At the Intersection of Fiction & Reality

Covidiots

Sun, 02 Jan 2022 18:01:59 GMT

RANT MODE ON:

Denise and I went up to Duluth Trading to return a few things two days ago. Duluth Trading is in Butler County north of Hamilton County where we live. Hamilton County voted for Biden; Butler County, like most of Ohio, voted for Trump. One thing we both noted is that, other than the employees, no one (and I mean NO ONE) in Duluth Trading other than Denise and I were wearing masks, nor was any masking policy posted. We went next door to Skally's Restaurant to take out gyros to bring home for lunch; there, not even the employees were masked.

*sigh* Our daughter and her wife recently had breakthrough infections of Covid, and both became very sick. Megen said it was worse than any flu she'd every experienced, and she's still having breathing issues even though she's no longer contagious. She works in retail, masks religiously (and their place of business won't allow people in without masks, though Megen says there are daily arguments with customers refusing to wear masks).

Yesterday, one of our closest friends ended up in the ER with a similar breakthrough infection. Here locally, the hospitals are full of Covid patients, most of whom were NOT vaccinated and thus are in far more serious danger.

I'm rapidly losing any sympathy/empathy for those who choose not to vaccinate themselves, _unless_ they have an immune-system issue that prevents them from taking the vaccine. Look, people, this isn't a cold or even the flu: this is a disease that could cost you your life, or could cost you the loss of your family members. GET F*CKING VACCINATED IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY DONE SO! This has NOTHING to do with politics and everything to do with staying alive, keeping those around you alive, and getting through this pandemic.

END RANT MODE.

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Mon, 15 Nov 2021 21:58:08 GMT

Okay, folks... The deleted section for Modigliani and Jeanne Hébuterne from IMMORTAL MUSE is now live, with nifty hyperlinks to my author's notes. Hope you enjoy and feel free to share away!

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Bring out your dead!

Sun, 14 Nov 2021 17:33:03 GMT

Back on October 27^th, I posted about re-reading IMMORTAL MUSE, my 2014 novel from DAW. MUSE was a book that took me nearly four years to write and which remains perhaps my most ambitious novel… and one that required heavy revision to finally come together.

There were several nice comments on that post, one of which was by Seth Lindberg (aka S.E. Lindberg, one of the managing editors of the online magazine “Black Gate”), who reminded me that he’d done an interview with me after the book’s publication. I remembered that interview well, as said to him in the comments: “Seth, I honestly think that's one of the best interviews anyone's ever done with me: great questions that forced me to answer in depth. If anyone wants a glimpse into "how I write", your interview would be an excellent choice! Thanks for reminding me of it, and for giving everyone the link!”

But that wasn’t the end of the story. I kept thinking about Seth’s interview and IMMORTAL MUSE. You see, one of my greatest regrets during that process was the decision I made to excise the section of the book that sprung from the initial spark that inspired the book and was the very first part of the book I wrote: a long section looking at Amedeo Modigliani and Jeanne Hébuterne. Cutting that was painful, since it represented months of work itself—but for the sake of the book, it had to go, which meant more months of re-arranging the text and finding new material to replace what I’d lost (I also ended up cutting three more sections of the draft.)

Now, mind you, I’ve always told my students never to actually ‘throw away’ draft work but to retain it, because you never know when you might use some portion of it later. So I went back and re-read the old Modigliani/Hébuterne section, which in turn re-ignited the regret that it never saw the light of day. Then a new thought hit me...

I sent Seth an email, asking him if “Black Gate” might be interested in publishing an annotated version of the Modigliani/Hébuterne section with my commentary on what I was thinking at the time and why (eventually) the piece had to die. Seth said he’d certainly be interested in that, and that he’d re-run the initial interview as a companion to the annotated piece first. SO….

Seth’s put up the initial interview on “Black Gate” with additional ‘teaser’ material, and the annotated, unseen-by-anyone-except-my-first-readers-and-my-editor deleted Modigliani/Hébuterne section will go live in about 48 hours. Here the link to the interview (https://www.blackgate.com/2021/10/31/emimmortal-museemby-stephen-leigh-review-interview-and-prelude-to-a-secret-chapter/), and I’ll give you the link to the deleted Modigliani/Hébuterne material as soon as it’s uploaded. Thanks to Seth for agreeing to this, and I hope you enjoy it.

