E.J. Swift's Blog, page 8

Two anthologies

Two happy anthology announcements: firstly, my short story The Complex, which appeared in the January/February edition of Interzone this year, is to be included in an anthology, The Best British Fantasy 2013 from Salt Publishing, due for publication in April next year.

Secondly, I will be contributing a story to Pandemonium: The Lowest Heaven. This is the latest in the Pandemonium series (the most recent of which, A Town Called Pandemonium, is launching on 29 November and looks very awesome indeed) and is described thus by editors Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin:

“The Lowest Heaven explores the furthest reaches of the Solar System with help from the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Today’s greatest science fiction authors set out on missions of discovery, with new stories inspired by our closest celestial neighbours.”

Slightly terrifyingly, the deadline for The Lowest Heaven correlates almost exactly with that for Book 2 of The Osiris Project, but I was hooked from the moment I saw the words ‘Royal Observatory Greenwich’. Some things you just can’t say no to… (I know what I’ll be doing this Christmas!)

The Next Big Thing

The Next Big Thing is here! Or the next thing, or, the something. Last week Guy Adams tagged me in his next big thing blog. So here’s how it works: an author answers the ten questions below on her blog and then tags five authors/unfortunate victims to do so the week after. Answers on a postcard please…

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

OSIRIS. (I’m cheating slightly because it’s already out in the US, but is forthcoming in the UK.)

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

I wrote a novella called The Last Balloon Flight, a kind of fairy tale about a journey across a flooded world. I read Six Degrees: Our Future On A Hotter Planet, by Mark Lynas. Somewhere between the two came the idea for an ocean city in a drastically altered world, and the characters just came out of that

3. What genre does your book fall under?

Science fiction or speculative fiction.

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

Adelaide is very beautiful and slightly evil in the beginning, but mellows as the book progresses. I have to cite the gorgeous Alexa Brown for Adelaide (who, for the record, is about as far from evil as you can imagine but here she is looking suitably epic in a trailer we made for the book:

 

Or, someone like Emily Blunt. Susan Sarandon would have to be Adelaide’s mother, because everyone needs Susan Sarandon in a film. And I can see Matt Smith working well for her brother Linus.

Vikram, my hero, is quite young but, as all central protagonists must be tortured, he has been through a lot. Shazad Latif, who was in the later series of the BBC’s series Spooks could work very well

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

In a divided ocean city cut off from the rest of the world, miscreant socialite Adelaide meets revolutionary activist Vikram – and consequences ensue

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

It’s published by Night Shade Books in the US and is forthcoming from Del Rey UK in February 2013.

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

About 12 months.

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

I always hate this question – people have (very kindly) told me it has echoes of China Miéville’s The City and The City and Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Wind-up Girl, but I’m not sure either of those is quite apt. It might make more sense to cite my influences – writers like Philip Pullman, David Mitchell, Margaret Atwood, to name a few.

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

I had a very cinematic vision of the ocean city and I knew it wouldn’t go away until I found out who lived there.

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

My friend Katy has just instructed me to say that it is a bodice ripper.

[This is a lie.]

[But there are shiny pyramid towers and waterbikes and underwater cells and coral tea and other things.]

And the authors I hereby tag for next week’s posting are:

Elizabeth Amisu. Writer, reviewer of film and fiction, and a lecturer in Film and English, Elizabeth was a winner in the Southend Literary Festival in 2010 and the MigMag.co.uk Short Story competition in January 2012. The first installment in her fantasy series The Sarcerdos Mysteries tells the story of Caelara, a young girl whose difficult existence with her alcoholic father is turned upside down when she discovers she has the power to manipulate the elements. But all will change when Caelara discovers the mysterious Sarcerdos Institute…

Bradley P Beaulieu. Brad is the author of The Winds of Khalakovo and The Straits of Galahesh, the first two volumes in his fantasy series The Lays of Anuskaya, published by Night Shade Books, and if you go to his website you can view funky interactive maps of the Lays world and other shiny things. In addition to being an L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Award winner, Brad’s stories have appeared in various other publications, including Realms of Fantasy Magazine, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show and Writers of the Future 20.

Betsy Dornbusch. Betsy’s epic fantasy novel Exile is forthcoming from Night Shade Books in February 2013. Betsy also launched her urban fantasy series Sentinel this year and has edited ezine Electric Spec for the last six years. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous print and online venues and in anthologies Tasty Little Tales and Deadly by the Dozen. She also does cool things like snowboarding, a fact of which I am immensely jealous.

