……over on the EightSquared/Eastercon 2013 blog, details of our costume event and some thoughts about costuming in fandom generally. Plus photos of a giant samurai rabbit, and me dressed up as a space admiral, together with my close protection detail.

“SHE STOOD AMID the silent statues and contemplated the crystal urn holding her husband’s ashes; footed with silver leaves and crowned with a five-petalled flower sparkling in the light of the shrine’s candles.”

Those of you in the UK picking up a copy of Defiant Peaks (published today!) will now discover that this story opens at the Solstice celebrations in Halferan Manor, Caladhria. Midwinter in Einarinn is Souls’ Ease Night and Lady Zurenne is taking a private moment in the manor’s shrine before guiding Lady Ilysh through her duties accepting seasonal tithes from their tenantry in the great hall and leading the celebrations afterwards. Meanwhile Corrain is attending the quarterly parliament where the country’s nervous noblemen are debating new laws to forbid anyone having dealings with wizards, after seeing just what havoc Planir and Hadrumal’s senior mages can wreak when they put their mind to it. Magewoman Jilseth is spending the festival in Relshaz, paying little heed to mainland politics or religious observance. She’s more concerned with keeping a weather eye on the Aldabreshin Archipelago after recent events, as well as lending her talents to fathoming the secrets of the ensorcelled artefacts which the Archmage has now acquired.

So everyone’s set fair for a peaceful and prosperous new year? Not exactly…

Naturally, you won’t be surprised that we decided against using ‘Winter is coming’ on the back cover copy. The thing is though, there are a goodly number of fantasy books which aren’t set in Westeros with winter as a theme or a thread, as the latest SF Signal Mind Meld makes plain. As always, I find the other authors’ answers as fascinating as thinking about the original question. Do check out all the suggestions – and comments – and find out why my pick is Barbara Hambly’s ‘Darwath Trilogy’.

Appropriately enough for a book about arguably the world’s most famous time travellers, Chicks Unravel Time is published today/tomorrow, depending on your local time zone.

There are three reading/signing events for lucky fans in the US. Nov. 17 in Worcester, MA at Annie’s Book Stop; Nov. 24 at the Chicago TARDIS convention and Nov. 28 at The Churchill in NYC. I wish I had a Time Lord on speed dial so I could be there.

There’s also giveaway running this week which includes a copy of the anthology, the 50th Anniversary planner and Doctor Who sticky notes. Details here – and we’re told that next week’s giveaway will have even cooler stuff…

You can keep your diary up to date with future events via the Facebook page where links to reviews are also starting to appear. These are all thoughtful and positive and making me even more impatient to read the other contributors’ essays.

Finally, yes, I appreciate that a lot of my recent posts have been about new books. You and your bank balances have my sincere sympathy. It’s just that I keep getting asked to do such interesting things…

I did start writing a blogpost yesterday refuting some arrant nonsense Some Opinionated Bloke was spouting about the book trade. I found reviewing and explaining the assorted idiocies and screw-ups of the past couple of decades which have got us into the current mess so depressing I gave up half way through. Today I am thinking there’s not much to be gained by going over that old ground. The way forward is, well, forward. So onwards and upwards we go!

I had an excellent time at Bristolcon on Saturday, first and foremost because I got to ask Guest of Honour John Meaney all sorts of questions about how he first encountered Science Fiction, where and when the impulse to write first got its claws into him, about the ways his own writing and career have developed, so on and so forth. We could have gone on for twice the time allowed – revisiting John’s work, and reading a couple of things for the first time, by way of preparation has been a real treat. If you’re not familiar with his writing, I recommend it highly, and of course, John is the SF Guest of Honour at the 2014 Eastercon, Satellite 4, in Glasgow. (Alongside me which will be added fun).

Anne Sudworth was the Artist Guest of Honour, ably interviewed by Ian Whates. That not only made for enthralling listening but sent me to the art room (truly excellent displays from a range of talented artists this year) to look at her work with fresh eyes and new ideas. I’m looking forward to her GoH illustrated talk at EightSquared with ever more eager anticipation.

