Welcome back to Shattered Wings Thursdays, the weekly feature of art related to The House of Shattered Wings. 33 days to release of the Roc hardcover edition (and 35 days to the Gollancz trade paperback). Getting closer and closer!
(Detail on map of Saigon by Favre, 1880)
In the alternate universe of devastated Paris is still pretty close to the 19th/early 20th Century; and that means that France still has a pretty large colonial empire. Post-war, it’s actually fragmenting a bit because the colonists have trouble communicating with home (there are, say, ships to Vietnam but there aren’t very many of them). But “fragmenting” mostly means people setting up their own private kingdoms, and not any kind of independence, of course…
Vietnam is not yet called Vietnam in the book because that’s either a very old (Nguyen dynasty) or fairly recent name. It has three political subdivisions: Tonkin (north), Annam (centre), and Cochinchina (South), all with slightly different statuses; and it’s part of Indochina (which also includes Cambodia).
Welcome back to Shattered Wings Thursdays, the weekly feature of art related to The House of Shattered Wings. 40 days to release of the Roc hardcover edition (and 42 days to the Gollancz trade paperback). Getting closer and closer!
So I promised something about other magical beings: here’s one set. The Immortals (tiên) live in the Far East, in Annam. Unlike Fallen, they’re humans who have ascended through meditation, knowledge and merit, and joined the court of the Jade Emperor. Their powers derive from manipulating the khi currents, the manifestations of the five elements (fire, earth, wood, water and metal).
Being an Immortal doesn’t mean, however, being safe–people have been cast out of the court of the Jade Emperor for various offences (mostly breaches of order). One such former Immortal is Philippe, one of the main characters in the book…
Today’s surprise mention of The House of Shattered Wings: was very flattered to hear Justin Landon mention the book as restoring his faith in Science Fiction and Fantasy on his awesome podcast Rocket Talk!
Welcome aboard for another episode of Shattered Wings Thursdays, the time of the week where I pick a particularly nice or evocative picture from the Pinterest board for the novel, and provide some teasers on plot, worldbuilding and characters. 47 days until the release of the Roc edition of The House of Shattered Wings in the US, and 49 days until the Gollancz edition in the UK/Commonwealth!
Today is this picture:
Spire of Notre Dame
In the world of The House of Shattered Wings, life revolves around the Great Houses: once safe havens built to protect the Fallen in their infancy from those who would prey on them, the Houses in post-war Paris have become fortresses, hoarding their wealth and dependents and fighting each other for scraps of power.
A House actually encompasses a small area of Paris: it’s not a building, but generally a series of streets and associated buildings. For instance, House Silverspires, the setting of much of the novel, covers the entirety of Ile de la Cité. Each House has a formal uniform with different colours, a coat of arms (and a motto etc.), as well as a … slightly different philosophy in its dealings with others, which is mainly due to the policy pursued by the head of the House. House Silverspires’s colours are red and silver, and its motto is “Look to the risen sun” (yeah, House founder Morningstar wrote the motto. You can rely on him not to be subtle in the least).
Just a quick heads-up that I put chapter one of my upcoming Gollancz/Roc release The House of Shattered Wings online for your reading pleasure 🙂
It is almost pleasant, at first, to be Falling.
The harsh, unwavering light of the City recedes, leaving you in shadow, leaving only memories of relief, of a blessed coolness seizing your limbs. Nothing has turned yet into longing, into bitterness, into the cold that will never cease, not even in the heat of summer.
Welcome back to Shattered Wings Thursdays: your weekly picture and teaser text about The House of Shattered Wings, excerpted from the Pinterest board I’m running for the novel. We are now 55 days away from the release of the Roc edition (and just a teensy bit more away from the Gollancz edition).
Here’s today’s picture:
Aka, pretty close to my mental image of Lucifer Morningstar, pre-Fall…
One of the key differentiators in The House of Shattered Wings is the presence of Fallen angels. Fallen are immortal, ageless, and sterile: they have no memory of anything before their Fall. When they Fall, they lose their wings and manifest as human; and for a brief moment until their innate magic heals them, they are at their most vulnerable: amnesiac and wounded and struggling to understand what they are doing in the mortal world. Needless to say, in a world where Paris is a devastated city where everyone struggles to survive, this makes newly Fallen particularly sought after–and generally not to give them hugs or flowers…
The firstborn and foremost of Fallen is Lucifer Morningstar, the founder of House Silverspires on Ile de la Cité; his power, invested in wards and other protective spells, kept the House at the top of the hierarchy of power, even in a devastated city. However, Morningstar has been missing for twenty years, and Silverspires has slowly declined in importance and strength…
There are other magical beings besides the Fallen, but this is a topic for another blog post ^^
The RT review of The House of Shattered Wings is online here. I’m just going to excerpt the relevant bits: the book is a Top Pick for August, and the review contains, among many awesome things, this, “It’s a whirlwind, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s one of the best fantasy novels of 2015.”
