Lose One, Win One

June 29, 2024 at 7:07 am

You win some, you lose some, some get rained out.

That’s how it goes in baseball, and in the awards game as well.

VOYAGING, Raya Golden’s lovely graphic novel adaptation of “The Plague Star,” the opening novella in my Haviland Tuf series, was a finalist for this year’s Locus Award in the category of Illustrated or Art Books. The awards were presented on June 22, and, alas, we lost. (Or you might say we were “differently victorious,” as the toastmaster did at the 1998 Nebula Awards).

The winner was The CULTURE: The Drawings, by Iain M. Banks, published by Orbit in both the U.S. and U.K.

It was an honor just to be nominated. Congratulations to the winner (Iain M. Banks is terrific, by the way).

In other awards news, back in May of 2023, SFWA presented its Nebula Award for Game Writing to ELDEN RING, from Bandai Entertainment and From Software. I did the worldbuilding for that project; Hidetaka Miyazaka and his team did all the rest. We were both honored with trophies. I was not at the awards banquet, however, and in any case only one trophy was on hand for the event. That one went home to Japan, where it truly belongs.

The other Nebula was completed a few months ago, and made its way to Santa Fe just in time for our solstice party. It was presented to me on June 22… so as fate would have it, I was winning a Nebula and losing a Locus the same night, almost simultaneously.

My thanks go to SFWA, to all the members who voted for me, to all the members who did not, and to Hidetaka Miyazake and his incredible team at From Software, who made ELDEN RING the best-selling (and best) game in the world for 2022.

Oh, and about those rumors you may have heard about a feature film or television series based on ELDEN RING… I have nothing to say. Not a word, nope, not a thing, I know nothing, you never heard a peep from me, mum mum mum. What rumor?

This is my third Nebula, for what it’s worth… and the first in thirty-nine years, since “Portraits of His Children” in 1985.

I did lose quite a few in the intervening years, including the Best Novel awards for A GAME OF THRONES and A CLASH OF KINGS. (I think. Might be getting that wrong).

It’s an honor just to be nominated, though. Gardner Dozois said that, laughing, when he welcomed me into the Nebula Loser wing of the Hugo Loser Club, along about 1974.

You win some, you lose some, and some get rained out.

Current Mood: cheerful

Tags: awards, comic books, games

VOYAGING Vol. 1: THE PLAGUE STAR Graphic Novel COVER

May 23, 2023 at 8:21 am

We are pleased as punch to be announcing the new cover for the upcoming graphic novel adaptation VOYAGING:Vol 1: The Plague Star.

With some excellent recommendations from some old friends and a few new ones, check out the full description below as well as the official cover reveal and Raya Golden’s amazing final art without text. Check out more of Raya’s work and be sure to pre-order your copy today!

Many of you are familiar with the Thousand Worlds and this particular set of short stories as well as their most amusing antagonist. Raya has chosen to keep that a bit of a surprise for prospective new readers and in the spirit of the Red Wedding we hope you’ll keep the secret a bit as well.

(wink wink)

“Voyaging is an overly accomplished piece of science fiction that’s as visually stunning a graphic novel as anything I’ve seen in my 52 years on Earth. George RR Martin’s story is as imaginative as you’d expect from a master of fantasy (and longtime comic book fan), but it’s Raya Golden’s hypnotic art that makes this book shine brightly. With her clean, vibrant style, Golden is instantly in a class with elder statesmen like Frank Quietly. An absolute must-see/must-read!”

— Kevin Smith AKA Silent Bob, comics connoisseur

“Vivid, spectacular, and riveting until the very last page!”

— Sarah Andersen, New York Times bestselling author of Fangs and Sarah’s Scribbles

George RR Martin has created a whole army of memorable characters, but Haviland Tuf marches (or at least, saunters amiably) in the vanguard of that army. Voyaging is an absolute joy as Raya Golden brings a space opera to life. It’s funny, scary and delightful.

— Neil Gaiman

Current Mood: satisfied

Tags: comic books

Fanboying

July 2, 2022 at 8:45 am

These past couple of years, what with covid and all, I have fallen way behind on my movie-going. Which is a shame, since I loved going to movies… in a movie theatre, ideally. Hell, I own a movie theatre. And we have the best popcorn in Santa Fe, still!

We did not have DR. STRANGE AND THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS, however. Elsewise I might have seen it sooner. Parris and I did finally catch it a few days ago, though, and…

I have to say, I loved it.

Sam Raimi has always been one of my favorite directors. And Dr. Strange has always been one of my favorite Marvel characters. And this version of Dr. Strange, slipping through portals into surreal dimensions full of floaty things and alternate realities, was the Doctor I fell in love with, way way way back when world was young (and so was I). They even gave us CLEA! I love Clea!