After lunch I sat in on the Women in Sensible Armour panel which managed to be both light-hearted, good humoured and address serious issues about representation of women in speculative fiction. Then I chaired what proved to be a very interesting debate on Apocalypses (Why?) in SF, with panellists John Meaney, Janet Edwards, Tim Maughan and Michael Dollin. The panel and audience touched on all sorts of interesting ideas, even managing to show me there can be some point to zombies.

However, at that point, I decided to call it a day and head home. I was struck down by a particularly unpleasant gastro-intestinal bug last week and was still feeling pretty rough on Saturday. Also, while I knew I was past the crucial quarantine period for not putting other people at risk – and was equipped with hand sanitizer regardless – I still felt inclined to hold back from socialising, really not wanting to risk the remotest possibility of being patient zero for an outbreak of concrud. So if you were there and thinking I seemed less cheery/sociable than usual, that’s the explanation. And given how exhausted I felt on Sunday regardless, going home early was clearly the right decision.

In other news, the Fabulous Busking Boys (my Junior Son and his mate, no that’s not really what they call themselves) have won a local talent competition. As well as adding a hundred quid to their steadily impressive weekly earnings in Oxford, they were awarded an eighteen inch tall bronze eagle statue. Yes, really. It’s astonishing. We have no idea where the organisers got it or where it was made. But it’s already proved useful. I have an invitation to submit a story for an epic, heroic anthology (details to follow in due course) and yes, a brass eagle will now feature centrally in that. (Answer Umptyhundred-and-whatever to ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’)

If anyone can identify its likely origins, we’d be fascinated to know.

I am currently extremely busy, but I imagine you’ve guessed that from the lack of updates. I’m currently finishing up Defiant Peaks, the third and concluding Hadrumal Crisis book – and that’s taking up most of my time and mental energy.

What’s over is being devoted to my Chair of EightSquaredCon (Eastercon 2013) duties, where I am pleased to say plans and arrangements are progressing very satisfactorily indeed. We’ve just spent the weekend on a site visit for recce and meetings with hotels purposes – which is why I wasn’t at Edge-Lit in Derby by the way.

I will be at Congenial in Cambridge, August 10th-12th by the way and that’s going to be a splendid weekend. If you can make it, do!

I have a busy diary from September onwards so I’m also trying to get ahead with a few other things, reviews, articles and such. And of course, it won’t be long before the next slew of Arthur C Clarke Award reading starts hitting the doormat…

And then there’s been more than the usual family and household stuff with both teenage sons at crucial points in their education/exam schedules over these past few months.

Like I said, busy, busy, busy. So while I haven’t forgotten about blogging, all too often when I think about a post, all I can come up with is … um, well this list of things keeping me busy.

Fortunately, there are other folk out there doing more interesting things. One of whom is the ever-charming and talented Kari Sperring (author of the highly recommended Living with Ghosts). Slide on over to her LiveJournal and see her adorable cat Ish. Offer up the best caption and you can win copies of Dangerous Waters and Darkening Skies, Books 1 and 2 of the Hadrumal Crisis

And while you’re doing that, I’ll get back to writing Book 3.

Public service announcement kindathing

Friday – I’m arriving mid-morning/lunchtime and looking forward to a day of being in various audiences for some interesting programme items as well as helping staff the EightSquared 2013 bid desk. I won’t be sitting up too late in the bar because…

Saturday 10 am (Edwardian) ‘Sufficiently Advanced Magic’ – discussing the role of magic in fantasy fiction, with Marcus Gipps Stephen Deas, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Christ Wooding and Shana Worthen

Saturday 11 am (Commonwealth) ‘How pseudo do you like your medieval?’ with Anne C Perry, Jacey Bedford, Anne Lyle and George RR Martin

Saturday 12 pm (Commonwealth) ‘Gender parity on panels at conventions’ with Paul Cornell, Farah Mendelsohn, Emma Peel, Kari Sperring and Kat Takenaka

(and then some lunch!)

Saturday 5 pm (Royal) ‘How Not to Suppress Women’s Writing’ – I’m moderating and very interested to hear what Penny Hill, Amy McCulloch, Ian Sales and Tricia Sullivan have to say – and I have been gathering a good deal of info in the past few weeks. If you’ve had an email from me – and you know who you are – many thanks.

