Richard S. Ford's Blog, page 4

The shape of things to come…

Last week Fantasy Faction listed their Top 10 Anticipated Fantasy Books for 2013 and, though I didn’t make the top 10 I did get an honourable mention alongside the legendary Robin Hobb! Some of you with a keen eye may also notice they’ve revealed the cover… and the title… which has been a closely guarded secret for, ooh, about three days!

For those of you who’d like a bit more, here’s the spread for the hardcover, complete with snappy blurb (which I didn’t write). Clicky for a bigger version:

Advanced reader copies are impending, so I may well have one in my grubby paws very soon. You, however, will have to wait until April. Unless of course you’re very nice to me, or offer hard cash, in which case I’ll see what I can do!

Edit: They’ve also done a Most Anticipated from April-June 2013 list over at A Fantastical Librarian. Guess who’s on it!

The Next Big Thing

So, some of you might have heard about the NEXT BIG THING author chain thang that’s going around. Andy Remic was kind enough to tag me so here goes:

1) What is the working title of your next book?

My next novel is provisionally titled ‘Steelhaven’, which is the name of the city in which the action takes place. We do have a real title for it, but since that’s not yet been released (it’s coming soon – very soon) I can’t say what it is.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

I’d wanted to write a chunky epic fantasy in the Game of the Thrones style for a while, though Steelhaven is probably more influenced by the kind of episodic TV series you find on HBO. I originally pitched it as David Gemmell’s Legend meets The Wire.

3) What genre does your book fall under?

I guess it’s firmly within the epic fantasy camp, but perhaps with a bit of heroic grittiness thrown in. My protagonists certainly aren’t averse to a spot of profanity.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Ooh, always a tough one, and I’ve got over half a dozen major players so I won’t go through them all. There’s a statuesque warrior priestess in there who’s influenced a bit by Charlize Theron and a bumbling wizard’s apprentice who I always see as young Brit actor Craig Roberts. For the rest you’ll just have to wait for the movie to be made!

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Stealing copy directly from the cover: ‘Welcome to Steelhaven… watch your back!’

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Steelhaven, the first of three books, will be published by Headline.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

*checks dates on files* I wrote the first ten chapters between October 2010 and March 2011, then didn’t really do anything else with it until I received a pre-emptive deal for the trilogy in December 2011. I finished the first draft of the manuscript in June 2012. Between then and now it’s been through several edits, test reads and rewrites and is just about ready for typesetting. As you can see, that’ a bloody long time!

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I’ve already mentioned George Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, which is pretty much the current benchmark for epic fantasy, and David Gemmell, who I’m a big fan of. I’m also massively influenced by Joe Abercrombie with his realistic characters and dark humour, and Andy Remic with his uncompromising approach to character, plot and dialogue.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

As I mentioned, I’m as much inspired by TV and other media as I am by other novelists. I’ve always wanted to be a novelist, but my early influences were the comic 2000AD, with writer like Pat Mills and John Wagner, and the 80s adventure gamebooks of Joe Dever and Ian Livingstone. Over the years I’ve become a fan of all kinds of stories in all kids of media, and this series of novels is in some way inspired by all of them.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

How about I steal some more blurb straight off the back cover: ‘An unbalanced veteran, a disillusioned assassin, a hapless apprentice, a drunken swindler, a desperate thief… in times of crisis, you don’t get to choose your heroes.’

 

So there you go, that’s me up to date! Apparently I’ve now got to tag some other authors, so let’s see… how about Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Gav Thorpe, Guy Haley and Marc Aplin. Whether any of them will be bothered or not is a different story but it’s now out of my hands!!

Cheerio!

 

Short stories and stuff

So, because my editor John Wordsworth very selfishly went and became a father recently, editorial notes for Steelhaven 1 are still just a pipe-dream. As soon as I have those, work can begin apace on draft 2, then I can send the MS off to beta readers, when I’m sure it will be picked apart and rigorously dissected to the point where I’ll want to weep. In the meantime I’m working on the chapter plan for book 2, which at the moment consists of copious notes on Excel.

‘Excel?‘ I hear you cry. ‘But that’s for spreadsheets and numbers and other kinds of doodlefrippery.’ And you’d be right of course, but with seven different POV characters, each with eight or nine chapters that weave and interlink, I’ve found plotting their individual arcs in Excel makes it much easier when I have to breakdown the chapter plan later on.

