It was a surreal experience to look at the faces around me and realise that they understood about the Bug Wars, Ash Lung, angels and spiders, nomads and miners. Four of us in one room for the first time ever! As we discussed our characters and stories, reconciled different elements and brainstormed new ideas, reminisced on Walt's legacy, and exchanged signatures in shiny books, it came home to me once again that I know these people very well, even though we only met that morning.
Stories do that. I've been following these ladies' work for a long time now, editing, tweaking, and enjoying. There are real people behind this world, and it was my great pleasure to meet some of them.
Above, back: Deborah Cullins Smith, Kaye Jeffreys and Mary Ruth Pursselley, contributors to the Avenir Eclectia project. Grab it now!
Last week, the first print collection of stories from the Splashdown project Avenir Eclectia was published. I'm so excited! We've been working slowly at this for almost two years now and it's wonderful to see this culmination. Of course, it's just a start - there's much more to come.
There are a bunch of other blogs posting about it this week:
So for my part I'm going to go all the way back to the very first story that I wrote, at a time when nearly no one knew about the project and no one else was writing for it. Thankfully, that all changed! But this first tale was my attempt at setting the bar - I wanted my contributions to be short, punchy, evocative and deep.
I did as every Avenir writer after me would do: I created a character, gave her a name (a somewhat unusual one in this case, because of the cultural shift), a location and a position in life. Then picked a turning point for her to experience in the moment that my window looks in on her.
The part with the song was inspired by a track that had already been written for the project:
I felt the potential in the spawning world, but wanted to begin gently with just a tiny peek. And this is what came out of it...
COOL, SMOOTH METAL by Grace Bridges
First published online on March 12, 2011
Story no. 1 in Avenir Eclectia Vol. 1 (click for buying options: $5.98 paperback, $2.99 Kindle)
Cool, smooth metal met Ave’s fingers as she slid down the wall to sit in the corner. No one would bother her here in this obscure corridor—not for a while, at least. She concentrated, and felt the distant, almost intangible vibrating of the station. Its comfort calmed her, and she hummed to herself, head down, hair shutting out the world and thoughts of Smith. A good kid, but they were both too young—only fourteen Foundings.* And the children—the beggars, the poorest of all beings, who didn’t even have a claim to parents—they looked up to her. She must do right, and not be distracted by an obsession for love, as heady as it was. The time was not yet come.
Ave recognised the tune she hummed, and smiled a little: her name-song, and that of the colony. “Arise, Avenir Eclectia; be strong, Avenir Eclectia. Stand firm, Avenir Eclectia; live on, Avenir Eclectia.” A rousing anthem that gave her the tingles. Her first carer had given her the name of the entire colony: Avenir, though she went by Ave. She placed her hands on the floor, felt her connection to the huge space habitat and the presence of the planet below, and hoped she hadn’t hurt Smith beyond repair. He’d understand, someday. Wouldn’t he?
The beings on the planet called to her and she rested in their mental embrace, sensing only the living station through the cool, smooth metal.
Splashdown's first new release for October is here!
Check out this excerpt...
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The three of us entered the three-story
catwalk ringed room.
One of the two figures on the first floor
looked up at us, and then exited the room.
“Uh, guys, you may want to hurry,” I said.
“Okay. It will be in this batch,” said Tom.
As he swapped out e-girl’s case of trays,
she put a hand on each and closed her eyes a moment, searching for the circuit
board. Then she nodded. “Yep, it’s in this one.”
They swapped out my case with miscellaneous
boards as well. It was not necessary, but as long as my sister insisted on
having me along, it would make Enertech’s lab technicians guess harder at what
we had really been after.
The door through which we had entered
clicked open. The man who entered wore a rumpled suit and had to be security.
His clothing bulged in all the right places for concealed weapons—including at
his shoulders that could, by-the-way, bench-press a Buick. “Hi, Tom, how’s it
hangin’? Some of the boards we need today were among the ones that cycled up
here. Could you check…” His eyes fixed on me and widened slightly.
I’d only once been recognized by a stranger
before, and for this, inside a MegaCorp Ancology, to be the first time on an
op? It made my head hurt. My body relinquished control to my mindware, and I
slipped into overdrive. With a thought I drew one I. M. I. nine millimeter Baby
Eagle from a Quick Draw holster, and splattered a tranq on his forehead. With
reformed speed I rushed to the sec-man and eased him to a seated position
before he could collapse on the catwalk and alert his two friends below.
Control of my body ebbed back to me. Without
a word I walked to my case and closed it.
“Even if we weren’t done, we’re done,” said
e-girl. Without waiting for Tom to lead the way, she opened the door, stepped
into the hallway and dragged her case as quickly as she could to the elevator.
This post is part of SpecFicNZ's Blogging Week... find out more at www.specficnz.org!
Kura Carpenter is a New Zealand based graphic designer who specialises in photo manipulation and Book Cover creation.
Q) I really enjoy finding the perfect theme that goes with a book's subject matter. What is your favourite part about designing covers?
A) In general what I like about graphic design is the create problem solving aspect. Just like a standard print advert, a cover has to do several things at once, and I like figuring out to make the graphic and font elements work together to represent the genre, theme, and also appeal to the right audience. But my ultimate favourite part in making covers is working with the authors and knowing what I’ve done has helped them and made their day.
Q) As a publisher I read all the books I help design, but of course that can't be expected of a pure designer. What kinds of things do you ask the author to make sure you are getting the right feel?
A) Getting the feel right very important and I have series of questions and things I ask for. I start with the basics including: genre, age group. I also ask the author to give me a list of covers they love and a list they hate, that have been published recently and are of the same genre and age group as their novel.
