As a gift when we'd finalized this whole project, at my request Ron made me a poster displaying all the e-covers, that I could hang on my office wall. He has very kindly also made it available as a print-on-demand art poster, here:
The Vorkosigan Saga Art Poster - society6
Note the sizing-pricing button to the left for all five options.
Later: Ron also writes,
"In addition to the Society 6 site, I have created a Cafe Press shop. While the quality of the prints is not quite as high as those available from Society 6 (which is specially slanted toward artists and collectors), they are still pretty decent and might be a little more affordable for some people.
www.cafepress.com/vorkosigan/
Mine is a custom 2' x 3', and now hangs here:
In the course of things for the e-books, Ron also threw in nice professional title pages that, these being e-books, very few people will ever notice. But we know they are there.
Complete with my very own colophon -- recycling that lost maple leaf, I note. But since "McMaster" is a very Canadian name, I suppose it does double duty.
June 24, 2015
new fantasy e-novella upcoming -- "Penric's Demon"
I am pleased to report that a new Chalion/World of the Five Gods novella is done, edited, and in for e-processing (which is still going to take a bit more time.) Now that the geographic scope of the tales is widening, I don't think I can go on calling it "the Chalion series", and the fannish acronym "5GU" (Five Gods Universe) takes too much explaining. "World of the Five Gods" covers more ground and seems reasonably self-explanatory.
Title is "Penric's Demon", length is 35,000 words, which makes it my longest novella so far. My prior novellas ran from 23k - 31k words. Having just looked them up to check, they may be of interest -- rounded,
- "Winterfair Gifts" -- 23,500
- "The Borders of Infinity" -- 26,750
- "The Mountains of Mourning" -- 26,800
- "Weatherman" -- 27,000
- "Labyrinth" -- 31,000
- "Penric's Demon" -- 35,000
The new tale has all-new characters in a new setting -- same gods, though. It was such fun to do something fresh!
Closer to the story going "live" on the Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble/Nook and iTunes/iPad e-book stores, I plan to post the first scene. As soon as the links go live, I will post them.
As for the story itself, ah, well. More on that later. (Though the title is not one of those thematically obscure ones.)
Ta, L.
March 16, 2015
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen
I am pleased to report that a new Cordelia Vorkosigan novel has been sold to Baen Books for publication, tentatively, in February of 2016.
The title is Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen.
It is not a war story. It is about grownups.
And that is probably all I ought to say right now in a venue read by the spoiler-sensitive. It is, after all, a long haul till next February.
2016 will also mark the 30th anniversary of my first publication by Baen, which ought to be good for a little PR fun.
Ta, L.
January 19, 2015
The Spirit Ring PoD is up!
This has been an exciting experiment.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-s...
http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Ring-Loi...
Being an experiment, I have no idea how it will pan out. If anyone has a go at it, I would be very interested in a report here on your buying experience.
Besides Amazon and B&N, if you are armed with the ISBN the book may be ordered through any bookstore from the distributor Ingram's, Ingram
having apparently bought out the print-on-demand company Lightning Source and redubbed the amalgam Ingram Spark. A test through my local SF store
Uncle Hugo's revealed that the wholesale discount is not as favorable as indie stores are used to, so they may want to add a surcharge for handling,
which may or may not be more or less than the shipping charges from the big online stores. Anyway, the book is out there and, in theory, obtainable.
The ISBN is: 978-1-62578-150-5
February 15, 2014
"The Mountains of Mourning" chapbook
Arc Manor, a small press that also puts out the magazine Galaxy's Edge, is doing a series of novella reprints on paper for their Phoenix Pick imprint;
they picked up "The Mountains of Mourning" for it. My author's copies arrived in today's mail.
At a quick glance, it is very nicely printed and put together. The size and style is often called "chapbook", I believe; essentially a slim (a bit under 100 pages)trade paperback.
More information on the publisher is available at www.PhoenixPick.com
In other news, I have just signed a contract with a publisher from the Netherlands -- let me copy this very carefully -- Uitgeverij Elikser -- to do The Hallowed Hunt in the Frisian language --
a first in that language for me, I believe. Collect the whole set!
Ta, L.
September 30, 2013
Sidelines: Talks and Essays
I cannot very well review this e-book, since I wrote it, but through it I discovered how to add a book to the Goodreads data base, another small step for technology as I am slowly dragged,
backwards and protesting, into the 21st Century. Let me know if I have made any errors, though I must say the GR process seems very helpful in preventing such.
bests, Lois.
September 14, 2012
The Thin Blue Line(s) -- another step for Ivan
So...
I'm told that the "blue lines" for Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, the
last chance to check anything before the file goes off to the printing
plant, left the Baen offices today. Whatever could be done, has been
done; for anything else, it is officially Too Late.
Among other things at the last minute: the new one-line entry in the timeline for
the back of the book, placing and describing it. It reads (the spoiler-phobic
may wish to avert their eyes):
"Ivan turns 35. ImpSec Headquarters suffers a problem with moles."
