No doubt, if you're reading this, you're probably at least a little familiar with my blog and the concept of blogging in general. For those of you who are uninformed: the "Blog-o-Sphere" is sort of a mass, voluntary incarceration program, similar to Twitter and Facebook, in which the socially maladjusted and criminally depraved willingly glue themselves to their computers in exchange for mass amounts of information.
Usually, this is a dark and wicked place, a Hell of our own creation in which we plumb the bleak depths in search of a festering nugget of information that we eagerly suck dry to fulfill our spiritual needs. It is a foul place. It is a gloomy place. And you are no doubt just as thrilled to be a part of it as I am.
In the ninth circle of the sphere, the level reserved for fantasy writers, fantasy readers, fantasy bloggers and Abe Vigoda fans, a vile court holds council. And in this foul and loathsome court, Aidan Moher is king...
...actually, maybe closer to an earl. No, wait, that has some bizarre lineal rules to it. At the very least, he's a mayor...possibly an owner of a quaint little bed and breakfast...OF THE DAMNED.
A Dribble of Ink was one of the blogs I followed quite voraciously, even before Aidan gave me the excellent opportunity to be interviewed on it. I can't say my opinion of the blog has gotten any grimmer now that I'm a featured part of it. Though some may suggest that my presence will lower the property values.
Wait, what are you still doing here? Do you require a highlight to tantalize you?
Normally I stay away from the tell-us-about-your-book-because-I’m-too-lazy-to-do-the-research-myself-and-can’t-think-of-any-other-good-questions-to-fill-out-this-interview questions, but since you’re a new author, why don’t you tell us a bit about your first novel, Tome of the Undergates that can’t be found in the synopsis I’ve included above? It’s actually a surprisingly philosophical book. Not the overt, beard-stroking, “what is a chestnut” kind of philosophy, but the sort that delves deep into the psyche of people without being boring. It takes the standard idea of the adventurer in fantasy and asks the questions that are presumed to be answered in the genre: what drives someone to become an adventurer, who is largely presumed to be a graverobber, thief and unprofessional assassin? Would a group composed of many different races, religions and professions really get along so well as to perform a quest? How can they presume a benevolent deity is on their side when they continue to suffer and die? How can they presume that they are in the right when they continue to cause others to suffer and die?
Beyond this, the book is really about the six companions and what motivates them: racial agendas and what happens when one feels compelled to violate them, atonement through murder, what really goes through the mind of the last of a particular race (hint: it’s not pleasant). Basically, TOME takes a lot of the things you might be familiar with and starts sodomizing them in front of you.
Also, there is a scene in which a man gets his crotch stomped into pulp. This is in the first fifty pages or so. They would not tell you about that in a synopsis, friends!
Mmm...tantalizing, isn't it? Almost sinfully so. I can see you trembling, wanting to know more about this interview, this blog and its terrible machinist. Go ahead...indulge...the time wasted there is better than the time I wasted writing my Urban Fantasy novel (Balls Deep: A Denise Asspuncher Mystery, coming in 2011 from Gollancz).
Truly, though, the interview was an utter delight and I'm pleased that my very first interview as an author came from a site as big and informative as A Dribble of Ink.
Brief aside: Jeremiah Tolbert of Clockpunk Studios almost has our new site up! Watch this space for details. I'm really pleased with what I've seen so far (it has an RSS Feed button! An RSS Feed button that is DROWNING!)
...that...that was meant to sound like a drum announcing the winners, not me just saying a synonym for a posterior over and over. Though, if you'd all like to talk about butts for a few hours, we certainly can. I'm something of an aficionado, you see, a relative connoisseur of cans, an admirer of asses, a--
...right, moving on.
First of all, thank you to everyone who entered in my fabulous ARC giveaway! It was a blast for me to run and, even though you all didn't win, it was an immense amount of fun to get your guesses and responses. Shall we take a look at some of them and see what some of my favorites are? I put away the names of all except the winners, because I'm not sure who would like their privacy protected and who is in fact a demon waiting for their true name to be uttered so they can come into the surface world and wreak terrible vengeance.
Here's a pretty good one to start us off:
Dear Sam,
You made no mistakes.
