Ask the Authors (Fandemonium)

[Elizabeth Christensen]

Ms. Christensen, I words cannot express how much I enjoyed "Exogenesis". I think it is by far the best SGA of the 4 novels I have read so far, 'Reliquary', 'The Chosen', 'Exogenesis', and 'Entanglement'. You and Sonny made the characters and the angst real.

I picked up a few books while I was at Shore Leave, and I started reading 'Blood Ties'... Unfortunately, having read a couple of chapters, I'm afraid that I am a little tempted to put it away. I will put the rest into a spoiler tag, since it's still a relatively new book, and no one can accuse me of spoiling them... Just would like some clarification on something, if you can spare a moment.

Spoiler:

Did I completely miss something in the prologue about what exactly it is that Beckett discovered in his research? I get a bit annoyed when characters are talking about things and I have absolutely no idea what just happened. I read through chapter 1 and the first page or two of chapter 2, and there was no explanation to be found before I stopped reading for the night, and I'm afraid it's hurting the immersion factor for me a little.

Hi there -- thanks so much for the note about Exo! Terrific to hear. Sorry it's taking a while to get to some of the plot exposition in Blood Ties; it's spread out a bit over the first couple of chapters, so most likely you haven't gotten to the explanation of what Beckett discovered yet. The prologue was meant as a teaser. If you get through the scene in

Spoiler:

the SGC briefing room

and still don't quite understand, let me know and I'll try to lay it out in summary form. There are plot nooks and crannies and monkey-wrenches galore in that book. (Figuratively; there's no Sgt. Siler carrying around an actual wrench, although maybe there should have been ...)

Also, just to let you know since you enjoyed Exo, a note about Blood Ties:

Spoiler:

if Rodney's one of your favorites, he's portrayed a little differently in Blood Ties. Some folks have found our Blood Ties treatment of him too harsh; I promise you that our intention was to not to make him season-1 snippy but instead to show how wrecked up he was over losing Carson -- grief tends to sharpen some edges.

Wow, I never get this much use out of the spoiler tags. Can't be too careful, though ... I still remember someone writing an angry letter to my college's newspaper because it revealed the identity of Luke's father in Star Wars ... in a review of the Special Edition release in the mid-90s. That's taking "spoiler-free" to a whole new level.

[Sabine Bauer]

Yay!! I'm doing the happy dance around my desk here, which probably affects my dog's psyche in ways better left unexplored...

Anyway, ladies and gents, we've got our first Scribe Award Winner! Give it up for Beth whose Casualties of War won Best Speculative Fiction (Original).



Beth, I'm absolutely thrilled to bits for you! Well done, and much deserved!

[A Wraith Named Bob]

Congrats, Beth. You deserve it. Casualties was great! Keep it up!

"Yay, yay, yay!"

I would put in clappy hands but my smilies aren't working...

[Sabine Bauer]

Anyway, please forgive if it's been asked before, but I don't really feel like going through 60 more pages. Ms. Bauer, you wrote 'Mirror, Mirror', right? I see it's due out in August according to Amazon, and I will probably buy it eventually anyway, but I don't see any kind of summary in there for it, and it doesn't appear to be listed yet on stargatenovels.com. Would you be able to point me somewhere I could read about it before I buy, or will I simply have to wait for it to be released?

Hi Jersey13. Lucky you, I managed to dig up my draft of the back cover blurb from under heaps of electronic rubbish So, here goes:

If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The Atlantis expedition find out the hard way when an Ancient prodigy offers them Charybdis, a device capable of disposing of the Wraith. The experiment fails disastrously, threatening to unravel the very fabric of the Pegasus Galaxy and possibly the entire universe. Dr. Weir, Dr. Zelenka, Colonel Sheppard and his team each are isolated and trapped in an alternate version of Atlantis, fighting for their lives and sanity. As they slowly begin to understand what has happened, they must enter a desperate race against time and themselves in order to escape from a maddening tangle of alternate realities and return to their own Atlantis to undo the damage Charybdis has done before it becomes irreversible.

