I'm going to scarce around here for a wee while; I'm one of the guests at Edge-Lit 3 in Derby this Saturday (which also involves spending most of Friday and Sunday on trains), and then I've got to get my head down and finish volume 3 of the new Merchant Princes trilogy before setting out in mid-August on a road trip to Loncon 3, the World Science Fiction Convention in London (and the following weekend, Shamrokon, the Eurocon in Dublin). (Note: I will not be driving to Dublin—I'm delegating the watery part of that journey to P&O ferries.)
Anyway, it gives me great pleasure to introduce Nicola Griffith as my next guest blogger. I've known Nicola for close to thirty years, and she's one of the under-appreciated treasures of the SF/F field: possibly the strongest LGBT voice of our generation. Here's how Nicola describes herself:
Like Charlie I was born in Leeds. In fact, that's where we met, in a pub. But now I live in Seattle with my wife, writer Kelley Eskridge. I'm a dual UK/US citizen.(In addition to her own blogging, I'm hoping to organize a blog roundtable in which LGBT SF/F expert and fan Jane Carnall will interview Nicola about Hild and other aspects of her work. Watch the skies!)I've written six novels, a handful of short stories, and edited three anthologies. I've also written a multi-media memoir (scratch-n-sniff cards!) and some essays. Between them these works have been translated into 10 languages, won the Nebula, Tiptree, World Fantasy and Lambda Literary Award (six times) as well as things like a BBC poetry prize and the Premio Italia. I've also been on a few shortlists, too (some more than once): Locus, Hugo, Seieun, Arthur C. Clarke, BSFA, etc.
My latest novel, Hild (just out in the UK from Blackfriars/Little, Brown), startled me utterly by being shortlisted for five awards in fields I didn't expect. Now I'm working on a second novel about Hild. You can find me at my blog, on Twitter, and on my research blog.
You can buy "Hild" from: Amazon (UK), Amazon (US), Waterstones, and Google.
Cool. Slow River and Hild were both good reads.
Now this is exciting! Welcome, Nicola!
So pleasing! I've been a super fan since discovering slow river years ago (it's joined the elite re-read every few years club) and from what i hear hild will be there too. I have my copy on hold at my local indie bookshop and am savoring the anticipation. Can't wait to hearmore thoughts and conversation!
Hild also available at Barnes and Noble, if someone has issues with Amazon -- http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hild-nicola-griffith/1114317910?ean=9780374280871
Thanks, all. I hope to get started tomorrow--with a post on Thor. And then something more substantial next week. Looking forward to the conversation.
Hi Nicola, looking forward to it, and to playing "hunt the book" when I've got more time than I did today (3 separate crises, one panic,...)
1 panic to 3 crises? Pretty good ratio :)
Nicola is now definitely on my "to read" list.
I figure if the hammer kicked butt for Natalia Romanova, I ain't got a problem with whoever is getting it now... though it does bug me that Thor is a name, not a title. If anything she would be The Worthy, though they used that name for the wielders of the hammers during the Fear Itself event.
As for not driving to Dublin, clearly someone needs to press his agent a bit harder to get a tricked out Smart car.
It occurred to me at the pub that: if Marvel's new female Thor hasn't replaced the hammer with a labrys, they're bottling out of doing it right ...
Having seen how comics depict the heroic women, perhaps you should try not to scare the boys in the industry. We know they have certain fixations.
"I am mighty Thor! It's this steel breastplate they expect me to wear..."
Hi again. After a quick piece of cyber-stalking, ;-) (joke, I looked up Wikipedia for a bibliography, honest), do you remember which Scottish power station you visited to be impressed by its water recycling system? I can think of 4 obvious candidates, 3 of which I've also visited.
First off, hi Nicola.
Got to say Charlie, while a labrys seems appealing on some levels, and Marvel might do it, I've got problems with it. A labrys is an Eastern Mediterranean weapon - what we'd loosely call Greek. There's nothing nothing like it in the Norse/Germanic tradition, at least not until we get to Varangians working in Constantinople and that's a bit after Thor's time.
Although there's precedent for Norse deities changing gender (Odin, however you prefer the spelling, liked doing it, and Thor dressed up as a woman at least once, and not at Loki's behest) they mostly kept their main weapons. Thor is the big exception, he dressed as a bride to go and rescue his hammer.
And although the sagas are a dodgy source because they're fragmented and recorded later mostly by Christians, most of the times you can find references to armed warrior women or warrior-Goddesses they're armed with a spear in the Norse/Germanic traditions. Hel being a notable exception.
But then Marvel took Thor's love interest "Golden-Haired Sif" and made her a brunette. I have nothing against Jaimie Alexander per se, but every time they call her and her brown hair Sif in the movie I curl up and die just a little as my brain prepends "golden-haired" automatically.