Odell, ODELL, OOOOOO-DELLLL!!!

November 27, 2014 at 12:04 pm

Okay, last week's football proved beyond a doubt that life is miserable and full of pain.

The Jets snow-shifted game against Buffalo, in Detroit, was a disgrace. The whole team looked awful . No one more so than Michael Vick, whose once-famed elusiveness seems a thing of the past. Even worse than the drubbing was the fact that Vick was so wretched that Rex actually benched him for Geno Smith, and has announced that Geno will start again this week. Argh. A nightmare. Vick is done, and Geno is a bust. GIVE MATT SIMMS A START, I say. He cannot possibly be worse than Vick and Smith. It won't happen, I know, but it should. We need to find out if there is a NFL-calibre on the roster before next year's draft.

The Giants game was far more exciting, but in the end almost as painful, since Big Blue's wretched defense found a way to lose the game to the despised Cowboys after Eli had won it with a masterful fourth quarter drive. The Giants outplayed Dallas for most of the game, but still blew it at the end. Losing is always bad; losing to the Cowboys is worse than bad.

But there was one transcendent moment, one brief burst of joy to take from the weekend of despair. Ladies and gents, I give Odell Beckham Junior, and one of the greatest TD catches in NFL history.

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Tags: nfl

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

November 23, 2014 at 3:43 pm

;… or maybe Menlo Park?

As it happens, I was out in that neck of the woods yesterday, with a couple free hours before heading to the airport to return to Santa Fe, so I did some surprise drop-in stock signings at three local bookstores.

Those of you in northern California, if you are looking for autographed copies of LOWBALL or THE ICE DRAGON or THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE or ROGUES or any of my Ice & Fire novels, hardcover or paperback, check out:

KEPLER'S BOOKS, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park

BARNES & NOBLE , 3600 Stevens Creek Blvd, San Jose

HICKLEBEE's, 1378 Lincoln Avenue, San Jose

You'll find signed copies of my books at all of them… while the supplies last.

(Which won't be long. Especially at Hicklebee's).

Would have loved to drop by some of the other great bookstores in the Bay Area as well, but we ran out of time.

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Tags: signed books

Amanda’s Art of Asking

November 20, 2014 at 2:58 pm

When Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman visited the Jean Cocteau Cinema in September, Amanda read a bit for us from her new book, THE ART OF ASKING. Sounded very cool…. unfortunately, we couldn't sell any copies, since the book had not yet been published. The only copy on site was the advance copy that Amanda was reading from.

But hey, the wait is over… the ART OF ASKING has now been published, as of 11/11, and should be available at your local bookstore, or from your favorite online bookseller (alas, we don't have any signed copies available at the Jean Cocteau, but we hope to remedy that the next time Amanda and Neil come to visit).

Amanda says:
" it's a book about….a lot of things. my marriage, my days as a weird street performer, my amazing band and label disaster,
my difficulties dealing with a best friend who's had cancer for the past three years; but that's all sort of a veil.
mostly it's an attempt to try to discover why all human beings (especially artists) has such a hard time asking for things.

i poured my heart into it. it's a really personal book.
it's also really FUNNY.
and sad.
it's a weird book.
but i'm really, really proud of it."

Everything you could want to know about ordering a copy can be found here: http://amandapalmer.net/

Happy reading. Happy asking.

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Tags: reading

More Wild Cards Goodness

November 19, 2014 at 1:00 pm

The last few months have passed in such a blur that I forgot to shout out the new Wild Cards story on Tor.com.

This one is by Carrie Vaughn, entitled "Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza." The illustration is by the amazing John Picacio.

An untold tale of Earth Witch in the aftermath of the events of the first Committee triad, "Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza" is all new and original, published here for the first time.

You can check it out at http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/10/nuestra-senora-de-la-esperanza-carrie-vaughn

Check out Carrie's other books as well.

