So, back when I announced that I’d hidden descriptions of twelve objects on the Split Worlds site, I also mentioned there would be a second phase once all of the links to the objects were out there on the interwebs.

Well, links to all twelve objects are now out there. I’ve been tweeting them over the past two weeks with the #splitworlds hashtag and also posting them on the Split Worlds Facebook page. (If you hate both Twitter and FB, just do a google search on #splitworlds to find the posts.)

The second phase and the prize!

On each of those hidden pages, just below the object’s description, I’ve asked a question. Those twelve questions form a quiz and to find the answers you need to read Any Other Name. If you’ve been doing that each time you’ve found an object page, then you should be feeling pretty chuffed with yourself because:

The first 3 people who send me the correct twelve answers by using this form will get a handwritten letter from a character of their choice (from the Split Worlds novels and/or stories) posted to them.

Ready? GO!

This week the very splendid Dave Bradley, Editor-in-Chief of SFX Magazine, is invited into my tea lair and I reveal my favourite answer to last week’s dilemma. I talk to him about Neil Gaiman, Iron Man 3 and a few other things before throwing him into a perilous situation.

If you’ve listened and got an answer for the question I asked at the end, be a bless-poppet and leave your answer in the comments below. Outlandish and comedic suggestions are most welcome, remember!

I’ll pick my favourite and that will be announced in next week’s show.

Credits for sound effects can be found here.

Oh, and for the first time, here’s a little blooper reel for this episode. WARNING: There is swearing. I do that sometimes…

A few people have been asking about whether there are launch events and the answer is no. It’s only been a few weeks since I asked everyone to come to the first one and I don’t want to be a pain. However, I am brewing ideas for the launch of book 3 (All Is Fair) in October that may involve something social again.

If you want a signed copy…

I’m popping into Forbidden Planet in London on Saturday to sign stock for them, so they should be on sale in the store and online after that. I’m also signing stock at Topping Books in Bath early next week, so if you’re in the area and want to support a fantastic local independent book shop, you can either pop in or phone them on 01225 428111 or email them at bath AT toppingbooks.co.uk to ask them to put aside a copy for you.

I’ll also be at Edge-Lit in July and the Nine Worlds geek extravaganzapalooza in August and would be delighted to sign copies for you there if you come and find me.

Hidden objects from Any Other Name

Remember I told you I’d hidden descriptions of twelve objects from Any Other Name on the Split Worlds website? Well, there are still a couple of links to go up and once they’re all out there I’ll announce the second phase. To find the ones out already, be sure to follow the #splitworlds hashtag on Twitter (if you don’t do Twitter you can always Google “#splitworlds” and there will be a result for a Twitter search). I’m also putting them on the Split Worlds Facebook page.

Win a copy of the Any Other Name audio book!

Both Between Two Thorns and Any Other Name have been released in audio format too (narrated by me) and are available on Audible and in CD format too. Speaking of which, I have an extra copy of Any Other Name in CD format that’s just ripe for a giveaway. It’s unabridged, on 11 discs for a total of 12.5 hours.  It’s produced by Brilliance Audio and is also available on Audible.com if you don’t want to wait!

To enter the draw, simply have a picture taken (or do a selfie) of you and your copy of Between Two Thorns. Post it on your blog and put the link in the comments below. The person who looks the happiest (I’m hoping there will be some fantastic smiles!) will win the audio book of Any Other Name. 

The competition closes on June 21st and I’ll post it to wherever you are with a little note (as long as it’s not the ISS or something silly like that)  - so you’ve still got time to read the first book if you haven’t yet! (Here’s where you can buy it)

If the comment form doesn’t work for you (I know some people have trouble but I can’t get to the bottom of it) then enter using the contact form - but only as a last resort as it’ll be much easier to choose a winner if the links are all in one place.

And that reminds me to say, rather neurotically, that this is a series that has to be read in order. Any Other Name follows on directly from events in Between Two Thorns, so if you like the look of Any Other Name, please do start with the first book so it all makes sense!

Oh, here’s a spoiler-free blurb for you and all the places you can buy it, should you be so inclined (and fabulous).

Any Other Name is the second novel in the Split Worlds series, following on directly after the events in Between Two Thorns. Cathy is secretly seeking a way out of Nether Society by helping Max and the gargoyle to investigate the murders in the Bath Chapter. When she learns more about the mysterious Agency which oils the wheels of life in the Nether it becomes clear that the privileged few are enjoying their existence at a price far higher than they realised. It’s time to change Nether society, but with assassins, Fae lords and revengeful fallen Rosas to deal with, can Cathy survive long enough to make a difference?

