Meal of Thorns Podcast on Fire Logic

Mon 17 Feb 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Benjamin Rosenbaum, Laurie J. Marks, podcast| Posted by: Gavin

I enjoyed listening to Benjamin Rosenbaum guest on the Ancillary Review of Books podcast with Jake Casella Brookins as they took a deep look at Fire Logic, the first book of Laurie J. Marks’s Elemental Logic series.

A Meal of Thorns 17 – FIRE LOGIC with Benjamin Rosenbaum

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Approving Proofs, Short Run Printing

Tue 25 Jun 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Geoff Ryman, Kelly Link, Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

Just like old days here: sent two books to the short run printer before breakfast — 1 box of Laurie J. Marks’s Fire Logic for Book Moon, 5 boxes for our distro; along with another 3 boxes of Geoff Ryman’s Was. Both books generally receive a small annual boost from Pride Month, which — from a publishing and personal standpoint — heartlifting.

Was is also taught in a couple of universities. If you’ve visited our table at AWP or, really, almost any bookfair, in the last 10 years I may have tried to put this book in your hands. It is a heartbreaker, an absolute unstoppable train that no matter how many times I reread it, I keep hoping the end will be different. It wasn’t ever a book I expected we would reprint but then, after we published the US edition of The King’s Last Song we were able to pick up the rights. And I keep re-reading it, and keep hoping. So many readers have found the same. Ack. What a book.

I started this meaning to write 2 lines: one about reprinting books, the other about approving printer proofs. I am not sure when I’ll next do this so there’s an odd feel to it. What used to be a run-of-the-mill task now holds an extra weight. The proofs are for the limited edition of Kelly’s novel, The Book of Love, and are for the endpapers, the signing sheet, the illustrations, the onlays, and the text, and I am not sure we’ll get them all approved today. Luckily for the two of us, this (hmm, somewhat mentally exhausting, there goes the day!) work also qualifies as fun.

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Laurie J. Marks is Writing Again

Fri 15 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

Anyone who has read the deep and excellent Elemental Logic series will rejoice with me to see that Laurie J. Marks is writing again. In a post today she writes about it, about the grueling years she and her wife Deb have gone through, the unexpected choices that she’s made, and, after a year of being retired, taking up writing again.

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Pride Ebook Bundle

Fri 2 Jun 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks, StoryBundle, Susan Stinson| Posted by: Gavin

I’m proud, no kidding, to say we have 2 novels in this month’s Storybundle 2023 Pride ebook deal.

Get all 17 ebooks — including the first book in Laurie J. Marks’s Elemental Logic series, Fire Logic, and Susan Stinson’s sexy and surprising Martha Moody — and support Rainbow Railroad whose mission is to help LGBT people escape persecution and violence here.

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Otherwise Award Honor List

Tue 14 Apr 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Awards, Laurie J. Marks, Otherwise Award| Posted by: Gavin

This weekend I was thrilled to see that Laurie J. Marks’s 4-book Elemental Logic series was one of nine titles on this year’s Otherwise Award Honor List — congratulations go to Akwaeke Emezi whose novel Freshwater is this year’s winner and to all the writers whose work is on this year’s honor list.

The Otherwise Award, Formerly Known As the Tiptree Award, is one of my favorite awards. It was begun in 1991 by Pat Murphy and Karen J. Fowler and is for encouraging the exploration & expansion of gender. One of the multitude of reasons I love the award is that there is an actual monetary prize — $1,000! — some of which is raised by bake sales, mmm, but that’s not all: the winner also receives a specially commissioned piece of original artwork, and (as always) chocolate.

Laurie’s third novel in the series, Water Logic, was also on the Honor List — as was her 1993 novel Dancing Jack.

Here’s what award jury member Debbie Notkin wrote about the Elemental Logic series:

“Laurie J. Marks’ Fire Logic was published 18 years ago, followed by Earth Logic in 2004, Water Logic in 2007, and Air Logic in 2019. The four Elemental Logic books reflect the author’s growth in skill and breadth over the nearly two decades, along with an extraordinary consistency in characterization and vision. The gender aspects of the story arc largely concentrated in the depth and detail of complex same-sex relationships, though Air Logic also ventures into the realm of treating autism-spectrum mindsets as a gender of their own. More subtly, while Marks does include heterosexual relationships in her story, she never centers the dynamics of those relationships, concentrating all of her relationship writing on same-sex couples. One crucial thing these books offer the contemporary reader is a vision of undermining and destabilizing polarized societies, focused on the long hard work of bringing factions that hate each other back into tenuous but respectful relationship – and perhaps that too is a form of exploring and expanding gender.”

