I’ve mentioned the Kickstarter for this anthology before, and I’ve linked to other writers’ snippets of their stories, as well as my own.
Well, now Martha Wells has posted her own snippet. Check it out.
As for the anthology, five bucks into the Kickstarter gets you an electronic copy of the entire book, and there are other benefits at higher levels.
Just sayin’
Yesterday, two and a half years after it came out, Child of Fire got a great review from BoingBoing.
And, because my luck is so very perfect, the Kindle store has gone down–apparently because of a database error–so the link from the review takes you to the physical book. No worries, though! I’m sure they’ll have it back up again in no time (grumbles). I’ve heard rumors that there are other places to buy ebooks, but who can tell whether that’s true or not?
The series runs to four books, which you can see over there on the right hand side of my blog. It’s also been cancelled. If you’re curious, I blogged about the reasons why it ended. You can also go to my home page to see the fantastic book trailer made by the guys at Wyrd.
Currently I have a new series in the works I’m about to send to my agent, an epic fantasy about two people caught up in the sudden collapse of an empire. Check out my Upcoming Books page for more info about that.
And welcome.
Last Thursday I posted a snippet of the story I sold to Tales of the Emerald Serpent, a mosaic anthology currently on Kickstarter.
Well, novelist Juliet McKenna has posted a snippet of her own along with a bit of world-building on her blog.
Lynn Flewelling has done the same thing.
There’s also artwork and additional world-building material in the updates section of the Kickstarter.
Check them out, if you’re interested.
Kelsier defeated him 3 to 1 in the voting, just about, which is perfectly cool by me. I didn’t expect him to get this far in a popularity contest, so thanks to everyone who voted. Thanks also to David Pomerico and the Suvudu staff for all the work they put into it.
Now that he’s out, I wanted to comment on the attitude of a lot of the cage match commenters… but Pat Rothfuss already did it and he did it better.
One thing I’ll add to his comments about the slaying of dragons: I’m a writer. If you ask me “Who would win in a fight, Cthulhu or Godzilla?” to me the only logical answer is “Whichever makes a better story.”
Tallying up super-powers and arguing I don’t know this character but [personal fave] is the most awesome-est! entirely misses the point. Sometimes the “weaker” character has to/must win. That’s part of the fun (and it is supposed to be fun).
If the cage matches are a place where the underdogs can never “win” then it isn’t fun. That’s why I had Ray use his ghost knife on GRRM’s readers. That’s why I had Tyrion taunt him for not being lovable enough. Because Tyrion was the underdog and I love underdogs. (People who’ve read my books will know this).
Even worse, how powerful the characters are is orthogonal to the appeal of the work in question, and when people go all munchkin on their favorite characters they turn off potential readers.
Anyway, read Pat’s post. He’s a smart guy.
(BTW, Godzilla would totally kick Cthulhu’s ass. That’s SCIENCE.)
Effective immediately, I’m turning off my online store. Since Shopp updated their software, it hasn’t worked correctly and I need to figure out (in my Copious Free Time) why.
Sorry folks. I’ll get it fixed as quickly as possible.
As I mentioned on Twitter, I’ve written a story for a shared-world mosaic anthology which is being funded via Kickstarter. The title is Tales of the Emerald Serpent and the title of my story is “The One Thing You Can Never Trust.”
This has nothing to do with Twenty Palaces; it’s a high fantasy co-created by editor R. Scott Taylor with writers like Julie Czerneda, Lynn Flewelling, Martha Wells, Robert Mancebo, and Juliet McKenna, along with artists like Todd Lockwood.
You can read more at the site above. Check it out.
Currently listening to a program about this book: The Power of Habit
I’m a guy who needs to change his habits.
If you want to listen to the program (it’s free) you can do it here.
1) The best of the worst of online fashion.
2) Horrible things donated to Goodwill. Absolutely NSFW.
3) Exposed to D&D Early in Life? A flowchart
4) Fan-made “Bella’s womb” made of felt. Of course it has a mutant fetus inside. Of course it does.
5) Japanese skater does parkour with his board. Video. Pretty amazing.
6) Camping tents that look like food. Call me when they make a tent that looks like something a bear wouldn’t want to bite.
Added later: Apparently they are declaring Ray the winner because he was ahead at 5 but the voting was mistakenly not closed. I… er… I think I’m going to skip the comments over there. (Who am I kidding?)
And Tyrion Lannister defeated Ray Lilly, just as my writeup suggested. I’ll admit that it was closer than I expected, 50.15% to 49.85% out of nearly three thousand votes, which comes to a narrow nine-vote margin of victory.
Of course, one of those nine votes was mine. I’m pleased to see Tyrion move on to the next round. Love that character.
Thanks to everyone who made this fun, and thanks especially to David Pomerico and all the other folks at Suvudu who are putting so much time and energy into this game.
Back to my book.
1) I’ve asked my agency to accept an offer from a Polish publisher to do a Polish edition of Child of Fire. Awesome! Never let anyone tell you that agents are unnecessary.
2) Netflix Streaming seems to promise a great deal, but I can’t pretend to be happy that the shows continually stop to rebuffer. It took 35 minutes to watch a 20-minute cartoon.
3) This small town will get a grant to cover 60% of the cost of a new library if they can raise the other 40% themselves. Can you help? Video.
4) Like many Americans, I’m not terribly happy with the current state of the GOP, but one thing I do like is the protracted primary process. I’m pleased to see so many candidates sticking it out and going from state to state. Why? Super PAC stimulus. Ad buys, sign printing, mailings, the whole thing, millions of dollars from a handful of extremely conservative millionaires are being poured into each state’s economy as the campaigns move from one to another. I may not like the message conservative candidates have been promoting, but I like watching them spend their cash.
5) Regarding the Suvudu.com cage matches, I’ve made a difficult decision: even if Ray Lilly wins, I’m not going to write the next round. Honestly, I just can’t. I’m struggling too much with my new book to let my attention be divided and that’s where I have to put my energy. I’m 96K words into it; I gotta get this done. On top of that I have more than a few demands on my personal time.
So, vote for Ray if you want but don’t vote to see another writeup from me. The cage matches are fun but I can’t afford to play any more.