Letters from Alifros

The Story's 71 Most Important Characters. No, I'm Not Kidding.

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:44:00 +0000

HOLY MULTITUDES. Seventy-one named characters! And that's without certain sailors, tarboys, demons and talking birds.

My next series is going to have only six: Man. Woman. Old Man. Young Girl. Turtle. Ghost. And if that still feels like too much, I will combine the last two and just have a ghost-turtle.

Dramatis Personae, Books I - IV

Note: this is a readers' resource--and a longer, more complete version of the list on my website. Although the information provided about each character is minimal, you will inevitably encounter spoilers.

This list is a work in progress. Have I forgotten (or maligned) your favorite character? Let me know.

Clicck here to download the list as a PDF (ignore the "Sign Up" nonsense & look for download button).

ALYASH: Bosun on the Chathrand. Recruited in Simja after the death of Mr Swellows.

ARIM, LORD: elder selk of Uláramyth.

ARUNIS [Arunis Wytterscorm, “the Blood Mage”] a mighty sorcerer; founder of the Raven Society; corruptor of the Empire of Bali Adro; arch-enemy of both Erithusmé and Ramachni.

BABQRI FATHER: A high priest and elder of the sfvantskor order. Neda Pathkendle’s teacher.

BOLUTU, DR. BELESAR: A veterinarian and monk of the Rinfaith, assigned to I.M.S. Chathrand to care for its shipment of animals.

BURNSCOVE, KRUNO: Founder and leader of the Burnscove Boys gang from Etherhorde. Arch-enemies of the Plapps.

CHADFALLOW, DR. IGNUS: Imperial Surgeon of Arqual; a favourite of Emperor Magad V; erstwhile Imperial Envoy to Ormael; former lover of Suthinia Pathkendle and protector of her children.

DARABIK, PURSTON [Purcy]: Commodore in the Arquali Navy.

DASTU: Arquali tarboy. Secret protégé of Sandor Ott.

DIADRELU [Lady Diadrelu Tammariken ap Ixhxchr, also “Dri”] An ixchel noblewoman and former commander of Ixphir House. Sister of Lord Talag.

DOLDUR, PAZEL: A mage and historian. Editor-in-Chief of the infamous 13^th Edition of the Merchant’s Polylex. Suthinia Pathkendle gave Doldur’s first name to her son.

ENSYL: An ixchel warrior and student of Lady Diadrelu.

ERITHUSMÉ: [Erithusmé the Great]: mightiest of latter-day mages; first successful wielder of the Nilstone since ancient times; creator of the Waking Spell and the Red Storm; teacher of Ramachni. Born in Nohirin in the Mzithrin lands, she crossed the Ruling Sea repeatedly with the Nilstone’s aid. Erithusmé gave up the Nilstone in 925, and was immediately set upon by the Ravens, and particularly Arunis.

FELTHRUP [Felthrup Stargraven]: a woken black rat from Noonfirth.

FIFFENGURT, GRAFF STARLING: Long-serving quartermaster on the Chathrand. Passed over more than once as captain.

GARAPAT, PROFESSOR J.L.: An historian who comes to Felthrup Stargraven’s aid in the Orfuin Club.

FULBREECH, GRAYSAN: errand-boy from Simja.

ISIQ, ADMIRAL EBERZAM: highest field-serving admiral in the Arquali navy; the appointed Imperial ambassador to Simja; father of Thasha Isiq.

JALANTRI: A sfvantskor, trained alongside Neda Pathkendle.

IBJEN: A young dlömic boy from Masalym.

ISIQ, CLORISUELA: Deceased wife of Admiral Eberzam and mother of Thasha.

KET, LIRIPUS: A merchant from Opalt, specializing in soaps and solvents.

KIRISHGáN: Selk who befriended Pazel Pathkendle in the Temple of Vasparhaven (Book III) and later travelled with his company.

KLYST: A young sea-murth from the Gulf of Thól. Klyst and her sisters killed a number of the divers seeking the Red Wolf off the Haunted Coast.

KUMINZAT, ADMIRAL: Famous Mzithrini officer. Commander of the White Reaper, pride of the White Fleet, lost in battle south of Bramian.

KURLSTAF, CAPTAIN. Former captain of the Chathrand. Many considered him the only captain in 600 years to approach Nilus Rose in cunning and resourcefulness.

LAPADOLMA, PACU: Niece of Lady Lapadolma Yelig, owner of the Chathrand. Thasha Isiq’s maid-in-waiting. Later her replacement as Treaty Bride.

LUDUNTE: An ixchel. Sophister (student) of Lady Diadrelu).

LATZLO, ERNOM: Ormali merchant. A dealer in live animals and suitor of Pacu Lapadolma.

LUNJA, SERGEANT [“The Otter”]: Dlömic soldier from Masalym, loyal to Prince Olik.

MAGAD V: [His Supremacy; also “The Usurper”]: Ruler of the Empire of Arqual. Son, heir and possible murderer of the previous Emperor. Magad V approved and funded the plot to destabilize the Mzithrin Empire through the return of the Shaggat Ness to his followers on Gurishal.

MACADRA [Macadra Hyndrascorm, The White Raven]: Bali Adro sorceress who controlled the mind and decrees of the senile Emperor Nahundra.

MAISA: rightful Empress of Arqual, daughter of Magad III. Deposed by her brother Magad IV in 899 and driven into exile.

MALABRON: Trainee sfvantskor in Neda Pathkendle’s band.

MARILA: Sponge diver from Tholjassa.

MUGSTUR (Master Mugstur). A woken rat and messianic psychopath.

MYETT: An ixchel woman. Consort to Lord Taliktrum.

NESS, ERTHALON: Deranged son of the Shaggat Ness, held with his father, brother and Arunis for decades on the prison-island of Licherog.

OTT, SANDOR: Imperial Spymaster and chief assassin of Arqual.

NAHUNDRA: Emperor of Bali Adro, under the sway of Macadra and the Ravens.

NÓLCINDAR: a selk warrior, sailor and shipwright.

OGGOSK, LADY: [Lady Gosmel Pothrena Oggosk, Duchess of Tiroshi]. A witch and special advisor to Captain Rose.

OLIK, PRINCE [HRH Prince Olik Ipandracon Tastandru Bali Adro]: lesser prince in the ruling dynasty of the Empire of Bali Adro; second cousin to the Emperor.

ORFUIN: a philosopher; owner of the Club that bears his name in the River of Shadows.

OSHIRAM II, KING: Monarch of Simja and host of the Great Peace.

PATHKENDLE, PAZEL: A tarboy from Ormael, pressed into service in the Arquali Navy after the invasion of his home country in 936.

PATHKENDLE, GREGORY: Ship’s captain from Ormael and husband of Suthinia Pathkendle. Named a traitor, questionably, for his role in the sinking of an Ormali warship. Later a famous freebooter (smuggler) operating in and around the Crab Fens and the Haunted Coast.

PATHKENDLE, SUTHINIA: An amateur mage and student of Pazel Doldur. Mother of Pazel and Neda Pathkendle. Suthinia came to Ormael in 924, married Capt. Gregory the same year, and largely renounced magic.

PLAPP, DARIUS: Leader and founder of the Plapp’s Pier gang from Etherhorde. Arch-enemies of the Burnscove Boys.

RAIN, DR CLAUDIUS: Doctor (?) assigned to the I.M.S. Chathrand.

RAMACHNI [Ramachni Fremken, Arpathwin]: Powerful mage with a gift for shape-shifting; his usual form is that of a black mink. Ramachni is a visitor to Alifros from an unidentified land, and Thasha Isiq’s lifelong friend.

