new(ish) Aaronovitch is out!
The 4th volume in the excellent Rivers of London contemporary fantasy series is finally out in US release --
http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Homes-Ri...
However, if you haven't encountered this series yet, you need to start with the first volume, US title Midnight Riot.
http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Riot-P...
Ignore the cover/s. Although my readers hardly need to be told that.
Ta, L.
http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Homes-Ri...
However, if you haven't encountered this series yet, you need to start with the first volume, US title Midnight Riot.
http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Riot-P...
Ignore the cover/s. Although my readers hardly need to be told that.
Ta, L.
date
newest »
newest »
Ken wrote: ""Ignore the cover/s. Although my readers hardly need to be told that."Indeed, Lois. Indeed.
How did your early covers get this way, anyway? I was under the impression authors (at least establish..."
I acquired more say later in the process, but it doesn't seem to help.
I have given up on covers, generally. It appears (as was not evident at first) that my career will survive regardless of the pictures on the fronts of my books, so I feel a bit less anxious about it all these days.
Ta, L.
Well, if it's any consolation, the art used for Blackstone's/Audible.com's audio versions are much better (I think).Do you, by any chance, have a website? I don't want to be asking questions here that you've already asked (and answered) 30,000,000 times. That must get tedious after awhile.
(Edit: I found dendarii.com but can't find a general FAQ section--Is there not one, or am I just missing it?)
Thanks, both for the website, and for the quick reply.
Ken wrote: "Well, if it's any consolation, the art used for Blackstone's/Audible.com's audio versions are much better (I think).Do you, by any chance, have a website? I don't want to be asking questions here..."
No, I don't have a website. This blog here does for me for those purposes, at present.
Dendarii.com is a fan-run site, approved but not managed by me. It has an appended chat list, that I drop in on periodically. I also have a not-very-active conference on Baen's Bar.
I do feel as if I've done a million interviews. It would be good to have a place with links, but of course links die, so that sort of thing needs supervision as well.
Ta, L.
Well, OK.... Let me ask my (likely horribly repetitive) questiםn then:Do you think you are done with the Vorkosigan series, or are there more in the works? -- I personally would love to see a story with either (1) Piotr or (2) 11-year-old-Aral as the viewpoint character dealing with Yuri Vorbarra's civil war.
Again, apologies if you've addressed this issue a million times elsewhere.
Ken wrote: "Well, OK.... Let me ask my (likely horribly repetitive) questiםn then:Do you think you are done with the Vorkosigan series, or are there more in the works? -- I personally would love to see a sto..."
Perhaps not a million, but certainly the fannish orders for stories exceed production capacity at present. Every one different, mind you, and many mutually exclusive.
The series presently stands in a nice, round, completed-looking shape. I would need a really compelling (to me) idea to tempt me to alter that.
Interstitial and back stories are probably best left to the fanficcers, for now. (But don't send them to me, just in case I ever change my mind. Or get my writing energy back, which isn't going to happen soon.)
I may be overdue to try something entirely new, but I don't know what it would be, so. Or it may just be that I'm setting the bar too high for myself, and need to lower it for a while.
Ta, L.
Personally, I'm quietly hoping for two more books in the Chalion series.
Wow, that cover was a new kind of awful. I'll read anything you write - from epics to short stories to blog posts, so I hope you lower that bar at some point. I'll even buy you lunch on spec if it's any inducement. :)
Love these books... just downloaded from Amazon. Thanks!
Joshua wrote: "Wow, that cover was a new kind of awful. I'll read anything you write - from epics to short stories to blog posts, so I hope you lower that bar at some point. I'll even buy you lunch on spec if i..."
Not sure if you are referring to Book 1 or Book 4. (I would guess Book 1, but that may just be me.) The British covers... don't look good at a glance or a distance, but become interesting close up. (Like, with a magnifying glass.) The first 3 American covers don't do a thing to attract me, I'm afraid. Quite the reverse. (The new American publisher is using the Brit covers, it appears.)
But one thing I have discovered over time is that for every reader who dislikes a cover, there's another who loves the exact same one, for various wildly different reasons that no writer or editor could anticipate. I figure the only viable strategy is to have a variety of covers, to repel different sets of readers each round but pick up a new few, who, bonding to the text, will ignore one's covers ever after.
Ta, L.
I'm curious which covers you're talking about when you say you had some pull "later in the process". I have to admit I am quite fond of the hardcover editions in the mid-series (my research tells me they are by Gary Ruddell) in their sort of pulpy SF tradition. I remember you at one time saying you were a fan of the Captain Vorpatril's Alliance cover (or at least, didn't dislike it as much as some fans?); considering the marked change for Cryoburn and CVA, did you have something to do with that? Do you have a favorite cover out of any of your books?Maybe I'm just here proving what you said in your last comment, haha.
Gil wrote: "I'm curious which covers you're talking about when you say you had some pull "later in the process". I have to admit I am quite fond of the hardcover editions in the mid-series (my research tells m..."For CryoBurn and CVA I asked for "something sophisticated", i.e., not pulpy. The original paintings are indeed very fine, although once they got covered up with my Big Fat Name, etc., some of the impact was lost -- it's worth visiting Dave Seeley's website to see the originals.
I also especially like Gary Ruddell's cover for Memory.
Nevertheless, I still cringe every time I read a comment dismissing my books (especially when still unread) on the basis of their covers, which happens a lot and, in its sedimentary accumulation, has given me a bit of a twitch on the subject.
Ta, L.
Thanks for recommending this series, I ordered the first book. The descriptions reminded me of Randall Garrett, I adored his Lord Darcy series.
Thanks for your response! I can only imagine your frustration; were these people never taught not to judge a book by its cover? It was drilled into me since the first grade! (Although, as fans of genre fiction, maybe we are a bit more inured to the practice!)
I started this series due to your recommendation. I have really enjoyed these books and so has my 21 year old son. He is currently rereading the Vorkosigan books as well. I have funneled good books to him from a very early age, and in general we agree. This series is well worth a look!
Dear Lois, if you write it, I will read it. You have become a major element of the bench mark for my own writing. I am saving up to buy all your non Vorkosigan pieces to add to my favourite shelf(because all the Vorkosigans are there already). Thank you for filling my world with the wonders from your mind. I hope you do find some writing energy or a spark of inspiration but if not the contribution you have made already to the literary world is invaluable and made my life a better place to be in. :)
Great to see Aaronovitch's Peter Grant series getting some love. I adore these books, and the audiobooks with narration by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith are fantastic as well. Have yet to pick up Broken Homes, but looking forward to it with great anticipation :')
Sorry to raise an old thread from the dead, but just wanted to drop a heartfelt thanks for the recommendations - took me a while, but I picked up the first book in the series today and bought the others before I got through chapter three because I knew I'd be reading them all! That's the rest of the weekend sorted :)(I think the revised/UK/whatever covers for the series are very nice - the ones with the old fashioned pencil illustration-style Londons - but buying them in Canada via Kobo results in some kind of cunning bait-and-switch, no doubt thanks to the vagaries of the publishing industry; you see the nice ones on the site, but the epub files you actually download have the terrible ones...)
Long time reader, first time commenter!
Indeed, Lois. Indeed.
How did your early covers get this way, anyway? I was under the impression authors (at least established authors like yourself) had some say in choice of covers for their work? Were these the least atrocious ones they gave you? If so, it kind of scares me...I'm working on a fantasy novel myself.