Auditory Self-Indulgence, Part 2

I think I've accumulated enough retrospect by now to say that my favourite thing about the Easie Damasco trilogy and their publication is that they ended up as three wonderful Brilliance Audio audiobooks that I then got to listen to.

Because, yes, I listened to the audiobooks of my own novels.  Wouldn't you?  The thing is, if your books get made into audiobooks then, if you close your eyes, (and admittedly this isn't such a good idea in rough parts of town or while driving in heavy traffic), you get to imagine that someone's made a film of them, or at the very least put on an energetic stage adaptation.  You get to experience them in a whole new way, through new eyes, and in a new voice, a voice that makes the weaker bits seem entirely decent and the good bits seem completely brilliant.

At least, that's my experience.  It may have a lot to do with the fact that I was lucky enough to get James Langton reading, and that James Langton is absolutely marvelous at this sort of thing.  By the end of Prince Thief, I was in awe of the range of accents he'd pulled off over the course of three books, (and the fact that not one of them ended up sounding ridiculous), the fact that he put meat on the bones of even minor characters, made major characters seem like real people, and in particular brought scoundrelly, possibly-just-slightly-loveable rogue Easie Damasco to life in a way I'd never have dreamed possible.

I guess what I'm saying, in a roundabout way, is that what James did wasn't just reading but acting; he literally, single-handedly acted out three books and dozens of characters, and that's just plain astonishing.  I'm very glad I got to be the author of those three books, and that I then got to listen to James's take on them; it was a pleasure from the beginning of Giant Thief to the end of Prince Thief, and I'm not sure I'll ever get quite so lucky with a reader again.  Many thanks to James and to the people at Brilliance who made it happen, not to mention the Angry Robot guys for putting the whole thing together in the first place.

Lastly ... I couldn't possibly pick a favourite character from the trilogy, but I think it would be okay to pick a favourite from the audio adaptations.  And if I did it would surely be Malekrin, the sort-of-star of Prince Thief.  There wasn't a single character I felt James got wrong, but Malekrin would have been awfully easy to mess up and James absolutely didn't: he captured all of Malekrin's early, youthful frustration and - let's face it! - total obnoxiousness, and then conveyed his growing pains across the course of the book, ending in a climatic scene that played out just the way it had in my head and got me a little bit emotional. 

Which would have been all well and good had I not been walking down the high street of my grim northern home town.  Still, I'm sure it's not the first time the good folk of Batley have seen a grown man get a little teary over the audiobook performance of a character he wrote.

2013: Or, Phase IV

I've been a little troubled at the prospect of putting together my end-of-the-year round up, truth be told.  I try to be positive here at Writing on the Moon, because I fervently believe that writing is a thing to be positive about, but the flip side of that is that I've always intended this blog to be an honest account of my career and there are some things that are just very difficult to put a positive spin on.  For me, for the most part, 2013 has been one of those things.

It certainly got off to a difficult start.  Of the three Damasco books, the writing of Prince Thief had been by far the hardest; I've no doubt it's possible to write a book in a year around a regular job without suffering any serious ill-effects, but when that day job involves things like twelve hour night shifts and inordinate amounts of travel it becomes, frankly, pretty tough.  And when you live like that for month after month, working up to seventy hours a week, doing little else and not sleeping anything like enough, after a while your health starts to suffer.  Hell, everything starts to suffer.

What made the experience just shy of impossible, though, was that I had a fair idea of what was in store for Prince Thief.  Giant Thief had performed moderately well, but not well enough for Crown Thief to receive much publisher support or attention from bloggers and reviewers, because sequels don't attract anything like the sort of interest that debuts do.  By the time I started Prince Thief, I'd been reliably informed that I should expect proportionately less again.

Looking back, that's seems a lot more like common sense than it did at the time: you'll always be preaching to the converted with the third book in a trilogy.  But at the time, the cost seemed just too much; I knew I was making myself unwell and causing distress to the people close to me to write a book that couldn't hope to achieve the sort of things you hope a book will achieve, and it broke my heart a little.

All of that was more of less done with by the end of March, but it cast a long shadow.  Even with my writing efforts dialed down I was still doing at least one and a half jobs, the exhaustion never quite went away, and things continued to be a struggle.  In retrospect, I might have done better to slacken the pace a little more; as it was, I spent the next few months feeling like I was doing far less than I should have been.  I'd have liked to have worked much more to promote the launch of Endangered Weapon B;  I enjoyed coming up with my first novella, insane sci-fantasy oddity Patchwerk, but it cost more in time and effort than I'd been expecting.  It was really only when I put the day job once and for all behind me in October that things began to settle down, and only in the past month that I've felt like everything was more or less back under control.

-oOo-

For all that I've sure as hell done it in this post, I don't like moaning.  I still remember with perfect clarity what it's like to be an unpublished author, as I imagine some of the people who'll read this will be, and I know that I've been very, very fortunate to make it as far as I have, in the ways that I have.  I wanted more than anything to have a book published and now I have five out there, in various shapes and sizes and - regardless of how hard I worked for it, regardless of anything - that is a thing of utter awesomeness.  As is the fact that I've finally achieved my other lifetime goal this year, to make writing my day job.

So, for all of those reasons, and because sometimes it's nice to remind yourself of all the good stuff, here's a list of the things that happened in 2013 that were actually pretty amazing:

• I sold a story to Clarkesworld and, with the year nearly out, to Interzone, two markets I've been chasing ever since I started writing seriously.  It was, in fact, a pretty great year for short fiction sales, all told.

