by Howard

The Real Caliph

When I decided to set the Dabir and Asim stories in historical Arabia, I likewise decided that while I would emulate the real world, I’d also pay homage to the 1001 Nights. I would emphasize glitter over grit, although the latter wouldn’t be entirely absent. There would naturally be elements of the fantastic, although they would not be everyday experiences.

There are not just fantasy figures in the 1001 Nights, there are also real historical characters, like the caliph Harun al-Rashid and his vizier Jaffar. Dabir and Asim start out working for Jaffar, and rise to such prominence that they begin to interact with the caliph, one of the most powerful men in the world.

I have had more and more reason to be thinking about Harun as I advance into the writing of the third Dabir and Asim book. He makes a few appearances in The Desert of Souls, and is off-stage through The Bones of the Old Ones, but he is a central character in The Maiden’s Eye. I show him as he is in the 1001 Nights, where he comes across as a pretty compelling figure. In real life, though… he was kind of a tractless jerk.

Today’s My Birthday

So you may have heard that today’s my birthday.

What do I want apart from universal peace and brotherhood and some quality time with my family? (And maybe a piece of cherry pie? Cakes are overrated.)

Well, I wouldn’t mind it at all if everyone who liked The Desert of Souls got a copy for a friend. You could say: “Here old chum, it’s Howard’s birthday, enjoy his book.” Preferably with a ridiculous English accent.

Or, if you enjoyed the book, I’d be grateful if you just dropped by and said a few kind words on the Amazon Desert of Souls page. It wouldn’t have to be very many words, either, just a few. I’d liked to see that review number climb to 50 or higher.

If you really liked the book, you could consider buying the short story collection, The Waters of Eternity, or pre-ordering The Bones of the Old Ones — although it’s always better for an author if you can buy a copy of a book from a physical bookstore, which could also take your pre-order. It’s strange but true. It has something to do with a record of physical sales STILL being tracked as more important than online sales. Maybe that will change, eventually, but it hasn’t yet, and so sales numbers from stores help authors more than online sales. (Although if the choice is online sale or nothing, every one of us will choose online!)

Oh, one last thing. If you didn‘t like The Desert of Souls, it being my birthday and all, perhaps you could just keep it a secret.

Right, well, that’s about as clever as I feel like being right now. Keep your fingers crossed on that pie for me.

Galleys, then ARCs, then… the Book!

My galleys arrived the other day. Those are the printed copies of pages as they will look (as far as spacing and fonts) once they’re actually bound into the final book. As a result, The Bones of the Old Ones is starting to feel more and more real, because now I can see what it will look like when laid out. (After this I’ll see it in an advanced reader’s copy, or ARC… and then the real thing.)

I’ll be spending the next week going over the text a final time. Of course, at this point in the process I really have to keep changes to a minimum because the book is now laid out, and each change here could re-wrap all the words in the entire chapter… and that, as you can probably guess, can be a huge problem and expense.

Once I turn the galleys back over to St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne Books, I have to start gearing up for the marketing push. One aspect of that will be designing a newer, snazzier web site, but I will also be needing to get out there talking about my book and writing and doing everything I possibly can to spread news that it’s coming soon.

Hannibal’s Words

I suppose a lot of writers are weird kids. I was, though I was enough of an introvert you couldn’t necessarily tell by looking just how weird. I was too worried about what people thought. I didn’t have enough social acumen to realize that part of the reason I wasn’t exactly popular might be the clothes I wore, or my lack of interest in sports, or my obsession with the original Star Trek, or the way I was always reading or playing D&D. Part of the problem was surely that I was just a skinny pale kid. With glasses. And braces. And freckles. And a sort of light bulb shaped head.

But this makes it seem like I feel sorry for myself, and the truth of the matter is that I had a fantastic childhood, with great and loyal friends and a loving and supportive family. I don’t think I’d change anything except a few poor decisions, and a few words I’ve since regretted. And I surely wouldn’t trade in my idols for the popular ones. Sure, I always dug The Beatles, and still do. And there are probably a lot of men my age who picked up cues from Kirk and Spock. (And no, I don’t mean how Kirk got to score with alien babes; I’m referring instead to compassionate leadership and standing up for the right thing, and always coming through for your friends and allies even at risk of your life or your career.) But my biggest idol was Hannibal of Carthage, and I’m sure I never met anyone else my age who thought he was as cool as I did. Or thought that he was cool at all. That was just weird.

Writing Tips from Doctor McCoy

At Black Gate Monday I’m going  live with a long post about how writers sabotage themselves, and I thought of a corollary that I’ve been thinking of as the McCoy test. On those days when I find myself hesitating, or wasting time notwriting during my writing time I try to think a little like Dr. McCoy. If you’re not a fan of the original Star Trek you might still have heard an occasional reference to some of McCoy’s catchphrases. No, not “he’s dead, Jim,” but “I’m a doctor, not a moon shuttle conductor” or I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer,” or “I’m a doctor, not an escalator” and a few others.

