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Meow, Baby! Cats in Science Fiction and Fantasy

September 22, 2023April 9, 2024a cat21 Comments

opens in a new windowWe love cats and SFF and John Scalzi, and are thrilled to introduce all three today!

Check it out!

by John Scalzi

Hello, Tor/Forge blog readers! I have a new novel coming that recently released called opens in a new windowStarter Villain, and if you’ve seen the cover—and what a cover!—then you may surmise that cats may play a significant role in the events of the story. That would be correct, and also, it would not be the first time that cats have been integral to the stories that science fiction and fantasy writers write and share with the world.

To make this point, below please find a curated selection of feline friends who pop up in science fiction and fantasy works across several media. Because, after all, cats are everywhere. This is by no means an exhaustive list, so once I offer up some of my favorites here, please add your own in the comments. Because you can never have too many cats!

**JONESY THE CAT, from Alien (1979)**

The more things change, the more things stay the same—cats were crew members on sailing ships in order to help control the vermin, and Jonesy had a similar role on the Nostromo, the massive cargo-hauling space ship in the film. Now, you might argue that Jonesy fell down on the job when he didn’t hunt down and snap the neck of the alien when it was still small and snake-like, but, look, a smart cat knows when to pick his battles. It’s not for nothing that Jonesy is only one of two survivors of that whole crew.

**THE CAT, from Coraline (novella, 2002; film, 2009)**

In science fiction and fantasy cats are often presumed to be able to walk between the real world and the wilder worlds of imagination, and that’s the case here, as the stray cat Coraline sees lurking about her house follows her through the secret door the leads to the seemingly-nice-but-then-not-at-all Other Mother and her intriguing, ultimately dangerous pocket universe. The cat and the Other Mother do not get along at all, a fact Coraline uses to her advantage at one point.

**GOOSE THE FLERKEN, from Captain Marvel (2019)**

Technically Goose is not a cat at all, but if an alien species looks like a cat, walks like a cat and meows like a cat, you can go ahead and call it a cat… at least until physics-defying tentacles fly out of its mouth and devour all those who threaten it. Which, you have to admit, is not something a cat can do—but absolutely IS something a cat would do, if it could. Go on, look at your cat. Tell me it wouldn’t. In an instant.

**THE STRAY, from Stray (2022)**

Would domesticated cats survive the human apocalypse? In the video game Stray, not only do cats survive, one of them actually manages to unravel the mystery of what happened to those disappeared humans, and why they left behind an entire subterranean city of helper robots. All while simply being a cat (and also, being helped by their very own robot, which is a nice boost if you can get it).

**THE CAT, from Love Death + Robots (2019)**

Speaking of apocalypses and robots, in the “Three Robots” episode of this animated anthology series, a trio of mechanized explorers visit the ruins of a city and see delights from the human era they’ve encountered before, like balls! And very old hamburgers! And rockets! And, of course, a cat, who decides to then accompany them on their adventures, because it’s cute and furry and harmless… or is it? In the third season of the series, the robots appear again, as does the cat, in the most unusual of places. Boy, whoever thought up this particular cat really must consider them evil geniuses or something.

There’s a starter list of cats in science fiction and fantasy. Add your own to the list in the comments! And check out Starter Villain, the novel, when it’s out on September 19. You won’t be disappointed in its cats, I promise you.

JOHN SCALZI is one of the most popular SF authors of his generation. His debut Old Man’s War won him the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. His New York Times bestsellers include The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation, and Redshirts (which won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel), and 2020’s The Last Emperox. Material from his blog, Whatever, has also earned him two other Hugo Awards. He lives in Ohio with his wife and daughter.

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Author Features / What's New

God-King Troubles & Other Vibes: A Sandymancer Playlist

September 19, 2023May 17, 2024a cat

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World-building is not easy work! A lot of perspiration and imagination goes into the craft of creating a world and communicating it in novel form.

David Edison is one such tune-inspired world-creator, and he’s sharing with us the playlist of songs he’s selected to represent his new fantasy epic opens in a new windowSandymancer!

Check it out!

by David Edison

Writing is an act of magic, and songs are spells, so it’s natural that they weave themselves together; for some writers—for me—music is an essential component of creativity. I need song-magic to lift me out of the world and into that dreamy liminal state of bliss called flow. Music transforms me from a typist to a pianist.

I do usually write with a one-size-fits all playlist, which is mostly for driving the energy levels, focus, and active joy I need to sit down and work. I also put effort into project-specific playlists, which is a crackerjack way to procrastinate.

I make weird association—I do write Weird Fiction, after all—so there’s always a bit of psychosis apparent in my playlists. Such is the fate of the neurospicy. As I write, I jump around from scene to scene as my attention shifts and splits, and very often it’s a song that sparks a connection between one scene and another. For that reason, I usually shuffle my playlists—and I’d recommend doing so with this one. Arranging the songs just so sounds like a fantastic way to lose lots of time and sanity, and one never wants more than just a bit of insanity. For flavor.

I’ve plucked out some songs to fit with the vibe beats in Sandymancer, and broken them down—somewhat airily—into loose vibe categories. I hope the songs cast their spells and tempt you toward Sandymancer, but if all fails, hit shuffle and enjoy some light psychosis courtesy of an author and his spiciness.

━━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━━━━━━━

Vibe I: Sing the World into Being

This is the music that fleshes out the Land of the Vine—its lost hymns, naughty shanties, and somber dirges. Songs out of time. ‘Round these parts, some folk call it world-building.

“Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley
“Babylon” by David Carbonara
“The Wasteland” by Elton John
“Fox Confessor Brings the Flood” by Neko Case

Vibe II: Hayseed Longing

A village so decrepit that it has no name, where dreams and boredom wallow together. These are songs of survival, of hardtack dreaming, and of rough beginnings.

