Black Ships and Hand of Isis

Death Game Preorder

2009-12-23T11:39:28Z

Death Game is now up for preorder on Fandemonium's website and on Amazon! It also has an official synopsis:

Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard wakes up on an alien world in the wreckage of a Puddle Jumper - and can't remember how he got there. Putting the pieces together, he discovers his team is scattered across a tropical archipelago, unable to communicate with each other or return to the Stargate. Prisoners of the local population, Sheppard and Teyla are taken as tribute to the planet's Wraith overlord, while McKay, Ronon, and Zelenka mount a rescue.

The final manuscript is turned in, so on to the next one!

First Lines

2009-12-20T19:46:55Z

Presumably the same anonymouse asks, "If you can't do chapter titles for Death Game, can you do first lines?"

Ok. Sure. Here are the first lines of some of the first few chapters of Death Game!

Lt. Colonel John Sheppard was sure he'd had better days.

Teyla Emmagen hurried through the trees surrounding the oasis, her shoulder a dull throb of pain.

"It's no use," Radek Zelenka said, laying the radio aside.

"I am springborn, so I was already weaned my second summer when my mother walked through the Ring of the Ancestors and never came back."

With a sharp pop and a whiff of smoke the control crystal blew up.

Chapter Titles

2009-12-20T00:28:58Z

A reader asks, "A while ago you posted chapter titles for Stealing Fire as a teaser. Can you do the same thing for Death Game?"

Unfortunately, I can't for Death Game as I was very uncreative and just numbered the chapters! But I can post a few for the first book of Legacy, working titles, since that book is still in progress, though Melissa and I are almost finished. These titles may not be final, but here are the first few. I'm happy to entertain questions and speculation!

Halfway Home
Maneuvers
Stasis
The Art of the Possible
Shut Out
Once in a Thousand Years
Flight
Extraterrestrial Highway
Jack's Gambit

The Update

2009-12-16T13:53:17Z

What am I working on?

Stealing Fire is in, done, and finished. The last copy edits are done, and it's gone to press. Hopefully I'll see advance copies in early January!

I'm completing the edits on Death Game -- nothing too complicated, mostly just one adjustment I have to make to match SG-1 canon. It's principally finished, and it's a lot of fun. I've never really had a chance to do humor and banter before as well as the serious stuff, and it's been a delight.

My section of The Return is finished except for one scene with Teyla, and one very brief scene with Colonel Caldwell. Melissa is still working on her part, and then we'll have a wonderful beta go through it for continuity, in case we haven't "sewn" our parts together cleanly enough. I'm very pleased with how it's coming out! It's exciting, tense, and a lot darker and more mature than Death Game. And I think the ending will leave people biting their nails!

Amy and I have started work on the second book of Legacy, The Missing. We've finished the introductory sections, and I'm ready to start work on the A plot, a very tense plot with the Genii and a mission that goes badly wrong. Today I'm hoping to dive into John and Ladon Radim, with Carson, Teyla and Radim's sister, Dahlia.

Lastly, I've also been sketching a little on Lioness, what may be the next Numinous World book, set in Persia in the 6th century BC. It's a lot of research, but it's absolutely fascinating!

More Numinous World

2009-12-14T12:27:03Z

A reader says,"You responded to another commenter saying that you have two more Numinous World books finished that haven't been sold yet. What are they and when will we see them?"

I have no idea when you'll see them! As I told the other commenter, they haven't been bought by a publisher yet. I hope that they will be at some future date. As to what they are .

Fortune's Wheel

1789. Elza is the daughter of age of Mozart adventurers, gamblers and opportunists making their way in the last days of the 18th century. Sold as a child bride to a wealthy bourgeois, the course of her life is set, a course circumscribed by drawing room and nursery.

But a new wind is blowing. The winds of the French Revolution are sweeping over the world, and all the old ways and old certainties are flying before them like scattered autumn leaves. One of the Great Stories is beginning again. Men and women are raised high on fortune's wheel or thrown down beneath the guillotine. A young woman with few resources will surely be dashed before it and destroyed.

But Elza is more than she appears. Beneath corset and wig is the heart of a Companion and the soul of an eternal oracle. She will need all of Lydias' cleverness, Charmian's courage, and Gull's faith to survive, and perhaps to win against all odds.

The Chariot

1804. Blackmailed by the evil Minister of Police, Elza must embark on her most perilous task yet, spying on former friends and enemies alike to serve his purposes, with her life in the balance. From the glittering salons of Napoleon's Paris to the camp of the Grand Army at Boulogne, she must live by her wits and hope to find some way of winning her freedom.

But Elza is a Companion, bound by oaths beyond death, haunted by memories she cannot quite place but that may hold the key to her freedom -- and to victory.

Those are the first two books of six in this period, followed by Sword Queen, Death's Horsemen, The Tower of God, and The Last Trumpet. I've been working on this series for more than twenty years, so I'm not about to stop! What do you guys think? I hope this answers your question about a preview of the Numinous World to come.

The Sea People

2009-12-11T14:58:49Z

A reader asks about the first version of Black Ships -- where did I get this story? What's the real beginning?

