May 12, 2012

Book Buying Binge

Filed under: bloggery,life,recommended reading — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 7:49 pm

Well of Books via SuperpunchI’ve been on a book buying binge. I blame Amazon recommendations – which were actually spot on for a change instead of suggesting books based on presents I bought for other people. I came back from Wales to a heap of oblongs all for me:

  • Wither by Lauren DeStafano (I’ve already greedied this one up, first of a trilogy in which women die at 20 and boys at 25)
  • Once a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough (Tamsin should be a powerful witch but appears to have no magic at all)
  • Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George (re-imagining of the 12 Dancing Princesses)
  • Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh (I’ve never read Brideshead, shocking – I know)

But that’s not all of it. More oblongs are eagerly expected including:

  • Wired by Robin Wasserman
  • Crashed by Robin Wasserman (both are sequels to Skinned, which is awesome)
  • Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce
  • Trickster’s Queen by Tamora Pierce (more in the Tortall universe in which I already have 3 other series about Alanna, Daine and Keladry respectively)

It’s not as though I’ve finished my “to read” pile which is actually more of a “to read” shelf nowadays. I think I’m going to have to have another clear out, always painful, to fit the new stuff in. And now I’m going to have to get the sequels to Wither as well. I am being sucked into a vortex of books.

April 4, 2011

La migliora fabbra: Diana Wynne Jones

Filed under: my favourite authors,news — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 7:38 pm

Diana Wynne Jones (16 August 1934 – 26 March 2011)

Shortly before I went to Bologna, Diana Wynne Jones lost her battle with cancer. She was 77 years old.

Diana had a very strange childhood, she and her sisters were neglected by her parents. Her autobiography can be found on her authorised website and the story of her childhood is essentially that of the four girls in The Time of the Ghost. Most peculiarly, her educated literate parents didn’t provide books!

Diana wrote:

…my father was inordinately mean about money. He solved the Christmas book-giving by buying an set of Arthur Ransome books, which he kept locked in a high cupboard and dispensed one between the three of us each year. Clarance House had books, he said. True: it had been stocked mostly from auctions and, from this stock, before I was fourteen, I had read all of Conrad, Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, Bertrand Russell on relativity, besides a job lot of history and historic novels – and all thirty books from the public library in the guildhall. Isobel and I suffered from perpetual book starvation. We begged, saved, and cycled for miles to borrow books, but there were still never enough. When I was thirteen, I began writing narratives in old exercise books to fill this gap, and read them aloud to my sisters at night. I finished two, both of epic length and quite terrible. But in case someone is tempted to say my father me a favour, I must say this is not the case at all. I always would have been a writer. I still had this calm certainty. All these epics did for me was to prove that I could finish a story. My mother was always telling me that I was much too incompetent to finish anything. During her ugly, semi-delinquent litanies she frequently said, “When you do the Oxford exams, you’ll get a place, but you won’t do better than that. You haven’t got what it takes.”

Fortunately for Diana and for the world, she was never shaken from that calm conviction she was an author. Once she had escaped from the privations of childhood, she flourished. She married and had a family of her own and once her children were in school she set about the business of writing books.

Diana may be gone but those wonderful books remain. I remember howling with laughter over Howl’s Moving Castle at ten. (The scene where Sophie massacres Howl’s suits: “Give it here, all seven of it.”) I read Fire and Hemlock in the same year as I read Margaret Mahy’s The Changeover and those two books have influenced my writing ever since, making me a ‘magical realist’ author, inspired by both of those fine writers.

I’ve already posted about Diana’s work on my blog. She will always be one of my favourite authors. As I said earlier The Homeward Bounders and A Tale of Time City are two of my favourites. But other favourites include the Chrestomanci series (especially The Lives of Christopher Chant and Witch Week); the Howl series, particularly the first book, Hexwood, Fire and Hemlock and Archer’s Goom. There are just so many good novels, each brimming with originality, serious and humorous at once.

The title of ‘A Sudden Wild Magic’ expresses this quality of untamed imagination, which is why I’ve chosen it to illustrate this blog post. Diana will be much missed but she is also, rightly, much celebrated. Strange Horizons have posted a requiem in links to the various posts and obituaries of Diana. There’s so much to celebrate in an author who achieved so much and gave so much happiness to the world.

Diana said: Each book is an experiment, an attempt to write the ideal book, the book my children would like, the book I didn’t have as a child myself. I have still not, after twenty-odd books, written that book. That’s a feeling any writer will recognise. But it’s not the sense that a reader has when surveying shelves laden with so many fine novels.