“Beg Steal or Borrow” by Ray LaMontagne & the Pariah Dogs
“Daddy Lessons” by Beyonce
“Little Earthquakes” by Tori Amos
“Let’s Burn Down the Cornfield” by Lou Rawls

Vibe III: God-King Troubles

Heal the world, break the world—you can’t please everyone. This music swells to tell the history of the Son of the Vine, the hidden sorrows and frustrations he so rarely shares.

“The Melting of the Sun” by St. Vincent
“Fire on Babylon” by Sinead O’Connor
“The Man Who Sold the World” by Nirvana
“Congregation” by Low

Vibe IV: Grit and Teeth

Before a teenager stares down a (wicked?) long-dead god-king, she listens to these songs for courage. Truth is, Caralee could teach music a thing or two about courage herself.

“I Don’t Believe You” by Magnetic Fields
“Battle for the Sun” by Placebo
“No” by Emma Dean
“Teenage Hustling” by Tori Amos

Vibe V: Sass Regina

On the other hand, Caralee is a queen of self-possession. These are the tunes rocking in her heart, the spunk that fuels her as-yet-unearned confidence.

“I’m A Lady (feat. Trouble Andrew)” by – Santigold
“Giddy Up” by Dragonette
“Strange Little Girl” by Tori Amos
“I Feel Lucky” by Mary Chapin Carpenter

Vibe VI: Heads Will Roll

Mistakes were made. Lessons were learned. When two unstoppable objects collide – and also cooperate – there are bound to be consequences both grave and grand. Such is the case for both Caralee and the Son of the Vine. These are songs of the phoenix in the fire, and also its rebirth.

“Heads Will Roll” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
“The Girl You Lost to Cocaine” by Sia
“A Favor House Atlantic” by Coheed and Cambria
“Take Me to Church” by Sinead O’Connor

Vibe VII: Magic is Magick is Science

These songs summon Power. They fill the space with mystery, which is sacred. They are the full-throated incantations that connect will to intention: the essence of all Magick.

“Hy-Brasil” by Allison Russel
“Bell, Book and Candle” by Eddi Reader
“Dark Horse” by Katy Perry
“Cantara” by Dead Can Dance
“Don’t Sweat the Technique” by Eric B. & Rakim

Vibe VIII: It’s the End of the World as We Know it (and I Feel Fine)

Some theories hold that writers are actually human beings, and what’s more – some seem to enjoy being happy. These are sillier songs that are just as infused with meaning as their more sober counterparts above (Please refrain from drinking and driving until you get to heaven).

“Everybody Drinks and Drives in Heaven” by Leslie Stevens
“Still Alive” by Aperture Science Psychoacoustic Laboratories
“No Rain” by Blind Melon
“Missionary Man” by Eurythmics

David Edison was born in Saint Louis, Missouri. He currently divides his time between New York City and San Francisco. In other lives, he has worked in many flavors of journalism and is editor of the LGBTQ video game news site GayGamer.net.

…And he sleeps in unicorn corpses, tauntaun style.

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Author Features / What's New

Disco Space Opera Playlist!

September 13, 2023May 17, 2024a cat

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Cat Rambo’s Disco Space Opera series kicked off with 2021’s opens in a new windowYou Sexy Thing, a novel we’d pitch as Farscape meets The Great British Bake Off. It’s got grizzled old soldiers and other vagrants who have grown tired of the campaigns and tumult of central space opera life, and have elected to open a restaurant at the edge of the known universe where they can eke out a more fulfilling existence. This distance from chaos is, of course, an illusion—albeit a comforting one. There’s no accounting for the propensity of sentient spaceships and sadistic pirate kings to just show up!

Anywho, that was the first book, and now we’re talking opens in a new windowDevil’s Gun, the continuation of their adventure. We’re also talking the far future, and disco jams. Cat Rambo has shared with us their grand Disco Space Opera playlist.

Check it out!

by Cat Rambo

opens in a new window“You Sexy Thing” by Hot Chocolate

Why did I decide to name the ship what I did? I’m not sure, but early on in the writing the password exchange between Arpat Takraven and Niko appeared, and it led to the ship’s name. Like a lot of the songs on this list, it’s a big earworm and I’ve always loved it. Written by Errol Brown and Tony Wilson, this song was released in 1975 and became the group’s most popular single, and was the only song to achieve Top Ten status in the United Kingdom in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.

opens in a new window“Devil’s Gun” by C.J. and Company

In naming the second book, I wanted something that conveyed the nature of the dangerous artifact the crew is seeking in the book. When I listened to the song, it was the perfect mood. The song, written by Barry Green, Ron Roker, and Gerry Shury, was the first song played at Broadway’s Studio 54.

opens in a new window“Rumor Has It” by Donna Summer

In the third book, which has been handed over to the publisher, the power of gossip and rumor becomes important as several aspects of Niko’s past come to confront her. You can’t invoke disco without invoking Donna Summer, in my opinion, and this was my choice to represent her. The song was written by Summer with co-writers Pete Bellotte and Giorgbio Moroder and released in 1978.

