adelaidesean | Entries tagged with broken land

The two novellas I have out this year are not only substantial (>20k) and therefore great bang for your buck, but two of the best things I’ve ever written. As if that weren’t enough, they also connect to existing stories--so if you want to know what finally happens to Ros and Adi, the two most famous lovers in the world of the Change, or if you want to learn more about the world of “A Map of the Mines of Barnath” and “Inevitable”*, then these stories are for you. (And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, never fear: they also completely stand alone.)

They are “The Spark (A Romance in Four Acts)” now out in Legends of Australian Fantasy and “A Glimpse of the Marvellous Structure (& the Threat it Entails)” from Godlike Machines, long-delayed but scheduled to be out in time for Worldcon.

The novella is such a wonderful length to write to in sf&f, and wonderful to read, too. I hope you enjoy these two, if you get the opportuity.

* From the Locus Award-winning anthology The New Space Opera 2. Yay, Jonathan Strahan! (Without whom neither of these novellas would have existed.)

I'm juggling two projects at once this weekend, which always hurts my brain. Here are some recent happenings:

Shawn at Suvudu asked if any of my books originally had different titles. There are a few.
Paul Cornell wondered what I was doing for Christmas.
The ABC's Life Matters program wanted to interview me about my essay on Doctor Who in 50 Voices of Disbelief.
Au Contrair, the New Zealand natcon, very kindly asked me to be their 2010 GOH, and I'm excited to be going.
The Dragon Book is out and looks awesome. If you want to know what happens to Ros after The Changeling, here's part one.

If I hear one more Christmas carol, I swear I might have to kill someone. Unless it's this one, of course:

It’s that time of year again. Congrats/commiserations to those on/off the shortlists. It doesn’t matter who wins--in some ways it doesn’t even matter if you’re shortlisted, although it is an honour to be there, one I’m very grateful for. The award thing is primarily a celebration of community. I booked my ticket to the party weeks ago and am looking forward to it already.

The Scarecrow - nominated for Best YA Novel
The Grand Conjunction - nominated for Best SF Novel

(Could this be eighth time lucky in the latter category? Time will tell!)

Reviews are probably the least interesting part of this LJ, but I do try to keep on top of them for my future reference. While cleaning out the actual physical inbox on my desk I stumbled across some regarding the Broken Land books that I hadn't filed away, so here they are.

The Age thought The Dust Devils "deft and crisply rendered" while Viewpoint described it as "good speculative fiction" that "imagines a future upon familiar terrain. This is the arid interior of Australia gone to sand, its few denizens roaming the landscape for survival and seeking shelter in the half-buried remains of old cities." (Not true of the entire world, but a reasonable description of that part of it.) Viewpoint also thought that The Changeling "could be viewed as a thriller", a "thrilling" one at that, which "will keep you guessing into the end".

The Sunday Age concluded its crisp summary of The Scarecrow thusly: "In this third instalment in the Broken Land series, Ros is confronted by arduous choices about friendships and the future." Spot on, I'd say. Where those choices ultimately lead him and what kind of future he has won't be spelt out in future books, but will be revealed in short fiction coming out later this year.

A while back I was interviewed by Valerie at the Sydney Writers' Centre. The podcast and transcript are now available right here.

It's handy having a transcript because sometimes I forget what I've burbled on about. This time I can tell you with 100% confidence (and reveal via the tabs below) that we covered pretty much everything. :-)

The ever excellent io9 gets to grips with a pressing question--"Why are some writers so prolific, and others slower than you'd like?"--touching on the scandalous proposal that writing realist fiction is a doddle because you don't have to make everything up.

In the process, they quote Lara Anne Gilman on the ghastly task people set themselves by writing series: "[You] have to make sure that nothing happens that's too jarring, or contradicts something previously established. It's a lot like doing a jigsaw puzzle, but about 10% of the pieces will come from a puzzle you already completed. Worse, it's like doing a 3-D jigsaw puzzle, because the timeline goes not only forward and backward, but sideways as well."

Which reminds me of something I've been meaning to post here for a while, mainly for my own benefit but also for those interested in the various fantasy series I've been working on these ten years or so. When I woke up from the dream that inspired the first book, I had no conception that the story would eventually consume a million words.

