I met Books and Pieces at Loncon and she’s as lovely and funny in real person as she is in her Youtube vids. Here she talks about her November reads and her December TBR and she is hilarious. Also I like to note that Kaleidoscope is sitting rather closely nuzzled to Ancillary Sword there.

Hey! Felicia Day has an anounccccceeemennnnt:

I quite enjoyed a short vid of this interview of Oprah Winfrey at Stanford that I came across so I watched the whole hour. It’s not new material if you’ve watched a lot of recent Winfrey production but I still like to hear a lot of her thoughts over and over.

And hey! Did you hear that we released a new book title at Twelfth Planet Press yesterday? You didn’t?! Well! Let me tell you! The eleventh volume of the Twelve Planets (you see how close were are now? Do you see it??? Sooooo clooooose) The Female Factory by Lisa L Hannett and Angela Slatter arrived in print form at my house yesterday:

Every every every time I open a box of a new title, Amanda blows me away by how much prettier her book covers are in person than the images I’ve been peering over on screen, and I always love those to start with. We did it! We made another book in 2014! (Yes, my husband made me award myself a gold star for that.) And this one is fab! We’re offering the ebook add on for every print book purchase in December 2014. And thanks to Charles Tan, we were able to publish the ebook on the same day as the print for this one! So everyone who had already preordered the book (should have) got the ebook emailed to them last night. (Email me if you didn’t get yours. For those who had prepaid for the ebook as well, we’re offering any other ebook in our catalogue in exchange – email me if you didn’t get the email to organise that!) It’s a book bonanza!! Wheee!!!

Today’s drink: Chuang Hong “river red” Black Tea from Monstrositea

Today’s total word count: 758

Year Total running word tally from (Nov 24): 11 203

Progress on:  Bit of intray management, writing and prep for some upcoming blog posts, finished my knitting stash audit for To Do List 2015 Project

I’m taking pitches for Twelfth Planet Press on Friday afternoon ahead of the Opening Ceremony (5.30pm, Forest Room 2) and then disappearing for Yom Kippur. I’ll be back around on Sunday morning (9.45am) to be interviewed by Helen Merrick in my Guest Speech slot before we launch Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA SF & Fantasy Stories in Australia in Forest Room 2.

I’m also scheduled to appear on the following panel items:

CURRENT TRENDS IN BOOK BUSINESS

This century has seen new ways of “doing” book business, from the major publishing house to small and indie press, from print to ebooks. Small press and independent titles are attracting both award and review attention. Panellists have experience with a range of publishing strategies and share their insights.
5.30pm Sunday, Forest Room 2. Panellists: Alan Baxter, Jack Dann, Alisa Krasnostein and Aimee Lindorff.

WRITING ABOUT GENDER AND SEXUAL DIVERSITY

Issues in writing about gender and sexually diverse characters.
9am Monday. Forest Room 2. Panellists: Alisa Krasnostein, Helen Merrick (Moderator), and Jane Virgo.

THE SPOKEN JOURNEY

Podcasts, talking books, radio, audio journals: in a multi-media environment the writing market includes audio presentations. This panel explores audio as a medium and issues in accessibility, technology and performance.
1pm Monday, Forest Room 3. Panellists: Phill Berrie (Moderator), Alisa Krasnostein, and Tehani Wessely.

TRANSMEDIA STORIES

New strategies and trends in story telling are increasing in popularity with graphic novels, e-books with embedded content, Youtube tie-ins, film and television and many other formats. Our panellists discuss ‘telling’ a story across multiple platforms.
3pm Monday, Forest Room 2. Panellists: Jacqueline Abela, Alisa Krasnostein and more panellists to be confirmed.

I’m bringing the Twelve Planets Scarf Project so come along and say hi to us in the Dealers Room and knit some rows and check out our new books!

I’m getting so excited about these! The first Paper art workshop is this Saturday. The second one was just announced and if you’re in Perth and are interested, I recommend signing up straight away as the first one filled up overnight.