Sat 9 pm – I’ll be signing in the Winchester Room

Sunday 11 am (Room 12) – Eastercon 2013 and 2014 bid session – I’ll be there with the 2013 EightSquared Bid Committee, alongside the Satellite 4 2014 team – come along and see what you think of plans for the next couple of years.

Sunday 2 pm (Winchester) – A Fantasy Clarke Award – discussing an entirely theoretical shortlist with NIall Harrison, Nic Clarke, David Hebblethwaite, Erin Horakova and Edward James.

Sunday 6pm – Commonwealth – Having had the honour to judge the James White Award (short story competition) this year, in conjunction with Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Andy Cox and Andy Hedgecock of Interzone, I’ll be at the BSFA Awards.

Sunday 8 pm – I’ll be in the Tetworth Room signing session.

Monday – once again, I’ll be enjoying the convention without programme responsibilities. Or sitting at a con desk.

Then we’ll be heading home for a Chinese takeaway.

Well, the book (first chapter and more info here)was going to be published on the 28th February (US)/1st March (UK) and I was going to be at the 9th Phoenix Convention, Dublin (known to its friends as P-Con) from the 2nd -4th March. So that immediately offered me the chance to celebrate the new book among friends, fans and book lovers.

Then in a wonderful coincidence of timing, it turned out that CE Murphy (Catie to her friends) also had a book published on 1st March, namely ‘Raven Calls’, the seventh of her excellent urban fantasy series, The Walker Papers.

So we decided on a joint launch party at the Irish Writers Centre, a glorious Georgian building on Parnell Square and P-Con’s new home. Do we qualify as Irish Writers? Well, my paternal grandfather left Ireland in 1923, heading for the UK, and Catie’s grandfather left around the same time heading for the US. Catie’s family returned to Ireland in 2005 and now live in Dublin. My father lived in County Laois till last year. Good enough.

It was a great start to the convention weekend. We shared a few glasses of wine and Catie and I shared a few thoughts about our books. For a start, although this is my fourteenth book and her eighteenth, yes, we agreed, every publication day is still really exciting. We talked a bit about writing in extended series, how it’s great to see characters and ideas develop – and how you casually write half a line in one of the early books that comes back to bite you on the ass years later. We both have experience of that.

We swapped notes on our different approaches to magic. Joanne Walker is a shaman living in modern-day Seattle; her magic is fluid and mysterious, both enabled and limited by Joanne’s own imagination. So Catie’s drawing on Native American and Irish myth (her heroine is of Cherokee and Irish descent), which opens up a tremendous amount of possibility for finding similar elements in both cultures (there are more than you’d think!) and massaging them into story arcs. The magic in her stories is less elemental than fundamental: shamanic practitioners believe everything has a life force and a purpose, and so much of what Joanne does is activating and working with that force and its natural purpose.

I’m writing in an entirely secondary world with magic based on the four classic elements of air, earth, fire and water and wizards who take an almost scientific approach to their studies. So I’m drawing on our own world’s history of science as well as modern sources like experimental archaeology to find plausible justifications for the spell effects I’m devising. If an earth wizard needs to find out how old something is, he can use his innate affinity with for example Carbon 14. Except of course, that would be on a good long list of words I cannot use without wrecking the fantasy atmosphere of my secondary world, along with ‘diatom’ and ‘isotope’ and so many others. We agreed the challenges of writing can prove quite unexpected.

It was a great evening, especially because I could share my admiration and enjoyment of Catie’s books, and she’s a fan of my writing – we both read outside our particular sub-genre for relaxation and enjoyment. Since one of the most toe-curling things about a book launch is being expected to praise your own work, it was so much nicer to be enthusing about a good friend and fellow writer’s work instead!

Incidentally, if you fancy a trip to Dublin next spring – and need some sort of excuse – plans are already in hand for P-Con X, where the Guests of Honour will be Cory Doctorow and Sarah Pinborough. Keep an eye on that website for updates!

Since a consensus has emerged that we’re all going to blog our various pieces, here goes.

