446. Fantasy and Sci Fi in 2021 With Caroline Perny from Tor

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 446 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and I had to turn off the cat’s toy to record this, and he’s so mad at me, I expect you’ll hear from him in a moment. [Laughs] He’s so mad!

Today’s guest is Caroline Perny, who is the Publicity Manager at Tor. She’s going to talk about what books are coming out this year. Now, we recorded in mid-November, so we actually start by talking about carbohydrates, which is what got us through November and December, and we also talk a little bit about genre, but wow, do we have a lot of books to talk to you about. So many books. If you like sci-fi, fantasy, speculative fiction, romance, we’ve got options. We’re going to talk about some books from 2020 you might have missed and what’s coming out this year, so get ready.

Where will you find all the books? In the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

This episode is brought to you by Driven by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Zanetti. Heads up, romantic suspense fans: this is the fourth book in her Deep Ops series, which features a metric crapton of high-octane action and emotionally complex characters. Angus Force is determined to hunt down the serial killer he’d once shot dead – or so he thought. (We all know how that turns out.) But an anonymous source reports that Lassiter is alive. (See?) Force hasn’t slept since, knowing that it is only a matter of time before “the Surgeon” strikes again. And soon a body is found, bearing his maniacal MO. It’s just the beginning of a murderous trail blazing through DC and Virginia, right to Force’s backyard. Nari Zhang is the shrink for the ragtag Deep Ops Unit, though she isn’t Force’s shrink – which is a good thing, because once they’re thrown together on the case, their attraction is explosive and irresistible. They just have to fight that much harder to keep the heat between them from flaming out of control. Which is hard, because things are about to become far more challenging, and deadly, than they could have imagined. If you like romantic suspense, you will find a copy of Driven by Rebecca Zanetti wherever books are sold. Find out more at kensingtonbooks.com!

If you have supported the show with a monthly pledge, thank you. You are making sure that every episode has a transcript, and you’re keeping the show going every week so that everyone can enjoy it. Thank you so much for that.

Hello to Rebeca, one of our newest members of the Patreon community. Thank you for joining us! If you would like to join: patreon.com/SmartBitches.

I love episodes where Amanda and I talk to book people about book things, and we just talk about all the different books we want to read, so if you are looking for ideas of what to read next, this episode is going to be perfect for you. So let’s do this thing! On with the podcast.

[music]

Sarah: Caro! How are you?

Caroline Perny: I’m – good, I think? Who’s to say?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, when we, when I first emailed you about doing this, this podcast, you were like, it was before the election? And you were like, I don’t know what kind of state I’ll be in the first or second week of November, so let’s do it like the third week of November? And now we’re here, and I’m like, wow, she was so right. I was barely able to use verbs correctly the last two weeks.

Amanda: Yep.

Caroline: Oh my God! I, like, I just think about the actual election day when, like, I knew that there would be no results or anything, and I was in a fugue state and just, like, made like seven loaves of bread and a pie that day, and, like –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Caroline: – the next day I woke up and I was like, why did I make so many carbs? Guess I’d better eat them all.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: That’s why you made so many carbs!

Caroline: I know; I know. I, like, looked at a vegetable that Sunday, and I was like, haven’t seen you in a while!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, I mean, that was very French of you.

Caroline: Well, you know.

Sarah: In times of doubt, make carbs.

Caroline: [Laughs] Yeah! Yeah. Well, the heart wants what it wants, you know.

Sarah: Right, exactly!

Amanda: Also, Sarah, Linus demands to be let out, so I will –

Sarah: Of course!

Amanda: – be right back!

Sarah: Okay! Okay.

Amanda: Come on, Stinky –

Sarah: So –

Amanda: – let’s go.

Sarah: [Coughs] Excuse me. I even have questions. There’s all of two of them.

Caroline: Oh boy!

Sarah: I know. So here is a thing I want to ask your, ask your expert opinion on, as someone who’s worked in romance. Now, you are currently the publicity mastermind at Tor, or one of the publicity masterminds at Tor, and you spent a butt-ton of years at Avon working on Avon and Harper romances, right?

Caroline: That is correct, yes!

Sarah: Okay. So I recently was looking at genre designations, ‘cause you know the way we describe romance is changing and getting more and more specific, and I saw a collection of science fiction, fantasy, apocalyptic, all of that, housed under speculative romance, and I was like, oh! Well, that’s interesting! What do you think of that? How do you describe the romances that you work on?

Caroline: So, all right, like, let’s just get into it, because –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Caroline: – as – like, I feel like a lot of times when I hear authors asked this question, many times they just respond by saying that genre is a fake, made-up thing that booksellers and publishers use, and I do, I, I do agree with that on some level. Like, a story is a story, and a book is what it is, but we all need, like, little cues. Like, if I –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Caroline: – feel like eating mac and cheese, and somebody hands me, like, a ham and cheese sandwich, it is carbs and cheese, but it is very different. Like, it’s not going to scratch the same itch, and that’s what we use genre for. So I feel like I appreciate the kind of drilling down in designation that’s happening? Like, I, I like that we’re finding new ways of communicating with readers; like, if this particular spot in your brain is itchy for, for a kind of story, this story will, will scratch it for you?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Caroline: I think that’s great. I think it’s, it’s a double-edged sword, though. It can just be like, you know – sometimes, like, it can, it can just, like, bite, bite you in the, in the ass. Am I allowed to curse?

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: Are, are you kidding? Please do!

Caroline: [Laughs] Thank God!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Caroline: I, it, it can, it can bite you in the ass, though, just because, like, it’s a little limiting. Like, it has the, there’s an expression in French: the qualities of your defaults? Like, it can be a very good thing, but that very good thing can also be kind of limiting.

