Tales of Damasco: Update 3

I was vaguely hoping to talk about something other than the Damasco books this week ... there must be other stuff happening! ... but then a load more Giant Thief-related news came in, so here we are.  And, I dunno, maybe I'm being a little unrealistic.  Probably I shouldn't be suprised that my first novel and it's upcoming sequel are about the only thing I have to discuss, right?  Kind of a big deal, that.

Still, I was determined to dig up something else to witter about, before my interview with Mur Lafferty on the Angry Robot podcast went live.  My first proper talking interview!  I was actually dreading this one about as much as I was looking forward to it, if not a little more; I had vague memories of umming and arring a lot and talking way too much about Endangered Weapon B and then going off on a mad tangent where I basically declared the bricks-and-mortar publishing industry dead.  And, hey, all of those things are exactly what I did.  But it's all worth it for the sheer existential oddness of listening to myself talking like some proper author type and sounding like I have a vague idea of what I'm on about.  Ah, the reality-bending effects of podcasting!

Speaking of which, I got a lovely e-mail midweek from Lisa at Brilliance Audio to say how enthusiastic she and Brit actor James Langton are about recording Giant Thief, and to check over the pronunciations of all those wacky Spanglish character and place names.  As a result, I'm even more excited about the audiobook edition than I already was, and I was pretty damn excited about it to begin with.  The only problem is that given how little time I have, I'm going to have to contrive some really, really long journey that I can listen to it in when it comes out in April.  Maybe it's time for that hotair balloon journey to Tibet I keep putting off and putting off?

In other news, the last of my initial splurge of guest blog posts are up.  At Tor.com, I talk about Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, unreliable narration and how they relate to Giant Thief - you'd think that one would be a really short post but somehow it isn't! - and at My Favourite Books, I sort of explain what was going through my head when I was coming up with Damasco, a little of why he's such an irrepresable ratbag, and how it's not really my fault, honest.

Last up we have a couple more Giant Thief reviews ... and in a slight break from tradition, no one really hated it this time around.  Okay, Luke at Seeking the New Earth didn't much enjoy the bits that weren't focused on Damasco and felt that "Easie is such a nuanced character that everyone else simply pales in comparison" ... but since Damasco rarely butts of the story, that's still seems like a thumbs up to me.  Elsewhere, My Awful Reviews fail to live up to their site name (for shame!) with a snappy, cogent review that begins, "Giant Thief was a fun roller coaster. I dug into it, thought it was predictable, and then the author hit me with something unexpected. I read on. The story felt predictable again, and whack!, another unexpected turn. Clever, ain't he?"  Perhaps confusing cleverness with being crap at planning there, but hey, I'll take a compliment wherever I can get it.  Lastly, Liz at My Favourite Books (again) opens with the brilliant assertion that, "I had such fun reading Giant Thief. It is the equivalent of a Sunday Matinee movie, it's a popcorn book, the kind of fantasy you give a friend who has never read fantasy and wants to give it a try", goes on to describe GT as "cinematic and cool" and concludes that "Tallerman gives us a fun, fast debut where old fantasy tropes are dusted off and given a newer sheen for a new audience" ... which is sort of exactly what I'd have had in mind if I'd really thought things through that much.


Oh ... since this is a Tales of Damasco update rather than just a Giant Thief update, it's probably worth mentioning that Crown Thief went off to Angry Robot and Zeno yesterday.  And I'm about half way through the chapter plan of Prince Thief, with a week or so to go before the real legwork begins.  Yeah ... bring it on, Prince Thief.