Avoliot

Everina Maxwell. Author of Winter's Orbit, Ocean's Echo, and upcoming winter soldier lesbians Call Me Traitor (27th October from Tor). @everina-maxwell-updates for book related stuff. Trans rights are human rights.

[everina-maxwell-updates]

Cover is UP! The stunning art is by @eliotbaum.

Call Me Traitor is the story of a living weapon fighting her way towards personhood and the awful lesbian she's doing it with. I keep calling it 'the sapphic Winter Soldier wizards' book despite being told we can't put that in the blurb.

STORY:

En is a weapon. Battle spells are carved into her skin, she’s trained to work through pain, and she’s magically compelled with loyalty to the archmagi. When she's sent on a mission to retrieve a group of infamous traitors from exile in a land of unpredictable and deadly magic, she's forced to team up with a common soldier to have any chance of success, or survival.

Tamol is a disaster. En isn’t fooled by the soldier’s silver tongue and good looks. Tamol is flighty, cowardly and the worst soldier En has ever met. But she’s also brilliant at magic and kinder than En has any right to expect. When she saves En’s life, it takes everything En has not to start falling for her. That is, until En discovers Tamol is one of the very traitors she seeks.

The empire never forgets. Years ago, the exiled traitors were just normal students with a vision for a better kingdom. They put their lives on the line fighting for it and lost. So they were exiled to the Far Peninsula to die. But now, the empire discovers the traitors may yet live, and they’ve unearthed something in the wilderness that the archmagi will pay any price to get.

But the might of an unforgiving empire isn’t the greatest force in all the land. Something monstrous is living in the Far Peninsula that does not discriminate between soldiers, traitors, and kings.

Out October! Preorders (every one of them highly treasured for obscure publishing industry reasons) are up here!

[avoliot]

So this is the book I have spent the last few years on! I think it's the best thing I've written. I am both nervous and hugely excited. Reblogs massively appreciated if that is your thing, and if you are inclined to preorder, they do help me out a lot with my publisher, but I completely understand that not everyone is in a position to. All interest treasured and appreciated!

(Also: HOW gorgeous is this art! I am unspeakably in love with it! How it captures these two idiots so accurately, and the incredible dawn clouds and the mountain and the sea. I pushed for Eliot Baum for the cover ever since he was among the initial artist suggestions because of the gorgeous way he does characters, and this both showed me that was the right choice and also completely blew me away. Highly recommend the follow: @eliotbaum. I am also a big fan of the title design, which is by Jess Kiley!)

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

i NEED people to realise foreshadowing is. in fact. a literary device. and not a Bad Thing. the audience picking up on your hints is a Good Thing. because. it makes the story and it’s conclusion make sense. and some people will not see those but enjoy seeing them on a second read through. red herrings are one thing but if your novel consists of nothing but red herrings it’s not a coherent story it’s just a collection of paragraphs that don’t actually plausibly link to one another. you're not fighting with the audience you don’t look clever you look like you don’t know how basic fiction works. be vulnerable for once in your goddamn life and don't treat writing like a game to be won where the audience losing is a good thing.

[ineffectualdemon]

Getting to the end of a story and going "THE CLUES WERE THERE THE WHOLE TIME!" is always joyous for me whether or not I picked up on the clues leading up

If I saw the clues and caught the hints then yes! I am clever and me and the author/creator/artist etc were in on it together the whole time!

If I didn't notice the clues or got fooled but can clearly see them in hindsight then "Ha! You won this time storyteller! I am delighted by this game we play!' and then I enjoy putting the pieces together afterwards and enjoying how clever it was. I feel like the creator respects me as an audience

If there is a "twist" that comes with 0 clues or foreshadowing at all I'm annoyed. I'm pissed off. I feel like I'm being condescended to and patronised. It's not clever or interesting and makes me annoyed I ended up caring about characters and plot points that ended up meaningless.

Because it's not that these stories don't have foreshadowing or plot clues. They just abandon it for a "surprising twist"

A story that pays off the clues is letting me into the fun and makes a participant in the story

A story that just gives me a "shock" but no pay off is telling me not to engage or get attached or care. So why would I watch?

[s-n-arly]

OMG! THIS!

