Posts Tagged ‘Eating Authors’

Welcome to another installment of EATING AUTHORS. I’ve been away all weekend, finishing up a training which will allow me to use my powers of mind control to help people quit smoking (and you thought it was only good for getting Nebula nominations), which goes a long way to explaining why it’s about an hour before dawn and I’m awake and sitting in front of my computer writing this introduction. I know there are too many of you — a couple hundred thousand at least — who simply could not start your week without reading about an author and her most memorable meal. And so I’m here typing when I should be snug in bed and dreaming of world domination. That’s just the kind of guy I am.

Our guest this week is Ysabeau S. Wilce. Her many accomplishments include being a James Tiptree finalist, a nominee for a World Fantasy Award, and a winner of the Andre Norton Award. Ysabeau writes the adventures of Flora Fyrdraaca, a “girl of spirit,” who protags her way through a series of YA novels, each with some of the longest subtitles ever imagined. These books are a delightful romp, and had it not been for that Harry Potter fellow I have no doubt that Ysa would have two Nortons on her shelf. If by some quirk of the universe you haven’t read any of these books yet then drop everything and get one right now. I promise you, it’s like a visit to an ice cream parlor on a hot summer’s day.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another installment of EATING AUTHORS, the Monday morning blog post that dares to ask authors about their most memorable meals. Okay, maybe dares isn’t all that accurate, but this is the introductory paragraph that’s supposed to be six kinds of grabby, complete with verbal car chases, teasing innuendo, provocative statements (“Polar Bears!”), and computer-generated explosions. So… please, imagine all that stuff just happened.

Our guest this week is Jon Armstrong, a member of that select group of authors who have been short-listed for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His first novel, Grey, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, and he followed it up with an even more surreal visit to the same universe with Yarn. I know I’m not alone when I say I’m eagerly awaiting what comes next.

Read the rest of this entry »

By the time you read this I should be safely back home, after another long weekend of slipping in and out of trance and causing similar slippage in others. I should also have a shiny new certificate naming me a hypnotherapist. To which I can only add, “bwahahahaha!”

But enough about me, let’s talk about Patrick S. Tomlinson. I had the pleasure of meeting Patrick last month during my visit to Michigan for Immortal Confusion, where I learned that he hails from the great city of Milwaukee, competes in half-marathons and triathlons, and sells insurance. He’s also been building up a nice collection of short story sales to a range of anthologies. His first novel, The Wererat’s Tale III: The Collar of Perdition, just came out a few weeks ago from the fine folks over at New Babel Books.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Monday and I’m hoping to sleep in a bit, as I’ve only just returned from the first of two three-day trainings in Conversational Hypnosis. Is it any wonder that I’m sleepy? Fortunately though, my guest for this week’s installment of EATING AUTHORS lives in the UK, and I’m sure the time difference makes it all work out. Or at least I’m going to tell myself it’s so. Shhh.

Mike Shevdon and I started out the same, reading the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, C. S. Lewis, Robert Heinlein. And then any similarity appears to have ended. His official bio speaks of martials arts such as aikido and archery, and his culinary expertise include something called “squeaky cheese curry” which I can’t help but suppose has no resemblance to the squeaky cheese I used to get in Wisconsin. Since 2009, he’s been serving up novel-length fantasy for the fine folks at Angry Robot, juxtaposing tropes of faerie with the modern world. It’s a balancing act that makes for great reading, so after you’ve had a look at his response to the weekly question, pick up a copy of his first book and prepare to be delighted.

Read the rest of this entry »

So here we are, nearly a month into this thing we’re calling 2013. My greatest insight for the year (so far) is that thanks to the joys of online banking I’m no longer a victim of writing last year’s dates when I pay my utility bills. We’re living in the future, my friends!

Which is a nice segue for introducing today’s guest, Cassandra Rose Clarke, who has one of the best book titles I’ve ever seen! I refer of course to The Mad Scientist’s Daughter which comes out tomorrow. She’s also the author of a YA fantasy series, with one book out and the second scheduled for a summer release. Despite this frenetic pace, she’s found time to respond to this blog’s favorite question.

Read the rest of this entry »

By the time this week’s installment of EATING AUTHORS automagically posts to this blog I should be safely returned from what the glory that surely was Immortal Confusion. In the interests of saving some bucks, my flight will have taken me the long way home from Detroit, and with luck I’ll actually get to sleep about 1am.

None of which is Forrest Aguirre‘s fault, but someone should take the blame and as implied above, I’m probably asleep. In addition to being inappropriately scapegoated with my convention travel, Forrest is a past winner of the World Fantasy Award for his editing of Leviathan Three (which also earned him a Philip K. Dick Award nomination). Not content to win prestigious awards for editing, the man also writes, committing fiction both short (as evidenced by his collection Fugue XXIX) and long (check out the novel Swans Over the Moon). At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before he decides he wants his own small press too.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a gloomy, foggy kind of day here in the greater Philadelphia area as I prepare this week’s EATING AUTHORS entry, but as large chunks of the USA are apparently buried under snow, and vast portions of Australia are enduring record heat waves, I suppose I should just shut the hell up about the weather and get on with this week’s installment. Yeah, let’s do that.

Our guest this week is Tim Pratt, who—in addition to being a past Hugo Award winner and Nebula Award nominee—is likely known to many of you as a senior editor at Locus. His latest book, The Nex, came out earlier this month from Merry Blacksmith Press. In fact, he’s so busy writing that he’s done so under a couple additional, thinly disguised, names: T. A. Pratt (his Marla Mason books, beginning with Blood Engines) and more recently T. Aaron Payton (The Constantine Affliction). If you’re new to his work, you might want to start out with his shorter fiction, some of which has been conveniently compiled into the collections Little Gods and Hart & Boot & Other Stories. But now, let’s find out about his food choices.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hello, and welcome to the first installment of EATING AUTHORS for 2013. Joining us for this year’s inaugural is S. M. Stirling, who’s written so many books he’s making the rest of us look bad. I refer of course to his alternate history Draka series (Marching Through Georgia, Under the Yoke, The Stone Dogs, and Drakon), as well as his two (seriously, two!) alternate history / time travel Nantucket series (Island in the Sea of Time, Against the Tide of Years, and On the Oceans of Eternity) and Emberverse series (Dies the Fire, The Protector’s War, A Meeting at Corvallis, The Sunrise Lands, The Scourge of God, The Sword of the Lady, The High King of Montival, The Tears of the Sun, and Lord of Mountains). And that’s not even counting the various series of books he’s done with other authors including David Drake, Jerry Pournelle, and the late, great James Doohan. But my favorite is his two book homage to the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Lords of Creation (The Sky People and In the Courts of the Crimson Kings). I keep hoping for a third book in that set, but clearly the man is a mite busy.

Just to be clear, that’s not all of his books (or even all of his series), but as we’re already a bit heavy on the links in the above paragraph let’s move on. We’ll balance it out with a short but stylish response to the classic question that defines this blog feature.

Read the rest of this entry »