Sense of Adventure

At least, the one that looks most as I envision her:

Annja Creed: Lookin' good!

For a peep at a bigger pic, click here.

And to preorder, not to mention to support this site (and this writer, plus his really popular and appealing dog Emma), click here.

Anyway, as for the book … well, I think it’s a hoot. Of course, I would say that. As usual, I first learned of its impending publication when the UPS guy dumped it on my porch a couple mornings ago.

From my spy in the library system (Gail Gerstner-Miller - don’t tell anyone!) I learn that the Rogue Angel books are incredibly popular and they have trouble keeping them on the shelves. Pretty cool.

To my fans and readers who haven’t encountered my RA stuff yet: if you like my other books, you’re likely to enjoy these. They’re lightweight - so? I always try to give the reader characters they care about in conflict before a well-drawn backdrop. Even if I am weak on internal design. And I always try to make what I write the best I can for what it is.

So why not give these a try?

And don’t forget - if you do like my books, feel free to hop on over to Amazon and say so. And if you don’t, please still feel free, of course. Just, you don’t have to make it a priority, y’know.

I can’t tell … and if you want some clues, go here.

Click there now and check it out. Seriously. I’ll still be here when you get back.

Y’all know, probably (and if you don’t, hang around a spell and it’ll all become abundantly clear) that I’m more than somewhat slightly skeptical and cynical about conventional Big House publishing and publishers.

That said, Tor Books so far are doing a bang-up job promoting our spanky-brand-new Wild Cards offering, Inside Straight. They’re actually putting some effort into it. And the just-launched American Hero site is a wonderful step.

I’m basically in love with the site. Along with a very fine-looking logo we have brilliant headshots of all the contestant aces (I love Toadie’s big ol’ eye just staring at you) taken from the big group pictures done by artist Mike S. Miller. Farther down, past the first of what will be a continuing series of “confessionals” by the contestants, and a description of the reality-television series which drives the plot for much of the book, we see the group portraits themselves, along with rosters. Fortunately you can click on the group shots for larger versions, which is a good thing, because they’re freakin’ gorgeous.

They’re also, according to the characters’ creators - I’m not one, incidentally - pretty accurate, allowing for a wisp of artistic license. Frankly, from what I’ve read, they’re far, far closer to the characters as described than most illustrations I’ve seen. Indeed, I wish I’d had these pix to refer to when I was writing my sequences for the (ahem!) next volume, Busted Flush. Since some of the characters pictured play prominent roles in my contributions.

Ah, well. I’ll have ‘em for Book Three. Provided I’m in the volume … which, I have to say at the risk of tempting Fate, is fairly likely … they’ll be great to draw upon.

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Yesterday (technically, day before now; but I only count it as a new day if I’ve been to sleep) I was awakened by a whump from the front porch, followed by Emma barking furiously.

By the time I found my robe and struggled into it and reeled to the front door I’d figured out, of course, what it likely was. A brand new box o’ Annja!

She has a somewhat new look on the new cover (for a larger image, and one which isn’t an ill-concealed ad, click here.) On some earlier covers her face was, at least to me, markedly reminiscent of Jessica Alba’s. Now, I think Jessica Alba has a nearly angelically beautiful face - too bad the child can’t act a lick. But she ain’t Annja.

This time, aside from those funky lips that seem to verge way too close upon Mick Jagger territory, she looks much more as I envision her, with a longer, less round face. Think more Hillary Swank or Jill Wagner, who played Krista Starr in the awful Blade TV series.

I really love the way her eye and part of her face are reflected in her Mystic Blade. Too bad it doesn’t appear to be sharpened…

Also this version of Annja seems to present her for the first time, at least on one of my covers, as a beautiful, sophisticated young woman who, if she happens to think you need it, will fucking kill you.

On other fronts … no graceful segue here … I’m befuzzled and off-balance. More so than usual. I haven’t been sick much this fall and winter. Until a week and half ago, when I got a scratchy throat, inclining to soreness, and then my chest got socked-in with bronchitis. It’s come and gone and actually was at its worse a couple of days ago: Monday it was all I could do not to sleep all day. Finally it seems to be breaking up some.

It’s been a bit rough. Not because I’ve felt terrible - I haven’t, mostly. Even when I’ve had a sore throat it hasn’t hurt much. But I’ve been short of breath and, along with the aforementioned drowsiness, often had a hard time focusing mentally. That makes it hard to get much done.

Poor Emma’s going stir crazy because we haven’t been out to walk in so long. I intended to go today until the wind came up. The cold cut through me like a scythe. Tomorrow isn’t looking any too promising either…

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Tor Books’ official Wild Cards page has launched. It looks farkin’ great, and navigates well, which is all-important (too often “good” web design involves gloss interfering with usability, if not making navigation utterly impossible.)

I admit I’m less than enamored with use of Javascript pop-ups for images. But that’s a mere nerble. It’s a handsome job, and should become the indispensable go-to site on the Web for all things Wild Card.

None of the info I’ve provided on me or my characters (to date, Tripsie, his “friends,” and Mordecai Jones, the Harlem Hammer) has yet appeared. That’s no issue, as far as I’m concerned; obviously it makes sense for Tor - and us, for that matter - to concentrate on pimping the upcoming release, Inside Straight, due out January 22^nd. Don’t forget to pre-order your copy (and many more as presents for friends and loved ones, plus one to stash away in plastic for the benefit of future generations!) right here.