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Locus Recommended Reading List

Mon 3 Feb 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., John Crowley, Laurie J. Marks, Locus, Sarah Pinsker| Posted by: Gavin

Congratulations to all the writers whose work has been selected for this year’s Locus Recommended Reading List! I am especially delighted that in a year where we published 10 titles (2 collections, 2 novels, 1 chapbook, 5 titles reprinted in paperback), three of the five new titles are on the list:

• Air Logic, Laurie J. Marks (Small Beer)
• And Go Like This, John Crowley (Small Beer)
• Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea, Sarah Pinsker (Small Beer)

And among all the stories on the list (I’d have added a few from LCRW, but, hey, bias) I’m glad that Kelly’s story in the final issue of Tin House made it to the list:

• The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear, Kelly Link (Tin House ’19)

Congrats to one and all!

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Laurie J. Marks, Brattleboro, VT Reading

Mon 5 Aug 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks, readings| Posted by: Gavin

We are happy to announce to say that next Friday (not this Friday), August 16 at 6 p.m., Laurie J. Marks will be doing a reading/signing from the final book in her Elemental Logic series, Air Logic, at Everyone’s Books (25 Eliot St., Brattleboro, VT 05301). The bookstore is getting all 4 books in the series in so it’s a great chance to pick up a signed set. Thanks to the bookstore and all those who worked to set this up!

Air Logic is a Locus Notable Book and here’s the beginning of Katherine Coldiron’s Locus review:

“You might not believe me, but this is the truth: Laurie J. Marks’s Elemental Logic books are as good as Elena Ferrante’s monumental Neapolitan Quartet. They achieve the same depth, the same spellbinding quality, and the same sense of falling entire into a world on the page, tethered to real life by the sure hand of a master writer. They expose a talent as mighty as Le Guin’s for building intricate moral dilemmas inside fantasy universes, for creating characters the reader will remember for decades, and for presenting solutions that amount to much more than throwing soldiers or magic at the problem. These books are a profound achievement in fantasy literature.”

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Air Logic Publication Day

Tue 4 Jun 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

Seventeen years ago Laurie J. Marks’s first Elemental Logic novel, Fire Logic, was released in hardcover and I, desperately searching for women writers to write about for my monthly BookPage sf&f review, was delighted to find a fantasy from Tor with some blurbs. I enjoyed it quite a bit:

Fire Logic is definitely not a simplistic fantasy where one side is right and the other must be wrong; like real life, it is all about shades of gray. Zanja comes from a highland people who hold themselves happily apart from other nations. She is their avatar, sent out to communicate, trade and learn from the outside world. But the outside world is in turmoil: former refugees have armed themselves and are taking over. The countryside is soon a war zone, replete with horribly familiar acts of war and reprisals. Marks has a wide-angle view and has written an immensely political and unflinchingly optimistic novel. Differences are celebrated as often as scorned, and love can be found even with an enemy without the costs that might be expected in our world.

Less than two years later and an ARC for the second book in the series, Earth Logic, landed, celebrations — and another review in BookPage. Show me the reader who isn’t affected when a book changes the world:

. . .  Karis’ group finds a hidden library and an old printing press. They use the press to publish a book that reminds the Shaftali that they unlike the occupying Sainnites are a hospitable and generous people. This is one step on Karis’ path to the nonviolent defeat of the Sainnites. As Emil, the former Shaftali general says, ‘War cannot make peace.’ The nonviolent choice is a strong and difficult one, and not everyone in Shaftal supports it especially those who have lost family and friends in the occupation. However, it is what Karis wants, and in earth logic “action and understanding are inseparable,” so, although it seems impossible to overcome the warring factions, she is determined to make it happen.

Earth Logic is a thought-provoking and sometimes heartbreaking political novel which absorbingly examines the dynamics between two groups of people. Good bread, wine and friendships alone may not save the world, but they make the doing of it much more palatable. 

A couple of years later Laurie asked us for advice on publishing the third novel and we slowly talked it over here and with her until we came to realize that we could and would happily publish it. So in 2007 Water Logic was sent out into the world — sometimes with tea! Laurie was Guest of Honor at WisCon, the book received another starred Booklist review and for readers of the Elemental Logic series, all was looking well.

Then slowly the series became one of those unfinished series that seemed like they would stay that way. We knew that Laurie was working away on it — tying up all those stories in one book that made sense of it all was a huge job — but there were family and health complications.

Over the years we’d check in and we were delighted to get a chance to put the first two books out in new editions, at first in ebook, and this year in trade paperbacks, especially as it gave us a chance to work with Kathleen Jennings again who did an amazing multi-part illustration over a number of years that gave a lively fresh visual identity to the series. (Of course, the 4 books still don’t match as we had previous cover of Water Logic stripped off and the books were rebound with the new covers so they have a smaller trim size than the first, second, and fourth Logics. If the books do well and we get to reprint . . . )

And slowly light broke over the horizon and then suddenly the day was here and it is June 4th, 2019, and here we are with the fourth and final Elemental Logic novel out in the world:

Welcome to Air Logic.