If you’ve read IMMORTAL MUSE, consider this an ‘extra’ glimpse behind the curtain; if you haven’t, consider this an incentive to go and grab a copy!

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The foundation of a good story is the characters, not the backdrop!

Sun, 17 Oct 2021 02:00:03 GMT

Denise and I have been watching the Foundation series on Apple+. So far, I'm finding the series terrifically slow and the narrative disjointed and difficult to follow, though the scenery and effects are lovely eye-candy. I would have preferred that they'd concentrated on hiring better writers and getting better scripts, and spent less of the budget on the eye-candy. More emphasis on characters and their interactions, less on "ain't this pretty?"

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Mon, 11 Oct 2021 15:20:39 GMT

I’ve been re-reading my earliest DAW books: the Cloudmages Trilogy (Holder of Lighting in 2003, Mage of Clouds in 2004, and Heir of Stone in 2005) and the Nessantico Cycle (A Magic of Twilight in 2008, A Magic of Nightfall in 2009, and A Magic of Dawn in 2010). I still love those books, and I’m still proud of what I produced with these epic high fantasy novels, and glad that I moved to DAW with Betsy and Sheila as publishers, and Sheila as my editor. I’d recommend either series to anyone who likes high fantasy and wants to read my work.

One note I didn’t expect was (if I’m to be totally honest) is that I’ve always felt slightly more attached to the Cloudmages books more than those about Nessantico. After all, the Cloudmages trilogy is remains the set of books that have sold best for me. But while I enjoyed re-reading the Cloudmages trilogy and was pleased with how they’ve held up, I have to admit that the Nessantico books were slightly more to my liking: more character-driven and with less emphasis on magic and more on the politics of that world, with some nice twists and turns…

Now I’ll have to re-read some of the other DAW Books as well!

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Books For Sale

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 14:25:14 GMT

Let me give you the occasional reminder that if you're interested in reading material in my back list, I do have a Square-based website where you can purchase my older books and a few oddities and rarities. Why not check it out?

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Tue, 10 Aug 2021 15:39:01 GMT

I posted the audio of my song "I Am Home" yesterday on FB. I also put together a YouTube video of the song, a montage of the photos I've taken in Ireland and also here with Denise. Here it is if you'd like to watch it:

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Steve's Square Store

Mon, 19 Jul 2021 18:02:11 GMT

I've decided to divest myself of some of the books weighing heavily on the third floor of our house. I've put together a store powered by Square.com to do that. STEVE'S SQUARE STORE IS NOW LIVE, and you folks are the first to know about it. As I say on the front page of that site: "This is where you can purchase otherwise unavailable or hard-to-find books from Stephen Leigh (aka 'S.L. Farrell') as well as some interesting used books from Steve & Denise's bookshelves."

Most of my books are (thankfully) still in print and can be ordered commercially from any bookstore. There are links already up on the "My Work" pages of my website or in the process of being put there. I have no intention of cannibalizing the sales of my in-print books in any way. But a few titles are out-of-print though I still have some copies here, and some of the books (and series) no longer have the hardcover edition(s) available even though you can still purchase the (less expensive) mass market paperback versions. If you prefer hardcovers (signed ones), the new site is where you can grab one or find the out-of-print titles—at least until the copies I'm willing to give up are gone.

Other oddities and related stuff will also probably show up in Steve's Square Store as time goes on and I uncover more material lurking around in corners, stuffed under desks, or in stacks and boxes, so don't just visit once; keep coming back and checking out to see what you've missed -- it may be just what you're looking for!

THE LINK IS HERE!

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Ablation done

Sat, 22 May 2021 01:52:07 GMT

So on Tuesday this week I went in for a scheduled catheter ablation for my Atrial Fibrillation.

I'm feeling fairly normal again today (Friday) — still slightly sore around the groin area where the doctor went in with the probes (I have some some nice bruises there!) But no chest pain and I can move around just dine. The worst part of the procedure was that it took the nurses three sticks to find a vein they could use for the anesthesia — they finally got one in my left hand.

About 6 hours from the time they put me under, I was released and sent home. The doctor seemed happy and said that my heart itself looked fine and we’d caught everything early. Good to know! Let's hope the procedure doesn't need to be repeated (as it sometimes does). I could do without that.

Glad to be home again and feeling decent, though I got very little of anything productive done in the last few days.

