Stephen Deas's Blog, page 10

Book Giveaway: Truth and Fear (3/3/2014)

I think I might be re-titling the last dragon book. Possibly. All but the last act are drafted. Last week was spent editing my second Bulldog Drummond novella (of which more when I know anything about it) and there might well be a third. Copy edits for The Royalist are done, copy-edits for Empires are underway.

Genre, if you didn’t already know, managed to make some mainstream news over the weekend. Or here’s a different take on it. Whatever your view on the final outcome, not our finest hour. But never mind. If you’ve been following my giveaways over the last couple of years, you’ll have noticed that I keep giving away copies of Wolfhound Century because I really like it and it’s really different. So here’s the sequel. Richard Morgan has it about right.

Usual deal – comment on this post before March 10th  and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy of the book. This week I encourage suggestions for who would be a sufficiently SAFE master of ceremonies for an SF convention. Amuse me, if you will, but you don’t have to to enter.

Although, though no one has yet complained about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, it can take a while and if you live abroad then it can take even longer. Sorry about that, but they do get there eventually. Well, so far. Recent winners, I have cleared my backlog – they’re all in the post!

Giveaway: The Incorruptibles (10/2/2014)

Writing. Day job. Writing. Day job. Blah blah. The Silver Kings is sitting at about 142k words and will grow to about 220k. I’ve seen the cover for Sekkrit Projekt and it’s cool and I wish I could share . . . but I can’t. Copy edits have started on The Royalist and my my, how two publishers from the same master stable can differ in their ways of doing things. I suppose the main news in the last couple of weeks is that there isn’t going to be any more Gallow from Nathan Hawke for a while…

…however, while being delivered this news,  my editor parted with a copy of The Incorruptibles by John Hornor Jacobs, which I’m going to share with you just as soon as I’ve read it. I can’t say all that much about it – band of hired swords (well, guns, actually) escorting some dude in a boat into the badlands and then all hell breaks loose if I’ve got the gist of it. I’ve started reading it and it feels like a fantasy western – carbines, pistols, river steamers – and the writing is strikingly good.

This is an ARC and if my editor can’t spare another then I’m offering my own but only after I’ve finished reading it. I’ll try not to spill coffee all over it…

Usual deal – comment on this post before February 17th  and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy of the book. This week to enter I ask you to stare your favourite word or words. From my own preferences I offer your Selenium, animosity and serendipity.

Although, though no one has yet complained about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, it can take a while and if you live abroad then it can take even longer. Sorry about that, but they do get there eventually. Well, so far. Recent winners, I have cleared my backlog – they’re all in the post!

Giveaway : Wolfhound Century (29/1/2014)

It’s been a long time since I’ve done a book giveaway or indeed said much at all here. November was eaten by NaNoWriMo and December was eaten by The Silver Kings and copy-editing The Splintered Gods and editing Empires and and and . . . and mostly by the looming spectre of having to go back to having a day-job. But that’s all behind now. The Silver Kings is sitting at about 120k words and will grow to about 220k. The tentative schedule for 2014 is this:

March: Sekkrit project comes out. I think. Who can say? I have no idea. I haven’t seen the proofs yet so who knows…

April: Dragon Queen comes out in mass-market paperback and you’re ALL GOING TO BUY IT, RIGHT?

June: The Splintered Gods comes out and The Silver Kings is supposed to be delivered

August: Sometime around here the novella Bulldog Drummond: Dead Man’s Gate might happen.

November: The Royalist comes out. Maybe Empires comes out. Who can say…?

So this week’s freebie is Wolfhound Century by Peter Higgins which I still think is awesome and yes, i know I’ve already given it a couple of airings on the blog but it deserves another. If you haven’t heard me say it before, this is a wonderfully atmospheric espinonagey politically thrillery thing but what really sets it apart is the setting that feels so like an alternate inter-war Russia that you don’t really notice that it never actually says so and yet has giants, space-angels (I think), sentient rain and sentient forests. And it’s gloomy and broody and rains all the time and I like that sort of thing. Something Graham Greene might have written except after the first draft he got smacked round the head by a sentient walking hut and it was rewritten in a Siberian forest by Baba Yaga. There’s a bit of an undercurrent of quantum uncertainty and the overlapping of many worlds too. And then just when you’re really getting into it, some bastard (and I think I have to point a finger at the author here) shows up with a garotte and practically executes the novel mid-sentence, calls that an ending and we all have to wait until Spring next year for the next installment. Nevertheless, this is SF that sits beside Dune for me. It was wonderful. You can visit Peter’s site here.

