Month: December 2007

Publisher's Apertif: YA fantasy novel takes wing

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December 14, 2007

4:18 pm

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Happenings, On Writing

I always love how the publishing industry news sheet, Publisher’s Lunch has little euphemisms to discuss money. They say things like “a good deal” and a very good deal” to discreetly disclose the zeros behind the decimal point for book deals. Well, I don’t know if this has been published as lunch, but Wonderland friend Stephen Hunt has sent a bird up to the treehouse with this “major deal” news:

PRESS RELEASE

14 December 2007: London and New York.

HarperColins sells US rights in Stephen Hunt’s fantasy novels to Tor Books in major two-book deal

Airlie Lawson and Tara Hiatt, Rights Directors at HarperCollins in London, have confirmed a major two-book deal with Claire Eddy of Tor Books in New York, to publish THE COURT OF THE AIR by Stephen Hunt, and his follow-up fantasy novel, THE KINGDOM BEYOND THE WAVES.



HarperCollins Voyager acquired World rights in three novels from literary agent John Jarrold, and have already sold German, French, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese rights, and are presently pursuing interest in a number of other markets.

‘I’m delighted,’ said John Jarrold. ‘I’ve known the guys at Tor for over twenty years, and they have a wonderful reputation. I don’t think Stephen could be in better hands in the US. Congratulations to him, HarperCollins and Claire!’

Stephen Hunt’s The Court of the Air was the lead title for 2007 of HarperCollins’ genre imprint, Voyager, and was published in the same week as HarperCollins other main fantasy novel of the year, The Children of Húrin (JRR Tolkien & Christopher Tolkien).

HarperCollins acquired the Court of the Air in 2006 after the company won a fierce auction for the work, seeing off many other major publishers to acquire Hunt’s title.

Fantasy and science fiction author Stephen Hunt is the owner of SF Crowsnest.com, the second most popular sci-fi site on the Internet with close to a million readers a month, clocking up 30 million hits a month. Established in 1991, SFcrowsnest.com is one of – if not – the oldest science fiction and fantasy web sites on the web.

Hunt’s author’s web site can be found at StephenHunt.com.

PRAISE FOR THE COURT OF THE AIR

“An inventive, ambitious work, full of wonders and marvels.” – The Times

“Hunt can take his place alongside such eminent Magratheans as JRR Tolkien, Mervyn Peake and China Mieville. Creating a fully-realised other-world which feels new and different, yet cohesive and believable is half the battle in a fantasy novel, and it is a battle Hunt wins with honours… Hunt’s world is so rich and colourful it keeps you engrossed … It’s a confident audacious novel.” – SFX

“The characters are convincing and colourful, but the real achievement is the setting, a hellish take on Victorian London where grim, steam-driven machines work beside citizens with magical powers. The Court of the Air is aimed at young adults, but the depth and complexity of Hunt’s vision makes it compulsive reading for all ages.” – The Guardian (Emphasis Ours!!)

“Wonderfully assured … Hunt knows what his audience like and gives it to them with a sardonic wit and carefully developed tension” – Time Out

Another young adult fantasy novel takes wing. Congratulations, Stephen — and thank you in advance for what we are sure is going to be an awesome book!!!!

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

Publisher’s Apertif: YA fantasy novel takes wing

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December 14, 2007

4:18 pm

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Happenings, On Writing

I always love how the publishing industry news sheet, Publisher’s Lunch has little euphemisms to discuss money. They say things like “a good deal” and a very good deal” to discreetly disclose the zeros behind the decimal point for book deals. Well, I don’t know if this has been published as lunch, but Wonderland friend Stephen Hunt has sent a bird up to the treehouse with this “major deal” news:

PRESS RELEASE

14 December 2007: London and New York.

HarperColins sells US rights in Stephen Hunt’s fantasy novels to Tor Books in major two-book deal

Airlie Lawson and Tara Hiatt, Rights Directors at HarperCollins in London, have confirmed a major two-book deal with Claire Eddy of Tor Books in New York, to publish THE COURT OF THE AIR by Stephen Hunt, and his follow-up fantasy novel, THE KINGDOM BEYOND THE WAVES.