UK Print & Ebook
Amazon.co.uk | Book Depository | Waterstones |
US Print & Ebook
Amazon.com | BarnesandNoble.com | IndieBound.org
DRM-Free Epub Ebook
On-sale from the Robot Trading Company

Kindle US and Kindle UK

Nook

The audio version (narrated by me) is available from The Book Depository | BarnesandNoble.com | Audible.com

There’s just one more thing…

Now that’s all done, I’d like to say a plump and juicy thank you to everyone who has bought  the books so far and written me letters, sent me tweets and put up such wonderful reviews. Each and every time this happens is a sweet, sweet gift and I really appreciate it. Writing books is a strange and lonely activity, one I enjoy immensely but there’s the omnipresent worry that what I need to write is not what you want to read. Each time you contact me, that worry is pushed further back and I thank you, from the bottom of my tea-cup heart.

This week the brilliant literary agent Jennifer Udden is invited into my tea lair and I reveal my favourite answer to last week’s dilemma.

There’s a question at the end, feel free to leave your answer below but I’m afraid the winner has already been picked. You can find out who it was in episode 5.

Credits for sound effects can be found here.

As you might already know, I’ve started the three wishes community to celebrate the launch but then I had an idea for something a bit more frivolous which I just had to do.

Secret objects from Any Other Name

I’ve hidden descriptions of twelve objects from Any Other Name on the Split Worlds website, all of which play important roles in the novel. You can read about them without spoiling the book, by the way.

Over the next ten days – starting today and finishing on the date of the UK paperback release – I’ll be tweeting links to blog posts elsewhere online which will contain the links you need to find all twelve objects and I’ll be using the #splitworlds hashtag. I’ll link to them on Facebook too. On the 6th of June I’ll announce the next part of the fun – so it might be a good idea to bookmark those hidden object pages when you find them…

The first one to go up (thanks to Paul!) can be found here.

Happy hunting!

P.S. As a bit of karmic rebalancing after all that horn tooting up there, may I also offer congratulations and shout-outs to Chuck Wendig for the launch of The Blue Blazes  and Susan Jane Bigelow for the release of The Daughter Star  – we all share a book birthday!

P.P.S. Also, happy birthday to my deeply wonderful husband Peter. Today is truly a nexus point in the space-time continuum.

P.P.S. Blimey – just discovered that the brilliant Mur Lafferty’s book is out today too! What is going on?! Hers is called “The Shambling Guide to New York City”

This week the deeply lovely novelist, comic writer and screenwriter Paul Cornell is invited into my tea lair and I reveal my favourite answer to last week’s dilemma.

There’s a question at the end, feel free to leave your answer below but I’m afraid the winner has already been picked. You can find out who it was in episode 4.

Credits for sound effects can be found here.

I came across “Broken” and took a punt as it was a superhero novel and I was intrigued by the premise. I thoroughly enjoyed it and sought Susan out on Twitter (she’s @whateversusan over there) because, you know, that’s what we do when we like a book these days, right?

Anyway, I was in that great virtual pub the other day and she mentioned she had a book coming out and I leaped at the chance to invite her over here as it sounded very interesting. This is where I take a step back and let Susan speak for herself….

A Universe Full of Women

When I set out to write THE DAUGHTER STAR, I wanted to write a space adventure about a trade ship pilot who suddenly has to deal with all of the things she’s been running away from for years. But as the book started to take shape, and I began to flesh out some of the little threads running through Marta’s life, I realized that I also wanted this to be a book centered on the lives of women in this universe. Therefore, many of the main characters in this book are women, as are a lot of the minor characters.

It surprised me how deliberate I had to be about it. The way I write is pretty chaotic; I don’t use an outline and sometimes I don’t even have an overall plan when I start a rough draft. That means there are plenty of points in the writing process where new characters had to be created to fill certain roles. The first thing I’d decide about any given character, beyond the role they’d be playing in a scene, was gender. And, I hate to admit, my first impulse for just about every minor character was to create a guy. That might be some sort of internalized sexism on my part, something to do with the kinds of worlds and people I expect in an adventure or SFF story, or a combination of that and other things. So when I came to that point I’d hesitate and think, does this character need to be male? Why not create a woman here instead? And I did that, again and again, throughout the book.

The end result is a universe full of women. They are trade ship captains, the leaders of shadowy organizations, wise aunts, foul-mouthed engineers, dour agents, generals and so on. This isn’t to say that there aren’t any men in the story; they’re definitely present, but not dominant.

I’m aware that I’m inverting a trope, here, and I’m also aware that it sounds like the book’s gender balance is a kind of gimmick. It isn’t, this is just the way I wanted to write the book, but several times along the way I wondered if I ought to introduce more men into the mix to achieve some kind of balance. Isn’t that weird? I’ve written stories with lots of men and never felt that need, but I did here. I also wondered if men wouldn’t read or like the book, which is not something I ever worried about for women when the gender balance was the other way around. Thankfully by that point the characters were all definitely themselves, and they didn’t work as men. I liked them the way they were, and so the book and the characters stood. I know I’m certainly not the first to ever do something like this, but it still very much feels like swimming against the mainstream current. There are already at least a few readers wondering about the gender imbalance.