REFEG AND RER: Anchor lifters. Augrongs (enormous, scaly, ogre-like creature native to the Arquali interior. Close to extinction.). Refeg and Rer dwell in an Etherhorde slum when not at sea.

ROSE, CAPTAIN NILUS ROTHEBY: Commander of the I.M.S. Chathrand; notorious thief, smuggler and sadist.

ROSE, CAPTAIN THEIMAT: Father of Nilus Rose. Great trader and strongman in the Quezan Islands. Widely famous for his cruelty.

SATHEK: [ the Demon-Mage, the Soulless One]: long-dead wizard and warlord whose rule first united the Five Kingdoms of the Mzithrin; creator of the Sceptre that bears his name. Sathek gave posthumous aid to Arunis in his hunt for the Nilstone.

SATURYK: An ixchel of Ixphir house. Lord Talag’s chief of security.

SHAGGAT [The Shaggat Ness]: A mad king and founder of a religious cult that fractured the Mzithrin Empire. Believed dead but held secretly by Arqual for 40 years. The core of Arqual’s plot against the Mzithrin was to return the Shaggat to his worshippers on Gurishal, thus reviving the fanatic cult and weakening the Mzithrini state enough for a swift Arquali invasion.

STANAPETH, HERCÓL: Tholjassan warrior and former assassin with the Secret Fist of Arqual; protégé of Sandor Ott. Thasha Isiq’s combat instructor and lifelong ally.

STELDAK: An ixchel man. Captain Rose's prisoner and poison taster.

SURIDIN: An apprentice sfvantskor trained by the Babqri Father in the same cohort as Neda Pathkendle. Daughter of Admiral Kuminzat.

SWELLOWS. Bosun on the Chathrand. Longtime crony of Captain Rose.

SYRARYS [Syrarys Isiq]: A former slave given as consort to Eberzam Isiq.

THAULININ: a selk warrior and leader.

TALAG, LORD: An ixchel nobleman. Co-founder and leader of Ixphir House; architect of the ixchels’s campaign aboard the Chathrand. Father of Lord Taliktrum and brother of Lady Diadrelu.

TALIKTRUM, LORD: Son of Lord Talag; eventual commander of the ixchel aboard Chathrand.

UNDRABUST, NEEPARVASI: tarboy from Sollochstol.

USKINS, PIDETOR: First mate of the I.M.S. Chathrand.

VADU, COUNSELOR: Commander of the Bali Adro armed forces in the city of Masalym. Bearer of a Plazic blade.

VISPEK: a Cayer (master or teacher) of the Mzithrini sfvantskor guild of warrior-priests. Cayer Vispek was one of the teachers and instructors of Neda Pathkendle.

Monster Round-Up from The Chathrand Voyage (MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT!)

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:06:00 +0000

Not long ago a friend suggested that my books required more monsters.

This friend had my best interests at heart: she thought that more monsters could just possibly induce the unspeakably brilliant director Alfonso Cuaron to option The Chathrand Voyage Quartet, despite the many & obvious reasons not to do so. Personally I favor a more practical approach, such as incantations and offerings to Huitzilopochtli.

Still, being a proudly scientific epic fantasist, I set out to consider the notion. Do I have a monster deficit? You tell me. Here’s is a quick list of some of the creatures in The Chathrand Voyage that could reasonably be labeled “monsters” (e.g., invented and deadly):

FAIR WARNING: while I’ve made the list below somewhat oblique (leaving out most proper names), I’d still suggest you STOP READING THIS POST if you haven’t read the books and plan to—unless you’re very good at erasing monsters from your mind.

5000-year-old demon crocodiles
700-ft tall trees with mouths and tentacles
fanged, burning, baby-faced incubi who spend their holidays as sheep
giant cats used as mountain steeds
flame trolls that crawl from lava tubes
giant homicidal religious rats (TM)
humanoid electric eels whose viscera glow through their skin
red boars
blue mastiffs
8-inch-tall ship-sinking warriors
sea-murths
cloud-murths
devil-mages
exploding insect cannonballs
marine trolls
emerald sea serpents
hrathmogs soldiers
Thrandaal ogres
bird-eating cacti
man-eating mushrooms
flying leeches
sulfur dogs

Not included: various beasties who take the stage only in the final volume, The Night of the Swarm.

21 Things I Learned at Eastercon

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:54:00 +0000

1 . Eastercon is not always a fall-on-the-floor drinkfest. Even I could keep up, and I’m the sort of drinker whose Virginia parents have to apologize for his sobriety at social events.

2. I don’t have to be drunk to make a fool of myself. Farah Mendlesohn and Faren Miller are two different people.

3. The SF/fantasy community is an amazingly cool place to call home. I rediscover this, and learn it more deeply, with every con. The fact that I stomp around the house and throw open the windows and occasionally sneak out after hours changes nothing.

4. Everyone is human. Stephen Deas remains human, despite his superhuman prolificity. Adam Roberts turned out to be human, albeit with cyborg cleverness implants. Jo Fletcher is human. George R.R. Martin is human. The unblinking silver statue of a Victorian lady on the divan on the staircase turned out to be human. Even the (currently) most notorious writer at the Con turned out to be human, and spoke the word “sorry” with feeling into at least one appropriate ear. Also, Sauron never existed, and the death of Lucifer was a tragedy for the imagination.

5. I will never, ever be able to love a city as I do London. When you move to the first city in your life at age 21, something happens that will never happen again.

6. Boskone 2010 was not destined to be the whitest con I ever attended. This Eastercon was whiter than Sunday School in Burlington, Vermont. Well, okay, Brattleboro. Still, what's up with that? It's more than odd that certain small-town U.S. cons I've attended were more diverse than this one. I mean, I'm typing this near Paddington Station, within five miles of ten million people of every color, I mean colour, on earth. Somebody let me in on the joke.

7. I should have spent part of the last few years reading Tricia Sullivan.

8. Excellent food really can be had in an English pub, provided it’s called the Pheasant and located near Heathrow.

9. You must never assume you can afford to buy fruit at Eastercon (£1.80 per banana).

10. Paul Cornell really is Elya Baskin’s stunt double.

11. Gillian Redfearn and I both remain hopelessly smitten by Joshua Ritter, after he hugged us in Brooklyn.

12. The owners of my publishing house make weapons, including the Exocet missiles that sank the ARA General Belgrano, Argentina’s greatest warship, during the Falklands/Malvinas war. Are we happy about this? No, we are not.

13. Few cheers erupt when you talk about Gabriel Gárcia Márquez on a genre panel.

14. The tradition of name tags with only first names, or silly pseudonyms, stems in part from a history of bias against genre: people didn’t want to be “outed” at the con.

15. Those of us published in English sound like absolute blue-veined weanies if we complain in front of those who write and/or publish in other languages. Also, to paraphrase Lavie Tihar: “The simple solution [to being denied the pleasure of reading SF written in languages other than English] is to learn those languages.” Why didn’t I think of that?

16. No matter how hard I work to be earnest, literary, dreary and dull, Joe Abercrombie can find a way to make it funny. Damn him.

17. There is no reason ever to eat Indian food in U.S. restaurants, if the prospect of one more visit to the U.K. remains.

18. I do not like Mushy Peas. It is still hard to believe that “mushy” is a state anyone could aspire to inflict on peas.