Amanda: Yeah, because, like –

Sarah: The qualities of your defaults!

Amanda: – one of the biggest complaints I feel like we see in reviews is, okay, well, the marketing copy said it was this, and it’s definitely not that.

Caroline: Right.

Sarah: Yeess. Yes, and that’s also come up a lot with the illustrated covers, which some people call the cartoon covers? That they imply a lightness and a comedic element that, that might not be present at all in the book. It might be death and angst and drama and woe, but the cover looks like candy.

Caroline: Right. I think this is kind of what, what fandom has done super well, right? Like, with the tagging.

Sarah: Yeah! Yeah!

Caroline: Like, this is, this is where fandom has the edge on all of us, where – I mean, like, one of the places fandom has the edge on all of us, really. You’re like, I want a book where there’s kissing in libraries, and if that kissing doesn’t happen in a library, then so help me God, I’m going to mess something up!

[Laughter]

Caroline: But, like, fandom is like, nonono! We got kissing in libraries for you! What kind of a library do you want it to be? Futuristic, Edwardian? We got you!

[More laughter]

Sarah: Yes! And I know that there are people in the fandom who are looking at book marketing now and being like, they stole our tags. They are taking our words!

Caroline: Well, I think, you know –

Sarah: ‘Cause they work!

Caroline: – they’re – they work, but also, there are a lot of peop-, like, I think it’s easy to forget that people who work in publishing are also people? So, like –

Sarah: What?!

[Laughter]

Caroline: – there are a lot of fandom folks and, like, internet people who, like, live their lives online, and they’re like, oh, well, I read this story on Archive of Our Own, and the tags really worked for me, and now I’m working on this book that is going to be professionally published and, like, what if I tagged it up?

Sarah: Yeah!

Caroline: But, you know, that being said, I will, I will admit that, like, a thing that’s been developed by, by individuals for their own needs being co-opted by a company has, you know, it’s, it’s thorny; it’s, it’s a thorny issue. So I guess what I’m saying is, I think genre is complex?

Sarah: What?!

Caroline: I know. Lots, lots of hot takes happening here.

[Laughter]

Sarah: So let me ask you then, let me ask you our first question; it’s a super hard one. What were some of the awesome books that you worked on this past year? Because I know this year was hard as fuck for book promotion and release.

Caroline: You can’t see me right now, but I just, like, shoved my face into my hands.

[Laughter]

Caroline: So once – my cat is also demanding to be let out.

Amanda: Yep. Cat’s are like –

Sarah: Oh, good cat!

Amanda: – this is too much. You are –

Caroline: [Laughs] Yeah!

Amanda: – too much today.

Caroline: Yeah, Nim was like, I don’t want to hear you talk about books again. [Laughs] But so, when you had emailed me initially, I was like, yeah, no problem! I’ll put a list together of books to talk about with Sarah and Amanda; no problem. And then I was like, oh my God, there are so many good books! We’re going to run out of time!

Sarah: I don’t, I don’t have a time limit. I’m on the internet?

Caroline: [Laughs] Excellent!

Sarah: I mean, I’m running an almost-sixteen-year-old blog? Haven’t run out yet!

Caroline: Cool! Well, let’s see, let’s see how long it takes me to make you tap out!

[Laughter]

Caroline: So, well, I think, you know, I, I think just to, like, go full circle with our discussion of genre and also talking about books that I’ve worked on, there are books that I think of within the sci-fi/fantasy realm that are very much adjacent to romance and that are appealing to romance fans, but because romance, as a wider genre, is very particular with its parameters, I don’t think that there are so many books that fall, like, squarely within the romance genre as well as the sci-fi/fantasy genre?

So for me, one of the books that does fit very neatly within both is Deal with the Devil by Kit Rocha. It came out in July in the midst of this, this whole crazy pandemic, and I am obsessed with that book. My, like, emotional lizard brain pitch for this is, what if post-apocalyptic Avengers, except sex banging? But –

[Laughter]

Caroline: So let me, like, paint a picture for you with my imagination brush: the world is a trash fire – no way to, to visualize that, huh – and the only way to survive in this post-apocalyptic version of America is by being part of a tightly knit community. The government is corrupt, and people have paid the price for it a thousand times over. There are clones, there are genetically enhanced killers roaming through a lawless version of our country, and then you have Nina. She’s an information broker with a mission, and she and her team of mercenary librarians – yes, that’s right; they are librarians; they are mercenaries; it’s a thing; they rule – but she and her team of mercenary librarians use their knowledge and their badass fighting skills to help the hopeless, basically. And they, they do things like, you know, grow food for the people in their community; they have, like, movie nights. They are truly librarians, and that’s what’s getting people through the world, which I love. But then they meet Knox. He’s, like, a bitter, battle-weary mercenary captain, and he’s got a squad of super soldiers who went AWOL to avoid slaughtering innocent people, and now they’re fighting to survive. So, like, you kind of see where this is going.

Sarah: Yeah, I was going to say!

Caroline: Knox offers Nina a chance at an incredible score! And, you know, she’s really suspicious of it, but she and her sisters have no choice but to – I’m really proud of this – make a deal with the devil?

Sarah: Whoooa!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Caroline: Yeah.

Sarah: Ohhh, I did not see that coming!

Caroline: [Laughs] No, how could you?

Sarah: Nooo!

Caroline: But it’s just, it’s such a great book. You know, Kit Rocha, they’re, like, just amazing, amazing writers. It’s an author duo, for those who don’t know, although I imagine most people do. But, you know, they’re, they’re such good writers. They write about found family in a way that just, like, it’ll roundhouse-kick you right in the feels?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Caroline: And they, they just, like, it’s, oh yes! There is, like, this amazing, crazy fight scene that you want to see in a movie, and then, like, after that they’re like, well, what if seduction happened? It’s so good!