 

 

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Weekend Reading

Sat 1 Jun 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

Brit Mandelo is writing a thoughtful series of short essays on Laurie J. Marks’s Elemental Logic series on Tor.com. As Andrew Liptak points out in today’s round-up of books to check out this month, the first three novels came out between 2002 and 2007, so it’s been quite a wait for the fourth and final novel, Air Logic.

Last weekend at WisCon in Madison, Wisconsin, it was delightful to chat with Laurie about Brit’s first essay on Fire Logic: Living in Hope is a Discipline:

The centering of hope as a practice, of hopeful thought as expansive and dangerous, is vital to the series’ political argument. Nurturing willful, wild, directed hope—even in moments of despair and defeat—is necessary to be able to envision a path out of conflict, in direct contravention of nihilism or the reactionary impulse.

I am so glad Brit is writing these and pulling up these threads. Hope as a practice, while working for peaceful regime change, is where I am in this world at the moment.

In the second essay (which contains spoilers, so heads up if that bothers you — the way it used to me, but now I don’t mind — maybe it’s time passing and the world encrappening but they seem less important to me now. Everybody’s mileage varies here, of course), on the second volume in the series, Earth Logic Rather Than Defeat the Enemies, You Must Change Them: Brit focuses on the hard work being done and attempted:

Renouncing the moral impulse to be (and to have been) right, decisively victorious above all else, in favor of the ethical impulse to create a better future is the philosophical core of Karis’s ultimate treaties . . .

I can’t wait to read what he has to say about the next two volumes over the next couple of weeks. The publication date for Air Logic is this coming Tuesday, June 4th, and what a celebration it is for all the readers of this series. Any number of people came by and chatted at WisCon about the series — with some picking them all up so that they can read it again and some readers who don’t read series until they are finished(!) picking up the first or all four. These books have had a profound influence in many readers’ lives and I am looking forward to following even more readers’ reactions to them over the next few months, the next few years.

 

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SBP at WisCon 2019

Mon 20 May 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Carol Emshwiller, conferences, conventions, Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

Next weekend I’m happy to say I’ll be back at WisCon for the first time in a while. I’ll be running the Small Beer table in the dealers’ room on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday — but I have to leave on Monday morning so do come before then!

I love the future WisCon imagines and present it inhabits, and Memorial Day weekend in Madison — with the farmers’ market and all those great restaurants — is a great place to be.

Twelve years ago we worked with Laurie J. Marks to make sure Water Logic would be available when she was Guest of Honor at WisCon 31 and the great news here is that Laurie is coming back to WisCon, and, if the shipping gods allow it, we will have all four new editions of her Elemental Logic series.

I am not 100% sure whether the rebound Water Logic will arrive on time. Fingers crossed. The rebinding means the trim size will be a tiny bit smaller than the other 3 volumes — just so that nothing is ever quite neat and square — but the choice was either recycling hundreds of books or rebinding.

The good news: we will definitely have Fire Logic, Earth Logic, and lo after these many long years: Air Logic.

We’ll also have the new issue of LCRW, a few books, some zines, and if all goes well the new issue of Reckoning.

On Friday afternoon if I’m not in the dealer’s room, you can find me at the Tiptree Bake Sale.

I don’t do many panels now, given that if I’m away from the table I want to hear other voices speak not mine, but there was one panel I did sign up for that I’m looking forward to. I hope to listen more than speak, am hoping to laugh but may cry:

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And Go Like This on Edelweiss

Wed 1 May 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Edelweiss, John Crowley, Kim Scott, Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

Reviewers, booksellers, librarians, bloggers, et al, I just added an uncorrected advance reading copy of John Crowley’s November 2019 collection And Go Like This: Stories to Edelweiss for downloading and reading.

Also available there (at least until the publication date for Air Logic): Laurie J. Marks’s four Elemental Logic novels — Fire Logic, Earth Logic, Water Logic, and Air — as well as our award-winning September drop-in title Taboo by Kim Scott.

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Life Was So Wonderful

Tue 19 Feb 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks, Publication day| Posted by: Gavin

In 2004 I was still the science fiction and fantasy reviewer for BookPage and was very happy to see that Laurie J. Marks was about to publish her second Elemental Logic novel Earth Logic. I jumped on the opportunity to review it:

Laurie Marks’s rich and affecting new novel Earth Logic is the second book in her Elemental Logic series which began with Fire Logic (warmly reviewed here in May 2002). . . . Earth Logic is a thought-provoking and sometimes heartbreaking political novel which absorbingly examines the dynamics between two groups of people. Good bread, wine and friendships alone may not save the world, but they make the doing of it much more palatable.

