The Living Dead Lives On

John Joseph Adams's anthology The Living Dead was beyond a doubt my first taste of being a professional writer.  In fact, it possibly set the bar a little high for what was to follow.  What could be more of a dream come true for a novice writer to see their story nestled between tales by Clive Barker and Joe Hill and in the same TOC as Stephen King and George R R Martin, or to be in a book that would go on to be so hugely successful, critically acclaimed and award nominated, and arguably end up being the definitive compilation for an entire sub genre?

I'd been wondering what was to come of The Living Dead after original publisher Night Shade's much-publicized troubles, so it was welcome news when John got in touch to let me know that it would be shambling on under the auspices of Orbit, in UK e-book edition at least, and with a striking new cover to boot.

If you have the faintest interest in zombie fiction or good horror stories in general, The Living Dead is definitely one of the best anthologies I've read, let alone been in.  You can find the new edition here on Amazon, and here's a post on the Orbit site where some of the contributors - myself included - say a little about where these stories came from.

Lost in Translation

 Everything automatically becomes ten times more entertaining when read in bad translation, even reviews of your own books.  I know this to be true because I spent an hour on the train yesterday reading what German readers made of Giant Thief - or rather Im Schatten der Giganten - as filtered through the distorting lens of Google Translate.  

The good news is that German readers seem to have mostly taken to Giant Thief.  The bad news is that it's hard to be entirely, one hundred percent sure.  Take for instance this, from Whisperleaf's Fantasy Blog: "However, I must say that the book is written with so much sarcasm and irony of easie that you have to like him easy.   I think I've never been convinced already on the very first page of the book and the character had to read with a smile on his lips, already here!"  

That sounds like praise, right?  And the same goes for a review at Readme: "Easie Damasco is the "most compelling hero since Captain Jack Sparrow," as the back cover claims? Yes, he is. At least. Because, the reader set of the images supplied by the pirate movie sight "In the Shadow of the Giants" all by himself in the head. Even more colorful and devious than anything that could have come from the Caribbean."  

If it makes a second edition, that last line should totally be the cover blurb!  

Sadly, not everyone was quite so taken with Damasco and his first adventure.  Captain Fantastic, for example, gave Giant Thief a scowly pirate face and seemed to feel particularly let down but the action scenes: "Remain always the possibility that our fast-paced action is offered here, the Sword & Sorcery friends would satisfy at least. But easie is just not a fighter (even if the cover suggests the German). His biggest fight of action is to occur on someone's foot, otherwise he hides or runs away."  And Horror Bee, reviewing at Armarium Nostrum, also has his reservations: "The book has scary potential, but is it for me for a book too superficial.  Maybe draws Tallerman this potential in subsequent volumes of yes."

Well, it's hard to argue with that.  Still, let's end on a high note; most positive of all the reviews I found - if, thanks to Google Translate, also the least comprehensible - is this, from Fantasybuch: "Wants all in all, the reader gets from David Tallermans "In the Shadow of the Giants" an exciting Verfolgungsjad throughout the Castovall offered with its own distinct hierarchy and nature of the giants, a cruel generals, the world as it was, change and a shrewd thief comes with a lot of skill and flair from bad to worse and must draw its own lessons from the events. A book, perfectly suited to brighten the day."
 
 

And the Rest

The week before last I tried, and just about managed, to take a holiday in Malta.  Over the past few years, holiday had tended to mean "writing in a different place", or "writing without the day job", neither of which is that close to the dictionary definition.  This time I wanted to get as close to actually stopping work - even fun work - as I could.  In the end, that wound up as maybe thirty minutes a day on my graphic novel C21st Gods, probably the least time I've put in since the Angry Robot deal began two and a half years ago.

And what do you know?  It did me good.  Not just from a getting a rest and a (very slight) tan point of view, either.  I saw interesting things.  I talked to interesting people.  I learned stuff.  My brain got to slip the rails for a few days.  And out of all of that, I began to think about old subjects in new ways.

