I haven't done anything with this community for a very long time, but as I'm the sole maintainer someone else needs to be a maintainer before I leave it. If you're interested in maintaining it, please leave a comment (I really don't want to be a maintainer anymore, but I don't want to just delete it).

I wrote a large essay recently that's half about DUST, by Elizabeth Bear. (The other half's about PARADISES LOST, by Ursula K. Le Guin.) If anyone wants to read it, a description and details are here.

Who has read All the Windwracked Stars? I've read it once, but, as is customary for me with Bear's books, there are still some things I'm confused about that might require more readings to figure out. I may actually have to take notes, or something. If anyone wants to have a spoilery chat about it in the comments, that would awesome.

Apparently there is a play about Marlowe written in '92 by Peter Whelan, called "The School of Night." It's just premiering in the US and there was a write up in the L.A. Times, which is how I heard about it. Review isn't promising, but I may try and see it, if I can...

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-school11-2008nov11,0,2082362.story

cool costume design illustration of marlowe for the play:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-ca-1109-costumes-pg,0,7771479.photogallery?index=5

Some scenes from the play here:

http://www.centertheatregroup.org/tickets/productiondetail.aspx?id=3516&gclid=CL6Kg9b77pYCFSAUagodnCSFsA

Hello all!

I come bearing fan art, specifically, a sketch of Kit Marlow.

( With a spoiler for Ink&Steel )

Undertow
http://criminalmindscharityblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/undertow-by-elizabeth-bear.html

Package of Blood and Iron & Whiskey & Water
http://criminalmindscharityblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/blood-and-iron-whiskey-and-water-by.html

I got this from FictionWise today:

TITLE: Dust by Elizabeth Bear
PRICE: US$6.99 CATEGORY: Science Fiction
EPUBLISHER: Bantam Books/Bantam Books
DESCRIPTION: On a broken ship orbiting a doomed sun, dwellers have
grown complacent with their aging metal world. But when a serving girl
frees a captive...
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook53816.htm?r=12a17

Yay for E-Books! Now we arehave six - Jenny Books, Carnival, Undertow, and Dust.

Who do I have to bribe or sleep with to get the rest as E-books? Would writing letters to the publishers help, do you think? I hate missing out! *grrr*

EB Fangirls "r" us,
Ricky

Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette (her coauthor for A Companion to Wolves), Patricia McKillip, and a number of other authors are doing a signing in Albany, NY on November 4th. Details/directions/other signings here.

Undertow is now available from Fictionwise for us ebook types.

Anyone know how to get them to carry the others they are missing?

r

I'd say Bear's fairly famous.

Fanmix for Blood and Iron.

From overstars.

What do you guys think?

I'm about 3/4 of the way through Hammered and I'm really enjoying it. I can't wait to get to the next 2 books.

I have just realised that Carnival, along with the Jenny books, are available at Fictionwise. Yes, I am slow :)

I already have ebook versions of the Jenny books, but I had thought the others were only available as dead trees and hence not accessible to me. I am very much overjoyed at being wrong!

Purposes of this post are multiple:

1. Yay for ebooks!

2. Dear worlds, Elizabeth Bear books available at Fictionwise. Love, Ricky.

3. I didn't have a Fictionwise account before, and they seem to allow coupons to be given. While I wait for my Paypal money to get there, does anyone have a spare coupon? Funds are especially tight - the modem died this week, and some things can't wait until you save up *wry grin*

4. Are any of the other books out there hiding from me in ebook form? Must have more!

r
[Please excuse mistakes/brevity, typed via on-screen keyboard due to disability]

Ok, throwing random thoughts out there - or rather, out here - for discussion, whenever any/everyone gets around to it:

( If you don't already get that this is going to be spoiler-heavy, then you're taking up too much space ... )

That's all I've got for now. Feel free to roll your own.

*largely because they get that violence, even in their own defense, often paints a revenge bullseye on their backs. However, on the rare occasions when they do go that route, they do so with massively disproportionate overkill.

