Fans of urban fantasy will find themselves sleep deprived after they start this new series. It’s that hard to put down. Characters with larger-than-life personalities rule against a dark and dangerous backdrop. This is an exciting world you’ll want to escape into again and again. Don’t worry, the next will be out in July!
I also have some VERY IMPORTANT NEWS. Due to some seekrit behind-the-scenes-y bookstore-and-publisher stuff, the release date for UNHOLY MAGIC, the second Downside book, has been delayed by two weeks to JULY 6TH. (Unless something changes, this means you Australia/New Zealand folks will get the book one week before the US, Canada, and the UK/Ireland. Yay you, you get to be the first ones finally, how cool!) Anyway. I apologize to everyone but about the delay but I swear it’s for a good reason and we just might have some stuff here to at least make the waiting easier. So make sure you check back!
First of all, oops. Remember how Ann Aguirre came and did that awesome guest post, with a contest? Well, see, I thought Ann was going to pick the winners, and Ann (quite reasonably) thought I would. So she emailed me the other day to ask who her winner was, and I of course felt stupid. Anyway. Again using my tried-and-tested-very-scientific-method of having my child pick a random number, I have now selected a winner, and I apologize to Ann and to all of you for the delay. The winner is: Commenter #26, Caitlin U!!
Caitlin, please email me your info, and I’ll forward it on to Ann ASAP.
Now, do I have something cool to show you guys!! HarperVoyager, who are publishing the Downside books in the UK and Australia, have put together a promotional video to celebrate their fifteen years of publishing the best fantasy/urban fantasy/all things kickass. (And seriously, they do; I have shelves of Voyager books from when we lived there.)
This video is AWESOME, guys. Seriously. I was all excited and giggly when I saw it, especially the bit with My Books. So check it out; it’s not superlong but it is supercool:
What Stace had to say on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Lookie what I got! The UK/Australian covers for the Downside books, and man are they stunning! HarperVoyager has given them a very distinct, very (unexpectedly) sexy look, and I’m really pleased:
Whoo! Such a different look, but I really do love them.
“I was fortunate enough to get an ARC of Stacia Kane’s forthcoming Unholy Ghosts after I met her at DragonCon. Unfortunately, this novel won’t be out until May. You should put it on your calendars NOW. The world-building is unexpected and complex, the characters are alive, and the protagonist Chess is a treasure. I have a very hard time reading a book with an alcoholic or drug-addicted hero, and in fact I almost closed the book after the first chapter. I’m so glad I didn’t. The characters are complex and indelible, the plot is fascinating, and I can hardly wait for another book, months before this one will be out.”
Second, I got word this morning that Karen Marie Moning, awesome NYT Bestseller that she is, also read and loved all three books in the Dowside series, and said:
“Expect the unexpected. Kane delivers dark, sexy urban fantasy at its finest. I couldn’t put it down!”
Which is totally cool. And was a great way to start my day.
What Stace had to say on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
Yes, I forgot to blog yesterday. I’m sorry! We will resume the series on Thursday but I have some really exciting news I wanted to share right away.
Some of you know that we’d originally hoped for the Downside books to be released consecutively; that is, one per month for three straight months. Scheduling issues prevented it, however, and eventually forced the reschedule of UNHOLY MAGIC as well. Pretty par for the course as far as publishing goes, really; schedules often change.
Well. I received word this morning that thanks to some clever switching and moving by the fantastic people at Del Rey, we are now able to release the first three Downside books as we’d always wanted; three consecutive releases! This is really, really exciting for me; such releases are always exciting, I think, and I’m really thrilled to get one and have such a big deal made over my books.
However. There is a *slight* downside (heh heh) to this for you guys, and for me as well. The three consecutive slots which were available are in summer 2010.
I know this is disappointing for those of you who were really excited and eager to get your hands on UNHOLY GHOSTS, and I’m really sorry about that. But…UNHOLY MAGIC was slated for June 2010, and CITY OF GHOSTS for November 2010, so while this means you have to wait for the first book, it also means you won’t have to wait nearly as long for the second and third!
