Author Archive

“What’s it about?”

  • Buy the Book
  • US
  • UK

The first question I get when family or friends find out that I have a novel being published is: “What’s it about?”

 So I go ahead and tell them:  “GET AWAY FROM ME!  I HAVE TO GO FEED MY TURTLES!  I’LL CUT YOU!”

Okay, that’s not true.  I just thought it was more dramatic than what I actually tell them, which is that CHARMING is about John Charming, the modern day descendant of all those characters named Prince Charming from the fairy tales.   In my fictional world, there wasn’t some crazed serial bigamist inspiring all of those different stories, there was in fact an entire family line of witch finders and dragon slayers extending through the centuries.

The next question comes in one of three variations.  People either say “Oh cool!  How did you get that idea?”  Or “Oh cool!  How come nobody has ever thought of that before?”  Or just “Oh.”

My response to that is a little more complicated.  I know there’s a lot of fairy tale stuff out there right now, and some of it I’ve read and watched and some of it I haven’t, and I talk about that in an interview in the back of my book.

I also mention that I was an army brat.  We moved pretty regularly, and my grandparent’s farm was an island of stability in my childhood, the place we always went to on vacations or between moves or when my father was going to be gone for a long time.  My grandmother was an English teacher and a pack rat, and her house was stuffed with books on folk lore and fairy tales and mythology, and not just European stories and not just children’s tales.  I’m talking the real stuff, dark stories full of fantastic places and creatures of nightmare where macabre events are described by a third person narrator with a matter of fact attitude.  That’s my happy place.   Not Christmas memories.  Not my first puppy. It’s lying on my grandparent’s porch swing reading stories that were totally inappropriate for children.

So there’s that.

And I really wanted to root my character in a literary tradition.  Actually, that’s not true.  I wanted to root my character in all literary traditions relating to folk tales and fables and myths.  I start out with vampires and werewolves, but I start introducing new/old mythological creatures into the mix pretty quickly.   Really, if I have any serious literary ambitions for my John Charming tales at all, it’s that I would like to make the urban fantasy genre as a whole a little more aware of how rich and varied the story telling traditions it’s been strip mining for vampire and werewolf stories are.  And I’m not saying that no one else is doing this.  My favorite urban fantasy authors do this.   It’s largely why they’re my favorites.

(more…)

The wonder of Iain M. Banks’s books, as described by you

Last October we published what has since become Iain M. Banks‘s final Culture novel, The Hydrogen Sonata. We asked Iain’s readers at that time how they would describe his work, and the image below is a reflection of the many, many responses we received.

Today we are thrilled to publish The Hydrogen Sonata in paperback, bringing the Sunday Times bestseller and the brilliance of Iain Banks’s imagination to an even wider audience.

Iain M Banks word cloud

Who would you cast in an Expanse television series?

This week Variety announced that Iron Man and Children of Men scribes Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby will script the pilot of The Expanse, based on a series bestselling novels written by James S.A. Corey, for Alcon Television Group.  Check out the full scoop here.

This of course begs the question: who would you like to see cast in any television adaptation of the series?  Go wild. We can’t wait to hear who you would choose.

Leviathan Wakes   Corey_CalibansWar TP   Corey_AbaddonsGate_TP   Corey_CibolaBurn_HC

Like the freshly unveiled cover of CIBOLA BURN? Go to SF Signal to see a larger version and also the cover of Daniel Abraham’s upcoming THE WIDOW’S HOUSE, book four of the Dagger and the Coin series.

The Riyria Trivia Challenge

We’ve received such wonderful feedback from all you Riyria fans, and we know how eagerly you’re awaiting THE ROSE AND THE THORN (US | UK | AUS). Unfortunately we can’t speed up time to the release of the second Riyria Chronicles novel; however, we can all have some fun while we wait. How does that sound? Good? Excellent.

We’re challenging you to test your knowledge of the world of the Riyria Revelations and Chronicles in a month-long Trivia Challenge this September. Will you prove yourself to be as smart as Esrahaddon? Become a fan of the Facebook page to participate, and if you haven’t already, remember to pre-order your copy of THE ROSE AND THE THORN out on September 17.

sullivan_theft-of-swordsSullivan_rise-of-empireSullivan_Heir-of-Novron

THE CROWN TOWERTHE ROSE AND THE THORN

The Best Possible Betrayal, or The Fine Art of the Plot Twist in Your Back

BlindingknifeI love a great plot twist. After writing and publishing six big fantasy novels, I’ve become pretty hard to fool with a twist, but every time I hear a reader say, “I never saw that coming, but looking back, it made so much sense.” I get to feel the pleasure anew. It is, of course, merely a vicarious pleasure, but living vicariously is kind of what novelists do.

