Start with the important stuff, right: There’s plenty of author interviews kicking around out there, but it’s not all that opften you get an interview with a muse. Check it out. Check out also the reviews for TAP…

The rewrite of Thief-Taker went back to Gollancz a couple of days back. I’m supposed to be back working on Order of the Scales, but frankly, a short break is in order. OOTS is going to be some heavy work between now and the end of June when it’s supposed to be ready, and I need to catch my breath for a moment, if only to take stock for a moment of how busy I suddenly seem to have become. It all started with this:

which very quickly turned into this:

Forgive them, for a moment, for getting the title of King of the Crags slightly wrong…

Then there’s this: The Write Fantastic’s fifth anniversary event in Oxford (St Hilda’s College no less, which is about the one college I actually recognise in Oxford) on Sunday 9th May. For anyone who doesn’t know, The Write Fantastic exists to promote fantasy fiction to non-fantasy readers, particularly younger readers.

The after that, there’s the Lincoln Book Festival, where there’s going to be a panel (1pm, Sunday 16th) on genre fiction supplied by the all-powerful John Jarrold. Fantasy, I am your representative, so you’d better all be nice to me for the next couple of months.

Finally there’s the UK Games Expo, on the 5th & 6th June. Might well be there. And of course, there’s Eastercon!

And finally finally,  I got sent these fan-pics of The Sorcerer by Michael Peinkofer! Just goes to show that certain cover-art conventions aren’t limited to the English-speaking editions…

This week, as work on their final rewrite approaches completion, we interview Syannis and Berren, leading characters in the forth-coming Thief-Taker’s Apprentice. So, guys, tell us a little about yourselves…

Berren: Ok, so I’m learning to be this really cool dude who springs about the place, whacking down bad guys and I’m totally the star of the story and everything…

Syannis: What my idiot apprentice means to say is that he’s learning the trade of thief-taking. What he has still failed to grasp is that this largely consists of talking to people. As you’ll see from his story, he used to cut purses and, literally, shovel shit for a living. I’ve taken pity on him and…

Berren: You mean you were too embarrassed that I stole your purse!

Syannis: …and taken him to teach him the ways of taking thieves. Which mostly consists of trying to batter a few manners into his head and teaching him to read and write.

Berren: And swords! You’re going to teach me swords, right. One day.

Syannis <rolls eyes>: If you ever learn your letters, yes.

Berren: That’s why I want to be a thief-taker. The first time I saw Master Sy, he killed three men who tried to jump him. It was awesome. I want to be like that.

Syannis: It was an unusual day.

(To Syannis) Are the rumours true that you only took Berren on because he’s the spitting image of someone you used to know?

Syannis: I don’t know where you heard that. I fancied an apprentice, that’s all.

Berren: No, he was just mad because I took his purse.

So, Berren, you used to be a thief and now you’re a thief-taker? How did that come about? What’s wrong with a bit of honest work in the first place?

Berren: Look, after the war and the siege and everything, there were a lot of boys and girls born without any fathers. Khrozus’ boys they call us. What happens if there’s no one to look after you in a place like Deephaven, is that you get put into a city orphanage until you’re old enough so they can sell you to someone who wants a young pair of hands. I was lucky to not  wind up on a Taiytakei slave ship. So I got sold to Master Hatchet, who sends his boys out to clean the dung up off the streets and he expects us to pay for our food while we’re at it. How? It’s not as though anyone else is giving us any money. Cleaning up the streets pays off our debt, he says. So we have to start picking pockets and cutting purses to eat. And then he has us running all sorts of other errands. Not like we had much of a choice.

Syannis: This city breeds thieves. That’s what happens when money falls out of the sky.

What about you, Syannis, what’s your story. How did you end up a thief-taker?

Syannis: I came to Deephaven about eight years ago. It seemed to suit my skills. I hate thieves.

Is there a particular reason for that?

Syannis: Yes.

Care to share?

Syannis: Not really, no. It has nothing to do with what I do now.

Berren: That’s not quite… <bites lip>

Well what did you do before?

Syannis: Nothing of any consequence.

Berren: Well where did you learn to fight like that, eh? And what about Kasmin – he called you…

Syannis: He calls me all sorts of things. I had another life before I came to Deephaven. That life is finished. There’s nothing more to say.

Berren: He called you a…

Syannis: Nothing. To. Say.

So this story, why don’t you tell us about what happens?

Berren: Like I said, we’re these really cool dudes who spring about the place, whacking down bad guys and there’s this gang of pirates we’re after and then there are the snuffers and there’s this girl, Lilissa, who’s really sweet and she gets into trouble and then there’s Jerrin who used to be one of Master Hatchet’s boys who’s got it in for me for some reason and he’s doing all this stuff and…

Syannis: Mostly it’s about how hard it is to teach Berren anything that he actually ought to learn. Like how to read and write.

Berren: And I stow away on this boat and there’s this big fight and…

Syannis: And how to keep out of fights.

Berren: Oh, and then there’s this time when I caught out in The Maze and I have to hide…

Syannis: And how to stay out of trouble.

Berren: And then there’s this time when Master Sy fights four men at once! (Looking at Syannis) and the time when I saved your life and you cut that bloke’s hand off. And then there’s that weird scary warlock down at the House of Cats and Gulls that Master Sy knows, and there’s this knife…

Syannis: (pointedly) And how to keep his mouth shut.

Berren: And then there’s this really big fire…

Syannis: And that thief-taking is mostly about talking to the right people and a little bit of detective work and that once you finally know who it is you’re after, you send in a big posse of militiamen while you wait at the back… Fire? What fire? I don’t remember a fire.

One final question. You’ve seen the cover art for your story now. What do you think.

Berren: I think we look cool.

Syannis: Wait, that’s supposed to be us?

Berren: Can I have a big black cloak like that? With a hood? That looks so sweet. I bet it billows out behind you like a great black cloud when you run, too.

Syannis: I bet you’d trip over it.

Berren: Have you actually got a cloak like that? Does that mean I’m going to get one too? And a sword! I have a sword! When do I get my sword?

Syannis: When you learn your letters.

Berren: Yeah, I think the picture’s really great. That’s exactly how I want to be in a couple of years. It’s really us. We’re going to be the most feared thief-taking team in the whole of Deephaven.

Syannis: With a hood? So that all that being feared is completely wasted when no one can recognise you?

Berren: Yeah. All dark and mysterious. Girls go weak for a tall dark mysterious stranger.

Syannis: Firstly you’re a short-arse, and secondly, no generally they don’t.

Berren: Especially with a really cool sword. I think it’s great. As soon as I can, that’s the way I want to look. I’m going to get some clothes like that right now.

