The Circle of Enemies post

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Now that each book gets its own dedicated post, I’m going to put this one to be your one-stop shop for Circle of Enemies info.

For starters, the book trailer is here.

The first chapter is available free.

The book earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly. (That makes me three for three so far.)

Here’s the pretty, pretty cover:

Circle of Enemies

Trust me, it’s pretty. I just can’t get a decent scan Fixed. It’s a new design, and personally I really like it.

Here’s the plot description on the back cover.

Former car thief Ray Lilly is now the expendable grunt of a sorcerer responsible for destroying extradimensional predators summoned to our world by power-hungry magicians. Luckily, Ray has some magic of his own, and so far it’s kept him alive. But when a friend from his former gang calls him back to his old stomping grounds in Los Angeles, Ray may have to face a threat even he can’t handle. A mysterious spell is killing Ray’s former associates, and they blame him. Worse yet, the spell was cast by Wally King, the sorcerer who first dragged Ray into the brutal world of the Twenty Palace Society. Now Ray will have to choose between the ties of the past and the responsibilities of the present, as he and the Society face not only Wally King but a bizarre new predator.

What that doesn’t quite capture about the book is that this is the most personal and most emotionally-complicated book yet. It’s somewhat less violent than previous books, but the violence that’s there hurts more.

Now it’s time to do the blurbs:

“Ray Lilly is one of the most interesting characters I’ve read lately, and Harry Connolly’s vision is amazing.” — Charlaine Harris

“An edge-of-the-seat read! Ray Lilly is the new high-water mark of paranormal noir.” — Charles Stross

If you want to buy a paper copy:

| Amazon.com | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository (free int’l shipping!) | Books a Million | Indiebound | Kobo | Mysterious Galaxy | Powell’s Books |

This is quite a book trailer

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It’s a little too long and it has a few uneven moments with the actors, but the production values are startling.

Here’s Brent Weeks’s post about it.

Another take on Conan

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Chris Sims liked Conan more than I did.

Also, over the weekend, I posted a link to what appears to be the French cover for Child of Fire. (I know it’s plural; no big)

Today I’ll be writing and taking my son swimming.

Can’t be a hero without cubes

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I read comics in the trade collections. Sure, that puts me months behind the main stories, but the truth is I don’t have the money to spend on them, and I’m only casually interested in the storylines. There are very few comics I genuinely care about, far fewer than I read.

Anyway, one of the comics I’ve been half-following is SECRET WARRIORS, which is a sort of spy/superhero mashup, with a pack of unknown superpowered non-heroes as the operatives and Nick Fury running it all.

It’s fun, it’s shaggy in a pleasing way, and unlike some comics the story isn’t an incomprehensible mess. It also has a hero named Druid, who I liked because he has pseudo-magical powers and because he’s a fat guy.

It’s pretty rare to see a fat hero in comics. I’m not going into the history of it, but when Blue Beetle fell into a depression and put on a bunch of weight, all he needed to do was beat up an obnoxious guy and snap out of it. Easy, right?

Well, Druid was a powerful character who didn’t have full control of his powers (magic!) and who was a little insecure because he made mistakes. See, I like him even more. Then, at the end of the previous trade, Nick Fury kicked him off the team.

In the trade I read over the weekend, we pick up his story: he’s gotten the boot, goes home, sits in a chair and is all “Now what?” Then he goes home and finds one of Fury’s agents waiting for him (a guy who’s a human head on a robot body, but never mind). Fury’s buddy is one of those grizzled old commanders who doesn’t take any nonsense, and he quickly informs Druid that with spies and Nick Fury, there is no “out.” The agent sits Druid down with a stack of papers and tells him to fill out the test, it’s the same one he’s been giving to his raw recruits for decades. Then this happens: (I’ll put in a cut for the scan) Continue reading

Conan the Barbarian

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So, I went to see CONAN yesterday at the first 2D showing. I’m pretty sure you couldn’t see it any earlier in my time zone, but I didn’t go because I’m such a huge fan. I’m not. I like Conan well enough as a character, but I went so early because of convenience’s sake.

And I write fantasy, so I thought I should see it.