Usual deal – comment on this post before February 3rd  and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy of the book. No game this week since it’s the first time back for a while, simply comment to enter.

Although, though no one has yet complained about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, it can take a while and if you live abroad then it can take even longer. Sorry about that, but they do get there eventually. Well, so far. Recent winners, I have cleared my backlog – they’re all in the post!

Adam Dalton Interview (16/12/13)

A J Dalton is a fellow Gollancz author whose Gollancz debut, Empire of the Saviours, was published back in May last year but who has previously also gone the self-publishing route. In an effort to find yet another excuse to procrastinate and put off doing any actual real work, we decided to interview each other (well that was my reason, anyway).

Here’s the ‘official’ biopic, most of which Adam claims is nearly true, from Empire of the Saviours:

“A J Dalton (the ‘A’ is for Adam) has been an English language teacher as far afield as Egypt, the Czech Republic, Thailand, Slovakia, Poland and Manchester University. He has lived in Manchester since 2003, but has a conspicuous Cockney accent, as he was born in Croydon on a dark night, when strange stars were seen in the sky.

He published his first fantasy trilogy, consisting of Necromancer’s Gambit (2008), Necromancer’s Betrayal (2009) and Necromancer’s Fall (2010), to great acclaim. He is currently published by Gollancz, with whom he has put out the best-selling titles Empire of the Saviours (2012) and Gateway of the Saviours (2013). He maintains the Metaphysical Fantasy website (www.ajdalton.eu), where there is plenty to interest fantasy fans and there is advice for aspiring authors.”

If you want to know more, you can visit Adam’s website at www.ajdalton.eu or follow him on Twitter as @AJDalton1

Steve: So, first of all, what the hell is metaphysical fantasy (I want to spell it phantasy) as opposed to any other kind of fantasy. What are you trying to do that other fantasy authors are missing out on?

Adam: Hmm. Well, you can’t get a job as a philosopher these days, so people have to write fantasy and scifi instead. The term metaphysical references metaphysical poets like John Donne and Andrew Marvel . They describe close human scenes but give them large scale significance. It’s like writing through a microscope, if that makes sense. There are other authors like that – Philip Pullman, for example. It all sounds a bit poncy, but you’ve basically gotta have a good human drama that has epic significance… which lends itself to all sorts of pratt-falls, obviously. That’s jokes to you and me. The use of the term ‘metaphysical’ isn’t really a point about ‘other fantasy authors’ – it’s more of a point made to those who seem to think literary fiction is somehow worthier or more high-brow than fantasy.

Steve: If I’ve got it right, you self-published your first trilogy (the Necromancer’s Gambit). Now that you’re a Gollancz author, how has that changed your perspectives (if at all) on conventional traditional publishing and the do-it-yourself way. What do you see as the main differences and advantages to each?

Adam: Bizarrely, there’s preciously little difference between the two. I’m still left to sort out my own signings, etc. I still very much feel like I’m ‘on my own’. Except, of course, I make more money on the self-published books.

Steve: Why oh why oh why do we always write trilogies? Is it a good thing that we do? What could be done to make it stop (er, assuming we wanted to…)

Adam: Quite right! Why stop at trilogies? We should go for five-book series, or seven or ten! Chronicles of a Cosmic Warlord (Empire of the Saviours, Gateway or the Saviours and Tithe of the Saviours) was originally pitched as a five-booker. Gollancz, however, made me reduce it to three books – and I can see why they wouldn’t want to commit to a ‘first-timer’ over five books. But I guess your question is why fantasy comes in series like this. Well, one of the great pleasures of fantasy is full immersion in a different world. We don’t want to leave that world. We like our books to be a thousand pages long, and to carry on and on forever.

Steve: What’s your favourite book (apart from your own) and why?

Adam: Actually, I have a favourite play first – and that’s Marlowe’s Dr Faustus, followed by Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Favourite book is probably Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Steve: We’ve both travelled a fair bit, though I think you win that one: are there any places that you’d particularly encourage people to go and see for themselves?