19. After dark, it is possible to read by Stephen J. Sweeney’s smile.

20. I can’t believe in the boxes. I don't mind or disdain them. I just don't believe the evidence of my senses. They're not real. I’ve tried, honestly I have. But it's no use: I don’t care what’s slipstream, what’s weird (or Weird), what’s fuel-cell or solar-hydrogen vapor-punk, what’s urban or suburban or semirural fantasy. I lift an imaginary box and study it, sniff it, turn it around and squint at the labels. Before I can read them they all fade to black.

21. I open the boxes with the breathing holes. You know: the ones with life inside. I love living things, beating hearts, dreaming minds, passions, sex, flight, humour, memory, madness, emancipation from madness, sympathy, the leap of understanding, the human spark in the alien eye, the alien terror of a brother’s eye, the awful knowledge, the knowing laughter, the whimsey, the wonder, the hope. That’s my genre. That’s why I write.

Olympus 2012 Is Upon Us

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 01:52:00 +0000

Eastercon (officially, Olympus 2012, the UK's largest SFF convention) is coming up really soon--April 5, to be exact. My two panels look like great fun:

• Pushing the Boundaries of Genre. Paul Cornell, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Sophia McDougall, and Gillian Redfearn (mod) and Robert VS Redick Friday, April 6, 2 PM, Royal B&C (whatever that means).

Is genre more than just a marketing label? Why do you decide to write in a genre? What are the reading protocols of the different genres and subgenres? Why is Golden Witchbreed a fantasy masterwork, and I Am Legend SF? How does it change Pern to make it science fiction?

• Worldbuilding (When, How and How Much?) Anne Lyle, Suzanne Macleod, Robert VS Redick, Simon Spanton (mod) and Chris Wooding Saturday, April 7, 7:00 P.M. Royal B&C.

Whether it’s fantasy, horror, SF or urban fantasy, any novel requires a degree of world-building. Some need more than others. So how do you do that, whether it's adding a twist to a contemporary world, or building planetary systems from scratch? Three authors and a professional editor are going to try to figure it out.

Needless to say I'm honoured to be in such company. What's going to make these panels particularly fun and unusual, however, is that both are moderated by Gollancz editors--including my own Simon Spanton. I'm assuming Gillian and Simon will ask me at least one intolerably tough question each, lest anyone accuse them of pitching me softballs. Hope so.

This will be my first Eastercon. I don't know what to expect, but I'm thrilled. Something tells me that it won't be too buttoned-down--maybe it's the fact that there are two scheduled discos (The themes beings "robots" and something else, giant cephalopods?), or the fact that the British party at last year's World Fantasy Con was absolutely zany-baked. Things happened in that anonymous San Diego suite that NO BLOG CAN TELL.

The sooner the better, I say.

A favorite long-lost interview

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:39:00 +0000

My terrific Czech editor, Martin Šust, interviewed me in 2010 before the release of The Red Wolf Conspiracy [Spiknutí Ryšavého vlka] in the Czech Republic. I enjoyed the interview a great deal and thought I should make it available in English sooner or later. Of course "sooner or later" matured into "later," but I still like this exchange. Czech readers: přeložit rozhovor je k dispozici zde. Below is the original English.

The Red Wolf Conspiracy is your first fantasy novel. Is this your very first work as well?

No, but it is my first published book. I have a literary novel called Conquistadors, set during the “Dirty War” in Argentina in the late-1970s. In its own way it’s as ambitious as the Chathrand Voyage series. I spent eight years on that novel, and a lot of time traveling in Argentina. It’s a book of immense personal importance to me as well, so I very much hope to see it published.

The most impressive parts of the book take place on board the Chathrand; how would you describe this ship to readers, and what inspired you to create it?

The Chathrand is both impossibly large and impossibly old: it is a giant, floating artifact of an earlier time in the world of Alifros, the sole surviving example of a shipbuilding art that’s been forgotten. Imagine a sailing ship the size on a World War II aircraft carrier. It has seven decks, five masts, and a crew of about eight hundred. But wizards as well as shipwrights helped to build the Chathrand, so rumours of enchantment and shreds of spells linger about it. The ship is also the jewel in the crown of a mighty empire, a floating symbol of their power and ambition.

I’ve been fascinated by ships and sailing for a very long time. But the precise inspiration for the Chathrand was strange. I was actually walking along a sea cliff in Argentina on a foggy morning, and imagined a huge sailing vessel racing towards destruction on the rocks. I don’t know why the image came, but I never forgot it, and in time that image grew into the Chathrand.

The naval field is not very common in fantasy; was your goal to fill in the gap or is it rather a kind of story you personally like?

I do love sea stories. I was aware that naval fantasies were somewhat rare. Now I know why: the research I had to undertake was immense. I’m not a sailor, or a naval historian like the great Patrick O’Brian. I had a very steep hill to climb in educating myself about the mechanics of tall ships and the structure of life at sea. Another problem for writers is forced immobility. Sailing takes time; the great voyages of the early days of sail were measured in months or even years. I think this tends to push writers of seafaring novels into the direction of the epic (like Moby Dick, which itself is a fantasy novel of sorts) or simpler cutlass-and-mahem yarns like Pirates of the Caribbean. This is a long way of saying that I was excited by the challenges of scale, and that of taking familiar territory and making it new.

The main storyline of the book is not only the conspiracies, but also the personal tragedy of the young man Pazel Pathkendle. How would you describe the importance of this storyline?

Pazel loses his family and his country in a single afternoon, when a mighty empire invades and annexes his little nation. To avoid slavery himself, he’s forced to work as a serving-boy in the naval forces of the conquering empire, and the story picks up five years into this new, and terribly difficult, life.

Pazel’s situation is fundamental to the whole tone and dynamic of the series. He gives us a view of the Empire from both within and without, and his friendship—ultimately more than friendship—with the daughter of the very admiral who led the invasion complicates matters immensely. In this series, among many other things, I’m meditating on factionalism, racism and cultural power. All very powerful forces in this world, of course. And all of them linked to many tragedies like Pazel’s own.
The Red Wolf Conspiracy offers readers a thriller involution; however, at the end it comes out that the destiny of the whole world is in question. Do you have any intentions to substitute this plane for the further parts? For instance, by inclining to a more classical epic fantasy or travel novel?

Honestly I don’t think these books will ever quite fit in a single category, unless it was a huge hybrid category like “epic journey-psychological/philosophical-thriller”. But the scale is most definitely epic. More so than I originally planned for, in fact. In the second book, The Rats and the Ruling Sea, the characters literally sail off the map of the known world, into the great uncharted ocean of the South. And what they’re attempting is nothing less than a circumnavigation of the globe. We’ll see if they make it by the end of the story in Book IV.

I see an advantage in your book, when compared to other fantasy books, in the original approach to human races. Do the Ixchel have any mythological origin? Do you intend to further show the readers anything similar?

To the extent that my own imagination’s a product of my encounter with myth and other forms of storytelling, then certainly the ixchel are its offspring. But I did not base them on any specific creature. They grew as a natural compliment to the empire’s obsession with hugeness: tiny, secretive survivors within the cracks and crevasses of power, who still may affect the fate of the world, if only because they are so good at avoiding notice. And yes, in the sequels we meet with a number of new creatures, new intelligences. Exploring their encounters with humanity has been an indescribable joy.

The world of your novel is rather pragmatical. Is there any historical epoque that inspired you in terms of this pragmatism?

That’s a fascinating question. No, I didn’t have any one age in mind when dreaming up the world of Alifros. When I look at it now, with three of the four books written, I’d say it brings our nineteenth century in mind in terms of the moment of imperialism, and perhaps the eighteenth in terms of sheer giddy mercantilism.