Well, as you expected, it’s not really what you’d call a great movie. I did enjoy parts of it, though you wouldn’t think so to read this post.

There are a few things I expect to see in a good sword and sorcery movie (assuming somebody makes one someday) Spoilers! Continue reading

Is this the French cover for Child of Fire?

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I don’t know, because it popped up while I was looking at Goodreads.

What do you think?

Randomness for 8/20

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1) Interview of a One-Year-Old Child. Video. Way funnier than it sounds.

2) Moebius did concept art for the movie WILLOW. Check out the art design that could have been.

3) Astonishing bike stunts in abandoned industrial facility. Video. Music’s nice, too.

4) Better Book Titles.

5) Everything you need to know about the video game industry in one graphic.

6) The 10 Most Brutal Moments in ‘The Savage Sword of Conan’!

7) A steampunk apartment.

New contest!

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We’re looking for a new potato salad recipe. The one we used out of Fanny Farmer didn’t really float anyone’s boat, and life is too short to make due with blah potato salad.

Please post or link to a recipe for your favorite potato salad. Entries should appear on the main blog or in my LiveJournal: Twitter responses and Facebook comments won’t count for convenience’s sake.

The winner will receive a signed copy of Circle of Enemies (once my author copies arrive). Alternately, you can ask me to send it to a third party–either an individual or an institution. Of course, it will take a little time for us to try the recipes, but hey, it’s all to the good. How will the winner be decided? Family taste test. I should warn you, my son is a picky eater.

Thank you for your suggestions. Carb heaven, here we come.

It isn’t necessarily a metaphor just because it’s not real.

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“Jerry may seem too sly and eccentric to be a metaphor, but since there is no such thing as a literal vampire, we have to assume that his presence in this landscape means something.” A.O. Scott, missing the whole point in his review of FRIGHT NIGHT

Story doesn’t matter.

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Some filmmaker friends are tearing into the quotes from a Disney exec in this article. Essentially, he’s saying that Disney is going to pull back and focus on big, expensive tent-pole movies. It’s the only kind of film that makes sense with the marketing budget they need to bring in really huge numbers of people. (Added later: this particular exec doesn’t actually greenlight films, so here’s a grain of salt.)

He’s also saying that, for this kind of movie, audiences don’t care that much about the story. They like the big budget spectacle, and if the story doesn’t hold together, well, that’s a secondary consideration.

Frankly, I find it hard to refute him. He points to ALICE IN WONDERLAND (which made a billion dollars?? Really?) and I point to TRANSFORMERS. The writer of the article brings up TRON: LEGACY, which had lots of spectacle, a crappy story, and which failed at the box office, but honestly, we can all point to the reasons any individual movies drew (or failed to draw) a big audience after the fact. Everyone thinks they can Monday morning quarterback surprise hits and flops, but no one can predict it reliably.

Personally, I’d love to know what’s driving the success of those movies, but I haven’t seen them. I watch some of them on DVD when they hit the library, but in the theater? Not so much.

However! There is an ongoing TV series that a lot of people really enjoy with plenty of spectacle (on a TV budget), a large and enthusiastic fanbase, and really awful stories. I mean, dumb stories that don’t make any sense at all, or that seem spackled together with bullshit and “Hurry past, don’t pay attention here”. And that’s DOCTOR WHO.

I quit the show when I realized that too often the “stories” were an arrangement of emotion-tugging moments with only the most spurious connection to each other. A really good story will evoke powerful emotions, but if that can’t be managed, the moments themselves can be strung together (“My friend is in danger!” “This is worse that I thought!” “You don’t scare me, Villain Of This Episode!” “Thank goodness you have been safely rescued, Friend!” “Oh, I stare stonily at the terrible cost of battling evil!”). Even without the context of a sensible, well-crafted story, those moments can force emotional responses from our well-trained brains.

Isn’t that what these big “tentpole” movies are doing? They mix spectacle with specific emotion-tugging moments (cue long-withheld hug from father), and if the story makes sense, well, that’s just a little extra gravy.

That’s how it seems to me, and as a person who creates (and tries to sell) stories, this is something I need to figure out.