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Tags: tor, wild cards

Wild Cards, by Lego

November 19, 2014 at 11:26 am

Here's a hoot and a half — a LEGO version of Wild Cards, put together by a fan.

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Tags: fandom, wild cards

Iron from Ice

November 18, 2014 at 12:28 am

There's a new GAME OF THRONES computer game on the way, this one from Telltale Games.

Unlike the earlier games from Cyanide, this is an HBO license, derived from the television series rather than the novels, so the characters will look like their TV incarnations, and in many cases will be voiced by the actors who play them on the show. The action is centered around House Forrester, bannermen to the Starks of Winterfell whose seat in the wolfswood. (Some Forresters are mentioned in the Stannis chapters, when he marches south from the Wall to attack Winterell, but very little is said about them, which made them ideal for game purposes).

The game will be sort of a side story to the show (and books), swirling and around major events. Ty Franck, my longtime assistant who went off to become half of James S.A. Corey and write the Expanse novels, acted as a consultant on story and continuity for Telltale.

The first teaser trailer has just been released. Have a look:

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Tags: game of thrones, hbo, videogame

More Pain

November 16, 2014 at 5:19 pm

It's a wonder the score was so close. The Niners dominated much of the game, but to the credit of Big Blue's D, they bent but did not break, and denied San Francisco several times in the red zone. If only the offense had been able to take advantage…

But no. Every time it seemed as if points were in prospect, Bad Eli threw another one to the Niners. Even so, with time running out in the fourth quarter, the G-Men were down at the five with first and goal. Four runs with Rashad Jennings and maybe we steal the win. Instead we got three fades (all incomplete) and an INT. Game over.

The only good to salvage from the afternoon: it does appear New York has found a genuine star in Odell Beckhem Jr. He could very well turn into the best wideout the Giants have had since… well, since forever… and next year, if Victor Cruz returns to form, Big Blue could have one of the best receiving tandems in the league.

But that's next year. And we'll still need some more studs on the O-line, to help keep Eli alive and upright.

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Tags: nfl

More Signed Books

November 12, 2014 at 2:02 pm

Hmmmm…. that went well… those 14 signed hardcovers of DANGEROUS WOMEN went in a few hours, my team at the Cocteau tells me. So let's go ahead and offer a few more autographed books.

We have seventeen remaining copies in stock of Dennis Lehane's novel THE DROP, signed by the author.

drop

Price is $24.99. Add $15 S+H (media mail) or $25 S+H (priority mail).

We also have twenty-two copies of Anne Perry's mystery novel, DEATH ON BLACKHEATH, available in hardcover.

blackheath

Those are $27, plus S+H as above.

And I will include another of my own titles as well. We have the long out-of-print Meisha Merlin hardcover of TUF VOYAGING (with wonderful interior art by Janet Aulisio, and a cover by Michael Komarck) available in two states, a trade hardcover and a slipcased limited.

tuf10

The trade hardcover sells for $30, the slipcased limited edition for $120. Plus $15 S+H for media mail, $25 S+H for priority.

All orders should be placed with the Jean Cocteau via PayPal at jeancocteausantafe@gmail.com

Thanks.

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Tags: jean cocteau, signed books

Dangerous Women Take HPL’s Head

November 10, 2014 at 7:00 pm

DANGEROUS WOMEN, the big crossgenre anthology that Gardner Dozois and I edited for Tor, was announced as the winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology of 2013 on Sunday, at the World Fantasy Convention in Washington, DC.

I wasn't able to attend the con this year (I do hope to be at next year's event, in Saratoga), but Gardner was on hand, and accepted for the both of us.

wfa 2014

The news came as a pleasant surprise… nay, even a shock. Neither Gardner nor I thought we had a prayer of winning. The anthology shortlist was very strong this year. But this one is case where I was glad to be proved wrong.

