Earlier this week they had me on the show as their “Third Nerd”, and we had a blast talking about writing, tech, comics, and the like. You can listen to/download the MP3 for free here, or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Check it out.

Now that I have an iPad and made that my primary interface, I decided to sync the calender there, as well. Now there’s no WAY I can forget shit.

But sometimes, like just now, I have all three arranged in a semicircle around me at the desk, and all three alarms go off at once.

Scares the shit out of me every time.

What was the reminder? That I will be appearing on The Functional Nerds podcast with John Anealio of SciFiSongs this week. I met John at Balticon where he provided amazing original music for a live episode of I Should Be Writing with Mur Lafferty (another podcast I will be appearing on soon). John and I got to drinking after the show, and had a really great conversation about making sure children were exposed to music regularly at a young age and encouraged to explore it. (If you don’t have kids, this might not interest you, but I was two sheets to the wind and fucking riveted.)

Anyway, after the con I started listening to his podcast and he started reading my book, something that has benefited us both. I’ve been really getting into writing podcasts lately. They’re great for exercise when I want to keep my brain active. Finally been listening to the Desert Spear audiobook, too. It is so good. The narrator, Pete Bradbury, has the voice of a god.

There have been a number of very positive changes going on in my life, not the least of which being that I’ve broken through something of a creative snag with The Daylight War and am moving forward with confidence again, which has a positive ripple effect through the rest of my life. I finally wrapped up the story arc of one POV and switched to a new one: Arlen. I haven’t been in his head since the dramatic events at the end of The Desert Spear, and it’s like catching up with my best friend after being apart for a few years. My, how he’s grown.

In other news, Kim from Saskatchewan, who won a signed Desert Spear in the Warding Contest, sent me a really sweet letter. Attached to the letter was an absolutely STUNNING piece of fan art. I’ll let her tell you about it:

Dear Peat,

Firstly I would like to thank you for choosing my warded chest in your contest, it really was an honor and great surprise.  I would have been truly happy to receive another bookplate for my efforts!

Your books have been a miraculous source of inspiration, and your previous words of encouragement to a fellow writer have pushed me to do better and try harder.

I have not always been writing, but I think I was born with a pencil in my hand.  I have been drawing all of my life, though it wasn’t until I started playing D&D in 1989 that I began to draw people.  Our group had a few guys that did doodles of their muscular fighters, and I didn’t want to be out done.  It has taken me years to get where I am artistically, but there is still room for improvement.  Once I joined Deviantart I learned a lot of tricks and tools to help me improve, still struggling with realism but not for lack of trying.

That being said, my attempt at fan art for your glorious characters was punishing.  The perfectionist in me wanted to match the wards, then I had the thought – if a ward is backwards, does it make that area more susceptible?  Yikes.  Needless to say I took some liberties.  I used the wards from your website, and some from Lauren Cannon’s pic of Arlen, plus made many of my own.   I just hope my vision isn’t too far from your own…

Entitled “Another Night”, I chose Arlen and Renna for the final work, there just wasn’t room for a horse. I used stock photos as reference, credited with thanks on my Deviantart entry: http://kimoffet.deviantart.com/art/Another-Night-172795865

Sincerely,

Kim

Seriously, this picture is amazing. Kim worked entirely in pencil, the level of detail is incredible. This is dozens of hours of work, and the most detailed vision of Arlen I’ve ever seen. Even Lauren’s famous portrait of Arlen has him mostly covered. Kim’s picture really brings home how much Arlen has given up for his power. He can never blend in again. Even the expressions speak volumes about the relationship between the two characters. This relationship is exactly what I am working on at the moment in the new book, so the image speaks to me a thousandfold. It is fabulous.

Thanks, Kim!

Take Fabryka Slow (Word Factory) in Poland, for example. The Polish are the first international publishers to release a translated edition of The Desert Spear, and proud of it. Apparently there are others in Poland who share this pride, as well.

The first installment of Pustynna Wlócznia hits bookstores tomorrow, Friday June 18, and is approximately 600 pages of warded, demony goodness. The second half (another 600 pages) will be out in August.

The Polish translations are one of my favorite foreign editions, because unlike most publishers, they include amazing illustrations. Back in late 2008 I shared some of the illustrations from Malowany Czloweik (The Painted Man) on the Peephole, and all agreed they were fabulous. Pustynna Wlócznia is no different, with a whole new slate of illustrations by the great Dominik Broniek. Fabryka Slow has kindly given me permission to repost a dozen of them here. I have yet to receive my samples of the new book to check placement, but let’s see if I can figure it out anyway, without giving out any serious spoilers:

Obviously the Mimic & Mind Demons, plucked right from page 1 of the book. No spoilers there, just pure, pure awesomeness:

The smaller demon here is clearly a flame demon, as you can tell from its burning eyes. I’m guessing the other one is a field demon, common to Rizon and parts of Angiers. On open ground, there’s nothing on 4 legs faster than a field demon:

Flames demons + snow = fog:

Arlen, bad ass and haunted by the call of the Core:

This is clearly from the scene where One Arm… er, forget it. Spoiler. But awesome!