It is interesting, by the way, how many terms from earlier technologies
linger on in publishing production. "Blue lines" is one of these; I'm
not sure of its history or current (or former) actual incarnation, not
ever having seen a set on the hoof.
The next thing I see should be a box of author's copies shipped directly
from the printer, turning up on my doorstep sometime in early- or
mid-October.
Down to the home stretch...!
Ta, L.
April 13, 2012
Vorkosiverse e-books now more widely available
Aha, I've been waiting for this...
A number of my older backlist titles are going up as e-books on American Kindle,
Nook, and iPad sites. (Actually, iPad will be somewhat delayed, as their processing
takes a few weeks longer, but they are in the pipeline there, too. I'll post a link when I get one.)
Barnes and Noble
Amazon.com
iTunes
(The "publication date" listed for the Amazon e-versions seems to be that of our UK
e-editions from last year. Do not confuse same with original publication/copyright date,
although I'm sure some careless reviewers will, sometime.)
The number of titles will eventually be 14. Cetaganda is delayed due to me losing it in the
shuffle last year when we were first getting the big batch of VK e-books up in the
British/European e-book market. (Making the premise of Home Alone seem even more
realistic to me than it already did.) Oopsie. I think I had set it aside in the queue due to
some capitalization issue I'd wanted to cogitate on, and then it was overrun by whatever
else was going on in my life at that moment (major surgery, Hugo nomination, Ivan's
book coming back to life, whatever.) Fortunately, my agent noticed its absence when
we were going over this lot. So that's what I spent the first half of this week doing.
But it will be along in a few more days, in the UK/Europe as well.
The time spent on file preparation/quality control is nontrivial; I see for Cetaganda,
for example, that I spent about 30 hours, the better part of a working week, going
over it, proofreading, and combing out formatting and typographical (and the
occasional grammatical and spelling) problems and glitches. And that was one
of my shorter books. And even then I'm sure I still didn't get them all.
Yes, Baen will still be publishing them all as well. No changes there. (Speaking of which,
the current Amazon sales ranking for Captain Vorpatril's Alliance is ridiculously good,
for a book that won't be out for 7 more months. Why, yes, I do go look, far too frequently.
Because I had my son take computer solitaire off my system, and now I have to do
something with those idle moments...)
Ta, L.
December 30, 2011
Proto Zoa - Bujold short story collection
Aha. My little collection is now up in some e-venues -- Amazon is a bit laggard this time
around, but they will catch up next week or so. So I can still call it a New Year's present.
Or mathom, as the case may be.
What it says on the tin. The cover art has a tale behind it as well, described within.
The contents, besides a short intro and a note about the cover, include three early
Twilight-Zone-ish short stories, "Barter", "Garage Sale" and "The Hole Truth", which
I think of as "The Putnam Triptych", the novelette "Dreamweaver's Dilemma",
which was that first thing I wrote back in 1982 just before I embarked on what was to
become Shards of Honor -- all of which were previously collected in the NESFA Press/Boskone
souvenir book Dreamweaver's Dilemma -- and the short piece "Aftermaths",
which also appears at the end of Shards. So if you have those two volumes already, you
have all this. (But not in handy e-format.) And if you don't, well, here you go.
The novelette may be especially interesting to Bujold completists because it
has the first preview of the Vorkosiverse, wherein I come up with Beta Colony
-- but not yet Barrayar.
Added on January 4, 2012
This, like The Spirit Ring and the five separate Vorkosigan novellas,
is self-e-published. The collection is much too short for a commercial publication
-- hence the novella e-price -- and publishers don't love short story collections anyway,
because they never sell well enough. This way, nobody has to be embarrassed or apologize
for miniscule sales, and what little money I expect to make from it will, for a change, be a
majority or at least a plurality mine. This is an experiment I'd been meaning to try out for
a while, but I didn't have the attention to spare till Ivan's book was bagged and delivered.
There is a great deal of debate about the new e-markets at present; time to collect some
actual data.
Ta, L.
November 23, 2011
Ivan away!
So...
I just sent the finished file of the revised Ivan, His Booke (almost certainly to be finally titled
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance) off to Baen.
I was just reflecting what a change this is from the old days of manuscript submission.
(Though especially from the earliest days, when my manuscripts were created on a
typewriter.) At the equivalent point, I would still have a three-day slog ahead of me
of printing chapter by chapter, tearing off the perforated edges, and sitting down with
ruler and pen to do all the underlining by hand, because my first printer, a daisy-wheel,
could only underline by traveling back over the line for another pass, at which point it
would half the time jam, destroying the chapter in progress. (This led to my using fewer
italics in my earlier work than I wanted, or would use nowadays.)