Random plot twists that don't connect to anything in the story are not clever. If we don't see it coming because the writer didn't provide any clues, they aren't clever and it's totally unsatisfying (and I will NEVER read this writer again). These clues need not be lit up in neon with a parade of elephants and showgirls. But they need to be present

I'm a writer and am rarely surprised. Often, if I am surprised it's because the writer was a dumbass and included a "twist" that makes no sense (and therefore isn't really a twist, it's just random bullshit). If a writer genuinely surprises me, without being an absolute dumbass, I am FUCKING DELIGHTED! I will tell everyone I know to read the book/see the movie/watch the show.

[ardentmystacina]

Foreshadowing is the reward for paying attention. It's the story letting you in on the secret like a co-conspirator because you're the clever little audience member who has been picking up on the clues the writer has been setting up.

It even makes watching/reading again more worthwhile because if you didn't notice the foreshadowing the first time you have the joy of being able to notice the things you missed!

[saltwaterandstars]

I almost never post anything political here but we have elections in the uk today and I am begging you - if you live in the uk and you're eligible to vote - please vote. If you have any interest in stopping reform taking over councils - councils that control provision of social care, education, libraries and so on - please vote.

And don't forget to take your photo id.

[snailychan]

Two

[hollow-head]

"who do you self insert as when you read?"

This is me when I read:

[tatzelwurming]

listen i consider myself an empathic person but after a certain point i get sick of other people’s problems. my friend is always talking about how the jewel-eyed skull on their mantlepiece is tormenting them w its sinister beauty and im over it. like dude i don’t want to talk about this anymore. get rid of the fucking skull

[e-102]

you’ are biased against my skull

[tatzelwurming]

i’m not having this argument again man

[thrusticus]

[cinematicvests]

watching fandom lore get built but you’re not really sure how it happened:

[feldfrog]

Imagine being one of the parents for the kids in the Magic School Bus class. Getting those field trip permission slips home every single night.

Like what, another one? Doesn’t she teach? This just says Inside a Dog

[1five1two]

'Shadows'. Olga Kvasha. 2009.

[c-leadraw]

Winter's Orbit by @avoliot

[avoliot]

really really dislike having to look up new songs recommended on youtube to see if they're ai. fuck ai.

[seaemberthesecond]

too much sea propaganda on this site. "the boundlessness of the sea" this and "let's go walk into the sea" that. what about the terrifying immensity of The Mountain. huh? what about walking into. The Mountain. The mountain has snow leopards. Does the sea have snow leopards? No. All it has is fish. Disgusting. Wake up! Don't let Big Sea get you!!!!

[tarragonthedragon]

in 2026 i am wishing for all of us the energy of bilbo baggins, who was headhunted for an extremely well paid role he had no qualifications or experience for, blagged the interview, and within his first week found a magic ring that does the job for him

[toofrenchtofunction]

this will surely not have downstream consequences for the next generation

[saddest-girl-in-the-whole-world]

It's great how every character in the locked tomb is, from their pov, in a different genre of story.

Like Gideon is in a dark YA lesbian romance / horror story and Harrow is in The Count of Monte Cristo and Ianthe is in The Count of Monte Cristo and Pal is in The Count of Monte Cristo and Mercymorn is in The Count of Monte Cristo and Augustine is in The Count of Monte Cristo and John is in Homestuck and Nona is in The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

[parkchanwoohoo]

I love seeing stores and cafes that display and sell shitty local art. Everybody on the planet should be making shitty local art. Everyone in the community should get to see what shitty local art everyone else is making. Eventually you will find something and be like hold on. This weirdly speaks to me. I've never seen anything quite like this, whether because of this person's idiosyncratic style or strange choice of subject matter or what. And suddenly your favorite piece of art is a collage painting done by a woman who waits tables during the day and does roller derby at night and uses the excess flyers and paper menus from both places of work to make amateur art on the weekends and you realize this is such a bizarre combination of circumstances that has produced something so striking to you, how lucky you are to live in a world where this got to exist and you got to see it

[wrenchswango]

I love chain lightening what a classic spell. fuck you and you and you and you and you and

[wrenchswango]

too many dweebs think this is about dnd, this is real life. this is how I get to the front of the line at five guys.