When I was a young teenager I ran a gaming campaign, and one of the things the characters ran into was a mysterious fleet belonging to a people called The Sea People. Their city and homes had been destroyed, and now they lived in their ships, journeying always from one place to another on the open waves. Their flagship was named Seven Sisters, after the constellation of the Pleiades.

It was a fairly episodic thing in the game, an encounter with some people who gave the main character useful information and a lift across the ocean to the next adventure, but they stuck in my head, very real and very three-dimensional. I knew who all of them were, even people who never appeared in the game, and I had maps of their ships. Their prince was absolutely Neas, through and through.

A couple of years later I read the Aeneid in school, and the stories blended together. Aeneas was never dry on paper to me, and their journey was always vivid. So I suppose that's the real beginning of Black Ships.

A Funny Story

2009-12-07T19:21:09Z

A reader asks, "Do you find it hard writing Stargate pseudo-Egypt when you've spent so much time writing about real, historical Ancient Egypt?"

No, not so much. It's very useful to know a lot about real history in order to write the "secret history" of our world. But there is a funny story about that and Hand of Isis.

When I was working on Hand of Isis, and got to the Bubastis sequence in the Temple of Bastet where the girls go in the shrine at night, I needed to use a specific feature of Egyptian architecture. This is a square or rectangular hole in the ceiling of a temple intended to make certain stars visible in the sanctuary on certain nights of the year. A temple may be laid out so that certain important constellations or stars show through the hole on the right dates. This hole is, quite properly, called by the word that Daniel Jackson translated as "stargate." Which was the word I used.

My partner, Amy, looked over the scene and busted out laughing. "You can't say this," she said. "If you say there's a stargate in the ceiling, the readers are going to visualize a Stargate in the ceiling!" Which is way distracting, and throws people right out of the narrative. It also gives Isis' subsequent appearance beneath the stargate a very strange connotation for Stargate viewers. It was just too bizarre.

So I called it a "sungate" and went around with the copyeditor about my made up word. But really, Hand of Isis did not need a Stargate in the ceiling!

Favorite Episodes

2009-12-05T14:24:02Z

A reader asks, "Now that you're writing Stargate Atlantis, I'd like to know what your favorite episodes are."

Ok. Here's my top ten...er...eleven. There are so many I love that it's hard to cut the list down. But for whatever clue into my thinking or entertainment value, here's the list, in air order, not order of preference:

1. The Siege. I can count that as one episode, right? I love seeing everyone honed down to the essentials, their backs to the wall, facing the worst that can happen. It's a truly great ensemble piece, showcasing everyone's talents and brimming with tension.

2. Sateda. The ultimate Ronon episode. It's character driven, it's action packed, it's beautifully done. And in the end, I love the bit with Ronon and Carson.

3. Common Ground. Everything's better with Todd! There's so much good stuff in this -- Elizabeth makes the hard decisions, Todd hints at fascinating backstory for the Wraith, and how can there be bad in John thoroughly whumped?

4. Phantoms. On with the John whumping! Seriously, I love this one for the insights it brings, and for the way it very subtly moves into much more mature territory. I love the things we learn about each member of the team, especially Carson, John, and Teyla.

5. Sunday. This is one of those episodes people love or hate. I love it. It has wonderful moments -- the way John's head jerks when he hears the explosion, Ronon's idea of a great game, Teyla getting up to go to the funeral at the end leaning on John's shoulder, Rodney's grief and regret, and Radek and Ronon as the world's most mismatched pallbearers.

6. Submersion. In which Teyla totally kicks butt! I love the Wraith, and I love the face to face confrontation of the three queens.

7. Adrift. Backs to the wall again. I love the tensions, and how we understand all these people better by now. When John and Rodney have a confrontation, we understand where they're each coming from and sympathize with both. And Radek and John's spacewalk is one of my favorite moments in the whole series.

8. Tabula Rasa. I adore Sam and I think this is Sam's best episode, showcasing how unflappable she is, even with her memory gone. Lorne shines too, and Radek whopping Marines over the head is priceless. I love Ronon shooting John, and his clever little trick with the photo for Lorne. And of course they'd all be totally messed up without Teyla!

9. The Shrine. I understand this is one of those love them or hate them episodes too. It's a tight, beautifully written episode, possibly Rodney's best one, and Jeannie is a lovely plus.

10. The Queen. Here I go with the Wraith again! Teyla as Todd's queen is wonderful, amazing, and pricks the imagination in a million fascinating ways.

Aaaaand, number 11, the one I'd have to say is my favorite episode in the whole series, Letters from Pegasus. It's tense, it's character driven, we learn a lot about each person, and about ourselves as well. The best stories are windows to our soul. This one's stained glass.

So what do you guys think of my list? If you were looking for hints and clues to my thinking, I hope it's interesting!

Jo

Death Game cover

2009-12-04T13:35:49Z

Pretty, pretty cover!

Here's the cover for Death Game, my first Stargate Atlantis novel, which comes out in July! You can click on it to make it bigger.

My Desk

2009-12-02T17:59:43Z

I've had some interesting questions over the last few days, since we announced the Legacy series, and I'm answering all the questions messaged to me. (So if you have one, fire away!) A few of them seem like things that I could post, so....

This one was interesting. "What five things that say a lot about you do you have on your desk?"

