Tag Archives: Del Rey

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Cover Musings

The typical urban fantasy cover shows us an attractive young woman in leather holding a weapon. It’s staggeringly popular and I’m not here to question why. I mean, duh, what’s not to like? But Hounded is a wee bit different from most urban fantasies in that the protagonist is male. There are a few other male protagonists out there—Harry Dresden, of course, and then the dude in Harry Connolly’s Game of Cages series and Simon R. Green’s Nightside books—but mostly, it’s a genre dominated by kickass heroines.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  Plenty of people want to be dominated by a kickass heroine.

But I can’t put one of those on my cover. I can’t even put my character in leather, because he doesn’t wear it, and he doesn’t wear a trench coat or a leather duster or a hat pulled low over his eyes. To make things more difficult, my main character isn’t a vampire or a werewolf—nor is he in love with a vampire or werewolf, employed in the vampire and werewolf-slaying industry, or related to a half-vampire and raising werewolves in the basement. He is, in fact, a Druid—but not the kind with giant beards and white robes.

So. How does one design a cover for such a character? How does one come up with something that will appeal to fans of the genre? Well, stay tuned. People smarter than me at Del Rey are figuring it out, and you can be sure I’ll post it here when it’s available. But I think it’s safe to reveal two things at this point:

1. There will be no purple.
2. There will be no man boobs.

And I will not apologize for those things, because they are wrong.

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Still Life with Fantasy and Fruit

My editor is THE COOLEST editor ever! Behold Exhibit A:

Still Life with Fantasy and Fruit #1

All of this was sent to me by my editor, except for the fruit. Here’s what you’re looking at, left to right, front row: Robert Redick’s The Red Wolf Conspiracy; a Braeburn apple; Daryl Gregory’s Pandemonium; another apple; Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett’s Have Mercy; and then moving to the back row, an Advanced Reader Edition of Peter V. Brett’s The Warded Man; a NEW! AWESOME! copy of Mr. Brett’s latest novel, The Desert Spear, two weeks before it’s available in stores (Whoops! I just drooled on the keyboard in nerd ecstasy!); bananas, because this shit is bananas; Richard K. Morgan’s The Steel Remains; and a final apple.

And now we pause for a celebratory squee. Squeeeee!!!

I had no idea how cool it would be to get free books until I got them. I mean, when I was a younger nerd with more hair, I’d get “free” books from those book clubs, but we all know they weren’t really free because you had that commitment hanging over you to buy only six more books in the next year at regular club price and you had to return that card on time or they’d send you a crappy book of the month instead of something you wanted. These books are free. I don’t have to buy anything or “just pay shipping and handling.” And yes, I’m bragging about it. I’m having a nice brag right now, because this is the coolest perk I never expected for getting published. I didn’t expect any perks, to be honest; getting published is satisfactorily perky all by itself. It doesn’t need perks. But they are there, and this is one of them.

In coming days, weeks, (months?) I’ll be reviewing these. I’m reading The Warded Man first because I’ve heard nothing but stellar things about it and I’m fond of reading stellar books. But after that and The Desert Spear, I’m digging into Richard Morgan’s book. His Altered Carbon was awesome stuff and so were the sequels, so I can’t wait to see what he’s done here. Oh, and you know what? I almost bought that book over the weekend! I picked it up, all excited, and then I checked the publisher on the spine and went “WHOA!” kind of like that loud man in the Staples commercials but several decibels quieter. Richard Morgan’s with Del Rey, too! I had no idea. I put the book down—very reluctantly—because I thought maybe, just maybe, Tricia would surprise me with it. And she DID! So that is Exhibit B. The books & authors in the front row are unknown to me, but I’m looking forward to this particular introduction and I’ll share the experience when I get to them.

I really need to write an effusive missive o’ thanks to my editor now.

School’s keepin’ me busy and it’s tough to find the headspace to write, but I’m at 30K on Hammered now and deep in research on the Kabbalah for my Kabbalist warriors. Happy Passover to all my Jewish friends.

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Games as a gateway to cultural literacy?

There’s a new video game out called Dante’s Inferno. It’s based on Dante’s epic vision o’ hell, changing a couple of plot elements but sticking with the nine levels and all the monsters, plus many of the shades mentioned in the poem. And check it out: my students seem mildly interested in actually reading it now.

Whoa.

I’m not the sorta dude who scoffs or sneers at anything that makes a kid pick up a classic, so I applaud EA for doing this and I’m actually somewhat tempted to try out the game; what I’m loving, though, is the fact that students were interested in a classic that’s not precisely easy reading. It’s COOL reading, no doubt, but neither is it simple stuff.

Here’s what happened: my spiffy Asst. Editor at Del Rey, Mike Braff, sent me a copy of the companion book, Dante’s Inferno (the complete text of the Longfellow translation) with screen shots of the game and how they developed it, etc. Here’s a link to the book. He signed it and I offered it to the kids as a giveaway in a drawing. I asked ’em to write their names on a scrap o’ paper if they wanted to go for it, and over half of them did. Think about it: teenagers interested in reading a classic on their own initiative? That’s…amazing! Hopeful! A new dawn, perhaps?

Now, if only they’d make games for other classics! How about The Great Gatsby? You have to save Gatsby and make Tom and Daisy pay for their carelessness! You can’t let the rich people get away with everything! Stop them! Run over Daisy with Gatsby’s car!

I think Robert E. Howard’s stories would adapt well to the video game milieu. You’re Conan the Barbarian, master thief and master, uh, barbarian. You try to steal stuff, and if you fail, just kill everything until you escape! Yeah! That’s entertainment!

Seriously, I’m grateful to EA for the Neato Idea. I hope it works out well for them, and I hope many young’uns will discover Dante as a result.

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Manuscript sent back, all marked up

Today I sent my copy edited manuscript back to Del Rey. I think they’re going to start the whole typesetting process soon, and once they get that bound up, I’ll finally know how to answer the question my students keep asking me: “How many pages?”

Some of the copy edits I completely agreed with—most, actually! But there were some here and there that I asked them to leave alone, so we’ll see what shakes out down the road.

I’m at 4K on HAMMERED. Only 76K to go!

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Disco Fries!

Today I learned about Disco Fries. It’s not something you can routinely find in Arizona, or I would have heard about it by now.

Disco Fries are french fries with gravy and cheese on top. In Canada they call it poutine. Here’s the link, son!

I learned about Disco Fries from my agent. I think I’ll have to try some when I go to New York next summer, just to say I’ve had them.

But I have other excellent news: HOUNDED, HEXED and HAMMERED will be audio books published by Random House Audio! Since Random House owns Del Rey, the opportunities for synergistic marketing are strong, and I’m so happy that people in the publishin’ world seem to dig Atticus and Oberon.