You should totally buy it.

It’s no secret that Myke and I have been friends a long time. Heck. I remember back in 1991, when he spelled his name M-i-k-e like a normal person.

Yeah, yeah. Like I should talk…

Anyway, Myke and I have a long history of kicking each other’s asses editorially (and with weapons). I met Myke briefly while we were in High School. It was the early 90′s, and we both had crazy heavy metal hair. We didn’t really become friends until college, where we played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons (For those who speak fluent geek, we played Edition 2.0 which evolved into 2.5, Forgotten Realms setting) together.

I’ve spoken before about how Dungeons & Dragons has made me a better storyteller. I used to run friggin’ EPIC games, where I would take the map of Faerun in the Forgotten Realms, pick a spot that hadn’t been explored in any of the novels or boxed sets, and write up a huge, complex story set in that obscure place. I would create plots, sub-plots, characters, backstories, twists, turns, and emotional motivations.

Then my players, Myke included, would just go in and kill everything. And I would have to toss aside my careful plans and dance like a motherfucker to keep up with them, and more importantly, keep them going in the direction I intended. They would deliberately seek out loopholes in my storytelling and try to game the system, or just ignore the boring “talky” parts and get down to dicing and dividing treasure.

Because there are two parts to storytelling: What you want to say, and what your audience is going to hear. Sadly, the two are almost never the same, and the purpose, after all, is to entertain an audience, yourself included.

A year or so later, Myke ran a game, and I gleefully fucked with his the same damn way.

We were also preparing for the pain of rejection letters by ritualistically hitting each other with bamboo swords:

Fast forward to 1998. I have moved to Brooklyn and he to DC. We don’t talk much anymore. Myke tell me he’s been working on a fantasy novel. I say, “Huh. Me too.” I sent him whatever shit project I was working on at the time, and he sends me the first draft of a book called “Latent”.

It would later be renamed, “Control Point.”

In the ensuing 15 years we have relentlessly broken each other’s books, finding tiny weak spots and driving knives into them, forcing each other to improve our craft and pass the other’s gauntlet. We would cover each other’s work in red ink, and call each other saying, “Nice try. Here are the parts that suck, here’s WHY they suck, and here’s my suggestions on how to fix them.”

So there are a lot of Myke’s ideas in my work. The Krasian Watchers, for instance, are laddermen on his suggestion. There are also a lot of my ideas in Myke’s work. For instance, he wanted to call the water sorcerers in Control Point “aquamancers”. I told him tying them forever to the lamest of all superheroes was a bad idea, and suggested he go with “hydromancers”. True story.

Sometimes, we would argue:

So believe me when I say, I couldn’t be more excited about this launch if it was my own book. Because in some small way, it is.

This is not to say that Myke doesn’t deserve all the credit for how awesome Control Point is. The man works obsessively and ruthlessly to make ever second of his books riveting.

Seriously. Stop reading this and go read his reviews. There’s like a million of them already, and they’re all glowing.

Control Point is a military fantasy story set in an alternate version of our modern world where magic ebbs and wanes over the course of every thousand years, much like the waxing and waning of the moon. When it waxes, people with latent magic ability suddenly manifest incredible powers.

They are then drafted, broken down, and trained to fight America’s enemies in the Supernatural Operations Corps. They’re the lucky ones. Those who manifest prohibited powers like necromancy (zombies) are shot in the head.

Lt. Oscar Britton starts as a ‘normal’ human, serving the army in hunting down magical fugitives. That is, until he manifests a prohibited magic himself, and overnight becomes Public Enemy #1.

The fun starts there, and doesn’t stop till the end.

Oh, and I’ve read the sequel, Fortress Frontier. It is even better.

If you want to hear us discuss writing and our history of alpha reading, you can check out our recent podcast interview with The Functional Nerds.

I realize I’ve been promising this post for a very long time. Frankly, I’ve been putting it off because it was causing me a bit of anxiety. I needed to focus on actually writing the book, rather than writing about the book. Thankfully, Meg has really stepped up and kept the blog running in the meantime, posting all the amazing things people send in.

But it’s the start of a new year, and I want to set the record straight as I move into the home stretch, so let’s get right to it…

Not a Trilogy!

First off, the Demon Cycle is not a trilogy. The third book, The Daylight War, will NOT end the series. It was always intended to be a series of five books. A quintet.

