Elitist Book Reviews

I met Max Gladstone at WorldCon in San Antonio. We were both waiting to be taken through or rehearsal of the Hugo Awards Ceremony, and I struck up a conversation when I realized who he was (that's why we wear name badges, folks!). We'd given a positive review of his first novel, THREE PARTS DEAD, here at EBR which made things much better, of course. As it turned out, we got along extraordinarily well. Max is, without a doubt, one of the most genuine authors I've ever met. And (thank goodness) he is a terrific author, too. Max was nominated for the Campbell Award for Best New Author this last year, and I'm pretty sure he'll be nominated again this coming year for WorldCon in London.

So, without further ado, here is our interview with Max Gladstone; author, Eldredge Knot wearer, and all-around awesome guy.

Elitist Book Reviews: It's the Max Gladstone show! Introduce yourself to the readers and talk yourself up a bit. Why should everyone be reading your novels?

Max Gladstone: Hi! I write books and fence and occasionally get myself in trouble. I grew up reading Zelazny and Michael Crichton and Robin McKinley and and Terry Pratchett and Dorothy Dunnett and Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes, which left me with a very weird sense of humor, as well as a taste for brisk, tight plots and sharp characters.

Do you like books with zombie gods, boardroom necromancy, shapeshifting gargoyles, hive-mind police forces, human sacrifice, love, soul poker, giant lava serpents, and tense filial relationships? Of course you do! And that's why you should be reading mine.

EBR: Your novels are an inspiring mix of genres, but I have to ask what is your favorite genre to read and why? OR which genre inspires you most?

MG: Hard question! I read widely, and I love surprises. Recently I've been on a science fiction / space opera kick, as a break from writing so much fantasy. But I just finished the new Scott Lynch book, which is awesome of course. I started Pynchon's latest last night and that's great so far. In terms of inspiration, New Wave SF has had the biggest influence on me, especially Zelazny, but that's all amalgamated with historical adventure fiction and techno-thrillers and Sherlock Holmes to the point where I'm not sure you can say where anything starts with a certainty.

EBR: In your novels the cities--Alt Coulumb in THREE PARTS DEAD and Dresediel Lex in TWO SERPENTS RISE--play a large part of the story and you bring them alive to readers. Are either based on any city in particular?

MG: Alt Coulumb isn't based on anywhere in particular, though I think it inhaled a lot of Northeastern Metropolis—Boston and New York especially—in its childhood. I wanted Dresediel Lex to feel different, so I reached out for cities that didn't feel as if they belonged in New England. Los Angeles was the logical extreme, so I drew heavily off LA for TWO SERPENTS RISE.

EBR: Before your novels we haven't seen many fantasy novels use the legal thriller genre's elements as such an integral part of its storytelling. How did the idea for Craft and its legal aspects evolve?

MG: Magic and law are natural twins. Rules, principles, and precedent govern both, but will's involved too, and raw force of personality. Much detailed magic in fantasy novels ultimately comes down to a question of who can phrase the most compelling argument as to why they should win. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final confrontation is basically an argument about a fine point of property law. Modern U.S. law features legally immortal immaterial persons, and if that's not magic I have no idea what is.

EBR: Themes of sacrifice and religious belief are explored in detail in TWO SERPENTS RISE. Why were these themes important for you to write about?

MG: The modern world's obviously out of balance, right? We have an enormous plastic island growing in the Pacific, the Aral Sea's dried up, trans-Arctic ocean shipping has gone from science fiction to big business in about ten years. One natural reaction to that lack of balance is to embrace roots—turn back to the Good Old Days, the way things used to be. Problem is, whatever their advantages, the Good Old Days weren't really that good. My nephew was born premature—he probably wouldn't have survived a century ago, which is horrible to think. And that's just talking medicine. The Good Old Days had shorter lifespans, rampant misogyny and anti-Semitism (and other forms of racism depending on which Days you choose), crippling global poverty, etc. etc. etc. I met a lot of small farmers when I lived in China, and not one that I spoke with wanted their children to follow in their footsteps. But rejecting the Good Old Days alternative, well, you're back with the evaporated oceans and the dying forests and the diminishing fresh water supply, the world where they haven't been able to make Inniskillin ice wine in five years because vinyard temperatures aren't low enough. I wanted to tell a story about this conflict without giving anyone an easy answer.

Sacrifice was a good focal point for the conflict between these world systems, since it refuses easy answers. Human sacrifice seems repulsive to most folk with modern sensibilities, but within its traditional context human sacrifice was often the highest sacrament, and an honor to the one sacrificed, a way of elevating them to godhood. Then again, I doubt every prospective sacrifice appreciated the theological significance of their role as the knife was chestward-bound. (And of course, human sacrifice—or divine sacrifice, I suppose—is still celebrated and commemorated in the Christian tradition, especially if you're into the ransom theory of atonement!)

EBR: We're fairly confident you'll win next year's Campbell Award for best new author (alas not this year, despite a well-deserved nomination). Are you concerned about any specific competition?

MG: Thank you! It was an honor to be nominated last year, and I'd be honored for the same to happen again. Of course, it'd also be nice to win.

At this year's Hugo Losers' Party, Wes Chu said he was coming for me, so if I disappear in a bizarre ninja-related accident sometime around August 2014, drop him a line maybe.

EBR: You're in a book store, and you notice some poor, lost soul trying to find something to read. What do you recommend? Obviously they've already read your own novels, so you can't recommend those.

MG: Do they like science fiction? Lord of Light.

Do they like fantasy? Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown. Or Good Omens.

Do they like litfic? East of Eden.

Do they like science fiction or litfic, and do they have a LOT of time on their hands? Infinite Jest.

EBR: What do we have to do to get our likeness's killed off in your next novel? Bribes? Promises? Threats...not that we would ever do that...probably.

MG: Ask nicely. Also, I'm partial to whiskey. And cookies. Not at the same time. And no cookie-flavored whiskey, please. Gods. The very idea.

Sadly for this purpose, my next two books in the Craft Sequence are basically done. Though there is some proper mass murder in Book 4, so there's room…

EBR: Any last words for the readers? And what can we expect next from you?

MG: The very next thing you'll see from me: Choice of the Deathless, a choose-your-own-path type adventure game set in the world of the Craft Sequence. Be the necromantic lawyer you've always wanted to be! Alternate subtitle: business can be murder. More sorcery, more boardroom politics, more pinstriped suits, more demons, and more billable hours. Coming in December!

Beyond that, we have Full Fathom Five, the next book in the Craft Sequence, due out in July 2014. Offshore banking, artificial "gods", slam poetry, golems, and the return of some familiar faces from Three Parts Dead and Two Serpents Rise. It'll be fun. Also a bit heartwrenching.

Later in 2014 (at least that's the plan!), I have a non-Craft Sequence sort of crazy space opera-like thing, and after that, well, let me hold some surprises for the future!


Here are your links to Max's novels:

THREE PARTS DEAD

TWO SERPENTS RISE

As part of his blog tour promoting the recently released BLOOD AND BONE, Ian C Esslemont dropped by Elitist Book Reviews to share his thoughts. His blog prompt was about the benefits and drawbacks of writing in a shared world, and how he differentiates himself from his Malazan co-creator, Steven Erikson. Enjoy!

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I met Robert McCammon when he was in Salt Lake for World Horror. It was only the second time I'd ever geeked out over meeting an author (the first time was Steven Erikson). You see, McCammon has become one of my favorite authors. In the midst of my geeked-out mumbling, I managed to ask if he'd be willing to do an interview. To my surprise, he agreed. I don't get to say this very often about big-time authors, but I left my brief meeting with Robert McCammon more impressed than I was going into it. I think the best thing I can say is that he in genuine in every positive aspect possible.

EBR questions are in bold, McCammon's responses are in normal text.

***The Interview***

EBR: First, thank you for agreeing to an interview here at Elitist Book Reviews. Our tradition here is to start by giving the author a chance to introduce themselves, and maybe even brag a bit. Not that you need much of an intro…you’re Robert Freaking McCammon. So, tell our readers why they should be reading your work.

I guess because I consider myself a pretty good storyteller. I've been doing this a long time and I kinda sorta know what I'm doing by now. Is this bragging? Well...I do believe I know how to tell a good story and get the reader "involved". I am pleased when I get a review that states the reader was at first put off by the size of one of my books, and then he or she wishes the book had gone on longer because they enjoyed it so much.

THE PROVIDENCE RIDER is the fourth Matthew Corbett novel. What is it about this character and time-period that keep you coming back? Was there a light-bulb moment when you thought, “Geez, I need to write about this guy…”? No light-bulb moment, but maybe the flicker of a candle. I wanted to do something different from my horror works, and this came to mind. Actually it didn't start off to be a series. SPEAKS THE NIGHTBIRD was going to be a standalone novel, and then I started thinking about the character more and I guess that's when the candle flickered. I thought..."A series...hmmm, never done one of those before but this might be the time and place to do it."

Subterranean Press has given you new and old novels alike superb treatment. Why did you end up publishing through them rather than a different publishing house? Any prayers of the first two Corbett novels being done by them?

Long story, involving clashes of egos and much gnashing of teeth. I should let that story alone. Yeah, it'd be great if Sub Press could do the first two Matthew Corbett novels. We'll see. (Is that evading the question enough, or what?)

The ending of THE PROVIDENCE RIDER is fantastic, and opens so many doors for future stories. What’s next on your writing agenda with Matthew Corbett, potential spin-offs and non-historical Horror?

