They say you should never friend your boss on facebook. Or give them your blog URL. Apparently the same rule applies for authors and their editors. If you can get past Blake Charlton’s ranting about his swine flu-contaminated roommate, NYT Bestselling Author Brent Weeks and his editor Devi will illustrate this clearly:
Alternate title for this blog post: “The Eye of Sauron Buys Me Scotch”
You may recall that I took a ton of funny videos at the World Fantasy Convention this past October, and never posted them. My bad. In part it is because I came down with a flu son after, and then came my trip to Toronto, and then the holidays, and then Dani had the flu, etc.
But I have also been lazy because I switched to wireless internet rather than running new LAN cable into my office, which has cut my uploading speed down to like 1/10 of what it once was, despite my buying the top of the line in wireless routers. It took me over an hour to upload like 150MB to YouTube. That is unacceptble. I may need to drill walls and run cable after all.
Still, I can’t sit on good content forever, so here are some funny video plugs I made for a couple of great new authors I met (and got drunk with) at the con.
Starting off is Blake Charlton, author of Spellwright, his debut novel from Tor books. In this video, NYT Bestselling Author Brent Weeks and I interview Blake about why you would want to spend your last $25 on his book rather than using it to feed your starving grandmother. We also give his head a spit-shine:
Spellwright doesn’t come out until March, but I’m currently reading an advance copy Blake gave me at WFC (just check my bathroom), on the title page he wrote:
To Peter, Great to meet you. It’s an honor to hand this to you. Hope it doesn’t suck.
-Blake Charlton
Gail Carriger, on the other hand, is the hottest new author (in more ways than one) from Orbit books. Her debut novel Soulless, book 1 of The Parasol Protectorate, is selling up a storm and garnering one glowing review after another. She had a wonderful Steampunk-themed launch party at WFC on Halloween, with costumed serving ladies and her Armenian lovers working security.
So of course, we crashed the party:
In truth, Gail is not actually signing a copy for me in this video, because I thought already had a signed copy at home from the first time I met her at this year’s Book Expo. Sadly, it was nowhere to be found when I got home. I must have given it to one of the many book lovers in my life. Ah, well. I ordered a new one, and it came today. I will give it a read soon.
I also screwed the plug up the first time, because my cheap hand-held digital camera couldn’t compensate for the glare of the lamp Gail was sitting in front of. Here’s my first attempt:
I haven’t been updating the website so frequently lately because I’ve been making really good progress on The Daylight War, the book that will follow The Desert Spear in the Demon Cycle. Still, the deadline for the next giveaway in the Desert Spear ARC Contest (DSAC), January 15, is soon to be upon us. I will be giving away another ARC and some other prizes to lucky entrants, and then setting a date for the next giveaway. The entries were starting to pile up, so let’s have a quick review of what’s come in over the last week or so, starting with Mike G, who didn’t give his address:
Firstly… read and loved your first book. Ok that is taken care of.
Secondly… I started reading your blog even before reading The Warded Man, and got a real giggle when I saw your post about the first year of your daughter in photos as I also have a daughter of approximately the same age (July 2008) and have many photos of her in similar poses as you have with your little one
Okay, down to business… My entry… oddly focused on my daughter! 🙂
First picture of her investigating the book… Getting ready for her first fantasy novel
Second picture… disappointment… No pictures. Just blank paper… Hopefully it gets better than this!
Next up are another couple of live-action entries from Emily in Australia:
I went to Melbourne a little while ago and brought the Painted man with me 😛
I’m standing on one of the bridges that goes over the Yarra River. In the background is the big ferris wheel. Theres the MCG, where (beacuse I do not like cricket) we go and scream at Geelong to win the footy. And then there is the white bridge behind me, which is the white bridge that is in Ghostrider. I felt like this would be a good photo because I mean, come on, Nicholas Cage stood on that bridge.
A couple of entries also came in from Elena in St. Petersburg Russia, who won the Great Bazaar Fan Art Contest, and even references Arlen’s adventure in that book in one of her captions:
Due to bad weather it is almost impossible to take photos in SPB, Little illustration, what is going on the streets) yeap, my car is still somewhere Out There…. snow,snow, endless snow.
End of december I spent in Moscow, (situation there is even worst) but Painted man traveled with me during all my trips between capitals of Russia and some baltic capitals, therefore I have a couple of interesting photos from Tallinn.
