TOL German Deal

Hurrah! Blanvalet and Random House finally put together a deal for a German edition of The Other Lands (Acacia, Book 2). Very good news. I'd been so pleased with the enthusiasm Blanvalet showed for Acacia: Macht und Verrat, and I'm thrilled to hear they want to continue with the series. In the current world economy, each of these foreign deals is a big blessing, a bit rarer than just a couple of years ago. Thank you, Blanvalet, for sticking with the Akarans (and me)!

Now, considering that the cover image the US edition used for The Other Lands was actually from the German cover of Acacia, I wonder what they'll do this time? I'll happily wait to find out.

Cool Stuff From Le Pre Aux Clercs

Nice to remember that on the near-eve of the US publication of The Other Lands (Acacia, Book 2) there are also other editions in the works too. My French publisher just sent me some of what they've cooked up for Terres etrangeres.

First, here's the finished jacket for the new book, with the Campbell Award information in bright red so you don't miss it!
And here's an ad they'll be running in the French press...

Let's Chat!

So this'll be a new thing for me - a live online chat with readers via Suvudu.com - and on the day my next book pubs! The technology eludes me, but I'm sure that Shawn Speakman will have me up to speed on the day. I hope you'll consider joining me.

It'll be at 7pm on Tuesday, Sept 15th. For details, please check HERE.

Quick Links for Ordering The Other Lands

As of September 15th, The Other Lands should be readily available at a store near you. If your favorite store doesn't have it, please ask them to order it. All my books are in print and available, but they're not always in store stock!

Also, please feel free to use these links to your online supplier of choice:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.fr

Barnes and Noble

Indie Bound

And for signed copies, see The Signed Page!

The Other Lands Hardback Winner!

Okay. Here it is. The final results of TOL giveaway. I got the kids up early this morning to do the drawing and the tosses. As with last time we first pulled four finalists.

They were: Robin Henderson, Karen Jeane Mills, Muushira and Occasional Jason.


The kids tossed and this time there seemed to be a dead tie between two candidates: Robin and Muushira.

So these two had to be thrown again. The second throw was pretty close too, but one candidate pulled ahead: Muushira!

And thus it was decided. Muushira, you are the winner. Please drop me an email at acacia.trilogy@ yahoo.com, give me a mailing address, and I'll get it in the mail to you. Congrats!

And thanks for playing everyone. I had fun. I hope you do it.

Audio TOL on Amazon

Hi. Just thought I'd mention that the audio version of The Other Lands (Acacia, Book 2) is now available to order on Amazon.com. It's HERE. I don't know if the pub date is to be trusted, but if it is it'll be out two weeks before the hardcover.

It's not cheap, of course, but it will be an awesome production. Dick Hill continues as the narrator. Perhaps... your local library might like a copy? If you think so, please ask them to order it!

A Giveaway

Okay. Here it is. My first The Other Lands giveaway. There may be more to come, but this one is purely from my own stash. I'm offering one of the three advanced copies of The The Other Lands (Acacia, Book 2) that I received from Doubleday, and I'm tossing in a shot at the mass market paperback of the UK edition of Acacia: The War with the Mein. This is them:

You can enter for them separately, and you can enter up to two times. But I'm going to make you work a little bit. So don't enter here. Instead...

You can visit the threads on my Forum HERE. You'll find the threads in the areas for each novel. This does mean you'll have to join, but that's really no hardship. Nothing bad happens. No junk mail or anything like that. Hopefully, once you've joined you might want to visit every now and then. The Forums were once pretty lively, but they've slowed down a lot between books. Perhaps that will pick up again. And you can help.

You can also enter at my Facebook "Fan" page. That's over here.

I'll just keep this open until it seems we've got enough folks entered, and then we'll do our very scientific drawing to pick the winners. Good luck!

UK Cover - The Other Lands

Might as well keep going with the cover theme...

I just got a few samples of the progress being made on my UK cover. It's been a bit delayed by various things, and at the moment it's still in the works. For all I know Transworld may ask me not to post this, but what the heck? I'll offer it and see what happens. This is the version (1 of 3) that I like the best:

So this may be the cover. On the other hand, I think they want to get a person in there, Dariel, looking out at the Other Lands. I'll let you know if that's what they go with instead.

Another Cover, Oh Joy!

