Babel Clash

Paul’s posted links to the videos he took from our Borders event in Boston, but here’s the actual embed of the discussion section. Morgan, thanks again for having us, and I’ll hopefully have the podcast of the NYC event by tomorrow.

Unfortunately, my camera freaked out during Jeff’s reading (sorry, Jeff!), but I’ve posted Jeff’s intro to the festivities, my reading, David’s reading, 3 minutes of lost footage from Jeff’s reading, and 30 minutes of Q&A after the readings.

The vids.

Thanks again for having us on the blog, Morgan!

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

David, Jeff & Paul,

Thanks for participating on Babel Clash.  It’s been a fun conversation.  Before you go, please take this opportunity to share with your potential new fans why your books are must-reads for this holiday season.

Good luck with the in-store event tonight.  Please let us all know how the event goes.

Fans, if you’re in the Boston area, please be sure to check out the live event.  As Jeff mentions below, they will be at the Borders on Boylston St. @ 7:00 (Friday, the 20th).

Also, special thanks to Annalee from IO9.com.  Annalee, you’re welcome to stop by anytime.

If you’re not checking out IO9.com regularly, then you’re missing out.  It’s a great site, and they have just added the new Book Vortex.  Check it out.

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.

(My little moment of ego-bo after a long, hard day and a lecture at MIT. Paul and David have been awfully patient with this, given that any one of us could be featured on that poster.)

Tomorrow night at the Borders on Boylston Street, David Anthony Durham, Paul Tremblay, and I will be reading and discussing fantasy, as well as signing our books. As I usually do if I am in a city a day early, I stopped by the store and talked to the manager. There’s a nice poster in the window and a lovely display of the books inside. A tough act to follow, in that Ken Burns spoke there recently, but as I told the manager I think we’ll have a good crowd. One thing about social media–tools like Facebook really help writers identify fans and keep them up-to-date on readings and signings.

We’re going to read in a kind of interesting order, going from strange noir to noir-fantasy, to pure fantasy–so Paul, me, and then David. It should be an interesting progression, and we’ll then talk about weird fiction, open it up to questions, and sign. So if you’re in the area, come on out and lend your support. It’s always a privilege to get a signing like this one, and it’s important to support bookstores willing to host events.

And don’t forget: Geoff Manaugh, Jeffrey Ford, and I will be reading at the Columbus Circle Borders in New York City around 5pm on Saturday, Nov. 21st–as well as talking about cities real and unreal with Beatrice.com’s Ron Hogan. Jon Armstrong will be there to podcast, and hopefully we’ll be able to post that audio on Babel Clash.

So…while we count down the hours until our reading in Boston, here’s a question: what’s the best reading you’ve ever seen?

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.

The short answer is that I’d love to if the opportunity arises!  Not so much screenplays.  I tried writing a screenplay once at the urging of friend Kris Meyer.  He liked a horror short story of mine called “The Harlequin and the Train” (4200 words) and thought I should try adapting it into a movie-length screenplay.  The resulting script didn’t entirely work, I don’t think, but I liked what I’d added in terms of story, so I took the adapted screenplay and adapted it again into an experimental horror novella where the reader is asked to highlight certain words of the text yellow.  Heh.

The 37K word novella was published as a limited edition by Necropolitan Press earlier this year.  Now, I’d love to adapt this one more time: for comics.  My agent and I have discussed submitting or pitching this to comic publishers (knowing it would be a long shot), but have yet to act.  Soon, though, I think.  I hope.

Would I be any good at writing comics?  Have I done enough to prepare to write comics?  I don’t know.  I’ve done enough research this year to know that writing a comic script would be an enormous challenge for me.  Learning another medium’s language and rules and nuances is daunting.  One can dream,  though.

To add to comic/fiction crossover folks, there is Warren Ellis, and the tireless Brian Keene (horror novelist who has also written Devil Slayer comics for Marvel and is doing an original comic The Last Zombie for next summer).

Mike Carey's take on the X-Men

We’re talking about genre hopping, but we also have medium or format hopping.  We have authors such as Mike Carey and Dan Abnett writing comics.  Jim Butcher wrote a Dresden Files comic.  Neil Gaiman is writing screenplays.  George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones and Charlaine Harris’ True Blood are connected to HBO.

Bill Willingham, a highly regarded comics writer, recently took his stab at writing comics.  So comics writers are coming over to the traditional book format, too.

Dan, Paul and Jeff, have you ever had an itch to write comics?  If you had the chance, would you adapt your own work, work with an estished brand name or try something totally different?  If not, is there another medium in which you’d like to tell your tales?  Would you tackle a screenplay for your own books?

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!