Syannis: I think it makes us look like a pair of virgin wannabe snuffers.

Berren: Well you look like an old shopkeeper in your stupid old coat. Those new cloaks are great! When do we get them?

Syannis: And clumsy old cavalry swords left over from the war? I don’t think so. Try using one of those in a narrow alley. You probably couldn’t even hold it properly…

The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice is published in August 2010

It’s a Tuesday so it must be time to witter about something. There’s not much book-news to get excited about at the moment. Am rewriting the last quarter of the Order of the Scales after finally figuring out what was bothering me about it (yes, something is getting cut). Am waiting impatiently for Thief-Taker to come back from my editor (impatiently because I have free evenings coming out of my ears at the moment and there’s only so much Bioshock a man can play. Well, actually there isn’t, but there probably ought to be).

Still: Last night was the annual Orion bash, and a couple of comments still ring in my ears. Amid the Amazon vs. Macmillan malarkey, iPads and other shenanigans and the poorly advertised possibly-not-actually-a-fact that the e-book version of The Adamantine Palace will have something pushing 60,000 words of extra material in it, I’d somehow gained the impression that e-books were, somehow, well, y’know, important? Apparently not. According to Peter Roche, chief executive of the Orion Publishing Group, there is the possibility that e-books will expand greatly in 2010, possibly up to a whopping great 2% of total sales. Woo-hoo. Yes, the trend will doubtless continue and yes, it will vary from genre to genre (cookery e-book? Better be sauce-proof). But still. Woo-hoo. I’ll do the bonus material but I’ll not be rushing out to acquire a system developers tool-kit for iPad apps just yet.

This was a statement made during the annual Orion state-of-the-union address. The second most thought-provoking comment came from Adam Roberts, which went something along the lines of ‘What? You’re just going as a tourist? You’re not even doing research?’ This in response to me being off on a little trip in a couple of months. I didn’t have an answer to that, and it’s taken me a full day to realise why. So in lieu of being on the panel about fantasy research at Eastercon, here’s my ha’penny on researching for epic fantasy. It’s simple, really. Everything is research. I’m never a tourist. I was doing research last night in the Royal Opera House, listening to the acoustics and looking at the shape of the ceiling. I will be doing research in the Andes, on the look and feel of mountains. Not all that long ago I did some research on what it’s like to stand on the open top of a tall tower (very windy). Right now I’m researching how to share your lap between a laptop and a cat (tricky and prone to typos). Research for fantasy is endless. Go visit every terrain the world will offer you. Master geography. Understand how every culture works and why. Learn how science and technology developed. Get your head around the sum of human history. Slide into the heads of other people and figure out what make them tick. Do all of that and you’ll have everything you need to build worlds that are effortlessly real. “You’re not even doing research?” Doesn’t have an answer because the question doesn’t compute.

In theory I’m supposed to be taking a couple of weeks off between completing the proof-reading of King of the Crags and launching into the last rewrite of The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice and then the very-far-from-last rewrite of Order of the Scales. So I absolutely haven’t started working on something else and it absolutely isn’t called The Black Mausoleum and there absolutely aren’t 10000-odd words of this already laid down. Absolutely can’t have happened. It’s my fortnight off, after all.

In the meantime, as the UK celebrates(?) its biggest ever lottery win, I note that this would equate to selling roughly 100 million books. I’m estimating a roughly 50/50 chance of achieving this before the sun explodes [1].

For those of you looking for anything more substantial, I have left a mess over on John Scalzi’s blog, in which I fantasize  that there might be some sort of element of vicarious satisfaction or even satire involved in writing stories about enormous fire-breathing monsters burning the shit out of people who badly badly deserve it.

Oh, wait, that doesn’t happen until later…

[1]  All right all right, swells up into a red giant and vapourizing everything, strictly isn’t the same as exploding.

Meh. There’s blogs aplenty to tell you about the SFX Weekender. Here, here and here, for example. For those who had to stay overnight in the actual chalets, I offer my apologies. There was an attempt to burn them down about fifteen years ago when the place hosted Euro-Gencon, but my pyromantic powers had not reached their peak at the time and the effort failed. As for the rest, I can’t really comment, having spent most of the time in the bar with the other Gollancz authors, cheering each other on through the readings and interviews there.

Readings. Yes, and in a bar. Having them there caused some debate, mostly of the ‘it’s too bloody loud in here’ variety, but I’m not so sure about that. I’d draw the line at having to complete with the pub televisions showing the six nations at the same time as someone’s trying to read aloud – that was a bit harsh, even for Science Fiction authors – but the basic idea, I thought, was sound. Would I rather listen to someone read and talk with a pint in my hand and a bit of atmosphere, or would I rather listen in a sterile room tucked away in some part of the hotel that I can’t even find (yes, Fantasycon, I’m looking at you)? I’ll take the bar. As for the reading… I can understand why the background noise annoys some people, but set against that there’s the ebb and flow of people, because as panels and movies end (and we readers where certainly a mere sideshow in all of this), the bar is the natural place for people to go. So they come, and we were there to entertain them. So not all bad, and I felt we were honouring older traditions of story-telling by reading in the bar. Sure, some people weren’t interested. There was talking and noise in the background. But people came, and it was down to us and our stories to be interesting enough to keep them. It’s not the same as reading to a room where everyone has come specifically for the person who’s going to read, but I don’t see that makes it better, only different.

I, however, had none of this to contend with. What I had was Tom Baker on the main stage somewhere above me, and you can guess who got the better of that one. My thanks to those who stayed and listened anyway, particularly the two or three people who weren’t from the Gollancz or SFX crew.

I had fun, but then that’s a pretty easy thing to say when all you’ve got to do is show up at the seaside, sit in a bar all day and be offered drinks and Thai takeaway while watching the occasion sith lord order Doritos from the bar. I mean, really, what’s not to like? So apart from opinions on giving readings, go ask someone else what it was like.

A quick warning for anyone taking an RSS feed off me: There’s about to be (in the next few hours) some restructuring and part of that restructuring is going to mean that the Diamond Cascade pages are getting converted into a blogroll. Which means that, for better or worse, they’ll be streaming your way soon.

A report on the SFX Weekender may follow later.

…or how, after weeks of nothing much apparently going on, all the buses arrive at once. Yes, today there’s actually some news. In fact, there’s news about four different books and a couple of appearances…

Firstly The Adamantine Palace is officially released in the US by ROC today, which seems as good a reason as any to show off the extremely gorgeous cover yet again. Love the Gollancz cover as I do, the little collection of first-edition ROC hardbacks now has a special place in my book cupboard. To, er… celebrate, there are a few interviews and articles from the last few weeks that are starting to surface. Here (interview with someone who actually read the book first!), here (complete with opportunity to win an autographed map) and here (so far). Also spotted: a late review in from Australia. Nothing that hasn’t been said before in a different way, but I did like: “Mr Deas has, in my opinion, created the most terrifyingly natural and malign dragons to have ever graced the page.” Thank-you. My work here is done.

