Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Winners of The Ten Thousand, David Weber, The Dangerous Days of Daniel X & The Tower of Shadows Giveaways!!! Plus, Misc. News...
Congratulations to Julie Keilty (Connecticut), Vicki Kennedy (Texas), Christopher Harner (California), Jillian Sorenson (California), Daniel Morrell (Massachusetts), Heidi Kukta (Utah), Karen Irby (Maryland), Jessica Davidson (Virginia), Robi Rund (Illinois), and Maureen Morra (Florida) who were all randomly selected to win a COPY of Paul Kearney’s new book, “The Ten Thousand”, thanks to Solaris Books!!! “The Ten Thousand” is scheduled for publication August 26, 2008 and will be reviewed by Fantasy Book Critic in the near future. In the meantime, you can read reviews of “The Ten Thousand” HERE or check out an interview with Paul Kearney HERE courtesy of A Dribble of Ink.
Congratulations also to Frank Blados (New York) and Zinab Al-Mahdi (Canada) who were both randomly selected to win a SET of David Weber’s Safehold series including copies of “Off Armageddon Reef” (Paperback) and “By Schism Rent Asunder”, thanks to Tor Books!!! “By Schism Rent Asunder” is officially out today and was reviewed by Fantasy Book Critic’s contributing writer, Liviu C. Suciu, HERE.
Congratulations also to Susan Tremayne (Ohio), Shawna Fox (Wyoming), Rachael Sanders (Texas), Carolyne Mayfield (Pennsylvania), and Lisa Davis (South Carolina) who were all randomly selected to win a COPY of “The Dangerous Days of Daniel X” by James Patterson + Michael Ledwidge, thanks to Hachette Book Group USA!!! Like “By Schism Rent Asunder”, “The Dangerous Days of Daniel X” is officially out today and was reviewed by Fantasy Book Critic HERE.
Finally, congratulations to Susan Smith (Kansas), Ron Grande (Vermont), and Melissa Painter (Louisiana) who were all randomly selected to win a SIGNED COPY of the Paperback Version of Drew Bowling’s debut novel, “The Tower of Shadows”, courtesy of Del Rey and the author himself!!! For more information, check out Fantasy Book Critic’s review of “The Tower of Shadows” HERE and A Dribble of Ink’s interview with Drew Bowling HERE. And keep an eye out for the sequel, “The Sea of Dreams”!
MISCELLANEOUS NEWS:
PRESS RELEASE: New York, NY—July 22, 2008 — Dorchester Publishing and Circle of Seven Productions have teamed up to present a contest offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for amateur and professional filmmakers who also love books. Participants will create book trailers based on their favorite novel in the SHOMI series of modern-day fantasy fiction. The best trailer—as selected by internationally bestselling author Stephen King—will be shown at a movie premiere in New York City as well as a theater in the winner's home market.
The contest will provide a creative outlet for the filmmakers' visions while ultimately allowing the winner to showcase his or her talents before a potential audience of tens of millions of people through Circle of Seven's distribution relationships. “We're thrilled to offer filmmakers a means to broadcast their gifts,” said Brooke Borneman, Director of Sales and Marketing for Dorchester, “and hope that the contest gives the winner a platform that will propel his or her film career to new heights.”
Book trailers—which are similar in style, content, and technique to movie trailers—are a powerful and increasingly popular method for communicating why a particular novel or series of novels is a 'must read.' A memorable short film can visually highlight a book's most compelling elements and draw viewers into the story and the author's universe, making a prospective reader want to know more.
A groundbreaking line of speculative fiction that combines the best elements of the fantasy, thriller, science fiction, cyberpunk, and romance genres, the SHOMI imprint has been hailed by reviewers for its genre-blending, high-velocity action-adventure stories and emotional impact.
“SHOMI books have received comparisons to films ranging from Underworld and Resident Evil to Blade Runner and The Matrix,” explained Borneman. “The cinematic quality of the books and the sheer physicality of the storytelling are what make the SHOMI universe a natural for filmmakers to explore.”
For more information on SHOMI and complete rules for the contest, including submission guidelines and deadlines, please visit http://www.shomifiction.com/.
ABOUT STEPHEN KING, DORCHESTER PUBLISHING + CIRCLE OF SEVEN PRODUCTIONS:
Stephen King is the internationally bestselling author of over forty books and the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Maine and Florida with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. For more information, please visit http://www.stephenking.com/.
Dorchester Publishing has been publishing mass-market books since 1971, making it the oldest independent mass-market publisher in America. In addition to building the careers of New York Times bestselling authors such as Christine Feehan, C. L. Wilson, and Marjorie M. Liu, Dorchester distributes the award-winning Hard Case Crime line of pulp mysteries and the Cosmos line of SF/Fantasy novels. Dorchester novels are available wherever books are sold and online at http://www.dorchesterpub.com/.
Circle of Seven Productions created the Book Trailer market in 2002 and is the leader of book trailer production in the United States. Circle of Seven Productions encompasses a network of experienced, professional production partners who have won awards, created commercials for high profile companies and created music videos for well known celebrities. For details regarding their video distribution platform, please visit http://www.cosproductions.com/.
Moving on, Gryphonwood Press has a couple of exciting things happening. First, they are currently accepting submissions for a themed anthology called “You Don't Know What You've Got: Tales of Loss and Dispossession”. As the title indicates, the theme is centered around the subject of loss. Submissions should be at least 5,000 words. Deadline is August 31, 2008. Click HERE for more details. And secondly, Gryphonwood has started a fantastic new forum HERE for lovers of speculative fiction and much more :) Suggestions for forum categories are welcome and may be sent to dave@gryphonwoodpress.com.
Lastly, this Saturday, July 26th, Shira Lipkin is holding a blogathon on her LiveJournal Page where she will be posting every half hour for 24 hours to raise money for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. “This is my sixth year blogathonning, and I write spontaneous short fiction every year. It usually tends to have an urban fantasy bent (as in fantasy in a city, not paranormal romance), but this year, I'm taking a distinctly SF angle on it. For 24 hours, I'll be in character as a xenoarchaeologist, trying to make sense of precollapse Earth... with the help of over fifty artists who donated “artifacts” to this project, including a few SF/F authors themselves. All artifacts are being auctioned, with a story card.” The blogathon will occur HERE, while the auctions can be found HERE.
ABOUT SHIRA LIPKIN:
Shira Lipkin is the writer of cult proto-comic Shayara and experimental web-based short-short story system Wind Tunnel Dreams, among other things. She's a geek of many stripes, a freelance writer and editor, and a prolific and well-read blogger. Interests include raising kids in fandom, cyberfunded creativity, cyberpunk, golden-age SF, neuroscience, quantum theory, and long walks on the beach.
I lied. I actually have one more bit of news. Over at SF Crowsnest, Stephen Hunt (The Court of the Air, The Kingdom Beyond the Waves) has started a new blog HERE for reviews, news, pop culture, personal bits, etc., and I’ve been asked to contribute :) For now, I’ve just reproduced a few pieces that have appeared on Fantasy Book Critic, but in the future I might start posting stuff that I feel doesn’t belong on Fantasy Book Critic, so keep an eye out for it. Besides, you may never know who might show up on the SF Crowsnest Blog, like say Joe Abercrombie ;)
Congratulations also to Frank Blados (New York) and Zinab Al-Mahdi (Canada) who were both randomly selected to win a SET of David Weber’s Safehold series including copies of “Off Armageddon Reef” (Paperback) and “By Schism Rent Asunder”, thanks to Tor Books!!! “By Schism Rent Asunder” is officially out today and was reviewed by Fantasy Book Critic’s contributing writer, Liviu C. Suciu, HERE.
Congratulations also to Susan Tremayne (Ohio), Shawna Fox (Wyoming), Rachael Sanders (Texas), Carolyne Mayfield (Pennsylvania), and Lisa Davis (South Carolina) who were all randomly selected to win a COPY of “The Dangerous Days of Daniel X” by James Patterson + Michael Ledwidge, thanks to Hachette Book Group USA!!! Like “By Schism Rent Asunder”, “The Dangerous Days of Daniel X” is officially out today and was reviewed by Fantasy Book Critic HERE.
Finally, congratulations to Susan Smith (Kansas), Ron Grande (Vermont), and Melissa Painter (Louisiana) who were all randomly selected to win a SIGNED COPY of the Paperback Version of Drew Bowling’s debut novel, “The Tower of Shadows”, courtesy of Del Rey and the author himself!!! For more information, check out Fantasy Book Critic’s review of “The Tower of Shadows” HERE and A Dribble of Ink’s interview with Drew Bowling HERE. And keep an eye out for the sequel, “The Sea of Dreams”!
MISCELLANEOUS NEWS:
PRESS RELEASE: New York, NY—July 22, 2008 — Dorchester Publishing and Circle of Seven Productions have teamed up to present a contest offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for amateur and professional filmmakers who also love books. Participants will create book trailers based on their favorite novel in the SHOMI series of modern-day fantasy fiction. The best trailer—as selected by internationally bestselling author Stephen King—will be shown at a movie premiere in New York City as well as a theater in the winner's home market.The contest will provide a creative outlet for the filmmakers' visions while ultimately allowing the winner to showcase his or her talents before a potential audience of tens of millions of people through Circle of Seven's distribution relationships. “We're thrilled to offer filmmakers a means to broadcast their gifts,” said Brooke Borneman, Director of Sales and Marketing for Dorchester, “and hope that the contest gives the winner a platform that will propel his or her film career to new heights.”
Book trailers—which are similar in style, content, and technique to movie trailers—are a powerful and increasingly popular method for communicating why a particular novel or series of novels is a 'must read.' A memorable short film can visually highlight a book's most compelling elements and draw viewers into the story and the author's universe, making a prospective reader want to know more.A groundbreaking line of speculative fiction that combines the best elements of the fantasy, thriller, science fiction, cyberpunk, and romance genres, the SHOMI imprint has been hailed by reviewers for its genre-blending, high-velocity action-adventure stories and emotional impact.
“SHOMI books have received comparisons to films ranging from Underworld and Resident Evil to Blade Runner and The Matrix,” explained Borneman. “The cinematic quality of the books and the sheer physicality of the storytelling are what make the SHOMI universe a natural for filmmakers to explore.”
For more information on SHOMI and complete rules for the contest, including submission guidelines and deadlines, please visit http://www.shomifiction.com/.
ABOUT STEPHEN KING, DORCHESTER PUBLISHING + CIRCLE OF SEVEN PRODUCTIONS:
Stephen King is the internationally bestselling author of over forty books and the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Maine and Florida with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. For more information, please visit http://www.stephenking.com/.
Dorchester Publishing has been publishing mass-market books since 1971, making it the oldest independent mass-market publisher in America. In addition to building the careers of New York Times bestselling authors such as Christine Feehan, C. L. Wilson, and Marjorie M. Liu, Dorchester distributes the award-winning Hard Case Crime line of pulp mysteries and the Cosmos line of SF/Fantasy novels. Dorchester novels are available wherever books are sold and online at http://www.dorchesterpub.com/.
Circle of Seven Productions created the Book Trailer market in 2002 and is the leader of book trailer production in the United States. Circle of Seven Productions encompasses a network of experienced, professional production partners who have won awards, created commercials for high profile companies and created music videos for well known celebrities. For details regarding their video distribution platform, please visit http://www.cosproductions.com/.
Moving on, Gryphonwood Press has a couple of exciting things happening. First, they are currently accepting submissions for a themed anthology called “You Don't Know What You've Got: Tales of Loss and Dispossession”. As the title indicates, the theme is centered around the subject of loss. Submissions should be at least 5,000 words. Deadline is August 31, 2008. Click HERE for more details. And secondly, Gryphonwood has started a fantastic new forum HERE for lovers of speculative fiction and much more :) Suggestions for forum categories are welcome and may be sent to dave@gryphonwoodpress.com.