Paper Art Workshop

A passionate collector of found objects, Pam Langdon is inspired by the marine environment and patterns within nature. Her art practice resembles a beach combing expedition encountering strange, sometimes unidentifiable objects which have been washed ashore. Pam’s unique artist’s books are transformed and recontextualized from a discarded unloved existence, giving renewed life. Inspired by the stories and pages within each book the intricate cutting, folding and rolling of their pages forms spirals, symbolising movement and energy and reflecting growth patterns found in nature. The labyrinth of folds and curls entices the reader for closer inspection of their mysterious new life.

Pam will display and demonstrate 2 different forms of books, incorporating origami paper folding and paper cutting techniques. Each participant will also receive copies of Through Splintered Walls to enable them to begin work on their artwork for the combined community exhibition in May.

Due to materials, places are limited. To register, please contact Lee Battersby, Coordinator Cultural Development and Arts, on 08 9528 0386 or email lee.battersby@rockingham.wa.gov.au.

Date: 16 February 2013
Location: Gary Holland Community Centre
Time: 1pm – 3pm

Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren (Book 6 in the Twelve Planets series) is available as a paperbook and ebook.

Twelfth Planet Press Hour on Friday Night – its a gold coin donation day at Continuum so open to all and sundry!

Ever wondered how your favorite Twelve Planet collection would taste like in cupcake form? Then come along to the Twelfth Planet Cocktail hour, to celebrate the launch of the newest Twelve Planets, Through Splintered Walls, by Kaaron Warren, and Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan, plus the new TPP novella Salvage by Jason Nahrung. All your other favourite Twelve Planets will be there and we’ll also be making a surprise announcement!

Each book will be lovingly interpreted as a cupcake by master baker, Terri Sellen. Your cocktail choice is entirely your own…

Galactic Suburbia will record an episode live over the weekend,

Embiggen Books Event, 5pm Saturday

A book launch with a difference! Come join host Ian Mond, TPP publisher Alisa Krasnostein and TPP authors as they launch the Twelve Planets into space, via a live podcast from Embiggen Books. Find out what goes in to putting together this acclaimed series of boutique collections. Hijinks will undoubtedly ensue.

A Stitch In Time Travel Preview
Come and help beta test a pattern from the upcoming new craft ebook from Twelfth Planet Press.
Crochet hooks optional.

Never ask me which is my favourite – I’ll never be able to decide!

Here’s what the text on the back cover says:

Family drama can be found anywhere: in kitchens, in cafes. Derelict hotels, showground rides. Even dungeons far below ruined Hungarian castles. (Okay, especially in Hungarian dungeons.)

Old family fights can go on forever, especially if you’re undead. If an opportunity came to save someone else’s family, the way you couldn’t save your own, would you take it?

Your family might include ghosts, or zombies, or vampires. Maybe they just have allergies. Nobody’s perfect.

Family history can weigh on the present like a stone.  But the thing about families is, you can’t escape them. Not ever. And mostly, you don’t want to.

 

It’s a beautiful collection of pieces, each one utterly classic and completely new at the same time… In Narrelle’s hands, everything old is new again, and everything new has the weight of age.  There’s magic in that, and in this book. — Seanan McGuire

 

The book went to the printer’s last week so I’m expecting the proofs any day now. Can’t wait to see this one in real life!

Palming the Lady

“She told me my future.”

“What was it?”

“In the words of Dorothy Parker-”

“I know. No one gets a happy ending.”

“You want to hear something really creepy, you should ask her what she sees in her own future.”

Detective Palmer is called to the home of Matthew Webb, an anxious young medical student who claims he’s being stalked by a homeless woman. When Palmer takes the nameless woman in, she finds she has an uncanny ability to tell the future. By the time Palmer unravels the truth about so-called ‘Mad Mary’, Palmer herself must confront the devastating future that Mary has left her – a future where the only forgiveness available to her will be her own.

