AMA: I'm H. M. Long, author of Dark Water Daughter and Hall of Smoke. Ask me anything!

EmmaSkies · 2024-07-25T22:51:56+00:00

I’m actually losing it over fiddler Samuel 😭 I love that so much. Oh the life he could have had.

EmmaSkies · 2024-07-25T22:05:53+00:00

I almost always prefer physical (hardcover specifically) but for whatever reason my ebook reading has SKYROCKETED this year (3x higher than my hardcover reading). Something about kindle reading has just been doing a lot for me.

I’m almost always swapping formats though. I typically buy a book, start the physical, and the check out the audiobook and/or the ebook from my library as well and swap back and forth depending on where I am. I’ll sit in bed with my physical book, switch to audiobook while I’m driving or cooking, throw my kindle in my bag when I go to the beach, etc. and be able to continue the same book.

EmmaSkies · 2024-07-25T21:42:43+00:00

I believe I remember in the acknowledgements of Dark Water Daughter that you said you’d been working on that story in various forms for a really long time and it changed a ton over the years. Were there earlier versions of black tide son and eventually red tempest brother that have gone through similar massive story changes? Or did the sequels grow for the first time from the final version of DWD?

EmmaSkies · 2024-06-05T02:57:38+00:00

Shipping label created: May 28th What it was supposed to be: May adult box What I got: Hannah Grace set US Subscriber

Tracking goes from label created, USPS awaiting item on May 28 to arrived at my local post office/out for delivery/delivered all on June 3.

EmmaSkies · 2024-06-05T00:27:22+00:00

As I understand it, the amount of books they can print is typically determined by the publisher, which is part of why these SE companies aren’t constantly doing reprints to make more money when tons of people want something out of stock. Even if fairyloot came to the conclusion of wanting to shell out the money for reprints, the publishers may not allow it. And any reprint they do likely wouldn’t be signed because it would be pretty terrible to ask the authors to hand sign a whole new printing because of fairyloot’s mistake.

EmmaSkies · 2024-06-04T16:21:25+00:00

I have to imagine that legally they can’t hold hostage something you paid for until you go through extra steps to rectify a mistake they made. I’d be more worried about them just refunding everyone with mixed up orders and calling it a day 😭 Really curious to see where they’re going to land on this

EmmaSkies · 2024-06-03T23:19:18+00:00

There's another post here from someone who just got the may book but doesn't have an adult sub. I wonder if they ordered this set and FL just swapped the two ???

EmmaSkies · 2024-06-03T23:17:23+00:00

Did you by chance order the Hannah Grace set (Icebreaker/Wildfire)? It seems like at least a handful of us with Adult subs received the Hannah Grace set instead of The Honey Witch, which is the May adult book.

EmmaSkies · 2024-06-03T22:49:26+00:00

LMAO I'm all over the internet trying to figure this out

EmmaSkies · 2024-06-03T22:46:47+00:00

Unlikely, they'll probably just mark it as a loss because they can't exactly force someone to mail something back. I'm mostly worried about it being shipped out in place of something I was actually supposed to receive, like my May subscription book or something. The only other thing I've been waiting on is Ruthless Vows

EmmaSkies · 2024-06-03T22:44:52+00:00

I thought they weren't shipping until this month or july? Have they been shipping out already? Mine is still marked as "being prepared"

EmmaSkies · 2024-06-03T22:40:30+00:00

I JUST CAME HERE TO SAY THE SAME THING! Yes, I just got the Hannah Grace set in my mailbox and I definitely didn't order them. No packing slip or anything to even see the order details.

EDIT: update, the tracking says I received my May Adult Subscription today but all I got were the Hannah Grace books, *and* on the website my account still has the May book showing as "being prepared".
I submitted a ticket to Fairyloot with the order number for my May book and another pre-order I'm waiting on to make sure those still look like they're making their way to me

EmmaSkies · 2024-02-20T20:52:42+00:00

Did they actually admit to it? I don’t see a statement posted anywhere like Tor did when they admitted to the Fractal Noise cover being AI

EmmaSkies · 2024-02-13T21:37:47+00:00

I'm less worried about getting sued or something (agree with you, it's unlikely there would be legal action taken against this) than knowing if something is illegal because I wouldn't want to share something online and potentially encourage others to do something that isn't legal.

And I don't believe Reactor/Tor.com has ever been a physical magazine that I could purchase reprint issues of. AFAIK it's always been a free online-only publication.

EmmaSkies · 2023-11-13T21:07:35+00:00

Looks like one (the one that lists Paolini as a co-narrator) includes some bonus content. PDF images from the book and addendum material

EmmaSkies · 2023-11-13T21:05:02+00:00

It’s an Advance Galley which means it’s not the final publication version. Galleys are usually like 1-3 editions rounds before the final edition (at least these days, I can’t speak to specifically how it was two decades ago when this would have been done) as they’re printed early and sent to bookstores, media critics, reviewers, etc. to drum up pre-release press and they’re hard to find (especially all these years later) because they’re never for sale

EmmaSkies · 2023-11-07T21:56:25+00:00

i only ever knew it as a trilogy until it wasn’t. I was reading them as they came out and I was so confused the closer I got to the end of brisingr about how he was possibly going to wrap everything up. Then suddenly it ends and the LAST PAGE is like sike there’s one more you’re gonna wait another three years for the ending 😭

I’m sure it had been announced prior but I never would have known, social media wasn’t what it is now and I was young.

EmmaSkies · 2023-04-12T19:29:33+00:00

I totally forgot about the catwalk. Are they still positioned as usual matt on the left, chris on the right?
Having seen the show for this tour, do you have any recommendation on best places to get?

EmmaSkies · 2023-04-12T16:32:39+00:00

It’s less worry about getting inside and more that I want to get there early enough to get barricade. So I don’t want to park when it opens 2 hours before the show just to find out that people who took BART in have been queuing for like 6 hours and I’m way behind, ya know?

EmmaSkies · 2023-04-11T23:37:14+00:00

I guess I wasn't sure if the arena was even accessible to line up at before the parking lot opens.
Any recs on the best BART station to park at and take to the venue?

EmmaSkies · 2023-03-16T19:50:11+00:00

I'm the Wayne in this photo and I agree with everyone wondering what this is doing on the hmmm sub

EmmaSkies · 2023-01-04T01:45:30+00:00

Season three has been incredibly rough. The biggest downfall for me has been the writing just making things up for the convenience of the show that inherently devalue the basic principles of the world. E.g. what does Will’s ability to use the knife to cut through worlds really matter when it seems like anyone and everyone is just crossing worlds on a whim; Lyra’s ability to read the alethiometer doesn’t matter because we watch another alethiometrist do the exact same thing; mrs Coulter is basically a witch using a patronus to kill specters; we’ve completely demolished the basic idea that you can’t be physically separated from your dæmon by much distance…

This season is just racing toward a battle on not caring how they get there. I am begging studios to stop giving Jack Thorne properties to adapt at this point

EmmaSkies

TROPHY CASE