This is a confusing point, though, because the series was widely marketed as a trilogy in the early days. It’s an understandable error that isn’t really anyone’s fault, but one that has caused me an ongoing headache these past years.

When I initially sold The Warded Man to Del Rey, they asked about my plans for sequels. I did a treatment for the series showing the full story arc. That treatment was for five books. I noted that while the arcs for all the main characters would resolve in the fifth book, I might continue to write further stories set in the same world with different characters or at different time periods (like The Great Bazaar and Brayan’s Gold).

But I was also realistic, and at the end of my presentation, I noted that if I HAD to close it out in three books, I theoretically could, but really didn’t wanna.

Del Rey hedged their bets (a totally fair move on their part), offering to buy the first three books and see how it went. Several other markets, like the UK, Australia, France, Germany, Poland, etc., quickly followed suit and bought three books as well.

Happily—and thanks especially to you, my fans—the series took off and I never had to worry about what I might need to do to force the story into three books. However, since the initial contracts in so many countries matched the length of the original Del Rey contract, the book media and some internal marketing teams assumed (not unreasonably) it was to be a trilogy. It was widely reported as such with the viral speed of the internet, and has caused wildfires I’ve been trying to extinguish ever since.

I have since signed contracts in the US and UK for another three full novels after The Daylight War. The first two if these will be the final books of the original quintet. The last will be a standalone novel set in the same world with some shared characters. It is plotted out already and I think it will be a kickass book that will appeal to both fans of the series and new readers.

But even with six books to spread out into, the Demon Cycle has grown with the telling. I don’t think this is a bad thing. However, instead of changing my five book plan, I have started doing some spinoff books for the more standalone storylines. These are not necessary to enjoy the main series, but do expand the world and give insights into the characters and their motivations.

In between writing The Warded Man and The Desert Spear, I wrote a novella for Subterranean Press about Arlen during his pre-warded Messenger days called The Great Bazaar. It was meant to appeal new readers, introducing them to my world, while also giving those who had read Warded Man a great bridge into Desert Spear. It also had some deleted scenes from The Warded Man along with my reflections on the writing process that caused them to be cut, a Krasian dictionary and ward grimoire.

I love that little book. After writing The Desert Spear, I wrote a second novella entitled Brayan’s Gold, gorgeously illustrated by Lauren K Cannon, about Arlen’s first (extremely dangerous) Messenger run. Again it was meant for both fans of the series and new readers.

These novellas have gone on to be translated into German, Polish, and French, most of them released in 2011. All are beautiful, illustrated editions that are a great fix between the novels. The original Subterranean Press books are pretty rare and expensive now, but easily available as eBooks in both the US & UK, and a new UK edition combining them both into one book will be printed this year.

I intend to continue writing one novella between each novel. The next, Mudboy, will have a storyline that introduces a wholly new character. It started as part of Daylight War, but got too big for its britches. It’s already mostly written.

The full Demon Cycle bibliography now looks like this:

Novel Quintet:

Book One: The Warded Man (First published 2008)

Book Two: The Desert Spear (First published 2010)

Book Three: The Daylight War (Forthcoming)

Book Four: The Forest Fortress (Forthcoming, working title subject to change)

Book Five: The Core (Forthcoming, working title subject to change)

These five books will close the storylines for Arlen, Jardir, Rojer, Leesha, Renna, Inevera, Abban, etc.

Standalone Novel:

Book Six: Tibbet’s Brook (Forthcoming, working title subject to change)

This book will mostly be about Selia Barren from Tibbet’s Brook, showing her life story and how it affects her decisions in the present as she contends with corelings, Krasians, and the growing power of Southwatch, all while wrestling the demons of her own past. It is mostly plotted and I am very psyched to write it.

Standalone Novellas:

The Great Bazaar (First Published 2010)

Brayan’s Gold (First Published 2011)

Mudboy (Forthcoming)

Others TBD

Pub Date

The next thing I would like to clarify is the publication date. As of this moment, The Daylight War will probably be out February 4, 2013.

This 2013 date has been rumored for some time, and prompted a lot of “Say it ain’t so!” messages from fans via facebook, twitter, email, and the like. I know it comes from a place of enjoyment for my work, and the VAST majority of messages have had a tone of excitement and exuberance that brings joy to my heart. But on some occasions, the exhortations have been… ruder, implying that I should be doing nothing but sitting chained to my desk cranking out manuscripts.

