Ambrose & Elsewhere

Somewhere over the Pacific it is still Wednesday, so I feel that my Blog Gate post of the week is not actually late. (Well, late-ish, maybe.)

Intrepid (and Hugo-nominated) editor Lou Anders (who is busy enough with more important things lately; see a recent interview here) has put up the full text of the Morlock story “A Book of Silences” (originally published in Black Gate 10). This is part of our lead up to the release of Blood of Ambrose next month. Soon will come a novelette-length sequel to “Book of Silences” (in which we find out what happened to the phoenix, and other important matters), and some sample chapters from the novel.

I know I owe the world and the Blog Gate a final Nebulation post. I’ll have to chop it in two, since I haven’t quite laid hands on all the books yet. But I should be able to fire something off on three of the six nominated books later this afternoon. Or, um, perhaps early this evening. Before midnight Pacific time, almost semicertainly.

Franz Kafka International Airport: not as inviting as it sounds.

Maybe the weirdest thing about this joke is the cool professionalism with which the story is delivered by Bobbie Battista, a Peabody-Award-winning journalist I remember seeing frequently on the Headline News Network (back when they actually did news). (MTV also played music videos.) (You’ll have to take my word on this stuff, kids: the world was different back then.)

I was sorry to see that Nicholas Hughes, son of Ted Hughes (the late poet laureate, adapter of Seneca and Euripides, author of Crow etc.) and Sylvia Plath (author of Ariel, The Bell Jar etc.) had taken his own life. Odd but appropriate to think of the son of Hughes and Plath in Alaska, fishing in the wild waters and sitting through those long dark winter nights, those pitiless light-filled summer nights.

My Blog Gate post of the week is finally up, a penultimate Nebulation (about the Nebunovellas, this time). I’m working on the novels, but I may not have them all read by next week’s post: kind of depends on how the week goes. (The plumbing issues have been resolved, though, fortunately.)

Plumbing is the mind-killer.

Plumbing is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my plumbing.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the plumbing has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

With a sump pump that works, hopefully. Otherwise we’re going to have to move.

1. Vergil’s Facebook page (seen at Rogue Classicism).

2. The Hobbiton & Barchester panel for Flycon, starting at 2 PM Eastern Daylight Time (11 AM Pacific).

The FlyCon chat session was a blast. I stayed on and kibbitzed on Kate Elliott’s, forming a settled conviction that everyone in the world should buy millions of Kate Elliott books.

I’ve been remiss in not noting what SF Scope and my brilliant agent, Michael Kabongo already have: Pyr is taking a second sequel to Blood of Ambrose. (The first sequel, This Crooked Way is due out in Fall 2009.)

Does this mean I have committed trilogy?

Well, I say no. These are standalone books in a series which, so far, has three entries. Even if the series ends there, it’s a three book series with some scattered short stories. If you pick up Blood of Ambrose you don’t need the Black Gate or Flashing Swords Morlock stories to pave the way (although, if you’re interested, remember you can find links to some of them online here); likewise, you don’t need to wade through Blood to set out on This Crooked Way. The third novel (which, candidly, I have only just begun) steps completely away from the plot material of the first two.

I’m not knocking the very long multivolume plot arc. As C.S. Lewis famously remarked, “You can’t get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” But it seems to me that there are a lot of multibook plotlines going on in imaginary-world fantasy and I really am trying to do something different with the Morlock books–a series of standalones that does show some kind of development in the characters and their world, not just a series of sterile repetitions: Morlock vs. the Evil Warlock, Morlock vs. the Savage Nudniks of Berzerkistan, Morlock Goes on a Vacation. We’ll see, I guess: at least I have three shots at it.

I should also mention: the online convention FlyCon is under way. Some good discussions have been happening; a full schedule can be found here. I snagged the primo hour of 2 AM Eastern (US) tonight for my author chat, for all you S&S night-owls out there. I’ll also be kicking around the topic of Hobbits & Barchester tomorrow at 2 PM with scbutler, and sneaking in and out of various discussions hither and yon. (Well, hither. My IRC-client doesn’t support yon.)

My Blog Gate post of the week is up, this one a glance at the current nominees for the Nebula in the novelette category, with a lament for absent squid.

Possibly worth mentioning again: I’ll be participating in FlyCon this weekend. My author chat (bring your own crickets) is set for 11 PM Pacific time, Fri. March 13 (= 2 AM Eastern, Sat. March 14). I’ll be on the “Hobbiton and Barchester” panel with scbutler (11 AM Pacific, 2 PM Eastern).