Posts Tagged ‘Eating Authors’

Welcome to the first Monday in October. It’s a particularly exciting Monday because tonight is also the SFWA Annual Reception for Industry Professionals, an evening where authors, agents, editors, and publishers gather in Manhattan to mingle, chat, and do a bit of business while drinking booze and eating canapés that someone else has paid for.

But meanwhile, let’s go back to focusing on this week’s guest, Philadelhia’s own Michael Swanwick. Michael writes both short stories and novels, as well as commentary on the science fiction field itself. My personal favorite is his novel, Vacuum Flowers, which I consider to be one of the most compelling treatments of traditional cyberpunk tropes. He’s won the Nebula Award for Stations of the Tide, five Hugo Awards for short fiction (including “Scherzo with Tyrannosaur,” arguably the best SF dinosaur story ever), the World Fantasy Award, and the Sturgeon Award. And that’s not mentioning the titles of his many other works nominated for these and other awards in the field.

He writes fantasy novels with elves in Armani suits, rollicking adventures set in post-Utopia Russia, post-meltdown tales about Philadelphia and how the city’s Mummers naturally move in to fill the resulting power vacuum. And don’t get me started on his amazing short story collections, some of which feel like he wrote them on a dare or as exercises in performance art, as in The Periodic Table of Science Fiction or Puck Aleshire’s Abecedary.

I’ve had the great pleasure to hang with Michael at conventions, both on panels (in fact, we’re together on one this coming weekend) and more casually at the bar. I highly recommend both.

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I’m rather persistent when it comes to recruiting writers for this weekly blog feature. I’m sure some of those authors who have been on the receiving end of my emails would use a different word, perhaps “annoying” or some more colorful term that loosely translates to “leave me the hell alone, you ass!” though I prefer to think of myself as tenacious. It’s a necessary quality for EATING AUTHORS, because for every author who responds promptly there are three (or six, or ten!) others who are too busy to reply to the email, let alone generate an answer to the single question asked here. And that’s perfectly reasonable, because writers are busy people. We’re supposed to be writing. We’re juggling projects. We’re facing deadlines (or worse, have recently blown them).

This week’s guest is a good example. I’m happy to say I consider her a friend, which is why I’ve been trying to lure Liz Williams here for over a year. But she’s been just too busy. And yet, I persevered, because I wanted to ensure that you, gentle reader, would have a chance to meet her if you hadn’t yet had the pleasure of her fiction.

Liz’s first novel, The Ghost Sister, came out back in 2001. Her second, Empire of Bones, followed in 2002. Both received nominations for the Philip K. Dick Award. In 2004, she received a third nomination for Banner of Souls. That’s not all that surprising considering she has her doctorate in the Philosophy of Science, she’s just that smart.

More recently, she’s been writing her brilliant Detective Chen novels (beginning with Snake Agent), a series in which a mortal detective’s jurisdiction includes the edges of Heaven and Hell. Add in some “assistance” by his opposite number, an immortal vice cop from Hell, and you have everything you need for a great read!

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It should come as no surprise that the guests here at EATING AUTHORS fall into one of three categories: 1) writers I personally know and can merrily harangue until they send me a few hundred words about a meal; 2) writers I don’t know, but who strike me as approachable enough (and hey, why else do I have that SFWA Membership Directory, right?); and 3) writers I don’t know but have recently met at a convention and figure, what the heck, let’s give it a shot!

Today’s guest, Christian Klaver, falls into that last category. Our pre-destined meeting occurred last January when I was in Detroit for that year’s incarnation of ConFusion, and the gods of programming put us on a panel together. I had a great time, and Christian was part of what made it great, so naturally I reached out to him, and though it’s taken awhile for our respective schedules to mess, here he is!

Christian has been writing his own take on Sherlock Holmes, and represents the first author I’ve had on this feature (at least to my knowledge) to publish and market his work via Amazon Digital Services, Inc. It takes a lot of chutzpah (what the Klingons would call butlh) to write such a beloved character as Holmes, let alone throw Dracula into the mix, but that’s just what he does. Chutzpah, and a good breakfast.

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Today I have the pleasure of telling you about another of the incredible authors living in the greater Philadelphia area. When I say that Jonathan Maberry knows how to kick ass, I do so both literally and figuratively. His early writings were nonfiction, books on martial arts training that drew on his own experience and expertise (he holds an 8th degree black belt in Shinowara-ryu Jujutsu). When he was ready to write fiction, he began with Ghost Road Blues (the first book in his Pine Deep trilogy), and took home the Bram Stoker Award for best first novel.

His Joe Ledger books are a series of bioterrorism thrillers, starting with Patient Zero, that include a bioweapon that transforms human beings into zombies. Jonathan’s Benny Imura series combines YA and SF, offering up a teenage boy, Benny, growing up in the remade world that exists after the zombie apocalypse. It began with Rot & Ruin, and the fourth volume, Fire & Ash, came out just last month.

