Babel Clash

Morgan, thank you so much for inviting me, and Claudia for joining me! It’s been heaps of fun, and I hope entertaining for all of you out there. If you’re interested in hearing more, follow me on twitter and on livejournal for updates! ♥

In addition to the beautiful Temeraire omnibus that is out now, and Tongues of Serpents, which will be coming out July 13, I am currently finishing up an incredibly fun manga project with the super-talented Yishan Li: Liberty Vocational, about the adventures of the somewhat-hapless Leah Taymore, a new student at a vocational school for superheroes.

It has been very much a learning experience, writing a graphic novel — the hardest part is trying not to pile ten times the possible story into each frame, leaving room for the art to breathe and tell the story with you.

I also have another project in the works, a YA trilogy loosely inspired by the Secret Garden, which I’ll be starting work on this February; I don’t have a date on that one yet, but am wildly excited about the concept.

I currently also have several other short stories out and forthcoming besides Araminta and Purity Test: Vici, in The Dragon Book (I recommend checking out the very spiffy UK publisher’s site, which is full of fantastic content and among other things a video of me reading the first part of the story), is set in the Temeraire universe and is the story of the taming of the first dragon in Western Europe, featuring a rather well known historical figure. *g*

I’m also very proud of Seven Years From Home, in the upcoming anthology Warriors also from Gardner Dozois, with George R. R. Martin, which will be out in March 2010, and further out, the story Priced To Sell in Ellen Datlow’s Naked City anthology coming in winter 2011, for which I don’t have a link yet but which is full of new stories of urban fantasy.

And for Temeraire fans, I am happy to report we have a new deal with Del Rey for three more books in the series, which will bring it to a close — I have felt for a while that it seemed like there were going to be nine volumes total, and while writing Tongues of Serpents, the general outline of seven through nine fell into my head, which was v exciting. (This happened at a cafe in Sydney while doing research, which was especially lovely. Am especially excited about the Incas. \o/ )

Thank you all again!

Naomi and Claudia, we still have a day or so to wrap up.  Thank you for the conversation.  It’s been fun.  Before you go, please share a little bit about your latest book or project.

Also, what would you say to those readers who’ve not read your work before?  What can they expect from your stories?

Did you know there’s a legend that the Titanic sank because there was a cursed mummy on board?  In reality: No mummy.  But still, you’d think someone would write that, wouldn’t you?  But mummies wait, forlorn, wrapped and forgotten, for their turn in the sun.   I take your point that mummies are not the easiest paranormal creature to situate in whatever location you choose — they tend not to show up much beyond their native lands or large museums — but even Titanic films and books have left them out.  Just sad.  (And I plead guilty too: I’ve got an as-yet-untitled Titanic-themed YA novel coming out from HarperTeen in late 2011, and there, also, mummies will be cruelly ignored.)

That was indeed the challenge: Asking how certain events would change history — and concentrating on smaller changes, like the sinking of the Titanic, which for all its fame was in the end just a very large cruise ship, and not even the sinking with the greatest number of fatalities.  There are already many books asking how bigger changes might have affected history, if, say, the Nazis won WWII (Fatherland), or if the South had won the U.S. Civil War, with help from time-traveling South African white supremacists, no less (Guns of the South).

Though of course, your books take that to a whole new level, don’t they?  How do you even begin reimagining something as vast as the Napoleonic Wars, with a change as huge — and off the beaten path — as the addition of dragons?  If I remember correctly, you began with the more general idea of the Age of Sail, but the Temeraire series ultimately deals with, and affects, that history far more intricate and political way.   When did you realize how wide-ranging the changes would be for your history — and how far back have you imagined the intersection of dragons and mankind in your universe?

The problem with mummies is the name, I think. It’s too mmm-y for the proper horror effect. We need a new name for what mummies are, and then there can be no barrier to their domination of the publishing airwaves. I am thinking of something along the lines of “Encrypted” which has the extra-special benefit that if someone didn’t like the initial proposal, it would be easy to turn it around on the spot. “What? You thought I meant embalmed corpses and action-adventure? No, no! It’s a sophisticated high-tech thriller instead!” With “mummies” your only plausible alternative is, “…would you like a turn-of-the-twentieth-century British childrens story instead…?”