But the most interesting characters are all fish out of water. I think every age has its drumbeat, its myopic master narrative, always ready to do violence to those who don’t march in lockstep. And every age has those who don’t believe in that narrative, who challenge it. These insurgent minds, it seems to me, are a major, permanent subject of the novelistic imagination. For that reason they always feel contemporary.

Czech readers have the chance to get to know your book for the first time now. If you should speak to them to make them buy the book, how would you do so?

Make them? Ha! Only dark wizards would reach for such power. My strategy is frankness. This is my story: I hope it speaks to you. It was in any case the one I had to to tell. There’s a great deal that’s thrilling and wild, a great deal that’s sober and thoughtful, and I felt every page in my heart. Those are the only books I read: the ones that seem to have been not just planned but unearthed, excavated, from a place deep inside. Novels are, I think, the best vehicles we have for going to such places. I hope you enjoy the trip.

Locus Recommended Reading List 2011 & Praise for River of Shadows.

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:56:00 +0000

I was glad to discover that Locus magazine has placed The River of Shadows on its 2011 Recommended Reading List. The book is in great company: Andrea Hairston, Colson Whitehead, Ekaterina Sedia, Daniel Abraham, Patrick Rothfuss, Daryl Gregory, Catherynne M. Valente and many more terrific authors are on that list.

In the February issue, Paul Witcover has some very kind words for The Chathrand Voyage Quartet, calling it "one of the most distinctive and appealing epic fantasies of the last decade." Here's what he has to say about the people of the story:

Redick is unusually gifted when it comes to characterization. He paints broadly, often gleefully embracing caricature; his characters may not be strictly lifelike, but they are brimming over with life. Pazel Pathkendle, an impulsive tarboy afflicted with a debilitating, magically fueled linguistic facility; Thasha Isiq, the proud daughter of an admiral, who carries a magical burden of her own; Captain Nilus Rose, a ghost-haunted madman, sadist and seafaring genius; Felthrup Stargraven, a rat mysteriously awakened to sentience--the list of memorable characters goes on and on.

I was also pleased that he called The River of Shadows the best installment yet. Witcover's text isn't online yet, but the Reading List is available here.

Sam Sykes' Nonhuman Counseling Service

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:48:00 +0000

Discovered this one in the nick of time.

Fantasy novelist Sam Sykes is running one of the most creative promotional stunts I've seen in awhile: relationship advice in the voices of his slightly deranged heroes from Tome of the Undergates, Kataria and Denaos. Check it out here, and ask your question by Valentine's day.

Bloody brilliant is all I can say. The graphic alone is worth a visit.

The Night of the Swarm: New Publication Date (no, not earlier...)

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:34:00 +0000

Well, it's time to say it officially: the publication date for The Night of the Swarm has been pushed back from May 25 to August 16. The U.S. publication by Del Rey will also be moved to coincide.

I'm told this had nothing to do with the state of the manuscript. It was an internal decision by my publisher, Gollancz, part of some kind of house-wide reorganization. I don't know anything more than that, I'm afraid. But I'm do get the feeling that my editor and the whole fantastic team there regret it.

Let me just say that I, too, regret this delay very much. I am moved and humbled and grateful and thrilled to have such enthusiastic readers, and if I could, I'd put the book in your hands tomorrow. But I can promise you this: I've done everything in my power to make Swarm a thoroughly satisfying conclusion to The Chathrand Voyage Quartet. After giving a meaningful piece of my life to the series, I couldn't have dreamed of doing less.

I'll have some lengthy excerpts available soon, so watch this space. Thank you, readers, for your intelligence, your praise and criticism, your understanding.

RVSR

Interview: Adventues in SciFi Publishing

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:21:00 +0000

Last fall at the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego (my new favorite U.S. city) there was so much going on that I almost forgot that I'd been interviewed a few times. Now I've stumbled on a link to one of those interviews, which Moses Siregar bravely conducted as we marched into the chaos of the Tor house party.

This interview's just five minutes long. It's part of a longer WFC podcast, full of great conversations with Scott Lynch, Connie Willis, Patrick Rothfuss, Robin Sullivan, Elizabeth Bear and several others. It's amazing what people will say if you catch them in Con-mode.

Here's a snippet of my interview:

And here's the whole podcast (scroll down for the link). My comments start at 1:35. Enjoy!

Things I Won't Do to Support My Writing Career

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:04:00 +0000

There's a side to the writing life we don't talk about, although thousands of us labor at it daily. I'm speaking of publicity, promotion, the fascinating selves we show the world. It's nothing new. Hemingway understood the value of his suntan and his safaris. Fitzgerald and Zelda knew what they were doing when the frolicked in Parisian fountains. Today we frolic in public for much the same reasons, and with the same studied care. We just do it with keyboards and clicks.

Don't let me fool you; I'm not made of nobler stuff. I'm vain, frivolous and incurably silly, and I crave approval like a golden retriever. And while I write for many reasons--love, longing, pain, generosity, selfishness, frustration--one of these is certainly the wish to entertain. Having been entertained myself several times, I can say with certainty that it's a pleasant sensation.

I hope, furthermore, to become a figure of preposterous influence in world affairs, and such power cannot be seized but through fame. Invisibility is death. Facebook is forever. This is especially true for writers. We must put ourselves out there. We must share far more than our work. Let the form be moving confessional or monkey caper, so long as it floats our name before the many. We must dance, we must post. And I shall.

~ HOWEVER: ~

There are capers I won't perform, sins I won't commit for stardom. Here's my initial list.

Things I won't do to support my writing career:

1. Lie.

2. Adulterate my writing. This includes such travesties as contests in which the prize is the winner's name inserted, like a goody in a box of breakfast cereal, somewhere in the text. Needless to say it also includes product placement of any kind--including, of course, Maggi soup.

3. Slander, stab, betray, poke or verbally puke on other writers. They are not "the competition." They're family. Of course sincere critique is another matter; I'm speaking here of unwarranted nastiness. I do, however, reserve the right to skewer anyone who goes out of his or her way to be a Frank Miller or a V.S. Naipaul (that is, a wanker or an asshole).

4. Write about anything I don't take genuine interest in, no matter how marketable.
4b. Attempt to repackage my writing to fit a current fad or hot subgenre.
4c. Inject popular motifs (ducks, zombies, iPads, etc.) where they don't naturally fit.

4. Ridicule the opinions of others.

5. Water down my own.

6. Praise work because it's popular, or because the writer is famous.
b. ...dismiss work for the same reasons.

7. Babble on (aloud or online) when I have nothing real to say, out of love for my own voice.

8. Think of my writing as product--or God forbid, content. This is the ultimate corruption.

I expect this list to grow--there are many sins to choose from, after all. Suggestions welcome.

Esquire / Aspen super-short short stories released

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:49:00 +0000

A brief follow-up to the Esquire / Aspen Writers' Foundation flash-fiction contest: our 78-word micro-stories are now online. Scroll down to read my own 78-word magnum opus. And be sure to check out the other nine as well. It's actually startling how much you can say in a story less than twice as long as this post.

Seven Days in Neverland, Or What the World Fantasy Convention, Esquire Magazine and the U.S.S. Midway Have in Common

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 00:08:00 +0000

You’re forgiven if you read the following as a single, continuous name-drop. That’s exactly what it is,because the last week in my life has been all about other people—wise people, gifted people, astonishingly wonderful people. This is a gathering of my memories of them, before my feet settle entirely on the ground.

The trip should have been simple: fly to San Diego, spend one hour on a panel and two days in the embrace of the fantasy community, bracket the convention with family time with my cousin Jon and his awesome better half, Christy. That simple plan lasted about five minutes. Here's how it actually played out:

Two weeks before WFC: my niece Prachi announces her engagement (CONGRATS, you two!). Soon thereafter I find myself making arrangements to rendezvous with her and her fiance the day after the convention. No problem; can’t wait.