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Audiobook of AMID

Sat, 24 Apr 2021 19:01:51 GMT

Here's what I received today -- the audiobook of AMID THE CROWD OF STARS! stephenleigh.com/AMID-CD.jpeg

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The Battle of the Steppes (yes, that's a deliberate misspelling)

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 17:03:04 GMT

I heard the hissing of unhappy cats and went to investigate. Both cats were on the stairs to the second floor. Ana (the dark cat at the top) wanted to come down, Finnigan (the orange cat closest to the camera) wanted to go up, but neither one of them want to let the other one get by without a squabble. So there was a stalemate for a bit until I interrupted it by walking up the stairs, allowing Finnigan to walk up shielded on my left side, and Ana to scoot past untouched on the right.

https://sleigh.dreamwidth.org/file/288.jpg

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IF TWO WORLDS COLLIDE, DO THEY MAKE A SOUND?

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 18:58:57 GMT

The ToC and back cover copy for the anthology WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, in which I'll have a story...

****

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE:

What could possibly happen when two cultures meet for the first time?

In WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, anything.

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE presents fourteen original stories where two different societies intersect and deal with the aftermath of that meeting. Will the conflicting cultures merge and adapt and find peace? Or will they clash, unable to either accept their differences or acknowledge their commonalities? Who will survive when the last of the Fae battle a world-killing AI? What happens when a being who is part of a vast collective-consciousness is forced to face their own individuality? Can a werewolf ever break free of the unholy pact its fae creator has made with humanity? Will Earth really manage to commit the biggest and most egregious faux pas in history when it’s on the cusp of joining the Galactic Union? And why is it that two very different kinds of elves are angrily facing off at a simple dinner party?

Whether your taste runs to humor, horror, science fiction, or fantasy, the stories collected in this latest anthology from Zombies Need Brains and written by some of today’s hottest SF&F authors will delight, thrill, and terrify you. Join Christopher Leapock, Howard Andrew Jones, Gary Kloster, Louis Evans, Peter S. Drang, Esther Friesner, S.C. Butler, Nancy Holzner, Auston Habershaw, Violette Malan, Stephen Leigh, Alan Smale, Steven Harper, and Jordan Chase-Young as they delve into what may happen…WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE.

“The Erratics” by Christopher Leapock

“Brother of Swords” by Howard Andrew Jones

“Walls of Teeth and Iron” by Gary Kloster

“Faux Pas” by Louis Evans

“Darithian Life Cycle” by Peter S. Drang

“Seelie With a Kiss” by Esther Friesner

“What and Why” by S.C. Butler

“Melusina” by Nancy Holzner

“Malevolent Liberation of Pret” by Auston Habershaw

“Mercenary Code” by Violette Malan

“Deep Heart Inside” by Stephen Leigh

“Dogs of Babylon” by Alan Smale

“Eight Mile City” by Steven Harper

“How the Fae of Savernake Forest Fought the AI that Ate the World” by Jordan Chase-Young

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Tue, 09 Mar 2021 01:54:01 GMT

I've a new streamlined version of my website up (still with some revisions to come) -- you're welcome to go browse it, though! Note that either farrellworlds.com or stephenleigh.com will bring you to the site.

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Fri, 12 Feb 2021 01:35:26 GMT

Bibiolifestyle.com has AMID THE CROWD OF STARS on their Most Anticipated Winter 2021 Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books list. Just in case you were wondering.

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The obligatory comment

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 19:21:29 GMT

Oh, I suppose I should mention that if you picked up a copy of AMID THE CROWD OF STARS and enjoyed the read, I certainly wouldn't mind if you left a review somewhere. Just saying...

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TAMU

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 01:48:18 GMT

Today, I sent off to Texas A&M University the 14th box of my writing materials for the archives at Cushing Memorial Library there, where Jeremy Brett is the Curator for their Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection. I'm certainly not the biggest name in their collection—that would have to be George RR Martin, who has over 300 boxes of material there. But I'm in good company with Michael Moorcock, Robert A. Howard, Andre Norton, Elizabeth Moon, Lisa Tuttle, Martha Wells, Howard Waldrop, and Robert Silverberg, as well as other writers, along with fanworks like fanzines and filksongs.

So if anyone should ever want to research my work after I've departed this world, head for Texas A&M...

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7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1 and liftoff!

