But Enough About Me!

Bitten Books is giving away COLD MAGIC and PROPHECY OF THE SISTERS (Michelle Zink). You can enter until August 7. Contest is open internationally.


On Twitter & Facebook, I am posting one (random) sentence a day from Cold Fire in a countdown toward USA publication on Sept 26. UK/Oz/NZ publication is Sept 1. However, it is likely the USA edition will appear in bookstores earlier than Sept 26. However, the ebook will not be released until Sept 26 as far as I know (in the USA market).

I am Kate Elliott on Facebook and KateElliottSFF on Twitter.

If you are absolutely not on either of those platforms (and there is no reason why you should be if you don't want to be), and if there is actual interest, I can post one each day here, too, but since they're very short I'll only do it if there are folks here who aren't on the other platforms and who actually want to read the sentences. So let me know if you are. And if you aren't interested, or if you can read them on FB or Twitter, then SAY NOTHING. ;)

Two things tonight.

First, I unexpectedly received my author's copies of the mass market edition of COLD MAGIC. Its official release date is August 1 but it will probably start showing up in stores before that. Obviously the ebook remains available, but now the mass market will be too. Orbit altered the cover somewhat for the mass market. You can see the old and new covers compared at this Tumblr post.

What this means for you is that the mass market will be available very very soon. COLD FIRE follows in September.



Second, read here an excellent post by Ghanaian writer Jonathan Dotse on "Developing Worlds: Beyond the Frontiers of Science Fiction."

there are more signs that we are at the beginning of a global awakening to the role of the developing world in the future of science fiction. My own novel-in-progress began as a cyberpunk thriller set in a future North America, simply because whenever I tried to imagine an African future I found myself having to deal with issues I wished someone else had already dealt with; having to answer questions I wished someone else already had. I realized that I had no groundwork; no foundation whatsoever, and that to imagine a future Africa I would have to begin from scratch.

Two things recently have caused me to contemplate yet again the vexed question of spoilers.

One was an online discussion that took place long enough ago that I’m not going to link to it. The other was watching the Taye Diggs’ produced-and-starred-in miniseries DAY BREAK.

I don't like spoilers.

I say that not to take a belligerent stance. I know there are people who don’t mind spoilers and that seems to me as valid a stance as mine; it’s just a different stance. So when I say I don’t like spoilers, I don’t mean that I have a moral objection to spoilers or that I think no review or critical essay should include spoilers out of respect for delicate sensibilities like my own or that people who put spoilers in their reviews are horrible thoughtless wankers, I just mean that I PERSONALLY don’t like spoilers and I avoid them.


Here’s why I personally don’t like spoilers. It matters for ME ONLY, and is not meant to reflect badly on sensibilities different from my own.

When I experience a work for the first time, I want to experience it with as few preconceived notions as possible. I say that because I do bring in preconceived notions to every fictional work I read or view. I can’t help myself. I just do.

The more preconceptions I haul in, the less likely I can interact with the work in the way I best like: that is, in which I am discovering what the work is about and how I am reacting to what I am discovering the work is about. Much of the pleasure for me is not “surprise,” but rather “getting to know” the piece. I prefer to do that unmediated by outside opinion and influence beyond what I already bring because of the cultural baggage, and knowledge, I drag along as part of my daily existence. I’m also an emotional reader and viewer; the experience of my emotional interaction with the story is a great part of the enjoyment for me. I should note here that I can have an emotional interaction with intellectual content as well as characterization and plot and landscape.

I have discovered that I can increase my reading and viewing enjoyment by deliberately going in with as little knowledge of a specific work as possible. Oddly, this enhances the experience. It’s as if the less I know about the work, the more I can enjoy it for what it is to me because I am less likely to walk into it tainted by expectations.

Alas, I am obliged to add here, lest someone believe otherwise, that by this I do not mean I value ignorance and think ignorance makes books and films better. I value being well read and well educated and make myself as well read and educated as possible, so when I say that I go into a work “knowing as little as possible” I don’t mean in the larger sense of my general attempts to be knowledgable about the world and current events.

I will also tack on a brief paragraph to note that I am not an uncritical, I-just-go-in-with-low-expectations viewer and reader. Just ask my children how much they like to go see a film with me. When the lights come up, they look at me and say, “Well, Mom?” and brace themselves for the usual torrential criticism of the writing, characterization (or lack thereof), and stupid plot idiocies. I shall always fondly recall their befuddled expressions after the second X-Men film, in which they asked, and I said, “Gosh! I enjoyed that!” Please do not ask me what I thought of the third X-Men film as to even think of that abomination still makes my blood to boil.

DAY BREAK is a series starring Taye Diggs and an unusually diverse cast (for mainstream Hollywood) including three major female characters. He plays a cop in LA, but the story has a spec-fic element. I didn’t even know that much when Spouse and I watched the first episode. What I knew was that it starred Taye Diggs, and I’m sorry to have to tell you that the reason I stumbled across it at all was that I was wasting time online one day “fantasy casting” Cold Magic by checking out handsome black male actors to see if any of them had the kind of look I have in my head for Andevai.