At the end of 2010 Laurie’s agent contacted us with the news that rights to Fire Logic and Earth Logic were available and were we interested in them since we had published the third novel in the series, Water Logic?

Yes!

We started talking with the ever excellent Kathleen Jennings about covers for the whole series and we slowly moved to re-release them, first as ebooks, and now, with the publication of Air Logic in sight(!), in new print editions.

Every time I work on any of these four novels I am drawn once again into the stories within stories. Sometimes readers who don’t read fantasy novels ask why I love to read them and page after page these books provide such a strong answer. Here is a story of power held, relinquished, and shared. A story of families found, lost, made, and remade. A meeting of enemies who must learn to live with one another, or die trying. A story of those at the top, those at the bottom, and those that feed them. These are stories that were relevant when published and even more so now.

So on this cold day here in Western Massachusetts, where the temperature is definitely still below freezing — with all the pre-orders shipped, new review copies all sent out, and the book itself wending its way to your favorite indie bookstore — we raise a cup of tea to the (re)publication of Laurie J. Marks’s second Elemental Logic novel, Earth Logic.

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Boskone 2019

Tue 5 Feb 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., conventions, Elizabeth Hand, Karen Joy Fowler, Laurie J. Marks, Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

If all goes as planned, from Feb. 15-17 you’ll be able to find me behind a table in the Dealers Room at Boskone in Boston. I haven’t been for a while — I think since our kid was oh-so-tiny and where a very kind Genevieve Valentine let Kelly go take the kid for a nap in her room, so kind!

This year Elizabeth Hand is the guest of honor so we’ll be bringing along copies of her first Cass Neary novel (where’s the TV show for that?) Generation Lost as well as her collection, Errantry. The latter just came back from the printer so if you like your books fresh off the ye olde bigge printing machine get your copy now.

Besides Liz, this year’s Hal Clement Science Speaker will be Vandana Singh, and, again if all goes as planned (weather &c. willing) we will have copies of the second printing of Vandana’s Philip K. Dick Award finalist(!) Ambiguity Machines & Other Stories. Nothing like an in-person appearance to get a book back to the printer. That’s also what’s happened with Karen Joy Fowler’s What I Didn’t See and Other Stories. I was looking at the AWP schedule (in Portland, OR, in March) and realized we were running very, very low of Karen’s book and since she’ll be doing a signing at our AWP booth that Saturday morning off that book went to the printer, too.

Three reprints, three fab writers, three good books.

Of course we’ll also have our 2 new reprints in Laurie J. Mark’s Elemental Logic series as well as lots of other good books, some old boots (seeing if anyone is still reading), LCRW, and some shiny things. Stop by and say hi if you’re there!

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Fire Logic: Back in the World

Tue 22 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

In 2002 I was the sf&f reviewer for BookPage. I reviewed one book a month and every three months I’d do a column review of three books. It was an interesting gig trying to find books I could write about, books with big enough reach to interest readers of a general interest publication distributed in libraries and bookshops. It helped that I was working at BookSense.com — the ABA‘s website which later became Indiebound — and had access to a larger pool of incoming books.

Early in the spring of 2002 I came across Laurie J. Marks’s Fire Logic, published by Tor. The cover didn’t grab me but it didn’t put me off — I know people who found it offputting but the cover was just a signal that the novel was epic fantasy with a woman at the center so I gave it a shot. I loved it.

“Marks has a wide-angle view and has written an immensely political and unflinchingly optimistic novel. Differences are celebrated as often as scorned, and love can be found even with an enemy without the costs that might be expected in our world. Fire Logic questions both the real magic behind faith and the self-selective blindness involved in following a leader: religious, military or political. Characters and story come together effortlessly even as Marks refuses to shy away from complex issues of self-determination, ownership and multicultural coexistence.”

Here was a book that attempted to capture some of the complexity of personal and political relations and didn’t flinch from the difficulties and opportunities these offered.

The second book, Earth Logic, came out in 2004 (also from Tor). In 2007 we published the 3rd novel, Water Logic (Water Logic is still shipping the first edition cover. The new edition will ship in June), and in June we’ll publish the final volume, Air Logic. It’s been a long wait for Air Logic but it has been worth it.

While we work on getting Air Logic out in the world we’re enjoying seeing the reaction to new and returning readers to the earlier books. Don’t miss the 15-copy giveaway of Water Logic — along with 15 copies of Air Logic also up for grabs — on LibraryThing this month.

The new editions have interlocking artwork by the eternally patient and eagle-eyed Kathleen Jennings.

The new edition of Fire Logic is out today. Happy RePublication Day, Laurie! Anything you can do to spread the word about these magnificent books will be much appreciated over the next few months. Enjoy!

