…on my virtual and figurative desk. For the first time, a pdf of the ms, then, same day, the actual galleys which I’ll mark; but I can read the pdf on Jane’s Kindle. IF I can get Jane to lend it: she’s got Intruder on it, and is in mid-read—with her usual accompaniment of brilliant suggestions. My readers should know—Jane’s is a real important readthrough, and she often catches what I mean to do, but didn’t do well enough, or actually should have thought of—we’re too good a working relationship for me to cheat and say, “Oh, of course, that’s what I meant!” when the truth is, “Gee, wish I’d thought of that.” Bren’s brilliance is partly Jane’s. 😉 And I always feel a little antsy until she’s finished her read—because if there’s one person in the universe who’ll say, nah, you blew it—she would. It’s that not-cheating thing we observe. So she’s liking it thus far and all’s right with the universe.
The Betrayer galleys just landed…
by CJ | Jan 15, 2011 | Journal | 19 comments
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Sounds like time to negotiate shifts…. Please tell Jane that we appreciate all her hard work as well as your own. Having met the two of you together, it is obvious that Bren owes something to you both. And we owe our atevi dreams to your talent! Thanks again, and here’s hoping the rest of the month gets better.
At some point, they are likely to have editors and authors do editing passes and galley markup in a computer file. Various programs now do that with, well, widely varying degrees of usefulness, IMHO, for either the editor or author or any beta-readers.
Hmm, sounds like you either need a Kindle of your own or possibly Kindle for PC or else Acrobat Pro, though the latter is too expensive, it could be a business expense for a pro author.
Best wishes on the read-through of Intruder and the galley markup for Betrayer!
The rumor mill is claiming maybe April for the next iPad model announcement or rollout, but that’s just publicly available industry rumors. It could still be June/July as last year’s iPhone and iPad news. (Since the Kindle was mentioned.) We’ll see.
I was about to buy a Kindle when my phone decided to take a bath…so I upgraded phone plan to data and picked up a Andriod phone. I’m really loving it. I found a ebook application called FBreader. It was recommended by the people at Project Gutenberg. I’m able to search Project Gutenbergs entire catalog of books and download them for free. My phone runs off my WiFi at home. I also have the Kindle application.
Hope you have fun with the galleys. But you really should buy a second Kindle, or an IPad. Only having one when both of you are working, and could need it, isn’t good.
Just started Foreigner for a re-read of the series. Should be up to Betrayer by the time it comes out ……
Presently gnawing on Defender, with the rest of the series on order at the library. I’m still ambiguous on getting a dedicated e-book reader, since I honestly prefer my books in dead-tree format (easier on my aging eyes!)
The latest kafuffle over vanity presses, agents, and self publishing makes me all the more admiring of Closed Circle — Seems there’s a jump up publishing house that wants to run a contest, but OMG! the terms of the contest should make any potential writer run fast, run far. Established writers and agents have been weighing in on the subject, sometimes elegantly savagely, on various message boards and blogs. Try Googling First One Publishing and contest, and bring your own popcorn.
When I actually had the pleasure to meet her in person there was something she said, just the way she said it…
I thought, where have I heard that before? Then….Oh, Wow–that is Bren speaking!!
Funny stuff.
Lol: a progress report re the galleys. I’m trying the PDF version on my computer, and let me tell you, my own aging eyes really like galley-correcting where I can blow up the text by 40% to see clearly whether that was a comma or a period! Installing stickies for the typos, saving the file, and knowing I can fire it off by email attachment rather than having to drive to the post office and lay down serious money to express it to NYC—priceless.
Not sure if this has been posted but http://io9.com/5733980/
Talking about Downbelow Station
Io9 article title: “Downbelow Station: Here’s how you write a novel”!
Great review of Downbelow Station. I’d debate a few things and very much agree with a lot of the review.
I felt, though, that rather than a main protagonist, the book was more an ensemble or epic, like a miniseries, with several key protagonists. Even the smallish roles of the stranded boy and his tranked-out mother are given a lot of attention. — I took Capt. Mallory and Josh Talley as the main protagonists, along with the Konstantins.
However, the reviewer makes an assertion in how Unioner clones are produced which struck me as not quite so. So I’m going to find the place to ask, here on the blog, and ask. I’m surprised I don’t know the answer for sure, since I think the process was explained in various of the Alliance/Union books, esp. 40,000 in Gehenna and the Cyteen books.
