My first guest post is up over at SFSignal, with more to follow in the coming days. In this one I discuss how I came to write the new book, and a little about the writing process.
In other news, the adventure I wrote for the Solomon Kane role-playing game is now available as a PDF from Pinnacle Entertainment, AKA the Savage Worlds folks.
Seems like I had more to share, but I still have a slew of guest blogs to write, so I’d better get on with that…
Bill Ward and I are reading our way through the Del Rey Robert E. Howard collection The Coming of Conan. This week we’re discussing “Xuthal of the Dusk,” sometimes known under the title “The Slithering Shadow.” We hope you’ll join in!
Howard: By this or its other name, “The Slithering Shadow,” Fritz Leiber once named this story as one of the weakest Conan yarns, describing it as “”repetitious and childish, a self-vitiating brew of pseudo-science, stage illusions, and the ‘genuine’ supernatural.”
TOR.com is running a contest right now to win a copy of my newest book, Beyond the Pool of Stars. All you have to do is sign up in the comments section of this page.
And check this out — you can read a chapter of the book for free right over here!
Once again, here’s the back cover blurb:
Mirian Raas comes from a long line of salvagers, adventurers who use magic to dive for sunken ships off the coast of tropical Sargava. When her father dies, Mirian has to take over his last job: a dangerous expedition into deep jungle pools, helping a tribe of lizardfolk reclaim the lost treasures of their people. Yet this isn’t any ordinary job, as the same colonial government that looks down on Mirian for her half-native heritage has an interest in the treasure, and the survival of the entire nation may depend on the outcome…
I’m gearing up for a big promotional push for my next book, Beyond the Pool of Stars. That means I’ll be spending a lot of spare time writing blog posts that will be appearing in other places, doing my best to convince those unfamiliar with me or my work that it’s interesting and that they need to buy it. I DO need money to buy food and pay the mortgage and college tuition for the first born, etc.
Anyway, I’ll be so busy with that I probably won’t have too many in-depth articles going live on my own site for a while. The last half of this year has been even busier than usual!
Bill Ward and I are reading our way through the Del Rey Robert E. Howard collection The Coming of Conan. This week we’re discussing “Iron Shadows in the Moon.” We hope you’ll join in!
Bill: “Iron Shadows in the Moon” (retitled “Shadows in the Moonlight” for its Weird Tales and some subsequent appearances) contains everything most readers associate with a classic Conan tale: a beautiful female sidekick, the mysterious ruins of a forgotten race, supernatural peril, the clash of civilization and barbarism, subhuman monsters, and, above all, Conan being Conan. REH is firing on all cylinders at this point in his work on Conan and, if a few subsequent stories sometimes seem a bit like formulaic echoes of this story, it’s for good reason, as these elements all come together to tell a really terrific adventure.
I remain crazy busy doing writer and house dad things, so I have little that’s especially clever. I’ll still do my best to entertain you today.
First, giant-sized hounds. Beware!
Second, I want to take a train across the U.S. like this. Except I’d probably start from Chicago and go west. But you get the idea.
I’ve mentioned before that I really enjoy the Savage Worlds game system. I’ve loved every official release, although the only setting I’ve yet played for any length of time is the Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane. I talk about the game here, here, and here.
I ended up liking what Savage Worlds had done so much that I threw my hat in the ring to write some adventures for them. The first will be available in only a few months as part of a trilogy of new horror adventure books.
Volume 1 is out already, and features another Solomon Kane tale, as well as a bevy of terrifying adventures. Check it out here.
Bill Ward and I are reading our way through the Del Rey Robert E. Howard collection The Coming of Conan. This week we’re discussing “Black Colossus.” We hope you’ll join in!
Howard: Maybe it’s not as deep, or as soulful, as some that are more routinely mentioned by Howard scholars, but this is one of my favorite Conan stories. This is the work of a master who knows exactly how far to push every moment, and understands exactly what his audience wants. Robert E. Howard is in complete control of this narrative from beginning to end.
I don’t know that I’ve ever mentioned it on this blog, but I’m a huge fan of Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Justice League: Unlimited, and, to a lesser extent, Superman: The Animated Series, and Batman Beyond. I loved the animation style and (for the most part) the character designs, but most importantly — because a cool look matters not at all if the tales are poor — the storytelling. It was usually top-notch, head and shoulders above cartoons of the time and at least equal if not superior to the best modern cartoons as well.
That’s why, when I learned there was a new Justice League movie being released with one of the most important of the original crew overseeing it (i.e. Bruce Timm) I immediately put the movie in the Netflix queue. I didn’t know anything much about it, except that it was with some kind of alternate Justice League.
Robert E. Howard scholar Barbara Barrett sent Bill and me copies of a nifty Hyborian Age map. She had some extra copies from Howard Days 2014 and sent some to the two of us via John O’Neill.
Note the figure in the upper left, likely searching for some jeweled thrones to trod under his sandaled feet. I’m probably going to get this map framed — it’s just danged cool. Thanks, Barb!