Friday, July 26, 2013

Hugo Awards Voting Deadline is July 31, 2013

The Hugos are one of the most prestigious awards in our field, and they are given out by the readers themselves. The deadline for voting for the Hugo Awards is approaching quickly. Less than a week left! For a ballot to be counted, it needs to be in by Wednesday, July 31, 2013 before midnight, Texas time.

So, if you were considering joining Worldcon to vote, you don't have a lot of time left. (Full disclosure, The Emperor's Soul by yours truly is up for an award in the novella category. Also, Writing Excuses has been nominated its third year running for best related work.)

For the last few years, the Hugo Awards have been offering a "Voter's Packet" to everyone eligible to vote, and it includes ebooks of basically everything nominated. To be eligible to vote, you have to buy at least a "Supporting Membership" to Worldcon, which costs $60.

So, for sixty bucks, you get a selection of the best sf/fantasy published last year––including five novels and a ton of short fiction. It's one of the best deals out there, and you get to vote for what you consider the best fiction of the year as well. (You'll also get to nominate for next year's awards.) Unlike the Academy Awards or the Grammys, these awards aren't chosen by distant committees––they are chosen by discerning fans.

As always, I strongly suggest that you read/watch/listen to the majority (if not all) of the entries in a category before voting on it. Do not vote for your favorite author; vote for what you actually think is the best work. As the voting is in our hands, let's do what we can to maintain the integrity of the award.

(Though, if you do join now and only have a week or so left, you should totally read the novella category first, so you can vote on that one without running out of time. Just saying...)

It was great seeing many of you at San Diego last weekend! I look forward to meeting more of you at my upcoming events!

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

State of the Sanderson

It has been quite a busy time these last six or seven months. Too busy, maybe? A lot of great experiences, but it has cut into my time to be at home writing. Let me give you a little update of what I’m doing writing-wise.

First off, of course, is Words of Radiance. If you weren’t watching, I finished the rough draft of this book (the second book of the Stormlight Archive, and sequel to The Way of Kings) late June. I sent it off to my agent and editor for commentary and advice. I got back my editor’s notes last week, my agent’s notes today, and Peter just finished assembling everything together and doing a tight, continuity-focused copyedit of the entire manuscript. At 360k words, it’s roughly the length of A Memory of Light.

Obviously, there’s a lot left to do here. Tor keeps talking about January as a publication month, and I’d like to meet that, if at all possible. That’s going to require me to do several drafts of the novel over the next two months. More updates as we progress, but I’m pleased with the book. It has only a few large flaws, and I think they can be fixed fairly quickly.

During July, I took time off from major projects to have a breather. If you aren’t aware, I prefer to do smaller projects between big epics as a means of helping me stay fresh. This month’s “breather” stories include a novelette (9k words) piece set in the Steelheart world, which should be published as an e-original around Christmastime. I also did some work in the Infinity Blade world. (More on that later. If you aren’t aware, this is a video game that friends of mine make. I’ve enjoyed being involved to practice my video-game writing chops, with an eye toward doing Mistborn video game writing.)

My next major writing project will be the sequel to Steelheart, which is called Firefight. (And if you haven’t seen the trailer, Prologue, or teaser chapters for Steelheart, please go give them a look! We’re hoping for big things from this novel.) As you might be aware, I will often be preparing for/writing one piece while I do revisions on another. I generally can only do new prose on one piece at a time, but I like to be revising and writing on two different things at once. So, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be writing Firefight and revising Words of Radiance.

What does this mean for future projects? Well, let me go down the list of sequels in order of current urgency.

1) Rithmatist Sequel. I will hop on writing the next one very soon.

2) Shadows of Self. (The next Wax and Wayne Mistborn novel.) I’ve finished some sample chapters of this and have a fairly solid outline. Expect to see me writing on this sometime early next year.