So I hope you guys are excited about that, and as excited as I am to have the Big Summer Releases.
I don’t have any information yet on how this effects the UK releases from Harper Voyager, but I will let you know as soon as I do.
And I have some other exciting news about the books, but I think that will wait until next week.
I was going to blog today–well, tomorrow, actually, because it’s 12:25 am right at this moment–about pantsing, and how sometimes really cool stuff just appears, and I’ve had two incidences of that in the last two days and it was awesome. And I might go ahead and blog about that at the League in the morning; I probably will.
But right now…right now I feel awful.
I just finished the book.
It should be a good thing. And it is, really. Finishing a book is a Good Thing. We *should* finish books. Especially contracted books.
But this one–new title DEVOURER OF GHOSTS–is the third Downside book. The last contracted Downside book. And I have no idea if I’ll get to write more.
I certainly hope I will. I hope the series is popular enough, sells well enough to justify another contract. But there are no guarantees, as we all know; especially not in this business.
So right at this moment, instead of celebrating, instead of gleefully sitting back and having a cocktail, I am bereft. Totally and completely.
Sure, I’m not done done. I have edits. I have a subplot to strengthen and a Baddie to make badder. I have copyedits for DOWNSIDE GHOSTS. Heck, I have edits and line edits and copyedits for this book. It’s not like I never get to visit this world again, or play with these characters I love so much–and I do, I really, really love them. I’m looking forward to actually reading this book first page to last, as I haven’t done that yet.
But I don’t know how much more playing I’ll get to do. I don’t know if I’ll get to create new stories for them, to expand what’s there. I have some scenes already waiting in my head, some plot twists and moments and scares; I have no idea if I’ll ever get to write them. I have full plots for the next two books, in fact, including an entire weeklong ceremonial celebration complete with blood sacrifices and roaring fires and haunted streets…and I might never get to write any of it.
Intellectually I know I’ll get over it. That after a few days I’ll have found something else to work on–I’m actually 17k into a new project and I am looking forward to making some heavy progress on that–and, hey, if things don’t work out I can spin those ideas into a new world and it just might work, right?
Intellectually I know I feel this way when most of my books end. It’s worse for the non-series books, when you really *are* done with those characters when you write THE END. I’ve never cried after finishing a book until now, but I usually feel like it. Writing a book takes an enormous amount out of a person, or at least, out of me. By the time it’s done I’m usually sort of a drooling goon, unable to think or talk about anything else, unable to see anything else, I’m so focused on bringing a good ending home; my eyes burn, my hands ache, my right arm is sore from moving the cursor, my knees stiff from being folded in one position for so long. I haven’t gotten a solid night’s sleep in a week; I wake up three or four times, jerked from dreams in which the characters act out scenes in my head. It’s always like that for me as the book starts wrapping up, but this one has been worse.
So I know all this. I know I’ll get over it and be okay, that I’ll go to sleep now and wake up feeling much better and ready to start editing. But it doesn’t help, not right now. Not when I’m facing saying goodbye. This is the series that got me an agent and my first NY deal; the one that paid for us to go back home in a few weeks. And I just love it so much and I feel so lonely and uncertain.
The part that was up to me, the real heavy lifting, is done. I know pretty much what needs to be done in edits. Aside from the subplot and strengthening it’s just fine-tuning: fiddling with sentence structure, eliminating redundancies, etc. I’ve done what I can do, what I needed to do, and I’ll continue to do so, but soon it won’t matter at all. It won’t matter what I think or how I feel. Because the book will be out there, in the hands of readers (um, or not, which of course is the real fear), and what they think of it will make all the difference. That’s scary. Very scary. This is a very dark series, about drugs and poverty and ghettos; in this climate, are people really going to want to read about my punk-rock ghetto no-hopers? I sure hope so, but there’s no way to tell, is there.
