Broken Earth

Hugo Nomination Rumination

/ 6 Comments / Awards / By

As I’ve mentioned on social media, I only have two works eligible for awards nomination from 2017: The Stone Sky, and my Uncanny short story Henosis. Last year was tough, so I didn’t get much writing done. I’m sure a lot of you can relate. But since people have asked for my thoughts on this… Please, if you’re going to nominate The Stone Sky in any form, do so in the Novel category, rather than nominating the whole Broken Earth trilogy for Series. I mean, I can’t stop you from nominating it however you like — but let me point […]

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Sample first chapter of THE OBELISK GATE

/ 12 Comments / The Broken Earth / By

Well, it’s just about a month until The Obelisk Gate releases in print and ebook — August 16th in the US, August 18th in the UK, no idea why it’s different — and per my usual pre-publication tradition, I’m now posting the uncopyedited first chapter of the book for people to peruse (and if you like, preorder)! Alas, I have no information yet on the audiobook version, or whether it will again be read by the amazing Robin Miles. Normally I would post the second chapter a month later, but I’ve belatedly realized that Amazon routinely includes the first two

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An update on the update and the progress of the progress

/ 15 Comments / Uncategorized / By

Just occurred to me I’ve been really quiet here, aside from yelling at old men yelling at clouds. Yikes! Sorry ’bout that. I haven’t been quiet anywhere else, of course; it’s just that it’s usually easier for me to microblog on Facebook or Twitter than to macroblog here. Still, some things work better when discussed at length. So, I’ve been getting lots of questions lately about The Fifth Season, and I have a marketing blurb for you, which my editor and I recently hashed out: THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS. AGAIN. Three terrible things happen in a single

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Cover for THE FIFTH SEASON

/ 13 Comments / Squeeage / By

Wah! I’ve been so busy at work I didn’t have time to post this here. But fortunately The Mary Sue is on the case. Here (and there) is the cover for the previously-Untitled Magic Seismology Project: I haven’t talked much about this book because busy. But I absolutely love this cover. The Fifth Season is set in a world which has suffered frequent, repeated Extinction Level Events for millions of years, and all life (and magic) in this world has adapted to it. Hundreds of years might pass between these events — easy, plentiful years in which great cities rise,

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Stuff! Going! On!

/ 8 Comments / Natter, Pimping / By

Hokay! Belatedly realized I’ve been quieter than usual here, aside from occasional long philosophical screeds about SFF politics and global domination stuff. That’s because I’ve been phenomenally busy, and frankly when I’m busy it’s much easier to Tweet about stuff than take the time to do a blog post. But since it’s been so long since I’ve talked about Just Stuff here, I figured it was time to do an update. First, I’ve finished the UMSP! My writing group, editor, and agent are now chewing on it, and I’m in Deep Thoughts mode, letting the heat of writing the first

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Catchup Time!

/ 13 Comments / Natter / By

I am in crunch mode right now. The first book of the UMSP is due in May, and I’m going to have to grind like a grindy thing to meet that deadline. My writing goal right now has been upped from 3000 words/weekend (my weekends are my only solid writing time, and my normal production rate is about 1500 words/day) to 5000 with 250 words/night on as many weeknights as I can manage. Can’t always manage the latter; I work long days, in a job that’s sometimes psychologically exhausting. But I’m gonna try, so wish me luck. As a result,

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“The Next Big Thing” Meme

/ 8 Comments / Interview, Natter / By

Last week I got tagged by buddy Kate Elliott to participate in The Next Big Thing, a meme that’s been going around. I’m slow, so only just now doing it (d’oh). But this looks fun, so here goes. I think it’s meant to be filled out by someone who’s got a soon-forthcoming novel, but I’m going to treat this as a between-series snack and just talk about everything I’ve ever written. Cutting for brevity!

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Fantastic Profanity

/ 33 Comments / On Writing / By

So today I’d like to talk about fantastic profanity — by which I mean not “really good” profanity, but “made up for fantasy and science fiction” profanity. Therefore this post will contain quite a bit of cussin’. FOR ART AND SCIENCE. You are warned. There are some words that are universally vulgar, in my opinion. I only speak 1.25 languages — English and just enough of a few other languages to mangle them all magnificently — but in my vast experience I haven’t yet found a language that doesn’t treat either the act or the product of defecation as something

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Big! Announcement! NEW SERIES!!

/ 17 Comments / Uncategorized / By

Been sitting on this for a brief while, but finally got the okay to spill the beans. I’ve sold a new trilogy to Orbit! Can’t tell you much about it yet — it’s the Untitled Magic Seismology Project (UMSP) that some of you have seen me talking about here now and again; that was the reason for the research trip to Hawaii a few weeks back. I’m working on the first book now, but I don’t like talking much about my works-in-progress until they’re more complete. So suffice it to say that this will be a postapocalyptic epic fantasy trilogy,

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Now THAT was a trip.

/ 11 Comments / Thinkythoughts, Travel / By

Back from Hawaii. Exhausted, as one is wont to be after any 12-hour flight and jetlag, but it doesn’t help that I spent the whole trip doing stuff like this: That was day 1 of the trip: a 4-mile hike around and across Kilauea Iki, which is basically the remains of a lava lake that was pretty jumpin’ — by which I mean, boiling hot and utterly deadly — back in 1959. These days it’s a much more sedate place, although the hike is substantially challenging even for people who haven’t just traveled to the other side of the planet

Now THAT was a trip. KEEP READING

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