Adrian Tchaikovsky's Blog, page 21

Eastercon 2012 had three win conditions, namely [1] put in a good showing at my own particular panels, [2] see at least some of the other panels [3] have a writer to writer (2) conversation with George R R Martin.

Arrived lunchish Friday in the company of Justina Robson, fellow Leeds-based writer, and was treated to sumptuous lunch by my agent at MacDonalds (3) where we discussed The Plan. He and his minion have both read the draft of War Master's Gate, and they are in favour, which is just as well. I didn't make the fight demonstration (fail on [2]) but did squeak into "Pushing the Boundaries of Genre" (Gillian Redfearn of Gollancz moderating Paul Cornell, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Sophia McDougall and Robert Reddick.) This was my first sight of Paul at the con, who was not only one of four guests of honour, but was also giving awards, nominated for awards, and filling in  as a volunteer setting up and taking down and generally being sufficiently indispensable that it was a wonder they didn't it COrNell and just have done.

Missed the "Archery on screen" (fail [2]) but did at least tick [1] by making the launch of Newcon Press' Dark Currents anthology, for which I contributed a story, and got to meet Ian Watson in the flesh, a writer whose own short fiction has had a big influence on me.  From that I got to the genre "Just a Minute" (Justina Robson, Tricia Sullivan, Jo Walton and Donna Scott, chaired by Paul Cornell (4)) which was just as good (5) as the SFX version, and is apparently now a regular feature of the con circuit.

There was a picture circulating on Facebook a while back of "people you see wandering about conventions" and it's quite true, hence, at some late hour, the man himself does wander on into the bar and I do get as far as buying him a drink before the awestruck fanboy social inadequate part of me ensures that I then fail to make any impression or say anything of any use, so that's the first (of several) fails on [3]. By that time, after hooking up with Sophia McDougall and David Anthony Durham (both of whom I met at previous conventions) and a host of others  — and FYI, the cliché is true, and late on in the bar is absolutely the place to hang around if you wish to meet an author, editor, agent or similar — I make the call to go to bed at around 1pm, because I've a panel first thing on Saturday.

I am reliably informed that, presumably about 5 minutes after I've headed off, George turns up and spends until the small hours generally passing the time with whoever remains in the bar at that point. So that's fail number 2.

To be continued…

(1) Bonus points for spotting the Jonathan Coulton title I'm shamelessly stealing.

(2) Or, let's be honest, writer to Writer.

(3) You see how we celebrities live?

(4) It's like a drinking game

(5) I think I entered some kind of contract with Sarah Pinborough and Joe Abercrombie about using other comparative terms.

Eastercon write up will come soon, but following on from a comment a few posts ago — happy Easter! And in general celebration I do indeed give you an Easter Egg, being deleted scenes from Heirs of the Blade. In the original version there was quite a digressive subplot near the beginning involving Tynisa, Gaved and an old enemy, but it proved too long and too irrelevant, and had to go. It can't really be reinserted, because other scenes got moved around to cover, but here for the first time is the lost sequence from Heirs, presented for your hopeful enjoyment but probable general bemusement.

You should expressly not read this if you haven't actually read Heirs as that would be both a serious spoiler and very confusing.

is here. And no, I am not GRRM's identical twin. He has eclipsed me in my own post, apparently!

And for those who saw this before the correction, no, I have no idea what a "Tog blog" is either.

is here. And no, I am not GRRM's identical twin. He has eclipsed me in my own post, apparently!

Damn me, but there is a lot of good stuff at Eastercon, enough that I would need about three of me working in shifts to see all the panels, talks, readings etc. that caught my eye. (Link to schedule here.)

My own appearances at the con are:

Friday 6th — 5pm — room 12 — I'll be at the launch party for Newcon Press's Dark Currents anthology, which includes my story "The Fall of Lady Sealight" and a whole lot else by a great many very talented writers.

Saturday 7th — 10am — Royal B&C (1) — panel: Sufficiently advanced magic, with me, Stephen Deas, Juliet E Mckenna, Chris Wooding and Shana Worthen, moderated by Marcus Gipps

Saturday 7th — 9pm — Room 41 — Great big mass author signings, at which I shall be somewhere. Bring your own books or buy them from whoever is there that sells books (Forbidden Planet should hopefully have some).

Monday 9th — 1pm — Royal B&C — Panel: Epic Legends of the Hierarchs, with me, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Sophia McDougall and George RR Martin, moderated by Nic Clarke.

