Books

Clallam Bay Comicon book roundup post

I didn’t buy any of these books actually at at the Clallam Bay Comicon, but I did clear these out of my email queue and I’m composing the post at the Comicon, so close enough!

Picked up from Kobo Books:

  • Shades of Milk and Honey, Glamour in Glass, and Without a Summer, by Mary Robinette Kowal. All three of her Glamourist books, two of which I had already in print, but I grabbed all three electronically because a) I didn’t have the third one yet, and b) Mary Robinette Kowal is just generally made of Awesome.
  • Death Troopers, by Joe Schreiber. This is actually a re-buy in ebook form. It’s the zombie novel in the Star Wars universe I read a while back, and while I didn’t like it well enough to keep the paperback, I did want to keep an ebook copy around.
  • Jane, by Robin Maxwell. This is Maxwell’s retelling of the Tarzan story from Jane’s point of view, which I thought was an excellent concept, and I’m quite looking forward to reading it.
  • The Devil Wears Plaid, by Teresa Medeiros. Historical romance by an author I’d seen heartily recommended on Smart Bitches Trashy Books. I did in fact already plow through this novel and can attest that yeah, she’s rather fun. Nothing too serious or substantive in her storylines, and the tropes she calls upon are very familiar. But she used them well and entertainingly, and at the end of the day that’s all I ask! More in-depth review to come.

Meanwhile, picked up from Smashwords:

  • Paper Woman, by Suzanne Adair. Historical mystery. Picked this up since it was a recommendation, and I elected to buy it straight from Smashwords since the author had deployed the Smashwords edition out to Kobo. So this way she gets more of my money.

129 for the year.

July 14, 2013 by
About Me

A periodic reminder on one of my FAQs: my various names

Dara and I went to my monthly Quebecois session tonight, and we had a lovely time at that, but while we were there I got asked again what’s up with my having multiple names in active use online. So since this is kind of confusing, here’s a quick post explaining what’s up with that and what you should call me!

Angela Korra’ti is my actual name. It’s the name you’ll see me using at work, and it’s the name you’ll see on any book I self-publish. So far, that’s Faerie Blood and the forthcoming Bone Walker.

Angela Highland is my commercial pen name. Highland is my original surname, and since I was encouraged by my agent and by Carina’s chief editor to seriously consider using a name besides Korra’ti as a pen name, I decided to use “Highland” instead. When you see me using this name, it’s in the context of books I publish via Carina. Right now that’s Valor of the Healer. Moving forward it’ll also be the rest of the Rebels of Adalonia trilogy, as well as any other commercial sales I make.

(This’ll be a shorthand way of being able to tell what things I commercially publish vs. what things I self-pub, in other words.)

Anna (and by extension, Anna the Piper) is my nickname and how I got that nickname is a bit of a personal story, so suffice to say it’s derived from my middle name. “Anna the Piper” is a a specific extension of that nickname and was given to me in the context of music and being a piccolo player, and so this is why I use “annathepiper” or “Anna the Piper” pretty much everywhere as an online nickname.

Now, here’s the fun question: what should you call me?

I almost always use Angela when I’m being more formal, when I’m dealing with people who don’t know me well enough yet to get the Angela vs. Anna thing, or when I’m dealing with people I’m not likely to deal with on a regular basis. I’m “Angela” at my day job, for example. But you’ll notice I’m also “Angela” on the social networks. This is because I pretty much do need to be searchable under both my pen names so people can find information about me and my books.

However, I use “Anna” pretty much all the time outside of that. All my friends call me Anna, and I will almost always refer to myself as Anna when I’m posting about myself or signing email.

If in doubt, consider yourself pretty much welcome to call me Anna!

But honestly, it’s okay if you call me Angela, too. For that matter, my family members often call me Angie or Ang. (Pronounced “anj”, not to be confused with Aang, the Avatar.) So I’m well accustomed to those nicknames, too! It’s all me, and it’s all good. Pick whichever works for you and as long as it’s reasonably obvious you’re talking to me, I’m cool!