3) Book Three of Stormlight. I don’t want to let this series languish with three year gaps between books, as I was forced to do between books one and two. Because of this, I’ll try to be doing them at 18 month or 24 month intervals at the most. Do note that the books, at around a thousand pages each, are HUGE undertakings. The way I write, I have to space out projects like this. They’ll be regular, I promise, but part of the reason I’m so productive is because I allow myself freedom to work on different projects, instead of being beholden to one series.

4) Calamity (Book Three of Steelheart.) This will be the final of that trilogy.

5) Elantris Sequel. (This is getting close. Should be doing this in the relatively near future.)

6) Legion Sequel. I have sample chapters of this done, but as it’s a side project, it can’t command prime writing time. I will probably slip it in between some of the books above somewhere, but I can’t promise when.

7) Final Rithmatist book. (I’m not 100% sure this will be a trilogy. It might just be two books.)

8) Nightblood. (Warbreaker sequel.) This one is still fairly far off.

9) Alcatraz 5. Still planning to write this. We have to find a home for the series, however, as I bought the rights back to it from Scholastic earlier this year. Within the next couple of months, my US readers will be able to buy my British publisher's omnibus edition of the first four books.

As for non-sequel, original projects, here’s what might be coming in the future, as they stand now.

1) "Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell." Cosmere novella set on a new world. Find it in GRRM and Gardner Dozois’s anthology called Dangerous Women, which I believe is coming out Christmastime. Read an excerpt on Tor.com.

2) "Sixth of the Dusk." Cosmere novella set on a new world. Written following a Writing Excuses brainstorm. Still needs a revision, but should be released later this year.

3) The Silence Divine. Standalone Cosmere Novel. Modestly far off, but maybe not too far. I don’t want to be stuck writing only sequels. Though, since I did release two new books this year (Rithmatist and Steelheart) in new worlds, starting new series, I will probably wait on this one until those series are done.

4) The Liar of Partinel. Cosmere Novel, set on the original planet of Yolen and dealing with Hoid’s origin story. Very far off right now.

5) Skyward. (Working title.) Young Adult cosmere novel. In the early stages of development. Probably a few years of.

6) Dark One. Non-cosmere YA novel. Still haven’t been able to get this one off the ground. I had a chance, but The Rithmatist worked better, and I wrote that instead. Don’t hold your breath on this one, though someday I might post the sample chapters that I wrote a few years back.

7) Death By Pizza. (Urban Fantasy.) This book was fun, but not remotely good enough to publish. We’ll see if I ever get the bug to go back and fix it.

8) White Sand. Cosmere trilogy. Some fun things are happening here, but I can’t really talk about them right now.

And finally, media properties.

1) Mistborn: Birthright. (Video Game for consoles and maybe PC, cross platform.) We’re looking at 2015 for this right now. (Sorry.) The new console generation made us push it back. I’m still planning to write it, and development is still moving. It’s far from dead.

2) Mistborn film. Option runs out in January. I’ve had a very good experience with the producers, but so far, we do not have funding for the film. We’ll have to see where we are in another six months.

3) Legion television show. Lionsgate still has this under option!

4) Steelheart Film. I had lunch with the producer at Comic-Con. It's still early in the process, but they're very engaged and very excited.

That's it for updates. For now, I should get back to work on the Firefight outline. As always, thank you all for reading!

Friday, July 19, 2013

Read preview #2 of STEELHEART, STEELHEART poster, STEELHEART book trailer!

So, I'm at Comic-Con in San Diego right now. You can see my schedule here.

Among the other things I'm doing at the con is an interview with MTV Geek. That's not a public event at the convention, but they will be streaming it live on their site on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. Pacific time. And as part of the interview livestream, MTV Geek will be premiering the book trailer that Delacorte made for STEELHEART. It will be exciting, so set your alarms for 1:00 p.m. Pacific in two days. (Right now their countdown clock says the trailer reveal will be at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, but we're pretty sure that's a mistake.)

And right now, MTV Geek has put up a new preview of STEELHEART on their site. If you haven't read the prologue you should read that first, and then come back and read chapters 10 and 11 on MTV Geek's site.

