Or

A timeless classic sort of look… or DRAGONS! RAAAARRRR!

And I get to have both

The King of the Crags is to be published in Poland (probably) next year by Dwojka bez sternika, who recently published The Adamantine Palace. The Thief-Taker’s apprentice, meanwhile has been acquired by Proszynski, who also brought out (are bringing out?) Wolfsangel. I think it would amuse my thief-taker to be in the company of a werewolf. Possibly this is an excuse to visit Poland…

There have been some reviews recently.

The Adamantine Palace first: “…fast, furious and action packed…” Vilutheril

And finally, a couple for the Order of the Scales: “Great Stuff” Falcatta Times and “enthusiastic … brilliantly executed … heart-thumping dragon action” from LEC Book reviews.

For the handful of you following the adventures of Diamond Cascade, there will be a large hiatus shortly (we played the last session last week and left everything on a total cliff-hanger – which I guess is what you get when you put the fate of the world into the hands of a bunch of chaotic thieves and wizards, most of whom are carrying negative wisdom modifiers (and believe me, when it comes to party actions, those modifiers do stack).

I had a go at a couple of other projects to replace Diamond Cascade, but they were rubbish. In fact, everything I write at the moment appears to be rubbish, but that’s what rewrites and editors are for, so no worries – yet. There might be some cartoons instead. Which will also be rubbish since I can’t draw. But it’s my blog, so nyer!

]]> http://www.stephendeas.com/poland-new-reviews-stuff-1462011/feed/ 0 http://www.stephendeas.com/sfx-weekender/ http://www.stephendeas.com/sfx-weekender/#comments Wed, 02 Feb 2011 21:23:03 +0000 Stephen http://www.stephendeas.com/?p=1650 It’s the SFX Weekender and I’ll be there with some freebies, but for those who can’t make it – well, that’s hardly fair. So, to celebrate the release of King of the Crags in the US and in the UK in small paperback format, I have the following to give away:

• SIX first edition hardback copies of The King of the Crags

• TWO ARCs for The King of the Crags

• And, because I have no idea whatsoever what to do with it, ONE copy of Der Drachenthron (that’s The Adamantine Palace in german, but if you neede me to tell you that, it’s probably not much use…)

Signed and lined if you want, available to anyone in the EU (or worldwide to anyone prepared to paypal me the postage!) If you want one, you have to tell me. And that’s it.

Other stuff at the weekender.

Elsewhere, rewrites are in progress on The Black Mausoleum (early days but going well) and The King’s Assassin (about to have a huge chunk cut out of its middle grrrsnarlgnash).

King of the Crags hit the Ranting Dragon’s best of 2010 list! Hurrah!

Now what?

No, nor her. Or him. YOU!

It has come to my attention, over the year-and-a-bit since it first came out, that The Adamantine Palace is IMPERFECT. Not in imperfect in the sort of way that reviewers object to (the snail-like pace, the soulless carboard cut-out characters, the bizarrely camp yet lifeless dragons, the risotto-like dialogue, blah blah blah). Those are merely differences of opinion in which we can all serenely smile at each other in the quiet certainty that we know EXACTLY who’s right and who’s a dickhead wrong.

Imperfect in the sort of categorically wrong sort of way. Such as refering to someone as a ‘her’ when they are categorically a ‘him’. That sort of thing. Using the wrong word, basically. Categorically, indisputably wrong. Failures of the proof-readers, one of which was me.

Well we’re not having that. So, in preparation for a future career, I’m here to tell you that these are NOT typos, not a bit of it. They are… OPPORTUNITIES, that’s right. Deliberately and painstakingly woven into the fabric of the manuscript to provide you, the reader, with a chance to win prizes…

<sigh>

OK, look, just help me look less stupid. There are probably some, er, “opportunities” in King of the Crags too and I’d like to get rid of them. So the deal is, if you find one and you’re the first person to tell me, you get to choose a prize from my box of prizes, filled with books, Xbox games, the odd DVD and other stuff I’m throwing out cool stuff. To enter, simply post the typo you think you’ve found as a comment to King of the Crags and we’ll take it from there.

