Category Archives: Talyn

Halloween Tonk
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9

Got an email from a reader who loved Talyn and wanted to make herself a Tonk Shielder uniform.

She used Talyn as her basic reference, and got a lot of the rest of the details from the Tonk Stuff I’ve posted online.

She asked me a few additional questions, though, I provided details, and she sent me her Halloween pictures, along with permission to post them here. I thought this was really cool, so I present to you, EJ, Tonk Shielder.

Start with the clan mark tattooed on her left hand. You can find ALL the Tonk Clan Marks here:

http://hollylisle.com/images/tonk_clans_&_clan_symbols.jpg

You’ll note that EJ is Clan Berdaa, (pronounced bair-DAY-ah) one of the New Clans.

EJ's Tonk Clan Mark

I was able to provide a good description for the insignia on the beret–I hadn’t gone into detail on the battle ribbons, so EJ had to wing those.

Beret, Vest, Shirt with Battle Ribbons on Shoulder.

And finally, the full Tonk Shielder uniform with cap and beret.

EJ in Full Tonk Shielder Uniform

If you ever do a costume from one of my books, I’d love to see the pictures, and I’ll be thrilled to post them here.

(With, maybe, an exception for the bodyart in Hunting The Corrigan’s Blood. Nudity and all, you know.)

A thoughtful post on Christian/Muslim reconciliation
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The writer of this is Quaker (I used to be) and a visiting scholar at Yale Divinity School. My personal take on any religion is “no, thanks,” but I am a firm supporter of freedom of religion. And of tolerance, defined as follows: I will tolerate you, your quirks, and your beliefs, if you will tolerate me, my quirks, and my beliefs, and if nothing you do imposes on the rights of others to life, liberty, and the pursuit of lawful happiness. I, in my part, will not impose on your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of lawful happiness.

I will not pretend to be someone I’m not in order to have you like me under false pretenses. I ask that you return the favor.

And I don’t tolerate child molesters, rapists, murderers, or factions of religions whose only happiness can be achieved if I am subsumed into their religion, or killed for not joining.

This is, I think, a reasonable definition of tolerance. It may not be perfect, but neither am I.

And with that thought, I give you Sarah Ruden writing for the Wall Street Journal on Yale’s Christian/Muslim Reconciliation Conference.

Some of what she had to say made me think of Talyn. Some of it made me think of Hawkspar.

Thanks to Jim for the link.

My Super-Secret Agenda Revealed
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Arconna said—The fact that Democrats accused Republicans of fiddling with votes and intentionally disenfranchising voters who had names similar to criminals is just as disturbing as Democrats doing the same thing. All that that proves is that no party has the interests of the American people in mind, just their own. I’m absolutely sick of this divide between parties.

YES! That’s it. That’s my secret agenda! I want the Democrats and the Republicans, people in any third parties, and those of us who have NO party that stands for what we think and believe, to work together for the good of the country, and the good of the citizens in it.

All the ceaseless bickering partisanship, all the Democrats Are Bad, Republicans Are Bad, We’re Better Than You Are idiocy, is destroying all of us. The nation is too big and to diverse to speak with one voice. But its varied voices need to start talking to each other, rather than at each other.

The Romans were masters of “Divide and Conquer,” and kept half a world of enemies successfully occupied for a couple thousand years while they ruled with increasing despotism. Both Republicans and Democrats from the far edges of their respective constituencies are using the same “Divide and Conquer” strategy quite effectively to keep people who mostly agree with each other at each other’s throats. So long as we remain distracted by fighting each other about the red flags each side waves in our faces, we cannot force those in power to change.

We are a nation deeply divided by politics and the people who wield politics as their weapon. Yet most of us share the common ground of love of liberty, a belief in human rights and freedoms, the right to the pursuit of happiness, and the value of representative government made up of people we chose who ACTUALLY REPRESENT US. Our divisions are taking all of that away from us, a piece here and a piece there, from both ends of the spectrum. The goal of both sides is to get into power and then stay there. What we want and what we need as a people and a nation does not begin to figure into that.

