evergreen posts

My creepy request for your personal information

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Hey, I haven’t mentioned this before, but I have a mailing list.

At this point it’s, like, nine people, but it exists. I’ve used it once so far to announce the pub day of Game of Cages.

If you would like an email letting you know when Circle of Enemies (or anything else of mine) publishes, shoot me an email to harry at the URL above sans double u’s, by which I mean harryjconnolly.com. (I type it that way to avoid spam harvesters, sorry.) Alternately, drop a comment in this thread on the main blog and type out the appropriate email address in indicated form.

And that’s all (for now)

FAQ

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It’s long past time I made a FAQ, right? (That’s not one of the questions.) Here goes:

Q: What does 20 PALACES mean? Will we find out what each palace represents and why?

A: Two questions in one, but that’s okay. The Twenty Palace Society is a group of sorcerers who have appointed themselves the magic police of the planet. They’re pretty much ruthless bastards, but their cause is for the good. And yes, I’m planning to show some of the palaces themselves, at some point. The palaces don’t represent anything, though; they’re the homes of really rich people.

Q: Your stance on fanfiction is the first thing that comes to mind here (due to the latest hoopla on the topic.) =)

A: Well, by the time I post this, the hoopla will have died down. In fact, I pretty much can’t remember which particular hoopla we’re talking about. But here’s my “stance:” I consider fanfiction a sign that a property has a devoted following. It means a particular storyline has a healthy following. That said, I don’t want to read any of it, ever. I would find it distressing, so please don’t tell me about it. And don’t try to make money from it (or hinder me from making money), please. Aside from that, have fun.

Q: Where can I get one of those ghost knives?

A: Each one costs a mere $50 million. As soon as your payment clears my account, I’ll send you one. (You might want to wait for book three before you decide if you really want one. Just sayin’)

Q. Are Ray and Annalise using black magic or white magic?

A. Let me first state outright that you will never read the words “black magic” or “white magic” in my books. I’m not a fan of those terms for the obvious reason.

However, there is no good or evil magic in the Twenty Palaces setting. Magic is simply power, and like any kind of power it can be used responsibly or irresponsibly. Whether a spell is good or evil depends entirely on how it was used. In a way, spells are like guns: always dangerous, sometimes threatening, often put to evil purposes, but intrinsically evil? Not to me.

Q. Do you like gladiator movies?

A. Only if they have a. monsters or b. Woody Strode.

Have more questions for me? Let me know and I’ll include it in the FAQ.

The Game of Cages post

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My original plan was to place all book information into one convenient post. Hah! Turns out that doesn’t work very well; there’s too much! New plan: create a dedicated page for each book.

Game of Cages is the second book in the Twenty Palaces series. (Book one is Child of Fire which came out in September, 2009 and was named to Publishers Weekly’s list of best 100 books of 2009). Check out this Chris McGrath cover:

Game of Cages

God, I love that cover. You know what? The inside of the book is gorgeous, too.

The series follows Ray Lilly, an ex-con and former car thief press-ganged in to working for the Twenty Palace society. There are, scattered around the world, a small number of spells and spell books. The magic they allow people to do is often dangerous, but nothing is as risky as the summoning spells that let sorcerers to summon strange, extradimensional beings to our world.

These beings, which the society calls predators, view our world as a fresh hunting ground and see humans as prey.

The Twenty Palace Society hunts these creatures–and the people who summon them–with brutal, ruthless zeal. While Ray is not exactly the nicest guy in the world, he’s a saint compared to the society members he’s forced to work with.

In Game of Cages, Ray is given an emergency job–a predator is going to be auctioned off, and some of the wealthiest and most dangerous people in the world have gathered at a remote mountain mansion to place their bids. Unfortunately, the sale goes wrong and the creature escapes into the small town below with the bidders in close pursuit. Can Ray destroy the predator before it destroys the town?

It already has a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. Read the first chapter here, the second chapter here and the third chapter here.

Order the book right now from:

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

And be sure to look for book 3 in the series, CIRCLE OF ENEMIES, out now.