Adam: Oh, I love the Czech Republic. It’s the true home of our (European) sense of the gothic. Prague is knock out. And the country has the best beer in the world. And produces more supermodels per square mile than any other country – and they’re all great chess-players. Geez. Art, beer, brains and good times!

Steve: And on the same subject, are there any places or aspects of culture from far away that you’ve knowingly slipping into one of your settings?

Adam: Yes, I plunder the whole Czech vibe for my gothic elements. Anything else? Hmm. Well, I did two years in Egypt and that would be rich material – but Saladin Ahmed (Throne of the Crescent Kingdom) has already beaten me to the punch on that stuff. Damn.

Steve: You asked me what was the best, so what’s the *worst* thing about being an author?

Adam: Definitely, the lack of money. Obviously, I’ll be worth a mint when I’m dead, but that’s no use to me. Publishers are fortunate that writers don’t tend to do it for the bucks. We do it because we have to. It’s that old fashioned idea of a job being a ‘calling’ or ‘vocation’. One other problem is simply never having enough time. I don’t enjoy the writing under pressure or to deadlines, but deadlines are necessary evils, I suppose.

Steve: Damn, you asked me that too. Well then, go on, what’s the best?

Adam: Therefore, the best thing about the writing is… the writing. I enjoy the process, creativity and discipline of it. You’ve got to. Otherwise, you just couldn’t stay motivated and inspired for the year or so it takes to write a book.

Steve: How much (if any at all) have games, either video games, or roleplaying games, influenced you as a story-teller?

Adam: Oo. Interesting. I’m quite a big gamer. I still play Warcraft 2 on the PS2 a lot (old school). And I read a fair bit of Warhammer stuff. The interactivity and immersion of gaming is great for the imagination. Has it directly influenced me as a story-teller. Hmm. Maybe on the big set-piece battles. And, when younger, I used to run around Chistlehurst Caves doing real-life D&D. I think the emotions you experience doing that are useful for any writer. [I used to run around Chislehurst Caves too. Mostly the emotions I experienced were of rage and pain as I smashed my head into a rock in the dark for the umpteenth time. If that taught me one thing, it's that all professional dungeoneers would always wear helmets, even the bloody wizards and sod the chance of spell failure - Ed].

Steve: And what was the question I really should have asked but didn’t, and what’s the answer?

Adam: Now that’s the 64 million dollar question. Maybe: what’s your secret? Answer: write what you enjoy reading, and don’t be upset if it isn’t published immediately. You’re probably born ahead of your time. You have to wait till the world catches up. Or your stuff isn’t currently ‘in fashion’ with publishers. Rejection should never be the same as dejection. Books get rejected for loads of reaons – and ‘quality of prose’ is really one of the rarer reasons. If you want to get published, focus on what the more common reasons are and address them. And the other question you should have asked is: where can legions of fans find you online? Answer: www.ajdalton.eu and on Twitter as @AJDalton1. Hurrah!

Who, Where, What, When?

I don’t collect stats for this site so I have no idea whether anyone reads these posts or pays a blind bit of attention to anything I write here. I mostly imagine myself writing into the void; which is as it should be. Most of what I have to say, I say better in my books. Still, maybe now and then there’s some sense i putting up a post that says where various projects are at. So . . .

The dragons and the thief-taker.

The second dragon trilogy (Dragon Queen, The Splintered Gods, The Silver King) has started to make its appearance in the UK. There’s no sight of a US publisher for this or for the Thief-Taker series but both should be available via online retailers at some point via the US distributor Trafalgar Square. They do all appear to be available from Amazon. Dragon Queen came out in trade in August and will follow in paperback next spring, I think. The Splintered Gods is into the later stages of the edit process and should come out in June, I think. I haven’t really got going on The Silver Kings but it should be delivered in six months or so as planned. And that, I’m afraid, is going to be it for dragons for a while. If they’re ever going to make a return past The Silver King, they need to sell a lot more. I would like to go back to Deephaven and the Ice Witch and that part of the world a little more. We shall have to wait and see.

