A reader says, "I've been reading your books since Black Ships and I've read all of them. While I enjoy your Stargate novels, I miss the strong, positive, queer characters from your earlier books. Now it sounds like your upcoming book, The General's Mistress, is a het romance. Is that true?"

Elza, the main character of The General's Mistress, is explicitly bisexual. Like Lydias in Stealing Fire, this is not subtext. This is not context. This is not weasel words. This is not something I'm saying at a con or in my livejournal that most readers will never know about. She has affairs with both men and women, and her scenes with her female lover are just as clear and frank as her scenes with male lovers.

That's one reason my editor made the comparison to Phedre in Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series. Elza is extremely clear about this, and it's purely her choice. It's not non-consensual or accidental or occasional, or any of the other things that may "excuse" her sleeping with women. Elza sleeps with women the same way she sleeps with men -- because she wants to. And yes, this is historical. The real Elza is very clear in her memoirs that she slept with women as well as men. I hope you enjoy it! I certainly enjoyed writing it.

A while ago I posted the first chapter of The Furies (which comes out June 28) and I have questions about what Bronze and Waterlight look like from a fan artist.

( So, below the cut, more about Waterlight and Bronze )

I'm having such a good time doing research for Lost Things' sequels right now! Steel Blues and Silver Bullet are both set in 1932, and it's such a fascinating moment in history, and so much like the present in ways that are really interesting to write. For one thing, there is so much more that is knowable than even with the Age of Revolution books. What movies were playing which week? What did the Hotel Denechaud (now Le Pavillion) look like? Which radio stations were on the air and what were the top hits? Who was playing in the Thanksgiving Day pro football game and who won? (The Green Bay Packers won.) What went in period recipes for Mexican Wedding Cookies and Budapest Torte? Just tons of lovely things!

Right now I'm listening to my playlist for 1932, with songs each character would like, though I admit it tilts more heavily Mitch than anything else. Let's see -- the one playing this moment is The Way You Look Tonight by Fred Astaire, for Lewis who is the dyed in the wool romantic in his quiet way. (Someday, when the world is cold, I will feel a glow just thinking of you, and the way you look tonight.) Alma gets You're Getting to be a Habit With Me by Bing Crosby, as she's a little more reserved, and she does have a sense of humor about it. Jerry gets All of Me by Billie Holliday, as he's given to big emotions and he's not having his happiest moment in the first couple of books. Mitch gets either Night and Day or House of the Rising Sun. (Yes, you probably know the 1960s version done by The Animals, but House of the Rising Sun is a much older song first recorded in 1931.) And the whole gang gets Cole Porter's Anything Goes, which is pretty much the ultimate team song for them!

Oh I can't wait until Lost Things comes out! Just a little more than a month until it goes up for sale on Barnes & Noble's Nook First program on July 9! And then the paperback on August 1!

ALSO! A really good review of Lost Things now up in Geek Speak Magazine here! It's only mildly spoilery, but very informative! Go see!

A reader asks, "My favorite character in the numinous world is Xandros in Black Ships. Will he be back in your new book?"

The person who was once Xandros will be back in the Age of Revolution books, but while he's a major character starting in the second book, he only has one scene in the first book, The General's Mistress.

And here it is! One scene, but laden with portent!

( Xandros in The General's Mistress )

I'm so excited that now I have the cover for The Furies! It's absolutely perfect -- beautiful and just as I'd hoped, with Teyla and Sam! And the artist has remembered that Sam is a lot taller than Teyla!

So gorgeous! And don't they look like they'd mess you up? You do not want to meet these furies in a back alley, do you? This is Teyla's book, and Sam has a big role, so I think it's perfect.

You can click on it to make it bigger.



The Furies will be out on June 28, with the ebook possibly being a little earlier!

A reader says, "I'm really excited (and envious!) that you've written an original novel with Melissa Scott. How did you get her to do it? And how did you decide what you were doing and how did you work it out?"