It is fair for people to be annoyed about the current pub date, as the book was briefly available for pre-order on several major bookseller sites with a release date of Spring of 2012, leading many to set their hopes on that date. The shift of almost a year is a pretty big one. Even now, I say “probably” for the 2013 date because in publishing few things are set in stone. Several countries are trying to coordinate a worldwide release date, and it can be a complex thing.

Especially when the author misses their deadline.

Ahem.

Oh, I have my excuses. Early this year my part-time assistant (deservedly) went on to a full time publishing job, leaving me with a lot of administrative work that ate away at my writing time. Around the same time I also had major shoulder surgery that left my arm in a sling for months. I’m told it went well and I will be back to full strength without pain at some point, but six months out I’m still only at 75%, and prolonged or strenuous use leaves me in a lot of pain.

And I spend a lot of time with my three year old daughter Cassie. I know I could put her in daycare or hire a sitter as many people do, but these years before she starts going to school all the time are precious, and I don’t want her to ever feel like daddy didn’t have time for her. We do arts and crafts and build marble runs and train sets. We practice her reading and watch Pixar movies. We argue about what she wants for dinner, bathtime and bedtime. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

But also, in fairness to me, the deadline was not realistic. When I first sold the books, there was pressure from the publishers to turn in a book every year. At the time, I naively told them I could do that, because even though it took me seven years to write The Warded Man, I did that writing part time. Now I would be full time, and should have the sequel out much more quickly.

Eh. Not so much.

I’ve talked about this before. My writing process is a very slow, meticulous one, and sometimes it requires me to stop and unravel a story knot before I can continue. Whether this method is right for everyone is debatable, but it is what works best for me to deliver a level of quality I am satisfied with. I take a lot of pride in my books, and don’t want to knock them out half-assed. I ended up delivering The Desert Spear close to a year later than originally promised, and The Daylight War has proven to be much the same.

That said, I have gotten my focus back, and am knocking out Daylight War chapters left and right these last few months. I am finishing up chapter 19 out of an estimated 27, and I expect to deliver it to the publishers in the early spring, so they will have plenty of time for editing and making sure everything is ready for the ’13 release while I get a head start on book four.

I am getting faster, I think. Warded Man took me seven years. Desert Spear took three. Daylight War is looking closer to two. I don’t know that I’ll ever do a book a year, but I hope you’ll have a shorter wait for the 4th book than for the 3rd.

I can assure you, though, The Daylight War will be worth the wait. Here are a couple of previews:

First up, the excerpt from Inevera’s storyline that was included with the eBooks and UK paperback of The Desert Spear is now live on the Excisions page! Throughout The Desert Spear, Inevera’s motivations, and what she really saw in the alagai hora she cast, remained a mystery. The Daylight War takes you back into her childhood to see her humble beginnings. Read it here.

Next, my spontaneous reading at NY Comic-Con this year, where I gave a peek into Arlen’s newly leveled up powers, and how he and Renna are getting on after the… incident:

In the meantime, I want to tell you about the AMAZING job Graphic Audio has done in bringing The Warded Man to life as an audio dramatization.

I’ve spoken before about my audiobooks, particularly the fantastic work done by Pete Bradbury in his unabridged readings of The Warded Man and The Desert Spear. I love those books and listen to them all the time when I want to refresh myself on story details before writing new sections.

But Graphic Audio has done something completely different, and unlike most anything on the market today. They have produced The Warded Man like an old school radio play, with a narrator, voice actors, sound effects, and music. The result is really amazing. The cast is fantastic, producing some really stellar performances with fabulous accents. Some of the scenes, like those where Leesha and Bruna verbally fence with each other, make me cackle with glee, and Arlen’s performance just soars.

Also wonderful are the sound effects, particularly the individually crafted sounds for each breed of demon, and the way the song lyrics in the book were set to music. You get to actually hear Keerin sing!

You can check out part 1 (0f 2) here:

The Warded Man, Pt. 1 (of 2)

I just received the MP3′s of part 2 for review today, so it should be available shortly! Thanks to everyone who worked so hard on this project!