Ah, the joy of finally receiving finished copies of one's own book! I'd experienced it four times before. (I'm talking first edition, US version.) Now, make it five. Yesterday, The Other Lands (Acacia, Book 2) showed up. (It pubs about a month from now.) I offer a glimpse here, along with a kitten just to sweeten it...


And here's a different view. The cover has all this sparkly etching and gold flake-like stuff on it that shows up from different angles and in different light. Rather nice.

What's that you say? You want me to... to give a copy away? For free? To just offer it up to whomever wants it? That's the first thing you think to ask me?!

All right, then. I will. Check back. There's a giveaway coming soon!

The Other Lands Galleys!

What more can I say?

Think I should give one of these away or something?

Further Documentation That I'm In France

This wee photo shows me with the Didier Graffet, the artist that did the cover for Acacia 1 and will be doing the same for Acacia 2 in France. I'm holding a sketch of the cover image, which you can't see much of from this pic. If you click over and take a look at the piece at Fantasy.fr you can see it in better detail.

Okay. Gotta go do stuff. Getting tired...

The Other Lands Cover!

This is happy news. Yesterday, Doubleday dropped the cover for The Other Lands(by the way, you can pre-order it using this link) on me. Without further preamble, I offer it for your consideration...

Some of you make recognize the image as being the same one used by my German publisher, Blanvalet. The artwork is by Mikko Kinnunen. Seems Doubleday liked that treatment so much they spent a while trying to find a new way to get the same look, and eventually decided to just stick with the image they liked so much. I have to say, I've always loved the artwork, and it actually suits the book just that little bit more considering the "Other Lands" aspect of it. I think it looks terrific.

Yesterday, I sort of "leaked" it to a few of the bloggers that were so kind to Acacia. They all did me the solid of posting it, which I love. Makes it feel official. The Other Lands is coming! You can check them, and their blogs, out here...

Suvudu

A Dribble of Ink

davebrendon's fantasy and sci-fi weblog

Fantasy Book Critic

Graeme's Fantasy Review

Catalog Copy

My publisher just sent me the copy they'll be using in the catalog that will feature The Other Lands. Kinda cool to see it. Makes things feel that much more real when someone else writes up a description of the book. Makes me go, "Oh, yeah, that sounds like what I wrote! I remember that!"

Strange how unreal a novel you wrote can feel. Not until I get a bound copy in my hands do I really believe in the thing. But promo material like this helps. Here's the pitch...

(Spoilers - Don't read if you have yet to read the first book but plan to.)

The Other Lands
Book Two of the Acacia Trilogy
David Anthony Durham

CATALOG HANDLE
The thrilling new installment in the alternative epic that the Washington Post called "gripping" and "sophisticated... from the first pages, Durham demonstrates that he is master of the literary epic."

DESCRIPTIVE COPY
The apocalyptic struggle against the conquering Mein now won, Queen Corinn rules over the Acacian Empire of the Known World with a stern hand - aided by increasing mastery of the occult powers contained in the Book of Elenet. But far across the seas the mysterious inhabitants of the Other Lands seemingly control the fate of her empire - supported as it is by an underground trade in drugs and slaves. When she sends her brother Dariel on a secret mission across the hazardous Grey Slopes to investigate, it begins another cycle of world-shattering and shaping events.

In this bold and imaginative sequel, David Anthony Durham's epic imagination continues to expand the Known World of the novel into yet undiscovered lands, drawing on a literary tradition that stretches from The Iliad to George R.R. Martin.

PRAISE FOR ACACIA

"A big, fat, rich piece of history-flavored fantasy... Imagined with remarkable thoroughness." - Time

"Thrilling... Durham's new world - like our old one - is crawling with wickedly fascinating [characters]." - Entertainment Weekly

AUTHOR BIO
David Anthony Durham earned an MFA from the University of Maryland and is the author of Gabriel's Story, Walk Through Darkness, Pride of Carthage, and Acacia. Durham lives with his wife and children in California and teaches writing at the University of California, Fresno.

Soon To Be On Airport Shelves All Across The Country

Hey, so I've had a busy week. Yesterday I got another box in the mail, this one with the mass market paperbacks of Acacia in them! Again, I'm very happy with it. It's chunky, but Anchor still pushed for a quality feel to it. The lettering is all shiny and cool, and I like the way they slapped the John W Campbell Award Finalist Emblem on it. I'm imagining this one on airport bookshelves all over the country...

