The Hot Mic - Station Eternity is Out! - Issue #20

Wow, what a month. First, we did my live audio drama, Station Eternity LIVE which was a fantastic experience. More on that below. Soon after that, the book launched! It was a weird feeling. It's been in progress for so long that I was utterly exhausted by the time we were done. I'm so grateful to Ace for doing such a great job on the production of the book, and so grateful for everyone who preordered or gave it a chance early on. Moving forward, I'm looking at recovery, enjoying fall, and going on a short honest to god vacation. Which requires travel, which is still scary for me.

PSA: I hear only 4% of adults in the US got the latest booster shot. And some don't even know it's here. So: Yes there's an Omicron booster shot, and it's available now. The pandemic isn't over, if you had Covid before you can get it again, and while the latest strain isn't putting as many people in the hospital or in coffins, long covid is still a risk. Get your shot if you can.

Bleh. Covid's a mood killer. But it's killed a lot of other things too, so I wanted to do my part to spread the word about the vaccine. Now, to the rest of the newsletter!

Station Eternity Launch!

Some friends and I got together to do a live audio drama of some of Station Eternity! You can watch the whole thing on youtube.

It definitely got me thinking about doing more audio dramas. With all that free time I have...

And then the book itself launched! I had a great time at Flyleaf Books for the launch, and signed a bunch of copies! You can still order signed copies and have them shipped to you! All the links to order are at the page below.

Station Eternity | The Murverse Mothership — murverse.com OUT NOW! Starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and one of the top ten books of October chosen by Library Reads Amateur detective Mallory Viridian’s talent for solving murders ruined her life on Earth and drove her to live on an alien space station, but her problems still follow her in this witty, self-aware novel […]

Upcoming Twitch Schedule

Here’s what going on in October:

• Oct 17 - Ditch Diggers with Ursula Vernon
• Oct 18 - 3:00 PM I Should Be Writing
• Oct 19 - 3:00 PM Gaming (Wandering Village?)
• Oct 20 - 3:00 PM I Should Be Writing

Podcast/writing streams appear live at twitch.tv/mightymur, then later in the podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts.

Reading and Playing

I just finished the engrossing Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji (translated by Ho-Ling Wong), a famous Japanese honkaku book, which is their specific murder mystery genre. It takes heavily (and mentions it) from And Then There Were None, trying to trap a bunch of people on an island where four people were murdered the year before, and kill them off one by one. It was a bit dry and boy did it take a long time to get to the first murder, but once bodies started dropping it was fascinating. The book goes between the seven mystery club members college students who are exploring the island to the two club members who didn't go with them. The other two are on the mainland trying to figure out what happened to the people murdered on the island the year before, and their connection with a dead friend of theirs. So there's old death and new death! It has everything!

Interesting gender notes: There are two women on the island, but at the beginning it is very obvious, as the killer does his planning narrative, that the murderer is male. So that cuts out two suspects in the beginning, which feels sloppy. Secondly, the main POV character on the mainland, Kawaminami, is male in the novel, but when the book was released in manga form, they turned him into a woman. Which I appreciated, since the other two women were the cookie cutter, "I am pretty and all the men love me," and "I am mousy and no man will ever notice me" types. Manga Kawaminami is at least a character with more motivation than lip color or hating herself.

Guess which one is the sexy one below:

I have another theory about why they made him into a woman for the manga, but the fifth book hasn't come out yet, so I will have to wait and see if I'm right.

Anyway, Decagon House Murders. Definitely had me guessing.

~~

The only new game I'm playing now is Pomofarm, which is a cute farming game built around the pomodoro method. Plant some seeds, the plants grow while you work, and on your break you can harvest, sell, and buy more seeds. It's a bit more robust and less "kill all the plants if you mess up" than Forest is, which I appreciate. And the crop varieties are wild: we start with tomatoes and onions but can unlock bird houses and snowmen. It's a cheap, fun Steam game that helps you stay focused.

Minor annoyance: the economics are quite broken and it's possible to gain vast wealth in one season. Their fix is that at the end of each season, you trade in everything: plants, seeds, and your money (which are peas), for snails, the second currency you can use to upgrade.

News / Opportunities / Podcasts

GET TO WORK HURLEY: Episode 24. With Guest Mur Lafferty! - Kameron Hurley — www.kameronhurley.com The GET TO WORK HURLEY podcast is a monthly rant about the hustle of making a living as a writer of All of the Things. You can support this podcast each month as a Patron or make a one-time donation. EPISODE TWENTY FOUR: Mur Lafferty joins us to discuss her new book STATION ETERNITY (out Oct. 4th via ACE Books). … GET TO WORK HURLEY: Episode 24. With Guest Mur Lafferty! Read More » https://www.kameronhurley.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Sept-Pod-Audio.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Ditch Diggers| Matt and Mur Talk Short Story Markets — murverse.com It's Post-WorldCon and Mur and Matt have stuff to talk about regarding short stories and short story markets. (podcast)

Ditch Diggers | Kameron Hurley and Mur Ask Why We Do This — murverse.com Kameron and Mur aren't bitter at all. But we do mention Nick Mamatas' Starve Better. Podcast.

Thanks!

Thanks for reading, or forwarding to a friend, or commenting, or reviewing my podcasts or books, or supporting, or just listening. I appreciate you.

You can support me on Patreon, Jemi, or just buy me a Ko-fi. That helps support my many creative projects.

Just want to catch the podcasts? For I Should Be Writing, you can subscribe on iTune or take this RSS feed and plug it into your preferred player. You can find Ditch Diggers here: iTunes, RSS, and Spreaker.

Or just search I Should Be Writing, Ditch Diggers, or Mur Lafferty on any podcast site.

Podcast credits: ISBW production by Summer Brooks, ISBW theme song by John Anealio, DD theme song by Devo Spice, art by Numbersninja, site design by Clockpunk Studio and hosted by Libsyn.

This newsletter is BY-NC-ND 4.0 Creative Commons licensed.

See you next week time!