February 4, 2011

Save UK libraries!

Filed under: bloggery,news,things Rhiannon does not like,things Rhiannon likes — Tags: — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 6:37 pm

Public libraries all over the UK have been threatened with closure. Some have closed already, other closures have been announced, still more are in danger of being closed. Almost 400 libraries nationwide are already threatened with closure, and the total could reach an estimated 800. Instead of considering libraries an essential public service, the Conservative government wants to axe them under the assumption that volunteers will step in and run them instead. (This same argument has been applied to other public services; where the government thinks all these volunteers will come from during a recession, I don’t know.)

This map will tell you which libraries are threatened. It’s a sad map. This map tells you what events are happening at your local library on Saturday, protests and author readings to support libraries. It is an encouraging map but still not a happy one. Also look out for the #savelibraries hashtag on Twitter, which has been seeing a lot of action. And read Philip Pullman’s speech about why the library cuts are a false economy.

“Libraries have an enviable network of estate and expertise and a tribe of incredibly diverse and passionate customers; 325 million visits were made to libraries last year and an additional 113 million visits online,” commented Libraries Minister Ed Vaizey last year before falling silent and allowing the juggernaut of Conservative cuts to roll over UK libraries.

Gloria De Piero, the shadow minister for media and culture, has been speaking up for libraries: “Libraries provide a particularly crucial service to mums with toddlers, pensioners and the one in five people who do not have the internet at home and need their local library to look for jobs… Almost 80% of 11- to 15-year-olds visit a library and children’s borrowing continues to increase year on year. For many areas of the country there are tremendous success stories as library visits increase during the recession.”

This is not the first time we’ve been called upon to save libraries. Back in the 1990s I was a junior member of my local library campaign. You can read a fictionalised version of some of our experiences in my mother’s book Special Powers in which the character of Emily Grey is based loosely on me and my friend Sara.

Libraries will always be important to me. Between the ages of 11 and 15 I was miserable at school. A series of substitute teachers, bad teaching and uncaring school management meant I wasn’t learning anything and was being lazily bullied by a group of students with nothing better to do. But bullies very rarely follow you into libraries. I took refuge in my school library at first and then later in my local library. When I eventually got into trouble for persistent truanting, the trouble wasn’t as bad as it might have been because while I wanted to escape, the place I escaped to was a safe and supportive one. (The librarians twigged that no child has a school project that lasts from 9-4 for weeks and weeks.)

In my life as a professional writer I have twice been asked to open school libraries: the Fryer Library at Leighton Park school in Reading and the library at my own school (the one I moved to at 15 after the terrible one) of Channing in Highgate. I’m always very happy to open libraries and miserable to think of them closing. If it hadn’t been for libraries what would have happened to teenage me? Where would I have hidden from the bullies and found happiness in books? Would I be an author today? Would I have gone to university? (My Head’s statement about me referenced the running away to hide in libraries as essential to my character.)

Save libraries. Save them for children, for adults, for the elderly. For job hunters, for the disabled, for the homeless. Save them for yourselves and for your future. We need these arks of words. We will miss them terribly if they are taken away.

January 3, 2011

Happy New Year and countdown to Ghost of a Chance!

Filed under: book release,Ghost of a Chance,links,news,reviews of my books — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 4:59 pm

WordPress has sent an email to tell me my blog was “fresher than ever” in 2010, which is nice. Unfortunately I think they are still working from the figures from my old hosted account, not my current embedded one. But perhaps that means my blog is even fresher than WordPress thinks?

Ghost of a Chance coverIt’s 3 days until the publication of Ghost of a Chance and I’ll be celebrating here on my blog so stop by and leave a comment. Amazon started shipping it in December although due to the snow some of those copies are trapped in warehouses. But if you’ve got your copy and have read it already I’d be especially interested to know what you think.

I’ll also be posting the first chapter on my webpage for the book: Ghost of a Chance. So if you haven’t got a copy you can try it out. My artist friend is hard at work designing a new frieze for the webpage which should be online shortly. The book has a peacock theme and so too will the frieze.

One website, The Bookbag, has already posted a review of Ghost of a Chance – and recommended it, thanks Robert James!

I’ve been three years writing this book – a long time for me! And I’m very excited to know what people think of it. I can’t quite believe it’s almost publication day!

