In your email, be sure to include your address and the name of the person to whom the book should be dedicated.  That’s it.  Easy peasy.

So what follows is a non-exhaustive nomenclature of book reviewer types (and take this in the spirit it’s written, i.e. exaggerated for fun ).

The Professional:  The Professional does just what it says on the tin.  The Professional reviews books for a major publication or site but does so in a way that’s of only moderate use to, you know, actual readers. The Professional isn’t so much interested in prose, plot, or characterization, but moreso in how the book does or does not deconstruct the assumptions of post-modern Western civilization. The Professional despises “fun” books.  He/she writes book reviews primarily for other Professionals(so they can chat at dinner parties), not so much for readers.  Still, the Professional sometimes provides an important viewpoint.  But beware the Jaded Pro, who’s read every damned thing and finds it all just so tedious. The Jaded Pro has “world weary” tattooed across his/her knuckles, wears a t-shirt that says “fuck all this shit” and is basically just phoning it in.

The Semipro a/k/a The Fan. The Semipro is a book blogger, but not a Professional. He/she is just an avid reader who loves the genre he/she reviews. The degree to which a Semipro is educated and/or well-read in the genre varies, but the Semipro writes reviews born of a love for books and does so in the language of a general reader. These are (IMO) the most useful and best reviews, and are often very insightful. Ah, but beware the Fanboy Semipro, who once met G.R.R. Sanderfuss at a con and was immediately smitten. For the Fanboy Semipro all other books must needs be compared against the masterful storytelling of that dreamy G.R.R. Sanderfuss and will inevitably be found wanting in the comparison.

The Smartypants. The Smartypants is a variant on the Semipro, but is different enough to warrant his/her own category. The Smartypants probably holds an advanced degree from a quality university and peppers his/her reviews with words the average reader will need to look up. The Smartypants often has very insightful things to say if one can endure the convoluted way he/she says it. Of course, one must beware The Pseudo-Intellectual Smartypants, who’s not so much interested in reviewing a book as making damned sure that you know he/she has a Ph.d in something and that he/she is one smart cookie. Any review that contains a sentence like, “This reminds me of a passage from [obscure novel], which I read in the original French/Hebrew/Esperanto and….” is strongly indicative of a Pseudo-Intellectual Smartypants.

The Snarker. The Snarker uses book reviewing as a way to demonstrate his/her wit and cleverness. Despite that, the review itself is often quite good (and funny). Unless, of course, one is dealing with the Bitter Snarker. The Bitter Snarker is often an aspiring but unpublished writer, or a writer/editor who’s met with only modest commercial success, and who uses the review as a vehicle to inflict his/her bitterness on the world that wronged him/her, or otherwise refused to acknowledge his/her genius.

The Hater. The Hater is an unpleasant human being who hates every damned book. The Hater writes the first draft of his/her review in smeared shit on the plain gray walls of the one-room garret in which he/she holes up, and from which he/she looks down on the world through eyes nearly blind from spite. Worse still is the -ism Hater. The -ism Hater views the world through the lens of that one undergrad class they took that one time at that one mediocre college, which class “opened their eyes” to the injustice of the world as reflected in their pet -ism. Now the -ism Hater hates every book everywhere for failing to adequately rectify the evil of that -ism. Eventually the -ism Hater grows up or devolves into gibbering madness, either of which is to the good.

As has been my habit, I’m posting a new monthly excerpt below.  Previous excerpts can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.

I also want to note that anyone pre-ordering the book (or the audio book or the ebook) from any retailer should send me evidence of the purchase so I can say “thanks” by sending you a coupon for a free copy of my ebook short story collection, Ephemera (details are here).  Lots of you have done this already and you have my sincere thanks.  Pre orders are a big deal.

Anyway, on to the excerpt.  This bit finds the boys in the Wastes outside of Dur Follin.

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Men were shouting all around Nix, horses whinnying. Egil shouted his name. He had time enough only to curse, leap to his feet, and put hand to blade hilt before the creatures were upon him. Chaos followed, a mad churn of sound: men screaming, the creatures shrieking and growling, the beat of wings, the snap of fangs.

