Linda Nagata: the blog at Hahví.net


Recommended Reading: The Song of Achilles

April 15th, 2024

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Audible was pushing this novel at me for ages. I don’t remember why I eventually picked it up; it might have been on a two-for-one deal. Whatever the reason, it was there in my collection of audiobooks when I needed something to listen to — and I loved it almost from the first line.

This was Miller’s debut novel, originally published in 2011. It was hugely popular and I imagine many of you are familiar with it. It is a re-imagining of the story of Patroclus, the lover of the Greek hero Achilles, and his unbreakable relationship with that difficult hero of ancient myth. It is told in Patroclus’s voice, in first person, and the narrator is excellent, and fully captures the tone of the story.

Miller’s writing is stellar throughout. I tend to bounce off novels where the descriptive element feels overdone, as if the clever descriptions are the point of the story. Miller does not do that. Her descriptive power is amazing, always enhancing the story and not weighing it down.

I suspect we all already know how this story ends. I was curious throughout to see how Miller would handle it — and she found what felt like a culturally appropriate way to do so.

I do wish there had been a little more insight on why Achilles, as portrayed in this story, was so powerfully drawn to Patroclus. Despite this, I found The Song of Achilles to be an excellent novel and I highly recommend it, especially if you’re into Greek myth.

A few reviews and thank-yous

April 12th, 2024

Unless you are a big-name author, book reviews tend to become ever rarer the longer a series goes on. So I am extremely grateful that Blade has gotten a couple of solid reviews — and that Edges has gotten a new and very positive write up from long-time reviewer Rich Horton.

Posting at his personal blog, Rich says, “[EDGES] is exciting and stuffed with good old-fashioned Sense of Wonder…There is real tension, real human relationships to deal with, cool technology, and an ending that promises more wonders…It’s a great deal of fun, exciting, scary. And now I’ll have to read the rest [of the series]!” That is a review quote any author would covet! Find the full review here.

Reviews of Blade have so far appeared at SciFi Mind and in Locus magazine (no link yet to the review) — for which I am incredibly grateful. In a crowded field, getting the word out is always a huge challenge…and with that in mind, I want to let you know that I’m also deeply grateful to all of you who’ve enjoyed the books and posted your ratings and reviews, whether at Amazon, Kobo, Goodreads, or your favorite book vendor. I truly appreciate it, and it really does help push a title a little closer to success. Thank you! 🙂

Blade is out today!

March 5th, 2024

BLADE by Linda Nagata; art by Sarah Anne LangtonToday is release day for Blade, the fourth volume in my far-future series Inverted Frontier.

I know many of you preordered Blade. Thank you so much for that!

But if you haven’t secured your copy yet, you can purchase the ebook edition today, or order the print version. 

Blade is available at:
Amazon
Kobo
Apple
Barnes & Noble

A note on the print edition:
Right now, the print edition is only available via Amazon. I generally use a secondary printer to offer my books through other venues and I’m attempting to do that with Blade, but due to issues at the printing company, my account was thrown into limbo for a while. That put me behind schedule, but assuming no more fiascos, Blade should soon be available to order from other booksellers. My apologies for the delay!

If you enjoy Blade…

(And I hope you do!)

If you do — or if you enjoy any book by any author — do consider leaving a brief review or even just a star rating at your favorite online book vendor. Those ratings really do help with future sales, and sales are what keep writers in business.

That’s all for this time, except…

THANK YOU

Thank you for your interest in my work, for your patience with my slow writing process, and for the encouragement so many of you have offered. You’re the reason I’m still writing.

For more information on Blade or to check out the opening pages, visit my website.

FTC disclosure: On this website, links to Amazon are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases…though it’s definitely not big money. 😉

Blade: Kobo preorders now available

February 6th, 2024

BLADE by Linda Nagata; art by Sarah Anne LangtonFirst, thank you! to everyone who preordered the ebook edition of my newest novel, Blade. I truly appreciate it.

