Results tagged “naomi novik”

I have run the online signed-book bookstore The Signed Page for almost ten years now. I have had the opportunity to meet dozens and dozens of wonderful writers who have given their time to sign and/or personalize their newest releases for thousands of their fans all over the world.

Today, for instance, the #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson will be stopping by to sign copies of The Gathering Storm for hundreds of fans of the Wheel of Time series.

Two weeks ago I had another large signing—with Naomi Novik.

And I noticed something really fun that she does.

Naomi is a doodler.

She met me at the Random House offices, where I had already flapped and set up the books in one of their offices. As I began sliding the books opened to the title page to her, I noticed she took a bit longer to sign than the average writer. Turns out she gives a little extra to most of the books she signs; she draws a quick sketch of her main character dragon, Temeraire.

It is very cool.

As you can see, it is a simple drawing, called a remarque by artists. It shows a flying Temeraire roaring his Divine Wind, denoted by three soundwave-like lines. It didn’t take Naomi very long to do each, but watching her I could tell she gets a kick out of it. It makes her happy to add something most writers do not do.

These doodles, however, can take on a life of their own!

Last night we hosted an incredible chat between two really exciting authors working in historical fantasy: Naomi Novik and Scott Westerfeld. Naomi is the author of the Temeraire series, which is terribly cool. Scott Westerfeld is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book Leviathan and the bestselling Uglies series.

When we brought them together they talked about everything from fanfic to dragons to their favorite writers and even dropped a few hints at what we’ll be seeing from them in the future! To say it was an hour packed full of great chat would be an understatement. But we here at Suvudu don’t want to hog all that fun for ourselves. We want to give you a chance to take our chat, repost it, and carry on the conversation on your site or blog for your readers to enjoy as well. So here it is - take our chat!

Use the buttons below to grab the code you’d like (or take them both, I mean, they’re free and all). And you have two choices, they are:

1. If you have a site that supports embeding the chat, then select the Embed Code.
2. If you have a wordpress.com, blogger blog, or other site that will not support embeding the code, select the Chat Link that will pop up the chat on a blank page (without throwing people away from your site in the process).

Enjoy!

Tonight, Monday, November 16 at 7:00pm EST, join us on Suvudu for a chat with authors Naomi Novik and Scott Westerfeld! The authors will be discussing their books, along with the challenges and benefits that come with writing fiction that transcends both genre and age categories. And they’ll be taking your questions, so come prepared!

Scott Westerfeld is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book Leviathan and the bestselling Uglies series. His other novels include The Last Days (an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and the sequel to Peeps), So Yesterday (another ALA Best Book for Young Adults) and the Midnighters trilogy. Scott alternates summers between New York City and Sydney, Australia. Visit him on the Web at scottwesterfeld.com or on twitter at twitter.com/ScottWesterfeld.

Naomi Novik received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 2007 World Science Fiction Convention. She is the author of the Temeraire series, which has been optioned by Peter Jackson, the Academy Award-winning director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. A history buff with a particular interest in the Napoleonic era, Novik studied English literature at Brown University, then did graduate work in computer science at Columbia University before leaving to participate in the design and development of the computer game Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide. Novik lives in New York City with her husband and six computers.

Anthologies abound!

There are several great ones coming out in the coming months. The first is The Dragon Book, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. It was released on November 3rd and features short stories from some of the very best writers in the business.

One of them is Naomi Novik, author of the recently published In His Majesty’s Service omnibus containing her first three Temeraire novels!

First, here is The Dragon Book summary:

Never before published stories by New York Times bestselling authors Jonathan Stroud, Gregory Maguire, Garth Nix, Diana Gabaldon, and others.

Whether portrayed as fire-breathing reptilian beasts at war with humanity or as noble creatures capable of speech and mystically bonded to the warriors who ride them, dragons have been found in nearly every culture’s mythology. In modern times, they can be found far from their medieval settings in locales as mundane as suburbia or as barren as post-apocalyptic landscapes-and in The Dragon Book, today’s greatest fantasists reignite the fire with legendary tales that will consume readers’ imaginations.