Claudia and I were also talking this weekend about challenges — we know each other from fanfic land, where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a nifty story challenge going on — and came up with a really excellent original-fiction challenge, which we now can’t remember, except I *think* it might have been something about how history/technology would have developed differently if the Titanic and the Hindenberg disasters had never happened, which is an invitation to all sorts of fabulous steampunky alterations.

This was inspired by a visit to the Titanic exhibition at the Discovery center in NYC, which apart from some really nice room re-creations and a miniature iceberg also had the impressively gluttonous menus from the first-class dining cabin, and the information that a first-class cabin cost the equivalent of $40,000 in today’s currency. O________O (On the other hand, it got your odds of survival up over 50%, better than that if you were a woman.)

– and discover that it used to be an S&M club in lower Manhattan — wait, no, that was Naomi Novik and I last Saturday night.  Naomi has kindly invited me to visit the blog and ramble back and forth with her over the next couple of days, but first I ought to introduce myself.   I’m Claudia Gray, the author of the EVERNIGHT series from HarperTeen, which so far includes the books EVERNIGHT, STARGAZER and (coming March 9) HOURGLASS.

My personal vote for most-overlooked-genre creature right now: Mummies.  If you ask me, mummies are at least as good as the currently hot zombies: They’re both undead, they both tend to shuffle a lot, they’re both extremely set on killing you.  But mummies are a lot sexier, right?  They have tombs in exotic places, filled with gemstones and statuary.  They have death masks of gold, scimitars, jewelry and other priceless, cursed bling.  They’re better preserved than your average zombie (at least, after the first couple of days), and also often have the power of illusion to make themselves young and hot again, whereas it’s hard to get turned on by a drooling, gray-fleshed zombie, where any clinch would probably result in some body part being snapped off.

Granted, you can write about swarms of zombies, and mummy media suggest that those guys are mostly loners.  Maybe one undead shuffling thing seems naturally less scary than hordes of undead shuffling things.  However, mummies can usually summon all sorts of things to do their bidding, from scarabs to jackals to mysterious bluish winds that suck the life out of people.  Mummies bring it all.   But where is “The Mummy Diaries” on the CW?  Naomi, how long can this prejudice against mummies last?

Oh, ninjas!!

I was just having almost this same conversation with my husband (mystery writer extraordinaire Charles Ardai). There is little I adore more than a good cliche reinterpreted fresh — I love what Sharon Shinn has done with angels in the Samaria books, I was just re-reading those the other day — and my contender for the “next” one was unicorns. I feel they are ripe for re-imagining. It would be a challenge because of the potential for twee, but come on — unicorns!

– NO, WAIT.

I HAVE IT.

NINJAS ON UNICORNS.

It will be my next proposal.

Actually, I will totally take this opportunity to pimp a forthcoming anthology of great awesome, Zombies vs. Unicorns, edited by Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black, in which I decidedly come down on the side of unicorns. Here’s a quick taste!

Purity Test

“Oh, stop whining,” the unicorn said. “I didn’t poke you that hard.”

“Excuse me, I have a hangover, I think I’m bleeding, and I’m seeing unicorns,” Alison said, rubbing her shoulder. “I have grounds.”

She groggily swung her legs over the side and sat up the rest of the way on the park bench. It was still dark, except for the big old wrought-iron street lamp down the path that was stabbing at her eyes. Alison was really not ready to be awake again. Blowing the last of her money on a fake ID from Times Square and two six-packs of supermarket beer instead of a bus ticket back to the group home had seemed like a good idea at the time. She wasn’t even completely ready to give up on it yet, although the unicorn was making a pretty good case.

The unicorn was extremely pretty, all long flowy silver hair and shiny hooves, indescribable grace, and a massive and improbable spiraling horn about four feet long. Also, it looked kind of annoyed.

“Why a unicorn?” Alison wondered at her subconscious. “I mean, dragons are so much cooler.”

“Excuse me?” the unicorn said indignantly. “Unicorns kill dragons all the time.”

“Really?” she said skeptically.

The unicorn pawed the ground a little with a forehoof. “Okay, usually only when they’re still small. But Zanzibar the Magnificent did kill Galphagor the Black in 1014.”

