Michael Livingston's Blog, page 6

A Tolkien Paper in Runes

It is a true blessing that I have the freedom to have a rather varied career.

Many of you reading this know me due to my forthcoming novel, The Shards of Heaven. Others know my historical casebooks, like the one just now being published on the Battle of Crécy. Or some of you simply know me as your current or former professor of medieval literature at The Citadel.

A smaller number of you know that in the nexus of all these interests is the figure of J.R.R. Tolkien. I’ve published a number of essays on Professor Tolkien and his works (one of which, “The Shellshocked Hobbit,” was this year blatantly ripped off by the BBC). And every few years — for a single blessed term — I get to teach a course on Tolkien, which is all kinds of magnificent.

I’m teaching just such a class right now, and we just had our mid-term papers come due.

The final copies were turned in online (and written in English), but after all was said and done this is what one of my students showed me:

A paper on dwarves, written in dwarven runes.

That’s right. My student took the rough draft of his paper and transliterated it using Tolkien’s dwarven runes (the Angerthas Moria script, to be exact).

He did this … well, just because. The little exercise will grant him no extra points or honors. He knew this. He wasn’t kissing up. He was just enthralled with the subject material, he was spurned to do something fun and joyous, and he wanted to share that excitement.

This is — even aside from the aesthetics of this terrific work — beautiful. As teachers we yearn to connect with our students to the point that they are inspired. And here it is, in a nutshell: inspiration and excitement and learning.

Learning, you say? Why yes. As it happens, Tolkien’s dwarven runes are based on Anglo-Saxon and Norse runic scripts.

This confluence of history, language, and literature is why I love teaching (and writing about) the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. His works are a staggering treasure-trove of thought, and for all that I’ve written about them, for all that I’ve read and studied them, I continue to find new discoveries in these pages. That makes each time I teach them an exciting chance for discovery — for all of us.

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth saying again:

I love my job.

(All of them.)

Publicity: Tooting the Horn

The Shards of Heaven

There is a long list of things they don’t tell you as a debut author, and the need to engage in publicity is very much one of them. Social media, interviews, posts upon posts, swag, convention panels, mailing lists, newsletters … it seems there is an endless train of things you are told you ought to be doing.

In my experience, one usually learns about each must-do item roughly one month after the deadline has passed for needing to get that thing done.

Even aside from trying to keep up with the timing of all these things you probably don’t know how to do, publicity can also be rather frustrating since not one of these things is actually writing another book — which is the thing you got into this business to do.

But publicity is important. Really, really important.

As I said above, publicity can take many forms, but none is a stronger pull right now than that multi-faced Janus of the unruly Internet gods, Social Media.

I have been told repeatedly — by my fellow authors, by my publicist, by my editor, by my agent, by booksellers, by every single person I know in publishing — that the Best Thing I can do to help the sales of my book is to talk about it in social media.

Get the word out! Tell folks how good it is! Get them excited! Get out there!

They’re right, of course. With so many books released every day, you need to establish a buzz to get lifted out of the saturating noise. Get it noticed and then word of mouth can take over.

I know, I know. As a writer you’re probably an introvert. You get embarrassed talking about yourself. It feels like bragging. I feel you. (I usually fall pretty squarely as INTJ in a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.)

Well, you know what? Tough cookies. You wrote a book. It was hard work. Lots of people are writing books, but rather fewer have written one. Even more, you got your book published. Talk about king of the hill stuff! Believe me, you have earned the right to tell people about it. I’m not saying you need to brag about it or hold it over people’s heads, but if you just got an awesome review from a significant trade outlet … hell yeah, spread the good news, sister!

What other advice about publicity have I gleaned, sitting here as I am, one month away from the launch of my debut novel? (And thus perhaps completely unqualified for dispensing any advice whatsoever.)

First, buckle up. You want to get where you want to go, and taking the publicity train will greatly increase the chances of you arriving at your destination. Don’t neglect this.