I have more adventures of Niko and her crew planned out – seven volumes worth, in fact. The main thread is a particular romantic plotline and by book ten, I’m hoping readers will be on the edge of their seats waiting to find out how it’s resolved. Without saying much more than that and not presenting any spoilers, I hope, here’s the names of the other seven books.

opens in a new window“We Are Family” by Sister Sledge

Dabry’s family history is revealed as the crew is forced to rescue his daughter – against her will. This song has always been one of my favorites, and for a book dealing with family issues, this seemed like a perfect pick. The song came out in 1979 and was written by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers.

opens in a new window“Heart of Glass” by Blondie

What happens when You Sexy Thing turns its attention to the most mystifying emotion of all: love? Another favorite song, this matches what I want to explore in this particular volume. Written by Deborah Harry and Chris Stein, the song appeared on the band’s third album in 1978 and was released as a single the following year.

opens in a new window“Shadow Dancing” by Andy Gibb

Skidoo must return to her home planet. But will both she and her planet survive the visit? I felt this song reflected the complicated personal dynamics of her homecoming. Written by Andy, Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb, the song appeared in 1978 and was that year’s Billboard Magazine top single.

opens in a new window“Take Me Home” by Cher

Petalia may have found a way to revive the almost-extinct Florian bloodline – but is Niko willing to pay the price that’s asked of them all? This song, written by Michele Aller and Bob Esty, appeared in 1979.

opens in a new window“You Can’t Lose What You Never Had” by Fantasy

Rebbe strikes off on his own, but You Sexy Thing and its crew must find him before he destroys a world. This song appeared in 1981 and was written by Tony Valor.

opens in a new window“Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” by McFadden and Whitehead

The crew thinks they’ve finally caught a break, until finally the mystery of Atlanta’s past resurfaces and is on a direct collision course with her current role. The song was written by McFadden and Whitehead along with Jerry Cohen and appeared in 1979.

opens in a new window“Never Can Say Goodbye” by Gloria Gaynor

All good things come to an end, but I hope to end the series in a way that will keep the crew in people’s hearts. When the crew finds out what Arpat Takraven truly wants of them, they’ve got a very hard choice to make. Written by Clifton Davs, the song appeared in 1979.

Cat Rambo (they/them) is an American fantasy and science fiction writer whose work has appeared in, among others, Asimov’s, Weird Tales, Chiaroscuro, Talebones, and Strange Horizons. A graduate of the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, where they studied with John Barth and Steve Dixon, they also attended the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop. They are currently the managing editor of Fantasy Magazine. They published a collection of stories, Eyes Like Sky And Coal And Moonlight, and their collaboration with Jeff VanderMeer, The Surgeon’s Tale and Other Stories, appeared in 2007. They live and write in Washington State, and “Cat Rambo” is their real name.

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Author Features / What's New

Programmable Reality and Our Mediated Future

September 6, 2023a cat

opens in a new windowJon Evans thinks a lot about the future and has oodles of experience writing exciting novels full of action and suspense. In his new techno-thriller, opens in a new windowExadelic, Evans blends these two facets into a thoroughly exhilarating portrait of a future where artificial intelligence discovers occult magic and reality is revealed as something frighteningly malleable. Today, Jon is here to talk us through aspects of his ideation for Exadelic.

Check it out!

In 2021 I finished my novel Exadelic, then set it aside to cool for a few months, as is my way. Upon rereading it, I did not think: ‘Aha, fame and fortune, mine at last!‘ Instead I thought: ‘My God, what have I done?’ It’s an unusual book. Reviewers and early readers call it “really weird” and ”mind-bending” and “absolutely wild” — and those are the raves. But here’s the thing. While the book has not changed … it’s suddenly a lot less weird than it was two years ago.

Exadelic begins in the present day, with a massive AI breakthrough with potentially drastic consequences. Back then, the notion that something vaguely similar might actually happen in our semi-foreseeable future was a laughable idea relegated to Twitter’s wackier fringes. Today the discourse is very different. I give you four recent headlines:

The Financial Times, The Economist, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, respectively. Not exactly a list of publications known for starry-eyed science-fiction extrapolation, and/or wild-eyed prophecies of doom! …But here we are.

Exadelic supposes our knee-jerk fears of AI doom are quickly superseded — because the breakthrough AI, when trained on ancient texts of occult magic, discovers that fundamental substrate of our universe is actually an interlocking swarm of cellular automata, more like software than hardware. (A notion not original to me; Stephen Wolfram has long suggested our universe is fundamentally “a vast array of interacting computational elements.”) As such, apparent violations of the laws of physics, sometimes a.k.a. ‘magic,’ are merely side effects of bugs in that substrate. But if the universe is more like software than hardware, it may have some sort of programmer … which, we soon learn, apparently looks with extreme prejudice on any discovery of its secrets.

Is the notion that our entire universe is ultimately made of software, which is full of bugs, which can be hacked and wielded as magic—and therefore a universe in which reality itself is programmable—kinda bonkers? Well, yes. But does a bonkers universe-as-software story work surprisingly well as a metaphor for our uncertain-but-guaranteed-super-weird future in which our perceived realities will be constantly mediated by multiple tiers of software? Reader, I believe it does.

My original elevator pitch for Exadelic was “Imagine Olaf Stapledon wrote a hell-for-leather action thriller.” (Most of my previous books were thrillers.) That’s a deep cut; few people now read Stapledon, who wrote not so much ‘novels’ as ‘philosophical histories of humanity and the universe.’ But SF has always been the home for big ideas, and such ideas—maybe even especially when crazy—can light up our collective space of possibilities in unexpected ways. My hope is that Exadelic may in some small way add to our ongoing conversation about big crazy ideas.

Jon Evans is an author, journalist, travel writer, and software engineer. His journalism has appeared in The Guardian, Wired, Quartz, The Globe & Mail, The Walrus, and (weekly, for a decade) TechCrunch. He has traveled to more than 100 countries and reported from Iraq, Haiti, Colombia, and the Congo. He the CTO of HappyFunCorp, was the initial technical architect of Bookshop.org, and is the founding director of the GitHub Archive Program, preserving the world’s open-source software in a permafrost vault beneath an Arctic mountain for 1,000 years. Exadelic is his first novel in over a decade.

