21 December 2012

The Next Big Thing

Sylvia Kelso tagged me for this meme, and though I'm not usually much of a meme-participant, I thought this one was quite interesting.  [Sylvia, incidentally, is one of the few fantasy and science fiction writers who sets most of her stories in an Australian landscape (though not necessarily Australia).  If you have a taste for compact, poetic prose and characters tortured by impossible circumstances, check her out!]

What is the working title of your next book?




Where did the idea come from for the book?

I was reading Georgette Heyer's "Regency Buck" and finding it tremendously frustrating.  That story features a girl who thinks she can take care of herself, but so obviously can't, and continually needs rescuing (by a very smug love interest).  So I decided I wanted a story where the girl runs about rescuing all the people all the time.  [She's not quite that bad, but she does a good piece of rescuing, and rarely requires it.]  I was also in the mood for a fantasy murder mystery, and wanted a herbalist to be a character.

What genre does your book fall under?

High fantasy/young adult.


This varies wildly.  The shortest would have been around three months.  The longest over a year.  "The Touchstone Trilogy" was exactly a year, since I wrote it in "real time" as diary entries.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre

Well, it's a girl-disguised-as-a-boy book, so any of those.


No-one springs to mind for Ash (amusingly, if I Google image search for 'androgynous teen actress' the most common result is Justin Bieber, but she doesn't look like him).  I guess Natalie Portman when she was in "V for Vendetta"?  But not so pretty, and much shorter.  [Edit: except apparently Natalie Portman is very short, which I didn't know.]

The next major character, Thornaster, also doesn't have anyone close enough, but if you took Odad Fehr (back in his Ardeth Bay days) added a dash of the Old Spice Guy and a sprinkle of Daniel Day-Lewis, you might get something close?
Who or What inspired you to write this book?


What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

More neologisms than you can poke a stick at!  Make your head spin trying to remember new words!

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Mary Sue, Mary Sue, let me go kick ass with you... 

[Oh, okay.  Ash probably doesn't qualify as a Mary Sue.  She has no special powers for a start.  Just a can-do attitude and a penchant for climbing things.]

Time to tag someone else:  A. C. Fellows met in North Queensland and lived there a long time. For the past eight years they have lived a long way from anyone on the New England Tableland in New South Wales. They have two children, a role-playing system, and any number of worlds, the most well-developed one of which is Tsai. While most of their works are not strictly co-written, they grow out of a tangled mass of stories, characters, and backgrounds that they have generated together.  They'll have a post up about their Next Big Thing forthwith.


  1. I may still have an early copy of this in a file somewhere. I certainly have one of the silence of medair...from waayyyy back.

  2. I *love* girl disguised as guy books.



Snow Day - a Touchstone short story