October 4, 2010

Interrogating the text from the sock-puppet perspective

Attention, authors of the world! It is bad enough to argue with people who post reviews of your books on Amazon telling them they’re not reading it right. (cf Anne Rice, 2004)

But it is so much worse to do so under a sock-puppet alias which you otherwise use to post glowing reviews of your own books. (cf Christopher Pike, 2010) Also, if someone calls you on the fact you got the capital of Turkey wrong then it might be wiser to apologise than continue to berate them. Oh and perhaps do some research as to where Turkey is (i.e. not in Palestine), the ethnic background of the population (i.e. not Arabs) and the state religion (i.e. none; Turkey is a secular state.) PS: Sikhs are not Arabs, not everyone who wears a turban can be conveniently lumped into your concept of the Other.

This kind of behaviour is not cool and it makes authors look stupid. Got something wrong? – apologise and fix it. Someone doesn’t like your book? – that’s their prerogative. If you really must post a rebuttal then things to avoid include: mansplaining (Pike), racism (Elizabeth Bear), aggression and unpleasantness (R Malone). None of these things will encourage people to read your books.

Since I’m beginning to get gigs speaking to writers about how to market themselves on the inter I’ll recap that as a handy little list. Although I hope no one I speak to would even consider most of these!

  1. Don’t attempt a rebuttal of reviews of your work – you either look desperate or crazy or both
  2. If you really really really want to write a rebuttal, don’t use a sock-puppet. People will find out and then you will look desperate, crazy AND creepy
  3. Also don’t use sock-puppets to write about how great you are. (Another author was doing this last week but I don’t have a link because I read about it in Private Eye.)
  4. If you got something really obvious wrong, apologise. People are more likely to forgive you if you say sorry.
  5. If you’ve apologised, don’t un-apologise later. No one will ever believe your apologies again if you retract them.
  6. Enlisting your fans to attack strangers on the internet is rabble-rousing. Don’t do it.
  7. Assuming you know more about someone else’s culture than they do is racist and cultural imperialism. Don’t do that either.

And finally, don’t assume your sock-puppetry and silliness will go unnoticed on the vast reaches of the internet. The internet is big but information moves very quickly across it. And if fandomwank don’t find you, stupidfreedrama will. And if you annoy the internet enough 4chan will come for you and you don’t want that.

May 12, 2010

Hex: the film

I have some exciting news for Hex fans. Ever since the trilogy was first published I’ve had letters from fans asking me if there could be a film of the books – there’s at least one thread on the forums about it. Last week I agreed the first stage of a film option for the Hex trilogy.

The film company developing the property is called Sweet Revenge and they are based in Hollywood. On the eve of the Clarke award ceremony I had  a conversation with producer Isadora Martin-Dye who has loved the books since they first came out and is really enthusiastic about the project. This is great news for the fans because it means that the creative vision doesn’t involve making significant changes to the work. If Raven hits the screen she’ll be her own cantankerous self.

I say if because there’s a long way to go with this project. It’s in the earliest of early stages and there’s a lot of work to be done. Luckily for me, I’ve already done my bit – now it’s up to Isadora and the rest of her team to put in place the things one needs to make a major feature film. They will be keeping me informed and involved though so I’ll report more as I hear more news.

I expect fans will have a lot of questions and I’ll try and anticipate some of them here since some were things I wanted to know myself:

Q: Will there be one film or three (one for each book)?
A: The option will be for the whole trilogy. Right now we’re planning for one film but which would take elements from the world of all three books.

Q: Is this going to be a small or large production?
A: The plan is for a big budget film.

Q: Will Rhiannon be writing the script?
A: It’s usual for companies to bring in their own script writers. I’ll be in contact with those writers once they’ve been chosen.

Q: Who will play Raven?
A: It’s much too early to answer that but I know it’s the question everyone will want to ask. I’ll let you know more as soon as I can.

Meanwhile, if you’re a Hex fan, there’s something you could do to help bring this film into reality. Since Hex wasn’t an illustrated or graphical novel there isn’t any concept art. If you’ve created Hex fan art please post it on the fanart forum so that Sweet Revenge have an idea of how fans see the Hex series. Lots of people posted art back in the day but because they used photobucket many of those links have expired – please do repost your old art or any new art you’ve done. Your artwork and imagery will help establish a vision for the film so do please get involved.

And if you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

May 5, 2010

Clarke award: Our revels now are ended

Filed under: Arthur C. Clarke award,awards,news,things Rhiannon likes — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 9:03 am

After two years my duties as a Science Fiction Foundation judge for the Arthur C. Clarke award have come to an end. Last Wednesday we gave China Miéville the award for The City and The City: an unprecedent third win for the author who has already receieved the award twice before for Perdido Street Station in 2001 and Iron Council in 2005.