(Though any French speakers reading this, you might warn me first before you start calling me Anne or Annette or Angèle or Ange!)

July 10, 2013 by
Publishing

When not to engage with art

Followup post on yesterday’s reporting on the latest bloviating from Orson Scott Card, prompted in no small part by this post of Chuck Wendig’s in which he explains why he’s personally boycotting Ender’s Game.

I wanted to expand a bit upon a notion I’ve seen debated a lot in the SF/F realm the last few years: i.e., whether you can engage with art created by someone whose politics you don’t agree with, and in Card’s case, whose politics you find actively repellent. More than once, I’ve seen people assert that you should not conflate the art with the artist, and that if you refuse to read things by people who are assholes, you risk missing out on good stories. I’ve also seen it argued that if you refuse to read things by people who disagree with you, you’re not keeping a suitably open mind.

But here’s the thing.

The vast majority of the time, when I see people making this argument, they’re people who’re arguing from a position of privilege–people who are, in fact, not in the direct line of fire of the repellent politics in question. It’s very easy to say “but Orson Scott Card is an awesome writer and Ender’s Game is a classic, how can you possibly skip it?!” when you’re a straight white Christian.

If you’re queer, on the other hand, you’re one of the people he wants to make illegal–a goal he’s been actively working towards, given that he’s a board member of an organization who has that as a stated goal. He’s cheerleaded efforts in Uganda to issue the death sentence to homosexuals. He is actively working, with his money, time, and reputation, to push people like me and my wife into the dirt.

So it’s a safe bet that some portion of the money he makes from his art is in fact going to go towards the goal of making people like me illegal, if not dead.

So, no. I’m never going to read a word of his. If a project has his name on it, I’m not touching it. I don’t give a rat’s ass, rat’s feet, or any other part of the rat how good a writer he is. I don’t care about whatever significance may lie in the stories he creates. I don’t care who else is involved in the Ender’s Game movie. I’m pretty damn sure they’ll all survive without getting any of my money.

Me, I’d just as soon give my financial support to people who don’t want to see me illegal or dead. And with over 1,100 things on my To Read list by people who aren’t flaming bigoted assholes, I’m pretty damned sure I won’t miss Card’s work one single bit.

July 10, 2013 by
Quebecois Music

And now, to solve an ongoing problem

My belovedest of Daras is at a bit of a loss when it comes to comprehending my rampageous affection for Quebecois traditional music. She doesn’t speak a lick of French, and so I could mention any one of the various bands I’m following, only to have their names just parse to her as “French sounds”. And it didn’t help matters much either when we went up to Harrison Hot Springs this past weekend–because two of the guys in De Temps Antan ARE brothers of guys in Le Vent du Nord, and the sets of brothers in question do look rather alike!

Several of you who read me on a regular basis won’t be having these problem, but in case you’re in the same boat Dara is and find yourself trying to figure out who all these people are I keep enthusiastically babbling about, here. I present for you this handy flowchart for how to tell apart my seven favorite Quebecois traditional bands!

Quebec Band Flowchart

Quebec Band Flowchart

Never let it be said that I am not helpful!

July 9, 2013 by
Movies, Politics

No, actually, I’m NOT tolerant of bigotry

Just came back from getting my phone replaced to see the word going around the Net that Orson Scott Card has apparently decided to call the question of gay marriage “moot” and has asked for “tolerance from the victorious”. And for added WTFery, is calling on people to not boycott his movie.

It’s one thing to say that “I am against gay marriage on religious grounds” and to therefore apply that to your own life. I don’t like that, but it’s appropriate to accept that others who don’t agree with me are free to live their own lives as they wish. It’s quite another thing entirely to say that “because my religious views are against gay marriage, nobody should ever have gay marriage EVER”–to actively throw your own reputation, money, and life effort into not only trying to pass laws to enforce your views, but to promote the outright dehumanization of LGBT folk.