One week before WFC: a caller floors me with the news that I’m a finalist in the utterly bizarre Esquire Magazine contest described in a previous post, and that they’re ready to fly me to New York on Halloween day. No problem; I can cut the trip short and still see everybody.

Six days before WFC: finally get my panel assignment. Going to be mighty well prepared.

Three days before WFC: my cousin gets called for jury duty. At least we’ll still have nights.

Two days before WFC: the weather gods announce that the northeast is going to be mauled by an early snowstorm. Blackouts guaranteed. I fly off worrying how my wife Kiran will keep herself and the animals warm.

Wednesday, 26 Oct: Hartford to San Diego. Prepare for my panel. Listen to the audiobook of Graham Joyce’s The Silent Land and am almost in tears. Dinner with Jon and Christy. Best Mexican meal in ten years.

Thusday, 27 Oct: Exploring San Diego in the blazing sun. Drive to the beach at La Joya--sea lions, pelicans, osprey, tidal pools. Ask myself, bewildered, why I’ve been in New England for fourteen years.

Arrive that night at the WFC convention center (huge, hulking, green; visions of Gaddafi’s compound) with sand in my shoes. Registration desk abandoned. Undocumented, I go in search of Karen Lord’s reading (from her World Fantasy Award-nominated Redemption in Indigo), meet her agent Sally Harding desperately seeking the same room. Lord’s reading is brilliant and mischievous, and it’s a shame to slip away before it’s over—but my own panel’s starting.

Nothing remarkable here. The would-be moderator [I won’t name him; he has twice in my hearing introduced himself as “moderately famous” and so requires no further boost] has failed to notice the [m] beside his name in the panel description, and promptly hands off that responsibility to Barb Galler-Smith, who rises nimbly to the occasion. We discuss “The Ship (or Dirigible) as a Fantastical Character” and I try to steer us away from the predictable question: “What if the ship is ACTUALLY ALIVE, you know, with ITS OWN BRAIN and maybe A FACE, and, LUNGS, and KIDNEYS…” but the draw of such questions is irresistible. The hour passes. I’m overjoyed (will always be overjoyed) at the chance to sign some books.

Friday, 28 Oct: Mad joy. Writers, writers, writers. Bump into Lord early on and find she’s even smarter and funnier one-on-one. Coffee with Rani Graff (Graff Publications, Tel Aviv) and fantasist Kate Elliott; her son has told her she must read Red Wolf. More coffee with Jonathon and Shawna Burgess, of Alaska. Jonathon is not only at work on his own fantasy novel, but has twenty times my experience at sea, and I quake to consider the mistakes he may unearth in my books. Too late now. Quick hellos to Nalo Hopkinson, John Connolly, Mishell Baker, N.K. Jemisin. Great, boisterous panel with Connolly, Graham Joyce, Pat Murphy and others, fighting about fairy tales. Went to Daryl Gregory’s book launch party (best beer & nicest host in the compound) and saw Liz Argall, who I have missed for her bright goodness and knowledge of animals. Meet Rome Quezada, senior editor at the Science Fiction Book Club. Daryl is charming & deadpan funny, as ever.

Then comes dinner, with my own wünder-agent, John Jarrold; and Betsy Mitchell, outgoing and legendary leader of Del Rey. Around our table lumber giants in the field--Tim Pratt, Greg Bear, Robert Silverberg—and I am a little boy again, agog.

Parties afterwards—loud, packed, overwhelming. Peat Brett and Sam Sykes are lobbing missiles of wit; they also introduce me to the incredibly impressive Myke Cole. Myke is a writer, soldier and three-tour veteran of the war in Iraq, with a three-book deal from Ace (Shadow Ops) soon to burst upon the genre.

Back home, the snow has begun.

Liz Gorinsky, Paul Kane, Guy Gavriel Kay, Diana L. Paxson

Saturday, 29 October: More, and more intensely, the same. Jonathon Burgess tells me of almost dying on his father’s fishing boat. Silverberg tells me that much SFF disappoints him at a craft level; “the music of the language” just isn’t there, he says. Lunch is peanuts and dry granola. The hotel staff are trying to extort $150 from Karen Lord to pick up her mail. There’s a panel on wishes and Faustian bargains, chaired by Guy Gavriel Kay, who is so erudite that the other panelists tend to answer “Yes” [full stop] in reply to his long, qualifier-rich questions.

At happy hour I’m happy to see Scott Lynch, however briefly; he is a mystery presence to be sure. Then it’s an interview with Gillian Redfearn, editorial director of Gollancz, my beloved U.K. publisher. I’d met Gillian only once (I work directly with Simon Spanton), but quickly discover that the Dread Power she holds over the heads of writers has not kept her from being the nicest person you’ll ever meet. As our chat winds down I learn that she’s going to New York the same day I am. In a matter of moments it’s decided: she will be my +1 at the Esquire event. Minutes later, alone among the Gaddafi flower beds, I begin to wonder what the hell I thought I was doing. Why should this worldly editor waste her valuable New York time at a party with some random author? Especially one hosted by a magazine dedicated to the proposition that all men deserve Louis Vuitton.

Too late. Next panel. Holly Black and Patrick Rothfuss discuss fairies. Apparently the better sort are nasty. Back home, no power; my dear wife is walking around the house in Gore-Tex and gloves.

Dinner with Theodora Goss, now Professor Goss (as well as an amzing author). We take the tram to Old Town, San Diego, and have such an intense discussion that we don’t notice that the restaurant is filling up with the gory undead. A zombie crawl has ended here; when at last we look around us we see nothing but bloody, decaying mouths gulping tequilas and chile relleno.

Parties follow, interminable and welcome still. At N.K. Jemisin’s event we play Twister, and I deport myself acceptably until felled by Liz Argall, who goes on to fell all who come before her (lastly Scott Edelman) in this game she’d never played before. Five or six people I wanted to see are mysteriously elsewhere, though. I am staggering home sore and puzzled when Karen Lord appears out of the foliage and tells me of “the British party,” on an upper balcony. Spotting my hesitation, she tugs my sleeve decisively. The next phase of debauchery begins.

Sunday, 30 Oct: Thank God I’m a lightweight drinker. No hangover to speak of, though I’m so exhausted I can barely think. Still I recover enough to enjoy the day immensely when Prachi and her fiance, Shreyas, pick me up at Gaddafi Gate. We have a great meal at the San Diego seaport, then march the waterfront under the blazing sun, stopping to admire the Star of India(beautiful, ancient fore-and-aft rigged tall ship). H.M.S. Surprise (from the film Master and Commander) and the U.S.S. Midway (on which the Japanese surrender was signed; these WWII aircraft carriers served as my size model for I.M.S. Chathrand, the giant sailing ship in my series. They are H*U*G*E when you stand in their shadow, but small beside today’s equivalents).

^^^^^^^^^^^ WORLD FANTASY COVERAGE ABOVE
vvvvvvvvvv ESQUIRE/NEW YORK COVERAGE BELOW

Monday, 31 Oct: Flight to New York. Gillian and Myke Cole are on the same airplane. When we land, Gillian takes off so fast I’m certain she’s rethinking this whole Esquire adventure. But there’s no escape from baggage claim, and there I learn that she’s actually quite looking forward to it. This should set my mind at ease, but doesn’t.