MTV Geek has also revealed the Comic-Con exclusive Steelheart poster by DC Comics artist John Van Fleet. Go there to check it out. I'll be signing prints of the poster with Mr. Van Fleet at the DC Comics booth #1915 today at 11:00 a.m.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

My San Diego Comic-Con International Schedule

I'm leaving today for Comic-Con, and I'll be there Friday through Sunday. See you there! There will also be a Steelheart trailer reveal online on Sunday with MTV Geek; I'll add the link later.

Date: July 19–21, 2013
Place: San Diego Convention Center
Address: 111 West Harbor Drive
San Diego, CA 92101

Schedule:

Friday, July 19th

11:00–11:30 a.m., booth 1915
DC Entertainment Signing with John Van Fleet
Signing exclusive Steelheart poster prints by John Van Fleet

2:30–3:30 p.m., Room 24ABC
Epic Fantasy Panel
Dragons, elves, and magic—epic fantasy transports us to another world. Colleen Lindsay and some of the genre's biggest authors discuss the worlds of their own creation and what fantasy has to say about our own world: Robin Hobb (Blood of Dragons), Raymond Feist (Magician's End), Django Wexler (The Thousand Names), Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn and The Wheel of Time series), Melissa de la Cruz (Frozen), Christopher Paolini (the Inheritance cycle), and Daniel Abraham (The Tyrant's Law).

4:00–5:00 p.m., Table AA09, Autograph Area
Signing by authors from the Epic Fantasy Panel

5:00–6:00 p.m., booth 2707 Tor Booth Signing
Brandon will sign copies of The Way of Kings (and probably any other books you bring)

Saturday, July 20th

1:00–2:00 p.m., booth 1515
Random House Booth Signing
Signing ARCs of Steelheart
This is a ticketed signing. Tickets can be picked up at the Random House booth 1515 on Saturday when the booth opens. The line will start forming 15 minutes before the signing.

Sunday, July 21st

2:30–3:30 p.m., Room 23ABC
Safety Not Guaranteed, Post-Apocalyptic Panel
Dystopian societies, postapocalyptic scenarios, enhanced (and deadly) abilities, and mysterious government branches make the future a not-so-safe place to be. Moderator Anna Jarzab (Tandem) joins authors Marie Lu (the Legend series), Gen Albin (Crewel), Brandon Sanderson (Steelheart), Margaret Stohl (Icons), Amy Tintera (Reboot), and Michael Johnston (Frozen) as they discuss what it takes to survive in the future worlds they've created.

4:00–5:00 p.m., Table AA09, Autograph Area
Signing with the previous panel's authors. Brandon will sign ARCs of Steelheart (and probably any other books you bring).

Notes:

The "Firstborn"/"Defending Elysium" con exclusive hardcover will be on sale at Mysterious Galaxy's booth, #1119.

Badali Jewelry will be at booth #532/534 with their beautiful assortment of jewelry based on Elantris, the Mistborn series, and more.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

THE RITHMATIST Tour Swag

Recently I got back from The Rithmatist tour, so it's time for me to post some pictures of some of the cool things I saw and some of the neat things you all gave me. I appreciate the time and thought put into the gifts.

Take a look at this Steel Inquisitor sculpture Meghan Etzel-Hardman gave me. Wow! You can take a look at more of her work at her site.

These awesome Mistborn costumes came from the hard work of Sarah Levinson, who came with her pals to Phoenix Comicon. From left to right: Karen as Tindwyl, Varouj as Sazed (I think I saw him dressed as Aang from Avatar one of the others days), me dressed as myself, Brian as Elend, and Sarah as Vin. The attention to detail on these costumes is amazing!

Here's a beautiful bookmark I got from the Tattered Cover when I signed there, beads from New Orleans, A Game of Thrones card game, and a silver spoon and expertly knitted animals for Baby Melvin (not his real name).

At one of my tour stops back east, I met fellow Tor author David Walton. He was kind enough to give me a copy of his latest book Quintessence, which I enjoyed reading during my flights.