• In the end, I finished one novel, two graphic novels, one novella, a novelette and three short stories. Under the circumstances, that doesn't feel like a bad haul.

• I completed my first trilogy.  The Tales of Easie Damasco are out there now, and I'm very proud of them.  They have stunning Angelo Rinaldi covers.  They're read wonderfully by James Langton in the superb Brilliance Audio audiobook adaptations.  They exist in the world, they're finding readers and listeners, and the more time goes by, the more I appreciate that fact.

• Endangered Weapon B is out there too, after some five or so years of trying to make it a reality, and I love it to pieces.  Of the many things I have to be thankful for, high on the list is that I've been able to work with Bob Molesworth, a great artist who I have no doubt is going to become an extraordinary artist over the next few years.

• I'm now writing full time. It's impossible to exaggerate just how much even typing those words feels like a gigantic weight coming off.  2014 is the year when I get to start writing the way I want, instead of the way I can somehow manage to fit around my day job.  2014 is the year when producing a book a year is suddenly the absolute least I can do, and when I get to put together some of the projects I've had to tread water on these last couple of years.  And, since this is the stage of my career that I've long been referring to as phase 4 in my Stalinesque ten year mental plan, 2014 is also, quite possibly, the year when ants take over the world.

         If that's not something to look forward to then I don't know what is.

Crown Thief Out in Audiobook, and Other Listenables

I've been looking forward to the Brilliance Audio adaptation of Crown Thief coming out.

As I've explained before, it would be undeniably weird and inappropriate and self-indulgent to read your own book, but no one ever said you can't listen to it.  Which is a good thing, because it's much more fun anyway, especially when you have the excellent James Langton returning to do his thing and make your book a good bit wittier and more entertaining than it ever was on the page.

I loved James's take on Giant Thief, so much so that I think it might have become the official version in my head; by the time I got to writing Prince Thief, I couldn't help noticing I'd mentally adopted James's accents for some of my major players - Marina Estrada is forever going to have an Irish lilt in my head now - and I can't wait to hear what he's made of some of the new players.  I have a feeling that his take on Synza, and one particular Synza-starring scene in particular (if you've read it, I'm sure you know which I mean*) is going to be a whole lot of fun.

Since I'm being hopelessly unrepentant about how much I enjoy podcasts of my own work, I should admit that I also recently listened to John Rubinstein's totally appropriate reading of The Sign in the Moonlight at Nightmare, and that I've made a start on Kate Baker's elegant, understated take on Across the Terminator, recently posted at the mighty Clarkesworld.


* Or, thinking about it, if you've seen the cover.

Auditory Self-Indulgence

I just finished listening to my first ever audiobook.  Well, unless you count the bonkers seventies BBC radio adaptation of The Hobbit I won at a British Fantasy Society event years ago, but I think that was more in the way of a dramatic interpretation.  I mean, it had sound effects and a cast and painfully long musical interludes and everything.  So let's just say for the purposes of argument that this one was my first audiobook.

By non-too-massive coincidence, it was in fact my first audibook.

Which is to say, it was Brilliance Audio's interpretation of Giant Thief, as directed by Lisa Cahn and as read by the mighty and award-winning James Langton. This wasn't quite the act of vanity or self-indulgence it might seem, (although it's probably fair to say that there was a little bit of both kicking about!)  With the first draft of Prince Thief coming to a close and taking the whole damn Tales of Damasco trilogy along with it, I thought I was overdue a revisit of Giant Thief, to try and weed out any niggling continuity errors and pick up any last plot threads I might have left dangling.  It may only have been released six months ago, I may only have put the final touches to it late last year, but what with finishing a sequel and drafting a second sequel in the meantime, that all seems a very long time ago, and I was shocked to realise I was getting a little hazy on the details.

So it was research, right?  That's okay.  The fact that I'd been itching to listen it ever since I heard that Giant Thief would be out in audiobook had nothing to do with anything.  There's nothing at all weird about wanting to listen to a complete stranger read out your own book to you. Ideally in bed, while you're drinking wine and eating mango sorbet.

Anyway, as it turned out, such luxuries weren't to be.  But despite only finding time to listen to it while on the tube and wandering the mean streets of London, I have finally managed to get to the end of the Giant Thief in audio.  And it was fun!  James Langton does a great job of breathing life into the text, making the jokes funnier and the action bits more actiony and the characters more textured than I think they ever read on the page.  Although he sounds nothing like the Easie Damasco in my head, James crafts his own version of the character that's every bit as good.  And the same goes for the rest of the cast: his Moaradrid is both more thuggish and more wily than mine; his Estrada is a little softer and a little more likeable, but downright scary when she needs to be.

Which, I guess, was the point for me.  I remember saying in a guest post a while back that once your book's published, it sort of stops being yours.  More than with most creative types, writers are shut out of the process of other people actually experiencing and interpreting our work.  Maybe that suits some people, but personally I like to peek over the reader's shoulder whenever I get the chance - and I really like it when talented people take something I've done and make it into something better and different that I don't entirely recognise.

So cheers to Brilliance for giving me the chance to listen to Lisa Cahn and James Langton's Giant Thief.  It made a lot of my recent journeys a whole heck of a lot more fun.

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.