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Author Features

Map-i-matical Considerations from R.R. Virdi

September 5, 2023September 6, 2023Rachel Taylor3 Comments

Is it really a Big Epic Fantasy Book if there’s no map to be seen? R.R. Virdi, author of opens in a new windowThe First Binding—Now available in paperback!—says NO WAY! Check out his thoughts on maps in fantasy books, PLUS an exclusive first look at the map you’ll find inside of The First Binding, right here.

By R.R. Virdi

Fantasy reader, or writer, you’ve probably formed an opinion on maps in novels at one point or another. You expect them as normal, especially if you’re a reader from the 90’s. You’ve opened up the Wheel of Time books and have the image of Two Rivers burned into your mind. Maybe you’ve memorized all of Randland. Maybe you’re a collector who has a book full of folding maps of Westeros and all the other lands in A Song of Fire and Ice.

I know I do.

You can’t have an epic traveling fantasy (especially a Silk Road inspired one) without a map that lives up to all of that. The lands, the fantastical, and of course, the epic part. We lovers of fantasy want to see mountain ranges and vasty plains inhabited by strange and wonderful things. We want the sense of wonder that comes with seeing rolling seas in storms and maybe monsters in their depths. I always have, and growing up as a child of two worlds (South Asian heritage, and American birth), I’ve been fascinated by travel and the layout of the world.

Of worlds. Real or otherwise.

So of course I leapt at the chance to have my own map represented and brought to life by the amazing Priscilla Spencer (who’s done work for the talented line up: Seanan Mcguire, Jim Butcher, and more). It’s a childhood dream, and more than that, this is a traveling fantasy series. One full of secrets, including some hidden in places you might not think to look. Or, maybe you would.

Like a map.

Priscilla and I got to talking over the crudely shaped map I’d first made to roughly place the lands I needed where they would be. We dove into the geography, cultures, and trade routes I’d established for my Golden Road, and then slowly, it all began to come to life. Her attention to detail and understanding just how many layers and secrets exist in this series and world shone through in the development.

People who’ve already read the ARCs might find pleasant little secrets hidden within this map, if they have the eye and patience to give it that look. But some of the things I can share?

Priscilla dove into the history of existing maps/records from travelers along the Silk Road of old. Design styles, and storytelling techniques used in maps (and yes, maps are stories of a sort as well. The stories of where we’ve been, would like to go, and what we imagine a place to be). They all bled into the final creation. Every detail in this map speaks to something – nothing is fruitless or wasteful design.

This is a map that shows the roads all manner of people travel, and along those roads, heroes, monsters, and the ones between. Stories, legends, lies, and truths. And sometimes they are all one and the same.

Her creation lives up to all the depth this world and story offers, and all the size and scope of the plot, and Ari’s travels, as well as his legends.

Or lies.

She gave the Mutri Empire the nod to India I wanted, and made it the heart of my world, as well as the map. There are images and nods to things all hidden throughout the first book, and all the ones to come. Something that will make this map rewarding to look at as you continue to read and hopefully, if you so choose, decide to reference this throughout your travels along the Golden Road.

Remember.

A map isn’t just a map. It’s a key, a guide, and a story.

And all of those are secrets, show the way to secrets, and in fact, open secrets.

R.R. Virdi is a two-time Dragon Award finalist and a Nebula Award finalist. He is the author of two urban fantasy series, The Grave Report, and The Books of Winter. He was born and raised in Northern Virginia and is a first generation Indian-American with all the baggage that comes with. Should the writing gig not work out, he aims to follow his backup plan and become a dancing shark for a Katy Perry music video.

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Author Features / New Releases / On Writing

Inspiration and Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge by Spencer Quinn!

July 11, 2023December 21, 2023Ariana Carpentieri5 Comments

Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge is bestselling author Spencer Quinn’s first novel in a new series since the meteoric launch of Chet and Bernie–introducing the irresistible and unforgettable Mrs. Plansky, in a story perfect for book clubs and commercial fiction readers.

Mrs. Loretta Plansky, a recent widow in her seventies, is settling into retirement in Florida while dealing with her 98-year-old father and fielding requests for money from her beloved children and grandchildren. Thankfully, her new hip hasn’t changed her killer tennis game one bit.

One night Mrs. Plansky is startled awake by a phone call from a voice claiming to be her grandson Will, who desperately needs ten thousand dollars to get out of a jam. Of course, Loretta obliges—after all, what are grandmothers for, even grandmothers who still haven’t gotten a simple “thank you” for a gift sent weeks ago. Not that she’s counting.

By morning, Mrs. Plansky has lost everything. Law enforcement announces that Loretta’s life savings have vanished, and that it’s hopeless to find the scammers behind the heist. First humiliated, then furious, Loretta Plansky refuses to be just another victim.

In a courageous bid for justice, Mrs. Plansky follows her only clue on a whirlwind adventure to a small village in Romania to get her money and her dignity back—and perhaps find a new lease on life, too.

Read below to see where Spencer Quinn drew his inspiration from when writing Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge!

Inspiration and Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge

Uh-oh. Inspiration is the topic. I’m a little afraid to even go there, in case the gods of inspiration are disturbed by my presence and vote to blacklist me. But unlike with any of the other novels I’ve written, the idea for Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge (my 45^th), came directly from a real life event, so maybe the gods will give me a pass.

Five or six years ago, my dad got a phone call. At the time he was in his early nineties. He died two weeks short of his 97^th birthday and was in excellent mental shape and very good physical shape until the end. I want to emphasize that mental part. He was a very smart guy: quick, sharp, clear-headed. Back to the call.

Caller: Hey, Grandpa!

My dad: Jake?

