You may or may not have already noticed that I love research and I tend to do a ton for my books (even though they’re fiction). Tinkered Starsong is particularly meaty because while it is a cozy warm hug of a scifi with tons of found family, it also deals with some seriously high concepts, for example:
- The nature and power of art.
- The damage done by parasocial relationships & celebrity obsession.
- Soup ladles.
Divinity 36 is loosely based on the idea of a survival show entertainment competition, like American Idol or The Voice. Only the competition is about creating a whole group, so I guess more like Produce 101 or Boys Planet out of South Korea.
And now, without further ado..
10 Most Interesting Things Researched for Divinity 36
- Synesthesia
- The language of colors
- Color meets motion interfaces as media art installations (of the kind portrayed in Color Rush) & similarly, permanent museum sensory experiences like those at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, CA
- For galactic bureaucracy reasons I needed to know how refugees were classified and treated here on Earth, so I found this article on Different Types of Refugees: Why They Flee. Since stateless doesn’t work on a galactic level I had to invent a new term. You’ll have to read Divinity 36 to learn what I came up with.
- Aestheticism
- All In The Mind podcast: Hacking humans – social engineering & the power of influence
- Freakonomics Radio podcast: 521. I’m Your Biggest Fan! – unsurprisingly mostly about sports teams since that’s where the research is focused, but a lot of the conclusions can be applied to something like Kpop fandoms or Harry Potter houses or personality tests
- Hallyu or The Korean Wave (한류) – a cultural phenomenon in which the global popularity of South Korean popular culture has dramatically risen since the 1990s
- Social identity theory – “Social identity is the portion of a person’s self-concept that is derived from their perceived membership in a relevant social group (e.g., political party, sports team, music group fandom) and is motivated by both a need to self-enhance and reduce feelings of uncertainty (Hogg, 2006, 2007, 2012).” ~ Jessica Tomory for The Inquisitive Mind (source)
- Imaginary friends and real-world consequences: parasocial relationships (YouTube video)
Yes Phex’s running and associated tricks/abilities are an adapted version of parkour. I used parkour videos and information sites when writing Crudrat (a decade ago), and since Phex also started out as a crudrat I gave him a similar skill set to Maura. But I’d already done that research so…
After the series ends, I will post a big appendices glossary extras blog post full of all the references and resources but I don’t want to be too spoilery, so these 10 is all you get for now.
Stay tuned, there are posts about playlists, inspirational songs, and the singers who informed the cantor characters in this series, including Phex, Missit, Kagee and more!
here’s me playing with my book cover and putting myself in a grace position, since clearly I should NEVER be cantor
More?
- Here’s a playlist featuring some of the many videos I watched while researching these books
- Pronunciation Guide for the Tinkered Starsong Books + Alien Linguistics
- Sample That Tasty Book! Read the first chapter of Divinity 36, Gail Carriger’s Latest
- Fun interview with Horn Books: 5 Questions About Divinity 36
Even more?
I invented a tea to go with Divinity 36! Divini-tea – heh heh
2 cups boiling water + 1 teaspoon Taiwanese milk oolong + 2 whole dried butterfly pea flowers. Seep for 3 minutes. The butterfly pea turns it bright blue (and, to my pallet, doesn’t seem to affect flavor that much). It matches the cover perfectly and feels very scifi. (I used this teapot.)
Adding milk will not change the color, but adding lemon will turn it purple.
Yours (destined to be earmarked by homeland security for researching the wrong thing),
Miss Gail
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BOOK DE JOUR!
Divinity 36: Tinkered Starsong Book 1
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Direct from Gail
The aliens are coming for us and they want our voices.
New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger brings you a gloriously warm and unique scifi about the power of art, celebrity, and found family.
Gail’s Daily Tea Party
Tisane of Nifty
Smuggest of smug cats and “her” tea mug
Writerly Tincture
Authors Gail Carriger & Piper J Drake in Seattle for a steampunk tea fund raiser for Clarion West
Book Nibble
Our Dining Table is the sweetest fluffiest most adorable found family manga ever. Frankly this may be too cute for my fragile heart. It’s basically about a lonely salary man who is adopted by a college age kid and his much younger brother. It’s so cozy and sweet and all about food and I JUST LOVE IT so much. This book will not hurt you, it is like a manga meets hot water bottle – nothing but warmth and comfort.
There is also a live action adaptation on Gagaoolala that’s equally charming.
Quote to Sip
I’m reading webcomics on the Tapas app (mostly translations of Korean ones) and every time I read a new chapter of “50 Tea Recipes from the Duchess” I think of you. It’s not my favorite there (currently I’m enjoying “Beware the Villainess!” and “The Male Lead’s Little Lion Daughter” a lot) but it’s entertaining, the story is completed so I don’t have to wait a week to read the next episode, and I can’t help associating tea with you 🙂
By the way, I started in Tapas because they acquired the rights for doing a version of Ilona Andrew’s first book on the Inkeeper Chronicles and I’ve stayed there. I don’t know how satisfying from an author’s point of view the relationship has been, but I liked the adaptation, and it has hooked me to webcomics, although I’m not much into the serialized format (I cope with that by trying out new comics, and then marking them to catch up after some months have passed, so I have enough material to catch up without stumbling into weekly cliffhangers).
I actually have used and enjoyed Tapas, it’s a Kakao subsidiary (South Korean company). If I were to serialize I might go there but I am a little worried by their IP rights grabs in their TOS (as opposed to one I might negotiate if I were the Inkeeper peeps’ agent). A lot of the serialization platforms have this issue.
Ugh! I follow some Indie authors blogs so I have an idea of how awful those IP right grabs can be. Specially when those companies can vanish and you can’t republish in a new platform. Now that new platforms appear everyday, it’s better to keep your IP for future opportunities in other platforms.
Exactly! TOS can be so insidious where copyright is concerned.