I keep a very tidy desk, so I don't have big stacks of anything on it, and all my pictures are on the wall. So, aside from my computer and lamp, which aren't very interesting, the following:

A leather coaster. It wandered into my office more than ten years ago from some vendor or another. I don't know who, because their name has entirely worn off, but I keep it because it absorbs nicely when the ice melts in my glass, and prevents puddles on the desk, unlike ceramic coasters which frankly make more mess.

A glass of ice tea on said coaster, today in a Burger King Star Trek glass (Spock, at the moment).

A large black stone statue of Bastet. She usually lives on top of the bookcase, but my daughter decided she belongs on my desk right now.

A big, red, cinnamon Christmas candle.

A marble paperweight with the seal of Davidson College on it, a hand driving a sword through the neck of a serpent, with the legend "Alenda Lux Ubi Orta Libertas". No, I didn't go to Davidson. And anybody who can tell me in comments why I have this will get the very first advance copy of Stealing Fire when I get them!

Stealing Fire

2009-12-01T12:05:44Z

A new reader who has just come aboard asks, "What's Stealing Fire, and what's it about?"

Stealing Fire is my new book from Orbit, coming out in the US and UK in May. It's the story of Lydias of Miletus, a soldier of Alexander the Great. When Alexander dies in Babylon in 323 BC, the world is thrown into chaos as generals and queens murder each other to snatch at the remnants of Alexander's empire. Lydias, who is haunted by the deaths of his family and his friends, could care less what happens to him personally. When he's entrusted with a perilous mission for one of the generals, Ptolemy, it leads to a wild flight across the empire to Egypt, to a fortress that may be held by friend or foe. But Lydias is more than he appears, and the gods of Egypt are not done with him, for he has served them in ages past as priest and priestess both, soldier and slave and eternal oracle.

If you like magic and action both, gloomy clever heroes and some slashy romance, Stealing Fire is up for preorder here.

Black Ships

2009-11-29T16:28:37Z

Black Ships has just been released in the US in the new mass market paperback, so I thought that I would post a teaser about it for all the new people who have just come on board and haven't read it yet, especially folks coming over from SGA fandom who may not be familiar with my other books. So if you're curious about what I write,

You must know that, despite all else I am, I am of the People. My grandfather was a boatbuilder in the Lower City. He built fishing boats, my mother said, and once worked on one of the great ships that plied the coast and out to the islands. My mother was his only daughter. She was fourteen and newly betrothed when the City fell.

The soldiers took her in the front room of the house while her father’s body cooled in the street outside. When they were done with her she was brought out to where the ships were beached outside the ring of our harbor, and the Achaians drew lots for her with the other women of the City.

She fell to the lot of the Old King of Pylos and was brought across the seas before the winter storms made the trip impossible. She was ill on the vessel, but thought it was just the motion of the ship. By the time she got to Pylos it was clear that it was more than that.

King Nestor was old even then, and he had daughters of the great houses of Wilusa to spin and grind meal for him, slaves to his table and loom. He had no use for the daughter of a boatbuilder whose belly already swelled with the seed of an unknown man, so my mother was put to the work of the linen slaves, the women who tend the flax that grows along the river.

I was born there at the height of summer, when the land itself is sleeping and the Great Lady rules over the lands beneath the earth while our world bakes in the sun. I was born on the night of the first rising of Sothis, though I did not know for many years what that meant.

My mother was a boatbuilder’s daughter who had lived all her life within the sound of the sea. Now it was a morning’s walk away, and she might not go there because of her bondage. Perhaps it was homesickness, or perhaps something in the sound of my newborn mewing cries, that caused her to name me Gull, after the black-winged seabirds that had swooped and cried around the Lower City.

By the time the autumn rains came, I was large enough to be carried in a sling on my mother’s back while she worked.

I know it was not that year, but it is my first memory, the green light slanting through the trees that arched over the river, the sound of the water falling over shallow stones, the songs of the women from Wilusa and Lydia as they worked at the flax. I learned their songs as my first tongue, the tongue of the People as women speak it in exile.

There were other children among the linen slaves, though I was the oldest of the ones from Wilusa. There were Lydians older than I, whose mothers had come from far southward down the coast, and a blond Illyrian from north and west of Pylos. Her name was Kyla; she was my childhood friend, the one who paddled with me in the river while our mothers worked. At least until she was also put to work. I knew then what my life would be—the steady rhythm of beating the flax, of harvest and the life of the river. I could imagine no more. The tiny world of the river was still large enough for me.

The summer that I was four was the summer that Triotes came. He was the sister-son of the Old King, tall and blond and handsome as the summer sun. He stopped to water his horses, and talked with my mother. I thought it was odd.

A few days later he came again. I remember watching them talking, Triotes standing at his horses’ heads, ankle deep in the river. I remember thinking something was wrong. My mother was not supposed to smile.

He came often after that. And sometimes I was sent to sleep with Kyla and her mother.

My fifth summer was when my brother was born. He had soft, fair baby hair, and his eyes were the clear gray-blue of the sea. I looked at my reflection in the river, at my hair as dark as my mother’s, eyes like pools of night. And I understood something new. My brother was different.

Triotes threw him high in the air to make him laugh, showed him to his friends when they led their chariots along the road. He was barely a man himself, and he had no sons before, even by a slave. He brought my mother presents.