Nix ducked low, eschewed his falchion, and put a dagger in each hand. He slashed and stabbed at anything within reach. In rough form, the creatures were about the size and shape of a goose. Leathery skin covered their bodies, and four overlapping membranous wings sprouted from their backs. Their necks ended in sleek heads. Small, red eyes perched over mouths lined with tiny fangs. Their taloned claws looked like those of a raptor. They shrieked, growled, and hissed as they swarmed.

A creature tore at Nix’s arm, a claw scratched his hand and cheek, and another creature landed on his back and sank its teeth into his scalp. He shouted with pain, reached back, grabbed it, and threw its fluttering form to the earth. He stomped it to death as he slashed another of the creatures hovering before him and snapping at his face. The fiends were everywhere, shrieking, biting, tearing exposed flesh.

One landed on his legs, talons sinking into flesh, biting at his thigh. Another one appeared, diving for his face, clawed feet and toothy mouth snapping at his eyes and nose. He reeled backward, ducking, stumbling through several more, slashing as he went, severed wings and legs and throats. But for every creature he killed, another took its place, another. Teeth sank into his ear; claws dug into his scalp. He roared and twirled, stabbing and slashing wildly.

Egil did the same five paces from him, the priest’s shouts like the bellows of an angry bull. His hammers spun through the air so fast they hummed, pulping the creatures three and four at a swing. All around the campsite, the other guards were shrieking, bleeding. Blood dripped into Nix’s eyes from his wounded scalp. Already his arms were tiring. Panic fogged the air along with the screams.

The horses, unyoked from the wagons for the night but tethered to outcroppings of rock, whinnied and stomped, trapped by their tethers. Dozens of the creatures landed on the poor animals and tore at their flesh. The horses bucked, bellowed, pulled at their reins, heads shaking, muscles straining.

“Save the horses!” Baras shouted, and several of his guards ran for the animals through the cloud of creatures. They chopped wildly with their blades as they ran.

One of the guards, separated from the others, went down. Nix ran for him, but more than a dozen of the creatures swarmed him. Teeth snapped before his eyes, sank into his hands, causing him to curse and drop a dagger. He drew another as he recoiled from the creatures, slashing and stabbing those he could reach.

“Help! Get them off!” the downed guard called.

The creatures squawked and swarmed the guard until he was covered in a blanket of their scaled bodies. He dropped his weapon, his arms flailing wildly, desperately, screaming in terror and pain.

Baras and Egil roared and charged toward the fallen man from opposite directions, but before they could get to him, the creatures had sunk their talons into his flesh and clothes and lifted him into the air. He hung limp in their collective grasp, perhaps already dead, arms and legs dangling like a doll’s. Egil leaped for him but the man was already out of reach.

Baras cursed and, shielding his head and face, ran to help his men in protecting the horses. Egil fell in with him. The draft animals were panicked, kicking and whinnying, and Baras went down trying to dodge a kick from one of them. Egil grabbed him by the collar and pulled him away, and together with the other guards they beat back a furious attack from scores of the flying creatures.

“Everyone here!” Egil called. “We need to fight together! Nix!”

Nix slashed a creature tearing at his arm, stomped another on the ground, cleared the air before him with a furious series of slashes. The creatures formed a cloud around him, an endless flutter of wings, snapping teeth, and slashing talons. Bleeding and fatigued, Nix made a run for the horses, slashing furiously as he ran. Blood ran into his eyes, blinded him, and he stumbled on rock, fell.

The moment he hit the ground dozens of the creatures landed on him, ripping his clothes and flesh, tearing at his leather jack. One bit the back of his neck, his scalp again, tearing loose a clump of hair. Another bit his ear. He tried to roll over and bring his blades to bear, but before he could he felt the sickening, terrifying feeling of his body being lifted up. Two score of the creatures at least clutched him by his flesh and his clothes and were bearing him into the air. He watched in horror as the ground fell away beneath him. He flashed on an image of himself carried into one of the holes in the earth they’d seen earlier, his body reduced to bones, made part of a mound of the dead. Panic lent him strength. He kicked and squirmed frenetically, desperately.

“Egil! Egil!”

