Vonda N. McIntyre...

Recently I've been presenting some of my backlist in electronic form at Book View Cafe, both serialized for free and for sale in ebook form.

This week, Book View Press released its first anthology of original and classic short sf stories, Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls. It includes my story "Steelcollar Worker."

We're pretty excited about the book.

More info at the Book View Cafe website.

Vonda

Today (21 October 2009) is the 80th birthday of Ursula K. Le Guin.

The benefit auction for Jeanne Robinson is heating up: On the block, one copy of A Winter Solstice Ritual from the Pacific Northwest, by Ursula K. Le Guin and Vonda N. McIntyre, signed by both authors. A chapbook from Ygor & Buntho Make Books Press.

http://tinyurl.com/yc8gyes
or
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110442171154&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

See the "Other Items" link for more Dream for Jeanne auctions.

Vonda

Over at Book View Cafe, I posted a rather snarky essay, "Hunting the wily cover blurb."

It's a little risky to write something like this, because people are bound to misread it. What a rotten person I must be, not to be willing to read new writers and help them out. Didn't established writers help you out when you were a pup?

They did.

I do too.

(I just finished reading a first novel by a new writer, which I thoroughly enjoyed; I'm trying to think up a scintillating blurb so the editor won't write back and say, "Can't you pump it up a little?" which is what usually happens. I'm just not enough of an SFX kinda girl to satisfy the current fashion for Spitzensparken! and Blinkenlitzen! I guess. And then there was the editor who solicited me for a blurb, then went out of the way to tell me they weren't going to use it because they didn't want the book infected with sci fi cooties. I would much have preferred a diplomatic silence.)

I hope most of the folks who read "In search of..." will notice that what I objected to, even beyond the mail-merge aspect of the email requesting my blurbage, was the writer's shining me on about being my biggest fan. It was clear from context (not to mention the fact that at least a dozen other writers got the exact same email) that he's never read a word I ever wrote. In fact he probably never even heard of me; he likely scoured SF author websites for loose email addresses and sent a copy of the email off to every single one of them.

Vonda

Superluminal has debuted at Book View Cafe in ebook form and as a free serial: See my BVC Novels page for information. For a short time, anyone who buys a copy of the hardcover of Superluminal from Basement Full of Books may request a free copy of the ebook edition, in the format of their choice (within reason and my technical ability to create it).

The auction for the limited numbered boxed edition of Superluminal is heating up at the Jeanne Robinson benefit.

So is the auction for a copy of Fireflood & Other Stories.

This is kind of keen. Sometimes you give stuff to a benefit and it makes the good cause some money; sometimes it just lies there like a lump.

I hope the world is treating everybody well.

I posted production notes on the Tacoma 72-hour film competition at the Book View Cafe blog. I wrote the script (in three hours, midnight to 3:00 a.m. Friday) for Kat Ogden, who produced and directed.

It was a lot of fun. Yesterday and today in Seattle the weather was quite monsoonish. I'm glad it held off -- Saturday in Tacoma, when we did most of the outdoor filming, was chilly and damp; it would have been miserable if it had been storming. Of course Friday (when we prepped) was beautiful, and Sunday (when we filmed in a garage and in a basement) it was also beautiful.

Vonda

Book View Cafe has just published Dreamsnake in ebook form. It's being serialized one chapter per week for free, or readers can subscribe to the ebook, which is available in several formats.

I'd be glad to know what formats folks prefer for mobile devices or reading on the computer. I like .prc myself (I have a Treo and have been buying stuff from this company since it was U.S. Robotics and 1200-baud modems were blazingly fast), because I have some control over the font size and font face, and the text will reformat to fit the screen.

Dreamsnake got caught in a couple of different SF publishing line melt-downs, one of which played dog-in-the-manger with the rights for years. So it can be hard to find.

Vonda

Help create the fantasy cast of Dreamsnake. I'm collecting suggestions over at the Book View Cafe blog. (You can reply here but I'll have half a chance of keeping track if you reply at BVC.)

The most challenging parts are Merideth (more info on why at the BVC blog post), and Melissa, the twelve-year-old girl Snake adopts, who was badly scarred in a fire.

Vonda

I can't stand looking at the Droomslang cover anymore so I'm going to put it below the cut, if I can get the cut to work...