Then packing it up with paranoid care, taking it to the post office, having a moral dilemma
whether to send it the more expensive first class, or parcel post, and driving home. I admit
the euphoria of the drive home was something special. But I'll gladly trade it for the chance
to do a lot more last-minute tidying and polishing.
I also do not miss carbon copies (no, I could not have afforded photocopying a whole
manuscript, back then.) However, a single carbon copy was all I had left of the part
I'd cut off the tail end of my first novel, Shards of Honor, which subsequently (retyped
by hand and edited onto my first computer) became the first third of Barrayar several
years later.
I do like living in this future. So much nicer than the scrambling in the radioactive ruins
fighting the mutants for the canned goods that we pictured in my youth.
...I rather like Captain Vorpatril's Alliance. It has the same rhythm as Captain Corelli's
Mandolin, I realize in hindsight, and that did well for its author, iirc. The one other viable
candidate was Entangling Alliance, which I think is less interesting. Captains are always
a good sell.
As Lady Sybil Ramkin says (in Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards! -- which, come to
think, could be a soothing weekend reread):
"Captain is such as dashing title, I've always thought. ... I mean, colonels and so on are
always stuffy, majors are pompous, but one always feels somehow that there is
something delightfully dangerous about a captain."
Ta, L.
(...Hm. Checking on the spelling, I discover that the book title was just Corelli's Mandolin.
The title acquired its rank when translated to the movie. Which more proves my point than
anything else.)
November 2, 2011
Ivan is done
...In bus draft, that is.
"Bus draft" is my personal shorthand for "If I got run over by a bus, you could print this."
I try to hand in submission drafts as clean as I can make them, to save work later.
(I'm always in favor of saving work later -- it's like time in the bank.)
The next step is editorial or "line edit" revisions, directed by the actual editor --
which I already have in hand, and am mulling over. My first gut-response to editorial
suggestions is not always, um, useful, so it normally pays to let them cook for a bit.
Nevertheless, this is the stage where I have to essentially boot up the entire novel
and hold it in my mind -- as opposed to the less brain-bursting one scene at a time
that I entertain, or that entertains me, during the initial composition -- so it tends to be
an intense, cranky period where the writer does not welcome interruptions.
I will be blocking out time for this stage pretty soon, as holding a whole book in my head
leaves no room whatsoever for anything new to emerge, or even for any new input/
reading/watching/doing, which my psyche interprets as unwelcome jostling. So I don't
like to spin this phase out too long. Also, barn-door syndrome.
Current front-running candidate for the final title is Captain Vorpatril's Alliance. (It went
through its entire stretched-out period of composition with the file name of Ivan, His Booke,
or just Ivan for short.) The mode is romantic comedy with added caper. 150,000 words,
25 chapters and an epilogue.
I started this book in November of 2009. Two years ago, now, instead of my usual one year
(well, 14 months on average.) The actual writing didn't take more time than my average,
but it was much interrupted by health issues, now resolved. So I shouldn't blame Ivan himself --
it really isn't his fault!
Baen is tentatively (note that this can shift around for various reasons) thinking of publication
next November. Which is a pretty good turn-around, by publishing standards. Some of that
time goes into production issues, but most of it goes into getting marketing ducks in a row.
So this is the hobbit's birthday present to y'all. Or virtual birthday present. Or an IOU for a
birthday present, at present.
bests, Lois.
(My oldest friend, writer Lillian Stewart Carl,
just sent me an e-card noting that this is the 50th time she's wished me a happy birthday -- we first met
in 7th grade, at age 12. To which I said, more-or-less, "Yeep!")
July 24, 2009
Hi all --
The new Vorkosiverse book, henceforth to be titled CryoBurn,
is finished and turned in to Baen.
To recap information mentioned previously, the story is an Auditorial
investigation that takes place on a planet new to readers, called New
Hope II or Kibou-daini. Miles is 39, to go by the very Miles-centered
series chronology we've been using. The story uses three viewpoints:
Miles, Roic, and a local lad named Jin. The general mode is
mystery/thriller/technological-social exploration. About 103,000 words,
in twenty chapters and an epilogue.
The book is, tentatively, on the Baen publication schedule for late
2010, probably November.
bests, Lois. (drained but pleased.)
(And my I recommend, again, Edward Gorey's timeless little classic about
the writing life, The Unstrung Harp, or, Mr Earbrass Writes a
Novel.
I nearly always pull it out to re-read toward the end of a book
project. It gets funnier every year.)
April 27, 2009
It has been brought to my attention that some people would like an
update on the progress of the new Miles book. Now, to my way of
thinking, a book has only two states, not finished and finished; it's
like a bridge that way; if it's not all the way done it has the same
utility as if not done at all. But anyway.
As of the tail end of April, here, the new Miles book -- still no title,
note -- is now up to Chapter 16. I'm thinking I may cross the border
out of the miserable middle and into the endward slide fairly soon,
within the next few chapters. Which puts me maybe two-thirds done with
the story, but I caution that does not have a very direct relationship
with the page or chapter count. Production time is also malleable; I
can have one-chapter months or four-chapter months, or things in
between, or months where nothing gets written at all.