The Lightbringer Series is, in part, an ass-kicking examination of identity and integrity. Many of the characters have secrets that influence both, and these secrets are revealed not through navel gazing and discourse, but through actions, lies, and inadvertent truths that escape when the characters are under great pressure. Characters do what they don’t say, say what they don’t think, and think what they don’t do. All of which is fertile ground for surprises.

But a plot twist is more than just a character acting in a way that surprises us. A chaotic or insane character does that. (And, let’s be honest, an actually chaotic character might be impossible to pull off. The most famous recent example of a wildly chaotic character is, if one thinks about it at all, actually a master planner par excellence: Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight.) Instead, a great plot twist takes a lot of planning and careful management of what a reader thinks is going on at any moment.

But how do you manage audience expectations when an audience ranges from teens reading the very first book they’ve ever read outside of assigned reading to adults who have been reading fantasy for fifty years? Movies get to cheat on this. If you have a convoluted plot, and something’s always happening on screen, only a tiny percentage of people will be able to think through the plot holes and possible lacunae in the two hours they’re watching. With a big fantasy novel, authors don’t have that luxury. Some readers devour, and other readers savor, thinking through every tidbit, and guessing for weeks where the plot’s going. (more…)

Read an excerpt from A DANCE OF CLOAKS by David Dalglish

OctoberAssassin or protector; every choice has its consequences.

For the rogues and fantasy readers out there, Orbit’s Fall line-up is an exciting one, and it includes the Shadowdance series by David Dalglish! Starting in October, we’re publishing the first three books back-to-back. Here’s an excerpt from the first book, A DANCE OF CLOAKS (US | UK | AUS)

For the past two weeks the simple building had been his safe house, but now Thren Felhorn distrusted its protection as he limped through the door. He clutched his right arm to his body, fighting to halt its trembling. Blood ran from his shoulder to his elbow, the arm cut by a poisoned blade.

“Damn you, Leon,” he said as he staggered across the wood floor, through a sparsely decorated room, and up to a wall made of plaster and oak. Even with his blurred vision he located the slight groove with his fingers. He pressed down, detaching an iron lock on the other side of the wall. A small door swung inward.

The master of the Spider Guild collapsed in a chair and removed his gray hood and cloak. He sat in a much larger room painted silver and decorated with pictures of mountains and fields. Removing his shirt, he gritted his teeth while pulling it over his wounded arm. The toxin had been meant to paralyze him, not kill him, but the fact was little comfort. Most likely Leon Connington had wanted him alive so he could sit in his padded chair and watch his “gentle touchers” bleed Thren drop by drop. The fat man’s treacherous words from their meeting ignited a fire in his gut that refused to die.

Continue reading.

Become a fan of the official Facebook fanpage for the latest updates and connect with other fans of the series.

Praise for A DANCE OF CLOAKS

“A gritty book with intriguing characters and has a plot which will keep you hooked till the end’ Fantasy Book Critic

“Fast, furious, and fabulous.” – Michael J. Sullivan, author of THEFT OF SWORDS (US | UK | AUS)

“Dalglish concocts a heady cocktail of energy, breakneck pace and excitement that a reader could get drunk on.” – Sam Sykes, author of Tome of the Undergates

October
October
November
November
December
December

 

PARASITE: Choose life. Choose health. Choose SymboGen

“Imagine a world without costly prescription drugs. Where useless diets, insulin checks, and allergies are a thing of the past.”

Hmm, sounds pretty good. Maybe too good…

SymboGen wants to tell you all about their new product, the Intestinal Bodyguard, which has been hailed as the next step in human evolution, but do we trust them? Head over to Symbogen.net today for more information or follow them on Twitter.

Remember to pre-order PARASITE (US | UK | AUS) by Mira Grant, releasing on October 29th!

SymboGen: Come join us!

