The Big Idea: Cat Rambo
Posted on May 21, 2018 Posted by John Scalzi 9 Comments
Where to start the second book in a series? If your answer is “after the first book, duh,” allow Cat Rambo to offer another option to you, which she employs in her novel Hearts of Tabat.
CAT RAMBO:
My second novel is out as of May 20, and it’s a satisfying feeling. At the same time, I’m a little nervous about it, because it’s not a standard sequel, but rather takes the events of book one, Beasts of Tabat, and provides some different angles on it, this time seeing them through the eyes of a new set of viewpoints, including the best friend and former lover of one of Beasts’ protagonists and the two men vying for her attention.
Hearts of Tabat follows up on Beasts of Tabat not by starting where the first book ends, but considerably before that with one of the scenes from Beasts revisited. The characters from Beasts are there, particularly charismatic gladiator Bella Kanto, but they are seen through the eyes of a set of protagonists. It does end in time after Beasts, and those wondering what happened to Bella at the end of Beasts will find out.
Because of this, there’s a weird and somewhat unanticipated structure, where either book will work equally well to bring the reader in. The next one, Exiles of Tabat, won’t share this trait – it’s placed solidly after the end of Hearts of Tabat, and the final Gods of Tabat definitively after Exiles in its own turn.
I’ve always loved books that are oddly shaped in one way or another, which read one way backward and another frontward, or where any chapter can serve as the beginning, but I didn’t set out to create an oddly shaped series. I worry sometime that I’ve failed to pull it off, but at the same time I know Hearts is a better book than the first one, and Exiles will be even better yet.
And writing this way has let me create an even richer, deeper nook. By now I’ve written three and a half books and two dozen stories and novelettes set in this world. I know it well, but when I go wandering it in that hazy state of slumber that one hopes will carry you off to sleep, I always find new things, new little details, but all of them things that grow out of the shape of the world, caused by the existence of the three moons or the way the terraced city steps down to the water.
By the time I’m done with Gods, though (and I’m hoping the the next books come much quicker once my stint in the SFWA Presidency is over in mid-2019) I’ll be ready to move away from Tabat, for a little while, at least. I’ve been working on a YA space opera at the same time and I want to finish that up, along with a modern horror novel, tentatively entitled Queen of the Fireflies. So many projects and so little time — and who know what shape they will end up being?
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Hearts of Tabat: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Kobo|Smashwords
Visit the author’s site. Follow her on Twitter.
Great week. Reported today to my final Monday in the professional workforce. Just 9 more contract days and I am retired. Two weeks from today I am in Victoria, BC, Canada, looking for an apartment for my retirement years. Yep, been a good week and Monday.
Ooops. wrong comment section.
When you said this book was concurrent with the last, my first thought was, “What about Bella?!”
I’m so glad you cleared that up right away. That’s not an ending you can sleep on.
Beasts was such a great entry into a fascinating world. And I’m even more excited about Hearts now, because there were definitely some viewpoints in the first book I wanted to see explored. I had the feeling there was more going on behind the scenes than met the eye. And now I can find out what.
I am perhaps too proud of enjoying nonlinear texts, referencing Delany’s _Dhalgren_ more often than is strictly necessary. But I started reading SF for adults about the time Michael Moorcock’s Cornelius stories were collected into a single volume, so I think my expectations were set a bit off-center. Looking forward to this as well.
it took me several tries to realize Cat Rambo is the author, not the title of the book. And now all I can think is there needs to be a book/movie about a shell shocked Vietnam vet kitty.
@Aaron Doukas you beat me to it. I can think of several possible stories for a novel called “Cat Rambo,” all of them awesome.
Oh, groovy! Somehow this took me by surprise, which is silly since I enjoyed the first book, but I guess I lost track of sequel-status. ;-)
That sounds like it would have been fun to write. Congrats on the new one, Cat.
Thank you! I’m so pleased to have it finally out there. :)