It’s been a while since I’ve foisted new reviews for The Conqueror’s Shadow on you. So I figure I’m due. 😉
Just click on the links.
From the Saturday Serial blog.
From Alec Austin’s blog. (This entry also includes his ruminations on several other books, and on his tastes in fiction in general.)
And, most interestingly, from NewsOK, which is an actual online news site and not a sci-fi/fantasy-specific hub. Always cool to get reviewed in something that borders on the mainstream.
A few minutes ago, I was washing dishes.
Not, for the most part, a particularly hazardous activity. Except when a plate decides, without warning and without obvious cause to suddenly shatter into four pieces.
There was no impact; I didn’t drop it. The water wasn’t that hot; my hands were in it. I was simply holding it in one hand, scrubbing with the other, and then suddenly I was holding only one part of it, and I was bleeding. A lot.
They are, thankfully, all minor cuts. Like, "band-aid and ointment" minor. It could have been a lot worse. But there are several of them–thumb, wrist, forearm–and they were all pretty free-bleeders. (Especially the thumb. Thought that one would never stop.) And this was a dirty dish that had been sitting in the sink, so antibiotic ointment was not optional.
There are, of course, those would say that I probably shouldn’t be aggravating them by typing up this entry. Such people are clearly neither authors nor bloggers. 😉
So, yeah, it hurts–again, the thumb especially–but I’ll be fine. It was certainly rather a bracing experience, though.
So, I’m about to start reading a book.
This, as you may imagine, is not the potential milestone to which the subject header refers. I have, oddly enough, read a few books in my time.
No, it’s the fact that this is an advanced copy of a book, that I’ve been sent because I’ve been asked–for the very first time in my career–to provide one of those little blurbs/cover quotes that you see on the back covers, or first few pages, of various novels. 😮 😎
Obviously, I can’t say what the book is, or who it’s for–but I will say that being asked to do a blurb actually feels really damn good. The idea that enough people may like my work for my recommendation to be worth seeking out… Well, it’s a really nice feeling.
I don’t know if there are any official markers on the road to "making it" as an author, but if there are, this almost has to be one of them, doesn’t it? 😀
My latest Suvudu column, in which I discuss (read: rant and lecture about) the majority of modern "Lovecraftian" fiction, and how/why it’s really anything but.
Even though I’ve been doing this for years, even though I’ve published (or signed to publish) seven novels so far, I still get nervous any time I turn in a novel manuscript to an editor/publisher/whoever for the first time.
Why do I mention this? Guess who just sent the first draft of the current project to his agent. 😮
(Not that I expect her to have any major problems with it. But then, expectation isn’t really the issue here, is it?)
Since I’ve often gone on record lamenting the relative dearth of short-fiction markets for sci-fi and fantasy, I think it’s only fair that I help spread the word regarding Realms of Fantasy magazine. Specifically, RoF–which was saved from oblivion last year by a new publisher–is once again facing possible cancellation, due to insufficient subscription rates. You can learn more at the site linked above, or here, at the blog of editor Douglas Cohen.
I’m not suggesting that you should subscribe out of "loyalty to the genre" or anything like that. If you’re not interested (or can’t afford it), that’s perfectly all right. But if you’ve ever considered subscribing, or have wanted to but have been putting it off, now would be a really, really good time.