And now he has the nerve to ask people to not boycott his movie? I have two words for you, Mr. Card: fuck you.

Because no. I’m not tolerant of his toxic brand of bigotry. He has the freedom to believe what he likes, but when he starts trying to force his views down other people’s throats, no, I’m not going to put up with that. As the old saying goes, your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.

I never read Ender’s Game, so I have no particular sentimental attachment to that book. In fact, I’d only ever read one book of Card’s before I found out what a homophobic asshat he is. But I know a lot of SF/F fans who did love the book, and so I’m sad for them–because they’re unhappy that a beloved book turns out to have been created by a vile weasel of a person.

Me, I’m a little sad just because Harrison Ford is in this movie, and as you all know, I’ve been a longstanding fan of Mr. Ford. But not even his presence in the film could make me give any money to anything with Orson Scott Card’s name attached.

Dara has pretty much echoed my thoughts here, and James Nicoll has commentary here.

ETA: Commentary at The Mary Sue over here.

ETA #2: For a counterpoint view Cory Doctorow chimed in on BoingBoing. I’m linking to him because even though I don’t agree with his stance, it’s worth noting as an opinion I’ve seen out there a lot every time something of this nature comes up: i.e., how much leeway can you give between the creator of a piece of art, and the art itself?

I’ve seen a lot of people advocate separating them and I can buy that up to a point. In Card’s case, he crosses the line for me specifically because he is an activist. I.e., he’s a member of an organization dedicated to the dehumanization of LGBT-folk; it’s not enough for him to just have these beliefs. And you know what? Fuck that. I don’t care how good a writer he is. I have no qualms whatsoever about potentially missing out on good stories despite my lifelong goal of Wanting to Read All the Books. My life is too short, and there are too many other great authors out there who aren’t trying to pass laws to make my wife and second-class citizens, to give dime one to him.

ETA #3: James has another post up linking off to a stunning comment from another author pretty much equating “refusing to buy an author’s work and therefore causing him economic harm” to “causing actual physical harm”, and asserting that these differ only by degree.

And I repeat: I don’t give a rat’s ass how good a writer Card may or may not be. Ability to string sentences together into a coherent SF/F novel does not excuse you for being a rampant, bigoted, hate-filled asshole. And it sure as hell does not mean I have to subject myself to your work. There are too many good people in the world who are far more deserving of my money.

Card’s already brought a gun to something that wasn’t even a knife fight, so y’know what? No, I do not give a fat flying fuck about whether I’m causing him any economic harm by refusing to support him or his work.

(The comment in question appears in this thread on thinkprogress.org, which actually raises good thoughts about what to do as an ethical consumer of art, in situations like this–where significant art has been created by terrible people. The post itself is worth reading, but as with many places on the Internet, for gods’ sake STAY OUT OF THE COMMENTS unless you’re feeling feisty.)

ETA #4: Chuck Wendig speaks eloquently on the matter right over here. Money quote:

That’s him doubling down and saying, “You need to tolerate my intolerance.” Which is a classic derailing tactic that smells so strongly of horseshit that when he says it I wonder if I’m actually living inside a horse’s ass.

July 9, 2013 by
Valor of the Healer

Winners of the Valor of the Healer giveaway!

And now, the winners of the Valor of the Healer giveaway! Drumroll, if you please:

Tiger, who commented on Goodreads!

And KatanaPen, who gave me some Twitter replies and RTs!

Tiger and KatanaPen, please contact me privately with the means of your choice to let me know how I can get you a copy of Valor of the Healer. Best way to reach me will be email to my gmail address, annathepiper! But you can also DM me on Twitter (annathepiper) or PM me on Facebook (again, annathepiper).

Congrats to you and thanks all for participating!

July 5, 2013 by