Lastly, this Saturday, July 26th, Shira Lipkin is holding a blogathon on her LiveJournal Page where she will be posting every half hour for 24 hours to raise money for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. “This is my sixth year blogathonning, and I write spontaneous short fiction every year. It usually tends to have an urban fantasy bent (as in fantasy in a city, not paranormal romance), but this year, I'm taking a distinctly SF angle on it. For 24 hours, I'll be in character as a xenoarchaeologist, trying to make sense of precollapse Earth... with the help of over fifty artists who donated “artifacts” to this project, including a few SF/F authors themselves. All artifacts are being auctioned, with a story card.” The blogathon will occur HERE, while the auctions can be found HERE.ABOUT SHIRA LIPKIN:
Shira Lipkin is the writer of cult proto-comic Shayara and experimental web-based short-short story system Wind Tunnel Dreams, among other things. She's a geek of many stripes, a freelance writer and editor, and a prolific and well-read blogger. Interests include raising kids in fandom, cyberfunded creativity, cyberpunk, golden-age SF, neuroscience, quantum theory, and long walks on the beach.
I lied. I actually have one more bit of news. Over at SF Crowsnest, Stephen Hunt (The Court of the Air, The Kingdom Beyond the Waves) has started a new blog HERE for reviews, news, pop culture, personal bits, etc., and I’ve been asked to contribute :) For now, I’ve just reproduced a few pieces that have appeared on Fantasy Book Critic, but in the future I might start posting stuff that I feel doesn’t belong on Fantasy Book Critic, so keep an eye out for it. Besides, you may never know who might show up on the SF Crowsnest Blog, like say Joe Abercrombie ;)
3:01 PM | 
Posted by
Robert |
AUTHOR INFORMATION: Daniel Abraham is an American author of science fiction and fantasy whose bibliography includes “A Shadow in Summer” and “A Betrayal in Winter”, the first two volumes of The Long Price Quartet, as well as numerous short fiction that has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best Science Fiction anthology and The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror. Among his published stories, “Flat Diane” won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Short Story and was nominated for the Nebula, while “The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics”—collected in 2007’s Logorrhea, edited by John Klima—was nominated for a 2008 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. Daniel is also the coauthor of “Hunter’s Run” (Reviewed HERE) with George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois; contributed to “Inside Straight” (Reviewed HERE), the latest mosaic novel in GRRM’s Wild Cards universe; and wrote the Wild Cards comic book miniseries, “The Hard Call”. Upcoming releases include the urban fantasy novel, “Unclean Spirits” (Pocket Books) under the pseudonym MLN Hanover, and “The Price of Spring”, the final volume in The Long Price Quartet.
PLOT SUMMARY: Otah Machi, unlike most citizens of the Khaiate cities, understands the precipice on which his world is balanced. Machi and the other cities have no physical defenses or standing army. Instead, they rely on the powerful andat—created beings with magical powers that for generations have protected the cities of the Khaiem from invasion, including the Galtic Empire.
For centuries, the Galtic Empire has looked hungrily upon the riches of the Khaiem. But because of the threat of the vast powers of the andat, Galt has never dared attack. Enter Balasar Gice, general of the Galtic Army, who understands the power of the andat and is obsessed with preventing them from wreaking terrible destruction on the world, as has happened in centuries past. And now General Gice has a secret weapon that if successful would leave the Khaiem open to complete annihilation.
With the Galtic Army fast approaching, Otah Machi must rally the Khaiate cities and quickly raise an army, while the Poets who control the andat must wage their own battle to save their loved ones and their nation. Even though failure seems inevitable, success would mean the end of the Galtic threat. But when the final battle comes, both sides will be shocked by the consequences of their actions as the world they know is forever changed…
CLASSIFICATION: Even though The Long Price Quartet is marketed as epic fantasy, the series stands out for a number of reasons, including the oriental-flavored setting; the understated magic; the slim, self-contained volumes; and methodically-paced plots driven by characters, internal conflicts, and emotion. So even though war and the magical andats are a large part of the central storyline in the third Long Price novel, it is once again the characters that command the readers’ attention. For comparisons, I haven’t read another series quite like The Long Price Quartet, but it kind of reminds me of Lian Hearn’s Tales of the Otori spiced with a little Shakespearean drama/tragedy and the intimate characterization of Jacqueline Carey or Robin Hobb. Highly recommended to fans of “A Shadow in Summer” and “A Betrayal in Winter”, and anyone who wants to read fantasy that challenges the conventions of the genre, while tugging at the heartstrings…
FORMAT/INFO: Page count is 366 pages divided over twenty-seven chapters and a Prolog, and also includes a map of The World and The Cities of the Khaiem. Narration is in the third-person via characters both familiar and new including Otah, Maati Vaupathai, Liat Chokavi, Sinja Ajutani, and Balasar Gice. Story takes place fourteen years after the end of “A Betrayal In Winter” and like the other two Long Price novels, is both self-contained and connected. So you can read “An Autumn War” on its own if you like, but I’d recommend “A Shadow in Summer” and “A Betrayal in Winter” first if you want to understand the big picture :) The Long Price Quartet concludes next year with “The Price of Spring”. July 22, 2008 marks the North American Hardcover publication of “An Autumn War” via Tor Books. The cover artwork is another outstanding piece from Stephan Martiniere.
ANALYSIS: Aside from a cover blurb by fantasy giant George R.R. Martin, I didn’t really know what to expect from Daniel Abraham’s debut novel when I first picked it up and was pleasantly surprised by “A Shadow in Summer’s” originality and emotionalism. The follow-up title meanwhile, “A Betrayal in Winter”, was both stronger and weaker as a book compared to its predecessor, and I had about the same experience with the novel as I did “A Shadow in Summer”. Neither book though can compare to the brilliance of “An Autumn War”…
On the surface, “An Autumn War” doesn’t seem all that different from its predecessors in The Long Price Quartet. The prose is once again restrained, yet elegant. The setting is again the oriental-influenced Khaiem, where Daniel’s unique form of etiquette—different poses based on status—is used to communicate feelings of obeisance, greeting, farewell, query, affirmation, gratitude, disagreement, respect, forgiveness, forbearance, etc. The page count, while longer than the first two Long Price novels, is still significantly shorter than a lot of epic fantasy. And the story is once again character-driven. Yet, there are differences and it is these differences that I believe elevates “An Autumn War” over its predecessors and into greatness:
First and foremost, the characters are more compelling than ever. Part of the reason is that “An Autumn War” focuses on Otah Machi, Maati Vaupathai, and Liat Chokavi, and revisits the intricate relationship—Liat was a lover to both Otah & Maati in A Shadow in Summer—that exists between the three of them which is more complex (and interesting) than ever due to Otah’s current position as Khai, his children, and his wife; Liat’s grown son Nayiit who has his own wife & child, and wants to establish a relationship with his father, Maati; and the fact that they have changed so much over the decades. Just as impressive is the character of Balasar Gice who finally gives readers the Galts’ perspective. What’s interesting about Gice is that even though he’s technically the villain of the story, he’s actually quite the noble figure and I found myself feeling sympathetic for Balasar much of the time. After all, while his plans for the Khaiem are brutal, his ultimate goal is a virtuous one.
Secondly, the scope of the novel has been considerably widened. In the first two Long Price books, the consequences of events were mainly constrained to the main characters and the cities that the novels were set in—Saraykeht and Machi. In “An Autumn War”, there’s still plenty of personal drama going on, especially surrounding Otah, Maati, and Liat, but this time it is all of the Khaiem and Galt who will suffer the consequences, and it’s not just because of the decisions that are made in this third Long Price novel, but because of events that occurred thirty years earlier.
Which brings me to my third and final point—the payoff. As noted by Daniel in the Q&A below, “A Shadow in Summer” and “A Betrayal in Winter” were largely about setup, and “An Autumn War” is when readers can start to reap the benefits. That love triangle between Otah, Maati, and Liat; the tragic events surrounding the Poet Heshai and his andat Seedless; the fratricidal succession that Otah was forced into . . . all this and much more comes into play in “An Autumn War” in a major way, including a jaw-dropping finale that will leave readers breathless and desperate for the final book in the series…
Negatively there’s not very much to complain about, but I did have a few nitpicks. For one, I thought that Sinja Ajutani’s narrative was somewhat clumsily handled, particularly his torn loyalty between Machi and the Galts which wasn’t very convincing. Two, very little of the Galtic culture is explored so the only differences that are really defined between the Galts and the Khaiem are the Galt’s military prowess, language, and the use of advanced technology like steam-driven wagons. And lastly, I was disappointed with the novel's religious aspect which I thought could have used more substance.
CONCLUSION: Despite my anticipation and all of the advance praise surrounding Daniel Abraham’s new book, “An Autumn War” somehow manages to exceed expectations and is not only the author’s best novel yet, but also one of the best fantasy releases of the year…
BONUS FEATURE — Daniel Abraham Author Q&A (Questions were answered in June):
Q: When all is said and done, 2008 is going to be a banner year for Daniel Abraham. “Hunter’s Run”, the collaboration novel with George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, made its US debut in January. “Inside Straight”, the latest mosaic novel in GRRM’s Wild Cards universe, also came out in January. “The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics”—found in 2007’s Logorrhea, edited by John Klima—was nominated for a 2008 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. “Wild Cards: The Hard Call”, a six-issue comic book series from Dabel Brothers which is written by you with art by Eric Battle, made its debut in April. “An Autumn War”, the third novel in The Long Price Quartet, comes out July 22, 2008. And in December, Pocket Books will release your first urban fantasy novel, “Unclean Spirits”, under the pseudonym MLN Hanover. Plus, you’ve been working on a number of other projects and you’re raising a two-year-old daughter! So how would you describe the year that you’ve been having so far and does one accomplishment stand out more than the others?
Daniel: The description I've been defaulting to recently is “structurally overbooked.” But really, most of those projects are the products of work I did a while back. The year I'm having now—at least on a day-to-day basis—is generally work that will see the light of day sometime next year or even farther beyond. So apart from the tail end of the comic book project, my year has been about the second urban fantasy book, editing and massaging the last Long Price book, pitching and talking through the third Wild Cards book (Suicide Kings), and building the next big fantasy project. The books actually coming out and being read and reacted to is great, and I'm always interested and often delighted to see what folks think of them. But it's also kind of anticlimactic, because I've already moved on to the next thing.
As far as standouts for the year thus far, sharing a Hugo ballot with Ted Chiang, Greg Egan, and David Moles is hard to top. I have a lot of respect for the Hugo as awards go, and being mentioned in the same breath with those folks is a little stunning.
Q: Focusing on “An Autumn War”, many of the advance blurbs I’ve seen proclaim the novel as your best one yet. Would you agree with that statement? If so, why in your opinion, is “An Autumn War” your best novel so far? Is it because of the writing, the story, etc.?
Daniel: I like to pretend that I was always pretty good at putting together a sentence. On a purely word-by-word basis, I think “Autumn War's” on par with the first two books. But that said, yes, I think overall it's a better book. My editor, Jim Frenkel, described it as bigger, and he wasn't talking about the length.
The series was always meant to be four independent but mutually reinforcing stories—four episodes that made something bigger when you put them all together. “An Autumn War” is where that larger story starts to turn the corner. All the setup work is done. All the promises and threats have been made. Now it's about paying them off. Keeping the promises you made to the readers is actually a profoundly satisfying thing.
Q: Even though “An Autumn War” is just being published, you’ve already completed “The Price of Spring”, the fourth and final book in The Long Price Quartet. How do you feel about the way you concluded the series, what are your thoughts on the series as a whole, and were you able to accomplish everything you set out to when you first started writing The Long Price Quartet?
Daniel: This is probably the worst time to ask me that particular question. I'm at the part of the editing process on “The Price of Spring” where I'm in the guts of the engine, tinkering and moving things around, trying to get that last percent of power out of it. Being that close to it makes it hard to say what it's going to be like to read.
Apart from that kind of writerly paranoia, though, I am fairly pleased with it. I set out to do several things with the books, and overall, I think I've said what I set out to say. There are ways that things changed along the way—there always are—but the basic structure I wanted to play with is there. And it's working for me. We'll have to see what other people think when “The Price of Spring” comes out.
Q: You’ve emphatically stated that The Long Price Quartet is a four-part story and that there wouldn’t be any additional sequels, which is something I applaud. But does that mean you’ll never return to this milieu, be it a different time period or unexplored location, even for just a short story?
Daniel: It's possible that there may be a short story or two in there somewhere, but I doubt there's another book. The action of that larger story is built around a particular idea of magic, and I don't think I can tell many more stories around that particular speculation. In the last two books especially, I've smoked this world down to the filter.
Q: Regarding “The Hard Call”, what kind of experience has that been for you, and will we see any more comic book series set in the Wild Cards universe?
