Category Archive for ‘news’ rss

Part IV

February 2nd, 2012 • 57 Comments

And you thought all I’d been doing was playing Skyrim and D&D with a selection of the world’s most bodacious fantasy authors, didn’t ya?  Admit it!  False!  For I can now reveal that I have finished a first draft of Part IV of my latest, which puts me about 80% of the way through.  Much work still to do when the first draft’s finished, mind you.  Publication is looking like late autumn in the UK, possibly a little later in the US.  Still no cast iron dates for ya, I’m afraid, but very much this year, anyway, so far as can be predicted in this unpredictable business of ours.  Soon as I’ve got a firm date it’ll be yours.  In the meantime, the sketchiest of synopses to whet your ravenous appetites:

“Shy South comes home to her farm to find a blackened shell, her brother and sister stolen, and knows she’ll have to go back to bad old ways if she’s ever to see them again.  She sets off in pursuit with only her cowardly old step-father Lamb for company.  But it turns out he’s hiding a bloody past of his own.  None bloodier.  Their journey will take them across the lawless plains, to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feuds, duels, and massacres, high into unmapped mountains to a reckoning with ancient enemies, and force them into alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, a man no one should ever have to trust…”

And no, I’m not telling you anything else, no matter how much you plead in the comments.  You can give it a go, though, just in case I change my mind…

Pimpage

January 12th, 2012 • 21 Comments

It seems to have become something of a fashion for authors to point out what they’re eligible for, marshalling their internet warriors for assault upon various awards, or possibly promoting the genre and its plaudits to a wider voting public, depending on how you see it.  A veritable internet arms race, some might say.  Others would call it unbelievably crass.  I, of course, am above such earthly concerns, though I would note in passing that The Heroes was published this year and it was pretty bloody good even if I say so myself.  Of course, if when falling over yourself to vote for it you were to see any other books/writers on various long and short lists that you preferred you could vote for those instead.  But you’d be fucking dead to me.

A nobler crusade is being undertaken by fellow fantasist NK Jemisin over on her blog.  She has observed that awards for best editor are often concentrated among a relatively limited group and has taken up arms in the cause of her editor, Devi Pillai, of Orbit.  What do you know, Devi just happens to be my US Editor as well, and if that’s not certification of her excellent taste I don’t know what is.  I think votes for Devi would be an excellent thing.  Go forth, my flying monkeys!  Go!

Lastly but not leastly, David Gemmell awards come round again.  I have said in the past that I very much like the idea of this award – something that focuses on the epic/heroic end of the spectrum – but wish that it had a juried element, a little bit more of a focus on quality than popularity, maybe, though I daresay that would mean the end of my chances.  Still, it is what it is, and I’d like to see people involved, at least, so why not go forth and vote!

Oh look, The Heroes is on the list, I had no idea…

Best Served Cold, read by Stephen Pacey

January 5th, 2012 • 16 Comments

Audiobooks, folks, audiobooks.  Time was they were a real niche product, the preserve of long distance hauliers, sleepless children and the blind, but with the arrival of mp3 playing phones and digital downloads, they’re becoming a central part of the market no author can afford to ignore.

Due to peculiarities of the way rights were divided, Best Served Cold was actually my first book to be recorded as an audiobook, and it was done in the US, read by Michael Page.  The Heroes was wrapped into that deal.  It wasn’t until some time after that we got round to doing audiobooks of The First Law trilogy, this time in the UK, read by Stephen Pacey.  I actually went along to some of the recording, expecting to be somewhat embarrassed, and was very, very impressed by what he brought to it.  I’ve heard plenty of criticism of the books in my time, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything but praise for Pacey’s reading.  He is good, versatile, and very well suited to the task.  So for some time I’ve been keen to get him to read Best Served Cold and The Heroes in the same style that we might present a consistent feel across all my books and lo!  Let lovers of high quality audiobooks rejoice, for it has come to pass:

Best Served Cold is available now on Audible.co.uk.  A Pacey-narrated The Heroes will, I understand, be following in due course, more information as I receive it.  Now, hating to crush the dreams of those across the pond, but this version won’t be available in the US, where the audiobooks on offer will continue to be the Page versions, at least for the foreseeable future.  I know it’s always a source of frustration when something freely available in one territory isn’t in another, but that’s just how the rights cookie crumbles in this case.