One night I heard them talking. He was promising that when my brother was older he would bring him to the palace at Pylos, where he would learn to carry the wine cups for princes, where he would learn to use a sword. He was the son of Triotes, and would be known as such.

Later, when he had gone, I crept in beside my mother. My brother, Aren, was at her breast. I watched him nurse for a few minutes. Then I laid down and put my head on my mother’s flat, fair stomach.

“What’s the matter, my Gull?” she said.

“I am the daughter of no man,” I said.

I do not think she had expected that. I heard her breath catch. “You are the daughter of the People,” she said firmly. “You are a daughter of Wilusa. I was born in the shadow of the Great Tower, where the Lower Harbor meets the road. I lived my whole life in the sound of the sea. Your grandfather was a boatbuilder in the Lower City. You are a daughter of Wilusa.” My mother stroked my hair with her free hand, the one that did not support Aren. “You were meant to be born there. But the gods intervened.”

“Then won’t the gods intervene again and take us back?” I asked.

My mother smiled sadly. “I don’t think the gods do things like that.”

And so I returned to the river. I was old enough to help the women with the flax in the green cool twilight along the water. And this, I knew, was where I would spend my life.

I don’t remember the accident that changed all that.

We often played along the road that paralleled the river. It was nothing more than a packed track, rutted from chariots and carts. I remember the chariot, much finer than Triotes’, the blood bay horses, the gleaming bronze. I remember staring transfixed. I remember my mother’s scream, high and shrill like a gull herself.

It was fortunate that the rains had begun and the road was muddy. The wheel passed over my right leg just above the ankle, snapping the bones cleanly, but not cutting my foot off, as I have seen happen since. The road was muddy, and the surface gave.

I remember little of that winter. I don’t remember how long I spent on the pallet in the corner where my mother had given birth to Aren. Perhaps it’s childhood distance. Perhaps it’s the essence of poppy that the oldest of the slave women gave me for the pain. I vaguely remember picking at the wrappings around my leg and being told to stop. And that is all.

I do remember the Feast of the Descent, when the Lady returns to the world beneath and greets Her beloved. The dry season was beginning, and the poppies were dying in the fields, the river running shallow and slow.

My right leg was half the thickness of my left above the ankle, and my right foot twisted, the toes turned inward and the heel out. I could stand, just. All that long spring I tried to walk again. By the height of summer I could stumble slowly, holding on to things for balance, but it was clear that I would never run or dance again.

More important, it was clear that I would never work all day in the shallows of the river.

I did not know why my mother left Aren sleeping with Kyla’s mother and took me walking away from the river, up the long dusty track in a way we had never gone. I asked her over and over where we went, but she did not answer, though she carried me part of the way when the road went steeply uphill. I was light enough for six years old.

There was a turn in the road, and we stopped to rest. My mother brought out a water bottle and we shared it. I looked down and away at the size of the world. The river was a track of green, swirled like a snake across the yellows and browns of the landscape. Behind us, the mountains rose in serrated tiers to peaks as dark and as strange as clouds.

“There,” my mother said. “Gull, do you see that?” She pointed to a silver smudge at the end of the river. “There’s so much dust in the air, it’s hard to see. That’s the sea!”

I looked. The world ended, and the silver began.

“Are there gulls there?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s where gulls live.”

“Can we go there?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

We put the water skin away and kept climbing. It was not much farther to go.

The track ended at a clearing, the great towering cypress trees green and mysterious, tangled among rocks on the mountainside. I thought at first it was a desolate place and deserted. But there was the buzzing of flies and the smell of goat dung. I looked again and saw that there was a shed off to the side of the track and downhill, a steep path leading down to it. There was another that led upward, between the great trees. That is the one we took.

My mother walked slowly now. The loam sank beneath our feet. The air was hushed and humid.

There was a cleft before us, a cave opening twice as tall as wide, a little taller than my mother. Before it stood a polished black stone, rounded and featureless.

My mother called out a greeting, and her voice seemed very loud in the wood.

A woman appeared in the entrance. I had been expecting something frightening, but she had the red, sweaty face of a woman who has been working when it’s hot, the mended plain tunic of a servant. “What do you want?” she asked.

“To speak with Pythia,” my mother said, squaring her shoulders.

The woman seemed to size her up. “Pythia is very busy. Have you brought an offering? I see no birds or young goat.”

“I have brought my daughter,” my mother said. “Her name is Gull.”

I thought she would tell us to leave, but at that moment I heard a scraping sound just within the entrance. I suppose my eyes went wide. What stood in the doorway was not a woman.

Her hair was as black as night, piled and curled in elaborate pins made of copper. Her long robes were true black. Her face was as white as the moon, her lips black, and her eyes outlined in black as well, like a skull bleached in a field for a long time. She was beautiful and terrifying. Slowly she came toward us. One long white hand reached out and nearly touched my hair. I was frightened, but I did not move. Things would be as they must be.

“Once they brought us princesses, the daughters of kings to serve the Lady of the Dead. Now they bring us the daughters of slaves, girls who are too maimed to work. This is not an honor offering!”

My mother did not look away from her eyes. “She is my daughter, and she is all I have.”