D'aww, thanks! Let's see if this trend continues...
Hi,
My guess is you made 4 mistakes.
Well, that's also pretty optimistic! Who else is so generous, I wonder...
I'd like to wager a guess and say 14 mistakes. Any more and the book is fluff any less and you're mister perfect and my low sense of self esteem will not let me read the book, so the answer better be 14.
Fluff?! Mister Perfect?! Why, I never! This trend of--
My guess is 33 mistakes. This isn’t a guess based on your skills as a writer/editor, just a lucky number. No offense. I wouldn’t want you to have start a new list: fans I have tried to defeat in hand-to-hand combat.
Wait! I wasn't done yelling at the last guy! Hold on, are you suggesting I couldn't defeat you in hand-to-hand combat, sir?!
I am from England, I have pre-ordered 3 copies from Amazon Uk and USA!
I cannot wait for the release of your much hyped and I am sure worthy publication.
To recieve a personally signed Arc would be heaven, so here goes.
I believe you have made : 45 mistakes!
Sorry I hope that Isn't too Insulting!
Well, thank you very much! I mean, that isn't too insulting, considering the utter niceness with which it was spoken, even though that is the biggest guess so f--
Oh dear god,
I cannot estimate the number of mistakes you have left on your proof copy. God knows it's not the fault of your long-suffering editor or the Colossus of Prose, your copy editor, whose name will echo in praise throughout the halls of Olympus and the hills of Valhalla, or possibly the hells of the tome of the undergnome, or some shit.
Although my guess is as good as that of a drunken boar, the apollonic oracle suggests that your your actual answer is 72. Hide your head in shame, sir. The wheel rolls five ways AT LEAST.
Okay, now I am BE ANGEROUS NOW. Wheels rolling five ways?! Colossi of Prose? Undergnomes? SEVENTY-TWO!? These are getting a little extreme, perhaps we ought to stop and take a--
YOU'VE MADE 31 MISTAKES YOU FAILURE
NOW SEE HERE!
Okay...okay, I'm cool. I'm cool. Just...we're all pretty good that everyone was here to hold me back, right? Or I'd just be going CRAZY right now! Painting walls with blood! Baking fudge with ASS! I'MMA MAKE YOU EAT AN ASS SANDWICH! AAAARRRHGGHGHGBGLLGGHG...
...what? Oh, right! The number of mistakes!
The actual number was Forty (40) Mistakes (cock-ups). Surprisingly generous, actually, but maybe I'm just that slick? It is indeed possible. So, let's discuss the winning entries.
There were three, of course (their names have been withheld so someone doesn't go mug them for their ARCs), and they have already been notified! Their guesses?
37.
42.
42.
Seems like everyone should have paid a little more attention to Douglas Adams, no? He might have been onto something.
Anyway, everyone, I truly and sincerely thank you for your interest in this contest. I am likewise truly and sincerely thankful you weren't in my house when I opened my inbox and saw so many entries and promptly squealed with excitement. Trust me, the sound would have lingered inside your brain and eventually driven you mad. You have no idea how pleased I am that so many people took an interest in my book.
To that end, I will eagerly invite everyone (save the winners, naturally), to participate in the months before September in trying again! Yes, hopefully, we will be able to run another ARC competition for the North American editions! It's gon' be a hot wing doused in two parts awesomesauce, three parts boss-sauce, and YOU WILL EAT IT.
Watch this space for details!
And thank you, one and all, for participating in this contest.
To my UK guessers: I will actually be in London for Eastercon, it looks like, and the launch of my book. If you are there to see it, please don't hesitate to come up to me and tell me you were involved in the contest. In exchange, I will give you one (1) free hug.
...I charge ten bucks for them, normally, because I know people are copping a feel.
It's 2010! A lot of lists for favorite books of the year, favorite publishers for the year, favorite Indian restaurants for the year (Punjab or G.T.F.O., yo), but a lot of people seem to be forgetting that 2010 means that it's actually the end of a decade. And while any jerk can be an "Editor of the Year..."
Naturally, it's pretty clear that anyone who is in close contact with me is destined for greatness and Lou Anders is no exception. What's that you say? He had a lot of good books before me? That's simply deranged, sir. I have spent a long time convincing myself that I'm the greatest person on earth and I'll be damned if I let you ruin that.
