An Interview, an Apology

Posted on April 27, 2011July 21, 2014 by scott

Yes I’m SORRY I didn’t post an fan art last Friday. I was overwhelmed with submissions and with a touch of the flu. But rest assured that you’ll be seeing lashings of fan art right here THIS Friday.

In the meantime, I have a cool interview to share with you, but first some very important news:

Today is the book birthday of The Last Little Blue Envelope, Maureen Johnson’s long-awaited sequel to 13 Little Blue Envelopes. I’m sure zillions of you read that ages ago, and will want to get the new one TODAY. If you haven’t read 13 LBE, you’ve been missing a total YA classic.

The books are about a girl who inherits a set of 13 envelopes containing mysterious messages from her recently deceased aunt. She has to travel around Europe to decode them, and discovers love and art and much more in the process. 13 LBE is justly famous and beloved, and is simply a must read. I’m sure the sequel is going to be awesome.

And now for my interview with the Science Fiction Book Club, which is publishing its own edition of the Leviathan trilogy. This interview contains some tantalizing hints about Goliath, and reveals for the first time some of the amazing color images from the companion art book for the series, The Manual of Aeronautics.

Click here to watch it bigger. Thanks to Diana Pho and the SFBC for taking the time to chat with me.

Before you ask, The Manual of Aeronautics comes out in August 2012. It’s in a bigger format than the other books, so you can bask in its large and glorious images, and is ALL in color. There are beasties, machines, uniforms, character portraits, and of course loads of plans from a certain living airship. (Obviously, Keith does the art.)

See you Friday.

Goliath Word Cloud

Posted on April 20, 2011April 20, 2011 by scott

Back in 2009 I blogged a word cloud of Leviathan as a NaNoWriMo tip.

Word clouds (made easy by the lovely and clever people at Wordle) are graphic representations of which words appear, and how often, in your novel, blog, or whatever. The words are sized, of course, in relation to how many times they pop up.

Word clouds great for spotting words that a writer uses too often, like my terrible habit of people frowning before they say something, or my once-rampant obsession with the word “effulgent.”

They’re also kind of fun for creating quasi-spoilery anticipation. And with that goal in mind, I offer you the Goliath word cloud five months before the book comes out!

Click here to see the full-size version. You know you want to.

Your sharp young eyes will no doubt note that I had to remove one word from the results. It was just too spoilerizing, and rather big as you can see. But the rest remains unaltered.

Of course, certain words that are missing (or quite small) can be just as spoilery as the ones that are there. So don’t look too close unless you want to suffer from S3krit Knowledge You Cannot Forgetz.

For my own purposes, I’m glad to see that “frowned” is very wee, and “effulgent” nowhere to be found. Sadly, “barking” is smaller than I thought it would be, and “perspicacious” totally missing! (But don’t worry, “Bovril” is happily medium sized.)

Best of all, the dreaded “just” is either not there or too tiny to see, so that’s another bad habit of mine expunged. Yay.

If you’re a writer, this old NaNoWriMo post of mine will give you a few more hints how to use word clouds in your own work.

See you on Fan Art Friday!

Dyslit Essay

Posted on April 16, 2011April 16, 2011 by scott

Just in case you thought I’d given up serious blogging to spend all my time trolling (or perhaps trawling) Deviant Art, let it be known that I just wrote a real essay about Literary Things.

It was for Tor.com‘s Dystopia Week (to which I say, ONLY A WEEK?) and was an analysis of why teenagers like tales of dystopia.

The funny thing is, lately everyone wants dystopia essays from me, because dyslit is BIG and I am officially a famous fake expert in how teens think, especially about dystopian fiction, thanks to the whole writing Uglies thing. (Score.)

A snippet:

Teenagers’ lives are constantly defined by rules, and in response they construct their identities through necessary confrontations with authority, large and small. Imagining a world in which those authorities must be destroyed by any means necessary is one way of expanding that game. Imagining a world in which those authorities are utterly gone is another.

It’s little wonder, then, that a lot of YA dyslit embraces both extremes of hyper-control and of chaos, wedding an oppressive government with post-apocalyptic ruin . . .

Click here to read the rest. And then comment here or there with your gentle sledgehammers of correction. Don’t let us fake expert adults define you!

And now . . . back to trolling Deviant Art! Because it’s Fan Art Friday. (Well, not here in Sydney, or even in New York, but somewhere in the world. Like, say, Hawaii.)

Here’s a cutie from strawberrycream17:

I mean, seriously: Awww. Happy times. Check out strawberrycream17’s stuff at DA.