For those who haven't heard earlier comments or net gossip from my
public readings from the first few chapters: the tale is of an
Auditorial investigation, on a new world we haven't seen before. Miles
is 39. There are three alternating viewpoints: Miles, Armsman Roic, and
a local boy named Jin. The general mode is mystery.
I was looking back over some of my old e-mail last night, where I found
I was whining in the exact same tone of voice in December about only
being up to Chapter 9, so I guess things are progressing more steadily
than it feels like. For curiosity, I just looked up the start date of
Chapter One, which to my surprise was April 18, 2008; it felt longer ago
than that, but there were several months of pre-writing and idea
development (and de-selection) before the first scene formed up and
made ready to march.
I saw a great icon somewhere on the net a few days ago: "Gone to play
poker. Back when I run out of clothes. -- Your Muse."
Onwards.
Ta, L.
November 24, 2006
Hi all --
I am pleased to report I have concluded a deal with HarperCollins/Eos for
the two sequels to The Sharing Knife duology, possibly not
to be called The Wide Green World as my purchasing editor
was dubious about that title. The decision on the final title/s will
not be made for a while, however, so I'm going to continue calling them
WGW1 and WGW2 till then.
The first book of the new pair is completed in first draft. 24 chapters at
present. The second is not yet started.
From this halfway point, it looks as though the new duology will feel more
like a book and its sequel and less like one book cut in half than its
predecessor The Sharing Knife, probably because I'm doing
duology on purpose instead of by accident this time. (But I've been wrong
about such guesses before.) Nevertheless, the two new volumes will be very
closely connected, in a sort of braided way. In other words, some
story-arc-concerns will be concluded before the natural break-point that
falls at the end of the first volume, and some intertwined arcs will span
the whole pair. It does have more backfill embedded during early chapters
(smoothly, I hope), as the concerns of WGW1 flow pretty directly out of TSK2.
At least one reader who hadn't yet read TSK on whom I tested the first four
chapters said she experienced no undue disorientation or difficulty following
the story, so the interesting balance problem between "valuable
orientation/reminder" and "clogging with recap" seems to be on
target for at least one part of the book's future audience.
I was trying to avoid committing trilogy with the double-duology
structure, but I'm not at all sure I've succeeded. Squinting, it may
just turn out to be three books of very uneven lengths. I have no idea
yet how long WGW2 will top out at, besides "long enough to reach the
end".
And that's about all I can say about it without getting into major spoilers
for TSK2: Legacy, due out next July. But I would expect WGW1
to see hardcover publication sometime in 2008 (before the Denver Worldcon,
I hope, which is in fact why I submitted the books now instead of waiting
till both were complete in first draft, my original plan).
WGW2 will presumably follow sometime in 2009.
Ta, Lois.
September 18, 2006
I finished the first draft of The Wide Green World, Vol. 1
this past weekend.
24 chapters, either 128K or 133k words depending on how the computer
counts them; a full book, though still half a tale.
I have no idea why Word claims the book is 128k when I add the chapter
counts separately, but reports 133k when the very same chapters are all
in a linked file. Either the ways of computers are mysterious, or my
arithemetic was off. Ah, well. It was enough words to reach the end,
with possibly a few to spare.
This is the first of many "finishes" that a book of mine goes through.
There will be revision passes on several levels -- on this one in
particular, I expect to delay the last revision pass till after the
second volume is complete in first draft, for obvious reasons of
continuity checks. Things planted early on may not bear plot fruit, and
need pruned out; late developments may require earlier set-ups. Pacing
may turn out to be awry in relation to the as-yet-dimly-seen whole. And
so on. Nevertheless, it's a lovely sensation to be this far along.
Better still, for a change, the timing came out even. I now have a nice
between-books break falling atop my book-launch distraction phase, good
multi-tasking. And I have a time window, before it becomes impossible
to open windows for ventilation, to do some much-needed home maintenance
things like painting walls with ten years of grime on 'em, replace worn
carpeting, and other good things that will make this house a more
heartening place to be shut up in, come what I hope will be a productive
winter.
Ta, L.
July 24, 2006
I am pleased to report that I have recently signed my first contract
with Baen Books acting publisher Toni Weisskopf for a future book in the
Miles Vorkosigan series. I have been working cordially with Toni for
nearly as many years as I worked with the late Jim Baen, and I look
forward to continuing a fruitful relationship.
The new book will not be started until mid-2007, as I have first to
complete (as of this writing) about a book and a third in The Sharing
Knife series for my other fine publisher, Eos/HarperCollins -- working
title The Wide Green World. My present belief is that WGW will be a
duology like its predecessor, making the series as a whole either a
double-duology or a tetrology, for now. I don't have a publication
schedule for WGW yet; my current plan, or at least hope, is to finish
both volumes in first draft before doing final revisions on the first book.