NPR’s best of 2011

December 16th, 2011 • 19 Comments

Author and critic Lev Grossman has posted his favourite five sf&f books of the year at NPR, and stone me if he hasn’t included The Heroes:

‘Abercrombie is a Brit who’s not nearly as well-known in the U.S. as he should be.’

I can only agree.  I should be bigger than General Electric.

‘It’s as if Tolkien cared about the back story of every individual orc: Each soldier is one among thousands, floundering in the fog of war, but each feels like he’s living out a tragedy or a triumph with himself as the hero. There’s no right side and wrong side — even the warriors aren’t sure which is which — and in the end the question of who’s the real hero comes down to who survives to tell the story.’

In other news, the bookselling, fundraising, basement clearing drive has had stunning, touching, and impressive results.  They’ve been flying off the shelves (or out of the boxes) and to varied corners of the globe (it has corners, right?).  Still a few bits and pieces available but things are winding down now and we’ve sent out well over 100 books, freed up about six cubic metres of my basement (largely in packing materials), and after postage has been deducted made about £500 for charity.  So thanks to everyone who bought a book.  Enjoy them and their many hilarious dedications.  We’ll probably give it another go next year…

Heroic Wallpaper

October 27th, 2011 • 14 Comments

Sick of staring at the calming natural stylings of Apple or Microsoft’s default wallpapers?

Need a backdrop in more of a bloody yet humorous action fantasy mold?

Then today is your lucky day, because I note that Lauren Panepinto, art-meister general at my US publisher, Orbit, has produced some wallpapers using the new cover art from The Heroes.  What self-respecting fan of the works of Joe Abercrombie could be without?

Congratulations Lou Anders

August 24th, 2011 • 5 Comments

Slightly late to this news, as I am to most news these days, but a big congratulations is due to Lou Anders, editorial director at Pyr, who acquired and publishes The First Law trilogy in the US, and won the Hugo Award for Best Editor (Long Form) over the weekend.  Lou has done amazing things at Pyr over the past few years, starting from nothing and building up an imprint that has a great reputation for innovation and quality in presentation and content.  In spite of including me among their authors.  Richly deserved.

(A) Red Country

August 15th, 2011 • 103 Comments

So I’ve finished the first draft of the second part of my latest masterwork, workingly titled, ‘A Red Country,’ or possibly just, ‘Red Country,’ we will see on that score.  For those who have failed to follow this blog religiously for the past few months (shame on you faithless scum), it is another semi-standalone set in the world of The First Law, and fusing fantasy elements with western elements, in the same way that The Heroes was a fantasy/war story and Best Served Cold fantasy/thriller-ish.  That puts me about 40% of the way through a first draft, though I suspect there’ll be a fair bit of work to do once the first draft is complete.  Isn’t there always?  Now the terrifying wait for feedback from my editor and readers while I try and sort out what exactly I’m going to do with my next part.  I guess one could say that if Part I was a little bit Searchers then Part II rolled into Lonesome Dove territory and Part III has something of a Deadwood/Fistful of Dollars motif.

I feel a fair bit more comfortable with this second part than I did with the first, as you’d expect or at least hope.  One generally aims to get a better and better handle on the plot, settings and characters as one goes through a draft, until by the time you’re finishing your first draft you know pretty much exactly what you’re aiming at, and editing becomes largely a case of bringing earlier parts into line with that final one.

I’ve made quite a significant change to the personality of one of my two central characters – or perhaps not a change but a clarification, a shift of emphasis and a refinement of style – and he seems to be working quite a bit better now.  In essence, I’ve made him a bit more of a shit than he was before, which tends to be a fruitful direction for me to go in with characters on the whole.  Who knew?