Praise for PARASITE:

“Grant extends the zombie theme of her Newsflesh trilogy to incorporate thoughtful reflections on biomedical issues that are both ominously challenging and eerily plausible. Sally is a complex, compassionate character, well suited to this exploration of trust, uncertainty, and the price of progress.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Readers with strong stomachs will welcome this unusual take on the future.” — Kirkus

“The first book of this ominous duology blends sci-fi imagination with the terrifying authenticity of horror then delivers like a creeping thriller, getting under your skin in a very good way.” — Amazon Big Fall Preview List

Prequels, because doing things “the right way” is too darn easy

THE CROWN TOWERAll my life I’ve done everything wrong, and yet oddly enough, it works for me. I didn’t graduate college. I didn’t wait to get married, and yet I’ve stayed married to the same woman for thirty years. I didn’t take courses, or read books on how to write, and I gave up my dream of getting published after twenty years of trying. I wrote a six book traditional fantasy series with wizards, dwarves, and elves when such a thing was considered absurd. I self-published when no self-respecting writer would stoop so low, and I signed a contract with a major New York publisher when everyone else was making a fortune in self-publishing. So it should come as no surprise that the next book of mine to be released on August 6th through Orbit, THE CROWN TOWER (US | UK | AUS), is a prequel—because rumor has it no one likes prequels.

As usual, I didn’t know there was a stigma regarding prequels any more than I knew there was a stigma around traditional fantasy, or self-publishing until after I did it. Ignorance is bliss, and they say God watches out for children, drunks, and fools. This may be the case, but I refuse to admit which of those I am.

Prequels are apparently disliked for the same reason people dislike sequels and prologues, except prequels are a combination of both. They have been known to feel tacked on and they also precede the interesting events of the primary story. You can feel a yawn approaching just looking at the cover of such a book. Prequels are usually about the childhood years, or possibly even the parents of some main character, and very likely have nothing at all to do with the original story. Once again not knowing all of this, not knowing how I was supposed to build a prequel, I failed to follow these rules. Instead I made the fateful error of fleshing out an origin-story for a legend.

Because I also made the error of writing a fantasy series that didn’t include the formative years of my main characters—preferring to focus on them after they’d actually become interesting—I had skipped the episode where Peter Parker is bitten by the radioactive spider, Clark Kent crashed on Earth, and Bruce Wayne sees his parents murdered, (I really hope those weren’t spoilers for anyone.) For me it just felt logical to include that story. The fact that the majority of my readers requested it didn’t hurt either. (more…)

On the Disruptive Technology of Magic

BlackPrism_TP

When I began writing the Night Angel trilogy, I deliberately started with a world in which there were few magic users, and most people would rarely encounter one during their lives. I mentally compared them to professional athletes in our world–if you have a normal job, you might glimpse a seven-foot tall basketball player walking through the airport someday, and be awed. On the other hand, if your job is an athletic trainer or referee, you might see professional athletes every day, so as the Night Angel trilogy progressed and the characters grew, we saw more and more magic.

In Lightbringer, I wanted to go high magic. After all, why not? I soon found out. Mo’ magic, mo’ problems.

Having lots of magic makes for lots of narrative problems. First, the main problem for any secondary world fantasy is setting the stage, defining the rules, the institutions, the time period, the religious and cultural beliefs and all the other expectation-setting that we’ve come to call world building. In Night Angel, I’d given myself a low bar to clear: at least at first, the world is straight-forwardly quasi-medieval European. You’ve been there before, you can make good guesses about how things work. In Lightbringer, we’re in a different place and time entirely: this is a Renaissance era quasi-Mediterranean setting. Not only is there a huge number of real cultures to draw from, but it was already a time of rapid technological and social change.

Take one small example: up until 1480, sailors aimed their cannons by resting them on the gunnel (the gun-wale), literally the side of the boat. You propped it up, moved it closer or farther to adjust elevation, and boom. But if the other ship got too close, you couldn’t hit their decks anymore. Then someone had a bright idea: you put the gun belowdecks and made little doors to open when you wanted to fire. Thus the boat could still be relatively watertight, and you could shoot at the hull of the other ship for as long as you could still shoot.

Within twenty years, the idea of portholes had spread throughout the entirety of the Mediterranean basin. No one was shooting from the gunwale any more.

But no one treats magic like this. In secondary world fantasy, usually the only person to do anything new or game-changing with magic is the protagonist. Entire towers full of magicians do research for hundreds of years, and they never learn anything new.

(more…)