Next Matthew goes back to the Carolina colony to escort a young lady to a dance, but finds himself involved in a murder, a mob tracking the killers through the swamp, and something in the swamp tracking the mob...

How much research do you typically put into a novel?

Lots. Tons. My shelves groan with research books. Actually now I'm able to do a lot of the research through the Net, which is kind of interesting. If I had to rely solely on the library to do my research for each Matthew book, it would take years to write. If I could ever find all the information I would need.

On a more personal note, most authors go through rough patches. What’s the most difficult experience you’ve endured while an author, and how did you grow from it?

Oh my God. Where do I begin with this one? Rough patches? Ha. I can't talk about this one, because it's an ongoing thing. Been going on now for about six years. How did I grow from it? I'm still writing.

When people say “Horror”, it seems like there are some negative connotations to it. Why do you think that is, and why do you think that Horror is fantastic?

Well, "horror" can mean so many things, can't it? I can tell you that I have known "horror", and it is not anything that people think it is. I can't go into this anymore, but true horror is...not vampires, or werewolves or zombies or ghosts or freak-geeks with knives and chainsaws. That's all "fun" stuff. Real horror is quiet and moves slowly, like a python very slowly encircling you. Very slowly, very quietly...and then you are caught, and you are squeezed. So...do I think "horror" is fantastic? I think the "fun" horror that we all know is cool and fun to write and everything...but...I know the real thing, and nothing I nor any other horror writer living or dead could devise is equal to it.

Is there a recent literary trend that just baffles you with its popularity?

Not baffled by the TWILIGHT series, because I understand how it relates to young women, but the writing is so flat...just lifeless. No, not baffled by any trend's popularity. Just glad people are reading, I suppose.

You’re in a bookstore, and a random customer asks what book(s) you recommend. You can’t pitch your own novel, because they’ve obviously read everything by you. What do you tell them to buy?

Anything by the late great Ray Bradbury. Also one of my favorite books, JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL by Susanna Clarke. Love that book!

I’ve had my likeness maimed and murdered in quite a few novels now. It’s a point of pride. What do I need to bribe you with to be horribly killed in one of your novels?

A bottle of Johnny Walker Red should do it. I'm easy.

Again, Mr. McCammon, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. Any last words? I don’t mean that in an ominous way (unless is helps with the prior question).

Any last words? Not yet or for awhile, I hope. I intend to keep doing my best at my calling. I intend to create worlds and characters that speak to people I have never met, and will never meet, in places I will never go. I have tried and wanted to do my best, and always to keep challenging myself. I want to keep going forward. I want to speak and be heard, and I also want to listen and hear. I want to live in the moment, and know joy in my life, in my work, and in my relationships. I want to be known as a writer who can be trusted to tell the truth as he understands it to be. Certainly not everything I write will be "great" or maybe even "good", but I never want to stop learning how to write. I am faithful to my calling. That's all I can say.

Every once in a while a debut author jumps out from behind a corner and surprises us. Really, really surprises us. Jeff Salyards is one such author, having completely blown us away with his Sword & Sorcery novel SCOURGE OF THE BETRAYER. The fact that this man can directly compete with the likes of Joe Abercrombie and Richard K. Morgan is just astounding. After writing the review of SCOURGE OF THE BETRAYER it hit me that there were a lot of things I forgot to mention about how awesome this book is. Luckily Mr. Salyards took the time and effort to answer some questions. If our review wasn't enough to convince you to start throwing money, this interview certainly is.

As usual, our questions are in "bold".

***The Interview with Jeff Salyards***

In one sentence describe Scourge of the Betrayer to a potential reader.

Scourge of the Betrayer is a hard-boiled, character-driven fantasy that involves shady and profane soldiers, intrigue, a nasty cursed weapon, and a clueless scribe trying to make sense of it all.

Scourge of the Betrayer is very narrow in scope but hints at large things to come in the Bloodsounder’s Arc. What brought you to choose this approach?

I knew from the beginning that I wanted the series, especially the first installment, to be more intimate than epic in scope, where the setting and larger world would get fleshed out gradually and the focus would be squarely on the characters. So I opted to go not only with first person narration, which lends itself to the intimate, but a narrator who had no idea what he was getting himself into (Arki, the scribe who accompanies the foreign military company without knowing their true mission). I wanted to highlight the stark contrast between the young and generally unworldly archivist and the rough and tumble group he’s signed up with, and for Arki to serve as a proxy for the reader in a sense as he struggles to find his footing.

Admittedly, this is a bit risky, for a number of reasons. Not all fantasy readers like first person, and this focus ensured that the plot points were largely hinted at for the first part of the book as Arki slowly puzzles things out for himself, and I knew some readers might get impatient with this strategy. But I gambled that the characters and their interactions would be compelling enough to keep readers engaged.

Given the structure and narrator, I also wanted to avoid those deadly-dull and stilted info dumps. You know, where the narrator spends five pages describing something he would be terribly familiar with only because the reader is totally unfamiliar. You have a bit more latitude with third person, but even there, plenty of fantasy novels bog down in exposition. Some writers pull this off with aplomb, so deftly you barely see it happen—wonderful history and detail delivered seamlessly. Other times, well, there’s a reason “dump” is part of the descriptor. . .

Don’t get me wrong, I loves me some deep world building. Big fan. Lush, varied, intricate, rich. Good stuff. But given that I was committed to this particular narrative/narrator, I knew I was going to have to really check myself. Arki does comment on the setting, and hopefully provides enough detail on a scene by scene level to ground the reader, to flesh things out and provide a sense of place and reality. But this was the last big risk, because it means the world building elements were going to come a bit slowly, and that some of them are only hinted at in the first book.

I know this approach could potentially alienate some readers, but I figured it was worth the risk. What’s the worst that could happen-- the book tanks, the publisher drops the rest of the series, and my name is like gonorrhea and I never get published again?

Oh. Hmmm. Maybe I should have thought this through some more. . .

As an author what would you cite as your greatest influences?

I firmly believe that part of a writer’s job is to keep the antennae up at all times, to be receptive to good wordsmithing and storytelling elements wherever you find them. Fiction, memoirs (wait, that’s fiction again), plays, blogs, screenplays, poetry, cereal boxes (also fiction), car ads, whatever. In your genre, outside, and then way, way out there, you can learn lessons about building tension, or smart dialogue, or conveying something economically (or elaborately and with ornate detail, for that matter), or just discover a different creative approach to something, a method or tack you hadn’t considered before.

But even if I narrow the field to fiction writers, or go real crazy and try to limit it to fantasy writers who have impacted me, the list is still ridonkulously long. Roger Zelazny, Edgar Rice Burroughs, K.J. Bishop, George R.R. Martin, Robin Hobb, Richard K. Morgan, K.J. Parker, Joe Abercrombie, Tad Williams, Scott Lynch, Daniel Abraham and dozens more have all taught me something about the craft of writing.

Lloi the Grass Dog is a rare gem as far as female protagonists in Sword & Sorcery goes. What was your approach to writing her?

I’m glad you asked about her, because she’s one of my favorite characters. In your review, you mentioned that strong female characters that are complex can be hard to come by in fantasy. And that sucks (not your observation, but the fact that it tends to be true). So I really tried to come up with an interesting female that wasn’t a sex object, a victim, or a pissed off Amazonian.

Lloi has ridden a pretty rough road—ostracized from her family on account of some spoilerish skills I won’t go into here, one hand horribly mutilated (again for plot points I won’t spoil), sold off to a silk house (that there’s fancy talk for a whorehouse, son). Plus, factor in that she hails from a nomadic tribe and is a woman riding in an all-male military company, so she has dual-Othership going on, and she could legitimately have a lot to be ticked off, withdrawn, anxious, depressed, or hateful about. I didn’t make things easy on her at all.

Which is precisely why I went in another direction with how she responds. I wanted to show that she doesn’t succumb to all the awful crap thrown her way, and in fact manages to be almost Zen about the whole thing. She isn’t bitter or vengeful (which surprises Arki, when he learns about some of her past), though she has no problem standing up for herself. She’s as demure and delicate as boot leather, even going toe-to-toe with Mulldoos, who’s a pretty hardcore badass.

She’s unpolished, profane, and has no social grace, which is sort of disquieting to Arki, but given that she is also an outsider, they form an unlikely bond. And that was important —I wanted to give him someone to connect with that didn’t threaten, bully, or confuse him, as the Syldoon are wont to do.

She’s important for other plot-related reasons as well, especially to Captain Braylar Killcoin, but I really tried to develop a character that was intriguing and brought a lot of unexpected heart and grit to the table all on her own, not dependent directly on her relationships with the males in the story.

Captain Braylar Killcoin’s main weapon is a flail titled Bloodsounder. Firstly, thumbs up on weapon choice. Secondly why do you suppose flails and maces don’t get more love in fantasy novels? What are the merits of such weapons over the standard blade?

Well, first, I’d like to take a crack at explaining the choice. My dad was my only real hero growing up, but Indiana Jones was a close second. Smart, calculating, no qualms about fight dirty. But one reason for the draw was his signature weapon, the whip. Good for swinging over crevices, hanging from the undercarriage of German trucks, and oh, yeah, flaying some skin off someone. I just thought that was a great choice, not just on account of utility or cool factor, but simply because it was very unusual. It stood out.