Second, don’t expect anyone to do this for you. They don’t give you a cheat sheet about how to do all this, so you’re going to need to learn how to do it yourself. That said, go ahead and ask for help when you need it. Don’t be afraid to ask friends in the business about things that it seems Everybody Knows. To wit, here’s the paraphrase of an email I just recently sent: “So spacewizardsandvorpalbunnies.com wants me to write a guest post? Awesome! Publicity for the win! Only, um, I just need to know, well, what’s a guest post?”

Third, cast a wide net. There is no one way to launch a book. Please believe this. Everyone seems to have a different theory about what works, which probably makes it a crapshoot. I hope that as things settle down for me (meaning after January, I suspect), I can start putting together a series of “So You’re a Writer Now” posts, piggy-backing on much of the great insight I’ve received from those ahead of and around me. It’ll be a start, but of course it can’t be conclusive, because, as I said, there is no one way to launch a book.

Fourth, There Is No One Way To Launch A Book. See above.

Fifth, THERE IS NO ONE WAY TO LAUNCH A BOOK. Seriously. Stop comparing and freaking out. Publicity can be like a horrible arms race that will make you feel you’re a failure before you’ve begun:

– Perhaps you think you’ve failed because it seems like every other author you know is getting to take part in events sponsored by your publisher and you’re not.

– Perhaps you stepped onto social media and immediately saw fellow authors who are just killing it and thus despaired because between your dayjob, the kids, the cooking, the cleaning, and oh yeah the very present Need to Write the Next Book you know there is no way you can post ten witty things an hour.

– Perhaps you similarly have met fellow authors with their savvy publicity campaigns of swag and wonders and costumes and … jeez, did I turn the stove off? And when exactly am I going to find time to get to the store for bread?

Point is, you just can’t compare your experience to that of anyone else. Many publicity decisions are simply out of your hands, and trying to read the tea-leaves of why a decision was made is akin to crazed rejectomancy. It will leave you mad in all senses of the term. And when it comes to those things you can control — the social media, the blogging, the convention-going — it is a fool’s errand to try to keep up with everyone else in every possible way. They aren’t you and you aren’t them.

Learn to be you, O Debut Author. Find what works for your comfort, your personality.

But find something, because publicity is a Very Good Thing. Get enough of it, in fact, and you’ll no longer need to toot your own horn. Other people will toot it for you.

(There’s no way that could be misconstrued, right?)

Order-Boost-Review: The Shards of Heaven. Tor Books. November 2015.

Crecy Featured in The Medieval Magazine

The Battle of Crécy: A Casebook is scheduled for release today by the University of Liverpool Press … and news is beginning to get out about some of the important findings that those of us involved in the project have uncovered.

For starters, Medievalists.net features a short web article discussing my theories about the location of the battle. It’s a very nice piece, and it features a few images not in the book itself.

Even better, though, I’m happy to say that the Battle of Crécy is the cover story for the corresponding version of The Medieval Magazine, which goes into even more depth about some of the new data:

And of course all this is only the barest look at what our team of amazing collaborators has managed in the full volume!

The Battle of Crecy: A Casebook

Crecy Casebook Cover Reveal!

Just three weeks ago I was announcing the release date for my next academic tome, The Battle of Crécy: A Casebook, co-edited with my good friend Kelly DeVries of Loyola University Maryland.

Today, I’m thrilled to reveal what the actual cover will look like … and I hope you will agree that it is simply stunning:

The Battle of Crecy: A Casebook

I can’t wait until this beautiful beast is out in the wild!

Shards News: Book Giveaway and Pre-Release Booksigning

The Shards of Heaven

In 48 days, my novel The Shards of Heaven is going to hit bookstores. I’m anxious, and I know you are, too. You want to join in the adventure of the Shards right now, and I can’t blame you one bit.

Which is why I’m really thrilled to tell you that there happen to be two ways you can read the book before it is released on 10 November:

1. Go enter the Goodreads giveaway that is running from now until 19 October. Goodreads is a truly fantastic community of readers (if you didn’t know already), and Tor Books has handed them TEN advanced copies of the book to randomly give out. So grab your lottery ticket and cross your fingers.

