I am freshly back from Norwescon, but the first joyful thing I have to share is not about the con, but that the Organization for Transformative Works is now open for membership! \o/ And you can read all about it (in English, Čeština, Deutsch, Español, Français, and Italiano) at the otw_news community -- where, by the way, we are eagerly looking for more translators. You can also see our very cool (if I do say so myself, cough) roadmap for the design of our archive software.

I got to meet a whole bunch of really smashing fellow fans, including Rob Carlos, who started sketching in my Q&A at 11am on Friday, and less than 24 hours later handed me this piece, which he's put in the wiki: Temeraire, Lily, Maximus. Oh, and then as an afterthought he whipped out this one the very next day: Napoleon & Lien.

I also happily scored a copy of Pat Rothfuss's first book, another one by the very dapper Bruce Taylor, and two spectacular art books by Ciruelo, the artist guest of honor -- I've loved his work for years so it was an especial treat to meet him, and also to hopefully not-too-embarrassingly fangirl all over Dan Simmons. *g* I also picked up a truly fabulous feather headdress in the dealer's room and a couple of pieces by Mai Nguyen, but sadly wasn't able to stay for the art auction to try and grab the larger one. But it is just as well! Cons are dangerous places for the wallet.

Of course for now the books have joined my sad unread pile, while lies behind the terrifying stack of the copyedited MS that I am supposed to be working on right now. My current excuse is the copyeditor switched to blue pencil from red, and all my copyediting pencils were carefully chosen blue exactly for contrast! argh. But I have dug out a few hot-pinkish ones from my old box of colored pencils and hand-sharpened them with a penknife since they are too crumbly for the pencil sharpener (uphill in the snow! both ways!) and must go back to the grind.

Last bit of glee: while I was at the con, Bill of Subterranean Press sent me the hot-off-the-presses limited edition! I don't know if I mentioned what they're doing with the covers -- after some back and forth with Dominic Harman (who did the gorgeous original UK covers), the decision was that for the first three, we'd do modified versions of the three UK covers, and then starting with book 4, Dominic will be creating new art in the UK-cover style, for a complete matching set. \o/

Tags: conventions, otw, temeraire

Going straight from one much-extended deadline to another, I have managed (with much indulgence from the editors) to get my story in for Fast Ships, Black Sails, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer's pirate anthology from Night Shade books, full of fabulous piratey goodness from many amazing writers, including fellow lj'ers matociquala and truepenny!

My own story is "Araminta, or, The Wreck of the Amphidrake" (cough, please ignore the multiple signs of title indecision you might find littered across various mentions of the anthology -- either I have a title when I start or I wrestle with it for ages afterwards). I had really a ridiculous amount of fun writing this; in my own head it was a mix of Georgette Heyer, those old Sinbad movies with the stop-motion monsters, and Orlando. (Whether any of this got onto the page you'll have to tell me if you read it. *g*)

I am currently doing the last real edits on Victory of Eagles (well, okay, what I have mostly been doing is re-reading all Heyer's regency romances in a fit of post-book laziness, but edits are also getting done), and then I have a whole seventeen months before my deadline for book 6. \o/ I have been working on a Temeraire book nonstop since I started His Majesty's Dragon in January 2004, so now it feels like glorious vistas of playtime stretch out before me! Thanks to various spurts of procrastination over the last few years, I have the beginnings of a couple short stories, a screenplay, and three novels -- the hard part is going to be choosing what to work on. *dances*

Meanwhile, I am going to be at Norwescon in Seattle from March 19-23, New York Comic-Con April 18, and Balticon May 23-25, and then, gulp, apparently there is a book tour up ahead. *quivers in fear* I don't have details yet but it will probably involve hitting San Diego Comic-Con. More news to come!

The first chapter of Victory of Eagles will go out over the Temeraire mailing list (signup on the website) and be posted here soon as copyedits are done, so look for it probably the week after I get back from Norwescon.

whee!

Tags: appearances, conventions, temeraire

I've added a warning to the last post -- there are a few spoilers in the comments now. Apologies; I entirely encouraged people to post comments on the book and should have thought to make a separate "spoilery" thread, so it's my fault not theirs.

Since there are now spoilers over there already, I'll do the reverse now -- if you would like to post spoilery reviews/questions, let me ask you to do so over there, and keep this thread spoiler-free!

And in that vein, answering some non-spoilery questions:

Empire of Ivory will be released throughout the UK on November 5 of this year -- not a very long wait! The US and UK publishers are planning to keep future releases more close together, as I understand.

Book 5, Victory of Eagles, will be out in the US in Summer 2008, in hardcover, and further books in the series will probably come out about that same time.

On the UK cover art change: I love both the original and new cover styles to bits, personally. I am sad about there being a change, because it spoils my fabulous matching set, but it's not my decision -- cover art is a choice marketing makes.

I *am* very happy that Dominic is doing the covers for all of the Subterranean Press limited editions, which will include Empire of Ivory and I very much hope future volumes also), so there will be at least one complete set with his art, and I hope he'll make those covers available as prints via his website too, as the limited eds are pricey.

(Incidentally, the Subterranean website now has thumbnails up of the really beautiful interior layout.)

Okay -- so again, any non-spoilery stuff, welcome here; spoilers, over there please! I'll do a roundup of spoilery questions in a couple of weeks and answer them in a batch then.

And now back to work. *g*

Tags: empireofivory, temeraire

I am away from home pounding away at Victory of Eagles, but I poke in briefly to say that Empire of Ivory is out today in the US! I confess I am hideously nervous; this really feels more like a second book than Throne of Jade or Black Powder War did, because they came out so close to the first. Let me know if you see it out there! (And there is also the neat box set of the first three books out now too, but there weren't that many sets made, so I don't know how likely it is to spot that.)