Preorder your copy of Bad Power here.

Shades of Grey

“There are two kinds of people with lawyers on tap, Mr Grey. The powerful and the corrupt.”

“Thank you.”

“For implying you’re powerful?”

“For imagining those are two different groups.”    

Esser Grey is a rich and powerful man who has discovered, despite the world’s attempts to soften its edges for him, that one power eludes him: he cannot die. He sets out to divert the unwanted miracle through suicide and, when that doesn’t work, through murder. Along the way he meets Detective Palmer, the first person not only to acknowledge his miracle, but also his humanity.

We’re in the process of converting all the Twelfth Planet Press books to ebooks and they will soon be available on the website and in various other online stores. Quality ebooks are fiddly and time consuming to produce and I’m very fortunate to have kind designers who have generously given of their time to make TPP electronically available.

The ebook process has been an interesting, and often frustrating one for me. I’m not a designer, I don’t do layout and I haven’t been able to help out on this project. The software to layout ebooks is not the same software as to layout print books and the conversion from one to the other, no matter what people say, is not an easy, simple, straightforward one. You can generate from one to the other but then you get nasty, messy files that are awful to read and people complain about. And the manual layout for a good ebook takes as long as it does to layout a print book. So that’s double the time or two completely different, and time consuming products. And in small press, where most of the people involved are pretty much donating their time and skills, it starts to all get a bit overly demanding.

Still, I am very fortunate. Amanda Rainey does such fantastic layout. She makes my books look like real books and good looking ones at that. And I know she is much of the reason our books are doing so well. And now, the unbelievably awesome Charles Tan has come on board to help out with our ebooks. I’m learning from him what makes a quality ebook and just how much time that takes. And considering how busy Charles is with all the other things he does, I am very lucky he is my friend!

Our very first ebook is now up and available for purchase from the Twelfth Planet Press webstore. Cheryl Morgan finessed this one from Amanda’s files and Charles took it to the finishing line. I’ve even read it on my iPhone and can attest it looks very beautiful. The rest will follow and we’ll make a bigger deal about that then.

Love and Romanpunk Ebook – available for download now for $5.95

And in celebration, Tansy Roberts is Rocking the Romanpunk all this week!

]]> http://champagneandsocks.com/2011/09/26/first-twelve-planet-volume-is-available-by-ebook/feed/ 3 http://champagneandsocks.com/2011/09/14/the-twelve-planets/ http://champagneandsocks.com/2011/09/14/the-twelve-planets/#comments Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:55:49 +0000 http://champagneandsocks.com/?p=491

Gwyneth Jones has this to say on the Twelve Planets volumes so far, which she posted about on her personal blog:

I’ve been reading The Twelve Planets’ latest selections, and enjoying them very much, starting with Deborah Biancotti: police procedural with a sinister undertow of the weird, progressing through Tansy Rayner Roberts (Romanpunk), Lucy Sussex (Thief of Lives), and Sue Isle (Nightsiders). These collections, just four stories in a slim paperback, are an excellent idea, a tasting menu of Australasian female genre writers. Romanpunk has an intriguing twist on the noble vampire and mortal girlfriend* story (see, these vampires are really Lamia, they’re Roman in origin, and very well connected, but they find the C21 street has its uses). Ever wondered why pretty-boy Caligula was such an unmitigated horror in private life? Or why Nero was finally forced to kill his mother? Refreshingly, unlike Buffy, the mortal girlfriend is not allergic to education and actually has a life… Lucy Sussex I can safely say needs no introduction: I loved her beautiful story about modern and ancient Babylon, “Alchemy”. Sue Isle has created a daunting, yet not hopeless day after tomorrow Western Australia; linked stories all set in the same moment, the moment, for various characters, when you realise that climate change has won, and civilisation is not coming back. So you stop mourning, and you move on… Made me wish there was a novel.