So there you go. My unvarnished thoughts on finishing a book, specifically this book, which is the last book under contract. I hope I get to write more. I want to write more, desperately.
But I might not get to. And it’s hard to think about and it makes me sad. And that’s where I am at this moment; just sad. And hopeful, and nervous, and scared, and wishing I could start it all over so I don’t have to say goodbye.
Sorry, everyone. I’ll have cheered up by Thursday, I promise.
What Stace had to say on Thursday, March 5th, 2009
Sigh. Sigh, sigh, sigh.
So, lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts and comments and discussions online relating to the idea that ALL urban fantasy has become samey and dull. That it’s all circling the were-vamp drain, full of designer labels, with the same worlds and characters and plot devices.
And it puts me in a little bit of an awkward position, in a way. Because I totally, totally, TOTALLY disagree, but saying so makes me feel a little…weird. Like I’m putting readers down–which I never, ever want to do, ever, because readers are awesome–or jumping up and down in front of them screaming, “But, ME!! And ME! Look at ME!!” Which I also do not really want to do.
But, um, look at me.
No, no. I’m going to talk about my books a little bit, yes. But really I want to talk about other writers’ books. And I want to talk about how my opinion and image of urban fantasy is exactly the opposite: I believe the genre is about to make a huge, expansive leap, that the days of urban fantasy automatically equalling hot chicks in leather weilding guns and fucking vampires or weres are done with.
And here’s where it might sound like I’m scolding or yelling at readers, but that is not the case at ALL. Not one bit, never. But guys…the stuff is out there. The books are OUT THERE. They are. They’re coming. They’re in stores now. They’re in pre-release. They’re being signed by agents and they’re being bought by editors and they are in the works, and this genre is about to explode and I honestly believe that’s the case.
But you have to look for them, and you have to know where to look.
It’s not your fault, darling reader. It isn’t. You buy books based on a recommendation, or you see a cool-looking cover or read a review or whatever. And that’s the way it’s supposed to work. You don’t have time to play book detective and spend hours running around the internet looking for unfamiliar authors. And nobody expects you to, least of all me.
But here’s where I think the problem lies. You, as a reader, know what sorts of things you like, and I think in a way the system itself is geared to make sure you stay in your little reader box, if you know what I mean. Say you buy Caitlin Kittredge’s excellent Second Skin, which was just released and you totally should be buying immediately because we all know Caitlin is the awesomest. Anyway, you make this very sensible purchase. Say you make it from Amazon. Now, what does Amazon do? Amazon shows you more books about weres, because Amazon assumes you like books about weres.
This would be the case with any book you buy. But given that, yes, there are a lot of were & vamp books out there, and given that they sell well if they’re good (like Caitlin’s are)…it can seem as though that’s ALL that’s out there. Because it’s all you’re being shown.
I think the crossover between urban fantasy and paranormal romance is an issue as well. There are people out there who dislike UF because it doesn’t have that HEA (Happily Ever After, for the uninitiated) ending which is so necessary to genre romance. And you know, if genre romance is what you’re after then I totally understand that. You want a HEA ending. If that’s what you want it’s what you should get; it’s what you as a reader deserve. Why should you have to read something that isn’t what you want or are looking for? You shouldn’t.
But I can’t help thinking…maybe if you tried a non-HEA UF or two…you might find you don’t mind the missing HEA so much. You might be happy to wait for it, to get involved in a long and complex emotional relationship (not that genre romances don’t have complex emotional relationships, that’s not what I’m saying) that spans several books. Why not give it a try? Because if you’re looking for paranormal books outside the vamp/were area, UF has them in spades, and you might be surprised by the emotional depth of the stories.
And that goes for the fantasy fans who are unhappy that UF has too much emphasis on romance, that they are somehow a “girl’s genre” because the heroines have sex and look for love. Well, you know what? UFs have romance in them because whether you personally feel that way or not, the vast majority of people want romance in their lives. They want to find someone to share their lives with. They want to find love. Hell, they want to get laid. I’m always stunned when I see or hear people comment that they don’t like romance in books; to me it’s like saying you don’t want romance in life either (and by romance I simply mean love and passion, not flowers and soft music, neither of which I particularly like). These are basic human needs, people; why should UF heroines be any different? Most books, in any genre, have some sort of romantic subplot. What’s wrong with that?