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Other items that grabbed my attention include:

Friday 6th — 1pm — Room 38 — fight demonstration with Jo Playford (2)

- 3pm — Commonwealth (3) — Archery in fantasy TV and film (hopefully with special mention of Hawke the Slayer) with Mike Shevdon

- 6.30pm — Commonwealth — Just a Minute moderated by Paul Cornell, with Pat Cadigan, Donna Scott, Tricia Sullivan and Jo Walton.

Saturday 7th — 4pm — toss up between Fantastic Landscape panel or a talk on Unsolvable Problems in Mathematics. Seriously — that is actually useful research for me, for a story idea I'm kicking about.

- 5pm — Commonwealth — Wild Cards panel, hosted by George RR Martin

Sunday 8th — 11am — toss up between Meet the New King panel, or The Fantasy of William Shakespeare panel (4)

- 2pm — Room 41 — A Fantasy Clarke Award panel, which should be particularly interesting following recent media developments.

- 3pm — Commonwealth — You got your Robot Elf Sex in my SF panel, with Justina Robson and Adam Roberts, among others

- 4.30pm — Royal B&C — Adam Christopher reading

- 5pm — Commonwealth — The Nature of Heroism panel, with GRRM (5) and Joe Abercrombie, among others

- 8pm — Room 38 — The Death of the Author. Either a panel or a thrilling game of Russian Roulette, not sure which.

And basically a whole lot more. I've highlighted all the items I want to see, and basically my schedule is at least 60% highlighter. And need to find time for schmoozing and drinking also. Going to be a good weekend, I hope.

(1) The name of the room, apparently.

(2) May not be in time to make this one, sadly, see how I go. Also — I sincerely hope that "room 38" is not just, y'know, hotel room 38, cos that is likely to run out of space real quick.

(3) Also, hopefully, the name of the room.

(4) Presumably not focusing solely on that one with the three nuns and Will Kempe dressed as the queen.

(5) I can call him that, right?

Not a plug for Paul Cornell's "Saucer Country" but instead the first breath of wind that heralds the arrival of The Air War.

As pointed out by Mark Guest in a comment to the last post, the 8th book of Shadows of the Apt will be out 2nd August, meaning I should start thinking about signings for around that date (and Fantasycon 2012's just a month later, for that matter).

This is of course the beginning of the end, in that it's the first volume of the final plot arc. We've had the first Wasp war, ending with the treaty signed at the end of Salute the Dark. We've had all the fallout, the stories of Che, Stenwold, Seda and Tynisa that have occupied the attention of Scarab, Sea Watch and Heirs. Now the Empire has got its act together. Compare and contrast with Mr Brooks' cover to Empire (out now, I believe).

As chance would have it, I'm on the final proofs for Air War right at this moment. It's pleasant to be able to get to this stage, which is often when the book is starting to seem like a house guest that just won't get the hint and leave, and still find the story zipping along quite nicely. Things explode. What's not to like?

I've read it's bad practice to blog about how the writing is going, but book 10, man. Seal of the Worm.

I had Air War and War Master's Gate pretty well plotted beforehand — the process was quite tight, quite blow by blow. I tend to not set pen to paper (1) until I've got a good idea of the story's shape and structure, otherwise the pacing goes to crap and I end up going down dead ends or over-weighting parts of the book that aren't worth it. I think I'm basically an undisciplined writer at heart, and to cope with that I have to stand behind my own chair with a whip sometimes.

Book 10 is a little different. I think it's a symptom of the long series (and as I'm talking about the long series in a few weeks at Eastercon I should probably spin out a few thoughts on it). Book 10 has a certain set of key scenes, the climax moments of the plot, that I've had in mind for years now, but the territory between them has been evolving in a fairly murky fashion as I've filled in the blanks of the earlier books. Even now, at past 1/3 of the way through the first draft, there are serious gaps in my knowledge about how major events will unfold — it's all cross-country stuff without map or compass. The little notes I have for the plot are much more general that usual. (Not that I always stick to my original plans — in fact I don't think I ever have, all the way. There's always a better idea waiting in the wings.)

I'd thought this would seriously slow me, but the other thing I've found, joyfully, is that the plot is rushing me along — it feels like the same burst I tend to get right at the start of a project, when I can't get the ideas down fast enough. In this case I think it's that the whole 9 previous books are providing the impetus, the motive force to make things happen. The logic of the world and the plotline, that I've sweated and strained over, now has an answer to my questions. All the pieces are falling into place, but literally just as I need them, each grey area of plot coming to me as reach its page. Hopefully this will keep up throughout the rest of the book, or you may see a rather more despondent post here in a few weeks.