The scary thing (for me) is that this is the last page of the book...

You'll note that in the lower right hand corner there's a projected pub date. It's says "Summer 2...." Oops, I guess I blocked that part accidentally. Anyway...

This book (the first one) will definitely be on shelves at the end of August, the 26th to be exact.

Readercon!

I've been remiss in mentioning this, but part of why I've been remiss is that I've actually been on the road already for a while. My posts may seem normal, but in truth they've been slipped in at brief moments in motels and hotels, trying to look normal. I'm writing you from a motel in MA right now, taking a little breather between a teaching gig and Readercon (that's what I've been remiss in mentioning.) Yes, I'm going to Readercon, and it all starts tomorrow!

I've been looking forward to this for a while. I've heard time and again that the focus of this con is very much writers and readers, stripped of all the many other components that are so much a part of other cons. I enjoy other cons, but this set-up sounds good to me. I'm thrilled that my friend James Patrick Kelly is one of the guests of honor, along with fellow Doubleday author Jonathon Lethem.

The program looks great, featuring tons of interesting panels and authors I look forward to meeting or reconnecting with. And my little bit of the show is pretty good too. Here's what I'll be up to:

Readercon 19 Participant Schedule: David Anthony Durham

Friday 3:00 PM, RI: Talk / Discussion (60 min.) Breaking Into the Ghetto. David Anthony Durham with discussion by Carolyn Ives Gilman, Liz Gorinsky, Louise Marley, Sandra McDonald, Michaela Roessner, _et al_ (By the way, part of what's cool about this is that Sandra and Micahaela were both students of mine at the Stonecoast MFA program, which means they were first hand witnesses as I made the transformation to the Dark Side.)

Durham's decision to move into fantasy after three successful historical novels shocked his editor, who saw a whole host of problems, concerns, hurtles, and uncertainty in the decision. But why is such a career move considered so risky? Is fantasy still somehow disreputable despite the huge commercial and reasonable critical success of Tolkien, Rowling, and others? And aren't readers smart enough to accept different things from writers? Durham takes a personal look at the topic and discusses the issues with other authors that have tried to (or would like to) cross genres.

Friday 4:00 PM, VT: Reading (30 min.), Reads from Acacia: The Other Lands (That's right, folks, looks like I'll be reading from the new book - which remains a work in progress, by the way.)

Friday 7:00 PM, Salon F: Panel, Waking Up Sober Next to a Story Idea. Paolo Bacigalupi, Jeffrey A. Carver (L), David Anthony Durham, Kay Kenyon, Barry B. Longyear, Jennifer Pelland

Really, it seemed absolutely beautiful once upon a time. Now that you've had intimate knowledge of it (say, midway through the novel), you can see all the less-than-flattering sides. You may even wonder, _What the hell was I thinking?_ How do you recover enthusiasm for the work? Now that you see the flaws, how do you begin the process of fixing them?

Saturday 12:00 Noon, Vinyard: Kaffeeklatsch

Jeffrey A. Carver; David Anthony Durham

Saturday 2:00 PM, Salon E: Autographing

David Anthony Durham; Gregory Frost.

I'm thinking this will be a good time.

Mini Update

Just so you know, a few weeks back I sent my agent and my editor what I'm calling "half" of The Other Lands (Acacia, Book 2). The chapters (seventeen of them) had received a thumbs up from my wife. She's my first reader always, but it was time to go to the next level...

Good news is I've heard back from them both. Positive. Apparently, I'm not crazy. (Author cackles strangely in a way that puts that assertion in doubt.) So far, the book doesn't suck. (Phew!) My editor commented "that old ACACIA magic is casting its spell once again. You really do beasties better than just about anybody." My agent said, "I am nearly done with the new set of pages and am loving them. The very cool battle scenes with these massive creatures particularly quicken my pulse..."

Oh, have I mentioned that this one includes beasties and massive creatures? Well, it does, and they're on the stage much sooner than the Antoks got into The War With the Mein.

Bad news is... Hah, there wasn't any bad news! I'm still a long way from finished, but that's not bad news. It's just reality.

Almost Time for World Fantasy!

OMG, it's almost time for the World Fantasy Conference! I'm going for the first time. I'm a virgin. I know nothing... but I'm getting excited about it!