Trains to Penn Station, then a short march to the hotel, which is adjacent to the Empire State Building. In my room there’s a king-size bed, and Rihanna, staring up at me from the cover of a complimentary Esquire. She is dressed in chocolate shavings, or perhaps they’re strands of seaweed from La Joya. Quick glass of wine downstairs with the other finalists, then a beer with my friend David Bell, who is kind enough to journey all the way to the hotel vicinity after a work day that lasted until eight. David tells me that his father handed him Esquire in his teens, along with the stern explanation that it mattered, in the late 20^thcentury, how any serious man presented himself to the world. It had an effect, David admits.

Tuesday, 1 Nov: Ascent to the Esquire offices, in the Hearst Tower. The Hearst lobby is a silver double-escalator parting an aluminum tidal wave, flooded with light from a vast, remote upper atrium. Matrix agents (ear pieces & all) guard the entrance ferociously, but we are whisked inside and high into the stratosphere. Here, in the Esquire conference room, we work for three hours with Colum McCann, National Book Award winner and one of the most amazing fiction writers alive. Colum is a passionate and generous teacher as well as a brilliant mind, and that time was just amazing. The other finalists, who I’m getting to know in moments and snatches, are all delightful: strong writers from immensely different backgrounds. One is retiring from 15 years on the radio in West Virginia, another a smoke jumper who parachutes into Montana forest fires. All their stories are superb.

Halfway through the workshop, I slip away & put on my glad rags in the men's room, fearing there won’t be time later on. David Granger, Esquire’s editor-in-chief, surprises me with my pants off. He is unflappable, not to say unaware of me.

Suddenly it’s five o’clock: time to meet Gillian downstairs & escort her up for a cocktail hour hosted by Mr Granger, in his eyrie on the 44^th floor. But the drink is not to be. There’s no one to be spared to escort us through the bunker defenses at ground level: once outside, I’m out. That’s quite alright with me, actually: I feel somewhat lost among the impeccably groomed.

There’s Gillian at the corner, in good spirits and a cocktail dress. She’s not put out to be locked out, and we have a pretty great time finding our way by train to the Brooklyn waterfront. I forget when I learn (but am amazed to learn) that this is her first visit to New York). After staggering around in the windswept darkness awhile, we take shelter in a humble Italian restaurant, down some beer and calamari, and then it’s showtime. A few more twists and turns, and we reach the Esquire Apartment.

Oh, that place. Picture a huge, turn-of-the-century garment factory on the waterfront, crowned by an immensely wide, four-story tower with 14’ tall clock faces looking out the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, lower Manhattan and the East River. Now hollow out the inside, all the way to the roof. Run a big glass elevator straight up the middle, wrap a glass-and-hardwood staircase around the elevator, and build floating hardwood floors at various heights as one ascends. Place multiple delux bars and expensive sculpture on each floor. Glass in the clock faces, leaving the cast iron arms and frame in situ. Sprinkle with aquaria, light shows and hanging crystal spheres, add loud music and fancy hors d’oeuvres. Blow in beautiful people as one might insulation, until the place is bursting with them.

Gillian Redfearn on the roof

That’s the scene. I think I'm ready, having glimpsed the apartment’s website. As it happens I can barely speak. The best I can manage is to turn to Gillian and say, “Welcome to New York—we do this all the time, you know.”

We finalists read our tiny stories in rapid succession beside the Steinway. How anyone is able to digest all ten is beyond me, but they seem to. People actually come forward and speak to us intelligently, and the compliments feel sincere. They’re readers, these beautiful people. At the microphone, I think unaccountably of a green stuffed dinosaur that my poodle once disemboweled.

Events soon start to blur. Lisa Consiglio of the Aspen Writers Foundation (which co-sponsored the competition) makes a gracious speech, thanking Esquire for its 78 years of commitment to serious writing (a compliment very much deserved; forget the crack about Louis Vuitton). Don Julio (the tequila company) gives away all the tequila the masses can drink—including, if you ask especially, glasses of Don Julio 1942, aged in oak. Specially trained barmen smoothly transfer our drinks from glass to plastic (classy plastic) before we step out on the rooftop patio, lest we drop something lethally. I wonder if they will be transferred back again when we descended (no).

Posing with Adrienne Celt, one of the finalists

A stranger high-five's me. An old, white-suited man with a cane lets me help him down the Cinderella staircase. A young woman lolls on a divan beneath a fur that could hide a grizzly bear. Jon Fine of Amazon stands on a landing, larger than a grizzly, power streaming from him like waves of heat.

After meeting Josh Ritter, who plays two f---king brilliant songs for us, I get up my courage to say hello to him and find an incredibly friendly, down-to-earth soul in the space filled by the unapproachable star a moment ago. His talent is shattering. So is the fall my camera takes when a stranger tries to take a photo of me with Colum McCann—later I download some earlier shots, the Fuji’s last full measure. In a fit of generosity the man presses five twenties into my hand, then vaporizes—poof—before I can speak.

To my delight, Nate Ochs (the smoke jumper) wins the competition: his story is beautiful, and he had not written a word in ten years. It will appear next year in Esquire.

Late that night, after Gillian catches a taxi back to Manhattan, and the Agents herd us gently out the doors, and Jon Fine doesn’t quite persuade us to join him at a bar called Superfine (or rather, as he puts it repeatedly, SUPERFINE!), we finalists drift in a dream back to the hotel. There we shed our glad rags and pull on pajamas, pile on & around Nate’s bed, toast him, and laugh & bemoan the writing life for so long that at last even the street below grow quiet.

The next morning we scatter, and real life resumes. My plan had been to cap the trip off with a quick trip down to Occupy Wall Street. But to go there for an hour seems almost a shameful act—that is to say, an act, not a commitment—and the truth is I long for home. I’m there by evening; Kiran and the animals and the restored electric lights draw me in. Fantasies are fine things, but I have stumbled, exhausted, back to waking life.

San Diego Bound

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:53:00 +0000

So, it's off to World Fantasy, at last. Just signing off here. I'll be on a panel Thursday night at 9:00 PM: "The Ship (or Dirigible) as a Fantasy Character." Not a bad subject. With any luck I'll feel a bit like a dirigible myself at that hour, with plenty of hydrogen (if not hot air) to float me through.

Feeling very, very happy at the prospect of connecting with the SFF community again. And there's family waiting in San Diego too. I'm one seriously lucky guy. See you all soon.

Esquire Magazine Short Fiction Smackdown - I'm a Finalist (!?)

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:54:00 +0000

Sometimes worlds are just bent on colliding.

This man can write.

To my great surprise (and bewilderment, frankly), I've just been informed that I'm a finalist in Esquire Magazine's short-short fiction contest, administered by The Aspen Writers' Foundation. The lovely prize is a day and night in New York--the day spent partly in a workshop with the superb writer Colum McCann (!! Ta tu go hiontach !!), and the evening at the Esquire Penthouse in Brooklyn, where the ten finalists will first be made drunk, and then pitted against one another in a ring for a fight to the death with genuine medieval knives, flails and axes...no, no, that's too easy. We'll actually be competing before a live audience of literary heavyweights, and trying hard to invest our short-short-short stories with appropriate gravitas. And I do mean short: as this is Esquire's 78th anniversary party, our stories had to be exactly 78 words long. The ~~survivor~~ winner gets a truly awesome prize: an expense-paid week at the Aspen Writers' Foundation summer festival & workshop. In Aspen. That's Aspen, Colorado. Where the foothills are taller than anything in Massachusetts.

The funniest part is that Esquire is flying me straight from the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego, where I'm headed on Thursday. In the space of 36 hours I'll go from discussing enchanted pirate ships to Proust.