Well, I fangirled her at a con in a really embarrassing way, the way you're always not supposed to, complete with gushing and explaining how I've been her biggest fan since about early adolescence and always wanted to meet her and just generally making a fool of myself! But despite all evidence to the contrary, she can't have thought I was too much of an idiot as she agreed to do Homecoming with me.

We were working on Homecoming together and it became clear that we worked really well together. We have very similar minds sometimes, and very similar interests in some pretty obscure subjects. We started talking in general about how we loved the feel of the old serial action stories, the stories that Raiders of the Lost Ark is riffing off of, but at the same time we loved writing for a strong team the way we were with Stargate. For some reason or other Melissa brought up the Lake Nemi archaeological dig in 1929 (maybe she saw an article about it?) and I wrote the little scene that is now the prologue to Lost Things. I sent it to her, and she sent back what's now the entire first chapter. So we were off!

We're working on Steel Blues right now, which is our fifth book together (Homecoming, Secrets, Moebius Squared, Lost Things, Steel Blues), and it's absolutely a blast! I think the thing that works so well is that we're both very fast writers who are big history geeks, but we have dissimilar strengths in the actual writing. We compliment each other in terms of the parts of the story that fascinate us. For example, I am utterly in awe of her aerial action scenes and her aviation scenes! Oh my God! I originally loved her space battles and description of space travel in her early books, but I find myself utterly blown away every time by her planes and airships. The airship section in Lost Things is just gorgeous. I can't read it without clutching the edge of my desk.

We also tend to have different favorite characters, though we both love all of the team. She tends to principally write Dr. Jerry Ballard, the archaeologist, and I principally write Mitch Sorley, the pilot. We split Lewis Segura and Alma Gilchrist pretty evenly. Generally she writes the aviation and I write the occult. The sections with the goddess Diana are mostly mine, as are the magical rituals. In Steel Blues we've split it a little more geographically. A native of Little Rock, she's done the Little Rock scenes and I've done New Orleans.

We're planning for this to be a whole series. We've got a bunch of things mapped out, and I've started playing with some bits of the third book, Silver Bullet. It's going to be fun!

Any questions about how we collaborate or handle the mechanics or whatever? I'm happy to answer in depth if you have questions.

It's been a while since I offered something from The Ravens of Falkenau, my short story anthology of stories from the Numinous World. I thought I'd share one of my favorites today, a story called Templar Treasure.

( Templar Treasure )

A reader asks, "When will The Avengers be out?"

With its new title change to The Furies, the book will be out on June 28. The ebook may be released a little early, since it doesn't require time to print and there's no sense in holding the ebook and keeping people waiting longer when it's ready.

MGM has approved final changes, and currently The Furies is in layout and design, being transformed from a Word document into the format you see when you open the book. I should be getting the galleys next week for a final trip through proofreading and making one last run at typos and punctuation.

Once I get the galleys, we'll play the page number game again, where you give me a page number and I give you a bit from that page. Not long to wait now!

The very first review of Lost Things! This will be in next month's Geek Speak magazine!

"The novel itself is a deft blend of supernatural intrigue and the noir adventure of serials from the 1930s, something that is rare to find and even rarer to find done well. Lost Things is a throwback in the best sense of the word.... The end result is a vibrant and utterly believable world peopled by characters you can't wait to see in action again."

Lately I've heard from several people who are fans of Napoleonic General Jean-Baptiste Corbineau. I had no idea that Corbineau had fans! I certainly adore him, and I've enjoyed writing him in The General's Mistress, The Emperor's Companion, and The Marshal's Lover, my third book in the Wars of Revolution series. And so, for the people who wanted more Corbineau, this is the very first scene in the third book. It also introduces one of my favorite people in the whole saga, Maria Walewska!

So step right in to a fateful Imperial ball in January, 1807. (No, you don't have to have read anything first.) In which various currents in the Numinous World come full circle.

Trivia for those who are interested: this was the first scene written in the Elza books, in 1990.

( The Marshal's Lover )


I would love, love, love to hear what you guys think!