- Solaris author James Lovegrove, of Age of Ra fame, muses eloquently on Writing about Gods and Guns.
- There's an interview with Solaris's Natasha Rhodes over here, On Vampires, Werewolves, and what would happen if Kayla Steele and Twilight's Bella Swan got into a fight...
- SciFi Latino - a new blog celebrating the contribution of Latinos and Latinas to Science Fiction, can be found here.
- The Martian Landscape or Alien Art? Wired Magazine has some haunting photographs of the surface of Mars.
Linkspam: Nov 10th
Shine update and competition!
Hi all,
We've already blogged about Jetse de Vries' upcoming Shine anthology, and about the fantastic Daybreak Magazine blog in support of the book, which will publish an optimistic short story every two weeks until the book's release next year.
So far, the magazine has published "The Very Difficult Diwali of Sub-Inspector Gurushankar Rajaram" by Jeff Soesbe on October 16th, and "Horrorhouse" by David D. Levine on October 30th; we're waiting with bated breath for this weekend's third instalment.
In case you missed it, the @Outshine project on Twitter is publishing 140-letter prose poems on the subject of the future (along with quotations, soundbytes, and similar stuff for those who are interested); you can submit your poem by emailing shineanthology@gmail.com, or go here for submission guidelines.
Finally, Jetse informs us that he will be running a competition on the Shine website, starting on November 20th this year. He will be posting an excerpt from each of the sixteen stories in the anthology and challenging readers to guess which of four alternative endings is the correct one, and who wrote which excerpt. So jump on there and take a look, next Friday.
Cheers and stay hopeful,
David
Novacon 39
Hi all,
Just to let you know, Ian Whates, whose book The Noise Within we will be proud to publish in May 2010, is due to make an appearance at Novacon 39 in Nottingham next weekend, 13th - 15th November. So by all means drop by and ask him about his stuff.
While you're at it, here's an interview he gave Gareth Jones of The Science of Fiction this July.
Have a good weekend!
David
Just to let you know, Ian Whates, whose book The Noise Within we will be proud to publish in May 2010, is due to make an appearance at Novacon 39 in Nottingham next weekend, 13th - 15th November. So by all means drop by and ask him about his stuff.
While you're at it, here's an interview he gave Gareth Jones of The Science of Fiction this July.
Have a good weekend!
David
Tinythulhu!
My amigurumi Cthulhu, "Tinythulhu", has just seen the cover of Haggopian and Other Stories. He's a little bewildered by what he sees...
Cthulhu Bingo - Rules
Right, we're in the office right now with reference copies of Brian Lumley's new Mythos anthology, Haggopian and Other Stories, and we've come up with an awesome game: #CthulhuBingo!
It's dead simple. Pick up a Mythos book. We're using Haggopian, but you can use whatever comes to hand. Flip it open to random pages until you hit on an awesome adjective. Something HP would have been proud to write himself. Shout it out loud!
Everyone present agrees a score out of ten for your adjective. Play until bored. Highest scoring word wins. Basic rules:
1. It's gotta come out of the book in front of you. We all know awesome Mythos adjectives; the trick is to find them.
2. You gotta find it by flicking randomly through; no manner of methodical search is acceptable. Randomness is how Azathoth expresses himself in our subconscious minds...
3. Points based on three guidelines: length, obscurity, and what I like to call sheer Lovecrafteosity. Loathsome is six points; cyclopean is eight. If you've awarded ten points for any word other than squamous, I want to hear about it.
Comment here, or twitter us @solarisbooks, to share your words and score. We'd love to hear from you.
Cheers,
David
It's dead simple. Pick up a Mythos book. We're using Haggopian, but you can use whatever comes to hand. Flip it open to random pages until you hit on an awesome adjective. Something HP would have been proud to write himself. Shout it out loud!
Everyone present agrees a score out of ten for your adjective. Play until bored. Highest scoring word wins. Basic rules:
1. It's gotta come out of the book in front of you. We all know awesome Mythos adjectives; the trick is to find them.
2. You gotta find it by flicking randomly through; no manner of methodical search is acceptable. Randomness is how Azathoth expresses himself in our subconscious minds...
