Just finished reading #TheWaterOutlaws by #SLHuang - A reimagining of the Chinese classic #TheWaterMargin #水浒传 set in #SongDynasty China. #BooksofMastodon https://www.slhuang.com/
Minor sporilers for the Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang ~ 40%
But! What’s selling right now is the first printing still — it’s not sold through YET, it's just going fast — so if YOU want to be a book collecting dork and get a hardcover with the “1” in it, you still can!
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250180421/thewateroutlaws
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Celebrate with mooncakes and stabby lesbians!!
You’ll see discussions of this among book collectors, where earlier printings can be more valuable...
Or, yanno, among people like me who are just TOTAL DORKS
In fact this is the first time one of my books has had a second printing (YAY!), so I might actually go out and buy it so I can have a copy without the “1” there
Have you ever looked at a copyright page and seen this line?
This is the “number line” or “printer’s key” and it tells you which printing a book’s on! The lowest existing number is the current print run.
(I think 0 means 10 here, making 1 the lowest number = 1st print run)
For the second printing... drum roll... the “1” will be DELETED!!!
How did I celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival?
~ By finding out THE WATER OUTLAWS is getting a second printing!
~
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250180421/thewateroutlaws
Hey anyone want some PUBLISHING TRIVIA about print runs?
end of thread. here is the book btw!
my 150,000-word novel with one of the 5 third-person POVs written pronoun-less!
THE WATER OUTLAWS:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250180421/thewateroutlaws
plus yanno lots of swordfights
#TheWaterOutlaws #fantasy #sff #SpeculativeFiction #book #books #bookstodon #EpicFantasy #language #MartialArts #swords #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #nonbinary @bookstodon
The craft was actually easier than I expected, but I did put a lot of thought and effort in, and a lot of time double-checking the updated drafts...
...so I hope at least a small number of people notice and get joy out of it eventually
well then, what do, how write?
I experimented a lot & no pronouns felt best for the character!
(they're in "fantasy Chinese", which doesn't gender pronouns just as real Chinese doesn't...which doesn't stop misogyny btw. Anglophones sometimes seem to assume that'd correlate but ungendering pronouns doesn't magically heal sexism/transphobia, sadly )
Why did I do it? Well when a book is "translation convention" from a language that doesn't gender pronouns --
and the group is genderdiverse-norm in the midst of a regressive society --
but there's no misgendering via pronoun or in-POV way to introduce neopronouns --
#TheWaterOutlaws
#language
#linguistics #fantasy #pronouns #AmWriting #WritingCommunity
(I think most people are assuming female, even though I tried to put in subtle "Wu Yong is not a woman" moments CLEARLY THEY WERE TOO SUBTLE. That's on me lol)
me to my sister: NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT MY WU YONG PRONOUN CLEVERNESS
her: that just means you did it well, it's so smooth nobody notices
me: well I want them to notice a LITTLE
I've started talking about it in like every interview now because I want more people to see it ah hahaha, and the reaction tends to be, "omg I didn't see it BUT NOW I DO"
I guess it's not as awkward to read English without pronouns as we tend to assume?
smol thread!
Do you ever do something as an author that's SO VERY CLEVER AND CHALLENGING and then
and then
nobody notices?
Y'all I wrote 1 of 5 POVs in a 3rd person book entirely without personal pronouns and I don't think anyone's mentioned it at all
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5781832135
Many thanks to Tor publishing and #NetGalley for an ARC of The Water Outlaws. This is a delightful re-imagination of the 14th century classic The Water Margin. It seems we’ve been celebrating “eat the rich” heroes and heroines for centuries…. #amreading #reading #bookrecommendation #thewateroutlaws #books