The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy

“The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy” is a series of tips, tricks and helpful hints for fantasy writers from Dragon Moon Press. Volume 3 in this series is “The Author’s Grimoire”, and it’s coming out in September. It’s been delayed for quite some time, but it’s going to hit the shelves at last.

What’s so important about a brand new book about writing fantasy that it gets mentioned here, you ask? You mean, besides the fact that it contains an essay by the inestimable Tee Morris, and one by yours truly? Or that Dragon Moon Press is also the publisher of the print version of Scott Sigler’s “Ancestor”?

“The Author’s Grimoire” contains an essay by Joe Murphy, and the book is dedicated to him. I don’t know if this is the last essay he sold or not, but it’s finally coming to print.

So check it out when it hits the shelves.

Fred Saberhagen

Fred Saberhagen passed away on June 29 from cancer. I didn’t know until a “Cover to Cover” listener sent me an email about it. The announcement had even been posted to Slice of SciFi, and I didn’t know.

To say the least, I was stunned.

I never got hooked by his Berserker series as some other friends of mine did back in the day, but I liked the “Empire of the East” series, I enjoyed his Dracula books (I’ve only read through “A Matter of Taste”), and also many of the titles in his Swords series.

Some of the earlier Dracula novels had been hard to find over the years, including “The Dracula Tape”, and “The Holmes-Dracula File” until a few years ago. The first couple of Lost Swords books have also been harder to find than the original Swords books, something I painfully discovered when I thought about getting them again about 10 years ago.

side note: losing two boxes of books during a move can be described as a particular level of Hell. I’m still replacing books that went missing then. Yes, I know they’re easier to find online, but a part of me still loves browsing through used bookstores and seeing for myself the condition of the book I’m going to take home.

“Empire of the East” was just added to the list of Future Topics a few months ago, so maybe I’ll try to get that one scheduled sooner rather than later. FYI, “Empire of the East” is the collected version of what had originally been the separate novels “The Broken Lands”, “The Black Mountains”, and “Ardneh’s World”. A sequel, “Ardneh’s Sword”, was published in 2006, but I don’t have it and haven’t read it yet.

He will be missed.

Links:
Berserker: The Official Fred Saberhagen Site
SFWA News
BoingBoing Announcement
2004 Interview (Baen Books )

Show #32: Pre-show Discussion

Show #32 will be about “War for the Oaks”, a Locus Award-winning fantasy novel by Emma Bull.

Originally published in 1987, and republished in 2001 as a trade pb with this cover, this tale is about a Minneapolis singer who’s in between bands, and is being drafted into the battle between light and dark in the Seelie Court.

It’s got fairies and rock and roll. What else do you need to know?

Emma and husband Will Shetterly now live in Tucson, and occassionally travel to the Phoenix area, so you never know… we might be able to get her on here for another guest discussion.

Did you know that Emma used to be in the band Cats Laughing with Steven Brust?

Clowns Will Eat Me

There are many who fear the clowns…