But let's move away from that for awhile. Lou has recently done a podcast for Bookotron.com in which he discusses the trends in fantasy, the near future of SF/F, eBooks and a certain Tome coming out in the near future.
The Second Coming of Joe Abercrombie. I didn't even know he was dead! I hope he went peacefully and didn't mess himself when he finally went down. What? Yes, there was a lot of other interesting stuff in that podcast, too, but COME ON, MAN.
Anyway, it's an excellent way to ring in the New Year's with my editor having secured such furious honors and having such great publicity is probably the best holiday present I could have gotten from him.
That's Otis, usually quite jovial, in a rare state of Christmas Scarf Blues. His suffering is your gingerbread cookie.
You wouldn't think blogging would be hard, would you? It's really just writing down your thoughts as you go along. Given that most of the time I voice my thoughts, the typical reaction is a fervent call to the police, though, keeping a sanitary and scheduled series of updates can be pretty irritating.
Especially around the holidays.
Christmas is over, but New Year's is about to begin. Thereafter, as the publishing world begins creeping out of its self-induced Thanksgiving coma, shit gets real. Editors spring to life with new and vengeful vigor. Publicists doll themselves up. And authors? Authors try desperately to keep their deadlines and continue to roll their faces on their keyboards.
Speaking of which, have you seen the contest we're running? Check the blog post right beneath this one for details! Plenty of entries (and severe doubts of my abilities) are rolling in every day! Be sure to add your name to the ARC Giveaway (details here) and see if you can guess how incompetent I am!
Anyway, there's a lot of stuff happening in the post-Christmas/pre-New Year frenzies. Namely, a lot of cool and attractive bloggers are posting their "Favorite Books of '09" lists! The ones I'm following most obsessively: James "The Predator" Long's Speculative Horizons, Adam "Juice" Whitehead's The Wertzone, Patrick "Nobody Remembers My Last Name" of Pat's Fantasy Hotlist, Aidan "Hossmaster" Moher's A Dribble of Ink, and Graeme "Killa B" Flory's Graeme's Fantasy Book Review.
I gave them nicknames to make them sound cooler, but it's a little redundant. Also, remember to check out The Book Smugglers, run by the Gruesome Twosome: Ana and Thea. They tend to produce some pretty quality stuff, with the occasional piece of crap.
Anyway, what did you get for your chosen holiday gift-giving extravaganza? Fruitcake? Toys? Video games? Dignity? Self-respect? Insolence?
You'll never use any of that! How about a present you can actually enjoy, like an excerpt from Tome of the Undergates? I already posted one on The Book Smugglers, but here's another one, to see if it tickles your fancy or any other part of you that I shouldn't be touching. Hope you enjoy and have a happy New Year!
‘No.’
The voice began as a mutter, a quiet whisper in the back of his mind. It echoed, singing through his skull, reverberating through his head. His temples throbbed, as though the voice left angry dents each time it rebounded against his skull. Kataria shifted before him, going from sharp and angry to hazy and indistinct. The earth under his feet felt softer, yielding, as though it feared to stand against him.
The voice, however, remained tangible in its clarity.
‘No more time,’ it uttered, ‘no more talk.’
‘More time to what, you fart-sniffer?’ Kataria was hopping from foot to foot, fingers twitching, though before Lenk’s eyes she resembled nothing so much as a shifting blob. ‘Not so brave now?’
‘I . . .’ he began to utter, but his throat tightened, choking him.
‘You what?’
‘Nothing to say,’ the voice murmured, ‘no more time.’
‘What,’ he whispered, ‘is it time for?’
‘What the hell does that mean?’ If she looked at him oddly, he did not see. Her eyes faded into the indistinct blob that she had become. ‘Lenk . . . are you—’
‘Time,’ the voice uttered, ‘to kill.’
‘I’m not—’
‘Kill,’ it repeated.
‘Not what?’
‘Kill.’
‘I can’t—’ he whimpered.
‘No choice.’
‘Shut up,’ he tried to snarl, but his voice was weak and small. ‘Shut up!’
‘Kill.’
