I don’t have cover art (that I can share) (yet), but The Kidnap Plot has a cover artist. Check out here some of the work of Kenard Pak on Facebook. And go here and here for examples of previous work he’s done illustrating children’s books.
I’m pretty excited about, well, what I can’t yet show you.
For serious.
I didn’t realize when I started reading the Lymond Chronicles (Book One is The Game of Kings) how much heartfelt self-denial and doomed romance I was getting in for, but it’s there. On some level, and almost from the very start, these books are bodice-rippers, complete with harem girls, separated lovers, conflicted oaths, and duels to the death over ladies’ favors.
But they’re fantastic bodice-rippers. The six books are set in sixteenth century Scotland, England, Russia, France, and the Levant, and follow the career of a scarred, ill-fated, self-loathing, and astonishingly talented Scottish nobleman, Francis Crawford of Lymond (and eventually, Sevigny). Dunnett’s verbal wit alone is impressive; coupled with her language skills and the mass of historical detail, it makes for a series of books that should intimidate other writers. And the books have more than just romance: rooftop chases, knightly orders, menageries, trials, seances, prophecy, political intrigue, shipwrecks, murder, forced marches, chess matches to the death, religious struggle, international commerce, military discipline, siege warfare, and espionage spring from the pages in abundance.
Put these on the shelf with Patrick O’Brian. I don’t think they unseat the Aubreyad, but boy, they give it a run for its money.
Today only, fellow Space Balrog James Wymore’s genre-busting novel The Actuator i
s a Daily Deal on Amazon. If you’re the kind of reader who likes a little sci-fi mixed in with your epic fantasy… or a little hard-boiled detective, or a little steampunk… check it out.
So, I’ve been working an exciting development in (relative) silence for a few months, and I think I can now share it.
I’m going to stop being a self-published novelist.
Nothing wrong with self-publication. It’s been good for me, not in a quit-yer-day-job kind of way, but it’s opened lots of doors for me and really helped me cut my teeth, as well as put me in touch with lots of clever and interesting readers. And in the future, hey, I may well self-publish again.
But I’ve been having a conversation with Kevin Anderson and Peter Wacks at Wordfire Press for several months now, a conversation that started with me being on panels with both of them at FanX in Salt Lake City in the spring, and continued with good words put in for me by Brad Torgersen and Jon Rock, and has now resulted in signed contracts. Peter and I will work out the production schedule, but the plan is to launch Crecheling, Rock Band Fights Evil, and City of the Saints all as Wordfire Press books next year.
I’m thrilled to join this team (Frank Herbert and David Farland, are you kidding me?). In 2015, look for me at the big Wordfire table at a comic con event in your town.
Because I’m sure you wanted to know.
(And of course, sometimes the magic happens on airplanes, at 30,000 feet.)
It’s hard losing your father, even if he dies in an act of great heroism, but Sittrell Trauel has no time to mourn. The city of Amigus, entrusted to his care, falls to treachery and is taken by the aggressive and expansionist Aukasian Empire. Sittrell himself escapes only with the intervention of mysterious forces and the help of an unlikely and unwanted ally. If that isn’t bad enough, there are darker powers lurking behind Aukasia, and… worse still…
Sittrell learns his father may be alive.
Valcoria is a blackpowder fantasy (which I love) set in a world of magic fallen from high technology, where sorcerers, ray guns, plate armor, and flintlocks all cheerfully coexist. Jason King tells a brisk adventure tale suitable for any audience. Highly recommended.
You are not entitled to know every detail, but I will tell you what the gods permit. At one time, in my folly, I was rash enough to disclose the plans of Zeus from start to finish. I now realize that he himself intends a prophet’s revelations to be incomplete, so that humanity may miss some part of Heaven’s design.
— Apollonius of Rhodes, The Voyage of Argo, Book Two
“I took a bright boy—quirky and a little out of control, but bright and basically healthy—and I’ve turned him into a delusional maniac.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m not delusional.”
“You talk to animals.”
“Yeah, and I also get them to do stuff.”
“Res ipsa loquitur.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m going to need a lawyer.”
“Sculptors and creators of every kind are aware of inspiration and flashes of insight; and the greater they are, the more reverence they show as they refer to the mystery which guides them.”
— Walter F. Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult
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