Seeing this movie brought back a cherished memory, of the day I attended the world’s first comicon, in 1964 in Greenwich Village. I was fifteen years old. The whole con was held in one small room in some sort of union hall, with hucksters selling old comics from cardboard boxes along one wall, and the speakers at a podium in the front. Fabulous Flo Steinberg turned up.. and so did Steve Ditko. It might well have been the only comicon he ever attended… but I got to talk to him, and tell him how much I loved his art. Especially on Dr. Strange. Ditko was reserved, maybe a bit shy, but genial enough. He told me that Dr. Strange was his favorite as well. Yes, even more than Spider-Man.

He’s still one of the best comic artists who ever picked up a pencil, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Anyway… MULTIVERSE woke the sleeping Marvel fanboy in me, and that was a joy.

So says a former member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society.

Current Mood: nerdy nerdy

Tags: comic books, films

Make Mine Marvel

February 19, 2022 at 11:32 am

Me and Marvel Comics go way back.

The first words of mine ever to appear in print (well, not counting my high school newspaper) were “Dear Stan and Jack,” the opening of my letter of comment in FANTASTIC FOUR #20. That was my first appearance in the lettercols, but not my last. I became almost a regular in Marvel letter columns over the next few years… which led me to the nascent comics fandom… and my first published stories in the comics fanzines of the early 60s, superhero stories in prose featuring characters of my own creation like the White Raider, Manta Ray, and Garizan the Mechanical Warrior, along with a few I was “hired” to write (without pay) like Powerman and Dr. Weird.

Those tales started my career, in a strange roundabout way. As a professional, I wrote science fiction, fantasy, and horror… but I never lost my love of superheroes. And that eventually led me to a role-playing game called SuperWorld, which in turn led to the creation of the Wild Cards series along about 1986-7. And now, some thirty-odd books and thirty-six years later, Wild Cards and Marvel are coming together once again.

https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/george-r-r-martin-s-legendary-super-hero-universe-comes-to-marvel-comics-in-new-wild-cards-series

The series is an adaptation of the Wild Cards origin story, scripted by our own Paul Cornell, novelist, scriptwriter, and creator of Abigail the Understudy, a serious actress. Mike Hawthorne provided the art, and Steve Morris the cover.

If you haven’t been reading the Wild Cards books for the last thirty years… well, shame on you… but here’s your chance to see how it all began. Jetboy, Dr. Tachyon, the Four Aces, and the Great and Powerful Turtle are waiting for you.

Current Mood: bouncy bouncy

Tags: comic books, wild cards

Tuf Is Coming… Back

August 10, 2021 at 8:06 am

Long before I ever dreamed of Westeros, I had another setting I returned to again and again and again in a long series of short stories, novelettes, novellas, and even one novel (DYING OF THE LIGHT). The Thousand Worlds stories spanned centuries and light years and had their own cast of heroes, villains, legends, and colorful characters… none of them more colorful than the trader (and ecological engineer) Haviland Tuf, the protagonist of a long series of stories I collected together in the fix up TUF VOYAGING.

I always meant to write more Tuf stories. At one point, back in the 80s, I planned a second collection of stories (TWICE AS TUF) and a full-length Tuf novel (TUF LANDING)… but, alas, other novels and television and ICE & FIRE came along, and what with one thing and another I never got around to writing them. From time to time, I’ve even played with the idea of a television series about Tuf and his adventures… the stories are presently under option, as it happens, but… well, that hasn’t come to pass yet either.

But I am thrilled to be able to say that Haviland Tuf and his cats (he likes cats, y’see) ARE coming back… in a graphic novel.

We have closed a deal with the good folks at Ten Speed Press and Random House for VOYAGING, an adaptation of my novella “The Plague Star.” The very first Tuf story… well, not the first to be published, that was “A Beast for Norn,” but the earliest in Tuf’s personal timeline. More than that I will not say, for fear of spoiling the tale for those of you who have not read it.

The amazing and inimitable RAYA GOLDEN will be doing the adaptation and the art. It will be the third of my projects that Raya had adapted: she did the graphic story version of MEATHOUSE MAN a few years back (and snagged a Hugo nomination for it), followed by a wonderful version of STARPORT, an unproduced television pilot I wrote in the 90s. I loved what she did with that one, but VOYAGING promises to be even more fun.