Apparently not; it's refused to work as advertised and has wrestled me two falls out of three, so I'm just deleting the horrible picture. If you really want to see it -- assuming anybody ever looks at this blog, a doubtful proposition -- you can visit the Bad Cover finalists:

The Bad Cover finalists can be found at the Book View Cafe blog.

My other blog posts are there too, including "Writing Star Trek novels, or, Why don't you get a morally acceptable job?"

The Bad Cover Competition is heating up over on the Book View Cafe blog. Droomslang has a competitor.
Express your opinion or nominate a candidate.

I've declared a moratorium on bad covers with naked women. If you want to nominate a bad cover with a naked guy, fine, but otherwise, enough already.

Vonda

I'm very excited about the new movie Rise of the Lichens and explain why I'm looking forward to it at the Book View Cafe blog.

The Moon and the Sun continues at BVC with Chapter 8 featured on the front page. The novel is available in its entirety online at BVC, beginning with the Prologue, and is also available in other formats, including Palm/Mobipocket (.prc) in the Online Fiction section of my website.

Vonda

New mint copy of the chapbook A Winter Solstice Ritual from the Pacific Northwest, by Ursula K. Le Guin and Vonda N. McIntyre. Ygor & Buntho Make Books Press, 3rd printing, October 1996.

Signed by both authors.



Don't bid here -- bid at the HelpVera LJ Community.

I've committed serious blog at Book View Cafe Blog. Current entry: "The McIntyre Sisters Encounter a Bear," including my sister Carolyn's Bear Chant.

Previous entries include:

• "Everybody Needs a Hobby," about bead creatures and hyperbolic geometry;
• "Toward a grand unified theory of food bugs," and
• "Iceoglyphs."

In other news, the LJ HelpVera Community is raising funds to help a good person. I've donated an inscribed copy of The Moon and the Sun. Lots of other amazing stuff from amazing writers, artists, and craftspeople.

Here's the announcement I hinted about a while back. I've been up to my alligators helping with the new efiction website, Book View Cafe.

Twenty-plus pro writers have banded together to make our work available on line.

The Moon and the Sun is there, in full (with links to more mobile-device-friendly formats that live on my website). The work that I have on BVC so far is available at my Author Bookshelf.

Ursula K. Le Guin has contributed "King Dog: A Screenplay for the Mind's Eye," which was published by Capra Press and is one of her few OP works.

As a celebration of the website's debut, I've lowered prices on my Basement Full of Books page.



BVC includes a blog. UKL contributed a poem, "The Skin." I've posted two articles so far, "Everybody Needs a Hobby," about bead creatures and hyperbolic geometry, and "Toward a Grand Universal Field Theory of Food Bugs." There's a spirited conversation going on in the latter topic, but in the former nobody even asked me for the Sekrit Trick.

I am devastated.

Best,

Vonda

Crocosmia has flowers like a spray of bright red fireworks. The ones in my front garden, a couple of years after being planted, are taller than I am. (This is not hard for a person, but for a two-year-old plant that starts from scratch every spring, it's a bit impressive.)

Hummingbirds like crocosmia but they don't usually show up in the middle of the day. But an Anna's Hummingbird (iridescent green back) landed on the crocosmia and sat there with his back to me, his beak pointed in the air and his head swiveling back and forth so he could keep an eye on me. He must have sat there three or four minutes -- I was beginning to worry if he was OK, never having seen a hummingbird sit still that long before, when he flew away, making a hummingbird squeaking cry (surprisingly loud for such a little critter), with plenty of energy.

I went out a little later with my camera and caught a couple of shots. They're at http://vondanmcintyre.com/photos/byvnm/






(In the larger garden picture, the hummingbird is at the top left. I have one picture, which I didn't post, where I'm sure there's a hummingbird there someplace, but dammif I can find it.)

My sister is much the better photographer (http://www.carolynmcintyre.net) but I was here with my camera and so were the hummingbirds.

Vonda

Check out where this goes:

nationofwhiners.com

Please see SFWA's LJ community for an appreciation of SFWA's Griefcom.

Best,

Vonda

Please check back in a month or two for an announcement.

If you want to reach me please visit my website.