Stephen Deas's Blog, page 5

Giveaway: The Royalist (10/3/2015)

This week I have two titles coming out in paperback on the same day from different publishers. Last week I had them fight.You might imagine that dragons and lightning-throwing flying ships made of enchanted glass would have an edge on a grizzled civil war veteran, but as it turned out the dragons lost out in the popularity stakes. So this week I’m giving away Cromwell, pikes and muskets and the unwilling and ever-dour renaissance detective Willian Falkland: The Royalist

You get to choose. Usual deal – comment on this post before Sunday 15th March and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy. Been kind of a busy week for non-writing reasons so I don’t have a game to play and am just giving books away. Say hi, say which one you want, and you’re entered. You can read the opening chapter here.

No one has complained (so far) about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, but 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. Am currently rather behind with posting things.

Giveaway: The Royalist/The Splintered Gods

You’ve all gone and bought a copy of Gallow: The Anvil, right? Because that came out last week, and have I mentioned yet how the future of Nathan Hawke as a writer probably depends on it?

In a couple of weeks I get to have two of my own titles coming out in paperback on the same day from different publishers, so it seems to me that the only rational course of action is to have them fight. So for this week’s giveaway you get to choose which one you want if you win. Will it be the  magical flying ships, enchantresses who mould glass to their whim, golems and, of course, dragons of The Splintered Gods…

… or will it be the historical grit of the the English Civil War, Cromwell, pikes and muskets and the unwilling and ever-dour renaissance detective Willian Falkland in The Royalist…?

You get to choose. Usual deal – comment on this post before Sunday 8th March and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy. Given the lack of interest last week, manifesto plans to deal with a zombie apocalypse have been put on hold and I’m just giving books away. Say hi, say which one you want, and you’re entered.

No one has complained (so far) about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, but 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. Am currently a bit behind with posting things.

Giveaway: Something Coming Through (22/2/2015)

This week, at the same time as giving away a copy of some poor bugger’s book, I’m going to do something a bit different. We have an election coming in a few months (please do vote if you’re able), and with that in mind it seemed appropriate for this blog to adopt a more serious tone and start addressing more significant political issues than George Lucus’s radicalisation of the Care Bears. So here today are the official policies of the five main national parties in the event of an impending asteroid strike:

The Conservative Party has no official policy, but will issue bunker access passes to anyone based on how much tax they should have paid but managed not to. This is based on the post-apocalyptic social policy of natural selection: only fittest will survive, and only the biggest bastards will survive to rule.

The Labour Party refused to be railroaded in issuing a policy statement of any sort, but nodded lots at the suggestion that it would basically be exactly the same policy as the Conservatives backed up by vastly noisy denials and assertions that their policy will be something entirely different and much nicer, even while they’re quietly issuing the same passes.

The Liberal Democrats were too surprised to find someone interested in something they might have to say to actually say anything. Whihc probably doesn’t matter because no one would believe them anyway. Off the record one party member suggested they might try to form a coalition with the asteroid on the grounds that it would briefly be the one thing even more hated than them, but that strikes me mostly as wishful thinking.

UKIP didn’t have a policy at all, as usual, but after brainstorming with a few beers down the pub have settled on a plan to strap rockets to the backs of immigrants and launch them into the upper troposphere to create a human shield.

The Green Party take the view that an asteroid strike causing the extinction of the human race is part of the natural order of things and probably no bad thing, and state that it would be “irresponsible” to try and do anything about it.

No, I don’t the first fucking clue who to vote for either. But I do have a book to give away. This week it’s Something Coming Through by Paul McAuley, chosen because politics made me think of Empires: Extraction and that made me think of aliens. And having read a little, I think this might give The Death House a run for its money to climb to the top of the TBR pile. Here’s an extract from the author’s blog:

Something Coming Through isn’t about explaining away the alien: it’s about the difficulty of understanding it. The Jackaroo step in to give aid to humanity at a moment of global crisis. They are, they say, here to help. But they’re also wilfully enigmatic. They appear only as humanoid avatars. They deflect all questions about what they are, where they come from, why they are helping humanity, and what the endpoint of that help might be

Usual deal – comment on this post before Sunday 1st March and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy. If you have any other genre questions for our politicos, leave those in the comments too and I’ll see if I can get an answer – next week the five main party’s will address their plans for a zombie apocalypse.

No one has complained (so far) about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, but 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. Am currently up to date with posting things.