Flash forward more years than I want to count, and when I was working up Braylar’s character, I knew he was going to possess a cursed weapon of some kind called Bloodsounder, and when I was considering what kind of weapon, Indiana Jones unexpectedly jumped to mind. Instantly, I knew Bloodsounder would end up being anything besides a sword, because that’s so ubiquitous or iconic as to be kind of a cliché (or at least a super uninspired choice). I needed something a little out of the box.

Swords get a lot of love across a lot of cultures for a lot of reasons: symbolic (the cruciform/cross dealio with religious significance to the Western European knight), status bling (Vikings, Lombards, Gauls, etc. had a history of naming weapons, but particularly swords, as they cost more to build and were passed down for generations), mystical (Excalibur, vorpal swords, Tyrfing, Durendal, Stormbringer, the Sword of Truth, shoot, one even showed up in Harry Potter for crying out loud!). They were also the first weapon that had no other purpose besides ending life—an axe could cut wood, a spear or bow could be used on hunt, a dagger to carve off a chunk of the thing that was hunted, etc. Swords are designed to look badass and to cut up the enemy. That’s it.

So I started thinking about and discarding other weapon choices: polearm like a halberd (cool, but difficult to conceal, and Braylar is a sneaky bastard); axe (second in popularity in most fantasy milieus, so not a real adventurous choice); bow (uh, Legolas, nuff said); crossbow (Bloodsounder really needed to be up close and personal anyway, so that eliminated blowguns, javelins, Lawn Darts, etc.); messers/falchions (still too swordy); etc.

I was getting frustrated, but then good old Indiana provided the second push. Not a whip, but something whip-like. My first thought was a Hussite flail, but passed over for the same polearm reason, but then I thought, what about the single-handed variety. . . Rare? Check. Can strike from some sneaky angles, especially against someone not used to facing one? Check. Deceptively fast and still packs a centrifugal force wallop? Check. Almost as dangerous to the user as the opponent? Double check! That was a perfect choice for a cursed weapon that exacts a serious toll on the user.

Choose one character from popular science fiction or fantasy that Braylar Killcoin would beat in one-on-one combat, and one character that would beat him.

I’ve seen this sort of thing play out several times on message boards and it’s tremendously entertaining (especially the inevitable arguments that erupt), but I never had to do it with my own character before. Captain Killcoin is a consummate badass, but not in the sense that he dispatches ten foes in a row each with a single well-placed blow. He gets injured in Scourge, and would have fared worse if he hadn’t been wearing armor. And I tried to establish in the book that armored combat sometimes ends with a body on the floor in short order, but it can also be a slug match, where endurance, experience, and the willingness to do whatever it takes to make it out alive often decide the contest. Skill, speed, and strength count for a lot, but so does savvy and grit and flat out meanness. And in this respect, Braylar is one of the best: smart, fast, trained, ruthless, and will kick dust in your face if things start to go south.

Fantasy is just brimming with awesome fighters. . . Fafhrd, Logan Ninefingers, Jaime Lannister (before getting chopped down to size), Druss, Conan, Sandor Clegane (or his big bad brother) and on and on. And then there are those with pronounced advantages (breeding, magic, hundreds or thousands of years to get dang good, etc.) that approach the superhuman: Skilgannon, Elric (provided he didn’t drop Stormbringer), Kelhus, Anomander, half the dudes in Malazan, really, etc.

It would be awesome to see a fight between Gregor Clegane and Braylar. Gregor isn’t necessarily the greatest swordsman, but he is monstrously huge and strong, absolutely remorseless, and a pretty terrifying force of nature (not quite on the same level as The Feared, but for a mortal, about as intimidating an opponent as they come). Braylar is smaller and weaker, but faster, more mobile, and calculating. The Red Viper’s undoing when he fought the Mountain was presuming the poison had done its business and prematurely thinking the fight was over. Thanks to Bloodsounder, Braylar knows when the fight is over. And while his weapon is cursed and exacts a brutal toll on its wielder, that’s after the battle, and without spoiling anything I’ll say that it does also occasionally provides a very brief advantage in combat. So Braylar might get knocked around suffer some serious wounds against Gregor, but thanks to his natural viciousness, speed, and weapon, he would dance out of reach long enough to whittle the monster down.

By the same token, if Braylar came up against someone with ridiculous prowess like Icarium or Kelhus, he might land a blow or two or draw the thing out with a bit of help from his fickle flail, but in the end he’d fare no better than Cnaiur—he’d get his ass kicked.

Say you are purchasing a recently released book for a dearly beloved friend and avid reader of SF and Fantasy. What would it be?

So many to pick from. . . Daniel Abraham’s The King’s Blood would be a fine choice, presuming my beloved friend has already read The Dragon’s Path, otherwise it would have to be a two-fer too). Richard K. Morgan’s Kovacs series might not qualify as “recent,” but those are some of my favorite science fiction books I’ve recently come across.

If I’m thinking debuts, stand-alones, or the start to a new series (and let’s be honest, with all the princess crap I have to buy for my three daughters, purchasing one book is easier to bear than two-plus, unless we’re talking a wedding gift for a bibliophile), Paul Tobin’s Prepare to Die! is tons of fun, and deeper than expected, given that it’s about superheroes and supervillains. The Killing Moon by N.J. Jemisin is getting crazy raves, but I haven’t picked that one up yet, so maybe I’d just get that for myself.

Wait, do-over! Would it be totally narcissistic and make me look like a self-promoting asshat to say Scourge of the Betrayer? You bet it would! SCOURGE OF THE FRICKIN’ BETRAYER!!

The world in which Scourge of the Betrayer is set is of the pseudo-Middle Ages European sort but there are some pretty distinct differences. Can readers expect more of this as the series continues?

Absolutely. As you noted in your recent review, I intentionally kept the mystical or magical elements on the periphery in the first book of the series. I wanted to really establish a fantasy world with as much realism as possible—nasty inns, barmaids who aren’t supermodels, watery ale, fights that turn on a dime and not always in the protagonists’ favor, unexpected deaths with no closure or pretty protracted deathbed speeches. Not necessarily ugly, brutish, and short, but not far off the mark either, and decidedly mundane on the surface. The intent was, when the characters (and therefore the readers) encounter the supernatural elements for the first time, they would definitely appear strange, dangerous, maybe even awe-inspiring. But not common, and hopefully they would “pop” more given that I was going for an almost historical fiction vibe in the rest of the book.

Now, I’m sort of stealing a page from Martin (it’s not like he couldn’t spare one, and I say that with fanboy love!), and those elements will slowly become more prominent and important as the series progresses. But I never want to lose that feeling of, “Holy crap—magic is rare! And kind of spooky!”

If Scourge of the Betrayer were an ice cream flavor what flavor would it be?

Blood orange.

What can you tell us of the sequel to Scourge of the Betrayer?

Well, doubling back to your earlier question about scope, it will definitely expand in the sequel. The reader will get a lot more info about the Syldoon themselves, Bloodsounder, The Memoridons, the Deserter Gods, the Godveil, etc. Now, I’m not going to claim it does a complete 180, as the narrative is still filtered through Arki, but for those hoping to see some deeper world building, they should be pretty satisfied.

Also, as far as setting goes, the story won’t be as claustrophobic (that was intentional in Scourge, as I wanted the reader to feel aligned with Arki in some sense), as the characters move on to some different locales.

Also also, the pace picks up now that (some) of the Syldoon agenda is on the table, and Arki is (more) privy to what they are actually doing.

Say Scourge of the Betrayer gets picked up by a major film studio to be turned into a Hollywood blockbuster. What three songs would you insist be included on the movie soundtrack and why?

I always liked Michael Mann’s soundtrack choices—Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, you name it. He always seems to pick the right soundtrack to perfectly sync with the material, bolstering it without overpowering it. So if he signed on to direct the Hollywood Blockbuster, I would just get the hell out of the way and let the man work. But assuming it’s not him, and in this glorious fantasy I have creative input on the soundtrack, I would have enlisted Basil Poledouris to produce something special (seriously, Conan the Barbarian AND Flesh & Blood, are you freaking kidding me?!), but he’s no longer with us. Since this isn’t A Knight’s Tale , so no Queen, Beastie Boys, Lady Gaga, or any other modern music, I’d probably have to go with something instrumental, dark, and moody, so I’d probably just phone Jerry Goldsmith (The 13th Warrior) or Harry Gregson-Williams (The Kingdom of Heaven) to see what they had going on. Since we’re in fantasy land.

Any final words for potential readers?

Are you inviting me to shamelessly deliver a sales pitch like a snake oil salesman here? Prostituting myself just to get a few more sales? Because I can do that! Scourge of the Betrayer has really well-developed and nuanced characters, great (and super entertaining!) dialogue, and quite a bit of intrigue. If you’re looking for something dark and hard hitting, that has just enough funny gallows humor and sarcastic barbs to balance out the profanity, blood, and guts, this is it!

Also, if you pick up the book, I’ll be incredibly grateful. Not as in, I’ll come mow your lawn or do your taxes or anything (which is good, I suck at doing mine), but still, more thankful and appreciate than I can say.

James Lovegrove writes exactly the sort of books the reviewers here at Elitist Book Reviews love to read. Gods, monsters, aliens, power armor, and more. Having just recently topped 100,000 in sales of his Pantheon series and with a new book just hitting the shelves...well, it was the perfect time for an interview. James was kind enough to oblige, here is what he had to say.

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Elitist Book Reviews: Hello there, James. Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to make an appearance on our infamous blog. EBR tradition dictates that we give the authors we interview a chance to brag. So have at it! What makes you and your novels so great?

James Lovegrove: You mean aside from intrinsic awesomeness? Indisputable brilliance? Unerring originality? Spectacularly handsome physical appearance? Nope, can’t think of anything.

