Category Archives: My Novels

Posts about my published novels and book-length works in progress.

Giving the gift of me me meme…

  By Alyx Dellamonica | March 22, 2013 - 11:08 am | , ,
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write memeI am trying to increase the functionality of my web site’s “Shop Planetalyx” page. Upgrade here would mean any improvement from the site’s previous state of “not all that useful, thanks very much.” So I’m updating the links to the various versions of my books and e-books, and also seeing which of my various short stories are still available for free online.

There are three of my “Proxy War” stories, for example. The Sweet Spot is the most recent to appear and yet the earliest, in chronological terms, of the squid stories. In it, a teenaged girl named Ruthie Gerrickle and her brother Matt try to survive the Battle of Kauai. Five Good Things about Meghan Sheedy falls quite a bit later. This time the fight is the Siege of Seattle. It’s one of two published by Strange Horizons. The third, of course, is “The Town on Blighted Sea.” The girl who was Ruthie has long since become Ruthless, but the war is over. Her side did not win. But life, strangely enough, goes on.

You may have also noticed I have figured out how to generate Pinterest memes. This may or may not be a phase I’m going through.

Things both golden and lovely

  By Alyx Dellamonica | January 17, 2013 - 10:14 am | , , , ,
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I began this blog entry in Cafe Calabria at about 7:30 this morning, having had an amazing brainstorming session. I’ve decided I will have a draft of the new novel, the third set in Stormwrack (where “Among the Silvering Herd” takes place), by June 28th. The idea is to have it Frankensteined by the time Kelly and I go to San Francisco for, among other things, Les Contes d’Hoffmann featuring deitylike tenor Matthew Polenzani.

There was an incredible sunrise pouring over the roofs of the buildings across Commercial Drive, but I wasn’t positioned to take advantage of it, photographically. So, since I can’t share today’s dawn with you, here’s Matthew:

Dracula hits the #Buffyrewatch, plus bonus links!

  By Alyx Dellamonica | January 8, 2013 - 9:59 am | , , , ,
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That’s right–I’ve reached S5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Here’s my essay on the best Riley episode ever.

In other news, I am building a not-safe-for-work Grammar Cop board on Pinterest. I’m hoping this will use up the energy I spend thinking, “Its, not it’s!”

Finally, author Lynette Aspey has written a lovely essay about my Books of Chantment, Indigo Springs and Blue Magic, as well as the tie-in novelette “Wild Things.”

Why go through the portal?

  By Alyx Dellamonica | December 10, 2012 - 9:54 am | , ,
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Janni Simner continued the conversation about portal fantasy that’s been bubbling along online, and one of the things she touches on in the process of discussing real-world consequences for a visit to Somewhere Else (something I hadn’t really ) is the question of why a character would go through the portal at all.

My baseline assumption in life had always been: OMG, why not go through the portal?

This is perhaps silly. I’d love to imagine I was a look before you leap person, but I am a looker. I look hard. In the real world, I’d hope the portal could wait awhile so I could invite my wife, pack the medicine cabinet, load up on food, coats, undergarments, tights, more tights, a fully-charged e-reader and a solar recharging panel.

I’d arrange cat care and send a few e-mails. There would be waffling about boots and which coat. That would have to be one patient portal, friends.

It’s not that I don’t want to go. I just don’t want to go without antihistamines, if you know what I mean. I don’t want to assume I’ll be back before the kibble runs out. Nobody really wants to be Rose Tyler, do they, showing up a year later and coming face to face with their own Missing poster and a freaked out mom? (Oh, I know there are lots of good reasons to be Rose Tyler. Rowr and all that. But you see what I’m saying.)

Does that mean the protagonist of my new series goes blithely leaping into another world without sober consideration and a pile of supplies? Actually, no. The first time–and I think this happens in a lot of portal fantasies–Sophie Hansa ends up on Stormwrack without warning or any kind of plan. It’s a deeply unplanned voyage to a magical realm.

And the second time, she knows full well what to expect, and she packs accordingly.

Me things, things of me…

  By Alyx Dellamonica | December 6, 2012 - 9:30 am | ,
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Uno: I sent DAUGHTER OF NO NATION (a.k.a. the second Stormwrack novel) off to my first readers and my agent on Monday, only three days late on the self-imposed deadline. I did it in the dark, by candle and gadgetlight–the power went off in our neighborhood and the cafe where I work was plunged into blackness.

This is me, last week, during the final push. Yes, I’ve grown an extra head.
Pushing through the draft, step three: feline copilot.

Due: For the next three weeks, my fiction time will be less structured; I’ll write whatever pleases me most. I had a major plot bunny stabbing at me the whole of last week. The interior monologue went like this:

Bunny: Me, me, me. Here I am with the answer to that unresolved setting question that’s kept you from writing me!
Me: I am finishing a frickin’ book, shut up.
Bunny: Me me me! Shiny! Sexy! New!

… so that’s what’s pleasing me now.

Tre: I am spending the holidays in Reno, with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. This is the first time Kelly and I have been to Nevada in the entire quarter-century that we’ve known each other. Barb’s coming, too, and I’m very excited.

Superstar superstar everyone’s a superstar on the #Buffyrewatch

  By Alyx Dellamonica | December 4, 2012 - 8:51 am | , , ,
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Well, no. Jonathan’s a superstar. And here’s my weekly essay: “Slaying is Hard! Let’s Go Shopping!”