Sarah: That must have been really fun for you to work on.

Caroline: It was so much fun. Bree and Donna, the two parts of Kit Rocha, they’re amazing; I love them. They’re so fun, and they do this thing that romance authors do really, really well? Which is like, they know their readers. They know their audience in a way that just, like, it makes working with them really fun because it means we can be really creative and kind of, like, branch out. So it was really cool to, to work with them, to talk to their fans and their readers, and, you know, we got to, like, do special mailings for librarians and do events with, with romance authors. Like, they did stuff with Alyssa Cole, but they also did stuff with, like, big sci-fi names like Kate Elliott.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Caroline: And it’s like just this perfect melding of genres that I think is really exciting. And book two comes out next year, and we’re very excited for that one also.

Sarah: What other books did you work on this year that you want to make sure to mention? And then I want to hear all about the future, because since you work in science fiction and fantasy, you’re uniquely suited to tell us about the future.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Caroline: Okay, so, well, I mentioned that Kit Rocha did an event with Kate Elliott, and I think that’s probably as good a lead-in as any to talking about Kate Elliott, an author that I’ve been reading since I was like ten years old. I love her books. Like, she’s basically like sci-fi/fantasy royalty; like, your favorite author’s favorite author; kind of like legit genre street cred. And actually, I told Bree from Kit Rocha that I was working with her, and we both had a fangirl moment together? Because that’s –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Caroline: – like, how, like, monumentally awesome within the genre Kate Elliott is. And she just launched a new series, also in July, called, the first book was called Unconquerable Sun, and it’s basically gender-spun Alexander the Great in space. It’s –

Sarah: As you do!

Caroline: As you do! It’s –

Sarah: Right?

Caroline: – so good! Like, Kate is obsessed with Alexander the Great and knows so much about the history? So, like, if you’re a history buff, you should read it for, like, no other reason than there are historical Easter eggs in there and, like, how often do you get historical Easter eggs? Like, a thing I’ve always loved about Alexander the Great is that he had this horse that he, like, he was like, this horse is my son; don’t ever touch my horse; I love him more than anything. And the horse was named Bucephalus, and the space ship in this is named Bucephalus, so –

Sarah: Of course it is!

Caroline: Or Buceph-, Bucephalus; I don’t know how to pronounce things, but, you know. So great Easter eggs, and then, like, if you have a competence kink – I know it’s like 10:30 in the morning, but, like, let’s talk about competence kinks –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Caroline: – because, like, there are some –

Amanda: If, if not now, then when?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Caroline: You know what? Better question: when am I not going to talk about a competence kink? The answer is never.

Sarah: Well, I mean, competence is so sexy and seems often to be hard to find in some venues lately. Just saying.

Amanda: Yeah, like in, in real life!

Sarah: Right, exactly!

Caroline: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

[Laughter]

Caroline: No, yeah, I, like, I completely agree, and just seeing a lot of femme characters and genderqueer characters in Unconquerable Sun just be, like, hyper-competent is so powerful. The, so the Alexander the Great character is named Sun. It’s gender-spun, so, like, you know, obviously there are more than two genders, but gender-swapped is not really the best way to talk about it, but now I don’t know – we don’t have a neat term. And so basically we have Princess Sun, and she is just, like, on this galactic, like, empire conquest, and it’s written about so, so well, because there, there are some pitfalls, right? Like, we love a high-stakes galactic conquest, except galactic conquest is bad! Like, that’s colonialism! It’s not good, and Kate writes about it all with such nuance, and the people that she’s – she’s writing about it from both sides of the conflict, and there’s so much, like, hardcore competence that it just, like, it makes me so happy, and the – like, listen: competence kink, space daddy, everyone in space is gay. Like, you, it’s perfect.

Sarah: [Laughs] I love the idea, everyone in space is gay. It’s like –

Caroline: Well –

Sarah: – the future is polyamorous and a lot more chill.

Amanda: Well, we’ve discussed about how space is just super horny.

Sarah: Yes. Amanda is firmly of the opinion that space is horny; Earth is garbage.

Caroline: That’s true! It’s –

[Laughter]

Caroline: I didn’t think that was an opinion at that point. That’s –

[More laughter]

Caroline: – it’s the truth! It’s the truth, and space is horny, space is queer as hell. It’s, Earth is bad. Blast my body into space.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Amanda’s with you. I think you could probably get, like, a group discount.

Amanda: Yeah.

Caroline: [Laughs] Oh my God –

Amanda: Get like a two, two-for-one deal?

Caroline: Yeah, you want to carpool to the moon?

Amanda: Yeah! Sign me up!

Caroline: Perfect! Great.

Amanda: I’ll bring the snacks!

Caroline: I’ll bring books! We’ll have a good time!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. When, when this episode releases, there’s going to be so many people going, I want to come too!

Caroline: [Laughs] Well, what was it, like, at the beginning of, of the pandemic and all the protests and stuff, NASA launched a, a, a rocket to the moon or something like that, and somebody tweeted, like, congratulations to all of the people who chose to leave Earth today.

Amanda: [Laughs] They dodged a bullet!

Caroline: They did.

Sarah: Yeah.

Caroline: Big ups to them.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Caroline: Well, on that note, other great books I’ve worked on: this – so, Kate Elliott, Kit Rocha, they are definitely, I think, like, romance-adjacent. Like, perfect for, for romance lovers? Riot Baby is another book that I’m just so, just, like, honored to have worked on. There –

Amanda: Riot Baby won the, was it the NEIBA award –

Caroline: Yeah.