With original stories by New York Times bestselling authors Jonathan Stroud, Gregory Maguire, Garth Nix, Diana Gabaldon, Tamora Pierce, Harry Turtledove, Sean Williams, and Tad Williams as well as tales by Naomi Novik, Peter Beagle, Jane Yolen, Adam Stemple, Cecelia Holland, Kage Baker, Samuel Sykes, Diana Wynne Jones, Mary Rosenblum, Tanith Lee, Andy Duncan, and Bruce Coville.

Second, as a treat to her fans, here is author Naomi Novik reading the first quarter of her anthology submission, the short story titled Vici.

To find out what happens with the first taming of a great dragon in the West, you will have to read The Dragon Book!

Along with the other great short stories in the anthology!

Enjoy!

In HIs Majesty’s Service, the handsome new hardcover omnibus volume of His Majesty’s Dragon, Throne of Jade, and Black Powder War goes on sale this week, and contained therein is a never-before-seen short story which all Temeraire fans will want to read. In the chronology of the series, it falls between Throne of Jade and Black Powder War, and contains the story of how Temeraire’s nemesis, the white dragon Lien, first meets Napoleon Bonaparte. I hereby evilly post just the first few paragraphs.

In Autumn, A White Dragon Looks Over The Wide River(c) 2009 by Naomi Novik

The diplomat, De Guignes, had disappeared somewhere into the palace. Lien remained alone in the courtyard. The pale narrow faces of the foreign servants gawked out at her from the windows of the great house; the soldiers in their blue and white uniforms staring and clutching their long muskets. Other men, more crudely dressed, were stumbling around her; they had come from the stables by their smell, clumsy with sleep and noisy, and they groaned to one another in complaint at the hour as they worked.

The palace, built in square around the courtyard, was not at all of the style she had known at home, and deeply inconvenient. While it possessed in some few places a little pleasing symmetry, it was full of tiny windows arranged on several levels, and the doors were absurdly small — like a peasant’s hut or a merchant’s home. She could never have gone inside. Some of the laborers were putting up a pavilion on a lawn in the court, made of heavy fabric and sure to be hot and stifling in the warm autumnal weather. Others carried out a wooden trough, such as might be used for feeding pigs, and began to fill it with buckets, water slopping over the sides as they staggered back and forth yawning.

Aristotle once coined the general principle of holism as: “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

It can be great fun, however, analyzing the parts!

Where do the parts that comprise you come from?

Where did the parts that make up Shawn Charlton Speakman come from?

I am extremely self aware of who I am—at least who I think I am. Every daily event I have experienced in life has become a part of me. From birth until my last breath, I know that I will be shaped by anyone and everything. It is inevitable. That includes the books I read too. In a way the authors I’ve read over the years have taken up residence in my soul and, like the guiding influence of my parents when I was young, live inside of me, to be called on when needed.

It’s no wonder I love collecting those books that are most meaningful to me.

What characters in fantasy / science fiction best explain who you are?

Here are the main four I can definitively say reside inside:

Superman

No, no father of mine gave his son away, to rocket through the cosmos and help bring light to a barbaric humanity.

That would be cool though, right?

In all seriousness, the majority of who I am can be explained by Clark Kent and how he sheds all selfish desires to help others less fortunate. I try to emulate that. When a friend needs help I am there offering what I can. If a stranger falls down in front of me, I help them up if I don’t catch them first. When a wheelchair-bound man tries to belly up to the bar, I clear away the stools before the bartender can do it. I spend a lot of time and energy putting people at ease, to add a meaningful dialogue with all I meet whether it is talking about sports or giving heartfelt listening and advice.

I try to be a hero for other people who need it, even for what seems the most mundane of needs.

I have always held those ideals, from my earliest memories. But Superman became something more to me when I was diagnosed with cancer almost nine years ago. I began chemotherapy just like many thousands do every day. To represent the strength I would need to survive, I wore one of three Superman t-shirts to treatment every day. It brought a smile to those being infused around me; it kept me focused on the strength I would have to bring to bear.

