Catherynne M. Valente on her new novel Radiance
Today sees two posts by Catherynne M. Valente about her new book, Radiance, at the Barnes & Noble SFF blog and at John Scalzi’s Whatever.
The year is 1944. But not our 1944. No Blitz, no rationing, no Russian front—not yet, anyway. In fact, most of Earth is looking a little empty. The Solar System, however, is bustling, buzzing, bursting with human life. Each and every one of our familiar planets is inhabitable and inhabited, from the red swamps of Venus to the frozen neon streets of Uranus to the opium fields of Pluto. New industries and intrigues are everywhere—and the Moon is where they make movies. Silent movies, mostly, for the scions of the Edison family keep an iron grip on their sound and color patents. In the world of Radiance, Space exploration began around 1870, but film still streams along in black and white silence.
To that, add a noir mystery, Uranian porn theaters, heavily armed movie studios and – not to be missed! – space whales.
It’s out today. Really looking forward to this one.
I assume that you have found that Catherine has had several of her short stories included in Clarkesworld Magazine as well. I kept wondering if I should draw your attention to The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild.
Well, now you have, and when I scrolled to a random paragraph (which is a thing I do) I found:
… so much as I dislike reading fiction in a web browser, I’ll just have to read that one too.
Download the podcast…
(or of course, you *could* always just print it.)
She’s got a lot of stuff on Clarkesworld. Silently and Very Fast is the first thing that I ever listened to there. It is beautiful prose and an amazing concept but the ending made me sad.