Stephen Deas's Blog, page 9

Ignorance, Bigotry and a Free Book (5/5/2014)

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, so please excuse the lack of more free books. It’s been dragons and dragons and more dragons as well as some work on some proposals for what might come after dragons. I might post something about the benign annoyance of proposal-writing one day. But mostly it’s been about getting The Silver Kings knocked into shape before Summer, and it’s getting there, and another thing I might post about is how a character can come out of the background and take over what will ultimately be 700k words of prose. Thanks, Zafir. I think.

Usually I skip on to the free book about here. If that’s what you want to do then that’s find – scroll down past the cover art picture and you can skip to the end, but for the rest of this post I’m going to digress and rant a bit about top-ten lists and the difference between ignorance and bigotry, and it’s going to start with my own top-ten list of the greatest explorers of all time. Here goes (in no particular order):

Christopher Columbus
Marco Polo
Vasco Da Gama
Ferdinand Magellan
Yuri Gagarin
Captain James Cook
David Livingstone
Ernest Shackleton
Alexander von Humboldt
Jacques Cousteau

This is a pretty crappy list in many ways. After I wrote it I had a look to see what the internet had to offer, which made me feel a bit better. Anyone who has a clue would doubtless squeal over various omissions (Sir John Cabot? Sir Francis Drake?). Cousteau and Gagarin maybe show a little more lateral thinking than than most (smug smug smugity smug), or possibly a desperation to get to ten . Yes, doubtless you could critique this top-ten list of explorers from her to Sunday, but let’s just go in for the kill and point out that every single one of them is white and male. I did try (carefully without doing any research) to think of any explorers I knew to break that mold, and I couldn’t (I think Amelia Earhart was the best I came up with). I had a lot of trouble coming up with ten at all. I was struggling after five or six.

I submit that the absence on this list of any explorers who aren’t white stems from a considerable ignorance on my part rather than bigotry, at least on a personal level (one could argue ignorance stemming from systemic social bias and thus a passive bigotry). I made this list to make a point, although it really is the best I could come up without help. I’m quite certain there are explorers from Asia, India, the Middle East and Africa who contributed massively to their cultures. I’m quite sure that if I had bothered to do any research then I would have found out about them. I’m quite sure I would have found their stories fascinating and talked about them. I’m quite sure that if anyone were to look at my list of explorers and point out how Euro-centric it is and then pointed out some alternatives, I’d go and find out about them. I’m interested. I want to know more. I’m not as ignorant as it’s possible to be but I know there’s vastly more out there than I’ve discovered. So if you read my list and find it offends you with its monochrome, you could suppose it’s simply ignorance on my part and try to educate me, and I’d like that very much. The likely consequence is that I will have respect for your opinions and values. I might listen to what you have to say in arguments about things other than explorers with a desire to be sympathetic to your point of view. Or you could tell me how bigoted it is and get in my face about it and very all your friends and make me feel stupid and a jerk. You could suggest I did no research and don’t know what I’m talking about (and you’d be correct). You could tell me I’m an ignorant dick. You could do that. I don’t think I’ll be having much respect for your opinions and values if you do.

You realise that the bedrock of bigotry is ignorance, right? You realise that taking that ignorance and educating it makes a mind more open than closed, right? You realise that yelling “stupid” does the opposite, right?

So my plea to anyone who’s still reading is this: the next time anyone posts anything on the internet (say, for example, their best SFF releases of 2014, just by way of something that might come around at some point), and it turns out to be full of white dudes, or otherwise excludes a large section of thought or society, grit your teeth and swear quietly in a corner and teach rather than torment. Pretty please?

OK. Done now. Thank you for listening. This week’s giveaway book is a signed hardcover copy of The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice.

Usual deal – comment on this post before May 11th and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy. In addition, if anyone wants to play, I’m going to give away a an Angry Dragons T-shirt for the most interesting explorer anyone can point me at who isn’t a white dude. You can enter as may times as you like and I’ll count the first two entries – the rest are just for fun and showing off.