‘Lenk . . .’ Kataria’s voice began to fade.
‘KILL!’
‘SHUT UP!’
When he had fallen, he could not remember, nor did he know precisely when he had closed his eyes and clamped his hands over his ears, lying twitching upon the earth like a crushed cockroach. When he opened his eyes once more, the world was restored: the ground was solid beneath him, his head no longer ached and he stared up into a pair of eyes, hard and sharp as emeralds.
‘It happened again, didn’t it?’ she asked, kneeling over him. ‘What happened on the Riptide . . . happened again.’
His neck felt stiff when he nodded.
‘Don’t you see, Lenk?’ Her whisper was delicate, soothing. ‘This isn’t going to stop. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s happening to you.’
‘I can’t.’ His whisper was more fragile, a vocal glass pane cracking at the edges. ‘I . . . don’t even know myself.’
‘You can’t even try?’ She reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder; he saw her wince at the contact. ‘For your sake, Lenk? For mine?’
‘I . . . don’t . . .’
His voice trailed off into nothingness, punctuated by the harsh narrowing of her eyes. She rose, not swiftly as she usually did, but with all the creaking exhaustion of an elder, far too tired of life. She stared down at him with pity flashing in her eyes once more; he had nowhere to turn to.
‘Then don’t,’ she replied sternly. ‘Lie here . . . and don’t.’
He felt he should urge himself to get up as he heard her boots crunch upon the earth. He felt he should scream at himself to follow her as he heard her slip through the foliage with barely a rustle. He felt he should rise, run screaming after her, tell her everything he needed to until his tongue dried up and fell out of his head.
For all that, he lay on the earth and did not move. For all the commands he knew he should give himself, he could hear but one voice.
‘Weak.’
His head seared for a moment, then grew cold with a dull ache that gripped his brain in icy fingers. His mind grew colder with every echo, the chill creeping into the back of his eyes, down his throat, into his nose until the sun ceased to have warmth. Breathing became a chore, movement an impossibility, death . . . an appealing consideration.
He closed his eyes, allowing the world to fade away into echoes as the sound, too, faded into nothingness. There was nothing to the world any more, no life, no pain, no sound.
No sound.
He opened his eyes as the realisation came upon him: there was no birdsong, no buzzing of insects.
The prey had stopped making noise.
Cold was banished in a sudden sear of panic. He scrambled to his feet, reaching for his sword, sweeping his gaze about the jungle. Any one of the trees could be the demon, watching him with stark white eyes, talons twitching and ready to smother his head in ooze before eating it.
The only things he saw, however, were shadows and leaves. The only thing he heard was the pounding of his own heart.
‘Help.’
The silence was shattered by a faint, quivering voice. It was little more than a whisper, barely audible over the hush of the wind, but it filled Lenk’s ears and refused to leave.
‘Help me.’
He could hear it more clearly now, recognising it. He had heard more than enough dying men to know what one sounded like. For all the clarity of the voice, he could spy no man to go with it, however. Slowly, he eased his gaze across the trees once more and found nothing in the thick gloom.
‘Please,’ the man whimpered, ‘don’t kill me. Don’t kill me.’
There was silence for but a moment.
‘DON’T KILL ME!’
His eyes followed his ears, sweeping up into the canopy, narrowing upon the white smear in the darkness, improbably pristine. From above, a pair of bleary grey eyes atop a bulbous, beak-like nose stared back, unblinking and brimming with fat, salty tears.
I should run, he thought, the Abysmyth is likely right behind this thing.
‘No.’ The voice’s reply was slow and grating. ‘It dies.’
‘It dies,’ Lenk echoed.
The Omen’s teeth chattered quietly, yellow spikes rattling off each other. Lenk’s ear twitched at the sound of wet meat being slivered. Narrowing his eyes, he spied the single, severed finger ensconced between the creature’s teeth, shredded further into glistening meat with every chatter of its jaws.
‘There are others here.’ Lenk’s voice sounded distant and faint in his own ears, as though he spoke through fog to someone shrouded and invisible. ‘Should we help them?’
‘Irrelevant,’ the voice replied. ‘Men can die. Demons must die.’
‘Right.’