Caller: Yeah, Grandpa, it’s me, Jake.

Cut To: My dad’s wife, noticing he’s putting on his jacket.

Wife: Ed? Where are you going?

My dad: To the bank. Jake’s in trouble and he needs some money.

At that point it was decided to call Jake (living in another city), and he had not called my dad and wasn’t in any trouble. “Jake” never got a penny. But I was amazed that someone like my dad could have been fooled.

And then I got back to writing the Chet and Bernie novel I was working on and thought no more about the two Jakes. Then one day on a bike ride the idea for Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge—indeed the whole set-up, including the Romanian part—came to me in one fell swoop. Shall I summarize that now, or go on and on about bike riding, which I do all year round even though I live on Cape Cod where winter temps can dip into the 20’s or even lower, and how I actually prefer the cold days because no one else is on the bike path, so it’s like I’m in one of those dystopian Last Of Us stories, except it’s a utopia? No, that would be boring, so instead the set-up of Mrs. P.

Mrs. Plansky is a seventy-one year old retiree. She and her husband Norm sold a successful small business they built from nothing and moved to Florida for their sunset years, but Norm soon died. Mrs. P has a 98-year-old father in a fancy assisted living she pays for, plus a grown daughter and son with big dreams but not enough money to realize them. Mrs. P is the kind who helps out. She also has two grandchildren, one of whom is Will, out in Colorado. Late one night Mrs. P gets a call from him—a Jake type call—and, following his precise instructions, she sends $9726.18. She can afford it. Her grandson is in trouble. Case closed.

But it wasn’t Will. And because Mrs. P uses the same password for everything, the scammers have cleaned out not just her checking account but her retirement accounts as well, everything. The FBI tells her the scammers are probably in Romania, but identifying them would be almost impossible and the chances of getting her money back are nil. Mrs. P is humiliated. How stupid she’s been! And even worse: she’s let Norm down. She goes to Romania to recover her self-respect, the trust of a dead husband, her money.

So: that all dropped into my mind on the bike path but at first I didn’t connect it to my dad! Then I started wondering why I’d chosen the name Plansky. Bingo! Tony Plansky was a legendary track coach at Williams College, where the Navy had sent my dad in WW2 as part of their program to get officers (my dad commanded a sub chaser hunting Nazi U-boats in the Atlantic). My dad had run cross country at Williams and he had some funny stories about Tony Plansky. And when I went to Williams in the 1960’s he was still there! Therefore Mrs. Plansky’s name was the bridge to where my story had come from, even if I was too blockheaded to put it together myself. Just one more reason to love what my grandmother always called “the writing game.”

Above: Tony Plansky

Above: Ed Abrahams

Click below to pre-order your copy of Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge, available 7.25.23!

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Author Features / Behind the Scenes / On Writing

On Writing In Constraints by Jacqueline Carey

July 7, 2023July 6, 2023Rachel Taylor1 Comment

Writers love a challenge and today Jacqueline Carey, author of Kushiel’s Dart and the upcoming companion novel, Cassiel’s Servant, joins us on the blog to discuss the constraints around writing. Check it out here!

By Jacqueline Carey

I enjoy writing in constraints.

I’m not talking about the kind that come with straps and buckles and blindfolds… although to be fair, I’ve written about those constraints more than your average fantasy author. When your heroine has been chosen by the angel of punishment to experience pleasure in pain, you’ve got to expect a healthy dose of spice.

No, literary constraints are what I’m talking about. CASSIEL’S SERVANT is a companion novel. It mirrors KUSHIEL’S DART at every step of the way. From the outset, we see our protagonists embark as children on parallel paths, growing into the roles that will define them. And once their paths merge, the entirety of Joscelin’s actions and dialogue in CASSIEL’S SERVANT is constrained by the framework of KUSHIEL’S DART. And since that novel was narrated by Phèdre nó Delaunay, who misses little and forgets less, there wasn’t a whole lot of wiggle room in terms of events.

So why write it?

A number of years ago, I wrote a poem on commission for a benefit. I pledged an Elizabethan sonnet and polled readers. Overwhelmingly, fans wanted a love poem from Joscelin, my stoic warrior-priest, to Phèdre, the daring courtesan who stole his heart. For the first time, Joscelin spoke. Not just lines of dialogue—he opened up his inner narrative. And it turns out that my taciturn hero given to letting his blades talk for him is more thoughtful and self-aware than I knew, with a keen sense of the absurd.

I wasn’t sold on it right away. I took a detour into the desert with a different warrior brotherhood in STARLESS, but it wasn’t enough to silence Joscelin’s inner voice. It was stuck in my head like a refrain. Finally, I allowed myself to imagine what Phèdre and Joscelin’s journey might look like through his eyes.

A lot different.

One thing about constraints, they force you to be creative, patient and diligent. My Sundering duology was constrained by the concept—LORD OF THE RINGS reenvisioned as epic tragedy. It was constrained by copyright issues that meant I had to recreate Tolkien’s plot structure and build a world to support it in forms that were at once original and yet recognizable as mirrors of the source material.

More recently, MIRANDA AND CALIBAN is a retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest which was wholly constrained by the original source material. There’s a lot of empty space between the beginning and the ending of that play. Like twelve years’ worth! It allows room for creative improvisation.

Side note: Renaissance magic is wwaaaayy more boring than you might expect. My commitment to historical authenticity forged some surprising constraints. Renaissance magic is mostly astrology and casting horoscopes. Kind of like a slumber party for gouty mathematicians and their wealthy patrons.

In some ways, CASSIEL’S SERVANT might be the tightest literary squeeze yet. I had to adhere to my own original source material. Once we left the Prefectory of the Cassiline Brotherhood, there were very few opportunities for improvisation within the strictures of the plot.

