testimony of Mute Things". Final edit still to go, but we were beforehand with the cover -- sneak peek below. I think artist Ron Miller did a bang-up job this round. (Ron's website: https://www.black-cat-studios.com/ )
This one is a prequel, falling between "Penric's Fox" and "Masquerade in Lodi" during Pen's Martensbridge years. The seed was that throw-away line toward the end of "Maquerade in Lodi", where Duke Jurgo's secretary Stobrek is greeting Pen effusively with "[We met] at that extraordinary Temple conclave in Carpagamo."
This has dangled off Pen's timeline as an empty box labeled "Insert Story Here" for years. (Indeed, it's working title was the alliterative "Conclave in Carpagamo" till about half through, when a better one arose out of the material.) I very much wanted to write this before I got too far from younger Penric to recall him. Finally this July a sufficient notion for going on with appeared, and we were off.
E-publication projected to be in mid to late October, depending as usual on a lot of currently unsettled factors. (So many revision passes, ugh...)
Ta, L.
posted by Lois McMaster Bujold on September, 20
The Unspeakably Hedonistic Lifestyle of an Author On Book Tour
Sep. 20th, 2025 08:53 pmscalziwhatever_feed
It’s just a little before 3pm on a Saturday in Boise, and I’ve fed myself on a Subway Bacon Chicken Ranch sub (with oatmeal raisin cookie), and now I’m going to lie around on a bed in a darkened hotel room, watching YouTube cooking video until my brain is ready for a nice afternoon nap.
These are my unhinged tour habits! The pure licentiousness is the stuff of legend!
Anyway, hello, Boise. I will see you tonight at that most hedonistic of night haunts, the public library.
Tomorrow! Denver! I’ll see you at the Tattered Cover Colfax! 3pm — that’s right, it’s an afternoon event, because it’s Sunday, and we get our iniquity done early on Sunday.
— JS
The Big Idea: William Alexander
Sep. 19th, 2025 09:28 pmscalziwhatever_feed
You don’t have to fully understand something to enjoy or get value out of it. New York Times bestselling author William Alexander expands this idea to life itself in the Big Idea for his newest novel, Sunward. Read on to see how the world, though sometimes scary and incomprehensible, can also be pretty amazing.
WILLIAM ALEXANDER:
Sunward is space opera about parenting—specifically about parenting robotic kids, and more broadly about parenting kids who are wildly, gloriously, transformatively different from ourselves.
It started as a short story that I wrote for Sunday Morning Transport, when pandemic parenting was much on my mind. My own kids were stuck at home, quarantined from the world but still trying to learn about it via disembodied classrooms. Their experience of grade school was simultaneously contracting and expanding in ways that I had no frame of reference for—except maybe in science fiction. Home was a spacecraft, isolated in the void. We lived in cramped quarters, bouncing off the walls and staring out the windows, but at least we could communicate instantaneously with every other ship and station.
This mix of coziness, claustrophobia, catastrophe, and possibility messed with my head. I tried to squeeze the whole mess into a short story. Then the story grew into a novel—albeit a short one—about parenting juvenile bots in a turbulent solar system.
Science fiction has lots of robotic kids. Some inhabit Pinocchio retellings, others Peter Pan retellings. Some are changelings, embodying old fears alongside newer uncanny valleys. Samuel Butler panicked about mechanical offspring in his 1863 essay “Darwin Among the Machines” (which also predicts eventual war between the machines and humanity). Osamu Tezuka’s beloved Astro Boy broke ground for so much of our science fictional landscape; his 1962 story “Robot Land” includes a robotic uprising set in an amusement park, published eleven years before the movie Westworld.
Ted Chiang’s The Lifecycle of Software Objects (which you can find in his second collection Exhalation) critiques the impossible shortcuts that we almost always take in our stories about mechanical people. “Science fiction is filled with artificial beings who, like Athena out of the head of Zeus, spring forth fully formed,” he says in the story notes, “but I don’t believe consciousness actually works that way.” The digients of his novella are infants raised up by the constant attention of caring adults. Intelligent life needs to be nurtured. It takes time. There are no shortcuts.