The Omen shuffled across the branch, tilting its wrinkled head in an attempt to comprehend. Lenk remained tense, not deceived by the facade of animal innocence. As if sensing this, it tightened its broad mouth into a needle-toothed smile, the severed digit vanishing down its throat with a crunching sound.
It ruffled its feathers once, stretched its head up like a cock preparing to crow and opened its mouth.
‘Gods help me!’ A man’s voice, whetted with terror, echoed through its gaping mouth. ‘Someone! Anyone! HELP ME!’
The mimicked plea reverberated through his flesh. His arm tensed, sliding his sword out of its sheath. Like a dog eager to play, the Omen ruffled its feathers, turned about and hopped into the dense foliage of the canopy.
‘It wants help,’ Lenk muttered, watching the white blob vanish into the green.
‘Then we shall help it.’
His legs were numb under his body, moving effortlessly against the earth, sword suddenly so very light in a hand he could no longer feel. He thought he ought to be worried about that, as he suspected he should be worried about following a demonic parasite into the depths of the foliage. He had no ears for those concerns, however.
The ringing cry of the dying man hung from every branch he crept under.
It is true that people love giveaways. Several great nations have been founded on the very concept, with "giveaways" being the number two reason behind national identity behind "What Independence Means to Me" essays.
It is also true that the only thing that people love more than giveaways is making other people depressed. And here, my friends, is an insider secret: no tears are thicker or sweeter than those of authors. They are bottled to make perfume, slathered on like fine oils and if you need a quick burst of energy, just licking them straight off the cheek of an author whose received a bad review, well...there's just nothing like it. I, too, indulge in this practice, having long committed an anonymous, passive-aggressive hatemail campaign against fellow Gollancz author Alex Bell while masquerading under the guise of Jericho Mtumbe, Zimbabwean Mormon attorney.
But enough about my pending lawsuits. The purpose of this blog is to provide you with both a giveaway and an opportunity to make me look dumb, with the arrival of Mr. Sykes' Fantasmagorical Extraoracle Stupidifferic Betting Contest!
You see, just yesterday, I received the final proofs for Tome of the Undergates. Some of you may be familiar with the editing process already, but let me enlighten those of you who aren't.
Step 1: Line editing. This is basically the "meat" of the process, in which the editor who proclaimed to like your book enough to buy it now proceeds to point out how stupid you were when you wrote it. I kid, of course, they don't actually use words as nice as "stupid." Rather, they go line by line and find what works and what doesn't. This is where plot holes are filled, characters are refined, and sweeping changes are made. Frequently, this happens more than once! But when it's done, you go to...
Step 2: Copy editing. This is where a copy-editor, a fine man or woman in the employ of your publisher, goes balls-deep into your writing and starts picking out the sentence fragments, poor word choices, illogical fallacies and just general stupidity. This is also the point where authors and editors both look the most foolish. How foolish, you might ask? As an example: throughout the many, many read-throughs my editor and I did of Tome, neither of us realized that wheel could only spin two ways and it took a copy-editor to catch it. Once they're done with that, though, you reach this part...
Step 3: Final editing. This is basically where it's your last possible chance to change anything at all. This is also when you go the most nuts, because there's a lot to change and you can, usually, only change less than 10% or you wind up having to pay for it.
My friends, it is in this moment, this Final Edit, that Tome of the Undergates finds itself and we find ourselves in a contest of excellent portents.
The Lowdown: We have three (3, III), Advanced Reading Copies (ARCs) to give away (bribe) to those interested. The contest is pretty simple, in that it only has one rule.
Guess How Many Mistakes I've Made: You read it correctly! All you have to do is guess how many mistakes I've missed through the editing and, if you're closest to the actual number, you could win one of these fine-ass ARCs!
The Nitty: The book is close to 600 pages long and we can't make more than 10% of an actual change to it, so that would put your odds of finding a mistake at about between 1 and 60? Sounds right, right? So, make your best guess, based on how well you know me or my editor (if you don't know either of us, remember the wheel story).