Ed Cox Giveaway and Why Gavin Smith is Wrong About Ewoks (15/2/2015)

Apologies first of all that there wasn’t a giveaway last week, this being on account of an unusually severe attack of the snots. Apologies second of all that this week’s planned article (an insightful interview with the main parties contending the May general election as to their policies for coping with the inevitable eventuality of a major asteroid strike) will now have to be deferred until next week, but there are some things that need to be said about my Elite/Empires co-author Gavin Smith and his recent downright prejudiced comments about ewoks.

I’d like to begin with an extract from Empires – a pair of books which, I should point out, we WROTE TOGETHER[1]

‘What about Ewoks?’ asked Stanton. They were in the back of a V-22 Osprey. Somewhere out there was another Osprey and a pack of angry F/A-18 Hornets there to give shit to any Libyans who decided it wasn’t okay for the United States to send a pack of armed-to-the-teeth Special Forces types into the back-arse of their country without bothering to ask nicely first.

‘We shoot Ewoks,’ said one of the SEALs. As best Roche could tell, both Ospreys were loaded almost with their full complement of twenty-four soldiers and a Growler Fast Attack Vehicle. The Specialist Support Team was in the other Osprey. Roche, Woods, Stanton and Rees found themselves with two squads of SEALs and their lieutenant for company. There was the usual bit of trans-Atlantic ribbing.

‘Ewoks are bad-ass,’ said Woods. Roche raised an eyebrow at that. Woods was the last person he’d imagined having an opinion about Ewoks, one way or the other.

‘Bad-ass?’ The seal laughed. ‘Fucking teddy bears.’ They’d crossed the Libyan coast a while back and no one had tried to shoot them down. This far out over the desert, Roche supposed that no one much cared. There probably wasn’t even any air traffic control coverage. People were starting to relax.

‘Fucking teddy bears who take out AT-STs with rocks and bits of tree,’ said Woods. ‘You see an angry Ewok, you best run, because that Ewok he’s going to go psycho on your arse and send you running home to mama.’

Ewoks are badass. Sorry, Gav, but they just are. Armed with sticks and stones, and with no advance planning whatsoever, they take on the most advanced mechanised infantry in the galaxy and they win.

The argument that the esteemed Mister Smith immediately levels against this is that stormtroopers might indeed, technically speaking, be the most advanced mechanised infantry in the galaxy, but if so that’s because they’re also the only mechanised infantry in the galaxy, and they’re also the most rubbish, the most unable to shoot anything they even remotely try to aim at, and their AT-STs are made of cardboard and old bakolite that’s been left sitting in the Endor sun for far, far too long. Add to that that the ewoks had the advantages both of surprise and of being intimately familiar with the terrain and even a battalion of well trained attack-hamsters could have won.

Maybe so. Poorly armed insurgencies have triumphed against technically far superior enemies in the real world when the advantages of surprise, terrain and incompetence on the part of the opposition have been in play. That puts the ewoks in the same boat as the likes of the Viet Cong and the Mujahadeen, hardly bands of pussycats either of them, but that argument misses the point. Just how rubbish the imperial stormtroopers are really has nothing to do with this.

Let’s have a little think over what actually happens. The ewoks capture Luke, Han, Leia etc. and their natural response is, apparently, to boil the intruders and eat them. Right from the off, it’s quite clear that ewoks, despite appearances, are not in the least bit cute, but in fact are murderously bloodthirsty. They then decide that C3PO is a god, although – and this is important – the point at which they start respecting their new god and doing what it says instead of what they damn well felt like doing is when their new god gets angry and start issuing threats and exhibiting mysterious floating-across-the-room powers. This language of violence is clearly the only language that ewoks understand. Beneath their cuddly exterior, ewoks are anything but.

Driven by their god, the ewoks take up arms against the empire. They have no qualms about this, but embrace it with vigour. No matter how incompetent the imperial stormtroopers might be, no matter how their AT-STs are actually made of cardboard glued together with stormtrooper snot, the ewoks don’t know this when they commit themselves. They are prepared to go up against an enemy with vastly better weaponry, with tanks and speeder bikes and heavy blasters (and, let’s not forget, a fucking great DEATH STAR right there in the sky overhead), and they do this without hesitation. Whether or not the ewoks of Endor are badass for winning that fight, they are absolutely terrifying for committing to it in the first place. They are bloodthirsty murderous zealots who give little to no thought to the preservation either of themselves as individuals or of their families or society. Driven by a god they’ve had for about twelve hours they fight with utter and absolute conviction, heedless of consequence. Maybe badass isn’t a strong enough word for a race of creatures who commit to what is effectively a jihad at the drop of a hat – ewoks are utterly fucking terrifying. And let’s not forget what happens at the end, either. That feast? There is a xylophone-thing made of storm trooper helmets and chest plates, so they clearly stripped the dead, but what, exactly, are they eating? What exactly are they celebrating? The pretty lights in the sky as the Death Star explodes? The victory of the rebellion? I don’t think so. The ewoks aren’t celebrating Freedom, or the death of the Empire. They haven’t the first clue about anything outside of their forest. No, they’re just happy stuffing their little furry faces with roast dead human.