There’s plenty of writing advice out there saying to write the kinds of books you want to read, and that’s what I’ve tried to do here. And here I’m fighting the urge to write that no, this book isn’t really about dull-ass thought-experiment feminist gender stuff, it’s not some giant gimmick, it’s fun and exciting and interesting too! Which is true—at least I hope it’s true. I did write an adventure story, after all. But that aspect is fundamental to what I wanted to do with this book and all three of the planned books in the Grayline Sisters trilogy, which has at its heart the relationship between Marta, Violet and Beth Grayline.

I hope folks will give it a look! Thanks so much to the amazing Emma Newman for having me on to talk about THE DAUGHTER STAR. The book comes out on May 28th, and will be available at the Candlemark & Gleam website, Amazon, and other major online retailers.

This week the rather marvellous author and screenwriter Sarah Pinborough is invited into my tea lair and I reveal my favourite answer to last week’s dilemma.

There’s a question at the end, feel free to leave your answer below but I’m afraid the winner has already been picked. You can find out who it was in episode 3.

Credits for sound effects can be found here.

I was lucky enough to see him again at the Write the Future conference held just before the Clarke Awards and asked him how the project he’d described to me that day was going. I was delighted to hear of the impending launch and invited him to come here to tell you fine people about it. I received this (I can see the twinkle in his eye) which I am delighted to share with you. Oh – and by the way, I’ve seen an advance copy and there is a delightfully eclectic mix of essays and fiction in there.

My dearest Emma

Many thanks for offering me the opportunity to contribute an electronic-publishing blog introducing my new themed anthology, or magazine in a book form as I prefer to call it, Adventure Rocketship! Let’s All Go To The Science Fiction Disco. Your invitation truly means a lot because you are so kind and wise that you might have been suspected of witchcraft in a less enlightened age.

Unfortunately, I shall be unable to take you up on this offer as I am too much of a gibbering wreck. Such rudeness deserves a fuller explanation, which I shall do my best to provide. As I write these words, I am four days away from the London launch of Adventure Rocketship! at Forbidden Planet in London on Thursday 16 May at 6pm, where the esteemed Jon Courtenay Grimwood shall briefly discuss his admiration for the writer Martin Millar, and where Lavie Tidhar will be signing books. There is also the possibility that Lavie and Tim Maughan “will enact the nude wrestling scene from Borat” – although it is of course advisable to treat male writers’ twitter feeds with a little caution. (Scamps, the lot of them.)

Then on Saturday 18 May at 1pm, we will have another launch event at Forbidden Planet Bristol. Liz Williams will read from her most excellent fiction, the comics writer Rob Williams (no relation) and novelist Tim Maughan will also be in attendance. Lavie’s wrestling plans for this day are as yet opaque, which is probably for the best.

My trembling spirits stem from the fact that I have belatedly realised this means I am actually unleashing Adventure Rocketship! on the world. Even after many late nights working on the project, this seems an absurdity. It has sent me into a terrible spin because it really doesn’t seem so long since I was merely daydreaming about a book that dealt with the strange space where music, SF and the counterculture meet. A question I have hitherto airily considered to be dreadfully boring and petty has suddenly become of paramount, even obsessive, importance as publication date approaches: what will people think?

Before moving on, I should state that all this is no reflection on those who contributed. As well as the names mentioned above, the likes of David Quantick, NK Jemisin, Nir Yaniv, Sam Jordison and Jared Shurin have also contributed pieces. The Orb, Michael Moorcock, Mick Farren and China Miéville, among others, granted time for interviews. The redoubtable Stanley Donwood, long associated with his album sleeves for Radiohead, excelled himself both with his cover artwork and his story for the collection.

Were I not gripped by what I can only describe as a mind fever, I would be happy to sing the praises of these marvellous contributors. However, and yes I’m acutely aware of the irony here as one who has so often reviewed other people’s work without worrying overmuch about their sensibilities as I do so, I fear this task is beyond me.

At the risk of seeming presumptuous, I am sure that you of all people will understand. After all, as we’ve so often discussed over tea and small fancies, you yourself have often been gripped by moments of madness that make you akin to a one-woman bag of cats. On catnip.

Your obedient servant,
Jonathan Wright
Bristol, May 2013

PS Do you think walking on hot coals as part of one of your father’s confidence-building courses might aid this malady? Or would a spa cure be better?

Links:
Book page: http://www.tangentbooks.co.uk/products/Pre%252dorder-Adventure-Rocketship!.html
London launch: http://forbiddenplanet.com/events/2013/05/16/launching-adventure-rocketship-london/
Bristol launch: http://forbiddenplanet.com/events/2013/05/18/launching-adventure-rocketship-bristol/
Martin Millar: http://martin-millar.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/adventure-rocketship.html
Stanley Donwood: http://www.slowlydownward.com/anonews.html

If you haven’t listened yet, you can find the episode here: Tea and Jeopardy 01

There’s a question at the end, feel free to leave your answer below but I’m afraid the winner has already been picked. You can find out who it was in episode 2.

Credits for sound effects can be found here.