We’re now entering week two of No Internet (it has to do with regulations here, and I’m in the process of trying to circumvent those to the greatest degree possible, but as far as I can tell we’ll either get net access by the end of the week or not until like mid-August. Mrgahgngngl. (eta, since i’m still without net three days after starting to write this: this week is not looking good. maybe next week, but i’m not counting on that either. this sucks.) Anyway, I’d meant to post…
I’ve read the four available books in Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter’s Long Earth series in the past couple weeks, going so far as to break my “no e-books over €9.99” rule, which appears to have held right up until the point that I wanted something that cost more than that. :) I’ve found them pretty satisfying, obviously, or I wouldn’t have read four of them in…mostly a week. They’re about the discovery, or rather, the consequences of the discovery, of parallel earths (referred to collectively as The Long Earth)…
I think I only managed to read one book in May, which is somewhat embarrassing. OTOH, it was Judith Tarr’s FORGOTTEN SUNS, which is strong, appealing space opera. It’s space opera with YA sensibilities: only one of the main characters is actually a young adult, but all three of the main characters are on journeys of self-discovery. The character I felt was the lead (a hard call, as all 3 stories are insanely well balanced, but hers is the catalyst for all that follows), Aisha, is the 13 year old…
I’ve owned Kim Stanley Robinson’s SHAMAN since it came out, but hadn’t read it because I was still writing the Walker Papers, and regardless of how different his shaman and mine were likely to be (which was very, given that his book is set 40,000 years ago), I didn’t want to be reading about somebody else’s shaman while writing mine. :) SHAMAN is one of those books that’s either going to work for you or it isn’t, I think, although a lot of KSR’s work can be summarized that way.…
@kit_flowerstorm on Twitter asks me to discuss how to practice the discipline of writing. This is a question I get a *lot*. I don’t know if all professional writers get it a lot or if I do because I seem to have a particularly impressive output (or if it’s just that, as I actually *noticed* a few weeks ago, I work a lot). There is not a romantic answer to this question. The truth is that when writing is your day job, you sit down and (if necessary) struggle for…