“We” being myself, Stacia Kane, Tony Lee and Paul Cornell. I am still wondering how Lee Harris talked any of us into doing this; namely, writing five minute short stories from subjects given to us on the day, no forewarning, no nothing. I’ve never done anything so nerve-wracking at a convention – my first fear being crashing and burning personally, closely followed by the fear that someone else would crash and burn, because that would have been pretty much equally dreadful. Thankfully instant camaraderie was apparent as we took our seats along the table – in a ‘we who are about to die’ kind of way – and as it turned out, we could all turn our hands and different styles to the challenge without disgracing ourselves. Phew.

On reflection I’m entertained to see what inspiration my writerly subconscious grabbed for under this pressure, and trust me, I can identify all their sources… It’s also interesting to see how naturally I fell into a three-beat structure, and also, into writing from first person. I’ve not done that in my novels for a good few books now. It’s equally fascinating to see how very different our styles and approaches were, as you’ll see when you compare and contrast my efforts with everyone else’s.

So, here goes – bearing in mind this is what I have written down but I know I verbally edited a bit as I read them out…

The Old Gods

“The Old Gods are jealous gods. They live in out of the way places. They have been forgotten. They have not forgotten you.”

Not the most reassuring note to find in among the gas bill, the letter about the water rates going up and two pizza delivery leaflets.

And this was a new house. Some smarmy bastard had bought it as a buy-to-let to make a fortune out of people who can’t get a mortgage even though the rents they’re paying cost more than a mortgage would. Sore point? Too damned right.

So, anyway, I screwed up the note, binned it and went to work. When I got back the landlord was there, bitching about the stain on the carpet that had been there when we moved in.

So I killed him. The next day I got that new job I’d applied for. And the next note in the post said ‘The Old Gods approve of your sacrifice…’

(I won that round on the basis of audience acclaim)

Zombies in Prestatyn

Seaside towns. God’s waiting room. I used to live in Bournemouth. Talk about Days of the Living Dead.

So I didn’t have high hopes when we found ourselves driven to the North Wales coast, trying to avoid the Plague, the Syndrome, the whatever-it-was dropping people in their tracks, in the hospitals, until they started getting up and ripping lumps out of people.

Then I found out what old people can really do, with a walking stick, a zimmer frame, a golf club. Did you know that old boys who remember their National Service can be quite handy with a Molotov cocktail? That grannies who went out with buckets of sand to put out incendiaries dropped by the Luftwaffe aren’t easily intimidated by zombies.

I asked one of the old ladies about that and she told me, when you don’t have much life left, you’re not about to let some rotting youth take it away from you.

(Tony Lee won that round with a POEM!)

Unicorn Sandwiches (this was the audience participation suggestion…)

I don’t know who decided that unicorn sandwiches are the official, sacred, royal food for a coronation but that was the kingdom’s tradition and kingdoms like their traditions. The king’s mage said it had to be done and that was that.

The thing is, unicorns are bloody dangerous. Horses are dangerous enough with hooves and teeth and kicking. Unicorns have that horn too and it’s not just for show.

The other thing about unicorns is only a virgin can tame one. I was the princess and thus was uniquely qualified by virtue of royal birth and being untouched by human hand. That’s what the king’s mage said and that was that. Bloody wizards.

So the night before the hunt, I cut up my sheets and plaited and knotted and made a rope and tied it to my bedstead and hung it out of my window. And Sir Pelin climbed up.

And the next morning, I wasn’t qualified to go hunting unicorns and the king’s mage couldn’t do a thing about it and that was that. Because sometimes, once a night is enough.

(Stacia Kane won that round and you’ll see exactly why when you read her offering)

(while my own piece demonstrates so clearly how vital the revision phase is in writing, because reading that back, I now see that last sentence should be ‘Sometimes one (k)night is all it takes.

(and this is when we ran out of time)

There’s been a fair amount of discussion here and there about such things, prompted mostly by the time of year – it’s time for nominations and/or voting on a good few genre awards; the Hugos, the BSFA Awards, the David Gemmell Awards.