As adults we become increasingly skilled at pretending—to ourselves, and to everyone else—that we stand on certainties. Kids know better. They are much more accustomed to moving through worlds that they don’t understand, and don’t yet expect to. They find ways to navigate incomprehension.
Science fiction can help us remember how to do the same—not necessarily in its literal predictions of the future, or in its warnings and cautionary tales, but in the way SF fosters an intuitive sense that all of this… <flails at the world like an unhappy muppet> …could be wildly, gloriously, transformatively different.
Sunward: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Books-A-Million|Bookshop
And furthermore...
Sep. 19th, 2025 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniI'm really glad I moved the writing part of my life back to Steve's office. The business aspect of my life is a Terrible Snarl, which is going to take several hours, if not days to unsnarl. But! I will be able to Go To Work untroubled by the gnarly looking piles, and that's a Good Thing.
I am also thinking that I will be wanting to move my writing time from afternoon/evening to morning. Get up, get breakfast, hit the story. This has never worked for me before, but, since I am now apparently a Day Person, we shall Make Adjustments.
Me doing creative work in the morning means that y'all will be getting the Confusion Factory Daily Update later in the day. I hope that doesn't inconvenience anyone.
On the Trope Front, I have decided to treat the whole business as a game, because if I don't I will descend into a Slough of Despond, because 35+ years of writing my head and heart out is going to be reduced to "meet cute." I really am trying to meet the organizers of this thing halfway, but I fear I'm being just as hard on them as I feel they're being on me.
Later, we can talk about how Tropes do a disservice to writer and to reader, if we want to. I expect I'm on the wrong side of the line, as I am with trigger warnings. I am a flawed being. As are we all.
Aside all of that... I do believe that I'll pour myself an early glass of wine and go sit out on the deck.
Everybody have a good evening. Stay safe.
I'll check in tomorrow afternoon.
View From a Hotel Window, 9/19/25: San Diego
Sep. 19th, 2025 07:55 pmscalziwhatever_feed
Today’s view not only has a parking lot, but also a freeway onramp! This makes it a high-quality view from a hotel window!
(The room and hotel are pretty nice, just to be clear. Tor does not put me up in murder hotels.)
Tonight: I’m at Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, 7pm! Be there or be somewhere else, I guess.
Tomorrow: I go all the way to Boise, Idaho, for an event at the Boise Public library (Hillcrest Branch), co-sponsored by Rediscovered Books. Also at 7pm! The event is free but please register at the link so they know you’re coming.
— JS
Friday on the road
Sep. 19th, 2025 03:46 pmrolanniFriday. It's an awfully nice day. Sunny and breezy. Warmer up inland where the Confusion Factory is located, than down Bath, where it was Right Cool at that nice little park of theirs. If I could snap my fingers and move this house as it is to Bath, I'd do that.
Yeah.
So, I saw my PCP, who's looking well. I have my COVID shot, so that's taken care of. I will also be traveling up and down Central and Coastal Maine for the next little bit -- acupuncture at Rockport (not really acupuncture, but something to do with needles and reading nerve health and messaging); PT at Augusta; Audiology in this, mine own city. ... I'm not sure where the bloodwork's to be done. I'm hoping Thayer, but I need to check the portal.
We are in pursuit of a Better, Longer Term fix for the back, because it's getting worse, and the poor chiropractor has worn out at least three hammers on me, to no real avail. He no sooner pronounces me Aligned, poor man, then my back goes out again for no reason, and I collapse to the floor, screaming. I mean, something's not right when you hurt your back doing Tai Chi.