Daniel: That's been a trip. The whole Wild Cards milieu is collaborative by nature, and the comic books especially mean that I have to be part of a team, and my word ain't law. On the other hand, seeing the images that Eric (Battle) comes up with based on the descriptions I've given him has been amazing. He consistently does things that are better than what I was picturing.
And yes, if this does well enough, there are plans for other Wild Card graphic novels. But probably not by me for a while. We built the project on the model of Busiek's Astro City. Six issues or so, telling a complete story, and then moving on. And just like with the books, there are a lot of people with a lot of stories to tell. I think Melinda Snodgrass is slated next with a murder mystery/legal procedural that sounds really cool. And I know that some other writers in the consortium are kicking around ideas too.
Q: Staying on this subject, what do you feel are the biggest differences between writing a novel and a comic book, and what are the positives/negatives of each format? Also, could you tell us anything about the other comic book projects that you’re working on?
Daniel: The biggest single difference craft-wise is narrative voice. Comic books have a tremendous latitude for a narrator to come in and comment, set the tone, give information. You can do things—in fact you're almost required to do things—in a comic book that just plain don't work in straight prose. And turning it around, the tricks you use in prose don't work in comic format.
Let me give you an example. When you're writing a prose story, the part that really snaps—that's immediate and engrossing and fast—is dialogue. Two characters saying things to each other. It is action. In comic books, that's page after page of pictures of heads. Dull as grey primer. The power in the comic books comes from getting out of the way and letting the images carry the plot.
As to other projects, I don't have anything lined up at the moment. There are some adaptations I did for Avatar Press that are waiting for art, but my work there is done. And there's a project I'd like to do—it's called The Golden Age of Wireless, and if I ever get anyone to sign on for it I think it'll be wildly nifty—but I'm still new enough in that industry that pitching original ideas may be optimistic on my part.
Q: When I interviewed you last year, you mentioned that you were particularly fond of your novelette, “The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics”, and lo and behold it gets nominated for a 2008 Hugo Award! What’s the novelette about, why is it special to you, and how do you feel about the Hugo nomination?
Daniel: To answer the last one first, I'm deeply happy about the nomination. It really is delightful and also oddly humbling. The story itself is a pretty traditional three-tasks structure, just like a fairly tale. I actually had just read a Marguerite Yourcenar short story just before I wrote it that was riffing on the same structure. It really is one of the old classics of structure.
Cambist is also a conversation about economics and money. I've been reading about economics for a few years now, so this was where I got to take all of the things that really excited me about the ideas I'd been reading about and synthesize them into something cool. And yes, I know, economics has a reputation for being pretty much dead dull. That's part of why I found so much of it so exciting.
I think money is the great example of human cultural magic that actually works. I've been on this rant elsewhere, but briefly, if I say “fireball” and a fireball appears, that's magic. If it takes two people yelling “fireball” to make one appear, still magic. So when we all say “this piece of paper (or circle of metal or set of electronic data) holds abstract value” and then all of a sudden it does? And a million things that would have been impossible before suddenly become possible? Yeah, that turns me on. The Cambist is about some of the implications of that all wrapped around a fairytale and men's adventure stories.
Q: That’s some interesting stuff! So I was really surprised when I heard you had written an urban fantasy novel to be published under a pseudonym. Why urban fantasy, where did the inspiration for “Unclean Spirits” come from, and what’s the book about? Can you also tell us about the Black Sun’s Daughter series that the book is a part of, how you ended up with Pocket Books, and your pseudonym—how you chose it, what it means and so on?
Daniel: A lot of folks seem surprised, but it was a simple decision for me. The Black Sun books are a very different project from the epic fantasies. Anyone picking them up and expecting something like the Long Price is going to be disappointed no matter how good they are. It's like when you forget you ordered a Coke and think the stuff in the cup is iced tea. It can be really good Coke and still be nasty iced tea. I wanted the projects to be separate, and putting the one under a different name seemed the simplest way to do that. I've always believed that if the thing that makes a book good is the name of the author, it isn't a good book.
The reason for writing something else was also straightforward. I finished the Long Price books early, and I was looking for something to do. I was a Buffy fan from the beginning, I read the first four or five Anita Blake books back before they ruled the universe, I followed Hellblazer all through high school and college, and I have some friends who are playing in that sandbox. I felt like I had something interesting to say about the genre and the time to do it. So I took a swing. (With some encouragement from my UK publisher.)
I think the urban fantasy genre—by which I mean the books with the girl in leather pants and a tattoo at the small of her back—is interesting, often bordering of symptomatic. It's about the relationship of women to power, and it's more ambivalent than you'd expect in our allegedly post-feminist society. What I wanted to take on was the difference between empowering women and weaponizing them. And the difference between being free and not having boundaries. Plus which, they're fun, right?
The process by which they wound up at Pocket was complex, and my agent could probably describe it better than I can. I can say Jennifer Heddle over at Pocket has been great to work with. And I really like what I've seen of the cover art.
Q: One project that you’ve been working on is a symposium to discuss what fantasy is—its strengths, weaknesses, etc. So what have you learned from this symposium so far?
Daniel: Most of what I've learned is where my own weaknesses lie. Being in the room with people who've been doing this work professionally for so much longer than I have is bound to bring up things I've never thought about. Walter Jon Williams and Melinda Snodgrass had a lot of interesting things to say about structure. George was eloquent on the idea of landscape and the power of landscape. We took The Lord of the Rings pretty much apart and put it back together again.
We did it almost a year ago, and I still have two more reports to write—the one on fanservice and the one on scope—before I get to my summarizing thoughts.
Q: You’re also involved in an ambitious epic fantasy project where you’re working out the outline, worldbuilding, characters, plot arcs and whatnot of the series before actually sitting down and writing the first book. How is that progressing, can you give us any specific details about the series, and how much of an impact will the symposium—and what you learned from it—have on the series?
Daniel: The symposium was the first step in that project. They were always meant to go hand-in-hand. Right now I'm looking at a five-book story with no more than five viewpoint characters in any one book, and with each book running between 200- and 225,000 words. So call that five or six hundred pages once it’s in a book. About a million words total runtime, aiming for a story that's clear, emotionally present, accessible, and appropriately huge. Beyond that, I have some pretty strong suspicions of what it'll be, but nothing's set in stone yet.
I've made the map (with help from S. M. Stirling and Maureen McHugh, if you can grok Maureen McHugh building high fantasy maps for giggles). I've written up the initial documents with the characters I have in mind (The Bank Girl, The Man in Despair, Pudgy Boy, The Monarchist, The Detective, The Apostate, The Second), the magic system (which has a lot to do with Karl Rove, oddly enough), a little bit of the world's history, the map and a little gazetteer, the rough plot of the whole damn thing, and a list of the things I think are still missing. Then in July (scheduling is a bear), I'm having about eight people over to my place to kick it around. Sadly, George is out of town for the duration, but so far Walter Jon Williams, Melinda Snodgrass, Ian Tregillis, S. M. Stirling, Carrie Vaughn, Vic Milan, and Ty Franck have signed up to help me out. Once that's done—once they've ripped apart everything I've got and we've talked about what I want to do and others way to do it—I'll take a week or two to rebuild. Then I'll write the first hundred pages or so, a detailed outline of the project, and a pitch document that makes the whole thing sound as sexy as I can manage, and then we'll try to sell it.
If it goes well, I'm expecting to crank them out about one a year until the whole thing's done. With this much of the thinking and design work already done, I expect that'll be easier than if, say, I hadn't done it up front.
Q: If you look at people like Steven Erikson, Joe Abercrombie, Brandon Sanderson, Richard K. Morgan, Jacqueline Carey, and yourself, more and more authors these days are writing fantasy that is ambiguous, gritty or blatantly defies traditional fantasy tropes. What are your thoughts on this movement, the audience’s response to such books, and fantasy tropes in general?
Daniel: I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, I'm clearly interested in poking at the walls of fantasy and trying to see what they're good for and what they aren't. But I distrust the impulse to do “gritty” in the name of realism. Dark and unpleasant is . . . well, it's easy. If you want to evoke an emotional response in the reader—and that's kind of the game we're playing—killing a puppy will do it every time. Doesn't make me a good writer. Having something that's realistic, that has comedy and tragedy both, violence but also compassion, is much harder. Some of the folks you've mentioned have pulled it off. I'm hoping to do that too.
Also feeding my ambivalence, I think there's a difference between the things that writers want from stories and what readers are looking for. Writers—myself absolutely included—have to weather the temptation to get wrapped up in explorations of the form and technical nifty things that we can do. I think a lot of modern art has the same problem. Artists get involved in their conversation with other artists about the issues that turn them on. The danger is that you have something that's technically fascinating—like a novel that revolves around a scene that's never shown to the reader and that the characters don't exactly remember—but vaguely dissatisfying as a straight read. I'm thinking of M. John Harrison's “The Course of the Hart” there. Nifty book if you're a writer. As a reader, not so much. I'm of those folks who thinks that if you're a writer's writer, you're doing it wrong.
The tropes of genre are there for a reason. They serve functions. You can get rid of them or change them or challenge them or whatever if (and only if) you then do something else to address the jobs they were doing.
Q: If there are any other projects that you’re currently involved in or plan on starting in the near future that I haven’t covered yet, could you talk about them now :)?
Daniel: Oh, it's all vaporware at the moment. I would like to write a mystery, and I have one in mind. I would like to write a space opera, and I have one in mind. I would like to do The Golden Age of Wireless comics, but I don't have an artist or a publisher.
Q: In the past, you came up with some great author recommendations in Catherynne M. Valente, Tobias S. Buckell, Walter Jon Williams, and Ian Tregillis whose series I’m highly anticipating :) I’m hoping you’ll have some more treats for us this time, so any recommendations?
Daniel: You tried Warren Hammond yet? If you haven't you should. He came out with a novel called KOP a couple years back that deserved a lot more attention than it got. It's a hard-boiled detective story set on another planet. The man has an eye for detail and an ear for noir that any sane author would kill for. Really, really good.
I also just got to blurb the new Ekaterina Sedia book, “The Alchemy of Stone” (Reviewed HERE). Sedia's first book got a lot of comparisons to Gaiman, but I think that's a little unfair. She deserves to be read as a first rate Ekaterina Sedia, not as a Gaiman clone. “The Alchemy of Stone” was a surprisingly disturbing book for me. You want to talk about someone defeating tropes and expectations, she's doing it.
PLOT SUMMARY: Otah Machi, unlike most citizens of the Khaiate cities, understands the precipice on which his world is balanced. Machi and the other cities have no physical defenses or standing army. Instead, they rely on the powerful andat—created beings with magical powers that for generations have protected the cities of the Khaiem from invasion, including the Galtic Empire.
For centuries, the Galtic Empire has looked hungrily upon the riches of the Khaiem. But because of the threat of the vast powers of the andat, Galt has never dared attack. Enter Balasar Gice, general of the Galtic Army, who understands the power of the andat and is obsessed with preventing them from wreaking terrible destruction on the world, as has happened in centuries past. And now General Gice has a secret weapon that if successful would leave the Khaiem open to complete annihilation.
With the Galtic Army fast approaching, Otah Machi must rally the Khaiate cities and quickly raise an army, while the Poets who control the andat must wage their own battle to save their loved ones and their nation. Even though failure seems inevitable, success would mean the end of the Galtic threat. But when the final battle comes, both sides will be shocked by the consequences of their actions as the world they know is forever changed…
CLASSIFICATION: Even though The Long Price Quartet is marketed as epic fantasy, the series stands out for a number of reasons, including the oriental-flavored setting; the understated magic; the slim, self-contained volumes; and methodically-paced plots driven by characters, internal conflicts, and emotion. So even though war and the magical andats are a large part of the central storyline in the third Long Price novel, it is once again the characters that command the readers’ attention. For comparisons, I haven’t read another series quite like The Long Price Quartet, but it kind of reminds me of Lian Hearn’s Tales of the Otori spiced with a little Shakespearean drama/tragedy and the intimate characterization of Jacqueline Carey or Robin Hobb. Highly recommended to fans of “A Shadow in Summer” and “A Betrayal in Winter”, and anyone who wants to read fantasy that challenges the conventions of the genre, while tugging at the heartstrings…
FORMAT/INFO: Page count is 366 pages divided over twenty-seven chapters and a Prolog, and also includes a map of The World and The Cities of the Khaiem. Narration is in the third-person via characters both familiar and new including Otah, Maati Vaupathai, Liat Chokavi, Sinja Ajutani, and Balasar Gice. Story takes place fourteen years after the end of “A Betrayal In Winter” and like the other two Long Price novels, is both self-contained and connected. So you can read “An Autumn War” on its own if you like, but I’d recommend “A Shadow in Summer” and “A Betrayal in Winter” first if you want to understand the big picture :) The Long Price Quartet concludes next year with “The Price of Spring”. July 22, 2008 marks the North American Hardcover publication of “An Autumn War” via Tor Books. The cover artwork is another outstanding piece from Stephan Martiniere.