For those who get their ebooks from Kobo: Thank you for your patience! Blade is now available for preorder. Here’s a link to the USA store:

Kobo – USA

(I would include links to other countries, but Kobo hides all that from me!)

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Of course preorder is also available from the other major vendors:

Amazon   •   Apple   •   Barnes & Noble

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For more information on Blade, check out my January 13 announcement.

FTC disclosure: On this website, links to Amazon are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases…though it’s definitely not big money. 😉

Finally, an Earlier Sunrise

January 23rd, 2024

Solstice is all well and good. There’s something spectacular about the swift plunge into the early dark of December — though of course at my latitude, this means dark by 6pm, not 4pm. And sure, after the Solstice, there’s more light in the evening. But the mornings just get darker…

Here where I live, sunrise on December 21 occurs at 6:58am. Sunrise then becomes gradually later, until in mid-January the Sun rises at 7:05am. Not a huge difference, sure, but I’m a morning person. It’s dark when I get up, and it stays dark for a long time. But according to TimeAndDate.com, at my location, January 23 is the date when the sun starts rising a little bit earlier.

Three cheers for the light!

Introducing Blade

January 13th, 2024

It’s been a long time coming, I know. But the fourth and penultimate Inverted Frontier novel is almost here. Its publication date is:

March 5, 2024

It’ll be available on that date in both print and ebook editions. (There may ultimately be an audiobook, though I don’t know yet.)

So without further ado, please allow me to introduce you to…

Inverted Frontier #4

BLADE

Art by the amazing Sarah Anne Langton

BLADE by Linda Nagata; art by Sarah Anne Langton
(click the image to see a larger version)

The starship Dragon, accompanied by its fleet of outriders, is faring ever deeper into that region known as the Hallowed Vasties. Here, at the shattered heart of ancient human civilization, once-living worlds were ripped apart by the dimensional intrusions of a Blade. Yet despite the apocalyptic-scale destruction, the fleet’s telescopes have picked out signs of life among the ruins and the ship’s company is eager to go on—but should they?

From his post on Dragon’s high bridge, Urban looks ahead to the smaller starship, Griffin, now far, far in front of the fleet. The mind that pilots that ship—a stern and colder version of his lover, Clemantine—has gone silent. The implication chills him. Like Dragon, Griffin was an alien warship, designed to destroy without mercy all living worlds, and it still has a mind of its own. The question that haunts Urban: Has that alien mind somehow reclaimed control of Griffin?

It’s a question he must answer, and soon. Every wonder that lies ahead—and every ambition hidden within his heart—is at risk while Griffin’s true nature remains unknown.

~~~

You can preorder the ebook now at

Amazon   •   Apple   •   Barnes & Noble

~~~

Are you a Kobo reader? If so, I want to let you know that the ebook will be available at Kobo, though I won’t be able to set up the preorder there until I have a final version of the manuscript, probably in late February. I’ll let you know!

Do you prefer the print edition? Once the manuscript has been proofread and corrected, I’ll be able to set up a preorder for the print edition. I’ll let you know as soon as that’s ready.

About the Art
Sarah Anne Langton did a knock-out job with the first two book covers in the Inverted Frontier series. It was only after I finished those first two books that I decided to continue the series. At that point, I put together ideas for three more books, and I commissioned Sarah to create the covers for them long before they were written, and even before I had more than a seed of an idea for the last two. Sarah did an amazing job, and I’m so happy to finally be able to reveal her beautiful artwork for Blade. There’s only one more cover left to reveal—and I’m eager to write the book for it.

You can check out more of Sarah’s work at her website: SecretArcticBase.com.(Sarah has the coolest domain name.)

FTC disclosure: On this website, links to Amazon are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases…though it’s definitely not big money. 😉

Update on Inverted Frontier #4

October 12th, 2023

Yes, there is a book 4! 🙂

This has been a challenging one to write, I’m not sure why. Progress was slow for most of the first draft. I learned to be happy with 500 words per day. But I did finish a first draft. That was back on September 4. Very soon after that I started revising and yesterday I finished a very solid second draft.