He tried to turn his body, slash with his blade, but only managed to writhe to no effect. A talon tore a furrow in his cheek, narrowly missing his eye. He twisted and squirmed wildly, fueled by fear and adrenaline. He managed to dislodge enough of the creatures that they lost some altitude, but they did not release him. Teeth sank into his legs, his arms. Blood dripped from his wounds, dotted the earth. He started to rise again.

“Shite! Egil!”

He glimpsed Egil a fraction of a second before the priest leaped high for him and tackled him back to earth. Nix felt the squirming, fluttering death throes of several of the creatures crushed between his body and the earth. He rolled to the side and climbed to his feet, swinging his blade at the hissing creatures attacking him from all sides. Egil did the same, his hammers reaping the creatures in twos and threes.

The priest grabbed Nix by the arm and propelled him along toward Baras and the horses, fending off the creatures as best he could with one hammer.

“I’m good,” Nix said, shaking his arm free and stabbing a creature with his dagger.

“Maybe put on some weight though, eh?” Egil said, grinning, his face bloody and torn.

From Angry Robot, we have Evil Dark, by Justin Gustainis. This sounds very cool. From the back matter:

My name’s Markowski. I carry a badge. Also a crucifix, some wooden stakes, big vial of holy water and a 9mm Beretta loaded with silver bullets.

A series of seemingly motiveless murders of supernatural creatures points to a vigilante targeting the supe community of Scranton.

Markowski wouldn’t normally have much of a problem with that, but his daughter may be next on the killer’s list…

In the galaxy far, far away we have the mass market paperback re-issue of Deceived, written by me. I’d hoped the mmpb would also include my Malgus short story from Star Wars Insider, “The Third Lesson,” but I’m not sure if it does. If anyone knows, please let me know. Meanwhile, from the back matter:

A Sith warrior to rival the most sinister of the Order’s Dark Lords, Darth Malgus brought down the Jedi Temple on Coruscant in a brutal assault that shocked the galaxy. But if war crowned him the darkest of Sith heroes, peace will transform him into something far more heinous—something Malgus would never want to be but cannot stop becoming, any more than he can stop the rogue Jedi fast approaching. Her name is Aryn Leneer—and the lone Jedi Knight that Malgus cut down in the fierce battle for the Jedi Temple was her Master. Now she’s going to find out what happened to him, even if it means breaking every rule in the book.

And in the Forgotten Realms, we have the second War of the Spider Queen omnibus, which collects Extinction (by Lisa Smedman), Annihilation (by Phil Athans), and Resurrection (by me). Get your drow fix on (read my thoughts and some trivia on the series here). From the back matter:

The War of the Spider Queen–the epic, six-book series from the fertile imaginations of R.A. Salvatore and a select group of the Forgotten Realms best-selling authors–begins here. Ten years after its initial publication, we are packaging this ground-breaking series in two attractive collector’s editions.

Happy reading! 

WotSQ was the second multi-author series I worked on for Wizards of the Coast.  Sembia was the first, but the two series were quite different.  With the Sembia series, each of the seven authors had their own character (Erevis Cale, in my case) and told their own story, albeit in a shared setting and with considerable crossover between characters.  In that respect, Sembia was very much like Thieves’ World.  WotSQ, on the other hand, involved six authors writing one collective story and using the same characters.  As you can imagine, this presented some creative challenges and made the hand-off from book to book key.  This could only work well if all the writers and editors involved were talented pros. Fortunately that was the case with WotSQ.

For my part, Resurrection was the hardest book I’ve ever written.  There were a couple reasons for that. First, I wasn’t originally pegged to write it; someone else was, but that fell through for some reason. So I came into the series late, without having followed it beforehand. Hello, crash course.  Second, I was writing characters that I hadn’t created, so they didn’t really feel mine at first.  That changed while I wrote the book, though, and by the end I felt very comfortable with Halisstra (she really gets put through her paces and undergoes a lot of development) and Pharaun.  Third, there was a creative constraint that I had to work around.  Just one, but it was a biggie: I was told how the book had to end.  I could get there any way I wanted, but it had to end a particular way.  I’d never had to work that way before and, I’ll admit, it bugged me at first.  But it worked out fine. In the end, the whole experience was great and I’m delighted that the series has been so widely read, and continues to be, even ten years later.