One reader, lmlnewburg, created some fan art for a story idea the Writing Excuses cast helped me brainstorm about psychic birds in the jungle, "Sixth of the Dusk."

And as usual, the various assortment of Magic cards:

Emily Grange knitted this koloss based on Ben McSweeney's illustrations. The detail on this guy is amazing!

The event put on June 3rd by the King's English Bookshop and hosted by the Provo Library was a great success. With nearly 500 people in attendance, this was probably the second-largest non-release-party event that I've had for one of my books so far.

At the signing, I received this beautiful glass ornament from the folks at Gomm Studios (check out their gallery of stained glass).

There were some nice T-shirts for those working the event. They gave me one too.

Take a look at that enormous gear decoration! Incidentally, the picture below was chosen by Publishers Weekly as their photo of the day on June 6th.

In addition to the book store signings, Phoenix Comicon and BookExpo America were all part of the tour. It made for a crazy time, but as always, I want to thank you all for coming out to the signings and other events. Because of you, The Rithmatist debuted at #6 on the New York Times Bestseller list.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

THIS IS HOW YOU DIE, Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine of Death

The anthology THIS IS HOW YOU DIE, sequel to THE MACHINE OF DEATH, was released today. I don't have a story in it (I was considering submitting something, but I'm way too busy), but my friend and alpha reader Karen Stay Ahlstrom (who happens to be married to my assistant Peter Ahlstrom) does have a story in the volume. I was surprised when she submitted her story to our writing group, since she usually participates as a reader rather than a writer, but it was a great story and I think the anthology's editors (Ryan North, David Malki!, and Matthew Bennardo) made a good choice when they plucked it from the field of over 2000 submissions for the volume.

What is THIS IS HOW YOU DIE, and what is the Machine of Death phenomenon? Longtime readers of my blog know I follow a lot of different webcomics. This particular phenomenon started with the following strip from DINOSAUR COMICS:

As I understand it, discussion got underway in the webcomics community about how cool the idea was: a machine that predicted your manner of death, but didn't give you enough details for that knowledge to be very useful to you. DINOSAUR COMICS' creator Ryan North and WONDERMARK creator David Malki! then got together with writer Matthew Bennardo and they edited the anthology THE MACHINE OF DEATH to explore the concept further. That book was indie-published and hit #1 on Amazon. THIS IS HOW YOU DIE is the sequel, and it was picked up by mainstream publisher Grand Central, an imprint of Hachette.

I think the concept is a great one, and the first book is quite entertaining. If you've read the first volume and are wondering if you should read the second, you may have noticed that one issue with the first is that a number of the stories tread the same ground, making a few of them a bit repetitive. The second book breaks that mold—the editors specifically put out a call for stories that took the concept in new and interesting directions.

I've read the second volume, and it certainly does that! A few of the stories do start out seeming like they're going to be retreads and then you realize that something is wildly different. That's the case with Karen's story, titled "Machine of Death." Each story in both anthologies has a title that is the cause of death read from the card the machine produces, such as "Natural Causes" and "Execution by Beheading," but as in the comic above, these are often misleading. And that's also the case with Karen's story.

What if you haven't read the first volume? Don't worry. These are both concept anthologies, not a coherent narrative. Each story stands on its own. All you need to know is the initial concept of a machine that predicts how you die, and you're good to go. The stories can be read in any order or no order. If you haven't read the first volume, don't hesitate to read the second one now and decide later whether you want to read the first one. These are the cream of the crop (though the first volume also has some very good stories—and it's currently in the Humble Ebook Bundle II, which is a great deal).

There's also this trailer for the book (or basically just the concept). It's a bit gory, if you want to avoid that kind of thing.

THIS IS HOW YOU DIE – 90 page preview by David Malki

Monday, July 15, 2013

STEELHEART fan art contest ends tonight + Updates

This week's Writing Excuses podcast episode is entitled "Your First Contract" and it's about exactly that! We're not lawyers so don't consider this to be legal advice, but as a writer you're a a small business owner who should be thinking about this sort of thing.