The Gritty: So, once you've made your guess please send an email (FROM AN ADDRESS YOU CHECK FREQUENTLY; NO THROWAWAY ACCOUNTS, PLEASE) to sam.sykes66@gmail.com with your guess! Corrections are due back by January 13th, so you have until midnight (Arizona time, my time; eff all y'all in other, lamer time zones) on that day to turn in your guess! If you win, we'll send you an email asking for your shipping address and slap it on out to you, personally signed and possibly with an insulting message inside!
WHAT A GREAT GODDAMN CONTEST! GUESS NOW, YOU HORRIBLE LITTLE PEOPLE! FEED OFF MY MISERY! PROFIT FROM MY AGONY!
This is really more of a general update blog than anything else, but chock full of news you can feasibly use. If nothing else, you can take this as an opportunity to gain a bit of insight into the vast and complex world of publishing by seeing how an author communicates with an editor. Some of you will likely remember my announcement that I have been picked up by Pyr Books and their very fine editor, Lou Anders.
When presented with the knowledge that I was very pleased that he liked my book, Lou responded thus:
Like it? Made me want to shred my own s&s short into a thousand tiny bits. And stab you in the heart for being in your 20s.
Let me state for those of you who may be curious: it is very good if your editor likes your book. If your editor likes your book enough to wish physical harm upon you? Well, you're pretty much set, then, aren't you?
For the record, my editor at Gollancz has never threatened me...with physical harm. Though legend says that if you make him mad enough, he will start cursing at you in Old Entish (he is perhaps the tallest man on earth to be involved in literature outside of Godzilla's memoirs).
Anyway, onto further news: do you know what an ARC is? It goes by many names: Advanced Reading Copy, Proof, Bound Galley, Doorstop. The important thing is that Tome of the Undergates (my goodness, how did that Amazon link get there, oh well, no time to change it, sadly) has them! They have gone out to many fine blogs, I am told.
...unless they say mean things about me, in which case they are all filthy little wallaby-riders who suckle at the teat of Asmodeus and the resulting lactose intolerant reaction causes global warming that KILLS PUPPIES.
But for the moment, they are all quite good! The fine ladies (for there are two) at the Book Smugglers deserve special mention; their tendency to hunt in a pair allows them to take most authors by surprise and allows one of them to leisurely feed on the remains while the other keeps watch for other competing bloggers.
Note: This has been a confidential sneak peek at the upcoming nature documentary on the habits of book review bloggers, appearing in 2010 and narrated by David Attenborough.
And, in other things newsworthy, since my brand spanking new entry on the Orion Author/Title List has a showing of the cover art for the book, perhaps it is safe to show here, as well! You might have noticed it at the top there! Your reactions? They should pretty much be as follows:
HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THAT WATER! IT'S SO MAJESTIC! SO AZURE! SO SPARKLING! SO SPLASHY!
What's that? The guy? Well, yeah, I guess he is kind of important to the story and that is a pretty badass-looking sword, but come on...water.
There's a publishing company out there making a buzz! You may know who it is based off the fabulous authors they have come to swallow whole, like a frog swallowing mayflies, that the meager authorial mass may be added to the collective might of the industry. Fantastic authors such as Tom Lloyd, James Barclay, JOE "MUTHAFUGGIN" ABERCROMBIE.
And now...me! Yes, that's right, it seems as though Sam "Sharkpuncher" Sykes (I gave myself that nickname because it sounded cool; also, I know the site is under construction, shut up) will be joining the stable kept by the highly praised (deserving every ounce of it) Lou Anders, Hugo-nominated editor and all-around nice guy.
What does this mean for you, the kind and gentle reader? Several things! First of all, this being as close as two authors can possibly get before the fierce undercurrent of rivalry and insecurity tears them apart, I can now officially ask Tom Lloyd for money.
More importantly, though, it means Tome of the Undergates will be available in the United States by 2010, courtesy of Pyr! I'm excited! Are you excited? I'm excited!
This now officially raises the things I have in common with Joe Abercrombie to:
Things Joe Abercrombie does not have in common with me: A strong, creamy moral center of virtue, five inches (of height), three inches (of waistline), the ability to chew bricks for extended periods of time and biceps the size of overfed platypuses.
Things I do not have in common with Joe Abercrombie: Like, a million books sold and the respect and adoration of readers worldwide.
I hope you are as thrilled about this recent development as I am.
