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tomlloyd's journal
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So after seven months of wrangling (can you tell my day job is contracts manager?) we've finally agreed a contract, which is nice. ;0) actually, a bit more than than, given it's publishing the books I want to publish on the schedule I want to use! But as much as anything it's a big relief that we've got a contract finally agreed given yet more things are going wrong with the house (I've never enjoyed builders say flippantly, 'you could always just get a new boiler') so.... If all goes to plan, and it should comfortably: The God Tattoo, and Other Stories of the Land - will be published next year, about April. Not as long as the novels but a nice mix of stories I think and pretty much all of them having links to the greater plot of the Twilight Reign. Then later that year, probably a year after Dusk Watchman is published (edits finally done on that BTW) we'll have Moon's Artifice - a novel that's probably going to be more commercial than Stormcaller et al unless I'm deluded/mistaken. Until someone tells me otherwise, I'm describing it as a fantasy action-thriller - and interestingly enough it lacks a lot of the reasons people haven't got one with The Twilight Reign. Not that that was hugely intentional, most of it anyway, I just knew I'd want a change and a chance to do something a bit different while not running away completely from what my brave fans seem to like. So yes, there'll be killing and daemons still... ;0) So anyway, it's set in one city, has a more modest cast of characters, is shorter and less complicated than any of my last, and will be set over just a about a week. I've posted it before, but now might be a sensible time to post the blurb again: In a quiet corner of the Imperial City, Investigator Narin discovers the result of his first potentially lethal mistake. Minutes later he makes a second. After an unremarkable career Narin finally has the chance of promotion to the hallowed ranks of the Lawbringers. Joining that honoured body would be the culmination of a lifelong dream, but it couldn’t possibly have come at a wrong time. A chance encounter drags Narin into a plot of gods and monsters, spies and assassins, accompanied by a grief-stricken young woman, an old man haunted by the ghosts of his past and an assassin with no past. On the cusp of an industrial age that threatens the warrior caste’s rule, the Empire of a Hundred Houses awaits civil war between noble factions. Centuries of conquest has made the empire a brittle and bloated monster; constrained by tradition and crying out for change. To save his own life and those of untold thousands Narin must understand the key to it all – Moon’s Artifice, the poison that could destroy an empire. |
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Which sadly isn't going to change all that much in the coming weeks. But life progresses, about half the house is painted, I'm 100k into Moon's Artifice (about 3/4 of the book I think) and my line-editor is up to the big final battle of Dusk Watchman so that should be all edited by the end of April. I don't think I'm giving much away by saying there's a big battle at the end of the book btw. Given it's the end of the entire series, I think I'd be lynched if I didn't have one! Unless of course I'd come up with a stroke of utter genius to beautifully comfound expectations, but the more I read through edits the more I realise I'm just no genius... Seriously, there's nothing like someone pointing out dumb stuff you did 18 months ago and never noticed over the dozens of times you re-read it afterwards to remind you of your place. I know I'm never going to win prizes for my prose or logical thought-processes, but some of it's just mystifying ;0) And I've just realised, once this edit is done, I'm sort-of technically out of contract! Admittedly we've been arguing over the Moon's Artifice contract for over six months now, but that's taking so long I doubt it'll be done before Dusk Watchman is ready for the printer. So I'll have a mortgage and house repairs to pay for, and no contract... Nothing like a bit of pressure eh? |
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I've just realised to my sadness I didn't notice the vernal equinox happening, mostly because I'm distracted with other stuff. It occurs to me that now I'm getting older, I find myself wanting to celebrate things like the equinox and solstice - not in a wiccan sort of way or any actual religious feeling, but just, ya know, cos the world rocks and nice spring days are a good reminder of this. Easter itself, I don't really give a damn about - probably with half the genre community who spend most of their Easters in a hotel in Heathrow or somewhere similar. But I do think I need to find my own versions of pagan celebrations, a small ritual/routine like the one I have for Halloween already. Fully thinking that when I have children I'll have to get them into some sort of daft winter-solstice wassailing that has more to do with making lots of noise and chasing away gloomy spirits than singing (although with a wife who sings, I may get diverted on that front). It saddens me that, growing up in the country as I did, I'm now not as surrounded by greenery as I once was. Not having a few million quid around, I can't afford a large garden at Oxford prices and as much as I love being close to the city centre, it's still a loss I can feel. That may be alleviated when I get a dog and have to walk in green spaces every day, but the only religion I can feel anything for is a connection to the natural world and its rhythms. I'm not fussed about putting a religious face/name on aspects of that, but by the time I do have children I want to have developed more of a sense of a place in the world to aspire to, an understanding of that natural world connection and more of a way to describe the majesty of it. It's just a question of where I start, other than Wikipedia... Aiming small then, eh? |
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Having dropped off the world recently, due to a combination of a protracted cold, Mass Effect 3, house-purchase stress, I find very little has progressed in recent months. Still no edits for Dusk Watchman, still a fair way off finishing the first draft of Moon's Artifice, still no damn house yet, but April will be frantically busy I suspect and by May much will be changed there. One excellent piece of news however - Gollancz have just announced they're planning on doing an audio edition of Stormcaller which I'm delighted about. David Rintoul's been suggested by them as a reader which sounds like a great fit, so hopefully I'll have a release date to announce at some point! I'm told the edit of Dusk Watchman will be with me with the next couple of weeks and if that does happen, we'll be on for publication in August as scheduled. The God Tattoo to follow in April after that, and hopefully Moon's Artifice later that year! So after being slow delivering the last few, they might actually look almost bunched up soon... well, compared to George Martin anyways. |
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I'm reminded that I've never actually read any le Guin, which in my profession is probably something of a failing... Given I started the first Earthsea novel and stopped after maybe a hundred pages because it bored the snot out of me, can anyone suggest something else of hers? |
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I've decided that when the shows are on TV I'm nothing but a delighted Game of Thrones fanboy, loving how it's done and happy for George Martin. During the off-season however, I find myself increasingly resentful of all the updates from the set, casting info etc... I've no doubt when I actually get to watching season 2 again I'll go back to happy, but in the meantime I shall be cursing him and his deserved good luck... |
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DO NOT WATCH if you're likely to get depressed about the standard of SFF shows/movies we get these days. Because this is better than anything I've ever seen on SyFy for example, or any new SFF TV show I've watched the first episode of in the last year at least... Don't even get me started... Might be I'm only catching the rubbish ones, but I doubt that! http://io9.com/5884923/cost-of-living-a-1 a short film about bored security guards at a monster-making factory. |
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to serve as an entertaining complement to mine on the author's life: https://misterkristoff.wordpress.com/20 |
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An excellent article about publishing and Amazon and the predatory power of companies that's been allowed to flourish: http://blog.authorsguild.org/2012/0 |
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