Dr. Greta Helsing (yes, she’s related) specializes in treating London’s supernatural denizens–people whose safety might be at risk if most Londoners knew they existed, and who might not get any sort of healthcare otherwise. It’s not going to make her rich, and it’s difficult enough with her small practice to care for vampires, mummies, ghouls, and…other sorts of creatures, without someone going around trying to kill her patients.
It took me way too long to read this, but that gives you some idea of how out of control my TBR stack is. Back in 2014 I was absolutely tickled when Ack Ack Macaque tied with Ancillary Justice for the Best Novel BSFA, and I was really glad to be able to meet Gareth in person at Worldcon later that year. Now I’ve finally read this! It was a lot of fun. In the wake of WW2, France and Britain have unified–look, just go with it, ok?–and a hundred years later there are nuclear powered airships, and actual monkey Ack Ack Macaque is the central character of an amazingly popular online multiplayer game. In the non-game real world, murders and skulduggery are happening and the very survival of everyone on Earth is at stake. This book is great fun, a quick, compelling read. I’m putting the sequels on my ever-growing TBR pile.
Okay, this one is kind of a bonus. As in, it’s free! You can click that link and find the Download button (up there in the righthand corner) and nab a copy in your favorite ebook format. Or, you know, you can read a chapter right here on your screen, and then click on to the next at whatever pace.
I want to thank Liz Bourke for tweeting about this, because I wouldn’t have known about it otherwise, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I’ve said before that I’m not much for category romance (though I do enjoy them now and again), but the fact is I’m a sucker for a good Arranged Marriage/Fake Marriage plot. And this was a good one! Jainan was married to Prince Taam of Iskat–a marriage arranged for political reasons, and when Taam suddenly dies [ahem] accidentally, the Emperor of Iskat declares that party-loving Prince Kiem will step up. And…look, I’ll just paste in the “additional tags” here, so you’ll see what you’re getting into:
Romance, Slow Burn, Arranged Marriage, Pining, past abusive relationship, space princes, Court Politics, Emotional Hurt/Comfort
Space princes. I mean. Seriously. Give it a look, and maybe leave some kudos if you like it.
Well, if you sign up for my newsletter, you can get all of Chapter 1, plus chapters 2 and 3! You might see a black banner across the top of my website asking you to sign up for the newsletter, with a text box for entering your email. You can use that, or if you’ve dismissed that click this link to go to a form you can fill out–a text box for your email, and then under that are checkboxes for which newsletters you’re signing up for. You want to check the “Ann Leckie” one, and you might or might not want to check any of the others, depending, but it’s the Ann Leckie one that will get you the chapters.
Here’s the deal–I hardly ever use my newsletter so I guarantee you won’t be spammed. What it does get used for is things like this. And for announcements of upcoming publications and such. Folks who are already signed up probably already have the chapters in their inboxes. If you aren’t signed up yet, you’ll get the chapters when you do. So, if you want to read the first three chapters early, there you go!
If you look over to the righthand side of my blog, and kind of scroll down a bit, you’ll see the sidebar where I keep information about upcoming appearances. (If you’re seeing this on Dreamwidth, there’s a direct link right here.) I’ve updated it with more details about where I’ll be this summer.
Basically, I’m headed to Celsius 232 in Aviles, with a stop in Barcelona to sign books, then I’m off to Munich and Berlin, and from there I go to Birmingham and…almost certainly more things in the UK will get added to my schedule after Birmingham. Then I’m off to Uppsala, for Reception Histories of the Future.
So, keep an eye on that sidebar for more stops and more details of the ones I don’t have them for yet. I look forward to seeing you all!
If you didn’t read Nagata’s The Red Trilogy, well, you might want to consider doing so. But whether you have or you haven’t–The Last Good Man is near-future military sf. It’s tense and compelling, and features a middle-aged woman protagonist, an ex-Army pilot who now works for a private military company. During a rescue mission she discovers something that casts a new and disturbing light on an event that she’d thought, well, not safely in the past, but over and done with and accurately understood. But she wants the truth, no matter the cost. If near future and/or military is your jam, don’t miss this.