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Pinsker, Samatar, Marks (x3), Brennan, Schoffstall, Crowley

Wed 16 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., John Crowley, John Schoffstall, Laurie J. Marks, Sarah Pinsker, Sarah Rees Brennan, Sofia Samatar| Posted by: Gavin

Not to bury the lede, but in November we are going to publish John Crowley’s new collection — his first for a long time — And Go Like This: Stories. The book will be published in hardcover and ebook and in a limited edition. We will contact Kickstarter backers from The Chemical Wedding first about the limited edition then make it generally available.

Ok, so 2019: yeah! One aside: it is amazing to see the news reporting on events they reported on before yet now with added shock and horror: the Russian asset AKA the US President had 5 meetings with his boss Vlad P. and no one knows what was said? Yup. That’s why we’ve been, are, and will continue to be upset with the GOP, Mitch McConnell (good argument for him being a fan of Vlad, too; see 2016-present), and those who keep going along to go along with the Idiot Baby-in-Chief. Hoping 2019 will see the Idiot, McConnell, et al, chucked out and maybe imprisoned. Goals!

Another aside: Hope to see you at the Women’s March this coming Saturday either in my hometown of Northampton (12 p.m., Sheldon Field) or wherever you can march.

In the meantime, in the interests of sanity, good reading, and getting tremendous art out into the world, we are going to publish more fab books!

Besides LCRW (subscribe?) and perhaps an omnibus ebook edition of Laurie J. Marks’s Elemental Logic novels and innumerable reprints and possibly one other reprint, here’s what we know we are publishing this year:

• Jan. 22 — Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic, Elemental Logic Book 1
  — available now, whoopee!
• Feb. 19 — Laurie J. Marks, Earth Logic, Elemental Logic Book 2
  — about to ship from the printer!
• Mar. 19 — Sarah Pinsker, Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea: Stories
  — at the printer!
• Apr. 9 — Sofia Samatar, Tender: Stories, trade paperback
  — about to go to the printer!
• Jun. 4 — Laurie J. Marks, Air Logic, Elemental Logic Book 4 . . . !
• Sep. 3 —  Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands, trade paperback
  — Sarah’s new novel Season of the Witch (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Book 1) comes out from Scholastic on July 9th. That will be fun!
• Oct. 22 — John Schoffstall, Half-Witch, trade paperback — the sleeper book of the year!
• Nov. — John Crowley, And Go Like This: Stories

Cheers!

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Start the Logic Series for Free

Tue 11 Dec 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Free books, Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

Next month we’re bringing Laurie J. Marks’s first Elemental Logic novel, Fire Logic, back into print — it’s been available as an ebook for years but now you’ll be able to hold the new edition with Kathleen Jennings’s lovely lively art in your hands . . . and by summertime you’ll be able to have a matching set of all four novels.

To celebrate, this month we’re giving away 15 copies of Fire Logic on LibraryThing (US only due to mailing costs) as well as 15 copies of the second novel Earth Logic.

And: month we’ll give away 15 copies the third novel in the series Water Logic and . . .

yes,

at last,

15 copies of the final novel

Air Logic.

I can’t wait to getting Air Logic out into the world. It’s a huge series, heartbreaking, deeply immersive, thought-provoking, and satisfying. We’re also sending the last book out for blurbs and beginning to send it to reviewers —it’s up on Edelweiss, too, of course. I’ll leave it to Delia Sherman to have the last word here:

“If you’ve been looking for an exciting, thoughtful, queer, diverse, politically aware, complex, timely, beautifully written saga of a fascinating world and set of characters, here it is.”
— Delia Sherman

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Air Logic on Edelweiss + Updated Cover

Tue 13 Nov 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Art, Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

Laurie J. Marks’s final Elemental Logic novel will be going out to reviewers by the end of the month — reviewers who like electronic versions can go right now this very instant directly to Edelweiss.

And: Here’s Kathleen Jennings’s near-final cover for Air Logic. This series just knocks me over every time I go back to it. If it’s new to you, you have a huge immersive compulsively readable story to dig into. As Delia Sherman says,

The ebooks of the first 3 books are available now and the reprint dates (at last!) for the first two books, Fire Logic and Earth Logic, are below.

Reviewers, booksellers, librarians, lend me your ears! We are going to make a fuss about this series and this book!

Book 1 Fire Logic — January 22, 2019 — Edelweiss

Book 2 Earth Logic — February 19, 2019 — Edelweiss

Book 3 Water Logic — Edelweiss

Book 4 Air Logic —June 2019 — Edelweiss

And, fingers crossed, Laurie will be at WisCon to launch it!

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Boom! New Books for 2017

Wed 7 Dec 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Christopher Rowe, Kij Johnson, Laurie J. Marks, Sarah Rees Brennan, Sofia Samatar| Posted by: Gavin

Should democracy survive in this sometimes lovely country in 2017 we will publish these books:

1. Sofia Samatar, Tender: Stories
This is a ridiculously good book. Twenty stories including two new stories which — POP! there goes my mind.

2. Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic and Earth Logic in paperback. The ebooks are out but these trade paperbacks coming out is us building toward publishing the fourth and final Elemental Logic novel, Air Logic.

3. Kij Johnson, The River Bank: A sequel to Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. Illustrated throughout by Kathleen Jennings.
A book that came to us out of the blue and a reminder that there can be joy in the world.

4. Christopher Rowe, Telling the Map: Stories
Sometimes you wait a long time and then a good thing happens. This book ranges out from now in Kentucky to who knows where or when. And: wow.

5. Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands: a novel
This is the funniest epic-not-epic fantasy you’ll read next year.

None of the covers are 100% final.

And, fingers crossed, there will be more books later in the year.

I owe an apology and a great debt of thanks to the authors for their immense patience as work slowed and stalled during and after this most recent election. Sorry. Putting out a new issue of LCRW helped with getting me back into doing things and not just calling senators and despairing.

I feel silly and melodramatic to be worried about democracy — not perhaps the best form of government, but the best I’ve seen yet — and to think that I and others can work to keep this country from becoming a militarized plutocracy/kleptocracy. This election that among others things was influenced by the Russian government…

Rep Schiff to @halliejackson: Trump “knows better” than to say Russia wasn’t involved in US election hacks. https://t.co/UhNDsAd07l

— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) December 7, 2016

…(oh that that were a conspiracy theory), this convulsion away from liberalism and toward a much darker, narrower future is horrifying and must be fought.

For now, we will fight one book at a time.

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Tom Canty art, signed books by Kelly, more more more

Thu 20 May 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, Karen Lord, Kathe Koja, Kelly Link, Laurie J. Marks, Publishing| Posted by: Gavin

Here is a tiny note to ignore. In fact, skip this para and go right to the next one. If you do read this, please don’t go bid against us for the Thomas Canty-illustrated copy of Water Logic—which is part of the auction to raise money for Laurie J. Marks’s wife, Deb Mensinger’s liver transplant.

Ok, so you skipped that paragraph. Thank you! But before you read on to find out what exciting things are happening here (alchemy! we turn art into commerce!) how about bidding on this copy of Water Logic customized with an original drawing by Thomas Canty ? Yay!

Bid!

And, they just posted this offer: all of Kelly’s collections either signed or personalized to you. You know we’re not going anywhere for a while so if you’d like a signed copy, this is your best chance for, what, a year at least?

Today’s featured (starred!) review on Booklist is Karen Lord’s Redemption in Indigo! That cover is not the actual cover, everyone will be relieved to know. The final cover is almost done, the interior is done (sorry, not being printed in indigo ink), so off to the printer it will go. This is the first novel you’re going to love and you will be so happy to be one of the readers who can say I was there when . . .

New Zealanders—this one is for you! “Next week (May 24 – 28) ‘Good Morning‘ book reviewer Laura Kroetsch is looking at Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link (Text, 9781921656361)” + 2 other books! (Thanks Renee!)

Edward Gauvin is fighting a valiant battle against those who think Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud is a Kurt Vonnegut literary game.

The strenuousness of these assertions–mine and publisher Small Beer’s–should not, I repeat, decidedly not be construed as protest, or evidence of insincerity. That is all.

In the meantime, A Life on Paper has shipped from the printer and will be hitting stores in a week or two—reviews should then pile in. Who isn’t going to review a major French author’s first work in English? Here’s a story from the book, “The Excursion,” in (the fantastically named) Joyland.

Over there in October (since all time exists at all times if you look sideways from here you can see October) we’re in the middle of publishing Kathe Koja’s Under the Poppy—and part of the fun is the stage show which will debut next February (look a bit more to the side, there it is! Phew, sexy!). Kathe’s joined Kickstarter to raise some knicker money (so that the knickers can later be dropped? There’s a vaudeville joke in there somewhere) for the girls Under the Poppy, which is, natch, a Victorian brothel.

Inside baseball time: we just presented our autumn and winter titles to our sales reps and it was fun to see the reactions from the sales reps so yay for that. We’re lucky in that we have a team of sales reps (Consortium’s) who read a ton (some of them had already read some of these books from early ebook versions we’d sent ahead) and like the slightly weird stuff we give them.

Also: how many times a book is sold:

1. By the author to the agent
2. agent to editor
3. editor to publisher and sales team and whoever else
4. sales team to sales reps
   1. publicist to reviewers/editors
   2. reviewer to editor (or vice versa)
5. sales reps to the booksellers (or to the bookstore chain buyers)
6. bookseller to you

There are probably a few more steps in there!