EBR: You’ve been writing for a little more than twenty years now. When is it that you knew you wanted to be an author?

JL: I’ve read loads of interviews in which an author refers to a particular Damascus moment when, as a child, he or she realized that books are actually written by people, and this revelation set him or her on the road to writerdom. All I have to say to that is, “Duh!” It never occurred to me that books weren’t written by people. Where else were they supposed to come from? Magic Pixie Land? But I think, even armed with this insight, I always knew I was going to write fiction for a living, almost from the day I realized I could read and enjoyed reading. I wanted to be lots of other things when I grew up--mostly a multimillionaire rock star surrounded by countless of shaggable groupies--but deep down the literary calling was there, nagging and gnawing at the back of my mind, telling me that this and only this was what I was made for: writing. It is, I’m fond of saying, the thing I do least badly, and therefore it is what I now do.

EBR: Can you give us a little insight into the process of getting published? Any useful tips for writers looking for a publishing deal of their own?

JL: I was lucky, in that my first novel (The Hope) was accepted by the first publisher I sent it to. I never had to go through the soul-sapping but character-building process of rejection slips and getting oneself noticed. That isn’t to say that I haven’t struggled and worked hard. I spent years honing my craft and getting on in the publishing biz, but I didn’t have that initial knockback which--given my personality type--might well have deterred me from ever trying again. I would say the best way to get published is to write your damn book, make sure it’s the best damn book you could have written, and then get yourself an agent and make sure he or she is the butt-kickingest agent you could have and is doing the very best he or she can on your behalf. Oh, and submit a “clean” manuscript, well laid out, paginated, the works, with the least possible number of typos and punctuation errors. A busy agent or commissioning editor will always look favorably on a tidy manuscript, as it’s indicative of a tidy mind. Messy manuscripts end up in the bin, unread. It’s a fact.

EBR: With the Pantheon series you seem to have carved out your own sub-genre some are dubbing "godpunk". What inspired the Pantheon series and the very idea of this sort of urban-mythology?

JL: Very little inspired the first Pantheon novel, THE AGE OF RA, other than an invitation from Solaris Books to pitch an alternate history idea to them. Of the three ideas I submitted, the one I (and they) liked the most was the one that involved a world where the Ancient Egyptian gods had taken charge, carving the continents up into their own individual power blocs. I didn’t know much about the Egyptian pantheon at the time other than that these were gods who all had animal heads, were more than a little mad, and slept with their siblings. This seemed to me very fertile territory. Welding a military-SF plot onto that scenario was the next step. I didn’t have to think about it very hard. It just seemed a natural, logical extension. And hey presto, alakazam, I had the first book in what has turned out to be a pretty cool series.

EBR: Having recently published an exclusive to digital eNovella, "Age of Anansi", how do you feel about the impact of eBooks as an author and a reader?

JL: I don’t have an e-reader and probably never will. I like books made of paper and card and ink and glue. I like the proper, physical object. I like to be able to bend a book back, chuck it around, peruse it in the bath, do what I want with it, safe in the knowledge that I’m not in danger of breaking a costly piece of kit which I will then have to replace and restock. Also, every book on my shelves (and there are many thousands of them) has meaning for me. I can remember more or less how old I was when I bought it, where I bought it, what buying it meant to me… I don’t want a piece of software, I want a thing.

Having said all which, I’ve got nothing against e-readers at all. I appreciate that they’re great for busy people, for people going on holiday, for people who like tech, and I appreciate, too, that they’re becoming the lifeblood of the publishing industry, the new paradigm. May they live long and prosper. Just not in the Lovegrove household.

EBR: Solaris is responsible for publishing your supernatural thriller, REDLAW. What is it that separates your vampires from, say, TWILIGHT?

JL: If I was going to be flippant, I would say the difference between me and Stephenie Meyer is that I can write. But that’s not at all fair. She has done what she has done, reimagining vampires (and indeed werewolves) as kind of idealized boyfriends, and firing the romantic dreams of millions of teenaged girls and selling a kajillion books. More power to her elbow. But I like my vamps old-school. I like them creepy and predatory, recognizably human but still alien and nasty and “other”. That way, when I depict them as an oppressed minority in the novel, as I do, I can play on people’s sense of prejudice and then whip the carpet out from under the reader’s feet when I reveal that the vampires are actually sympathetic and that it’s humans who are the real monsters. REDLAW is a thriller but it’s also satire, a reversal of the norm, and I’m continuing that theme with its sequel, REDLAW: RED EYE, which I have just completed.

EBR: How much research do you typically do for one of your Pantheon novels? You seem to have an extensive knowledge of ancient mythology, how do you decide what to use and what to cut out?

JL: I like to read at least two or three books devoted to the particular mythology I’m shamelessly exploiting--ahem, I mean lovingly exploring. I was well versed in only one pantheon, the Greek, before I started this series. I knew a little about the Norse gods, mostly from old Lee/Kirby Thor comics, but otherwise learning about each pantheon is a voyage of discovery, and a very pleasant one at that. Basically I’m reading stories, not dry facts, and that for me isn’t research at all, it’s fun. The difficulty comes later, as I rework those stories into a new context, make the pre-existing mythical characters fit the novel’s scheme, and attempt to craft a story that will reflect the themes and tone of the pantheon concerned. I say difficulty, but it’s actually a hell of a lot of fun.

In fact, I’ve just realized: my job involves pissing around all day making stuff up and reading other people’s made-up stuff. Is that even a job? In theory, when it comes to writing each book I would like to include everything I’ve read about the relevant pantheon, not least because I hate even a minute of research time going to waste. In the event, though, it’s a case of filleting out the really juicy material, the bits too good to leave out, and using whatever best illustrates both the nature of the pantheon itself and the subtext of the novel.

EBR: As an author who do you consider your influence?

JL: Just about anything I read is an influence, for good or for ill. If a word in a book I happen to be reading at the time seems to me just the right word I’m looking for in my own novel, I’ll use it. Sometimes that goes for a whole phrase. My writing influences are a number of authors but mostly Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Stan Lee, Alan Moore, Kurt Vonnegut, Alan Furst, Colin Wilson and Alfred Bester. But anything in the environment around me has a bearing on what I’m working on--news reports, interesting things people might say to me, random thoughts that occur at odd hours of the night, my home, my family, my cat… Everything feeds into the mulch from which ideas grow. It’s a continual, ongoing process.

EBR: You’re in a bookstore, in the SF&F section, and a customer mistakes you for an employee. He/She asks you to recommend a novel. You can’t recommend your own novels (because OBVIOUSLY the customer has read them all). What book/series do you recommend?

JL: I’d steer this person towards the works of Alan Moore (assuming there’s a graphic novel section nearby) and suggest he or she try Promethea, which is one of the Sage of Northampton’s unsung triumphs. But should this bookstore be one of those lousy ones that doesn’t sell comics collections, I would waggle Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man and/or The Stars My Destination under this individual’s nose and say, “This is cyberpunk long before William Gibson dusted off his manual typewriter. This is space opera and future extrapolation and adventure SF and bebop jazz all rolled into one. This is mainlined imagination at its purest and most inventive and explorative, and please stop staring at me like I’m a madman, I’m really quite normal, honest…”

EBR: What do we have to do to have cameos in your next book where we die violent deaths?

JL: Well, a large bribe would never hurt. That or pissing me off royally. In REDLAW: RED EYE there’s one secondary character who is named after a concert ticket promoter who ripped me off for quite a large sum of money last year, and has hidden behind this country’s bankruptcy laws in order to get away with not repaying me and his other creditors. This crook’s namesake has all sorts of hideous indignities committed upon his person in the book, and I took exquisite delight in inflicting each and every one. Personally, I wouldn’t want a character with my own name to meet a hideous end. Peter F. Hamilton abused a character called Lovegrove in one of his books, and thought it amusing, but I did not. Perhaps I’m worried that there’s some kind of sympathetic voodoo magic involved, but I wouldn’t want to harm the fictional proxy of anyone on whom I didn’t wish harm in the real world.

EBR: Can you tell us what you have planned for writing in the near future? Any more Pantheon novels or super secret projects?

JL: There’s at least two more Pantheon novels in the offing, but the only one I can say with any certainty is going to happen is AGE OF VOODOO, because I’m just about to start work on that. There’ll mostly likely be another couple of Age Of… e-novellas too, since the first, "Age Of Anansi", seems to be selling well. But the super secret project which I pitched for earlier this year and which has just been given the go-ahead, is a couple of Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books. I’ve been dying to write a Holmes story ever since I was a kid, so this is the proverbial dream come true. They’re going to be steampunkish takes on the standard Holmes adventure, fast-paced and action-y but with plenty of deduction and detection as well.

EBR: Thank you so much for finding the time to answer some of our questions. Do you have any final words for readers?

JL: What are you doing looking at this when you could be reading my latest?

***

A special thanks to James for dropping by the blog. It's always awesome to hear behind-the-scenes stuff that makes an author "tick". If this interview doesn't make you want to read his work, you are dead inside.

AGE OF RA
AGE OF ZEUS
AGE OF ODIN
AGE OF ANANSI
AGE OF AZTEC

REDLAW

Do you faithful readers want to know the absolute best part of this whole book review blog thing? Author interviews. Just being able to get a few minutes of an author's time to ask him or her those questions burning in our minds. It's completely fantastic. What makes it even better is when we get to interview one of our absolute favorite authors, and he is completely open and honest in his answers. Steven Erikson falls in this category for us. The guy completely blew us away with his writing, and then outdid himself with his humble answers to our questions.