Amanda: – for best fiction this year?

Caroline: Yes. Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi; it came out in January, and it won the NEIBA – it’s Northeastern Independent Booksellers Association book award. It’s just, it’s such, it’s, it’s a very short book, and it, it packs such a punch. It’s about, it’s about these two twin siblings. They’re, they’re Black and they are raised, they start out living in LA during the riots in the ‘90s there, the Rodney King riots, and kind of come into this almost like X-Men-like power, and they come into it in different ways. The, the boy, Kev, he, he gets arrested and incarcerated because, well, he’s a Black man living in America, so the chances of that happening are already upsettingly high, and he kind of tries to tamp down his power, and his sister Ella is just like, she’s like Dark Phoenix levels of power. I don’t know if you guys are X-Men fans, but she’s like, just basically like God-tier power and is basically wrestling with the question of, like, no one wants to see me, no one wants to hear me because of my race, but I, I have the power to burn it all down, so should I? And they just, it’s so powerful; it’s so beautifully written. I, like, I can’t say enough about how incredible this book is. Like, if you need to get someone a stocking stuffer this year, like, it fits in a tiny little Christmas sock or underneath the Hanukkah bush or just like, you know, you can lob it at somebody and not do too much damage, ‘cause it’s not a very heavy book –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Caroline: – but it’s so good! Like, I highly encourage you to buy, like, just five copies of this and make it rain, you know? Like –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Caroline: – it’s so good!

Sarah: I love the idea of, of, of socially-distanced projectile book gifts.

Amanda: Just maybe, like, pad the corners a little bit.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Caroline: Yeah!

Sarah: Just –

Caroline: I, I think that’s fair.

Sarah: – just tie them up inside a bag and seal it, like, like if I ever send, so if I ever send Amanda books, I always put food in the package.

Caroline: I love that.

Amanda: And, but sometimes it’s, it’s fucking weird, like loose Oreos in a bag.

Sarah: But I blew up the bag so that there would be padding and the Oreos wouldn’t get crushed.

Amanda: She double-bagged the Oreos.

Caroline: Sure!

Sarah: I was not screwing around; they needed to be protected. I must protect the Oreos.

Amanda: Or, like, loose stroopwafels in a bag.

Sarah: Right!

Caroline: I love the chaos of that!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Makes it sound like the stroopwafels are running around the package like, ha-ha! You’ll never catch me!

[More laughter]

Caroline: Well, Amanda, as soon as you said that, like, Sarah sends you loose food, I was like, what, like, just half a can of beans just poured in in a jiffy?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: I mean, I would not be surprised. Sometimes they’re, like, very bizarre. Like, I think – I mean, I’ll still eat it. There hasn’t been anything she hasn’t sent me that, like, I won’t eat, but it was like this weird little, like, lollipop, but it was, like, from an L.O.L. Surprise! doll on it? Do you remember that, Sarah?

Sarah: Oh yeah! Yeahyeahyeah, absolutely!

Amanda: I was like, how, where did she get this? Why does she have this?

Sarah: Japan!

Amanda: Oh, Japan?

Sarah: Japan! Yep!

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: Yeah. International candy is, is key for, you know, random candy in the, in the –

Amanda: She’s also sent me, like, fluffy underwear shorts from Japan?

Sarah: What were they called?

Caroline: Oh, like the bloomers?

Sarah: Yeah, they were, like, comfort shorts or something.

[Laughter]

Sarah: We will be right back with more recommendations, but real quick, I wanted to let you know this podcast is brought to you in part by Prose. If you have caught Amanda and me on our Twitch stream or anywhere, we’ve talked a lot about how she and then I have started using the curly girl method to embrace our curly or wavy hair. Now, Amanda’s hair is gorgeously curly. My hair apparently is also wavy, and did I know what to do with it when this started happening? No. No, I did not. Prose is the perfect solution for this problem for me. Prose creates custom shampoo and conditioners based on your personal hair analysis and their algorithm. And if you love a quiz, I’m sorry to inform you that Prose’s online quiz is superbly fun. It dives into every possible factor that will affect your hair health and includes things like the environment. Like, yes, hello, DC humidity, totally a thing. The quiz also takes into account what I want for my hair: Shiny? More curly? More wavy? What do I do with it? There’s no one-size-fits-all with Prose, because they want to customize shampoo and conditioner to each person. The algorithm personalizes over fifty billion combinations, and they come up with a unique blend of ingredients and products for my exact concerns. And in my case, those concerns are what do I do with wavy hair, and how do I make it do more of that? Not only did I get to choose the scent, which I love, but the shampoo and the conditioner work brilliantly. My hair is more wavy every time I condition it, and the hair mask that goes on beforehand leaves it so soft. I thought I had straight hair. No, I do not, apparently. I had no idea what to do with my hair, but Prose is totally helping me out here. So if you and your Quarantimes hair are on the what-is-happening-with-my-hair journey like me and you want to try Prose, I have a coupon! If you are not a hundred percent positive that Prose is the best hair care you’ve had, they will take the products back, no questions asked. Prose is the healthy hair regimen with your name all over it – literally, it’s on the bottle. Take their free in-depth hair quiz and get fifteen percent off your first order today. Go to prose.com/TRASHYBOOKS. That’s prose.com, P-R-O-S-E dot com slash TRASHYBOOKS for free in-depth hair quiz and fifteen percent off!

