Epic Plains

Last night was a lot of fun. I was able to rearrange work a little bit and leave from Jamestown, ND a bit early to drive down to Minneapolis, MN to attend a signing that Brandon Sanderson was having at DreamHaven Books. This rearranging included working a couple of support tickets in the evening and having my wife drive for an hour while I was on a conference call. We were heading down to the Twin Cities for Easter with our families anyways, but worked out well.

I brought my camera along with, so I was able to snap some pictures.  This was actually the first author signing I have ever attended.  (We don’t get a lot of big name authors, particularly fantasy authors, up in Jamestown, ND.)  Overall the experience was worth the effort getting there.  It is a bummer that the convention Brandon is in town attending is right on Easter weekend, otherwise I would be going.

There were three key highlights for me at this signing.  This doesn’t include listening to Brandon talk to the other fans and answer questions that they asked.   Which was pretty cool.  It wasn’t just get your book signed and move on, but chat a minute or so, a picture if you wanted, etc.  Brandon (all 3 actually) were very friendly and personable.

The first big highlight for me was talking to Brandon himself while he was signing my books.  (Brought The Gathering Storm from home and purchased Warbreaker there.) I had overheard him say something to another fan about character development and mapping, but was hard to hear at the time.  So I re-asked him when it was my turn.  He said he doesn’t like to fully map out characters in the beginning.  Sure know who they are and the basics, but allowing them to grow with the plot as you write it prevents having to go back and completely rewrite a character.  (As I am doing in my own novel currently…)

The second greatest highlight for me was getting a chance to chat with Moshe Feder.  Moshe is Brandon’s editor at Tor Books.  I had been trying to come up with a great question all evening since I heard he was going to be there.  What would be the best question for an aspiring writer to ask an editor with Tor?  I can’t remember exactly what I had come up with, but it was something along the lines of agent ready material, how to know when, etc.

While I was standing in line I heard someone make a joke about being unknown outside of the slush pile.  Moshe piped up that

“The slush pile works – that’s where I found Brandon!”

I hadn’t realized this, but *bam* my question came to mind.  So while Moshe was signing my copy of Warbreaker I asked him, “What is it out of the slush pile that catches your attention?”  He said of course it always depends, but two things get his attention right away.  A unique idea and storytelling.  The ability to spin a tale.  He can fix the writing, though above average writing catches his attention to.  Apparently the first 50 pages of Elantris (Brandon’s debut novel) were a bit rough, but the idea and the story caught his attention.

I like to think this means there is hope for me yet

Last, Brandon did a reading from the prologue The Way of Kings which is coming out in August of this year.  It was actually interesting to hear the author read his own work for a couple of reasons.  First, just hear some of the pronunciations.  Second, to hear his voice pick up in areas that emphasize something I might not have paid as much attention to.

So it was worth sticking around for that. He spoke of some of the things he is trying to do with The Way of Kings. One of the more interesting points was when he was describing the viewpoint approach he was going. He tried to take the best part of the G.R.R.M approach, combine that with the Jordan approach, and combine that into something he hopes is better. See G.R.R.M (A Song of Fire and Ice is his fantasy epic) tends to have a large cast of characters that you never really spend a lot of time with. Jordon tends to spend great 3-4 chapter chunks with the same character/viewpoint, then you don’t see then again for a while. The way I understood Brandon’s explanation (and this is me trying to explain it to my readers a day later) it is more of a Jordan approach interspersed with flashes from around the world.

Below are some pictures from the signing.  (They can also be found on the Gallery page.)

My name is Jakob and I have a problem.  I love books, so I don’t consider this a very bad problem!  My problem is that I don’t like to get rid of books.  When we moved into our house a couple of years ago, I finally had a room big enough to build a nice big bookshelf for.  However, I discovered that it didn’t quite fit all of my books… and of course I keep getting more.  My “To-Read” list on Goodreads never seems to get any smaller than 50 books.

So I have piles of books on the floor.  This doesn’t include piles around the house either… on the stairs, in the bedroom, etc.  I really need to clean that up sometime.  It annoys my wife all of the time with the books I leave around.  I really should do a count sometime of how many books I actually own.