Nathan Hawke

There are no firm plans and many tentative ones for more from Mr. Hawke. Doubtless it will depend a bit on the sales figures come the end of the year. There has been talk of some sort of omnibus. I’m frankly slightly miffed with Mr. Hawke. He’s had very little review coverage but he’s getting more positive attention on Amazon than me. Grrr. As with the later dragons books, there is no US publisher but it’s available from online retailers. And dear American friends, thank you for the online review love.

Gavin Deas

Looks like this is going to be the pen name for my SF collaborations with Gavin Smith  that are coming out next year. Irritatingly I can’t give dates for reasons that I can’t talk about. More grrr. But all three books are done, mine and Gavin’s, and in the later stages of the edit process.

What comes next? I don’t know.

Book Giveaway: The Crimson Shield (19/11/2013)

I didn’t go a giveaway last week because I’m buried in NaNoWriMo and writing a series of articles for Fantasy Faction about it (you can read the latest of them here if you like). In future, it’s likely that whenever I have the urge to go have a rant about something relating to books, it’ll be over on Fantasy Faction. I’ll put liks up here for anyone interested.

Right now I’m in the midst of draft the second English Civil War detective story for Headline and at the same time plotting out the last of the dragon books for Gollancz and preparing proposals for What Comes Next. The last dragon book is going to be a bit of a pig because there are rather a more ends to wrap up than I’d quite realised.

What I want to know is: where’s the love for Gallow? So this week’s giveaway is a copy of The Crimson Shield by Nathan Hawke (i.e. me with the letters rearranged). No words, no title, no name, just Angry Man With Axe.

Usual deal – comment on this post before November 24th  and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy.

This week I’d like to hear your stories about jackass drivers. No names, please, and to enter the competition, you don’t have to tell a story, you can just say hi; but if you want to get something off your chest, here’s a safe place to do it (Note – Vent anything you like but I’ll not tolerate any comments on comments that attempt, in my arbitrary and biased view, to start a debate, nor the explicit naming of anyone for being a jerk. My intolerance will manifest as deleting or editing comments. This week is about having a bit of a rant, not debates or potential libel. Thought if you just want to get it off your chest about, say THE LIVING DISASTER OF JACKASS LANE-DISCIPLINE AT THE MIAMI ROUNCDABOUT IN CHELMSFORD and the COCKHEAD in the Ambient Aroma (0r something similar) van, registration VU61 something-something, then you should be fine. And yes, I know I’ve mention this before. Anyone out there with an old they’d like get involved in low-speed prang to get it written off at the expense of someone else’s insurance, it’s definitely the place to go).

You can enter as may times as you like but I’ll count the first two entries – the rest are just for fun and showing off.  Extra points for humour and originality and I’ve still got the Angry Dragons mug if you make me laugh, smirk or otherwise amuse me.

Although, though no one has yet complained about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, it can take a while and if you live abroad then it can take even longer (like weeks). Sorry about that, but they do get there eventually. Well, so far. Past winners, everything has been dispatched.

NaNoWriMo (12/11/2013)

Hi everybody!

I’m doing NaNoWriMo through the whole of November and so news on the site here is going to be sparse because I’m writing up progress as it goes over on Fantasy Faction. Links to each post will be on the home page. see you all in December.

Name That Spaceship: (04/11/2013)

Last week: polishing off the penultimate rewrite of Bulldog Drummond and the Faceless; editing Empires: Extraction; going to World Fantasy Con. I’ll put up another extract from Empires later this week. This week I’m working on the sequel to The Royalist as a NaNoWriMo project. To follow my progress and/or find out what the hell that even means, you need to hop over to the Fantasy Faction site. Here’s the starter.

This week’s giveaway is a bit different. One of the nice things about conventions is that you get to see all sorts of people when they’re a bit tipsy and more pliable than usual to be tapped up for favours. If you follow the acquisitions news from Gollancz, you’ll already know that when the Kickstarter funding drive for Elite: Dangerous was launched, Gollancz bought the rights to publish three tie-in novel titles. In theory, then, there are three Gollancz novels coming out next year set in the Elite universe. If you’ve been following with *particular* interest (say because you happen to be a Gollancz author who pitch in to the Kickstarter, not that that actually narrows us down all that much, it turns out), you might have noticed that there haven’t been any announcements as to who will  be writing them and when they’ll be coming out.