And another quiet moment from Tobuishi, who, after last week’s Fan Art Friday, quite understandably requested that I use a piece of hers that didn’t have the word “boobs” in it:

Click here to see her other stuff at DA.

I love how a lot of fan art and fan fic shows characters doing, you know, sort of nothing. Fan artists like showing the downtime that’s part of everyone’s real life, but doesn’t ever quite get shown in canonical texts, because doing nothing isn’t part of the uber-dramatic Story we authors are telling. Believe me, if we put it in there, editors would probably edit it out!

Fans actually want to see the downtime, though, or at least imagine it, because that makes the characters more real, more like someone you could hang out and do nothing with. So downtime becomes a major theme of the para-literature of fan fic and fan art.

Maybe I’ll save these thoughts for another essay about Literary Things. But you know I’m right.

And speaking of just hanging out, here’s another example, by Irrel, of everyday life aboard the Leviathan:

HAH! GOT YOU! Awkward moment is awkward! (Here’s the source on DA.)

Okay, some fan art is totally dramatic, telling its own fantabulous non-canonical story, or even predicting what will happen in a not-yet-published book like Goliath. This is why writing Serious Essays is a pain, because you have to keep second-guessing yourself.

Awkward, heh.

So for the next Fan Art Friday, let’s do something different. Send me art that’s not regular two-dimensional drawings and such. You know: fan fic, sculpture, cosplay, music, models, video, photography, or whatever else you can come up with or find out in the interwebs.

I’m curious as to how much is out there. And I think we’ve had quite enough of a certain couple’s canoodlings!

See you soon.

Sequential Fan Art Friday

Posted on April 9, 2011 by scott

I’ve been getting a lot of sequential Leviathan fan art lately, series of pictures that tell a story.

You will also note that all the fan art this week has something of a THEME.

But first! Remember that the April meet-up is almost here! Come to the WesterForum and ask me all the questions you want.

For USians, it will be tomorrow (probably today by the time you read this):
Saturday, April 9 at 8PM Eastern Time, 7PM Central, and 5PM Pacific.
For you here in Australia, it will be 10AM Sunday (April 10) on the east coast, 7AM on the west coast, and 9:30AM in Adelaide.
And in London . . . I’m afraid due to all the time changes, it’ll be 1AM, Saturday night/Sunday morning. Sorry, Europe!

And now for our first piece of sequential fan art, from Ana Lind:

Heh, heh. That one’s from the book, but the next one is from an entirely different reality. From Sydney H:

Awhh.

So compare those two little stories: one comic, one sentimental. That’s the thing about characters in disguise, you can go for comedy or for pathos, because the act of hiding oneself lends itself equally well to either. That’s why crossdressing is such a popular fictional device, from Twelfth Night to Tootsie.

On another note, are you getting the THEME yet? if not, check out this more comic take from Tobuishi at Deviant Art:

Okay, that was a bit unexpected, even mysterious! But yes, lots of fan art lately in which Deryn and Alek get together somehow. I WONDER WHY.

And finally, though neither sequential nor get-togethery, a lovely portrait from Audrey E:

Tazza . . .

See you all at the meet-up!

An April Fool’s Confession

Posted on April 4, 2011April 6, 2011 by scott

Well, yes, last week’s Goliath art reveal was a bit of an April Fool’s Day joke from me and Keith, as many of you realized/suspected/hoped.

The comment thread of that post is excellent reading, however, because your myriad theories are awesome and amusing. (Two hundred, eleven comments and counting!) Many of you wondered if this illustration was photoshopped from lots of real Goliath art, but I shall not answer that question. You’ll have to read the book to see!

Heh.

But I will say that the bride in the image is Lilit, and everyone else is basically who they appear to be, some of your more madcap theories notwithstanding. (I liked the place-switching ones. And sheeze, a LOT of you want to see Alek in a dress.)

Of course, this means that I owe you another piece of art from Goliath. And a REAL one this time.

So here it is, a piece of spot art from Chapter 23, which I aver to be entirely non-bogus and non-photoshopped. (And you still trust me now, right? RIGHT?)

Edwardian loris is Edwardian. Heh, heh.

UPDATE
The forum appears to have been fixed. Let me know if there are any more problems.

The meetup next weekend is still on!

Goliath Reveal 2

Posted on April 1, 2011 by scott

It’s the first of the month, so it’s time for the April art reveal!

I won’t tell you what chapter of Goliath this is from, because that might be too, um, spoilery.

Please enjoy!

Click here for a zoomable version! And then, you know, zoom some.

Don’t forget the meet-up next Saturday/Sunday (depending on your time zone). I’ll be there to answer all your questions.

Leviathan Unshelved!