Needless to say, there is a Man of Steel in my persona—despite looking like Lex Luthor on the outside!

I love books.

I love signed books.

I love signed books that make people money.

For almost a decade now I have run The Signed Page, a small online signed books business that suddenly is not so small. It has been great fun watching it grow; it has been more fun meeting people from all over the world who share my love for signed genre books. I have even met a few of them in person and all have been true enthusiasts.

For cover price, I feel I’ve helped build some pretty nice libraries out there!

Last week I received an email from one of my customers. She has been there from almost the beginning and has ordered dozens if not hundreds of the signed books that have graced the website. She is a voracious reader but she genuinely loves collecting. In the email she reminded me of a book she had purchased and how it has been a great book but also a great investment financially. It was a first printing book that took the fantasy genre by storm, had a low print run, and now is quite rare to find.

If you do find it, it is going for more than $200 on the low end and $500 plus on the high.

That signed book is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.

My customer asked me if I had any forthcoming events that could yield a similar outcome—the combination of great read and financial investment.

So it got me thinking: What books are coming out this fall that might be read, sit still on one’s shelf for a few years and yet make them money?

Here is what I came up with!

Here is the cover for the forthcoming March 2010 anthology Warriors, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois.

This book has everything!

• Stories from the Spinner Rack by George R.R. Martin
• The King of Norway by Cecilia Holland
• Forever Bound by Joe Haldeman
• The Triumph by Robin Hobb
• Clean Slate by Lawrence Block
• And Ministers of Grace by Tad Williams
• Soldierin’ by Joe Lansdale
• Dirae by Peter S. Beagle
• The Eagle and the Rabbit by Steven Saylor
• Seven Years from Home by Naomi Novik
• The Custom of the Army by Diana Gabaldon
• The Pit by James Rollins
• Out of the Dark by David Weber
• The Girls from Avenger by Carrie Vaughn
• Ancient Ways by S.M. Stirling
• Ninieslando by Howard Waldrop
• Recidivist by Gardner Dozois
• My Name is Legion by David Morrell
• Defenders of the Frontier by Robert Silverberg
• The Scroll by David Ball
• The Mystery Knight by George R.R. Martin

Come on! We have to wait until March!? *sighs*

I returned from San Diego ComicCon so energy-depleted (in a good way, since I spent all that energy talking to people) that I’m still catching up on the news coming out of the con. Therefore I’m just hearing what director/producer Peter Jackson had to say about two Del Rey titles to which he’s connected on the film side. For those of you who think that publishing types have all the fun, consider that although I am the editor on both of these titles, not only wasn’t I invited to any of Mr. Jackson’s press conferences, I couldn’t even carve out any time away from the Del Rey booth to attend any of his public events.

Be that as it may, we’d be so, so happy to have either of these films reach the big screen. I honestly don’t know which one to root for. Therefore, no rooting shall occur. This is just to bring any of you up to date on what Mr. Jackson is planning regarding J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, which involves fighting dragons serving as the aerial forces in the Napoleonic Wars. (Click on the above links to read stories from theonering.net and Empire, respectively.)

And if you’ve never read His Majesty’s Dragon, the first novel in Naomi’s series, it’s available as a free download on the Suvudu Free Book Library. Try it today—the offer ends on August 18.

All great things must come to an end.

At least that end is a week away—and you can prepare!

Suvudu has offered its Free Library since March 2009, allowing readers to download eBooks of some of the best books in the genre. For five months people could download them for free on a number of different platforms.

Now those books are returning to their authors and publishers and in a week they will drop off of the Free Library.

That means you have a week remaining to download these fine books:

• His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
• Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb
• Settling Accounts: Return Engagement by Harry Turtledove
• Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Blood Engines by T.A. Pratt

One week remains for free downloads of those great books.

So what are you waiting for?

Get downloadin’!

Comic Con is many things, but it is definitely one large information dump of fresh news on the public!

Sometimes it isn’t even intended to be.