The STEELHEART fan art contest ends tonight at midnight (probably Mountain Time). There are over 30 entries so far. Fantastic work, folks! I'm looking forward to seeing what else gets submitted before the deadline. Note: This contest is only for people in the US and Canada, but Fantasy Book Critic has a book giveaway that is open worldwide. They don't have the Mega Vault though.

Tor.com's Way of Kings reread has reached chapters 19 and 20, which includes Dalinar's first highstorm vision of the book.

Ta'veren Tees has a new shirt up for preorder, called the Golden Crane. It's available for men and women.

The library comic UNSHELVED does a "book club" comic every week. The most recent one is on THE WELL OF ASCENSION. They also featured ALCATRAZ VERSUS THE EVIL LIBRARIANS a few years ago.

Something very cool today is that Tor.com is celebrating their five-year anniversary by giving away an ebook of every piece of short fiction Tor.com has ever published, including my novelette "Firstborn." This ebook is available to anyone registered at Tor.com. All of the stories are still online for free, but the download is in convenient ebook format epub, mobi, and pdf. These stories are available from the ebook vendors for 99¢ each, so the following huge list for free (in alphabetical order by author) is a great deal:

  1. When We Were Heroes, by Daniel Abraham
  2. Olga, by C.T. Adams
  3. Foundation, by Ann Aguirre
  4. The Department of Alterations, by Gennifer Albin
  5. The Fermi Paradox is Our Business Model, by Charlie Jane Anders
  6. Six Months, Three Days, by Charlie Jane Anders
  7. Intestate, by Charlie Jane Anders
  8. Legacy Lost, by Anna Banks
  9. The Witch of Duva, by Leigh Bardugo
  10. The Too-Clever Fox, by Leigh Bardugo
  11. The Girl Who Sang Rose Madder, by Elizabeth Bear
  12. The Horrid Glory of Its Wings, by Elizabeth Bear
  13. Faster Gun, by Elizabeth Bear
  14. The Final Now, by Gregory Benford
  15. Grace Immaculate, by Gregory Benford
  16. Backscatter, by Gregory Benford
  17. River of Souls, by Beth Bernobich
  18. A Window or a Small Box, by Jedediah Berry
  19. Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, by Michael Bishop
  20. Catch ‘Em in the Act, by Terry Bisson
  21. TVA Baby, by Terry Bisson
  22. The Cockroach Hat, by Terry Bisson
  23. Shall We Gather, by Alex Bledsoe
  24. Prophet, by Jennifer Bosworth
  25. The Ruined Queen of Harvest World, by Damien Broderick
  26. Time Considered as a Series of Thermite Burns in No Particular Order, by Damien Broderick
  27. The Memory Coder, by Jessica Brody
  28. The Desecrator, by Steven Brust
  29. Brother. Prince. Snake., by Cecil Castellucci
  30. We Have Always Lived on Mars, by Cecil Castellucci
  31. Our Human, by Adam Troy Castro
  32. The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere, by John Chu
  33. Fare Thee Well, by Cathy Clamp
  34. The Commonplace Book, by Jacob Clifton
  35. What Makes a River, by Deborah Coates
  36. The Ghosts of Christmas, by Paul Cornell
  37. The Elephant in the Room, by Paul Cornell
  38. Day One, by Matthew Costello
  39. Am I Free To Go?, by Kathryn Cramer
  40. Tourists, by Sean Craven
  41. Eve of Sin City, by S.J. Day
  42. The Cage, by A.M. Dellamonica
  43. Among the Silvering Herd, by A.M. Dellamonica
  44. Wild Things, by A.M. Dellamonica
  45. Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away, by Cory Doctorow
  46. On 20468 Petercook, by Andy Duncan
  47. The Strange Case of Mr. Salad Monday, by G.D. Falksen
  48. Men Who Wish to Drown, by Elizabeth Fama
  49. The Iron Shirts, by Michael Flynn
  50. A Clean Sweep With All the Trimmings, by James Alan Gardner
  51. Lightbringers and Rainmakers, by Felix Gilman
  52. Shade, by Steven Gould
  53. Bugs in the Arroyo, by Steven Gould
  54. Steampunk Quartet, by Eileen Gunn
  55. Mother, Crone, Maiden, by Cat Hellisen
  56. The Ink Readers of Doi Saket, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
  57. Too Fond, by Leanna Renee Hieber
  58. At the Foot of the Lighthouse, by Erin Hoffman
  59. Ghost Hedgehog, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
  60. A Spell of Vengeance, by D.B. Jackson
  61. The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles, by Kij Johnson
  62. Ponies, by Kij Johnson
  63. Crazy Me, by James Patrick Kelly
  64. First Flight, by Mary Robinette Kowal