***The Interview***


Elitist Book Reviews: Steven, thank you so much for chatting with us for a few minutes. We want to start off by giving you a few moments to brag a bit. What do you think makes your series so great?

Steven Erikson: If I was to brag about this series I would have missed the whole point of my own series, which would be a bad thing. For me writing is an exercise in humility. It always astonishes me when I prowl the hate-box (funny how the internet was meant to be a love-box, only to have it increasingly sway in the opposite direction … well, not funny. Disturbing) and read from fans of the genre comments on my coming across as arrogant, either in interviews or in my fiction. For my own sanity I can only assume that by subverting the tropes of the genre in my fantasy fiction, I am somehow perceived as attacking the lovers of the genre, which I am emphatically not doing. I grew up reading and loving the same stuff they’re now reading: but as a writer I wanted to twist it a little, do something different, and avoid the lazy route of reiterating what other writers have already done. This has landed me in the occasional shit-storm, where fans in their tribes feel it necessary to put down other writers in order to build up their favorite writers. Uhm, it’s not a competition, mates, and when I’m being judgmental, it’s self-directed. As writers we each participate to make up the whole genre, and it’s a big, flexible genre. For myself, I do hope that fans of my work read and enjoy as much fantasy fiction as is out there, and to forever remain open to new voices; and, most importantly, to not feel threatened by new takes on the genre. You lose nothing by being open-minded and you lose everything when you shut the door, bolt the lock, and hide from every challenge.

Your question alarms me in that you assume that I feel my series is great. That’s for readers to decide, not me. I did the best I could, with what talents I possess. It’s done, it’s out there. Maybe it’ll swim, maybe it’ll sink.


EBR: THE CRIPPLED GOD is out—and it is fantastic. It’s been a long and epic ride. What kind of emotions are you feeling with the conclusion to this ten-book portion of the story?

Erikson: Exhausted, emptied out, relieved. In The Crippled God I was writing towards scenes I had imagined in my head for nearly a decade. The pressure was immense; in fact, this whole series has been written with that pressure. It was a huge series, written out of heart-break, and for me it was a long, drawn-out search for hope. When it was done, I felt numb. Didn’t write a word for six weeks – my longest drought ever as a professional writer.

When I am asked for advice by beginning writers, I always say ‘finish what you start,’ and it turns out that advice was as applicable to me as to them. I finished what I started and that is a good feeling indeed. In fact, it’s the real reward to all this, because it means that you can walk away, head held high – and I recommend it to everyone, in all endeavors you may undertake.


EBR: What was the most difficult part of writing this series? What was the most enjoyable part?

Erikson: I suppose the most difficult part of writing this series was sticking to my guns, from start to finish. I’ve taken a lot of hits, book after book; and while there has been appreciation from fans it’s often the case that the vitriol cuts through to leave a bitter taste, while the praise washes off. In the end, comments from others, both positive and negative, only reach in so far. The core of desire remains inviolate, but it’s taken a beating at times. The most enjoyable part follows on from this, in that I didn’t waver, or give up, or lose interest, and now that it is done I can look back and, barring a frenzy of book-burning worldwide, the series is out there, done, and will remain for as long as readers enjoy it.


EBR: What is the area of your writing that has improved the most?

Erikson: I don’t know, to be honest. I’m not afraid of complexity, I suppose, though in the beginning I wasn’t about to let my fear stop me, so youthful stubbornness and brazen determination has given way to bemused faith in the process. I guess I learned to trust myself.

That said, writing is not about opinions, not about answers, not about solutions. It’s just a way of searching, and people either come along with you in that search, or they don’t. Used to be I tried to write as inclusively as I could, but really, it never worked for me. I long ago gave up on the notion of universal adoration, and for all my supposed brilliance, I’d still fail Grade Eight math. Now, before that gets quoted out of context (as if I can stop that), no, I don’t suppose I am brilliant. If I have virtues pertaining to all this, they are all double-edged. Patience with stubbornness; ambition with crushing doubt … the usual crap, mostly. In the end, we’re all mirrors to each other. Call me names at your peril.


EBR: Your novels are large. Door-stop sized even. How is it that you have been able to keep such a firm and consistent release schedule in a day where huge delays have seemingly become the norm?

Erikson: As you might glean from my answers to the questions thus far, what kept me going was desperation. I needed to get this damned thing done, if only to discover what the world was like once the series was behind me. There’s a poem in The Crippled God, to open the epilogue, that pretty much sums it up, as it addresses both my core belief and my core uncertainties. It was written in that closing moment of exhaustion, both physical and spiritual, when the only voice left is an honest one.


EBR: Your co-creator, Cam, has improved in his craft dramatically from book to book. What makes him such a good compliment to your own style and your own writing?

Erikson: From the very beginning, in creating this world via roleplaying, it was always an even exchange. I made up characters who interacted with his storylines, and he did the same with his characters acting in my storylines, so everything in the Malazan world has both of us in it. It’s the same when we get together in person: no matter how much time we’ve spent apart, living our own lives, we immediately fall back into that comfort of friendship and shared vision.

It just sort of happened that we ended up meeting on an archaeology dig, spent a few summers working together in the wilds of Northern Ontario (living in the town of Neil Young fame, helpless and hopeless indeed), and became lifelong friends in the years that followed.

You’ve all had this in your lives, I’m sure. The friend who, no matter the distance in miles or years, can just step in time with you the moment you reunite. That said, we’ve been through a lot of stuff together, me and Cam; in many ways, we still write to an audience of one, that one being each other. We’re in conversation, via our novels. It was always a conceit that anybody else would be interested in that conversation. Luckily, a few people were, and are.


EBR: Is there anything you wish you could have done differently since becoming a published author?

Erikson: These kinds of questions are almost impossible to answer. I wish I could have become a full-time writer about ten years before I did: I worked a lot of jobs, some of them soul-destroying; and we spent years being dirt poor (it didn’t help that I grew up poor as well) … but if that had happened, would I be the same writer? Would I have written the same stuff? Who knows. I’m just thankful for what I have.


EBR: The Malazan Book of the Fallen has come to a close, but you have other Malazan tales in the works. What should the masses look forward to in the coming years?

Erikson: I have signed for two more trilogies. The first one (which I’ve already begun) takes us back into the distant past in the Malazan universe. Once that’s done, I will be picking up the tale of Karsa Orlong in the second trilogy. If I can, I will write some other stuff as well, including more novellas and non-Malazan tales.


EBR: Again Steven, we are so thrilled that you were able to chat with us for a bit. Any parting words for our readers, and can we expect to see you at any conventions in the near future?

Erikson: I enjoy conventions and have a few I regularly attend, though I am always open to new ones, depending on my schedule.

Parting words to your readers? Be well, be kind, unwind…

Cheers

We were recently offered the opportunity to interview Ian Cameron Esslemont (Cam), author of NIGHT OF KNIVES, RETURN OF THE CRIMSON GUARD, and STONEWIELDER. We first met Cam at World Fantasy back in 2009, and we were immediately impressed by his openness and enthusiasm. It was one of those situations where you meet an author for whom your exceptions are unrealistically high...only to be easily met, and then just as easily surpassed.

***The Interview***

Elitist Book Reviews: We want to start off by thanking you, Cam, for taking time out of your busy schedule to chat with us for a bit. Our tradition at Elitist Book Reviews is to start off by letting the author brag a bit. Tell us why you are awesome, and why everyone should be reading your work.

Ian C. Esslemont (Cam): Brag? Well, what I will say is that among the groaning fantasy shelves the World of Malaz is different. If you are tired of the predictable hero-beats-villain-gets-girl fantasy staples and are looking for something a little bit more challenging, then Malaz is for you. The series is, for better or worse, more like the realpolitik of life. All is shades of grown-up moral grey and the good guys don’t necessarily win. In fact, it’s rather hard even to find any good guys – which is not to say there is no one to root for. There are plenty of individuals to identify with and we follow their fortunes, their mistakes, and learn with them. If a great number of fantasy series aim to embrace the reader in the glow of medals earned through perilous trials and set-backs – the drama of expected rewards, then in Malaz I believe Steve and I are more interested in inviting the reader to share in the wrenching conflicts of being human, which is to say – the drama of tragedy.


EBR: With every novel you seem to get better and better—your war scenes, specifically, are some of the best out there. A measure of growing confidence can be seen in your writing. Where do you think you’ve improved the most, and where do you think you still have room to grow?

Cam: Many thanks for that generous evaluation. I believe that what you mention is exactly where I have allowed myself to grow: in confidence. Early on I wouldn’t explore much of what I do now simply because I wasn’t sure I was ‘allowed’ to, so to speak. Now I’m more inclined to just go for it, reasonably confident that the reader will give me the rope necessary. As to where I might still have room to grow, yikes! I feel that there’s still plenty of room for me to explore all the aspects and elements of story that I hope to.


EBR: How much feedback do you get from Steven when writing, and how much do you typically give on his own work?

Cam: Currently, the feedback has actually been far slimmer than many would assume, I think. The time for most of that has passed. We shared enormous feedback in the mutual creation of the world. It was a dialogue in which we hammered out all to come later. Since then the feedback has been more ‘global’ judgments (as they say in creative writing workshops), as when I read a finished manuscript from Steve and give it the ‘thumbs up’ or he does the same for me. Occasionally, one of us would get snagged on a particular plot or character problem or such and we would kick it around together to come up with a resolution. For example, in my upcoming fourth: Orb Sceptre Throne, I tackle Kruppe and so I can tell you I was very apprehensive. I talked that one over a great deal with Steve – he even suggested how I might resolve that particular plot thread. Likewise, he knows I’m dealing with Jacuruku next and so he asked how I was developing the Ascendant Ardata.

