Catch-up
Been trying to catch up on all the projects that have been piling up on my desk over the last few weeks while I’ve had my head down trying to plow through the final 20,000 words of The Desert Spear. There are still weeks and possibly months of editing to come, but getting the first draft out is always the hardest and most stressful thing.
I’ve done a number of interviews recently, which should be popping up all over the interwebs over the next week, and in one case, print. If you are a reader of The Journal News, the not-so-local paper that services New York’s Lower Hudson Valley, be on the lookout this week, probably on Tuesday, for a piece on me by reporter Heather Salerno.
In the meantime, check out The Old Bat’s Belfry, to see the interview I did there. Shari, who runs the site, does a different kind of interview. She’s less interested in my path to publication or where I get my ideas from, and more interested in what kind of magic power I would want to have and what I had for breakfast. Maybe it’s self-indulgent of me, but I enjoyed that interview more than a lot of ones I’ve done lately.
I have a shitload of reviews of The Warded Man (on sale this Tuesday, March 10, throughout the US & Canada at long fucking last!!!) that have accumulated in my Firefox bookmarks. Maybe I’ll do a mass posting of them tomorrow. The VAST majority of them have been glowing, which gives me great hope for the book launch.
Of course, the most important bit of catching up I need to do is family time. Dani and Cassie have been very patient and put up with all my stress and insanity as I tried to untangle the Christmas light wire of my plot and get it properly strung around the house. Now, with the weather warming, we’ve managed to all get out of the house together a few times, and it’s been really… healthy. I need more of that.
Congrats, Peter. I’m in the US, where your book comes out TOMORROW *squeals in a fangirlish fashion* Just to let you know, your book is the first that I have ever pre-ordered. I’ve bought plenty on the same day of their release, but damn it, I want your so bad that I went ahead and pre-ordered it. Can’t wait.
But I am pissed off about the cover. Why must American covers look like rap album covers or contain landscape scenes?
Question: is the landscape depicted on the US version even in the book at all?
Grats on everything, and Cassie’s just beautiful. 🙂
Thanks, Deanna. The pic does her no justice.
Chris, I’m with you that the UK cover is much more in line with my personal taste, but authors are given very little input in such things, and I think Del Rey’s attempt to reach out of genre with a simple and elegant design like the recent George RR Martin covers says a lot about their confidence in the story’s ability to pull in people who don’t traditionally read fantasy.
As for the landscape and city in the distance, the truth is I don’t even know who designed it, so I can’t say for sure if it was done with my story in mind. It could very well be the walled fortress city of Fort Miln, or it could just be a generic fantasy city. At least the cover has Lauren Cannon’s sweet flame demon ward dead center, and that whoop-ass Terry Brooks quote.
I’m so excited for you! I will be there as soon as the local bookstore opens, and I can’t wait. Been a long time coming.
Yay!
Hi enjoyed the painted man/warded man so much was a steal from bargain books in belfast northern ireland i was shooting in the dark when i picked up been such a sci fi novel lover i havnt read much fantasy apart from a few warhammer novels. It is fantastic I have been unable to put it down and finding out about the desert spear has made me even more excited dont stop writing peter v brett you have created a world that is dark but deep down i wish i could be apart of ps leesha my goodness shes hot, im such a geek.