I’ve been watching with interest, because, yes, I have a dog in this fight. I am on the long list for the David Gemmell Legend Award for best fantasy novel, with Dangerous Waters. I’m also an Arthur C Clarke Award judge this year and next, and judging the James White Short Story Award. While these are different in that they’re juried and judged rather than voted on, it’s fair to say I’m taking a closer interest in the whole awards business than has been my custom.

There are some very strong opinions out there about what level of mention an author may reasonably make of such things. There are those who seem to think so much as mentioning their own novel’s eligibility for nomination crosses some invisible line into the unacceptable. Other people seem to see nothing wrong in writers actively canvassing through their blogs and regularly tweeting Vote for Me! Vote for Me! Then there’s every shade of opinion in between.

I have a good deal of sympathy with those who think that an author’s work should speak for itself. That a book should prompt others apart from the writer to speak for it, if it is to have any claim on a nomination or votes. Personally I cringe at the thought of waving my new novel at people uninvited, still less urging them to buy it with the extravagant self-praise that I occasionally encounter, in person or online. I was brought up to consider such behaviour utterly reprehensible, no ifs or buts. Besides, in today’s book trade, such behaviour is all too often associated, fairly or unfairly, with the most deluded of self-published no-hopers.

Except – how are people to know that an author’s book is eligible for nominations or long/short-listed, if no one tells them? It’s no answer to say that if readers are following an award they will already know. What if they’re not even aware of that particular award? Is it a publisher’s responsibility to tell potentially interested parties? Insofar as they can, yes it is, and they do (though I’ve seen that criticised as well). But what if an author’s fans don’t happen to follow that publisher’s website or Twitter feed? I am getting fed up, in this age of information overload, with being told I should/must follow dozens and dozens of feeds, blogs, social media manifestations and networks, that I have some sort of nebulous obligation to keep current with such things, if I am really committed. Sorry but there are a great many other calls on my time and the number of hours in a day is unaffected by my personal level of commitment.

The most effective and straightforward way for me as a reader to learn what’s going on with the specific authors I am interested in is to check their personal feeds and blogs. So why should they be discouraged by online hostility insisting they’re not allowed (and who exactly decides this anyway?) to tell me about their eligibility, nominations etc? With that insistence followed by threats that if they do, such behaviour should automatically stop any right-thinking person for voting for them now or in the future! When, incidentally, publishers’ marketing departments and publicity officers for these awards will be encouraging those authors to share exactly that information, in keeping with their own job descriptions. When one of the most valuable functions of awards is to prompt the debate and discussion so vital for keeping a genre developing in ever more interesting ways for readers and writers alike.

What about what happens after that? If such self-promotion is acceptable, where does one draw a line? Is it acceptable to let people know your work is listed/eligible for an award? But not to openly solicit votes? But not to post, for instance, a short story online for people to read for free? But not for an author to privately email all their contacts who might be eligible to vote, offering to send them a copy direct, at once? Because I’ve seen all those things go on. And yes, I can see how the latter practises might well skew a vote, if one candidate’s material is far more accessible than another’s. But who’s going to decide these things, given subjective opinion on what’s acceptable behaviour can vary so widely between different people? More practically, who on earth is going to enforce any such rules that might be made?

I’ve seen similar hostility directed towards authors retweeting or linking to favourable mentions of their books. But why shouldn’t we direct potential readers towards information which might help them decide if our book is likely to be to their taste and is something they might like to consider buying? This is a business after all and authors operate in an increasingly hostile environment. Changes in bookselling have pretty much done away with the days when a reader could browse a shop’s shelves and expect to see the new releases and the midlist authors displayed on equal terms with the big names, for the reader to pick and choose on a level playing field as regards price and visibility.

I remember the first time I was on a panel at a US convention when the moderator blithely announced, ‘I’ll ask the panel to introduce themselves and plug their latest books.’ Everyone in the room stiffened, sitting up straighter on their chairs. Me with shock at this challenge to my Traditional British Reserve. The audience with keen anticipation, clearly eager to hear about new books and authors new to them. My fellow writers by way of preparation to inform potential customers about their work in a friendly and professional fashion, standing their books up on the table to show cover art etc.