That’s the nature of the feedback right now I guess: plot and character specifics, world continuity, shuffling options for greatest effect, that sort of thing.


EBR: Do you have any plans for a few short stories/novellas of your own?

Cam: Actually, yes. Steve has encouraged me to tackle tales of the early ‘Empire’ in the form of novellas similar to his Bauchelain and Korbal Broach series. I am also interested in what happens to Shadowthrone and the Rope and their realm after the point that we leave them off. So that is another possibility as well. Unfortunately, I’m not as fast a writer as Steve and I have a full-time day job of looking after my sons. So I am currently hard-pressed in managing to keep up with one novel a year as it is. Next year, though, I believe I may have more time available to explore those works. I hope so. And I hope the readers would be interested in hearing those stories.


EBR: What made you decide to focus on the “old guard” in your works? Was it specifically planned by you and Steven?

Cam: It was planned. In our division of stories and arcs these were the areas I wanted (at least that’s the way I remember it). Or perhaps it just worked out that way. In any case, it wasn’t all that formalized with barriers or ‘turf’ so to speak. Nothing like that. We both merely went where our interests took us and compiled a master list of some fifteen or so possible novels, or projects, which would constitute the main arcs. That list goes way back.

I’d like to take this opportunity, if I may, to address this issue of collaboration. Many times Steve and I have heard people express surprise at what we have accomplished together and at our continued cooperation in this creative project. For neither of us it is a surprise. I’m not sure why, but perhaps it is generational, and, to an extent, professional. In the field of archaeology he and I saw firsthand the bitterness and division the old-school approach of possessiveness and professional rivalry can generate. Unlike this old model, neither of us sees the other’s success as our failure. Rather, each of us sees the other’s success as adding momentum to the larger project. Burnishing it further, if you will. In anthropology there is an old concept of societies that subscribe in the idea of ‘limited good.’ This is an ancient worldview wherein any good accruing to another, a neighbor or relative, means there is less ‘good,’ or fortune, remaining for you. Suffice it to say that neither Steve nor I subscribe to it.


EBR: You are three novels into your series. What has been the highlight of it all so far?

Cam: Well, by far the biggest so far is just getting into print in the first place. Given that, the appearance of Night of Knives, real and physical, would be that highlight. Other than this the contract with Bantam for four more novels was of course another. On the larger scale, so far I believe I’m lucky in being able to say that each work has been the highlight to date. I felt that way about Return of the Crimson Guard, with Stonewielder, and now with Orb Sceptre Throne as well.


EBR: If you had to recommend someone a novel/series, what would be the recommendation? No cheating here by recommending your own or Steven’s.

Cam: Oh dear, this is a tough one because I’m reading more nonfiction for research and such right now. What I do wish to put in a plug for (as if he needs one from me) is the SF of Iain M. Banks who deserves far more attention here in the US. I am reading fantasy series with my lads and so can speak to the target age of about ten years old or so. Here, I quite enjoyed the ‘Last Apprentice’ series by Joseph Delany. I feel that he did a fantastic job of evoking a harsh and very dark ‘real’ world that is actually quite creepy (at least for us adults reading along).


EBR: What does the future of your series hold for the readers?

Cam: As I mentioned, Orb Sceptre Throne will be out next. It is set in Darujhistan and follows up on Toll the Hounds quite closely. It is thus more or less contemporaneous with Stonewielder. Right now I am working on the next of the series, which follows events unfolding upon the continent of Jacuruku. The working title for this novel is City in the Jungle. After this (everything having worked out) I hope to tackle the final work of the main arc, which is titled, Assail.

That is the main sequence for Malaz. If I somehow find extra time there are SF projects I’ve had my eye on for some time now. I can only hope.


EBR: Thank you again, Cam, for dropping by. It has been a true privilege for us. Any parting words for our readers, and can we expect to see you at any conventions in the near future?

Cam: Yes, Steve talked me into coming to the World Fantasy Convention and I quite enjoyed it. Now we both try to make it so we can hang out together for a time. This year it is in San Diego and I hope to make it. After that, I understand it will be in Toronto and so Steve and I really ought to make that one!

Many thanks to everyone at Elitist Book Reviews. It has been great having the chance to talk over all things Malaz.

Cheers, Ian C. Esslemont.

***

You all know by now that James Barclay has become one of our favorite authors. Action. Character. Tragedy. Humor. Love. He somehow manages to blend all these themes perfectly. So when we got the opportunity to interview James, we jumped on it with fanboy glee.

So here you have it...

***The Interview***

1. Hello there, James. Glad to have you here at our illustrious blog. Our tradition here at EBR is to give the authors we are interviewing a chance to brag. So let loose, James. Tell us what makes you and your novels awesome.

Hello. It’s lovely to be here and sit for a while where I normally drop in only too briefly. Brag, eh? Well, you know how we authors hate to talk about ourselves in any but the most self-deprecating ways but I’ll do my best.

It’s like this. My books are awesome (good word, that) because they’re fantastically exciting heroic action fantasy thrillers and because they are so much more than fantastically exciting heroic action fantasy thrillers. That’s (partly) because every blow in every fight lands in one of my readers’ hearts. And THAT’s because there is a moment, in every Raven reader’s journey, when it dawns on them that they really, really care. They feel like they are reading about family and that makes the wounds hurt, the tears sting and the laughter the purest of releases. And there is nothing they can do about it. (And can I just say at this point for those of you who didn’t wait until that happened, it is absolutely your loss. Absolutely.)

All this means that I am not awesome. The awesome people are the readers who get The Raven. Get the facts that while they are extraordinary individuals, they are prey to the same things as the rest of us; love, loss, grief, fear, laughter. They bicker, they moan, they fight and they would die for those they love. And in amongst all that, they struggle to save their world for the ungrateful, the unborn and the unworthy. This is what heroes do.

Ah, now that means The Raven are awesome, doesn’t it? And I created them. So that makes me awesome too, doesn’t it? Excellent. Then all is well with the world.


2. We’ll start with some easy questions before we put your feet to the branding irons. When was it that you realized you wanted to be an author?

I was eleven. A tender age indeed but it was then that I made both my career choices. Actor and/or writer. Simple really and a triumph of youthful optimism over common sense. On the other hand, since I’ve now published ten novels and two novellas plus just recently appeared in a feature film, it all makes perfect sense.

3. Give our readers a little back-story on how you got published.

You have to understand that I have always loved writing stories; right from infant school, as soon as I could write. So a back story could be a gargantuan exercise, a bit like the long form version of Marx’s ‘Capital’. So I tell you what, I’ll start when I was sixteen and began to take it all rather seriously.

It was at that time that I began to write the most horrific derivative bunch of toss. Some might say I never stopped doing so but they are few and even now, they are being hunted down. I wrote a novella length thing for an English project and I was in competition with my mates for body count. Next was a pompous fantasy/sci-fi fusion for another school-based project and following that a proper novel length piece that was really a long Star Trek episode. I mention all these because within them are the germs of the character and action-driven novels I eventually published. And to point out that, at sixteen I was an embarrassing distance from being publishable.

Happily, I can fast forward to the time it became apparent that The Raven was a proper idea, worthy of expansion and eminently publishable so long as I could imbue the story with enough quality and other writerly stuff like plot, character and a coherent narrative structure. It’s no secret that the genesis of The Raven was table-top dice-based fantasy role playing and readers of Dawnthief will no doubt sense that though it is not apparent (in my mind anyway) in Noonshade and beyond.

I remember very well, my twenties and the various iterations of Raven novel ideas and how they began as a sort of comedic entity shot through with horrible violence and ended up the grumpy but magnificent world-savers we know and love. I submitted Dawnthief all over the place, along with much other work, and have many a rejection slip to show for it.

Mine was the classic patience and belief journey and it was not until I submitted to Gollancz the first time that hope was truly kindled. Even then, the comments were not wholly positive and amounted to a rejection with an invitation to resubmit. ‘The idea is fine.’ I was told. ‘But the book is like a skeleton with no flesh on the bones. The world is incomplete and there is no notion of existence beyond the sphere of the main characters.’

That is not a direct quote but it sums up the conversation pretty well, I think. But I took it as massive encouragement and to cut a long back story slightly shorter, I worked my arse off to improve what I had and nearly did it second time around. Third time around, I got the call every aspiring author dreams of. I only filled up when I saw Dawnthief on the shelf for the first time. That’s the moment when you know it’s all for real. That was 1999.

4. Elves. We typically hate them. For whatever reason, yours don’t rub us the wrong way. Lately there seems to be a collective eye-roll when elves are mentioned in the synopsis of a novel. Why did you personally decide to go with elves in your Raven stories, and why start another series that focuses on them?

I don’t think I ever thought about not going with elves. They were present in much of the stuff I read as a youth and were always there, irritating the crap out of my characters in role playing games so to me, they’re part of the family.

I also didn’t ever think: “Hmm. Got elves here, I really need to make them different.” They just came out as they came out. Now of course, they are different from the more classical ideals of the trope and I think that has helped me a great deal because people aren’t reading about the hoppity, skippety, portentous-speaking, effeminate horse-riders they are used to.