At this point I’ve had zero feedback on it, because no one else has seen a word of it yet. But I’m pleased with it, and that’s always a good sign.

Today I sent a copy to a writer friend for an early beta read (alpha read?), and the manuscript is due to go to my beloved freelance editor, Judith Tarr, in mid-November. Once I get Judy’s comments, I’ll undertake a third and hopefully final draft. I can’t predict how long that will take, and no publishing date has been set. But unless something goes very wrong, I think it’s reasonable to expect #4 to see publication in the spring — maybe even early spring.

If you haven’t already, please sign up for my newsletter. That way you’ll get to see the cover reveal, when that happens, and of course I’ll let you know when #4 is available for pre-order. My sign-up page says you’ll get a newsletter every four weeks, but actually, over this past year, my newsletters have become few and far between. So if you’re not signing up because you’re worried about getting spammed — no worries! 😎

Just to add a little color to this post, here are books 1, 2, and 3…

Maui Fires

August 11th, 2023

I’m writing this on Thursday morning, August 10, in my home in Kula, Maui. The short version is: We are fine. The long version follows.

Hurricane season runs from June through November. The storms generally form off Mexico’s west coast. Some swing northwest, but others move more westerly across the Pacific, and those are the ones we in Hawaii watch closely. Last week, Hurricane Dora formed and began a westward journey. This was a compact and intense storm, but the predicted track put it well south of the Hawaiian islands, so we were not worried. The track proved accurate. The storm passed hundreds of miles away and had no direct effect on the islands—but it had a massive indirect effect on the island of Maui, and also the Big Island.

The hurricane was an area of extremely low pressure. At the same time, two areas of extreme high pressure sat north of the islands. The result: As the hurricane passed south of us, air flowed from high to low, creating high winds. This was predicted. But oh my! Those winds.

It started on Monday. On that day, things were calm at our house. We live “upcountry” above 3000-feet elevation, in a rural area with small subdivisions, large pastures, and many wooded areas. When the trade winds are blowing hard at other elevations, we are often in the lee, and the air is calm. That’s how it was on Monday when Ron and I headed into Kahului to do some grocery shopping—calm at home, but very strong trade winds in town, enough to shake the car. This was what everyone expected.

Things changed overnight. The direction of the wind must have shifted, because we began getting powerful gusts around our house. In the morning we could see great plumes of dust being blown into the air at higher elevations, maybe 4000+ feet. Branches swayed, dust swirled, grit in the air—and everything tinder dry. Summer is our dry season, and here in Kula we haven’t had significant rain for weeks, probably not since May. It’s even drier over in Lahaina, on the west side. The wind blew for hours. It would moderate slightly, before the next round of prolonged gusts slammed through.

The predominant tree in our district is the black wattle, native to Australia and considered an invasive species. In Kula, black wattle will quickly take over any land that is not tended. I’ve seen bulldozed land become forest in just a few years.

A narrow band of wattle forest lies on one side of our property. It’s not on our property; it’s on the neighboring lot. This strip of forest is probably about ninety feet wide, but so dense with trees, fallen trunks, and fallen branches, it would take a lot of effort and scrambling to get through it. Below the forest, an impassable hedge of Chinese jasmine continues the barrier effect.

On Tuesday afternoon, with the wind still roaring, Ron spotted a thin plume of white smoke rising beyond this hedge. I called 911. I was told the site was already active with personnel on the ground—a huge relief! At the time, I had no idea that homes just a short distance from mine were already threatened or on fire, because by this time we had lost power and thus Internet—and cellular data is almost non-existent at our location. Moreover, the wind was blowing downslope, carrying the smoke away from us.

But that plume of smoke did not go away. It would wax and wane, appearing to move uphill. How close was it to the forest? If those trees caught fire, our home would be in extreme peril. I wanted to make my way through the forest and have a look at what was going on over there, but trees and branches had already been falling from the wind. It was not a good time to go exploring.

