A useful reminder: if you’re plotting your next novel with index cards, it’s always handy to have this one in reserve.

Taos Toolbox 2019 is over, and the attendees are returning to the various corners of the globe whence they came.  I’d like to thank them for their talent and hard work, and wish them success in their future endeavors.  They were great to work with.

I’d also like to thank George R.R. Martin and Emily Mah for being exemplary guest speakers.

And I’d like to thank Nancy Kress for once again being the best writing teacher it’s been my pleasure to work alongside.

On to 2020!  The application period will begin December 1.

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Here we see a lovely carpet of lupines.  They were imported from Alaska to Iceland because they are hardy plants that stabilize the soil, and the soil of Iceland has a tendency to get blown out to sea during storms.

Of course I am of the generation that, when the subject comes to lupines, promptly thinks of this:

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This was once a giantess who had captured a ship, and was towing it to shore to devour the crew.  Unfortunately she lost track of time, the sun rose, and she was turned to stone.

Seems kind of unfair that the ship and sailors were turned to stone as well.

Also, Iceland must be hard for giants in the summer, when the sun is above the horizon 22 hours per day.

I’m at Angel Fire teaching Taos Toolbox this week and next, and so my opportunity to write any long, thoughtful essays is going to be limited.

I’ll try to post a few pretty pictures, though.

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Come just in time for the Glorious Fourth was a box of the uncorrected proofs of Quillifer the Knight, which will be available in bookstores the first week in November, the date having been moved, apparently, from the first week in October.

All the better for the holidays!

Here’s the flap copy:

Rogue. Joker. Lover. Reluctant conspirator.

The bumptious, ambitious young Quillifer has been knighted for services to the crown, but was then banished from court by a queen who finds him obnoxious.  Now, after a two-year voyage to improve his fortunes, Quillifer returns to court and is plunged immediately into a maelstrom of intrigue that triggers duels, plots, amours, and rollicking adventure.   Bounding back and forth from the high councils of state to the warm bed of his mistress, Quillifer must exert every ounce of seductive charm and low cunning in order to survive.

Queen Berlauda’s foreign husband brings war in his wake, along with a clutch of officials who enforce the royal will with violence, torture, and judicial murder. A dragon menaces the realm, and political conspiracy threatens the life of Quillifer’s young patroness, Princess Floria. It’s the traditional job of a knight to fight dragons and rescue princesses, but Quillifer is hardly a traditional knight, and he brings to the job an array of unorthodox skills that dazzles his swarm of rivals, seduces their wives, and threatens to overset the realm.

But there’s a greater menace to Quillifer than deadly political intrigue, for once again he finds himself hunted by the cruel, beautiful, and vengeful goddess Orlanda.

“ . . . chockful of derring-do, blood and thunder, swashbuckling, and other good stuff evocative of Rafael Sabatini, Sir Walter Scott, and the penny-bloods: venomous and dangerous court politesse, reversals, betrayals, cowardice, heroism, illicit sex, allegorical theatrical productions, dangerous hunting expeditions, privateering and, at last, open warfare . . . it’s not precisely a tale of Swords and Sorcery. Rather, you might dub it Rogues and Rogering.” 

                                                            —Paul Di Filippo, on Quillifer

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