The Feathered Edge essays: History and Feathers

Last year I began this series on "the stories behind the stories" in this anthology of marvelous fantasy stories I was privileged to edit. I got about halfway through when life in the form of writing deadlines intervened. So I'm going to repost them and hopefully finish the series, then put them together in a companion volume. Here goes...

This is the first in a series of blog posts about the stories in my new anthology, The Feathered Edge.  Due to a brainflub on my part, it didn't get posted on time. But we're lovers of fantasy and science fiction, so what's a little temporal flip-flop among friends? Here it is!

I love how communities are built and how people are linked. So, in the wonderfully organic network of writers who meet one another across vast distances, I can't talk about "Featherweight" and Kari Sperring without telling the tale of SFWA and its Circulating Book Plan.

The idea is that publishers send review copies to garner Nebula nominations, and boxes of books make their way to participating SFWA members according to an arcane circulating route. Some years ago, this migratory library included a book called Bridge of Dreams by some fellow I'd never heard of, Chaz Brenchley. I try every book that isn't obviously war porn for a few pages, so I opened it...and was lost at the first sentence. It grabbed me, poetry neurons and curiosity and romanticism all in one fell swoop, and didn't let go for 400 pages or however long it was.

Shortly thereafter, I found myself with the delightful prospect of editing my first anthology, Lace and Blade. Because the publisher wanted a Valentine's Day release, she agreed to let me do it by invitation. So I sent Chaz an email. The rest, as they say, was history. I not only received a wonderful story ("In The Night Street Baths," reprinted in Wilde Stories 2009), but made a valued friend.

Through Chaz, I made the online acquaintance of Kari Sperring, a charming and articulate British writer whose first novel, Living With Ghosts, would soon be released (and from my own publisher, making her a fellow DAWthor). Kari's a trained historian and knows about things like ancient Welsh (which I believe she speaks) and Viking history. She's also a fellow cat lover and the owner of an amazing collection of elegant skirts. When I learned that her childhood ambition had been to join the Musketeers, I knew we were kindred spirits. However, friendship is one thing and editorial selection is another.

Jaydium - Chapter 36

JAYDIUM

by Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler

Chapter 36

Duvach left them at the entrance to the laboratory. Kithri followed the two men into the eerily shadowed room, blinking as her eyes adapted to the light. Chunks of jagged underlying rock punctuated the splintered walls and therine instruments lay jumbled everywhere. It reminded her of Brianna=s laboratory after the pirates ransacked it. Brushwacker sat in an undamaged area by the far corner. Sealed incisions crossed its hull like ridges of scar tissue.

Kithri pushed Eril aside and darted for the scrubjet, leaping piles of debris. Heart pounding, she yanked the cockpit door open. The duoapparatus looked intact, the headsets stored in their holders as neatly as if she=d done it herself. Eril=s force whip lay on a stack of folded clothing. She recognized her own overalls, Lennart=s space suit and Brianna=s jumpsuit. Four pairs of boots sat in a tidy row.

Eril and Lennart came up beside her, but Kithri couldn=t move. She stared at the force whip. Less than a week ago, they=d speculated whether it could jar open the hidden door to their quarters. Brianna had protested using her precious recording films to help locate the crystal fractures, as if anyone would ever read them.

Brianna... 

Kithri took a step backwards, suddenly revolted by the scrubjet. It was nothing but a piece of metalloceramic alloy and circuitry, its surface pitted like a gnat-bitten fruit. Yet she had once abandoned three people to the space pirates in order to keep the damned thing for herself. And Brianna, who she hadn=t liked but had come to respect, Brianna had suffered the most for it. There was nothing she could do for Brianna now to make it right, nothing she would ever be able to say...

The Feathered Edge: Editing Tanith Lee, With Sword and Chameleon

Last year I began this series on "the stories behind the stories" in this anthology of marvelous fantasy stories I was privileged to edit. I got about halfway through when life in the form of writing deadlines intervened. So I'm going to repost them and hopefully finish the series, then put them together in a companion volume. to The Feathered Edge.

What is there to say about editing a Tanith Lee story? You sit there, holding the typewritten manuscript that she sent you, and something in your brain turns itself into total fan-girl jelly. But you already knew that.