**by hitching their fortunes to yours, forcibly if need be.

You'd think a community with upwards of 40 members and so much interesting subject matter to discuss would be livelier than this.

Which of course is why I ask, what the fuck? Where are all you people?

Ms. Bear. May the coming year bring you happiness and health and all that attends them.

Hi, everyone! This is my first post to this community. Following a suggestion by matociquala, I am crossposting my review of her latest book Blood & Iron, a fantasy novel of anagogic proportions. If you haven't already read this ... what, you haven't? And you call yourself a fan? Get thee hence!

---------

(Note: in the following review, I am choosing my words and my capitalizations with extreme care. There are reasons for this.)

---------

Dear Elizabeth Bear,
I have not read fantasy in five years* - and now I know why. For you see, I was waiting for this. I earlier described your book (henceforth referred to as B & I) as being like a dark, bloody fruit or something like that. Eh. Close enough. The point is that it's rich, dark, textured, rhythmic, lyrical, dense ohmygod so dense; beneath a lesser pen, this book would have been 3000 pages of sparse shite. I knowed you was a good scifi writer; how was I supposed to know you were a great fantasy writer as well?

( Here There be Spoilers. Arrr ... )

Yours fannishly,
Chinedum Ofoegbu.

*well, except for the second R. Scott Bakker Prince of Nothing book and that doesn't count because I just started it and ... phew. Shutting up now.

**The first ten times I looked that double-page spread, my eyes and brain physically hurt. Yesyes, it was psychosomatically-induced temporary synaesthesia but the effect remains valid. Doesn’t happen any more though

Stephen Hawking has a question for you

'How can human race survive?' astrophysicist asks on Web site
Friday, July 7, 2006; Posted: 7:27 p.m. EDT (23:27 GMT)

Seems like the Jenny Casey Trilogy might be part of the "answer"  FWIW

What NPR calls 'Driveway Moments,' I suppose. Only I don't read and drive. And if I'm reading in the passenger seat, I can walk up to the house still reading, if need be. :->

That said, which bits of Bear's writing cause you to stop and stare at them, and (a) giggle, (b) cry, (c) marvel, (d) other? You'll know 'em when you see 'em.

Illustrative example: I just got to the scene in Worldwired (p.198 in the aqua hymnal) containing the sentence, "I remember the good old days, when the recipient got to decide where her fucking e-mail went." As a former internet tech-support-tron, married to a sysadmin, I just had to giggle and GIGGLE and giggle. And read it to my husband. And giggle. And then I saw it was email from a dead man and the giggles were sucked out of me like smoke in Backdraft, and suddenly I felt like crying right along with Casey.

Hooyeah. Although even just the first part qualifies it for mention here. :-> Another, less wrenching example:

(T)here are a few dozen people in the glass-walled booths over our heads providing simultaneous translation on multiple-language channels, and I can access any one of them on my ear clip with a glance at a menu. I'm listening in French, because the interpreter has a sexy dark-chocolate voice and I like his Parisian accent better than the harsh midwestern drawl of the Chinese-to-English translator -- who is getting a workout today.

So, I showed you mine -- what're yours?

Most of this is stolen from either matociquala's sidebar links or http://www.elizabethbear.com, but I thought it would be nice for the comm to have a resource for Bear's readily available short fiction. Feel free to start posts for discussing any of these stories.

"Long Cold Day"

"And the Deep Blue Sea"

"One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King"

"Botticelli"

"Two Dreams on Trains"

"Follow-Me Light"

"Old Leatherwings"

"This Tragic Glass"

"Ice"

"The Dying of the Light"

"The Company of Four"

"The Devil You Don't"


In addition, you can read the original prologue to Bear's first unpublished novel All The Windwracked Stars -- which she's currently rewriting -- (with some running commentary) at elizabethbear, plus some cut scenes from other novels.

And an essay: "Join Me Or Die!"

It has to happen sooner or later, so why not start this community off right.

Which actors/actresses do you see for which characters? In your head (meaning from any time past or present), or current stars should Hollywood ever buy the rights?

[And for the squee, which characters would most suit David McCallum or Robert Vaughn?]