reviews and such

[adelaidesean]

Gabe Chouinard has posted a thought-provoking treatise on The Crooked Letter and reviews in general here, in which I am exhorted to become "more purple, so to speak". It's a fair call. :-) Check it out. He has lots of interesting things to say.

(Late addition: the comments to this post include an explanation of the title of the The Crooked Letter. Anyone not wanting to wait until the last book of the series can get the answer now--not that it in any way constitutes a spoiler.)

Also The Library Journal has reviewed The Blood Debt:

'The second instalment in the author's "Books of the Cataclysm" series (after The Crooked Letter) follows the adventures of three companions who battle the unknown to save their families. Set partly in the modern world and partly in a fantasy environment drawn from archetypal myths and legends, this epic belongs in most fantasy collections.'

Nice.

Thanks, lastly, to everyone who came to my signing at Borders last night. It was great to see so many familiar and friendly faces. I'm heartened by the feedback. The Devoured Earth really feels like it's out, now. :-)

Comments

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

There's an old Yiddish question-answer routine:

"Why?"

"'Y' is a crooked letter."

So when asked "Why The Crooked Letter?" I'm always tempted to respond "Y is a crooked letter", but that would just get confusing. :-) See http://www.geocities.com/serenadetxwords/mom.html for a brief reference to the phrase. I first encountered it in an Isaac Asimov novel and for some reason it stuck.

That doesn't answer, though, why I chose it for this book. For years I'd been researching a novel about a god that eats the souls of people trying to get into the afterlife. The working title of that book was YHVH, after the Jewish Sacred Name of God, or the Tetragrammaton. I never intended to keep it, not wanting to single out any particular religion, but the first letter of that name, Yod did stick as the name of my Big Bad. When it came to naming the book itself, I chose The Crooked Letter because it has an embedded "Y", and also because "Why?" is a recurring question throughout the book. Why are there three Realms? Why are Seth and Hadrian mirror twins? Why is one killed and not the other? "'Y' is a crooked letter" is, in my eyes, a much more evocative response than "Because that's the way it is."

I'm surprised by how unrecognised this phrase is, particularly by US readers. I mean, I couldn't be less Jewish but have known the phrase since I was kid. Or maybe the reference is too tangential. I don't know. Anyway, it's explained in the last book of the series, The Devoured Earth, and now here, for anyone who finds it. :-)

[nethspace.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I can't claim to be too familiar with that phrase, but I can see how it fits well with the book as a whole, especially considering many of the origins of names used in the book - Seth comes to mind in particular.

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Yes. Finding that balance between subtext and context is a tricky thing. I'm always striving for names that are resonant with the work's theme, but also fitting the world and my own modern asthetic. Like most writers, I guess.

Still, I had a lot of fun working in the Star Wars universe, where names are sometimes chosen by their sound alone. My favourite of the ones Shane and I created were the "Brrbrlpp", a race of aliens shaped very much like this symbol here (http://www.vonnegutsasshole.blogspot.com/). :-)

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

Spitznagel cracks me up

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Me too. FAST FORWARD is top of my list of books to order from Amazon.

[mistri.livejournal.com]

I always met with that phrase (Y is a crooked letter) whenever I asked my parents 'Why?' once too often. (for reference, I'm in the UK)

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I'm aware that I made a lot of assumptions in my post, so it's nice to stand corrected. :-)