When I visited at the Random House booth a few days ago, I tried to take in all of their forthcoming titles. The publisher posts giant posters of their new and soon to be published novels and they are spread over a large set of booths that dazzles the eye. It is very cool to watch people slow as they make their way through the Random House aisle, their eyes gazing at new prospective reads.

Usually there are one or two posters that really stand out. This year it was the cover above.

In October 2009, Random House is publishing a hardcover omnibus containing His Majesty’s Dragon, Throne of Jade and Black Powder War by Naomi Novik. The books have only been released in the US as mass market paperbacks, so it was time they got the hardcover treatment that Victory of Eagles received. The cover of the book is, in my opinion, absolutely stunning!

What do you think?

In other news, director Peter Jackson spoke at Comic Con last night and mentioned that once The Hobbit films are finished he will be taking another closer look at His Majesty’s Dragon as a feature film adaptation.

Peter Jackson. Directing a Naomi Novik tale. With flying dragons.

How can that get more awesome??

Make the movies, Peter!

We’re quickly closing in on our one year anniversary and thought it’d be kinda fun to take a look back at our most popular posts during that time.

1. The Top 10 Horror Movies of 2008

We’re starting to get used to the fact that this page will just be the most popular thing on this site (save for the library and homepage). Matt Schwartz counts down 10 of the best horror flicks to debut on the silver screen in 2008. By the looks of things, this has become your default list as well. If you’re one of the few who haven’t found this one, give it a look and get ready to leave the lights on for a while - there are some really scary stuff here.

2. In Defense of George R. R. Martin

If you’re a fan of Martin’s then you surely have an opinion on the time between his books. Shawn Speakman weighed in with this well-thought out article about writing, fandom, and if a contract exists between writer and reader.

3. The Real Fantastic Stuff, an essay by Richard K. Morgan

Here’s one that really got the blood boiling in some of our readers. Richard K. Morgan wrote a short essay on one of the forces that interested him in writing a work of fantasy. That force? The belief that Tolkien, considered a master of the genre, could have done even more with his writings. Then the conversation erupted. Check out the article and the comments in one of our most controversial posts to date.

4. Our George R. R. Martin April Fool’s Day Post

Hoo-boy, here’s a post that was meant as a convincing April Fool’s Day joke that might have been a little too convincing for some people. Most readers picked up on the trick, but even so, this is the first (and only, to my knowledge) that we decided to slap a disclaimer on. Remember, this one is only a joke.

5. The Temeraire series: Looking forward to Book 6

If you ask me, one of the coolest things about Suvudu is the chance to get sneak peeks into upcoming books, behind-the-scenes stuff, or other access that’s otherwise a little more difficult to come across. Here’s on example, Betsy Mitchell wrote about the upcoming Temeraire book (#6) with a short look at what sets the book up and a little bit about Naomi’s research in Australia. Some really cool pictures from Naomi’s trip also feature in the article. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

Over coffee and snackies the other day Naomi Novik, freshly returned from Australia, reported some of the results of her research for Book 6 of the Temeraire series, which will be published Summer ‘10, God willing and the creeks don’t rise. As the so-far-untitled novel begins, Will Laurence and Temeraire have been deported to the prison colony in New South Wales in order to springboard a breeding colony of dragons on Britain’s most far-flung possession.

In 1809, when Laurence and Temeraire arrive in disgrace, the settlement is embroiled in unrest and power struggles. Governor William Bligh (the same Bligh who was mutineed against on the HMS Bounty) has been deposed once more and sent packing to Tasmania, there to plot his return. Temeraire and Iskierka’s arrival signals a tremendous power shift, as the dragons represent the colony’s largest concentration of firepower.

Laurence and Temeraire quickly find themselves embroiled in the political and personal conflicts running rampant in the new colony, which was largely being treated by the British government as a convenient dumping ground for the excess convict population. The entire settlement of New South Wales was a jail, surrounded by the Blue Mountains which blocked passage to the interior, and populated with resentful convicts and grasping military officers trying to make their fortunes. “The early history of the colony at the time has an almost Wild West, lawless-frontier feel to it,” Naomi told me.