My lifetime average for writing speed is a book every 14 months, I once
calculated (I haven't rerun the stats lately, but I don't think they've
shifted much.) Depending on a host of variables, if I started the new
Miles book in mid-2007, it would likely be turned in late in 2008 for
publication sometime in 2009. So breath-holding is contra-indicated for
all concerned. No, I don't know what it will be about yet. (No, this
does not mean I want you all to tell me, variously and contradictorily
-- talk amongst yourselves, have fun...) That part will come in due course.
Meanwhile, I am very much looking forward to the publication of The
Sharing Knife, vol. 1: Beguilement, due for hardcover release from Eos
on October 10, 2006. The first trickle of reader-response from folks
who've managed to obtain an ARC (advanced reader copy) has been most
heartening, but they are of course self-selected enthusiasts; it'll be
interesting to see how this rather different (for me) fantasy hits a
broader audience. I think the duology as a whole may be the freshest
thing I've done since The Curse of Chalion. The second half,
Legacy, is planned for publication around June 2007
I liked Julie Bell's cover art so much (we worked as closely on it as
two people a thousand miles apart could), I bought the original.
Getting it a worthy frame will be my next task, one for which I
fortunately will have some local help more artistic than myself.
bests, Lois.
March 21, 2006
The next thing after The Sharing Knife
Names, argh. (Need two more this morning, sigh. The
characters can't go on being "x", even in first draft.)
A few hints, anyway. It does have a title: The Wide Green
World. It's the direct sequel to The Sharing Knife. It's early
days, material very much still under development, much impeded by the
interminable screwed-up bathroom project, still not complete (the full
tale of which I've mostly spun out over on Baen's Bar.) I've probably
lost half my writing time since early January, which does not make me
happy to dwell upon, so I try not to. WGW does not have a contract or a
deadline -- I'm intensely grateful for the lack of deadline, just now --
or even, at this point, a projected length or any certainty of how many
volumes it will be; it might be one fat book, or it might undergo
mitosis again into another duology. It will not be a trilogy.
It will not exactly be up for bid, as there's only one place it can go,
a fact that gives my agent some disappointment; she really likes
exciting book auctions. In theory, it could be offered at any time, but
for my own peace of mind I'd prefer to be farther along first.
But it's giving me pleasure to write -- in the peculiar irregular way
that writing is a pleasure -- which is its main purpose in life at the
moment. I'll be able to talk a little more about with without spoilers
for TSK after TSK is out. To say much more about the content at this
point would be very spoilerific indeed.
January 5, 2006
The Sharing Knife blurb
The first ideas for this book surfaced in June, 2004, when I was out on
my back deck trying to soak up some Minnesota sunshine for the long
winter ahead. (In other words, I made it up, in a welcome idle moment.)
I began writing in August, quite soon after I'd turned in the final
manuscript for The Hallowed Hunt. This was to be a book written for my
own pleasure, at my own pace, without the constraints of a contract or
pressure of a deadline. The duology length came as a bit of a surprise
to me, but it was precisely what the story, as it developed, needed.
Also a surprise was how fast the writing went; I finished the first
draft in August 2006, a mere year after I'd started, the time it would
usually take me to write a single much shorter book. It was fun!
I always have the greatest difficulty describing my own books, partly
because of not wanting to drop spoilers, partly because I don't think
about them in the same terms most readers describe them in. But I can
say The Sharing Knife is a
romance-fantasy-action/adventure-social-drama-psychological study.
(Or you could just call it a Bujold book.)
But the two main characters and their relationship and how it changes
each of their lives is the core of the story, so if you had to pick only
one element by which to label the book, it's a romance. (Except on the
spine, where it will be labeled "fantasy".) The landscape, ecology,
and history are not, for a change, any analogue from medieval Europe, but
are more inspired by the countrysides of my own childhood. No kings, no
castles, no state religions. (No gods! After 3 Chalion books close
together, I needed a break from theology.) The results came out rather
different than my other high fantasy, more so than I really expected,
while at the same time giving me a chance to play with -- or argue with
-- a lot of my favorite fantasy (and other) tropes. Really, there's no
excuse for this book; I just wrote what I liked. At this point I have no
idea what readers are going to make of it, but I can hope that enough of
them will share my tastes.
As the story opens, Fawn Bluefield is a young farmer girl running away
from home for some very traditional reasons. On the road, she
encounters Dag Redwing Hickory, a rather weary patroller from a race of
mages called Lakewalkers, who are engaged in a generations-long war and
hunt against a peculiar and recurring supernatural menace called by the
farmers, "blight bogles", and by the Lakewalkers, "malices". The history
and mystery of the Lakewalkers' magical "technology" for dealing with
this threat -- the "sharing knives." -- drives much of their culture and
hence this tale. Lakewalker traditions surrounding the making, priming,
ownership and use of these knives are naturally complex and fraught.