But wait - there’s more.

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By sheerest happenstance I just found out the sort of tattoo Annja sports on the cover of Secret of the Slaves is commonly called a “tramp stamp.” That can’t be what the Gold Eagle marketing people had in mind…

How did we get by before the advent of Urban Dictionary?

Boy howdy, they sure do hit on emo pretty hard.

On another random tangent, it turns out Bruce Hornsby’s sure a lot more interesting and listenable doing fast jazz than he was as a sententious, received-wisdom-affirming message-rocker in the 1980’s. (And droning. Did I mention droning?) At least to judge by the cut “Celia,” from his 2007 CD Camp Meeting, which they just played on the Jazz station on my cable.

And yes, I did; I did go there. I pimped the CD through my Amazon Associates link, complete with the cute hover-over feature so you can see a bitty product preview. Same as I did with the Rogue Angel book. Think of it as my thoughtfully offering my readers a chance to express approval of me or this blog or just utterly unearned (and unlikely) beneficent impulses by buying through this site so’s I get a cut. You know you wanna!

Shame? I am a writer. I cannot afford ze shame!

Yep, the senses-shattering next volume of the illustrious Wild Cards saga has wrapped and is about to be delivered to Tor. It’s called Busted Flush. And unlike the soon-to-be-released Inside Straight, I most definitely am in this one.

Busted Flush is by way of being another mosaic novel - all the stories are intertwined. It’s a boatload of work for George, the editor, and Melinda, the co-editor (who also wrote the interstitial material tying it all together.) But it can produce a very nice effect.

My contribution marks the return of an old friend. But things are maybe not as they appear…

Of course the original Allman Bros. quote is, “Dreams I’ll never see.”

And these, frankly, have a bit of ambivalence for me. Some parts I’d like to see. Others less.

I didn’t sleep too well last night, for no reason I can perceive; I kept waking up and staying awake, but not long enough to make it worthwhile to just say screw it and read or write. Just enough to cost me rest.

But in between I had a series of dreams I found pretty intriguing. I’ve had a lot of vivid and unusual dreams lately.

In this case, I dreamed I was involved in making a movie of The Cybernetic Shogun, little-known sequel to my Prometheus Award winning Cybernetic Samurai. It seemed to be the near-future. I relived various scenes and sections of the book - some that are authentically there, others that I never really wrote. But they seemed to fit.

Of course that may’ve just been dream logic. We all know how that song goes.

That’s the part, you likely figured out on your own (being the smart, perceptive people my bloggers readers naturally would be!), I hoped I would see.

Less so - much less so - were the dream segments in which I seemed actually to be living in the world of Cybernetic Shogun. How you like your fantasy now, monkey boy?

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I follow Wally Conger’s blog, which deals with freedom matters as well as SF - in books, movies, and TV - comics, and other things of interest to geeks. Not that I know anybody like that.

Recently I commented on one of his posts about this John Scalzi fellow all the kids like these days (actually, my opinion’s about like a lot of people’s: he’s pretty good.) Wally liked my remarks enough to quote them in a separate post. He even found it in his heart to say kind things about Cybernetic Samurai.

Now that I’ve got a little breathing room, I may have a thing or two to say about Samurai soon, too.

Thanks, Wally! Appreciate it.

You may’ve noticed it’s been a while since I’ve posted here (well, I can hope, can’t I?)

I’ve been deluged by reason of having cleverly gotten behind on two writing projects simultaneously. Clearly, this requires skill. It also helps when you get a low-grade infection that saps your energy and dulls your wits for weeks on end.

Anyway … I finally got ‘em both in. One was my latest Annja Creed yarn, which will be entitled The Golden Elephant. I think. First they were calling it The Plunderers. We’ll see when it gets scheduled.

It’s my 90^th novel. I’m about to start 91, also an Annja novel, called (for the moment) Curse of the Golden Buddha. Yes, we got a lot of gold statues goin’ on in Annjaland.

You know what they say: an idol mind is the Devil’s playground.

The other thing I got behind on was rewriting my contribution to Busted Flush, the second volume of a new Wild Cards trilogy in the works. It’s going to be another mosaic novel. Looking cool so far.

The first volume is Inside Straight, which has a great cover. It’s due out February, 2008. If you want to pre-order it, please consider clicking through the above link: it’ll mean I’ll get a cut, and help to keep me off the streets.

More details on the state of the Wild Cards can be found at my Forum.

Oh, and if you want to keep current on Annja’s doings, my latest, Secret of the Slaves, has been out a month.

By the way, I’m trying a new feature: if you hover your cursor over either of the novel links above for a moment, a product preview will magically appear. Not that I’m trying to get you to give me money or anything. Except I am.

… courtesy of the Gold Eagle art department - at the hest of their marketing department, I’m guessing.

My author’s copies of my newest Rogue Angel yarn, Secret of the Slaves, hit my front porch while I was off at Archon. If I’d known it was coming I could’ve asked them to ship me some to STL to give out at the con. Ah, well.

I don’t disapprove of the tattoo, not that it’d do me any good if I did. A bit surprising, but there it is. I do kinda like the tan lines they gave her.

On the whole I’d say it’s a pretty good cover (for a larger image, click here).

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