3. Points based on three guidelines: length, obscurity, and what I like to call sheer Lovecrafteosity. Loathsome is six points; cyclopean is eight. If you've awarded ten points for any word other than squamous, I want to hear about it.
Comment here, or twitter us @solarisbooks, to share your words and score. We'd love to hear from you.
Cheers,
David
So Andy Remic has just shown me his "teaser trailer for the film of the book of the film." Don't expect me to think about that too hard this early on a Monday morning.
Said book is Remic's Hardcore, which Solaris Books will be releasing next January. The full film will be released at Andy's website in January, to coincide with the launch of the book.
Said book is Remic's Hardcore, which Solaris Books will be releasing next January. The full film will be released at Andy's website in January, to coincide with the launch of the book.
Cosmopath at the Printers!
Hi all,
We sent off Eric Brown's Cosmopath, third book in the acclaimed Bengal Station trilogy, to the printers this week, so it'll hit the shelves soon.
In the meantime, get a load of Mark Chitty's reviews of Necropath and Xenopath.
David
We sent off Eric Brown's Cosmopath, third book in the acclaimed Bengal Station trilogy, to the printers this week, so it'll hit the shelves soon.
In the meantime, get a load of Mark Chitty's reviews of Necropath and Xenopath.
David
Gail Z. Martin's Days of the Dead Tour - 2009
Gail Z. Martin, author of the Chronicles of the Necromancer, kicks off her annual Days of the Dead International Blog Tour during the week leading up to Halloween.
Today on the tour, she stops in at the Solaris blog to tell us all about her newest novel, Dark Lady’s Chosen, which we will release on December 29, 2009.
Q: You’ve taken your readers progressively deeper into the world of the Winter Kingdoms in your Chronicles of the Necromancer series. Do you have a particular process for writing?
A: I have a good idea of the beginning and ending for each story before I start to write, and a pretty good idea of the key turning points. Obviously, I have to also turn in a fairly detailed outline beforehand, but even with all of that, there are surprises along the way. I’ll start writing a scene knowing where it begins and where it has to end, but the details in the middle may not be clear to me until I see the words appearing on the page. It’s nice at the end of the day to read over what I’ve written and be pleasantly surprised.
Q: Can you talk about the world building that goes into a series like your Chronicles of the Necromancer?
A: I spend a lot of mental time in the world of my books, thinking about how they would think about certain things or celebrate a holiday or life event, or how the society would work around specific issues given the reality of magic and the presence of the undead. Often, that kind of random musing will get me started on a whole new plot twist, or something that I write into the book.
I was a history major, so I was taught to look for all the different elements that affect society: culture, geography, history, religion, economics, etc. I try to write those same elements into my world of the Winter Kingdoms so that it feels realistic and textured.
By the way, for the not-yet-published writers out there, I am actually teaching a four-part teleclass on World Building for WriteWellU.com this spring and we’ll go into the how-tos in detail.
Q: You have a way of talking about your characters as if they’re real, and you’ve even interviewed some of your characters. How do you develop your characters?
A: This may sound kind of weird, but I don’t really “develop” the characters as much as they present themselves and demand to be written into the story. They usually show up fully formed, and if I don’t know something about them, it’s more a question of picturing them in my mind and asking them questions than it is making stuff up about them. And if I try to take them in a direction they don’t want to go, they let me know and it just doesn’t work out.
Q: What’s behind your Days of the Dead Blog Tour?
A: I love Halloween. Next to Christmas, it’s my favorite holiday and always has been. And the week leading up to Halloween is special. You’ve got Samhain, All Hallow’s Eve and Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). So it’s a time of year that has evoked a feeling in people across time and cultures—the feeling that the threshold between the world of the living and the place of the dead is a little thinner than usual. So it made perfect sense to me to do a blog tour during such a great week when my books, after all, are about ghosts, necromancers, restless spirits, the undead—you get the picture.
