Friday, 29 August 2008

Free Books!

Fantasy Book Critic is running a competition to win the entire First Law Trilogy courtesy of the wonderful Pyr Books in the US.

You lucky people.

Labels: competitions

Monday, 25 August 2008

Aetherica '09

So I'm due to be a guest of honour at a new Fantasy Convention next year, called Aetherica, to be held in Chester, June 19th-21st. Peter Beagle, of The Last Unicorn fame, is currently the other Guest of Honour. Not sure what my involvement will consist of, but I'm guessing probably a Q&A of some description and perhaps even some kind of reading, probably with powerful hand gestures. Plus presumably contributing my ignorance to various panels...

Anyway, further details on their website, and more as I learn it.

Labels: announcements, appearances, news

Monday, 18 August 2008

Last Argument in the US

Just a quick note to say Pyr's US edition of Last Argument of Kings is now shipping from Amazon.com, more than a month early, you lucky things. Presumably it will soon appear also on the shelves of your regular brick and mortar bookstores also...

Labels: news

Friday, 15 August 2008

What THEY Said Over the Last Month

High time for my periodic self-indulgent sado-massochistic trawl through the dark corners of the interweb. I can't help it. It's an addiction. So without further ado ... Writer Bill Ward had a look at The Blade Itself:

"at heart it's a High Fantasy with a hardboiled, Sword & Sorcery attitude. The pace, the command of voice and dialog, and the strong characterization all make this a series to watch."

He followed it up with a main course of Before They are Hanged:

"Questions are answered and new ones raised, characters push and pull against one another, glimpses of plots are dangled with skill before the reader, and the whole conspires to keep the pages greedily turning - in short, everything is done well and will have fans rushing to get their hands on Last Argument of Kings, the concluding volume of The First Law."

Dread Pirate Terje was one among that very rush. I'm not sure if he's really a pirate, or what dark acts have earned him the prefix 'dread' or not, but you have to appreciate his Marxist analysis of The First Law:

"In Marxist terms, the superstructure is transformed, while the base remains the same. Or, perhaps more precisely, the base remains the same, as does the superstructure, but the relation between these become apparent to the main characters, and thus to the readers - the illusion of ideology (the Marxist term refering to the ideas and philosophies that legitimize and shroud that the system is, ultimately, based on power - according to Marxist theory, democracy and liberalism are part of the ideology of capitalism) is shed and shredded. In the end Last Argument of Kings, while magnificently brutal, morbidly fun, recklessly fascinating, and at times awesomely inspiring, was too fucken dark for my taste, so I dock it about half a point or so for that. 9.0/10."

9/10 even after the half point deduction? I reckon I can live with that. Just. An insightful look at the whole trilogy from occasional visitor here, Elena at 500 pages and a bottle of wine:

"For every genre staple/cliche that is included, another is pissed upon. There is a near-constant undermining of expectation, both by the standards of fantasy epics and those of literature in general. Another way to summarize the trilogy - mine, in fact - would be: Reservoir Dogs + "Dr Heidegger's Experiment" + The Empire Strikes Back, dropped into post-apocalyptic Middle Earth. As I mentioned initially, this book speaks in the cant of a 21st-century 20-something, hence the inclusion of a Tarantino movie. Well-written, witty, and full of violently poetic descriptions and snarky one-liners, if also littered with more comma splices than bodies (and that's an awful lot, girl)."

I believe it was the Emperor Sigismund who said, "I am the King of Rome, and above grammar." Don't try to limit my genius with your dusty rules, commar fascist! Though it's worth noting she had something of the same 'intellectual admiration yet emotional disappointment' reaction to the ending that I did with No Country for Old Men a couple of weeks back. Thomas L. Martin, meanwhile, reveiewed the book for SFCrowsnest, and the only real problem he had with the 240,000 word monster was that it was just too damn short. Well, alright, rushed and with uneven pacing, but, you know:

"A fourth book to extend the battles and keep the pacing more dramatic may have truly completed the 'First Law' sequence but even as it is they stand as fantastic examples of the best heroic fantasy. In his first three novels, Joe Abercrombie has shown that the road travelled by so many tired and cliched quest novels has not been exhausted. There are other ways to do it without re-treading the old formulae and by populating his complex world with dynamic, immensely imperfect characters Abercrombie has produced a reinvigoration of the genre."