Because Lakewalkers' magical abilities are inherited, their culture is
set up to preserve pure bloodlines, and actively discourages liaisons
between Lakewalkers-born and "farmers," i.e., anybody who isn't a
Lakewalker. These urgent cultural constraints drive the main opposition
to the romance between Dag and Fawn; their dodgy situation in turn gives
me a vehicle to explore both of their cultures, their underlying world,
and its history. The first volume, Beguilement, concentrates
on Fawn and her farmer culture and family; the second volume, Legacy,
focuses more on Dag and his Lakewalker heritage, and goes on to examine the
tensions between the two cultures and their fragile hopes for a less
divided future. (And, of course, we find out what happens to the knife.)
August 20, 2005
The Sharing Knife
As of Friday August 12th: 38 chapters, 217,000 words, one year and two days
from first sentence to last in first draft (I began last Aug. 10), no
contract no deadline no problem.
After the falling face first into my keyboard phase, there will next be
a long, quiet, private phase, likely several months, while people other
than me do their jobs, starting with the postal service. At some point
in the future there will no doubt be publication information, but I
cannot answer questions about that now. Note that "finishing the first
draft" does not eqate to "finishing the submission draft"; there is
still my least-favorite part of novel writing to get through, namely,
the revision pass, when I become most reclusive and cranky.
It is highly probable that since this book is not pre-contracted, there
will be a longer than usual time between finishing and publication, so
breath-holding is contraindicated. However, I figure I wrote a
double-length book, so I'm due a double-length break, for starters. The
New Bathroom Project beckons at of the corner of my eye, after the
annual office cleaning. Alas, not all my neglected paper
correspondence has aged past the point of my being obliged to make some
reply. Tho' I was able to get rid of about half the stack that way,
yesterday. A sort of false progress.
As ever, The Unstrung Harp by Edward Gorey strikes the keynote:
"The next day Mr Earbrass is conscious but very little more. He wanders
through the house, leaving doors open and empty tea-cups on the
floor.
From time to time the thought occurs to him that he really ought to go
and dress, and he gets up several minutes later, only to sit down again
in the first chair he comes to. The better part of a week will have
elapsed before he has recovered enough to do anything more helpful."
I do love that brilliant little classic.
What a long, strange trip this one has been. The worldbuilding is
different from anything I've done. I had several experiments going at
once with it (multiple variables -- bad scientific design, that). One
was to see if I was a happier camper and more productive writer without
the outside pressure of contractual obligations, to which the answer
seems to be a notable yes. Making that one stick is going to be the
hard part: all publishers want multi-book contracts these days, it
seems. Another was to see if I could write a romance-fantasy-adventure
that kept the relationship stuff central, without the romance being
crowded off the stage by more urgent concerns; the answer will have to
wait on the book being read by many, but I suspect it may be "Kinda".
Or "Well..." Another was to fight my backbrain less, see "camper",
above. This has certainly made the writing more fun, although aided by
the book's episodic structure, which I have likened to a python that has
swallowed a litter of pigs, one after another. Not sure if it would
work in something more tightly plotted.
The Sharing Knife does seem to be digging in its claws as the title.
I'm growing quite used to it."
bests, L.
March 23, 2005
Brief progress report
Lessee, brief progress report. The official street date for The
Hallowed Hunt is 5/24/05, which mostly gets rounded up to June 1.
There will be a 9-day book tour hitting stores in 6 cities starting June
6th; I'll also have signings at Dreamhaven and Uncle Hugo's here in the
Twin Cities fore and aft of the tour. This book is all over but the
selling, from my point of view. I'm starting to keep an eye out for
reviews and such, but not too many have surfaced yet.
The cities currently on the tour schedule are Seattle, Portland OR, San
Diego, San Francisco, Dayton OH, and Chicago. I'll post more detailed
information as it gets finalized.
I've been working since last fall on a new fantasy unrelated to any
prior book of mine; it's about three-fourths done just now. 29 chapters
so far; it'll top out around 40, I think, plus or minus. I'm not sure
how long it will take to finish in the first draft. I have not yet
submitted it for publication anywhere, because I didn't want to yet;
I'll announce it when that changes. I've been enjoying the decrease in
background stress from not having a deadline. I haven't started reading
from it at cons and such yet, because it's still time to promote
The Hallowed Hunt, but as soon as HH hits the bookstores,
it'll be time to switch over: I prefer to read from unpublished works
in any venue where I can count on most readers being familiar with my
work, which includes conventions and bookstores.
I do not know when or if I will write another Vorkosigan story. I do
not rule it out, but I don't have a new novel in mind at this time. Nor
a short story notion either. I won't decide on the next project till
I'm done with the new fantasy, probably toward the end of this summer or
early fall, depending.
bests, Lois.
August 1, 2004
It Went Away Friday.