  65. How to Make a Triffid, by Kelly Lagor
  66. A Water Matter, by Jay Lake
  67. The Speed of Time, by Jay Lake
  68. The Starship Mechanic, by Jay Lake and Ken Scholes
  69. Dress Your Marines in White, by Emmy Laybourne
  70. A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel, by Yoon Ha Lee
  71. Uncle Flower's Homecoming Waltz, by Marissa Lingen
  72. Earth Hour, by Ken MacLeod
  73. Farewell Performance, by Nick Mamatas
  74. Though Smoke Shall Hide the Sun, by Brit Mandelo
  75. The Finite Canvas, by Brit Mandelo
  76. The Hanging Game, by Helen Marshall
  77. The Courtship of the Queen, by Bruce McAllister
  78. Heads Will Roll, by Lish McBride
  79. Swift, Brutal Retaliation, by Meghan McCarron
  80. Preparations, by Mark Mills
  81. About Fairies, by Pat Murphy
  82. Fire Above, Fire Below, by Garth Nix
  83. Ruled, by Caragh M. O'Brien
  84. Hello, Moto, by Nnedi Okorafor
  85. Sacrifice of the First Sheason, by Peter Orullian
  86. The Great Defense of Layosah, by Peter Orullian
  87. The Battle of the Round, by Peter Orullian
  88. Sweetheart, by Abbi Mei Otis
  89. Ragnarok, by Paul Park
  90. Four Horsemen, at Their Leisure, by Richard Parks
  91. The Rotten Beast, by Mary E. Pearson
  92. Angel Season, by J.T. Petty
  93. Silver Linings, by Tim Pratt
  94. The Button Man and the Murder Tree, by Cherie Priest
  95. Clockwork Fairies, by Cat Rambo
  96. The Next Invasion, by Robert Reed
  97. Our Candidate, by Robert Reed
  98. Swingers, by Robert Reed
  99. The Cairn in Slater Woods, by Gina Rosati
  100. Jack of Coins, by Christopher Rowe
  101. Jack and the Aktuals, or, Physical Applications of Transfinite Set Theory, by Rudy Rucker
  102. Good Night, Moon, by Rudy Rucker
  103. Loco, by Rudy Rucker
  104. Jacks and Queens at the Green Mill, by Marie Rutkoski
  105. The Film-Makers of Mars, by Geoff Ryman
  106. Firstborn, by Brandon Sanderson
  107. After the Coup, by John Scalzi
  108. The President's Brain is Missing, by John Scalzi
  109. Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City: Prologue, by John Scalzi
  110. A Weeping Czar Beholds the Fallen Moon, by Ken Scholes
  111. Making My Entrance Again With My Usual Flair, by Ken Scholes
  112. Two Stories, by Ken Scholes
  113. If Dragon's Mass Eve Be Cold and Clear, by Ken Scholes
  114. Rag and Bone, by Priya Sharma
  115. Do Not Touch, by Prudence Shen
  116. The Night Children: An Escape From Furnace Story, by Alexander Gordon Smith
  117. King of Marbury, by Andrew Smith
  118. Beauty Belongs to the Flowers, by Matthew Sanborn Smith
  119. Overtime, by Charles Stross
  120. Down on the Farm, by Charles Stross
  121. A Tall Tail, by Charles Stross
  122. Zeppelin City, by Michael Swanwick
  123. The Trains That Climb the Winter Tree, by Michael Swanwick
  124. The Dala Horse, by Michael Swanwick
  125. The Mongolian Wizard, by Michael Swanwick
  126. The Fire Gown, by Michael Swanwick
  127. Day of the Kraken, by Michael Swanwick
  128. Eros, Philia, Agape, by Rachel Swirsky
  129. A Memory of Wind, by Rachel Swirsky
  130. The Monster's Million Faces, by Rachel Swirsky
  131. Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia, by Rachel Swirsky
  132. Sing, by Karin Tidbeck
  133. What Doctor Gottlieb Saw, by Ian Tregillis
  134. Vilcabamba, by Harry Turtledove
  135. The Star and the Rockets, by Harry Turtledove
  136. The House That George Built, by Harry Turtledove
  137. We Haven't Got There Yet, by Harry Turtledove
  138. Shtetl Days, by Harry Turtledove
  139. Lee at the Alamo, by Harry Turtledove
  140. Running of the Bulls, by Harry Turtledove
  141. The City Quiet as Death, by Steven Utley
  142. The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland—For a Little While, by Catherynne M. Valente
  143. Terrain, by Genevieve Valentine
  144. Last Son of Tomorrow, by Greg van Eekhout
  145. Errata, by Jeff VanderMeer
  146. A Stroke of Dumb Luck, by Shiloh Walker
  147. Last Train to Jubilee Bay, by Kali Wallace
  148. Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction, by Jo Walton
  149. The Nostalgist, by Daniel H. Wilson
  150. Super Bass, by Kai Ashante Wilson
  151. The Palencar Project, by Gregory Benford, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., James Morrow, Michael Swanwick, and Gene Wolfe, Edited by David G. Hartwell