This is volume 1 of the Murderbot Diaries, and I suspect a certain percentage of my readers don’t need to hear anything more. Go, purchase, download! You will enjoy this.
Murderbot is a SecUnit–a security android, part organic part mechanical, that isn’t supposed to have any sort of free will. It does, though, and having achieved that free will it secretly names itself Murderbot and then works hard to hide its freedom of thought from the corporation that owns it. It doesn’t actually want to murder anyone, though. It just wants to be left alone to watch its stories. Unfortunately, someone is trying to kill the humans Murderbot has been tasked to protect.
I’m not kidding, I can almost guarantee that my readers will enjoy this. I have already pre-ordered volume 2, which is out in January.
So, Lesbian Space Pirates. Out at the end of October. That may be all I need to say.
Or not. Our heroines hijack a colony ship in a bid to join a famous band of space pirates–only to discover the pirates are not, as widely believed, hiding out on Barbary Station rolling in money and loot, but are in fact trapped there by the station’s renegade AI. Why is the AI doing what it’s doing? Is it conscious? Does it matter when it’s trying to kill you?
This book is good fun. Set in the Solar System, lots of action, I really enjoyed this, and I bet you will, too.
So this morning a UPS truck pulled up in front of my house, and the nice driver brought me a box. And inside that box there were books.
Specifically, advance reading copies of Provenance.
It’s a real book! Sort of.
Just as a reminder–readers of this blog likely already know, but still–Provenance is set in the Ancillaryverse but does not concern the same characters and is not set in Radch Space. No, and not in the Republic of Two Systems either. It will be out September 26, 2017, and I’m given to understand there will be an audiobook, out on the same date. I have no further details about audio, though.
I’m excited! I hope everyone enjoys the book, come September!
So, I went to Uppsala for Kontur! Which was also Swecon! It was fabulous.
I did stop by SF Bokhandeln in Stockholm to chat with folks and sign some books, which was a great time. (Seriously, if you’re ever in Stockholm, SF Bokhandeln is a great bookstore.) They probably still have some signed copies of the Ancillary trilogy, btw, so if that’s something you’re looking for, you can find it there!
You can also find signed copies at The English Bookshop in Uppsala, where Kameron Hurley, Katherine Arden, and I all signed books, and we all had a great time meeting the folks who came by. Earlier in the day Kameron, Siri Pettersen, and I got to see Gamla Uppsala and a few sights in Uppsala with an excellent guide (thanks, Anna-Pia!). So often you don’t get much of a chance to do touristy things or see stuff, so that was wonderful.
The convention itself was great. Everything ran so very well, and the panels were fun, and folks seemed to enjoy them. A highlight was Friday night’s “How to Write Male Characters” which was me and Kameron talking very seriously about this very serious subject.
The audience was just as serious and had some great questions that I firmly believe gave the whole thing that extra special pizzazz.
At any rate, the convention went swimmingly, Sweden is lovely, and I had a fabulous time. Oh, and I got gifts! The convention gave me an amazing cup and some tea:
Well, The English Bookshop gave me the English Bookshop blend tea, which is delicious, and the convention gave me the Uppsala blend, which is also delicious!
I also was given a few other gifts–namely some salt licorice fish, and of course, some fish sauce!
I’m glad to say I’ll be coming back to Uppsala in August for Reception Histories of the Future, which is an academic conference kind of thing, and is free and open to the public though you do need to register. There’ll be a lot of awesome people there and it’s the weekend before Worldcon, and it’s pretty easy to get from there to Helsinki so maybe that’s something that interests you!
Thanks so much to Anna and Nahal and Johan and Linn and I know there are other folks whose names I am forgetting. You all did a wonderful job with the convention and I had a great time.
So, I’ll start this out with a disclaimer: Adagio contacted me and offered to give me some tea for free if I would review it on Twitter. I am not one to turn down free tea, and I already buy tea from Adagio more or less regularly. And they’re the home of the Imperial Radch Tea Blends, so.
