Posts Tagged "The Cloud Roads"

• Put your character in a box and squeeze. Voila! Inspiration.

  Inspiration or Calculation? How do you decide what you are going to write?


  Inspiration is a tricky thing, and unfortunately I can’t write without it. What hooks me as a writer – and hopefully hooks my readers when I’m done –  is a character. Perhaps that comes from roleplaying a person I’m not every Friday night; perhaps it’s how I’m wired. But I need to be struck by a character and his or her situation, to want to explore that, before I can write anything interesting.

  Usually inspiration occurs when I am reading a history book and some side character is mentioned – an emperor who started out imprisoned or a general’s wife known for meddling. Without fail I begin thinking about what it was like to be that person, the side character, the one caught up in events, the person thrown into the pool who had to learn to swim. (more…)

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• Member News: December 17, 2011

  Member News

  Martha Wells‘s novel The Cloud Roads is FREE on the Kindle right now!  Hurry on over and get your copy before the promotion ends!  And go read N.K. Jemisin’s post on the Book Smugglers for a rousing recommendation of both The Cloud Roads and sequel The Serpent Sea (out Jan 3, so not much longer to wait!).

  Thomas Roche was interviewed about ebooks, the future of reading, and The Panama Laugh at the blog Beyond Black Friday. His interview also appears as part of the Kindle subscription blog Me and My Kindle.

  Brad Beaulieu’s novel The Winds of Khalakovo got a great review from Pat of Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, and made Pat’s top ten SFF novels of the year – congrats, Brad!

  Courtney Schafer participated in an SF Signal Mind Meld, discussing her favorite SFF books and TV shows of the year.

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• Member News: December 10, 2011

  Member News

  Huge congratulations to Katy Stauber, who sold her second novel Spin the Sky to Night Shade, for publication in fall of 2012!  Spin the Sky is a science fiction reinterpretation of the Odyssey, set in near-Earth orbital colonies.

  Martha Wells has a guest post on the Book Smugglers blog for their Smugglivus Fest, sharing the books she loved in 2011 and the novels she’s looking forward to in 2012.  She also has signed copies of The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea entered in the Magick4Terri fundraiser auction.

  Brad Beaulieu had an interview with Justin Landon over at A Staffer’s Musings, where Justin grills Brad about Russian literature and themes and stuff (it’s a long but very interesting interview!).

  Brad, Courtney Schafer, and John Hornor Jacobs also contributed signed novels (and one ARC, in Brad’s case) to Patrick Rothfuss’s Worldbuilders charity fundraiser – see here for details.

  Only three weeks left of the Night Bazaar in its current incarnation!  During our final weeks we’ll be discussing our lessons learned as debut authors and looking back at the year we’ve just had from both professional and personal perspectives.  And tune in tomorrow for a guest post from Howard Andrew Jones, author of The Desert of Souls and editor of Black Gate magazine.

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• Member News: November 5, 2011

  Member News

  The Night Bazaar gang had a fantastic time at the World Fantasy Convention!  Attending were Bradley P. Beaulieu, Stina Leicht, John Hornor Jacobs, Courtney Schafer, and Katy Stauber.  Night Shade Books also attended in force, throwing an awesome party complete with special beer and mixed drinks based on the books of their authors.  For more pics of the fun (including the excellent Whitefire Pale Ale), see Courtney’s WFC 2011 photo album on flickr.

  

  Brad Beaulieu and Greg Wilson, for their podcast, Speculate!, interviewed Laird Barron and our very own John Hornor Jacobs on writing cosmic horror and their stories in The Book of Cthulhu from Night Shade Books.

  Martha Wells‘s novel The Cloud Roads is now available as an audiobook narrated by Christopher Kipiniak (released Nov 4).  Martha is running a giveaway on Goodreads for The Cloud Roads‘s sequel The Serpent Sea – click here to enter!

  Courtney Schafer will be signing her novel The Whitefire Crossing at the Boulder Barnes & Noble from 6-8pm on Saturday Nov 12, as part of a bookfair fundraiser for the Pikes Peak Writers.  For more information (including how to participate in the bookfair if you’re not in Colorado), see the Bookfair flyer.

  Thomas S. Roche is interviewed at length in the 10ZenMonkeys.com piece Why Thomas Roche Dreams of a Zombie Apocalypse, in which he talks about the writing of The Panama Laugh and his background in zombie fiction.

  In the lead-up to the BBC’s audio adaptation of Thomas‘s crime-noir short story “Hell on Wheels” as part of their Pulp Fiction Series (airing Saturday November 12 at 11:30pm UK time), Thomas was interviewed about vintage pulp fiction and crime novels, in an interview to air in soundbites as part of promotional segments for the Pulp Fiction 2 series.