Pythia looked at me. I saw her eyes fall on my twisted leg. Her brow furrowed, and I saw the paint on it crack in the heat. And I knew it was paint, not her own face. “They will not let you keep her and feed her if she cannot work.”

“Gull is a hard worker,” my mother said. “She is courteous and quick to please. She could serve you well.”

“This is not a large Shrine,” Pythia said. “We are not like some others, with handmaidens who have little to do all day. I need a goatherd, not a girl who cannot walk.”

“She could weave,” my mother suggested.

One taloned hand fixed beneath my chin, tilting my face up. Her eyes were as black as mine. She was an old woman. But there was something else beneath the paint.

I don’t know what she saw in my eyes. I can guess, now, these many years later. But Pythia grunted. She turned with something that was almost a shrug. “Leave her here tonight. We will test her. You can return for her tomorrow.”

I saw the tension leave my mother’s face. “I will. Gull, be good and please great Pythia.”

I embraced her, but did not cling. I understood. There was no food for slaves who could not work. My mother was trying to find another mistress for me.

There was at least food tonight. The servant, whose name was Dolcis, brought me a bowl of the same thin porridge they were eating, Pythia and Dolcis both. It was, I thought, the same porridge we ate in the slave quarters by the river, and I said as much.

The old woman looked at me sharply. “The kings used to have some respect for us. They used to bring us fat goats and fresh fish. They used to bring us the first fruits of the vine. Now we are lucky if the country people bring us apples or meal in thank offerings.”

“Why?” I asked.

“They are impious,” Pythia said. “They make their sacrifices to the gods of bulls and storms, to Athene the keen-eyed. They do not bring their gifts to the Lady of the Dead.” She took a bite of porridge. “Who have you made offering to?”

I had never properly made an offering to anyone, but I thought of the libations I had poured in water, or the thin new well-watered wine we sometimes had. “To the Lady of the Sea,” I said.

Pythia grunted. “They are sisters, the Lady of the Dead and the Lady of the Sea. Like sisters will, They quarrel, but always reconcile. It is well.”

After we had eaten, Dolcis cleared the things away. Pythia sat before me in the light of the brazier. Shadows danced on the walls of the cave.

“Are you afraid of the dark?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Good,” she said, and smothered the fire with ashes until only a few coals glowed. It was very dark within the cave. I had never been somewhere there was not even starlight. I heard her moving in the dark, the rustling of cloth.

“Sit here,” she said, and I felt her putting a cushion at my back. I sat up upon it. It raised me so that I sat, my legs crossed, leaning almost over the brazier. She put another cushion behind me so that I might lean back against the wall.

There was more rustling, and I smelled the acrid scent of herbs crumbled over the coals. Rosemary. Laurel. And something richer, like resin, like pine carpets beneath my feet. Something heady, like smoke.

“There,” Pythia said. “Look into the fire and tell me what you see.”

My eyes itched. It was hard to keep them open. They watered. The smoke wavered. The tiny glowing lines of coals blurred. I didn’t know what to say.

She was still talking, but I wasn’t really hearing her. I was looking at the darkness between the glowing lines. At the blackness in the heart of the fire.

“Black ships,” I said, and I hardly knew my own voice.

“Where?” Pythia said.

“Black ships,” I said. I could see them in the darkness of the coals. “Black ships and a burning city. A great city on a headland. Some of the ships are small, not much more than one sail or a few rowers. But some of them are big. Painted black. They’re coming out from land, from the burning city. But there are other ships in the way, between the black ships and the sea.”

My voice caught with the emotion of what I saw. “There are so few of them! I can see them coming, rowing hard. The one in front has seven stars on her prow, Seven Sisters, like the constellation. That’s her name. The soldiers on the other ships have archers. They’re shooting at them.”

One of the sailors was struck in the eye by an arrow. He screamed and plunged into the sea. One of the ships’ boys was hit in the leg and went down with a high, keening sound, his blood spurting across the deck.

One of the small boats was rammed and capsized.

“There are people in the water. They’re not sailors, not on the little boats. Children. Women.” I could see them struggling. The archers were shooting them in the water.

“One of the big ships is turning back. She’s turning around.” I could see the dolphin on her prow, white and red on black.

There was a girl in the water, her slim, naked body cutting through the waves like a dolphin herself. She was almost to the big ship. Now she was there. One of the rowers shipped his oar as she reached for it, stretching her arms up the shaft. She got one foot on the top of the paddle, pulled herself half out of the water. Hands reached down to haul her aboard.

“Seven Sisters has come about,” I said. “She’s bearing down on one of the ships of archers, and they’re hauling at the oars to get out of the way.”

Seven Sisters swung past, close enough that I could see the young man at her tiller, his sandy hair pulled back from his face with a leather thong, lips set in concentration, the wind kissing him.

“They have fire arrows,” I gasped. “The blockaders. They’re lighting them.”

One fell hissing into the sea. Another dropped on the foredeck of Dolphin and was quickly extinguished with a bucket of water. A young man with long black hair was hauling one of the children from the fishing boat aboard.

The rest of the fishing boats were either sunk or out to sea, sails spread to catch the land breeze carrying them away.

I heard shouted words, saw the captain of Seven Sisters waving.