At the same time, yesterday was the official UK release  for the mass-market paperback edition of The Adamantine Palace, and for anyone who’s been waiting for the pocket-sized version, this one comes with the map. I’m not sure why, but it does. The Adamantine Palace is Waterstones’ fantasy and science-fiction pick of the month for February, which is  a bit mind-boggling. It’s also one of the local store’s picks of 2009, but I think that might have more to do with local prejudice than anything. Credit where credit’s due, though, they’ve been immensely supportive over the last year and I shall continue to sneak into their coffee shop with my laptop from time to time. There may even be an author signing event thing in April for King of the Crags – more on that when it happens.

On the subject of which, the proof corrections for King of the Crags are almost done. OK, not very exciting after all, so here’s yet another pretty cover that you’ve seen before. King of the Crags will have the map in it too, by the looks of things. Sounds like an excuse to show off another gorgeous cover…

And then there’s the SFX weekender coming up next weekend, in which I shall orbit like a piece of small cosmic debris around such collossi as Al Reynolds and Joe Abercrombie. If you want to come and snooze for a while in a quiet and largely empty room, I shall be reading from various works, some of which might even be my own, on the appropriately named Slaughtered Lamb stage at about 2:30. If Fantasycon was anything to go by, this will be a fine place to come for a bit of peace and quiet, and I promise not to read too loudly.

Covers. Yes. The big news of the week, of course, is the revolutionary, ground-breaking cover to The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice, in which we bring you not one, but TWO hooded men. This audacious leap away from genre convention should be in the shops come August, and will doubtless be followed by a slew of imitators, culminating in covers with COUNTLESS HORDES of hooded men. When that happens, just remember who took that first leap of faith…

Work on book two, recently re-titled The Hooded Hordes will begin shortly.

Skipping ahead to The Order of the Scales, the first rewrite is all done bar the shouting. For anyone who’s interested, this is a structural rewrite (if anyone cares, largely around the story-arcs for Kemir and the Adamantine Spear). The horrible snapping rending grinding noises are the sounds of plot-bones being snapped off and attached in different places. Despite the sound effects, though, the story feels much better for it. There’s no cover I can offer up for The Order of the Scales, but I think we’re seeing a pattern here, so I’m guessing a deep red background (so the series will colour-coordinate with your Lord of the Rings extended edition DVD set, which is only right and proper after all) and three dragons this time. I’m thinking two facing each other like on the Crags cover (green and blue to match the backgrounds of the first two books) and  a third one behind them, the white one, wings spread, coming out of the page. And increased cripsyness at the edges. But I know squat about designing covers, so don’t imagine that any of that actually means anything.

In the absence of the actual cover for Order of the Scales (and I really can’t wait, because so far these Gollancz covers have been great), here is a picture of Niagara Falls in the winter of 1911. My wife showed me this, having been passed it via a friend, friend of a friend, etc. etc. (so sorry, original photographer, copyright owner, and subsequent toucher-upper, but I have no idea who you are to attribute any credit) with the observation that it was a) a magnificant picture and b) would make an excellent fantasy cover. Just stick a sodding great dragon peering down at the man and there you go – the opening scene of King of the Crags (almost).

I can’t quite tell, but f you look closely enough, is that fellow wearing a hood? Or is it just a ninja outfit?

Busy busy busy. The Adamantine Palace is coming out in the US in less than three weeks and so there’s interviews and guest blogs and and and… And a copy of the book too, and it’s a hardcover and even prettier in the flesh than it was on a screen. Two suich beautiful covers! How can you choose between them? Order of the Scales re-write number one is going slightly better than expected, the page-proofs for King of the Crags are due in a fortnight and and and…

Then there’s the Gemmel Awards to mention. Go vote! Don’t make Mr Abercrombie mad! And I’ve been reading some other titles due out from Gollancz too. Tome of the Undergates and Wolfsangel. Both will receive some more attention closer to their release dates.

Right now, though, I don’t have time to do justice to anything. So here’s a review I made earlier for Vector for a book you can (and should) go and buy right now.

Yellow Blue Tibia (Gollancz; ISBN 978-0575083578 )

Author: Adam Roberts

World War II is over. The Soviet Union has defeated Hitler and Stalin is convinced that Europe and America will soon fall. Global Soviet peace will follow; and to prepare for that peace, Stalin calls Konstantin Skvorecky and a handful of other Soviet science fiction authors to a secret dacha in the countryside. The new communist world will need some new menace to hold it together, something to give it a unity of cause and purpose. In short, it will need the threat of an alien invasion, and the job of this group of writers is to create one, a fiction but a plausible one. No expense will be spared in staging this invasion. It will begin with the destruction of an American spaceship and a huge explosion in the Ukraine…

When their job is done, the writers are unceremoniously ejected and told to forget what they have done. Mostly they consider themselves lucky not to have been shot.

Fast-forward some forty years. Skvorecky, now ex-SF writer, ex-alcoholic, part-time translator and dedicated cynic finds himself asked to act as a translator for a rather odd pair of Americans. As he leaves, he is approached by the last other survivor of Stalin’s SF cabal, now working in the KGB, who tries to convince him that the alien invasion they created is becoming reality: It’s 1986. The Space Shuttle Challenger has exploded, something is afoot in the Ukraine at Chernobyl, and aliens appear to be secretly invading the world.

So there’s the set-up. Skvorecky quickly acquires a taxi-driving nuclear physicist sidekick and proceeds to be bounced from one slightly bizarre and surreal episode to the next in what is, in the end, an exquisitely crafted and cerebral mystery.

Now, I have this idea that stories engage with readers in two fundamentally different ways. They engage with us on an emotional level, with adrenaline-pumping action, tooth-grinding tension, white-knuckle drama; with love and joy and hate and revenge and possibly too many adjectives. And they engage with us on an intellectual level, with ideas and philosophies that educate and amuse and stimulate and enrich. Yellow Blue Tibia is firmly entrenched at the latter end of the spectrum. Skvorecky and his taxi-driver never emotionally engage with the story in which they find themselves; rather, Skvorecky observes his own trajectory with a detached amusement, while his taxi-driver is a realistic depiction of Asperger’s Syndrome. These are both deliberate choices by the author and, as with everything else here, expertly crafted; in fact, this sort of detachment is probably necessary, as some of the strangeness they encounter would likely drive anyone else (reader included) to distraction trying to work out what could possibly be going on. Right up to the end, it’s not clear whether this is a mundane KGB conspiracy, a comedy of errors, a narrator who’s lost his marbles or whether there are, indeed, some aliens somewhere. Adams seems fascinated with the phenomena of UFOs, the are they-or-aren’t-they of them, the weight of the anecdotal set against the utter lack of hard physical evidence. Yellow Blue Tibia even offers a rather tidy answer.