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• Member News: October 15, 2011

  Member News

  Thomas Roche will be reading with Ray Garton, Richard Kadrey and Naamen Tilahun at Borderlands Books on Valencia Street tonight (Saturday 10/15/2011) as part of Litquake’s Litcrawl, the annual orgiastic celebration of the spoken word. You can find more details at Thomas’s blog, on the events page at Borderlands-Books.com or Litquake.com. Hope to see you there!

  Thomas recently launched a new blog, BoiledHard.com, dedicated to hard-boiled crime fiction and true crime writing. You can check out his reviews of and essays about vintage and contemporary hard-boiled novels and films at BoiledHard.com.

  Courtney Schafer‘s novel The Whitefire Crossing got a great review over at King of The Nerds, which called it “…an exciting adventure fantasy in a unique world…Schafer does a phenomenal job of making you care about these characters.”

  Courtney will be attending MileHiCon in Denver Oct 21-23, appearing on the following panels:

  • “Networking and Marketing”, 4pm Fri Oct 21
  • “Exoplanet Findings”, 4pm Sat Oct 22
  • “Modern and Future Weapons”, 2pm Sun Oct 23

  Bradley P. Beaulieu has a guest spot over at Suvudu’s Booked, where authors talk about their favorite writers.  Also, Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist is giving away two copies of his novel The Winds of Khalakovo. If you haven’t yet taken the plunge, this is a great chance to win a free copy!

  Martha Wells‘s novel The Cloud Roads got a nice mention from N.K. Jemison on her blog – go check it out!

  Stina Leicht attended the Dark Forces book group to discuss her novel Of Blood and Honey.

  John Hornor Jacobs just launched his brand new and very spiffy website at www.johnhornorjacobs.com.

  Several of the Night Bazaar denizens will be attending the World Fantasy Convention Oct 26-30, and going to the author “meet and greet” event at Mysterious Galaxy on the evening of Wed Oct 26 – stay tuned for details of our schedules in next week’s news post!

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• Member News: October 8, 2011

  Member News

  Kameron Hurley‘s novel Infidel got a great review over at Tor.com, which says (in part): “Hurley’s world-building, vivid and blissfully free of infodumps and expository lumps, was one of the great strengths of God’s War, and it’s a pleasure to return to the fascinating and messed-up world she created — one especially enjoyable for its ethnically diverse cast and freewheeling remixes of traditional gender roles.”

  Stina Leicht has a guest post discussing the prevalence of dark YA fiction over at SF Signal.

  Martha Wells‘s novel The Cloud Roads received a rave review from Escape Pod, which says “Books like The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells are why I love fantasy literature.”

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• Member News: September 24, 2011

  Member News

  Thomas S. Roche‘s novel The Panama Laugh received a rave review from Paul Goat Allen at Barnes & Noble, where it’s featured in the B&N Book Club. And speaking of book clubs, The Panama Laugh was selected as the October Vanilla Horror Book for Fetlife’s Kinky Intellectual’s Book Club. Rebecca Stefoff at Innsmouth Free Press also reviewed the book very positively. David Solmonson’s 12 Bottle Bar went so far as to invent a new drink for The Panama Laugh, “The Laughing Zombie,” using bloody grenadine to take the edge off the usually ultra-tart beverage while delivering a post about the history of zombie, the monster and the drink. And last but not least, on his blog, zombie writer David Moody called The Panama Laugh “Fast-paced, smart and never predictable.” In other news, Roche was captured by paramilitary troops who put his head in a freezer in an attempt to shrink it back down to size.

  Martha Wells‘s novel The Cloud Roads was reviewed by Fantasy Book Cafe, who said “The Cloud Roads was an engaging, absorbing novel.”

  Martha also posted a free short story set in the same world as The Cloud Roads: “The Almost Last Voyage of the Wind-ship Escarpment“.  The Cloud Roads’s sequel, The Serpent Sea, is now available for preorder: visit Martha’ website for ordering links and a chapter one excerpt.

  Bradley P. Beaulieu has a guest post over at SF Signal on “Writing in Discomfort: One Writer’s Thoughts on Political Correctness” that has sparked quite the interesting discussion in comments!  Go read and add your own thoughts.

  Courtney Schafer‘s novel The Whitefire Crossing was reviewed over at Fantlab.ru (in Russian, which gave her the chance to dust off her rusty Russian skills from her high school & college days to read it!), and received 8/10 stars.

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• Member News: August 27, 2011

  Member News

  Courtney Schafer‘s novel The Whitefire Crossing got a great review from Paul Weimer at SF Signal, who gave it 4.5 of 5 stars and said, “This book is in the running for favorite book of the year I’ve read.”

