More promotion, sorry, but it happens when books are about to manifest. In this case it’s the Audible.com edition of The War God’s Son, again narrated by the inestimable Brian Nishii, is now available for pre-order. You don’t even have to read it, as Brian is doing that for you. It doesn’t get any easier than that.
Category Archives: Publishing
The War God’s Son – Update
The official publication date is set for October 13th, just a couple months away. Here’s a link to the Prime Books web page for the book, including a description and an excerpt from the book and list of places where it can be pre-ordered. The Audible.com edition should be out at the same time, or close enough for jazz.
As the writer, I remember mostly how much work it was to get it done the way I wanted it done, the way I believed–and now I know I was right–it should have been done. As a reader, I think it’s a lot of fun, and we get much deeper into Yamada’s story. I can’t wait for it to come out.
On Receiving Compliments—Plus an Update
I received an actual fan email last week, which is a pretty rare occurrence (You thought we led lives of constant or even regular adulation? Yeah, I know. No one thinks that. Or at least not for long). This was on Yamada Monogatari: To Break the Demon Gate, and came from a nice lady who teaches Japanese, has a grounding in the history and knows the culture, so I was doubly gratified, but even that lovely ego boost had to take second place to the compliment First Reader (Carol) paid me when she finished the first pass edit of Power’s Shadow:
This is a complete paraphrase, just so you know. My memory’s accuracy is not 100 % guaranteed. But this is the gist:
She: (Looking up from the last page of the manuscript) You know, you’re really evil sometimes.
Me: I’ll take that as a compliment.
She: That’s how I meant it.
That was rather the reaction I was hoping for, so from that standpoint, I think Power’s Shadow (#3 in the Laws of Power series) is a success. I’ve started on the rewrite, so it shouldn’t be too much longer before it’s finally available. I do know it’s taken a while. We have, as I’ve already mentioned, been sprucing up our house to put it on the market, so neither of us has had much time to do much of anything except paint and pack up for the last two months. We can finally see some daylight, and once I’ve got the rewrite finished I’ll turn it into a Kindle and Nook ebook soonest. And then I can finally get back to Yamada Monogatari: The Emperor in Shadow, which is honestly and truly begun, but nowhere near being finished. One thing at a time.
Lost and Found
Continuing with the purge and pack up, and in the process of cleaning out the closet in the library, I came across an unmarked box. Inside were several things I thought I’d thought gone forever, namely my accumulation (I wouldn’t dignify it as a collection) of digest magazines from the late 1970’s. It was originally much larger, but I’d reluctantly purged it during one lack of space or other. In my faulty memory I thought I’d purged them all. There are several AMAZING STORIES from the period, and even a COVEN 13, but I was especially glad to see the FANTASTIC STORIES from Ted White’s editorship. FANTASTIC was the first fantasy magazine I ever discovered. More to the point, I soon realized that there were such things as writers who sent them stories. I soon became one of them. I never did sell to Ted White, and by the time I sold one to his successor, Elinor Mavor, FANTASTIC had been folded into its sister magazine, AMAZING. Yes, I know. Just a second tier digest back in the days of ANALOG/ASTOUNDING and GALAXY, but there was something about the stories there that appealed to me more. I still regret that I wasn’t good enough soon enough for FANTASTIC, but I remember what I was shooting for.
No sooner had I turned in the final manuscript of THE WAR GOD’S SON to Paula at Prime than I got an email from Audible.com telling me that the audiobook version is already going into production. I don’t know yet who’s doing the narration, but it should be out at the same time the print and ebook versions are available, still officially set for October. Which should happen on time, since the book is being typeset even as I write this. Not much longer now, people. If/when there’s a link for pre-orders, I’ll post it here.
Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015
Friday’s mail brought my contributor’s copies of Rich Horton’s Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015. I’m in there with “The Manor of Lost Time,” which originally appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. The book also has stories by Robert Reed and Kelly Link and Jo Walton and Elizabeth Bear and Yoon Ha Lee and Ken Liu and Cory Doctorow and…well, you get the idea. Lots of people. It also includes a summary of the year and a recommended reading list, in all 575 pages packed. You could do worse.
I heard back from Paula Guran at Prime Books that the revisions to The War God’s Son are good and therefore complete, and it’s off for a final copyedit and typeset, so we’re on schedule for the October release. I’ve also been admonished to get started on the next one which, assuming I can get myself together, will be out in 2016. The revisions to Power’s Shadow have run into the same delay that’s put pretty much everything on hold, but I’m hoping it won’t be too much longer.
The downed tree has been removed and we’re still getting our house ready to sell. Besides boxing up our lives we’ve been painting for the past week. Also sniffing a lot of paint fumes, though not by choice. It’s all part of the process.
Richard Parks 