In amongst all of the Green Man excitement, I have found time to release a new free short story as part of the Wizard’s Tower Lockdown Reading collection. This one is The Data Class by Ben Jeapes, a charming little tale of AIs who decide that their working conditions are less than ideal. It was originally published in Interzone, and then in Ben’s collection, Jeapes Japes. If you like this one, why not buy the whole book?
Good morning Juliet McKenna fans. Today is going to be exciting. Yes, The Green Man’s Heir is on the Daily Deal at Amazon today, in the UK. That’s £0.99. To celebrate we have dropped the price of The Green Man’s Foe as well. It is £1.99 in the UK, and we have dropped the price to match for the rest of the world as well.
Upated as Amazon is showing GMH on sale in the USA if you view their website from the UK, but not if you view it from the USA. Very sorry, US readers. But you can still but GMF cheaply. I would have dropped the price of GMH everywhere if I could, but until Amazon goes live you don’t know where they’ll put the book on offer.
Last time this happened, The Green Man’s Heir was #1 in science fiction and fantasy on the day. I’d love to see it back there again, and see the sequel chart as well.
Now I know what you are thinking, you already own both books. Of course you do. But here are a few things that you can do to help Juliet out.
If you don’t own the books on Kindle, buy them. They are really cheap. Think of it as buying Juliet a coffee.
Tweet about them, or post on other social media. Tell your friends how much you enjoyed these books, and that they can get them very cheaply today. Use the hashtag #GreenMan, please.
Also please amplify any social media posts that Juliet and I make, again with the hashtag #GreenMan.
And if you need something to be excited about, head over to Juliet’s website where there is exclusive news of book #3 in the series. I have a draft copy, and I can’t wait to read it.
Finally, don’t forget that you can get a free Einarinn story from the Wizard’s Tower bookstore as part of our Lockdown Reading series. There will be another one released today, though not from Juliet. She’ll be back in a week or two.
As you can tell by the continued flurry of blog posts, life here continues to be very busy. Tomorrow, if all goes to plan, will be a whirlwind. More about that as and when it happens.
I was very pleased with how the radio show went. I suspect that I am one of the few presenters who has the ability to make shows at home. As a result I will be doing another show next week.
One of the things I did today was prepare another free story to go out. That’s something else for you to look out for tomorrow.
I see from the Public Health England website that the infection and death rates in the UK have started to accelerate again over the past couple of days. We are now running at over 500 deaths per day. That’s lower than the USA, but I suspect higher per head of population. This is not going to end well.
I’m seeing an increasing number of posts on Twitter from health service professionals angry at the lack of support they are getting. The more I see of this, the more it reminds me of the huge number of unnecessary deaths in WWI. The UK had more than twice as many military casualties in WWI than in WWII, despite the later conflict being longer, with deadlier weapons, and a much greater geographic spread. Much of that, I understand it, can be put down to incompetence and penny-pinching by government and military command. This isn’t my period of history, so I’m happy to be told I’ve been taken in by popular myth, but many of us who have seen the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth can’t ever forget it. I don’t want us to be having to make things like that about health service workers today.
While I have been busy making books, one of our local writers has been busy making a convention. Anne Corlett has created WiFi SciFi, which will take place on Saturday afternoon over Zoom. It is only a small convention, but it has a great line-up. Gareth Powell, Mike Carey, Tade Thompson and Aliette de Bodard are all involved. And it is free to attend. For more details, go here.
The latest issue of Salon Futura went live last night. Here’s what you can find in it:
Reviews
Other Things
And lo, I can bring it to you, courtesy of Academia Lunare.
Ties That Bind: Love in Fantasy & Science Fiction is the title of the latest collection of academic essays from our very lovely friends in Edinburgh. The book is due to be published on July 28th, but the table of contents has just been released. You can find it here.
You all want to read a paper by me titled, “Robot Love is Queer”, don’t you.
Pre-orders will open in May.
Today on my radio show I interviewed a bunch of people from around the world about how they are coping with the cornavirus pandemic. These days my shows are all pre-recorded as I can’t go into the studio, but Miranda and the back office team at Ujima do a great job of getting me on air. Here’s the list of people that I interviewed:
Of those I think the government of Trinidad has probably come out of it best. Celia’s stories of teaching school kids on line, Sabrina’s need to flee the USA, and Mihaela’s story of the Zagreb earthquake stand out.
I tried to make the music choices fit as best I could with our current circumstances. Here are the songs I played.
The show will be available via our Listen Again service for a few weeks. You can find it here.
