Book tour news, and! a hint of Sun…

Last reminder:  Steve Miller and Sharon Lee will be on the road in support of Trade Secret, the seventeenth and newest Liaden Universe® novel.  We’ll be signing books, reading excerpts, talking trash, drinking coffee and eating cookies (cookies!).  This is the roadshow of the century, here, and you don’t want to miss it.

Are we going to be in your town?  Here’s the schedule.  We hope to see you — yes, you! and your friends and family, too! — at one or more of our stops along the way.*

Now!  As you see from the schedule, our very first stop on the tour is tomorrow night — that’s Halloween! — at Pandemonium Books, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Which means?  — anyone?

Yes, you with the curly green beard. . .thank you, very good!

It means that I’ll be on the road, with limited connectivity.

This is important to you, because. . .

. . .Madame the Editor, who is, it must be admitted, a bit of a tease, has made reference to All Hallows Eve as perhaps a Day of Interest for those who have been waiting for the eArc of Carousel Sun.  This is not, understand, in any way a promise on Madame’s part, though the date would be particularly apt.

So!  This is what I’d like you to do for me, if you would be so very kind:

If the eArc comes up — shout the news from the rooftops.  Tell all your friends, post it to Facebook, Twitter, relevant listservs, and on your blog.  It would be a big help for the title, since it’s been so long — 2010! — since Carousel Tides came out, and after a while people forget to look for a sequel.

Thank you.

On the Getting Ready to Rhumba Front, packing has been accomplished.  There are a couple more house chores to be finished ere we leave — the sheets are washing now, for instance; and we have a late-breaking business conference call to deal with, mid-afternoon, then the Ritual Handing Off of the Key to the House Sitter.

The cats, of course, are taking all of this in stride.  I have the pictures to prove it:

Scrabble taking a bath, with heffalumps. Note the rare footage of the toes, like little pearls.
Scrabble taking a bath, with heffalumps. Note the rare footage of the toes, like little pearls.
Mozart napping on the pillow at the bottom of the bed, also displaying footage.
Mozart napping on the pillow at the bottom of the bed, also displaying footage.

 

Trooper in his Plan B box, in my office, overseen by a Motley Gaggle(tm) of stuffies.
Trooper in his Plan B box, in my office, overseen by a Motley Gaggle(tm) of stuffies.

 

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*If we are not going to be in your town this time, and you are, or know of, a bookstore or convention who would like to host us, please pass this information on to Baen.  Thanks!

 

Regarding Carousel Sun

Asyouknowbob, Carousel Sun, the eagerly-awaited  sequel to 2010’s smash hit Carousel Tides, will be published in February 2014.

Now, asyouALSOknowbob, Carousel Sun will, like its prequel before it, be published as a trade paperback.  Which is perfectly fine; I like trade paperbacks.  Especially when they have my name on the front cover.  In fact, the only thing wrong with trade paperbacks is that they do not enjoy the “signed edition” status currently bestowed upon Baen hardcovers.  Doesn’t seem fair, somehow. I said as much to Don Blyly of Uncle Hugo’s, and —

He agreed.

So, here’s the deal.  Don and I are working on a way to provide those who want them with signed copies of Carousel Sun.

But that’s not all!  We’re trying to figure out a system that will allow me to personalize copies of Carousel Sun pre-ordered from Uncle Hugo’s (and only from Uncle Hugo’s).  Which, if we can pull it off, would be very cool indeed.

Watch this space for details.  This has been a Distant Early Warning; the pre-order page will in no case go up on Uncle Hugo’s website before mid-November.

. . .and there you have it.  Is that exciting or what?

High Season in Archers Beach

I went down to Old Orchard Beach for a couple days last week — a business trip.  Carousel Seas, which is due on August 15, is set during High Season — July and August — and I wanted to be certain that I had the world-building right.

Mostly, I did, but I’d forgotten how very, very noisy the town is during the height of the Season.

For those who had been following the Archers Beach photo diary in the fall, I’ve uploaded some pictures from this recent trip, right here.

Eye Candy! Carousel Sun cover art

We have, through the kind offices of Tony Daniel and Danielle Turner at Baen, the following Sneak Peak of the cover art for Carousel Sun by Sharon Lee, which is tentatively slated for publication in early 2014.

I like it.

Carousel Sun cover art by Eric Williams
Carousel Sun cover art
by Eric Williams

For those coming in late, Carousel Sun is the sequel to Carousel Tides — available even now at a bookstore near you; in all ebook formats known to man from Baen, from the Kindle Store, and the Apple ebook store.  It is also available as an audiobook from Audible.  I’m writing the last book in the trilogy — Carousel Seas — as we speak.

