Three Things Make A Post

Except I can’t count.

State of the NoJo: plugging away slowly on the UMSP still. The ash has begun to fall and the world is changing; this novel’s got a very eerie, surreal quality to it that’s making me wonder if I’ve got some latent horror writer inclinations in me somewhere. Diverted a bit to work on a short story in the 100Kverse; more on that later. Because…

The Killing Moon has been nominated for a Nebula!! I got the call about it this weekend, but had to sit on the news ’til the official announcement today. This is my fourth time being nominated (first was for a short story, second and third were for books 1 and 3 of the Inheritance Trilogy) and as I said on Twitter earlier today, it never stops feeling awesome.

Not sure yet whether I’ll go to Nebula Weekend. I love San Jose, but I’d meant to minimize my travel this year, since I’m not actively promoting a new book for the first time in forever. ::sigh:: Well, we’ll see.

Equally important to me: I have finally scraped out a little free time to read books again! Apologies to those of you who’ve sent me books to blurb, and whatnot; I just haven’t had the time. :( And as it is, I’m reading very slowly — basically only on my commute to and from work in the mornings, provided the train’s not too crowded and the subway preachers aren’t too loud. I also read a bit in the evenings, preferably in the bathtub — which, since a lot of my reading is via ebooks these days, actually puts another damper (ha ha damper get it) on my reading time. I should probably buy a waterproof skin for my S3. Anyway, just having the time to read at all is a big thing for me, thus the announcementizing.

Stuff I’ve enjoyed lately:

• Kate Griffin’s Stray Souls, first in a new series set in the same universe as her Matthew Swift books, which you guys know I love. This one’s so many flavors of awesome. Sharon is London’s newest shaman, and she’s not quite sure what that means yet — so she uses Facebook to start the group “Magicals Anonymous”, assembling the most hilarious collection of magical misfits ever seen, to try and figure it out. There’s the hypochondriac vampire, the necromancer with self-image issues, the troll gourmand, the druid with allergies… individually they’re a bit sad, but together and under Sharon’s leadership they’re unbelievably awesome. I want to see a BBC TV series based on it.
• Ben Aaronovich’s Midnight Riot, released in the UK as Rivers of London. Continuing my British urban fantasy kick — people have been recommending this one to me for a year, and I kept putting it off even though I had a copy, because I am apparently stupid. Holy shit this book is awesome — it’s a deeply creepy thriller, a police procedural that actually seems to have something to do with real police work, and a hilarious day-in-the-life story for the hapless young constable Peter Grant, who happens to be London’s newest wizard apprentice. He’s up against a magical serial killer, and the bureaucracy , and it’s not clear which is the greater threat.
• After, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. I’m not plugging this anthology just because one of my short stories (“Valedictorian”) is in it, but also because I’ve finally finished reading it all the way through, and the stories in it are genuinely awesome. Seriously — there wasn’t a one that didn’t leave me thinking deeply or reverberating with emotion. Usually I consider an anth a good purchase if it’s got maybe 40 or 50% good stories; this is closer to 100%.
• Not a book, but an old flame rekindled: Elfquest is back! A new adventure, drawn by Wendy Pini, is running over at BoingBoing if you haven’t been following it. They’re posting a page a week on Mondays, which is toooooorturous, but worth the wait.

Total sidenote: I discovered the whole Harlem Shake meme about 12 hours before the media declared it “over”, but this one from my cousin’s show is my favorite. Contains the actual Harlem Shake, at the end!

And that’s all the news that is news, here in Noraville.