There’s another interesting piece for the ‘Nobody Knew She Was There’ series on Sarah Ash’s blog. Stephanie Burgis explores what inspired her to become a fantasy writer – and how Joseph Haydn and the world of eighteenth century opera appear in her latest novel: Masks and Shadows.

And do check out Sarah’s own books as well as Stephanie’s, just as I heartily recommend Kari Sperring’s work alongside Justina Robson’s. All very different writers but equally worthwhile reading!

Over at Fantasy Cafe, Kari discusses Justina’s Quantum Gravity series – the books and their reception. OUR BODIES, OUR STORIES, OURSELVES.

I’m a great fan of this series – as evident from this snapshot review I wrote back in the day

Science and dragons overlapping show how hard drawing the line between fantasy and SF can be. Justina Robson’s Quantum Gravity series erases that line altogether. In this near-future world, the quantum explosion of 2015 linked Earth to the elven, fey, demonic and elemental realms, not to mention the death dimension. In Keeping It Real (Gollancz 2006) and Selling Out (Gollancz 2007), logic and weirdness combine to make perfect sense.

Special agent Lila Black is a fusion of woman and machine assigned to protect an elven rock-star who someone’s trying very hard to kill. Who’s showing abilities that should be impossible given the nature of Zal’s innate magic. This is something of particular interest to Lila’s handlers, given humanity’s lack of magic is proving rather a disadvantage. If either of them are to survive, she must keep all her wits about her, picking and choosing among allies and enemies alike. It’s no use relying on the artificial intelligence plugged into her brain or incidental advantages like guns in her forearms and rocket-jets in her heels. The series thus far is vivid with inventive detail and the unexpected continually erupts to shake the unwary reader.

For those of you who do Facebook, there’s a story-by-story readalong going on in the Fantasy-Faction – Fantasy Book Discussion page. Since my story was first up, I was naturally delighted to read

*Coins, Fights and Stories Always Have Two Sides*
There’s three things I love about this first story by Juliet E McKenna.. First, it’s logical and realistic. There’s as much detail about Erlin’s day to day life as you need to know that he and the other camp followers live hand to mouth just like the soldiers, every action has a consequence, and there’s no bottomless bag of rations or gold coins for adventurers to live on. Second, following on from that, there’s grit – but not grim. A subtle difference that I think makes the punches hit harder. Third, Juliet has a real way of giving snappy character descriptions that stick – one guy is just called croppy-head, another just the snake. I saw the twist coming, but it’s not quite what you think…

And the discussions of subsequent stories have been very interesting.

Last but by no means least, there’s a new podcast to check out. Breaking the Glass Slipper kicks off by discussing gender inequality in ‘best of’ lists.
The team introduces themselves thusly

Welcome to the brand new podcast, Breaking the Glass Slipper. There are so many wonderful women writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror but they are often overlooked.

This podcast series was inspired by writer Juliet McKenna who recently commented on her blog about the many so-called ‘best of’ genre fiction lists that were conspicuously lacking in entries written by women. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror are genres created and loved by women as much as men, and yet the majority of the dialogue surrounding them still suggest that women are in the minority. We are here to prove to all genre lovers that there is a place for female writers and great female characters amongst the men folk!

Join your hosts, Megan Leigh, Charlotte Bond, and Lucy Hounsom as they discuss the genres they love, writers they envy, and characters they wish they could be.

I think that should be enough to be going on with over the weekend 🙂

EDITED TO ADD – Marie Brennan on The Series Payoff. With the ebook edition of Eastern Tide about to hit the virtual bookstores, this is naturally of particular interest to me!

Now I really will go and do some other work.