Zombies vs. Unicorns will come out in September 2010.

And speaking of awesome cliches done fresh, tomorrow (or possibly the day after depending on technical issues), I will soon be joined on here by my good friend the fabulous Claudia Gray, author of the Evernight series — vampires and boarding school! It is heaps of fun! — to ramble back and forth with me for a bit.

This plan was hatched on her recently completed visit to NYC, as a result of which we spent last Saturday night in an S&M dungeon — okay, FINE, 675 Bar is actually a trendy NYC joint now, but I have it on excellent authority that it until recently was an S&M dungeon, and it looks the part, barring the incongruous new foosball table. (Unless the foosball table is actually standard issue for S&M dungeons? Actually, there’s that bit in the (strange and creepy and oddly brilliant) movie of The Revenger’s Tragedy where Eddie Izzard and Christopher Eccleston are randomly playing foosball in a sort of S&M-y post-apocalyptic universe, so maybe!)

I’m glad to see your post about pirates and the anthology.  When it comes to archetypal fantasy characters, pirates are not represented much anymore.  We see far more knights, barbarians, wizards, thieves and assassins than we do pirates.  I wonder why that is.

What other fantasy archetypes are underappreciated in today’s novels?  My vote is for ninjas.

Back to pirates, one book that features them that I’m eager to read is Tim Power’s On Stranger Tides.  From all I’ve heard about it, it’s outstanding, but I haven’t had any luck tracking down a copy.

As promised!

Araminta, or The Wreck of the Amphidrake (8200 words)

Lady Araminta was seen off from the docks at Chenstowe-on-Sea with great ceremony if not much affection by her assembled family. She departed in the company of not one but two maids, a hired eunuch swordsman, and an experienced professional chaperone with the Eye of Horus branded upon her forehead, to keep watch at night while the other two were closed.

Sad to say these precautions were not entirely unnecessary. Lady Araminta—the possessor of several other, more notable names besides, here omitted for discretion—had been caught twice trying to climb out her window, and once in her father’s library, reading a spellbook. On this last occasion she had fortunately been discovered by the butler, a reliable servant of fifteen years, so the matter was hushed up; but it had decided her fate.

(Read more!)

This story was originally published in Jeff and Ann VanderMeer’s fantastic pirate anthology Fast Ships, Black Sails, which is well worth picking up, with heaps of fabulous fantastical and science-fictional pirate stories.

And it fits nicely into the conversation, because this is an example of my using a historical voice and details for flavor, but signaling as wildly as I can from the beginning that this is significantly more a fantastical than a historical universe, unlike Temeraire.

So give it a read, let me know what you think, and more tomorrow!

Before diving into some questions, I wish to report that it is perilously easy to lose track of time playing Dragon Age: Origins.

Laura asks: (easy question first!)
When is the audiobook of Tongues of Serpents due out?

I can’t guarantee this, but if I recall correctly, my publisher has gotten the audiobook out at least in digital form pretty much at the same time as the print publication, so sometime right around July 13 is when I would expect it to show up!

Alaron asks:
I love reading your stories and identifying modern aerial tactics with the actions of the dragons (fighter aircraft vs. bomber aircraft, for example, or using helicopters for rapid troop deployment). I’m curious: how much tactical research do you do in advance?

The truth is, I don’t do much research into aerial tactics specifically. Generally what I do is research the historical tactics of the period and the particular nation or culture, and then try and make up aerial tactics that I feel carry on those tactics into the air, to preserve the period feeling. I think that’s generally better in the case of my books because of course, dragons are living, flesh-and-bone creatures, who can’t work like these newfangled flying machines of ours *g*, and so try and keep the tactics closer in spirit to infantry tactics of the era — trying to think about physical and also psychological/instinctual limitations that feel as though they would make evolutionary sense for creatures like dragons (I have cobbled a bunch of inspiration out of dinosaur research).

Erika mentions:
Language is hard enough as it is, but inventing slang and cadence that removes us from our world at the same time it invites us into the new is difficult.

