The last couple of days have been really good ones. I’ve been recording Seanan McGuire’s Rosemary and Rue, which I’m having a great time doing.  I really like October Daye, the main character, and since the book is first person it’s fun to “be” her for a couple of days.

Yesterday evening, I went out with M– one of the fine folks at Brilliance, who also turns out to be a writer. She and I hung out a Jumpin Java and wrote for a couple of hours. It was a very nice break from the routine.

After work today, I went out to dinner with J– at Kirby’s and it was so nice to just hang out and shoot the breeze. It helps with the whole mental fatigue that comes from reading for hours.

It is surprisingly tiring. I mean, on the face of it, all I’m doing is sitting in a chair and talking, but I have to be word perfect and that requires a weird sort of concentration. I’ll do a post at some point about what that focus is like.

For the moment, I’m heading to bed. We’ll wrap up the book tomorrow.

We put these up on a private page for Jay Lake as a get well present, but he’s asked me to share the readings.

What readings, you ask? Why full-cast recordings of two of Jay Lake’s Nebula eligible stories, read by Jeff Soesbe, M. K. Hobbson, Dave Goldman, David D. Levine, Camille Alexa, and me in front of a live audience at Orycon..

So please, give a listen to “Golden Pepper” and “The Future by Degrees” plus audio that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the entire audience is wearing Hawaiian shirts in his honor.

Charlie Jane Anders has given my audio recording of Evil Robot Monkey a gloooooowing review at io9.

It’s a great examination of art and the creative process, and what it feels like to be an artist who’s looked at merely as a curiosity or as a momentary amusement for child barbarians. And art as a containment device for impotent rage.

Also, you have to check out the illustration that goes with the review.

via Afternoon Listening: The Evil Robot Monkey Just Wants To Create.

• 12:30 Finished recording the latest project, now I just have to edit out the icky bits. #
• 18:08 Finished recording and editing, but dang, the upload is taking forever. #
• 23:43 Weird. I didn’t have to go to the theater today. I’m actually starting to catch up on things. Next thing you know I’ll clean my office. #

Actually, it turns out that John Nichols posted all of the stories we read in neatly discrete chunks. Very exciting!

My stories:
Nails in my Feet
Trip, Trap, Tripping
http://ljsummit.com/wordpress/evil-robot-monkey-by-mary-robinette-kowal

Things we read together:
Denise Jones, Super Booker by John Scalzi
The State of Super Villiany by John Scalzi

Scalzi, solo:
Missives from Possible Futures #1: Alternative History Search Results

This week’s Escape Pod episode is my story “Chrysalis” which came out in Aoife’s Kiss.  Cunning Minx gives it an evocative reading.

People ask me if I ever get involved with the subjects of my documentaries. I have a difficult time imagining that they would ask my male colleagues the same question, but they seem to expect women to be more emotional. In response, I tend to grit my teeth and answer very patiently with another question. How could I do my job if I were part of the story? Only by maintaining a sacred distance could I have any hope of understanding someone’s life. A documentarian records, but does not participate.

Visit Escape Pod » EP186: Chrysalis and give it a listen.

I read this month’s audio fiction for Clarkesworld Magazine, “A Woman’s Best Friend” by Robert Reed. I think the story is utterly charming and that it’s the perfect speculative fiction treat for December.

I read this weeks Escape Pod, Reparations by Merrie Haskell. To paraphrase Steve Eley, this isn’t a 9/11 story, but it was the right day to run it. The story is beautifully, painfully written. The text was easy to read, the content was not. I encourage you to listen to it.

I just swab my arm and administer the cocktail, a booster for my radiation immunization. The taste of brass fills my mouth in seconds, and I know that the cocktail has flooded my system. With this stuff burbling inside, I can stare down three sieverts without blinking, or, more importantly, losing my immune system, teeth, hair, and intestines.

When I finish with my dose, I grab the skin on the newbie’s arm, swab her and shoot her up, too. “Ow!” She jumps and rubs her arm. I watch carefully to see her smack her lips at the taste. “You could’ve warned me.”

“No time,” I say, doctoring Ken and the others just as abruptly. We’re pressed, and they know it.

We’re all nice and anodized on the inside at 8:12. We’re waiting for 8:16, or thereabouts. There aren’t any atomic clocks in 1945, so all times are approximate, internally speaking. And from here on in, there’s no point speaking any other way.

Rated PG. Contains mass destruction and graphic descriptions of the wounded.

Yay!  I’ve been wanting to break into Escape Pod forever, because, man, do I love that podcast. 

Chrysalis

People ask me if I ever get involved with the subjects of my documentaries. I have a difficult time imagining that they would ask my male colleagues the same question, but they seem to expect women to be more emotional. In response, I tend to grit my teeth and answer very patiently with another question. How could I do my job if I were part of the story? Only by maintaining a sacred distance could I have any hope of understanding someone’s life. A documentarian records, but does not participate.