Writing a long series has had a lot of unexpected problems. Certainly, at around the time of Heirs of the Blade I hit a plotting crisis point where all the stuff that I was bringing with me from previous books hit the foreshadowing of all the stuff I knew I was going to bring in later, and started a three-way fight for space with the actual story I was trying to tell — meaning that I have never had to rewrite so much of a book as I did with that one, and not just once, either. There were some really nice bits that ended up on the cutting room floor, including a whole sequence where the lake-kinden from Blood of the Mantis came to reclaim Sef from Gaved, but you have to murder your darlings, and in the end it had to go (2).

But anyway, the long series thing is currently working for me. Book 10 is on track. Horrors await.

(1) or equivalent keyboard image

(2) There was less of this in book 6, but an entire scene in which Stenwold learns how the habitually solitary Medusoi reproduce, which was utterly crazy, did get cut.

… sounds like an avant garde sequel to Eat, Drink, Man, Woman but anyway.

John Carter is good if not great. Beautiful visuals, definitely liking the Tharks (Willem Dafoe's (voicing of) Tars Tarkas in particular). Too much earth stuff at the beginning (there's a whole horse-chase bit that surely could have been cut) and the need to give a mechanism to the interplanetary travelling didn't do the plot any favours, but certainly a better stab at the pulp genre than Conan turned out to be. Once the film hits Mars it nips along quite nicely there are some good set pieces. Plot holds up better than Avatar.

I saw a trailer for The Hunger Games, the book of which I really should read. It's the big YA sensation at the moment, and the trailer certainly had me, so that's on the list to go and see, along with Avengers and Wrath of the Titans (1). March suddenly a busy month for movies.

Also, in a somewhat offroad plug, I've recently renewed my acquaintance with Evan Dahm's Rice Boy site. Dahm has created a truly bizarre and original fantasy world, and his current project, Vattu, is very beautifully told and thought-provoking (as well as only part-complete to date, to warn you, but regularly updated). Well worth a look.

(1) I did not see the "remake" of Clash of the Titans. However, a friend of mine may be visible standing around in the background of Wrath holding a spear, so there's that.

Next Friday, John Carter opens in cinemas (in the UK anyway).

There has been a lot of scuttlebutt (1) circulating about the PR for this film, or lack of same, much of it placing the blame on Disney who are releasing it(2). Certainly, although it's a project that various filmy sort of people have been talking about since just about forever, the actual film seems to have snuck up on us, and until this week I'd not actually seen any kind of advertising for it or much suggestion that it even existed. I stumbled onto the trailer by chance, and there's been a second trailer recently, and they have both blown me away. I will most definitely be watching this come Friday.

Burroughs' (3) John Carter books are some of the early gems of genre fiction — the series is one of the most enduring and influential ever, and truly deserves a good outing on the screen — with modern effects it's absolutely doable. Of course, trailers have lied to us before, and the film may follow Conan down the road to mediocrity, but seriously, I have not wanted a film to be good so badly for a long, long time. Expect a bitter, bitter post next Friday if it's not.

(1) Not the name of a character in John Carter to my knowledge.

(2) Unless this is all party of a cunning reverse psychology stunt by Disney to get people rooting for the film of course!

(3) Edgar Rice, not William. If William Burroughs ever wrote any books about people on Mars… actually possibly he did. Maybe that's what all of his books are about.

or suddenly realizing it's been a while since the last post.

There is a schedule up now for Alt Fiction, which has some good-looking stuff in it. It's an event I've much enjoyed in past years, and looking good this year too.

Somewhat late with this one, but I have a blog post up at the Tor blog here where I basically have a further rant about world building and Shadows of the Apt in particular. Anyone at Picocon may recognise some of this, as it was written at the same time as some of my talk. It's not the "how to write a generic fantasy epic" though, although tbh that went down quite nicely so I may yet recycle it.

Finally I am very excited about the upcoming launch of Dark Currents (1) from Newcon Press — it's got one hell of a lineup of writers behind it, and my own story, The Fall of Lady Sealight, is one I'm particularly fond of. Click on the link and you can pre-order a copy too. It's going to get its launch at Eastercon, so that's probably a good chance to get copies signed.

(1) No dried fruit jokes, please.