Subject: (news) Irresistible Forces in mass market pb
Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2005
Hiya --
I see the mass market paperback edition of Irresistible Forces, a collection of SF and fantasy/Romance crossover stories edited by Catherine Asaro, and containing my novella "Winterfair Gifts", is now out (or about to be) in a lower-priced mass market paperback edition. (Official release date Jan. 3, 2006). Nicer cover art this time, too, not nearly so bland as the earlier trade paperback. You can get a peek at Amazon.
Ta, L.
Subject: (news) German interview
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005
So...
I received in the mail today a copy of a German SF magazine titled phantastisch!, with what I believe may be cover art of Cordelia circa Barrayar; there is a long e-mail interview inside that I did last summer with two German correspondents, now translated into German, which means I have no idea what I'm saying, although the layout and illos look good. Photo of me taken last August on my back deck, where I often lurk to work. Or laze. It's Issue No. 21, anyway; the date on it reads "Ausgabe 1: 2006 6. Jahrgang", which I think means the Jan. 2006 issue, so it's likely on newsstands now. The magazine does seem to have a website at www.phantastisch.net
In a bit, I'll post the English originals on the dendarii.com website, although I wonder if I ought to at least wait till the magazine has had its month's run.
Ta, L.
Subject: (news) Taiwanese sale of Chalion books
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005
To my intense bemusement, I've signed the contract today for The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls to a publishing company in Taiwan called Muse Publishing House. These are for translation rights worldwide except mainland China (they do seem to include Hong Kong and Macau), "Chinese printed in complex characters", whatever that means. I'm sure there's a listee who can provide enlightenment. I'm always rather fascinated, on contracts with China, by the very official, very traditional red chops that appear with the signatures on the signature pages.
No, I don't know when this trade paperback may be expected to be released. I generally only find out about publication when the author's copies wend my way, which they don't always do.
Ta, L.
Subject: (chat) Morris dancing
Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2005
So...
I've been on a William Morris binge this week, a seminal author of the modern fantasy genre with whom I've long meant to catch up. Read both volumes of The Well at the World's End earlier this past week -- long, strange, excellent, but my ghod the archaic Northern vocabulary. Reading with a dictionary in hand was little help when about a third of the stumpers were too obscure to be in it.
So, I next read The Water of the Wondrous Isles. Haven't done this much faring and wending and general random hoo-rooing since I read Spenser's The Faerie Queene back in high school, of which this wots me. Got several giggles, some of them intended by the author, some, I suspect, not. Trust a guy-writer to send his heroine off buck naked for half her scenes... I was expecting Birdalone's (great name) nipples to go "spung" at any moment. Or whatever the Old Icelandic term for that would be.
Specially liked the images evoked by Arthur the Black Squire's brief line, describing his stint as a hermit, "These deemed me a holy man, whereas I was but surly..."
Am wondering whether to plunge into the next one might be too much Morris in a row, but they do beguile the snowy bitter -- short -- days. ("Beguiling" is a very good word to describe these fantasies, methinks. Not gripping, not wrenching, not, praise be, "gritty". They just ripple along in their own peculiar channel.) The Sundering Flood is next up on my stack, anyway. The guy does appear to have had a thing about water.
Ta, L.
Subject: (news) first pub date in view
Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005
Hiya --
It looks like the publication date for THE SHARING KNIFE, Vol. 1 : Beguilement will be October, 2006. I don't have a date yet for the second volume. There may be a modest book tour, concentrating on the upper Midwest, this time; it will be some months before I have confirmed details.
Ta, L.
The subtitle for Vol. 2 will be Legacy.
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