To begin with, the first Tanith Lee story I worked on was for Lace and Blade (Norilana Books, 2008). She'd agreed to submit a story in the very early planning stages of the project, before I came onboard as editor. And it was my first gig as editor. Over the years, I'd worked with a bunch of different editors, and had ideas about what worked for me, what didn't, and how I wanted to interact with writers "from the other side of the desk." Marion Zimmer Bradley had been a role model and inspiration about how to encourage new writers. After years of participating in writer's workshops and teaching adult education classes in writing, I was all set to instruct and guide.

None of this prepared me for the experience of holding in my hands an original typewritten Tanith Lee manuscript.

The first, and most important thing, I had to do was to take off my fangirl hat and my fellow-writer hat and affix my editor hat firmly to my head. This involved an excruciating change of gears. I made mistakes. Of course, I made mistakes. (And learned how to clean them up.) I wasn't born knowing how to edit, let alone how to edit iconic authors in whose shadows I have long stood. Tanith herself encouraged me.

She wrote to me, "On editing though - like writing, I feel strongly one must do what one feels is right. In me, of course, you run into an old war-horse, 40 years in the field, covered in armour and neighing like a trumpet." Which was a most gracious way of acknowledging that the relationship between an author and an editor is an organic process, when at its best rooted in clear communication, deep listening, and respect. Not intimidation (in either direction), but a partnership in which both people have the same goal -- to make the story the best representation of the author's vision.

Writing The Children of Kings

The next Darkover book, The Children of Kings, will be released on Tuesday, March 5, from DAW Books. In answer to questions asked by many readers, I'd like to share some background on the book. In the following weeks, I'll also talk about how I met Marion, how we came to work together, and a few thoughts on "playing in her sandbox."

Marion's original concept for Darkover centered on the clash of cultures, so for this next book, I wanted to bring the Terran Federation back into the picture, but not in a nice sedate and friendly way, but in an OMG-terrible-crisis-about-to-descend-upon-us way. I also have long had a secret longing to run away to live with the chieri, and Kierestelli (Regis and Linnea's daughter, from Hastur Lord) kindly offered to take me.

Writing in the Darkover universe is very much like writing historical fiction. Marion explored so much of this world and its history that I can't "make it all up as I go along." One of the frustrating and yet exhilarating aspects of tackling a Darkover story is that Marion never let things like geography interfere with telling a good story. Although a number of fans produced maps of Darkover, she refused to endorse them, saying that she never knew when she might need to move things around. She also appreciated that Darkover had evolved as she herself had matured as a writer. In the Note From The Author for Sharra's Exile, she says,

One result of writing novels as they occurred to me, instead of following strict chronological order, was that I began with an attempt to solve the final problems of the society; each novel then suggested one laid in an earlier time, in an attempt to explain how the society had reached that point. Unfortunately, that meant that relatively mature novels, early in the chronology of Darkover, were followed by books written when I was much younger and relatively less skilled at storytelling.

Jaydium - Chapter 35

JAYDIUM

by Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler

Chapter 35

The domed foyer lead to a spacious chamber, equally deserted and lined with therine. The air was cold but surprisingly fresh. The colorless light reminded Eril of times during the war when he=d gone without sleep for days, running on stimulants and adrenalin. His mouth tasted stale and metallic.

They followed the rail westward as it disappeared down a narrowing tunnel. Their footsteps, muffled by the tube socks, made faint, rustling echoes. After a short distance, Raerquel paused to run its sturdy lower tentacles along the therine-coated walls.

"What are you looking for?" Eril asked.

"Transport vehicle," the gastropoid replied. "Even shielded from above, we are not going to crawl all the way to Mountains-of-Darkness."

An oval door, truncated at floor level, slid open under Raerquel=s manipulations. A long, narrow platform glided out on to the rail. Unlike the flat transport they had used before, this one was walled on three sides and had a bullet-nosed front and a gently arching roof. 

At Raerquel=s urging, the humans climbed on board, crouching under the roof. The platform was too narrow for them to sit side by side, so they nestled in a row like spoons. It took a few minutes for everyone to get settled, first the two women, then Lennart behind them.

Eril started to climb in back, but Kithri pulled him down between her and Brianna. He lowered himself into place, his slightly bent legs on either side of hers. Her damp curls smelled of the sea. He realized he was cradling her between his knees as a co-pilot would. The dark, curving tunnel loomed in front of them.