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 13:15:59 GMT

THIS IS IT!! TODAY IS BOOK BIRTHDAY FOR “AMID THE CROWD OF STARS”!!

Oops, sorry to be yelling but I’m excited that the book’s finally out (and gee, I’ve already used up my allotment of exclamation points for the post…)

Anyway, you can finally go to your favorite online booksellers or favorite brick-and-mortar bookstore and grab your copy of the book. And I hope you’ll do exactly that, since that’s what my publisher is eager to see and they’re the ones paying me to write… (and now I’ve used up my allotment of ellipses).

And if you’re interested in even more of me nattering on about AMID and writing in general, here’s a couple via-email interviews with me regarding the book that are also now on the interwebs: the Nerd Daily interview is here (https://www.thenerddaily.com/stephen-leigh-author-interview/) and Paul Semel’s interview is here (https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-amid-the-crowd-of-stars-author-stephen-leigh/)

Happy book birthday to AMID; it wasn’t the easiest birth I’ve ever had, but not the hardest, either (I think that still goes to IMMORTAL MUSE). Mind you, I didn’t put any candles on the cake because books are deathly afraid of fire.

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7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2...

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 13:08:36 GMT

Tomorrow will be the release day for AMID THE CROWD OF STARS. So for this penultimate post, I thought I’d show you the initial proposal for the novel, which was then entitled COLOR THE SEA and which was fantasy set in an alternate history of 1952, *not* science fiction. I have about 7,000 words of draft of the novel still on my computer, though I doubt that it will ever see the light of day. I sent that draft and the proposal to Sheila at DAW; before she could respond, I called her and said that I’d reconsidered and would be sending her a different proposal, since I’d decided that a science fictional setting would work much better for the novel.

Sheila ultimately agreed with that assessment, and so AMID THE CROWD OF STARS (then tentatively titled THE SLEEPING WOLF, which both Sheila and I thought was too much a ‘fantasy’ title) was born, now awaiting its book birthday on Tuesday the 9^th.

But for grins, I’m going to give you the 2,500 word fantasy proposal so you can glimpse the book that never was (though not the 7,000 words of draft manuscript I also wrote which will remain private). If you’d like to read it, you may download it here -- but, of course, I own the copyright to this. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll decide I want to actually write an altered version of it.

BTW, I noticed on both Amazon and B&N that there’s now a link for the audiobook of AMID (by Dreamscape Media), though it won’t be available until April 6, 2021. On B&N, at least, there’s an option for an MP3 file of the audiobook or for a CD package of the book. That’s neat; it’ll be interesting to hear someone reading the book; hope she has fun with the Irish/Scottish/Japanese/French scattered terms in there! Wonder how she is with accents.

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7... 6... 5... 4... 3...

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 13:09:27 GMT

The countdown goes on: it’s now only *three* days until AMID THE CROWD OF STARS is officially released (though I know of at least one person who pre-ordered it and has already received their copy…)

I talked about Dingle yesterday and how I essentially ‘borrowed’ that town for Dulcia in AMID. Today, let me talk about the Blasket Islands and how they became the Inish Archipelago in AMID, and how they were the initial spark of inspiration for the book. The Blaskets sit just off the very end of the Dingle peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland—in fact, they are the westernmost point of land in Europe. The Blaskets also have a strong literary tradition and I was fascinated by the story of the place (enough that I bought a handful of the books the various islanders had written and read them all).  To quote from the afterword section of AMID:

“It was during a trip to Ireland in 2017 with my sister Sharon and her husband Dave that I stumbled upon the story of the Blasket Islands while we were exploring the gorgeous Dingle Peninsula. The Blasket Centre is well out on the peninsula’s Atlantic head, a delightful museum dedicated to the history of the Blasket Islands and the Blasket’s literary tradition. I was immediately fascinated, bought several of the islanders’ books, and the more I thought about the islands and their relationship to the mainland of Ireland, the more I found myself inundated with potential story ideas. This book is a result, even if the connection to the Blaskets isn't immediately apparent.

“In our world, the Blasket Islands were well-known in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for being the place to go if one wanted to study the Irish language as it was spoken, as this was one of the few places in Ireland (like the Aran Islands or parts of the counties in the west of Ireland) where Irish remained the primary language they both spoke and wrote. But the lure of the modern world and other countries along with difficulty competing with new fishing technologies and regulations caused the residents to slowly leave the island until there were too few of them left to sustain the settlement. The last permanent residents of the Blaskets were finally evacuated from Great Blasket Island on November 17, 1953.