That mantra was the only thing keeping me from gnawing my arm off with frustration while Geroth and Iliath had their latest spat. Iliath wanted Geroth to undergo Chrysalis. Geroth wanted to stave it off until he finished his mathematical treatise. Geroth and his betrothed brayed their points like sea-lions mating.

I’m pulling an all-nighter and listening to EscapePod, as is my wont, and I have to point you towardHow I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out The People’s Justice by Jonathon Sullivan. This story and the reading by Stephen Eley and Jennifer Bowie totally rocks. Go have fun.

Q: What happened when you arrived at the address in question?

A: My Partner Lori opened my door and I jumped out. I arrested a suspect!

Q: Yes, Officer Bull. But I would like you to tell me exactly what happened, in detail, from the time you got out of the car.

A: Okay. My skulltop showed me which house, and I ran toward it. A man and three dogs ran out the door. One of them was a bitch with pretty haunches. She was in heat, and I really really really liked the way she smelled. I wanted to run after her, but I knew I should go after the man. So I did. Even though I liked the way she smelled!

Of course, I might have just liked it because dogs are on my mind right now.

The reading went quite well. We had a full house, which was a relief. I was afraid no one would come and besides our friends, there were even people that we didn’t know there. We sold copies of the anthology!

Matt McHugh and M. M. De Voe were both very good readers and hearing their stories out loud added a lot to both.

Best of all, Matt hooked set up his mic and recorded the evening. I present to you my story, The Shocking Affair of the Dutch Steamship Friesland.

[audio:Kowal_KGB.mp3]

For me, one of the most annoying things is that I’ve been recording so much lately that I’ve developed some bad live reading habits. I’ve trained myself to listen for minor stumbles — things that no one would notice live, but which are unacceptable in recorded form — and to pause, then restart the line, which is totally wrong when reading live. In any case, it should be interesting for you to hear the difference between me reading live after hearing me read for recordings.

At Readercon, someone asked me if I had ever made a puppet show from one of my stories.  Two.  Sort of.  Beauty Will Come is something I did for Pixel-Stained Technopeasant day last year and is not really a puppet show, though it might look like one for a moment.

I used toy theater technique to create moving illustrations for an audio story.  If it were a true puppet show, I’d have cut the narration and shown with action rather than words.  Still, it’s the closest thing I’ve got recorded.

I’ve written for stage, but always adapting someone else’s work.  My only original script was for Willamette Radio Workshop’s Murder of Crows.  Huh. I just remembered that Shades of Milk and Honey started as a radio script for a serial.

The other puppet show from my fiction is a monologue by a talking dinosaur, which was a short I wrote in first person, so it was kind of a no brainer about adapting it for stage. Most of my short fiction is ill-suited to puppetry either because it’s an all human cast or because there are too many scenic locations to work for stage. Hm… Evil Robot Monkey and Clockwork Chickadee are the only ones that I can think of that might make the transition. Everything else? Too many people and very little reason to need puppets.

Cory Doctorow just received the Locus Award for his novella “After the Siege”.

By lucky chance, Subterranean Press had asked me to record “After the Siege” for them. They’ve just put it up live on their website.

Congratulations, Cory! It was a pleasure to read.

If anyone has time, I could use help with two tasks.

1) I recorded a story (not mine and I promise it’s good) and I need to listen to it to make sure that we didn’t leave any of my stumbles in it. I’m tuning out my own voice. The story is two and a half hours long, but the section in question is just in the first half hour.

2) I have to turn in a list of books that one of my novel length manuscripts resembles. I’ve got one name to offer and then I blank. Is anyone willing to read this puppy and offer suggestions? You don’t even have to read the whole thing! Just enough to say, “This reminds me of [blank].” The only catch is that I’d like to turn in the list on Monday. It’s Urban Fantasy.

Edited to Add: Many thanks to Julia and Scott for responding so quickly!

And now, I’ll go back to doing the layout which is paying the bills.

This month, Clarkesworld magazine is offering my story, “Clockwork Chickadee,” as one of their two fiction offerings. Plus, “The Secret in the House of Smiles” by Paul Jessup, and non-fiction by Ekaterina Sedia, Jeff VanderMeer and Neil Clarke.

The teaser:

The clockwork chickadee was not as pretty as the nightingale. But she did not mind. She pecked the floor when she was wound, looking for invisible bugs. And when she was not wound, she cocked her head and glared at the sparrow, whom she loathed with every tooth on every gear in her pressed-tin body.

The sparrow could fly.

The story is available in two flavors, written or read aloud. Clarkesworld is offering audio fiction now, and my story kicks that off.

They’ve got a comment thread, so do let them know what you think.