137,000 words, 24 chapters and an epilogue, fully revised and delivered in
content and form acceptable. Don't have to look at it again till the copy
edit wafts through. I can release these obstreperous people and their
problems from my brain and purge the buffers at last. Core dump, core dump,
yay!
And the first person who chirps brightly, "So, what's next?", I'm hitting in
the knees with a virtual sledgehammer. (Well... no, probably not. I'll just
push the button and roll the tape loop about "I contract my books one at a
time &etc." I really ought to keep that paragraph on file somewhere, so I
can just cut and paste it.) But I am, finally, on break. At least till
Worldcon...
Projected hardcover pub date: May 2005. Cover artist/art not yet chosen
but in process. Will not find out if there is to be a book tour till late
winter sometime.
In other, related but less happy news, HarperCollins UK has declined to
purchase The Hallowed Hunt because their sales figures for Paladin of
Souls were so very poor there. You know, that New York Times Extended list
bestseller, multiple award-nominated and, already, couple of awards-winning
fantasy novel? I was afraid that Pillsbury Nazgul cover they slapped on it
was going to be the kiss of death, sigh. Sometimes, it's no fun to be
proved right.
This does not necessarily mean that The Hallowed Hunt will not see British
publication; it will be shopped around. But it does mean publication will
be delayed, and so American publication will be first, undercutting British
sales numbers still further as usual. I really do not know how those people
stay in business; clearly, it's not by selling books.
:-), L.
July 4, 2003
Current project, The Hallowed Hunt, but it's only a working
title so far. I am pleased to note that I am no longer stuck in the interminable
Chapter 6, but have advanced to being stuck halfway through Chapter 7. (Well,
not really stuck. The first half flew. But there will be another water jump at the
end of it.) I have, be it noted, only reached the beginning of the middle
of the book, aka the point where it turns into hard work. It will stay a slog till
the beginning of the end, which is usually felt as a downward slide.
Middles, by this functional definition, can often occupy a lot more than
one-third of a book.
The Weald is far more loosely inspired by its historical sources that
was Chalion, I might add in passing. I also haven't decided how this book
relates to the others time-wise; could be contemporary, could be as much as
a couple of centuries earlier. Ingrey, the POV character, has a voice
that's coming through rather better now than at the beginning of 6. I had
lost his signal in the interim of the spring travel, etc. On the re-match
it had at first a distressing tendency to default to the style of another
twenty-something male with whom I am all too familiar. But that's been
rolled back out on the first, or was it second or third, revision pass.
I set the book's due date for next Feb. 14th, not quite at random. I
have now burned up half the time alotted for it, and written maybe
one-fourth of the book. You do the math, sigh... No guesses yet on the
real completion date, nor the real publication date. My muse punches no
clock.
Back to work, if not on this; HarperCollins is going to do a limited
signed first hardcover of Paladin of Souls, and have sent me 700 tip
sheets to autograph. I did one CD's worth last night (old Dire Straits);
time for another. Cannot decide between Melissa Etheridge and Loreena
McKennitt, but either is likely to be punctuated with sudden loud noises
from outside. Just back from a walk; my neighborhood smells deliciously of
black powder tonight.
Ta, Lois.
October 26, 2002
The latest word, directly from Catherine Asaro, is that the anthology
Irresistible Forces containing, among other things, my novella
Winterfair Gifts has been delayed in publication until February 2004 by the
publisher, in theory so as to give the volume bigger and better promotion.
This is not something under my control; my apologies to all the folks I told
it was coming out in 2003.
On the brighter side, the sequel to The Curse of Chalion,
provisionally titled Paladin of Souls was finished and turned
in to my editor at Eos/HarperCollins at the beginning of October. There will
be one more pass for editorial revisions; my editor is already working on
selecting a cover artist and other preliminary steps toward publication,
which is planned for the fall of 2003. The exact month has not yet been
determined.
March 4, 2002
Miles Errant will contain, the novella The Borders of
Infinity, Brothers in Arms, and Mirror Dance.
I haven't written an afterword for this one yet.
February 16, 2002
Winterfair Gifts is a 23,000 word novella set against the backdrop
of Miles's and Ekaterin's wedding. It was written explicitly to be a
romance/science fiction cross-over for an anthology edited by Catherine
Asaro, to be titled Irresistible Forces and to be published
in 2003 by NAL/Roc. The volume will include half a dozen pieces by writers
both primarily SF and primarily Romance, including Catherine and me, plus such
Romance heavy-hitters as Jo Beverley and Mary Jo Putney (both regulars on
the NYTimes lists) and we're hoping for a large cross-over audience to
introduce readers from both sides of the genre divide to the nice green
grass on the other side of the fence.
I am at work on the new Chalion book for Eos/HarperCollins, off to a
much later start than I would have preferred, but the tale is definitely up
and running. I am interrupting it yet again this weekend, however, to do a
light copy-edit of the files of The Spirit Ring before
sending them off to Fictionwise for the book's first e-publication.