HarperCollins Voyager acquired World rights in three novels from literary agent John Jarrold, and have already sold German, French, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese rights, and are presently pursuing interest in a number of other markets.

‘I’m delighted,’ said John Jarrold. ‘I’ve known the guys at Tor for over twenty years, and they have a wonderful reputation. I don’t think Stephen could be in better hands in the US. Congratulations to him, HarperCollins and Claire!’

Stephen Hunt’s The Court of the Air was the lead title for 2007 of HarperCollins’ genre imprint, Voyager, and was published in the same week as HarperCollins other main fantasy novel of the year, The Children of Húrin (JRR Tolkien & Christopher Tolkien).

HarperCollins acquired the Court of the Air in 2006 after the company won a fierce auction for the work, seeing off many other major publishers to acquire Hunt’s title.

Fantasy and science fiction author Stephen Hunt is the owner of SF Crowsnest.com, the second most popular sci-fi site on the Internet with close to a million readers a month, clocking up 30 million hits a month. Established in 1991, SFcrowsnest.com is one of – if not – the oldest science fiction and fantasy web sites on the web.

Hunt’s author’s web site can be found at StephenHunt.com.

PRAISE FOR THE COURT OF THE AIR

“An inventive, ambitious work, full of wonders and marvels.” – The Times

“Hunt can take his place alongside such eminent Magratheans as JRR Tolkien, Mervyn Peake and China Mieville. Creating a fully-realised other-world which feels new and different, yet cohesive and believable is half the battle in a fantasy novel, and it is a battle Hunt wins with honours… Hunt’s world is so rich and colourful it keeps you engrossed … It’s a confident audacious novel.” – SFX

“The characters are convincing and colourful, but the real achievement is the setting, a hellish take on Victorian London where grim, steam-driven machines work beside citizens with magical powers. The Court of the Air is aimed at young adults, but the depth and complexity of Hunt’s vision makes it compulsive reading for all ages.” – The Guardian (Emphasis Ours!!)

“Wonderfully assured … Hunt knows what his audience like and gives it to them with a sardonic wit and carefully developed tension” – Time Out

Another young adult fantasy novel takes wing. Congratulations, Stephen — and thank you in advance for what we are sure is going to be an awesome book!!!!

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

Poetry Friday: Because Sylvia Plath Doesn't Make Everyone Think of Advent

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December 14, 2007

4:10 pm

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On Writing, Poetry Friday


Black Rook in Rainy Weather
On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can’t honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then —
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.

– Sylvia Plath

Listen to the precise cadences as the poet reads this seasonal poem and an additional poem, titled November Graveyard. The Poetry People can be found at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

Poetry Friday: Because Sylvia Plath Doesn’t Make Everyone Think of Advent

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December 14, 2007

4:10 pm

12 Comments on Poetry Friday: Because Sylvia Plath Doesn’t Make Everyone Think of Advent

On Writing, Poetry Friday


Black Rook in Rainy Weather
On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can’t honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then —
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.

– Sylvia Plath

Listen to the precise cadences as the poet reads this seasonal poem and an additional poem, titled November Graveyard. The Poetry People can be found at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

A Bit of Sci-Fi/Fantasy news

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December 13, 2007

11:54 am

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On Writing, Random Notes and Errata

The political spectrum lately is filled with people espousing beliefs — Whatever your creed or position, you’ve got to love Robert Heinlen’s piece on Our Noble, Essential Decency. Since we were just speaking of Heinlen, I thought I’d share this with you. It’s a lovely thing to hear read aloud.(Via Locus Online.)

Colleen’s pulling out all the stops with her 12 Days of Christmas booklists at Chasing Ray. Don’t miss her Cabinet of Wonders at Bookslut (in training) where she reviews Indigara by Tanith Lee and Click, the collaborative novel that begins with a camera, Kristen Miller’s Kiki Strike: The Empress’ Tomb, and of course the awesome-super-fabulous Diary of a Part-Time Indian by the one and only Mr. Alexie.

Speaking of Sherman Alexie, Liz has challenged us to find more good reads for guys. Visit her post and leave a title in the comments. There IS good YA out there for the menfolk, despite what snarkers say.

