adelaidesean | Entries tagged with resurrected man

Once upon a time, I used to think being a writer meant, well, writing. All the time. If only that were true! When between books, as I am at the moment, I don't even attempt to stick to my 1500 words/day target. There just isn't time. Here's what I got up to in the last week (Monday 5 to Sunday 12), for anyone interested in what I actually spend most of my time doing.

I delivered re-writes of all four Fixers books to my editor at Scholastic;
re-wrote outlines for The Resurrected Man and The Crooked Letter TV shows, as per feedback received while in LA;
reread the story notes of Magic Dirt, seeking inspiration for a podcast about my fifteen year-old story "A Map of the Mines of Barnath";
ditto my story "Ungentle Fire" in the forthcoming Dragon Book;
was interviewed live on ABC radio at the Royal Adelaide Show (and ate a large amount of junk food afterwards);
attended the Ruby/ABAF Awards;
had a Skype conversation, transcribed some notes, and looked over an outline for a project I haven't mentioned here yet (ooh, mysterious!);
attended a meeting of the SA Writers' Centre Board;
took Christobel Mattingley's place on the SA Writers' Festival "Fact or Fiction" panel, down at the beautiful Wirra Wirra vineyards in the McLaren Vale, and chaired the "First Book" panel;
read and annotated submissions for a retreat I'll be co-taking in a few weeks;
signed up to sit on a grant assessment panel doling out money for young South Australian writers;
suggested some spec fic titles for the Big Book Club's December/January selections;
caught up on the parallel import situation for the Australian Society of Authors;
revived my LJ and wrote this post. :-)

I also bought the new Steve Roach album, Destination Beyond, and Deepspace's World Ocean Atlas. (That's not really work, I know, but these albums will probably comprise my main writing music for the coming weeks, so it's kinda related.)

This wasn't an exceptional week, but it probably was a little busier than normal, thanks to the awards night and the festival.

How was yours? Did you manage to get some writing done? If so, well done. I am jealous!

Today I received copies of the French edition of The Resurrected Man, aka Reconstitué. Hurrah!

Here's the cover art by Miguel Coimbra:

(You can see the layout, if you're interested, on the novel's official site at the link above.)

It's published by the most excellent éditions Bragelonne, who have been nothing but wonderful to me, and if you can read French there's an excerpt here.

This calls for champagne!

As I sip my morning hot chocolate, I am warmed by this news, that Australian scientists are helping make my second novel The Resurrected Man a reality.

Can't happen soon enough, I reckon (says he, facing another loooong flight to the US next month).

Current Music: Solar Fields - "Extended"

I've been skimming through The Resurrected Man in recent days, preparing for my WORD masterclass next week.

Two things stand out so far.

(1) TRM is a novel about a metaphorically reborn, formerly white-haired man who embarks on a quest to fill in the blanks of his life while thinking himself guilty of a terrible crime. Saturn Returns is a novel about a metaphorically reborn, formerly white-haired man who embarks on a quest to fill in the blanks of his life while thinking himself guilty of a terrible crime.

(2) On p60 of the HarperCollins edition of TRM, and at many other points throughout, the female lead tells herself: Don't think. Just do. At least once in the first draft of The Force Unleashed, the male lead gives himself the same advice in exactly the same words. As I wrote the latest instance, I remember thinking that I had written those words before, somewhere. I even went back and checked the other Star Wars books I wrote, but the lines weren't there. Mildly mystified, I put the matter aside and kept writing.

The Resurrected Man, Saturn Returns and The Force Unleashed could not be more different in execution, style and content. I know there's nothing particularly profound or unique about either overlap, since I'm not the only author to have used that plot or written that line. That would be impossible. Also, it's obviously okay to return to themes more than once: hell, think of all the times I've written about broken families, the future of humanity, and very big explosions, and I've never once had a qualm!

But this time, these two have left me a little wobbly.

Why? Well, it's not that I think I haven't learned anything new in the twenty-plus novels between TRM and the latest two, or that I have nothing to offer my characters and readers than the same stuff I was trotting out ten years ago (although it's probably true that I should get out more).

What worries me is this: how could I find it so easy to forget the second book I ever sold?

Maybe I really am just getting old. :-)

Current Music: Erik Wollo - "Emotional Landscape"

What would happen if reincarnation was real and didn't only go forwards? What do Feynman's time-travelling electron and the velocity of money have in common? One possible answer to both questions is in "The End of the World Begins at Home", which has been reprinted on-line in the e-anthology Journeys of the Mind, compiled by Sonny Whitelaw and published by Double Dragon. It's an odd piece for me, tapping into millennial fears and my half-hearted study of Economics almost twenty years ago. It was first published in Borderlands and I've always had a soft spot for it. I hope it'll be happy in its new home .

(And while on the subject of reprints, this time in translation, I'm pleased to report that The Resurrected Man and the Orphans trilogy have been picked up by Editions Bragelonne in France. This is great because I can actually read French. C'est fantastique!)

Current Music: Sasha - "airdrawndagger"

Sci-fi Wire ran an interview with me concerning The Crooked Letter, which has just been released by Pyr in the US. See here for the full text of the interview, and here to order the book from Amazon.

