How to use this Page

This post is so I have somewhere to send people when they ask me which book of mine they should read first. Click on the links to learn more about each book.

WARNING: If you consider knowing whether a book has a happy or a sad ending to be a spoiler do not read this:

Novels with unambiguously happy endings:

How To Ditch Your Fairy
Team Human

Novels with endings that might make you tear your hair out:

Liar
Razorhurst
My Sister Rosa
“Thinner than Water” in Love is Hell (though I consider this novella to have a happy ending many readers disagree with me)

Novels with endings that might make you cry in a sad way:

Razorhurst
My Sister Rosa
“Thinner than Water” in Love is Hell (Beats me why, but many readers have reported crying.)

Novels that just end with no resolution and WHY DID YOU DO THAT, JUSTINE?!

Liar

Fantasies:

Magic or Madness trilogy (contemporary with magic)¹
How to Ditch Your Fairy (contemporary, different world, very mild superpowers)²
Liar (contemporary [redacted] because it might be a lie)
“Thinner than Water” in Love is Hell (contemporary with faerie)
Zombies v Unicorns (self-explanatory)
Team Human (contemporary, vampires and zombies)
Razorhurst (historical, ghosts)

Realist novels:

Liar
My Sister Rosa (Though I could mount a strong argument that psychopaths are monsters.)

Historicals:

Razorhurst (1932 Sydney)

Thrillers:

Liar (psychological)
Razorhurst (gangsters and cops trying to kill protags)
My Sister Rosa (psychological)

Anthologies/Short stories:

Daughters of Earth (I edited this collection of 20th century feminist science fiction with accompanying essays by feminist scholars)
Zombies v Unicorns (I edited this one with Holly Black)
“Thinner than Water” in Love is Hell
“Little Red Suit” in Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean

Non-fiction:
Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction
Daughters of Earth

Novels with sex:

Magic or Madness trilogy
Liar
Razorhurst (very little)
My Sister Rosa

Novels without sex:
How To Ditch Your Fairy
Team Human

Humorous Books:

How To Ditch Your Fairy
Team Human
Zombies v Unicorns (Mine and Holly Black’s bantering in between the short stories is funny and so are some of the stories.)

1. Out of print. I include the trilogy to be complete and who knows one day it might be back in print.
2. I can also make an argument that this one is science fiction. Most readers disagree

If you’re in San Francisco, Seattle, or New York City you can find signed copies of my books here:

Borderlands
866 Valencia St
San Francisco
415.824.8203
They not only have the Magic or Madness trilogy but also Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction and Daughters of Earth

Books Inc Opera Plaza
601 Van Ness
San Francisco
415-776-1111

All For Kids
2900 N.E. Blakeley Street
Seattle
206.526.2768

Books of Wonder
18 West 18th Street
New York
212-989-3270

If you’re hankering for a signed copy of one of my books but don’t live anywhere near those shops—they all do mail order.

And because I’m curious how many of you like to have all your favourite books signed by the author? Do any of you collect signed books even if you’ve not read the book in question?

Twas an eight-year-and-three-month career that ended more than four years ago. Yet, people write to me disturbingly often asking me my opinion of the field I studied, about what books I think are at the cutting edge, and curly questions about my two scholarly books which I wrote ages ago and can’t remember a thing about.

I haven’t read any scholarly work since it stopped being my job. I have no idea what the latest work on science fiction is. I don’t even read science fiction novels anymore. It was never my favourite genre and having to read it for more than eight years put me off for life. Though I don’t mind YA science fiction. I pretty much enjoy YA everything.

Not having to read scholarly work any more is one of my greatest joys. Too much of it is turgid and boring, which is why I’m so relieved I don’t have to write it any more. I hated having to second guess every possible objection to every sentence I wrote. It’s a joy not having to write as if I have constipation or to footnote every single argument.

The only things I loved about being an academic—research and hanging out with like-minded people—I still get to do. For the Magic or Madness trilogy I read a scary amount of books on mathematics and number theory (I’m not saying I understood ‘em). For the book I’ll be writing after The UFB I’ve been going back and reading gazillions of ballads. I even plan to crack open some ballad scholarship. For the book after that I’ll be doing lots of research on [redacted for reasons of spoileration] and [also redacted for the same reason].