The real strengths of this book are in the easy flowing prose (I occasionally had to stop and read a scene again simply to admire how well it was put together), in Skvorecky’s sardonic wit and in the marvellous central idea, revealed at the end, which gives almost perfect coherence and sense to all the seemingly random events that precede it.

In summary, the writing is elegant and yet straightforward, the mystery is engrossing and the idea at the core is inspired. Readers after an emotional connection may find it difficult to engage with the story, but for those who are after a piece of old-school science-fiction brain food that makes you think, Yellow Blue Tibia delivers in spades.

(Post review note: I read this in the summer of 2009 and still find myself thinking about it. It’s just such a neat idea. Even if it violates the second law of thermodynamic and thus casts the whole premise into the realms of. . . But no: that’s a battle for another day

I was having a minor grump over the holidays about how much time the rewriting of Order of the Scales was going to take (Simon, don’t expect to see it early). Well, the rewrite is going OK, but it’s still taking up a lot of time that could otherwise have been spent doing more worthwhile things like playing Dragon Age: Origins or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II or Assassin’s Creed II. But over the weekend, someone dropped me this comment:

“I’ve bought and half finished 5 books in the last month and had thought I’d lost my passion for sci-fantasy. Now I realise I’ve just been picking shitty books to read. Until now that is. I bought and finished The Adamantine Palace today and absolutely loved it. Thanks for giving me what I thought was lost Stephen!”

One happy reader doesn’t make a book good, but it makes an author happy too and not mind that he’s spending his evenings in front of his laptop. Also, he is apparently not alone. Been a while since a new review for The Adamantine Palace came out…

As noted my last post, my the first draft of Order of the Scales is needing rather more work than I’d hoped (largely because it was written about a year ago before King of the Crags went through its edit and the Gazetteer changed a few things). So instead of the usual two re-writes, this one’s going to need three before submission. Usually, there’s a first rewrite to iron out any inconsistencies in the story, character or background and put on the last icing and sprinkles. Then there’s a pause of a month or two while I go and do something else and then a second rewrite that all buff and shine and polish.

I like re-writes when I’ve finished them. I don’t like doing them. They’re treading familiar paths and rarely taking me anywhere new. Bleh.

Right. And that really is about it for any ’system’ I use.

Someone asked me a couple of days ago whether I plan in detail or use the ‘travel-hopefully’ method. Now being asked questions like that makes me feel all unnaturally important, as if my words and methods might carry some weight and I was all set to write a lengthy post on how to set about writing a story. Fortunately some sense prevailed; the fact is that everyone seems to write in different ways and I think everyone probably has to find what fits the way their head works.
That said, ‘travel hopefully’ does describe the way I write quite well once I get going, but having said that, there does have to be some sort of framework in place before I start; everyone has to have something, right? Otherwise how do you know where to begin? I don’t think I know anyone who sits down in front of a keyboard knowing nothing more than that they are about to write a story…

So what do I need? I need:

• A world. It doesn’t have to be fleshed out an detailed, but it needs to be there in skeleton form. In particular, I think what matters are the general rules by which the world operates. The big things that will shape it need to be thought through. The Adamantine Palace may not have that much world-building actually in it, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t thought about. For a fantasy world, is there an analogous period in history? I will always start from something real and then add bits (magic, dragons, the fact that the moon is made of cheese, whatever). These bits need a little basic thinking through, too, about what the consequences are for the base society when you add the extras. I’ll do most of this as a go along, but I need to know how the rules that govern the way the world works have changed because of whatever I’ve added (or taken away). Same principle goes for Science Fiction and technology. If you’re going to set a story in the real world, then which part of the real world and which time in history?
• Some driver characters. A few main protagonists with what they are trying to do and why and very roughly what they’re like. These might be characters who will be in the foreground of the story (example: Prince Jehal: Intelligent, cynical, callous, wants to be top dog (because being the top dog is the only place that’s safe), deep down also wants to be… <spoiler deleted>) or they might be in the background (Saffran Kuy in The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice). They are the characters who are shaping events. What they are trying to do and why they are trying to do it will define the way the world changes during the course of the story.
• Some front-line characters. These might be the same as the above or they might be different, but these are the characters who are in the foreground of the story. I find they tend to acquire their own personalities and colour themselves in as the story goes on, so all I have here at the start are a few seed characteristics that make them stand out from those around them (Angry, guilty, can swing a sword. That sort of thing).
• An end. In some ways most important of all, I need to know how the end is going to feel. Someone has to either achieve something or fail to achieve something. It’s not so much the specifics of what that I have up front, it’s how it’s going to feel for the reader (bitter-sweet is always a favourite with crushing despair a close second, but there’s always the possibility of a happy success). There may well be several ends for several different story-lines.

And that’s it. After that it’s travel hopefully time. Which has worked extremely well on some occasions and less well on others. This year’s submissions will be The Order of the Scales and The Warlock’s Shadow, both already written in draft straight off the back of their prequels (on the grounds that all the preparation work had already been done) and both examples of FAILURE of the method, dammit! The Order of the Scales in particular has rolled a fumble (er, I mean has a lot wrong with it). I can see at least three re-writes being necessary before it’s good enough to be submitted. The first one started this week, along with the stress headaches.

This would also be the time when some sort of review of the year would appear, but I haven’t got time for that right now. Here’s one someone else made earlier.

Rumour has it that the ARCs for King of the Crags might be flying about in the post. For anyone who wants something better to do over the Christmas break, I’m off over at paizo making up weird and wonderful magic items before I get back to Order of the Scales.

Oh, and Diamond Cascade has updated. Is anyone apart from Matt actually reading this or am I writing to an empty room? Because I can stop, you know. I can. I don’t need to write every day to stop myself from going mad. I could give up any time I want. If I happen to be all crotchety and twitchy and pacing-around-the-room-y, why it must be something entirely unrelated. Must be, right.

Anyway, happy Christmas.