While in Bath, I went down to the park, obviously, and enjoyed a chocolate peppermint latte at Cafe Cream. It was wonderful, and now I'm sorry I didn't allow myself a scone or a muffin, but! I found that just sitting in a busy cafe, sipping my latte and not doing much else, was ... oddly restorative. I think it helped that everyone was having a reasonably good time; there were no angry voices, or people being nasty to the folks behind the counter, said folks being Genuinely Interested in you and your order ("Ooh, the Yorkie Latte? (this being the official blackboard name of my drink.) You're gonna love that." And she wasn't wrong.)
After I drank my treat, I went across to Now Your Cooking and toured the premises. I bought a couple of gadgets -- including a hook that will help me open pull-tab cans, which has become an issue -- and a what ought to be a very nice red blend bottle of wine, which I plan on opening this evening, to reward myself for having gotten credibly through the morning.
The car's GPS did this to me the last time I went to Bath, but I didn't remember it soon enough to keep it from freaking me out. When you get off the expressway, there is Only One Way to merge with the state route. The GPS Strongly Disagrees with this, and starts screaming ROUTE RECALCULATING! ROUTE RECALCULATING! like a mad thing, and it really gets your heart racing. As I did the time before, I pulled off into the handy shopping center, whereupon the GPS recovered itself and agreed that I had been on the right road. Next time, I'm going to have to Steel Myself to ignore it.
On the way home, I stopped at the Harvest Moon Deli and bought way too much food -- Tikka Marsala soup, which was good, and I ate it all; a roast beast of burden (they name their sandwiches after classic rock songs at the Harvest Moon) sandwich, which I ate a quarter of one half, the other 3/4s destined for the evening meal, and the remaining half either for tomorrow's breakfast or lunch.
I still have paperwork sorting and portal-visiting to do relative to the medical part of the day, so that's what I'll be doing for the rest of the afternoon, with an eye toward hitting the writing space tomorrow and getting something useful done.
And how was your morning?
Before departure, Whatcha Doin' Moms:
Hooray For Online Piracy!
Sep. 19th, 2025 01:00 pmcakewrecks_feedARRRRRR, me mateys! Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day! So let's get starrrrted by going over arrr vocabularrrry with a quick pop quiz:
Q: Where are we going tonight?
A: To a BARRRRR.
Q: And what will we drink?
A. StARRRRla's Sangria!
Q. How will we get to the bar?
A. In a cARRRRR!
Q. What will we play during Karaoke?
A. Air guitARRRRR.
Q. What do we call this ugly golf ball cake?
A. SubpARRRRR
Q. What do dinosaurs say?
A. RARRRRRR!
Q. And finally, who's on our pirate flag?
A. The Jolly RogARRRRR - but this scalawag looks like an impostARRRRR!
Thanks to Suzanne S., Beth C., Rock, John M., Kelly H., Adrienne D., and Paul & Storm, who I blatantly ripped off honored with today's post.
Hello From Santa Cruz
Sep. 19th, 2025 04:37 amscalziwhatever_feed
Forgot to post a “view from a hotel window” view today, but this interesting contraption was right down the street from me, so I thought you might like it instead. Tonight’s event was lovely and tomorrow I will be in San Diego, at Mysterious Galaxy bookstore at 7pm. You should come by and say hello to me there.
— JS
Thursday at a glance
Sep. 18th, 2025 06:09 pmrolanniInstallment ONE: So, I got up, had breakfast, carried my tea to Steve's office, and was at work by 9:15. Surfaced at 11:55 to go down to do my duty to the cats and take a walk. Now need to figure out if I'm going to order in or just zap a Lean Cuisine.
I need to do a couple things in the business office, from which location I write to you. Those include finishing making a list for my PCP visit tomorrow, researching where the new office actually is, and downloading the Word Book from this computer to take back to the writing computer, which had redlined every other word in the manuscript because it hasn't been brought up to date.
Firefly kept me company in the writing room all morning, and Rookie popped in and out. He was clearly a little concerned about me sitting in Steve's chair -- was I actually allowed to do that? Apparently, he went off and checked the paperwork, because he has clearly accepted that, yes, I can do that.
