Sean Williams

Pity poor Pawel at Galactic Holofeed, who copped an earful this morning when he Skyped to talk about my upcoming Old Republic novel. I neglected to warn him that this was my first interview on the subject, and that I've been busting to talk about it for months. It's been such a unique and exciting project to work on. I'm really excited it's about to burst forth upon the world.

Anyway, here are the links, to the story notes and podcast. The latter runs for well over an hour. As well as Fatal Alliance, we cover The Force Unleashed (original and sequel) so there's lots to listen to!

Gary Reynolds has revamped his already awesome Concept Sci-Fi site, in the process making Earth Ascendant the book of the month for December. He also reviewed it, saying nice things like: "Earth Ascendant is one of the best space opera releases of 2008. It is well-written, enjoyable and leaves you wanting to find out what happens next! Roll on book three!"

The legendary Matthew Tait also reviewed Earth Ascendant, this time over at HorrorScope: "...Earth Ascendant is a remarkably good ride. The prose is how first-rate space opera should be: lyrical, philosophical and poetic. ... Truly unexpected villains greet us toward the conclusion as the story runs riot with Doppelgangers, parasites, and a broken higher intelligence. The third in the series, The Grand Conjunction, promises to be an epic thrill ride tapering off a remarkable journey that might well be the author’s greatest achievement."

I am extremely chuffed.

Meanwhile Shawn Speakman, mastermind of Del Rey's new Suvudu site, put five questions to me the other week, and the answers are at the other end of that link.

The Force Unleashed was reprinted ahead of the paperback release next year.

And doesn't this look like fun?

Want an excerpt from The Grand Conjunction? What about reviews, interviews and shameless plugs? I am brimming over with links today, so I'm posting them all at once. Here's your chance to find out what my name looks like in Bulgarian (me, I've been dying to find out) and to learn which novella legendary Lou Anders recommends for the Hugo.

First up, the Book Show interview I mentioned a couple of weeks back is available as an MP3 download here. For readers outside Australia, I should explain that is about as big as non-paid promotion gets for writers down here. Almost literary, you could say.

On the other side of the world, Gary Reynolds at Concept Sci-Fi has been wallowing in Astropolis. The fruits of his labour (to confuse a metaphor or two) are now online. First, there's an excerpt from and a review of Saturn Returns:

"really good space opera that is a joy to read"

Then there's a review of Cenotaxis:

"superbly written...either as a standalone story or as part of the Astropolis series"

In his latest Ezine, Gary has reprinted "The Seventh Letter" with original artwork.

And on his website, right now, is an exclusive preview of The Grand Conjunction, the third and last of the Astropolis novels. Enjoy.

Gary promises a review of Earth Ascendant soon (to sit alongside this excerpt) but for now I have just one to post, and it's a corker.

A couple of weeks ago I received advance notice of a Jan '09 review in F&SF by Chris Moriarty, which I've been sitting on like a wriggly kid. It contains this wonderful line:

"Words like riveting, gripping, and page-turning get tossed around pretty cavalierly, but they all apply to the Astropolis series."

It can't get much better than that, can it? Actually, it can. This is one of those reviews that had me nodding along, going "yes...yes...YES" at every other line. Chris gets what I'm trying to do, and I'm grateful for it. I'll post more of the review next year, or whenever the issue is in print.

Meanwhile Mark Chitty of Walker of Worlds "recommend[s] Cenotaxis without hesitation" and Stuart Mayne in the latest aurealisXpress waxed somewhat lyrical regarding The Dust Devils, saying that it "works on all fronts". Stuart also gave me my first ever review of a workshop, specifically a weekend intensive I ran at the Victorian Writers' Centre while everyone else partied at Conflux. He says: "It was an absolutely fantastic workshop and can whole-heartedly recommend a workshop with Sean Williams as an experience that will help your writing immeasurably." I am blushing at such kind words.

To round out this enormous list of links, Robert Thompson emailed this morning to say that The Grand Conjunction is on his list of 2009 highlights, while Lou Anders, guest blogging on Tor.com, chided everyone in the US for not buying more of my books:

"His stand-alone novella, Cenotaxis, published by independent press Monkeybrain Books, was one of my favorite reads of the year and my personal choice for the Best Novella Hugo in 2008. It ably demonstrates why some people feel the novella is the ideal length for SF, and I say that because it’s true, not because he kindly set the novel’s resolution in my own home town (albeit of the far future.)"

And Bulgaria? I was very pleased to be interviewed by Darth Sparhawk for Citadelata.com. You can see the results here.

I'd end on the exciting news I have to impart, but that can wait until next time. No one will read down this far anyway. :-)

(Today's titles, btw, from the songbook of hell are: "Disconcert 1-6", "Praedeludium 1", and "Disconcerto for Violin, No. 1 (occasionally in G Mixolydian)".)

Below the cut is a 1000-word piece I wrote for the Adelaide Advertiser on the occasion of my Big Book Club tour last month. In it I talk about Star Wars: the responsibilities, the excitement, and the way these books fit into my "normal" writing.

(  Some people wonder why I'd ever do such a thing. Others understand immediately. )

Alternatively, because a picture is worth a thousand words, I give you this:



I'm a very lucky boy.

