I’ll post pics and shout-outs from RT later this week; it was a lot of fun, but I’m still in the grind on book 3 and now working on copyedits for book 2, so necessarily limiting my blogging time ’til that’s done. Anyway, Kinneth. I could have — and did, in an early short story that hasn’t been published — written whole additional tales about her, beyond the events of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
Character Study: Kinneth KEEP READING
Wow. RT has been an Experience — all good, but a bit overwhelming. I’m not on any panels or anything; mostly I just wanted to get a better understanding of the romance genre. And man, was this the place to do it. Have been schmoozing with authors like Karen Miller and Linnea Sinclair, as well as familiar faces like Leanna Renee Hieber, Diana Rowland, and John Scalzi. Tomorrow is the big Book Fair, which has been described to me as “a full-contact book buying, author-signing squee-and-stompfest”, by an author who shall remain nameless on her request. I’m concerned that maybe
The Romance Pitch KEEP READING
Wow, that sounds so dreamy, doesn’t it? I’m off to a place where I’ll be whisked away by handsome and charming men who will greet me with flowers and Vaseline lenses… well, no. Instead I’m going to the Romantic Times Booklovers’ Convention, a romance industry con which is part of my attempt to cross-market the Inheritance Trilogy to readers who actually like romance in their fantasy. Romance is big business, and I mean big — I’ve never been to RT before, but by all accounts it’s about the size of Worldcon in a good year, with 300+ authors alone. So
Off for Romantic Times… KEEP READING
The TV Tropes site is both magnificent entertainment and my nemesis. I love reading it, and can get lost in there for hours — usually when I’m supposed to be writing. In fact I had to put it into my “Writing Time” set of LeechBlocked links, because it tests my self-control too much otherwise. So imagine my utter delight at getting a notice from the TV Tropes folks about this! TV Tropes is a wiki, so please feel free to go in there and add to the Inheritance Trilogy’s page, connect it to other entries, etc. I can’t wait to
I mentioned in passing awhile back that I’ve been contemplating atheism in the context of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Book 3 currently contains a minor character who describes himself as atheist. When he meets Sieh — a god — the following exchange occurs (cutting for length and worldbuilding spoilers for the second and third books):
Atheism in a world of gods KEEP READING
One of the reader complaints I’ve seen a few times about 100K is frustration with the amount of detail allotted to the barony of Darr, since it’s one of only a handful of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms we get to see (beyond Sky, which isn’t so much a kingdom as a self-incorporated city-state of its own, a la the District of Columbia or Singapore) in the first book of the Inheritance Trilogy. In particular people seem to be fascinated by Darr because it’s a matriarchy and a warrior society — which is why I’m fascinated by it too, quite frankly.
I’ve noticed for the last few weeks that the reviews of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms have come in waves. Usually there are a bunch of them on Monday; I guess people are writing them up over the weekend. I’m not sure how today will go, seeing as I’m writing this a little early in the day, but I did see one marvelous review from one of my favorite print magazines, Weird Tales. It’s short enough that I can retype it, so: NEW AND FANTASTIC THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS by N. K. Jemisin (Orbit, $13.99, paperback) This remarkable debut novel is
I have to admit that Dekarta fascinates me. He’s probably the only truly religious character in the whole book, for one thing. This is a world where everyone believes in gods because hello? they’re right there in your face. (I’m wrestling with the idea of how an atheist would function in this world right now, in book 3.) But not everyone believes in the gods. Especially among the Arameri, understandably; it’s hard to feel reverence for beings you can order about and put on a leash. But Dekarta feels true faith toward all the gods, even the Enefadeh. In fact,
Character Study: Dekarta KEEP READING
Apologies for the relative silence, ya’ll. Been seriously motoring on book 3, which is threatening to become a doorstopper. ::ulp:: I’m planning to chop it ruthlessly when I get into the editing phase because I just don’t believe a fantasy novel should be heavy enough to punch a hole in the fabric of existence, but for the time being Sieh is being a demanding little brat, and I’d better do what he wants or he’ll replace all my coffee with Taster’s Choice or something. So I’m just getting around to addressing this now. Last week there was a little confusion
Book Covers Explained KEEP READING
Another interview! This one with Mihir Wanchoo of FantasyBookCritic. FBC’s Robert and Liviu gave me some of my first five-star reviews when 100K came out (you can see them both at Goodreads), so I’m especially happy to do an interview for this site. A sample: What level of technology is the overall world of the 100K kingdoms set at? I mean for eg. The city of Aramari (sic) seems to be very technologically advanced, however the rest of the world doesn’t seem to match up in that regard. Technologically speaking, all of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms are at about Renaissance-level
Blog Tour: FantasyBookCritic KEEP READING