Why should an author feel awkward or embarrassed about offering such information? But at UK conventions I so often see writers barely making mention of their own work, brutally self-deprecating if they do – and then I hear con-goers afterwards asking each other for more information on a panel member’s titles, where that writer’s work sits in the genre, trying to work out if someone whose contribution they’ve appreciated in that discussion is also likely to write books to their taste. If such information’s available in the programme, all well and good, but all too often it isn’t. How does such reticence encourage that broader conversation that keeps a genre vibrant and evolving?

When considering hostility to self-promotion, I think there’s a clue in that word ‘pimpage’, which grates on me like fingernails on slate whenever I hear it. I don’t care if it’s being used ironically, post-modernly, self-deprecatingly or whatever other justification might be offered. Writers are not pimps and our books are not whores. We are not sleazy money-grubbers demanding cash for something that decent, clean-living people otherwise exchange for free. We are offering our work-product and inviting the reader to purchase it, to give us a return on our endeavour. How is this different from any other commercial transaction, where goods and services are exchanged for a fair price?

Ah but TS Eliot had to work in a bank, we are told. We read infuriating articles like a recent one in The Guardian insisting that ‘real writers’ don’t seek monetary reward for their art. We see the enduring literary snobbery that insists a commercial best seller must self-evidently be devoid of true merit precisely because such popular appeal can only be meretricious (from the Latin, meretrix, a whore). Such snobbery then promptly inverts itself, insisting a ‘challenging’ or ‘important’ novel must be lauded, even if it’s sold under a thousand copies. Presumably because only the clever people can understand it. Sorry, but I cannot read these self-selecting, self-regarding critics without wondering if they’ve ever heard the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Such people have clearly never studied basic logic. A best-seller can indeed be devoid of literary merit. A chair can have four legs. A best-seller need not be devoid of merit. Something with four legs need not be a chair. It can be a racehorse. With all respect to Dr Johnson, I don’t know a single author who writes only for money. This is not in the least the same as saying we cannot justifiably expect for a fair reward for our writing.

To return to the subject at hand. Ultimately every reader and writer will find the level of self-promotion that they’re comfortable with. I have decided that am not going to be discouraged from offering useful information to potential readers, such as links to reviews online or a brief introduction to my work if I’m on a panel discussion. I see nothing wrong in letting people know that one of my books is eligible for consideration for an award. What readers choose to do with that information is then up to them.

With the debate about harrarssment coming to the fore in a whole lot of places at the moment, I’m seeing a phenomenon I’ve noticed before, which deserves a post of its own.

The Good Guy Comprehension Gap. Which really does trip up the good guys, the nice guys, the ones raised man and boy to respect women and girls in the same way that they have always respected their mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, Miss Teacher and all the rest.

They would no more consider running naked down their local high street than they would, to take today’s example, send a 1615 word email to a woman berating her for not agreeing to a second date, while still clearly expecting one to happen. (see here for the story).

They would not dream of intruding, pursuing, or indulging in any of the entitled, obnoxious behaviours detailed in this post A Guy’s Guide to Approaching Strange Women without Getting Maced or this one, I Just Want To Go For A Walk.

So they can really struggle to comprehend the extent of the reality which women live with.

Which can, alas, so often lead to the minimising comments so ably skewered by Jim C Hines.

Sharing a personal experience with the good guys usually doesn’t help either. For example, if I tell the tale of the fat, sweaty sleaze who admired my tits in a lift when I was on my way to the library in the shopping centre in Poole and suggested we go and have sex – when I was thirteen years old.

The good guys’ eyes instantly give them away. Relieved, because now they know, they understand. Clearly I had this unpleasant, unusual encounter at such an impressionable age that’s so traumatised me I now have this skewed viewpoint.

Er, no. For the record, I was startled, repelled and yes, I took stairs everywhere in public places for months after – but I really wasn’t traumatised. I might have been if he’d tried to touch me but all he did was leer. Please believe me when I say it wasn’t a big deal. Not least because when I told my pals at school, pretty much every girl had her own equivalent story to tell. And that’s what should be the big deal. Why should a class full of teenage girls be forced to conclude this is an inevitable part of life?

But I digress. This post is for the good guys, the nice guys, the white knights and heroes. Mind the Gap.