ANALYSIS: Aside from a cover blurb by fantasy giant George R.R. Martin, I didn’t really know what to expect from Daniel Abraham’s debut novel when I first picked it up and was pleasantly surprised by “A Shadow in Summer’s” originality and emotionalism. The follow-up title meanwhile, “A Betrayal in Winter”, was both stronger and weaker as a book compared to its predecessor, and I had about the same experience with the novel as I did “A Shadow in Summer”. Neither book though can compare to the brilliance of “An Autumn War”…
On the surface, “An Autumn War” doesn’t seem all that different from its predecessors in The Long Price Quartet. The prose is once again restrained, yet elegant. The setting is again the oriental-influenced Khaiem, where Daniel’s unique form of etiquette—different poses based on status—is used to communicate feelings of obeisance, greeting, farewell, query, affirmation, gratitude, disagreement, respect, forgiveness, forbearance, etc. The page count, while longer than the first two Long Price novels, is still significantly shorter than a lot of epic fantasy. And the story is once again character-driven. Yet, there are differences and it is these differences that I believe elevates “An Autumn War” over its predecessors and into greatness:
First and foremost, the characters are more compelling than ever. Part of the reason is that “An Autumn War” focuses on Otah Machi, Maati Vaupathai, and Liat Chokavi, and revisits the intricate relationship—Liat was a lover to both Otah & Maati in A Shadow in Summer—that exists between the three of them which is more complex (and interesting) than ever due to Otah’s current position as Khai, his children, and his wife; Liat’s grown son Nayiit who has his own wife & child, and wants to establish a relationship with his father, Maati; and the fact that they have changed so much over the decades. Just as impressive is the character of Balasar Gice who finally gives readers the Galts’ perspective. What’s interesting about Gice is that even though he’s technically the villain of the story, he’s actually quite the noble figure and I found myself feeling sympathetic for Balasar much of the time. After all, while his plans for the Khaiem are brutal, his ultimate goal is a virtuous one.
Secondly, the scope of the novel has been considerably widened. In the first two Long Price books, the consequences of events were mainly constrained to the main characters and the cities that the novels were set in—Saraykeht and Machi. In “An Autumn War”, there’s still plenty of personal drama going on, especially surrounding Otah, Maati, and Liat, but this time it is all of the Khaiem and Galt who will suffer the consequences, and it’s not just because of the decisions that are made in this third Long Price novel, but because of events that occurred thirty years earlier.
Which brings me to my third and final point—the payoff. As noted by Daniel in the Q&A below, “A Shadow in Summer” and “A Betrayal in Winter” were largely about setup, and “An Autumn War” is when readers can start to reap the benefits. That love triangle between Otah, Maati, and Liat; the tragic events surrounding the Poet Heshai and his andat Seedless; the fratricidal succession that Otah was forced into . . . all this and much more comes into play in “An Autumn War” in a major way, including a jaw-dropping finale that will leave readers breathless and desperate for the final book in the series…
Negatively there’s not very much to complain about, but I did have a few nitpicks. For one, I thought that Sinja Ajutani’s narrative was somewhat clumsily handled, particularly his torn loyalty between Machi and the Galts which wasn’t very convincing. Two, very little of the Galtic culture is explored so the only differences that are really defined between the Galts and the Khaiem are the Galt’s military prowess, language, and the use of advanced technology like steam-driven wagons. And lastly, I was disappointed with the novel's religious aspect which I thought could have used more substance.
CONCLUSION: Despite my anticipation and all of the advance praise surrounding Daniel Abraham’s new book, “An Autumn War” somehow manages to exceed expectations and is not only the author’s best novel yet, but also one of the best fantasy releases of the year…
BONUS FEATURE — Daniel Abraham Author Q&A (Questions were answered in June):
Q: When all is said and done, 2008 is going to be a banner year for Daniel Abraham. “Hunter’s Run”, the collaboration novel with George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, made its US debut in January. “Inside Straight”, the latest mosaic novel in GRRM’s Wild Cards universe, also came out in January. “The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics”—found in 2007’s Logorrhea, edited by John Klima—was nominated for a 2008 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. “Wild Cards: The Hard Call”, a six-issue comic book series from Dabel Brothers which is written by you with art by Eric Battle, made its debut in April. “An Autumn War”, the third novel in The Long Price Quartet, comes out July 22, 2008. And in December, Pocket Books will release your first urban fantasy novel, “Unclean Spirits”, under the pseudonym MLN Hanover. Plus, you’ve been working on a number of other projects and you’re raising a two-year-old daughter! So how would you describe the year that you’ve been having so far and does one accomplishment stand out more than the others?Daniel: The description I've been defaulting to recently is “structurally overbooked.” But really, most of those projects are the products of work I did a while back. The year I'm having now—at least on a day-to-day basis—is generally work that will see the light of day sometime next year or even farther beyond. So apart from the tail end of the comic book project, my year has been about the second urban fantasy book, editing and massaging the last Long Price book, pitching and talking through the third Wild Cards book (Suicide Kings), and building the next big fantasy project. The books actually coming out and being read and reacted to is great, and I'm always interested and often delighted to see what folks think of them. But it's also kind of anticlimactic, because I've already moved on to the next thing.
As far as standouts for the year thus far, sharing a Hugo ballot with Ted Chiang, Greg Egan, and David Moles is hard to top. I have a lot of respect for the Hugo as awards go, and being mentioned in the same breath with those folks is a little stunning.
Q: Focusing on “An Autumn War”, many of the advance blurbs I’ve seen proclaim the novel as your best one yet. Would you agree with that statement? If so, why in your opinion, is “An Autumn War” your best novel so far? Is it because of the writing, the story, etc.?
Daniel: I like to pretend that I was always pretty good at putting together a sentence. On a purely word-by-word basis, I think “Autumn War's” on par with the first two books. But that said, yes, I think overall it's a better book. My editor, Jim Frenkel, described it as bigger, and he wasn't talking about the length.The series was always meant to be four independent but mutually reinforcing stories—four episodes that made something bigger when you put them all together. “An Autumn War” is where that larger story starts to turn the corner. All the setup work is done. All the promises and threats have been made. Now it's about paying them off. Keeping the promises you made to the readers is actually a profoundly satisfying thing.
Q: Even though “An Autumn War” is just being published, you’ve already completed “The Price of Spring”, the fourth and final book in The Long Price Quartet. How do you feel about the way you concluded the series, what are your thoughts on the series as a whole, and were you able to accomplish everything you set out to when you first started writing The Long Price Quartet?
Daniel: This is probably the worst time to ask me that particular question. I'm at the part of the editing process on “The Price of Spring” where I'm in the guts of the engine, tinkering and moving things around, trying to get that last percent of power out of it. Being that close to it makes it hard to say what it's going to be like to read.
Apart from that kind of writerly paranoia, though, I am fairly pleased with it. I set out to do several things with the books, and overall, I think I've said what I set out to say. There are ways that things changed along the way—there always are—but the basic structure I wanted to play with is there. And it's working for me. We'll have to see what other people think when “The Price of Spring” comes out.
Q: You’ve emphatically stated that The Long Price Quartet is a four-part story and that there wouldn’t be any additional sequels, which is something I applaud. But does that mean you’ll never return to this milieu, be it a different time period or unexplored location, even for just a short story?
Daniel: It's possible that there may be a short story or two in there somewhere, but I doubt there's another book. The action of that larger story is built around a particular idea of magic, and I don't think I can tell many more stories around that particular speculation. In the last two books especially, I've smoked this world down to the filter.
Q: Regarding “The Hard Call”, what kind of experience has that been for you, and will we see any more comic book series set in the Wild Cards universe?
Daniel: That's been a trip. The whole Wild Cards milieu is collaborative by nature, and the comic books especially mean that I have to be part of a team, and my word ain't law. On the other hand, seeing the images that Eric (Battle) comes up with based on the descriptions I've given him has been amazing. He consistently does things that are better than what I was picturing.And yes, if this does well enough, there are plans for other Wild Card graphic novels. But probably not by me for a while. We built the project on the model of Busiek's Astro City. Six issues or so, telling a complete story, and then moving on. And just like with the books, there are a lot of people with a lot of stories to tell. I think Melinda Snodgrass is slated next with a murder mystery/legal procedural that sounds really cool. And I know that some other writers in the consortium are kicking around ideas too.
Q: Staying on this subject, what do you feel are the biggest differences between writing a novel and a comic book, and what are the positives/negatives of each format? Also, could you tell us anything about the other comic book projects that you’re working on?
Daniel: The biggest single difference craft-wise is narrative voice. Comic books have a tremendous latitude for a narrator to come in and comment, set the tone, give information. You can do things—in fact you're almost required to do things—in a comic book that just plain don't work in straight prose. And turning it around, the tricks you use in prose don't work in comic format.
Let me give you an example. When you're writing a prose story, the part that really snaps—that's immediate and engrossing and fast—is dialogue. Two characters saying things to each other. It is action. In comic books, that's page after page of pictures of heads. Dull as grey primer. The power in the comic books comes from getting out of the way and letting the images carry the plot.
As to other projects, I don't have anything lined up at the moment. There are some adaptations I did for Avatar Press that are waiting for art, but my work there is done. And there's a project I'd like to do—it's called The Golden Age of Wireless, and if I ever get anyone to sign on for it I think it'll be wildly nifty—but I'm still new enough in that industry that pitching original ideas may be optimistic on my part.
Q: When I interviewed you last year, you mentioned that you were particularly fond of your novelette, “The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics”, and lo and behold it gets nominated for a 2008 Hugo Award! What’s the novelette about, why is it special to you, and how do you feel about the Hugo nomination?
Daniel: To answer the last one first, I'm deeply happy about the nomination. It really is delightful and also oddly humbling. The story itself is a pretty traditional three-tasks structure, just like a fairly tale. I actually had just read a Marguerite Yourcenar short story just before I wrote it that was riffing on the same structure. It really is one of the old classics of structure.
Cambist is also a conversation about economics and money. I've been reading about economics for a few years now, so this was where I got to take all of the things that really excited me about the ideas I'd been reading about and synthesize them into something cool. And yes, I know, economics has a reputation for being pretty much dead dull. That's part of why I found so much of it so exciting.I think money is the great example of human cultural magic that actually works. I've been on this rant elsewhere, but briefly, if I say “fireball” and a fireball appears, that's magic. If it takes two people yelling “fireball” to make one appear, still magic. So when we all say “this piece of paper (or circle of metal or set of electronic data) holds abstract value” and then all of a sudden it does? And a million things that would have been impossible before suddenly become possible? Yeah, that turns me on. The Cambist is about some of the implications of that all wrapped around a fairytale and men's adventure stories.
Q: That’s some interesting stuff! So I was really surprised when I heard you had written an urban fantasy novel to be published under a pseudonym. Why urban fantasy, where did the inspiration for “Unclean Spirits” come from, and what’s the book about? Can you also tell us about the Black Sun’s Daughter series that the book is a part of, how you ended up with Pocket Books, and your pseudonym—how you chose it, what it means and so on?
Daniel: A lot of folks seem surprised, but it was a simple decision for me. The Black Sun books are a very different project from the epic fantasies. Anyone picking them up and expecting something like the Long Price is going to be disappointed no matter how good they are. It's like when you forget you ordered a Coke and think the stuff in the cup is iced tea. It can be really good Coke and still be nasty iced tea. I wanted the projects to be separate, and putting the one under a different name seemed the simplest way to do that. I've always believed that if the thing that makes a book good is the name of the author, it isn't a good book.
