Dave Duncan's Blog, page 17

From Nnanji and me…

This being the time to celebrate the Saturnalia, Hanukkah, the birth of Mithras, Sol Invictus, or any other festival of your choice, I thought I would jump the gun… er, sword?… and offer All You Faithful a treat in the shape of the opening chapter of The Death of Nnanji.  I haven't seen a target publication  date yet, so you still have time to get hold of the rest of the series and meet the swordsmen of the Goddess.  Or, if you were one of the many who were spellbound by them twenty years ago, to refresh your memory.  (Begin with The Reluctant Swordsman, of course.)  And have a great holiday!

With three new books coming out in 2012, I foresee a great year and hope that you do too.

Pock's World in e-book

Good news: after a very long wait, Pock's World is now available for Kindle readers and should be out in other e-book formats by the end of this week.

Progress report

I have been silent so long on this would-be blog that I must obviously have been up to something.  The only question is what?, and that I find rather hard to answer.  I have passed one encouraging milestone.  My editor, Robert Runté, completed editing the MS of The Death of Nnanji, and I spent the weekend going through it.   This morning I sent it off to E-Reads to be published.  I know the guys (and dolls) there are chewing on a couple of year-end deadlines, but I hope that they will get this one out not too far into the New Year.

Return of the Lord of the Firelands

After an absence of more than a year, Book 2 of "Tales of the King's Blades" is back on line, thanks to E-Reads. Now all six of the original Blades books are once more available, plus The Monster War reissue of "The King's Daggers" series. Enjoy!

Kudos

Kirkus Reviews has rated When the Saints as one of the top fiction books of 2011 That's a first for me.

NOW the Saints!

At long last When the Saints has been published in hardcover and e-book formats. I don't like the price, but publishers do have to pay line editors, copy editors, typesetters, artists, accountants, lawyers, rent, designers, and, not least, writers.

Ebooks to be promoted in the UK

Although my e-books are already available worldwide, E-Reads, which publishes a majority of them, has announced that from now on UK publisher Gollancz will handle marketing and publicity in the UK. An initial thirty (30!) titles are involved, with more to come. I welcome the news because, although quite a few of my titles have been published over there, my work never caught on as well as it did on this side of the Atlantic.  I hope that is about to change.

King's Blades Re-Kindled!

For  a year now I have been trying to get The Gilded Chain (Book 1 of "Tales of the King's Blade") and Sky of Swords (Book 3) restored to the Amazon Kindle list.  They have been available in other e-pub formats all along.  At last success, thanks to my agent, Richard Curtis, and Diana Gill of HarperCollins.  Today the two titles came up again.  I'll add the links to the respective entries.  Book 2, Lord of the Fire Lands, is still being processed but I am assured that it will be issued early next year.

47 North: the word is out

At long last Amazon has announced its new Fantasy, Science Fiction & Horror line, to be called 47 North.  I am proud to be author of one of the three books highlighted as kick-offs for this venture.

Here's the link:

Expecting Quads

I have sold two new books. One is a fantasy entitled The Death of Nnanji, a sequel to my 1989 trilogy, "The Seventh Sword". E-Reads is the current publisher of the trilogy and bought the new book sight unseen.

Even more recently, at V-Con in Vancouver last weekend, Brian Hades of Edge Books agreed to publish a standalone SF, Wildcatter. This is set in a different universe than Pock's World and is lighter in tone.

I expect both these books to appear in paper and e-book format in 2012. When the Saints will be coming out from Tor in November 2011, and Against the Light from Amazon in January 2012, so I look forward to four new books from four publishers in the next twelve months.