This is a great description of another important function of language in fantasy fiction, signaling how far we are from our own world. <3

I am always wary of invented words and slang. The huge problem with them is, you know, as a writer, you’re not inventing an entire language to tell your story in, not even if you’re Tolkien, so as a reader, I don’t experience your carefully devised slang word integrated into the whole of some mysterious different language that has lots of different rhythms. Rather, I’m bopping along enjoying this story in my native language, and all of a sudden you hit me with a word that doesn’t fit, and I think nine times out of ten, rather than making the world seem richer, it only breaks the mood. But using period or stylized language can serve to break the reader’s natural expectation that they will recognize and understand every word you use, and make those invented words both feel more natural and also achieve their effect.

And so to bed. Tomorrow, Araminta goes up, and I will ramble about it a bit, as well as some other nifty projects I am working on!

So I am happy to report, I have defeated the OpenOffice bug (if anyone is wondering, turns out you get stuck in an infinite loop if you try and globally search and replace $ to add newlines between paragraphs! you have to add in a few extra characters to the search to get around it — watches entire audience of Babel Clash keel over and die from lack of interest) and Araminta will be going up on Monday. \o/ (Yes, I am selfishly postponing sharing it until after the weekend doldrums.)

Today I had the adventure of seeing Midsummer Night’s Dream at the NYC Ballet, which turned out to be surprising fun. (I say surprising because my general attitude towards ballet is the same as my feeling about fugu: I don’t object, because why shouldn’t everyone have their own fun, but I am forced to repress the urge to say “really?” a lot.)

But this is my second time at the ballet in the last few years due to having a mother who is a passionate fan and also difficult to find really good birthday presents for otherwise, and both were great. (Admittedly, the first was seeing the Kirov, which is like watching The Godfather and saying “Okay, I guess these ‘moving pictures’ aren’t too bad.”) The first act was beautifully theatrical and fantastical, with a very sparkly Oberon and a very bouncy Puck, and spectacular costumes and lighting. I realize this sounds like I am reaching, but no, it was actually brilliant how well they made it obvious it was which dancers were fairies and which were humans. Also, the farce of MNsD, which is often too heavy-handed for me in the play, turns out to be adorable without words.

Of course, then we got to the thankfully shorter second act, and I discovered (I did not know this!) that Mendelssohn’s Wedding March (you know, THAT ONE) was apparently written for MNsD. As it played and played and played and a lot of people dressed all in pastel pink did classical ballet in front of equally pastel lavender and pink backdrops and I failed to tell anyone apart and my eyes began to boil in my skull from the sheer pressure of boredom. (I might be exaggerating a bit.)

But then the fairies showed up again and it all ended in sparkles after all, which I think makes an excellent piece of advice for anyone whose story gets bogged down, along the lines of “send in the clowns.” (One of my betas likes to say, when inspiration fails, set something on fire; this substantially influenced the opening of Black Powder War.)

Morgan’s question:

What do you find to be the biggest advantage of using historical places over ones entirely fictional? Also, if you choose to use a historical location, do you feel compelled to achieve a level of authenticity?

One advantage of using a historical background when writing something with a realistic flavor is of course that historical sites and events carry their own reality with them — you don’t have to invent something plausible, you can look it up. But to my mind, the biggest advantage is that history brings constraints. There’s an enormous temptation as a fantasy writer to think you can do whatever you want — you’re making it all up! — and theoretically you can, of course, but that way lies the shattered and smoking wreckage of your reader’s suspension of disbelief.

It’s not so much that you can’t ignore historical detail as you can’t simply skip what isn’t convenient — there have to be rules for what you change — and if you want your reader to believe in your universe, you have to create an overall atmosphere of its truth, with realistic language, true description, with accurate reporting of events. If you pay your dues to your readers by getting the things right that don’t have to be different, it makes it easier for your reader to go with you on the things you do really want to change (eg, stuffing dragons into the mix).

And that is a wrap for tonight! Tomorrow I alas will have no NYC adventures to share, so I may hit up some of the unanswered questions from my previous live chat over at Suvudu (with the lovely Scott Westerfeld, whose Leviathan I heartily recommend to you all, speaking of awesome use of historical detail), or hit me with ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.

PS: the automatic conversion of emoticons into giant yellow smiley faces here hurts my soul and is forcing me to become more ornate in lieu of using smileys; it is VERY SAD.