I have enjoyed rewatching S4. It’s been long enough that I forgot a lot of the nuances and hilarious lines, and frankly it’s easier to gently mock the episodes that are, oh, let’s say a little shaky. This may mean that after S5 the rewatches will get funnier and funnier; that’s my hope, anyway.

And while I’m all me, me, me, link!, ’tis the season to remind some of you that I have Nebula eligible fiction. There’s my novel, Blue Magic, which was out in April, my novelettes “Among the Silvering Herd” and “Wild Things,” on Tor.com, and a new squid story, “The Sweet Spot,” about the Fiend invasion of Hawaii, on Lightspeed.

Free for the reading from @tordotcom: “Wild Things”

  By Alyx Dellamonica | November 7, 2012 - 12:00 pm | , ,
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A couple weeks ago I told you all that this novelette, which is set in the same universe as my books INDIGO SPRINGS and BLUE MAGIC, was available for pre-order at the usual big e-retailers. Today it’s officially out, and you can read it on the Tor site.

“Wild Things” takes place between the events of the two novels, but is mostly set here in British Columbia rather than in Oregon. It’s a little picture of the mystical outbreak as it plays out in Canada, in other words. Here’s the opening.

My swamp man wasn’t what you’d call a sexy beast, though I found his skin strangely beautiful. It was birch bark: tender, onion-thin, chalk white in color, with hints of almond and apricot. He was easily bruised, attracted lichens, and when he got too dry, he peeled.

And the thoroughly gorgeous Allen Williams cover:

Wild Things hits the Eeee! bookstores today

  By Alyx Dellamonica | October 24, 2012 - 10:26 am | , , , ,
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My novelette “Wild Things” will be up on the Tor site soon where every any anybody can read it, but the eBook version is available for preorder today on the MacMillan site, on Amazon, on iBooks and at Google too. (All versions are DRM-free, and the prices aren’t identical so do shop around). Eee!

“Wild Things” is set in the same universe as my first novel, Indigo Springs, and its sequel, Blue Magic. Timewise, it happens between the events of the two novels, and it’s set here in the Lower Mainland of B.C. and in the wine country around Oliver and Osoyoos.

Here’s the cover:
wild things cover art

Here’s what Tor says about it:

Ah, love. A many splendored thing. Here is a rather unusual love story, sweet and strange as could only happen in the post-magical reality of the Indigo Springs “event.” Read More…

I #amWriting, amReading, amRithmetic

  By Alyx Dellamonica | October 24, 2012 - 9:00 am | , , , ,
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Sometimes I can get through a book without ever having to print up a manuscript and make hard notes. Not so with the current book, though. I’ve run it off, divided it into five separate hundred-ish page segments, and am most of the way through a pink pen edit. This is not a sekrit publishing technical term. It just means that the next edit will be a green or blue or possibly orange pen edit. I am hoping to only read it this way twice, as the story came together pretty delightfully once the scribbling commenced.

Work in progress: DAUGHTER OF NO NATION

And speaking of delightful, I am now about 70% of the way through my shiny advance copy of M.K. Hobson’s heartrending steampunk novel The Warlock’s Curse, which will be available to the general public so very soon. This novel is the follow-up to the Nebula nominated The Native Star and its sequel The Hidden Goddess. I won’t say anything more about it until I’ve read that last 30%, except for this: damn you, Mary, you’ve gone and made me all emo! Those sodas at your Orycon launch party better be amazing! And also: guys, this is a superfun novel.

Wouldn’t you like to be a portal too?

  By Alyx Dellamonica | October 18, 2012 - 9:44 am | , ,
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No sooner had I written that Next Big Thing article about my Stormwrack novels than this post went live on SF Novelists. It’s about portal fantasies, and was sparked by another post, by Rachel Manija Brown. The classic example is C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Books, which is why Marie Brennan’s post is titled “This Wardrobe is Closed Until Further Notice.”

I found this discussion super-interesting for so many reasons.

First, I’d missed out on the term portal fantasy, so I hadn’t realized that I was writing one. Well, three. (I knew what I was writing, just hadn’t heard this handy term.)

Second, the panelists referenced in the posts agreed that nobody in publishing is buying these things. And if they were, they certainly aren’t buying portal fantasies written for adults. To which, of course, I got to reply in comments: except mine! There’s perhaps a little egoboo to be had in selling the arguably unsellable.

Third, the meat of the panel was essentially literary and marketing criticism of the subgenre: it’s wish-fulfillment, they said, and therefore immature. The novels have no consequences for the real world. The protagonist always returns to their life at home, barely older and much much wiser. It’s all been done. (The actual posts are more articulate, of course.)

So, Marie says–I’m taking some liberties with my paraphrasing–that maybe someone will one day write a grown-up portal fantasy where people travel both ways and portal-worlders fall through to Earth, and the journey of the protagonist affects important stuff at home and maybe the heroes and heroines don’t automatically just leave the magical land behind and embrace their old life with a zesty declaration–”There’s no place like home!”

To which I say: Hahahaha! I’m there, I’m so there! Because not only are the Stormwrack novels this and much more, it’s safe to argue that Indigo Springs and Blue Magic are, in part, portal fantasies where what’s behind the portal takes out most of Oregon in the first book alone!

Here’s a picture of me being smug.
Everyone at #vcon is up and ready to have a great morning, right?

My fellow SF Novelist Marie Brennan has, by the way, done a Journeys interview here at Planetalyx.