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Tiptree

Fri 18 Apr 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

Congratulations to Sarah Hall for the Tiptree Award for The Carhullan Army. (published in the US as Daughters of the North.) It’s an excellent book and Gavin hopes there will be something that good this year as he is one of the judges!

We mentioned the other day that Interfictions was on the Honor List and we are incredibly proud and happy to note that Laurie J. Marks‘s novel Water Logic was also on the Honor List: pick up the book from us, by mail order, or Powells, BookSense.com, or on Fictionwise.

It’s been fun to see the reaction to the question “are awards worthwhile?” over the last week. How about: it depends? (The answer to everything!) It depends on: whether you trust the jury for some awards; if you follow the will of the populace (online or otherwise); whether you think a self-limited interest group of some sort will produce an interesting list of books. The Tiptree Award seems worthwhile in that the jury redefines the definition every year and produces some great reading lists—as well as the occasional head scratcher.

Laurie’s book—and the rest of the Honor List—is a book which, besides being a dark, thoughtful , entertaining pageturner, makes people think. It’s a noisy world and anything that encourages people to stop and think is excellent.

Here’s the full Honor List (via Gwenda):

• “Dangerous Space” by Kelley Eskridge, in the author’s collection Dangerous Space (Aqueduct Press, 2007)
• Water Logic by Laurie Marks (Small Beer Press, 2007)
• Empress of Mijak and The Riven Kingdom by Karen Miller (HarperCollins, Australia, 2007)
• The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu (Hyperion, 2007)
• Interfictions, edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss (Interstitial Arts Foundation/Small Beer Press, 2007)
• Glasshouse by Charles Stross (Ace, 2006)
• The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper (Harper Collins 2007)
• Y: The Last Man, written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Pia Guerra (available in 60 issues or 10 volumes from DC/Vertigo Comics, 2002-2008)
• Flora Segunda by Ysabeau Wilce (Harcourt, 2007)

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Crowley in London, L.A.

Sat 3 Nov 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ellen Kushner, Interstitial Arts, John Crowley, Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

and other disingenuous titles. Actually, the London Review of Books. Has to be read on paper, one copy of which John will receive in, yes, Saratoga. Where much swapping of paper will occur.

Tomorrow in Ed Park’s L.A. Times column, Astral Weeks, he writes about Endless Things and the conclusion of the whole shebang:

The “Aegypt” cycle has always been about its own slow process, its private alchemy, its impossibility, but in the brisk “Endless Things” Crowley dismantles the machinery while dazzling us, showing how each part gleams.

Also, Strange Horizons are reviewing all the World Fantasy Award novel finalists—including The Privilege of the Sword.

More reviews:

Interfictions at Fantasy Book Spot.

Water Logic at the Feminist Review.

LCRW 20 at Horrorscope.

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The Top 11 Lesbian/Bi Moments in Sci Fi and Fantasy

Tue 16 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Books, Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

Ok, this is cool. Someone — who just joined After Ellen a couple of days ago and was a Tiptree judge (so we could probably work out who, but where’s the fun in that? —has a list of The Top 11 Lesbian/Bi Moments in Sci Fi and Fantasy and after Xena, Buffy, and so on, the top one is

1. Zanja Awakens Karis — Fire Logic (2002)

Who hasn’t felt the earth move in that first explosive skin-to-skin meeting with a lover? For Zanja and Karis in Laurie J. Marks’ Fire Logic, the earth not only moves, it actually begins to heal, and I’m not talking about metaphor here. That’s why this scene tops my list of the best lesbian/bi moments in science fiction and fantasy.

Cool!

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Mon 16 Jul 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

On SF Site Margo MacDonald writes:

I have just finished reading the second and third books in Laurie J. Marks’ Elemental Logic series (which began with Fire Logic in 2002) and I am now sitting here asking myself why her books aren’t on everybody’s shelves, holding a place of honour right up there with Robin Hobb and Kage Baker? Despite having written eight novels since the 80s, Marks still remains somewhat on the fringes of the SF world, embraced by a dedicated group of fans but a relative stranger to the SF community at large. True it doesn’t help that some of her best work is out of print (Dancing Jack, for one), but with the publication of Water Logic by Small Beer Press (and the fact that the first two books in the series are still available from Tor), no one now has an excuse to avoid discovering this marvelous author.

And it got me to wondering: who is reading Water Logic?A quick search finds the following: See Light, Coffee & Ink, Heather (tea still TK, Sorry!), Meghan, Plaid Adder, Liz Henry, and a Melissa.

See what’s missing? The guys. But . . . why? These are amazing books, smart, sexy, political fantasy. So here’s a challenge for guys who read fantasy—novels and series—read these books!