I actually have a fairly nice “To-Read” pile as well.  Currently that is in no particular order the following books:

1) The Mermaid’s Madness (PRINCESS NOVELS) by Jim C. Hines

2) The Myriad: Tour of the Merrimack #1 by R. M. Meluch

3) Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

4) Codespell (Ravirn, Book 3) by Kelly McCullough

5) MythOS (Ravirn, Book 4) by Kelly McCullough

6) Bright of the Sky (Entire and the Rose, Book 1) by Kay Kenyon

7) The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry (First Read for review, comes out this spring.)

Then my Dad also loaned me a few books to check out.  3 Mickey Spillane books: The Deep; The Delta Factor; and I, The Jury along with The Last Templar (Knights Templar series) by Michael Jecks.

So the long and short of it is that I just ended up with a lot more books.  I have tried paperbackswap.com and still kind of use it, but my issue is that if I like a book I keep it.  I do tend to re-read books, but I like to keep them just in case I might want to re-read it someday.

Well my parents came up with a little assistance on that.  They found me a bookshelf.  The timing is great as I was just starting to measure my office/library again to try and figure out how to build and fit another bookshelf in there.  The numbers weren’t adding up.  My parents found a 2-sided bookstore style shelf.  Picked up a couple for their house and another for me.

So sometime I have to figure out how to move this from Hastings, MN to our house in Jamestown, ND.  Should be interesting, but will suit my needs perfectly.

In theory I should then not only have enough shelf space to hold all of my books, but get them somewhat organized along with places for loaners and swap books.

Anyone else have any fun book storage solutions?

Now, to get back to writing.  I am told one of the keys to writing is reading.  I think I have accomplished that part!

Cybermancy is the second book about Ravirn by Kelly McCullough.

Like the first book, Webmage, the book is a quick read, but a blast throughout.  It is a fun mix of cyberpunk, greek mythology, fantasy, and a bit of scifi all rolled up into a quirky ball.  This of course isn’t the first time hacking/cyberpunk has been mixed with magic.  The start of first book reminded me a bit of Broken Crescent, another college kid/programming skills = magic (which was also fun), but Kelly’s twists make this a lot more in depth and a lot more enjoyable.  Ravirn isn’t just a hacker, magic is part of his heritage.

In book two:

To save his girlfriend’s webgoblin, Ravirn-a sorcerer with a shape-changing laptop-must brave Hell itself. Can he do it without corrupting the magical Internet-and without facing the Lord of the Dead himself?

The book begins with a hair-brained rescue attempt to rescue Shara (the webgoblin who are part familiars/part sidekicks) from Hades.  As in the first book, Ravirn tends to attract problems and the situation quickly escalates past the plan and nearing out of control.   As the novel progresses we start to learn a little bit more about the name he was given at the end of the first book.  One of his aunts (oh his aunts are the 3 fates) took back his name Ravirn, though the one aunt renamed him Raven.

I had waited for a while to get book to in order to continue the series.  I finally managed to get the book from paperbackswap.com.  After finishing the second book though, I didn’t want to wait.  I had received and Amazon giftcard, so ordered both Codespell and MythOS, which are the next two books in the series.    (On Kelly’s site the 5th is stated to be coming out in June ’10).  So I am looking forward to getting caught up with the series in the next month.

Either way, I would recommend picking up a copy.  The books are fun and a nice take on the whole greek mythology story line.

I just received from paperbackswap.com the 5th book in Jack Whyte’s “The Camulod Chronicles” called “The Fort at River’s Bend.”  This is what I plan on curling up with over the Christmas weekend.  Depending on what this storm hitting the Midwest does, I might have quite a bit of time available for reading.

The first four books were excellent.  It is a little different take on the Arthurian Legends and one that is very enjoyable.  The series starts out with the decline of the Roman Empire.  They almost have a more “alternative history” feel to them as opposed to “fantasy,” though defining exact genres these days can be a bit challenging.  Either way I have slowly been working on collecting these books so I can get through the whole series.  If you haven’t seen the books before, check them out.  I will be posting a review once I finish this book.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!