Via SciFi SignalDarling Wesley is back — according to Amazon’s gamers blog, there’s a Princess Bride GAME coming out. Can that movie actually be TWENTY years old?! Unbelievable. (NO, I did not say ‘Inconceivable.’ That would have been really annoying of me.) There’s even a game trailer.

Also via SciFi Signal, a really intriguing round table discussion on people of color in fantasy literature at Fantasy Magazine. Authors, grad students, publishers and readers of varying hues discuss what they hate, what they love, and what they’d like to see more. I found some really interesting sideline discussions of writing colorblind, as well as a definition of default writing, where one doesn’t talk about race, but then the reader assumes that the character is from the dominant culture. This is an ongoing conversation, which will reconvene next Wednesday. Join in and have your say.

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

Notes from All Over

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December 11, 2007

9:13 pm

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On Writing, Random Notes and Errata

Okay, first it was Steve Martin with the alphabet book, and now it’s a mole? What is it these days with children’s books and poo?

Wow. I guess if Dumbledore can have a backstory, so can Paddington. He’s apparently been outed as an illegal alien. If he could be legally held for that, imagine what someone could do to Tigger!

Via Cynsations,, the Virginia Friends School is calling for nominations for their Friends Medallion Award. Books which represent the concepts of simplicity, cooperation, harmony and community and the theme of friendship are eligible. Details here.

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

small change

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December 10, 2007

2:56 pm

3 Comments on small change

Musings on Extemporanea

I have to admit that I am… well, sometimes I fail the English major challenge. I hate some classics. Just HATE them. Ethan Fromme: Edith Wharton unmedicated, and sadly in need. Tess of the d’Urbervilles: Thomas Hardy’s cross-dressing fetishes unleashed. Little Women — well, I can’t even formulate a pithy single-sentence indictment of that disaster. Suffice it to say I hated all of them, even as a little girl who was given those books to read as the only type of fiction that was presentable, because it was litt’riture. With that specter before me I have no idea why I became and English major. Anyway, all this is to say some idiot is making things worse… Now we have Wuthering Heights: in manga. Obviously, Heathcliff and chibi Cathy are the puce icing on the nauseas cake.

Strange drift lately… read two stories on two different science fiction ezine pages, and ended up following links to two different literary erotica websites. What’s that about? Probably because my brain’s attuned to A.I. nowadays, thanks to D.’s researching that direction… gotta admit, I hope University of Maastricht, the school that alleges robot sex will be happening soon isn’t on his list of schools to check out. Sometimes, philosophy seems full of pointless questions — but this!!? The guy says the minute someone in Cosmo says “I had sex with a robot,” everyone will jump on the bandwagon. Right

Christmas this year is a scab to be picked. If I can’t have home, I don’t want anything. And I can’t have home: it’s too expensive, and anyway, nothing has changed there, and there really isn’t any point. (You can be brainwashed with holiday hype tripe in any country. If you find one where you can’t, take me with you.) And people keep asking what they can send, our Anglophilic friends enviously thinking of us at evensongs and rounds of holiday parties presided over by hearty, pink-cheeked Wenceslas lookalikes. And I stand on floor five of our fourth floor flat, looking down from the windows, wondering if I cut myself and bled on the passers-by, they would look up. Merriment and joy to all, of course. I hate this city. I hate cities in general, but this one is frozen filth.

I think the worst thing about being here, away from the me that was, is that I thought I’d grown up. House: check. Car: check. Life:…check. So, I thought it would be an adventure to go away and be elsewhere, and surely everyone else thinks its an adventure; that’s all I hear is “aren’t you so lucky.” Problem is, wherever you go, there you are. You try and do what you want, give up on all the boundaries you’ve placed and just let yourself be, but all you do is end up eating your bodyweight in Cheetos or something, and wake up lying on the floor in a squalid house with your hair sticking to your face. The need to regress implicitly tangles with the yearning to evolve — leaving one stuck in the middle where we stay. It is astounding how all of our houses of cards crash when we get down to the gears and metal of ourselves. No illusions: we hate ourselves. We hate the world. And it isn’t even winter yet.

I see why there are more places to drink here than there are grocery stores.

It’s clear today, though. And the sunset — at 3:39 p.m. — is tinged with silent peach.

