Sean Williams

The nominations for the annual Scribe Award have been announced, and I'm very pleased to see Star Wars:The Force Unleashed II on the list. Presented by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, the awards acknowledge excellence in the field of licensed tie-ins--novels based on TV, movies and games--and I'm absolutely chuffed to have one of my books nominated. It's the first time, and quite an honour. The results will be announced at a special ceremony at the San Diego Comic-Con in July.

This reminds me that there has been some good press recently for my Star Wars novels, so here are reviews and news that I've been remiss in posting.

The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance was voted one of the top ten best Star Wars novels of 2010 over at Village Gate. It's been described as "an outstanding addition to the Expanded Universe” (EUCantina) and “one of the most solidly entertaining Star Wars novels I’ve read” (Fantasy Book Review), with “space battles, lightsaber fights, chase scenes and lots of strange planets to visit, not to mention scheming Sith lords – everything you’d want out of a great Star Wars book” (Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin’). So that's awesome. 

The first Force Unleashed instalment continues to garner reviews: “This is a great book with lots of action and some interesting plot twists. I highly recommend it.” (Ezine@rticles) “[A] book that even manages to resonate on an emotional level with a belter of a finale”. (HorrorScope) And the sequel has been getting a bit of love too, apart from the Scribe nomination. “If you were a fan of The Force Unleashed, you'll definitely want to see where this next installment leads.” (SF Site) And Itchy Thumbs described it as “an enjoyable look at the early Rebel Alliance...altogether making for a worthwhile read”.

I'm making notes for a Star Wars short story this week (more later, I hope) so it's a great time to get good news on that front.
 

From a review of the most excellent 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists:

Personally, I take that as a compliment.

Also, I am sure that the reviewer, David Hart, didn't intend for the paragraph below (his criticism of the New Atheist movement) to be read in an entirely different context:

As a summary of my conversion experience, from the Church, I reckon that reads pretty well.

Thank you, Simon A of Bookgeek, for this awesome line:

"breathless space combat and desperate gambits...a truly jaw-dropping piece of SF extrapolation and large-scale thinking"

But the review is a masterpiece in and of itself, and a touching lament to Imre Bergamasc. Farewell indeed. I'm going to miss the old gal.

(That isn't a spoiler, btw, except on the issue of gender. There'll be no more in the series, so what happens next is entirely up to your imagination.)

Also, from The Age: "Williams' world-building skills--and the ambition and intricacy of his ideas--make this top-flight SF fiction" (with a superfluous "fiction" there, thrown in as a bonus).

And Stuart Mayne in aurealisXpress: "rip roaring science fiction adventure... [Sean Williams] he has the ability to invent horizons that defy belief. That is a grand gift."

I'm very excited by how well this book has been received. Long may it continue!

Congrats to everyone nominated for a Ditmar!  I'm honoured to be one of them, for Earth Ascendant in the Best Novel category.  If you're going to be in Adelaide for the natcon, you can expect a huge celebration.  That's what it's all about, isn't it?

Also, the first review of The Grand Conjunction has hit the screens, thanks to Liviu Suciu at Fantasy Book Critic.  I was a bit nervous at first (I'm not often called "audacious and unconventional", like it's a good thing) but it worked out very well in the end:

"I would say the best in all the series and the novel succeeds grandly indeed.  Highly, highly recommended."

Whew!

The UK cover of The Grand Conjunction has been out for a while, but for some reason I forgot to post it here. Not for any reason; I'm just forgetful. Here it is in all its glory:



Technically there are three moons in this cover (foreground, background, and creating the eclipse). Could that be any cooler?

( Here's the blurb. )

Meanwhile Mark Chitty Hub reviewed Saturn Returns in its latest issue, concluding: "a great Space Opera novel... Highly recommended."

BBC Focus thought Earth Ascendant "admirably rich and baroque, bringing to mind Iain M. Banks's Culture novels."

And Bookspot Central recommended Saturn Returns to "anyone who likes dark, epic-scale space opera, stories with intense action, or science fiction about subjects such as slower-than-light interstellar societies and the technological transformation of the human mind. ...an excellent combination of atmospheric power, thoughtful speculation, and visceral excitement that I recommend highly."

No need to comment, unless you're moved to by the awesomeness of my lovely Lunatic trio. :-) I post reviews and stuff here for my own record, mainly. Much easier to search LJ than my hard drive.

So I discovered last week that bits of roasted cacao beans taste really, really nice when mixed with Old Gold, and ever since then I've been making my own chocolates. But in the meantime, work goes on:

Stephen Baxter, Pamela Freeman, Pat Rothfuss and I compare notes on SF vs F over at The Second Bookgeeks SF and Fantasy Author Panel.

Voyager online has published some of my thoughts on Clarion (here and here) among a host of others, all thanks to the hard work of jasoni.

My LibraryThing page is up and running, but it needs some work. So many books, so little time!