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. I am currently very behind so if you’re waiting for a book from a previous giveaway then, er, sorry. They’re packaged up now and should go in the post today.

Elite: Wanted – an excerpt

It was easy enough to find the pilot of the Unkindness. He was in a bar that some arsehole had called The Jameson, as if the real deal would ever have come to a shit-hole like this. A retro flat-screen took up a whole wall inside, running a loop of spectacular space accidents. Most of the ones here were of Cobra’s fucking up their roll-rate and crashing into the entry gate of one of the old-school rotating cuboctahedral Coriolis stations. There had been a whole spate of that when the Coriolis stations were first introduced. Was always a problem with the Cobras for some reason, fitting them through the letterbox opening and the pilots back then … well, these days no one got a licence without showing they could roll-match a station whether they were drunk, stoned or stone-cold sober.

Ziva threw a handful of camera drones into the air and gave them their thirty seconds. After the way she’d left the enforcement office, there didn’t seem much point in subtlety. Give them another five minutes and they’d have a whole posse of junkers hunting her; this time they’d be armed with a damn sight more than a shock-rod. She fired hers at the ceiling. That got the attention of every spacer in the bar quick enough. Once she had it she asked:

‘So which one of you fuckers flies the Unkindness?’

All it took was one glance and she knew who it was. She shocked him as she ran at him, vaulting tables, and he hadn’t even finished slumping to the floor by the time she reached him, picked him up and slung him over her shoulder. Heavy fucker. She was thankful the fake gravity of the Black Mausoleum was only about half Earth-standard. She stuffed a pair of anti-stun plugs in his ears and then let off one of the grenades from the junker she’d neck-chopped. That gave her about fifteen seconds while no one else in the bar would know their arse from their elbow, enough to drag the pilot into the gents – no one ever put a camera up in the men’s toilets, not ever – and barricade herself in. She sent the camera drones off to create a moving blind spot through the station that would make it seem as though she was heading for the hub. Then she jabbed the Adder pilot with a half dose of Wakey-Wakey and enough Demon to put the shits up a horse. She slapped him; the moment his eyes opened, she pinned him down onto the tiled floor by his throat. The air stank of stale piss. A thousand years and some things just didn’t change.

‘I don’t know your name,’ she spat, ‘but I know you fly a Judas runner and I know you came in with an escape pod not long back. Who was in it?’

Giveaway: Dragon Queen (14/4/2014)

Nothing Can Hurt Me

Nothing Can Stop Me

Dragon Queen came out in paperback last weeks and I have a few copies, a tiny precious few. For anyone who hasn’t already listened to be go on about it, Dragon Queen is my attempt to keep all the good stuff from the first series but with vastly more world building and character depth (hopefully sort of like The Black Mausoleum).  So it’s not going to be quite the relentlessly fast roller-coaster of The Adamantine Palace but on the other hand you do get an entire last act that should read like Call of Duty: Dragon Warfare if I’ve done it right. There are some tasters here and here and here. There are a few reviews about the place on Goodreads and Amazon and so forth of you care about such things. I wouldn’t say no to a few more. HINT HINT.

You wanted to know more about the Taiytakei: here they are. And possibly they just made a very big mistake. Efforts continue to write the last volume in this sequence.

I have two copies to give away. One here and one on Twitter. Usual deal – comment on this post before April 21st  and I’ll randomly select a lucky victim for a free copy.

This week, like we did last summer, we’re playing Dragon Supermarket. So you need your comment to come up with something to do with fire and dragons and the comments have to be in alphabetical order. So for example, A is for Absolutely Run Like Fuck When You See One, B is for Burn, C is for Change Your Underwear If You Survive, etc…

Anyway, to enter the competition, you have to play the game. You can enter as may times as you like and I’ll count the first two entries – the rest are just for fun and showing off.  Extra points for humour and originality and just for once I’ll throw in an 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. Sorry about that, but they do get there eventually. Well, so far. I am currently a little behind.