( So here's a chronology of the Change, as it stands today. )

Will it get any bigger? Only if my brain does too.

PS. It turns out that Sal's journey is a kind of bildungsroman. You and I know that this was completely intentional.

Ain't it beautiful?

(The book, not my receding hairline.)

Here's the final cover and blurb. I am excited! (Also: fans of the Books of the Cataclysm will note the return of a familiar character.)

Ros is heading for the coast with Adi and Know-it-all the camel, hoping to drop the crystal containing the Golem of Omus into the ocean.

Arriving in Samimi, a small town on the outskirts of the Strand, the friends meet Quirk, who tells them outrageous stories about Ros's 'heroic' adventures. Ros doesn't suspect Quirk's treachery until he disappears--along with Varis, Adi's kinsman and bodyguard.

Ros and Adi use the Change to track Varis down, but now they're up against the Scarecrow, a lethal amalgamation of man and material who will do anything to get hold of the power contained in the crystal Ros holds.

Help comes from an unexpected quarter: Pukje, an impish stranger, offers Ros the change to gain the knowledge he's always wanted. But is the deal too good to be true? Ros must decide one final time exactly who to trust.

Due: March 2009.

It's that time of year again: the Aurealis Award judges honour some and overlooks others, sometimes seemingly on a whim, but always (he says from experience) after long and careful consideration. I feel very fortunate to be nominated again this year, since the field is so unbelievably strong, and I'm glad to be in such excellent company (on and off the lists). I'm looking forward to January 24, when we celebrate this wonderful, vibrant community of ours, and I hope you'll come along to join in.

For the record (because this is where I tend to keep track of these things) my nominations are:

Earth Ascendant - Best SF Novel
The Changeling - Best YA Novel and Best Children's Long Fiction
The Dust Devils - Best Children's Long Fiction
Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams - Best Collection

(Sorry about the subject line, btw. I knew

millisynth would like it. :-)

I've just added some excerpts to my official site, specifically opening chapters of every book in the Broken Land series (including The Scarecrow, not due until March next year) and excerpts from Astropolis up to The Grand Conjunction (May):

"Real life was always more boring and deadly than fiction."

And to make this post more visual, I offer my contributions to Scalzi's LOLCreashun Thread, from way back when:

( More... )

Learning that I was the Chameleon King yesterday reminded me that reviews that have been mounting up since The Changeling came out. Thought I'd better post them before the arrival of the next book makes them all rather moot.

Ian Nichols in the West Australian found it "rewarding to see Sean Williams, Australia's premier speculative fiction writer, turn his hand to young adult fiction, because it becomes something special indeed, as readable by adults as it is by younger people. [The tale] is riveting and one not to be missed."

Jason Nahrung in the Brisbane Courier Mail called it "a truly memorable tale. I didn't need the inclusion of chapter one of the next book in the trilogy, The Dust Devils, to whet my appetite for the next instalment."

Australian Women's Weekly listed The Changeling as one of "10 Great Reads for Children" while Magpies considered it a solid "intriguing". Fun kids' mag M Reads gave it four stars, saying: "This book is a cliffhanger, MANIACS, and we recommend you get your hands on this unpredictable adventure!"

The Dust Devils is out in September. I hope people like it as much.

"Chameleons are the ultimate multi-taskers. With distinctive eyes that can rotate and focus separately, these fascinating creatures can spot future trends while winking a fond farewell to past achievements. They can blend in with their surroundings if the mood takes them, or they can adopt a crimson flush to underscore their need to communicate. And when they write, they publish five books across several genres in one year, and look just like Sean Williams."

So begins Lisa Bennett's wonderful full-page review of The Changeling, titled "King of Chameleons", in the latest issue of Australian Book Review. I love it!

Here's my second favourite paragraph:

"Williams is incredibly imaginative when he moulds his characters, and he did not hold back when he created the creepy antagonists in this book. Kuller, a weather-worker cum golem-hunter with tattooed hands and a tendency to whistle incessantly, is made of the stuff of nightmares. The threat of the Golem of Omus, and the voice of yet another ghost-like figure, add to the Gothic tone of this novel. Finally, Vasoph, a massive horned 'man'kin' with a mind for ciphers, is a brilliant reinterpretation of the `monster with a heart of gold' trope."