Badass? Ewoks would hunt xenomorphs for fun. That hapless stormtrooper at the start of the teaser for Star Wars VII? He looks that scared because he knows the furry ones are coming.

Anyway . . .

This week’s giveaway is The Relic Guild by Edward Cox. I’ve not read it, but Ed and Gav have both been annoying me on Twitter of late by not agreeing with everything I say, so I thought I’d give one of Ed’s books away and deprive him of a sale. I’m nothing if not petty.

Usual deal – comment on this post before Sunday February 22nd and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy. No special game this week, just wave and say hi to enter the draw, although I do encourage you to pitch in on the whole ewok debate or suggest some other alien species that have been sorely mis-represented. No no one has complained (so far) about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, but 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. Am currently up to date with posting things.

[1] except for this bit, which I snuck in while Gavin wasn’t looking.

Giveaway: The Death House (2/2/2015)

This week’s giveaway is The Death House by Sarah Pinborough. I’ve not read it, but it’s a had a whole stack of excellent reviews and the inside scoop is that it’s much in the vein on The Language of Dying (which I *have* read and can vouch for its moving brilliance). It might possibly be the new Fault in Our Stars. The book doesn’t come out until the end of February, so if you win, cross your fingers I can twist an editor’s arm to get a first edition hardback hot off the presses. The Death House is availabe to pre-order as an e-book for £1.99. This has been a Gollancz PR production [1]

Death House

Usual deal – comment on this post before Monday February  9th and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy.No special game this week, just wave and say hi to enter the draw. No no one has complained (so far) about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, but  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. Am currently a bit behind in posting things.

[1] Not really, but Sarah and her editor were at Super Relaxed Fantasy Club last week. I might have been bribed with wine.

Giveaway: The Fateguard Trilogy (again) (20/1/2015)

Nathan Hawke’s short The Anvil comes out as an e-book on the 12th February. In order to get ready for what will doubtless be THE fantasy event of the year (and so soon, too), Nathan is launching a massive publicity campaign which will consist of signing every single physical copy of the e-book, a gruelling one-stop signing and reading event at the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club and a market-saturating giveaway of a whole one other copy of The Fateguard Trilogy. 940 pages. 330,000 words. Everything Hawke has ever written. A man with an axe on the cover. What more could you want?

Usual deal – comment on this post before Monday January 26th and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy. Super Relaxed Fantasy Club is meeting on the 27th January, 6:30 at the Grange Holborn Hotel. from past eperience I recommend getting there a little early in order to have a chance of finding where we’ve all gone. There might be a few copies available on the the night, but more importantly there are going to be a slew of fantasy authors, editors and, most of all, fans, hanging out. If you’re the lucky winner and you’re going to be there, I’ll bring the book; otherwise no one has complained (so far) about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, but  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. Am currently up to date, in that all recent winners have been posted.

The Yearly Round-up (30/12/2014)

2013 saw the publication of Dragon Queen, the first book in my second trilogy of dragon fantasies, and while I kept the world the same, I took a different approach to the writing of it. The politics are still there, the battles and the dragons and the magic, but Dragon Queen was supposed to have a much more intense focus on character. I think Zafir was and remains the best character I’ve ever written (but I’m a little biased by knowing what happens in the second and third books). Dragon Queen was well received by the handful of people who read and reviewed it, but the sad fact (for me) is that it didn’t sell. I suppose I have to take that as a reflection on the books that preceded it. Which is a pity, because it’s light-years better.

2013 also saw the release of three Nathan Hawke novels in quick succession, much more swords and sorcery. Three novels in consecutive months, under a different name, straight into paperback (which isn’t the usual Gollancz way) and with those glorious covers with nothing but the artwork on the front. They didn’t sell terribly well either, although they did better than Dragon Queen. If there’s one ray of hope for Nathan Hawke it’s that there’s still a steady trickle of sales, and that the second and third books are selling close to as well as the first, which suggests that maybe, on the whole, The Crimson Shield is a strong enough story to make you want more.