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Mon 16 Jul 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

On SF Site Margo MacDonald writes:

I have just finished reading the second and third books in Laurie J. Marks’ Elemental Logic series (which began with Fire Logic in 2002) and I am now sitting here asking myself why her books aren’t on everybody’s shelves, holding a place of honour right up there with Robin Hobb and Kage Baker? Despite having written eight novels since the 80s, Marks still remains somewhat on the fringes of the SF world, embraced by a dedicated group of fans but a relative stranger to the SF community at large. True it doesn’t help that some of her best work is out of print (Dancing Jack, for one), but with the publication of Water Logic by Small Beer Press (and the fact that the first two books in the series are still available from Tor), no one now has an excuse to avoid discovering this marvelous author.

And it got me to wondering: who is reading Water Logic?A quick search finds the following: See Light, Coffee & Ink, Heather (tea still TK, Sorry!), Meghan, Plaid Adder, Liz Henry, and a Melissa.

See what’s missing? The guys. But . . . why? These are amazing books, smart, sexy, political fantasy. So here’s a challenge for guys who read fantasy—novels and series—read these books!

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Tea!

Wed 20 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

In Laurie J. Marks’s fabby new novel Water Logic some of the characters have been known to sit around and drink tea. (Although Laurie says she’s more of a coffee drinker!)

And for those of them that like tea we have, as they say, just the thing: travel tins (1 ounce, that would be 28g) of Evening Escape, a blend of good black teas (with blue cornflower petals for an added dash of color). See attached pics of this morning’s brewery action for more details.

“And?” you say.

Send us a link (or mail us a copy) of your review of Water Logic and we’ll send you a tin of the tea (US + Canada only, sorry: unless your review is in The Guardian or something).

We only have a small number of these left (most have booksellers’ names on them!) but we’ll wait around and send them in a week or two to give people a chance to get their reviews out there.

Early reviews are coming in (no cribbing, naughty tea drinker!):

Frankly, it’s mind-bending stuff, and refreshing…. I haven’t read the previous two Logic books by Marks so this was like a flashback to my childhood. Interestingly, while there was some character history that I missed, from what I’ve seen of Marks’ writing style, I didn’t necessarily miss much explanation anyways. The world is presented as-is, and of course all the people in it know what is going on and why. I found the book quite intriguing, since Marks does have some unusual magic going on, and there’s certainly no overkill in the infodump department.
—James Schellenberg, The Cultural Gutter

* How gifts from the past, often unknown or unacknowledged, bless future generations; how things that look like disasters or mistakes may be parts of a much bigger pattern that produces greater, farther-reaching good results—such is the theme of Marks’ sweeping fantasy, which reaches its third volume with this successor to Fire Logic (2002) and Earth Logic (2004).
—Booklist (Starred Review)

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Water Logic

Fri 25 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

Almost in time for WisCon (and in fact from there), we’ve got a page up for Laurie J. Marks, whose third Elemental Logic novel, Water Logic, comes out in one week.You can read an excerpt of the book on Laurie’s site — which has just had an amazing update so there are now interviews, pages on the series, a map, and there will even be a song!Last night at the author reception (at one of our favorite indie bookstores A Room of One’s Own) Laurie read one of the folk tales from Earth Logic (the second book, afer Fire Logic).Later in the convention Laurie will be doing another reading, that song mentioned above will be performed (by Rosemary Kirstein), Laurie and fellow Guest of Honor Kelly Link will interview one another, there will be desserts, some speechifying, more possibly-fascinating panels than you and your clone army can attend, and a Water Logic book release party held in the local acquarium.In the meantime PW reviewed the book:

“Marks plays the fantasy       of her unfolding epic more subtly here than in previous volumes, and       the resulting depiction of intransigent cultures in conflict, rich       with insight into human nature and motives, will resonate for modern       readers.”—Publishers Weekly

After WisCon, we’ll be off to BookExpo, where there will be copies of this book (and some of our others) available, then a couple of weeks later we’ll be at ALA for the first time (hello…!)—but more on that later.And somewhere in between there we should do a giveaway of this awesome book (or maybe a package of all 3 in the series) but we will need to come up with ideas of how and why to give the books away.Off to load books into a book room and see if the Tiptree Bake Sale is open today or if we have to wait until tomorrow.

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Laurie Marks

Thu 10 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Audio out, Laurie J. Marks| Posted by: Gavin

Podcast Thusday. Which we will keep to when we have stuff. Mostly.

This week: not Alan DeNiro! (Although he will have an interview posted on the LBC sometime this week.)

Laurie J. Marks has recorded the first chapter of her fabby new novel Water Logic. You can go ahead and read it or listen to it in 2 parts: one, two.

We love this book. It’s the first fantasy series we’ve ever been a part of publishing and we’re very happy to say that the first and second books are available as mass market paperbacks. Haven’t read them? Read or listen to the start of each:

1. Fire Logic: read · listen one, two.
2. Earth Logic: read · listen.

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