A fire arrow struck the captain of Dolphin full in the chest, his beard igniting. He fell away from the tiller, his face on fire and his chest exploding. The young man with black hair swung the child into the shelter of the rowers’ rail and leaped for the tiller. Seven Sisters swung away, her course between Dolphin and the nearest blockader.

Dolphin’s sail unfurled, red dolphin painted on white. It filled with the land breeze. A moment later Seven Sisters‘ spread, black stars against white. Behind them the city burned. Ahead was only open sea.

I was aware of a new sound. It was my own sobs.

Pythia lifted me up as lightly as my mother. “Enough, little one. Enough. You have seen enough and more for the first time.”

She laid me on a pallet of soft sheepskins and covered me with her own cloak. “Rest, little one. Rest.”

And I did, and dreamed no more that night. I did not doubt that I should stay here.

Thus ends the first chapter! Black Ships is available in the new paperback from Amazon here or in many bookstores.

What about Todd?

2009-11-28T23:33:34Z

In regards to my upcoming Stargate Atlantis novels, a reader asks, "What do you think of Todd? And will he be in Death Game?"

Sadly no, Todd will not be in Death Game. Death Game takes place early in second season, right after the episode The Condemned, so it's a year before Common Ground, when we first meet Todd.

However, Todd will be a fairly major character in The Return, the first of the Legacy series, and will have a big plotline as the series goes. There will be a lot of development of the Wraith and of Wraith society in Legacy, something I think Melissa and I are both fascinated by and looking forward to tremendously.

What do I think of Todd? I love Todd. I think he's a wonderful character, my favorite antagonist out of the entire series, and I'm absolutely dying to work on both his backstory and his plot going forward. One of my favorite episodes was The Queen, though I wished it had been a two-part episode with more room to explore the tensions evident as Teyla, John and Todd confronted their expectations. So we're very excited to be able to flesh a lot of things out, and to explore some things that might have been a little too subtle or hot to handle in the context of the episode.

An Exciting Announcement

2009-11-24T12:10:14Z

Several people have asked me what I'm working on next now that Death Game is turned in, or have pointed out that I've cagily referred to Death Game as "my first Stargate Atlantis novel." I'm very happy to confirm that I am indeed working on another SGA novel, this one with an absolute writing idol turned dear friend, Melissa Scott. It's the first book in a new series, and I'm thrilled to be able to work on it with such talented writers, and to continue my journey with these characters I love.

Stargate Atlantis: Legacy is an exciting new book series from Fandemonium Books coming in 2010. As the fantastically successful New Jedi Order series did for Star Wars, Legacy takes Stargate Atlantis fans on to uncharted new ground, exploring what happens next after the end of season five. With no reset to zero, the jeopardy for our favorite characters has never been greater as they face entirely new challenges and dangers, as well as old foes revitalized. Sheppard, McKay, Teyla, Ronon and the rest must face Wraith, Genii, and their most dangerous foes yet in a galaxy-spanning adventure to uncover the true legacy of the Ancients -- a battle from which all may not return.

Book One, The Return, by Melissa Scott and Jo Graham, will be out in September, 2010. Melissa Scott is the author of more than twenty science fiction and fantasy books, including Trouble and Her Friends, Five Twelfths of Heaven, and, with Lisa A. Barnett, Point of Hopes and Point of Dreams. She has won numerous awards, including the Campbell Award in 1986. Jo Graham is the author of three historical fantasy novels, as well as the Stargate Atlantis novel Death Game. Book Two, The Missing, by Jo Graham and Amy Griswold, will follow in January, 2011.

Also, Black Ships is out in paperback today, so if you've been curious but haven't read it yet, now's the time. Check it out on Amazon here.

The Update

2009-11-19T19:06:07Z

Today I turned in the final page proof for Stealing Fire. It's completely, totally done! Hopefully after the holidays I'll have some early copies to give away, so watch this space! It seems so long since I finished it, nearly a year. It was almost strange to read it over cover to cover at once, and join Lydias once again in the last days of Alexander's empire and the first days of the world to come.

By the end of the month I'll be turning in the first draft on Death Game, the first of my Stargate Atlantis novels, which is due out in July. Needless to say, it's mostly done. I'm just polishing a few things and cleaning up a little. I'm very pleased with the way it came out -- though surprised that it reads as such a lighthearted romp in many ways. My Numinous World books are not lighthearted, and it was fun to write some banter and humor for a change.

Anybody have any questions about either of these projects? I'm happy to take questions on Stealing Fire or Death Game. (Or Black Ships and Hand of Isis if you'd rather!)

Stealing Fire Chapters

2009-11-07T22:43:37Z

I'm working through the page proofs on Stealing Fire, and it occurred to me that I always put a lot of thought into the chapter titles. I thought, as a preview, I'd list the first half of the chapter titles for Stealing Fire, and answer questions about why I chose any that seem particularly interesting. Here they are!

Prologue -- The King Lies in Babylon
The Carian Boy
Ashes
Khemet
Dreams and Nightmares
Under the Moon
Companion
The Heart of the Black Land
A Clever Plan
Wings of Fire
Lady of the Desert
Hot Embers

Works in Progress

2009-11-05T14:15:40Z

A reader asks what I'm working on now.

