Where it comes from

/ 15 Comments / WTF World? / By

I get asked a lot how I concocted the worldbuilding of the Inheritance Trilogy — the politics, that is, as much as the mythos. People ask me how on earth I came up with a society in which the law is whatever the hell the people in charge decide to enforce, for whomever they deem worthy of justice; in which the right to kill is not a moral question or a quest for righteousness, but merely a cherished privilege of power; in which the wanton destruction of entire peoples and landscapes is constantly obfuscated by revised history; in which a […]

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Belated Happy Birthday to me!

/ 5 Comments / Natter / By

Folks on Twitter and FB knew this, but it occurred to me I hadn’t mentioned the b-day here on the homeblog. D’oh, Web 2.0fail. Anyway, I partly forgot to mention it because it wasn’t a big deal. Like anyone who works in education, I generally write off the month of September for stuff like, oh, a social life, complex thought, or a full night’s sleep. So I generally celebrate my birthday in October sometime. And given that this October will see the publication of The Kingdom of Gods… well, there’s just all kinds of stuff I can do with that.

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Catching up with myself on gay YA

/ 5 Comments / Controversies / By

This has been a rough week, and it’s not over yet — just a lot of personal and day job stuff going on. But also a little bit of professional stuff, which I’ve caught only the narrowest edge of since, hey, rough week. Not much time for internets. Still, I’ve been trying to follow the whole controversy that’s been going down the past few days regarding gay characters in YA. If you weren’t aware or haven’t been following it — here’s a good roundup — it’s basically the same kind of discussion we periodically have in SFF about the presence

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“After” Table of Contents, and Imposter Syndrome

/ 6 Comments / Shorts / By

Just got the final table of contents for the Datlow & Windling forthcoming YA dystopian anthology, After. Introduction The Segment by Genevieve Valentine After the Cure by Carrie Ryan Valedictorian by N.K. Jemisin Visiting Nelson by Katherine Langrish All I Know of Freedom by Carol Emshwiller The Other Elder by Beth Revis The Great Game at the End of the World by Matthew Kressel Reunion by Susan Beth Pfeffer Faint Heart by Sarah Rees Brennan Blood Drive by Jeffrey Ford Reality Girl by Richard Bowes Hw th’Irth Wint Wrong by Hapless Joey @ homeskool.guv by Gregory Maguire Rust With Wings

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How much status do you quo?

/ 16 Comments / Natter / By

Consider this a thought experiment. Awhile back, I wrote about change theory, and the notion that the only way to unfreeze a stable system is to heat it up in some way. This isn’t exactly a new or unique ideology; it’s one held by radicals of whatever stripe, and to a degree it’s been proven by history. Every fallen empire, every long-lasting regime that’s been overturned, every stagnant system that’s undergone a sudden and drastic change, has shown that change is always possible, no matter how ingrained or set-in-stone the pre-change status quo seemed to be. But systems operate on

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Must Epic Fantasy Be Set in the Past?

/ 42 Comments / Thinkythoughts / By

Happy post-Labor-Day, for you Americans out there. I spent the weekend relaxing with friends, eating peaches and drinking peach-flavored wine, and writing — blissfully writing. ::happy sigh:: It’s been awhile since I could write as much as I wanted. Felt really good. Anyway. Earlier this weekend (starting September 3), I inadvertently provoked a sprawling discussion on Twitter by wondering out loud, “Does fantasy have to be set in the past, or use bygone technology?” It was a good convo — included reviewers like Niall Harrison and Rose Fox, as well as fellow writers Justine Larbalestier and Nnedi Okorafor. Go check

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A brief public service message

/ 60 Comments / Rantage / By

Saying this because in the past couple of days I’ve had some Incidents, both professional and personal, and I’m beginning to be Pissed Off. Warning for profanity. Let me make something clear: I talk about race, gender, and other issues of social justice because I have to. Because if I want to survive in this business, I don’t just have to adapt myself, I have to adapt the field itself — or I will die young of a heart attack or a stroke or something. But this does not in any way mean I talk about race and gender because

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Snippets 2: The Gods’ Realm

/ 1 Comment / On Writing, Snippets / By

(Snippets 1 is here.) One of the things I had to spend a lot of time on, in creating the Inheritance Trilogy, was figuring out what went on in the gods’ lives when mortals weren’t around to see them. This was something that I knew might never actually show up in the story — the gods are the focus of the trilogy, but it’s their interactions with mortals that matter most — but I still needed to understand it. I’ve heard other writers compare worldbuilding to an iceberg, and I think that analogy fits perfectly: readers see only ten percent,

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Here, have a pretty.

/ 3 Comments / Fan Fun / By

Folks who follow me on Twitter already saw this, but otherwise it’s buried in the comments of the previous post. So I decided to bring it out here where everyone could see, since the author was kind enough to share it with me, and since it’s amazing: Click to biggify, which is well worth it. Original here at Casey’s art Tumblr, where you may comment to the artist directly. I don’t know Casey, and haven’t yet mastered the mysteries of Tumblr so haven’t sent a response to her — but Casey, if you’re watching, my response is WOW. As I

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