And now some trivia (with SPOILERS):

When WotC offered me the opportunity to write Resurrection, I had just finished Dawn of Night and was starting on Midnight’s Mask.  My editor at the time, Phil Athans, told me that if I wanted to do the Spider Queen wrap-up, WotC could delay the release of Midnight’s Mask.  I didn’t like that idea (because even then I regarded Cale as my signature character and I didn’t want to delay the release of the third book of the trilogy) but Phil talked me into it and I’m glad he did.

As a result of the last minute author switch I mentioned above, I had to write Resurrection on a very tight deadline.  Very stressful.  Not sure I could or would do that today.

In my initial outline of the book, Gromph Baenre died in magical combat with the Lichdrow. We changed that in a subsequent iteration and Gromph survives the fall of House Agrach Dyrr – barely.

In my first draft of the book(or maybe just the outline, I can’t remember) Pharaun lived.  In the published book, he does not.

Originally I named the various places in the Demonweb Pits with Dante-esque sounding names.  I don’t remember any in particular, but they would have been something like “The Pillars of Transgression” and the like.  We cut those and replaced them with more Drowish sounding names.

I’m particularly proud of my invention of The Seething, which squicked out some readers.    I love it as a reflection of Lolth’s doctrine.

I’ve gotten more reader mail about Resurrection than any book I’ve written (save perhaps The Old Republic: Deceived).  Readers loved the book passionately or hated it with the heat of ten thousand suns.  Very few felt indifferent.  The death of Pharaun was the particular event that inspired the most vitriol (by far).

Resurrection has sold more copies than any other book I’ve written.  It’s ten years old, of course, so it’s had a long time to build up sales, but it’s still done very well. In English, the book has sold somewhere between 200,000-300,000 copies (across all formats) and continues to sell strongly today.  It’s been translated into (I think) upwards of a dozen languages, but I have no idea of actual unit sales in foreign countries.  Probably a lot though. So, you know, rock on, you Drow bastards.

Finally, I want to note my enormous gratitude to Phil Athans and R.A. Salvatore for letting me contribute to the series and for being such excellent editors.  It was a blast and it’s something I’m proud to have been a part of.

To encourage pre-orders (and as a way of saying “thanks”), I’d like to give a free digital copy of Ephemera, my dark short story collection (in Kindle, ePub, or pdf format; your choice), to everyone who pre-orders The Hammer and the Blade.

Accordingly, if you pre-order The Hammer and the Blade and also want a digital copy of Ephemera, just email me (at paulsvantekemp at yahoo dot com) evidence of the pre-order and I’ll send you a coupon code for a free copy of Ephemera.  Easy peasy.  I hope you’ll take advantage of the offer. 

Write a great book.*

That’s it.

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*Obviously there are a lot of social media/marketing things you can and probably should do.  But having done this a long time, having watched the careers of other writers at a distance, I can tell you that the best and most important thing you can do is write a great book and tell a great story.  With very rare exceptions (which exceptions would include big marketing budgets, and few of us get that), you can’t manufacture hype.  A book has to come by it honestly, which means readers must love your work enough to talk about it/recommend it/review it.  And that means telling them a great story.  So don’t spend a bunch of time planning a social media strategy.  Instead, spend a bunch of time polishing the story.  Fin.

Tom S. and Peter A.

Each of you please send me an email at paulsvantekemp at yahoo dot com and we’ll figure out the dedication and shipping address and whatnot.

On a related note, I really appreciate the enthusiasm everyone showed.  I’m excited about the novel and it’s nice to know that many of you are, too.  I think you’re going to dig it muchly.

To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment to this blog post.  As always, please enter only once and use a username that’s reasonably distinctive.  I’ll choose two entrants at random next Friday at noon and announce them on the blog.

As to shipping costs:  I’ll bear the cost of shipping to U.S. addresses.  If you’re international, I’ll bear the first $5USD of the international shipping charges, but you’ll have to Paypal me the difference (if any).

So, I hope you’ll enter.  It’s a good book and you’ll enjoy it.  Meanwhile, excerpts from The Hammer and the Blade are available here, here, here,  here, and here.  Two early reviews of the novel are here and here.

See?  They liked it.  So will you.