Kameron Hurley. Kameron probably needs no introduction for lovers of genre fiction: her Bel Dame Apocrypha series has been published by Night Shade Books to widespread acclaim and she’s been nominated for a fair few awards along the way (and is the winner of a much coveted Golden Tentacle Kitschies Award for debut novel). Good news if you’re in the UK: Del Rey UK will be publishing the first in the series, God’s War, in 2013. Huzzah!

Colin Tucker. Writer and screen-writing coach Colin Tucker worked on award-winning television productions in the 70’s including PORTRAIT OF A MARRIAGE and AMONGST WOMEN. After retiring from producing, he switched to teaching at the London Film School while continuing to work as a script advisor. His short story THE GOAT won a Global Short Story competition earlier this year. His novel DOUGLAS BROWN RUNNING DOWN, is, in Colin’s words, ‘a freewheeling journey in the company of a chaotic mind’. (I’ve read some of it, and it’s awesome, and not quite like anything else I’ve read.)

A few updates

Somewhat belatedly, evidence of me, Liesel Schwarz and Mark Hodder at the Del Rey UK launch at FantasyCon in Brighton. This was a lovely day. I met up with Liesel beforehand at London Victoria. Thanks to the vagaries of Southern Rail cancellations, we spent the journey down to Brighton sitting in the luggage rack (never say there’s no glamour in publishing), but all was worth it when we arrived and got to see proofs of our books for the first time. The OSIRIS cover artwork was still being tweaked, so Del Rey had produced a short run of this cool black and white cover. Needless to say I nabbed copies of Liesel’s and Mark’s books (A Conspiracy of Alchemists, and A Red Sun Also Rises respectively), both of which look fantastic – I can’t wait to read them.

This week, I was sent a new proof of the UK OSIRIS with the actual cover. Isn’t it pretty! It’s released in the UK on 7 February 2013, and you can pre-order from Amazon here.

Lastly, here’s a link to an interview with fellow Night Shade author Paul Tobin as part of his author-to-author series. This was a really fun one and he’s also interviewed Jeff Salyards, Adam Christopher, Chris Roberson and others as part of the series, which you’ll find on the blog.

 

 

FantasyCon 2012 and Del Rey UK launch

New imprint Del Rey UK, who will be publishing OSIRIS in the UK next February, are launching at FantasyCon in Brighton on Saturday. The launch is at 5.00 – 6.00pm in Bar Rogue (check out the timetable here). I’ll be there alongside Del Rey authors Liesel Schwarz and Mark Hodder.

The artwork for Liesel’s and Mark’s books was revealed recently on the Del Rey blog, and it looks ace! I can’t wait to see what the designers come up with for OSIRIS. In the meantime, they’ve produced a dead snazzy black and white cover design for a short run of ARCs, which I believe will be at FantasyCon. Exciting!

Chicago in pictures

My trip to Chicago was rounded off with, somewhat inconveniently, moving house. After a beautiful ten days in 27 degree clear skies, I returned home, packed, moved, cleaned, and cleaned some more. I’ve finally got round to digging out my photos and it appears I mostly took pictures of skyscrapers, plants, and the zoo.

This was my first trip to the States and Chicago was a fantastic city to begin with. I stayed with two artist friends, Chris Kemp and Dominique Larson, and had a few days on either side of WorldCon to hang out with them and explore the city. I had previously only seen photos of Chris’s work and finally I got to see it in person. He works on huge MDF Board canvasses, and the paintings have a strong architectural influence (check out his website here, they really are amazing). Wandering around downtown Chicago I could see why. It was quite a surreal experience to be in a city full of skyscrapers for the first time, having written a novel set in a city entirely made of skyscrapers.

I had a similar experience when I went with Mini to her old studio to collect some work, and saw this unfinished painting hanging on the wall:

Work in progress by Dominique Larson

Quite apart from this being a beautiful painting, there’s something eerily Osiris-y about it that grabbed me straight away. Dominique kindly let me post a photo here although the painting is unfinished as yet (I will be posting the final version if she lets me!). It’s the first in a triptych of work which I can’t wait to see.

