Tag Archives: My books

Ad Astra, 2014: A convention report

Why is it that, no matter how I travel to a convention, I always seem to wind up with not enough space in my luggage on the return? If I'd my copy of The Curse of Chalion to hand, I'd pull out Cazaril's quote about overflowing saddlebags, although this trip's luggage crisis was made up of two parts: I had left my larger duffle bag on the other side of the continent, and I needed to pack business casual clothes for a second conference immediately after Ad Astra.

So it was with a snugly-packed small duffle bag, a computer case, and a Vancouver Public Library book bag with copies of the Darkborn trilogy – just in case – I headed out on Friday morning, April 4, to meet my ride to Ad Astra, and the launch of Breakpoint:Nereis – minus, it transpired, my camera and dental floss. Half way to Toronto, we met the forecast rain-front and spent the rest of the way in intermittent grey outs.

Ad Astra was at the Sheraton Parkway Hotel in Richmond Hill, north of Toronto, where World Fantasy Convention was a couple of years ago. I was staying at the associated Best Western Hotel, along with several hockey teams from a med school charity meet. I was in a suite: tucked under an arch to one side of my room was a small bar area. I didn't spend much time in the suite, though. I made it into the swimming pool twice, on both mornings – one of the swimming pools, since I only discovered the Athletics Club with the second swimming pool on Saturday evening, looking down from the tenth floor party suite, and only went looking for it, wet swimsuit in hand, after the second swim, after I realized that geometry made it impossible that the pool I had swum in was the pool I had seen. Next time.

I was scheduled for three panels and a book launch (mine).

The aesthetics of SF, with Donato Giancola (artist), Michael Martineck (writer), and Zainab Amadahy (academic/activist, who proposed the subject and prepared a slideshow that looped on the screen throughout).

Colour schemes in 'serious' science fiction and fantasy tend to be muted – even monochromatic – messes. Is it because we equate bright colours with children and immaturity, or just plain ugliness? Which (if any) SF/F works get away with a colourful palette? Open your mind, and maybe your crayon box, for this colourful discussion.

We talked about trends in illustration and visual design for film, and how it anecdotally did seem to be moving towards a more muted display, with examples from the field of artists being asked to desaturate their colours. About whether that was due to the current fashion for dystopia, which tended to hark back to the grimy drabness of 1984 and post-WWII Britain, and how drab seems to be 'right' for poverty to the Northern-Western eye, even though in Latin American and Asian cultures, poverty keeps a vivid palette. About how colonialism influences our aesthetics, by associating bright colour with tropical 'primitive' cultures. We compared the available, living palettes of the tropics and the north, and the economics of colour. We brought in the influences of militarism, and religion – austerity was one of the ways that emergent Protestantism (particularly its strains of Calvanism and Puritanism) contrasted itself to Catholicism. We considered the gendering of colour, how in North Western societies the allowable palette for men's dress is much more muted than that for women (though professional women are advised to emulate the male), and how women's dress historically was for attracting mates and displaying family wealth. We got a bit into the uses of colour by writers, and how the meaning of colour changes across cultures. I mentioned how I had used the colour yellow in Contagion:Eyre (sequel to Breakpoint:Nereis), and brought up JM Synge's use of the meanings of white, black, red and grey in Irish mythology to heighten the fatalism in his plays Riders to the Sea and Deirdre of the Sorrows.

The Once and Future Plague, with David Stephenson (see the panelist page), Hayden Trenholm, Katrina Guy, Stephen B. Pearl.

From the Black Death to schistosomiasis to zombie hordes, infectious diseases and the plagues they cause have made for many a fascinating read. Even as we progress towards eradicating disease, we continue to tinker with tailor-made germs. This panel will explore how historic traumas shaped classic stories, and where the fear they create overlaps with present-day anxieties to create something altogether new, yet familiarly terrifying.