Someone said, recently, the Finnish sf community gives me hope for the future of the genre… These Australians give me hope for the future of female, and even feminist, writers in sf.

I couldn’t hope for better feedback.

We have teamed up to offer the next five people who donate $50 or more a signed copy of Marianne de Pierres’s Glitter Rose! This is in addition to the regular reward. De Pierres is the very successful author of the Parrish Plessis books from Orbit and the SF series Sentients of Orion.

We are also offering copies of Twelfth Planet Press books Nightsiders and Love and Romanpunk to anyone donating just $25 or more!

Please help us raise more money for the fund, towards a third year of operations!

To claim the offer, make a donation through the peerbackers project, then e-mail worldsftravelfund@gmail.com with your name, the amount of your donation and your choice of reward. Remember these rewards are in addition to the regular ones you’ll receive!

Bad Power by Deborah Biancotti

Showtime by Narrelle M Harris

Through the Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren

The season most definitely has a dark bent. Biancotti explores use & abuse of power. You’ll find yourself wondering just what your own bad power is. Harris brings her quick sense of humour & talent for the quirky to her collection. You’ll laugh but you’ll also be deeply discomforted. Warren will take you on a journey through the back roads of Australian towns and leave you feeling uneasy and more than a little creeped out.

Preorders for the season can ber mde over at the Twelfth Planet Press store where you can also upgrade your subscription from a single or two book purchase to a subscription to the full series.

Ben Payne has a great review of Love and Romanpunk in which he sums up with:

I have been thinking for a while about how to best sum up Love and Romanpunk. In some ways it delivered what I expected, but in others it surprised me. I expected this book to be smart, to know its history, to have a sense of fun, and some laughs, and some steamy romance. Those things are almost Tansy trademarks. And it does have all those things, but in the end, all of those things felt almost peripheral to the things I liked most about the collection.

What’s not often talked about, with Tansy’s writing,  is the fact that there is a real emotional courage to her best works, a sense that she is ready to get into her gumboots and rubber gloves and muck about in the messiest, ugliest, most confusing of human emotions and relationships, and to try to find a path through them. It’s that depth of emotion, sometimes sweet, but just as often brutal and painful, that drives the best of these stories into being something a cut above the majority of works out there. The fact that they are also smart, and fun, is just the icing on the cake.

Recommended.

Purchase Love and Romanpunk on its own or as part of The Twelve Planets series or buy the first three in a season’s pass.

I have a couple of copies up on Goodreads as a Giveaway and the widget below to show off the lovely cover by Amanda Rainey (of course!)

And here’s what the back of the book says:

Thousands of years ago, Julia Agrippina wrote the true history of her family, the Caesars. The document was lost, or destroyed, almost immediately.
(It included more monsters than you might think.)

Hundreds of years ago, Fanny and Mary ran away from London with a debauched poet and his sister.
(If it was the poet you are thinking of, the story would have ended far more happily, and with fewer people having their throats bitten out.)

Sometime in the near future, a community will live in a replica Roman city built in the Australian bush. It’s a sight to behold.
(Shame about the manticores.)

Further in the future, the last man who guards the secret history of the world will discover that the past has a way of coming around to bite you.
(He didn’t even know she had a thing for pointy teeth.)

The world is in greater danger than you ever suspected. Women named Julia are stronger than they appear. Don’t let your little brother make out with silver-eyed blondes. Immortal heroes really don’t fancy teenage girls. When love dies, there’s still opera. Family is everything. Monsters are everywhere. Yes, you do have to wear the damned toga.

History is not what you think it is.

LOVE AND ROMANPUNK.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Julia Agrippina’s Secret Family Bestiary
Lamia Victoriana
The Patrician
Last of the Romanpunks
Afterword

Love and Romanpunk is available for purchase at twelfthplanetpress.com

And subscriptions to the Twelve Planets can be bought and upgraded at any time.