Babel Clash

Hey Morgan,

Thanks so much for having us here at Babel Clash! It was good fun blogging here and chatting with Annalee, Jeff, Paul and yourself. The reading at the Borders on Boylston in Boston last night was a great time as well!

I’d love for folks to consider the Acacia series as they plan their holiday shopping. My pitch… The first novel, Acacia: The War With The Mein, is available both in hard and paperback. In many ways it stands on its own, but if folks like it I’m glad to say The Other Lands is out in a really pretty hardback edition. The third and concluding volume is in the works now, so you don’t have to fear big delays or series dragging on forever.

But are the books any good? I hope so, but I’m biased. I’m very pleased to mention that the series won me the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. That was an amazing honor, especially as I entered the genre from having been a mainstream novelist. Let me offer a few words from others on the subject…

The Washington Post: Durham… demonstrates that he is a master of the fantasy epic.

Revolution Science Fiction: David Anthony Durham has pulled off something remarkable: a huge, sprawling epic that manages to weave together history, politics, intrigue and thunderous action scenes without ever losing track of the multitudes of finely-drawn characters.

SF Site: One of the delights of reading Acacia are the sudden, unexpected developments in the story. Durham is completely unafraid to play against convention and the reader’s expectations.

The Agony Column: Durham’s novel bristles with the joy and power of a historical novelist freed to create his own history…

Locus: …as radical a rewriting of (George RR) Martin as Martin himself performed on Tolkein. Rarely has the medieval epic been quite this pertinent.

Publishers Weekly (Starred Review): …sprawling and vividly imagined

Thanks for reading this far. I have to say it’s a pleasure to be writing in fantasy. I hope to do so for a long time. Man, there are so many stories to tell!

-David.

davidanthonydurham.com

Going back to covers for a minute…

Although it’s mostly out of my hands, I have to admit that I take a lot of joy in seeing every new cover of one of my books. I go all tingly as I wait for the usually scanned and emailed image to pop up on my computer screen. I want so badly to like it – and I’m hopeful that I will – but there’s always a bit of fear mixed in as well. I’m usually pleased by what shows up. I liked Doubleday’s cover for Acacia: The War With The Mein well enough.

No swords, wizards, elves or unicorns even hinted at! I heard from some folks saying they particularly liked it because it wasn’t overtly and obviously fantasy, but I also heard others grumbling that it wasn’t fantasy enough. Can’t please everyone, clearly. I wish we could, but I’ve never seen it happen yet.

I lived in Scotland for a few years. My wife’s Scottish and we go back across a lot, so I do have some connection with the UK market, but I don’t feel like I can make judgments as readily about what works and doesn’t in other countries. This one is certainly closer to the genre norms. I could argue that the Akarans don’t look quite like I picture them, but that’s not what Transworld is trying to produce, is it? What message is this sending? I’m not entirely sure…

It’s the foreign language covers that are really like gravy, though. You write for your home market, I think, so whenever a publisher in a foreign land buys, translates and publishes your stuff it’s an extra treat. I don’t feel any of the fear I do when looking at a US cover, because the foreign markets are… well, foreign.

So, when my Swedish publisher comes up with this I say, “Hurrah for the guys with swords in the snow!” True enough, there are invading hordes that come through the snow in Acacia. So, a cover like this seems legit. It wouldn’t be the image I’d pick to represent that book, but… well, Sweden is cold. They’ve snow. Mountains. Tall guys. Maybe this is just the right approach. Who am I to say?

The next image on offer here is the German edition. Fantasy castle? Check.

The French cover is more like the US version than any other. I find that interesting, but I draw no conclusions from it.

The Italians… well, judging by these two covers they’re rather a subtle group of readers. Italian being an expansive language, they divided the book in two.

I love the brooding, cliff side landscape of the first one. I know exactly where I think it is in Acacian world, but again it’s not an image I’d have expected. I like the aged feel of it, though. The weathering on the parchment. The forlorn look. That’s definitely representative of some aspects of the book, but it’s a very different vibe than any of the other publishers went for.

As for the second one… Well, it’s beautiful in its way. Again, though, it’s so very different than most fantasy covers. It’s really interesting to consider what appeals in what market and why. It also features a title that translates roughly to “The Silver Lake Warrior”. That’s interesting, but I’m not sure who that guy is…

I’ve still got a few to come, and I’ll be thrilled to see them. What will the Polish cover look like? The Portuguese? The Spanish? What, pray tell, will the Russians do? I’ve no idea, but very much look forward to finding out.