The reason for writing something else was also straightforward. I finished the Long Price books early, and I was looking for something to do. I was a Buffy fan from the beginning, I read the first four or five Anita Blake books back before they ruled the universe, I followed Hellblazer all through high school and college, and I have some friends who are playing in that sandbox. I felt like I had something interesting to say about the genre and the time to do it. So I took a swing. (With some encouragement from my UK publisher.)
I think the urban fantasy genre—by which I mean the books with the girl in leather pants and a tattoo at the small of her back—is interesting, often bordering of symptomatic. It's about the relationship of women to power, and it's more ambivalent than you'd expect in our allegedly post-feminist society. What I wanted to take on was the difference between empowering women and weaponizing them. And the difference between being free and not having boundaries. Plus which, they're fun, right?The process by which they wound up at Pocket was complex, and my agent could probably describe it better than I can. I can say Jennifer Heddle over at Pocket has been great to work with. And I really like what I've seen of the cover art.
Q: One project that you’ve been working on is a symposium to discuss what fantasy is—its strengths, weaknesses, etc. So what have you learned from this symposium so far?
Daniel: Most of what I've learned is where my own weaknesses lie. Being in the room with people who've been doing this work professionally for so much longer than I have is bound to bring up things I've never thought about. Walter Jon Williams and Melinda Snodgrass had a lot of interesting things to say about structure. George was eloquent on the idea of landscape and the power of landscape. We took The Lord of the Rings pretty much apart and put it back together again.
We did it almost a year ago, and I still have two more reports to write—the one on fanservice and the one on scope—before I get to my summarizing thoughts.
Q: You’re also involved in an ambitious epic fantasy project where you’re working out the outline, worldbuilding, characters, plot arcs and whatnot of the series before actually sitting down and writing the first book. How is that progressing, can you give us any specific details about the series, and how much of an impact will the symposium—and what you learned from it—have on the series?
Daniel: The symposium was the first step in that project. They were always meant to go hand-in-hand. Right now I'm looking at a five-book story with no more than five viewpoint characters in any one book, and with each book running between 200- and 225,000 words. So call that five or six hundred pages once it’s in a book. About a million words total runtime, aiming for a story that's clear, emotionally present, accessible, and appropriately huge. Beyond that, I have some pretty strong suspicions of what it'll be, but nothing's set in stone yet.I've made the map (with help from S. M. Stirling and Maureen McHugh, if you can grok Maureen McHugh building high fantasy maps for giggles). I've written up the initial documents with the characters I have in mind (The Bank Girl, The Man in Despair, Pudgy Boy, The Monarchist, The Detective, The Apostate, The Second), the magic system (which has a lot to do with Karl Rove, oddly enough), a little bit of the world's history, the map and a little gazetteer, the rough plot of the whole damn thing, and a list of the things I think are still missing. Then in July (scheduling is a bear), I'm having about eight people over to my place to kick it around. Sadly, George is out of town for the duration, but so far Walter Jon Williams, Melinda Snodgrass, Ian Tregillis, S. M. Stirling, Carrie Vaughn, Vic Milan, and Ty Franck have signed up to help me out. Once that's done—once they've ripped apart everything I've got and we've talked about what I want to do and others way to do it—I'll take a week or two to rebuild. Then I'll write the first hundred pages or so, a detailed outline of the project, and a pitch document that makes the whole thing sound as sexy as I can manage, and then we'll try to sell it.
If it goes well, I'm expecting to crank them out about one a year until the whole thing's done. With this much of the thinking and design work already done, I expect that'll be easier than if, say, I hadn't done it up front.
Q: If you look at people like Steven Erikson, Joe Abercrombie, Brandon Sanderson, Richard K. Morgan, Jacqueline Carey, and yourself, more and more authors these days are writing fantasy that is ambiguous, gritty or blatantly defies traditional fantasy tropes. What are your thoughts on this movement, the audience’s response to such books, and fantasy tropes in general?
Daniel: I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, I'm clearly interested in poking at the walls of fantasy and trying to see what they're good for and what they aren't. But I distrust the impulse to do “gritty” in the name of realism. Dark and unpleasant is . . . well, it's easy. If you want to evoke an emotional response in the reader—and that's kind of the game we're playing—killing a puppy will do it every time. Doesn't make me a good writer. Having something that's realistic, that has comedy and tragedy both, violence but also compassion, is much harder. Some of the folks you've mentioned have pulled it off. I'm hoping to do that too.
Also feeding my ambivalence, I think there's a difference between the things that writers want from stories and what readers are looking for. Writers—myself absolutely included—have to weather the temptation to get wrapped up in explorations of the form and technical nifty things that we can do. I think a lot of modern art has the same problem. Artists get involved in their conversation with other artists about the issues that turn them on. The danger is that you have something that's technically fascinating—like a novel that revolves around a scene that's never shown to the reader and that the characters don't exactly remember—but vaguely dissatisfying as a straight read. I'm thinking of M. John Harrison's “The Course of the Hart” there. Nifty book if you're a writer. As a reader, not so much. I'm of those folks who thinks that if you're a writer's writer, you're doing it wrong.The tropes of genre are there for a reason. They serve functions. You can get rid of them or change them or challenge them or whatever if (and only if) you then do something else to address the jobs they were doing.
Q: If there are any other projects that you’re currently involved in or plan on starting in the near future that I haven’t covered yet, could you talk about them now :)?
Daniel: Oh, it's all vaporware at the moment. I would like to write a mystery, and I have one in mind. I would like to write a space opera, and I have one in mind. I would like to do The Golden Age of Wireless comics, but I don't have an artist or a publisher.
Q: In the past, you came up with some great author recommendations in Catherynne M. Valente, Tobias S. Buckell, Walter Jon Williams, and Ian Tregillis whose series I’m highly anticipating :) I’m hoping you’ll have some more treats for us this time, so any recommendations?
Daniel: You tried Warren Hammond yet? If you haven't you should. He came out with a novel called KOP a couple years back that deserved a lot more attention than it got. It's a hard-boiled detective story set on another planet. The man has an eye for detail and an ear for noir that any sane author would kill for. Really, really good.
I also just got to blurb the new Ekaterina Sedia book, “The Alchemy of Stone” (Reviewed HERE). Sedia's first book got a lot of comparisons to Gaiman, but I think that's a little unfair. She deserves to be read as a first rate Ekaterina Sedia, not as a Gaiman clone. “The Alchemy of Stone” was a surprisingly disturbing book for me. You want to talk about someone defeating tropes and expectations, she's doing it.
Ever since it was first announced that the Joker would be appearing in the new Batman film, The Dark Knight, I have been highly anticipating the movie’s release. To me, you can’t have a great hero without a great villain. That’s why Spider-Man and Batman are my two favorite superheroes of all time. Because when it comes to rogue galleries, no one else compares. And of these rogues, the Joker is one of my favorites.
Needless to say, I had some pretty high expectations for The Dark Knight—expectations that only grew after seeing the previews, reading the reviews and hearing about Heath Ledger’s (RIP) Oscar-worthy performance. In fact, I had such high expectations for the movie that a part of me was afraid to watch The Dark Knight, for fear of being let down. Of course, that wasn’t enough to prevent me from going to the theatre…and being completely blown away. Basically everything you’ve heard about The Dark Knight being the best comic book adaptation ever or the best movie of 2008—well it’s true. The Dark Knight is just that good and then some…
For starters, The Dark Knight is the most realistic take that I’ve ever seen for a comic book movie. Heck, I wouldn’t even describe The Dark Knight as a comic book movie. Take away the batsuit and the Joker’s face paint, and it’s like watching an epic crime drama, complete with mobsters, corrupt policemen, power plays and so on. And like an epic crime drama, the plot is sophisticated, the action is intense—and surprisingly violent—and the emotion is incredibly visceral.
As far as the Joker, Heath’s performance is every bit as good as people say it is and one of the best Joker interpretations that I’ve ever seen. My only complaint—there just wasn’t enough of the Joker in the film. As far as the rest of the cast, Bale, Caine, Freeman, and Oldman don’t disappoint in their returning roles, so the pressure was on Maggie Gyllenhaal who did a much better job with Rachel Dawes than Katie Holmes did, while Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent aka Two-Face, was excellent and one of the movie’s major surprises. Another surprise was the thought-provoking questions The Dark Knight asks about good, evil and what it means to be a hero, as well as the shocking turn of events at the end of the film which explains the movie’s title while also hinting at the direction the filmmakers may pursue in the next Batman film.
In closing, The Dark Knight not only lived up to my lofty expectations, but it shattered them, far surpassing any of the previous Batman films, and setting a new standard in filmmaking that is going to be hard to top...
NOTE: Supposedly the trailer for the movie adaptation of one of the greatest graphic novels ever in Watchmen was supposed to run in front of The Dark Knight. Unfortunately our theatre must not have gotten that memo, so there was no trailer. Thankfully that's what the internet is for :) So to view the excellent trailer, click HERE or watch the video below:
Needless to say, I had some pretty high expectations for The Dark Knight—expectations that only grew after seeing the previews, reading the reviews and hearing about Heath Ledger’s (RIP) Oscar-worthy performance. In fact, I had such high expectations for the movie that a part of me was afraid to watch The Dark Knight, for fear of being let down. Of course, that wasn’t enough to prevent me from going to the theatre…and being completely blown away. Basically everything you’ve heard about The Dark Knight being the best comic book adaptation ever or the best movie of 2008—well it’s true. The Dark Knight is just that good and then some…
For starters, The Dark Knight is the most realistic take that I’ve ever seen for a comic book movie. Heck, I wouldn’t even describe The Dark Knight as a comic book movie. Take away the batsuit and the Joker’s face paint, and it’s like watching an epic crime drama, complete with mobsters, corrupt policemen, power plays and so on. And like an epic crime drama, the plot is sophisticated, the action is intense—and surprisingly violent—and the emotion is incredibly visceral.
As far as the Joker, Heath’s performance is every bit as good as people say it is and one of the best Joker interpretations that I’ve ever seen. My only complaint—there just wasn’t enough of the Joker in the film. As far as the rest of the cast, Bale, Caine, Freeman, and Oldman don’t disappoint in their returning roles, so the pressure was on Maggie Gyllenhaal who did a much better job with Rachel Dawes than Katie Holmes did, while Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent aka Two-Face, was excellent and one of the movie’s major surprises. Another surprise was the thought-provoking questions The Dark Knight asks about good, evil and what it means to be a hero, as well as the shocking turn of events at the end of the film which explains the movie’s title while also hinting at the direction the filmmakers may pursue in the next Batman film.
In closing, The Dark Knight not only lived up to my lofty expectations, but it shattered them, far surpassing any of the previous Batman films, and setting a new standard in filmmaking that is going to be hard to top...
NOTE: Supposedly the trailer for the movie adaptation of one of the greatest graphic novels ever in Watchmen was supposed to run in front of The Dark Knight. Unfortunately our theatre must not have gotten that memo, so there was no trailer. Thankfully that's what the internet is for :) So to view the excellent trailer, click HERE or watch the video below:
Batman @ WikipediaOfficial Robert Greenberger Blog
Order “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” HERE
Read An Excerpt HERE
AUTHOR INFORMATION: Robert Greenberger’s professional career began at Starlog Press where he created Comics Scene, the first nationally distributed magazine to cover comic books, comic strips, and animation. From there, he worked at DC Comics as assistant editor and editor on such titles as Crisis on Infinite Earths, Batman, Detective Comics, Star Trek, Starman, Doom Patrol, etc. Bob also worked at Marvel Comics, Gist Communications and Weekly World News. As a freelancer, Bob has written numerous Star Trek novels & short stories and a variety of SF/fantasy short fiction. Most recently, he wrote the novelization of Hellboy II: The Golden Army for Dark Horse Books. He has also written several nonfiction titles for both adults and young adults including coauthoring 2004’s DC Comics Encyclopedia. Bob also writes for SciFi.com and offers commentary on ComicMix.com.
DESCRIPTION: “Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot. So my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible . . . I shall become a bat!” So declared millionaire industrialist Bruce Wayne, orphaned as a boy by a murderous thug and driven as a man to battle the scourge of crime by becoming Batman.