As I have a bit of free time on my hands thee days I am planning to do more shows to help keep our listeners entertained over the period of lockdown. If anyone has anything Bristol-related that they want to feature, please let me know.
Today was a day for me to be visible, so I went out.
Well actually that wasn’t the reason. I was starting to run out of fresh food, and today was forecast to be fine weather. If I was going to have to queue to get into a grocery store I didn’t want to have to do so in the rain. So today had to be the day for the expedition.
I decided to try the big Tesco mid-afternoon. I figured it would not be too busy at that time on the Tuesday. Even so there must have been around 100 people in the store. However, it was all very smoothly marshalled. The staff were great, and everyone behaved themselves. This was a great relief after some of the stories I have been seeing on Twitter. And I only had to queue for about 10 minutes to get in.
Also the car started, which was a relief. That meant I was able to buy a lot more that I could carry.
There was plenty of food in the store. Certain things were close to unobtainable: flour, pasta and rice were all in short supply. And there are certain brands that Tesco are not stocking during the emergency. But I came away with almost everything I wanted. I even got some eggs, so there may be some baking experiments in the coming days. There was plenty of toilet paper. Not that I needed any. I don’t go through it that quickly and I have one pack of 9 in store.
Aside from that it has been a very busy day. There was all of the social media fuss over Trans Day of Visibility. There was the Unjust Cause cover reveal. And I’ve just put a new issue of Salon Futura online. I’ll talk more about this tomorrow, but if you are keen to read it you can find it here.
Oh, and I watched the first episode of Batwoman, which was very promising.
A few weeks back Lee Mandelo asked me to contribute to a mind meld thing for Tor.com on how queer SFF has changed over the past decade. I was deeply honoured to be asked, considering that some of the other contributors are Charlie Jane Anders and Yoon Ha Lee. Tor.com has chosen the Trans Day of Visibility to publish the piece. You can read it here.
Here it is, folks! The fabulous Ben Baldwin cover for the new novel from Tate Hallaway, Unjust Cause.
Did you love Precinct 13? Do you just love contemporary fantasy in a crime setting with queer and poly characters? Hey, this book is for you.
Alex Connor thought that being the South Dakota Hughes County Coroner was going to be a boring, cushy job. She didn’t count on the fact that her first case would leave her with a magical, living tattoo and awaken her latent magical powers. Now she’s a full-fledged member of Precinct 13, a paranormal police unit, and is trying to make a life with her dragon familiar, Valentine. Just when things seem to be settling down, bodies start falling out of the sky… literally.
Publication will be on April 8th. I’m just off to set up the pre-orders. If you are interested in an eARC, let me know.
Here we go again. Today is the day on which trans people all over the world are supposed to stand up and be counted. Already I have seen a flood of posts on social media celebrating the visibility of trans folks. I’m also seeing posts from trans people saying that they are fed up of being visible; that they are scared of being visible. Part of that is because the world has changed dramatically since TDOV was first concieved, but it is also a matter of how we do TDOV.
A little context is in order. TDOV was created because the only international day that the trans community had was the Trans Day of Remembrance. That’s a pretty depressing, if essential, experience, and it is also one many trans people want kept within the community. It is noticeable that anti-trans extremists now deliberately target TDOR in order to provoke offence and, they hope, mental health breakdowns. We needed a much more positive day.
TDOV is supposed to be that day. However, since it has become popular it has started to have the opposite effect that was intended. That, I think, is because in trying to make trans people more visible, it has ended up as an exercise of They Walk Among Us, which makes us seem different and scary.
Now it is important that trans people be visible. I’m certainly not advocating that we go back to the days of having to disappear into the cis population and fearing that your life will be over if you are ever outed. I’ve been through that fear. It isn’t fun. Not can we pretend that we are “just like everyone else”, because clearly we are not, especially those of us who live far outside the gender binary.
What we do need, however, is to be visible for things other than simply being trans. And there’s no reason why we can’t be, because trans people are fucking awesome. We have to be.
What I would like to see today, therefore, is not just trans people being visible, but trans people visibly doing things in addition to existing. That can be the day-to-day work that they do, but it would be even better to see what trans people are doing to help the community through the current health crisis. I’m sure there are loads of great stories out there waiting to be told. I’ll start.
Over to you, trans community. What are you doing that you would like to be visible for?
And cis folks, if you are thinking of doing posts, please stop thinking of trans people as a downtrodden minority that needs saving, and start thinking of us as hidden heroes whose contributions to society should be recognised.