I’ve been through wind storms before, but this one was extreme. On Maui we have excellent, highly experienced helicopter pilots accustomed to fighting wildfire, but on that day, the wind was far too severe and too gusty to fly. In the afternoon, our massive 35+ year-old jacaranda tree split low on the trunk—it was like an explosion!—and came crashing down, its upper branches resting on an small out-building. The avocado tree survived, though it lost several branches. The koa trees, native hardwoods, withstood the assault, thank goodness. Many of the other plants were stripped bare of leaves, just as if we’d been hit by a hurricane. All the herbaceous stuff with any exposure was crushed down to the ground, and a lot of mulches were simply swept away, including some wood-chip mulch, which amazes me. Interestingly, where I have a group of trees planted—native ohia and white sapote—damage was minimal, supporting the theory that a forest protects itself. Late in the day, we tied down my precious old camellia tree to keep it from going over.

Darkness fell. Now we could see a red glow beyond the black wattle trees. How close was the fire? We couldn’t tell. But those trees were not burning. Not yet. We knew there was a narrow pasture or lawn beyond them, but if the pasture was on fire, it should have burned out already. There must be trees on fire somewhere out there, and not very far away. This fire had been going for hours! And the wind was not letting up.

By this time, we’d loaded our SUV with necessities. My son had done the same with his car. Some of the neighbors had already evacuated. We began to worry that if the koa trees fell, we wouldn’t be able to get the cars out of the carport. I had my son move his car out onto the long driveway. By around 9pm we loaded the dogs into the SUV, and drove out to the street. I called 911 again. Should we evacuate? I’d been listening to the radio for hours. Evacuation orders had been issued for other streets, but not for us. Had we been forgotten? All the 911 operator could say was that if we felt unsafe, we should leave.

We were ready to roll, but we waited. Ron and I kept going back to pick up a few more things. Around 9:30pm the red glow beyond the trees had grown more intense and I could hear crackling from the fire. The wind was still blasting and there were no firefighters in our immediate area. I did see a police car pass by, but it didn’t stop. It felt like we were on our own.

My honest feeling at the time was that a single firetruck could save our house from disaster, but none was forthcoming, and I was fairly sure we were going to lose our home. I wasn’t angry. I knew things were terrible elsewhere and that emergency personnel had been working hard and nonstop all that day and were no doubt utterly exhausted. Still, it was an incredibly frustrating feeling.

We finally left around 9:30pm. We didn’t go far though. Ron and I both wanted to return home and use garden hoses to quench hotspots, if it came to that. Our son was wiser. He pointed out that if trees fell, we could be trapped, and there was the issue of inhaling smoke. (I should mention that county crews had worked hard all day clearing downed trees to keep most roads open. This was immediately obvious as we drove.) So we eventually spent the night sleeping or not-sleeping in the car, in the parking lot of the community center in Pukalani, along with hundreds of other evacuees. From that site, we had a good look at the P?lehu fire—one of the other major fires on the island.

Wednesday morning dawned. I walked the dogs around, we picked up coffee, then headed upcountry to see what direction our lives were going to take. I really thought we had lost the house—maybe it was easier to believe that, than to face being crushed later—but there it was! Intact. Untouched. No sign that any firefighters had been around, and the visible trees were not burned. The fire had never reached the narrow woods—but it was still smoldering. The smoke was obvious.

We moved back in.

The wind had died overnight, the day was hot, and the weather remained extremely dry. Still no power or Internet of course, and now we also didn’t have running water. But we had a home, and we weren’t complaining. The county had brought water trucks up. Ron and I filled some jugs, then started on the cleanup. And that fire kept smoldering.

My daughter lives in Honolulu. She called frequently, updating us on the terrible events in our area and around the island. We have been so very lucky to keep our home. I was still worried though. How long was the fire beyond the trees going to be allowed to burn?

Then, late on Wednesday afternoon, a helicopter started flying, dropping bucket after bucket of water. A second ship joined it after a while. They kept it up until day’s end, and later we heard what sounded like a team of firefighters with chainsaws and heavy equipment. We slept well last night.