Jonathan’s also written comics, movie novelizations, and nonfiction books on folklore and the occult. He’s also one of the founding members of The Liars Club, a group of (mainly) Philadelphia area professional writers. And today he’s here to share what may be the most incredible of all the meals we’ve seen on this blog.

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I think I first met this week’s guest, Michael R. Underwood, when we attended the Detroit-based convention Immortal Confusion last year. We’d shared a hotel room (and that’s all I’ll say about that because, you know, what happens in Motor City stays in Motor City). Since then, I’ve had a chance to read his first novel, Geekomancy, and let me just say, here’s an author who is having himself way too much fun. Seriously, if you’ve been around the genre a while, wandering in and out of different types of fandom, then this book will tickle you in places you’ve long since forgotten about. It’s self-indulgent, delightful, thrilling, and best of all the sequel has already been published.

Michael’s a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, and one of the best endorsements for the program. Trust me, folks. This is a writer to watch!

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This week’s segment of EATING AUTHORS is going live on the last day of LoneStarCon3 (aka the Worldcon, baby!), and is extra special because our guest is none other than Paul Cornell, who just happens to be the convention’s Toastmaster!

Paul is one of those writers who writes everything. He’s written for several British television dramas, including Robin Hood, Primeval, and Casual+y. He’s written for comics, such as Fantastic Four, Batman and Robin, and Wolverine. He’s written books, such as his new urban fantasy London Falling. And when it comes to writing Doctor Who, Paul has done screenplays, audio plays, novels, and comics.

Not surprisingly, I’m writing this up before the Worldcon, but I have to say I wouldn’t be even blink if a sonic screwdriver plays some part of the convention’s opening or closing ceremonies. You know?

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This is probably my favorite Monday of the year, the first day of the week that will see the beginning of the current Worldcon, this year known as LoneStarCon3. And like all good things, it’s made all the more special by sharing it with someone else. Since I can’t take all of you to San Antonio (hey, blame the airlines and those “luggage fees”) I can at least bring you fond memories of another author’s meals. So think of the preceding as a pre-Worldcon segue to welcomeJennifer Estep to this blog.

If it’s urban fantasy you crave, there’s Jennifer’s Elemental Assassin series (the latest book of which, Heart of Venom, comes out tomorrow from Pocket Books). Or if you like your urban fantasy on the YA side, you should be checking out her Mythos Academy series. However, if your tastes run more toward paranormal romance, then you’ll happily lose yourself in her Bigtime series. And of course, in addition to juggling novels in three continuing series, Jennifer also manages to keep all her readers satisfied by providing short stories from these worlds, in between the actual books.

Given the volume of her output, you have to wonder when she finds time to eat. And yet, here she is now to tell us about meals past.

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Welcome to another installment of EATING AUTHORS. I’ll tell you now that this is going to be one of those days where the introduction is longer than the author’s recou nting of her most memorable meal. The reason for that is simple enough; our guest this week is C. J. Cherryh.

To say I am fan of her work is too huge an error to be called mere understatement. Her work combines those elements that, in my opinion, make for the very best that science fiction has to offer: a compelling story, breath-taking aliens, an exploration of language and culture that serve the plot, characters with depth and breadth and flaws and wonder. My first exposure was with her Faded Sun trilogy (Kesrith, Shon’jir, and Kutath), which in an instant of serendipity I picked up in hardcover at a used bookstore in Sacramento. I was hooked.

This could have been a problem, but fortunately for me C.J. has always been a prolific writer, and I quickly found dozens of other titles by her. I devoured her popular Chanur series (The Pride of Chanur, Chanur’s Venture, The Kif Strike Back, Chanur’s Homecoming, and Chanur’s Legacy), only to discover that both of these series were part of a larger set of series of books set in her Alliance-Union universe, including the seven books that make up her Company Wars series (including Hugo Award winner Downbelow Station), the five volumes of her Era of Reproachment (including Hugo and Locus Award winner Cyteen), the three books in The Age of Exploration series, the four books of The Morgaine Cycle, and the two books of The Hanan Rebellion.

And that’s before we get to her more fantasy-styled works, including the five volumes of The Fortress series series, the three books that make up The Russian Stories, or the novelettes and novel that comprise her Ealdwood stories, or the many other one-shot books she’d done, the books she’s co-authored, or the Merovingen Nights shared universe series she edited (and kicked off with stand alone novel Angel with the Sword).

What, you thought I was kidding when I said “dozens”? Then relax, because I haven’t yet mentioned her Foreigner books, which so far consists of five sets of trilogies (book 15 is due out next year), with more planned!

If that’s not enough, I’ll just add that C.J. has taught both Latin and Greek, and sits on the board of the Foundation for Endangered Languages. So, yeah, I’m smitten! The take-home message here my friends is, if by some insane injustice of the universe you have not become acquainted with C. J. Cherryh’s work, I cannot encourage your strongly enough to right this wrong, and do so today.

But enough about what I think, let’s hear from the author herself:

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