In 1998, the Adelaide Advertiser dubbed me the "Emperor of Sci-Fi". I like this just as much.

Five days before a deadline, this is not the kind of page I want to see:

And this is a draft I'm happy with!

\(--)/

Meanwhile, in not entirely unrelated news: scarecrow scares crow.

Current Music: Harold Budd & Robin Guthrie - "After Night Falls"

I'm not getting out much at the moment so was very pleasantly surprised to see The Changeling on the shelves already. My excitement knows no bounds! I am very proud of this book (and the sequel, which I finished page-proofing last week) and keen to know what everyone thinks of it.

(A reminder: this is the book I wrote for my Masters a couple of years ago. It went through several transformations before finally finding a home with HarperCollins here in Australia. I'm still trying to sell it overseas, but for some reason my fantasy novels always struggle to find their place in the US and elsewhere. I remain hopeful.)

Here's what some noteworthy people have said so far.

David Cornish's cover blurb was severely truncated, as they have to be to fit in such a tiny space. This is the full quote: "Two of the things that delight me in Sean Williams’ work are his vision and his fearlessness: he will happily smash planets and obliterate galaxies, annihilate entire races and alter the course of all history as we know it. In contrast, this dark tale is of the isolated struggle of one small boy. Yet Ros, half-starved son of a desperate farmer, is pushed far beyond his life of lonely and mundane misery as he becomes entangled with elemental forces beyond his comprehension and barely in his control. In a smashed and parched land so reminiscent of the back-slopes of the Mt Lofty Ranges in summer, the beautifully grim and driving narrative had me hooked, deeply anxious to learn Ros’ fate. Sean Williams is an acknowledged master of adult stories, and in The Changeling he proves that wonderful and terrible tales for younger folk are well within the ambit of his prodigiously talented and prolific pen. I, for one, am gagging for further instalments."

Stuart Payne was very kind indeed in Aurealis: "a master-piece of speculative fiction... [Williams'] skill is as limitless as the universe."

Dave Luckett was no less effusive in The West Australian: "I think that one test of good art is the extent to which it builds from tradition without sacrificing innovation. Sean Williams' The Changeling passes that test, and many others. This is speculative fiction of the highest quality."

Thuy On in The Age was less flattering, allowing that it "follows the archetypal young-adult fiction format of a vulnerable teenager confronting and overcoming great obstacles" but feeling compelled to add "although it's streaked with fantastical elements" as though the two are mutually exclusive. Oh well. He did mention that there are "scary elements in this tale that might be unsuitable for younger readers, such as a blood-letting 'weather-worker' and crab-like, hard-shelled monsters that drag their live prey deep down in their burrows." If I hadn't written the book, that last line would've made me want to buy it for sure!

Best of all, Justin Ackroyd gave me a recommendation in the Slow Glass Books catalogue. Woohoo!

Current Music: Thom Brennan - "Mist"

In March next year, I'll have three new books out--The Changeling, Earth Ascendant and The Force Unleashed--making them my equal-23rd novels. I'm quite excited about it, and not just because 23 is my favourite number.

What it's meant, though, is that I've spent the last month or so poring over three separate sets of re-writes, copy edits, and page proofs, plus many discussions about blurbs, cover quotes, maps, and cover designs. That wears a thin pretty fast, and can be a bit confusing on sleepy mornings with three books on the go at once. To keep things interesting, a French translation has also been popping up every now and again, plus the Pyr paperback reissue The Crooked Letter in paperback, also due in March.

Still, it's over now, and my brain can go back to normal (or what passes for normal around here). I'm about to launch into The Grand Conjunction (the last of the Astropolis books) and from there straight into The Scarecrow (the last in the Broken Land series). I have a couple of other loose ends to tie off after that, and then I'm free. What that means, I'm still working out.

But this might be part of it:

I've been accepted into a PhD in creative writing at Adelaide University.

