'Welcome' post

[lizwilliams]

New people on the f-list, I note, and do feel free to introduce yourselves, re-introduce yourselves, or simply lurk, as you wish.

This LJ is a mix of writing, witchcraft, cats, horses and dogs, occasional rants, gardening, digital radio, and weird shit. My life, in short.

You're most welcome.

Comments

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

Hello, and thank you for the welcome.

I've seen you around and on panels at a few SF cons - most recently Eastercon in Chester and found your LJ via links on various con. type fora. I've read some of your books (not all of them I don't think, I'd need a list to be sure though) and liked them - also almost all of the things you list up there are things that I'm interested in to a greater or lesser extent. Not the gardening though, that's something that I only do on a theoretical level.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the LJ! I usually put the gardening stuff under a cut, just in case anyone's suffering from insomnia...

[aliettedb.livejournal.com]

Not exactly new--I've lurked about for a while, but I figure I might as well stop lurking.
My name's Aliette de Bodard. I'm a writer living in Paris (did a brief 2-year jaunt in London when I was a teenager). I haven't seen you around--mostly because I've only been to one convention (Worldcon 2005, most of which I spent bewildered)--but I've read and loved "Empire of Bones", and I'm planning to read "Snake Agent" soon.

I've got a short story, "Deer Flight", forthcoming in Interzone as well (not sure if you were on the editorial board yet when it was bought, but I think so).

My LJ's mostly geek-stuff, writing, and the occasional reviews. My life is really pretty tame and boring--and full of computers and programming languages (did I mention I was an engineer....?)

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I remember reading and liking DEER FLIGHT and I'm looking forward to seeing it in print! Hope you enjoy Snake Agent!

[stephenhsegal.livejournal.com]

And the delurking commences! Hi Liz -- I'm Stephen Segal, the new editorial & creative director at Weird Tales. Your particular broadcast frequency of witchery, geekery, and lifery is tremendously engaging for someone living along my piece of spectrum. Thanks for being awesome and writing about it!

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for taking the trouble to read it!

I might be sending you guyssome stuff soon - just got back to some short fiction.

[stephenhsegal.livejournal.com]

Awesome! And also -- if you're interested (now or ever) in doing any sort of creative NON-fiction, drop me a line personally and let's chat. We're adding more of that sort of thing to the magazine. For instance, the new issue features a short essay by Caitlin Kiernan about a real-life haunted house experience.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

I would be interested, in fact. I'll drop you a line!

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed "Wolves of the Spirit" in the latest issue of Asimov's. Are there other stories set on that world? The imagery has stayed with me, and I'd love to read more.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! Yes, there are two novels - DARKLAND and BLOODMIND, both of which are set in the universe of my first novel, GHOST SISTER.

[gerardbrennan.livejournal.com]

I'll reintroduce myself. Thanks for the invitation.

I'm Gerard Brennan (user ID gives that away, I guess) and I'm a wannabe writer from N Ireland. Spotted you on Tricia Sullivan's comments a few times and hope to get around to reading your work when I've made it through the mountain I've accumulated. I've only really started reading Science Fiction recently, so I've lots of catching up to do.

I mostly talk about writing on my journal. And I'm usually more smart-alecky than this, but I'm tired tonight.

That's it, really.

gb

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome. And the book mountain - tell me about it. I've got one myself. :-( So many books, so little time...

thank you for the welcome!

[gracelessgirl.livejournal.com]

Your LJ themes are utterly okay by me! I'll be in the back of the lurker's lounge... for the most part.

(And in case you're wondering, I found you via Cerr.)

Re: thank you for the welcome!

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

You're most welcome! And please give Cerr my best wishes. We've spoken briefly on the phone but never met - I hope to do so one day.

[cyphomandra.livejournal.com]

My lj is supposed to act as a writing record/aid, although at the moment it's largely being used to log the vast number of books I seem unable to stop reading. I hoped linking to writers I like would inspire me or, at worst, keep me updated on new publications...

I read Ghost Sister some years ago and really liked the world-building, but hadn't read anything else of yours until I picked up Snake Agent fairly recently (on the rather shallow basis that the concept sounded interesting and the cover was gorgeous!). Anyway, I loved the story, the world and the characters (especially Chen - I'm very fond of low-key, competent heroes with a inconvenient sense of morality - but also, predictably, the badger-teakettle), and have since been working through your backlist as well as developing a rather expensive relationship with Night Shade Books.

I do hope this isn't too impertinent a question. I really loved the humour in your Inspector Chen books, but it's a broadening in tone from your other novels (I think someone in Darkland describes Vali as "serious-minded", which fits a lot of the other protagonists in the ones I've read). The tone in the Chen books, though, seems to fit better with the way you come across in this lj, for example in the stories about Sid (and, not to leave them out, the other nonhuman household members). I wondered to what degree the lack of comedy in the other books was a deliberate choice.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

(Sorry to take so long to reply to this!)

The lack of comedy is usually a deliberate choice in that I tend to be addressing fairly serious themes (some writers - Iain Banks, for instance - can do both at the same time but it doesn't quite fit with my style of writing). The Chen books are written in a way that is closer to (I think!) my basic personality - I'm not a particularly sombre person!

Sometimes things do creep in - I intended some of BANNER OF SOULS to be amusing, ditto EMPIRE OF BONES, and this prompted some reviewers to wonder whether I realised I was being funny (!). I have quite a dry, British sense of humour sometimes and I think this throws people.