Vaguely Disreputable

It was pointed out to me recently that I've vanished from these pages without a trace. I know, that was rude; many apologies. On the (potentially) brighter side, I've been writing intensively on two book projects. The first one gradually started pushing back harder and harder, and I finally decided to put it on hold. The second one is moving along much better and I'm staying with it; we should know in a few months where it's gone. For future reference, it's called I Want to Rule the World. 

Hope to see you all again soon...

One of the first things I did when I was setting up this site was add the section titled "Endangered and Missing" that appears on each page, at the bottom of the left-hand column, and the first two authors I thought of for it were Barry Hughart and David R. Palmer. I've received an email this morning from the great folks at Subterranean Press that references an ongoing discussion at John Scalzi's site on this exact subject, in which Mssrs. Hughart and Palmer are mentioned numerous times ... but, most excitingly, Subterranean Press is actually taking action (at least in part due to this discussion), and they intend to release a collection of all three Hughart novels. Trade hardcover for $38, and the limited:

For Mr. Hughart’s most ardent fans, that’s not the biggest news. In addition to the trade hardcover, we’ll be producing a 200-250 copy limited edition that will feature not only a leatherbound edition of The Chronicles. In addition, for the first time, Mr. Hughart has given us permission to publish the first draft of Bridge of Birds, which features Master Li as a nineteen-year-old, and Number Ten Ox as a bit player. This slipcased set will be a true rarity.

My admiration for Charles Stross, as an exemplar of currently active authors, is already splashed lavishly across this site. I've also commented on the extent to which I've been struck by the way he and I have come up - completely independently - with similar solutions to particular matters of plot development; an example of convergent evolution in action. Even given this, The Merchant's War still knocked me for a bit of a loop. I've noted the attempts to brand this thoroughly SFnal and beautifully extrapolated series as fantasy with no little amusement - if it increases sales, so much the better - and I'm certainly the last person to be able to complain with a straight face about complete lack-of-resolution cliffhanger endings, but for anyone who's made it through the Spell books, the revelations in Chapter 5, around page 112, say, may make you very happy. They certainly did this for me... and now, another year until the next one. (Oh, all right: aargh!)

I've mentioned elsewhere on this site that Charles Stross is right at the top of my list of favorite current authors, so it should surprise no one that I eagerly attacked Halting State as soon as it arrived. I was actually even more eager than that - ever since he reported on his site eighteen months ago or so that he was working on a "near-future thriller set against the world of massively multiplayer virtual reality games", I was as expectant as I've been about any book in years. Near-future is about the hardest thing in SF to pull off, and given Mr. Stross's demonstrated fervor for attacking big conceptual challenges head-on with pit bull ferocity and doing his best to rip their throats out, well, I was sure he was not about to sidestep the possibilities and have his narrative take place in a Starbuck's over lattes, shall we say. And did I mention - as long we're talking conceptual challenges - that it's all written in second-person voice?

It's a good book. It's a very good book, and a very smart book. It evolves so nicely, in fact, that it would be unfair to discuss the plot more than elliptically. He's used bits and pieces of tropes, plot devices, turns of phrase, and a few tics that we've seen before, but it's all assembled into a neater, tidier package this time. The conceptual infodump overload that could leave a reader with the full somatic nausea of futurelag in Accelerando is under much more control here, although of course we're only traveling ten years out, and not close to the Singularity, either. (He's also extrapolating along an axis I know a lot about professionally, as well as through general net-aware sponge-knowledge.) Indeed, it feels as though he may have deliberately intended Halting State to have breakout potential; in a way it's almost a miniature, compared to some of his other grand canvases, and could easily appeal to a much broader audience than he's addressed above. Definitely check it out! He's made it easy - the prologue and the first three chapters are posted for download...

Naomi Novik's Empire of Ivory, fourth in her Temeraire sequence, ends up in a much more interesting place than I initially thought it was heading. Temeraire is a resolutely SFnal piece of work, for all that Del Rey is taking advantage of the dragons=fantasy stereotype, and from what we've seen thus far is a solid piece of worldbuilding, thoroughly in Aubrey-Matarin territory. Ms Novik clearly knows her Napoleonic wars very well, and the extent to which the story tracks the historical flow of campaigning had led me to expect that she would continue to hew to the grand sweep of events in our own timeline, with the dragons ultimately having no net impact major enough to derail the important milestones of Napoleon's rise and fall. This may still be the case; I find it hard to believe that she will abandon the chance to dramatize the advance to Moscow in 1812 and the succeeding events through Elba, or the Hundred Days and Waterloo. But during those stretches when continental Europe was quiet, I had assumed that Ms Novik would be taking us off to other parts of the globe, inserting interludes of drawing-room activity (in O'Brian's fashion as well), and otherwise spinning intrigues and side-plots that would not materially affect her ability to return to Europe when Napoleon again sets forth and the red-letter battles recommence; that her alternative history would remain conservative, rather than disruptive.

Today was certainly active here at Vaguely Disreputable Plaza. Any day your site gets a mention in BoingBoing, the desktop fireworks are let slip with a vengeance, crying havoc all the while! Many thanks to Cory Doctorow for the article, cover art for Catastrophe's Spell and all. In the first traffic analysis sweep this morning the site had already received 2000+ visitors as a result of the coverage today. Thanks as well to everyone who stopped by!

My failure to post on this page recently is only partially due to the two-day power outage my neighborhood here in Los Angeles experienced earlier this week ... although that didn't help. All outlets are once again live and the infrastructure largely restored, and the air conditioners are humming again (although never below 78º Fahrenheit). Also, I've been spending as much time as possible actually getting the Spells ready for the site, since they are after all the main point here, along with some intensive work on a new writing project. We shall see...

It is clearly customary for the proprietor of a website-with-blog to make occasional comments on what one is reading, watching, partaking of, and/or otherwise consuming to enrich one's life. Customary, or an actual obligation? I've been unable to find any clearcut guidance in the various terms of service to which this site is subject, so let's say customary, and leave it at that.

So, herewith:

Books underway:

Reaper's Gale. A quantum level of complexity beyond any fantasy ever attempted. The undertow from the previous six books has now built to mind-sucking magnitude, making it increasingly difficult for me to move quickly through the text. On the other hand, the meaning behind certain important matters is stated clearly for the first time.

From a writer's standpoint, reading Erickson makes me feel like a gnat staring up at the expanse of Mount McKinley. Of course, just about anything short of War and Peace (or the speculative fiction equivalent, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy) is a miniature compared to the Malazan Book of the Fallen.