{"id":23011,"date":"2014-04-09T20:46:08","date_gmt":"2014-04-10T00:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=23011"},"modified":"2014-04-09T20:46:08","modified_gmt":"2014-04-10T00:46:08","slug":"elizabeth-bear-an-ill-considered-boast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2014\/04\/09\/elizabeth-bear-an-ill-considered-boast\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Bear: An Ill-Considered Boast"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I came here to sell you a book.<\/p>\n

I mean, there’s no point in beating around the bush, is there? Actually, it’s worse than that. I’m here to sell you three<\/em> novels, because what I have in hand is the last book of a trilogy.<\/p>\n

Steles of the Sky<\/em> is the third book in the Eternal Sky trilogy.<\/p>\n

It is preceded by Range of Ghosts <\/em>and Shattered Pillars.<\/em><\/p>\n

These three books are the story of Re Temur and Samarkar, a younger grandson of a dead Khagan and a Wizard who has sacrificed everything–family, social standing, the hope of children–for a chance to be her own person. Allied with (among others) a laconic tiger-woman warrior, a martial monk sworn to silence, a doughty young woman of the horse tribes, an elderly engineer, a deposed Caliph, more academics than you can shake a stick at, and one very smart horse, these two race to contain the plots of a necromancer who uses vile, ancient sorcery to raise armies of blood ghosts, control giant raptors, and destabilize Imperial currencies.<\/p>\n

Megafauna! Explosions! Economics! Twisted magics relict of poisonous ancient regimes! Absolutely no prophecies!<\/p>\n

While I am admittedly biased, I think it’s pretty awesome. And the whole thing is published now, so this is a great time to binge-read the whole sprawling thing!<\/p>\n

And thereby hangs the other part of the tale.<\/p>\n

You see, a couple of years ago, I made an ill-considered boast.<\/p>\n

I told a bunch of my writer friends — and possibly the entire internets — that I could write an epic fantasy series and deliver it on time, on word count, and in the agreed-upon number of volumes. (Three, in case you were wondering.)<\/p>\n

Alcohol was not actually involved. But probably should have been.<\/p>\n

If you write or read epic fantasy, you are now laughing at me. This was the considered equivalent of Babe Ruth pointing to the flagpole in center field.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EQlvaiDNBMQ<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I very nearly did it, too.<\/p>\n

The story is complete. It’s in three volumes. They were all delivered and published on time.<\/p>\n

The third one ran a bit long.<\/p>\n

Okay, a hundred pages.<\/p>\n

More words for you!<\/p>\n

And now all my writer friends think I’m an asshole.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Bear is an awesome human being and one helluva writer. One of my favorite things written is by E-Bear — “Shoggoths In Bloom.” (Read that story right here<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.) I’ve also read\u00a0Range of Ghosts<\/strong> and it’s jaw-dropping stuff. Amazing prose and intimate in its epicness, and she has now reminded me that I can read the next two in the series.<\/em><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Bear: Website<\/span><\/a> | Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Steles of the Sky: Amazon<\/span><\/a> | B&N<\/span><\/a> | Indiebound<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I came here to sell you a book. I mean, there’s no point in beating around the bush, is there? Actually, it’s worse than that. I’m here to sell you three novels, because what I have in hand is the last book of a trilogy. Steles of the Sky is the third book in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-5Z9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23011"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23015,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23011\/revisions\/23015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}