( spiffy cover slideshow below the cut using amazon widget )

As always I would love to hear what you all think of the book, positive and negative and anything in between, either here in comments or as reviews on Amazon or your own favorite online bookstore. And I am a firm believer in not jumping in to discussions about my own work, so if you are kind enough to link me to comments in your own LJs or blogs, have no fear that I will come barging in when you're having a discussion meant for the reader and not for yours truly, even if I love to eavesdrop. *g*

(And if you do have questions for me, please do keep dropping them here -- I, uh, have been lectured on the need to get my act together and so I will hopefully soon be getting some help in making sure they don't languish on here unanswered forever.)

ETA: NOTE - SPOILERS IN COMMENTS!

Tags: empireofivory, temeraire

I have spent the last week in jury duty (and am not yet done). I may write about it a bit when it is all over; it has been an inconvenient and yet powerful experience. But I can say right now that words cannot adequately express how devoutly grateful I am for a career that does not require me to get up at 8am on a regular basis.

I have been staggering home every night afterwards and indulging in Oblivion (aptly named at present), without the mental capacity to do much of anything else. However, it is now just two weeks until Throne of Jade comes out, so I have celebrated by putting up a fresh excerpt from the book. Since the beginning of the first chapter is already included at the end of His Majesty's Dragon (and also is a bit spoilery for HMD), I have instead put up a bit of the night battle scene from Chapter 4, which takes place aboard the Allegiance, a dragon transport --

The Allegiance was a wallowing behemoth of a ship: just over four hundred feet in length and oddly narrow in proportion, except for the outsize dragondeck that flared out at the front of the ship, stretching from the foremast forward to the bow. Seen from above, she looked very strange, almost fan-shaped. But below the wide lip of the dragondeck, her hull narrowed quickly; the keel was fashioned out of steel rather than elm, and thickly covered with white paint against rust: the long white stripe running down her middle gave her an almost rakish appearance.

To give her the stability which she required to meet storms, she had a draft of more than twenty feet and was too large to come into the harbor proper, but had to be moored to enormous pillars sunk far out in the deep water and her supplies ferried to and fro by smaller vessels: a great lady surrounded by scurrying attendants. This was not the first transport which Laurence and Temeraire had traveled on, but she would be the first true ocean-going one; a poky three-dragon ship running from Gibraltar to Plymouth with barely a few planks in increased width could offer no comparison.


( Read the excerpt from Chapter 4 )

And to round out the post, this morning I received the spectacular cover art for the UK hardcover edition of Throne of Jade from Dominic Harman -- it's even more beautiful than the cover for Temeraire, I think, and they have done something nifty with the background color for the image -- lovely work.

( cut for size )

Tags: excerpts, temeraire, throne of jade

Some neat questions on Temeraire from readers (by the way, I don't promise to answer because I'm so spotty at updating, but feel free to ask any questions you might have -- it's fun to see what people come up with, and hey, gives me ideas for the future):

( Spoilers for the book! )

Tags: faq, temeraire

So as one would expect, I have been spending the last few weeks haunting google and blogsearch and feedster, and getting pointers from friends and the Del Rey and HarperCollins publicity folks, collecting all the reviews with much excitement, and here they are so far.

( Online Temeraire reviews so far )

Now, on to the fun part -- so I was reading the talkback on the AICN review (naturally), and this gem of a comment was posted:

by DocPazuzu, January 9th, 2006 02:20:34 PM CST
Dragons...
...are swiftly becoming the vampires of fantasy fiction, much like vampires became the Star Trek of horror about 15 years ago. Why not combine them in the ultimate genre crossover? A moody, goth vampire whose soul has been bound to that of an ancient, noble reptile that breathes fire. They could then pilot a Starfleet vessel together and send the hearts of a million female renaissance fair freaks into overdrive. Think of the fan fiction! The cosplay! The filking!

And, okay, this is seriously absolute gold, so here we go --

---

* The Ultimate Genre Crossover Challenge! *

Rules of the game:

• To play, you must write a story containing: vampires, dragons, AND spaceships.
  
  
• You score a point for each of the following that you *also* include:
  
  • cats
    
  • unicorns
    
  • elves
    
  • werewolves
    
  • zombies
    
  • ghosts
    
  • any other mythical creatures
    
  • time travel
    
  • murder mystery or romance (or hey, double points for BOTH)
    
  • alternate universes
    
  • historical personages
    
  • sword-fighting
    
  • psychic abilities (telepathy, telekinesis, etc)
    
  • soul bonding
    
  • magic spells
    
  • aliens
    
  • clowns
    
  • improbably effective drugs (truth serum, aphrodisiacs, etc)
    
  • any other element you can come up with and argue convincingly is a cliche
  
  
• Special bonus: five points if you do it in a drabble (100 word exactly). Just remember you have to get vampires, dragons, and spaceships all in there, and it must actually tell a story of some kind.
  
  
• Post the story anywhere you like, in your livejournal/blog or on a webpage, then comment to this post with:
  
  • A link to your story
    
  • A list of all your point-winning elements and tally of your total points (I remain the willful and arbitrary judge of the validity of points)
  
  
• You can enter multiple stories.
  
  
• Stories must be posted by February 1.
  
  
• If there are a lot of entries with similar high point scores, I will run a completely non-scientific poll among some number of them to declare the final winner.
  

You own your own story, of course, and are free to do with it anything you like. I have some vague idea that if this just goes brilliantly, wouldn't it be cool to do an anthology out of the top entries or something, but most likely this is just for fun.

The winner will be declared sometime in early February. And hey, I will even provide a bit of loot -- the winner will get a signed copy of the UK hardcover of Temeraire, plus a spiffy tote bag. All participants win bragging rights. *g*

Tags: reviews, temeraire