OUT NOW: Stormlord's Exile, final book of Watergivers, is available worldwide!
Stormlord's Exile was nominated as a 2011 Aurealis Awards finalist in the category of Fantasy Novel. The second book in the trilogy, Stormlord Rising, was also a finalist in 2010.
The following news items are drawn from Glenda's blog. To see other entries about Glenda's life, visit her blog here.
Writing and publishing update...Tuesday, 11 June 2013, 7:30 am GMT Here is the present state of my career and my books: |
The Lascar's DaggerThursday, 2 May 2013, 12:33 am GMT I made this big announcement at Conflux, the Australian National Convention, and I believe the news has also been sent to Locus, so I am making it public. I have sold another trilogy, the name of which has yet to be determined. The first book is called THE LASCAR'S DAGGER To be published worldwide by Orbit early next year ----------------------- "Lascar" is not a made-up word. It has Persian/Bengali origins, where it means "soldier", but in English it came to mean a sailor from one of the southern or south-east Asian countries who worked on European-owned ships.* So is the trilogy about a lascar? No, not really, although he's part of the story. It's about the spice trade between two countries (evocative of the Netherlands and Britain of the 18th century) and the spice islands (evocative of the eastern archipelago of Indonesia during that same period). It's about great wickedness and enormous sacrifice and amazing bravery. And love. And unique magic systems, both evil and good, of a kind you won't have read before. It's also the story of a clash of cultures... *And if you think there weren't all that many of them, you're dead wrong. By 1660, the number of lascar seamen employed on British ships was so great that a new law required 75% of the crew of a British ship carrying Asian goods to Europe must be British! Lascars often settled in England, and were thus the first wave of Asian immigrants to Britain.
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ConfluxWednesday, 1 May 2013, 9:00 am GMT
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A New Australian publisher for HavenstarSunday, 24 February 2013, 9:09 am GMT I haven't posted in so long. Too much going on with the house sale, packing up and stuff. Still lots of uncertainties because we haven't yet found a definite buyer for the house, even though we have dropped the price yet again. But I have good news:  Havenstar was found a new home. I have already been selling it for most e-readers from Apple to Nook to Kobo. (You can find the downloads at Smashwords here.)But now I have an Australian small press who has taken on the book, to reprint it and sell it -- paperback, hardback and a limited hardback edition! Fabulous! It will also be up on Amazon for folk who like to buy from that site. And thanks so much to Ticonderoga Publications for having the faith that this book can be republished, 14 years after its initial publication -- and still sell. Watch this space for the publication date, in May. It never sold many copies in its original form, because the publisher (an imprint of Virgin) went belly up with months of starting up. It was the first book of mine to be published, but alas, there has always been a ... sadness about that too.  I received the news that it had been accepted for publication just two days after my mother died. She never knew that I was finally about to accomplish a childhood dream by becoming the author of a published book.I wish she had known. However, Havenstar, as the very first, has always been close to my heart. It wasn't actually the book that snagged me my agent -- that was The Aware -- but it was the first in print. It has resonated with people so much that many read and re-read it, again and again. Anyway, I am delighted to see that it is going to be available again with a new cover for another generation of readers. And I'm doubly delighted to be able to say I still have an Australian publisher -- which is very important to me! |
Oh, my. Nice cover.Tuesday, 18 December 2012, 2:23 am GMT  This is the third and final book of the German translation of the Mirage Makers, Der Bund der Illustionisten. It is a gorgeous lush cover, worth clicking on to have a look at in big size. The German title for Song of the Shiver Barrens is Brennender Wind, or Burning Wind. Unfortunately, it won't be out until July ... even the second book, Trügerisches Licht (Deceptive Light) isn't out until February. Nice to see they are both already selling well in advance on Amazon.de |
