Things have been crazy busy today (what with day-jobbing and solid progress on The Buried King) but I have to share this: Child of Fire is going to get a second printing!
B&N ordered several thousand more copies so they can shelve it with Game of Cages in a freestanding pyramid fixture. Both books will be available for new readers! It sold well enough for B&N to order more! Freestanding display for both books!
Damn, it’s been a good couple of days.
I’m still buzzing from yesterday’s announcement that Game of Cages received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, but I know the rest of the world has quite sensibly moved on. So!
Writers of blogs and fanfic might want to watch this animated lecture. It covers a lot of recent research into motivation–is money a good motivation for people doing thinky, creative work? What are the best ways to get people invested in a project?
The answers are surprising (not only is a big pile of cash non-motivating, it actually has a detrimental effect). And as soon as I saw the artwork of the guy playing guitar, I thought about fanfic writers, why they do what they do and what they get out of it.
Anyway, it’s a fascinating little video (and beautifully produced, too). I recommend it highly, especially if you’re someone’s boss or manager.
I just got word today that GAME OF CAGES received a starred review from Publishers Weekly!
I can not tell you what a relief that is! I’ve been getting some great responses from early readers and that relieves an amazing amount of stress that I didn’t even know I had. Longtime readers of my LiveJournal know how much I struggled with the writing of that book–the restarts, the stalls, the plot mixups, the cast of characters, the uncertainty over whether the ending was too intense–all of it was really, really difficult.
And then I read this: “Connolly doesn’t shy away from tackling big philosophical issues–whether good ends justify evil means, how many civilian deaths can be justified in the pursuit of creatures that can destroy the world–amid gory action scenes and plenty of rapid-fire sardonic dialogue.”
Yes! Monsters! Face-punching! Moral quandaries! Not necessarily in that order!
My only quibble is that Catherine is an investigator, not a sorcerer/peer, but the essentials are spot on.
Check out this article about agents and the way they engage the publishing process after the book is sold (or not). It’s also interesting the way editors are portrayed–so little power!
It was hard for me to read for two reasons: first, every time I read one of those true but anonymous stories, I was seized by a “ZOMG, that’s my book!” moment. Second, the writer of the article comes across like a fawning dope. The stories he passes on are fascinating; the fact that some agent has a wonderful speaking voice or is very tall? Not so interesting. His editor should have had a go at that crap.
I’m having a quiet day at home, just like yesterday, hanging with family. We were planning to camp out on the side of a hill somewhere to watch the fireworks tonight, but we’ve been invited to a party. I have no idea what we’ll end up doing. All I know is that I plan to bore my son with an explanation of what we’re celebrating and why.
Happy Birthday, America.
I knew touring comedian Gallagher had did conservative schtick, but I never realized he’d become such a pathetic asshole. Sample quote: “If Obama was really black, he’d act like a black guy and get a white wife.” Jesus. James Nicoll would mark this with the “memetic prophylactic recommended” tag.
1) Wonder Woman trades in her star-spangled panties for actual pants (and a very ’90’s jacket).
2) “Officer, I recognize that woman! Her name is Selena Kyle!”
3) OMG. Promoted from a comment Rose Fox made: The Adventures of Lil Cthulhu. I love it!
4) Et Cetera and Otherwise: A Violent Book Trailer. That won a Moby Award for Best Foreign Book Trailer and I laughed my ass off.
5) The other Moby Award winning trailers are compiled here… except for the one named “Least Likely to Sell the Book”–aka: the worst book trailer of the year. The author pulled that one off of YouTube, and produced this new, “improved” version of the trailer. And I swear, if this is the good version, I can’t even imagine that bad one.
6) Batman’s Greatest Tweets. Sample: “We’ll miss you, Jack Bauer. If you ever come out of exile, I’ve got a pair of green ankle shoes and a yellow cape waiting.”
7) What sf ideas does Rudy Rucker wish you were writing about?
1) Time for a yay! I’ll be doing another Big Idea essay at the end of August, this time for GAME OF CAGES. Yay! This time I’m going to write a little bit about pets and pet-owners. You guys know how I feel about pets, right? I’m sure many of the people who read it are going to suspect I’m an alien infiltrator, but I swear it ain’t true.
2) I have a huge disorganized jumble of odd books at home. Why, you ask? Because I’m going to be giving them away. They’re all out of my father-in-law’s collection (with his blessing), and they range from ethnic joke books with blank spaces where the ethnicity would go (“You supply the ethnic!”), to stacks of old Archie comics, to old-time erotic photography (now with more bodystockings!), to other, odder books. As the big event, I’ll be giving away this puppy. That’s right, folks. Watch this space.
One question: should I bother with contests? Or just pretend to choose people at random?
Anyway, those books shouldn’t be in a jumble, but they are, because…
3) I spent a good portion of last night tidying my desk so the new printer will fit. My laser printer has stopped working since my Qwest troubles caused me to reinstall my operating system. The Australian print drivers I’d installed seem to have been wiped, and I wasted a bunch of time looking for working replacements. Grr. Way to not support Mac OS, Samsung! I hate you now. Add to that a phone conference about the book trailer for Man Bites World, and I find that…
4) I have a lot of housework to do tonight. Vacuuming, dishes, tidying, recycling, not to mention a quick shopping run for my wife and son’s comfort foods because…
5) Tonight my wife and son come home. They will both need a lot of attention, and I have to say I’m excited to see them. I don’t do very well when my family isn’t around.
Links to the reviews are behind the cut: Continue reading
Found another review of Child of Fire today that used the “L” word. “Lovecraft.” It’s one I think about often. I stuck werewolves into my first novel because they’re scary (to me, anyway–I have had many nightmares about dog attacks) but the books are meant to feature supernatural creatures you don’t normally find in folklore. No pixies, no rakshasa, no ghosts, no ifrits, none of that. I wanted to make my own.
Which would be one thing if I was writing a second-world fantasy, but the setting for the Twenty Palaces books are contemporary Earth. And if you write contemporary fantasy but do not use the traditional horror/folkloric supernaturals, how are people going to describe those creatures?
With the “L” word.
Me, I enjoy most Lovecraft–especially the monsters–but I have always hated the names. Cthulhu. Nyarlathotep. Yog-Sothoth.[1] They always rubbed me the wrong way. I can’t believe people would be willing to stick with those unpronounceable names, except under very special circumstances (as in “Nyarlathotep, have I got a deal for you!”). I mean, how long did it take for the U.S. to stop using the name “Peking.” People change things for their convenience.
But the real question is, how do you write a fantasy creature that does not draw on a religious or folkloric tradition that does not prompt comparisons to H.P. Lovecraft?
edited to add: finally reached 100 reviews on Amazon.com yesterday, which I think is pretty cool.
[1]All spelled by memory. Because.