The first stop on my US tour is just a week away! I have updated my “Appearances” tab with all the latest information (although there may still be details and corrections to come).
I will be visiting Philly, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, in that order. If you live nearby, please do come on out and see me!
We had a grand time last night at the Viking Metal concert. Here’s the band we specifically went to see, the Faroese group Tyr, playing my favourite of their songs:
We also really enjoyed the band that played first, Metsatöll. They had a guy who played Baltic bagpipes, baybeh, as well as two different kinds of Estonian zyther, one of them (the moldpill, if I’m not mistaken) played with a bow. I was in obscure-instrument heaven! Now I want to find a way for someone to play a moldpill in the sequel, because I’m like that!
Anyway, a good time was had by all!
That’s enough for a good constellation, I reckon. Maybe not a galaxy, though, unless it’s a GALAXY OF PRAWNS!
(Sorry, I threatened to use that phrase as the title for this post, and my husband, who is a sensible person, was against it. I feel honour-bound to include it somewhere, therefore. You understand.)
This is the news that I was not yet allowed to tell you on Wednesday: I have received six starred reviews from the trade journals. That’s all of them. It’s not an unheard-of feat, but it is rare enough to be exciting. Here’s a list (updated periodically) of how many starred reviews have been received by YA novels this year. As you can see, six stars puts Seraphina up in the rarefied air with Code Name Verity and The Fault in our Stars.
I know, I know, when I tell you I have news, y’all get excited. I see now the fault in my strategy, because six stars – while exciting – is nowhere near as wild and woolly as the things your imaginations came up with. Here’s a small sampling:
You had your own theory, didn’t you. Don’t pretend otherwise. If it’s funny, I’d love to hear it.
If you know me at all, you know I love the band RUSH. I didn’t always; they put something in the water here to make you impress upon the first Canadian music you hear. Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been Bieber.
Anyway, I got their latest album, Clockwork Angels, for my birthday and have found it completely impenetrable. Now, I’m used to a certain amount of this from RUSH. All their songs sound like noise to me at first. This album, though, is requiring more stubbornness than usual.
So when I heard Clockwork Angels was also going to be a novel, I had mixed feelings. I couldn’t decide whether it sounded awesome or vaguely embarrassing. Or, y’know, utterly impenetrable.
Well, having read Anderson’s guest post over at Scalzi’s, I’m feeling somewhat reassured. The author really likes RUSH, anyway — in fact he seems to like a lot of the same prog rock as me. (Now I am vaguely embarrassed, because I actually had dinner with him in San Diego, and I didn’t talk to him at all. In my defense, I was at the other end of a long table, and I was exhausted, but still. I wish I’d made more effort). In fact, I only realized who he was (the writer of all those latter-day Dune novels) as I was leaving (before dessert, because I was exhausted). So: my apologies, Kevin Anderson. I hope we run into each other again sometime; I shall have more to say to you.
I’ll take a look at the book, certainly, but I reckon I should come to better grips with the music first. Still, super fun to read about the role music plays in someone else’s process! And it will be interesting to look for the music in the book.
ETA: thanks to Paige for the link!
ETA2: As my friend Dave astutely points out in the comments, before this album or its novelization, there was a wonderful graphic novel called Clockwork Angels by Lea Hernandez.
Except I can’t until it’s officially official. Alas, that’s how it is sometimes.
So you know what I’m going to do instead? That’s right. I’m going to hit you with some Pink Floyd. Well, David Gilmour, technically.
No, I don’t know where that saxophone player came from. He just kind of materialized, didn’t he. Well, maybe that’s not so surprising after all. I’ve had days like that, just strumming along and then all of a sudden BAM. Saxophone.
I love this song, though. It’s a good one for when you’re working and working and wondering whether you aren’t the biggest fool ever spawned in the great fool pool. But see, you’re still a diamond, whatever else is true, and the people who know and love you see that, even when you can’t.
Shine on, darlings.
*Pops up!*
I have a guest post at The Readventurer today. (Thanks Flann, Catie, and Tatiana!)
Here’s another particularly lovely review. (Thank you K and Wendy!)