HUGE SPOILER WARNING FOR TALYN FOLLOWS—–

Continue reading →

It’s Out There (The Ruby Key is Live)
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16

I’ve been haunting the local bookstore, and THE RUBY KEY isn’t on the shelves yet, so it didn’t really dawn on me that people are already reading it.

But Tina already has a review up (and is giving a copy away), and I’m not ready.

I knit two pairs of Genna’s socks to give away, and they’re done, but not blocked, and I haven’t done certificates of authenticity for them or anything. At the moment, they’re just two teenager-sized pairs of woolly green socks.

If you spot the book, please let me know where you find it (in the store–YA, front of the store, in with the adult fantasy….I worry about where it’s going to land), and when it lands.

Meanwhile, I’ll get the sock stuff done for the giveaway.

Thank you
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19

I’d like to take the time to thank each of you who has faced out a copy of Talyn at your bookstore, or bought a copy for yourself or someone else, or recommended it to a friend or a bookseller. I apologize for being so distracted by garbage that I haven’t taken the time to say this properly.

It’s been an unpleasant week or so—most people probably think I should have just ignored the whole Little tempest, but I believe that someone who has been lied about has the moral obligation to defend his innocence. However, as noted by one commenter, anything you say when someone lies about you will only convince the people who want to believe the lie that it was justified, and that sort of hostility is no fun to deal with. While I know that I had to go on record correcting the lies, I acknowledge (and knew beforehand) that this whole thing would have sunk from lack of interest if I had let the lies stand.

You folks have been huge bright spots for me with this garbage, as well, and I want to thank you for that, too. Your support and encouragement, as well as your help with Talyn means more to me than I can say

The Tonk need a rescue
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31

Talyn in PaperbackTalyn debuts in paperback today. With luck, you’ll find it in local indie bookstores, where real people order books, and where support for my work has been strong. If you don’t have an indie store, then you may find it in your local chain bookstore, but computers order the books for chains, and they order to the net, a process that kills most writing careers in three books.

I’m not in danger of having my career killed at the moment, but Hawkspar could easily be the last Tonk/ Korre book. The sale of a third book in the series depends on the paperback success of Talyn. The Talyn hardcover had a small print run, and sellthrough was meager. If the hardcover showed up in your bookstore, it probably did so with one spined-out copy, and if that sold, no more were reordered. That was the story with most of the chains, including mine. With no sales reports in front of me, I have to guess that the majority of sales came from the indies.

There’s a very narrow time window (about a month) in which the book has a chance to succeed or fail. The clock starts today. If it succeeds, it will get another month. If it fails, though, it will disappear from most of the chains at this time in December, and that will be the kiss of death to Redbird, the third book.

If you have been waiting for whatever reason to buy Talyn, now is the time when buying it will make a difference.

If you enjoyed Talyn or the world of Korre, please recommend (read “beat over the head with”) the book to anyone you think might enjoy it. If you can’t find it in your local bookstore, please ask your local bookseller to order it in. Perhaps in quantity.

And if it isn’t available where you are, then you can buy it here from these online indies:

Or the chains online, of course:Amazon is one of the online sales venues of last resort, along with Books-A-Million and Barnes and Noble.

Talyn is one of the two best books I’ve written (I consider Hawkspar its equal) and though I know the odds are against me, I want this world to succeed. If you can help out in any way, my deepest thanks.

And if you do a review or something else that might encourage people to buy, please post a link here. I’ll put a link to this post and links to some of the reviews on the front page.

All articles in this series, in order:

Update
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1

I wrote a long post yesterday, but my browser ate it, and I was too exhausted to do it again. The short version is that yesterday I woke up at 2:30 AM, got up and started to work at 4:30 AM, and by one had finished Chapter Five of The Ruby Key, the complete synopsis of the rest of the book, and the short sheet on where I see the rest of the series going.

Today I’m revising, in spite of a rotten headache. Later today or tomorrow, I’ll send it off to my agent, and get back to work on the Language Clinic and Hawkspar.

I’m fighting a really screwed-up sleep schedule right now, and this is adding all sorts of exciting layers of complexity to my life. I’ll get it worked out … but considering I was up until about 3:00 AM this morning before finally falling asleep, today probably won’t be the day that happens.