I was hoping to get lots done today. I did, just not all of the things I expected to get done. This isolation thing is turning out to be exceptionally busy.
In theory you were supposed to get a new issue of Salon Futura today. In practice it is not going to happen. And I’m certainly not planning to stay up all night making it happen. It will be there tomorrow, which is shaping up to be an even busier day than today.
In other news, I finished off editing this week’s radio show today, so that will be broadcast on Wednesday as scheduled. Many thanks to all of the people who agreed to be interviewed.
Also the hardcovers of Juliet McKenna’s Tales of Einarinn books should be available today. Amazon appears to be having issues getting them, or the paperbacks, on sale, but given the state of the world right now that could be for a whole variety of reasons. I’m happy to allow them a little slack.
In other news I’m pleased to see that the numbers of new virus cases and new deaths in the UK have been fairly flat for the past few days. That may be a sign that the restrictions on movement are starting to take effect. For a full-blown epidemic those numbers should get larger each day. Then again, I suspect that numbers of cases are being massively under-reported because people with mild symptoms don’t want to bother the over-stretched health services. Who knows?
My good friend Tamsin Clarke of the Popelei Theatre Company has been in touch about a new project that she is launching called Women in Lockdown. The blurb says:
This is not the first time in history that women have been isolated behind closed doors, and it won’t be the last.
Popelei are looking for writers to submit brand new theatrical monologues to the Popelei Seed Commission 2020, under the theme ‘Women In Lockdown’.
Popelei invite you to write and send in a new short monologue (maximum 4 minutes) for a female character who has had some kind of restriction placed on her liberty. Her freedom could be restricted physically, psychologically, emotionally, sexually or anything you can imagine. Her locks and bolts could be very overt or they could be very subtle. Her story could take place in past, the future or the present.
She is not a victim, she is someone who has found her own way of operating and communicating in a restricted world – be that quietly or loudly.
Popelei are looking for 25 writers (of any gender) to write these pieces, and 25 actors (of feminine gender) to peform them. Actors will need to be able to make video recordings of their performances as the final show will be displayed online. Chosen writers and performers will be paid £100 each. The deadline for submission of scripts and sample work is 5:00pm on April 10th. The full submission guidelines are here. Good luck!
Today was a cooking day. I made a batch of prawn and lobster risotto. That sounds pretty posh, but actually it is a mostly storecupboard meal. It needs an onion, but they keep well. Other than that it is rice, a tin of lobster soup, some frozen prawns, and seasoning. I flung in some sherry as well. Dead easy really, unless you start cooking the risotto before defrosting the prawns, which is a bit silly. You can tell I hadn’t cooked it for a while.
I have spent most of the day recording and editing interviews for Wednesday’s radio show. I have 8 interviews altogether, from different places around the world. While most people have similar experiences of government-mandated shutdowns, attitudes towards the effectiveness of government responses vary wildly. Hopefully it will be an interesting show.
One of the things that the current crisis has laid bare is just how international and connected our world now is, or at least can be.
On the one hand, my local residents’ group has sent round an email asking whether people are lonely, and offering to host a meeting by some strange new software system called Zoom.
On the other hand I have spent the day on Zoom, Google Hangouts and Facebook. I have given a talk on trans history to an LGBT+ youth group in Somerset. I have recorded interviews for my next radio show with people in France, Germany and the USA. I have chatted to friends in Finland and Greece. And I have participated in a committee meeting in the USA.
I don’t have the time to be lonely.
Two weeks in, and my life shows no sign of slowing down. Today has been mostly a Wizard’s Tower and Ujima Radio day. Huge thanks are due to all of the lovely people who agreed to be recorded for a slot on my show.
Today was also the final episode of Star Trek: Picard. I’ll have a lot more to say about this in Salon Futura next week, but basically I think that Michael Chabon has done a good job in what was a very difficult task.
The national news has been abuzz with the fact that both the Prime Minister and Health Secretary have tested positive for COVID-19. I’m not in the least bit surprised. When a junior health minister announced that she had tested positive a couple of weeks ago I expected the entire Cabinet to go down with it. This thing is incredibly infectious and also has a long incubation time, which is why it spreads so effectively. The UK had 2885 new cases and 181 new deaths today alone, and there’s no sign of it slowing down because most of the people testing positive now are people who have had it since before the lockdown began. As the only people getting tested in the UK are the very rich, no one has any idea how many actual cases there are.
That said, the vast majority of cases are in London. Most of the rest of the country is relatively quiet. Here’s hoping that it stays that way.