Alas, I scrambled in late, and I missed everyone's introductions. But we talked about forensic anthropology and accidental rediscoveries of burial grounds from the Black Death and other epidemics, SARS and how it exposed a the vulnerability of healthcare workers as well as the effect of political distraction and denial, what kind of fatality rates would change society forever, vaccine politics and renascent outbreaks, accidental releases and bioterrorism, synthetic biology and the eventual possibility of rolling our own bad bugs, and the fact that the most devastating infections might not affect us directly, but might affect our food sources. As a finale, we got a chance to speculate on how a devastating pandemic would play out in the here and now. My answer was it depends – largely on whether we recognize and react soon enough. (Which you can guarantee not to see in fiction; after all, where's the fun in that.)

Biotech, Identity and Personal Freedom, with Shirley Meier.

In Donna McMahon's Second Childhood, one of the characters comments that nobody living in the twenty-second century can know for certain that memories and thoughts are one's own. In this panel, discuss this concept along with whether advances in biotech and greater understanding of our genetic makeup will make us more free, or less.

This is a topic I've pitched before, and it's different every time, depending upon the constitution of the panel. Shirley talked about the tech, since her interest was steampunk, artificial intelligence, and identity, and mine was in neurobiology, psychology, and ethics. We coincided on the subject of liberty and internal and external threats to freedom, whether resulting from programming or our own biological circuits.

The Bundoran Press launch on Saturday night, for Strange Bedfellows, Breakpoint:Nereis, both from Bundoran Press, and Robin Riopelle's Deadroads, from Night Shade books. Strange Bedfellows is Bundoran's kickstarter-funded anthology of politically themed science fiction. Deadroads is a novel about family, ghosts and devils, three Louisiana siblings who have inherited their parents' paranormal abilities, as well as their – in several senses – demons. Hayden read from Gustavo Bondoni's short story “Gloop” from Strange Bedfellows, I read the scene from the cover of Breakpoint:Nereis, of Aeron Ivesen reluctantly visiting a relic of the pre-plague settlement, Robin read a scene in which Baz makes what is clearly going to be a very bad deal in exchange for the whereabouts of the sister he has not seen since she was a small child – spooky and a perfect length for a short reading, and Andrew Barton read from his short story “Three Years of Ash, Twenty Years of Dust”, also from Strange Bedfellows.

As for the rest of the weekend, I didn't leave the hotel, though occasionally I noticed there was bright sunshine out there. I had a couple of hours stint in the Dealer's room, watching books get sold. I dropped by the SFCanada table, hosted by Ira Nayman. I met Matt Moore, of the Ottawa ChiSeries readings, and Annette Mocek, of the Merrill collection, and James Alan Gardner. I said hail-and-farewell a few times in the hall to a Doppler-shifted Julie Czerneda. I signed books. I finally got to meet Derek Newman-Stille, of the Speculating Canada blog, in person. I met my editor (Hayden), and Bundoran Press' publicist (Beverly Bambury), and Alyx Dellamonica, author of Indigo Springs (winner of the Sunburst Award), Blue Magic, and a memorable and – dare I say it, very Canadian – urban fantasy from Tor.com, “The Cage”. While I enjoy butt-kicking heroines as much as the next woman, I love civilization even more. Dellamonica's heroines in “The Cage” defend themselves and each other with guile, law, and community. Her forthcoming novel, Child of a Hidden Sea, promises to scratch more of my itches: portal fantasy, with oceans. Anyone I missed mentioning, sorry, not on purpose! I did not meet the guest of honour, David Weber, which was a shame, because, yes, I'm an Honor Harrington fan, but I know he's coming north again this year.

Book tally, in my overflow bag (remember the Vancouver Public Library bag in the opening act):

  • Eight author's copies of Breakpoint:Nereis
  • Michael J Martineck's The Milkman.
  • Robin Riopelle's Deadroads
  • Tom Barlow's. I'll Meet You Yesterday.
  • Plus two geeky T-shirts from Antimatter Apparel.

Catching up: February-April, 2014

Derek Newman-Stille interviewed me for his Speculating Canada blog. Derek has published an academic paper about and presented at conferences on the Darkborn trilogy, and he asks good, probing questions.