And I wanted to make sure that you know that you are most cordially invited to our podcast after party Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m. Eastern on Stereo. If you like talking back to us when we do a podcast, this is perfect for you because now you can. Tuesday nights, 7:30 Eastern, Amanda and I are having our after party live on Stereo. All you need to do is download the free Stereo app at stereo.com/smartbitches. You’ll be able to listen to us live and record messages for us to play during a conversation. Plus, you get to play with a really cute avatar creator, and all of your avatars are adorable and I love seeing them. Sometimes we hang out with people we get to know, and I would like to tell you what Sue said about us. Sue hangs out with us on Stereo, and she recently commented on one of our Instagram posts: “You guys make me so happy. It’s like talking with friends, and then you screech about entirely inconsequential things as though they were incredibly important.” Yes, yes, we do. And we want to hear from you so you can be part of the fun, ‘cause we’re going to screech about something inconsequential; it’s how we roll. Just go to stereo.com/smartbitches and get started so you can join us Tuesdays at 7:30.

And now, back to more recommendations and book squee with Caro Perny from Tor.

What other books for next year you want to tell us about, ma’am? Bring it, bring it, bring it!

Caroline: Okay, so I, I think I’m legally bound by the law of – myself, I think?

[Laughter]

Caroline: Like, I have to yell at you about Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell? If I just, like, go –

Amanda: Oh!

Caroline: – like, I’m just going to go ahhh! for a little while; can you just cut that in the final recording of the podcast?

Sarah: Yes, yes, I can!

Caroline: Perfect! Ahhh! This book – oh my God, this book, this book, this is it. This book, like –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Caroline: – if you just imagine, like, Red, White & Royal Blue, except in space, and there’s, like, a galactic empire on the brink of collapse. Like, it’s, it’s perfect; it’s everything. It’s, like, it’s the perfect comfort read, and it is just absolutely jam-packed full of every trope that you want, played out to perfection. Like, there’s only one bed! They’re caught in a snowstorm! It’s an arranged marriage! It’s, it’s so good. So, like, basically it’s after a noble dies in an unfortunate accident, his partner’s got to be married off real quick to preserve the terms of a treaty. So we have Kiem, who’s a fun-loving, carefree prince or, you know, the sunshine one, and –

Sarah: [Gasps]

Caroline: – much to his surprise –

Sarah: The grumpy one likes the sunshine one? The grumpy one likes the sunshine one?

Caroline: – much to his surprise, he’s soft on his newly appointed husband, Jainan – the grumpy one – who is –

Sarah: [Squees]

Caroline: – a duty-bound diplomat in mourning. And so Kiem and Jainan are determined to make their new partnership work, even if they’re the most unlikely of matches, but a larger conspiracy threatens to shatter their, their pretty tenuous union, so it’s basically the story of, like, can two delightful cinnamon rolls find true love while uncovering intergalactic treachery and navigating their marriage and wrangling paparazzi and rebellious university students and venomous killer space birds?

Amanda: Yes!

Caroline: It’s so good!

Sarah: I feel like you’re standing front of a fandom and are like, and you get a trope, and you get a trope, and you over there, you also get a trope!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Caroline: I’m, I’m just a girl standing front of a fandom handing out tropes and begging them to please read Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell.

[Laughter]

Caroline: It’s, it’s just so good! And so this book might actually sound familiar to some of your listeners? It was originally published on AO3 as original fiction called The Course of Honor? And, and, like, you know, it’s, it’s been through edits, and it’s, it’s, it’s – this is a new iteration of it, and there’s going to be a sequel, obviously, so, like, I’m just, I’m so excited! Like, ahhh, it’s so good! If you, like, need to sip a delightful mug of hot tea that will restore your faith in love in the world, this book is how you do that.

Sarah: That’s a very tempting promise, given the climate of the weather and the year. Like, that is, that’s going to move a lot of people to go, oh, really, yes? Tell me? So it’s not based on a fandom; it’s original fiction from AO3.

Caroline: It’s completely original fiction, but I just, I, I love the, the fandom piece of this, because, you know, for a long time, fandom was where people went when they wanted to read queer stories. Like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Caroline: – there, there wasn’t queer SFF in the mainstream, so now we have so many amazing authors like Everina Maxwell, like Tamsyn Muir, like Arkady Martine, like A. K. Larkwood, just coming out of this space because, like, they know what readers want because they are those readers, and they’ve been writing for those readers for so long. So –

Sarah: Right.

Caroline: – it’s, it’s just, it’s such a good, great, amazing, perfect book, and, like, it’s, it sits so perfectly in a space because, like, like you said, there’s every trope. Like, you get a trope and you get a trope, but there’s also really rigorous worldbuilding. So, like, if you need to sink your brain teeth into some cool, like, space politics, you can do that, but also if you’re like, but what if they kissed? They’ll do that too, maybe!

[Laughter]

Caroline: I have more books that are coming out this year that kind of span a huge length of time, but if I can tell you about one that’s sort of switching gears, but I think you’ll be really excited about? It’s –

Sarah: Bring it! I would love to hear it!

Caroline: – The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo. It comes out June 1st. Basically, this is The Great Gatsby told from the perspective of a queer, Asian-American Jordan Baker. And I sort of feel like that’s it, that’s the tweet, but, I mean, like, I’ll keep going.

[Laughter]

Caroline: So –

Sarah: Ohhh –

Caroline: – Nghi Vo is just this amazing, amazing writer. Her version of Jordan is a little mean, Daisy is flighty, Nick Carraway is a boy with a lost look in his eyes, and Jay Gatsby’s there like a specter, a man without a soul throwing parties and just, like, whatever. Jordan is a queer, immigrant woman, and she has to navigate life in this world where being both queer, being an immigrant could doom you, and she’s got to find her own magic through all of that. So it’s, it’s like there’s, there’s paper-cutting magic; there’s the story of, like, the Vietnamese diaspora. It’s basically excavating the toxicity of romance when it’s poisoned by privilege? You’re going to –

Sarah: Ooh!