Above: A view of the Blue Mountains, showing the characteristic blue haze
(produced by light reflecting off the oil of the eucalyptus trees
dominant in the area).

Here are a few more of the literally thousands of shots Naomi took on her trip. And if you haven’t kept up with the Temeraire series, be aware that the mass market of Victory of Eagles, book 5, goes on sale today.

Left: A small relative of Temeraire? Hanging out in the desert near the Kata Tjuta rock formation in the red center of Australia.
Right: A mangrove at low tide on the shore in North Queensland.

Bookseller Molly Bolden, author Cherry Adair and I did a critique of manuscript first pages at the Jubilee Jambalaya Writers Conference last weekend in picturesque Houma, Louisiana. Participants (anonymously) handed in the first page of whatever work they had in progress, and American Idol-like we took turns commenting on what was good and bad about each one. Hopes were raised, dreams may have been crushed, but I believe that most attendees gained by listening to others’ work and applying our comments to their own.

“You need a stunning first sentence, or an editor is just going to set your manuscript aside,” seems to be the common wisdom right now among aspiring writers. That’s not necessarily so; it’s also possible, by using an overtly provocative sentence, to come across as trying too hard. In another session at the same conference I spoke about the importance of a strong opening more in terms of the first scene and first chapter, after which one is not allowed to slump, of course, but must continue to hold the reader’s attention as the story continues. As a general rule, I do not care to hear about the prevailing weather conditions as the story begins. If there’s a tornado a block away and the protagonist is heading for the basement stairs, that’s relevant. Otherwise, start with something more revelatory about the characters and their situation.

So what does make a strong opening sentence? Let us look to the work of the masters. Here’s a little quiz to see if you can match the first sentences of these popular Del Rey authors to their prize-winning/bestselling novels. (Answers after the jump.)

1. There was no doubt about it: there was a fox behind the climbing frame. And it was watching.

2. For numberless years a myna had astounded travelers to the caravansary with its ability to spew indecencies in ten languages, and before the fight broke out everyone assumed the old blue-tongued devil on its perch by the fireplace was the one who maligned the giant African with such foulness and verve.

3. This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.

4. “Send up another, damn you, send them all up, at once if you have to,” Laurence said savagely to poor Calloway, who did not deserve to be sworn at: the gunner was firing off the flares so quickly his hands were scorched black, skin cracking and peeling to bright red where some powder had spilled onto his fingers; he was not stopping to wipe them clean before setting each flare to the match.

5. Questions, always questions. They didn’t wait for the answers, either.

6. Brigadier General Clarence Potter crouched in a muddy trench north of Atlanta. Overhead, U.S. bombers flew through what looked like flak thick enough to walk on.

THE CHOICES
a. Elizabeth Moon, The Speed of Dark
b. Harry Turtledove, In at the Death
c. China Miéville, Un Lun Dun
d. William Goldman, The Princess Bride
e. Naomi Novik, Empire of Ivory
f. Michael Chabon, Gentlemen of the Road

Naomi Novik, author of the Temeraire series, was one of several people interviewed for an “All Things Considered” feature that aired on NPR this week discussing DRM, or Digital Rights Management. DRM—meaning software built into electronic books that controls the way it can be viewed—is a hot-button topic among publishers, writers and agents these days; both proponents and detractors discuss it passionately. Naomi’s point of view, which you can listen to here, is anti-DRM. As an author, she wants as many people as possible to be able to read her work.

As an editor whose continued employment relies on book sales (both electronic and hard-copy), I am of course conflicted about the topic. But I am fully in favor of offering non-DRM titles on occasion to fulfill the same goal as Naomi’s. That’s one reason we’ve opened the Suvudu Free Library, which will make electronic books available on numerous eBook sites for free. There are authors I know I would like to try but have never gotten around to reading; if I ran across a freely offered electronic copy of one of his or her titles, I most certainly would download it. (And if I liked it, I’d probably plunk down hard-copy money to buy the print edition—me being a fan of hard-copy books more than eBooks, at least at this point.)