I was one of the readers at ChiSeries Ottawa on March 18, 2014, whereupon I discovered it is indeed possible to go to Ottawa and back in an evening (It was a Tuesday, I had a Wednesday morning meeting, and the 0625 train held very little appeal). The piece I read was the follow-on to the posted section of Breakpoint:Nereis. And it's on YouTube.

I was invited to speak at the Ampersand 2014 conference (theme Science(Fiction)) here at McGill on March 22, 2014.

I went to Ad Astra 2014, April 4-6, 2014, and launched a book!

My wandering starship finds a small press home

Old news, now, in this social networked age, but two of the three novels I wrote between Cavalcade and Darkborn have found a home with Bundoran Press, a Canadian small press. Their (current) titles are Breakpoint: Nereis, which is due out in April 2014 (in time for LonCon3, hurray!), and Contagion: Eyre, currently scheduled for April 2015.

When asked what they are about, I have described them somewhat cheekily as “Star Trek meets medicine.” They concern the voyages of the 50-person starship Waiora (one of nine) on a mixed humanitarian and diplomatic mission to re-contact human colonies in the aftermath of a plague that collapsed an interplanetary human civilization. Their purpose is twofold, to try and ensure the immediate survival of the colonies they contact, and investigate the source and nature of the plague.

Sounds straightforward, right?

But the people on the surviving colonies have their own ideas about what they want, and they’re not shy about asserting them. Aeron Ivesen wants her lands back and its invaders defeated. Creon McIntyre will do anything to ensure his people’s freedom and survival. The history of colonization has left its own legacy of bitterness and distrust, and the sponsoring colonies of the mission are anything but united. And two of the crew of Waiora have a separate agenda that could threaten the whole mission.

Writing in the dark

When I first thought up the Darkborn, I never envisioned writing three novels about them (plus an assortment of short story beginnings scattered like crumbs – or maybe seeds – on my hard drive). I had Balthasar and Floria, and the paper wall between them, and I had Tercelle Amberley arriving in distress on Balthasar’s doorstep, and I had Telmaine coming down the stairs and encountering Ishmael. Who was a Shadowhunter, whatever that was.

I ought to know by now to watch those offhand remarks. I toss one off, and when I look again it has sprouted and ramified, and turned into a major part of the plot.

So I hadn’t considered the sustained exercise of writing a novel completely lacking in visual references. The Darkborn are born without vision: they have eyes, but the optic nerve is atrophied. They replace vision with a sense akin to sonar; however, although the liberties I have taken are considerable. The original reference is Howard C Hughes fascinating book, Sensory Exotica. Electroreception is going to work its way into a story, one of these days.

First of all, I couldn’t use colour. I couldn’t describe the colour of peoples’ hair, eyes and complexions. I couldn’t describe the colour of curtains or carpets or tiles or linoleum or wallpaper or trinkets or flame or … or anything. In one stroke I’d lost the use of every single colour-word I possessed – and I keep lists of them, even the ones so archaic or extravagant as to be inadmissible to modern prose. I lost all references to distance; it’s not merely indistinct, as it is for myopes such as myself, but beyond reach of their senses. I had to expunge all references to distance and things only seen at a distance, sky, stars, clouds, etc, though horizon works its way in there, via an outré piece of artwork. I’d to start thinking about living in a world composed entirely of echoes, sounds, shapes, volumes, textures, and smells. My first concentrated exercise in it was that scene in Darkborn where Ishmael is lurking and waiting to speak to Vladimer. Ish is an excellent viewpoint for an immersion in the world of the Darkborn, because he pays such close attention to his senses. Balthasar and Telmaine are both urbanites.

Next, eyes are irrelevant to the Darkborn. I couldn’t describe looks or glances, directed or exchanged, when I was in Darkborn heads. No-one’s eyes would meet another’s in a private moment. In my teens, I’d been given a boxed set of Jane Austin’s novels, and the introduction to one of them described Austen’s portrayal of the language of looks and glances in playing out relationships and social exchanges in that repressed and rôle-prescriptive society. Nothing else about Austen took (truly), but I liked that. With the Darkborn, I lost that vocabulary, too; I had to do much more with speech, tone, and timing. I think being a regular listener to radio drama helped

Furthermore, there’s no watching from the sidelines. A Darkborn can listen without being observed, but the moment he or she sonns, his or her attention becomes obvious to the listener. That changes the dynamics; passivity is less achievable. Sneaking around is challenging, since Darkborn are aware each others’ sonn. Scenes such as the one where Ishmael comes into Tercelle’s house required strategy, on my part as well as his. I wasn’t quite writing action with my eyes shut – because doing that has the tendency to produce output like piy[iy ;olr yjod, but I was deep in my head.