Hope everybody's having a good day. It's lovely and sunny here, warm, but not hot.
Installment TWO: Everyone who asked after the keyboard. It is a Kinesis Advantage2 keyboard. I've been using them for at least 20 years; started when my wrists went bad and I bullheadedly refused to give up typing, because speech recognition did not work for me at all. This is what happens when what you actually do instead of pronouncing words correctly is fake people into thinking you talk good by a combination of inflection and body language, neither of which translates into computer programs.
The Kinesis Advantage2 helps because your wrists are in a neutral position and your fingers can hang down in a neutral position, rather than being Poised! To! Strike! as is the case with a standard flat keyboard.
Yes, the learning curve was vile. And, also yes, the trade off is that I now can't type on a flat keyboard, so if I'm taking my laptop on a trip, I either have to also take a keyboard almost as big as the laptop, or Accept that I'm going to be reduced to two-fingering it for as long as I'm away.
This is always a difficult choice because typing is my mode of expression of choice, right after interpretive dance.
Installment THREE: OK, fun game!
First question: Do the Liaden books have any "tropes"? Examples given "grumpy sunshine," "found family," "the chosen one"? (What on earth is "grumpy sunshine" and do people really push the "tropes" in their books?)
Second question: Can you give us a 1 sentence (30 words) quote form one of your books? ("Yes," which is my go-to, is not in this case a Valid Answer.)
In other news, the Lean Cuisine won, because I made the mistake of checking my mail. My plan is to eat, and then go back and write for another couple hours.
Installment FOUR: OK. I have written to the originators of the Survey which included the Fun Questions.
So far today, I have Scrutinized the chapter-by-chapter, identified holes in the narrative and sketched in a couple of ideas to fill them. I finished writing a scene, for a total of more-or-less 1250 new words, and did more research. At this point, I might as well open my own noodle shop (no, I haven't watched the movie yet; I'm a little leery of spillage, since I'm actively working on this situation for the book). I hoped to write more today, but that's probably not going to happen? Because mail, and also I really ought to wash the dishes so I can find the sink. And see if, one! more! time! I can find LibreOffice's Word Book.
Tomorrow is the much-complained about trip to Bath and the PCP. I suppose I might as well declare a Writer's Day Off at this point, hit the bakery and tour the kitchen store, and plan on getting back to work on Saturday.
It looks like next week, I have, with the exception of Tuesday evening needlework, nothing scheduled, so that's like a whole uninterrupted week of work. Fingers crossed that nothing comes up to force a change of plans.
So, that's it. I feel like I had a very successful test-drive of separating the mundane and the writing work spaces, and I hope this continues to prove out.
Everybody have a good evening; I'll check in as I can.
The Big Idea: Dan Rice
Sep. 18th, 2025 04:34 pmscalziwhatever_feed
What’s scarier, a haunted school or lifelong trauma? Spooky season is upon us and author Dan Rice has brought the ghost stories with his newest book, Phantom Algebra. Follow along in his Big Idea to see how ghastly high school can really be.
DAN RICE:
While writing Phantom Algebra, I encountered a challenge I had never faced before. The setting is a shared universe, specifically the fictitious town of Pinedale, North Carolina, located approximately fifty miles or so from Raleigh. The action needed to center around the berg’s haunted high school, Pinedale High.
I wanted the protagonist, Zuri, to be an outsider —the new kid at school —and not someone who believes in ghosts. But how to get her to Pinedale? I could have had a parent land a job in the city and have the story open with the family moving into a new home or Zuri stepping onto the school grounds for the first time. I don’t know…I felt that had been done before and wanted to do something a little different.
I settled on the horror trope of a traumatic past. Zuri and her mother are on the run, have been for years, from Big Jake: estranged father, abusive husband, former boxer, and full-time gangland enforcer. This leads them to Pinedale after Zuri coldcocks her current high school’s star quarterback, ending his attempt to sexually assault her.
