Hey, all. It’s time for Fan Art Friday (mit musik!). In this edition, we have representative art from the Leviathan, Midnighters, and Uglies series. So all of you must be happy!
First up is Max, who did a school poster project for Leviathan. What kicks that over to awesome is doing it while WEARING A BOWLER:
For Uglies fans, here’s a post-voyage-to-the-Smoke Tally by DolceCircee of Deviant art.
And here’s a Dr. Cable in pencils, by Fanna:
And finally, as a reminder that not all art is visual, let’s have a little music! For all you Midnighters fans, here’s “Wasted Time” by Mel, aka @mindcaster . . .
Okay, my embedding has gone awry, so just go over to YouTube and watch it, okay?
That is all. Please enjoy your weekend festivities.
As revealed today on Wondrous Reads, here is the totally awesome new UK cover for Behemoth!
I love the tusks! In October you will all learn why there are tusks.
In related news, the UK release date for Behemoth is October 1, slightly earlier than US’s October 5. THIS IS NOT MY FAULT. (And, hey, usually the Brits get my books later, so it’s only fair.)
By the way, here’s the old cover (never printed) that this new one replaces:
Yes, I think I like the new one better.
Also, check out there new steampunk Disney figures. As I have argued before, the Mouse knows steampunk:
Ganked from the DisneyParks blog.
And to end with a word from our sponsors, don’t forget that Leviathan is out in paperback right now!
It’s Fan Art Friday (the 13th!) today, but first a couple of other things:
ONE
My introduction to the Mind-Rain collection is up for your free perusal until Tuesday morning. Mind-Rain is a collection of essays about the Uglies series, written by YA and adult authors. Click here to read my intro essay.
TWO
There’s a meet-up at the Forum tomorrow, Saturday, August 14. If you’re a USian in the Eastern Time Zone, it’s at 5PM. For people in London it’s at 10PM Saturday night, and for Australians it at the HIGHLY CONVENIENT time of 7AM Sunday morning.
Hope you all can make it. Alas, I am going to a basketball game (Let’s Go, Liberty!) and can’t make it. But there will be many cool people to discuss thing with. To get to the Forum, just click that button on the menu bar above, all the way to the right. (THE ONE THAT SAYS FORUM.)
Here are the other Meet-Ups scheduled this year. Note that in Australia they’re always the next day.
Sept 11 US Eastern (7 pm) Aussie Eastern (9:00am) London (MIDNIGHT)
Oct 9 US Eastern (4 pm) Aussie Eastern (7:00am) London (9:00pm)
Nov 13 US Eastern (5 pm) Aussie Eastern (9:00am) London (10:00pm)
Dec 11 US Eastern (4 pm) Aussie Eastern (8:00am) London (9:00pm)
And now for FAN ART!
We begin with this piece from Deviant Art’s ThursdayJay:
Click on the picture to see it MASSIVE. See more of ThursdayJay’s work here.
Next comes this lovely Lego Huxley by Ben and Ann!
And you thought only Clankers could have Lego contraptions, didn’t you?
Because there are no doubt some fans out there missing Uglies fan art, here’s a cover remix from Kristen.
Click the image to make it big.
It’s always great to see you guys in Specials make up when I’m on tour, so keep it up! And please keep the fan art coming, so we can do many more Fan Art Fridays.
Watch this space for details of my October tour, which should be scheduled in early September. Note: It looks like I’m coming to Vancouver for the first time ever in November! I am excited by this.
As of yesterday, Leviathan is out in paperback and in stores everywhere. As I’ve been tweeting, the illustrations are all the same as in the hardback and the paper almost as lovely, though the map is tragically black and white. But for only $9.99 (US) that’s pretty good!
Now because you have all been waiting so long for Behemoth (out October 5) here is the second ART TEASER! That’s right, a genuine piece of art from Chapter 7 of Behemoth.
Image by Keith Thompson, of course.
Behold the beautiousness that is the bridge of the Leviathan. Then make sure to click the image to make it bigger! Seriously! The gnarly details are many.