Please be sensible and constructive. And sorry, but (when this eventually becomes relevant), the offer of prizes applies to the UK only. Postage, man.

Alternatively, if you want to laugh at me without going to the trouble of reading an entire book and trying to find the one or two mistakes it may contain, go read tomorrow’s SFX. There might be an interview. Frankly, I have almost no memory of what I said. However, since it was in a pub and I distinctly remember not being able to shut up for at least an hour, I’m sure there must a few things worth a cringe.

Laters/

Yes, another review for King of the Crags, this time at A Fantasy Reader. A nice one, too. However, it was eclipsed by a piece of fanmail that showed up about the same time (sorry Fantasy Reader):

I read TAP a few months back and instantly fell in love with it, especially Princess Jaslyn and Snow. My only regret was that it was a first novel and that I thought I’d have to wait ages for the second to come out. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago where I suddenly found King of the Crags, devoured it as soon as I finished my exams … and then instantlyhopped online to see if there was going to be another part.

It’s 4AM over here as I write this and when I saw that it’s a trilogy, I squeed so loudly that my puppy woke up and started barking out of fright. YES! There is going to be another part and it’s going to be the end part so that I will finally know how it all turns out — and yet, despite my glee, I’m sad at the thought of everything ending.

I loved the implication that Jehal’s brother and uncle might’ve been lovers; one of the things that did make me sad about your book was that all the romances seemed to be heterosexual ones so I was thrilled to see at least a hint of something else. Lystra was amazing in King of the Crags, you really get to see her come into her own and most of all, I loved seeing so much more of how the dragons think and interact with each other. I love sentient dragons and there are so many dragons-peacefully-allow-humans-to-dominate worlds out there, it was fantastic to come across one where they are breaking free of their bondage and fighting back.

You built an amazing world, populated it with a rich range of believable characters and peppered everything with minor NPCs and backstory galore — speaking as a roleplayer, I would love to be in any game you GMed. XD

Can’t wait for Order of the Scales to come out!

As fanmail goes, there are so many things right with this. Articulate, heartfelt, and full of delight for some relatively little things that not one single review has mentioned (as well as a few bigger things that they have). It’s really nice to know that’s someone’s actually noticed things like Meteroa’s sexuality isn’t entirely straightforward, or appreciates a character like Lystra, who doesn’t get very much of the limelight, but who still has a crucial part to play. Mails like this popping up in my inbox make the whole day glow, they really do. Bad reviews suck, good reviews are great, but speaking for myself nothing beats a good piece of fanmail.

However, the most poignant thing, the reason I’m posting this, was the title of the mail: Thank Goodness for Trilogies. Usually I hear nothing but complaints about that. Sometimes from readers, more often from reviewers. Why oh why oh why does it always have to be trilogies. I’m not even that enamoured of them myself.

Well now I know the answer. It’s so we can make people wake up their puppies at four o’clock in the morning. THAT’s why we write trilogies.

Thank-you, anonymous happy reader.

Might be some more big news later in the week, but this deserves a post of its own.

Oh look! Snow!

“This apprentice has potential. Please, Mr Deas, can I have some more?” Yes, International Writers Magazine, you may. Books two and three, The Warlock’s Shadow and The King’s Assassin will follow in 2011 and 2012. I’m writing them both right now (strictly rewriting, if there’s truly a difference). Faster than I was a few days ago, having been poked about King of the Crags…

“I also sincerely dislike the fact that I now have to wait for the next instalment to find out what happens next. *Pokes Stephen with a pointy metal stick* Write faster!!“ Ow! The next installment is with my editor! Poke him!

Even a new review of The Adamantine Palace “Deas gives classic fantasy a unique twist, and I am really curious to see where he will take us from here.”

After posting last week about how role-playing games were a fantastic sandbox for story design, I thought maybe I should justify that statement (of the obvious, to my mind) in a little more depth. So here and there I’ll be putting up what hints and tips I can that I think help in the design of a good story. With a bit of luck, they’ll work for writing novels just as well as for writing adventure campaigns, and I thought I’d start with foreshadowing.