Reinvigorate THAT, motherf*ckers. And finally, kind words on the trilogy as a whole from no lesser light than the star of Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog, would you believe, Felicia Day:

"And boy did this series finish! After reading the third book in the trilogy, I definitely have to say that this is one of my top 10 favorite series of all time. It's that good. The finale pays off all the genre-bending plot twists and crazy left turns that occurred in books one and two, and in a way that will leave you gasping. I could not have looked up from the last 100 pages if you had paid me!"

Who would pay you to do that? Not me, that's for SURE.

Labels: reviews

Sunday, 10 August 2008

Lost by a Whisker...

So I failed to bag the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer. The really frustrating thing was that I only just missed out...

Well, if you count fourth out of six as just missed out. Yes, if it hadn't been for the more popular half of the field the Campbell would be mine...

But I did get more first place votes than 'No Award'. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, 'no award'! Yes, I am a marginally more popular choice than throwing the plaque in the bin.

Anyway, many congratulations to Mary Robinette Kowal, who was indeed the winner, rightly lifted on angel wings to the heady heights of glory. Commiserations to Scott Lynch, David Anthony Durham, David Louis Edelman, and Jon Armstrong, who share with me the bitter, bitter dregs of failure...

Labels: announcements, news

Thursday, 7 August 2008

In Orbit

Just a quick announcement since there's been a press release, that Best Served Cold will be coming out in the US with the redoubtable Orbit books. In June 2009 (fingers crossed) roughly simultaneous with the UK release from Gollancz.

No bust-up whatsoever with Pyr, who've been my US publisher to this point. I've got nothing but the highest respect for Lou Anders, who runs the imprint - he's a man of high class and he's been doing great things at Pyr over the last few years. Four nominations at the Hugos this week for his books and authors, and for him as an editor, shows the quality of what he's doing, and I remain very grateful to him for taking a chance on my books when nobody had heard of me, putting them out in the States, and making a success of them. Pyr will continue to publish The First Law books, hopefully for many, many years to come.

But the next two books, at least - Best Served Cold and whatever should follow (I know, but I'm not telling you lot yet) - will be with Orbit US. I'm very much looking forward to working with my editor there, Devi Pillai, and the rest of their team of highly qualified industry experts, to ensure that I become immensely wealthy, and as soon as possible.

More as I hear more...

Labels: announcements, news

Wednesday, 6 August 2008

No Country for Old Men

Hugely behind the times, of course, but I undertook to say something about this when I saw it, and it really is a very interesting film. I usually try to avoid spoilers, but in this case discussion of the unusual narrative structure will make that impossible. The film, as well as making me think on a more general level, also brought up some thoughts about the narrative structure and ending of my own series, and the risks you take when you set out to try and twist or defy conventions.

So, if you haven't seen No Country for Old Men AND read The First Law, my advice is to buy them both now, read/watch them, and return, but to read no further until you have...

It's a beautifully made film, for sure. Very lean, naturalistic, unembroidered, with little or no music, no big camera moves or self-conscious editing, nothing flashy to distract from the feeling of brutal realism. It actually seemed to me a very good filmic representation of Cormac McCarthy's stripped-back writing style, from what I've read of his (it's adapted from one of his novels). Dialogue is spare - people tend to spend more time doing than talking about it - but characters are still sketched with a deft hand, even incidental ones. Acting is equally understated and effective across the board, particularly oscar-winning Javier Bardem, who produces one of the all time great screen psycopaths, exuding relaxed menace as he calmly slaughters his way across Texas under some of the most terrifying hair ever captured on film. I should also mention, since I think it unlikely that Tommy Lee Jones will read this, a great performance from Garret Dillahunt as Deputy Wendell.

It's amazing how much tension is built up so quickly just by concentrating on the small things, the everyday, the routines. It reminded me at times of that prolonged final sequence in the Sopranos - everything observed with such drawn-out, close-up care that the most irrelevant details become imbued with a sense of menace. Indeed the sense of menace built up so high at times that I could hardly look. Rarely has a film been so unromanticised, so ruthlessly realistic. Violence was frequent, savage, sudden, sometimes random, often unpredictable, always extremely painful.