Once I have that info I get more details to understand what sort of attitude any character needs to convey, and what’s the overall tone of the novel. Good Design is all about communication and I feel it’s very important to think beyond the physical props and capture the emotional tone of the book. Only once I understand the emotional aspect required do I actually start thinking about what images to use.
When I work with authors I advise them to be open when choosing cover models, and don’t think about looks, but rather seek the essence of their character’s attitude.
Whether the woman has curly hair or dimples isn’t as important as capturing the spirit of who she is. Is she sad? Defiant? Because that’s what cues the Reader in to the true tone of the story.
Q) At Splashdown, we benefit from having the whole team (or whoever wants to) give input on design and the final product is often a combination of many people's ideas and inspiration. Where do you get your ideas?
A) I think about the key elements the final product will need to convey, for example, an romantic comedy needs images with a positive feeling, whereas a gothic romance needs something you can look at think ‘creepy’ or ‘ghostly’ or whatever.
So with the genre and age group in mind I start looking through lots of image libraries for my base photos that I will manipulate.
The main thing I have learned is staying open to ideas and letting the material inspire me rather than looking for a fixed image. How I know something that looks like an ordinary photo to start with will work as cover graphic is where my own experience as a Photoshop ninja comes into play. As well as my ninja training I have a Fine Arts degree and an obsession with adverts so that probably helps.;)
This week I've been visiting Greg Mitchell, and here's a part of the conversation that has been going on since I got here... We especially like talking about how different stories fit together into a multiverse or shared world concept.
Right now is SpecFicNZ Blogging Week and I'll be hosting a couple of guests from the Kiwi Speculative scene. First up is Grant Stone...
Hi Grant! Would you please first of all introduce yourself for my readers? I live in Auckland and I write strange things. You can find my stories in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Strange Horizons and many other places.
What got you hooked on speculative fiction in the first place?One of the first books I can remember reading is Lord Foul’s Bane, by Stephen Donaldson, which I read long before I discovered Tolkien. It was a remarkably grim and complex introduction to fantasy - I suspect (I hope) the grimmest scenes went over my head. Even so, The Land became a real place to me, one I can still see if I close my eyes.
I think I’ve been looking for imaginary places to live in ever since.
In your opinion, what is it that makes a SF book a classic?Each book is different, but a story packed with scenes and characters you remember for years afterwards .
Please share some of your favourite SF titles that you consider classic.Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy. The scope, from the first landings on Mars, all the way through to Mars’ secession from Earth, make this a series I find myself returning to.
Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow about an ill-fated Jesuit mission to an alien planet. It’s a heartbreaking book, but it sears itself into your mind.
I really like Dan Simmons’ Hyperion. It borrows the structure of The Canterbury Tales, with pilgrims sharing their stories of how they came to be travelling together. I’m a fan of novels with multiple narrators and multiple stories thrown into a bag and mixed up and Hyperion fits the bill perfectly.
What’s your top NZ SF read?I’m really impressed with Helen Lowe’s Wall of Night series so far. It feels fresh, yet at the same time squarely in the tradition of David Gemmell and Raymond Feist, so for The Heir of Night to win the Gemmell Morningstar award was excellent.
Tim Jones’ collection Transported is a few years old now, but it holds up very well. It’s a mix of stories that are clearly SFnal in nature, with others that sit perhaps more on the literary side of the fence. Some of my favorite stories are more literary than SF, so Transported felt like it was written just for me.
Today it is my very great honour to bring you an excerpt of Kat's first book, Finding Angel. I have to say, this segment is possibly my favourite of everything she's ever written; we can only give you the start of it here, so believe me when I say you MUST read the rest. Is that biased because I am her publisher? That's as maybe. But perhaps in fact I'm her publisher partly because I love this so much, eh?
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Kalek held what appeared to be an ordinary electric guitar. He positioned his hand in front of the strings and spoke.
“One, two, three…”
The music took Angel’s breath away. It didn’t come directly from the instruments, and there were no microphones or speakers to direct it elsewhere. It emanated from the surrounding forest, the very trees themselves, and drifted down from the sky. Angel could feel vibration in her feet—it even rang from the grass and rocks on which she stood.
The leaves on the trees and bushes changed color before her eyes, from green to red to gold and back, sparkling in the brilliant sunshine. Butterflies swarmed out from the forest, fluttering in yellow clouds around the flowers in the clearing. The music seeped all the way into Angel’s bones, stirring her soul.
The Elven band played slow and soulful at first, and Angel involuntarily closed her eyes. The darkness behind her eyelids brightened to a soft glow, which dispersed and swirled, and then coalesced into images of a savannah that was as real to her as the forest in which she stood.
A strange, disconnected feeling overtook her, as though her spirit had been pulled out of her body and transplanted someplace else. It wasn’t frightening, only disconcerting at first, and then something surged inside her like an instinct she’d never experienced, an animal hunger that urged her to lower herself to the ground. The positioning of her limbs didn’t feel human—more like the way she imagined a cat would feel stalking a mouse.
The deep grass swayed before her, and her strong lioness muscles tensed and twitched, her belly scraping along the ground. The scent of her prey wafted into her feline nostrils as her lungs filled with the dry, pungent air. She pounced, and her massive paws slid across the grassy plain, her legs spreading out to her sides, becoming raven-black wings that caught the wind and lifted her from the ground.
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Here are the other blogs where this week you can find more excerpts, interviews and other cool stuff from Kat! Don't forget to check out her new release, Seeking Unseen, for more adventures on Toch Island.