*squee*
Also, it’s subscriber-only, but I’m reliably told that Publisher’s Weekly lists The House of Shattered Wings as one of the top ten books for Fall (alongside Laura Anne Gilman’s Silver on the Road, a book that sounds fantastic, Fran Wilde’s Updraft which I have on my ereader and am looking forward to, and Zen Cho’s Sorcerer to the Crown, which is a delight).
Here’s what they say: “This intense novel depicts warring factions in a magical alternate version of 20th-century Paris, where decadence mingles with fear.”
Intense. With Decadence and fear. Yeah, sounds about right 🙂
So… apparently it’s two months until the release of The House of Shattered Wings (eep!!) With that in mind, I thought we’d start doing a little related content on the blog; and what better way to whet your appetite than evocative images? I’m already running a pinterest board for the novel here: over the next two months I’ll excerpt the images I prefer and provide some commentary that will hopefully make you want to read the book 🙂
Ok, so let’s start with basics: this is Paris in the novel. Your basic nuked city setting: following the Great Houses War (aka magical factions tearing Europe apart from 1914-1918 [1]), Paris is now a devastated city, its monuments scorched ruins (with the occasional magical trap), its streets covered in soot; and the Seine… the Seine not only runs black with ashes, but has become the place you really don’t want to get close to: the accumulated spells have turned dark, and people who walk too close to the river banks get snatched and dragged underwater; or strangled by tendrils they can’t see… Even bending over a bridge can rapidly turn lethal.
Nice place to live in, isn’t it? :p
Also, yes. If you’re holding an island like Ile Saint-Louis,Ile de la Cité, or Ile aux Cygnes, (Paris’s three islands), you now have a virtually impregnable fortress, if you don’t mind the fact that your river banks are totally off limits lest you lose your own people. The major setting for the novel is Ile de la Cité, which is the location of House Silverspires, sixty years after the end of the war: the city is still devastated because the damage was extensive and the infighting between Houses has never really stopped, but people are doing their best to live among the ruins.
Broadly speaking, the technology and clothing are a distorted version of the Belle Epoque: there have been some changes since then, but the Belle Epoque is understandably seen as halcyon days, a Golden Age everyone more or less overtly longs for, or regrets.
So, the giveaway winners are:
Sakura and Virginia Preston! Congratulations–I’ve emailed you.
Thanks to everyone for entering. I’m, er, blown away by the number of entries, and the imagination–finding places to shelter in devastated Paris certainly took you to interesting places! Out of sheer curiosity (and for pure fun), I’ve run stats on the answer to this question. They’re below.
Very clearly the Catacombs come out *way* ahead 🙂 There were also factions holing up in The Louvre (a sensible choice. The Louvre is in the hands of House Samothrace, which doesn’t feature in the book but is a minor House and therefore a sensible place to be, away from the big political intrigues that shake Paris from time to time), the Eiffel Tower (good choice, there’s a House on the grounds of the monument, though it doesn’t feature in the book!), and in book-related places (bookstores and libraries. You will love Emmanuelle, the archivist of House Silverspires and a pretty badass woman generally speaking).
(I haven’t decided what the catacombs will hold yet. The H is agitating for zombies, I think that might be a little too on-the-nose :p)
Also a pretty sizable faction being eminently sensible and avoiding Paris altogether (sheltering in the suburbs, countryside or abroad. It would be slightly close to cheating, except that pretty much the whole of Europe and America took a very bad hit in the Great Houses War, so I’m not really sure you’d be as well protected as you think outside of Paris…). And finally clever people in the metro or underground places (I didn’t count the sewers in that category or it’d be even larger). The tunnels are probably ruined and booby-trapped, but I should think no one is fighting you for those. Or maybe the catacomb zombies (just kidding!) And a lot of other really awesome ideas (embassies, crypts, operas, museums, restaurants and pastry shops…) that made me smile 🙂
Anyway, thanks again everyone. I was very very psyched by the interest, and I hope you had fun, at least with the “devastated Paris” question–sorry, not everyone can be a winner as I’ve got only a limited number of ARCs to give out 🙁
Have been up to a number of things (including baking and preparing for the upcoming Nebula Awards, aka “eep, my first over-the-pond flight in 2 years! [1]). BTW, I don’t know how much I can publicy say about that, but there’ll be shiny book-related stuff at the Nebulas, so if brace yourself if you’re attending :p (also me in a Gothic tailcoat, looking snazzy. And jetlagged).