Giveaway: Gavin Smith Stuff (1/4/2014)

ELITE!!!!! (at this point please picture a hyperkinetic author running about in wide circles waving his arms in the air). So there’s an announcement about Elite: Dangerous tie-in novels. Meanwhile the  proofs for The Splintered Gods are done, the proofs for Elite: Wanted are well on their way and hurrah, that’s the end of page proofs for a while and I can get back to The Silver Kings.

Anyhow, if you read the Elite news, you’ll know that Gollancz SF author Gavin Smith and I have turned into some hideous chimera EVEN WORSE THAN EITHER ONE OF US ALONE to write Elite: Wanted. So this week I’m giving away some of Gavin’s books to deny him a few pennies in sales and generally be cruel in a petty kind of way.

Usual deal – comment on this post before April 6th and I’ll randomly select lucky victims. This week I want to know WHY HAVEN’T YOU READ DRAGON QUEEN YET spaceship names. Ones that you’d like to see in print, not ones already there. Who knows…

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. I’m off to the post office RIGHT NOW to clear the Big Book Bonanza. And Blood of Elves (sorry, Blood of Elves winner).

Bulldog Drummond: Dead Man’s Gate

“It’s a mystery how they ever thought they’d get away with it. Or indeed anything at all.” Inspector Wallis reached to help himself to the last grilled kidney, caught the eye of the man sitting across the table watching him like a hawk, and helped himself to more bacon instead. “I’ve some two dozen of the blighters cluttering up the place until they go in front of His Majesty’s justice and not one of them admits to knowing a thing about it. The driver of the last lorry just frowns as if beset by a sudden headache whenever I ask him how he meant to escape. He’s a sullen stubborn spiteful fellow with not a bit of wit to him. To be perfectly frank, I’m starting to believe he hadn’t given a single thought to getting away until he found that he couldn’t.” Wallis leaned forward and his eyes narrowed. “Which is all very well but whoever was behind this surely thought about such matters a great deal.” Now he folded his arms and sat back. “In short, Hugh, I have a jail full of privates with no sign of any sergeants and the one I want is the major who sent them over the top.”

Captain Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond, D.S.O., M.C., once of His Majesty’s Royal Loamshires and now, as he described himself, a gentleman of leisure and adventure, raised a fork and speared the remaining kidney. He glanced to his servant, James Denny, formerly a private of the same regiment, and bared his teeth in a wide friendly grin. “James, do tell Mrs Denny that she’s surpassed herself yet again. Caution her though – I think that if she surpasses herself too many times then she might meet herself coming the other way.”,/p>

James Denny returned a perplexed frown but nodded all the same. “I shall do that sir, and hope that she fathoms your meaning better than I do.” He left bearing the empty dishes.

Drummond’s eyes returned to the inspector. His eyes were what most people noticed and remembered about him, though in part perhaps in desperation to forget the rest of what was, in even his own honest assessment, a cheerfully ugly face with very little to recommend it. But his eyes made up for that. They were set deep and came at you with a calm and steady gaze full of assurance and a sense of purpose, and yet with a sparkle of honest mischief and boundless enthusiasm. “Are you saying you have no clues at all as to who roused this rabble and filled their pockets with dynamite?”

Inspector Wallis dabbed at his lips with his napkin. “Aside from a name, exactly so. I don’t have him, nor indeed anything much by which to find him. As you can imagine, a great deal rests on getting this man before he strikes again. It’s most vexing.”

“A score or more of his privates and not one can tell you anything about him? It does seem odd.” Drummond laughed and took another mouthful of kidney.

They can tell me he’s a gentleman, soft-spoken and not greatly imposing in his build, and that he’s clean-shaven. They call him Crabbleston, but as to his real identity, not one of them seems to have the slightest clue.”

Giveaway: Gallow (24/3/2014)

The past week has been spent on page proofs and more page proofs. The proofs for The Royalist are done, the proofs for The Splintered Gods are well on their way to being finished. Last week was also a curiously positive week for a couple of other projects. Firstly there’s going to be a third Bulldog Drummond novella, which will be a laugh. Secondly, Gollancz have asked for three Gallow mini-stories (details when there are details to be had). So this week’s giveaway is going to be pairs of Gallow books, Cold Redemption and The Last Bastion. The Last Bastion pretty much picks up from where Cold Redemption leaves off, so they’re pretty much a couple. Normally it would only be one pair, but I’ve been persuaded to give away as many copies as goals Liverpool put past Sunderland later this week. Go reds!