Well, yesterday I got the page proofs back for Stealing Fire, one last run through the typeset pages to catch any last errors before the book goes to print. It's strange reading straight through again, and I have to say that I'm very pleased with how it came out! There is a lot more action in Stealing Fire than there was in Black Ships and Hand of Isis, and it's a pleasure to me to finally get to write some of the great battles of the ancient world. I was just reviewing the Battle of Gaugamela as experienced by Lydias, and I'm very pleased with the results. One of the advantages of a tight first person narrator is being able to make it very immediate.

I'm also wrapping up Death Game, the first of my Stargate Atlantis books. I'm working on a scene to insert, a tense scene between Rodney McKay and Major Lorne as they have different opinions over how to find the missing members of the team. Rodney is a real challenge to write, but I'm enjoying him. Hopefully later today I'll move on to some backstory for Lorne, a character who never got as much screen time as I wished he would.

And I'm starting work on a new project with Melissa Scott, which I'll talk more about later.

I'm also resisting putting my head into The Chariot, the second of my (as yet unsold) historical fantasies set in the Napoleonic Wars, because I have too much else on my plate right now. And yet August of 1805 is beckoning with seductive gestures.... No no no! Rodney! Lorne!

Stealing Fire

2009-11-03T14:09:29Z

I'm delighted to be able to post the cover for Stealing Fire! Stealing Fire will be out in the US and UK in May, and I'm so happy with this beautiful cover art by John Jude Palencar.
You can click on it to make it bigger.

This is definitely my Lydias -- I especially love his hands, which look exactly as I've described. This is from a scene near the beginning of the book, when Lydias is leaving Babylon in the wake of Alexander's death -- Palencar has included the lovely detail of "Ishtar's horned moon" watching over his journey.

Here's the description that accompanies it:

This is the tale of Alexander’s soldier, Lydias of Miletus, who having survived the final campaigns of the king’s life now has to deal with the chaos surrounding his death. Still mourning his Indian wife, Sati, and their infant son, who were killed in Gedrosia, Lydias throws his lot in with Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s generals who has grabbed Egypt as his personal territory.

As the generals fight and plot and murder, it seems as though Alexander’s dreams will slip away entirely. But the gods of Egypt have other ideas, and they are through with neither Ptolemy nor Lydias. Lydias has served them before, when another armada threatened to overrun Egypt in the distant past, and now they will aid Ptolemy in his most audacious plan — stealing Alexander’s body and bringing it to Egypt to be an eternal bulwark against invasion, and the cornerstone of the city that would exemplify his dreams.

Aided by the eunuch Bagoas, the Persian archer Artashir, and the Athenian courtesan Thais, Ptolemy and Lydias must take on all the contenders in a desperate adventure whose prize is the fate of a white city by the sea, and Alexander’s legacy.

I'd love to hear what you guys think! I think this book is the best one yet!

(And yes, I plan to do a giveaway of advance copies again, but I think it will probably be after the first of the year before I have them.) -- Jo

Yuletide

2009-10-24T12:13:29Z

Thank you, everyone who nominated Black Ships and Hand of Isis for Yuletide this year! I've been a participant in Yuletide since its first year, and I can't tell you how pleased I am to see that Black Ships and Hand of Isis will both be active fandoms this year! Thank you so much!

What Could Be Cooler?

2009-10-05T11:50:38Z

I know I've said several times before, including in the interview section at the end of Black Ships, that Melissa Scott was one of my favorite authors, and has been for twenty years since I first encountered her books when I was in college. Last fall I was stunned when she blurbed Hand of Isis. What could be cooler than being compared to Mary Renault by Melissa Scott?

Writing a book with Melissa Scott!

That's right! Melissa and I are collaborating on a project together! Hopefully I'll be able to announce the specifics very soon, but the first part of it should be out late next year.

In the meantime, links to some of my favorite books of hers. If you like the worldbuilding in Black Ships, try her The Kindly Ones, the book that taught me to worldbuild. If you like the relationship between Charmian/Emrys/Dion in Hand of Isis, try her Five Twelfths of Heaven with our protagonists in a three way marriage. And lastly, if you think you'll like my Alexander the Great, Hephaistion and Ptolemy in Stealing Fire, try her take on these historical figures in A Choice of Destinies.

And no, no Napoleonic marshals this time, but we may get there!

Exciting Announcement

2009-09-08T15:34:29Z

Hi folks! Now that summer is over and fall is upon us, I thought it was a good time to announce a new and exciting project. In addition to Stealing Fire, the next book in the Numinous World which is due out from Orbit in May, I will have a second book out next year.

Death Game will be my first book in a shared universe, a licensed Stargate Atlantis novel that will be released in the US and UK in July! As a fan, I'm delighted to write the iconic characters and to delve a little more deeply into this universe. I hope it will appeal both to people who like my books, and to Stargate Atlantis fans!

Unsurprisingly, the story is centering around Teyla Emmagen and John Sheppard, though if you've read my Dion you won't be surprised that Radek Zelenka seems to be doing his best to steal the show! I'll post more about it as we get closer to time -- and I hope you enjoy it as much as I am enjoying writing it!

Which Historical Period?

2009-08-12T12:59:46Z

A reader asks, "How do you decide which historical period to write in?"