  The release date for the Polish edition of Brad Beaulieu‘s novel The Winds of Khalakovo has been set: September 20th. You can read more at Brad’s blog.

  The Night Bazaar party at WorldCon was a rousing success! Brad, Courtney, Katy, and Martha gave away a host of books & Night Shade t-shirts, and a terrific time was had by all, thanks to Katy & her awesome husband Chet providing a veritable smorgasbord of food & drink.  Free books were handed out to anyone willing to eat the more exotic items on the menu: bacon-n-cheddar crickets, sour cream-n-onion larvae, and scorpion lollipops (yes, all real bugs!).  Turns out SF fans are quite adventurous in their culinary tastes (or maybe just really, really excited at the idea of free books).  Further party entertainment was provided by Patrick Tracy, who showed Brad how to rip phone books and bend 60-penny nails.  Here’s a shot of the party gang (click for more pics):

  

  Katy, Brad, Courtney, & Martha at the Night Bazaar WorldConParty

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• Member News: August 20, 2011

  Member News

  The Night Bazaar party at WorldCon was reportedly “AWESOME” (Courtney’s word.) In attendance were Courtney Schafer, Katy Stauber, Martha Wells, and Bradley P. Beaulieu. Sadly, while according to Brad, “The party was a rousing success, including the consumption of many bacon & cheddar crickets…also, many phone books were ripped and many 60-penny nails were bent…We even have pics somewhere,” technological difficulties prevent the exhibition of said pix. Courtney will post the pictures next week.

  Speaking of Courtney Schafer, she’s interviewed by Matt Hilliard over at Hilliard’s blog Yet There Are Statues, talking about climbing, engineering, YA vs. adult, and her novel The Whitefire Crossing. Whitefire also received two more glowing reviews, at Bibliotropic and Think Banned Thoughts.

  Stina Leicht has an appearance at Geekfest tomorrow, August 20. She’s running the ArmadilloCon Writer’s Workshop on Friday, August 26th and will be at ArmadilloCon all weekend, the 26th through the 28th.

  Pre-orders of Thomas S. Roche‘s SF/horror zombie apocalypse The Panama Laugh have reportedly started showing up on peoples’ doorsteps, a few weeks early. Get the joke before it gets you!

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• Member News: August 13, 2011

  Member News

  Lots of news this week!  Buckle up, ’cause here we go…

  Courtney Schafer‘s novel The Whitefire Crossing got another rave review, this time from RisingShadow.net: “If you’re looking for a new and entertaining fantasy adventure, you must read this book. It’s an adventure of the highest order and it’s one of the best and finest fantasy books of 2011.”

  Courtney also did an interview over at The Qwillery, talking about writing quirks, favorite authors, and more.  The interview includes a giveaway opportunity, so if you’re still hoping to snag a signed copy of The Whitefire Crossing, head on over and comment with the type of adventure you’d most like to have.

  Courtney and John Hornor Jacobs both did Big Idea features over at John Scalzi’s blog this week: go read about how Courtney’s love of climbing inspired The Whitefire Crossing, and how John’s childhood in the rural south influenced Southern Gods.

  John‘s also been doing a host of interviews and guest blogs: see this summary post from his blog for a sampling!

  Brad Beaulieu’s novel The Winds of Khalakovo received a wonderful review from The Mad Hatter, who calls it “Epic Fantasy of a grand, beautiful, and political scale”

  A video of the Wellspring Writing Workshop, which Brad organized and ran in June, is now live at Speculate.  Last weekend, Brad also participated in the highly successful Writers Symposium at the GenCon Game Fair.

  Thomas Roche‘s far-future post-apocalyptic subterranean vampire story “The Big Empty” appears in Nancy Kilpatrick’s new Edge SF/F Publishing anthology Evolve 2: Vampire Stories of the Future Undead, which started appearing in bookstores this week. Also featuring stories from Tanith Lee, Kelley Armstrong, John Shirley, and more, Evolve 2 looks at the ways the future’s vampires will change their ways as humans do. It can be purchased at the Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy website.

  Martha Wells‘s novel The Cloud Roads will be released as an audio book by Audible.com, read by Chris Kipiniak.

  The Cloud Roads was also reviewed by Kameron Hurley at her blog: “Remember when fantasy books were AWESOME?  Thoughts on The Cloud Roads”

  Stay tuned for an announcement later tonight of the giveaway winners for Courtney’s novel The Whitefire Crossing!  And next week we’ve got not just one, but TWO giveaways for our readers: first, this week’s guest poster J.M. McDermott will be giving away copies of his novels  The Last Dragon and Never Knew Another to one lucky commenter on his post.  Then starting Monday, we’ll be celebrating John Hornor Jacobs’s release of Southern Gods – check back for our official giveaway announcement for Southern Gods on Sunday night!

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