Archives: News

Author Sightings

On January 15th I’ll be driving to Terre Haute to talk to some ISU creative writing students about writing and the business thereof, and then, at 6:00, I’ll be signing copies of The Bones of the Old Ones at the Terre Haute Barnes and Noble. I suppose I could sign other items as well, if you really want. For instance, if you need a signed copy of Memory of Light, or always wanted a signature on your Land of the Lost costume, I’ll be happy to help out.

From January 18th to January 20th I’ll be at ConFusion up in sunny Dearborn Michigan. I attended ConFusion for the first time last year and it’s a great convention. The staff are personable and very well-organized. There’s a strong gaming track AND a strong writing track, and the panels are intimate. Also, there are a number of movers and shakers at ConFusion with whom it’s usually hard to rub elbows at larger cons.

Of Swords and Gorns

What strange times we’re living in. Just ten years ago there was a pronounced lack of sword-and-sorcery on the shelves. I’m sure some of my forum posts on this subject, lamenting the injustice of the situation, can still be found. Yet here we are in 2013 with a whole lot of popular book series now flavored with sword-and-sorcery sensibilities — the headlong pace, the gritty feel, the action sequences, all that. While my own work has more glitter than grit, it’s still sword-and-sorcery, and, better yet, it’s among those making end-of-year lists.

Last year, The Desert of Souls made the top ten of the Barnes and Noble SciFi and Fantasy Blogs Best Fantasy list; this year The Bones of the Old Ones got there as well! Here’s the 2011 list, and here’s the 2012 list. Great reading is to be found on both, even if you’re not into Arabian swashbuckling. It’s nice to be on there with a number of friends, including Saladin Ahmed and John Fultz!

With The Desert of Souls released in paperback in January of 2012, it qualified for a 2012 end of year list from noted reviewer Paul Weimer. And J.J.S Boyce, reviewer for The Green Man, Winnipeg Free Press, Blogcritics, and Sleeping Hedghog, selected The Bones of the Old Ones as the best new fantasy title of the year!

In other Jones-related news, a panel I was on at Chicon 7 (aka Worlcon 2012) was recorded for posterity and recently released online by Timothy Ward. In it, I sat down with four fine fellow authors (Louise Marley, Rachel Neumeier, Jack Skillingstead, Lynda Williams ORU) and talked about how to Write What you Don’t Know. My basic thesis is that if you want to write it but don’t know about it, go do the research — you’re not confined to writing about ONLY the things that you’ve experienced. For instance, say, grad school and creative writing programs. You can then color your writing with your own observations on the nature of man, the way people converse and interact, and all that. Other people have more clever things to say. Anyway, the recorded panel is here.

The New Year Dawns

We had the best New Year’s Eve we’ve managed for several years, one full of laughter with family and an old family friend. My wife and son and daughter and I spent most of the day preparing for a massive fondue extravaganza with a variety of chopped vegetables and meats, and a dessert fruit platter with a marscapone cheese dip and a chocolate dip. Our friend Daniel came by with home-made sushi, and one of my daughter’s friends joined in the festivities, along with my mom. My wife is a phenomenal cook and made all the dipping sauces from scratch, some concocted on the fly.

After the feasting we sat down for a hilarious game of Robo-Rally, then played Iron Dragon until late in the night. In recent years my wife and I have been turning in at 11:00 (after watching the NY ball drop with the kids) so this is the first time in ages that we were awake during the local year’s end. The night was a wonderful way to start the new year, especially because I can’t recall when I last laughed so hard, or so frequently, in a span of hours. Trying to get your robot across the factory floor/obstacle course that is Robo-Rally can do that for you. The object may be to win the game, but most of the fun occurs watching the mayhem, even if it involves your own robot. I cackled with glee each time my robot got nudged off course (or I mis-programmed it) and it sailed into one of the pits.

Grab Bag

I woke up to a foggy Christmas Eve day here at Jones Central, but then here in our tower by the Sea of Monsters it’s often foggy in the mornings.

There’s an awful lot that’s been going on around here, so this morning’s post is a little scattered. Good press for The Bones of the Old Ones continues to roll in, so I’ve updated the official page with some new quotes that link to the reviews. And, as I mentioned yesterday, there’s an e-book promotion going on right now until January 7th. My British publisher is offering e-copies of The Desert of Souls for only 1 pound. (That’s a British pound, not a pound of, say, peanut butter fudge.)

Desert of Souls E-Book Exclusive

For a limited time, the e-book of The Desert of Souls will be available for  £1.00!

My British publisher, Head of Zeus, is offering the book for one pound through January 7th! All the details and links to sites like Amazon.co.uk and Waterstone’s (among others) can be found on their web site by clicking this link.

I hope all of my British and European friends can help me spread the word.

Also, Head of Zeus has cooked up a pretty nifty series introduction for The Chronicles of Sand and Sword. I like it so much I wish I’d thought of it:

THE CHRONICLE OF SWORD & SAND: Baghdad, AD 790. Caliph Harun al-Rashid presides over the greatest metropolis on Earth, ruler of an empire that stretches from China to Byzantium. His exploits will be recorded in Alf Layla or, as we know it, The Book of One Thousand and One Nights.

But The Thousand and One Nights are silent on the deeds and adventures that befell two of the Caliph’s subjects: the renowned scholar Dabir ibn Kahlil, and his shield and right hand, Asim el Abbas. For their story, we must turn to the Chronicle of Sand and Sword…

 

 

All Over the Place

It’s been a busy week, so I thought I’d just point visitors to a grab bag of posts. It being barely over a week since The Bones of the Old Ones was released, some new reviews have been released, but I wanted first to talk about an excellent series of essays about the Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars series.