But it doesn’t necessarily take a lot of space to land a knockout.

One thing (among many) for which Bruce Lee was famous was the “one-inch punch,” featured in various Southern Chinese martial arts styles. According to Wikipedia and the countless kung fu movies I watched in college, this is a skill which generates tremendous amounts of impact force at extremely close distances. MythBusters registered the impact of a one-inch punch at 153 lbs with a force gauge. Uma Thurman one-inch punched her way out of a buried coffin in Kill Bill.

For me, writing with constraints requires a similar skill. It forces me to concentrate on extracting the maximum dramatic impact from any pivotal scene. And the one place of freedom, of expansiveness, of infinite possibility, within the story as it unfurls is inside of Joscelin himself.

There’s a lot of intrigue in KUSHIEL’S DART. Picking apart the tangled threads is one of the pleasures Phèdre’s perspective as a courtesan, spy and pawn in this ongoing game of crowns and thrones affords.

Joscelin, on the other hand, would be hard put to care less about political intrigue. It’s not just that he’s uninterested in it—it takes a shocking turn of events for him to fully grasp the fact that this frivolous-seeming assignment is deadly serious. It’s also due to the fact that House Verreuil is basically a D’Angeline version of “old money”. Political maneuvering and speculation are considered gauche. If you have some interesting thoughts on dog breeding or hydraulics, they’re all ears, but money and politics are things one does not discuss in polite society.

Fittingly, Joscelin’s life is circumscribed by constraint. As the middle son of an old aristocratic family, he’s pledged from birth to the Cassiline Brotherhood, bound by tradition and filial duty. He’s bound by his vows and his own sense of honor. Falling in love with Phèdre is the one-inch punch that turns his world upside down and shatters his heart to pieces. Writing in constraints has its rewards!

There are plenty of fight scenes in CASSIEL’S SERVANT and I loved writing them from Joscelin’s view in the thick of the fray—even during the numerous times he went down swinging in captivity. But for me, nothing lands as hard as that one-inch punch of true love.

Jacqueline Carey is the New York Timesbestselling author of the critically acclaimed and award-winning Kushiel’s Legacy series of historical fantasy novels. Recent novels include the Shakespearean adaptation Miranda and Caliban and the epic fantasy standalone Starless. Carey enjoys doing research on a wide variety of arcane topics, and an affinity for travel has taken her from Iceland to China to date. She currently lives in West Michigan.

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Thorns & Fairy Tales: T. Kingfisher on writing Thornhedge

June 15, 2023June 15, 2023a cat

T. Kingfisher is a busy writer. She’s got opens in a new windowbooks opens in a new windowwith Tor, and opens in a new windowbooks opens in a new windowwith opens in a new windowNightfire, and today she’s on our blog to talk a little about the creation process of her latest novella, opens in a new windowThornhedge.

Check it out!

Way back when, in 2015, in my other life as a children’s book author, I had a book published called Harriet the Invincible, the first of the Hamster Princess series. Harriet, the hero, is very fierce and very confident, and she’s also the princess at the heart of a “Sleeping Beauty” retelling (also a hamster). It was a fun romp and I enjoyed writing it enormously, and a lot of readers liked it, too.

But as inevitably happens when you retell a fairy tale—or at least when I retell one—I found myself with all these extra possibilities in my brain afterward. Directions that I could have gone but didn’t. Characters that I could have written but passed over in favor of others. Themes that went unexplored, ideas that never got fleshed out, all the usual writing baggage. And yet somehow, this time, it was different. It didn’t go away.

Apparently, I was not quite done with “Sleeping Beauty,” or perhaps the story wasn’t quite done with me.

I usually find my way through a fairy tale by questioning all the assumptions in it, starting with who the hero and the villain are. The wicked fairy that curses Sleeping Beauty is supposed to be the villain, of course (and yes, I did love the movie Maleficent, but even then, the princess is one of the good guys). So in this case, I started thinking, what if the princess was the villain? After all, why would you trap someone inside a hedge of thorns, anyway? Because you wanted to contain her. Because there was some reason you didn’t want her to get out. Because she was dangerous, and maybe you weren’t a very skilled fairy, so you did the only thing that you could think of to do.

I wrote about three paragraphs with this idea in mind, and Toadling more or less dropped into my lap, fully formed. I rapidly found myself writing the diametric opposite of the book that I had just written. (It’s hard to think of two characters less alike than Toadling and Harriet, although I love them both.)

Once I had Toadling, the whole thing just flowed. It’s lovely when that happens (also, sadly, rare). Many characters bolt off with the story, and I am left staggering behind them, frantically trying to take notes, but Toadling was very polite. Her backstory unfolded pretty much as I typed it. I learned she was raised by greenteeth as I wrote the sentence about them; I learned that she could turn into a toad when she did it on the page—all the little discoveries that you always make writing a book, of course, but happening at my usual typing speed, without sitting and staring at the wall for an hour, or nearly rupturing my wrist tendons trying to keep up.

It was really very sweet, and so if someone asked me about Thornhedge, I would probably say that it is a sweet book, and then presumably someone would point out that the heroine is raised by child-eating fish monsters and the villain is torturing people and animating the dead, and I would be left flailing my hands around and saying, “But it’s sweet! Really!” because I am not always the best at judging the tone of my own work.

. . . I still think it’s sweet, dammit.

The other amusing thing about Thornhedge is that it was the first book I sold to Tor, though it has come out after a couple of others, because publishing. I had written most of it, had it lying around in my mental trunk, and wasn’t sure what to do with it. Novellas were hard to place at the time. There was one magazine that told me flat out that they couldn’t afford to pay me anything like what it was worth, which I respected, but which left me with this weird wrong-length . . . thingy.