Not much book stuff, but I’ve been focusing on shorts: answering proofreader’s queries to the upcoming “The Citadel of Weeping Pearls” (in the Oct/Nov. issue of Asimov’s (the short version of this is that one should never put the simu-ghosts of 24 dead emperors in the same story unless one is prepared to do a lot *more* work to keep them straight and separate), and writing a couple new pieces!
Among them is this one, which is, er, mostly a retelling of this legend as a Xuya story (it’s always fascinated me. Mostly because I can’t imagine wasting away on an obsession, I guess).
Snippet:
In Da Trang’s nightmares, Pearl is always leaving–darting away from him, towards the inexorable maw of the Sun’s gravity, going into a tighter and tighter orbit until no trace of it remains–he’s always reaching out, sending a ship, a swarm of bots–calling upon the remoras to move, sleek and deadly and yet too agonisingly slow; to do anything, to save what they can.
Too late. Too late.
Yes, there are remoras. And crabs. And er. Angst. A lot of angst 🙂
Also, a brief reminder that today is the last day for getting a signed ARC of The House of Shattered Wings, my Gothic dark fantasy of a devastated Paris, fallen angels and political intrigues (and dead bodies, because this is a Bodard book :p): enter here!
[1] I think of it as prep for this summer, where I’ll be flying to Spokane on a *much* longer journey aka 3 connecting flights and 17 hours of zombie-inducing state…
As you might have gathered if you follow my twitter or FB, the Advance Review Copies of the Roc edition of The House of Shattered Wings have landed at headquarters (aka my office, increasingly invaded by the snakelet’s toy cars, plush toys and board books).
Want an ARC of your very own? A chance to immerse yourself in a devastated, decadent Paris with fallen angels, alchemists and Vietnamese immortals?
You’re in the right place! All you have to do is enter below (disclaimer: this is my first time using Rafflecopter. I hope this works out). This is open to anyone regardless of where you live. This is open until Monday June 1st–I’ll announce winners Tuesday, but possibly I will mail the prizes when I get home from the Nebulas. I’ll sign and personalise the ARCs.
(if you’ve already subscribed to my mailing list, just click the button, give me the address you’re subscribed with, and I’ll count that as +1 point for you)
(Also, if you’re curious about where I’d find shelter in devastated Paris: Notre-Dame, any day. Because a. it’s on an island, and b. consecrated ground, which always comes in handy! (you don’t have to be as detailed in your answer or even to justify it. It’s just a way of having a “fun” option to the giveaway. Though I do reserve the right to post some of the best ones 🙂 )
More info about the book (out August 20th from Gollancz in the UK/Commonwealth, and August 18th from Roc in the US):
A superb murder mystery, on an epic scale, set against the fall out – literally – of a war in Heaven.
Paris has survived the Great Houses War – just. Its streets are lined with haunted ruins, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine runs black with ashes and rubble. Yet life continues among the wreckage. The citizens continue to live, love, fight and survive in their war-torn city, and The Great Houses still vie for dominion over the once grand capital.
House Silverspires, previously the leader of those power games, lies in disarray. Its magic is ailing; its founder, Morningstar, has been missing for decades; and now something from the shadows stalks its people inside their very own walls.
Within the House, three very different people must come together: a naive but powerful Fallen, an alchemist with a self-destructive addiction, and a resentful young man wielding spells from the Far East. They may be Silverspires’ salvation. They may be the architects of its last, irreversible fall…
Praise for the novel:
THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS is a Gothic masterpiece of supernatural intrigues, loves and betrayals in a ruined and decadent future Paris — wildly imaginative and completely convincing, this novel will haunt you long after you’ve put it down.
If the image of Lucifer sitting on a throne in the ruins of Notre-Dame strikes you as awesome, then this is the book for you.
Marie Brennan, author of The Memoirs of Lady Trent series
Darkly entertaining. de Bodard makes Fallen Angels entirely her own in this post-apocalyptic Paris near the turn of the century. The personal politics of necessity blend and clash with the politics of the powerful as people—mortal and immortal—attempt to survive.