With 46 towers, medieval Tallinn was known as one of the most fortified burgs in all Northern Europe, here I am inside Old Town city wall, in search of wards, like Arlen in Baha kad’Everam (hard to chose another ancient place like this, where history become every day life):
And another photo, trying wards against snow demon))) look, its working)) very effective)))
After Elena’s entries came two more from 2-time prizewinner Dwayne from the UK, who tapped into the Power of Grayskull this time, and gave in to the endless temptations of Photoshop with two badass additions to the contest:
Just a couple more pictures, I decided to take after my 3rd viewing of avatar. In the first one, I am fighting off Corelings trying to take my book of wards, yes I am using swords and have noticed that noone in your novel actually uses swords (was wondering about that actually) sorry for the error.
And in the second one, I am a Na’vi fighting to protect my home and my book lol.
Also leaping into the fray is Lisa W from the UK, who sent in two great entries:
I’m so very glad I picked up Painted Man in the library a month or two back now. I actually got the book for Christmas! One is a few snaps using my webcam – I usually have my nose in a book and ignore the outside world, so it seemed to fit.
I’m afraid I don’t have anything from an exotic location, from spending most of my time at the moment at the computer working on my dissertation. Instead, I took the book with me when I walked into town with my brother and mum this week. I may not have travelled far, but it looks strange to me, as we usually don’t get any snow! In any case, I thought a bonus point or two for having the church and some of the older parts of the high street in the background, and general winter-festivness. The church was founded in 1220 (yes, I just checked on Wikipedia) and some of the buildings along the right from about 1400 or 1500, or a bit later. Not totally creative, I admit, but worth a try.
This last picture is really beautiful, with the blue and pink hues on the snow and old feel of the High Street. But Lisa, the sun is setting! Get inside before the corelings start to rise!
The other day, Patrick from the blog Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist emailed me to ask if he could get an excerpt from The Desert Spear to post on his. I said sure, then spent a couple of days trying to decide what to send. It’s a tough choice; there were good scenes from pretty much all of the 8 character POVs.
But at the end of the day, The Desert Spear is Jardir’s book. He’s on the cover for a reason, and readers will have the chance to get to know him very well.
Apologies for the silence for the last couple of weeks. I’d like to claim it was all the holidays, but the flu bug seems to like my house. This time it hit my wife, and left me on full-time baby duty. I think I did a decent job as Mr. Mom, but it left little time for other things, like the blog and contests.
So… some announcements:
First off, I have decided on another ARC winner, this copy going out to Simcha, all the way out in the Judean Desert in Israel for the following picture:
Simcha took a trip to a Bedouin encampment in the desert and talked the beautiful Tzor, above, into posing with the book by her tent, telling her that it was for a “weird American thing”.
Priceless. If that doesn’t deserve an ARC, I don’t know what does.
But fear not, other entrants! The contest is ongoing and there are still more chances to win ARCs, signed copies of The Warded Man, or other warded goodies. I’ll pick another ARC winner (and some other prize winners) on Friday, January 15, and hopefully I will be able to score some more copies from the UK ARC run by then. Everyone is still in the running, but more entries are filtering in still, like these from Marilia in France:
Saturday I went to Disneyland Paris, not to the park, but to the village, because the cinema theater has the only IMAX movies of whole France! And I had to see Avatar in Imax and in english. So, I went to the land of Mickey to meet up with Jess. And, of course, I brought my Warded Man book (who has the right, too, to go to the movies and see Avatar!)
° The first pic is Jess and me with our 3D glasses
° The second : I had to wear 2 pairs of 3D glasses over my classic glasses to read The Painted Man, you never know… if the corelings (or the scene between Leesha and Arlen, naked in the mud, and… *sensored*) would appear in 3D! (and… oooooooh! shocking!!!)
° The third : me, at the window, in a world of destruction, apocalypse, with my Warded Book in the hands, protecting me till the end of times…
Last but not least, I’ve been doing a back-and-forth interview with Fantasy superstar Patrick Rothfuss which will be running on his blog sometime in the near future. If you weren’t already aware, Pat is running a fantastic fundraiser called Worldbuilders in support of the charity Heifer International, which provides livestock and education to impoverished communities, allowing them to move towards self-sufficiency with a steady supply of eggs, milk, wool, etc. It’s a great charity, and Pat is a champion for putting it all together. There is a lottery to win signed books by dozens of famous SF authors, auctions, and more.
I donated a box of signed copies of The Warded Man to the fundraiser, but in the course of our interview, Pat, who wants to read The Desert Spear as badly as anyone, asked if I could send him a copy to put in the prize pot. I spoke to the folks at Del Rey and they were happy to oblige, so if you’re looking for another opportunity to score an ARC and are willing to give a donation to a great charity at the same time, check out Worldbuilders. Pat did NOT promise not to read it, though, so the prize may have his cheeto-dust fingerprints on it. 🙂