And then I saw that Tor had an open submission period for novellas coming up.

Huh, I thought. I should send this in. When is that, again?

Then, a few minutes later: Waaaaait a minute—I have an agent! Agents don’t have to wait for that! They can just send in books!

(I have written more than forty books now, and I am still sometimes not entirely clear on this whole “being a professional writer” gig.)

So my agent sent in Thornhedge, and Tor very kindly came back and said, “Yes, we will take this, and also, what else you got?” which is why Nettle & Bone and What Moves the Dead have also come out by the time you’re reading this. So I am very grateful to them for taking the chance, and also to Toadling, weird as it is to be grateful to a figment of your imagination, for paving the way.

T. Kingfisher

North Carolina

June 2022

T. KINGFISHER (she/her) writes fantasy, horror, and occasional oddities, including Nettle & Bone,What Moves the Dead, and A House with Good Bones. Under a pen name, she also writes bestselling children’s books. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, dogs, and chickens who may or may not be possessed.

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Fantastic Cartography: David Edison on Maps

May 23, 2023May 23, 2023a cat

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You don’t need a map to find this one! Today we’ve got the awesome interior map of David Edison’s opens in a new windowSandymancer here to share. We’ve also got David himself to talk about the meaning and impact of maps, both as fantasy art, and in the personal sense—their impact on him.

Check it out, and preorder Sandymancer!

By David Edison

Like most map-loving readers, I have an origin story. Sometime in April of 1987, I cracked open the spine of Guardians of the West, the first book in David Eddings’ sequel series to The Belgariad, which was called The Malloreon. The new series’ expanded map didn’t just blow my mind, it blew it wide open. The Belgariad had lovely, intricate maps of the lands explored therein, and I had committed them to memory so I could adventure there in my daydreams. The Malloreon’s map, however, pulled back the camera to show a vast, two-continent spread of imposing nations and territories, all as detailed as the original, with the storied lands of The Belgariad cramped into one tiny corner. I ripped through those volumes as they were published, desperate to learn every story that could be plotted across The Malloreon’s mysterious mountain ranges and scar-like borders.

After all, maps tell stories, and stories draw maps. Both are powered by mystery.

In Jim Grimsley’s excellent, queer, one-volume saga, Kirith Kirin, a map spans two pages, its lines sparsely drawn in a style that’s almost childish, crocheted with regions and locations but also missing important cities, temples, etc. At first glance this seems odd, maybe even misleading, but as the tale builds, the map becomes a cipher—an old toy decoder ring, offering the reader insights and playgrounds while tempting them with delicious, succulent mystery.

Tell me a story. Draw me a map. Readers of speculative fiction are astral travelers – we have packed our kit, set out clean water for the pets and then, nested in our reading nook, we slip out of this world with our spellbook in hand. To paraphrase opens in a new windowSarah Chorn: the real world is plywood and drywall, but SF/F worlds are obsidian and sandstone. Many of us find that unearthly plenitude to be irresistible; what’s the case for drywall?

The same forces pull us into the maps of other worlds: Kansas is a goner, these are Quadling lands now. St. Leibowitz is long-dead and Brother Francis Gerard wanders a Utah the borders of which are less than a memory. Númenor has fallen, but we know to look to the west. (Or turn to Christopher Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, and find the gem that is the opens in a new windowNúmenórë map.)

Like the text itself, a map tells a story by what it shows and by what it doesn’t. Think of Númenor, or of Eddings’ original, unexpanded map in The Belgariad. That’s mystery fuel.

The world of Sandymancer, once the Land of the Vine, now 800 years removed from an environmental cataclysm, is a decrepit and desiccated version of its former glory. There are too few people and too much territory to bother with borders, names and places have shifted over the centuries, and the land itself has buckled and eroded as it slowly dies. An ever-expanding wasteland has swallowed most of the world, while folk cling to life on the rind of the continent, watching their sky darken and the sandstorms inch forward, year by year.

At a certain point in the book, Caralee’s nemesis and tutor shows her his left palm, and asks her to imagine that it is a map of the world. He shows her where they have been, and where they are headed. He is ancient; perhaps in his day the land did look like a human hand. Does it still? And if so, are we looking at a sculpted continent, or an uncanny coincidence?

I’ve been holding my breath, waiting to see for myself how the visual art would support the story. This beauty was certainly worth the patience.

Map artist opens in a new windowRhys Davies hugely uplifted Sandymancer with his stunning interpretation of my scribbles and descriptions. The architectural style of the frozen Northen Authorities blows me away – are those windows? – as do the craggy mesas just to the south. Out west, Rhys took Oldmuck, the last of the seasides, and its petrified Stone Navies, and spun a little visual story that’s inspired future storylines. In the southeast, towns like Comez and Grenshtepple’s look just as I described – astonishingly so.

Sidestepping any major spoilers, the Metal Duchy rises, imposing, with its conical steel palace, while the Sevenfold Redoubt towers over the surrounding land, built by magick atop the slope of a red-dirt mountain. The Wildest Wood looks overgrown and impassable, and the settlement at its heart does indeed seem as if it’s been hidden away from the rest of the world.

Rhys didn’t just nail the map by land and by sea, he did a brilliant job of suggesting the larger setting without spelling it out. I won’t ruin that, but the deliberate oval shape of the world, the stark border, and the blackness beyond tell just the story I’d hoped they would. I don’t trust myself to say anything more.

I can’t wait for you to meet Caralee and her friends, mortal enemies, friendly beasts, and the occasional steel harpy. I wish that the cover, the map, and the text spin you a yarn you’ll appreciate. I hope you’ll follow me into the thickets of mystery, an unmappable place where anything can happen—and often does.

