Aspiring Writers Info: Transitioning into the New Era: Agents

I have been privately wrestling with the question of how to ask my agent how he's doing with negotiating rights on e-books, end of contract, etc. It's been fifteen years since he's done a contract for me. I was even thinking about asking the intrepid Kris Rusch about doing a post on "reconnecting with your agent" for those of us who have been trapped in Life, Interrupted for a few years.

Of course Kris has already touched on that subject here. This is part of her series on surviving the transition into the new publishing era. This isn't her most recent post, but what I needed to know is here, and I found her thoughts and specifics calming, because they confirmed my suspicions and gave me some simple game plans for the future.

I am also immediately going to buy a copy of her revised book The Freelancer's Survival Guide and her book Surviving the Transition. I will not be disappointed in these books -- I've merely held off because I'm supposed to be writing fiction, not sucked into reading the business info.

Once I taught mini-seminars on what to look for in contracts. Now, I'd rather get back into fiction and let Kris educate me with all she's learned in her years of running her own business.

Think this is all confusing and scary as Hell?

Correct.

Bumper Sticker of the Day

Reported by writer Brenda Clough:

If knitting were exercise you could bounce a quarter off my ass.

More, More!

Just finished Martha Wells' The Serpent Sea. I will be reviewing it, but right now just let me say that I want more, I wonder if Moon will ever know what clan he came from, and if that will be a blip of pain to push past, or an entirely new subplot of politics to be maneuvered through.

Best alien races in a long time, folks. Check it out!

CODA: Heh-heh-heh. I may get my wish -- check out Nightshade Books for a little more info.

Book Review -- The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells

The Serpent Sea by Martha Wells


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Welcome to a panorama of world building that you may not have seen for a while. Martha Wells always takes us places we haven’t been before, and in her Books of the Raksura, her new series from Night Shade Books, she’s brought us a story that is wonder, exploration and adventure all rolled into one. Most people would call this fantasy, because there is indeed magic here, but the peoples of this world are so well thought-out anthropologically that sometimes this feels like SF.

Moon was a young orphaned adult adrift in a world not his own, hiding a dangerous secret – he had another form, and he could fly. In The Cloud Roads, Wells’ first Raksura novel, Moon finally found out what he was, if not who he is. His journey took him from loss to hope and finally, in the end, found him belonging and love. But no adventure covering so much ground is without risk, or continued conflict. In The Serpent Sea, Moon, a rare fertile male of his people, has found a clan and a queen. But he is discovering that the intricacies of Raksura culture still leave him the odd Raksura out. Moon has kept himself alive for over forty of his planet’s turns, and his strengths and chameleon-like gifts are far from the norm among Raksura consorts.

In this novel, the Indigo Cloud court has chosen to return to the forests their people sprang from, to the mountain tree that was their greater clan’s home. But this journey has unexpected twists. They find the tree abandoned, and worse, desecrated, its heartstone missing, the tree blighted. Moon and his queen Jade have no choice but to pursue the faint traces of a trail that leads to the Serpent Sea and beyond. Without the heartstone, they are homeless, and may cease to exist as a court.

As before, this volume has many different sub-themes. We see among many patterns conflict and friendship between different peoples (who in these books are literally different peoples!) belonging, alliances with Others for mutual benefit and protection, and fighting for life and freedom, just to name a few. The strongest thread in the weaving is still Moon’s ongoing battle to truly belong to a court, and help his people solidify their home.

Highly recommended!


View all my reviews