Batman swooped into popular culture in 1939—and for nearly seventy years has thrilled audiences in countless comics, live-action and animated television programs, and seven feature films. Prowling the darkened rooftops of Gotham City, roaring through the teeming streets in the sleek, high-powered Batmobile, and leaping into action when the iconic Bat-Signal pierces the night sky, the Caped Crusader is a larger-than-life legend. And now, for the first time in more than thirty years, everything there is to know about Batman the comic book character, is collected in one comprehensive new sourcebook.
From A to Z, this comprehensive sourcebook contains everything you ever wanted to know about the Dark Knight, including entries on The Joker, Amazon Girl, Catwoman, Apokolips, Robin, Doomsday, Sandman, the Justice League of America, Scarecrow, and hundreds more. There are literally hundreds of entries that go into incredible detail fleshing out and linking together the Batman mythos, including the complete details on Batman’s origins and biographies of every character, animal, place, accessory, and vehicle in the Batman universe.
CLASSIFICATION: As the title implies, “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” is an encyclopedia. In other words, the book is “a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on a particular branch of knowledge”—in this case, the comic book universe of Batman—which is organized alphabetically from A (Abattoir) to Z (Zur-en-arrh). As such, “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” is not the kind of book “that you can pick up and read from cover to cover”—as stated by Graeme in his review HERE—but it is an excellent source of information for browsing through and cross-referencing.
FORMAT/INFO: The Essential Batman Encyclopedia is a large book, both in actual size (10.8 x 8.5 x 0.9 inches) and in page count (388 pages), which is amplified by really tiny print. Features the following highlights:
~Fascinating details and the complete background on Batman’s origins.
DESCRIPTION: “Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot. So my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible . . . I shall become a bat!” So declared millionaire industrialist Bruce Wayne, orphaned as a boy by a murderous thug and driven as a man to battle the scourge of crime by becoming Batman.
Batman swooped into popular culture in 1939—and for nearly seventy years has thrilled audiences in countless comics, live-action and animated television programs, and seven feature films. Prowling the darkened rooftops of Gotham City, roaring through the teeming streets in the sleek, high-powered Batmobile, and leaping into action when the iconic Bat-Signal pierces the night sky, the Caped Crusader is a larger-than-life legend. And now, for the first time in more than thirty years, everything there is to know about Batman the comic book character, is collected in one comprehensive new sourcebook.From A to Z, this comprehensive sourcebook contains everything you ever wanted to know about the Dark Knight, including entries on The Joker, Amazon Girl, Catwoman, Apokolips, Robin, Doomsday, Sandman, the Justice League of America, Scarecrow, and hundreds more. There are literally hundreds of entries that go into incredible detail fleshing out and linking together the Batman mythos, including the complete details on Batman’s origins and biographies of every character, animal, place, accessory, and vehicle in the Batman universe.
CLASSIFICATION: As the title implies, “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” is an encyclopedia. In other words, the book is “a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on a particular branch of knowledge”—in this case, the comic book universe of Batman—which is organized alphabetically from A (Abattoir) to Z (Zur-en-arrh). As such, “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” is not the kind of book “that you can pick up and read from cover to cover”—as stated by Graeme in his review HERE—but it is an excellent source of information for browsing through and cross-referencing.
FORMAT/INFO: The Essential Batman Encyclopedia is a large book, both in actual size (10.8 x 8.5 x 0.9 inches) and in page count (388 pages), which is amplified by really tiny print. Features the following highlights:
~Fascinating details and the complete background on Batman’s origins.
~Biographies of every major character in the Batman universe—including his closest allies, from Robin the Boy Wonder and faithful butler Alfred Pennyworth to Commissioner Gordon; and his countless enemies, from the Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, and the Riddler to Scarecrow, Two-Face, Ra’s al Ghul and Poison Ivy.
~Classic black-and-white comic book artwork throughout.
~Two sixteen-page full-color artwork inserts.
~Cover artwork provided by Jim Lee (see insets), another favorite :)
ANALYSIS: Like “Iron Man: Beneath the Armor” (Reviewed HERE) was perfectly timed for the big-screen release of the Iron Man film adaptation, “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” is perfectly timed for the big screen release of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight (Opens July 18, 2008), starring Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, and the late Heath Ledger. And also like “Iron Man: Beneath the Armor”, “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” is much more than a simple movie tie-in product, which is a direct testament to Robert Greenberger’s love and respect for the character and the tremendous amount of time and effort Bob put into making the encyclopedia as thorough as possible. Unfortunately, as informative as “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” is, it’s still far from perfect…
For one, the encyclopedia only covers the comic book aspect of Batman. So if you haven’t been reading the comic books, you may not care about a lot of the information found in the encyclopedia. And even if you have read some of the comic books, you still might not care. I know I didn’t and I’ve read my fair share of Batman comics over the years since the 1990s. Plus, Batman is easily my favorite superhero character of all time, ranking right up there with Spider-Man. The problem you see is not so much the information that the encyclopedia gives us, but the information it fails to provide. Specifically a timeline of the different Batman comic book series and miniseries (Batman, Detective Comics, Superman/Batman, JLA, The Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns, etc), their storylines, and the writers & artists who worked on the various titles. Additionally, I think it would have been more interesting to have looked at how the character has evolved over the decades, the impact that the Batman mythos has had on popular culture, and the various interpretations of Batman through different mediums like film, animation, video games, et cetera.
My biggest beef with the encyclopedia though, is the lack of color illustrations—most of the artwork is depicted in black & white except for two sixteen-page full-color artwork inserts—a disturbing trend for recent Del Rey graphic novels including Terry Brook’s “Dark Wraith of Shannara” (Reviewed HERE) and Dean Koontz’s “In Odd We Trust” (Reviewed HERE). So just to be clear here, unless you’re Frank Miller or Jeff Smith (Bone), color is always better than black & white. Also, I think the encyclopedia would have been a lot more effective if there had been illustrations provided for every single entry in the book—along with the issue it appears in, artist info, etc—rather than just the more notable ones, although there are some really nice obscure pieces included.
CONCLUSION: Personally I don’t think “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” works as well as “Iron Man: Beneath the Armor”, at least not as an introductory piece to the character. I mean if you’re looking for comprehensive background information that is specifically about Batman the comic book character and his universe, then “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” provides that—in spades—and is quite an impressive collection of Batman knowledge. But the information provided is depicted in a clinical manner and doesn’t really capture the awe or mysticism of Batman and his legacy. So the encyclopedia is recommended more to hardcore Batman lovers and those readers who have more than a passing interest in the comic books. For those who just have a casual interest in Batman, then I recommend something a little more user-friendly…
NOTE: In the future, authors Martin Pasko and Phil Jimenez will be providing encyclopedias for DC Comics other two iconic superheroes: Superman and Wonder Woman.
~Cover artwork provided by Jim Lee (see insets), another favorite :)
ANALYSIS: Like “Iron Man: Beneath the Armor” (Reviewed HERE) was perfectly timed for the big-screen release of the Iron Man film adaptation, “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” is perfectly timed for the big screen release of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight (Opens July 18, 2008), starring Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, and the late Heath Ledger. And also like “Iron Man: Beneath the Armor”, “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” is much more than a simple movie tie-in product, which is a direct testament to Robert Greenberger’s love and respect for the character and the tremendous amount of time and effort Bob put into making the encyclopedia as thorough as possible. Unfortunately, as informative as “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” is, it’s still far from perfect…For one, the encyclopedia only covers the comic book aspect of Batman. So if you haven’t been reading the comic books, you may not care about a lot of the information found in the encyclopedia. And even if you have read some of the comic books, you still might not care. I know I didn’t and I’ve read my fair share of Batman comics over the years since the 1990s. Plus, Batman is easily my favorite superhero character of all time, ranking right up there with Spider-Man. The problem you see is not so much the information that the encyclopedia gives us, but the information it fails to provide. Specifically a timeline of the different Batman comic book series and miniseries (Batman, Detective Comics, Superman/Batman, JLA, The Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns, etc), their storylines, and the writers & artists who worked on the various titles. Additionally, I think it would have been more interesting to have looked at how the character has evolved over the decades, the impact that the Batman mythos has had on popular culture, and the various interpretations of Batman through different mediums like film, animation, video games, et cetera.
My biggest beef with the encyclopedia though, is the lack of color illustrations—most of the artwork is depicted in black & white except for two sixteen-page full-color artwork inserts—a disturbing trend for recent Del Rey graphic novels including Terry Brook’s “Dark Wraith of Shannara” (Reviewed HERE) and Dean Koontz’s “In Odd We Trust” (Reviewed HERE). So just to be clear here, unless you’re Frank Miller or Jeff Smith (Bone), color is always better than black & white. Also, I think the encyclopedia would have been a lot more effective if there had been illustrations provided for every single entry in the book—along with the issue it appears in, artist info, etc—rather than just the more notable ones, although there are some really nice obscure pieces included.CONCLUSION: Personally I don’t think “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” works as well as “Iron Man: Beneath the Armor”, at least not as an introductory piece to the character. I mean if you’re looking for comprehensive background information that is specifically about Batman the comic book character and his universe, then “The Essential Batman Encyclopedia” provides that—in spades—and is quite an impressive collection of Batman knowledge. But the information provided is depicted in a clinical manner and doesn’t really capture the awe or mysticism of Batman and his legacy. So the encyclopedia is recommended more to hardcore Batman lovers and those readers who have more than a passing interest in the comic books. For those who just have a casual interest in Batman, then I recommend something a little more user-friendly…
NOTE: In the future, authors Martin Pasko and Phil Jimenez will be providing encyclopedias for DC Comics other two iconic superheroes: Superman and Wonder Woman.
Reviewed by Liviu C. Suciu:
INTRODUCTION: Harry Turtledove needs no introduction. He is the author that almost single-handedly transformed alternate-history into a thriving subgenre with the many novels and stories that he publishes each year, which blend together science fiction, fantasy and historical fiction. Inspired by current headlines and following his excellent novelette News From the Front (Asimov's July 2007), “The Man with the Iron Heart” has a simple premise: What if Germany, after their surrender in 1945, reacted like Iraq did after their surrender in 2003? In other words, Reichsprotektor Reinhardt Heydrich is not assassinated in Prague in 1943, and starts preparing a resistance late that year, in the event that Germany loses the war…
SETTING: American and Russian zones of occupation in Germany from May 1945 to 1948 with subplots in the United States, France, Britain and the French/British zones of occupation.
FORMAT/INFO: The ARC I have stands at 528 pages divided into thirty-two numbered chapters. There is a prologue and a short afterword explaining the historical context, giving references to books about the actual German Werewolf resistance that never took off in 1945 and fizzled shortly after, as well as some moments that may seem too outrageous to be believable but are actually based on real people, facts and comments. The narration is third-person present tense via multiple POVs. The main characters include a US intelligence officer of Jewish origin and his boss; a Russian NKVD officer and his Jewish superior; a stay-at-home US mom that creates an American soldier mothers’ organization to bring them home from Germany; her Republican congressman who wants to use the increasing dissatisfaction of the public with mounting US casualties during the occupation to change the balance of power in Congress and humiliate President Truman; and Heydrich and his personal aide, while several other secondary characters get some face time as well.
The book is self-contained and there are no easy answers in it, but there is ample scope for a sequel.
PLOT HINTS AND ANALYSIS: This novel starts with a bang—literally. It is May 1945 and Germany has just surrendered. Two US soldiers watch idly as a German civilian seems to check out the wreckage of a truck to see if there is something that can be salvaged. Of course we “know” that the German is actually planting an IED and soon the soldiers are blown to pieces—and so it begins…
I do not want to spoil the novel since most of its enjoyment comes from the nasty discoveries of what the Germans are up to. So think of any appalling headline you’ve read or seen from 9/11 and on—and some that luckily for us have not been translated in reality—transposed into the 1945-1948 setting, and you will have an idea of what to expect.
The reaction of various parties is very realistic based on historical record. The Russians rape, torture and shoot any German unlucky to be on the scene of an attack, while the German resistance retaliates gruesomely too. The French are almost as bad as the Russians. The US has no clear policy, so some officers shoot the Germans, some torture and kill them creatively afterwards, and some treat them as POW's.
When there is the inevitable film screening of an American, and later a Russian private, taken captive and begging for their lives on camera, the reactions again are as expected. The US tries to cover it up—no Internet then—but the intrepid US media is not to be denied. The Russians take some German terrorists that are questioned in their jails, cut them into small pieces and leave those for Heydrich's boys to find.