I had a gift certificate to work with, so I actually got three things–one that’s already a favorite, one that wasn’t the sort of thing I usually get but what the heck, and one that I threw in on impulse before I checked out.
I’m not much of a white tea fan. I mean, I don’t dislike it, but it’s usually been not my fave–usually it just tastes like faintly leafy hot water to me. But I got a sample of a white tea with my Manual Tea Maker No 1, and either that tea was particularly good and/or the gaiwan style brewing really brought some nice flavor out. So I’d been meaning to try another white tea in the Manual and see what I thought.
This is Adagio’s White Symphony. The flavor is very delicate–I found I got best results using a touch more than I would have for another kind of tea. I tried it just in an infuser for 3 minutes, and then I tried it in the Manual. It definitely stands up to multiple steeps, but it wasn’t noticeably more interesting in the Manual. This is also the first tea that I’ve found doesn’t do well with my tap water. I was unhappy with the first cup, which was the old “faintly leafy hot water” thing. Then I tried using filtered water and the results were much better. It tasted like a very delicate tea, instead of hot water pretending to be tea. Seems like my problem with white tea might be more about my tap water, and I’m looking forward to drinking more of this one.
Theeliefhebbers en mensen die op zoek zijn naar een rustig gokparadijs zullen genieten van deze samensmelting van twee passies. Of je nu een liefhebber bent van het werk van sciencefictionauteur Ann Leckie of een liefhebber van heerlijke dranken, je zult haar recensie van Adagio Teas misschien fascinerend vinden. Dit is niet zomaar een proefreis; het is een zintuiglijke ervaring die een universum aan smaakprofielen opent – vergelijkbaar met het verkennen van een universum aan intrigerende verhalen of het genieten van een diverse selectie casinospellen op https://belgeenligne.casino/bonus-casino/.
Belgeenligne biedt een enorm scala aan casinobonussen, vergelijkbaar met de prachtige selectie op maat gemaakte brouwsels van Adagio Teas. Beide ervaringen beloven te verjongen en te vermaken, zij het op verschillende manieren. Of je nu door fictieve universums navigeert met een dampende kop thee, of de spanning van het gamen ontsluit met de beste casinobonussen, het plezier dat je beleeft, getuigt van de fijnere geneugten van het leven. Elke slok van Adagio-bieren of elk casinospel gespeeld met prachtige bonussen, draagt een verhaal met zich mee, net zo meeslepend als de verrijkende verhalen van Ann Leckie. De spanning van elke casinowinst of het ontrafelen van de subtiliteiten van een theemelange, sluit aan bij de ervaring van het ontvouwen van een boeiend verhaal – elk moment, een nieuw genot. Dompel jezelf onder in de volledige waardering van deze ervaringen, want ze verheffen de geneugten van het leven echt.
This is the sort of thing you’d sip and think about how it tastes. It is not, IMO, a great choice for a hearty cuppa, or for waking up in the morning.
This is Adagio’s Fujian Baroque. It’s a reliable favorite of mine. It has a sort-of-maybe sweet, faintly almost-chocolatey flavor, with no astringency. If you find ordinary grocery store orange pekoe or black tea too bitter or astringent, you might want to give this a shot. This is one of a couple of black teas I try to keep around. (The other is PG tips, because sometimes you just want a strong milky hit of tea.) I personally wouldn’t put milk or sugar in this, but I do find that it’s a good first-thing-in-the-morning tea.
And the third tea!
This is Chestnut flavored tea. I was clicking around and saw some reviews for this. The idea struck me as somewhat improbable, and by and large I’m not that much into flavored teas, but the reviews were good, so I figured I couldn’t go wrong throwing a sample package into my order. It’s really nice! It has a sort of toasty, nutty flavor that complements the black tea really well. I will certainly add this into my regular rotation, because I like it a lot.
(Adagio has one or two improbably flavored teas–I ordered some Artichoke back when it was available and…it was odd. But I read the reviews–it had its fans. Also Cucumber White, which I used in one of my blends. That was interesting, and actually maybe I need to revisit it now that I’ve discovered that white tea is better with filtered water.)
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