 

In which Rolanni forgets that it’s a new year

So, after breakfast, I walked into town to fetch home some bagels, and seeing as how I was out, I extended my walk over to Heath Street, where I found the AZ Market, an institution for 50 years, real world time, has closed.  This is a sad thing.  I liked the AZ Market; it had character.  It had fresh donuts.  It had weird wines that no one in Waterville is allowed to sell.

In Archers Beach, the AZ Market is Ahz’s Market and it’s run by Ahzan Dhar, aka Ahzie.  I just last night wrote a scene where Ahzie was present, so this morning’s revelation was a double shock.  One of the perils of writing mundane fiction set in the almost-real-world, I suppose.

Going a little further down that path…a while back, someone asked why St. Margaret’s Church wasn’t mentioned in Carousel Tides.  The answer to that, of course, is that Carousel Tides took place mostly within the amusement park, and the beach.  There was no mention of the church, because Kate hadn’t walked up the hill to look it and relate it to the readers.

Carousel Sun, now, opens up the setting, as Kate’s concerns expand with her continuing duties as Guardian, so readers will be seeing lots of things that were never mentioned in the first book.

Stories are, after all, as much about what the author chooses not to talk about, as they are about those things that she brings to the table for reader examination.  No story can tell everything, show everything, examine every character.  It’s all in the telling detail.

So, anyhow, after the shock to my system of finding AZ Market gone, I walked through Memorial Park, and Fountain Circle, paid my respects to the sea and came home.  As I was passing the synagogue (which I keep meaning to take a picture of), I saw three Rabbis in white and black robes on the porch.  Totally forgot it was the new year!  L’shana tova.

So now I’m back home, and have uploaded pictures here, and it’s time to get to work.

 

What on *earth* has the woman been doing?

Well, let’s see…

I had a birthday, on the 11th, but mostly, I’ve been writing, and walking, and thinking.  Not really a lot of meaty reporting in that.

Today, though, was Maine Lighthouse Day, and I determined that I would see me some lighthouses.

And so I did — I saw Spring Ledge Light, Bug Light, and Portland Head Light.  That’s pretty dern good, since my original plan had been to see Bug Light.

I also saw several dogs — a miniature poodle and a very young corgi — who were kind enough to bestow some Vitamin Dog upon me.  The corgi was so enthusiastic, I swear he was trying to figure out a way to clone himself on the spot, so he could have me and his people, too.

I will also note that Portland is lousy with forts. The dern things are EVERYwhere; Southern Maine Community College’s campus us largely built on the remains of an old fort, and there are at least three more in eyeball distance from that one.  So, wow.  I guess it was some strategic, going ‘way back.

There are pictures of the day’s adventures here, as well as some new Archers Beach photos.

Tomorrow, it’s back to walking, writing, and thinking.

In which there is excitement! and a storm

So, last night as I sat here, writing, like a good author, I noticed a persistent sort of noise, a kind of blat-blat-blat thing — just loud enough to be annoying.  I was writing at the kitchen table, and the refrigerator, among other Modern Innovations has an ice-maker which occasionally makes bizarre noises as a bid for attention, so I got up to tend to it…and noticed that the sound seemed, actually, to be coming from outside.

I stepped out onto the back porch, where the blatting was indeed much louder, and saw emergency lights flashing across the back wall, at the motel just next door.

The motel with the parking lot full of motorcycles, as distinct from the motel one down from there, which was closed for the season.

I went inside and called 911, and while I was giving the dispatcher the information, the entire Old Orchard Beach Fire Department, and a good bit of the Police Department, too, descended upon the motel, typing up traffic and yelling through bull-horns and flashing lights and in general having a heckuva good time.  It was raining, just a little, sufficient to take down any smoke, if there was any smoke.  My theory is that someone had lit up in their room, or on the porch, but with the door open, and set everything in motion.

The Fire Department was very thorough, but in about twenty minutes, they decided their work was done and pulled away.  The cops tarried, but what they did there, I have no idea, since the rain started to fall harder and I still had work to do.

It rained off and on during the night.  The folks upstairs spent much of it moving and dropping furniture, so it was just as well that I was up late, working.

This morning, there were mountains of seaweed on the beach at low tide, and gorgeous swirls of blue-grey clouds.  I took a small walk after breakfast; there are some pictures, here.

–Sharon on location at Archers Beach, Sunday, September 9, 2012