This morning there was still the smell of fresh smoke in the air, and a single helicopter has been flying, delivering more buckets, presumably working to quench all lingering hotspots. Clouds are building, so maybe it won’t be quite so hot today. We have power now, but still no water, no Internet. That’s all right. Those will come in time thanks to the hard work of many people.

This has been a horrible disaster for Maui. We don’t yet know the full extent of loss, but it will be extensive. From what I’ve heard, much of Lahaina Town, on the west side, has burned to the ground. Family homes, occupied for generations, are now gone. I don’t know what has happened in the Olinda area to the north of us, or what damage has been inflicted by the Pulehu fire. I think our main town of Kahului has fared okay; I haven’t heard otherwise. And the airport is open.

Best to keep in mind that it’s still early in hurricane season, and that fire will remain a threat for months to come. Whether you live here, or elsewhere, be aware of the potential for disaster in your area and do what you can to be prepared.

Update: August 11, 8:30am
Cellular data reception improved yesterday, and we have now seen images of the disaster in West Maui. It’s hard to accept the scale of what happened, that the historic town of Lahaina is gone.

And I have now seen an aerial image of the fire closest to our house. It’s clear from the burn line that fire fighters were on scene and stopped the blaze, which came within a few feet of a structure just beyond the trees. Helicopters flew all day yesterday, while ground crews worked to contain and suppress the fire. I want to say thank you to them and to all the emergency personnel, the firefighters, the highway personnel, the helicopter pilots, the Red Cross, and all the good people who saw a need and did what they could to help. We are grateful! Aloha!

Selling Books

July 4th, 2023

I haven’t done a lot of book promotion in recent months. The bloom is off the rose, and my mind’s been engaged with other things. But in June my steadily declining book sales finally spurred me to do something, and I put the ebook edition of Edges on sale for $2.99.

(It’ll remain on sale for the next day or two, though that’s not the point of this post. I’m assuming most people who visit this blog already have a copy — and thank you for that! My purpose here is simply to share my experience in case that’s of interest to other writers, and maybe to some readers.)

So, the point of a sale like this is to capture the attention of new readers. After all, it’s less of a gamble to sample a new-to-you writer at $2.99 than at $14.99, right? (Not that I ever price my ebooks that high, though some publishers do.) And if the reader likes the book, maybe they’ll go on to buy the rest of the series…

The challenge, of course, is to get news of the sale in front of those hypothetical new readers — and I’ve gotten very lazy about this. The standard procedure is to take out ads in newsletters like BookBub and its lesser imitators, or purchase Facebook ads. I’ve done all that before, but this time I didn’t buy any advertising. I just announced the sale on Twitter and Mastodon, and in my newsletter, and that was it. Lucky for me, lots of people shared the news (THANK YOU!!). Word of mouth is the best.

So what were the results? The price drop went into effect on June 17, and as of a couple of days ago a total of 226 copies had sold: 75% via Amazon, the rest split among Kobo, Apple, and BN, descending shares in that order.

Is that good? Well, clearly the numbers are not life changing, but I’m not unhappy with the result. For a writer like me with an extensive back list (~19 novels), infrequent publications, and a not-very-active online presence, a little sale like this can forge connections with readers who might otherwise never encounter my work — and who might enjoy it enough that they come back for more. So there it is. A simple little sale format.

Now, back to work on the next in the series…

Needle Audiobook — At Last!

June 30th, 2023

Needle by Linda Nagata; art by Sarah Anne LangtonNEEDLE (Inverted Frontier #3) has been out for almost a year. Throughout that time, many people have asked me if there would be an audiobook. My answers ranged from “maybe” to “I don’t think so” to “no.”

Well, now the answer is YES!

It’s been a long strange process, but it’s definitely happening. The posted release date for the audiobook is August 22, and according to Tantor’s website, the narrator is Nicole Poole, the same as for the first two in the series. People have told me she did a great job, so I’m thrilled to know she’s continuing the series.

All I know about the release is what I’ve read on Tantor’s website. Click here to check it out for yourself.