LAST FIRST SNOW has a cover!

Hi everyone!  Check this out.

 

LAST FIRST SNOW, the next book in the Craft Sequence, has a cover!  It features Temoc, who those of you following along with the Sequence will recognize, and it’s absolutely badass.  Tor.com asked me for a post on the book, which turned into a solid essay on occupying fantasy.  Read the essay here!

Here’s the heart of the thing:

In dark moments, though, I don’t always want to attack a tale of kings to find the hope I need. I want a book that reflects the hopes I know, and the dangers people face as they work to realize those hopes.

I want a fantasy of taking to the streets. I want a fantasy with crowds and leaders, negotiations and council meetings. I want dockworkers, ex-priests, professional necromancers, cops, schoolteachers, chefs, gang leaders, imperfect human beings of all races and genders, with histories and baggage, who become heroes—sometimes only for a moment.

I want a government terrified for the future, struggling to preserve its power and work with a movement despite massive historical differences. I want an undead overlord who’s slain gods with his bare hands explaining to a citizen council why his rezoning proposal will improve the lives of the very people who protest it. I want a consulting sorcerer torn between her loyalties as talks fail and battle lines are drawn. I want a priest choosing to stand by his family, or by the faithful who look to him for help.

I want people who beat against the walls of history, who are bound by choices others made forty years ago, by the outcomes of old wars. I want good intentions to lead to horrible ends, and vice versa. I want a book of human and inhuman beings trying to do better, and of that trial being—maybe—worth the consequences.

Read more on Tor.com!

Just between us, I’m really excited for this book.  It’s the most intense of them all by far.  Also I’m focusing on older characters for the most part, folks like Temoc, Ms. Kevarian, and the King in Red, people carting around more history.   And there’s this really cool bit where—Aaaaaah I can’t wait to for y’all to read this.  Maybe I’ll write an early trailer for you.

Also this week, Rob Wolf of the New Books Network interviewed me about FULL FATHOM FIVE (which is still out and you should get it!), and the Craft Sequence more generally.  I talked a lot.  If you want to hear me talk a lot (based on some fascinating questions!) go ye forth and listen!

That’s all for this week—I spent all my blog post mana on the LAST FIRST SNOW post on Tor.com.  But in case you want further edits, I’m making solid progress into Craft Sequence Book 5, and there are numerous pieces of Exciting News that I’m not allowed to tell y’all about for the immediate future.  But: SOON.