But I think the key to writing a well-worn trope like elves is not to keep on reminding people they are elves. You have to remember that they are as unremarkable in the fantasy worlds they inhabit as are humans. So readers find out about them by degrees just like any other character. And, in the same way I don’t remind you a human doesn’t have pointed ears, I don’t remind you that an elf does. My elves are different by dint of their culture, their homeland and their religion. Just like humans, then.

As for the Elves series well, for every reader who cannot bear our faerie cousins appearing in a fantasy novel, there is another who cannot get enough quality work about them. This was of course of interest to the commercial side of the Barclay/Gollancz partnership. There’s more to it than that, mind you. The elves of Calaius have been a fascination to many of The Raven’s readers, particularly the TaiGethen but for the whole elven cultural package too. And I have grown to love them and have wanted to write more about them for years.

And why not? Rain-forest dwelling, isolationist and super-religious beings liable to remove your liver and show it to you before you know you’ve been attacked are fascinating on many levels.

They have complex societal and religious structures tied to the rain forest and what it gives them. They are subdivided into ‘threads’, each of which has a different typical lifespan and this has been the seat of every inter-racial problem they have ever experienced. The protectors of their faith, the TaiGethen, are an elite fighting force like no other in fantasy and every action they take is in the name of their god.

They are an incredibly proud and ancient people who cannot quite reconcile themselves to their own internal problems. And then some idiot goes and invites humans in to shift the balance of power. And shift it they do.

Enough of that. Suffice to say that I think my elves are a genuine breath of fresh air in the genre. The first Elves book, Once Walked With Gods, is my best-selling trade paperback so far. That’s because it’s really, really bloody good, by the way.

5. How has the reception been to your release of novels here in the US? Why did it take so long for them to make their way over here?

It’s been really positive, thanks. The Chronicles trilogy sold very well and was positively reviewed by some exceptional review sites. Can’t think of any particular names off-hand… I’ve had great feedback from readers too and that is particularly gratifying. Of course we could always sell more and I firmly believe it is incumbent on every man, woman and child in your vast and magnificent country to furnish themselves with Chronicles novels. The Legends series is only just coming out now so it’s too early to say if they’ll repeat the goodness; but if the early reviews, and Raymond Swanland’s astonishingly fine covers are indicators, then we should do very nicely indeed.

Why did it take so long? I haven’t a clue. It wasn’t for lack of trying. Sometimes I think books slip between the cracks in the pavement however well they do in other countries and such it was with mine. That’s life. I know that Lou Anders at Pyr Books was surprised to find the rights still available and I’m really grateful to him for getting them on US shelves. Sure I could have wished to have been published in the US ten years ago but then I’d not be working with Lou Anders and frankly, that was worth waiting for.

6. In a similar vein, why oh why aren’t your Ascendants of Estorea novels here in the US? Can our US readers expect them anytime soon?

I think with the Ascendants the scene is a little different. I know editors in the US looked favorably on them when they were first written but the sheer size was off-putting – don’t forget they would have been my first books published in the US and would have been a tough sell. The first book is three hundred thousand words long and that would have represented a major leap of faith.

If the Raven sell well enough through Pyr then maybe they’ll want the Ascendants too but that’s in the lap of the gods and Lou Anders. Is that tautological? Probably. Anyway, I do hope US reader get the chance to see the Ascendants. I’m immensely proud of those two books – about the birth of magic in a Roman-esque empire teetering on the brink of implosion, and manifesting itself in four young people – and again they’ve garnered plenty of praise over here in the UK.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

7. How far ahead do you plan novels? Your Elves series is going strong in the UK, but have you thought past it at all?

Generally speaking, by the time I’m in the final throes of a series, I’ve got firm ideas and a proposal for new novels, series, whatever. Right now, I’ve got many notions running around in my head. Some are stand-alone and others are multi-book sequences. But I don’t spend too much time agonizing over these things when I’m bang in the middle of a series like now. Ideas suggest themselves and I write them down. There, they ferment away and some demonstrate great potential while others dissolve or are subsumed into other, better notions.

By the way, I’m diversifying slightly as well. I’ve got a young adult trilogy out on proposal at the moment and we’ll see what comes of it. I’ve many other YA ideas too right now which is a good thing. They’re all within the broad church of our magnificent genre but more contemporary in nature.

8. What do you consider your greatest weakness as an author?

I’ve always had this tendency to charge into drafting a novel before I’ve tied down enough of the direction, plot, character development and all that stuff. Once or twice it has worked spectacularly well but more often than not, the opposite is true. I’d like to tell you that I’ve eradicated it from my working life but that would be a massive lie.

The first Elves book was, I thought, going terribly well and then I read a good chunk of the draft and had to start from scratch because it just wasn’t working. The same happened with the second book. I think it stems from me being able, in the past, to hold so much more in my head in terms of the complexities of a novel and now I can’t do that nearly so well.

The positive I take from it is that, in the past, I might have tried to mould what I had into something acceptable and then have an almighty struggle come editing and revising to make the book right. These days, painful though it is, I’ll stop, file the original under ‘utter bollocks’ and start again to ensure the result is of far higher quality from the first completed draft. It saves a lot of time (and certainly a lot of hassle) in the long run but at the time, it hurts baaaad.

9. Who do you consider your main influences?

First up has to be David Gemmell. First I was a fan devouring every book and later, hugely fortunately, a very good friend of his. We spent many a fabulous hour jawing away over things like the nature of heroism, how to make fights better, ways to develop character and the state of anything and everything. His attitude to work and his fans, his methods and his sheer professionalism have affected me greatly. I will be aspiring to his heights in all of these things forever.

The other main one is not a who, it is a single book. It’s ‘The Legacy of Heorot’ by Niven, Pournelle and Barnes. Bloody hell, what a book and what an influence it had. For me, this is the only text book you need on how to write character driven action novels in probably any genre. If you want to write that sort of stuff, then once you’ve read my books (having bought a pristine set), then go get the source text. It sets the bar high, very high.

Inevitably, all my influences stem from my formative years and from before I began to write novels with a ghost of a chance of being published. I don’t feel I’m influenced by any of my contemporaries. For those I rate highly, I reserve emotions such as jealousy, awe and massive respect.

10. When you aren’t writing or planning your next novel—we know right? How dare you do anything but write!—what occupies your time?

The demands on my time are many and various. Number one is my son, Oscar, who is four in January. Watching him learn, develop and grow, and engaging in all his play and his imagination is simply joyful. For another, I’m chief cook in the house and get bored of recipes easily so I like to experiment if I get the time. Then there’s the dog. She’s sitting with her chin on my thigh at the moment and if I should misspell a word anytime, it’ll be because she’s nudged my arm for some attention.

Because I’m nearly middle aged, I do like pottering around in the garden and because we own an old house, there is an endless list of repairs and the like to keep the place upright and passably smart.

Increasingly rarely now, I play computer games. I’m a PC gamer though Oscar and I muck about on the X-Box Kinect and the Wii from time to time. Nothing beats a quality shooter and of course, the daddy of them is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. When the elves book is done, I’ll go back and play that again, then play its slightly lesser sibling before charging into book three (see question 8 above ).

I watch TV but only either late at night or at lunchtime when I get to catch up a little bit with stuff like Stargate Universe and The Walking Dead. I hardly read at all… only for research these days.

The fact is that fatherhood is the dominating part of my life after the day’s work is done and quite frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

11. You’re in a bookstore, in the SF&F section, and a customer mistakes you for an employee. He/She asks you to recommend a novel. You can’t recommend your own novels (because OBVIOUSLY the customer has read them all). What book/series do you recommend?

The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss. Beautifully written.
The Lies of Locke Lamora – Scott Lynch. Just brilliant.
The Troy Trilogy – David Gemmell. The man at his very best and written just before he died (indeed, the third book was co-written by his amazing wife, Stella after his death).
Germinal – Emile Zola. It is an utterly gripping, terribly depressing and achingly brilliant novel about the effects of a strike on a poverty-stricken mining community in northern France under the second empire. Right, not SF&F but there is more to life and this book, written in 1885, is extraordinary.

12. What do we have to do to have cameos in your next book where we die violent deaths?

You want that? You got it. All you have to do is furnish me with your ideal fantasy versions of your names in the style of those already in The Raven and I’ll do the rest. That’s you, the Elitist crew, not the earth’s population in general.

13. Again, James, thanks for taking the time to chat with us. As always, it has been a pleasure. Any last words for the readers?

Yes I have. In one way only, I want to be like JK Rowling and find it easier to create a list of those who haven’t read my books rather than the lengthier one of those who have. So go and buy my books and then make all your friends do likewise (and their friends and so on and so forth). Much appreciated.

Seriously though, this genre is full of richness and talent and variety and extraordinary people. Never walk away and, if you can, get one more person to read your favorite genre title. This is surely the true path to global enlightenment.

Thanks for inviting me in. No need to get up, I’ll close the door on the way out.

You know you love a good sequel! As Emeril would say, "BAM!!!" (Yeah, we went there...)

Hopefully you all remember last year when R.A. Salvatore dropped by Elitist Book Reviews on his blog tour for THE GHOST KING. Bob is just one of those guys who is a pleasure to interview, and that really came through during that interview. If you didn't read it then, check it our HERE.

Well, Bob is back, and he is as awesome as ever. You see, Bob just gets us, and he gets our blog. So when we were approached to host Bob Salvatore to promote his latest novel, GAUNTLGRYM, you know were jumped at the chance.

'Cause Bob is easily becoming one of our favorite people.