And the sense of realism went beyond the treatment of events and right to the narrative structure, which was every bit as ragged, strange, and unpredictable as real life. The (to that point) central character, the closest thing to a hero, who's been engaged in a bloody cat-and-mouse with the villain, ends up getting killed, off-screen, by some largely unimportant extras. There is no showdown, no denouement. I must confess it left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand I greatly admired the realism, the way in which they chose to strip the subject matter of any trace of glamour. On the other I couldn't avoid a nagging disappointment, and a loss of interest after that point. A perhaps unreasonable feeling that the film could have been so much more satisfying with a more traditional build-up, climax, and resolution.

Stripped of what had been the central spur of the film, it seemed to lose its way slightly. Tommy Lee Jones' sherrif was suddenly pushed to centre stage, having been more of a supporting player to that point. There were a couple of rather protracted scenes in which he searched for meaning in the meaningless events, perhaps mirroring the viewer's own rather desperate search in the same direction. But there were no answers, in the end. There was no resolution. Throughout, the killer acted with complete impunity, the police always three steps behind. The only thing that came close to stopping him a random car accident. I ended up intellectually impressed, impressed with the boldness of the filmmakers, certainly, but emotionally unsatisfied, maybe.

It's interesting, because this is exactly the sort of response I've seen some people have to the ending of Last Argument of Kings, although obviously I went nowhere near as far in terms of defying the expected narrative structure and would certainly lay no claims to doing it half as well as No Country for Old Men. But when people don't like the series it doesn't tend to be the bleakness they dislike, it's the raggedness, the lack of resolution, the sense that the characters haven't necessarily achieved anything. The sense of life meandering on. They feel a bargain's been struck that hasn't been honoured, maybe. I guess when you choose to defy conventions - even if you do it as well as No Country for Old Men - there will always be some readers, or viewers, who are disappointed not to have got what they were expecting...

Still, a grim and brilliant 9.

Labels: film and tv

Friday, 1 August 2008

1 Today

It is August the First, and I am proud to announce that this blog is 1 year old today. This is also its hundredth post. Rejoice, one and all. I should hardly have to tell you there's been an avalanche of high quality content here over the past dozen months. And some not so high, badly worded, or incendiary, but let's forget about that, and instead concentrate on such timeless and thought-provoking highlights as:

Maps, Craps

Zounds! Swearing in Fantasy

and

Big Fish, Little Fish

But let it never be said that my best days are far behind me. Oh no. There'll be plenty to look forward to in the coming months. Indeed, I'm on one of SFSignal's Mind Melds right now talking about one of my favourite examples of worldbuilding along with some proper authors and editors and folks. Check it out. I pour praise on Scott Lynch. I know. You won't see that too often. There should be some more in-depth interviews cropping up here and there over the coming weeks, which I will, of course, direct you toward...

I'm now, finally, after titanic struggles, drafting the seventh and last part of my fourth book, Best Served Cold, although there'll be a lot of work to do when it is drafted. You know. Drawing the strands together. Sharpening action and dialogue. Reducing, simplifying, and focusing. Adding in some worldbuilding elements, would you believe. Consistent-i-fying it, as we say in the trade. Making it good. A lot of work. I'll probably be talking about the approach to revising and editing as it happens.

Various different elements of artwork are gradually coming together, and when they're done, with the permission of the various artists and designers involved I'll hopefully be going through the process step by step, talking about the elements and how I (alright, alright, other people) came up with the ideas.

Occasional discussion of films, tv, video games, and perhaps even books will sporadically continue, and with the imminent release of Last Argument of Kings in the US I'm sure there'll be a few reviews, polls, opinions, and other nonsense, both good and bad, for me to bring to your attention.

There might even be a bit more discussion of genre issues, from time to time, and perhaps a giveaway of proofs of Best Served Cold as there was with Last Argument of Kings, we will have to see...

Oh, and with Worldcon about to happen in Denver, I'm sure there'll be a post in which I bitch about having lost the John W. Campbell award to Scott Lynch or one of the other most worthy nominees...

Labels: announcements