I’m splitting my time between four books at the moment. Two are Gollancz releases for next year: Wolfsangel by MD Lachlan and Tome of the Undergates by Sam Sykes. Of all of these, Wolfsangel is the one that’s most likely to be a hit. I haven’t got very far with it, but from what I’ve seen, this is going to get some rave reviews. So far it’s Vikings the way Vikings should be: dark, bloody and dangerous, and the atmosphere is so strong that every time I stop it comes as something of a surprise that I’m not surrounded by fjords.

Tome, on the other hand, is an unashamed D&D adventure. If you play, I suspect you will find it very hard not to snicker at the party bickering and the complete inability to agree a plan and then stick to it. I’m rather enjoying it but then in this case I’m biased in more ways that you can shake a stick.

In some slightly less important news, The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice is now polished up well enough to go to Gollancz for editing (phew) – finishing that is why this post is both short and a couple of days late. Complete drafts also now exist for the second and third books in this series, although extensive rework is already clearly necessary <grrr>

A couple of days off now, I think, and then time to crack some knuckles and get back to burning  shit down with dragons.

Next week might be competition time. I have an idea…

Today is publication day for Der Drachenthron[1], The Adamantine Palace auf Deutsch. The mad fools at Heyne who bought the rights before I’d even finished chapter 7 (from memory, and bear in mind the book has 70 chapters) are about to find out whether they’ve bought a piece of the next Wunderkind or the next Wunder-turkey. I fully expect a room full of long faces, shaking heads and a general demeanour of never again…

But maybe they weren’t so mad after all. The Adamantine Palace is doing rather well, it seems. Not awesome, but well enough. I find it hard to believe, but slowly, this possibility is being bludgeoned into me as a fact. Being in a list of someone’s ten most anticipated books of 2010 boggles my mind; at least, given that the list wasn’t written by my publicist or my mum. Most of me assumes that it was some sort of freak accident, a moment of insanity brought on by the fact that there’s no new Pat Rothfuss, no new Scott Lynch or Joe Abercrombie coming out in 2010. I mean good grief – on the same list as KJ Parker? As the mighty Al Reynolds? Hoy! I feel so not worthy.

Still, this is all thing, right? Of course it is.

It’s also terrifying. Grand vistas of uncertainty and possibility threaten to open up before me. And they’re all good, but WHAT IF THEY GO WRONG? Eh? What if I embrace the dream and it all turns sour, eh? EH? What if I quit my well-paying stable and secure job to hop onto some wild roller-coaster ride to oblivion and ecstasy only for it to crash? What if I end up watching my family starve, living in rags, eh?[2] What if they all end up hating me?

Don’t be fooled – in the occasional moment when I’m not chain-smoking and quivering with fear, I’m stricken with delight. Fortunately, King of the Crags is done, edited, re-written, ARCs printed, finished all bar the proof-reading. King of the Crags is all good. If you liked The Adamantine Palace, I reckon you’ll like King of the Crags. If pressure-paralysis is going to set in, it’ll be the third book that suffers, but I don’t think it will. Writing stories is an escape from all that.

There’s a diem out there, just out of reach[3] but tantalisingly close. If the chance comes to carpe it, it will be a quivering unsteady hand that reaches out, but seize it I will. Because that’s what you have to do.

Thank you, all of you who bought TAP. Thank-you very much indeed. Now please excuse me; I have to go binge-eat on Ben and Jerrys.

[1] Complete with a map (Entschuldigung – Landkarte).

[2] Yes, I know, realistically the worst that will happen is probably that they’ll have to put up with not having access to the latest console games technology, but kids can be harsh, man.

[3] That’s right Mr day-job, we’re not done yet. Not yet.

Erm… for anyone who was waiting for me to say so, Diamond Cascade has updated. Quite a lot…

Despite a concerted effort by Transport For London to make it as difficult as possible to get to by closing both the entire Circle Line and most of the District Line last Saturday, Dragonmeet last weekend was a blast. I don’t know how many people were there (many hundreds), but it seemed huge.

The panel of fantasy-authors-who-game (myself, Mark Barrowcliffe (The Elfish Gene and others), Jonny Nexus (Game Night) and the John Steed of fantasy, Dave Devereux (Hunters Moon, Eagle Rising)) were able to pontificate to a packed room about games and writing and the link between them. It’s something I could probably talk about with enthusiasm for something just short of the entire rest of time, so an hour was nowhere near enough [1].

And then, in the afternoon (skipping over the god-awful green-and-brown mush that was called lasagne, dwell for a moment on the perfectly reasonably coffee, and move on), I ran a game based in the world of The Adamantine Palace, for which I am hugely grateful to my players (I still have the sign-up sheet, so I know who you were – or who you were pretending to be), because you turned it into something more than a little awesome; right now I’m all fired up to write it up into a 20000 word novella. Just as soon as I have a spare month… Really pleased how that went, and it looked like everyone was having enough fun to keep right on going even after the ‘plot’ was resolved. Dragonmeet, we shall meet again. Special thanks to Dave Devereux again who managed to end up playing the dragon-knight and being in charge of the dragon and didn’t (unlike my play-test teams) call it Fluffy or something equally silly.

Actually, what he called it was [2]

We also did a little signing, which was an eye-opener. This is what happens: A handful people (not very many in my case) have heard of you. They know you’re going to be there. They come armed with books to sign. This is cool and makes you feel big and important. They show up at the start. And then they go, and the tumble-weed starts to roll past. People stop and stare and then quickly run away as soon as you make eye contact. Some people wander up and look at the cover. They pick it up and feel it. They might even read the blurb on the back. Sometimes they say something like will I like this? Well how do you answer that? Anyway, I sold a few books and signed a few more. What I saw, though, was that not one person who thought about buying The Adamantine Palace, neither the ones who bought it nor the ones who didn’t, read a single word of what was inside before they made their decision. They bought it (or not) on the basis of the cover and the blurb – all the bits that had nothing to do with me whatsoever. Content might get you repeat business, but over the counter, it’s covers and blurbs that sell books. Yes, I’ve heard that before, but seeing it in action was kind of scary. Kind of intensely annoying too. Or possibly liberating. Like, dude, it doesn’t matter what you actually write! Hmmm.

As an added bonus, I spent so much time travelling around on what felt like every tube line in London that the first draft of The Warlock’s Shadow is probably a week away from completion. Then it’s back to the Thief-Taker’s Apprentice for a couple of weeks for its last spit-and-polish, and then the the re-write-athon continues with The Order Of The Scales. Ahhh, dragons, it’ll be good to have you back. After a couple of months away, I was beginning to miss your fiery goodness.

[1] As a measure of how my general geek-level, I had actually, for once, read every single other author on the panel. Even the self-published one.

[2] Deleted for security reasons.

I have not changed a word of this. Not a word (except for the spelling).

