Sythyry

I’ve uploaded improved versions of the e-books of The Wrath of Trees to both Amazon and Smashwords. The new versions have, among other improvements suggested by several of you, a Table of Contents. Amazon’s gadgetry is perplexing me, and I’m not sure that the Kindle will recognize the Table of Contents as the Table of Contents, or format it properly — but at least it’s a list of links at the beginning of the book to all the chapters, including the appendix, which is most of it.

If you’ve bought the book already, I think you can download the newer edition for free.

If not, and if you buy it soon, you’ll get a slightly nicer edition than the first.

• Kindle edition from Amazon
• Paper edition from Amazon
• Many formats of e-book from SmashWords

I will give five Kindle-format copies of The Wrath of Trees to five people who will promise to review it on Amazon by Jan 31. Do you want one, on those terms?

On a world devastated by the importation of alien grasses, Melyl is an intelligent, telepathic tree who can eavesdrop on the minds of anyone who eats her berries. She was kidnapped, enslaved, and forced to use her powers to spy on her master’s rival nations. It won’t be long before she is discovered, uprooted, and burned as another invader. But how can she free herself when she is rooted in her kidnapper’s garden?

After far too long, my non-World-Tree novel The Wrath of Trees is available, with spiffy cover art and some interior illustrations by the amazing Tod Wills.

You can get it on Amazon in paperback
or a whole lot cheaper in Kindle format.
Or, you can get the paperback on CreateSpace here for the same price but more of it goes to me.

[I'm going to be at Midwest FurFest this weekend! With wings on, and a blue dragon mask. If you'll be there and feel like it, reply to this message and I'll give you more useful contact info. -bard]

There’s an in-character flame war over in Delight’s Livejournal, in which Sythyry, Delight, and one of Delight’s friends, plus some humans, are arguing World Tree political philosophy. The frequently-amazing Rowyn is playing Delight and one of her friends, and thus arguing against herself.

When Hurricane Katrina struck, Sythyry had the Night of a Thousand Sleeth. I’m going to invite that again. There have been a lot of disasters lately. I’m offering cameos in Sythyry for donations (which will go to the Red Cross).

1. For $7, you will show up — probably as one of the first visitors to Sythyry’s new city.
2. For $12, you will get to exchange a few sentences with Sythyry or another cast member of your choice. I cannot, unfortunately, promise that they will be nice to you.
3. For $19, you will play an important role in one episode. Feel free to suggest a topic for the episode as well, which I will use if I can.
4. For $84, you will be involved in a many-episode plot arc. You can give me a suggestion for it, and I will try to do something along those lines.
5. For $4386, you can be a total Mary Sue / self-insertion character and I will follow your plot directions as well as I possibly can.

Please send me a sentence or two about how you want to be manifest in the story: species, gender, description, whatever. I will do my best to follow your directions, but I may need to fiddle things so they fit World Tree reality.

State of the Sythyry

And that’s the end of the second year of Sythyry’s Vacation. Two years, two hundred twenty-seven Sythyry’s Vacation entries, and a quarter of a million words later. (And still no actual doom-free vacation for Sythyry, but maybe zie’ll get to have some relaxation in Hanija.)

I’ve been posting three times a week for most of 2010. That’s been a bit much: I’ve generally been able to keep up with it, but I had to take a break for a while to recover at one point, and I haven’t written much other fiction.

So, my plan for 2011 is, two Sythyry posts a week, probably Monday and Thursday. And the usual scattering of Vae posts, polls, and other oddments, of course. Plus I’ll try to self-publish at least one of the books sitting around on my hard drive doing nothing. I’m also writing another one so it can sit around on my hard drive doing nothing for a while (and I’m looking for a couple of early readers for that, too).

But, Sythyry is a matter of vanity public utility public service, so if you zap me with a sufficient degree of joy about Sythyry (see below) in a given week, I’ll post more Sythyry.

How to Fuel Sythyry’s Vacation

I write and post Sythyry’s Vacation because I know that people read it and enjoy it. The more fuel I get for it, the more I’ll write. So here’s what I want for fuel, with the most important things up top. If you do any of these things, you are encouraging me to write more.

1. More readers! If you think that Yorgo the Approximately Glorious would like Sythyry’s Vacation, tell zir about it.
2. Feedback! Comments to me, on LJ or personal email or chat or whatever. Notes to Sythyry, which zie sometimes answers and occasionally (rarely!) even understands properly. Notes to other characters if you like. Suggestions to me of things you’d like to see. Cheers for things you’re glad you saw, or even complaints about things you weren’t glad you saw. Feedback is what keeps me writing day by day, so it’s definitely at the top of the list.
3. Buy our other stuff! There’s the World Tree RPG gamebook (which explains the physics and general world that Sythyry lives in) if you like gaming. My novel A Marriage of Insects is set in the same universe and has a similar style. Sythyry’s Journal is a collection of the first run of Sythyry, self-published. These are all available on Amazon (possibly free shipping), or you can order through us and get signatures and maybe other goodies (but not free shipping).
4. Reviews on SF and RPG sites! Honest ones, and I do hope that means they’re pretty good, but definitely honest.
5. Link me on your blog or website!
6. Artwork! I will bring the art page back up to date, even, and people will view and admire your artwork. Special Offer: If I get an icon of any Strayway character, I will let that character post and chat with you, as Vae is doing now. Want to talk to Grinwipey? Here’s your chance!
7. Donate! This is cyber-funded creativity, I suppose. I’m not particularly trying to make money off of it, but I do accept tips and will probably do something nice for you (like a cameo) if you give me one.
   
   
8. Answer the polls and such! I enjoy watching answers show up, and getting surprised at the collective opinion.
9. Send us other creative or fun stuff!

And if you don’t do any of that … please keep reading Sythyry anyways. That’s what it’s for. And as long as enough people are reading, and I know it, I’ll keep writing.

And if you’re already doing that or have done it, thank you very much!

Enjoy!

[Due to a surfeit of circumstances, Bard has become rather toasted. It will take a break of a few weeks from Sythyry, until it returns to its customary soggy self. There may be quizzes and other nonsense during the break. Pattery, flattery, nattery, and chattery are welcome. -bb]

I’m now listed at Web Fiction Guide (http://webfictionguide.com/listings/sythyrys-vacation/). In case you didn’t know about Sythyry before, but are somehow reading this entry, now you can find out about it there. More to the point, if you want to review it or something, that’d be a good place to do so.

Or of course if you want other web fiction, you can look there too.

Go and see the wonderful bee jewelry that Vicki made! She grew the bees herself!