It's a complicated question. Years before I started Hand of Isis or Stealing Fire I knew I would write something in their respective periods! For example, I read Arrian and Plutarch and Curtius, the original sources for Stealing Fire, twenty years ago or more and did some thinking then about what a story might look like. I ran a gaming campaign set in the campaigns of Alexander the Great, and that really helped me pull out some things that are at the heart of Stealing Fire. The character of Artashir, for example, first emerged in that campaign, as did the approach I've taken to Ptolemy and Thais.

When I get interested in a period like this, I tend to read all the other historical novels and historical fantasies set in it. Mary Renault completely dominates, of course, and her novel, The Persian Boy, is to my mind still the finest historical novel I've ever read. Which made me less likely to write in this period myself, and I shelved a bunch of ideas for years because the idea of writing the same historical figures as Mary Renault was simply completely intimidating!

Fortunately, my friend Tanja encouraged me to write a short story set in the aftermath of Alexander's death, with the historical figures Bagoas and Thettalos that Renault had also written. I was pleased with the way the story came out, and it made the subject seem a little more approachable.

I tried another short story, this time about the theft of Alexander's body, a subject which had always fascinated me, and my friend Anne-Elisabeth liked it and kept poking me for more. That story introduced Lydias, an original character, who I realized was my Gull/Charmian -- the same perspective, the same heart, only a man and a soldier of Alexander.

I usually write a number of short stories first, finding the characters and their voices, before I start on the novel. How long I spend in this phase varies. It may be a few months, or in one case it's been more than twenty years! Sometimes the short stories are later incorporated into the novel, and sometimes not.

Right now I've got a bunch of different periods I'm exploring. Sometimes I get off on something because of a link to something else. For example, in Hand of Isis, Charmian calls Caesar "by his bones in Alexandria and Thebes." Well, his bones in Alexandria are those of Alexander the Great, but whose are the bones in Thebes? I started thinking about Charmian in Thebes, and that connected to some reading I did a while ago about the discovery of the cache of mummies of the Great Wives of Amon and some articles on the Nubian pharaohs of the 25th Dynasty. Which connected back to Dion telling Charmian about how the Pharaoh Shebitku defeated Sennacherib the Assyrian on the borders of Egypt. So there's a story there. I'm not sure how long it will take to turn into something, but eventually it will!

Sothis Rising

2009-07-31T16:13:55Z

In several of my books a main character sees Sothis, Sirius the Dog Star, at its dawn rising and it has tremendous significance. In Black Ships, Gull sees Sothis rising up the sky the morning that her lady wakes her and tells her to go to the curve in the road where at dawn she sees nine black ships making toward Pylos. A year later it is this same rising that she and Xandros celebrate together. And of course it is also her birthday -- Gull tells Hry that she was born on the night of Sothis' first rising. For Gull, this was July 10th.

But because of the procession of the equinoxes, it's not the same date for the others who are seeing it! When Charmian sees Sothis rising, for her it's July 19th. When Lydias, in my forthcoming book Stealing Fire, sees Sothis climbing up the sky before dawn in the morning before a critical battle, for him it's July 17th. And when Elza, in my yet unsold book The Chariot, sees Sothis rising at dawn over the English Channel, it's the morning of August 4, 1805.

For readers who live in the Northern Hemisphere, this year Sothis will rise just before dawn next Wednesday, August 5.

It's interesting also to note that while it's not visible in the Southern Hemisphere now, before about 10,500 BC Sothis was only visible in the Southern Hemisphere! That was the point at which it first became visible in places just north of the equator, like Egypt. In Hand of Isis when Dion tells Charmian that he remembers sitting on a beach with Sothis rising but that the stars were strange, he's remembering a place south of the equator and prior to 10,500 BC. I'm sure there is a story there for another day!

New Cover!

2009-07-22T12:29:32Z

Hi folks,

I wanted to share the new cover for the mass market paperback of Hand of Isis, which will come out in January. It features the work of John Jude Palencar. You can click on it to make it bigger!

Real People?

2009-07-10T18:35:17Z

A reader asks, "Do you ever use real people in your books, people you know rather than historical figures?"

I suppose it's inevitable that sometimes things creep in, but I don't do so intentionally. When my sister read Black Ships she commented that Pythia, old Pythia who raised Gull, looked and sounded like my favorite teacher in high school right down to the red hair. I really had not realized that, that Gull's surrogate mother was so much like the teacher I credit with encouraging my writing. But of course my sister, who also knew her, recogized her immediately. I can only think that Janet Frederick Rhodes, big fan of historical novels that she was and history teacher, would be immensely pleased to show up as Pythia! Sadly, she passed away a few years ago, and I suppose this was my unintentional tribute.

More often it's that people look like people I know but aren't them in any meaningful way. For example, I realized that in my next book, Stealing Fire, the little girl Chloe looks a lot like my own seven year old daughter. But Chloe is very much not my daughter in personality.

Sometimes I do consciously think of someone while writing, with sometimes interesting results. For example, in one of my books that I wrote several years ago but haven't sold yet I could not help but think of the French Revolutionary figure Paul Barras as reminding me of John Edwards. This was before any scandal about Edwards broke, and I thought it was an unfair comparison, as Barras does not at all appear in a flattering light in my book. But then the scandal broke, and the comparison suddenly seemed apt after all!