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David Edison is the author of The Waking Engine and Sandymancer. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he has spent most of his life living in New York City and California. His passions include rescuing pit bulls, leveling up, and all things queer.

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The Economics of a Space Empire: Paying for Intergalactic Wars

April 29, 2023April 27, 2023Rachel Taylor

We love space operas. LOVE. But we have questions.

Like how does one even afford a death star? How does faster than light travel affect supply and demand!?

Yeah fine, we get it. We’re nerds. But Kate Elliott joined us anyway, to talk about using ancient history to perfect the far future world of her epic space opera opens in a new windowUnconquerable Sun and its follow-up, opens in a new windowFurious Heaven.

By Kate Elliott

Much ink and countless hours of talk have been spilled on the question of which elements of social and physical landscape are critical to developing a consistent, believable secondary world.

Unconquerable Sun is a space opera spun from the premise of a gender swapped Alexander the Great (in space). It’s remarkable how useful teasing out aspects of life and society in the ancient world has been when it comes to creating an economic landscape for this far far future setting. Economics is a big topic, and in its largest theoretical sense can seem daunting. I chose to focus on three aspects: a top-down state economy, agriculture, and logistics.

Ancient Macedonia’s primary sources of wealth came from revenues raised through its forest and mineral resources. The king largely controlled timber and mineral wealth while, especially in the lowlands, aristocratic families partitioned out pasturage for horses and cattle as well as farmland. Wealth from the latter would be returned to royal coffers via taxes and gifts. King Philip’s treasury financed the training and outfitting of a powerful modern (in its time) army as well as his multiple campaigns.

But war is expensive. Fleets and military campaigns can also be paid for in part by what is looted or strong-armed from conquered lands. Both Philip and his son Alexander were always on the hunt for more revenue, more resources. Accounts of Alexander’s campaign frequently mention the staggering wealth of the Persian Empire which fell into the hands of Alexander to be distributed in part to his generals and his army. Later, what remained of this wealth was fought over and disbursed between the generals who, having survived him, battled among themselves for control of his empire. To the victor, the spoils.

As my story opens, the Republic of Chaonia has been on a war footing for over twenty years. I kept this state-controlled model of a war economy in mind as I wrote.

Because I grew up in rural Oregon farm country, my early world building thoughts inevitably stray to what food will be available in the world or worlds I’m writing about. What do people eat? What else do they grow for other purposes like feed, textiles, fragrances, cosmetics, fuel, pharmaceuticals, ecological health, and ecological mitigation?

What does agriculture have to do with the economy of space opera?

A common (although not required) element of space opera is a story set within a rich network of star systems. Even with a speedy means of interstellar travel, these are exceptional distances that can’t be conceived of as a mere one hour plane hop or car drive away.

Again, the ancient world proved useful as a means of conceptualizing distance as a measure both of time and space. In those days it could take weeks or months or even years to travel from one place to another on foot, mounted, or by wagon. The Persian Empire built a Royal Road that stretched from one of its capitals, at Susa, to the city of Sardis in what is now Turkey. This road made swifter communications possible, helped armies move more expeditiously, and benefited trade as well as tax collection.

It turns out that agriculture provides a perfect foundation on which to think about how an extended and extensive futuristic trade economy might work. What crops and vegetation are available and why? Where and how are these grown? Are they consumed locally only? If they are moved to a nearby city or across a continent or to another planet in the same star system, then who is moving these goods at what cost and for what destination? What about the economics of interplanetary trade? What other resources are valuable on and off planet? Is there anything worth trading on an interstellar level? How does a space merchant make a living, given the distances and expenses involved? The existence of merchants and the means by which they get from place to place exists in the deep background of the tale.

Agriculture rolls into the final element of this economic trifecta according to a saying attributed variously to Napoleon or Frederick the Great: An army marches on its stomach.

“Supply is the basis of strategy and tactics,” as Donald W. Engels wrote in his classic study Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army (University of California Press, 1978). The enemies of Chaonia think about supplies and resources, and make decisions based on what they know of Chaonia’s fleet disposition and resource management. Queen-Marshal Eirene and her daughter, Princess Sun, and their marshals, go through similar calculations. As the character Hestia Hope says in Unconquerable Sun, “Logistics win campaigns.”

Politics and war can’t exist without the means and method to wage it. A story like Alexander’s erupts in large part because of the particular circumstances of his time and his background and his unique placement in the world at that moment. Part of my goal in the series has been to capture something of that unique moment. I’ve used pieces of the ancient world as building blocks, threads reaching across a great distance into an imagined far future setting.

Kate Elliott’s gender spun Alexander the Great in space is out now. Elliott been writing science fiction and fantasy for 30 years, after bursting onto the scene with Jaran. She is best known for her Crown of Stars epic fantasy series and the New York Times bestselling YA fantasy series Court of Fives. Elliott’s particular focus is immersive world building & centering women in epic stories of adventure, amid transformative cultural change. She lives in Hawaii, where she paddles outrigger canoes & spoils her schnauzer.

Thanks to Dr. Jeanne Reames for her help in writing this post.

JONESY THE CAT, from Alien (1979)

THE CAT, from Coraline (novella, 2002; film, 2009)

GOOSE THE FLERKEN, from Captain Marvel (2019)

THE STRAY, from Stray (2022)

THE CAT, from Love Death + Robots (2019)

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**JONESY THE CAT, from Alien (1979)**

**THE CAT, from Coraline (novella, 2002; film, 2009)**

**GOOSE THE FLERKEN, from Captain Marvel (2019)**

**THE STRAY, from Stray (2022)**

**THE CAT, from Love Death + Robots (2019)**