Current Music: BSG OSTs on shuffle

Below is the cover* of my first kids' novel, The Changeling, which will be published by HarperCollins March 2008.

Below the cut are the covers to the sequels, The Dust Devils and The Scarecrow.

They couldn't be more different to the wonderful cover and illustrations by David Cornish, which I posted here a while back. It doesn't matter. I love them both. What do you think?

Soon I'll post an excerpt for your reading pleasure, and I'll link to that here.

I am quite immodestly proud of these books. They may be the best things I've written, so far.

( The Dust Devils & The Scarecrow )

* Cover design by Natalie Winter. Cover images all courtesy of Shutterstock.

Following up on its recent PopBitch appearance, here's the UK back-cover blurb of Saturn Returns.

It's more substantial than the US version, since there's more room on a trade paperback. I think they complement each other nicely, without giving too much away.

The UK cover should be here soon, and I'll post that as soon as it comes.

As an added bonus for fans of the Change fantasy novels, I've included the draft blurb for The Changeling, which is coming out in September.

( blurb city )

Current Music: Carbon Based Lifeforms - "World of Sleepers"

So Jonathan Strahan rings me today and tells me that Gary Numan is playing a gig just up the road from the Worldcon hotel the same week we're there. This is a Big Deal for me, and not just because I've recently finished a book that relies significantly on the lyrics of a certain postpunk-then-electro-now-goth legend. Needless to say, I will be buying a ticket.

In newsy stuff: it's been a good week or two. Rob Stephenson published the world's first review ofThe Devoured Earth in aurealisXpress (he liked it; see below). I expect this to be the first of many reviews getting the number of books in that series wrong. :-) Also, Stephen Davenport posted reviews of Geodesica in The Independent and The Program (ditto; and ditto). Being compared to Asimov is, arguably, worth another smiley.

It's also been a good week for finishing mss, with drafts of The Changeling and Saturn Returns in their final-final stages. Both will be delivered early next week so I can get on with the former's sequel. All original thoughts are being pumped into these projects, so I apologise for the blandness of this LJ in recent weeks.

Lastly, some other snippets of good news: both The Blood Debt and Geodesica: Descent have been reprinted by HarperCollins. Also, the wonderful people at Arts SA have generously thrown some cash at the Broken Land series, for which I'm very grateful. And a movie production company has been in touch about one of my older short stories--a possibility I refuse to lose any sleep over, but will report on here in due course...

Reviews:

( Read on... )

Current Music: Mark Snow - "The Truth & the Light" (X-Files)

I've spent the morning fixing links and adding material to the Excerpts section of my web site. The new material includes opening chapters up to and including the first book of The Broken Land, my kids' fantasy series, which is due in 2007. I'll add something from sexy space opera Saturn Returns when it's a little more polished.

And in other news, the April/May 2006 edition Internet Review of SF contains a brilliant plug for Daikiaju! Giant Monster Tales, Robert Hood and Robin Pen's superb anthology. My contribution to the book is small, but Ross Hamilton, IROSF's reviewer, noted it thus:

"Poetry is not what I would automatically link to daikaiju stories, and poetry from a best-selling fantasy author such as Sean Williams for some reason seemed even less likely. Yet Williams has provided some delightful haiku poems that even caught the attention of a non-appreciator of poetry such as myself. The combination of this Japanese art form with the Japanese-inspired monsters complemented the collection nicely."

I suppose it's not such a stretch to think that best-selling fantasy (the giant monster of the genre) and haiku would be mutually exclusive. :-) The sublime meets the ridiculous again, and I am well pleased.

Current Music: marcus guentner - "in moll"

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Sean Williams

Entries tagged with broken land

novel novellas

five links

a for aurealis

broken land reviews

monday podcast #1

i can haz litcred with my hackdom?

another reason to feel good about friday 13

scarecrow update

nom nom nom nom

future fiction and ancient lolz

best mail ever

more reviews of The Changeling

i am the lizard king...or something

seeing red

The Changeling arrives!

something of an announcement (after a long build-up)

covers to die for

a tale of two blurbs

friends are electric

words escape me