I've also posted a sample chapter on my website, in case you're interested: http://sabinecbauer.com/books.htm (just click on the Mirror, Mirror cover).

What would you say is your favorite type of scene to write? If you need to choose more than one, be my guest...

Anything that involves whumpage?

Seriously, though, and similar to Steve, I most enjoy writing the introspective stuff and digging around in a character's psyche. Especially with tie-in it's fun to explore/extrapolate things that can't be shown in an episode, at least not until somebody invents telepathic TV.

And by the way, Bob and Jersey13, do me a favor and call me Sabine. If you insist on calling me Ms. Bauer, I shall have to insist on full use of all available academic titles

[Jersey13]

Hi Jersey13. Lucky you, I managed to dig up my draft of the back cover blurb from under heaps of electronic rubbish [snip] ... And by the way, Bob and Jersey13, do me a favor and call me Sabine. If you insist on calling me Ms. Bauer, I shall have to insist on full use of all available academic titles

Thank you so much! And LOL, will do. I just thought I should sound polite for at least my first post.

Yay!! I'm doing the happy dance around my desk here, which probably affects my dog's psyche in ways better left unexplored...

Anyway, ladies and gents, we've got our first Scribe Award Winner! Give it up for Beth whose Casualties of War won Best Speculative Fiction (Original).



Beth, I'm absolutely thrilled to bits for you! Well done, and much deserved!

Yay! I bought that book too! Now I have to read it!

Hi there -- thanks so much for the note about Exo! Terrific to hear. Sorry it's taking a while to get to some of the plot exposition in Blood Ties; it's spread out a bit over the first couple of chapters, so most likely you haven't gotten to the explanation of what Beckett discovered yet. The prologue was meant as a teaser. If you get through the scene in

Spoiler:

the SGC briefing room

and still don't quite understand, let me know and I'll try to lay it out in summary form. There are plot nooks and crannies and monkey-wrenches galore in that book. (Figuratively; there's no Sgt. Siler carrying around an actual wrench, although maybe there should have been ...)

Also, just to let you know since you enjoyed Exo, a note about Blood Ties:

Spoiler:

if Rodney's one of your favorites, he's portrayed a little differently in Blood Ties. Some folks have found our Blood Ties treatment of him too harsh; I promise you that our intention was to not to make him season-1 snippy but instead to show how wrecked up he was over losing Carson -- grief tends to sharpen some edges.

Wow, I never get this much use out of the spoiler tags. Can't be too careful, though ... I still remember someone writing an angry letter to my college's newspaper because it revealed the identity of Luke's father in Star Wars ... in a review of the Special Edition release in the mid-90s. That's taking "spoiler-free" to a whole new level.

Thanks for the heads-up... I will give at least a few more chapters a try. And although I like Rodney a lot, Carson is my favorite character. It's been very challenging to try to keep myself motivated to write, so I have to wonder... This is a television show you've been writing about, after all. Do you ever have trouble keeping yourself motivated if something happens in the show that you truly weren't expecting, maybe even hate? What do you do about it?

Oh, and by the way, CONGRATULATIONS!

[A Wraith Named Bob]

Hi Jersey13. Lucky you, I managed to dig up my draft of the back cover blurb from under heaps of electronic rubbish So, here goes:

If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The Atlantis expedition find out the hard way when an Ancient prodigy offers them Charybdis, a device capable of disposing of the Wraith. The experiment fails disastrously, threatening to unravel the very fabric of the Pegasus Galaxy and possibly the entire universe. Dr. Weir, Dr. Zelenka, Colonel Sheppard and his team each are isolated and trapped in an alternate version of Atlantis, fighting for their lives and sanity. As they slowly begin to understand what has happened, they must enter a desperate race against time and themselves in order to escape from a maddening tangle of alternate realities and return to their own Atlantis to undo the damage Charybdis has done before it becomes irreversible.

I've also posted a sample chapter on my website, in case you're interested: http://sabinecbauer.com/books.htm (just click on the Mirror, Mirror cover).