“It was the sense of disconnection and the resulting escalating tensions within the Blasket culture itself and between the the Blaskets and the more ‘modern’ society of the mainland that provided the initial spark for AMID THE CROWD OF STARS.”

The map of the Blaskets I scanned from the book “The Islandman” by Tomás O’Crohan, one of the several books I read written by the Blasket Islanders, translated from Irish by Robin Flowers in 1929, who came to the Blaskets to learn the Irish language and became a friend of the author.

Essentially, then, the historical Blaskets provided the basis for the Mainlander/Inish conflict in the novel. Mind you, that initial spark morphed and expanded greatly, reflected in additional conflicts as I began figuring out exactly what I wanted to explore and how to best do that. But seeing and learning about the Blaskets was what started things roiling about in my head, even if there were other influences and inspirations for various aspects of the eventual finished novel.

When we first drove out toward Slea Head of the Dingle peninsula, though, we weren’t looking for the Blaskets specifically, but more to see the Sleeping Giant -- more properly, Inishtooskert, northernmost of the Blasket Islands. The Sleeping Giant is also known as “An Fear Marbh”, Irish for “The Dead Man.”  I’d seen a few photos of it before, and knew that according to local legend, this rocky giant is supposed to one day rouse himself at Ireland’s call, when the country needs him most. I was thinking that might be an interesting story sometime down the road. In the photos below, you’ll find a few photos we took of the Sleeping Giant (one by my sister Sharon and one by me), and you can easily see how it rather looks like a person reclining on the water.

But we stopped at the Blasket Centre at the tip of Slea Head, and that changed the trajectory of everything. The more I learned about the Blaskets and especially about Great Blasket, which is where most people lived, the more I wanted to use some of that history (metaphorically) in a novel. Alas, the photo I took of the island from our car as I was driving is blurred and not very good. But I found a lovely photo of Great Blasket Island in Creative Commons taken from Dunmore Head by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen. He retains copyright to the image.

Of course, transplanting the Blaskets to another world as I eventually did meant changing everything, since on Canis Lupus—the world I put together for AMID—the geography is very different. Canis Lupus is tidally locked to the red dwarf star Wolf 1061: one side always facing its sun, one side always facing away from the sun, just as our moon is tidally locked to Earth, always presenting the same side to us. This means one side of Canis Lupus is too hot to be habitable, the other too cold. Instead, there a broad band of temperate climate wrapping the planet from pole to pole, where conditions are right for life like ours. In the photo section below, I have a map (which is in the book) of Canis Lupus immediately around Dulcia.

As you can see on my map, the Blaskets became the Inish Archipelago (and migrated; they’re directly below the town of Dulcia); the Sleeping Giant became the Sleeping Wolf (a pencil sketch of which is included below); Great Blasket became Great Inish, and so on -- and given Canis Lupus’ configuration, the compass directions have changed also. On that map, what we’d think of as North is Dorcha (Spaceward) and South is Solas (Sunward). East and West are Ar Chlé (Left) and Ar Dheis (Right).

I confess that I always draw maps of my worlds, because it helps me visualize where the characters are in the world and how they might need to move to go anywhere else. If you’ve read my books, you’ve undoubtedly already seen a few of those. And honestly, I just love maps in general—on the wall in my office there are maps of imaginary places in the world I created for role-playing games, as well as a map of London in 1835. Denise has bought me books of maps. I’m just weird that way.

Anyway, if you’ve already pre-ordered your copy of AMID THE CROWD OF STARS, it should be arriving in just a few days. And if you haven’t, then you can order your own copy in the same few days. I hope you will!

The pics for this post are here!

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7... 6... 5... 4...

Sat, 06 Feb 2021 12:59:31 GMT

The countdown continues: 4 more days until AMID THE CROWD OF STARS is officially released.

Today, more background on the book for those interested. As I’ve said before, one of the ‘inspirations’ for AMID was my trip to Ireland in 2017, along with my sister Sharon and her husband Dave (unfortunately, Denise was ill at the time and remained home—I missed her very much while I was there!)  In Ireland, for the first time, we visited the Dingle Peninsula. While I loved the Connemara region (and still do), I also fell in love with Dingle, which is flat-out gorgeous. We stayed at a B&B in the town of Dingle while we were there, using it as base for day trips.