***The Interview***

Elitist Book Reviews: Well, Bob, back for more punishment we see. It’s been nearly a year since we last chatted. How has the last year treated you?

R.A Salvatore: Punishment? Well, you guys do fancy yourselves elitist, don't you? Won't work, sorry... I know you're just sniveling fanboys in the end. Just kidding... please, put down that pen! No, don't write that review... ahhhhhh!

Seriously, the last year has been an amazing one for me. I became a grandfather in March and I love it even more than I thought I would (and that was a high bar)! I've been busy, as always, but since I finished up my Saga of the First King series with TOR Books (The Bear came out in August), I've cut down to one book a year. We'll see how long that will last, but I have to tell you, having a couple of months to just sit back and enjoy my grandson and my family without a deadline hanging over my head is pretty wonderful.

Things have moved along splendidly with 38 Studios. I can't wait for "Reckoning" to come out next fall, as I think we're knocking this RPG out of the park. It really is beautiful to behold. And Copernicus (still using a code name for our MMO game) is going in marvelous directions; the team at 38 and Big Huge Games (BHG) stuns me every day. So all is well.

Still playing softball, still working out, and spent most of the summer floating in a pool. It's easy to complain, but no one listens or cares, so why bother?

EBR: With Gauntlgrym, you are treading into one of our favorite areas of the Forgotten Realms: Neverwinter. Was it just right place, right time, or had the idea for Drizzt heading to Neverwinter been brewing for quite a while?

Bob: I'll be perfectly honest here: I know what stories I want to tell. I knew where the road was heading for the remaining Companions of the Hall and knew the thematic beats I had to hit to bring these characters forward. The surroundings, the dressing on the story cake, are far more malleable to me. Wizards of the Coast asked me if I could set the book in the region of Neverwinter and could I do certain things to help them and Cryptic with the changes they needed for the upcoming Neverwinter for PC. Well, I've been near to Neverwinter since the beginning of the Drizzt tales, traveling to Luskan and the Crags (which I actually named), and riding the road to Waterdeep. I was passing right by Neverwinter before the city was developed for the computer game. And honestly, I intended to journey to that region, though not specifically Neverwtinter itself, in this book before Wizards even approached me with the idea.

So I agreed; my favorite part of working in a shared world are those times when I get to play off the work of other creative people. Isn't that the whole point of the place, after all? I went to a summit last summer out in Seattle with the folks from Wizards and Cryptic, and we hammered out the general things Cryptic wanted me to accomplish regarding the city and the region. Many people around the table had bits and pieces of little side streets I could explore. Most fun of all was when Rich Baker and I got into a one-upmanship game. I have a curious relationship with Rich. We don't really know each other all that well, but something pretty amazing happens when we're sitting at a table: we just play off each other like a shortstop and second baseman who have been on the same team for a decade. It's very cool and very inspiring.

So basically, at that summit, I had to digest the things they wanted me to accomplish physically with the area and see if I could create details within the framework of my story that would get us to that point. That process continues as I go through the series. Still being perfectly honest, it was a blast. I felt like there was a life to this book, a freshness to it, as if I was exploring the world beside my old friends. Which is exactly the point of the dramatic changes in the Realms, and exactly where I knew I had to place Drizzt.

EBR: How does the destruction of Neverwinter by the Spellplague affect Drizzt in this new series, and do you as a writer look forward to these types of big, landscape-changing events?

Bob: Why, whoever told you that the Spellplague destroyed Neverwinter? Oh come on, I can come up with something more explosive than that! I finally get to trash a section of the Realms (sorry Ed [Greenwood]!) and I wasn't going to let that happen without putting my touch on it. Come to think of it, I took care of Luskan, too, a couple of books ago. I sense a trend here...

Generally speaking, I don't look forward to these big landscape-changing events in a shared world, because the nature of the place puts too many limitations on what I can do versus what I want to do. I went through this from the other side of the coin during The War of the Spider Queen series, where I had to put the brakes on the level of destruction and carnage in Menzoberranzan, because I, after all, am likely to be the guy who will go back to the place in future works and I didn't want to set a book amidst smoldering ruins.

In this instance, though, I didn't really mind it. The big events for the book physically aren't the big events for the book emotionally. That's not a subtle distinction. The physical landscape, the city of Neverwinter, are more affected by the big events than are my characters and ultimately, this book, like all of the others, is about the personal journey of those characters. I realized early on that I could accomplish what Wizards of the Coast and Cryptic needed from me, not only without detracting from the story I wanted to tell, but through actually tying together the big events here with things I had written about previously. Surprisingly, the earlier tales dove-tailed beautifully with the events of Gauntlgrym, and so tied the journeys of Drizzt even more tightly than I had anticipated.

EBR: You’ve been killing off characters lately. Personally, we love it because it lends more danger to the situations you put your characters in. Has there been any thought to the possibility of Drizzt meeting his end?

Bob: Glad you love it, because for me, it hurts like hell. That aside, death is a necessary element of an action/adventure series that has gone on for 22 years, I suppose.

Any thought of killing Drizzt? Only for the last 22 years. Seriously, there was a time in the mid-90s when I came to actually resent the Dark Elf. I'm not kidding. Drizzt was my blessing and my curse, I thought. My blessing because what writer wouldn't want a breakout hero and a breakout series? And my curse because the popularity of the Legend of Drizzt overshadowed all of the other work I was doing, including some work which I thought very important (to me, at least). When people ask me my favorite book, I tell them Mortalis, the 4th book of my DemonWars series, and I mean it. I don't think I've ever written anything better than that, and doubt I ever will, and yet, more than half the people who know of my work, know only of my Dark Elf work.

So for a while, I admit it, I came to resent Drizzt. I wasn't working for TSR (the previous publisher of the Drizzt books, before Wizards of the Coast bought them) at that time, however, and fortunately so, I guess! I did have this story of Drizzt tripping on a root and falling in a hole and dying of exposure.

You know, just because.

That's all long past, however, and I no longer view Drizzt as a blessing and a curse. Rather, I've come to realize that my work, particularly my Drizzt work, is a shadow of my own personal journey. Through this character and his friends, I've been given the opportunity to not only share my point of view, my fears and my hopes, with others, but to explore those things within myself. I can relate to Carl Sagan when he wrote Cosmos and called it his "spiritual journey." As that was his -- searching for the universal truths of the universe -- so this is mine, searching for that which is in my heart and soul.

And now you come along and ask me if I'm going to kill the bloke!

To that, I can only answer, "I don't know!"

EBR: Where do you go from here, Bob? Any surprises in store for your readers?

Bob: Of course. Surprises for the reader, and for me, or I'll stop writing these books. I've always maintained that I'd write Drizzt books as long as people want to read them and they're fun for me. The way I know it's fun for me is when I'm surprised. I don't write like many other writers I know. I have an outline, sure (that's part of getting the advance checks, after all), but once I get going, I might as well not have one. I write the same way other people read. I don't know what's coming on the next page, so I have to get to it. That's always been the joy of writing for me.

I always find it interesting when some reader proclaims that he knew I was going to kill Character X several books ago. Interesting and amusing, because I assure you that I had no idea such a thing was going to happen. Perhaps I'm tipping off the readers as I'm tipping off myself, subconsciously, as I write the stories.

Or maybe people just want others to think they're really smart.

So yes, to answer your question directly, there are certainly surprises to come. And changes, so many changes, in the life of Drizzt Do'Urden. I wouldn't have it any other way.

EBR: Again, Bob, thank you for stopping by our blog. What do you say we make this an annual deal? Before you go, any parting words for our legions of faithful readers?

Bob: Seems to be morphing into an annual deal, doesn't it? And that's great with me. I love your site and the way you guys treat books: with a sharp eye, a dose of honesty, but always with respect for the effort.

To the readers, I can only say, please don't stop reading. And I don't even mean my works, necessarily. We've lost 3,000 bookstores over the last few years and the industry is in a state of flux. These are scary times, but also promising ones, with the new technologies coming on line -- and by that, I mean not only the e-books and the greater ease in producing audio books, but the technologies that allow for smaller inventories and just-in-time printing and shipping, and even self-publishing. When you see a book you love, don't be quiet about it, please! And I mean that doubly for beginning or lesser-known authors. I've watched publishers brought to tears over their inability to break out wonderful new authors in this difficult corporate framework, and far too many important voices are being silenced because of sales numbers.

So keep reading and keep championing those authors who have brought you joy, or entertainment, or enlightenment. The only person who really matters in the production of a book is the reader, after all.

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What can we say, Bob Salvatore is one of the classiest guys in the business. Period.

Below are the links to the prior stops on Bob's blog tour, as well as links to the next stops. We suggest you show these other bloggers some love by visiting them and clicking all over their sites. Being a blogger takes more work than you think...

1 - http://thetome.podbean.com/
2 - http://lordsoftyr.com/
3 - http://www.dungeoncrawlersradio.com/
4 - http://www.flamesrising.com/gauntlgrym-interview-salvatore/
5 - http://agentlethal.com/talking-with-ra-salvatore-about-gauntlgrym
6 - Uhh, you're already here...you know, Elitist Book Reviews...
7 - http://suvudu.com/

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Lastly, go take a peek at the online scavenger hunt that is going on. You have a chance to win all sorts of prizes; from a signed copy of GAUNTLGRYM and a D&D Starter Set, to stuff even MORE full of win. Go to our other post to check it out:

http://elitistbookreviews.blogspot.com/2010/10/online-scavenger-hunt.html