Caroline: – down this book like a perfect cocktail of bathtub gin and magic. Like, every sentence is so good, it’s going to make you drunk. Nghi has a way of writing this epic but very personal and intimate, and this novel is very, very queer. It’s literary, it’s lush, and it’s kind of what Gatsby should have been? So –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Caroline: – we’re super, super excited about it! I love it so much. And I encourage everyone to look at the cover, because it’s very pretty.

Sarah: So you’re firmly located in thinking about 2021 at this point. Is that, like, a really pleasant thing to be, professionally?

Caroline: You know, so this is, like, a weird thing: we’ve, I, I feel like there’s a lot of discourse these days about time dilation and how weird, like, the passage and the stretching of time is?

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Caroline: When you’re, like, constantly thinking about the upcoming year, it does weirder things to your perception of time, and publishing works in seasons, in three seasons, largely. So we have winter, we have spring/summer, and we have fall, and so, like, we’ve just launched one season, but now we’re, like, doing the hard work, like, the, the bulk of the work on the upcoming winter season, but also we’re, like, putting our plans together for the spring/summer season. So, like, you’re bouncing around in different sections of 2021 while still being in 2020, except that it’s also March 375th right now, so, like –

Sarah: [Laughs] Yes, it really is!

Caroline: Yeah! Like, it’s just, it’s very, it’s a weird thing that has happened to my brain.

Sarah: And it’s even weirder now.

Caroline: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah: So what sorts of things are you planning for these – well, before I ask this question, are there other book, is there another book or two that you want to talk about? ‘Cause I also want to ask you what your plans are for promotion when, when the opportunities and locations for promotion are still so both certain and uncertain?

Caroline: So, you know what, I think I have two more books that I –

Sarah: Bring it!

Caroline: – like, should really tell you about. The next one is First, Become Ashes by K. M. Szpara.

Sarah: Yeah, I’ve heard this is – I’ve heard of this one.

Caroline: Yeah! So K. M. Szpara wrote Docile last year, and actually, if you want to talk about a book that came out, like, right at the start of the pandemic, Docile is it. It came out in March, and it’s – so, so this is his follow-up to that, and it’s a little strange to be like, okay, well, this’ll be book two during the pandemic for you. But it’s such a great book. It’s basically a great American road trip novel that explores self-discovery after trauma and outgrowing abusive origins? And also there are monsters? Before I go too much further, though, I want to, like, very seriously for a moment point out that First, Become Ashes contains explicit sadomasochism and sexual content, as well as abuse and consent violations, including rape. So that is the –

Sarah: Thank you for the heads-up!

Caroline: Yeah. Yeah, no, that, I mean, like, I take that very seriously. But that being said, this is a story of a group of people who are raised in a cult, taught to believe that pain is power and magic is suffering and that monsters lurk beyond their compound, and that they need to be the ones to slay them, but then the leader of their cult gets arrested by the feds, and the rest of the members kind of need to figure out how to live in a world without their cult, which is called the Fellowship. So it’s, it’s a really fascinating premise, and if you read Docile you know that Kellan’s kind of calling card is that he – Kellan, the author, K. M. Szpara – he grapples with these ultra-complex issues really compellingly, and he also uses extremely kinky queer sex as a vehicle for storytelling, and also just, like, you know, writes a damn good sex scene, but it’s a sex scene that’s going to make you stop and go, hmm. So I’m, I’m super excited about this one. It’s, it’s great, and Kellan is a sunshine person. Just, like, the happiest, most delightful cinnamon roll, so down the line I am sure you will see him on a video Zoom bookselling event or two, and I highly encourage you to, to attend those, because he’s just so great. Such, such a happy, wonderful person.

And switching gears almost entirely, the last book I wanted to talk about was A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske. This one’s going to be on sale about a year from now. I know that’s a super long time away, but I had to tell you about it, because this is –

Sarah: Okay! Please do!

Caroline: – this is –

Sarah: That’s why you’re here!

Caroline: – this is your catnip! It’s –

Sarah: Ohhh?

Caroline: – a queer historical fantasy about an uppity librarian with a limited amount of magic who has to work with, like, a gorgeous himbo aristocrat who has no magic at all? And they have to solve a mystery that could change the future of every magician in the British Isles, and it’s, it’s very much a case of the sunshine one being soft for the grumpy one. There is flirting in libraries; there’s kissing in libraries; there’s redacted in libraries.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Caroline: The writing is so gorgeous, it makes me want to light myself on fire. Like, it’s so, so perfect and good. It’s, like, achingly beautiful writing, and, like, she, she understands pining and longing so well. But Freya is basically fandom royalty. She hosts the Be the Serpent podcast and really understands, like, what, how to draw out that perfect, like, angst and anguish of courtship. It’s beautiful.

Oh, I lied! There’s one more book!

[Laughter]

Caroline: I, I told you I was –

Sarah: I’m really, I’m really savoring the semi-magical librarian and non-magical himbo pitch there. I’m real-, I’m savoring that one. Wow.

Caroline: Yeah! [Laughs] So basically, there’s this beautiful, perfect book called She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. It’s essentially Mulan meets The Song of Achilles. It’s just, like, if you want angst, if you want anguish, if you want to have your heart ripped out and served to you on a platter and have it done so beautifully that you ask for seconds, you have to read this book. It’s an alternate history about the origins of the Ming dynasty starring a genderqueer main character who steals her brother’s identity. She uses she/her pronouns but does not identify as a women, for those listening. And so she steals her brother’s identity and his fate of greatness to make her way in 14th-century China. There’s action; there’s romance; there’s war; there’s intrigue. It’s epic! Like, if, Sarah, maybe if you could put, like, a cool reverb behind my voice in editing when I say that it’s epic –

[Laughter]

Caroline: – that would, that would really help me if you could do that.