And I borrowed heavily from Dingle for AMID. The town of Dulcia in AMID *is* essentially the town of Dingle, though more Dingle as it  might have been in the early 20th century rather than as it is now. One of the pics attached to this post is a street map of Dulcia from AMID superimposed over a satellite photo of Dingle—I used that as a reference in writing the book.

And like Dingle, Dulcia has a fine sheltered harbor, as you can see in the screenshot of Google’s map of Dingle and in the photo I took from way up in Connor Pass looking back at Dingle. However, the entrance to the harbor is difficult to see if you’re coming in from Dingle Bay as it’s hidden by a finger of land. To deal with that, in 1847 Eask Tower was erected on the top of Carhoo Hill (across the harbor from the town) to guide ships and boats to the harbor. The round stone building had a long wooden ‘arm’ that pointed to the hidden harbor opening. In the photograph from Connor Pass, you can see Eask Tower (locally also called Burnham Tower) as the ‘pimple’ atop Carhoo Hill, and there’s a closer photograph of it also.

In AMID, I have “The Pale Woman” on Dulcia Head (the fictional analogue of Carhoo Hill)—basically Eask Tower painted white with a single ‘arm’ pointing to the opening of the harbor.
Should you ever get to Ireland, I heartily recommend a stay in Dingle. If it’s still open, we lodged at the Milestone B&B—a very nice establishment just outside Dingle town on Slea Head Drive—but there are also hotels in Dingle. Dingle has some fine pubs/restaurants and great places to hear Irish music, and the entire Dingle peninsula is a lovely place to explore.

As before, if you've already pre-ordered AMID THE CROWD OF STARS, thank you! If you haven't, I hope you'll pick up the book once it's released on February 9th.

The images can be seen here.

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7... 6... 5...

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 13:35:44 GMT

Five days until the publishing floodgates open and allow AMID THE CROWD OF STARS is to be shipped out and sit on the shelves. Yesterday, I received from the Penguin Random House's publicity folks this lovely poster featuring the pull quote from the Publishers Weekly review of the book.

They also let me know that AMID has been mentioned in few more roundups of February books:
--  *Amazing Stories,* “Science Fiction to Look for February 2021” (with the nice little pull quote in their review of the book: “It's a great read and an excellent addition to colony and first contact fare.”)
-- *Tor.com*, “All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in February!”

As before, if you've already pre-ordered the book, thank you! If you haven't, I hope you'll pick it up once it's released on February 9th.

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7... 6...

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 15:05:36 GMT

Six days until AMID THE CROWD OF STARS is unleashed upon the reading world. Today, I’m giving you a tease: my image of what the arracht, the primary alien in the book, looks like. I borrowed heavily from the appearance of Glaucus atlanticus, the ‘blue dragon’ sea slug, though the actual blue dragon’s only about an inch long (but has a dangerous sting should you step on one or handle it), while the arracht is more the size of a Great White shark and therefore isn’t a slug at all, possessing a definite skeleton inside.

As before, if you've already pre-ordered the book, thank you! If you haven't, I hope you'll pick it up once it's released on February 9th

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The countdown is at 7...

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 02:21:13 GMT

It's one week until Happy Book Birthday for AMID THE CROWD OF STARS! So we'll start the countdown by mentioning that AMID is listed on io9's February lineup of SF/Fantasy releases. Yay! If you've already pre-ordered the book, thank you! If you haven't, I hope you'll pick it up once it's released out into the wild on February 9th.

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GIVEAWAY!

Sat, 16 Jan 2021 14:43:16 GMT

DAW Books have included my AMID THE CROWD OF STARS in a giveaway. Here are the details: -- The giveaway will run from Monday, January 18 to Sunday, January 31 -- One winner will receive a finished copy of AMID THE CROWD OF STARS as well as *Transgressions of Power* by Juliette Wade, *The Councillor* by E. J. Beaton, *The Velocity of Revolution* by Marshall Ryan Maresca, and *Calculated Risks* by Seanan McGuire HERE'S THE LINK!

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Returning...

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 16:37:20 GMT

For the first time in a long time (at least a decade or two) I pulled out the watercolors and brushes and attempted to actually do something. The result is massively mediocre, but the victory is in doing it at all.

Lots of rust to chip off!

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