5 min read Newsletter

Appearances! Chaos Terminal sales! News!

Chaos Terminal is out!

Hey, Happy Thanksgiving to those of you celebrating, travel safe if it’s needed, or stay home and cozy if that applies.

It’s been a wild month, with some personal things demanding time and travel, and book events at the Carolina Ren Faire and at Fountain Bookstore in Richmond. And of course the launch event at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill!

By the way, you can support small book stores AND get signed copies from Fountain and Flyleaf!

Response to the book has been great, which thrills me. You never know how book 2 in a series is going to do, so I was a little worried.

I had lots of fun on some interviews last month, you can hear me get interviewed by Beyond the Trope podcast, Kameron Hurley’s Get To Work Hurley podcast, the Hugo-finalist team at Worldbuilding for Masochists, and I will soon appear on the Fictitious podcast. And I’ll post more as I get them!

Fun stuff at home

The dishwasher broke. And yes, if you’re in the USA you’re probably wincing right now, because Thanksgiving is two days away and we are hosting a small get together. I wish we could use elbow grease and hard work and get the new dishwasher in, but no, it’ll be delivered Friday. I am honestly afraid that I will be giving everyone the side-eye on Thanksgiving and saying, “Do you really need a new pot/glass/plate for that? Let’s just cook the potatoes under the turkey and the stuffing in the turkey, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Sundries

Rosa is doing fine. Still likes taking over the yoga mat in the mornings.

photo of black and white dog lying on her side on a yoga mat
Excuse me, miss. I was using that…

Speaking of yoga, I’m still doing the Apple Fitness+ workouts, and find most of them are scalable to different abilities. But this. Come ON.

Screen shot of Apple Fitness+ with a yoga instructor doing a complicated pose on his hands with one knee on his elbow and one leg outstretched.
This, I believe, is one legged crow. I can’t do regular crow. I can barely do the modification “hen.’

Appearances!

Next year is proving to be a busy one for me. I’ve been invited to be Guest of Honor at two conventions, and I have been invited to appear on the JoCo Cruise, something I’ve wanted to do for years. Here is my schedule as I know it.

  • Feb 9-11: Boskone (tentative) in Boston, MA
  • Feb 23-25: Guest of Honor at Fencon in Dallas, TX
  • March 9-16: JoCo Cruise
  • July 18-21: NASFiC*, Buffalo, NY
  • August 8-12: Worldcon*, Glasgow, Scotland
  • August 23-25: Guest of Honor, Bubonicon in Albuquerque, NM

*unsure if I’ll be on programming, but I’ll definitely be attending

Seriously, you guys, this is more conventioning than I’ve done in a long time, even pre-pandemic. I’m so excited.

Book 3 of Midsolar Murders!

I turned in a rough draft a few weeks ago, and it’s been given the rather awesome** title of INFINITE ARCHIVE. Tentative release date will be next fall (in about a year), provided I can get it cleaned up.

** my publisher’s marketing team named it, so I can praise it all I want. Of the three books, it’s the most descriptive title.

I’ll talk about what it’s about later, once I’m confident my publisher doesn’t want me to, I don’t know, change the core concept of the book or anything.

Pst. Hey. Want to be first to see the cover art when I am free to release?

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That will make the end of my 3 book contract with Ace, and I spoke with my editor about possible future titles. I am sending my agent three hunks*** of fiction and we’re going to talk about which one to polish for sale. They’re three very different books, one SF, one fantasy, and one, uh, contemporary fantasy that’s pretty weird, I guess is how you can define it. I love the Midsolar Murders series but writing something new has me quite excited. I’m definitely not ready to talk about any of them now, but will when I get something going.

***a hunk is about 10000 words of fiction—not a novelette, but part of a longer title. This is an industry standard term and not one I use off the top of my head and then try to justify.

Podcasty Goodness

I have tried to do a daily podcast to support my NaNoWriMo folks, as you have seen. But November has proven to be too much for me, and while I’m writing (not going to hit the 50k) I’m podcasting when I can. But if you’re partaking, I’m will simply quote Gwiffin’s gwisdoms.

I'm rooting for you - I'm hoping for good things, or for the strength to make it through
I'm proud of you, I am more proud of you than you could ever know
Take some self care of yourself
Stay safe, stay kind

“gwiffin's prerecorded gwisdoms no. 1” by The Garages

(That’s me rooting for you. Conversely Evil Mur thinks “self care” means “quit because it’s too hard and you deserve cheese-its on the couch.”)

I am considering doing a bookish adventy video thing for December, recommending various authors, and books. Stay tuned.

Consuming!

I need to wrap this up soon, but I’ll go into more detail next time. But I’m playing Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dredge, I’m reading a few ARCs and a Christmas romance I’m not sure if I’m enjoying or not, and I’m watching Fall of the House of Usher, Devil’s Plan, and we just started A Murder at the End of the World.

BUT one of my favorite streamers will be playing one of my favorite games this Thanksgiving. The Painting Pirate is a US-dwelling Brit who does mini painting and streams a variety of games. He has never played The Return of the Obra Dinn. He’s streaming his first playthrough this Thursday and Friday at 11am EST, and I’m so there for this. Pirate is an entertaining streamer, and this is a seriously weird and engrossing game. If you’re looking for an escape from family, some online company, or just want to see this amazing game being played for the first time, then I urge you to tune in. I’ll be in the chat, but sitting on my hands so I don’t backseat.

Return of the Obra Dinn is a game where you play an insurance adjustor with a magic watch — yes, I know, stay with me — and a ship previously thought lost is discovered. Your job is to go aboard and try to figure out what happened to everyone on board. Your magic stopwatch allows you to, upon finding someone’s remains, look back in time at their precise moment of death. You get an image that you can walk around and see in 3D, but there’s no action and no You must identify them, their name, and the way they died.

Screen shot of game with an illustration of a white man dressed as a sailor, with the information "This unknown soul was shot with a gun by an unknown attacker"
Def not Mrs. White killed by Mr. Green with a candlestick.

It’s like Clue but at sea and weird and violent. The game is in a sepia tone so even if there are violent or bloody scenes, you manage to stay distant from it. So check out Pirate’s stream if you’re bored in the next two days, or get the game and play it yourself!

Evergreen stuff

Mur Lafferty

Mur Lafferty