Black Gate’s excellent essayist Ryan Harvey (really, why doesn’t this guy have a paying gig doing this kind of thing?) read every single Burroughs Mars book over the course of the last year, detailing highs, lows, weirdest moments and generally providing the kind of overview that I have always wanted. Me, I’ve read and enjoyed a little over half of the eleven books, and thanks to Harvey’s reviews I now have a pretty good idea about which ones I will probably skip. Harvey’s talented, honest, and funny, and any fan of the Mars Burroughs stuff –or anyone curious about the series- should visit these, pronto. Here, Part 11 links to all of the preceding sections.

Film Option

I am delighted to announce that a major studio has optioned the Chronicles of Sword and Sand (AKA the Dabir and Asim novels) and that they’re looking for screenwriter. I’ll release further updates about that as events warrant.

Over at TOR, at their Pop Quiz at the End of the Universe series, I answered some pretty wild questions. Between that and the interview over at Jean Book Nerd I think it’s possible to get a better than usual idea about who I am and what I’m really about. These weren’t the usual “where do you get your ideas” kind of questions, and I had a lot of fun with them.

Also, there a new book give away AND another glowing review of The Bones of the Old Ones, over at Jean Book Nerd, on the same page as the interview.

I WAS going to post today about a great pulp story I read last night from one of those old collections I posted about last week, but I figured everyone would be interested int his news. And to be perfectly honest, I was dying to tell someone!

Lest I forget, there are still a few days left to sign up for the chance to win a free copy of The Bones of the Old Ones and The Desert of Souls, at Reddit. I hope you’ll swing by!

 

Welcome

Traffic to my little corner of the web is skyrocketing today, and I can only assume that’s because today’s the launch of the next Dabir and Asim novel, The Bones of the Old Ones.

If you’re new to the site, and me, welcome.

• If you’re curious about The Bones of the Old Ones, there’s a chance to win a free signed copy of the book  and its standalone predecessor, The Desert of Souls, at reddit, so I hope you’ll drop by.
• If you’re wanting to see a sneak peek of the book, the first chapter and a half are live at Black Gate, and can be found by clicking on this link.
• And if you’re curious to see what people are saying about the book, I’ve collecting all of the reviews in one place on the web site. Short form is a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, enthusiastically positive reviews from BookPage and Staffer’s Book Review, and two 4.5 (out of 5) star reviews from SF Signal (here and here).

Long time site visitors, thanks for sticking with me. Things are apt to be a little wild here for a few weeks as I run around trying to work promotional miracles. I don’t know whether guest blogging or mailbox stuffing with flyers about my upcoming book signing or podcasts help, but it does keep me out of trouble and gives me some illusion of control.

Contest Winners Announced

Later today I’ll announce another The Bones of the Old Ones giveaway contest. For now, though, it’s my pleasure to reveal the winners of the Goodreads giveaway contest. Each of the three winners will be receiving a signed copy of both The Bones of the Old Ones and its predecessor The Desert of Souls. More on that in just a moment.

In other news, I was invited to write about my current reading choices over at the Campaign for the American Reader, and why I’m reading them. Naturally I discussed the glorious Shanameh first, because I’m always in the midst of reading some part of it. Click here to read my essay, along with those from a great many talented writers.

Friends have been writing or calling to let me know of sightings of The Bones of the Old Ones out there on bookstore shelves, even though tomorrow’s the actual release date. That’s right, today’s the last day that the book is available for pre-order. If you follow this link and scroll most of the way to the bottom, the book can be ordered through Macmillan, Barnes & Noble, Powells, Books A Million, Indiebound, Amazon, or Walmart.

Alright then, here are the contest winners from Goodreads. Watch this space for details on another book giveaway, starting soon.

The Siren Depths

Martha Wells’ new book has just been released nationwide. Lovers of fine spec fiction, get thee forth and find it!

All his life, Moon roamed the Three Worlds, a solitary wanderer forced to hide his true nature–until he was reunited with his own kind, the Raksura, and found a new life as consort to Jade, sister queen of the Indigo Cloud court.

But now a rival court has laid claim to Moon, and Jade may or may not be willing to fight for him. Beset by doubts, Moon must travel in the company of strangers to a distant realm where he will finally face the forgotten secrets of his past, even as an old enemy returns with a vengeance.

Available at:

Barnes and Noble, Chapters Indigo, Amazon US, Powell’s, Mysterious Galaxy, The Tattered Cover, Books-a-Million, Book Depository.com (free shipping worldwide), Waterstones UK, Book Depository.uk, Whitcoulls NZ, Amazon UK, Amazon.ca, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de, Amazon Spain, or look for it at an independent book store in the US through IndieBound.

ebook: Baen Webscription eBook (DRM-Free), Barnes & Noble NookBook US, Amazon US Kindle, Kobo, Waterstones UK, Whitcoulls NZ, Kindle UK, Barnes & Noble NookBook UK, Kindle Germany, Kindle France, Kindle Spain, Kindle Italy.

Martha Wells is the author of fourteen fantasy novels, including The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, The Gate of Gods, The Element of Fire, and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer and Emilie and the Hollow World, to be published by Strange Chemistry Books in April 2013. She has had short stories in the magazines Black Gate, Realms of Fantasy, Lone Star Stories, and Stargate Magazine, and in the Tsunami Relief anthology Elemental. She has also written two media-tie-in novels, Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary and Stargate Atlantis: Entanglement.