And in case you missed it, click here to check out the first teaser.
Anyway, hope you like it. (How could you not?) And in case you forgot, the Leviathan paperback looks like this:
And just to be extra crass, here’s a BUY button!
Because of all the requests for fan art, I shall endeavor not to miss any Fan Art Fridays until I go on the Behemoth tour in October. So here are three examples of bootiful art, one being fan, one pro, and the other non-fan, BUT COOL. (Update: Another piece of genuine fan art has been added!)
First we have Bled of Deviant Art with a mangalicious Dess of Midnighters fame. Love the math wallpaper and the all-important safety goggles. (Be safe when you’re weaponizing, kidz!)
Image by Bled.
Next is my birthday greeting from Keith (illustrator of Leviathan, duh), sent to me back in May and not posted here do due to the laziness. I blame the heat.
Image by Keith Thompson.
And finally, a non-fan piece of art that I just happen to find while engaging in some extremely important research. Behold the Clanker-esque kitteh-walker!
Image ganked unattributed . . . from the internets!
If you have fan art, send it!
See you guys later.
Update
And here’s one more piece of fan art from Katie at sophistikatied, celebrating the imminent release of Zombies Vs. Unicorns, the anthology edited by my wife Justine and Holly Black! I have a story in it, and it comes out September 21, 2010.
I spent this afternoon in a recording studio with Alan Cumming, star of stage and screen, OBE, and the reader of the Leviathan audiobooks. The Behemoth audiobook comes out the same day as the print edition, so Alan was hard at work recording. He graciously took time out to do an interview with me, which is being edited by the S&S video boffins as we speak.
But once Alan went back into the studio, I hung around and got some footage of my own.
Sorry about the low volume. Turn up your headphones!
Watch this space. The real interview should be appearing soon.
Oh, and be warned—if you inspect the script page on the last frame closely, there may be spoilers!
Because you asked, behold the photos from my trip to Comic Con!
Exhibitors bring some very big and cool props with them. Here’s a life-size Alphonse from Full Metal Alchemist:
Actually, it was a bit behind me, and was bigger than it looks here. And that was hardly the biggest thing around. Here’s my pal, Australian writer Sean Williams, next to a huge mecha:
And check out this Nautilus that was at the Disney (I’m pretty sure) booth. (Thus proving the inherent steampunkness of the Mouse.)
Of course, the home-made costumes are much cooler than anything the big companies make. Like this sock monkey:
Yes, a little terrifying. And yet . . . SOCK MONKEY.
Here’s a fan-made steampunk wheelchair, which was much cooler than it looks here. (Sorry about the blurry shot, but this thing was fast too.)
At the Simon & Schuster booth, they were giving out an original Keith Thompson, this sketch of Deryn:
Of course, this item was much sought after. So we had to take turns guarding it with our lives:
Also, S&S had posters for Justine’s anthology that comes out September 21, Zombies Vs. Unicorns! (I haz a story in it.)
Notice a certain book in the background, too.
Of course, no trip to Comic Con would be complete without a complete DNA scrubbing to remove the GEEK CUTIES, which I got courtesy of Fluxx Bar:
Mmmm . . . scrubby.
Okay, those are all the decent photos I took. I’ll tell you more in future posts.
I’ve been busy this week working on the audio book of Behemoth, which will come out at the same time as the novel. (October 5!) Here’s me recording the Afterword:
Very soon I’ll be sitting down with the narrator, Alan Cummings (also known as Phineas Floop from Spy Kids), for a few interviews. I’ll bring you a report on that next week.
One of the cool things about going to San Diego Comic Con was that Keith was there too. Our work on Leviathan has all been by email, so this was a great chance to meet many awesome people and check out a huge dealers’ room full of art books and toys.
We also sat down for an interview with Suvudu. We were in a crowded hotel lobby, so I recommend headphones, but I think it turned out wonderfully. Because Keith and I haven’t spoken much face to face, it’s still kind of fresh for us to talk about our work.