...in approximate order of release. Why? I was curious to see if they created their own little narrative. They don't, but I thought I'd post them here anyway. A list of the second lines, below, turns out to be a lot more interesting.

First Lines

The life of Darth Vader's secret student took a strange and deadly turn the day his master first spoke of General Rahm Kota. (The Force Unleashed)

Ros drew the camel to a halt as a pair of very strange contraptions crested the next dune along from his. (The Dust Devils)

It is difficult to measure the time since my last communication. ("A Glimpse of the Marvellous Structure (and the Threat It Entails)")

Somewhere between Chemaly and Smerdon, Ros suspected they had become lost. (The Scarecrow)

The sky changed no less than three times on the way to the detective's office. (The Grand Conjunction)

The prisoner was both young and male, which suited Master Bannerman perfectly well. ("The Inevitable")

On the twenty-third day of his quest, the young man detected crabbler spoor. ("Ungentle Fire")

Second lines:

He had had no warning that a moment of such significance was approaching.

It wasn't immediately obviously if they were machine or beast or a weird merger of the two.

Too much has passed, I fear, for the suspicion of my demise not to have become a certainty in some minds.

Adi, as always, disagreed.

First, on stepping out the front door of the Iceberg building, a line of bright blue stars swayed erratically across the sky, casting sprays of sharply defined shadows down the length of Rammas Street.

She had encountered his type before--headstrong, shallow, visceral--and refined numerous techniques for extracting what she needed.

Swinging the reins of his mechanical steed sharply to the left, he parked in the shade of the yellow canyon wall and lightly hopped to the ground.

----------------
Listening to: Altus - A Different Universe

Something I hadn't realised:

"This appears to be the first time a book derived from a video game has been a No. 1 New York Times best seller."

( Here's the page itself. )

I am excited to be part of this, whether it's a sign of things to come or just part of the Star Wars phenomenon. It'd be nice to think that this heralds a greater emphasis on story in computer games and their tie-ins, but we'll see. At least my book was spared the dismissive treatment of the "Clone War" tie-ins in the same article. ("Exploding Robots!" Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Gary Reynolds of the excellent Concept Sc-fi blog has just posted a conversation we had before I left for the US, in which we discuss (among other things) Star Wars, the process of writing a novel, and the worst thing I've ever written. As part of the interview, I posted a link to a never-before-released piece of music I wrote on my trusty old Amiga, way back in 1991. Check it out, and forgive that younger version of me his musical crimes!

Here is an excerpt from the text of the interview, just because:

"There's a giddy kind of joy that comes from cutting a page from a draft, consigning to the dustbin words that took so much effort to write, but I know that at [the point of editing] it's not really about the words: it's about the book as a whole, and words are just dots on the back of the leopard. You wouldn't have one without the other, but we all know which one has the teeth.

In other news, I'm still in the US, post-Worldcon and the Writers of the Future bash (at which Australia, for the first time ever, took home the gold--go Ian McHugh!). Tomorrow evening I'll be launching The Force Unleashed in Malibu and then heading straight home. It's been a wonderful trip, as these things always are. Not even the nasty strep infection I picked up in Denver could dent it. Thanks to everyone who talked to me, kept me company in bars or restaurants, organised underground adventures in NORAD, and put up with the occasional sleep-deprived rant. I love youse all.

This flurry of posts (three in four days--whew!) isn't an indication of business as usual. Alas, I'm on a tight deadline to finish The Scarecrow and can't write more than a sentence at a time on anything else.

I did, however, find time to talk to the wonderful satimaflavell for the latest issue of the specusphere. You'll find the interview here. Satima asked great questions. Take a look.

PS. I'm also launching Malcolm Walker's debut novel, The Stone Crown at the SA Writers' Centre tonight. If you have a fondness for Susan Cooper, Alan Garner and Robert Holdstock's Arthurian/contemporary fantasies, you'll like this book as much as I did.

PPS. I'm late in pointing out that Earth Ascendant had its world premiere as a spoken word release through the great guys at Audible. You can buy it at their website (or through iTunes) and get a walk-through of the next million or so years of history, easy.

PPPS. Oh, and The Force Unleashed ( has a new cover. )

Onward and upward!

"Knowledge is the action of the soul," according to Ben Johnson (1573-1637) and Christmas Cracker Quote #19.

He should have finished the thought: "And imagination is its action movie." But I suppose they didn't have action movies at the turn of the seventeenth century.*

Anyway, here are a few things I learned this morning:

The Force Unleashed has been pushed back to June 24, ahead of an August release of the game.

Earth Ascendant is now being published in the US in May, and hopefully in the UK and Australia the same month.**

An interview on SCI-FI WIRE on the subject of Saturn Returns has just gone live.

And Weight Watchers Drinking Chocolate just doesn't stack up to Jarrah Choc O'Lait.

There you have it. Now you too are ready to face the day.***

* Since when did Christmas crackers stop giving out really crap jokes? I feel like I actually learned something this year, which isn't what I was after at all.

** This means my three-new-books-from-three-different-publishers situation in March is now off. To be honest, that comes as something of a relief. The launch parties could've killed me. The Changeling is still on schedule, though, and more on that front soon.

*** "Although there is no word for chocolate in original Latin, modern translation programs use the rules of word construction and archaic Italian to approximate one."