Where does the time go? I had another full day mainly on Wizard’s Tower work today. Tomorrow will be similar, but I also need to start work on my next radio show. Ujima is still on the air. A few people are allowed in to the studios to keep things running, and the rest of us are putting together shows at home. Personally I love doing live radio, but I’m happy to do pre-records if that’s all that is possible. Weirdly they might take me less time than doing a live show, so I might end up doing more shows. If it provides a useful service to people in these difficult times, it is worth doing.
Anyway, the plan for next week’s show is to interview people from around the world to find out how the pandemic is affecting them. I have the USA and France covered. I’m looking for people from other countries. If I can get enough I will only need a few minutes per person, which is about enough time to introduce yourself, say if you are well and have work, and bitch about how badly your government is doing. All interviews will be via Zoom. If you are interested, let me know.
In other news I gather than our government has promised a package of help for the self-employed. But no one will get any money before June. I think they are hoping that we’ll all be dead by then.
When Colin Harvey died, a group of Bristol area writers wanted to do something in his memory. Colin was a huge supporter of the NHS, and worked closely with a Bristol-based charity called Above & Beyond. They raise money for Bristol’s city-centre hospitals. So we decided that we would put together a charity anthology and donate all of the proceeds to Colin’s favourite charity.
Those hospitals currently need our help more than ever.
Colinthology is still on sale. These days I’m surprised if a copy sells. But it has stories by Gareth L Powell, Jo Hall, Roz Clarke, Stephanie Burgis, Jonathan L Howard and many others. As usual we get the most income if you buy direct from the Wizard’s Tower shop. And every penny we take in will go to Above & Beyond.
With the Tales of Einarinn roll-out now in process, Juliet and I decided to throw something else into the mix. A number of writers have been offering content for free to help people entertain themselves while they are in lockdown. The BSFA has a list of these offerings.
To this, Juliet has added The Wizard’s Coming, a short story set in the world of Einarinn. The story is a prequel to the series, The Hadrumal Crisis, which is published by Solaris. The original version is no longer available, so we made a new version, complete with stunning Ben Baldwin cover art.
In the anticipation of the crisis lasting for a few more weeks yet, we have more releases planned. These will all be free. I’m hoping to add other authors. Also there’s a new Salon Futura due out on Monday. That will include an interview with Juliet, in which I suspect we’ll talk a but about what’s coming.
One of the interesting things about the current crisis is how quickly things have changed. Only a couple of weeks ago we were wondering whether travel would be affected. Now conventions as far out as August are being cancelled. And you can get caught out. I’ve been watching a documentary series about British Rivers on Channel 5. It is basically an excuse to do some local history of the back of the region that a major river flows through. The latest episode I watched was on the Warwickshire Avon. (There are lots of rivers called Avon in England because afon is Welsh for river, and the English are stupid.) This is the one that flows through Stratford, but it is also known for Rugby and its sport, Warwick for its castle, Leamington for its spa and several other things. The river is also prone to flooding. At the start of the show the narrator said that 2020 would be remembered as the year of terrible floods on the Avon. Ha, no mate. Nice try.
Keeping up with the pace of change has been hard for some organisations. Today I got email from Tesco to say that they have finally implemented a queuing system (with enforced separation) for getting into stores, and at checkouts, plus a rigorous cleaning regime. They’ve also cut down on the range of products they stock to make sure they have enough basic necessities. I’m not going to risk heading out there for a while though. Goodness only knows how people will be behaving.
What does seem to be working is the Internet. Today I had a long video chat with my friend Otto in Helsinki. That sort of thing is easy. Also Disney+ seems to have got through its UK launch with no capacity issues. But utility systems are complicated. We still have power, water, and connectivity, but what happens if things go wrong? I’ve just had email from my internet provider, Zen, who have been great, but they don’t own vans. If something were to go wrong on the network out in the country somewhere, it is a company called Openreach that would send an engineer to fix it. They have just announced that they can no longer keep to their advertised service level. If your internet goes down, and you are not a priority industry, then you are screwed. In theory I still have the mobile phone, but hopefully I won’t need it.
Without the Internet, of course, I would be completely cut off. I think I would probably still be OK for a while. I’m slightly boggled at the people who are getting cabin fever after a day or two of working from home. Obviously I don’t have kids, which helps a lot, but I’m used to this. I’ve been working for myself, mostly from home, since 2003. What’s more, as a trans person, I’m used to going 2 to 3 weeks over Christmas with no in-person social contact every year. In effect I have been training for this for a long time.