And, why is it that books written by women are judged by the amount of romance or sex in them, but books by men aren’t? Harry Dresden’s looking for love; I don’t see anyone putting those books down. In fact, it sometimes seems as though UF written by men doesn’t even figure into the equation when people talk about samey UFs. The Dresden books are nothing like Mark Henry’s fantastic zombies; Mark del Franco’s Connor Grey books aren’t like Anton Strout’s Simon Canderous books; Charles de Lint isn’t John Levitt. And none of those books are like my UNHOLY GHOSTS, or Jackie Kessler’s HELL’S BELLES, or Richelle Mead’s SUCCUBUS BLUES. They’re just not. At all.
It just frustrates me a little, I admit, to see the genre I love so much reduced to “They’re all alike; they’re all just rich vampires who own nightclubs and sleep on designer sheets,” or whatever. While I don’t deny those books do exist, they’re not the only books that do. There are so many stories and world and characters out there, and so many more coming. When I personally feel like we’re on the cusp of something so much bigger. In June Caitlin’s STREET MAGIC comes out; a fantastic, fantastic urban fantasy about mages and magic and a hidden London. In May 2010 (yes, we get to me now) my UNHOLY GHOSTS will be released, and I’m sure you can all recite with me what the book is about: punk rock, greasers, ghosts, black magic, blood rituals, witchcraft, drug dealers, ghettos…and not a were or vamp in either of them. My cast is all-human, baby, with a few ghosts thrown in for spooky good measure. So is Caitlin’s. And don’t forget Richard Kadrey’s SANDMAN SLIM, or Kari Stewart’s A DEVIL IN THE DETAILS.
And I know there are more. Tons more that I’m just not thinking of at the moment.
Remember my “Heroes” series? The simple fact is, books about dull people doing nothing out of the ordinary don’t sell. They just don’t. Do you want to read a book wherein your neighbor sits around watching TV all day? Do you want to read a novel about a complicated tax question? No, probably not.
And I firmly believe there is not another genre out there where the characters are as unique and exciting, the world as intricate, and the stakes as high as urban fantasy. And I firmly believe that in the next year or so we’re going to see the fruits of all those books that came before; they way they fired our imaginations and made us think of possibilities. Sure, there will always be a place for vampires and weres, because there are readers to buy them. I love vampires.
But weres and vampires are not the only characters in UF. Not at all. You just have to look for others. Visit the League of Reluctant Adults. Check out the Fangs Fur & Fey community on livejournal. Visit the fantasy section at the bookstore if you usually just buy romances, or pick up an urban fantasy if you usually read only trad fantasy or science fiction, and vice versa. Branch out. Ask people. Ask booksellers. Tell them what you want, like, for example, that they should order twenty or thirty copies each of STREET MAGIC and UNHOLY GHOSTS for all of their stores, because you’re going to get all your friends to rush in and buy them the day they’re released.
The books are out there. They *are* out there. You just have to look for them.
Hey, so I can’t think up a good title today, so what?
Actually, titling is an issue I’m having these days. I’m 2/3 done with the third Downside book and it is still saved in Word as “Chess3″ because the title I originally planned, CITY OF GHOSTS, was apparently a major film a few years ago and I’m leery of using something with that many Google hits. So that needs a title, bad.
I’m also just about 1/2 of the way through a new project which Agent Man and I both love, which has no title. It’s currently saved as BLOOD AND FAE, which is not really very good. Especially since while both blood and Fae figure in the plot, it’s not really about either of those things.
So anyway. The hubs and I were discussing titles in the car the other day, which led to movies, which led to movies that piss us off for one reason or another, which led us to A League of Their Own.
I hate that movie. I really, really hate that movie.