Thursday, July 11, 2013

My ConnectiCon Schedule

I'm in Connecticut this weekend for ConnectiCon. Below is my schedule! But also, the STEELHEART fanart contest (you can win books!) is still ongoing, with a deadline of this Friday. Details here, and the first entries from readers are up here.

ConnectiCon, Hartford

Place: ConnectiCon
Address: Connecticut Convention Center
100 Columbus Boulevard
Hartford, CT 06103
Phone: 860-249-6000
Type: Convention

Schedule: July 12th–14th, 2013

Friday 1:00–2:00 p.m.
Brandon Sanderson Autograph Session
Signing with Brandon will be Bryce Moore, author of Vodnik
Location: Online Media Guest Hall

Friday 4:30–5:30 p.m.
Brandon Sanderson Q&A
Location: Panel 2

Friday 6:00–7:00 p.m.
Last Dance with Mary Sue: How to Write Great Characters
Location: Panel 7

Friday 9:00 p.m.
Magic Draft with Brandon
Location: Special Events 2, the capital room in the Marriott
Please sign up ahead of time with the convention! Slots are limited. If there are any slots left on Friday, you can sign up at the 1:00 p.m. autograph session.

Saturday 2:30–3:30 p.m.
Worldbuilding in Fantasy & Scifi 201
Location: Panel 4

Saturday 5:00–6:00 p.m.
Starting Out With a Bang
Location: Panel 1

Sunday 1:00–2:00 p.m.
Brandon Sanderson Autograph Session
Location: Online Media Guest Hall

Sunday 3:00–4:00 p.m.
The Changing Face of Publishing
Location: Panel 8

Notes: Brandon is a Guest of Honor
ConnectiCon will have copies for sale of the con exclusive double "Firstborn"/"Defending Elysium" at the Literary Guest Table in the Online Media Guest Hall.

Monday, July 08, 2013

Random House Mega Vault Contest + Updates

Below I have info on a contest that's Steelheart-related (sorry, for the US and Canada only). But first some updates.

