The New Decameron

[pameladean]

So Jo Walton, Maya Chhabra, and Lauren Schiller have organized a collection of stories to be read during this time of plague. The frame story, wonderfully written by Jo, is plague-themed, but the individual stories are not. I'm a day or two behind, but everything I've read has been brilliant. I was wildly excited to read a chapter of the new Steerswoman book, and I'm eagerly awaiting a new story by Marissa Lingen. I heard Jo read the first chapter of her upcoming book Or What You Will at Minicon last year. It is the first thing inside the frame, and as amazing as it was when I heard it. I'd never read Leah Bobet's work before now, but now I have to get her new book when it comes out and look for previous work as well. Max Gladstone wrote a new story, too, whee!

And, um, well, I have included in this seriously dazzling project a short excerpt from the novel about astronomical werewolves I've been poking at when I have to take a break from Going North.

Here is the link:

https://www.patreon.com/m/4119564/posts

Please note that although the project is posted on Patreon, it is free to read. If you do subscribe, you get the chapters in email, but there's no actual need to do so. If you do, half the money goes to the contributors and the other half to Cittadini del Mondo, a charity in Rome that runs a library and clinic for refugees.

I recommend ALL of it, but since I haven't quite been reading things in order, I guess you could look at my bit first and then backtrack. It's better not, because the framing story is so excellent, and I'm going to try not to do that again.

I had some difficulty figuring out what to offer for this collection. I almost never write short stories and have none waiting about for the right place. I've read or put on Patreon or both a large percentage of the interesting, extractable bits from Going North and the beginnings of two other novels. The section in the New Decameron is the second scene rather than the opening one of what was intended as a short story but is clearly actually a novel, provisionally called The Wolf Far Hence.

I hope, if you have the time and inclination to look, that you enjoy it.

Pamela

Comments

[asakiyume]

I adored this. I tweeted some of the portions I liked, but I liked the whole thing in its entirety. It makes my heart very full in the good way. And also sometimes it makes me smile or laugh.

[pameladean]

I'm so glad! I am raring to get working on that book, but I must must must finish up the previous one first.

And thank you for the tweets; they were very gratifying. Almost nobody has seen those words before.

P.

[asakiyume]

I feel VERY LUCKY to have seen those words. They are very, very excellent words.

I liked this, about "ought"--the part that comes right before the part about how Con conceives of herself and how she really is:

“Ought Con to be a wolf?” asked Beldi.

“Ought?” said Frances, as she always did. “As she ought to be fed and housed and treated kindly? As she ought to behave kindly?”

And the bit that follows, when Frances says, "To myself, I am like myself." Yes: I understand the **sphere** of what she's saying.

You speak a language that makes me receive more than I get from most words.

[pameladean]

It's the Dubious Hills. I had to write that way for them, for those people; I couldn't do it before.

P.

[asakiyume]

I would never want to *limit* you to this way of writing--and I know full well you can do other sorts--but man, I just love-love-love this. So I'm really glad that you found this world and people, and that you've continued to write in it.

[pameladean]

I am so glad. It is kind of headachey to do, but gets easier with experience.

There's actually something not dissimilar in my Liavek novel, with one character. Huh.

P.

[sovay]

And, um, well, I have included in this seriously dazzling project a short excerpt from the novel about astronomical werewolves I've been poking at when I have to take a break from Going North.

And it's really good!

[pameladean]

<3 <3 <3 You make my heart sing.

P.

[sovay]

You make my heart sing.

"'My family doesn't believe the metaphors,' said Sophia. 'But we have to live with people who do.'"

I'm glad it will be a novel.

[asakiyume]

Amen

[pameladean]

That was one of those lines where I wrote it and then looked at it as if somebody else had and kind of went, "Whoa."

It really wants to be a novel now; it was not very forthcoming at first.

P.

[kore]

Oh, that's awesome! I will check it out!

[pameladean]

I hope you like it! P.

[graydon]

Well, that was just entirely splendid.

I have missed hearing people talk as they do in the Dubious Hills.

[pameladean]

So glad you liked it! I must have missed people talking like that as well. Though of course Arry talks that way in Going North, and she gets Ruth to do it to some extent. But that's different from several of them just having at whatever it is needs discussing.

P.

[graydon]

It occurs to me that poor Ruth might have been really, really brave about learning communications styles.

Some of your writing has made me want to hide under the bed (hiding in a far country not being a practical expectation) but I have liked all of it.

[pameladean]

Some of it is written from under the bed, so that's natural.

I think of Ruth as almost heedlessly brave in some circumstances and nearly paralyzed in others; will have to check on that when I do my next full pass through the book.

P.

[graydon]

I should think it difficult to credit anyone so brave in all circumstances as Ruth's bravest conduct. Ruth is (to me) one of those remarkably real characters who is visualized by default, so I am perhaps a bit biased.

[athenais]

I signed on a couple of days ago, but have yet to read a word. I am waiting for...I'm not sure. It feels like the most delicious TBR collection ever.

[pameladean]

Yes, sometimes the anticipation is important. I expect you'll know when it's the moment for you.

P.

[asakiyume]

You can also dip in! That's what I've done--so far I've only read two, but whoa.

(and I did sign on, at last.)

[anne]

It was wonderful!

[pameladean]

Thanks so much! I have hopes for it.

P.

[mrissa]

This is for meeeeeeeee.

[pameladean]

It totally is! P.

[carbonel]

This is lovely! I think I heard you read at least part of it during one of your readings, but it's nice to have more.

By the way, I know it's not something you wrote, but the afterward with Maya seems to imply that this material will be in Going North, which I assume is incorrect.

[pameladean]

I probably read the first scene, with Con, and then the Beldi section up to where they leave the telescope house at dawn; the bits with Frances are I think newer than my last reading.

Jo said the correction will be up this evening sometime.

She sent me an email asking for basic bio information, whatever I wanted to say, and also asking for clarification as to what book this excerpt belonged to. But Gmail decided to stick the message in the Promotions folder, which I only glance at maybe once a week. When I saw Jo's author notes I thought, but she didn't ask me for a bio, and then I went hunting for a missing message.

P.