2. Be in Mt Pleasant, SC (a suburb of Charleston) on the evening of 3 November — one week before the official release date — and come attend the positively amazing event that will be held at the Towne Center Barnes and Noble at 7pm. The event is the first book tour stop (and book release party) for two highly anticipated titles from Tor: The Wheel of Time Companion, by Harriet McDougal, Maria Simons, and Alan Romanczuk, and Mystic, by Jason Denzel. I happen to count all of these good folks as friends, so Tor decided to bring me in for the event, too. Barnes and Noble will have a special shipment of The Shards of Heaven available for you to purchase and me to sign. That’s three booksignings in one, folks!

Barring all that, of course, you can just get your pre-orders in to your favorite bookseller — don’t forget your local independent bookstore! — and you can begin reading with me on 10 November.

In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter (@medievalguy) for links to the reviews and interviews and guest posts that are lining up for the rest of the year.

Order-Boost-Review: The Shards of Heaven. Tor Books. November 2015.

Kirkus Review of The Shards of Heaven

The Shards of Heaven

A satisfyingly supernatural back story for the all-too-real final war of the Roman Republic.

So ends the rather positive review that The Shards of Heaven has received in Kirkus Reviews, one of the foremost trade book review outlets. You can read the whole thing here.

There are a lot of things I have discovered by virtue of publishing a novel this year through Tor Books, but one of the biggest lessons is that reviews matter. A lot. Within the publishing and book distribution business, great weight is especially cast upon particular trade magazines, like Kirkus; so having this solid review come out is awesome. It makes my publisher happy, it gets book distributors interested, it encourages libraries to order a copy … in short, it does Very Good Things for my book right now.

But I want to say this:

To your favorite author, every review is important.

All of them, whether from paid reviewers on Kirkus Reviews or from unpaid consumers like you on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, Facebook, or your local independent bookshop.

In a very real sense, what matters in the end is moving books, and for that every review is important.

You see, every single positive review an author gets has the potential to convince someone to buy his or her book — and every single purchase is one more tick in the ledger that determines what kind of contract (if any!) he or she can earn on the next book. Plus, I think most of us tend to read reviews. And, believe me, for an author seeing a positive review is like a shot in the arm of the greatest drug ever devised by man or god. It’s amazing.

So if you as a consumer read a book and like it — if you want to support the author of it — please give it a positive review somewhere. It doesn’t matter if it’s detailed or just a “five-star-click.” The important thing — really, the essential thing — is that you tell other people you liked it.

It will move copies, believe me.

Order-Boost-Review: The Shards of Heaven. Tor Books. November 2015.

Brunanburh Collector’s Edition

Checking on listings for the forthcoming The Battle of Crécy: A Casebook — just three weeks to release! — I stumbled upon the Amazon UK used book listing for one of my previous books, The Battle of Brunanburh: A Casebook:

Used for only £999.11!

To be clear, I am really proud of the Brunanburh casebook. I think the contributors in the book put together some truly wonderful and informative essays, and having all the sources for the battle gathered together in both original language and modern English translation (a hallmark of the Liverpool Historical Casebook Series) will be of lasting significance.

It’s a great book.

But is a used paperback of it worth $1500?

Perhaps not. Especially when you can purchase the hardcover version brand new for $110.

Standard Author Paraphenalia

The Shards of Heaven

As an academic, I’ve written a number of books before, and it is fascinating to me how very different the process is for a novel with a major publisher like Tor. To be ready for its 30 September 2015 release, for instance, my non-fiction book The Battle of Crécy: A Casebook was turned over about two months beforehand. To be ready for its 10 November 2015 release, my novel The Shards of Heaven was turned over to the publisher about 13 months beforehand. That’s wild.

And then there is this:

Novel writer stuff.

Pictured here is the hold-it-in-your-hands tip (so far) of the iceberg that we call publicity. I’d say that it floats through the book-buying waters of this world, but I’m not sure what sinking the Titanic would mean in the analogy. Anyway, more ephemeral parts of this effort include the existence of this post itself.

And essentially nothing like this effort happens for a typical academic publication.