The Great Battle of the Knights and the Dragon

by

Christopher Deas

Age 6

Once upon a time there was a big tall castle, where a brave king lived with his knights and they were fighting other knights.

Just then a yellow fire-breathing dragon came and blew fire everywhere at the top of the castle and the fire nearly killed all of his shiny guards. So the king phoned his next door neighbour to help his shiny guards to kill the dragon and they fed the dragon and they asked why he was blowing up the castle.

In the end the dragon said nothing so the knights killed him and turned him into hog-roast and ate him up because that’s what knights do at the end of a big adventure.

The End.

Right. Fleshed out to 100000 words, that’ll do nicely.

Arcs arcs arcs lov-er-ly ARCS. They’re on their way, people. To, er… wherever they go.

Dragonmeet. It has dragon in the title, and I shall be there, dusting down the dice and running a short little game of Dungeons and Dragons. What to take on the role of Sollos or Kemir for a few hours? Want to be an alchemist? Or a dragon-knight with a real live dragon at your beck and call (play-test group one called him Fluffy. Group two called him Tantrum. generally he did more damage to them by accident than anything else in the story-line, but I’m sure next weekend’s gang will do much, much better. Heh). There might even be a consequential short story, once the great re-write-athon is done with.

Signings are a distinct possibility. There’s also a panel just after midday with a party of authors-who-game.

If you’re still reading this and still wondering what pn earth a Dragonmeet is when it’s at home, it’s a gaming convention. You can find out more here, along with where (London) and when (next Saturday). The prestigious guest list follows:

Erik Mona (Paizo Publishing/Pathfinder)
Robin D. Laws (Author/Game Designer)
Simon Washbourne (Barbarians of Lemuria)
Brennan Taylor (IPR/Galileo Games)
Andrew Looney (Looney Labs)
Gregor Hutton (Box Ninja; 3:16)
Gareth Hanrahan (Game Designer & Author)
Jeff Richard (Moon Design)
Mark Barrowcliffe (Author; ‘The Elfish Gene’)
Jonny Nexus (Author; ‘Game Night’)
David Devereux (Author; Hunter’s Moon)
Jon Hodgson (Artist)
Linda Pitman (Artist)

See some of you there, I hope.

If it’s weird and wonderful seeing yourself in print, it’s even more weird and wonderful seeing yourself in print in another language, and somehow being in magazine is even even more weird and wonderful. Particularly a german one (we’re a half german family here, y’see).

Also, for anxiously waiting German readers, publication seems to have moved forward to the 8th December. At least, according to Amazon.de anyway. Although if the translation of the reviews are anything to go by, I’d take that with at least a small pinch of salt…

Anyway, the English translation of the aricle follows for anyone who’d prefer not to read the original through a microscope. On why I write fantasy, then, and its enduring appeal…

How did I become a fantasy writer? I’d like to pretend that people ask me this question all the time, but actually they don’t. Mostly what they ask (if they ask anything at all) is why aren’t you a science fiction writer? After all, I have a degree in physics, not in history. I have been a rocket scientist (to be fair, I’ve never made the bit that goes whoosh, but I have helped to make the bits that sit on top the bits that go whoosh, and that, my friends, is the hard part) so why don’t I write stories about rockets? Now I like science fiction almost every bit as much as I like fantasy, but it seems to me that there is a difference, a very fundamental one. Science fiction can be about ideas. Fantasy, in the end, needs to be about people. Fantasy doesn’t have a choice. There’s nowhere else for it to go. So I choose fantasy first, because for me, people are nearly always more interesting than ideas.

Well fine, but still, why fantasy? Why not write about people in the real world? Why not write crime or thrillers or love stories. Better than that, if you like people so much, why spend your time all alone writing at all? What does fantasy offer that the real world does not? I think that is the question. It offers something, that’s for sure, something that matters to a lot of people. Many of the most successful series of books in the world, it seems, are fantasy series. Why? Are fantasy writers so much better than other writers? No, of course not. So it must be the fantasy itself. And if a fantasy story has to be about people to succeed, then what does fantasy tell us about people that other kinds of story can not?

I think it is still the wrong question. Try this one: What can fantasy tell us about ourselves as people that other kinds of story can not? Now we begin to get close to why I write fantasy, why I love to read these stories, and why (in my opinion) fantasy is as successful as it is. The heart of any fantasy story is a world that is simple. It may not always seem it, but compared to the real world, it is. The good people are good, the bad people are bad, there is right and there is wrong. This is one thing. Another is that anyone in a fantasy story can be the hero. Rich or poor, weak or strong, black or white. Why do we like this? Because the real world is so very big and so very complicated, and because in the real world almost nothing is clear; it is all very grey and much harder to tell right and wrong apart. Because the real world is full of things we think could be better. It is full of things we want to change but we can’t. Sometimes we can’t change them because we don’t have the power. More often we can’t change things because we simply don’t know how. Fantasy, and only fantasy, is an escape from this. An escape to a world where we can understand and we can have the power and we can fight for what we believe in and we can be the hero and what’s more we can win! It’s good for us too. It helps us to keep on trying in the much more difficult world of reality, because it gives us belief that if we just try hard enough, if we could overcome just a little more, then we can change this world too. The best fantasy stories can inspire us to be more than think we are, and that is something few other stories can do.

Why do I write fantasy? Because there’s a part of me that’s still sixteen years old and ready to take on the world. Because deep inside I still want to be a hero, no matter how hard a thing that is to be. And because I know I am not alone.

Stage one of the gazetteer is complete, which is to say that all the content has been written, re-written at immense effort, proofed at great expense and mushed up with great glee into a single monolithic .pdf. There are 180 pages and a little over 150 entries (all in alphabetical order), and you can download it here.

The plan, eventually, is to put it on-line with hyper links between the entries. The chances of this being done by the end of the year are, frankly, remote, and it might have to wait until I mysteriously break both my ankles and end up bed-ridden for a solid month. But hey, you never know. If the response to this vast effort is tumble weed rolling across the comment-book of this here web-site, why then I just might not bother at all. I figure if you’re a die-hard fan, you probably download the whole thing anyway, right? So – honestly, readers – would it actually be useful to have on-line as linked entries?

As an example, here’s one of the longer entries, the Palace of Paths, the fortress overlooking the city of Evenspire, home of King Valgar and Queen Almiri that gets a little more than a mention in The King of the Crags.

OK, I give up. You win (you know who you are). Competition over.

If I’m ever short of inspiration, I’ll do this again. Almost every name suggested has had so much character that large tracts of story have sprung up fully formed around them, demanding to be written. Powers Radishfoot, hobbit PI: Noir fantasy with tea and biscuits. Cornelius Carbuncle: Debonair Moorcockian time-travelling scholar. Duckface Wokwok: Er… All right, maybe not that one.