I expect Fictionwise will probably have The Spirit Ring up
sometime in March.
October 4, 2001
Hi folks --
A quick update on the present status of upcoming books. The new Miles
novel that I have been working on for the past year was finished and turned
it to my editors at Baen Books a few weeks ago. The title is going to be
Diplomatic Immunity. Plans are to publish it in hardcover next May
(2002); Baen already has an entry and ISBN (0743-43533-8) for it with my books list up on
their website at www.baen.com. (The real cover art has not yet been posted
as of this date. The manga figure you might see by the book's title on this
page is a placeholder picture.)
Here is the preliminary draft of jacket copy for Diplomatic Immunity:
"The Lord Auditor's honeymoon -- interrupted.
A rich Komarran merchant fleet has been impounded at Graf Station, in
distant Quaddiespace, after a bloody incident on the station docks involving
a security officer from the convoy's Barrayaran military escort. Lord Miles
Vorkosigan of Barrayar and his wife, Lady Ekaterin, have other things on
their minds, such as getting home in time to attend the long-awaited births
of their first children. But when duty calls in the voice of Barrayar's
Emperor Gregor, Miles, Gregor's youngest Imperial Auditor (a special
high-level troubleshooter) has no choice but to answer.
Waiting on Graf Station are diplomatic snarls, tangled loyalties, old
friends, new enemies, racial tensions, lies and deceptions, mysterious
disappearances, and a lethal secret with wider consequences than even Miles
anticipates: a race with time for life against death in horrifying new
forms.
The downside of being a troubleshooter comes when trouble starts shooting
back."
Meanwhile, while you wait for next May, Baen is publishing an omnibus
volume of some of my old work in a nice new hardcover format. Miles,
Mystery and Mayhem consists of the novels Cetaganda
and Ethan of Athos and the novella "Labyrinth",
plus a short new afterword by me. This is scheduled to be released
December 2001. Again, this is an omnibus reprint, not the new book.
And here is the jacket copy for it...
"Diplomat, Soldier, Spy.
Lieutenant Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan of the Barrayaran Empire, a.k.a.
Admiral Naismith of the Dendarii Free Mercenaries, is a young man of many
parts.
Miles and his handsome cousin Ivan are called upon to play a simple
diplomatic role on the capital world of Barrayar's old enemy. until murder
and deceit thrust them into Cetagandan internal politics at the highest
levels, and Miles discovers the secrets of the haut women's biological
domain to be very complicated indeed.
Commander Elli Quinn, sent by Miles on the trail of those secrets, meets a
man who marches to the beat of a very different drummer. Dr. Ethan
Urquhart, obstetrician from a planet forbidden to women, is on a quest at
cross-purposes to Elli's mission -- or is it?
Consequences of Cetagandan bioengineering continue to play out, this time
on a Dendarii sortie to the crime planet of Jackson's Whole. When he
encounters a genetically altered super-soldier, Miles's routine rescue
strike takes a sudden hard turn for the unanticipated.
[Publisher's Note: Miles, Mystery and Mayhem was previously published in
parts as Cetaganda, Ethan of Athos, and "Labyrinth".]"
Best regards, Lois Bujold.
Lois has just auctioned her latest book and it has been bought by Avon/Eos.
It will be published in hardcover from 31 July 2001. The title is
The Curse of Chalion, and it is a fantasy novel unrelated to
any prior book of hers. Lois has also contracted for a sequel to Chalion.
Futher details are available in Lois's own words.
A Civil Campaign was published in September 1999.
The first chapters can be found on
Baen's website.
The following is her jacket copy:-
May 10, 1999
It's spring in Vorbarr Sultana, and a young person's fancy lightly turns to
thoughts of love...
...money... biogenetics... love... lack of money... incompatible
planetary sexual mores... love... District succession scandals... the
Emperor's wedding.. and, of course, love.
Lord Miles Vorkosigan, youngest Imperial Auditor to be appointed
by the Emperor since the Time of Isolation, has a problem all his new
power can't solve: unrequited love for the beautiful Vor widow Ekaterin
Vorsoisson. Ekaterin is violently allergic to marriage as a result of
her first exposure. But as Miles learned from his late career in
galactic covert ops, if a frontal assault won't do, go to subterfuge.
He has a cunning plan...
Lord Mark Vorkosigan has a problem: his love for the sunny
Kareen, daughter of Commodore Koudelka, has just become unrequited
again. But if all his new money can't solve their dilemma, perhaps a
judicious blending of science and entrepreneurial scheming might. He
has a cunning plan...
Lord Ivan Vorpatril has a problem: unrequited love in general.
True, with the men on Barrayar outnumbering the women five to four, his
odds aren't good. But Ivan had never thought the odds applied to him.
He too has a cunning plan...
If no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, just
imagine what all Miles's closest friends and relatives can do to his
romantic strategy!
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