Production credits:

Directed by: Johann Dettweiler

Starring: Richard Rohan, Terence Aselford, Colleen Delany, Delores King Williams, Elizabeth Jernigan, James Lewis, Christopher Graybill, Nick De Pinto, Thomas Penny, Steven Carpenter, Michael Glenn, Eric Messner, Joe Brack, Mort Shelby, Ken Jackson, Michael John Casey and Joseph Thornhill

Book Adapted for GraphicAudio by: Johann Dettweiler

Dialogue Editor: Johann Dettweiler

Sound Designers: Johann Dettweiler

Additional Redshirts by: The Dead Giveaways

Original Artwork by: Lauren Cannon

Producers: Richard Rohan and Duane Beeman

Executive Producer: Anji Cornette

I say unexpectedly, because honestly, I did not know what to expect. Each country the book comes out in is wholly new territory to me, and even my agency only has limited track records for many countries, often with conflicting results. In some countries the books do really well. Amazingly well. Other countries, not so much. Why? I dunno. And sometimes there’s just no way to know one way or the other, because some markets don’t have a reliable system of tracking book sales.

But the news from Taiwan has been amazing. They are already translating The Desert Spear, and will have it out by Christmas. As part of the promotion, they sent me an interview to be posted online. I just started working on it, and came upon the following question:

10.    Female high school students in Taiwan enjoy “The Warded Man” very much, they adore Arlen, hoping they could be as independent as Leesha, and the maternal love of Rojer’s mother touched them. Male students share Arlen’s struggle to grow up. What’s you opinion on this phenomenon?

Well, obviously it’s because… Wait, what? “Female high school students in Taiwan enjoy The Warded Man very much”? Seriously?

The fact that my work has reached so many people, across language, age group, culture, race, gender and geography is just… mind boggling. And there’s good news on a lot of fronts.

Did you know The Painted Man was named ont of the 50 Books You Can’t Put Down by Australia’s national library system? They are using the book as part of their annual Get Reading! campaign.

I am even in the Australian iPad commercials. (Watch the “Now” commercial. I come in at 19seconds!)

The book just launched in from Epsilon in Turkey, where my publisher is offering the first 20 translated pages of the book free online. I am working on a Turkish interview, as well.

The Great Bazaar, as I’ve mentioned has just come out in Poland, with incredible interior art, as always, by Dominik Broniek. Just finished doing an interview for a Polish SF magazine.

And on the homefront, there are awesome YouTube Reviews from Sami J and Sarah Nicholas:

I also still have to post all the video from my trip to Epinal, France, and some of the ongoing awesomeness in Germany, Spain, Portugal, and the Czech Republic. It’s literally coming in faster than I can process it.

Truly we live in a golden age.

If you go to Comixology’s main page today or open the XComics app on your iPhone/iPad/Android you will see it listed in the “New & Noteworthy 9/7″ feature section. You can also see the main page for the book here.

You do not need to have an eReader to enjoy this. Anybody with a web browser can quickly make an account and read/buy comics online or in-app, and purchases on one will sync to the other. None of this works on the Nook color yet, but hopefully they’ll get with the program soon.

I am not being paid by Comixology, but I am so fond of their product that I am going to rave about them for a bit.

I am an eComic reader and have been using the XComics app ever since I got an iPad in May 2010. It was one of the very first apps I ever downloaded. Unlike the Marvel and DC apps, you can use this one to purchase all comics regardless of publisher, from the Big Three to indies. It’s much more inclusive, and I liked that. There are always a bunch of free comics on the site, and I downloaded a few to see how they looked.

I was immediately blown away by how sharp and powerful comics looked on the iPad screen, which is pretty much the exact size of a comic book page. It felt totally natural, just as if I were holding a print comic in my hand, only it was a print comic which would never fold, tear, fade, or require light to read.

I also really liked the guided view feature, which made every panel a full screen image that took you through the story action by action. It’s a really effective way to immerse yourself in the story.

On the flip side, the comic in my hands now weighed like two pounds, and is denied a place on honor on my colorful comic shelves:

So I continue to go to the comic store on a regular basis and read paper comics, but I have also started buying a lot of comics exclusively electronically and reading them either on my ipad or PC screen.

There’s room for everyone in the sandbox, but the kids at Comixology are building pretty awesome castles.