Posts Tagged ‘Eating Authors’

If you’re reading this on Monday morning (and let’s assume you are), I hope you remembered to cast your ballot for the Nebula Awards (assuming you’re a card-carrying member of SFWA) — and not just because I also hope you voted for my novella (which I do!), but because it’s important to point out what we liked, what entertained or inspired us.

Another thing about this particular Monday also pertains to voting. The deadline for this year’s Hugo nominations closes tonight. And yes, while again I’d be happy to see my work on the ballot, the larger point here is that this is an opportunity for both writers and readers to express what really spoke to them in the previous year, both professionally and fannishly, in print and audio and film. And don’t even get me started about the Campbell Award. Bottom line: if you’re eligible to nominate (i.e., have/had supporting membership for either LoneStarCon 3, LonCon 3, or Sasquan), please take the time to do so, if you haven’t already.

Okay, with that bit of public service (and wee bit of shameless self-promotion) out of the way, let’s turn to today’s EATING AUTHOR guest. Many of you probably already know Amelia Beamer from her endless years of service as both editor and reviewer over at Locus, but she’s also writing fiction, and her first novel, The Loving Dead, is a wild spin on the traditional undead tale. Forget having a shambling horror biting you, and instead consider what happens when the zombie plague requires sexual transmission. Oh, and did I mention the zeppelin? Right, you’ll be clicking that link to order a copy real soon. But first, keep reading to learn about Amelia’s most memorable meal.

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Today is St. Patrick’s Day, which for me is loaded with meaning far beyond automotive snakes and green beer. Today would have been my paternal grandfather’s hundredth-something birthday, as well as my parents’ wedding anniversary. It’s also the anniversary of the passing of Ghang, my dog of eighteen years (and the unconscious inspiration for a quarter million words of fiction). I’m typically awash in bittersweet memories on this day, and I suspect today will be little different, though at times I’ll be quite busy as I’m away in New York for some hypnosis training.

But never mind all that, you’re not here to read about me; let’s get on to the main feature. My guest this week is a writer of Fantasy novels, and she’s quite good at them. Carol Berg has won the Mythopoeic Award (for her The Lighthouse Duet, Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone), several Colorado Book Awards (for Song of the Beast, The Soul Mirror, as well as the afore-mentioned Breath and Bone), and the Geffen Award for Best Translated Fantasy (for Transformation, the first book of her Rai-Kirah series). Other works include her Bridge of D’Arnath and Novels of the Collegia Magica series.

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Forget what you know about March being the month of lions and lambs. Over the last several years, for me, March has been the month of a torrent of mail as hundreds of SFWA members send in their ballots to determine the composition of the organization’s Board. It’s my own fault, mind you, as the volunteer head of the Election Committee. Later today I’ll walk down the driveway to check my mailbox and collect the day’s dozens of sealed ballots. None of them will be opened for weeks yet, but for now talk of SFWA Elections provides an introduction of sorts for today’s EATING AUTHOR guest, E. C. Myers, the exiting Eastern Regional Director of SFWA. I mention this because it tells you a bit about the king of guy Eugene is. When the previous Director had to step down, he stepped up and offered to complete the term of office. So, speaking as a card-carrying SFWA member living in the greater Philadelphia area, thanks, Eugene!

Meanwhile, back to the more traditional matters of this blog feature’s introductions. If you’re not already acquainted with Eugene’s work, you should know that his debut novel, Fair Coin took home last year’s Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy (which puts him in a very select club alongside such names as Terry Pratchett and J. K. Rowling). I was present at the banquet when his win was announced, and it was only then that I learned that this author, E. C. Myers, lived in Philadelphia, that he knew all the same local area writers that I knew, and yet I’d never heard of him or met him at any of the local gatherings, readings, or conventions. Doh, did I ever feel stupid!

I’m happy to say that this oversight has since been corrected, and in the year since I’ve had the opportunity to hang out and even dine with Eugene on multiple occasions. And as part of my making up for it, it’s a great pleasure to have him here on the blog.

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I need to confess to a bit of apprehension as I type this week’s EATING AUTHOR post. The latest round of the season’s snowpocalypse is about to hit, and it makes me a bit uneasy as to whether this entry will post as planned. I suspect so, though I might not be able to access it myself if the power goes out again.

But let me put aside all such doom and gloom and tell you a bit about this week’s guest, Marie Brennan. She’s a self-described “former academic,” having left graduate school prior to completing her doctorate in folklore and anthropology to focus her energies on her writing instead. And with admirable results!

Marie writes fantasy. You might know her from her Doppelganger duology (Warrior and Witch), or from her Onyx Court series (beginning with Midnight Never Come. And it’s the kind of fantasy you’d expect from someone who’s put time in studying anthropology and folklore. There’s a verisimilitude to her work that other authors would kill for.

And that trait especially shows up in her latest work, the Memoirs of Lady Trent series, which began with A Natural History of Dragons. The second book, The Tropic of Serpents, hits the stands tomorrow. Trust me, if you like dragons and natural history, you are going to love these books.

