My Favorite Bit

Jim is one of those very smart people who not only writes good books, but also understands how the industry works. He looks at the larger picture around him and that shows up in his fiction, too. I should tell you that I basically read Libriomancer in one sitting and came away with feeling three things. […]

This week’s book is vN: The First Machine Dynasty  by Madeleine Ashby. Amy Peterson is a self-replicating humanoid robot known as a VonNeumann. For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother’s past, so when her grandmother arrives and

I’m going to get out of the way on this one and give you the publisher blurb because it does a better job of setting up the latest Nightrunner book, Casket of Souls, than I can. The Nightrunners are back in this gripping novel full of Lynn Flewelling’s trademark action, intrigue, and richly imagined characters. More than

I’m very happy to have my first guest in to speak about a short story.  I often feel that short story writers don’t have enough opportunities to talk about their craft. So the My Favorite Bit feature is a place where they can. My first guest is Gregory Frost. He writes both short fiction and

What happens when you take your urban fantasty and hand it to a registered nurse? You get a secret ward at the local hospital which caters to vampires, were-things, and zombies. Cassie Alexander’s debut novel follows the newest nurse on the ward, Edie Spence, as she tries to treat with the world of the paranormal

What I particularly like about J. A. Pitts is that he doesn’t take the easy route. Forged in Fire is the third book in the Sarah Beauhall series, which are what happens when you take epic fantasy and set it in modern day Seattle. Seriously. Dragons in Seattle. What could be better? He takes it up

I’m very excited about the newest installment in the Books of Chantments universe. I so enjoy the way magic is handled as something that is both powerful and can embue ordinary objects with extraordinary properties. So what is the author’s Favorite Bit? Let’s see. A. M. DELLAMONICA: I had to think a fair amount about

Here we have a debut novel by Mike Underwood for your consideration. For Geekomancy he’s basically turned geek culture into a magic system. Let’s see what his favorite bit is, shall we? MIKE UNDERWOOD: I have a lot of favorite bits in Geekomancy – weaving geek language into conversation, Geekomancy as a literalization of the power of

It’s no secret that I like Dan Wells’s writing. A lot. So I was nervous about The Hollow City because I had high expectations. He totally lived up to them. We talk about the writing process on Writing Excuses all the time. Today, Dan is going to tell you about his favorite bit. DAN WELLS: I

Do you like dragons? You know you do. James Maxey who I’ve been a fan of since I discovered his book Nobody Gets the Girl has two different series with dragons. Today he’s going to tell us a little bit about Hush.

For full disclosure, I blurbed this book and loved it. It feeds all of my historical fantasy jollies, as well as being an interesting detective story. What’s particularly great about D.B. Jackson, which his bio doesn’t say, is that he’s a history professor. The man knows his stuff and in this case, his stuff is

When so many writers are still playing with Europe as the field for their fantasy, Aliette de Bodard heads straight for the Aztec empire.  Her fiction is exciting because it is both familiar and strange. And here’s another thing to make you crazy. She’s writing in a second language. Aliette grew up speaking French, because,

I met Brad when we were taking Orson Scott Card’s Literary Bootcamp back in 2005. He was one of the people whose story made me think, “Yep. This guy will have a career,”  because it had really interesting world-building combined with lovely writing. Behold! I was right. How smug I feel to recognize someone else’s

David Brin is one of those authors that I probably don’t need to introduce. So let me tell you about the first time I met him. At the Denver WorldCon, I had signed up to do one of the inaugural Strolling With the Stars walks as one of the Stars. I ‘d just won the

Alethea Kontis is one of my first writing friends. Anyone who knows her, knows that she is funny, enthusiastic, and incredibly generous. She pretty much set the tone for my introduction to fandom and the SF community. She’s continuing to set the tone for an introduction to the world of the fantastic with her children’s