What we have pictured here, for starters, is the front and back of a “book card” that is meant to be handed out to booksellers — at events like the SIBA Trade Show that I’ll be attending this month. It’s meant to get them excited about my novel — Look at the cover! The description! The awesome blurb! — and to some degree it’s meant to get them excited about me — Look at this guy! He’d give a great reading! He’d give a great lecture! — and above all, of course, it is meant to move books. One way or another, that’s the gig.

I’ve also shown here a picture of the front and back of my new business cards. The Citadel doesn’t supply these, so I’ve never really had to carry them, but People In The Know tell me I better have these little beauties with me often. It’s simply another way of getting people to remember who I am, to be able to contact me for any book-signings or readings or lectures or modern dance performance pieces that they want me to do. (Note: Please, people, for the sake of all that you hold dear, do not pick the dance option.)

And then there are the pens.

Why the pens?

Because I’m confident that with your help we can make this novel a huge success. And that means signing a lot of books. And that means getting comfortable with a pen. Just need to choose the right one, right?

Pullo and Vorenus and ‘Rome’

The Shards of Heaven

As I talked about in discussing my research on the mapping of Alexandria, my coming novel is a historical fantasy. So in addition to all the stuff I made up, it also has a lot of stuff that’s absolutely true: including a wide cast of historical people. Some are well-known, like Cleopatra and Mark Antony, Caesarion, or the future Augustus Caesar. Others are perhaps less famous but nevertheless stand out as absolutely massive figures in history, like Juba of Numidia and Cleopatra Selene.

And then there’s a pair that people might think I ripped off from HBO’s wonderful series, Rome:

Pullo and Vorenus

That’s right. The Roman legionnaires Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus are main characters in my novel, just as they were in HBO’s series. Thievery! Knavery!

Except … I didn’t steal these guys from HBO. We both stole them from Caesar.

From 58-50 BCE, Julius Caesar waged a long and difficult campaign in Gaul. And because he was Caesar, he wrote about the experience in his Commentaries on the Gallic War. In Book 5 of this fascinating text, Caesar describes an engagement with the Nervii in 54 BCE, and he singles out the actions of two centurions:

In that legion there were two very brave men, centurions, who were now approaching the first ranks, T. Pullo, and L. Vorenus. These used to have continual disputes between them which of them should be preferred, and every year used to contend for promotion with the utmost animosity. When the fight was going on most vigorously before the fortifications, Pullo, one of them, says, “Why do you hesitate, Vorenus? or what [better] opportunity of signalizing your valor do you seek? This very day shall decide our disputes.” When he had uttered these words, he proceeds beyond the fortifications, and rushes on that part of the enemy which appeared the thickest. Nor does Vorenus remain within the rampart, but respecting the high opinion of all, follows close after. Then, when an inconsiderable space intervened, Pullo throws his javelin at the enemy, and pierces one of the multitude who was running up, and while the latter was wounded and slain, the enemy cover him with their shields, and all throw their weapons at the other and afford him no opportunity of retreating. The shield of Pullo is pierced and a javelin is fastened in his belt. This circumstance turns aside his scabbard and obstructs his right hand when attempting to draw his sword: the enemy crowd around him when [thus] embarrassed. His rival runs up to him and succors him in this emergency. Immediately the whole host turn from Pullo to him, supposing the other to be pierced through by the javelin. Vorenus rushes on briskly with his sword and carries on the combat hand to hand, and having slain one man, for a short time drove back the rest: while he urges on too eagerly, slipping into a hollow, he fell. To him, in his turn, when surrounded, Pullo brings relief; and both having slain a great number, retreat into the fortifications amid the highest applause. Fortune so dealt with both in this rivalry and conflict, that the one competitor was a succor and a safeguard to the other, nor could it be determined which of the two appeared worthy of being preferred to the other.

(Here’s Caesar’s original Latin if you’re interested.)

In my book, I actually have the scholar Didymus “Bronze-Guts” Chalcenterus (also real!) point out that few men are accorded such attention in Caesar’s work, and this is true. The highlighting of Pullo and Vorenus is unusual, it’s dramatic, and (to no one’s surprise) it has thus caught the attention of later writers. The late Colleen McCullough incorporates them into her Masters of Rome series. Harry Turtledove has great fun with the pair in his Legion tetralogy. And the writers of the HBO series used them, too.