Click this image to go to the Suvudu page, and check out all three parts if you have the time.
More about Comic Con soon, and thanks for you suggestions!
I’m headed off to Comic Con in San Diego (schedule below), and will be seeing some (all too few!) of you there. So here’s me sitting down between packing and enplaning, thinking I should get in one more blog post, because it’s been a while, and yet . . .
I can’t think of what to say. Seriously, there’ve been a bunch of cool news items about toxoplasma, some awards news, etc., but I have not felt motivated to blog them. Maybe it’s being in the middle of the hottest summer in recorded history, or maybe it’s being in the middle of writing Goliath. But whatever it is, I’m weirdly bereft of ideas.
So let’s use this comments space as a teachable moment, or a motivatable moment, perhaps. In other words, tell me what you want me to blog! Seriously, what kind of the posts on this blog do you most enjoy, re-read, link to, or at least chortle at? Parasites? Travel pics? Fan art? Writing advice? Bungee jumping? I aim to please.
All right, here’s what I’m doing at Comic Con:
Thursday, July 22. 4:00-5:00
Room 25ABC
Twisting Genres— Fantastic fiction authors talk about pushing the envelope on genre, not confining it to one definition. Participants include China Miéville (Kraken), Justin Cronin (The Passage), Naomi Novik (Tongues of Serpents), Daryl Gregory (The Devil’s Alphabet), Jeffrey J. Mariotte (Cold Black Hearts), Robert Masello (Blood And Ice), Keith Thompson (The Leviathan trilogy), and Scott Westerfeld (The Leviathan trilogy). Moderated by Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy.
And by popular demand: There will be a signing with all of us afterwards, sponsored by the wonderful Mysterious Galaxy (a bookstore, not an actual galaxy). This is first time that Keith and I have signed together in the United States, and unlike boring me with my scrawly-ass signature, he can draw stuff for you.
Okay, I have a plane to catch. Ciao for now.
With the Leviathan paperback only month away, I figure it’s time to show you a first piece of art from Behemoth. (Yes, I put this on Twitter a week ago, but it’s still NEW, right?)
So . . . behold the Ottoman sultan’s airyacht Stamboul, which appears about a third of the way into the novel.
Image by Keith Thompson, of course. Click the image for a larger view.
As you can see, Keith has created a whole new style for the Ottoman Empire. It’s sort of a middle eastern Clanker look, with elements of both machinery and animals. (The Ottomans use walkers that look like beasties, so they’re sort of halfway between Clanker and Darwinist.)
This is, of course, only one of fifty-five pieces of art in Behemoth. I’ll be showing some more pieces on August 10, when the paperback of Leviathan appears in stores.
In other news, Keith and I will be at Comic Con in San Diego this year. I’m on a panel on Thursday at 4PM, as you can see on the schedule.
Here’s the description:
Thursday, July 22. 4:00-5:00
Twisting Genres— Fantastic fiction authors talk about pushing the envelope on genre, not confining it to one definition. Participants include China Miéville (Kraken), Justin Cronin (The Passage), Naomi Novik (Tongues of Serpents), Daryl Gregory (The Devil’s Alphabet), Jeffrey J. Mariotte (Cold Black Hearts), Robert Masello (Blood And Ice), Keith Thompson (The Leviathan trilogy), and Scott Westerfeld (The Leviathan trilogy). Moderated by Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy. Room 25ABC
Hope to see you there! And I’m happy to sign stuff after if you bring it along.
As you can see, my website has had its first makeover in many years. This is to celebrate the fact that my first new series in years, Leviathan, comes out this autumn. (October 6, to be exact.)
Things may be wonky for a while as we play around under the hood. But I hope you enjoy the new look. Let me know what you think!
Click here to contact Scott Westerfeld.
Jill Grinberg
Jill Grinberg Literary Management
244 5th Avenue, 11th floor
New York, NY 10001
212-620-5883
info@grinbergliterary.com