Usual deal – comment on this post before March 31st  and I’ll randomly select lucky victims. This week I want to know WHY HAVEN’T YOU READ DRAGON QUEEN YET which one you’d choose if you were offered – sword, axe or spear. Context free, no implied purpose, make up your own use, etc.

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. I will try to clear the Big Book Bonanza this week. And Blood of Elves (sorry, Blood of Elves winner).

Bulldog Drummond and the Jaguar Mask (26/3/2014)

A couple of weeks back I signed off on another Bulldog Drummond novella. I might have made more of a fuss of it at the time, only there was another announcement about to come out that then didn’t and then was going to and then got delayed . . . an announcement which sort of merited a little more fuss.

I was in two minds, back right at the start of last year when Bulldog Drummond came my way. On the one hand it’s writing to someone else’s tune; on the other, I had some free time coming up over the course of the year (which then got used up when Elite came along, and yes, that’s writing to someone else’s tune too but never mind that… ELITE!). To be fair to Piqwiq, they weren’t at all prescriptive about what needed to be done. I think they would have been quite happy to have a great-grandson of the original Bulldog Drummond running around in the dying days of the cold war having Bond-like adventures. Even sticking with the nineteen twenties setting, I’m not sure they would have been that troubled one way or another by how closely I stayed with the originals.

Which is probably just as well, although it was initially my intention to try and stay true to the original. Well over a dozen Drummond novels originally published in the twenties and thirties and nearly as many movies, and they’re mostly out of copyright and a good few of them are available for free via the internet. I have read and watched bits and I can’t really recommend much of it. Product of their time. They’re just . . . a bit dull. And original Drummond as a character . . . he’s a bit not my cup of tea. I’m entirely fine with the whole action hero thing and the Moriarty-style super-villain and there’s a nice bit of wit here and there but I never quite picked up what makes Drummond himself stand out as actually interesting to a modern eye. And yes, England in the nineteen twenties wasn’t exactly a picture of equality and social justice but even within that setting, original Drummond is pretty conservative. I don’t necessarily mind that – a reactionary hero trying to cling to old ways and values while the world around him is changing and leaving him behind is a trope any writer can have some fun with and I don’t see anything particularly wrong with having a bigoted and prejudiced lead character provided that the narrative challenges that view of the world rather than continually supports it – but original Drummond . . . doesn’t.

I will admit to having played a bit fast and loose, in the end, with the source. What I’ve aimed for, in the end, is to maintain a character who echoes the likes of James Bond (for whom the original Drummond was an inspiration) and Indiana Jones but with a little more of an awareness of the world and how it’s changing back in those times. Why? Because history interests me. Why do it at all? Oh, because who doesn’t like a good old-fashioned fast-paced action-adventure in which villainous master-criminals embark on grand schemes and are thwarted (or not) through gritty resolve, wily thinking and the careful application of a good right hook. And if you’re reading this and find yourself thinking ew, not me, then these stories, my friend, are indeed not for you.

In Dead Man’s Gate, the story begins with an explosion at the Bank of England as dozens of anarchists and Bolsheviks pour into the building, something more akin to a riot than a robbery. As the unrest is subdued and as the last of the anarchists are either restrained or make good their escape, we see a man walking calmly away. In his hand he tosses a very large and old-looking key. This is the enigmatic Mr Crabbleston, and it’s down to Drummond to infiltrate London’s anarchists and Bolsheviks to uncover Crabbleston’s dastardly plan to bring the British Empire to its knees as he stages the most daring theft in modern history. I have no idea who the woman is on the cover for this one, but does Drummond look a bit like Bond in this cover art? Rumour has it that the model is/has been Daniel Craig’s body double.

I kind of like all these covers. They’re simple but have a nice forties feel to them. I can see Humphrey Bogart in them. Well . . . if I close my eyes and use my imagination I can.