I actually didn’t know this when I first started writing The Shards of Heaven. All I knew was that I needed a pair of legionnaires for my plot. I wanted them to be older guys, great friends, and veterans of Caesar’s campaigns. I wanted them to have a cool backstory. And, like so much in the book, I wanted them to be real.

So I read and reread Caesar’s tale of Pullo and Vorenus, and I then fashioned a way to get them from the 11th Legion (Legio XI Claudia), which is where Caesar has them (we think; his text is unclear), into the 6th Legion (Legio VI Ferrata) sometime between 54 and 49 BCE — that way these two could go to Alexandria first under Caesar and then later under Mark Antony.

It was only later that I learned how HBO had done something similar (though through a rather different means and to a very different end!). After one of my classes, a few students began talking to me about my creative writing endeavors, and the topic of my novel came up. In giving a basic gist of the work, I mentioned Pullo and Vorenus.

“Like Rome!” one of my students said. (Hi, Cary!)

I stared blankly. I don’t have cable, much less HBO. So he laughed, and then at the next class meeting he brought me the DVD set of the first season.

It was awesome, and I was truly pleased that, added to Ridley Scott’s wonderful Gladiator, the success of the TV show indicated that people were still interested in Rome.

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000)

I was also hugely relieved to see that despite some similarities we had gone in substantially different directions with these two characters.

Except … I really did love HBO’s Pullo and Vorenus. Their storyline wasn’t at all like that of my Pullo and Vorenus, but increasingly their faces were. The actors were simply wonderful. I adored them. And pretty soon, fight it though I tried, I couldn’t think of my Pullo without picturing the actor Ray Stevenson, and I couldn’t think of my Vorenus without picturing the actor Kevin McKidd.

By the gods, I thought at one point, I think The Shards of Heaven would be a damn good movie. And if anyone ever films it and I have anything to say about it … those guys are my Pullo and Vorenus.

And at that point, well, I tried to rig the game for them. I went back and changed a few little details in their physical descriptions to match Stevenson and McKidd.

So the ball is in your court now, Hollywood. I’ve got the story, and I’ve already even cast two parts.

Let’s get this thing rolling. Let Pullo and Vorenus ride again!

Order-Boost-Review: The Shards of Heaven. Tor Books. November 2015.

The Battle of Crécy: A Casebook – Release Date Announced!

As you may have heard, I have a novel coming out on 10 November. But that’s not the only one of my books coming out this Fall…

(Preliminary cover design.)

With the help of a remarkable team of contributors, the historian Kelly DeVries and I have spent much of the past year and more working on The Battle of Crécy: A Casebook, the latest volume in the Liverpool Historical Casebooks Series (for which we serve as co-editors). It is a great pleasure for me to announce that this book now has an official release date: 30 September 2015.

Here’s a bit of the announcement awesomeness:

This casebook is the most extensive collection of documents ever assembled for the study of one of the famous battles in history. Here we see the Battle of Crécy across the cultural landscape of Europe — through chronicles and letters, through poems and prophecies, through sermons and laments — enabling us to understand the events of 26 August 1346 like never before. Together with other experts, the editors have gathered, edited, and translated over 80 fourteenth-century sources concerning this fascinating and important conflict — sources from Bohemia to France, from Italy to Wales — many here printed or translated for the first time. Original essays provide historical context and literary background to help interpret the battle in light of this new material. Among the discoveries: despite its fame, the location of the battle has been misidentified for centuries, and the actions of the men on both sides of the bloodied field have been completely misunderstood. This unparalleled accumulation of material means that the Battle of Crécy will never be seen the same again.

 

The volume is already listed for pre-order on Amazon, and other booksellers will no doubt follow. We’re guessing there will be a good demand for this one, given its rather groundbreaking findings!

(Note: The cover pictured here is a preliminary design. I’ll be sure to post when we have the final one in hand!)