Shiny! Well, Shiny’s kid. ART STYLIN’

/ 4 Comments / Fan Fun, Natter, Squeeage / By

I think I have a seekrit authar fetish — I love love LOVE seeing readers create art derived from my work. Now, obligatory armchair legalese here — “derived from” by the terms of fair use and substantial alteration of the original work, etc., etc., and if I felt I needed a fanworks policy it would be like this, with the added caveat that I never, ever, want to hear filk of my work, ever, ever. (Ever. I mean it, ya’ll. Open your mouth to sing me your Paean to the Nightlord, and somebody gets hurt.) Anyway. Jewelry! I like shiny […]

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Missing Voices

/ 10 Comments / Controversies, Shorts, WTF World? / By

What should science fiction sound like? Or fantasy. A short story of mine, “Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters”, was published in the UK anthology Postscripts a few months back. I’ve sold the audio rights to Podcastle, which is going to run the story sometime soon — and I’m glad for this, because it’s one of my favorites. See, this story is set in New Orleans, in the days immediately preceding and following Hurricane Katrina. In some ways, it’s my love letter to the city that I know what it means to miss —

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Is there a Rule of Three in SFF?

/ 37 Comments / Controversies, On Writing, Thinkythoughts, WTF World? / By

Somebody in my Twitter feed linked this today, which I’d never seen before. Some insightful commentary from the late Dwayne McDuffie, a kickass comic book writer and trailblazer within that genre, talking about the Rule of Three. No, not this one; something else: Which got me thinking, of course. I’ve said before that most of the criticism I get as a writer is perfectly thoughtful, interesting stuff, which is doubtless helpful to those who are trying to decide whether to buy my books or read my stories. But I’ve seen a very few reader responses that, IMO, crossed the line

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Whose Wonderland? Which wonderful?

/ 17 Comments / Natter / By

Saw this done by a friend on LJ, and thought it might make a good memelike thing*: if you could live in a fantasy setting of your choosing, which one — based on fantasy novels you’ve read — would it be? Because not just anybody’s wonderland would be wonderful for me, after all. I’m going to just skip the ones where there are no black people, because I can’t see how it would be particularly wonderful to be treated as “exotic” — and abnormal. This does not, note, rule out all wonderlands that resemble medieval Europe; a lot depends on

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Anime recs please?

/ 69 Comments / Natter / By

I’m tired of talking about writing, race, gender, politics, and all that other heavy crap. Let’s talk cartoons! It’s no secret that I’m an anime/manga fan, especially since I mentioned in the afterward to The Broken Kingdoms that the World Tree was at least partly inspired by the giant sakura in the shoujo series Mahou Tsukai Tai!*. But I have to confess that I haven’t been a power user of anime or manga in about ten years, so I’m not up on the latest/hottest/coolest stuff. In fact, to my shame, I now get most of my anime as dubbed stuff

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My job is to break your heart.

/ 13 Comments / Thinkythoughts / By

Was listening to this great interview with Patrick Rothfuss over at The Sword and Laser, which Cy pointed out to me in the comments of another post (thanks, Cy!). Patrick gives me a nice shout-out, but I was more intrigued by something he says starting at about the 27:00 mark in the podcast (apologies for any inaccuracies in the transcription; I’m not a professional at this): It’s very flattering when people get so involved with the work, but it’s terrifying too, because then people come in and they go, “I love your work, I’m sure that you won’t do this

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Brilliance from Hal Duncan

/ 4 Comments / Pimping, Thinkythoughts / By

The status quo is segregation. It’s a state of segregation in which black, queer and members of other abject groups are not deemed to belong as main characters. This is the segregation of not being able to sit at the front of the bus. They may be allowed in as an exception if it “serves the plot” (c.f. your reviewer’s expectation of a *reason* for the character’s gayness.) This is the segregation of being stopped in a white neighbourhod and challenged on your purpose in being there. They may be allowed in as Gay Best Friends or Magic Negros in

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Epic Fantasy Defined, again (at Black Gate)

/ 5 Comments / Thinkythoughts / By

Huh. Saw this interesting post over at Black Gate’s blog. I agree with some of it; that whole thing about a defined evil, for example, and the world-transforming scope. But I don’t agree with… well, the rest. Basically I think Surridge’s definition is too wedded to superficialities and not enough to content. The danger of defining an art form by superficialities is that it leaves no room for experimentation or growth. The boundaries become set by What Has Gone Before, rather than something more intrinsic. That’s the kind of thinking that allows some readers to believe that only men can

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It’s official: Nebula Nom!

/ 19 Comments / 100K, Awards / By

So I can finally let the cat out of the bag on some great news I got last week: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms has been nominated for a 2010 Nebula Award! I’m thrilled, of course — dancing in the streets, figuratively — but I’ve actually known about this since last week, so had some time to squee and calm down. It helps that I’ve been through this before; last year was my first time on the Nebula ballot, in the short story category. Didn’t win then, but I was OK with that because a) it really is an honor to

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