Sarah: All right, let me see what I’ve got here.

Caroline: Yeah. [Laughs] No, it’s EPIC! It’s beautiful! The angst, the anguish! There’s one point where she stands between two armies, and you’re just like, I think you read it and you just go, ahhh! the whole time. It’s gorgeous and like Mulan meets The Song of Achilles; what more could you want?

Sarah: All right, so I do have a question: how are you planning book promotion in the coming year? What are some of the things that you are thinking of doing? And you don’t have to give away all your secrets, ‘cause I know that everyone is really struggling with limited bandwidth to be as creative as possible in both unlimited access, but also limited opportunity of venue.

Caroline: No, for sure! Well, so, I’ll, I’ll start by saying that, you know, I think my approach to book publicity has always been that it, it’s not one size fits all? Like, a plan that works really well for one book is not going to work really well for another book? And so I, I feel like I’ve kind, and all of us have sort of drilled down on that concept in the past year because it’s about playing to the strengths of the authors and the wants of the readers. So –

Sarah: That’s a really good way of looking at it, yeah.

Caroline: Yeah! I mean, like, talking about, like, Kit Rocha at the beginning of this podcast, like, they are super online. They know where their readers are. They, like, they’re really, really well connected and have a lot of friends, both within the romance community and within the, the sci-fi/fantasy community, so we were able to do lots of different book events for them that kind of tailored themselves to different readerships. And I think that was, one of the key sort of learnings was that, like, you know, in the Beforetimes you could send authors on a tour and be like, yes, tonight you will be in Cincinnati, and tomorrow night you will be in California, and the night after that you’ll be in New York City, and you will talk to different groups of people there. But now, the people in Cincinnati and California and New York City can all go to the same event? So –

Sarah: Yeah.

Caroline: – you, like, that’s not how you – like, you can’t do two book events that all of those people are going to want to go to, because, in fact, we’re all very tired of Zoom events, so, like, you, you’ve got to kind of trim it down and have a lot more intent. So is it like, tonight you’re going to do an event where you’re going to talk about romance tropes, and you’re going to be with other romance authors, and that’s, like, where you can really get into the nitty-gritty, the 201 and 301 kind of stuff.

Sarah: Right.

Caroline: And, you know, tomorrow night you’ll do the same for science fiction, but on, on your launch day, it’s going to be just, like, all about you. You kind of have to find a way to differentiate between all of the, all of the different readerships for a book and all of the authors’ strengths, I think?

Sarah: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Caroline: So yeah.

Sarah: And I know it can be really challenging to convince people sometimes to sign on to an evening video conference if their day is spent video conferencing? Like, I can tell you there is zero chance that my kids, who are doing all of their school through Zoom, would want to do one in the evening unless it was a seriously intense allure for them. And –

Caroline: Yeah.

Sarah: – it’s, it’s hard to take advantage of the fact that, you know, there’s no geographical boundary or, or travel required, but also the opportunities and platforms are, they have limitations.

Caroline: I mean, yeah! They, they fully have limitations, and I think, you know, at the beginning of the pandemic, you know, book publishing is not, I’ll say, like, the speediest of industries, because, just because –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Caroline: – it takes, it takes a long time to, like, write a book, edit a book, print a book, get a book to bookstores. Like, all of those steps take a lot of time, so –

Sarah: Right, right. This is why you’re working on spring/summer 2021 right now.

Caroline: Well, exactly! And, you know, like, at the start of the pandemic, we all went into lockdown, but we had all of these tours for months, like months in advance, that were booked!

Sarah: Yep.

Caroline: And so we had to kind of figure out how to pivot, and the, the first few rounds of, of those were like, okay, well, a, a tour, normally you would do like one event a day at least for like a week, so you have seven events in a row –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Caroline: – and as it turns out, like, even an author with the most diehard fans is just like, you’re going to need a little something more to get people to sign on to yet another Zoom call, because –

Sarah: Yeah.

Caroline: – that’s just, it’s so much. So I think that is where, you know, like, that comes into, to playing to, to different authors’ strengths. Like, Kate Elliott didn’t do one event a day; she did like one event a week; and Kit Rocha are still doing events periodically, but they’re not, like, clustered so closely together, because you know what, I just really think that, like, people want to keep going back to their favorite authors. They don’t want, like, a steady stream of them for just one week.

Sarah: Yes. And the, the things that people are tuning in for is, like you said, the, the sort of next-level conversations where someone’s going to get really into something that is specific to that fandom. It’s still, for lack of a better word, it’s still a very tag-specific opportunity to go in, in-depth into a specific topic.

Caroline: Yeah, totally! I mean, I, I will say, like, shout-out to, to Cory Doctorow, another author that I worked with this year. He, you know, he’s like a cybertech expert, and instead of doing just like a straight-up “tour” where he did a, a virtual event every night, he did a lecture series, so every night there was a different topic, and he had experts on that topic come and talk with him, and they all related to –

Sarah: Yeah.

Caroline: – what was in his book, Attack Surface, but they were all very different events, and I know because I have to go to all of these! [Laughs] So, like –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Caroline: – I’m the one who sits there every night and, and watches it, and these were all fascinating. Like, some authors are really playing to their strengths, and that’s what I mean: like, they’re thinking like, well, what would make me actually want to be on a video call again?