Jardir’s first taste of ward feedback with the Spear of Kaji:

Uber sexy Inevera… wait, “uber” is German. This is a Polish blog…

*Consults Google Translate*

Wspaniala Seksowna Inevera in her diaphanous robes. Dangerous. No wonder the Krasians tend to keep their women covered up. She could start a war like that.

Kickass picture of Twilight Dancer. A half-wild Angierian mustang with warded hooves might not be able to outrun a field demon, but it can trample the fuck out of one:

Mind Demon Snackie Snack:

Arlen & Jardir, flip sides of the same spear:

Not sure where these guys are busting into, but I’m glad the sun is out and I’m somewhere else:

Qasha throwing the alagai hora:

]]> http://www.petervbrett.com/2010/06/17/tds-polish-art/feed/ 13 http://www.petervbrett.com/2010/06/16/la-lance-du-desert-cover-art/ http://www.petervbrett.com/2010/06/16/la-lance-du-desert-cover-art/#comments Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:35:55 +0000 PeatB http://www.petervbrett.com/?p=3555 My French publisher, Bragelonne, is awesome. I am on their Milady imprint, which is where they put their best books. Don’t believe me? Check out this list.

Last year, they let me scoop everyone and be the first to show off on the Peephole the incredible cover art for their translation of The Warded Man, l’Homme Rune. This year they are keeping up the tradition of awesomeness, this time with pure the cover art to La Lance du Désert, the French translation of The Desert Spear, which will be available in October this year. As with l’Homme Rune, the cover to La Lance is painted by the incredibly talented Miguel Coimbra. It is hotter than the Core and colder than a snow demon’s spit:

(Click to enlarge)

But yeah, I did. Even after whining in my last post about how I needed to limit my blogging, I was writing an e-mail to someone and it got me on a rant.

Been using the iPad a lot lately for a variety of things. Most of my web surfing, e-mail, and .pdf viewing has migrated to the iPad/couch rather than my desk, which has been a big benefit at making the desk a place of work, which in turn trains me like a dog into being productive in this space.

I’ve also been reading my first eBook, Abercrombie’s Best Served Cold. Reading prose on the iPad is, ironically, the hardest thing for me to get used to. Again like Pavlov’s dog, I am trained to think of electronic text as work. It seems impossible to take pleasure in such a thing. I miss the feel of a book in my hands, the feel of the paper. I expect I will push past it and it will get easier with time, but right now, it is weird.

On the other hand, the iPad is just plain perfect for comics in every way. If all the comics being produced today were available for the iPad with an easy on-easy off subscription service, I would never buy another floppy again and not miss it one bit. I hate fucking bagging those things. It’s why I switched to TPB’s, but with TPB’s, you have to wait at least 6 months between installments.

I’ve generally been growing more accustomed to the iPad’s Mac interface, as well. The organization is a totally different mindset from Windows, and gives you a lot less control. There are no confirmations that this file saved properly or that file reached its destination intact. You kind of have to trust that the computer knows what it’s doing and won’t fuck up. It’s like driving automatic for the first time after spending your whole life driving stick.

For the most part, I’m finding I miss the control less and less. It came with a ton of needless maintenance. The iPad has yet to fuck anything up, and it’s been a couple of weeks. The only serious glitch I’ve had was when I tried to load like 500 MB of .pdf files into Stanza at once and the iPad crashed. I expect this is Stanza’s problem and not Apple’s, but even so, I held down the power and home keys for 5 seconds and the whole thing rebooted in like a minute. The whole episode probably took about 5 minutes out of my life.

But I’ll admit, it was a looooooong five minutes. Five minutes where I was convinced I had broken My Precious, and broke out in a cold panicked junkie sweat.

Because that’s the thing. It seems like Macs work seamlessly and invisibly, but when they break, the whole thing just shuts down. There are no warnings. No troubleshooting options. One minute your iPod’s working fine, and then suddenly you have a little picture of a sad face on your screen, adding insult to injury while you book an appointment at the Apple Genius bar. It’s like trading death by a thousand cuts for the Sword of Damocles.

The Apple approach is more accessible, and the smarter move for capturing market share. I don’t even think I’ll miss fixing my own computer, if all I have to do is carry my light-ass iPad to the store and let someone else fix (or replace) it for me.

But I do think Apple would be wise to bend a little and also include some concessions to analytical folk like me, like a hierarchical filing interface that lets you keep your shit organized and better synching. I’m never going to be able to cut the umbilical to Windows/my desktop computer without that.