The Next Big ThingTuesday, 11 December 2012, 11:40 pm GMT Last week, Rowena Cory Daniells tagged me to write a post about my "next big thing" by answering a number of questions.  Well, it's actually an old thing big thing. A stand-alone fantasy, Havenstar, that was first published in 1999 in the UK under the name of Glenda Noramly, and which was soon out of print because the Virgin sf/f imprint folded. (Yes, that Virgin. You didn't know they published books, did you?) Havenstar was also published in German and Russian. As a very new author at the time, I found it hard to figure why a book should wend itself up to 81 on the general Amazon best seller list (of all book types) only to be out of print the very next day... Talk about from supreme happiness to despair in 24 hours! (I know better now -- weird stuff happens all the time in the world of publishing!) 2) Where did the idea come from for the book?  Long before the days of GPS or Harry Potter, I had a conversation about how cool it'd be if you could look at a map in the car and see what was happening on the ground in real time -- and dodge traffic jams, accidents etc. And my niece, the same one who did this map for Havenstar, said, "That's an idea for a book..." Which is kinda like waving a sardine under the nose of a starving cat...3) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition? I wouldn't. I think the great glory of reading a book instead of seeing a film is to imagine everything yourself. So go read Havenstar and imagine! 4) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? Do you really want me to reduce a 160,000 word novel down to one sentence? Go read it instead! Oh, all right. It's a book about a mapmaker. And magic maps. And the looming end of a world. And ... ah, see? I can't. 5) Will your book be self-published or...? I am self-publishing it as an eBook. With help from my friends (thanks Patty and Rowena for advice, Jo for helping with the copy editing after I made a mess of it, Perdy for art work and gorgeous map) of which you can see a clearer version here. 6) When will your book be available? It is available already. You can buy it at here at Smashwords. Just scroll down and click on the title, pay and download it straight onto your Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Sony reader, iPad, iBook and just about any app you care to name! It's also already up for sale on the Kobo site and will eventually turn up on Barnes and Noble sites too. I am in the process of putting it up on Amazon as well, but it will take a few more days for it to go live. You can also buy a paperback version for $US486, brand new on Amazon.com (or so they say!) ...but believe me, I won't see a cent of that, and I'm not sure you'll ever see a brand new book either, seeing as it has never been reprinted. (Prices have been crazy for Havenstar ever since it became unavailable.) 7) Who or what inspired you to write this book? I don't need specific inspiration to write a book! I was born wanting to write books... 8) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest? It's a book for those who love traditional fabulist stories -- it has all the tropes of the very best fantasy: a fellowship of unlikely companions, going on a journey, a land under extreme threat, a Dark Lord and his minions, adventure, tormented heroes, unlikely heroines, adventure, battles and unexpected twists and turns. And a love story, of course. And no, even though it has all those things, it's not at all like Lord of Rings. I guess the other intriguing thing about it is how many people have told me they have re-read it multiple times. _______________________________ So that's my big thing. Now I am supposed to tag 5 more authors for their big thing. Trouble is, everyone I asked was already tagged or not interested. I even put out a general call and got nothing. I think this meme has chugged to its natural close... Oh, and don't forget to buy Havenstar. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------  Tom Clancy was at No 78 and 79, while Sword of Honour by Alexander Kent came in at No 80... (I wonder if it was possible to take screenshots back then? I just printed it off...ah, how things have changed!) |
eBooks of Isles of GloryThursday, 1 November 2012, 2:46 am GMT A reader has inquired whether eBook versions of the Isles of Glory trilogy are available. The answer is no. And putting them out there as eBooks is complicated by the fact that Australia has rights to the Australian market, but not elsewhere which makes putting up a version free of DRM tough. |
Revisiting the Inspiration for "The Aware"Saturday, 14 July 2012, 12:21 pm GMT Some of you will remember a village called Creed (if I remember correctly) in the first book of the Isles of Glory. The entire book was set on a sand spit called Gorthan Spit, and the village was built of blocks made of an accretion of tiny white shells, washed ashore, and then cemented by time...  Well, above and below is the quarry for just such blocks.  In the past, these blocks were used for every from gravestones of children or drowned sailors:      With time, the white shells mellow, stained by the dust of red soils. And so here I was this week, revisiting Denham, Shark Bay, Western Australia, where the germ of an idea originated and started a whole train of thought. . The result was The Aware. |
Inspiration from HavenstarWednesday, 4 July 2012, 1:02 pm GMT
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For older news entries, follow this link to my blog.