I would love to share my immortal words with you here--I could put it in 36-point bold and not fill your screen--but it is the property of Esquire now, and I'm secretly hoping it will appear next to a photo shoot of Elena Anaya in a future issue. Pray for me.

-------
Update: pictures of the Esquire party pad here. It'll do.

Cool new cover art for Book II Polish edition

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:10:00 +0000

I don't even have a hardcopy of this myself yet (nor have I quite mastered Polish), but I'm really loving these paintings. I'm fairly sure that this one, too, is by Damian Bajowski, though I haven''t been able to confirm that yet.

At first glance you may only see two ships in this painting. The wow-effect strikes when you notice the third.

The River of Shadows: Review of Reviews

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:49:00 +0000

Here (as of 9/9/2011) are all the reviews I’m aware of for Book III. Some of these quite slipped past my radar as I was completing the draft of Book IV!

Most of these are quite positive (unhappy reviewers may have simply jumped ship after Book II) but I've left the fair and the foul side by side. For the print magazines, the link takes you elsewhere on my blog for a preview.

Fantasy Book Critic

Fantasyliterature.com

Realms of Fantasy

SciFiNow

SF London

SFX

Black Gate

The Barnes and Noble Review (scroll down after clicking link)

Bookgeeks.co.uk

The Insatiable Critic

The SF Site

Falcata Times:

Lowly’s

(Know of another review? Please leave a comment for me here & I'll add it).

Night of the Swarm Cover Art!!

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:52:00 +0000

Another thing of beauty is born. My editor has forwarded me the amazing new cover painting by Edward Miller. I can say right now that this is my favorite of the four.

The demon (or more properly, maukslar) here depicted plays a very significant role in the last Chathrand novel. Scroll down for a little taste of the scene wherein it first appears.

Thasha snapped awake. The raft was not moving. ‘What happened? Did we wreck?’

‘Softly!’ whispered Hercól. ‘We are not wrecked, but beached in the shallows, and we are all of us blind. Ramachni’s vision-spell has ended. There was a strange sound from behind us. Like thunder, or a monstrous drum.’

Thasha groped along the edge of the raft. Perfect blackness; every one of them blind except Ramachni. ‘Where’s he gone?’ she asked.

‘Up a tree, with Ensyl,’ said Bolutu. ‘We couldn’t talk him out of it – or very well prevent his going. Hark!’

This time she heard it: a deep rumbling, far off but furious. The sound seemed to carry through the very fabric of the forest. When it ended the silence was profound.

‘Ramachni’s singing,’ Pazel whispered. ‘I think he’s weaving a new spell. And that wasn’t thunder, Hercól. It was a voice.’

‘A voice.’ Dastu spoke with undisguised scorn. ‘You’re mad as mockingbirds, you know that? What sort of voice?’

Pazel made no answer, and the silence lingered. Then he said, ‘A demon’s?’

Even as he spoke, light appeared, a stabbing red light that made them all recoil. Wincing, Thasha forced herself to look: the glow came from about a quarter-mile away, at the height of the forest roof. Already it was growing, spreading. ‘Tree of Heaven, that’s fire!’ said Corporal Mandric. ‘The mucking forest is on fire!’

‘Do not move!’ said Ramachni suddenly. Thasha heard the mage and Ensyl scrambling aboard, felt Ramachni’s sleek shoulder brush her arm. ‘Be silent, now,’ he said, ‘and whatever happens, do not leave the raft. We are in unspeakable danger.’

The light became a sharp red ring: the leaf-layer, burning outward from a central point, like dry grass around a bonfire. The fire’s glow danced on the river beneath it, and soon the red-rimmed hole was as wide as the river itself. But there it stopped. The blinding light faded, leaving only a fringe of crackling fire, and another light replaced it: pale blue and gentle. It was the Polar Candle, the little Southern moon. The fire had burned through all four leaf-layers and opened a window on a clear night sky.

Oh Gods, it’s true.

In the fiery gap a monstrous head had appeared. A hideous sight: part human, part snake, a head twice the sized of an elephant's. Fire dripped from its jaws, dark runes were etched upon its forehead, and its eyes were two great yellow lamps. A long neck followed, snaking in through the burning hole. The lamp-eyes swung back and forth, casting the trees in a sickly radiance. When they passed over her, Thasha felt a prickling in her mind. She shuddered. Now it was Pazel’s turn to reach for her, pull her close. The lamp-eyes returned. When they touched the raft again they grew still.

Beside her, Ramachni tensed, bearing his tiny teeth, flexing his claws one by one. Then the creature roared: a deafening, complex blast of noise that shook them to their bones. Beside her, Pazel’s face showed a horror unlike that of the others, and suddenly she knew that he was understanding. His Gift had given him the demon’s language. There was meaning in that sound.

--------------

And with that, dear readers, it's back to the book for me.

Wonderful Realms of Fantasy Review of The River of Shadows

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 16:02:00 +0000

This is a preview (first two pages) of a long and exceptionally thorough review in the August 2011 Realms of Fantasy magazine. If you're not a subscriber (and yes, there are digital subscriptions available) to ROF, I suggest you take a look. It's been the standard-bearer for fantasy for a long time, with good reason.

Click on the images to expand.

River of Shadows SFX Review (print)

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:51:00 +0000

Another great one.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow Pt. 2: Selected Complete Speaking Parts

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:50:00 +0000

Mum's the word, 'arry.

***Spoilers & Nothing But Spoilers Below.***

Like a handful of other people scattered across the globe, I was excited about the last Harry Potter movie. I am a fan of the books and the films, though unevenly in both cases (the books peaked for me with Goblet of Fire; among the films, Alfonso Cuaron’s Prisoner of Azkaban towers over the rest). But I’ll freely admit it: I’m a sucker for any epic with both brains and heart, and Rowling's epic has both. I feel a sense of loss knowing that our time with these characters, and the actors who portrayed them so vividly, is over.

Deathly Hallows Part II was respectable. Its shortcomings, like its strengths, are largely present in the book as well. The greatest weakness for me in both was the calamitous rush, that left extraordinarily little room for the quirky and sometimes fascinating characters that are the lifeblood of the story. A few of the side characters, like Maggie Smith’s wonderful Prof. McGonagall, were featured somewhat prominently. The vast majority were not, and the participation of some was literally reduced to a wordless syllable or two.

What a way to say goodbye.

Note that the quotes below are drawn from memory, after a single viewing of the film. I await your corrections.

------------------------------

Robby Coltraine (Rubeus Hagrid):
1. “Harry, nooo! What the frak are ye dooin’ here?”
2. “Haaaarry.” [big fuzzy smile]

Gary Oldman (BAFTA Winner, Emmy Nominee) (Sirius Black):
1. “Quicker than falling asleep.”
2. “Until the end.”

Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy):
1. “I’ve missed fruitlessly snapping & sneering at you, POTTER!”
2. (moments later) “I think that’s my magic thingy you’re holding, POTTER!”

Jason Isaacs (Golden Globe Nominee) (Lucious Malfoy): 1. “My lord, is this attack not the most, most ridiculous…” (2) “I don’t know…”

Helena Bonham Carter: (Emmy Winner, BAFTA winner, Oscar Nominee) (Bellatrix Lestrange):
1. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
2. “Is he dead?”
3. “HA HA HA HA HA….URCH!”

Jim Broadbent (Academy Award winner) (Prof. Slughorn). *mumble mumble* “My robes!”

Emma Thompson (Double Academy Award winner) (Prof. Trelawney): “Gaaa!”

Devon Murray (Seamus Finnegan): “That’s nothin’ to go on.”