Or rather, I hate the ending of that movie. It pisses me off like almost nothing else.
What message are we supposed to take from that horrible ending, where in order to make her bitchy, miserable sister happy–to give her happiness she doesn’t deserve, as she is loathesome–the Gena Davis character throws the championship? Is my heart supposed to be warmed by that? Am I supposed to think that’s sweet?
Or am I supposed to think that if the Gena Davis character were my teammate, I would have ripped her eyeballs out of her head with a teaspoon?
Or, am I supposed to think that when it comes down to it, women just aren’t very good at competing, poor little dears, and they will always make emotional decisions rather than rational ones, and cannot ever get past their personal feelings and live up to their responsibilities?
Seriously. The fact that this ball of patronizing sexism was passed off as a movie for women to enjoy astounds me. It reads like something from a 70′s anti-women’s-lib screed: You can’t trust women because they can’t separate their emotions; you can’t put them in charge of multinational corporations because they won’t do what’s best for the company, only for themselves; they’re incapable of making sound decisions based on facts and not feelings.
And it was such a cute movie until then. I really enjoyed it. But what the hell good is it to have a movie where women are railing against sexism and determined to prove they can compete just as well as the men can–that all the silly little skirts and make-up tips are a big joke because women are tough and strong and can play a hell of a ballgame just like men–and then have the entire ending turn on the fact that at least one of them cannot in fact do that? So instead of having a film about how women really *can* do things, you have a movie about how women *say* they can do things but really are irresponsible and silly and will let their teammates down to make their sisters happy?
It just frustrates me and irritates me. Gena Davis’s character had a responsibility and she threw it away–threw away the hopes and dreams of people who supported and cared about her–in order to please someone who clearly did not particularly care about her because she was too busy caring only about herself.
I think this is doubly on my mind of late because I’m dealing, in the third Downside book, with a lot more emotional crap than I have in the first two, as my MC struggles with the consequences of hurting other people emotionally, and realizes that she herself does have those inconvenient things called feelings and that she can’t pretend she doesn’t. So there’s a lot of facing-up-to-things and a lot of thoughts and worries about feelings that, while they existed in the first book and a bit more in the second–Chess was never an automaton or someone so Tough And Hard she ate nails or anything like that–weren’t really focused on then.
And it’s difficult to find a balance, between trying to write an awesome, creepy, scary, exciting urban fantasy (trying to write, I said; I’m not claiming my books are any of these things although I certainly hope they are), and trying to write a book where people are having emotional issues and those emotional issues feel organic and real; which is to say, the characters think about them even at inconvenient times, and are confused about them, and hate having them, and want certain things emotionally and feel embarrassed and silly for wanting those things, and generally don’t know how to deal with them. Especially as they’re emotional issues with which the characters have never dealt before, and that makes them vulnerable.
How do you decide which decisions are practical and which are emotional? How do you handle making an emotional decision when you know you should be making a practical one but can’t help yourself?
For me the difference is in how the character themselves feel about the decision they’ve made. My biggest issue with that stupid League of their Own ending was that we as the audience were seemingly pushed into feeling that Davis made the right choice; her disgraceful, disrespectful, cruel little trick on the rest of her team was played off as the moral and caring choice. I found that offensive, personally; I wouldn’t have had such an issue with the film had her character been castigated for what she’d done–the way she deserved to be.
So I work hard, generally, to show that there are consequences to incorrect decisions and that emotions breed complexity. You can’t just tell someone you’re sorry and have that make everything okay. You can’t ask for forgiveness and expect to be given it immediately. You don’t get to make all of the decisions in emotional situations involving other people.
It’s a fine line to walk, I think. And I hope I’m walking it well, that my characters’ emotional issues aren’t overpowering the rest of the story but aren’t suddenly disappearing and reappearing, leaving the reader to wonder what the heck is going on. I guess we’ll find out.
How do you handle your characters’ emotional decisions? What is your favorite book or film in which those decisions were made?