My thanks to the fans and readers who nominated us, to the judges who chose us as winner, to our editors and publishers and all the rest of the good folks at Tor and Harper. And of course to our writers, whose talents made DANGEROUS WOMEN. We had a great lineup:

INTRODUCTION, by Gardner Dozois
SOME DESPERADO, by Joe Abercrombie
MY HEART IS EITHER BROKEN, by Megan Abbott
NORA’S SONG, by Cecelia Holland
THE HANDS THAT ARE NOT THERE, by Melinda Snodgrass
BOMBSHELLS, by Jim Butcher
RAISA STEPANOVA, by Carrie Vaughn
WRESTLING JESUS, by Joe R. Lansdale
NEIGHBORS, by Megan Lindholm
I KNOW HOW TO PICK ‘EM, by Lawrence Block
SHADOWS FOR SILENCE IN THE FORESTS OF HELL, by Brandon Sanderson
A QUEEN IN EXILE, by Sharon Kay Penman
THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR, by Lev Grossman
SECOND ARABESQUE, VERY SLOWLY, by Nancy Kress
CITY LAZARUS, by Diana Rowland
VIRGINS, by Diana Gabaldon
HELL HATH NO FURY, by Sherilynn Kenyon
PRONOUNCING DOOM, by S.M. Stirling
NAME THE BEAST, by Sam Sykes
CARETAKERS, by Pat Cadigan
LIES MY MOTHER TOLD ME, by Caroline Spector
THE PRINCESS AND THE QUEEN, by George R.R. Martin

For those of you who missed DANGEROUS WOMEN in hardcover, the anthology is being released in mass market (in three volumes) by Tor in the US and HarperVoyager in the UK. All three of the British paperbacks and the first two of the American are on the stands, and available from Amazon and other online booksellers. Gardner and I are very proud of this one. We hope you check it out.

For the full list of this year's World Fantasy Awards winners, go to:

http://www.locusmag.com/News/2014/11/world-fantasy-awards-winners-2014/

This is my third Howard. I won Best Novella for "The Skin Trade" a couple of decades ago, and more recently a Lifetime Achievement Award… which I guess makes this one a post-lifetime achievement. I look forward to lining up my three HPLs on the mantlepiece.

wfawardrev

Aieeeeeeeeee…………………….

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Tags: anthologies, awards, world fantasy convention

Worldbook Rides High

November 9, 2014 at 6:33 pm

The reports are in from both sides of the Atlantic, and I'm thrilled to be able to report that THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE has debuted at #2 on the bestseller lists in both the US and the UK… though, somewhat oddly, in two different categories.

In the United Kingdom, the worldbook turned up as #2 in hardcover fiction in the SUNDAY TIMES for November 2.

51zU+YISeUL._

Over on this side of the pond, however, the NEW YORK TIMES does not appear to consider the worldbook fiction, so instead we've crashed onto the lists in the rather odd category of "Advice, How To, and Miscellaneous."

http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2014-11-16/advice-how-to-and-miscellaneous/list.html

Our maesters would no doubt be outraged, and insist their work was entirely non-fiction. Me, I'd call it fiction. Fake history isn't precisely FACT, after all. Then again, THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE is an art book too, so maybe "miscellaneous" is a good place to put it.

Truth be told, I don't care what they call it. Categories have never mattered much to me. Fiction, non-fiction, self-help, an art book… call it what you like, so long as you read and enjoy it. This one was a LOT of work, and I am thrilled to see it doing so well.

My thanks and congratulations to our crack teams at Harper Voyager and Bantam Spectra, to the designers and artists who made the book as gorgeous as it is, and of course to my partners in fake history, Elio Garcia and Linda Antonsson.

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Tags: bestseller lists, world of ice and fire

Not a Blog

Odell, ODELL, OOOOOO-DELLLL!!!

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

Amanda’s Art of Asking

More Wild Cards Goodness

Wild Cards, by Lego

Iron from Ice

More Pain

More Signed Books

Dangerous Women Take HPL’s Head

Worldbook Rides High

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