I am quite confident, however, that nothing anyone else comes up with is going to make me spill more tea over myself than Fanny Proudfuck did.

Right. Dungeons and Dragons. Other forms of role-playing games. If this is all some bizarre thing that weird folk get up to when they should be doing something more useful, you should probably stop reading around about now. You probably don’t want to know that I’ve been playing them for twenty-five years. You probably don’t want to know that they’re how I learned to put a story together, and to make it bend and flow around a strong character, sometimes more than one. You probably don’t want to know that I, a grown family man, still regularly pretend to be (currently) an over-sexed, racially prejudiced, selfishly opportunistic teenager much more interested in whores, drink and a good song (in roughly that order) than saving the world. You probably don’t care or even understand when I relate that my Dungeon-Master liked my book.

But hey! My Dungeon-Master liked my book, and that’s a pretty cool thing to know. So in honour of that, and hoping that one final nudge in the right direction will get me the +4 Longbow of Destruction and the Codpiece of  Mighty Prowess that I so richly deserve (but of course in no way, shape or form even remotely need), I’ve decided I shall publish the journal of Diamond Cascade, wanderer, womaniser, archer, songsmith and occasional accidental hero.

I’ll be putting this up as static pages so it won’t show in RSS feeds, but look for the note ‘Diamond Cascade has updated’ which will link to the latest update whenever a new one is available. I’ll shoot for once a week and see what happens.

In the mean time, here goes part one…

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

I’ve had many names. Cosaliades Ebron vel Huyma in the west of Demir, except that might get me killed. Ebra or Caltrop in Gammersbridge. Both wanted men in their own ways. A few wizards from North Horn Ridge might remember me as Tip-Tap. In Osmund the soldiers called me Vale. If you like, you can call me what the women in the streets of Neverrest called me: Diamond Cascade. On account of my eyes, they said. Pale and glittering and hard. I’m seventeen years old, full of piss and vinegar, I’ve walked a hundred miles to be here and I’ve got nothing except an old flute and an urgent need for some new boots. That story’s worth a mug of half-decent ale. Buy me another and I’ll sing you a song.

Nightall 1: Running out of options

I’m in the Fat Cockerel for the fifth night running. I’ve pretty much outstayed my welcome. Free board and lodgings has gone out the window. I’m down to a few free drinks from the bar. I get the message. Pay your way or piss off. Which is going to be a problem. I got enough for a few nights, if I don’t mind eating leftovers, and that’s it. Can’t go back to Gammersbridge. Still too hot. I’ve had enough of scraping a life out here in the country. Quiet it might be, but talk about dull. Same boring dumb-as-shit yokels come in every night without half a clue about what lies over the next hill, never mind other lands. Travellers come through. They throw me coins and looks of pity and next day they move on. Time I did the same.

Diamond Cascade and the Quest for Bat Shit

Well so much for that. Money in my pocket I suppose. Can’t wait to get out of this hole and spend it now. Off to Neverrest, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. Or at least that was the plan…

Right, so I’m off to Germany, King of the Crags is with Gollancz and the great re-write-athon is briefly paused before I launch back into The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice for one last[1] time. Who knows, I might even manage to write something new for a few days. In the meantime, though, I have a little competition to keep the three of you who read this amused.

See, I’ve noticed several authors of fantasy offering up bit parts in their novels. I think there was a competition to get a name into the last Wheel of Time novel. One of the prizes at the David Gemmel Legend Awards was choosing a character name for a cameo appearance in a forthcoming Stan Nicholls story. Most recently, Pat Rothfuss is auctioning off an appearance in A Wise Man’s Fear for charity. Maybe it’s the next big thing in getting close to our readers?

Or maybe not. As Pat amusingly observes, there are… issues. So here’s the deal. I want to see your worst-nightmare names for a cameo appearance in any fantasy book. Not ones that infringe copyright or ones that look more like a password, but recognisable original names that would make someone like me tear out what little hair I have left if faced with trying to crowbar them into an existing story. Something to really make me cringe. The one that makes me laugh the most gets a randomly selected prize. The more I laugh, the bigger the prize.

The benchmark to beat is Spartacus Beefcake (Studd’s big brother), but I’m sure y’all can do better. Cringe-worthy RPG character names are welcome.

[1] Last except for the editorial re-write. And the copy-edit rewrite, the ‘oh, I’ve just had another good idea’ rewrite and the ‘oh, that wasn’t such a great idea after all’ rewrite. And the proof-read (but that doesn’t really count).

It’s very nearly done. The last re-write ever of King of the Crags is heading slowly and surely towards completion. By the end of the week, it’ll be safely in my editor’s hands. It’ll be free. As good as I can make it, however good that turns out to be. All that’s left is the proof-reading (which doesn’t really count – making editorial changes at that point is a severe wrist-slapping offence) and to fret about the reviews.

In other words, it’ll be done. Really done. Possibly even over-done, but certainly no-turning-back done. Too late to regret having introduced characters called Tallulah Spandex, Edwina Gristle and Spartacus Beefcake as a result of too many attempts to attract Twitter followers with put-your-RPG-character-into-my-novel competitions. Too late to go back and put the were-ducks back in after all. Too late to change the twenty-page chapter on exactly how dragons stay up in the air[1] that all made perfect sense at the time but hindsight will show to have a killer flaw [2]. Too late to change the inadvertent shifting of geography between books one and two [3]. Too late to regret the addition of all those lurid semi-porn sex-scenes that I added in the hope of shifting more copies. Too late for anything except waving goodbye and moving on.

Ah well. Fare well, little manuscript. We had some fun.

[1] A mixture of hydrogen bladders, low gravity, dense air, cows, invisible strings that suspend them from UFOs in geo-stationary orbit and, for some reason, cloves.

[2] Cloves? So obviously should have been cumin seeds. Duh!

[3] In which what was open plains becomes a mountain range in order to cast a rain-shadow in order to make sense of a desert that was put there in book one for no better reason than deserts are bleak and gritty. Thus spawning a desperate sub-plot involving earth-elementals that exists purely to ‘explain’ the mistake and has nothing whatsoever to do with the main plot in book three.

My new best friends are… Stephen Youll, ROC publishing and Brent Weeks

Because look at  the US cover for The Adamantine Palace. Look! LOOOOOK! Is it not a thing of beauty? Is it not perhaps the best classic high fantasy cover art of ALL TIME?

Fantasy dragons the way fantasy dragons should be!

Alright, I’m biased. But it’s definitely unquestionably the best classic high fantasy cover art with my name on it. The French were good, but this, this is awesome.

