A Girl Can Never have Too Many Book Tokens

[jacey]

Whoo-hoo, my Christmas presents arrived today. I spent the book tokens my Mum gave me.

And now I'm torn... I'm working well at the moment and I don't want to get sidetracked... besides which I've got Demon and the City by mevennen on my bedside table and though I've barely started it I've read enough to know I'm really looking forward to reading the rest.

But these new books are so tempting... and I have been known to read books simultaneously...

So what did I get? Well the big one was 'Miles in Love' the most recent Miles Vorkosigan omnibus by Lois McMaster Bujold. I'm catching up with all her Miles books very belatedly via the omnibus editions, reading in chronological order, and thoroughly enjoying the antics of the little admiral. I didn't expect to like Miles, but it's impossible not to. He sometimes reminds me of my son. If something's impossible, get someone else to do it for you.

And then... True Colors by Karen Traviss, a Star Wars Republic Commando book. Why get so excited about a media tie-in? They're all potboilers aren't they? No they are blooming well not! I admit I might never have bought the first Republic Commando book if I hadn't known Karen from Milford and already trusted her writing, but I'm enormously glad I did. The series was designed to back up the computer game, Hard Contact, set in Lucas' Star Wars Universe around the time of Geonosis (dealt with in the middle one of the new trilogy of movies which goes without saying wasn't a patch on the original trilogy). The protagonists are an elite troop of clone warriors, all with the same face and same voice. Within the first page of the first novel, Karen turns these Star Wars Extruded Products into real characters and makes them entirely her own. Set within the SW framework, but about as far removed from the Luke, Han, Leia story arc as you can get, Karen takes a series of books designed to be read by twelve year old boys and upwards and starts asking hard questions about the ethics of cloning, human rights, and self-determination. And into all that she weaves a cracking good story which has ongoing consequences for all the clone soldiers, destined to age and die quickly when their usefulness as fighting machines is over. It looks like the new book might begin to address that last little problem.

And the third? I confess shameless self interest. It's an anthology which I have a story in, bought and paid for at the end of 2006 but only just published. Mystery Date, edited by Denise Little and published by DAW contains The Urbane Fox, by Jacey Bedford - that's me. It's a story of sewing, romance and shapeshifting. I actually got an invite to submit a story for this. The brief was: a story about a first date where something magical, mysterious or strange happens; word limit: 6,000. While it might not have been my first choice of story matter when the idea was presented, once I got the urban fox/urbane fox idea it just grew. And they say write what you know... I might never have gone running with the foxes but I did used to design and sew for a living. Anyway, it's always great to see yourself on on amazon, even as part of an anthology.

Comments

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Go read Miles! One of my all-time fictional heroes...

[bluehairsue.livejournal.com]

You mean other people DON'T read books simultaneously? I usually have half a dozen or so on the go at once (admittedly not all fiction).

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Oooh! It must be nice to hold a real book and see one's own story in there. I know how thrilled I was each time I got the contributor's copy of the magazine that had published my story. :)

I've just bought The Demon and the City too, but I don't really like reading more than one book at a time and I'm currently reading Harry Potter in Welsh, so it might be a little while before I get to it.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why I resisted Miles for so long. I tried reading the first Cordelia novel several years ago and I got through it, but finished with a take-it-or-leave-it feeling. I guess Aral and Cordelia are not such an exciting couple. Then several years later having read and adored Curse of Chalion (Caz is a wonderful hero - very different from Miles and possibly one of the nicest heroes in SFdom) I thought I'd give those troublesome Vorkosigans another go. I chewed my way through Barrayar... then right at the end... there was that little glimpse of child Miles worming his way into Grandfather Piotr's heart against all odds and... I had to read more.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

It is nice to see yourself in print, but by the time the damn thing comes out, you've all but forgotten about it (and the money's long spent). Of course if that was a novel instead of just a short story, you'd hear the shrieks from over the other side of the Pennines.

That's my 6th short story sale (5 anthologies and 1 magazine) but I'm still waiting for the novel breakthrough.

The most recent short is in Fabulous Whitby, which should be here soon.