Hah, I am so, so glad that a college friend loaned me Downbelow Station back when I was a floundering college student. From it to Pride of Chanur to Merchanter’s Luck to Chanur’s Venture, and then I think it was the Faded Sun trilogy before I got to read the later Chanur books. — All favorites.
interesting, but not so much a review as a précis! I should not want to read that if I had not read the book. yes, cloned in vats is not quite right is it! but the writer had not read Cyteen, nor anything else of the Union Alliance world.
also interesting comments, including one from the disappointed reader of Destroyer who found no destroying in it – obviously one of those fans of space battle type SF.
I must say I have never found any other SF writer who does character like CJ, nor who engages me in the same way. I read Iain M Banks with fascination and horror, and not much suspension of disbelief, preferring to take him in via audio book with the right actor reading it. my suspension of disbelief is pretty much total with CJ’s books. partly I think because a detailed and plausible world is set up, from politics to geology.
I recently found a scientific reason why artificial gravity made by rotation would not work for our physiology … which is disappointing. how are we going to do space travel?? I am sure physics will one day come up with some stunning alternative artificial gravity as it will a means of FTL … but meanwhile …
Great ! Can’t wait to read the published versions ! While the Kindle may be better for your eyes, I guess the PDF + stickies on the computer may be better for editing as opposed to reading.
I just bought a 7″ android tablet off ebay for £75 it has an i-reader on it. only got a few books so far but
it’s the same as reading a paperback size wise, and you can get a kindle ‘app’ for it
time to release the whole foreigner series on ebook format 🙂 mine are all getting dogeared except the last which i got off amazon as a hardback
Is there any chance that the Bren books will ever be released in an electronic version? I really would like to read them all over again on my Kindle, but I can’t find them.
Kyran : Yes, android tablets are great sizewise, bu true ereaders are better reading wise 😉 . maybe too specialized though.
talismanmkr 3 of them are available… just not the first.
I wonder if CJ could/should ask for the previous ones to be republished …
I am actually contemplating getting a Nook or a Kindle (or something that reads well with good contrast), not — I have to admit — to read fine fiction on, but because I just discovered that Google Books has copied a bunch of 19th C. Scottish history publications of primary or just this side of primary texts which I can’t otherwise get unless I go to Scotland or break in to Harvard’s non-circulating section of the library. Oh, I lust after that material for my academic research.
One of the reasons I have been holding out on getting an e-reader (other than being a cheap New Englander and not yet having a cell phone either) is that academic and intelligent, general reading audience non-fiction is not prominent on the lists of publications, esp. publications with color photos and diagrams. Most of my subway commuting reading is non-fiction related to courses I teach or plan to teach and want to learn more about. At least, I presume that this recently-published non-fiction is not yet available on e-reader. Am I correct on that?
(Yes, that was much more a précis, and leaning toward heavy spoilers.)
The publishers are lagging behind in getting books, “pbooks,” any printed matter, into ebook format. To do that, they’d need to devote more warm bodies’ time to doing conversions and checking them…or to just plain embracing the ebook as a format equally valid for the buying public, another revenue stream. (Gee, I’m full of buzzwords today.)
Only a few of CJ’s books of any kind are in ebook format as of yet, from the publishing houses. The Fortress series and Hammerfall / Forge of Heaven being exceptions. Otherwise, you have (one has) a better chance with Closed-Circle, because the three writers themselves are committed to looking to the future. The major publishers will release the books as ebooks, probably glacially slowly, until/unless the rights finally revert to CJ.
Yes, it’s very annoying. I would *love* to get ebooks of all her books I’ve read. A tidy chunk of change, that’d be, but worth it for the treasure: convenient extra-good reading. I seem to be able to get to that more easily than when I carry around a paperback or two, and risk getting the book messed up in transport. (I solved that slightly. Those new laptop and iPad carrying cases, zippered pouches, are very, very handy for keeping papers or a book a little neater.)
I’m hoping for an iPad when the new models come out. Though I’ll want to look at those new Android and Toshiba tablets.
Off-topic:
http://io9.com/5733980/downbelow-station-heres-how-you-write-a-novel
The website io9 has periodic articles discussing Hugo Award-winning novels, and the recent one is called “Downbelow Station: Here’s How You Write a Novel.” Cherryh and her fans might want to pop over and see what nice things are being said about it. 🙂 (ignore the negative comments at the bottom, some people just like to whine.)