Despite the trauma of watching Big Jake nearly beat her mother to death, Zuri is a fighter like him, dreams of being a world champion, and remembers fondly learning to punch, kick, and grapple under his tutelage. Zuri can’t escape the past because every time she follows her first instinct to solve her problems with her fists, she perpetuates her family’s violent legacy. Isn’t that true of all of us? We can never escape the past because it is carried within us. The best we can do is to learn to cope healthily.
At Pinedale High, Zuri encounters challenging academics, especially mathematics, and a student body that believes the school is haunted. She doesn’t believe this for an instant, only giving credence to what she can beat into submission. When circumstances prove she can no longer deny the ghostly world, Zuri is presented with a problem as gnarly as an algebraic equation. How can she battle bullying poltergeists she can’t see or strike?
Zuri navigates Pinedale with the aid of new friends, fellow outcasts like herself, and eventually bonds with a tween spirit haunted by trauma she cannot escape even in death. Freeing the spirit from her abuser means unearthing Pinedale’s celebrated founding father’s legacy of filicide and satanic magic. Many of the town’s inhabitants haven’t an inkling that Pinedale’s foundation is awash in the blood of an innocent, but they will suffer for their communal past unless Zuri and her friends can face down monsters living and dead.
In the end, I found that Pinedale High being a shared story universe didn’t limit my storytelling. By leveraging the character-centric horror trope of past trauma, I told Zuri’s unique story while remaining within the bounds of Pinedale, the high school, the nearby haunted forest, and the handful of shared characters that give the series continuity.
Phantom Algebra: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|IndieBound|iBooks
Author socials: Website|Bluesky
Read an excerpt.
Ow.
Sep. 18th, 2025 01:00 pmcakewrecks_feedPresenting the world's most painful landing:
Or perhaps the world's most unfortunately shaped, colored, and placed mat logo.
Either way, I'm sure it made a real splash on the audience.
Beth C., would you care to join me in a casual crossing-of-the-legs?
*****
And from my other blog, Epbot:
unexpected cite
Sep. 17th, 2025 06:51 pmlois_mcmaster_bujold_feedhttps://www.hoover.org/research/why-s...
My work is accurately described but not named in the actual chat, but it gets a cite by name on the webpage.
I wish I could send her a copy of Ethan of Athos. I think she'd get all the jokes.
Ta, L.
posted by Lois McMaster Bujold on September, 17
Wednesday night report
Sep. 17th, 2025 08:38 pmrolanniThe new writing digs are open for business, and I'm all set up to get started tomorrow, and to work uninterrupted. Pursuant to that point, I'll need to go out in a couple minutes and put gas in the car so that I may drive to and from Bath with dignity on Friday morning.
Likewise pursuant, I may not be around much tomorrow, or Friday, either, ref Bath, above. I'm not avoiding you, I'm just ... busy.
Hopefully.
Everybody stay safe. I'll pop in as can.
A Check-Up For Saja
Sep. 17th, 2025 06:35 pmscalziwhatever_feedI know, I know, you’re probably all terribly sick and tired of seeing our super adorable new kitten Saja, but I’m going to make you look at him again.
This little guy has a vet appointment today; a follow-up to his previous one when I took all three of the kittens in for shots and whatnot. This is just a second round of the necessary shots, and we’re going to see if he’s old enough to get fixed yet! So that may be scheduled, soon, as well.
I’m so thankful that Saja (and the other two kittens) were relatively healthy and that everyone is doing amazing now. It’s truly so lucky that none of them had serious health concerns or feline leukemia or anything like that.
Having Saja around has been absolutely amazing. It’s hard to express how much I love him. I don’t know if it’s because I rescued him off the street or what, but I am so attached to this baby, and I have been since I first saw him. He means so much to me, and my heart feels so full when I look at him. Cuddling him, seeing him play and be a kitten, and just seeing him be alive and well is so incredible.
I’m so excited to know he’ll be in my life for many years to come.
-AMS