I’ve also recently finished The Lord of Crows, which is a prequel short for Steelhaven and will be featured in the forthcoming Fantasy Faction Anthology. This is more or less there, and I just need the okay from John (if he’s not catching up on sleep/bottle feeding/sifting through baby poo) before I whack it off to the guys at Fantasy Faction.

Oh, and on the 17th of this month I will be attending the FANTASY FACTION NIGHT at Blackwells in London, where I will be attempting to not seem too star struck in the presence of copious writers who I admire greatly. So if you’re there feel free to say hi and ask me anything you like about my forthcoming novel – to which the answer will inevitably be, ‘sorry, if I tell you that my editor will wet-willy me right in the ear.’

See you there!!

Almost There

Today I finished work on the ‘initial’ draft of HotS, book 1 in the Steelhaven Trilogy. I say ‘initial’ draft, because there’s still a lot of work to do before it will be in a decent ‘first’ draft state. From here I’ll be going through each of the character’s chapters to try and streamline the prose and give them a single ‘voice’. Then I’ll go through the entire novel in order to make sure it flows, firm up and add detail to the background and references, and generally wipe up any mess.

Then it’ll be off to my agent, who will cast his experienced eye over it before forwarding to my editor.

For now though, I think I just need a kip! Na night!

No news is good news

Yes I know, I’ve been very quiet lately. I do have an excuse though, and that’s the fact I’m writing a rather large and important novel!! Progress continues apace, hence the radio silence, and the deadline for draft one is the end of June. It looks as though I’ll hit it, so there should be no delay with the release in March of 2013. As for details on the novel, I can’t really say that much at the minute, other than we’ve finally managed to plump for a title, which has made choosing titles for books 2 and 3 that much easier. The three books will be part of the Steelhaven Trilogy, and we’ll be announcing the title of book 1 later in the year. For now, I can only tease you with the tantalising acronym: HotS. So let the speculation commence.

We’ve also been discussing covers and artists. It’s early days, and though I have no firm idea what I’d like to appear on the cover I’ve amassed a fairly long list of artists I’d like to illustrate it. It’s unlikely the final choice will be mine, what with editorial, marketing and art departments to negotiate with, but never fear, I’ll keep you posted with updates when I’m able to.

Hopefully there’ll be more news very soon, and once draft one of the manuscript is down I may well increase my blog presence with posts on the ins and outs of the craft. Personally I find it extremely enlightening when writers let me in on their secrets, so hopefully you will too. Or maybe you won’t. Let’s wait and see, eh?

Video Review

There's a great video review of Kultus here from the Founding Fields lads. Big thanks to them for this, they really seemed to enjoy it!

Guest Bloggage

Keith Brooke very kindly allowed me to temporarily ruin his excellent blog here. It's a quick rant regarding my opinions on worldbuilding. Any complaints should obviously be referred to Keith!

More reviews!

Received another couple of nice reviews in recent days, which I'm sure you're just dying to have a read of, even though you must by now know how ace and skill Kultus is.

The first is from Gav at Mass Movement Magazine here. It contains possibly my favourite quote from any review so far: "If you want a complex, sophisticated read then this isn't the book for you, if, on the other hand you want a far fetched flat out shit kicker I can't recommend it enough."

Then there's Zoe's review at Fantasy Nibbles here. It's great when a reader really 'gets' your novel, and Zoe seems to have done just that.

Anyway, I'm expecting more reviews soon, so I'll post more linkies as soon as I have them… unless, of course, they're rubbish, in which case I won't.

Interview!

Graeme Flory over at Graeme's Fantasy Book Review, as well as giving me an ace review here, has now posted a brief interview here, in which you'll get to learn intimate details about yours truly, such as where my influences for Blaklok came from, and what it was that once made me ill out of both ends at the same time!

Well, that was good news…

Yes, after a week of having to keep my mouth shut I can now reveal that I've struck a major three-book deal with Headline for an epic fantasy trilogy. More details via my agent John Jarrold's website here and on the Bookseller website here. Big thanks go to John for making this happen on the strength of a part-manuscript… now all I've got to do is finish the first novel and write another two!

And yes, you did read that right: "a major new fantasy talent here, to rank with Joe Abercrombie, Peter V Brett"! So watch out Abercrombie. Step aside Brett. And you Martin and Morgan. Watch out Tchaikovsky and Lynch. Beware Rothfuss and Sanderson. I have come for your crowns and none of you can stand against me, I will tread your dead skulls to ash and claim my rightful place as the unrivalled king of modern epic fantasy.

Or we could just have a nice cup of tea and chat about it.