*Pops down!*
And I’m suddenly noticing all the things I’ve left undone. I have errands to run before my son starts school again (to say nothing of postponed fun to cram in! We haven’t done the PNE yet, and we’ve barely swum at all), so posting will be light for the next week or so.
Of course, there are bloggy things I haven’t gotten to yet, but they’re going to have to wait a bit longer. I have some fan art to post! (Confidential to M: I haven’t forgotten!) I was going to just stick it in a blog entry, but then my husband (who is more astute about such things than I am) said, “Um, that picture has spoilers.” Oops. So I’m going to put it in its own space, with spoiler warnings — when I get to it. Which I will. But not this week.
So much stuff! And things! More to do than I have corresponding brain cells with which to do it, to say nothing of hands. I could probably use some extra feet too, while we’re wishing, although that makes me an octopus in short order.
Enjoy the last of the nice weather, my dears (or the last of the awful weather, depending how you feel about that terrifying orb up in the sky). You may picture me running around like a chicken with its head cut off, unless that’s too gross, in which case you’re on your own for the metaphor. I haven’t got time to come up with a better one.
Well you’re in luck! Tri Yann have a great recipe for you, if you speak French:
Even if you don’t speak French, have a listen. You won’t hear a more charmingly sung recipe anywhere.
But here is the first of a five-article series on prog rock that went up recently at Slate. If you’re interested in the history of the genre (particularly the “excessive” performances), it’s pretty interesting. If you actually like the music, it’s a little bit irritating. The writer professes to like prog but mostly seems embarrassed by that fact.
As someone who only discovered prog rock twenty years after it “died”, and is still discovering it even now, I enjoy getting context. That’s all new to me, and he provides some insights into why the genre is generally reviled (something I never quite understood). But I dunno. I thought it was too much emphasis on ELP and “Tales From Topographic Oceans” and very little discussion of what was actually good in the music.
Then again, I suspect I am one of the few people in the world who actually likes “Tales From Topographic Oceans” — even the boring parts — so what do I know?
It has gotten to the point where I can’t read all the reviews, let alone keep them remotely separate in my mind. I’ve mostly given up looking — it’s just too much information! — but one at Fantasy Literature did catch my eye today. Thank you for that, Bill.
In other news: I’ve been thinking about the blues. Not because I have the blues, particularly, but because my son has just started learning to play “Wish You Were Here” on guitar, and it has a very bluesy start. I say that as one who doesn’t know much about the blues, so if anyone wants to leap in and educate me at any time, I’d be more than happy.
What interests me, particularly, is the use of the pentatonic scale in blues. Growing up with classical music, the pentatonic scale was a little bit ignored (although there are certainly classical pieces that employ it; it was never particularly pointed out to me). Pentatonic scales, insofar as I knew anything about them, supposedly sounded East Asian — and, to be fair, are found in a number of different musics (but not all of them, and in several variants) from that part of the world.
I knew about the modes of hepatonic scales, of course. For those who are unfamiliar with modes: if you only play the white keys of the piano, you can play a major scale or a minor scale, depending which note you start on. Those are just two of the seven possible modes, though; there’s one for each possible starting note. Similarly — but I’d never really thought about it — there are five possible pentatonic modes, a couple of which sound minor, and can be used for the blues.
I love sitting in on my son’s guitar lesson because I often learn something new. It turns out the guitar, in its standard tuning, is optimized for pentatonic scales: you can play a very easy one involving all the open strings. In fact, that seems to be why there’s that weird B string, tuned to a third when everything else is tuned in fourths. I believe that tuning pre-dates the blues (note to self: look up history of guitar tuning), but I’m not sure about that. Certainly it makes the pentatonic scale so easy as to seem almost inevitable in hindsight.
I hasten to add that not all blues is pentatonic. In fact, a lot of it (I have read) involves a special hexatonic scale – a modified pentatonic with an extra note.
Still, B has been playing a variety of riffs on the pentatonic scale, and it’s super exciting (yes I have an odd idea of excitement) to hear it in Pink Floyd as well. I’m thinking the blues are something I ought to dig a bit deeper into; my listening base is mostly classical, prog rock, and Celtic (which employs some interesting modes itself!). Anyone have some good recommendations for an old dog who loves new tricks?
Rachel Hartman 