I’m training myself to ask if I’m a writer, or a reader of news articles, or if I’m a writer, or a Facebook visitor, etcetera. It seems to help me remember to stay on task. In my case, I have to have reference books on hand to keep historical tidbits accurate, but they can be so interesting (and notwriting is infinitely easier than writing) that I sometimes lose track. Hence the McCoy test. Am I a writer, or a historical text reader?

Running in Low-Gravity

It certainly wasn’t worth all the pain and expense of my surgery, and therapy, but one cool thing happened the other day because of my knee injury, and that was getting to run on a zero gravity treadmill.

The space of the treadmill is pressurized, and the person who’s getting ready to run slips on a pair of super-tight shorts that are zipped into place at the top of the pressurized chamber.  The first experience, as you’re pulling those things on, is sort of “huh,” unless you’re used to wearing a diver suit or fighting evildoers in spandex. But once you’re actually running the treadmill it’s pretty enjoyable. My own weight was set to 50% Earth normal, which is less than I would weigh on Mars. And then I took a jog. For the first little bit I didn’t even notice the pain in my knee, which makes sense, because the whole object of the zero gravity treadmill is to get damaged joints back up to speed gently. But because I’m a long time science fiction and fantasy nerd I was thinking the entire time about jogging on another planet, or wondering if this is how John Carter felt when he ran, and other nonsense.

An Arabian Memoir

When I get asked about good resources and research materials on the ancient Middle-East, one book I always suggest is the memoirs of Usamah Ibn-Munqidh, a warrior from the early Crusades who set down his life story when he was a nonagenarian. It’s a short book, but it’s crammed with fascinating insight into the life of a warrior in the 11^th century. It’s truly one of my favorite books. Usamah tells fascinating anecdotes on every page, and if he occasionally rambles (which even he admits) you never have to wait very long to get to another great anecdote. At the same time that you’re learning how much more strange and complex life was than might have been assumed, you also see how human the people were who moved through those times.

I decided today to stop using adjectives to describe how great this book is and just let Usamah’s work speak for itself. Here is Usamah telling us about the time he was asked to consider buying a Cheetah:

Wandering the Web

With my writing schedule back under control I’ve been wandering around spreading good cheer and talking about great fantasy writers. On the off chance there are some people who visit my site who don’t regularly visit the Black Gate web site, I thought I should point you toward two recent posts celebrating two of my favorite authors.

The first is about Leigh Brackett, and features a lengthy excerpt from the opening of one of her fine sword-and-planet stories so interested folks can see why she’s so lauded.

The second I just took live earlier today, and it is all about Robert E. Howard’s writing. I spend a little more time discussing the whys and wherefores, peeking under the hood, as it were, arguing that he is far more than he is assumed to be.

If these sorts of posts prove popular, I have other writers in mind to look at as well.

In addition to these writer celebrations, I’ve been doing a little mulling over the purpose of blogging as promotion, and it provoked some lively discussion. You can find it by clicking here.

4th of July with Dry Ice

With record breaking triple digit temperatures and a pronounced lack of rain, my community banned all  4^th of July fireworks except for those that were being handled by the pros.

Here at Jones central, on our tower by the Sea of Monsters, 4^th of July is fairly low key, but we do typically get some sparklers and snakes and snappers and a few small fountains. It’s my son’s favorite holiday, and I think he was the most disappointed of the four of us. But he and my wife cooked up a backup plan. Some time last year my son had discovered an amusing science video out there on the interwebs, and he suggested we try the experiment out in lieu of fireworks. So, with an old plastic pretzel container, a tube, some soapy water, and some dry ice, we managed to amuse ourselves for an hour or so. It didn’t occur to me until after all the dry ice sublimated that we should have tried some food coloring. My science genius wife tells me it probably wouldn’t have worked, but some red and blue bubbles would have made the whole thing feel a little more patriotic.

Follow this link to see an official Boo Bubble demonstration from Steve Spangler science. Yeah, it really is that cool in person. We built our own bubble device, but this one looks pretty nifty.

The Fierce Impatient Side of Things

Lately I’ve been reading through the Del Rey Robert E. Howard collection El Borak And Other Desert Adventures. I’ve read a lot of these stories in various beat-up old paperbacks, but some are new to me, and others haven’t been read by me in ten years or so. As I’ve said elsewhere, Robert E. Howard was a vivid writer and brilliant crafter of action scenes. I love how swiftly he brings a scene to life, and how visual and cinematic his fight scenes are. I always learn something or catch some great turn of phrase whenever I’m reading his work, and I usually enjoy myself immensely.

Sometimes I find myself growing annoyed with some of the artifacts of the era and magazine genre for which he wrote, particularly the racism, or the tendency for characters to infodump or villains to monologue. I know Robert E. Howard wasn’t himself a racist or sexist, but anyone who pales at seeing racism or sexism will be in for a rude awakening when they try out adventure fiction from the pulp era. Anyway, sometimes these aspects of the fiction that I otherwise quite enjoy start to irritate me… And then I think about how little I enjoy the sense of pacing in so many modern fantasy novels (how do people read such loooong books where nothing much happens for long stretches of time?) and how uninterested I am in novels that are mostly social criticism, and I remind myself how pleased I am to be reading some REH, who, like Conradin, seemed to celebrate the fierce, impatient side of things.