The City and The City is the kind of book I would like to write myself. It has depth and intricacy but is also accessible and action-packed, well paced and thoughtfully plotted. If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to put it on your reading list. The same goes for the rest of this year’s Clarke shortlist: Spirit by Gwyneth Jones, Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts, Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson, Far North by Marcel Theroux and Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding.

This award doesn’t have an official ‘meet and greet’ so I haven’t actually met China – there was a scrum of reporters 3 foot deep and I am too short to tangle with excited journalists – instead I shall wing him these virtual congratulations via the internet. I did however meet Gwyneth Jones who I attempted to praise without terrifying her with the extent of my fannishness. I’m not sure I entirely succeeded. But she freaked me out by saying she knew who I was and reads my blog. Gwyneth is a wonderful writer and well on her way to supplanting Ursula Le Guin from the very top of my top ten.

Judges go for ice cream

Thank you to everyone else who has made the Clarke award so much fun. I’ve made friends among both judging teams and met all sorts of cool people at the award ceremonies. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

You can see how much fun we’ve had in this picture of the judging team going out for ice cream after a tough meeting to decide the winner. From left to right we are: Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Chris Hill, Francis Spufford, Rhiannon Lassiter and Paul Skevington

March 2, 2010

Things I read on the internet

The Guardian asked writers for their ten rules for writing (part one and part two available here). I like lots of bit and pieces of advice and might take one rule from each author. But overall I liked this advice the best:

Ian Rankin

1 Read lots.
2 Write lots.
3 Learn to be self-critical.
4 Learn what criticism to accept.
5 Be persistent.
6 Have a story worth telling.
7 Don’t give up.
8 Know the market.
9 Get lucky.
10 Stay lucky.

Other things I read on the internet suggest a couple of addendums:

Additional rule a) If a reviewer critiques your book don’t take it personally. Especially don’t declare internet war on the reviewer, abuse them by email and in comments to forums and create sock puppets to praise your book and star rate it. That makes you look crazy – and desperate.

Additional rule b) Even if your dad is a rock star that doesn’t mean you can trace the art from other people’s manga and publish it under your own name without the entire fannish interwebs calling you out on it. And then CNN will notice. That makes you look stupid – and a plagiarist.

January 19, 2010

2010: welcome to the future

Snow in my garden

Snow in my garden

Happy new year to everyone! This post is 19 days late because I began the new year with a stinking cold and I didn’t even go out and play in the snow which has been 8 inches deep or more across Oxford. Here’s a view of my garden from my window. I only went out to put out the compost: those are the tracks you can see on the right.

Since then I’ve been trying to get caught up with work. I am having cover discussions for Ghost of a Chance with OUP and also working on the revisions. Ghost of a Chance will be out in 2011.

I’ve also been working on a redesign of my website. For the first time I’m outsourcing the majority of the work – although I have briefed the designer about the layout I want and collated much of the code. The design will be based on a template created by Matthew James Taylor whose css layouts are well-worth checking out. The site is being constructed by Mo Holkar of Freeform Games in his alter-ego as web designer. It’s a real relief to be able to pass on some of the work of putting the site together to a friend I trust. Mo also runs the sites I designed for Celia Rees and Frances Hardinge so he’s familiar with the way I create sites and write html and css.

I’m also a judge for the 2009 Clarke award so I’m reading my way through the submission list. (I’ve been looking for a link to this but I think it’s not online yet.) I’ll check with the committee to find out where and when the full longlist can be seen.

Shadow

Shadow gazing up at me

I’ve various other projects on the go which I’ll write about in separate entries. The current great joy of my life is that my little black cat, Shadow, has been driven by the cold to sit on my lap. This is something she has rarely deigned to do in the past so I feel very honoured. Here’s a picture of her eyes beaming up at me.

So here I am in 2010! It’s the future: 2010 is a really science-fiction sounding year. I hope it’s been good to everyone so far and here’s wishing you all the best for the year ahead.

November 18, 2009

Bad Blood published in Czech Republic and Japan

Filed under: Bad Blood,covers,Czech Republic,Japan,news — Tags: , — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 4:08 pm

Bad Blood is to be published in the Czech Republic (by Mlada Fronta) and in Japan (by Shogakukan). Both editions have new covers – as different from each other as they are from the UK edition.

  

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