Here's part of the blurb from Publishers Weekly: "Drawing on worldwide myths and legends, Australian author Williams (The Resurrected Man) expertly twists the familiar into the grotesque in this deeply spooky story, the first in a new fantasy series. When Seth Castillo is stabbed and killed, his spirit is whisked away to the Second Realm, a literally inside-out place full of hideous monsters, while his mirror twin, Hadrian, remains in the First Realm of the living. Their psychic link draws the two realms together, precipitating a world-warping cataclysm..."

But the really big news concerns a new series: The Broken Lands trilogy, written for kids of 10 and up, which HarperCollins Australia has picked up for publication in 2007-8. Set in the same world as the Books of the Change and Cataclysm, the new books--The Changeling, The Dust Devils and The Scarecrow--follow the adventures of a young boy living on the north side of the Divide. The Changeling was the ms I submitted for my MA in Creative Writing last year. Expect golems, crabblers, sand bandits, man'kin, ghosts, strand beasts and more!

The April/May 2006 issue of Asimov's ran a lengthy column focussing on Pyr and several of its authors. The Resurrected Man was one of the titles discussed in detail, and in glowing terms: "one of those comparatively rare novels that both fulfill the parameters of full-bore science fiction yet could be read by a 'cross-over' audience as easily as the science fiction of Michael Crichton or Margaret Atwood to which it is quite superior on all levels."

High praise indeed, and for which I'm very grateful. It's also nice to see Lou Anders getting the attention he deserves. May he reign long and well.

Current Music: Susumu Yokota: "Sound of Sky"

Thanks to the sterling efforts of Danny Baror and Richard Curtis (inspired in no small part, I'm sure, by Pyr and Lou Anders' fine resurrection work of their own) The Resurrected Man has sold in Germany to Heyne Verlag. Date and format presently unknown, but I'm celebrating anyway. Hurrah!

S

A great review from Greg L Johnson at the SF Site:

"[T]here's plenty in The Resurrected Man for readers of both mysteries and science fiction. Combining the two is an art form whose standards were established in classic works like Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel and Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. Sean Williams' The Resurrected Man is a worthy addition to this little sub-genre, and should appeal to any readers who like having their cutting-edge social speculation wilded up with a bit of serial murder mystery and gore."

I'm really digging all the references to The Caves of Steel. This was one of my all-time favourite novels when I was younger, and I was so glad that the movie I, Robot didn't go anywhere near it. No one's mentioned Dr Who and the Robots of Death yet, though, and I have to remind myself that that's probably for the best. :-)

S

Tony Reixas runs a list of recommended SFF books at Tiger Heron. THE RESURRECTED MAN is "an August editor’s science fiction pick", which is just marvelous, I reckon. To take a look:

http://www.sff.tigerheron.com/editors-sf-picks-0508.php

"This is an opportunity to enjoy a rare kind of science fiction," he says. I like it. :-)

S

With Pyr doing such a wonderful job promoting the US hardcover of my second novel, I thought it'd be good to post links to some reviews here.

Russell Letson described it in the July LOCUS as "an elaborated example of the SF mystery as practiced by Larry Niven and John Varley, with non-trivial dashes of Alfred Bester" and liked it overall, saying that it "compels attention and admiration". Whew.

It was reviewed at SciFi.com by Paul Di Filippo: http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue419/books2.html. He liked it too.

SciFi Wire conducted a brief interview here:
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?category=5&id=31044

SF Signal gave the book four stars:
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/002881.html

Bella Online liked it:
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art23621.asp

And so did the Agony Column:
http://trashotron.com/agony/news/2005/04-18-05.htm#042005

The School Library Journal, in April, 2005, had this to say:
"Adult/High School–In the late 21st century, nanotech and true artificial intelligence have become everyday realities. A new, developing technology called d-mat offers cheap, fast transportation for everyone. Its champions declare that it possibly holds the secret to humankind’s immortality. Its opponents fear the d-mat’s potential to harm the human body. Williams makes full use of this detailed future world that echoes William Gibson’s Neuromancer (Penguin, 1984) and blends it with an Agatha Christie-style plot to create an exciting mystery-thriller that’s nearly impossible to put down. A diabolical serial killer exploits some hidden glitches within the d-mat technology to kidnap his unsuspecting victims. Detective Marylin Blaylock spearheads the investigation, a case made all the more personal with all the murder victims strangely resembling her. Although he’s spent the last three years lying unconscious in a tub of protein gel, the prime suspect is Jonah McEven, Blaylock’s former partner. He’s forced to aid in the investigation in order to prove his own innocence. The professional and personal history between the two complicates matters and helps humanize the characters. As an added twist, McEven reopens the investigation of the death of his father, a noted scientist opposed to d-mat. The two story lines converge in a fulfilling climax that digs deeper into the novel’s themes. This book raises interesting and unique questions of legality, technology, and identity. Slightly reminiscent of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Ballantine, 1996), it’s sure to thrill readers.–Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale"

Overall, I'm ecstatic. No surprise there. :-)