Obviously in its heyday there would have been a lot more dead people.

For example: St Paul's Catacombs.  Two square kilometers worth of spooky underground tunnels that the Maltese heritage trust is nice enough to let you wander around to your heart's content, with only an audio guide to keep you company.  But it's a really good audio guide, and one of the things it points out repeatedly is that, dark and dank as these rows and avenues of tombs might be in the present, in their heyday they would have been brightly painted, incense-scented places, where relatives would eat lavish meals and celebrate the lives of their lost loved ones.  It takes a real leap of imagination to see those dark stone passages as they must once have been, but once you do, you can't go back; suddenly, what was grim and morbid has become a celebration of life.

Anyway, just an example ... there were plenty more that I won't bore you with.  I thought a lot about archeology, about ancient civilizations and how people might have lived and why, about how perhaps the findings of historians don't always mesh that well with our actual experience of how human beings function and behave - and ultimately, how all of that can feed into how I go about imagining fictitious cultures and characters and places.  Because I could have written a creepy catacomb without a visit to St Paul's easily enough, and I could have imagined a culture that buried their dead in said creepy catacomb, but I'm not sure it would have ever occurred to me to written a homely, decorative catacomb where people took the kids for a night out.

In the end, my time in Malta ended up being a nice reminder of why I've spent my entire adult life wanting to write for a living; of how much it's my way of finding a useful place for my curiosity and fascination with trying to figure out how things work.  Who'd have thought?  Sometimes not writing is good for your writing.

May News (Or the Lack Thereof)

Yes, the news at the middle of the month is that I don't have much news.  However, I'm off to Malta tomorrow (for more retrospective novel research, you understand) and I fear I'm not likely to find time to be writing any blog posts while I'm there, so I figured I should stop by here to set down just how little I have to talk about right now.

Well, perhaps that's not entirely true ... it's just that a lot of things are in progress and nothing is quite there yet.  I'm most of the way through my first standalone graphic novel script, the long-gestating C21st Gods, and enjoying the change of direction; Prince Thief is with its copy editor, and I just finished my own final check-through; and Bob and I are putting the last touches to the trade of Endangered Weapon B, ready for it's July release, while - touch wood! - one of my all-time favourite comic creators is in the process of writing us a glowing introduction.

I suppose, then, that finishing off two books while writing a third can't really be described as nothing happening.  Still, in comparison to recent months, I've been taking it relatively easy all told.  What a shame then that all that peace and quiet's going to be interrupted by the hardships of an exhausting retrospective research trip in the punishing Mediterranean heat. 

No, don't pity me gentle reader!  It wouldn't be art if I didn't suffer horribly for it.

Free Comic Book Day Fun

Free!  All free!

I'd had fairly high hopes for my Free Comic Book Day signing at Forbidden Planet on Saturday, what with that combination of a great venue on a great occasion and the fact that I was there - thanks to Mr Bob Molesworth - with a marvelous-looking book that I was confident people would be eager to get their hands on once they got a look at that lovely, betentacled, Indy-pastiching cover.

But honestly, I hadn't the faintest idea what I was getting myself in for.  If I'd known, I probably wouldn't have dared go.

It was the queue that gave it away.  It appeared out of nowhere, just after I sat down, as I was getting my own first look at what can only be abbreviated as FCBD:EWB - atToD.  It reached the length of the room - and not long after that, half the way back again.  And it was made up entirely of people holding copies of Endangered Weapon B that they wanted me to sign.

Fortunately, I did at least manage to spell Jobeda's name right.

Everything after that was a bit of blur - mostly consisting of me asking people to spell their names (even when their names where things like Ed and Joe) and then, on at least one occasion, spelling them wrong anyway.  In just under 40 minutes, I signed 98 comic books and chatted with somewhere in the region of 80 people.  By the end of it, my wrist was aching, my throat was sore, and I felt like some kind of superstar writer.  It was, frankly, an awesome experience ... the sort of thing you dream about when you start writing, while secretly having to admit to yourself that it's never likely to happen.