As we watched the show (13 episodes that tell a complete story), I reflected how much I was enjoying my dearth of expectations. Nothing got in the way between me and my idiosyncratic experience of the show. Each night as we watched another episode or two via Netflix, Spouse and I speculated over possible directions that the story might take characters and plots, a pleasant diversion we could not have enjoyed had we known the story in advance. Indeed, I think the shows I’ve most enjoyed in the last few years have been the ones I’ve known the least about when I started watching them, including the iconic and superb The Wire (HBO, 5 seasons). I’m thrilled I knew as little as I did about the The Wire when we watched it--all via Netflix--and that I avoided reading about seasons we hadn’t yet seen because I didn’t want to read spoilers.

Let me be blunt. In some conversations about spoilers I sometimes sense a kind of condescension from people who are sure that anyone who objects to spoilers is a lesser sort of reader compared to, oh, them.

I just don’t see the utility of making a hierarchy out of ways in which people read.

Because not only is creating such a hierarchy a suspect exercise, it also closes off the possibility that people may have more than one facet, more than one set of tools, more than one strategy and approach. In other words, I don’t want to be told that I OUGHT NOT be the kind of reader/viewer who prefers no spoilers before reading or viewing a work.

Likewise, at times I sense an implied or stated idea that if “you” don’t like spoilers, then you must also by definition not ever want to engage critically with anything you read or view. Is it really so difficult to imagine that someone might dislike spoilers but like critical essays? My personal dislike of spoilers does not mean I ALSO do not like critical essays. I like them just fine (and I believe that critical essays by definition will and indeed must contain spoilers, in contrast to reviews which may or may not contain spoilers depending on how much the reviewer described the plot)

However, I don’t want to read critical essays until I’ve also read/viewed the work in question (or in those cases where I am pretty sure I am never going to read the work in question). Indeed, I get a great deal of enjoyment out of seeking out critical engagement with works I’ve particularly liked because it’s not only interesting and occasionally enlightening but it also creates a re-engagement with the work through analyzing and examining it, akin to re-watching or re-reading. In fact, I wish there was more critical engagement in the sff field and that it ranged farther afield: that is, I wish what critical essays there are would not roll over the same set of works and authors that get considered multiple times while rafts of other works and authors remain ignored.

At the same time, I understand that people who don’t mind spoilers can get frustrated by militant anti-spoiler readers and comments. Spoilerphilics don’t want to get scolded or accused of being snobs or killjoys. Why should they want that? They’re reading and viewing in a way that works for them. As far as I can tell, some people really want to know more about a work before they invest time and/or money in reading or viewing it, or they want to make sure the work will not contain triggering plot elements that they have good reason to prefer to avoid, or they just don’t care, or some other of many possible reasons and ways of reading and viewing.

As for DAY BREAK, both Spouse and I really enjoyed it, so that would constitute a two thumbs up. With no spoilers.

How long might it take a small airship to get from the coast of Texas to the north coast of Cuba? Discuss options and variables.

The timeline of the Cold Magic world and its technology obviously does not map exactly to ours.

If you haven't read Cold Magic, you may not only not find this post of interest (although you may find it marginally amusing), but my complete lack of any explanation may prove confusing -- or not, now that I think about it, since the content is quite straightforward.

( Here be spoilers if you haven’t read Cold Magic. )

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I did one for Cold Fire, too, but I'm not sure I'm ready to release that into the wild yet. Although I found it quite interesting.

In Round 3 I promised to write a short story featuring Rory (a character from COLD MAGIC) if I won.

I'm working on it, but I can't be sure how long it will take me to write.

Just to pay up a little bit (as Round 4 winds down), I post the first page here.

Warning: I suppose this could be construed as mildly spoilery if you haven't read COLD MAGIC, but not particularly. I admit I am writing it with a bit of an assumption that you know something about Rory going in.

Second warning: well, um, if you are disturbed by the death of small, irritating lap dogs, then this will not be for you. Standard disclaimer: I love dogs. I own a dog.


( no redeeming social value, beyond )

So there's this March Madness style tournament of books called DABWAHA.

Which you can find here.

COLD MAGIC is in the "Crossover" bracket.

Go check it out.

From Sunday to Tuesday this week you fill in brackets, and then you vote starting Wednesday.

There's a "How to Play" page.

Just a general question. The mass market paperback edition of Cold Magic is going through production now. If you happen to have noticed a typo (or that kind of thing -- that is, not a revision suggestion but an actual typo or grammatical mistake or someone's eyes described as brown here but red there or a very clear historical/cultural mistake that can be easily correctable by application of the correct term, and etc), then please drop a note into the comments here.

If you didn't notice, then I certainly understand because I never notice such things either, and often alas not usually in my own work (which is why I love my copy editors). But I thought I would throw the question open just in case. Thanks.

Seriously, a reader created a cookie in honor of Cold Magic.

You can read about it here on the OrbitBooks blog.