I'm actually up on the Program Schedule now! Okay, you have to go all the way down to the end, to Sunday at 10:30, but there I am - doing a reading! I'm not far from Nancy Kress and Paul Witcover. I'll be hanging out with Paul, so maybe I'll hook him to come to my reading. At least that's one in the audience. I'll also try to rope John Picacio and James Patrick Kelly in... Oh, Erin Underwood - a student I never taught - is coming too. So there are a few possible bodies. I'll build from there!

I should probably start thinking about what I'm going to read, although whatever I decide I'll have plenty of time on the plane to second guess myself. James Clemens once told me readings aren't really about reading. It's more about doing shtick. Which makes great sense and explains what I've been doing wrong all these years at literary readings... So I'll polish my jokes on the plane also.

Any suggestions on readings I should absolutely go to or authors I should absolutely track down and assault? The con will be brimming with names big and small... Any personal messages you want delivered?

Oh, a side note... Remember there are just a couple days left of the Audio Acacia giveaway. If you want to join you can up until the end of the month. On the first we'll do the drawing and announce the winner!

A Major Character Announces Himself, Sudden-Like

Interesting thing happened with the writing today. I had about a half day for writing (after teaching) and I fancied getting a thousand words down. Made myself a fat mug of strong tea and sat down at the computer. I put on some Bach (classic music has become a crutch) and tried to figure out which of the existing scenes I should pick up with. I had an inkling that I wanted to introduce something new, a new scene or character to stir in to the early pages of the book. It just felt like I didn't have enough at play at the beginning, enough of a complicated structure. I wanted to hear more instruments playing, I just didn't know which, how or why.

So what did I do? Something that had nothing to do with directly figuring that out. I decided to make a copy of the map of Acacia and tape it to my desk. I'd done this with the map I'd drawn while writing Acacia 1, and it felt like about time I did it with this one, too. Of course, an activity like this is potentially just resistance rearing its head - a way to distract myself from the work at hand. But it's hard to know. Sometimes these random things are about the process.

Anyway, before long I had the map there before me, and with my eyes floating over it a bit, I remembered a character from the first book. I latched on to the idea of him. This character I think is only mentioned by name once in The War With the Mein. Few, I reckon, will remember his name or think him of any consequence. I won't mention it here, of course. Wouldn't be prudent.

I heard him on conversation with another character. Hmm... I opened a new page and began to write it down, but then realized that wasn't from the first scene he was going to be in. He had to be introduced earlier, yeah... Right near the beginning, actually...

My eyes settled on the map again. Where might a scene with this character take place? A new town, I think, one I hadn't used before. My gaze drifted around for a bit until I found what seemed like an appropriately blank spot on the map. I spent a while trying to figure out a name for a place, and when I thought I had it I penciled it in. And there it was! A new town on the map, spelled out and just as reasonable sounding as any of the other names. Once I had it there I knew what sort of town it was and I knew what sort of scene this character would be introduced in...

I began describing how labor had stooped his back, how it was hard for him to stand straight, but that he was impressive when he did so. A little flowed out after that, and before I knew it I'd gone beyond my thousand word goal. I'd introduced a new character and watched with surprise as he rolled a host important issues on to the stage as he came. I hadn't thought about him at all up until today, but just like that he's claimed a role in this one, and if he's in it at all he's in it as a major character. He's just won the casting-call lottery.

Now, which thing came first? Did I introduce that character by name in the first book because at some subconscious level I knew I'd come back to him later? Or have I come back to him simply because he was a name that I could latch on to and find a role for in this one? Did the map demand to be taped to the desk because it knew it was going to help? Or was I just ready to find the answers somewhere, and the map was as good a place as any?

I don't know, and I won't know tomorrow when I wake up to fumble through the whole process yet again. So it goes...

Audio Flashback Magical Weirdness

Interesting thing happened to me yesterday... I was having another of those "I'm about to figure out some major plot point if only I do something random like take a walk down a tree-lined street" sort of moments. So, I got up and headed outside.

For the first time since I began writing The Other Lands (the sequel to Acacia: The War With the Mein), I remembered how with previous books I liked to take a little tape recorder with me. When I came on good ideas I'd just dictate a brief message to myself that I could reference later. This was a lot better than walking around juggling ideas like so many bubbles, afraid the whole time that any of them might pop and be lost before I could get them written down. So, I fished out my little micro cassette recorder and embarked.