The Tour premise is simple: I partner with a number of sites and provide unique content to each one during the week of the tour. We all have a lot of fun. New readers get introduced to my books, and existing readers get some tasty tidbits as we count down to the release of Dark Lady’s Chosen on Dec. 29. And my readers may also find some great web sites they hadn’t seen before. Everyone wins.
Of course, I’ll also be in stores and at conventions for the new book, so there will be a “live” tour also!
Q: You’ve got audio and excerpts from Dark Lady’s Chosen online, plus there are other sites participating in your Days of the Dead blog tour. Where can we find all the goodies?
A: Check out my site at www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com, for all the downloads and more Days of the Dead stuff. Also, please find me on Twitter.com as @GailZMartin and on Facebook and MySpace as well.
Today on the tour, she stops in at the Solaris blog to tell us all about her newest novel, Dark Lady’s Chosen, which we will release on December 29, 2009.
Q: You’ve taken your readers progressively deeper into the world of the Winter Kingdoms in your Chronicles of the Necromancer series. Do you have a particular process for writing?
A: I have a good idea of the beginning and ending for each story before I start to write, and a pretty good idea of the key turning points. Obviously, I have to also turn in a fairly detailed outline beforehand, but even with all of that, there are surprises along the way. I’ll start writing a scene knowing where it begins and where it has to end, but the details in the middle may not be clear to me until I see the words appearing on the page. It’s nice at the end of the day to read over what I’ve written and be pleasantly surprised.
Q: Can you talk about the world building that goes into a series like your Chronicles of the Necromancer?
A: I spend a lot of mental time in the world of my books, thinking about how they would think about certain things or celebrate a holiday or life event, or how the society would work around specific issues given the reality of magic and the presence of the undead. Often, that kind of random musing will get me started on a whole new plot twist, or something that I write into the book.
I was a history major, so I was taught to look for all the different elements that affect society: culture, geography, history, religion, economics, etc. I try to write those same elements into my world of the Winter Kingdoms so that it feels realistic and textured.
By the way, for the not-yet-published writers out there, I am actually teaching a four-part teleclass on World Building for WriteWellU.com this spring and we’ll go into the how-tos in detail.
Q: You have a way of talking about your characters as if they’re real, and you’ve even interviewed some of your characters. How do you develop your characters?
A: This may sound kind of weird, but I don’t really “develop” the characters as much as they present themselves and demand to be written into the story. They usually show up fully formed, and if I don’t know something about them, it’s more a question of picturing them in my mind and asking them questions than it is making stuff up about them. And if I try to take them in a direction they don’t want to go, they let me know and it just doesn’t work out.
Q: What’s behind your Days of the Dead Blog Tour?
A: I love Halloween. Next to Christmas, it’s my favorite holiday and always has been. And the week leading up to Halloween is special. You’ve got Samhain, All Hallow’s Eve and Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). So it’s a time of year that has evoked a feeling in people across time and cultures—the feeling that the threshold between the world of the living and the place of the dead is a little thinner than usual. So it made perfect sense to me to do a blog tour during such a great week when my books, after all, are about ghosts, necromancers, restless spirits, the undead—you get the picture.
The Tour premise is simple: I partner with a number of sites and provide unique content to each one during the week of the tour. We all have a lot of fun. New readers get introduced to my books, and existing readers get some tasty tidbits as we count down to the release of Dark Lady’s Chosen on Dec. 29. And my readers may also find some great web sites they hadn’t seen before. Everyone wins.
Of course, I’ll also be in stores and at conventions for the new book, so there will be a “live” tour also!
Q: You’ve got audio and excerpts from Dark Lady’s Chosen online, plus there are other sites participating in your Days of the Dead blog tour. Where can we find all the goodies?
A: Check out my site at www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com, for all the downloads and more Days of the Dead stuff. Also, please find me on Twitter.com as @GailZMartin and on Facebook and MySpace as well.
Outshining the competition
Although Shine (our anthology of optimistic SF) is planned for release by Solaris Books in April 2010, readers can whet their appetites until then over at DayBreak Magazine, where a 'positive, forward-looking SF story' will be featured every second Friday until the Shine anthology is released. Daybreak magazine was launched last Friday.