DMR has been much discussed in the SF/fantasy world. Cory Doctorow and Baen Books, for example, have long been vocal proponents of making eBooks freely available. Any opponents out there? Let us know your opinion.

Last week I wrote an article highlighting the new addition to our website—the Suvudu Free Book Library! The downloads for our first five books were an immediate hit!

For instance, our Free Library books have conquered the top five downloaded eBooks on the Amazon Kindle!

Immediately we were inundated with pleas—and dare I say a few growls—from eBook fans desiring other formats for these free books beyond .PDF!

Well, we heard you loud and clear. And acted on it!

We have now added different formats of these great books because you demanded it! If you visit the Free Library page, you will notice we have added links to the Kindle, Sony Reader, Scribd.com and Stanza on iPhone! Robin Hobb, Naomi Novik, Harry Turtledove, T.A. Pratt and Kim Stanley Robinson are now brought to you by Suvudu in many different formats, not just one!

Fancy huh? We hope you enjoy these new additions! And in the coming months be watching the Free Library for new free eBooks!

Ask and ye shall receive!

When I began web design in 1996, publicity and marketing were purely print entities for publishers.

Few authors had email. Fewer still had websites. Publishers were just starting to realize the power of the internet(s). They relied on bookstores to spread the word about forthcoming books while releasing hundreds of advanced reader copies into the wild to generate knowledge and discussion among the booksellers—and among the fans.

It is truly amazing how far technology and our use of it has come.

Suvudu.com has been evolving as well since we launched at the San Diego Comic Con last year, slowly upgrading into the initial idea we had for this site. It has been really exciting to be a part of. We started with the blog, moved into a forum and today sees another step in that evolution.

A few more steps remain. But as a reader and fan, today’s step is one I am truly excited about!

Welcome to the Free Library!

Here is the official press release:

The Free Library will allow readers to try these new books. And perhaps more importantly I think, if you’ve read any of these books already and call yourself a true sci-fi/fantasy aficionado, you can now point your friends and family to these books to either find a new favorite author or understand your obsession a bit better. The books are free—spread word around!

This is a section of the site we will be growing into every month. So be sure to check back and see what other books we feature!

But right now, try our new Free Library!

It’s been over a year since Peter Jackson optioned the rights from author Naomi Novik and publisher Del Rey to create live-action movies based on the Temeraire novels. At the time only three novels were written and since then Novik has written two more.

Peter Jackson didn’t wait. He has now optioned Empire of Ivory and Victory of Eagles! Now we just need Jackson to finish his adaptation of The Lovely Bones and get on with creating real dragons on the silver screen! Can’t wait!

I was startled, Thursday morning, to discover this in my in-box:

It was dropped there by our subsidiary rights department, which passes along to editors the translated editions of our titles that come in from foreign publishers. Thing was, I couldn’t recall any recent title (heck, any title) that featured gun-wielding, bikini-clad babes. And I don’t read Cyrillic. The title page clued me in. Can you guess? If not, here’s a link to the original Del Rey version:

The Russian publisher apparently feels that this look will bring in new readers to our author’s latest series. I’m all for bringing in new readers—hope it works out for them.

But it gave me cause to look over the other foreign editions I have sitting around. Random House’s foreign rights department does a terrific job of licensing translation rights on behalf of our authors. (Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, for example, has been sold into 28 territories, from Israel to Iceland.) Random House employs a network of subagents on different continents whose job it is to know all the potential publishing houses in odd corners of the world. If a book doesn’t sell immediately, our rights people keep it on their lists and continue to offer it year after year. The popularity of different types of stories rises and falls at different times in different countries, so we never know what might become in demand years after its initial pub in the U.S. As an example, paranormal fantasy/romance, which has been such a white-hot subgenre here in the U.S. for the last couple of years, is only now beginning to be picked up in Europe.

And every foreign publisher has a different idea for how a cover should look. Once in a while our cover art will be reused by a foreign publisher, but quite often they will execute their own look. Just for fun, here are some comparisons of recent Del Rey titles.

More covers after the jump…