Naturally, from my position of privilege, I shall not be sharing the INSIDE INFORMATION I have on the subject. What I will share, however, is the opportunity, acquired during the World Fantasy Convention for one of you to name a spaceship in one of the elite tie-in novels. Any thing you like provided is doesn’t break some other copyright and isn’t likely to cause offense (both Gollancz and Frontier would have to be OK with it). The ship is currently a Diamondback called the Sword of Alexander and exists in the narrative as something for the protagonist to ostentatiously have a fight with (I believe it puts in a good show for itself before it goes down). There is the possibility that the name might make its way back into the game database for the Elite universe, but I absolutely can’t say anything definite one way or the other about that.

To enter, you have to comment on this post before November 10th AND you have to finish this sentence: “Officer, I crashed into the space-station because…” The author who’ll be using your ship name will choose a winner by some opaque process not subject to any scrutiny next weekend. Enjoy.

New books for 2014/2015 (1/11/2013)

I have just signed a contract with Headline books to two historical fiction novels to be published in late 2014 and 2015 respectively. These will be published in parallel with my work for Gollancz (the Splintered Gods will still come out as planned next year and so forth).

The novels are set towards the end of the first English civil war and feature the former royalist William Falkland, who has been co-opted by the Parliamentarians as a sort of roving investigator. Falkland, who has seen more than his share of battles and death in the last five years, has lost any idealistic notions of King and Country he might have carried in to the start of the war and is simply trying to get home but Parliament has other ideas; yet behind the dry, bitter and cynical exterior, Falkland clings to his notions of what is right and decent and remains and man of principle and result makes him reminiscent of the cynical heroes of noir thrillers. So there it is: noir detective stories set in the English Civil War.

The novels will be entirely separate standalones centred around Falkland and a small handful of recurring secondary characters, the only ongoing storyline being Falkland himself. In the first novel (The Royalist), Falkland is sent to the winter camp of the New Model Army in Devon to poke his nose into a trio of unusual suicides that are, of course, nowhere near as simple as they first appear. In the second, the sister of John Milton (Paradise Lost) has gone missing.

Th first of these, Th Royalist, is due for publication in November 2014.

Book Giveaway: Among Others (29/10/2013)

Yargh! Ugrosh smash secondary school selection system. Horrible horrible. Local selective school for geniuses: won’t get in. Distant selective school for almost-geniuses: too far away. Local good comprehensive: Not in catchment area. Local not-so-good comprehensive actually the only straightforward option. WHY DO YOU GIVE ME THIS ILLUSION OF CHOICE? RAGEMONKEY FURRYCHIMP KICKHOLEINTHEUNIVERSE NYAAARRRGH!!!!

Yes, yet another week in which not a lot got done. My second Bulldog Drummond novella got reworked and the first one got edited.

This week’s giveaway is Among Others by Jo Walton, maybe a love it/hate it book, not quite my personal cup of tea but exquisite in its own way. A book about books and fairies and magic and the real world too. Won some awards as well.

Fifteen-year-old Morwenna lives in Wales with her twin sister and a mother who spins dark magic for ill. One day, Mori and her mother fight a powerful, magical battle that kills her sister and leaves Mori crippled. Devastated, Mori flees to her long-lost father in England. Adrift, outcast at boarding school, Mori retreats into the worlds she knows best: her magic and her books. She works a spell to meet kindred souls and continues to devour every fantasy and science fiction novel she can lay her hands on. But danger lurks… She knows her mother is looking for her and that when she finds her, there will be no escape.

Usual deal – comment on this post before November 3rd and I’ll randomly select a lucky victims for a free copy of the book. This week we’re playing Fairy Supermarket so each comment (to enter)  needs to be in alphabetical order and be fairy-related shopping items. Like  A is for Ankou; B is for Brittany where Ankous come from; C is for Cee how easy it is…? Extra points if you tell me about a faery or a fairytale or something fey I’ve never heard of[1].

Although though no one has yet complained about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, it can take a while and if you live abroad then it can take even longer. Sorry about that, but they do get there eventually. Well, so far. Recent winners, I have cleared my backlog.

[1] Extra points not guaranteed to actually mean anything.