EDIT: 12/12 – Again — the robot sex. WHAT. IS. UP. WITH. THAT.

Monday, Monday

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December 10, 2007

10:48 am

8 Comments on Monday, Monday

On Writing, Random Notes and Errata

A rare, gorgeously clear day brings us to the treehouse, a bit cold, but optimistic. Saints & Spinners wants to know which A.A. Milne character you are. I’m pretty sure personality-wise most people tend to hang between Eeyore or Owl, but my favorite character is the unsung Roo. However, I think most adults will end up being Kanga, won’t they? I mean, who would admit to being an unstrung manic like Tigger?!

I’m feeling a bit cranky about the L.A. Times article by staff writer Scott Timberg that derides Robert Heinlen as being a has-been and his work as not being anything classic to stand the test of time. “‘When an emerging science-fiction writer’s work earns him comparisons to Robert A. Heinlein,” Dave Itzkoff begins a 2006 New York Times review, “should he take them as a compliment?'” OUCH. I disagree — if I, as a YA writer had a YA science fiction novel compared to Heinlen, I would be beyond pleased. I love his books, and reading about tough, wary, narrow-eyed young people who, with steely determination, go out and take on the perils of the universe. Admittedly, I haven’t read that much of his adult fiction but Have Spacesuit– Will Travel is like the best combination of a frontier space western novel, ever. As a writer, I look at his work and see archetypes and the Hero’s quest written in all kinds of interesting ways. It’s a good exercise to mimic his style, for those who want to write adventures. No matter what anyone says, I can’t imagine that his YA novels, anyway, will ever really be unpopular (as long as no one else makes movies out of them — When I realized Starship Troopers was based on a novel of his? It just proved my point about YA novels and movies. BAD).

Cluck Roosterman is guest blogging at Bottom Shelf Books — promoting Punk Farm’s latest gig, their fundraising raffle. For only five bucks, you can buy in to a raffle to maybe win a painting of your favorite Punk Farm rocker. The money raised is going to the Central Massachusetts Arts Assembly, and to cover a few band expenses (band stuff — you know, instrument tuning, etc.). Check out the portraiture — punk rockers don’t sit still for their portraits, man. They make MUSIC. More awesomeness for a good cause.

Via Bookshelves of Doom, probably the most inappropriate YA book of all time is being celebrated by Jezebel, and with it the bygone YA literary trope of The Parent That Had to Die. (Remember them?) Ah, the 8O’s. One ten year span, one thousand percent awful…



All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

Double Barreled Doris Lessing

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December 8, 2007

12:22 am

5 Comments on Double Barreled Doris Lessing

On Writing, Random Notes and Errata

“As I talk to them, the school in the blowing dust of north-west Zimbabwe is in my mind, and I look at the mildly expectant English faces in front of me and try to tell them about what I have seen in the last week. Classrooms without books, without textbooks, or an atlas, or even a map pinned to a wall. A school where the teachers beg to be sent books to tell them how to teach, they being only 18 or 19 themselves. I tell these English boys how everybody begs for books: “Please send us books.” But there are no images in their minds to match what I am telling them: of a school standing in dust clouds, where water is short, and where the end-of-term treat is a just-killed goat cooked in a great pot.

Is it really so impossible for these privileged students to imagine such bare poverty?

I do my best. They are polite.

I’m sure that some of them will one day win prizes.

Then the talk is over. Afterwards I ask the teachers how the library is, and if the pupils read. In this privileged school, I hear what I always hear when I go to such schools and even universities. “You know how it is,” one of the teachers says. “A lot of the boys have never read at all, and the library is only half used.”

Yes, indeed we do know how it is. All of us.”

Society has no idea what it means to have a hunger for books. The Literature Nobel Winner is eighty-eight and speaks her mind during her acceptance speech. Read It.

“Have you found a space, that empty space, which should surround you when you write? Into that space, which is like a form of listening, of attention, will come the words, the words your characters will speak, ideas – inspiration.” If a writer cannot find this space, then poems and stories may be stillborn. When writers talk to each other, what they discuss is always to do with this imaginative space, this other time. “Have you found it? Are you holding it fast?”

Are you?

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.