The glorious thing about research for fiction is that if the research doesn’t fit I can ignore it. I’m writing fiction—most often fantasy—so I twist the facts to fit my books not the other way round. Such bliss!

I’ve written five novels since I quit being an academic. I can’t remember my research for the Magic or Madness trilogy so I really can’t remember any of my scholarly projects. I’m not alone in this. I remember hearing Jonathan Lethem say that when Motherless Brooklyn came out he was taken up by the Tourette’s Syndrome community. But by that time he was onto the next book and had forgotten all his Tourette’s research. We writers are a fickle short-term memoried lot.

To sum up: please don’t ask me about my scholarly books. I know nothing.

The ethics of accepting free things for review is being debated amongst comic reviewers. Can you give an unbiased opinion about a book or comic or DVD or whatever if it’s a freebie? Etc etc blah blah blah. Please! Of course, you can.

I have to admit I find this debate a bit yawn-worthy. Reviewers and critics have been getting stuff for free and then completely slamming the stuff they don’t like since the dawn of the printed word. If someone out there is giving only good reviews to the free stuff then they’re not worthy of the name “reviewer” or “critic”. They’re poorly paid advertising. Readers can tell the difference.

Colleen Mondor agrees the debate is pretty silly. She also makes a really excellent point over at Comics Worth Reading:

I am sure it is frustrating for creators to know their books (or comics) are being sent out there and then not hear anything from reviewers, but it is just one more step in the long frustrating game of publication. Honestly, I think writers should be glad that there are so many more venues for their books to be reviewed now then in the past —at least with the web you can get your work reviewed by literally hundreds of places, rather than relying on a very few the way it was twenty years ago. At least you have a decent shot to get some publicity.

This is so very true. In the last six months or so I’ve been finding accidentally stumbling across roughly a review a week of one of my books somewhere on the intramanets. Some are just a line or two, others are much longer. That’s a lot of talk about my books that would not have existed ten years ago. Or even five. Not all are positive, not all sites have a tonne of traffic. So they’re not generating oodles of sales. Doesn’t matter. It’s absolutely delicious to be able to read what my audience thinks. To have tangible proof that I have an audience. No matter how small.

I remember way back in 1993, at my very first science fiction convention, meeting a published writer who had already published five or six books. She told me one of the things she liked best about cons was getting to meet people who’d read her books. “Otherwise, I’d just be writing in a vacuum. Most of my books haven’t been reviewed anywhere.”

My eyes bugged out. It had never occurred to me that you could be a published author and not be reviewed. (It had never occurred to me that you could be a published writer and not be living on champagne, mangosteens, and caviar with rainbows of happiness cascading all around you.) Now, of course, I know better.

I’ve just finished a trilogy. The first book was widely reviewed in the offline press, the second book—not so much. I’ll be interested to see what happens with the third. I’ve heard that the longer a series goes on, the less you get reviewed. (You know, unless you’re J. K. Rowling.)

But I do know that even if I get no “official” reviews at all. There’ll still be online ones. There have already been a few. I came across the lastest one today. It’s from one of the regular commenters here, Rebecca, and it’s her very first book review. I think it’s excellent, but I’m incredibly biased. She says

So, yeah, what Colleen said. This writer is very glad indeed that the intramawebbies has produced so many more venues for reviewing and talking about the things we love. Yay intramanets!

Adrienne Martini interviewed me for Bookslut about Daughters of Earth and Battle of the Sexes. Go have a squiz. Co-incidentally Martini was just interviewed by Scalzi and it made me want to read her book.

The questions:

If Stephen Colbert shook your hand today would you ever wash it again? Just wondering.*

Is Diana Wynne Jones’s latest book, The Pinhoe Egg, her best in years?** Oh, you know it is. That book made me so happy!

**Not that the last few books were bad in any way, shape or form—I don’t believe that she could write a bad book—they were just less genius-y than my faves of hers.