If I admit to doing this, someone’s sure to send me an email saying ‘you missed one’, but I did try to remove all visual references. I kept ‘visualized’, as a generic term for an internal representation of a reality, but I tried to round up and substitute for ‘look/looked’, ‘see/saw/seen’, ‘watch/watched’, etc, without getting into verbal contortions. There was a point late in the edits of Darkborn when I was so sensitized to the words that they distracted me in other people’s writing.

I got a bit odd, I must admit. One does – well, I do – when the writing becomes intense. If the phone rings, I’m not quite sure who’s going to answer it. I’ve experienced my characters’ dreams and the odd attack of social anxiety for violating imaginary customs. At one point during the revision of the Darkborn sections of Lightborn I could be found following a nervous pigeon along a side-street, trying to find the exact words for the softly opaque, greyish cream of its feathers. I’d go into a trance in the grocery store with a tomato in my hand, tripping on its pure redness. (When I was writing Blueheart, it was plums. Eight hours writing, and I’d be standing in Safeway thinking, ‘what is this thing?’, bewildered to find myself on dry land). I blame the need to go on restorative colour trips for my fascination with the graphics capabilities of R, and the vcd package – though I think the 20″ by 20″ mosaic plot that took 1.5 hours to render was carrying it to excess.

Thank you, says the voice from the hole

This is the first month’s anniversary of Darkborn’s publication, and last night I did my first Google search on the title and noted that a number of people have already reviewed it. I’d like to thank you all. Even if you didn’t care for it, I still very much appreciate the time and attention you put into reading it, thinking about it, and writing about it. And of course, if you did like it … well, I’m human (when not being something else for literary impersonation purposes), susceptible, and even more appreciative. 

I’m afraid I’ve been rather un-interactive; in fact, I more or less jumped in a hole and pulled it in after me. The first three novels I published were not only in the early days of the internet but stand-alones. By the time Legacies was published, I was deep in Blueheart. By the time Blueheart was published, I was trying to subdue Cavalcade. When I received reader and reviewer feedback, it was on a story that was completed in my mind and characters that had safely arrived, deservedly or undeservedly, at their destinies. Not on a story that was still working itself out and characters that were still developing. I had one critical comment pre-publication, quite offhand and definitely not intended to have the effect it did, that made me realize how easily my nerve could fail me in taking the trilogy where I want it to go. (I usually know where I want my characters to end up early in the writing, but the getting there is rather like the famous cartoon of the mathematical proof on the blackboard that has, in the middle, “And then a miracle occurs”.) So I’ve been – and continue to be – a bit skittish. Particularly since, instead of establishing the trajectory for Shadowborn over the summer, I’m in the midst of what has turned out to be a complex and substantial rewrite of Lightborn.

But it’s time to bunt myself out of the hole. Start Twittering again (I’m alixsinc – note the c – on Twitter and alixsin on identi.ca). Turn comments back on. Post photographs. Tidy up the blog. Finish posts and book-notes that are cluttering up my hard drive. Get over to tor.com and chip in my 2-bits-worth on some of their fascinating articles. Get the website upgrade done, which involves making a final decision on Dreamweaver (if it will condescend to accept my license key), Dokuwiki, or WordPress as the publication engine. So many more options since I first learned basic HTML. Can’t promise much over the next month, alas. Aside from Lightborn, I’ve summer courses in pharmacoepidemiology and Bayesian statistics. And I mean to get myself into a kayak at least once a week, before the water freezes once more. And since I’m in Montréal, I have a natural deadline to climb out of my hole: Worldcon 2009, Anticipation. Going to be fun!