On the whole, 2013 didn’t work (actually 2013 sucked for a whole variety of reasons, professional failure being the least of them). So just as well 2014 hasn’t been about fantasy nearly as much. As well as the second Zafir dragon novel, The Splintered Gods, 2014 saw historical crime fiction, The Royalist, military SF (Empires: Extraction) and a co-written SF game tie-in (Elite:Wanted). Turns out I was also a lot less productive this year than I was in 2013, writing only a little over two hundred thousand new words over the course of the year as opposed to over half a million the year before. That had a lot to do with needing to have a real job for a bit.

Will this year’s titles sell? The Splintered Gods won’t. I guess by now you either like my dragons or you don’t, so whoever liked Dragon Queen will probably get on with The Splintered Gods, but it’s definitely part two of a trilogy.

Elite: Wanted will probably do well enough. Don’t expect great depth of character or some startlingly original piece of world-building. It seems popular enough among Elite fans, but as with most tie-in fiction, it will doubtless struggle to reach beyond the game-playing audience. Whether there can be any more Ziva and Ravindra seems unlikely, and will depend very much on Frontier and their plans for further expansions of the game. Here’s a the most recent review I could find, which is fairly typical. “…a fast, frentic space opera that pays homage to Elite in the best possible way.” SFbook.com

Bulldog Drummond: Dead Man’s Gate is an e-book onyl novella I did for the small e-publisher Piqwiq. I have no idea AT ALL whether it’s selling any copies. The fact that the first novella went through three stages of editing and the second two are only going through one each smacks of desperately trying to save money, so I’m going to guess probably not, and apologise right now for the inevitable typos.

Empires: Extraction hasn’t been out for long and it hasn’t had many reviews, but so far they’ve all been pretty grim and they all like Infiltration better (OK, the two that I’ve read have. I haven’t read the SFX review), which largely sucks for me, but I can see their point that Gav’s aliens are better. Early impression is this is an experiment that didn’t work. I can’t see me and Gavin being asked to write a second pair of books in this form. There might be a different way to go forward.

The Royalist, by contrast, has enjoyed a rather kinder reception. Here’s the most recent review I could find; again fairly typical. “a very enjoyable and refreshing read that gave you a new understanding of the time and the New Model army and how it was anything but united” Reality is a Bore. A second William Falkland volume comes out next summer. If anything from this year is going to carry on, I reckon it’s this one.

2015: The Silver Kings comes out in the summer, the last of the dragon books I’ll be writing for a while. Like Dragon Queen it’s very much Zafir’s story, and all the better for it, though it does leave a few other things hanging as a result. That, for me, will be the pick of the bunch for next year because it’s so close to my heart. There are two more Bulldog Drummond novellas in the pipeline. Nathan Hawke has three Gallow shorts coming out in the first half of the year, and then I guess the title I’m most hopeful for is the second William Falkland novel: The Protector, but more about that closer to the time.

I have no idea what I’ll be writing in 2015. Another William Falkland novel, I hope. Maybe, if the Gallow shorts do well, there can be another Nathan Hawke outing.

Random End of Year Giveway (14/12/2014)

News this week? Is there any? Not much. The third of my Bulldog Drummond novellas has finished editing. I enjoyed writing them, but I don’t think the first one has sold nearly well enough for there to be any more (I base this purely on the non-existant amazon ranking). There is an audio version now available, if anyone is into that sort of thing. Elite: Wanted looks like it’s kicking Empires’ butt, which wasn’t supposed to happen (yay – go Elite!). Nathan Hawke continues to fiddle with a few short stories.

Usually at this time of the year I do some sort of post that says where various projects are at. So . . .

The dragons and the thief-taker

There’s no sight of a US publisher for The Black Mausoleum, Dragon Queen, The Splintered Gods or The Silver Kings, or for the Thief-Taker series. Both should be available via online retailers, and this seems to have started working a lot better than it did a couple of years ago. They do all appear to be available from Amazon. Dragon Queen came out in paperpack in the summer. The Splintered Gods is out and The Silver Kings is into the later stages of the edit process and should come out in June, I think. This series seems to have settled into a set of devoted followers, to if you’re one of those, thank you. Zafir has been something of a ride. She’ll probably linger with me as one of the best characters I’ve ever written, but damn is she hard to live with.