Morgan,

I’ve considered the screenplay thing. Who hasn’t at some point daydreamed about giving their acceptance speech at the Oscars - the one for most awesomist screenplay? (Or is that just me? That category exists, doesn’t it?) I’ve also had three novels optioned for film, so in some ways I had things to tangibly hang that daydreaming on.

But I’ve actually be quite shy about it. I’ve tended to think that writing novels is what I do, and that I might be better off leaving screenplays to the professionals. With that in mind, I was happy for Alan Taylor to write the screenplay for Gabriel’s Story, and for Andrew Grant to write the one for Acacia: The War with the Mein. Walk Through Darkness never got that far, but I also didn’t push to write it myself. There are always novels to be written, and ultimately that’s where I think my focus needs to remain.

As for comics… Again, I’d love to see my fiction in comic form, but I’m not actively trying to make that happen myself. I’ve moved a half-step that way, though. I’ve just completed a three part story for George RR Martin’s Wild Cards novels. I quite enjoyed writing about a half-snake vigilante called the Infamous Black Tongue. He’s definitely a comic book character, but I wrote him as straight fiction in this case. It does take me a little closer to that part of the world, though, and I like that.

Jeff, I very much looking forward to that reading. It means me coming out of the woods for an evening in the city. Haven’t done that for a while. It’ll be good fun, I’m sure!

Paul, I appreciate genre mixing. I have to admit I don’t feel cool enough to do it myself, though. I’m a bit too flat-footed for that. So far, at least. Ah well…

But genre hopping - as Morgan defines it - is something I’m into personally!

My first two novels, Gabriel’s Story and Walk Through Darkness were literary novels featuring African-American characters in historical settings. Going to tell of Hannibal’s war with Rome in the ancient world for my third novel was considered a shift. For one thing, my publisher had to put a good deal of effort into making sure book buyers considered Pride of Carthage as a mainstream historical novel – not as something geared only toward the African-American market. In some bookstores that distinction meant it got placed in the “Literature” section instead of the “African-American Literature” section – which is certainly beneficial for exposure and sales.

(Some readers may respond… “Wait, are you saying there are African-American literature sections in major bookstores – as in sections where fiction by black authors gets put instead of in the general literature section?” To which I would say, “Yep.” And then this hypothetical reader could respond, “I’ve never noticed that.” And I’d say, “Yep. But it’s true, and it remains a sore point for many writers of color.” But this is conversation for another time, I imagine.)

Pride of Carthage did get all the placement I could have wished for, and good sales. But instead of being happy to carry on in that vein I had to go and write an epic fantasy! Not even a cool hybrid urban fantasy steampunk noir or something. Just an epic fantasy that can’t make any pretensions at being anything else. That book is Acacia: The War With The Mein. I’m sticking with that genre for a while.

Was all this movement good or bad?

Well… yes. It was both. On one hand my genre novels don’t get the mainstream review attention that the literary ones did; on the other I’ve discovered how active the online reviewer/blogger/forum world is. I don’t think I’m in competition any more for literary awards that I was once considered worthy of judging (Pen/Faulkner and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards, for example), but the recent books have sold many more copies than the first two. I find I don’t get invited to the (often nicely paid) guest lecture engagements at US colleges as much as I used to, but my more commercial efforts have been published in quite a few foreign editions and have taken me as a guest to places like Jamaica, the Netherlands and France.

In terms of readers… Some of my early readers haven’t stuck around for the fantasy, but some have. My new fantasy readers don’t usually go back to my African-American novels, but a few do. In some ways I wish I had built a stronger core readership and that bookstore presence in one area that Morgan mentions. It’s easy to covet that when I see it working for other writers. But there are benefits to being spread out a bit, including that I have opportunities to teach college level writing courses readily – something which genre writers without the academic credentials often have a hard time doing.

So there’s some give and take. On balance, I’m very happy with the decisions, and I’m satisfied of having made them based primarily on following my creative impulses. I love it when other authors do the same!

I’ve enjoyed Margaret Atwood’s forays into sf – in particular Oryx and Crake and The Day of the Flood, which I just finished yesterday. I first read Mary Doria Russell because of her historical novel A Thread of Grace, but was thrilled to learn later that she’d begun as an sf novelist, with The Sparrow and Children of God. Same goes for Jonathan Lethem. I first read Motherless Brooklyn, and only later discovered his early sf novels, like She Climbed Across the Table. And yeah for Michael Chabon outspokenly having fun with writing across genres!