Katie Leung (Cho Chang) “Harry—”

Natalia Tena (Nymphadora Tonks): [Tell me, somebody! Surely she spoke before her death?]

Miriam Margolyes (BAFTA & L.A. Critics Circle Award Winner, Olivier Award Nominee) (Prof. Sprout): “Aaaaaah!”

Dave Legeno (Fenrir Greyback) “My Lord.”

Oliver Phelps (George Weasley): “You all right, Fred?”

James Phelps (Fred Weasley): “Yeah.”

Julie Walters: (BAFTA & Emmy Winner, 2X Academy Award Nominee) (Molly Weasley): “Not my daughter you BITCH!”

Mark Williams (Arthur Weasley):*sniff*

Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley): “Hello.”

Talking fantasy writing, MFA programs, and the conclusion of two epics: my chat with David Anthony Durham

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:22:00 +0000

Novelist David Anthony Durham and I have been friends for a few years now, since getting acquainted over a Korean dinner at Readercon in Boston. We were even neighbors for a while, and I'm selfishly sorry that he's moving back to Scotland with his family (though it sounds like a GREAT place to live).

Our books differ immensely, but we've always had a lot to talk about. This two-way interview & conversation ranges all over the place, and gives a few glimpses of the conclusions of both our sagas. Check it out over at FANTASY BOOK CRITIC.COM.

Muppet from hell

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:58:00 +0000

**** DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING DREAM WAS JUST THAT – A DREAM. IT DOES NOT REFLECT MY VIEWS ON SEXUALITY, SESAME STREET OR JUST ABOUT ANYTHING (except possibly the dangers of television). FOR THE RECORD MY SINGLE TRUE HERO IS MAHATMA GANDHI.

I present the dream here just as I had it. You could call it evidence of what deadline pressure & the resulting insomnia can do, even to the gentlest of souls. ****

Last night’s dream:

I turn on a big television (intending to watch Star Wars I think) and there is Grover from Sesame Street, but wearing a sombrero and holding a machine gun. He looks into the camera and says, quite amiably: 'Saludos, amigos! I am Emiliano Zapata, the only Mexican revolutionary to marry a fellow soldier. Oh, here he is now!'

Enter Kermit. Grover, hysterical with joy, begins to hug him and make kissy-kissy sounds. Then things start getting weird.

KERMIT: Grover, sheesh.
GROVER: Not Grover--Zapata! I missed you! I missed you! (This part may have been in Spanish).
KERMIT: OK, enough. People are watching.
GROVER: I missed you! Drop your pants!
KERMIT: WHAT? No!
GROVER: Drop your pants! Drop your pants!
KERMIT: Grover, get off me! I think you need to see a doctor! Let go!

They fight. Grover is thrusting with his pelvis. Finally Kermit breaks away and stalks offscreen.

GROVER: AH HAAA HAAA HAAA HAAAA!

He fires the machine gun. The camera pans left and Kermit is being blown to fluffy green smithereens. Grover is very, very thorough, and still howling with deranged laughter, and there is the sound too of innocent bystanders crying out as smoke fills the air. When the camera pans back he is in extreme close-up, still firing, and then he swivels triumphantly and points the gun into the camera and fires again, and the glass of the TV breaks.

Grover is then able to fire into the room where I sit watching. I don't know how I escape that room alive but I am pinned down in the next by the gunfire, which destroys my windows and the turtle tank. The firing stops but when I peak around the corner the TV is hobbling forward, like R2D2 with restraining bolts, and Grover's face is still on the broken screen. Someone whispers that he's reloading. I can't move, suddenly, and realize that it's because I too am a muppet and whoever was operating my wires has dropped me and fled. Then I wake up screaming.

**** SEE DISCLAIMER ABOVE ****

A full-page RIVER review: SciFiNow Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 22:01:00 +0000

This one really made me smile. But I can't help feeling I've missed an opportunity, as Mr. Rundle finds the so-far-anonymous editor only "sometimes" maddening. To me the editor's maddening always. Worse still, he won't get help. Maybe when he's forced at last to attach his real name to his opinions in Book IV we'll see a little accountability. Hmm, that gives me a GREAT idea [fade to evil laughter].

Cheap 18-Year Highland Whiskey! Download Now!

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 17:19:00 +0000

Yesterday I read a friend’s Amazon reviews, and was glad I was barefoot: otherwise I’d be out of a laptop. He’s a brilliant writer and a challenging one. His books are a blast. They’re also quirky and dark. Predictably his reviews are all over the place. But the one that set me off did so because it so perfectly captured a disconnect that is hurting just about everyone who reads, writes or has any other passionate relationship with books.

The review was pure vinegar. It whined about cover art and about the table of contents. It carped at publishers for “extortion”—I imagine someone’s dog was kidnapped, not to be returned without 100 proofs-of-purchase. But the reviewer saved his real venom for the author himself. He was getting faster at his trade, but was still “nowhere near” fast enough at providing sequels. At the same time his book was “rushed” and “insufficiently edited.”

Given that the reviewer himself had several hundred (insufficiently edited) Amazon-review notches to his belt, you might assume he preferred quantity to quality. But you’d be wrong. I explored his dungeon of disappointments. One review after another lamented shoddy editing, unresolved plot details and other artifacts of haste. And every sequel arrived too slowly. The reviewer was a tragic victim of unscrupulous hacks and the industry that made them rich. He deserved better, and he deserved it RIGHT NOW.

If this Power Sniveler ™ stood alone in his crankiness I would have nothing to say. Unfortunately he’s only an extreme example of a common malady. The glut of “free” content (in truth no more free than clean air and water, but that’s another rant) encourages us all to act like fiends. We want novels our way. That is, we want them brilliant and beautifully written and polished and instantly completed and cheap—or free, to judge by the proliferation of steal-this-book clubs. We want novels to flow like tweets and read like Cervantes. We want old Scotch whiskey at Budweiser speeds, and at the turn of a tap. We will never get it, however, and we need to stop pretending that we should.

I have scores of writer friends: published and unpublished, genre and mainstream. A few are somewhat rich, and of those, a very few are so because of their writing. Like two. Most are quite the opposite: they are financially desperate, and work like sled dogs. Except of course that writers work alone, hauling their massive sleds with everything they’ve got, paws bleeding, eyes on some blizzard-shrouded horizon they may never reach.

There’s no one standing on the sled with a whip, of course. Nobody forces us to be storytellers, after all, like the gaming-slaves in Chinese prisons. Many of my friends (even those less favored by the fickle god of sales) consider themselves fortunate to be writing at all. I certainly do. There’s a joy in this work that I’ve never found elsewhere: a joy that led me to write invisibly for two decades before my first publishing success.

Indeed it’s that very joy—and my belief that good things need not be produced like bad beer—that occasionally nudge me to speak up. Writing is not doomed. The house we’ve built is not rotten; it’s a good house, actually. But the furnace roaring day and night in the basement, pumping hot air into every room, irritating and distracting us from what we love: that should scare us. I’d encourage everyone to resist the logic of the machine.

Right, back to Book IV with me. I’ve got a deadline after all.

On flawed characters, growing up in Iowa, and the end of The Chathrand Voyage: my interview on Fictional Frontiers

noreply@blogger.com (Robert V.S. Redick) — Sat, 21 May 2011 18:28:00 +0000

Here's the Dolby noise-reduction version of my (really fun) interview with fictional frontiers host Sohaib. This show originally played on WNJC-1360 AM Philadelphia.

This is a long one, guys--35 minutes. If I have time I'll post a few highlights here in a week or two.