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The last week or so has been a bit tumultuous for our little corner of the genre community. There have been petitions and commentary and nastiness and apologies and I have to say, whatever other merit (or not) any of that has had, it’s been pretty tiring too. Which is why, in part, it is such a delight to have Juliet McKenna here today, as she is most definitely one of the good ones! She’s one of the authors behind The Write Fantastic, an initiative to promote the literature of the fantastic, and though most of what I write falls on the SF side of the line, I’ll happily get in line to say “thank you, Juliet.”

She also continues the long tradition here at EATING AUTHORS of writers who have had snails slip into their most memorable meals, but I’ll let you read about that below.

Instead, let me remark that one of the things that fascinates me about authors like Juliet who have written multiple books for multiple series, is how readers discover their works or where they choose to start. Do you jump in with Irons in the Fire, the first book in her series The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution, or with Southern Fire, the book that opens the The Aldabreshin Compass. Do you begin way back with The Thief’s Gamble, her first novel and the first book in her series The Tales of Einarinn, or start with the much more recent Dangerous Waters , which opens her latest series, The Hadrumal Crisis?

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I haven’t done a formal study, but my impression is that the majority of guests here at EATING AUTHORS fall into one of three groups: paranormal romance writers, physicists, and everything else (what the Klingons refer to as chuvmey, but that’s a digression for a different blog post). This may be a bit of distant foreshadowing or omen that this series will end when I find a physicist who writes paranormal romance.

To the best of my knowledge, my guest this week isn’t penning paranormal romance but he is a physicist. Ian Tregillis is the author of the popular alternate history series The Milkweed Tryptich (Bitter Seeds, The Coldest War, and Necessary Evil), which among other things pits Ãœbermenschen created by Nazi scientists against the blood magic of British warlocks, and along the way blends science fiction and fantasy concepts so well you’ll be captivated through all three books.

Ian’s latest book is Something More Than Night, which Kirkus has described as “a Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler inspired murder mystery set in Thomas Aquinas’s vision of Heaven.” There’s a certain chutzpah to writing a detective noir about murdering the archangel Gabriel.

You should also know that Ian’s a contributor to the relaunch of George R. R. Martin’s Wild Cards series.

And finally, this summer a lucky few will find him high upon a mountaintop where he’ll be the special lecturer at Walter Jon William’s Taos Toolbox, a writers’ master class that I recommend without reservation.

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A few months ago, I was at a convention and had the pleasure of being on a panel with Harry Turtledove. We also ended up sitting next to one another during our signing period and in between Harry autographing many copies of his latest book (Supervolcano: Things Fall Apart, the third in his Supervolcano series), I was treated to his wry wit and thoroughly enjoyable conversational style. Naturally, the first thing I did when I returned home from the convention was to send him a note and invite him here to regale you with his most memorable meal.

I’m actually surprised our paths haven’t crossed more, as we both grew up in the greater Los Angeles area (albeit ten years apart). As a teen, my friends and I were regularly riding our bikes out to Westwood and UCLA while elsewhere on campus Harry was working toward his PhD in Byzantine history. Perhaps he hadn’t been lured into the social circles of our genre yet, as I don’t remember seeing him at meetings of the LASFS or the local Mythopoeic chapter. Then again, as I recall my own doctoral years, I didn’t have free time for that sort of thing either.

Like a number of the authors who have been here, Harry has written under multiple names. His first works were published as Eric G. Iverson, but he’s also been Mark Gordian, Dan Chernenko, and H.N. Turteltaub. But it’s for books released under his give name that he was dubbed “Master of Alternate History” as demonstrated by his Southern Victory series in which the South wins the American Civil War (eleven volumes so far, beginning with How Few Remain, which won him his first Sidewise Award), his The War That Came Early series that tells of an alternate version of World War II, and numerous stand alone novels and novellae like Ruled Britannia, The Two Georges (co-authored with Richard Dreyfus), and In the Presence of Mine Enemies.

And that’s not even touching on his works that blend history with SF and Fantasy such as his his YA time travel series Crosstime Traffic, his Civil War with magic War Between the Provinces series, or his Worldwar / Colonization series in which aliens invade during WWII. I could go on and on, but you’ve long since tired of my yammering, so let’s just cut right to Harry’s meal now.

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Last week, James L. Cambias saw the release of his first novel, A Darkling Sea, beginning what I can only hope will be a long and productive new chapter in his career. Which is not to say that James is a newcomer, not by any stretch of the imagination. He’s been writing short fiction for over a decade (full disclosure: we shared a ToC back in 2004 in the All Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories anthology from Wheatland Press), and has been designing games for even longer.

Perhaps most importantly, for my purposes, he hails from New Orleans, which given his obvious creativity and talent means he’s been exposed to and appreciates a wide range of culinary delights from his earliest days. I’ll be honest, I’ve been chomping at the bit for his book to come out so I could invite him here. And, as you’re about to read, it’s been well worth the wait.

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