….these are rough color tests and they may or may not end up looking like this in the end, but I think they’re pretty close to the final versions which I’ll be working from once I finish up the script…

Here’s Raya on the project:

So I’m doing a NEW graphic novel, another adaptation, but THIS one I’ve had my eye on for almost a decade. It’s not slated for release till 2023 as I actually have to Draw the sucker first, but boy am I excited to bring this one to life. For those of you familiar with GRRMs Science Fiction work will be very familiar with this set of short stories BUT due to the nature of this introduction story I don’t want to talk too much about that yet and if y’all remember the story you’ll remember why it’ll be fun to keep the secret with me! Suffice to say this story is an adaptation that is NOT set in GRRMs usual medieval world of Westeros, but instead in his Science fiction universe called The Thousand Worlds.

This first story is just an introduction to this universe, but HOPEFULLY there will be more volumes to come!

Here is the official description:

George R.R. Martin and Raya Golden’s VOYAGING, VOLUME ONE: THE PLAGUE STAR, the first volume of a graphic novel adaptation of TUF VOYAGING, Martin’s short story collection set in his science fiction universe the Thousand Worlds, to be adapted and illustrated by Golden, which follows a group of unlikely spacefaring rogues on a mysterious mission involving unfathomable galactic fame and fortune (but only if they can survive), to Kaitlin Ketchum at Ten Speed Press, in an exclusive submission.

I’ll be working with a friend of mine from College a very talented artist by the name of Ann Marcilleno

https://annmarcellino.tumblr.com

And I’ll be sharing more info as it arrives, but for now I present the cast of the first volume of VOYAGING; from right to left we have: RANITTAS, MUSHROOM (THE CAT), KAJ, JEFRI, CELISE, HAVILAND WITH HAVOC (THE KITTEN), AND AWHINA

Please help me spread the news and like my illustration page

https://www.facebook.com/rayagoldenillustration

AND my website 😉

www.rayagolden.com

If VOYAGING does well, our hope is that Raya will go on to adapt more of Tuf’s adventures into comic form… and who knows, perhaps in time there will even be some NEW tales to tell of our intrepid hairless hero.

As Tuf would say… “Indeed.”

Current Mood: bouncy bouncy

Tags: comic books

Bring Me My Pipe

November 18, 2019 at 9:42 am

I try to get to New York City once or twice a year. It’s one of my favorite cities in the world, and my visits there are always half business, half pleasure.

On the business side, I check in with all my publishers (I have several), my agents (I have several), with my editors (past and present), with my friends and colleagues at HBO (past and present). I often do a signing, an interview, or some other sort of public event. On this most recent visit, Raya Golden and I did a signing down at Midtown Comics for her wonderful graphic novel of my unproduced pilot, STARPORT. We scribbled in hundreds of books, and afterwards sat down for a short interview.

Autographed copies of STARPORT may still be available from Midtown Comics in Manhattan. Or not. We signed a lot of stock, but I am not sure how long they will last. In any case, copies are certainly available from Santa Fe: https://jeancocteaucinema.com/product/starport-graphic-novel-pre-orders/

On the pleasure side… well, we often try to get to a Broadway show or two, but I was too busy this year. I did find time to get together with my friends Ellen Datlow and Mr & Mrs X for a pizza crawl through the wilds of Jersey in search of bar pies. This year we managed to hit the Landmark Tavern in Livingstone and the Star Tavern in Orange, both of which were amazing.

((And if you don’t know what a bar pie is, you don’t know pizza)).

I also combined business and pleasure with a dinner at the historic Keens Steakhouse with Kay McCauley, queen of agents, and my friends from Tor, publisher Tom Doherty and our Wild Cards editor, Diana Pho. http://www.keens.com/

Keens has been a Manhattan mainstay since 1885, famous for their fabulous steaks and mutton chops… and for the hundreds of clay pipes that adorn their ceilings and walls. In ye older times, no meal was considered complete without a bowl at its conclusion, and the regulars at Keens traditionally left their long, fragile “churchwarden” pipes at the restaurant, to be called for at need.

Keens still displays the pipes belonging to Teddy Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, Will Rogers,, Albert Einstein, George M. Cohan, J.P. Morgan, Stanford White, John Barrymore, David Belasco, Adlai Stevenson, Douglas MacArthur, “Buffalo Bill” Cody… and now me.

At the conclusion of the meal, Keens presented me with my own pipe and had me sign it.

My pipe will now join the other celebrity pipes in Keens display cases. And presumably I can call for it at need, the next time I visit New York City and have a hankering for a mutton chop and a bowl. Not that it’s likely to happen, since I don’t smoke. Never have.

And for that matter, Keens Steakhouse does not allow smoking these days, no more than any other Manhattan restaurant.

But it’s still a cool, and unique, honor. My thanks to Tom Doherty and Kay McCauley, who arranged it.

Current Mood: calm calm