In The Faceless Ghosts, the death of a government Secret Intelligence Service agent draws Drummond into the opium dens of Limehouse in pursuit of a mysterious Chinese Triad lord, a far-off conflict between nationalist and communist forces and the shady world of international espionage while all the time umm-ing and ah-ing about getting married. I had a lot of fun in this one with my Chinese spy, Wei Li. Wei Li might have to come back in something again one day.

In the Jaguar Mask, the story begins at the Museum of Natural History in New York. Yale university, sponsored by Senator Hiram Bingam, have allowed a quantity of Incan artefacts to be put on display. At a private party at the museum the night before the exhibition opens, Senator Bingham is the guest of honour. He finds himself in conversation with an unknown Englishman who calls himself Crabbleston, who seems to know a great deal about the Incas, about the fabulous golden Jaguar Mask that’s the centrepiece of the exhibition, and also about the general political instability that blights Peru as a whole in these troubled times. After the stranger takes his leave, Bingham goes to take a closer look at the mask again. Something is wrong. Right in front of a hundred people, the real mask has been stolen and replaced it with an expert fake…

Actually I haven’t written than one yet. Drummond may or may not  be married (yes, the author is umm-ing and ah-ing too). But it definitely sees the return of Mr Crabbleston, because he was WAY too much fun in Dead Man’s Gate, and if the first two were Bond movies in disguise, this time we’re going for Indiana Jones.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Um . . . hum the Bond theme as you leave. Or Raiders of the Lost Ark. Oh, and here’s a very short extract. And a picture of  a Supermarine Southahmpton, because I had to look up seaplanes, and because it’s kind of like a banana with wings and a tail.

Bulldog Drummond and the Jaguar Mask (23/3/2014)

TBD

Giveaway: Mystery Book Bonanza

I just have to point this out again

Things that happen when you have more than one publisher: Two page proofs arrive at one (for those of you who don’t know, the page proofs are the last stage of the process where the last proof-reading occurs and at this point there’s an actual deadline for getting shit done, and generally pretty tight ones too).

I spent yesterday at a small literary festival. This involved showing up with a box of books. I have, I discover, quite a lot of books. Probably more than I have a use for. So this week I’m going to give away all kinds of stuff. There will be some Nathan Hawke. There will be some Stephen Deas. I have Adam Roberts, Joe Abercrombie, Brandon Sanderson, Stephen Baxter and numerous other. The gods of random will pick one entry for every four comments until I run out of books. Aaaaaad….. GO.

Usual deal – comment on this post before March 24th  and I’ll randomly select lucky victims. This week I want to know your must-read books.

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 (just about) cleared my backlog again – they’re all in the post!

Book Giveaway: Blood of Elves (10/3/2014)

Maybe it’s a sign of something when a book you wrote comes out and you didn’t even know. Admittedly not a big book . But it was fun. Got a bit of steampunk yearning out of my system too (it has an airship, OK).

Work is currently suspended on the last dragon book (I want to call it Black Moon now but that’s probably already taken, right?) while I wait for a alpha reader to read everything except the last act (which isn’t written yet). I don’t know who the hell told Zafir she could just take over this series but I suppose one doesn’t argue with a dragon queen. Copy edits for Empires are done, the edits for the second Bulldog Drummond novella are done and there are rumours of possibly a third. This week’s project is a structural going-over for the second civil war mystery, in which the poet Milton figures fairly prominently.

This week’s giveaway is Sapkowski’s Blood of Elves because I like Geralt and yes the gaesm were fun too (the first more than the second) but I do mean the books. Gollancz has a new one heading out soon. Poke me on Twitter (@stephendeas) and I’ll see if I can give away a copy of that too when it comes out.

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 you to explain to me why elves so often have wierd-looking curvy swords, or why dwarves always have axes, or why orcs have . . . whatever it is that orcs have. Or just point out the typos in this post (it’s past midnight, dammit. My fingers are slurring). 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 (just about) cleared my backlog again – they’re all in the post!