It’s taken me a little longer to get this part together than I’d hoped, what with one thing and another, but if I can up the pace a little from here on in we should still be looking at delivery early next year and publication somewhere around late summer early autumn 2012.  Such is the hope.  But you know what they say about hopes.

Don’t make a parachute out of ’em.

 

The Gateway

July 21st, 2011 • 13 Comments

My Dark Masters at Gollancz have unveiled an interesting project – they’re using the latest digital e-book-ification technology to make available the entire backlists of various past (and in some cases current) giants of the genre, some of which are available dead tree style on their Science Fiction and Fantasy Masterworks lists, but a lot of which have been long out of print.  All this will be index linked to a new e-edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction along with all sorts of other of your twenty-first century network social hubbery antics.

The Gateway does not open for a couple of months (see what I did there?), but I and a few other current authors are on their front page talking about some of our favourite titles on the list.  For me it’s Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories.  Mmmmm, definitive.

FantasyCon 2011

May 16th, 2011 • 8 Comments

Hot off the press!

I am honoured to be among the Guests of Honour at this year’s FantasyCon to be held in Brighton, England, September 30th – October 2nd this year.  Other GoHs are Gwyneth Jones, Peter Atkins, John Ajvide Lindqvist, and sci-fi heavyweight Brian Aldiss, with Sarah Pinborough serving as Mistress of Ceremonies.  Other attending authors within the fantasy arena include the likes of James Barclay, Tom Lloyd, MD Lachlan, Steven Erikson, Juliet McKenna (who I still haven’t forgiven for nearly twisting my arm off at BristolCon) and oh so many more.

The British Fantasy society is traditionally quite horror orientated, so it’s very nice to be involved.  No information yet on what precisely I’ll be doing but, if previous con experience is to be believed, it’ll be along the lines of some panels, an interview and Q&A and – oh, I don’t know – a load of talking shite in a bar.

Look forward to seeing some of you there, maybe…

Flowers and Plaudits

May 12th, 2011 • 14 Comments

It seems I am now able to add another name to the ever-lengthening list of awards I haven’t won, for I duly note that my short story, The Fool Jobs, is one of five finalists for a Locus Award.  It’s actually not a short story apparently, as at some 8,000 words (yes, I can’t even write a short short story) it sits in the novelette category, somewhere between a short story and a novella in length.  The cynical among you might say something like, “ha!  Novelette is, like, way the softest of the categories, I’ve never even heard of that before,” to which I would reply something like, “I don’t care, bitch, I’m a finalist, yeah!”  And then the cynical among you would say, “Neil Gaiman’s in the same category as you, you might as well go home,” to which I would be all crestfallen and say something like, “ah.  Shit.  You’re right.  Never mind.  I don’t care about awards anyway.”  I also note, however, that the anthology in which The Fool Jobs appears, Swords and Dark Magic, is a finalist in the anthologies section.  My congratulations to its editors Lou Anders and Jonathan Strahan, along with the galaxy of other leading fantasy writers who contributed, though obviously less well than me, since they weren’t finalists individually.  Yeah!  It’s me that gets my ass handed to me by Neil Gaiman.  Meeeeeeeeee!

In other news, the shockwaves of bankrupt nihilism continue softly to reverberate, and have inspired an interesting consideration of The Heroes by Alex Preston writing in Salon Futura.  You tend to read opinions from folks steeped in the fantasy genre, so interesting to get one from a writer who stands well outside it but happens to specialise in violence in literature more generally.  As an interesting aside, I note in comments that Guardian columnist Sam Jordison went to the same school as me.  What are the odds?

And in further news my UK publisher, Gollancz, is celebrating its 50th birthday this year, and to celebrate will be reprinting 10 of its most notable fantasy and science fiction titles in traditional yellow jackets.  You may go and vote for your favourites from a list of 50, and believe me it’s a hell of a list.  Oh look!  There’s one of mine on there.  Fancy that…