After I was done, me and Jobeda and our friend Liam skipped out for a bit of lunch, and then had to hurry back for the second Free Comic Book Day Forbidden Planet signing of the day, which consisted of a rather impressive bunch of 2000AD folks: Al Ewing, who I happen to know from way back in my days at York, Dan Abnett, Ben Wilsher and lengendary Judge Dredd artist Mr Ron Smith.  Which was great in itself, but then top author type and official nicest man in publishing Jonathan Green turned up and kept us company in the queue (for a whole bloody hour ... damn those impressive 2000AD folks and their huge fan following!)

Note the now much emptier table.

All in all then, an amazing day.  Massive thanks to Jon Harrison, who did a splendid job on the organization front, and to Harry Markos and Bob for making the whole thing possible ... but mainly to all the people who turned out to get my name scribbled over a copy of Endangered Weapon B.  I can honestly say I've never scrawled all over the property of a nicer bunch of people.

Endangered Weapon B ... Signing Tomorrow!

If you happen to be near a comic shop tomorrow - that would be Saturday the 4th of May - you might want to think about popping inside and loading up with a great big heap of free comic books, including the premier issue of mine and Bob Molesworth's Endangered Weapon B.  It won't even be stealing, because May 4th is Free Comic Book Day.*

And if the comic shop you happen to be near is the Covent Garden branch of Forbidden Planet in London, and the time you're there happens to be somewhere between eleven and twelve in the morning, then you should definitely nip inside and come to my Endangered Weapon B signing.  You'll receive a free issue of what will almost certainly be the year's best comic to include a grizzly bear punching ninja squid, and my illegible squiggle as well, all for the grand price of absolutely nothing. Or, if you're in Brighton from 10:30 onwards, why not nip into Dave's Comics and say hello to Bob?  He's a top artist type, so his signature is probably much more readable than mine.

I don't think there's much I can add to that, is there?  Saturday, May the fourth.  Free Endangered Weapon B, and a whole lot of other free stuff too.  If it was any more exciting, they'd probably have to name a day after it.


* Although, if you try and take off with any comics that aren't in Free Comic Book Day then that will be stealing, so you should probably not do that.

Im Schatten der Giganten Out

Giant Thief - or rather Im Schatten der Giganten - is now out in Germany.  And it's lovely.  German books are really nice!  It's a paperback that looks like a hardback, with good quality paper stock, high quality printing, a solid, embossed cover ... none of which is terribly interesting, I guess, unless you happen to be the author of the book in question.  Which, wait, I am!

Or, "In the Shadow of Giants"

Oh, but you're not.  Shall we talk about something else?  Because I could probably manage a couple of paragraph's about how elegantly sculpted the spine is and ... no?

Okay.  Well, perhaps more interesting to people who aren't me is the promotional stuff that we put together for the German launch. There's an in-depth interview (I can't find it on the Piper site, but it's up here - in German, admittedly) and, a first for me, a brief video introduction.  This was filmed (by my lovely partner Jobeda, who just so happens to list editor and director amongst her cornucopia of skills) about a week after I finished Prince Thief, and I was pretty exhausted - which shows a bit, I think - but it was a fun new experience for all that, and something I'd like to try again.

But more exciting than either of those, at least for me, is the trailer that we've spent about the last six months putting together. The one with art by that Endangered Weapon B guy, Bob Molesworth. The one with the most outrageously catchy music ever, which I guarantee you're going to spend the rest of the day trying to get out of your head (I say this from experience as somebody who's currently poking a screwdriver into their ear in a bid to do that exact thing.)  I'm really proud of this, which is why I'm mentioning it now, but it's worth pointing out that there'll be an English version up in due course, and hopefully a post explaining what went into it - all of which will probably make a little more sense if you don't speak happen to speak German.