Game of Cages Chapter One

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Del Rey included a teaser for Game of Cages in the back of Child of Fire, but it was just a few pages, not the whole first chapter. Behind the cut, for those who are interested, is the full deal: the complete chapter one of my upcoming novel.

GAME OF CAGES
CHAPTER ONE

It was three days before Christmas, and I was not in prison. I couldn’t understand why I was free. I hadn’t hidden my face during the job in Hammer Bay. I hadn’t used a fake name. I honestly hadn’t expected to survive.

I had, though. The list of crimes I’d committed there included breaking and entering, arson, assault, and murder. And what could I have said in my defense? That the people I’d killed really deserved it? Continue reading

I should have done this a while ago

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Actually, maybe I have and just don’t remember.

Anyway, I thought people might be interested in seeing the query letter I wrote that caught the interest of my agent (and a couple others besides).

Here it is with the addresses stripped out:

Dear [Agent’s Name]:

Ray Lilly is just supposed to be the driver. Sure, he knows a little magic, but it’s Annalise, his boss, who has the real power. Ray doesn’t like driving her across the country so she can hunt and kill people dabbling in dangerous magic, but if he tries to quit he’ll move right to the top of her hit list.

But Annalise’s next kill goes wrong and she is critically injured. Ray must complete her assignment alone; he has to stop the man who is sacrificing children to make his community thrive, and also find the inhuman supernatural power fueling his magic.

Harvest of Fire is a completed 99,000-word contemporary fantasy in the tone and style of a crime thriller.

I have sold several short stories to the magazines Black Gate and On Spec. The latest is “Eating Venom,” due out in the next issue of Black Gate.

Thank you for your time,

While I’m proud of those short fiction sales, I’m not sure they did much to catch anyone’s interest. At least, editor and agent both convinced me to publish my novel under a different name than those shorts.

Also, the synopsis covers only the characters, setting and the big plot twist that finishes the “first act” of the novel, which falls around page 30-50. That recommendation came from “Agent Kristin” who runs the “Pub Rants” blog (pubrants on LJ) and it really works.

For the synopsis, I described the whole book, right up to the end, ‘natch.

Notice also that I used the word “magic” three times in two paragraphs–word echoes are my enemy.

Anyway, I hope that’s interesting or useful.

Added eight years later: I don’t have a lot of analysis in this old post, but then I’m not sure it needs it. It bugs me (still) that I used the word “magic” so many times, but word echoes are one of the crosses I have to bear.

Many years ago, there was an account called Evil Editor who would read queries, snark about them, then give advice. The query I wrote or Twenty Palaces, the book before this one, is here. EE didn’t ask me to change much, but they still had fun at my expense (all in good fun). Apparently, “ruthless vigilante sorcerers” became a thing on the site.

I think that query is too long, but it didn’t matter because the book wasn’t ready. It wasn’t until I had my Road to Damascus moment while revising Child of Fire that I began stringing sentences together in a reasonable way.

Sample Chapter of Child of Fire

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Here is the first chapter of Child of Fire. It’s under 5K words, and I’ll put the bulk of it under a cut to spare the sensitive and uninterested.

CHAPTER ONE

It felt good to sit behind the wheel again, even the wheel of a battered Dodge Sprinter. Even with this passenger beside me.

The van rumbled like a garbage truck, handled like a refrigerator box, and needed a full minute to reach highway speeds. I’d driven better, but I’m a guy who has to take what I can get while I’m still alive to get it.

The passenger beside me was Annalise Powliss. She stood about five foot nothing, was as thin as a mop handle, and was covered with tattoos from the neck down. Her hair was the same dark red as the circled F’s I used to get on my book reports, and she wore it cropped close to her scalp. It was an ugly cut, but she never seemed to care how she looked. I suspected she cut it herself.

She was my boss, and she had been forbidden to kill me, although that’s what she most wanted to do.

Continue reading

The Child of Fire post

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My first published novel Child of Fire, (cover art at the bottom of this post) is out right now. Yaaaaayyyyyyyy!!!