You can find out more about the Shine project here, and follow them on twitter, too, @outshine.
You can find out more about the Shine project here, and follow them on twitter, too, @outshine.
Review of Decay Inevitable
Hi all,
Graeme Flory of Graeme's Fantasy Book Review has offered these words on Conrad Williams' Decay Inevitable. Eight and three quarters out of ten.
Cheers,
David
Graeme Flory of Graeme's Fantasy Book Review has offered these words on Conrad Williams' Decay Inevitable. Eight and three quarters out of ten.
Cheers,
David
Update Time!
Hi all,
Quick update on where we are with releases in the next few months. Buckle yourselves in...
Eric Brown's Cosmopath, the highly-anticipated sequel to Necropath and Xenopath, sees telepathic investigator Jeff Vaughan's return to the shelves next month. Gritty, dark hard-SF at its best.
Blood in the Water, the second in Juliet E. McKenna's epic new political fantasy series The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution following Irons in the Fire, is on track for a December release, as is Haggopian and Other Stories, a Lovecraftian anthology by Solaris newcomer Brian Lumley.
January sees the release of Dark Lady's Chosen, fourth book in Gail Z. Martin's immensely popular dark fantasy series The Chronicles of the Necromancer. We're also releasing the A-Format reprint of Justin Gustainis' second Morris and Chastain investigative horror, Evil Ways, and the third instalment in Andy Remic's Combat-K series, Hardcore, which will reach in through your eyes and kick your brain's ass.
Coming up, we have another Nightside collection, Ed Greenwood's third Falconfar book, pirates, gods, and Jets de Vries' brilliant anthology Shine. Watch this space...
Cheers,
David
Quick update on where we are with releases in the next few months. Buckle yourselves in...
Eric Brown's Cosmopath, the highly-anticipated sequel to Necropath and Xenopath, sees telepathic investigator Jeff Vaughan's return to the shelves next month. Gritty, dark hard-SF at its best.
Blood in the Water, the second in Juliet E. McKenna's epic new political fantasy series The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution following Irons in the Fire, is on track for a December release, as is Haggopian and Other Stories, a Lovecraftian anthology by Solaris newcomer Brian Lumley.
January sees the release of Dark Lady's Chosen, fourth book in Gail Z. Martin's immensely popular dark fantasy series The Chronicles of the Necromancer. We're also releasing the A-Format reprint of Justin Gustainis' second Morris and Chastain investigative horror, Evil Ways, and the third instalment in Andy Remic's Combat-K series, Hardcore, which will reach in through your eyes and kick your brain's ass.
Coming up, we have another Nightside collection, Ed Greenwood's third Falconfar book, pirates, gods, and Jets de Vries' brilliant anthology Shine. Watch this space...
Cheers,
David
Signing in Bristol
Juliet E. McKenna informs me that she will be in Forbidden Planet, Bristol, on Saturday 24th October from 1 pm, along with Stan Nicholls, Chaz Brenchley and Kari Sperring. They'll be happy to sign books and to talk about reading and writing SF&F.
She says she's looking forward to meeting 'the fine readers of Solaris Books' so be on your best behaviour, ya hear? Wouldn't want to disappoint the lady.
It's an event organised by The Write Fantastic; a group of fantasy authors who work together to promote the genre - more info here - and more on Juliet here.
She says she's looking forward to meeting 'the fine readers of Solaris Books' so be on your best behaviour, ya hear? Wouldn't want to disappoint the lady.
It's an event organised by The Write Fantastic; a group of fantasy authors who work together to promote the genre - more info here - and more on Juliet here.
The funeral of Edgar Allen Poe
Okay, yes, I do realise that the father of the mystery and science-fiction story has been dead quite a while, but Ellen Datlow (editor of the stunning anthology Poe) has been involved in a memorial service to arguably one of the finest and most important genre writers to have walked this earth.
You can see the coverage at Ellen's blog.
Jon
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
