#cold magic

[qng3lzs]

Rory sketch page cuz I LOVE HIM SM...does anyone gaf about the spiritwalker trilogy in big 2025...💔

[booksandchainmail]

march reading 2025

A good month for reading! Better in the front half than the back half, looking at my records. Of course, what they don't note is that the back half also involved getting caught up on the new wildbow serial Seek (I don't tend to note ongoing serializations in my reading tracker), so that would bolster the second half's quantity and quality.

16 books read this month, 50 in the year so far. Making good progress towards my goals I think, though I need to add more nonfiction into the mix, and get back to the physical books on my shelves.

Books of note:

Gilgamesh: yeah okay this is worth its reputation, the essays in the Sophus Helle translation helped with it a lot, and it's fun getting to feel a part of a millennia-old literary tradition. Read for ancient doomed yaoi, some beautiful language (dependent on translation), and a sense of connection to human history.

Spiritwalker Trilogy, by Kate Elliott: a reread but I had remembered very little. Elliott's books always grab me and stick around in my head for a while afterwards. Such fun worldbuilding, and she does a great job of writing characters who convincingly have an entirely different set of cultural programming than the author and reader do (see also Unconquered Sun). These books have so much in them: there's a very good arranged marriage/romance plot, then also a spirit world/wild hunt/dragons and fae plot, and then a napoleon/revolution/social reform plot all twisted around each other. Read if you like romance, fae, or revolution, or for the wildly creative setting.

Tipping the Velvet, by Sarah Waters: why had I not gotten around to this? A lesbian classic, much less depressing than some of her other books, a lot of really dramatic twists of life. I knew it involved an 1890s girl working as a male impersonator: did not know that was only the first third of the book, and that for the rest she was a) the butch boytoy sugar baby of a rich older woman and b) a socialist. Read for pulpy fun in a richly realized (though not historical accurate) setting and meditations on lesbian and butch identity.

[kateelliottsff]

The History of the World Begins in Ice

I’m delighted to announce that, in Summer 2024, Fairwood Press will be publishing a collection of stories and essays from the Spiritwalker (Cold Magic) universe, titled

THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD BEGINS IN ICE:

Stories and Essays from the World of Cold Magic.

That’s right! A collection of fiction and non fiction from and about my Afro-Celtic post-Roman icepunk adventure set in an alt-fantasy 19th century Earth alongside a perilous spirit world, and including Phoenician spies, well-dressed men, revolutionary-minded women, and of course lawyer dinosaurs.

The collection will be published in a trade paperback edition and an ebook edition. It will contain eleven stories and eleven essays, as well as an introduction by N.K. Jemisin.

Each story will have an illustration by a different artist. The collection will include “The Secret Journal of Beatrice Hassi Barahal” with all 28 of the original Julie Dillon illustrations, previously published only in a 300 copy chapbook edition. Here’s the narrator of the trilogy, Cat Barahal, as drawn by Julie Dillon.

Nine of the eleven stories were previously published. The other two are being written specifically for this collection.

If there is enough interest, Fairwood Press will produce a limited edition deluxe hardcover edition with two extra color plates (by Julie Dillon), a fold out triptych (by Kelsey Liggett), and a chapbook insert of the infamous smut chapter, “Chapter 31.5,” from Cold Fire. I can’t promise exact figures (and recent cost of paper increases may mean my guess is way out of date) but likely in the $40-50 range for a book of about 100,000 words.

You can express interest here (comment below or reply via email) or by writing directly to Fairwood Press. If you are interested, please (if you can) write in as soon as possible since creating a deluxe edition will take additional work, monetary investment, and time (that we would be delighted to take on).

Pre-order information will come as soon as it is available.

I first started thinking in autumn 2018 about producing this collection with a Fall 2020 publication date to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the publication of Cold Magic. Events conspired against me at the time, by which I mean I didn’t have the energy or time to move forward with it.

So I am incredibly thrilled to work with Patrick Swenson and Fairwood Press to bring this long-dreamt-of project to life and share it with all of you Spiritwalker fans.

[semi-implicit]

[ice-nix]

[astreiants-archive]

if we prosper only through the suffering or death of another, then that is not prosperity.

make me choose: @rykemedows asked cat barahal or cat barahal

[sillustrate]

Inktober 2017 Day 6: Sword Sixth we have Cat and Adevai, from the Spiritwalker trilogy by Kate Eliott. Since one of the books (Cold Steel) is named after a sword, I figured they worked best for this prompt ;) Sorry I fell behind in posting! I had a mini apartment emergency. I’ll do proper scans of all the drawings once the month is done. More YA heroes and heroines to come!

[kateelliottsff]

Happy New Year with a Spiritwalker short story/coda

In honor of the last tiny bit of the 10th anniversary year of the publication of COLD MAGIC, a small end of the year gift to my Spiritwalker readers, up at @booksmugglers

This heartwarming G-rated coda story to the trilogy accompanies an illustration by @KelseyLegit

Please share widely! Trying to reach all Cold Magic readers!

https://www.thebooksmugglers.com/2020/12/when-i-grow-up-by-kate-elliott-a-spiritwalker-short-story.html