The shock of the atomic bombing and unconditional surrender of Japan reverberates and leads various parties to action.
And then there is the moms’ organization to bring the boys home, the opportunistic politicians, the beleaguered President—Democrat Truman in this case—the hapless generals brought in front of Congressional Committees for the show grilling and so on. There is also a supposedly impregnable US compound for families and children, another supposedly impregnable Russian compound, the German moderates like Adenauer that try to build something, the US trained German police, etc...
Outside of historical events, the plot follows two sets of parallel investigators in American Intelligence Lt. Weissberg and Col. Frank; and Russians NKVD Cpt. Bokov and Col. Shteinberg reacting to the events, fighting red tape, the malevolence of their superiors and supposed allies as well as the Germans who try and get Heydrich and as much of the German terrorists as they can, while trying to prevent as many attacks as possible.
Can the Americans and Russians work together, and if so, will a collaboration finally lead to Heydrich himself?
What is the future of the US occupied zone?
These are some of the more important plot points of the novel and while there are no facile answers, there is a definite conclusion to the novel.
There is no moral judgment by the author between the “bring the boys home” and “try to pacify Germany to the bitter end” camps, no happy ending, though Heydrich and his thugs do not get off easily or are presented as heroic or anything like that.
Overall, I liked the book though it's a pretty grim and depressing read. But no more than your favorite dystopian novel.
Dark, with no room for sentimentalism, grounded in real history as well as contemporary headlines, and a pure page turner, “The Man with the Iron Heart” is highly recommended…
SETTING: American and Russian zones of occupation in Germany from May 1945 to 1948 with subplots in the United States, France, Britain and the French/British zones of occupation.
FORMAT/INFO: The ARC I have stands at 528 pages divided into thirty-two numbered chapters. There is a prologue and a short afterword explaining the historical context, giving references to books about the actual German Werewolf resistance that never took off in 1945 and fizzled shortly after, as well as some moments that may seem too outrageous to be believable but are actually based on real people, facts and comments. The narration is third-person present tense via multiple POVs. The main characters include a US intelligence officer of Jewish origin and his boss; a Russian NKVD officer and his Jewish superior; a stay-at-home US mom that creates an American soldier mothers’ organization to bring them home from Germany; her Republican congressman who wants to use the increasing dissatisfaction of the public with mounting US casualties during the occupation to change the balance of power in Congress and humiliate President Truman; and Heydrich and his personal aide, while several other secondary characters get some face time as well.
The book is self-contained and there are no easy answers in it, but there is ample scope for a sequel.
PLOT HINTS AND ANALYSIS: This novel starts with a bang—literally. It is May 1945 and Germany has just surrendered. Two US soldiers watch idly as a German civilian seems to check out the wreckage of a truck to see if there is something that can be salvaged. Of course we “know” that the German is actually planting an IED and soon the soldiers are blown to pieces—and so it begins…
I do not want to spoil the novel since most of its enjoyment comes from the nasty discoveries of what the Germans are up to. So think of any appalling headline you’ve read or seen from 9/11 and on—and some that luckily for us have not been translated in reality—transposed into the 1945-1948 setting, and you will have an idea of what to expect.
The reaction of various parties is very realistic based on historical record. The Russians rape, torture and shoot any German unlucky to be on the scene of an attack, while the German resistance retaliates gruesomely too. The French are almost as bad as the Russians. The US has no clear policy, so some officers shoot the Germans, some torture and kill them creatively afterwards, and some treat them as POW's.
When there is the inevitable film screening of an American, and later a Russian private, taken captive and begging for their lives on camera, the reactions again are as expected. The US tries to cover it up—no Internet then—but the intrepid US media is not to be denied. The Russians take some German terrorists that are questioned in their jails, cut them into small pieces and leave those for Heydrich's boys to find.
The shock of the atomic bombing and unconditional surrender of Japan reverberates and leads various parties to action.
And then there is the moms’ organization to bring the boys home, the opportunistic politicians, the beleaguered President—Democrat Truman in this case—the hapless generals brought in front of Congressional Committees for the show grilling and so on. There is also a supposedly impregnable US compound for families and children, another supposedly impregnable Russian compound, the German moderates like Adenauer that try to build something, the US trained German police, etc...
Outside of historical events, the plot follows two sets of parallel investigators in American Intelligence Lt. Weissberg and Col. Frank; and Russians NKVD Cpt. Bokov and Col. Shteinberg reacting to the events, fighting red tape, the malevolence of their superiors and supposed allies as well as the Germans who try and get Heydrich and as much of the German terrorists as they can, while trying to prevent as many attacks as possible.
Can the Americans and Russians work together, and if so, will a collaboration finally lead to Heydrich himself?
What is the future of the US occupied zone?
These are some of the more important plot points of the novel and while there are no facile answers, there is a definite conclusion to the novel.
There is no moral judgment by the author between the “bring the boys home” and “try to pacify Germany to the bitter end” camps, no happy ending, though Heydrich and his thugs do not get off easily or are presented as heroic or anything like that.
Overall, I liked the book though it's a pretty grim and depressing read. But no more than your favorite dystopian novel.
Dark, with no room for sentimentalism, grounded in real history as well as contemporary headlines, and a pure page turner, “The Man with the Iron Heart” is highly recommended…
Reviewed by Liviu C. Suciu:
INTRODUCTION: Multiple New York Times bestselling author David Weber, lovingly known by the many fans congregating on his forums at Baen's Bar as MWW—“Mad Wizard Weber"—does not need an introduction. I have been a big-time fan of Mr. Weber's work since the early 90's and I have read and re-read multiple times all of his novels. Even in the short time between receiving the ARC of “By Schism Rent Asunder” and writing this review, I've read the novel three times and it will likely be my favorite book of the year. Since “By Schism Rent Asunder” is volume two of the Safehold saga—after last year's bestseller, “Off Armageddon Reef”—there will be inevitable spoilers including the ending, so reader beware.
SETTING: Imagine a world where everyone KNOWS from childhood that about 900 years ago God and His Archangels created humanity. After all, there are the testimonies of the eight million Adams and Eves simultaneously created in Year Zero. There are also continual reminders of God's presence as manifested in various temples that have continuous heavenly lighting and climate conditioning as well as being untouched by the passage of time and the ravages of weather. Then there is the all powerful Church of God Awaiting, the Holy Writ and the Proscriptions that limit technology to roughly our age of Sail. Welcome to Safehold, the last known refuge of the once mighty Human Federation exterminated by the powerful aliens called the GBABA. It was not supposed to be like this though. Safehold was planned to stay at a pre-electric level for only a while to make sure no emissions would betray its presence to the GBABA, and the original eight million colonists volunteered to be “reborn” with false memories to avoid the temptations of premature high-tech. But the real human history was to be preserved. It was assumed that in time the descendants of the colonists would start working to reclaim humanity's place among the stars. This time though, prepared for the GBABA. But Langhorne, the leader of the expedition establishing the colony, decided that being almost a god is much better, so he marginalized the sane people among those that prepared Safehold for human occupation prior to waking up the colonists, and went on with his mad schemes for keeping Safehold at a pre-electric level forever with nobody in the future finding out its real origins. The most courageous of the dissenting voices, Pei Shan Wei, tried to stop this madness, but was outvoted on the ruling Council, so she tried to create an Alexandria enclave dedicated to preserving knowledge. Once Langhorne did not need Shan Wei's terraforming expertise anymore, he brought Rakurai—orbital fire—on Alexandria and obliterated it. The still barren land is now known as Armageddon Reef and has an evil reputation. Once Alexandria was destroyed, Shan Wei's husband, Commodore Pei of the Federation's navy and nominal military leader who pretended to be estranged from his wife for sixty years to keep his place in the ruling council, dropped by Langhorne and his closest associates with a pocket vest nuke. Since these events occurred roughly 900 years ago, Shan Wei is the fallen archangel in the Safeholdian mythology, the ‘Devil’ if you want, while Langhorne is the most holy of the archangels and his order in the Church is the most prestigious.
Merlin, an android/PICA having the memories, and some would say the soul of Nimue—an officer in the Federation's navy and protégée of the commodore, who sacrificed herself covering the convoy that established Safehold—wakes up in the year 890 of Safehold. After she is briefed by a recording of the commodore, she/it takes a male identity and body necessary in this patriarchal society and goes to the island continent of Charis to put “his” sword and knowledge at the disposal of King Haarahld, and initiate the long process of awakening Safehold. The Safeholdian renewal is ready to start and “Off Armageddon Reef” is the first installment of the saga, followed by “By Schism Rent Asunder”.
FORMAT/INFO: “By Schism Rent Asunder” stands at 494 pages of text and includes a large list of characters, a glossary and a note on Safeholdian timekeeping. The book is divided into several large chapters named by the months of the Safeholdian calendar in which the action takes place—there are ten such months, so no December and January—with multiple numbered subchapters. The narration is third-person present-tense with multiple POV's, most notably King Cayleb, Merlin, the group of four vicars that lead the Church, officers, scientists and magnates of Charis, enemy princes and nobles, and quite a few others. The naming conventions take a while to get used to due to Weber's skilled use of language drift across the centuries, but then it becomes fun to transliterate them and nobody will have any problem with names like the main villain Grand Inquisitor Zhaspahr Clyntahn; the leader of the Charisian church Archbishop Maikel Staynair; or its former official leader and current Inquisition “guest”, ex-Archbishop Erayk Dynnys, just to give a taste. The ending happens at a reasonable stopping point and I have to say that the next book in the series, “By Heresies Distressed”, is already my most anticipated book of 2009.
PLOT HINTS AND ANALYSIS: King Haarahld has died heroically in the battle at Darcos Sound, his sacrifice enabling the returning Prince Cayleb's galleons to utterly destroy the last large maritime force sent against Charis by the Group of 4 under the guise of their secular identity as Knights of the Temple Lands. Charis rules the seas of Safehold, and being an island continent, it is safe for the time being. But the Church controls the rest of Safehold, so more than 90% of its population and resources, though the control of the Church may be not as secure as it believes since quite a few Safeholdian leaders follow the church only as long as the Inquisition can reach them, although there are a lot of true believers. Former corrupt Archbishop, Charis Erayk Dynnys, is under arrest by the Inquisition in Zion, the Church capital, while the newly minted Archbishop Maikel boldly declares the secession of the Charisian Church and publicly indicts the Group of 4, name by name, for conspiring to destroy Charis, stealing Church funds for its purposes, and various other misdeeds. After this stunning opening to the book, the events precipitate and since a large part of the pleasure of reading David Weber is for the many surprises and plot twists, I will avoid any more spoilers.
Badly wounded by the complete destruction of its hired fleets and by the stunning public letter from Maikel, the Group of 4 is off balance and needs to do things to keep being overthrown by their opponents in the Council of Vicars. Things like public executions, denunciations of Charisian heresy, preparations for more fleets, and maybe even a “continental blockade”—the ultimate act of declaring Holy War. Since the original attack on Charis was done under the aegis of the Knights of the Temple Lands, not of the Church itself—though nobody is fooled by this pretension—involving the Church officially will raise the stakes dramatically precluding any possibility of peaceful resolution to the conflict. So what could Maikel have thought to send that inflammatory public letter that infinitely raised the probability of the above events happening sooner rather than later? Well, the answer comes on page 207 and it will shock you. Of the Group of 4 members, the Grand Inquisitor Clyntahn, though technically subordinate to the Chancellor Trynair, is assuming more and more power and his decisions start to prevail. The treasurer Rhobair though, is starting to rediscover God and the meaning of Faith, and has corresponding doubts about any deep escalation of the conflict. But as the saying goes, once you grab a tiger's tail, you gotta ride it... And ironically, Rhobair's newly found faith gives unexpected legitimacy to the Group of 4 within the rest of the Church leadership. While everyone knows and fears Clyntahn for his fanatical and corrupt ways, many high churchmen—who otherwise would get rid of Clyntahn the moment they could—start respecting Rhobair more and more.
On the Charisian side, newly crowned King Cayleb is looking for allies. Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm, being a natural partner of Charis, is returned all her captured galleys and people by Cayleb, who later sends her his First Minister on a secret mission that may change the shape of the conflict. Cayleb also plans to deal with his immediate enemies, Prince Nahrmahn of Emerald and Prince Hector of Corisande, since with all these neighboring island continents being brought in alliance or to heel, nothing can threaten Charis directly.