Posted on March 29, 2011 by scott

For the second time, the glorious library comic Unshelved has reviewed one of my novels! This time it is, of course, Leviathan. (Long-time readers of this blog may remember their review of Peeps back in 2006.) It is always an honor to be Unshelved, because all your librarian friends think you’re a rockstar when it happens.

Here’s one panel from the comic/review:

Click here to read the rest.

And this review has a bonus aspect, because the guest blogger who created it, Angela Melick, decided to do a SECOND cartoon!

Click here for the rest.

Double awesomeness! So thanks to both the Unshelved crew, Gene Ambaum and Bill Barnes, and to Angela for their continuing support of my books and of libraries everywhere.

Three other things:

1) Don’t forget that Friday, it’ll be time for our monthly reveal of Goliath artwork, this month with added spoilerization.

2) Sydneysiders, don’t forget the Zombies Versus Unicorns debate this Thursday at Kinokuniya bookstore.

3) The rest of you, come hang out at the Westerforum meet-up on April 9/10.

See you Friday!

Meet-Up in Two Weeks

Posted on March 25, 2011March 25, 2011 by scott

THREE THINGS:

Thing One
So let’s do another meet-up. Come to the WesterForum and ask me all the questions you want. Here’s the temporal data:

For USians, it will be Saturday, April 9 at 8PM Eastern Time, 7PM Central, and 5PM Pacific.

For you here in Australia, it will be 10AM Sunday (April 10) on the east coast, 7AM on the west coast, and 9:30AM in Adelaide, because by halfsies how you SA folks roll.

In London . . . ? I don’t even know anymore. Do you GMTers change your time soon? I think it’ll be 10 or 11PM Saturday night, April 9. (The US has already changed time for spring, and Australia will change in the other direction for autumn on April 3. Confusion!)

Welcome to my life. All I do is sit around and try to figure out what time it is in other places, like when I had this conference call with a bunch of people in LA last week. But you can ask about that at the meet-up! (Bwah-hah-hah!)

Thing Two
Sydneysiders, don’t forget about the great Zombies Versus Unicorns Debate next Thursday.

Thing Three
How about some fan art? Because it’s FRIDAY almost everywhere!

First a Lego Stormwalker from GizzmoHammer!

And from the side:

Lots of details from the book in this model. In fact, the back has tiny steam pressure gauges!

I do like me some Lego. And it’s great how builders have to improvise, because there’s no official Leviathan(TM) Lego kit yet. (HINT!)

For a change of pace, check out McL-Jessie’s Deviant Art gallery, which has lots of Leviathan fan art and general steampunkery. Here are a couple:

This one imagines Deryn and Alek in Japan:

And here’s Dr. Barlow wearing a cool expression, plus Tazza and egg!

Now I realize that you a lot of you guys have sent me many other pieces of fan art lately. But, alas, it’s all over my disorganized desktop. If you want to send it again, I WILL NOT LOSE IT THIS TIME, and we can do another Fan Art Friday soon.

Of course, next Friday is the first of the month, so it isn’t Fan Art Friday, it’s KEITH ART FRIDAY, with actual art from Goliath! And next art reveal is perhaps A BIT SPOILERY, but I think you’ll enjoy it anyway.

So, yeah, there’s that.

Goliath Cover

Posted on March 11, 2011March 11, 2011 by scott

Behold!

This image will no doubt rekindle the fractious old covers/new covers debate, but I will say that this is totally my favorite of the new ones. I think the two leads look awesome together. (Though note that in reality Deryn is taller than Alek, so clearly he’s standing on a box. That’s barking princes for you!)

Enjoy the slightly-spoilery manta-ship in the upper right!

Landslide!

Posted on March 4, 2011March 5, 2011 by scott

Well, as those of you who’ve looked at the comments of my previous post know, it wasn’t a fair contest between our three piece of Goliath art. But I am a firm believer that all votes must be counted, more or less accurately, so I did.

Here are the results:

Chapter 1 . . . 27 votes!

Chapter 2 . . . 165 votes!

Chapter 3 . . . 47 votes!

So, yeah. We have a winner. Thanks to everyone who participated. Remember, it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how amusing your comments are.

So here is the uncensored image from Chapter 2.

Click here for a larger and totally zoomable version of this image, which may reward careful scrutiny!

Hope none of you are disappointed by your choice. As I read your comments, I was, like, “Uh-oh, most of the secrets in that scene are things Alek and Deryn are saying, so they kind of don’t show up in the image.” Heh, heh.

Anyway, I should have a cover to show you within the month. And of course I will reveal another piece of art on or around April 1.