It wasn't long before I started to have an idea or two. They seem to come pretty steady when I get chugging along. Just starting to move seemed to stir them up. Before starting to dictate, though, I pressed play, just to see where the tape was or something... And to my surprise (not really, but sort of) my own voice spoke to me out of that little black machine. It was a voice from several years ago. It was a voice that was going through this same process - with the first Acacia novel.

My plan was just to rewind and start anew, but I was immediately shocked by what I heard. My voice came in short bursts, perhaps no more than a sentence that expressed an idea or question before cutting off. Each time a new recording cut in the background noise changed: sometimes windy, sometimes traffic noises or music or kids in the background. Sometimes I was out of breath and other times it was strangely quiet and my voice quite clear.

What was I saying? Things like this... (If you've read Acacia you'll recognize some plot things here. If not I won't give anything away that hasn't been written in pretty much every review of the book.)

"What if the Acacian economy is fueled by some international trade?... Something kinda secret... Nothing to be proud of..."

How strange! "What if?" I'd almost forgotten that there was ever a time I didn't know about Acacia's international trade. I'm so used to the idea now it's like it was always written in stone. But here was proof that at one time I'd only gotten so far as asking "What if?"

A little later I said...

"Remember that this isn't a novel all about prophecy and fate and stuff like that. Everything doesn't work out that way."

And then...

"Not everyone lives to the end. Someone important has to die... Not sure who, but... someone does."

How about that? Here's my own voice proposing for the first time something that is now so fundamental to the entire world of Acacia and all that may ever happen in it. A few takes later...

"Ah, okay... That trade could be in children... children that the Acacians take from each province, with a quota from each, and then they send them across the ocean, never to be heard from again...."

"I think X is the one that's good with a sword..." (I didn't really say "X", but if you haven't read the book I didn't want to give that one away.)

"Oh, that thing the children are traded for... what if it's some sort of drug?"

I walked along in a bit of daze listening to this. Again and again I was hearing myself say for the first time aspects of the story and characters that I'd just thought in that past moment. So very strange that things that exist so concretely now, in tens of thousands of different copies read by (so far) tens of thousands different readers at one point began as "What if..." ideas when I was taking a walk somewhere. So very strange that this tape recorder captured the moment I first experienced those what ifs - moments prior to my having put those words on the page.

Understand me - this is not that I'm impressed with myself. It's not that at all. What I am impressed with, though, is the creative process. The way things, stories, meaning can apparently be created out of nothing. I'm awed that it works, because I certainly can't explain it. Thinking about it as I listened to an earlier version of myself, the whole thing felt quite magical. As I'm struggling to shape this next monster of a novel, that was a very fortunate thing to be reminded of.

Magic.

Oh, by the way, I didn't record over any of that stuff. I just couldn't do it. I'll have to go get a new tape soon. This one goes in a drawer somewhere, perhaps to be discovered again a few years from now...

A Kelis Moment

Okay, so this is a writing process post. Nothing enlightening, I'm sure, but I had one of those writing moments today and it occurred to me to mention it. In some ways it's kinda strange how these things work.

So I was working on Acacia 2. Came to a pause. Stood up and paced the room. I had lost interest in the scene I was working on and instead had a nagging feeling I should deal with the next scene. Problem with the next scene was that I didn't know what it was. I knew it needed to be a scene removed from the main action, something that would introduce a new, complicating element to the novel that would have enormous repercussions later...

Right! So I knew what I wanted, I just didn't know 1) who was the focus of the scene, 2) where it took place, or 3) what this major plot element was!

But... for some reason I felt like if I kept pacing, kept pacing, kept pacing I'd figure it out. Why did I feel this way? Couldn't tell you. I was blank, but it was like knowing that if I just listened carefully enough I'd eventually hear whatever the sound was that I knew was there but just couldn't quite...

And it happened. Out of nowhere. Kelis. It's a Kelis scene! Aliver's old companion from Talay, the young man he grew up with. A Kelis scene in Talay... But it's not that Kelis has been in Talay. He's been away doing lots of stuff, but he's come back. He's come back for a reason. Something pulled him back. Something he had to check out for himself. Didn't know the reason, of course, but with a little more pacing...

I figured it out. Oh my... that's why Kelis is there! It's huge. It throws a ton of tension into things. I can't tell you what it is, of course, but it'll be in the book. I also can't explain why I knew that today was the day to figure this element out, but there you go. The creative process...

Glad I did that pacing. I recommend it.