So this is happening...

[lagilman]

I'm over at Charlie Stross' place right now, guest-blogging about writing American history that isn't my history.... or is it?


Meanwhile, the topic of that blog, SILVER ON THE ROAD, is starting to propagate pre-order links, although there's no cover or copy available yet. Shall we see how high we can push it before they even give us details?

Kindle US
Kindle UK
Amazon Hardcover
Amazon UK Hardcover (tk)

B&N print  (tk)
B&N Nook (tk)

Kobo (US)

iTunes

(updates as they roll out)

Comments

[jennielf.livejournal.com]

*\o/*

[lagilman]

And someday soon the cover and copy will be up, too, and it will feel really real!

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. I have another, interesting perspective, in that unlike many people I know, I seem to hearken from fiddlefoots who arrived in North America in the 18th century sometime and never stayed in one place. Not sure about my father's people, but my mother's people were from Cornwall. My father's people were Loyalists (of the most rabid kind; the habit seems to be a male trait sliding into some obnoxious political opinions) but they hopscotched around Canada before wandering into Colorado.

What I have been able to find of my mother's family emigrant history in Oregon is that they seemed to be reasonably well regarded but were not affluent enough to pass on property to the next generation. I'm not sure what to make of the several recorded elements, save that my great-great grandfather was one of the few men who stayed in the stockade with his family (all of it, including my great-grandfather) during battles with the local Indians in what is now Ashland. A couple of great-great aunts married into a more prominent family with a history of supporting Natives (one family leader purchased his homestead land from the local tribe). Another branch were friendly with the leaders of the Modoc Indian War, and my mother was always pretty dang bitter in her comments about how the Indians got hurt in that war based on family stories and research she did in college (at the college in Ashland, with access to family members who remembered). But...not a lot of documentation, Mom didn't talk much about it, and most of the family members who know the stories had passed on before I was old enough to understand and ask questions. I've done a lot of research and not come up with much, and there are times when I think the family went out of its way to be deliberately obscure (not like some other families I know who have been here for a long time). I have encountered several very very distant cousins, and they seem to have a similar impression of the family history.

(hope you don't mind the subject area comment here but I'm really not comfortable posting at Stross's blog)

[lagilman]

No worries - everyone's been reasonably well-behaved there, but it does have the feeling of going skinny dipping in a public aquarium, doesn't it?

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

It sure does feel like a lot more public exposure on this issue than I'm comfortable with. I'm also skittish because it appears to be an uncommon POV (plus I have No Desire At All to claim membership in the United Empire Loyalists since I don't think I can claim DAR). The folks I know of with similar backgrounds mostly seem to be the privileged group who held on to property and power for multiple generations, and that seems to be the common public perception of people with my family background. Most people I know can trace their roots to originating cultures pretty easily, within a few generations. I really can't do more than say, "um, well, somewhere in the British isles. I think."

Can we say the descendant of farm laborers and servants? But no one wants to brag about that sort of descent, even though there's got to be a lot of us. Nonetheless, I have no identifiable family traditions outside of the very broad common cultural ones in my background. For better or worse, I'm North American just because I don't know what else to claim. Europe seems very alien to me at times, though I might feel different if I ever go to Cornwall (the one site I can identify).

[lagilman]

Can we say the descendant of farm laborers and servants? But no one wants to brag about that sort of descent, even though there's got to be a lot of us


*snorts* There are entire waves of American immigrants who are nothing BUT, including my own family (except my grandmother's family, who were reportedly rebbes. But the ret of 'em? Tinkers and traders and laborers until they got here and became small shopkeepers... (my maternal grandfather owned a donut shop, my paternal grandfather and his brothers owned an electricians' supply store)

Although most who are unabashed about being farmkids and servants came elsewhere than the British Isles. The "America is the UK-once-removed" mindset is, admittedly, one of my pet peeves...

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Although most who are unabashed about being farmkids and servants came elsewhere than the British Isles. The "America is the UK-once-removed" mindset is, admittedly, one of my pet peeves...

Yep. I sure don't feel a whole lot of kinship with the UK. My identifiable traditions tie in much more to frontier survival skills than anything else.