Stuff like this makes the endless re-write-athon seem just a little brighter (Gazetteer now sent for proof-reading. Next task: Last edit for King of the Crags and then that is done).

Much to shared delight in this house, our copy of Rats and the Ruling Sea arrived this morning (not in the shops yet – that’s one of the few privileges of an author). For anyone who doesn’t already know, this is the sequel to The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert Redick. The Red Wolf Conspiracy is the most imaginative fantasy I’ve read in a long time and I thoroughly recommend it. For anyone interested in their own advance copy of Rats and the Ruling Sea, Robert will be in Forbidden Planet, London on Friday 16th from 6-7pm, and so will I, begging like everyone else for an autograph.

The map of the dragon-realms, here at last in all its glory!

Map of the Realms.

All its sideways glory.

<sigh>

Doubtless some way to remedy this will be found shortly and certainly by the time the rest of the gazetteer is ready. News on that is it’s going through proof-reading. Don’t know when it’ll be finished but it should easily be online by the end of the year. Those following my posts via RSS be warned, there are 161 entries to the gazetteer and they’re all going up as blog posts so that people can comment on them and laugh publicly at the typos and the names they don’t like. I’ll issue another warning when I’m about to do it  and then I’ll turn the RSS feed off. Probably.

Oh and yes, I know the cross-posting to Livejournal has stopped working and no, I don’t know why.

The great re-write-athon continues. King of the Crags has gone back to Gollancz now (ARCs expected around the end of October or early November). The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice has exited its penultimate rewrite, with another pre-submission spit-and-polish coming up in November. Next up, it’s another rewrite – the Gazetteer this time, then another one (that spit and polish), then probably another one (The Order of the Scales) and then probably yet another one, this time the edit to Thief-Taker. All in all, the great re-write-athon looks like it’s going to add up to something like seven months. With a bit of luck there might be a chance to work a bit on The Warlock’s Shadow and one or two bits and pieces. Or maybe I’ll spend my few spare hours watching True Blood and Dexter and other uplifting entertainments. Dammit, for a moment I had a flash of yearning for the good old days of NOT being published, when everything was new and shiny and rewriting  didn’t occupy HALF A F**KING YEAR!

In the meantime, however, it seems I am doomed to become a re-write expert. With two down and four to go, you’ll all doubtless be hugely please to know that I already have much unwanted wisdom burning to be shared. We’ll start with a simple mantra with which I shall beat myself repeatedly, probably wrapped around a handy piece of two-by-four: When In Doubt, Cut.

See, that uneasy feeling you get reading through your own manuscript at some point is the creeping realisation that your near-perfect work might, in fact, have an itsy-bitsy flaw in it. Now if you’re me, you’ll get this sensation  around about the time you get to a certain scene, say, of which you are particularly fond and proud. A scene that is, you believe, essential to the overall greatness of the story you’re trying to tell. A scene that will make your readers gasp with awe and bow at the mention of your name. A scene that is pivotal to atmosphere or to the understanding of some character, even if it’s a but superfluous as far as the plot goes and, in fact, had to be mangled into place with a crowbar and a mallet between two chapters that had previously been perfectly cosy neighbours.

You get where this is going, right. When In Doubt, Cut. No matter how awesome your scene is, if it doesn’t belong in your story then it doesn’t belong in your story. Cut it. Do it Now! Don’t think about it, just do it, and revel in the relief of knowing that that, even though it was hard, you did the Right Thing. Yes, I’m afraid some scenes need some Tough Love. You can always put them in some other story, right?

Or you can cut them out and post them on the internet (this is one of those Blue Peter here’s-one-I-made-earlier outtakes because what I cut out of Thief-Taker was pretty naff. But I promise, any more polished finished scenes that end up lying bleeding on the floor, I’ll put them up

And if my recording of True Blood doesn’t start behaving itself RIGHT NOW then the next thing I’ll be re-writing is a letter to my insurance company explaining how exactly I accidentally dropped a laptop through the TV screen and right out the other side.

Anyway. Yes. When In Doubt, Cut.

The rewrite for King of the Crags is finally finished. (This is author-speak, which is, I’ve discovered, much like scientist-speak or engineer-speak for finished in that what it actually means, is that the bulk of the hard work is done and now I’m going to fiddle around the edges for several years).

OK. Almost finished. It will be finished before Fantasycon. Promise. Finished and deliverated. Well, finished and deliverated except for all the changes that will happen during the copy-edit, that is.

OK, OK, not finished then. On schedule. Will that do?

No it won’t, because April next year still feels like half a lifetime away. There’s the now definitely officially deleted prologue, but that’s old news. New news is that there is a most excellent draft map from the most excellent Dave Senior (no link – sorry) which just goes to show what a real professional can do when compared with my own somewhat less excellent draft map posted previously. Also, I’ve been sitting on the incredibly gorgeous draft cover for King of the Crags for ages now with dragon-art by the master of dragon art Dominic Harman. Unveiled exclusively here in advance of Fantasycon!

See what I did here? Lots of stuff by other people… No actual new material.

There will be, though, and a lot sooner than April. There’s a Sollos-and-Kemir short story waiting patiently to be written. There’s the gazetteer, nearly done, probably ready as a first draft by the end of the month, and believe me, that sucker’s going straight up here, warts and all and anyone who helps to proof-read it will get a part in the movie big thank-you. Promise.

In the meantime though, I have to go bury myself in The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice again.

Am uninspired. Witicisms and worldly insights elude me. The rewriting of The King of the Crags is a few days from finished. The first draft of the gazetteer might just about be done for Fantasycon. Still awaiting official map. Yadda yadda yadda. I am dragon-ed out. Am half moved to drop it all after this rewrite is done and go and do something else for a bit. Elf Cops: Kicking ass[1] and taking names. Pixellated wizards dealing in cut-and-shut horses. Overworked and underpaid goblin engineers building designer monsters for their arms-dealer troll masters. Something daft like that. Suggestions on a postcard, please.

Or urban fantasy. Something to do with zombies, or maybe some edgy vampire thing. Something that sells bucketloads is original. [2]

Fantasycon. Yes. I’ll be at Fantasucon. Come to Fantasycon! Everyone come to fantasycon and buy me beer so I can dazzle you with the exceptionally magnificent cover to King of the Crags and with awesome author insights like: How come zombies always seem to have all their teeth even when the rest of them has half rotted away? and If vampires are cold, how come I can see their breath?

I’ll get me coat.

[1] Don’t kick asses. They kick back and they’re much better at it.

[2] Yeah. Like dragons. Totally edge-of-the-envelope.