All these authors bring refreshing things to the genres they cross. I’m very glad they have, and I’m all for seeing more of it!

As I’m always happy to admit, I really don’t know what makes a good cover - not in terms of speaking to and grabbing tons of readers, at least. I do know what I like, and recently there have been a few covers that seem like winners to me. I realized a good way for me to pick out covers that I obviously like is to note which ones I’ve “faced out” on my bookshelves. I like to break up the spines on my shelves with covers facing into the room every now and then, and clearly I gravitate toward images that essentially serve as artwork in my room.

One is Paolo Bacigalupi’s Windup Girl cover. The strangeness of it, the fusion of the ultra-modern with a distressing indication of poverty and decay sparks my interest.

I find the this cover of Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker to be very attractive too. It promises adventure and fun, even though the image is limited to a single character’s face. Maybe it’s because it’s so obvious she’s seeing things that I’m not at the moment, but that I could if I read the book…

In terms of epic fantasy, I rather liked both of Ken Scholes’ covers for Lamentation and Canticle.

In some ways they are traditional to the genre, but they have a look of high-quality to them. Maybe it’s the historical novelist in me, liking that they feel like classic paintings of some distant historical moment.

And I quite like the cover for Kay Kenyon’s City Without End. It’s another one that I have facing out on my bookshelf. I just want to go to this place, to see and feel and smell the atmosphere there. That’s a pretty good thing for a cover to invoke. What about you? Ever use your books as artwork? For interior design?

I’m pleased to be here, hanging out a Babel Clash for at couple of weeks. Should be fun. There’s actually a lot of different angles to look at covers from. I’ll start small…

Very cool that Jeff has always had input and creative influence on his covers. (Sounds like Paul has too.) As they both said, that’s not the norm. Readers ask me how much I get to choose my covers often, and I tend to snort in answer. Not much. My publisher (Doubleday) is quite happy that I write my books. They don’t mess around too much with the style and content of what’s in them, but they don’t seem any too eager to have me mucking in during the cover design process. They usually just float me a cover once they have one they’re pretty happy with. I look at it squinty-eyed and offer a comment or two, and that’s about it.

Paperback Cover - Note the Lack of a White Hand.

Small things they’ll work with me on. Like, on the paperback cover for my novel Walk Through Darkness, I sort of thought the guy’s hand looked too… uh… white. So I said, “Hey, the guy’s hand looks too white.” They said, “Oh, okay, we’ll shade that up a bit.” And they did. And for the UK cover of Acacia: The War With The Mein I thought Corinn’s dress in the first version looked too raggedy. So I said, “Hey, Corinn’s looking kinda raggedy there.” They said, “Right. We’ll fix that.” And they did. Same exact image, but somehow the dress became crimson silk instead of old burlap sack. That’s the sort of input I have.

Am I complaining? Not really. Not yet. I’ve tended to like my covers well enough. The one time I tried to have input, by suggesting a cover image idea for Walk Through Darkness, it didn’t work too well. The design folks went through several versions, all of them technically what I asked for, and all them looking like crap. None of them came close to what I had in mind, even though I could see that their efforts were true to what I’d described. By the time they chucked my idea and came up with their own thing, I was happy to say yes to anything so that the process would just end.

Hardback Cover

I don’t think the cover we went with is that great. Sales of that book dipped too. Do I think there’s a correlation with the cover not being right? Nah. The sales of that book dipped because – despite great reviews – the book is a literary novel about slavery. Not exactly a topic the general public rushes to. Not often, at least.

So I end up with a two-fold problem regarding covers. One is that I don’t feel entirely capable of designing and choosing good ones myself. Two is that even when a cover looks brilliant I’m not sure that corresponds at all to the book’s performance. Nor do I think a bad cover necessarily kills a book. Some of the biggest sellers in epic fantasy, for example, have cover art that just seems bad to me. As in, why didn’t the artist even get the physical proportions of the human body right? And yet, books with such covers have not only sold – some of them seem to actively attract readers.

For these reasons – and also because I’m not in the room when Doubleday’s sales team tries to convince the book buyers from a big chain store to pick up a book – I can’t claim to know what makes a good cover or why.