Merlin is busy protecting the King, the Archbishop, and spreading scientific & technical knowledge while keeping for now within the Proscriptions bounds—and of course keeping Cayleb informed of anything happening in the world through his tech surveillance devices. Unfortunately those devices cannot penetrate the Temple at Zion, so the direct decisions of the Group of 4 are as much a mystery to him as anyone.
Archbishop Maikel has some unexpected surprises for us. Most magnates, nobility, officers and common people of Charis are willing to follow Cayleb wherever he leads, even to “Hell and Damnation”, at least in the official Church's eyes, but there is some opposition, and “In the Name of the True Church” becomes a slogan for assassination attempts, arson and mayhem. Despite some requests from his councilors for a severe crackdown, Cayleb is willing to use surveillance and prosecution of actual crimes for now, rather than start handing treason indictments left and right. Will this be enough?
Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm has a hard decision to make. She is already marked as untrustworthy by the Group of 4 for her previous links with Charis, tardiness in sending her galleys to war against Haarahld, and now having the surviving vessels and people returned, and of course having the most such survivors since the Chisholmian ships had no compulsion for immediate surrender once Charisian naval supremacy was so stunningly revealed. Also, everyone knows that Hector ordered the assassination of her father. Luckily she has faced many such tough decisions since her ascension as a teenager to the throne, and now in her early twenties she is ready to make the most fateful decision ever for her country. What will it be?
On the secular enemies’ side, Prince Nahrmahn is in a pickle and he knows it. Already he is blockaded on Emerald by the Charisian navy and he is publicly known as the instigator of the assassination attempt on Cayleb just three years ago, when Merlin saved the day and made his dramatic public appearance as a Seijin from the Mountains of Light. Smarter than his jovial rotund appearance implies, Nahrmann knows a losing hand when he sees it, so he thinks to defy the Church too and try and deal with Cayleb, up to his “fertilizing a plot in Cayleb's garden” if necessary to spare Emerald and his family from certain invasion and the attendant horrors. But he hopes Cayleb will be smart enough to recognize that a compliant Nahrmahn is more useful than a dead one. Is he right?
Hector of Corisande has no illusions. He knows that after Emerald is dealt with, his turn comes next and for him there is only the “head on a spike” option if Cayleb wins, such is the deep enmity between his house and the houses of Ahrmahk of Charis and Tayt of Chisholm. So as the leader of the failed attack on Charis, he asks and gets tons of money from the Church to rebuild his navy and defenses. And he is willing to go to any lengths, including copying the newly minted Charisian military innovations that proved so deadly, whatever the Church says about proscriptions and such. Does he stand a chance?
Epic in dimension, full of stunning revelations and extraordinarily moving moments that made me almost cry, and featuring lots of intrigue and battles, “By Schism Rent Asunder” effortlessly exceeds the magnificence of its predecessor “Off Armageddon Reef”, and I cannot emphasize how much I want to read the next chapter in the Safehold saga…
SETTING: Imagine a world where everyone KNOWS from childhood that about 900 years ago God and His Archangels created humanity. After all, there are the testimonies of the eight million Adams and Eves simultaneously created in Year Zero. There are also continual reminders of God's presence as manifested in various temples that have continuous heavenly lighting and climate conditioning as well as being untouched by the passage of time and the ravages of weather. Then there is the all powerful Church of God Awaiting, the Holy Writ and the Proscriptions that limit technology to roughly our age of Sail. Welcome to Safehold, the last known refuge of the once mighty Human Federation exterminated by the powerful aliens called the GBABA. It was not supposed to be like this though. Safehold was planned to stay at a pre-electric level for only a while to make sure no emissions would betray its presence to the GBABA, and the original eight million colonists volunteered to be “reborn” with false memories to avoid the temptations of premature high-tech. But the real human history was to be preserved. It was assumed that in time the descendants of the colonists would start working to reclaim humanity's place among the stars. This time though, prepared for the GBABA. But Langhorne, the leader of the expedition establishing the colony, decided that being almost a god is much better, so he marginalized the sane people among those that prepared Safehold for human occupation prior to waking up the colonists, and went on with his mad schemes for keeping Safehold at a pre-electric level forever with nobody in the future finding out its real origins. The most courageous of the dissenting voices, Pei Shan Wei, tried to stop this madness, but was outvoted on the ruling Council, so she tried to create an Alexandria enclave dedicated to preserving knowledge. Once Langhorne did not need Shan Wei's terraforming expertise anymore, he brought Rakurai—orbital fire—on Alexandria and obliterated it. The still barren land is now known as Armageddon Reef and has an evil reputation. Once Alexandria was destroyed, Shan Wei's husband, Commodore Pei of the Federation's navy and nominal military leader who pretended to be estranged from his wife for sixty years to keep his place in the ruling council, dropped by Langhorne and his closest associates with a pocket vest nuke. Since these events occurred roughly 900 years ago, Shan Wei is the fallen archangel in the Safeholdian mythology, the ‘Devil’ if you want, while Langhorne is the most holy of the archangels and his order in the Church is the most prestigious.
Merlin, an android/PICA having the memories, and some would say the soul of Nimue—an officer in the Federation's navy and protégée of the commodore, who sacrificed herself covering the convoy that established Safehold—wakes up in the year 890 of Safehold. After she is briefed by a recording of the commodore, she/it takes a male identity and body necessary in this patriarchal society and goes to the island continent of Charis to put “his” sword and knowledge at the disposal of King Haarahld, and initiate the long process of awakening Safehold. The Safeholdian renewal is ready to start and “Off Armageddon Reef” is the first installment of the saga, followed by “By Schism Rent Asunder”.
FORMAT/INFO: “By Schism Rent Asunder” stands at 494 pages of text and includes a large list of characters, a glossary and a note on Safeholdian timekeeping. The book is divided into several large chapters named by the months of the Safeholdian calendar in which the action takes place—there are ten such months, so no December and January—with multiple numbered subchapters. The narration is third-person present-tense with multiple POV's, most notably King Cayleb, Merlin, the group of four vicars that lead the Church, officers, scientists and magnates of Charis, enemy princes and nobles, and quite a few others. The naming conventions take a while to get used to due to Weber's skilled use of language drift across the centuries, but then it becomes fun to transliterate them and nobody will have any problem with names like the main villain Grand Inquisitor Zhaspahr Clyntahn; the leader of the Charisian church Archbishop Maikel Staynair; or its former official leader and current Inquisition “guest”, ex-Archbishop Erayk Dynnys, just to give a taste. The ending happens at a reasonable stopping point and I have to say that the next book in the series, “By Heresies Distressed”, is already my most anticipated book of 2009.
PLOT HINTS AND ANALYSIS: King Haarahld has died heroically in the battle at Darcos Sound, his sacrifice enabling the returning Prince Cayleb's galleons to utterly destroy the last large maritime force sent against Charis by the Group of 4 under the guise of their secular identity as Knights of the Temple Lands. Charis rules the seas of Safehold, and being an island continent, it is safe for the time being. But the Church controls the rest of Safehold, so more than 90% of its population and resources, though the control of the Church may be not as secure as it believes since quite a few Safeholdian leaders follow the church only as long as the Inquisition can reach them, although there are a lot of true believers. Former corrupt Archbishop, Charis Erayk Dynnys, is under arrest by the Inquisition in Zion, the Church capital, while the newly minted Archbishop Maikel boldly declares the secession of the Charisian Church and publicly indicts the Group of 4, name by name, for conspiring to destroy Charis, stealing Church funds for its purposes, and various other misdeeds. After this stunning opening to the book, the events precipitate and since a large part of the pleasure of reading David Weber is for the many surprises and plot twists, I will avoid any more spoilers.
Badly wounded by the complete destruction of its hired fleets and by the stunning public letter from Maikel, the Group of 4 is off balance and needs to do things to keep being overthrown by their opponents in the Council of Vicars. Things like public executions, denunciations of Charisian heresy, preparations for more fleets, and maybe even a “continental blockade”—the ultimate act of declaring Holy War. Since the original attack on Charis was done under the aegis of the Knights of the Temple Lands, not of the Church itself—though nobody is fooled by this pretension—involving the Church officially will raise the stakes dramatically precluding any possibility of peaceful resolution to the conflict. So what could Maikel have thought to send that inflammatory public letter that infinitely raised the probability of the above events happening sooner rather than later? Well, the answer comes on page 207 and it will shock you. Of the Group of 4 members, the Grand Inquisitor Clyntahn, though technically subordinate to the Chancellor Trynair, is assuming more and more power and his decisions start to prevail. The treasurer Rhobair though, is starting to rediscover God and the meaning of Faith, and has corresponding doubts about any deep escalation of the conflict. But as the saying goes, once you grab a tiger's tail, you gotta ride it... And ironically, Rhobair's newly found faith gives unexpected legitimacy to the Group of 4 within the rest of the Church leadership. While everyone knows and fears Clyntahn for his fanatical and corrupt ways, many high churchmen—who otherwise would get rid of Clyntahn the moment they could—start respecting Rhobair more and more.
On the Charisian side, newly crowned King Cayleb is looking for allies. Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm, being a natural partner of Charis, is returned all her captured galleys and people by Cayleb, who later sends her his First Minister on a secret mission that may change the shape of the conflict. Cayleb also plans to deal with his immediate enemies, Prince Nahrmahn of Emerald and Prince Hector of Corisande, since with all these neighboring island continents being brought in alliance or to heel, nothing can threaten Charis directly.
Merlin is busy protecting the King, the Archbishop, and spreading scientific & technical knowledge while keeping for now within the Proscriptions bounds—and of course keeping Cayleb informed of anything happening in the world through his tech surveillance devices. Unfortunately those devices cannot penetrate the Temple at Zion, so the direct decisions of the Group of 4 are as much a mystery to him as anyone.
Archbishop Maikel has some unexpected surprises for us. Most magnates, nobility, officers and common people of Charis are willing to follow Cayleb wherever he leads, even to “Hell and Damnation”, at least in the official Church's eyes, but there is some opposition, and “In the Name of the True Church” becomes a slogan for assassination attempts, arson and mayhem. Despite some requests from his councilors for a severe crackdown, Cayleb is willing to use surveillance and prosecution of actual crimes for now, rather than start handing treason indictments left and right. Will this be enough?
Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm has a hard decision to make. She is already marked as untrustworthy by the Group of 4 for her previous links with Charis, tardiness in sending her galleys to war against Haarahld, and now having the surviving vessels and people returned, and of course having the most such survivors since the Chisholmian ships had no compulsion for immediate surrender once Charisian naval supremacy was so stunningly revealed. Also, everyone knows that Hector ordered the assassination of her father. Luckily she has faced many such tough decisions since her ascension as a teenager to the throne, and now in her early twenties she is ready to make the most fateful decision ever for her country. What will it be?
On the secular enemies’ side, Prince Nahrmahn is in a pickle and he knows it. Already he is blockaded on Emerald by the Charisian navy and he is publicly known as the instigator of the assassination attempt on Cayleb just three years ago, when Merlin saved the day and made his dramatic public appearance as a Seijin from the Mountains of Light. Smarter than his jovial rotund appearance implies, Nahrmann knows a losing hand when he sees it, so he thinks to defy the Church too and try and deal with Cayleb, up to his “fertilizing a plot in Cayleb's garden” if necessary to spare Emerald and his family from certain invasion and the attendant horrors. But he hopes Cayleb will be smart enough to recognize that a compliant Nahrmahn is more useful than a dead one. Is he right?
Hector of Corisande has no illusions. He knows that after Emerald is dealt with, his turn comes next and for him there is only the “head on a spike” option if Cayleb wins, such is the deep enmity between his house and the houses of Ahrmahk of Charis and Tayt of Chisholm. So as the leader of the failed attack on Charis, he asks and gets tons of money from the Church to rebuild his navy and defenses. And he is willing to go to any lengths, including copying the newly minted Charisian military innovations that proved so deadly, whatever the Church says about proscriptions and such. Does he stand a chance?
Epic in dimension, full of stunning revelations and extraordinarily moving moments that made me almost cry, and featuring lots of intrigue and battles, “By Schism Rent Asunder” effortlessly exceeds the magnificence of its predecessor “Off Armageddon Reef”, and I cannot emphasize how much I want to read the next chapter in the Safehold saga…
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