Left to right: authors Katy Stauber, Bradley Beaulieu, Teresa Frohock, Stina Leicht, Doug Hulick (back row) and Anne Lyle, Martha Wells, Courtney Schafer, and me at the Night Bazaar party

I’d been nervous about attending WorldCon before the trip, but I ended up having a great time. I did my first panel on Self-Editing Your Fiction and did a reading from OSIRIS. In particular, after several months of planning the Night Bazaar party by email, it was wonderful to finally meet the Night Shade crew: Bradley Beaulieu, Betsy Dornbusch, Teresa Frohock, Kameron Hurley, Stina Leicht, Courtney Schafer, Katy Stauber, Martha Wells and the mysterious Mazarkis Williams. Courtney had organized everything brilliantly, Katy had brought bugs, and I was amazed that people were prepared to actually eat them in order to get a book. All of the free books we brought had gone by the end of the night. Sadly I don’t think anyone managed to get a picture of them in all their glory, but Courtney has a few more pics of everyone on her blog, here. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make San Antonio next year, but now that WorldCon is coming to London in 2014, I’m hoping some of the Night Bazaar crew will make it over to our side of the pond…

I spent my last few days wandering about the beach, visiting Navy Pier, the zoo and the conservatory, raiding the vintage shops (they were good) and Chris and Mini took me to the Green Mill jazz club, where Al Capone used to hang out, which felt like a proper Chicago experience. Given the chance, I would definitely go back… So a massive thank you once again to everyone who helped get me over there – you guys rock.

Postcards from Chicago

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Ebury to publish OSIRIS

What with packing for both a house move in a couple of weeks and an upcoming trip to Chicago  for Worldcon, it’s taken me a couple of days to get this post written…

But I’m thrilled to be able to say that OSIRIS has found a UK home! Michael Rowley, Editorial Director at Ebury has bought UK and Commonwealth rights to OSIRIS and two further titles in The Osiris Project trilogy. Ebury will publish OSIRIS next February under their newly named genre imprint Del Rey.

You can read an extract from OSIRIS here on io9.

 

Night Bazaar Party

Thank you to Teresa Frohock for creating these ace flyers for the Night Bazaar Party – come say hello at WorldCon!

In the post today…

Bookmarks for Worldcon!

WorldCon schedule

Chicago is only two weeks away – this will be my first trip to the States and it’s starting to feel very exciting! Not only will I be going to my first ever WorldCon but I get to catch up with two super talented artist friends I haven’t seen in years. I can’t wait for them to show me their city.

I’ll be at ChiCon for the full weekend, but you can find me here:

Friday 31 August, 10.30am (Crystal A)

Self-Editing Your Fiction

Many authors love to write the first draft, but hate to revise. Others have nothing against revising, but don’t really know what to change or how to change it. How can fiction writers gain distance from their own work, discover what needs to be changed, how to change it, and not lose interest while changing it?

Carrie Vaughn / Don Mead / E J Swift / Jeanne Cavelos (mod) / Rick Wilber

Friday 31 August, 7.00pm (Party suite 2576)

Night Bazaar party

Come, crush a cup of… well a bug, probably. Come say hello any time from 7pm, I’ll be with these fantastic Night Shade authors: Bradley Beaulieu, Betsy Dornbusch, Teresa Frohock, Kameron Hurley, Stina Leicht, Jeff Salyards, Courtney Schafer, Katy Stauber and Martha Wells. Judging by the planning correspondence, rum and bugs are set to feature heavily, and of course there’ll be loads of books to giveaway.

Saturday 1 September, 6.00pm (Addams room)

Reading

What it says. From my debut novel OSIRIS (here’s a link to a few reviews)

A huge (but surely not the last) thank you to all the wonderful people who supported me to raise funds for the trip – I wouldn’t have been able to go without your help. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!

Review round-up

OSIRIS review round-up:

SF Signal

“A fantastic blend of worldbuilding, excellent storytelling and complex characters.” – this review at SF Signal made my week!

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2012/07/book-review-osiris-by-e-j-swift/

LA Review of Books

A detailed, in-depth review by Strange Horizons editor-in-chief Niall Harrison:

http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=751&fulltext=1&media=

Staffers Book Review

http://staffersmusings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/osiris-ej-swift.html

Bookgasm

http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/sci-fi/osiris/

The Cleveland Plain Dealer describes OSIRIS as ”a terrific debut”

http://www.cleveland.com/books/index....

And finally… Library Journal Reviews listed OSIRIS as their Sci Fi/Fantasy Debut of the Month for July – very cool indeed.

http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/2012/07/books/genre-fiction/sf-fantasy/sci-fifantasy-debut-of-the-month/