Off The Pink

at 6:48 PM

I just got my contributor copy of Future Americas, the latest anthology by John Helfers and Martin H. Greenberg. My story within, "Family Photos," which I mentioned before, is probably one of the darkest things I've ever written in any genre. Dark enough that I still half believe that I scared away most of my writer's workshop when I ran it through the Hamsters.

at 10:59 AM

I saw a post on Lynn Viehl's blog and I just had to follow suit and use the online Trading Card Maker for one of my most popular characters. . .

(Pic is from the Japanese Ed.)

at 6:31 PM

I thought I had posted all I was going to on this. But, then, my wife was waiting at Walgreens to get a prescription filled and was walking past the book isle, and came across this. I draw your attention to the lower right corner.

at 7:08 PM

In a manifestation of what I noted in an earlier post; that if your romantic paranormal fantasy is filed on the romance shelf you get a hunk on the cover, on the fantasy shelf you get a babe on the cover in short:

Fantasy:

Romance:

Now there's a blog post on the Juno Books blog that's warning of yet another subclassing of paranormal cover art-- The Butt Cover. Apparently, if you have an ass-kicking heroine in a paranormal urban fantasy, we need to see some ass. Consider yourself warned.

at 5:40 PM

This is my prize for winning Scalzi's LOLCreation contest. Just showed up today. In case you can't read the inscription, it says:
"To Steve, who does not do logic wrong."

at 11:24 AM

Working on Apotheosis (going well, thank you for asking) I've found myself digging in my old notes for Hostile Takeover. And I found a little sketch I made of the character Flower, when I was figuring out what the Volerans looked like.

Now I'm not a very good artist (I was a lot better before I decided to concentrate on writing some 20 years ago) but I thought it was a neat example of how sometimes a cover artist can actually tap into what the author was thinking. (Opposed to my prior post on book covers.)

Here's my little sketch:

And here's a detail of the cover of Profiteer, (one of my favorite book covers after the one for Dwarves) showing the same character:

The cool thing, Jim Burns never saw the sketch I made, he was going off of my description in the book. That was pretty cool.

I just wish he hadn't made Tetsami (a short Asian woman) look like a pissed of Sigourney Weaver.

at 8:29 PM

Due in January. Just got the cover:

This one contains my story, "The Enigma of the Serbian Scientist." Which is sort of a steampunk homage to Sherlock Holmes, wherein the murder victim is Thomas Edison.

Judging by the description of the other stories (and the cover) I bucked a trend, as it looks like the majority of the stories went more the childhood nostalgia route. . . It's somewhat interesting, as when I first heard the premise of the anthology, my first thought was "Hey, cool, and alternate history Holmes/Watson story." I actually asked Kerrie before tackling the story, in case anyone else was planning something similar. I guess I needn't have worried.

at 12:12 AM

I'm in yet another anthology, this time it's the heavy hardback The Best of Jim Baen's Universe, which, in addition to being a memorial to the late Mr. Baen, promises to be an annual event. You should also check out the web-zine that birthed this anthology.

Within you will find my mid-east terrorism alternate history time-traveling sniper story, "A Time to Kill."

at 8:36 PM

While I was gone I got my copy of Man vs. Machine, the latest Marty Greenberg/John Helfers anthology.

I mentioned my contribution, "The Historian’s Apprentice", earlier. I honestly think that it’s my best short-form work to date. Again, my story is singled out in a Harriet Klausner review. Unfortunately, her summary of my Gene Wolfe inspired, post-singularity, dying earth steampunkery makes little sense. . .

at 11:04 PM

Writing and trying to hawk Wolfbreed to agents (news coming on that score, stay tuned) has made me more aware of the growing genre of paranormal romance. I'm seeing it everywhere now, and I noticed something on my last trip to Borders. Now, as you'd expect, if the sexy undead werewolf-hunter novel has the word "Romance" on the spine it will be shelved under romance, if it has the word "Fantasy" there instead, it ends up in SF/F. But even if you don't see what's stamped on the spine, I've noticed a certain more significant difference on the covers found between the two sets of shelves. . .

Let's peruse the Fantasy shelf. . .

Now the Romance Shelf. . .

Notice anything?

at 8:22 PM

I just got my copy of the anthology where my story "Fealty" appears, 'Places to be, People to Kill.' So it's out, buy it. And while the Klausner review drops my name, it would be nice if some actual people reviewed it on Amazon.

at 8:16 PM

Yay! I just got my author copies of Blood & Rust: Two Novels of the Cleveland Undead, DAW's omnibus reprint of Raven and The Flesh, the Blood, and the Fire, my two vampire novels. (Actually I got 16 of 40 copies, at 640 pages the book is kind of fat and only 16 fit in the box that arrived today— I hope there's another enroute that just got separated from its sibling.)

This is good news, as Raven has to be one of the books I get the most queries about, which was frustrating while it was out of print. And The Flesh, the Blood and the Fire is one of the novels I am most proud of, the horror and the historical elements coming together very well in my somewhat biased opinion. If you are interested, I have sample chapters from both books here and here. Amazon also has exerpts from The Flesh, the Blood and the Fire on their site. (And, while you're there, you might as well order Blood & Rust, right?)

By the way, I'm generally bad at titles, but I really like the title I came up with for the collection. Blood & Rust really captures the noir feel of both books. I also think the cover's sweet too:

at 5:11 PM

Just got covers for two anthologies that are going to contain my stuff:

Places to Be, People to Kill

Man vs. Machine

at 1:49 PM

?
=

A while ago I sold the Russian rights to my first four books. I cashed the check and thought little more of it. Then, one day I was googling my work and found a page in Russia. . . I did a little digging and found the cover of the Russian edition of Forests of the Night.

Saying the choice of cover is odd seems a bit of an understatement. It doesn't even seem the same genre. I just hope the cover blurb was descriptive. I'm picturing some poor Muscovite expecting a latter-day Conan or Gor, and finding a furry Mike Hammer.

Off The Pink

This is not the blog you're looking for

I have moved, and you can find new entries, comments etc. at www.sandrewswann.com come over and check it out.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Future Americas is out.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

And he gets +4 vs. Furries

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Irony, thy name is Cassie Edwards

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Butt Glut

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Guess What I Got in the Mail Today?

Saturday, October 27, 2007

When book covers do it right

Monday, August 27, 2007

Fellowship Fantastic

Monday, August 06, 2007

Baen's Best

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Something that has nothing to do with the fact US Airways sucks ass and should die. . .

Friday, June 22, 2007

Book (un)Covers

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Places to Be, People To Kill

Friday, March 02, 2007

Copies are in!

Monday, February 12, 2007

Covers are in...

Monday, July 03, 2006

You can't tell a book by its cover

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