This week's Writing Excuses podcast episode covers chapter breakdowns—what determines our chapter breaks? How do we handle POV shifts, scene/sequel balance, and other considerations when we're carving our stories into chapters?

My assistant Peter has uploaded another Twitter posts archive, this one covering the past month. And Tor.com has put up another Ecology of Roshar post, about purple and orange blood.

I'm pleased to announce that my novel The Alloy of Law (or L'Alliage de Justice in French) has won France's Imaginales Festival prize for best translated novel. I'm deeply honored. I feel overwhelmed by the respect I've been paid by the French science fiction and fantasy community. Having spent my teenage years studying and learning French, it's particularly gratifying to me to find such a welcome home among the community there.

When I got back from the The Rithmatist tour, I found this waiting for me from Delacorte, the publisher of my upcoming YA novel Steelheart.

This is the Random House Mega Vault. Random House has graciously donated three of them to be given away. And yes, that case is real metal. Not sure what type, but I suspect an Allomancer could make use of it.

Opening the Mega Vault:

Inside are copies of the first books in three new series releasing this fall. The Eye of Minds by James Dashner releases October 8th. Teardrop by Lauren Kate releases October 22nd. And of course, Steelheart, my post-apocalyptic young adult novel about normal people assassinating the powerful evil Epics who rule mankind. Steelheart releases September 24th.

I'm sure the other two books are also appetizing reads. Though Dashner's book could use some salt.

Want to get your hands on one of our three Mega Vaults? Here's what you do.

Step 1: Read the prologue to Steelheart at this link.

Step 2: Create some awesome fan art based on the prologue. Let's keep it to the visual arts. So, original illustrations, sketches, comic book panels, Photoshopped images, etc. Even videos, if you want to get that ambitious. Please keep the images tasteful and "safe for work."

Step 3: Log in to the Brandon Sanderson fan forums at The 17th Shard. I know making an account somewhere can be a hassle, but other methods we considered for organizing this were just too complicated logistically.

Step 4: Post your image in their Steelheart Mega Vault Contest gallery. To post, click the black "upload" button in the upper right-hand corner. Click "choose file" and upload as usual. Click "review and publish." Add a title and description if you want, then finish and publish it. The webmasters on the forums will approve all images before they are posted.

Step 5: You'll have a week to submit—the deadline is July 15th. After the deadline, the webmasters and my assistants Peter and Isaac will narrow down the submissions to ten unannounced semifinalists. From those ten, I'll pick my three favorites, whose creators will each receive one of the Mega Vaults from Random House. Note that they can only ship to the United States and Canada, so please accept my apologies if you live outside these areas.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you all come up with! Good luck!

Monday, July 01, 2013

Updates for this week

In this week's Writing Excuses episode, Mary, Dan, Howard, and I talk about Space Opera. Give it a listen.

My assistant Peter has uploaded another Twitter posts archive. There will be another one next week; we're a bit behind. As always, you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook (both have basically the same content) for up-to-the-minute updates. I'm a bit more likely to respond on Twitter since I find it more convenient, but there's a great community on Facebook discussing the posts and I sometimes respond there too.

Tor.com's reread of THE WAY OF KINGS hit chapter 18, where Dalinar and Adolin race the highstorm, among other things. The post also includes this quote from Carl Engle-Laird at Tor: "After last week's reread some of you percipient readers noticed that Amazon.com has changed the release date for book 2 in the Stormlight Archive to January 21st. I've asked around the Tor offices, and can say that the book is currently scheduled for that date. Feel free to update your calendars, with the understanding that the release date could still change in the future." As to whether we'll hit that date (which despite the above, is not an officially announced final date), there's a good chance we will, but the date could still slip around a bit or even change drastically. I'm very close to done writing the first draft of WORDS OF RADIANCE; I've written the climax and the epilogue, but there are still a few scenes in the middle of the book that aren't finished yet. And then of course come revisions, which will take a couple of months.