I discovered a couple of short interviews on YouTube: here, where I talk about how the Writers of the Future contest changed my life for the better; and here, on the Force Unleashed experience.

Bookseller + Publisher liked The Scarecrow, months ahead of its release: "everything you would expect from a good YA book [but] also quite different from most of its contemporaries. ... There is something in this series for both reluctant and confident readers." The review talked about the positive relationship between characters ("sometimes confused, often frightened but never pathetic"), magic ("another positive point of difference") and landscape, which Black also touched on in its review of the previous book in the series: "A short novel that will appeal to a broad spectrum of readership, The Dust Devils is Sean Williams tapping into the naive youngling in all of us. The villains presented here are the stuff of nightmares, and hold up to the strangest dangers being presented in fiction, today. But more appealing is the landscape itself, a scarred wasteland where not only Dust Devils lay in wait for the hapless traveler. The book bristles with a faint gothic undertone reminiscent of his grandest Space Opera..."

Lastly, Ansible published a letter in which complained about the Gender Analyzer, which responded to my request to analyse this journal with the error message: "Sorry, we can only classify web pages written in english." I can't imagine what I've been writing in instead all these years. Klingon, perhaps?

Oh, and I started a new book.

We're gradually coming to the end of my list of ill-advised odes. Another recording soon. Today's is in "The Demesne of the Deaf (a Song Without Words)".

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.

In a Sunday Telegraph Q&A over the weekend, I was asked (again) about my reading habits and I (again) plugged John Harwood and Rob Shearman. You'd think I'd have finished with them by now, eh? In truth, I have, so from now on I won't be able to give that answer any more. Alas. Anyone got any recommendations?

( The rest of the Q&A was about who had influenced me, and asked me to sum up Earth Ascendant in a few words. )

Speaking of Earth Ascendant, the UK edition will contain an essay about my ongoing love-affair with the gothic (my story for Godlike Machines has definitely been touched by that particular stick). Australian readers who missed out can read the piece, "A Discordant Melody", at my website or by following the link that just went by.

Stuart Mayne reviewed Earth Ascendant very favourably in Aurealis Express, for which I'm very grateful: ( Earth Ascendant is an exciting addition to this series and I can’t wait for the climax. )

And you'll find another brief description of the book on the Orbit blog, here.

While on the subject of Astropolis generally, I was pleased to see reviews of Saturn Returns on the Big Dumb Object and SF Signal sites. Terry Dowling also had nice things to say about it in The Australian, after kicking off with ( this handy little biopic. ) That can go on my tombstone, in very small print.

Lastly, have I mentioned the new Orbit covers? If not: I love them. As an avowed APOD nerd, these are just the sort of thing guaranteed to tickle my fancy. I hope I'm not alone.

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!

Russell Letson reviewed Cenotaxis for Locus's latest issue, and I'm going to use his excellent summary as a way of promoting the book's release.

"Cenotaxis," he says, "is a free-standing novella set, according to Sean Williams's 'Note on Sources,' between Saturn Returns (reviewed in October 2007) and its yet-unreleased sequel in the Astropolis sequence. While it does feature the earlier book's protagonist, Imre Bergamasc, it is not really a sequel--the precise connection to prior events is uncertain, and (more important) the viewpoint is that of one Jasper, Bergamasc's mighty opposite in a war to control old Earth. In fact, events in general float around in time, since Jasper experiences a large part of his life not in linear sequence but as a series of flashbacks. The story begins in medias res, with Jasper already Bergamasc's prisoner and the serial interrogation well established. The first word spoken is 'anachronism,' and the first crucial fact we discover is that Jasper believes himself to be a god. Bergamasc wants information from Jasper, and he is willing to take a long time and go to some trouble to get it--but he is also willing to blow his prisoner's brains out if Jasper cannot or will [not] satisfy him.

"Among the ordinary plot questions posed by this initial situation are how a god (if he is such) came to be a prisoner; how he lost the war; why Bergamasc feels the need to interrogate him over what proves to be a very long imprisonment; why Jasper is unstuck in time; plus familiar science-fictional-background matters such as the nature of Jasper's mentality and of his relationship to the entity he calls the Apparatus (which may be kin to the now-extinct post-human intelligences called Forts). Some of these do get answered, but other thematic threads are more obscure, embedded in a network of allusions and echoes that rattle around in the text."

Russell found the rattling substrate less interesting than the "clear-text" part of the tale, enjoying "the rather Silverbergian combination of exotic far-future landscape and gloomy emotional atmosphere (think Nightwings or even Son of Man)" (comparisons I'm more than happy to accept). He notes that "the space-operatic and revenge-melodrama themes of Saturn Returns are so far in the background here as to be invisible, replaced by contemplation of modes of consciousness and/or of being," but that's okay, because it's a different sort of tale to Saturn Returns. That he thought "the sightseeing was worth the ticket price" is good news for me. I think it contains some of my best writing yet, and anyone who's enjoying Astropolis will find a lot in it for them.

Available soon through bookstores stocking MonkeyBrain!