Anything that involves whumpage?

Seriously, though, and similar to Steve, I most enjoy writing the introspective stuff and digging around in a character's psyche. Especially with tie-in it's fun to explore/extrapolate things that can't be shown in an episode, at least not until somebody invents telepathic TV.

And by the way, Bob and Jersey13, do me a favor and call me Sabine. If you insist on calling me Ms. Bauer, I shall have to insist on full use of all available academic titles

Cool. Thanks for the info on Mirror, Mirror, Sabine.

And also thanks to you and the others who answered my questions.

[Gategusher]

Yay!! I'm doing the happy dance around my desk here, which probably affects my dog's psyche in ways better left unexplored...

Anyway, ladies and gents, we've got our first Scribe Award Winner! Give it up for Beth whose Casualties of War won Best Speculative Fiction (Original).



Beth, I'm absolutely thrilled to bits for you! Well done, and much deserved!

Yes indeedy! Yeeee haaaaawwww!!!!!!! (from Karen)

[Elite Anubis Guard]

Just read Post Mortem. That was nice. A nice angst piece for Rodney and a bridge for why Sam and Rodney got on well in Season 4.

[StevenSavile]

I'll chuck my conga rats in here as well, just in case Elizabeth misses it else where. It was fun serving on the panel of judges this year and so so difficult not to blab

[GermanAstra]

Sabine, could you possibly tell a bit more about your workshop at Gatecon? Or is this the wrong place?


I read that we shall bring our work and give it to the registration desk. Can everybody only bring one or even more? What exactly will you do with them? Do you want to read hundreds of stories indeed?

I have never before attended a writers workshop, so have no idea what to expect. I was prepaired to maybe read a little scene for the others in the group and then there is talking about? But how do you want to talk about whole stories in so little time?

Well, I will be there anyway, just would love to learn something from you!

[Alipeeps]

Yay!! I'm doing the happy dance around my desk here, which probably affects my dog's psyche in ways better left unexplored...

Anyway, ladies and gents, we've got our first Scribe Award Winner! Give it up for Beth whose Casualties of War won Best Speculative Fiction (Original).



Beth, I'm absolutely thrilled to bits for you! Well done, and much deserved!

Really? OH that's brilliant news! Well done, Beth! I really enjoyed CoW - a very well-deserved win there.

Anything that involves whumpage?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

[JMSwallow]

A round of applause for Beth! You go girl.

[Elizabeth Christensen]

Yay!! I'm doing the happy dance around my desk here, which probably affects my dog's psyche in ways better left unexplored...

Anyway, ladies and gents, we've got our first Scribe Award Winner! Give it up for Beth whose Casualties of War won Best Speculative Fiction (Original).



Beth, I'm absolutely thrilled to bits for you! Well done, and much deserved!

Thanks SO much, everybody! I was up at my parents' house this weekend and didn't see the awards results until yesterday evening (I suspect those who attended Comic-Con in person were sleeping in after an entertaining Friday, so my morning email check produced no resolution). I think my shriek brought both my husband and my parents charging into the study in record time.

And Steve, I could just kiss you -- I KNEW you were one of the judges but also knew that it would be poor form to even obliquely ask about the awards before now. I may just have to send my husband north with a case of beer when he arrives in Sweden ...

Additional thanks to Sonny for some much-appreciated guidance while CoW was in progress, to say nothing of her assistance (the understatement of the century) in introducing me to the business in the first place. If anyone needs me, I'll be over here doing my happy dance for the foreseeable future.

[Reiko]

» Congrats on winning the speculative fiction award, Beth!

[StevenSavile]

And Steve, I could just kiss you -- I KNEW you were one of the judges but also knew that it would be poor form to even obliquely ask about the awards before now. I may just have to send my husband north with a case of beer when he arrives in Sweden ...

Kisses are good... murdered by pirates is better... ahem....

Least it didn't induce labour

And it was hellish, I tell you, because the category was divided into two and I also ended up serving on the 'gaming award'.... so I STILL have to keep that secret!

It never ends... I swear...