You can buy a copy from any of the online booksellers listed in the sidebar to the right, or in pretty much any brick-and-mortar store. (Call ahead to make sure they have it.)

If you’d like to read a sample chapter first, that’s available now, too. There’s also the starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. Finally, the book has made Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2009 list!

The sequel, Game of Cages, has been revised, copy edited and the galleys have been checked. Yay! The tentative release date for that one is August, 2010.

The best summary of Child of Fire I have is the one I used in the query letter that caught my agent’s attention. Here it is (edited slightly because I can’t resist):

Ray Lilly is just supposed to be the driver. Sure, he has a little magic, but it’s Annalise, his boss, who has the real power. Ray may not like driving her across the country so she can hunt and kill people who play with dangerous spells–especially summoning spells–but if he tries to quit he’ll move right to the top of her hit list.

Unfortunately, Annalise’s next kill goes wrong and she is critically injured. Ray must complete her assignment alone–he has to stop a man who’s sacrificing children to make his community thrive, and also find the inhuman supernatural power fueling his magic.

Child of Fire is a contemporary fantasy in the tone and style of a crime thriller.

Here are some of the blurbs the book has collected so far:

“Every page better than the last. Cinematic and vivid, with a provocative glimpse into a larger world. Where’s the next one?” — Terry Rossio, screenwriter (Aladdin, Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean)

“[Child of Fire] is excellent reading and has a lot of things I love in a book: a truly dark and sinister world, delicious tension and suspense, violence so gritty you’ll get something in your eye just reading it, and a gorgeously flawed protagonist. Take this one to the checkout counter. Seriously.” — Jim Butcher

“With an engaging protagonist, an unusual setting, fascinating magics, dark mysteries, and edge-of-your-seat action, [Child of Fire] is everything you could want in a supernatural thriller. An exciting and original start to a great new series that will leave readers hungry for more.” — Victoria Strauss (see also: Writer Beware)

“[Child of Fire] is a fine novel with some genuinely creepy moments. I enjoyed it immensely, and hope we’ll see more of Ray Lilly.” — Lawrence Watt-Evans

“Connolly’s story jets from 0 to 60 in five pages, and never lets you brake for safety. He’s a fantastic new voice.” — Sherwood Smith

“Redemption comes wrapped in a package of mystery and horror that hammers home the old saying ‘Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time’ … and even then you’d better check the yellow pages for one bad-ass exterminator first.” — Rob Thurman

“Classic dark noir, fresh ideas, and good old-fashioned storytelling.” — John Levitt

There may have been other blurbs, but I don’t have a copy of them.

And here’s the cover art:

Cover for Child of Fire

It’s by Chris McGrath(!)

The tags for each book are the working titles:  Child of Fire is tagged as Harvest of Fire, in case you want to read back through all the posts about it (although I can’t imagine why).

Be sure to give the sample chapter a try! Or you can order right now from any of these sellers:

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

Thanks!

Who is this guy?

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The original version of this post was a jokey fake bio, but apparently people hate that? For some reason?

So, here’s my real bio, which is so unbelievably dull that you’ll all long for the stupid list of potentially lethal non-adventures that used to be here:

I was born and raised in Philadelphia, where my formative years were influenced by Dr. Shock, Wee Willie Weber, and my big sister’s sf/f collection (not necessarily in that order). I graduated from Temple University (which was a mistake) which led to pretty much no gainful employment at all.

In 1989, I moved to Seattle. Gainful employment was still thin, but the internet gave me what I needed to make my life-long dream of writing fiction for a living come true. For now, anyway.

I’ve spent the last 20+ years with my amazing wife and we are homeschooling our only child. I’m a huge fan of our wonderful local library system, which I support through book donations and the occasional late fee.

My books are (mostly) a mix of fantasy and crime novel. If that sounds interesting to you, why don’t you click on that link in the sidebar all about them?

My first three published novels were put out through Del Rey. My current publisher is me. My agent is Caitlin Blasdell at Liza Dawson & Associates.

If you need to contact me, check out that link in the sidebar.