So what is this foreshadowing thing and where do I get some? It’s actually pretty straightforward. Look it up on the internet if you want, but basically, it’s dropping hints early on about stuff that’s going to happen later. So in the first scene of your story, you describe the room where your main character lives and you put a gun on the wall and make of point of mentioning that it’s loaded. In the last scene, someone takes the gun off the wall and shoots him. Mentioning the gun much earlier than it was actually relevant to the story, that’s foreshadowing. Easy. If the apparently goody two-shoes king’s mage is actually going to launch a coup half way through your story and seize the kingdom in the name of Zarkz the Lord of Demons, then foreshadowing is, well, mentioning the existence of Zarkz the Lord of Demons at some point before it happens. Foreshadowing is having the players/protagonists get wind that the king’s mage isn’t quite as nice as people think, whether they see something themselves or hear it through others (if the entire focus of the plot is stopping Zarkz, then it’s arguable that this isn’t foreshadowing so much as, well, plot. So imagine the focus of the story being elsewhere…)

Anyway, the lesson I’ve learned from running too many RPGs is that, whatever you think your story is going to be about, there’s a fair chance that your players will have other ideas and go find some other piece of story. So you might have meant them to investigate the king’s mage and stop Zarkz from being summoned, but in fact, chances are they’ll start running a scam involving bear-baiting, a druid and a lycanthrope, and the first they’ll know about Zarkz is when the Abyssal Palace rises from the earth, half the city falls apart around their feet and there are demonic servitors roaming the streets. So look, for my playing group, I don’t just put a loaded gun on the wall and hope they players notice; scatter them about like confetti. The champion bear is called Zarkz and everyone goes on about how he fights like a demon. That sort of thing. I ran a game once set in the near future where every single item of news ended up being related to the plot, somehow. Just litter the storyline with stuff that takes your fancy, even if you have no idea what you’re going to do with it. Half the time your players won’t notice, the other half you’ll come up with something ten sessions later. Trust your imagination. You can throw in a bit of foreshadowing without having a clue what you’re going to do with it. Have no fear – you’ll find something. Leave ‘em lying around, and whenever you need a bit of inspiration as to how the hell you’re going to cope with whatever bizarre plan of action your players come up with, they’ll be waiting for you with open arms…

Books, I think, are much the same. Maybe a bit easier and a bit harder at the same time, in that readers are a little more attentive than players. You don’t need to litter the place with bits of foreshadowing quite so much and you need can’t let them go unused quite so much.

I’ve heard it said, on the subject, that if you’re going to put a loaded gun on the wall in scene one, someone had better use it before the end of the story. Well if you make a big deal of it, yes, but otherwise my advice is to throw the kitchen sink at the foreshadowing, don’t worry if you don’t even know where half your ideas will lead or how they tie into the plot, and don’t worry about the devices you end up not using. In a game, your players will pick up on the ones that interest them and all the rest, well, they probably never noticed in the first place. In a book you can take out the ones that didn’t go anywhere later. That’s what rewrites and editors are for.

OK, so it’s the local Waterstones best-seller charts, not the New York Times. Allow me to revel in pretend glory nonetheless. I even had to wait while someone decided not to buy my book before taking this…

The Booksmugglers, who were in the more-depth-less-speed camp last time around seem to be converted. “Questions aside, I finished reading The Adamantine Palace only just about interested about reading this sequel. I closed The King of the Crags knowing for a fact that I will be picking up the final instalment in the trilogy come rain or come shine.”

And then finally one from a site I’ve missed up until now, with a pertinent comment at the end.

“Overall, a very strong sequel and one of the best second entries in a trilogy I’ve had the chance to read. In the final paragraph of my Adamantine Palace review I said that The Adamantine Palace was not top notch…well…forget that. It might have been on its own but with The King of the Crags as its sequel it now certainly falls into that category.” LEC Book Reviews

See that bit about The Adamantine Palace? Thank-you LEC – a series should be more than the sum of its parts.

So Crags is better than The Adamantine Palace? That seems to be the consensus so far, but not everyone agrees.

“An impressive sequel that boasts the same flare and excitement of its predecessor.” Total SciFi. But then they did rather like the first one.

One quite contented author.