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: Well, shame-, shameless plug: the independent bookstore that I worked at, we just started a Twitch channel? And so we’re in the process of reaching out to authors to play videogames with us and other booksellers. So we’ve reached out to N. K. Jemisin, Angie Thomas, and a few other, like, YA authors? Especially the ones that are like, check out my PS5 – [laughs] – on Twitter! And we’re like, love your PS5; love what you’re doing; do you want to come play videogames with us? So we’re slowly making the rounds. But right now, I and another bookseller are just playing our way through Portal 2. But we’re, we’re just like, we want people to have fun, and sometimes it’s just, like, annoying to get back on your computer and just watch people talk at each other some more?

Sarah: Yeah.

Caroline: Oh, it totally is.

Amanda: So we’re trying to, like, reinvent ways to do, like, promotion, but also, you know, authors can have a bit more fun. Ooh.

Sarah: I had to mute because there was barking.

Zeb: Bark!

Sarah: Oh, there’s still barking!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: There is barking in support of – [laughs] –

Amanda: Of Twitch streams!

Sarah: – of Twitch streams; they love this idea! They love it!

Caroline: Dogs are known videogamers.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, Zeb loves it. So Amanda and I also Twitch stream on our, on the, the website’s Twitch channel, smarttwitches, which is one of my more joyful naming triumphs. Was very proud of that! You cannot take that away from me! I, I will sit and will play different games, and my dogs love it because I’m on the couch and they can snuggle up next to me and watch? Like, they have a really good time, so even the dogs are into the videogames.

Caroline: That’s so cute.

Sarah: So I want to ask another question, and I didn’t send this one in advance, so if you don’t have an answer it’s okay and I can take it out, but I’m curious, and I’m going to ask all the, the guests that I talk to at the end of the year: what is something that you have learned from 2020?

Caroline: Oh my God! Wow, I, you know, I, I feel like there are probably a lot of answers to this, right? Like, I think we’ve all had to reconfigure our lives a lot?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Caroline: And I think that’s maybe made us rethink the limits of our capabilities? Like, in, in a really exciting way, you know. Like, for such a long time, publishing, for example, was, like, very firmly based in New York, very firmly, you have to come into the office to do this, and now that this has happened, there’s a little more flexibility with regards to, to being in the office, and with regards to how we do things, and I, I think learning the limits of our capabilities professionally and personally is a really nice silver lining to this.

Sarah: Yeah.

Caroline: To this whole pandemic. But I think personally, the thing that I’ve learned is just the importance of boundaries. Because –

Sarah: Oh, just a bit, yeah?

Caroline: Yeah! Well, ‘cause, like, you know, it’s, like, living in quarantine is like you start to inhabit this liminal space between, like, like, like, even just like the way the, the virus works, like, you never know if you have it, really, so, like, you’re in this like, maybe I’m sick, maybe I’m not? I’m not, it’s not technically work hours, but I could be working and I should be working, but also maybe I shouldn’t because my brain needs a break. Maybe I should be reading a book for work right now, but I can’t because I’m thinking about ten thousand different things. You know, like, it really, it makes you realize the importance of setting boundaries and structuring your life in a way that works for you and kind of like the importance of personalizing things. Yeah, like, I, I don’t know; I think before this we all were, like, on similar schedules. We were like, well, you know, we, we wake up and we do our morning routine, and then we commute and we go to work and we do our nine to five, and then we come home and we make dinner, and, you know, there are a few variations among that –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Caroline: – but it was largely the same, and now I think people are like, well, I’m actually not a morning person, but I’m going to, like, structure my routine in a way that I’m still, like, fulfilling all of my obligations while maybe being a little kinder to myself. And, you know, it’s, it’s weird to say that good things come out of this, like, horrible, horrible pandemic, but I think there have been some good learnings.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s podcast. I’m curious: what books are you looking forward to this year, from any person, any publisher? And out of curiosity, what virtual events did you really enjoy in the past year? I would really love to know.

You can email me at [email protected]. You can leave a message at 1-201-371-3272. You can also tell me a bad joke; you know I love those. Or you can join us Tuesday nights, 7:30 p.m. Eastern on Stereo. If you liked last week’s episode, that’s pretty much what it’s like. You can join us for a live podcast after party. You can record messages and we’ll play them on the air, and you can listen to us live. But only on the Stereo app, so go to stereo.com/smartbitches to get started. If you’re feeling a little lonely or you have reached your limit with the Quarantimes like I have, please come hang out with us. We promise we’ll probably be talking about food and books and almost certainly about books and food, plus we talk about videogames and what’s keeping us happy amid the never-ending Quarantimes. We would love to hear from you in our broadcast, especially if you want to tell us about a book you’re reading. Join us Tuesday nights, 7:30 Eastern, at stereo.com/smartbitches. That’s Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. Eastern, stereo.com/smartbitches.

We will have links to all of the different things we talked about, and we will have links to all of the books we talked about in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast! And all of these books are entered into the database by Amanda, who’s amazing! So thank you, Amanda, and thank you to garlicknitter for this week’s transcript. [Always a pleasure! – gk]

I always end with a terrible joke, and I am scrolling through my show notes to make sure that I haven’t forgotten anything, because I like to get to the joke part, and I get so excited sometimes I forget and I have to go back and edit things in. But nope! I didn’t forget. It’s joke time! This joke comes to me from Fibrobabe on Twitter. Hello, Fibrobabe!

What do you get when the sunrise bends over?

What do you get when the sunrise bends over?

The crack of dawn.

[Laughs] I love it! Thank you, Fibrobabe! Listen, if you just want to tell me bad jokes on any and all forms of social media, please do? They make me so happy! And I know you tell these jokes to other people, just spreading the joy around, because you’re wonderful, wonderful humans.

On behalf of all of us here, have a great weekend with lots and lots and lots of good books. We will be back next with yet another podcast, this time an extra-long, extra-special edition – [whispers] – with Sarah J. Maas! Shh! Don’t tell!

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

[soothing music]