Nathan Hawke

The omnibus is out there.  As with the later dragons books, there is no US publisher but it’s available from online retailers. There are three rather long short stories which are going to come out as e-books over the first half of next year. If they sell, there may be some more novels to follow – that’s down to Nathan’s publisher being convinced enough that they’re going to make any money out of them. I liked writing Gallow and I’d like to do some more. If you’re a Gallow fan, please help that happen by buying copies for all your friends as Christmas presents.

Gavin Deas

Elite was fun but it doesn’t look like there are going to be any more in the near future. Extraction/Infiltration hasn’t had nearly enough review coverage to turn into decent sales, I fear, but it’s a bit early to know for sure.

S J Deas

Lots of positive review coverage for The Royalist. The Protector, William Falkland’s second mystery, is written, edited, and coming out in June (I think, or maybe September) and the paperback of the Royalist comes out in March (again, I *think*). I’m hopeful this series will continue.

Anyway… Most of you are just here for the free book, right…?

So this week’s giveaway is… a mystery. Several mysteries, in fact, because I’m going to rob a book from the Gollancz offices (they’re all on holiday until like the middle of March or something) for every five entries[1]. I’ll take requests, but I might not be able to honour them (in fact there’s a pretty good chance I won’t, but I’ll try). I’ll be keeping half an eye open for double entries, but only half of one

So – to enter the great random end-of-year book draw, all you have to do it comment on this post before January 1st and say hello or happy Christmas or something that’s at least not obscene and I’ll randomly select lucky victims for free books. That’s it, although if there’s a specific Gollancz title you’d like me to try and pilfer then say so in the comment! So far no one has complained about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, but  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. Am currently up to date, in that all recent winners have been posted. Obviously all the winners from this particular competition won’t be gettin gtheir books until the new year…

(it’s open worldwide, but deliveries outside Europe can take about two months)

[1] in the unlikely event that we get past fifty entries, I’ll have to drop the prize ratio in order to not go bankrupt…

Giveaway: The Fateguard Trilogy (07/12/2014)

Damn,  but this is a good-looking book. It’s big too. I mean, Game of Thrones big. Proper fantasy big. None of that namby-pamby barely makes it to 100,o00 words thinks-it’s-some-kind-of-novel-from-any-other-genre fantasy. No no. 940 pages. 330,000 words. A man with an axe on the cover. What more could you want.

Ok, look, yes it’s an omnibus, but it’s Nathan Hawke’s  *first* omnibus and Nathan Hawke is pretty damn proud of it (”it’s like I levelled up”), so tolerate the revelling in it and accept that three novels and seven shorts is pretty decent for a giveway.

And if you don’t win, Gallow: The Fateguard Trilogy is officially published on the 12th, and is probably in most decent bookshops already.

Usual deal – comment on this post before December 14th and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy. It’s Christmas, so no games, but you have to say something nice about someone who isn’t me as a comment to this post to enter. That’s it. So far no one has complained about how long it takes me to get to the post office and post things, but  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. Am currentlyup to date, in that all recent winners have been posted.

Giveaway: Empires Extraction (1/12/2014)

New for the last couple of weeks? Not much. The final edits for The Silver Kings have gone in. Copyediting over Christmas at a guess. Nathan Hawke polished off the Gallow short Dragon’s Reach and some extra-secret bonus material. Gavin Deas attended the Elite:Dangerous premiere and headlined the event, if by headlined I mean was the last person on stage before the night ended, which I do. There have been other developments about which I shall not speak, but which are going to mean quite some reduction in writing time next year.

Also Empires came out. There are some early reviews and articles for the truly committed over on the Empires page:

Did I mention that you can read the first chapter of Extraction here?

Now to the giveaway: I did Empires: Infiltration last week, so I suppose I’d better do Extraction this week. Yay! The Snarky Spaceships volume!

The covers are a bit of a clue as to the content. I think they’re well suited for what’s inside. In Extraction, it’s basically badass aliens, snarky spaceships and sweary SAS men. I think Gav give Infiltration a slightly darker, edgier feel, but then the novels have their differences in what’s going on around each protagonist. If you like you that sort of thing, the way the two novels both mesh and work on their own is pretty cool (yes I cutted and pasted that from last week AGAIN. So sue me).

Usual deal – comment on this post before December  and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy. This week, since there was a Star Wars trailer(well, sort of) last week, I’m looking for suggestions for things that ought to be in Star Wars: Episode 7 or ought not to be. Or anything Star Wars related will do. 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. Am currently a bit behind.