Black Prism Trailer

To celebrate the mass market paperback launch of The Black Prism on August 23, Orbit and I teamed up with talented filmmaker Leo Kei Angelos to make what I think is the coolest book trailer you will see this year.

“Book trailer?!” you might be saying. “You mean those pale imitations of movie trailers? Except  without the budget or creativity? No thanks.”

My thoughts exactly.

Then I saw a couple of the cool things Leo has done. In the last two months we’ve worked closely together, and Leo has made some magic. The first 14-second teaser was released on Friday on the Black Prism Fan Page on Facebook. A couple more teasers will be released in the next week, along with a few other goodies, and the full two-minute trailer will be up on the 23rd. And my huge thanks to the cast and crew who poured so much passion into this. (Amazing how much work it is to make two minutes, huh?)

 

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Book Tour 2011 Appearances!

Below is the list of my 2011 appearances as well as I know them today. I will update as necessary.

Renovation (WorldCon): Wednesday, August 17, 2011 –Sunday, August 21, 2011

Reno, NV

— Postmodern Fantasy Panel: Friday, September 19, 2011 5pm-6pm

Where: D03 (RSCC) 

–Autographing: Saturday, August 20, 2pm – 3pm

Where: Hall 2 – Autographs (RSCC)

— KaffeeKlatsch: Saturday, August 20, 4pm – 5pm (10 spots open, book now!)

Where: KK1 (RSCC)

Live Streaming Ning Video Chat: Saturday, August 27, 2011 12:00pm PST (Web Post with Details Upcoming) *UPDATE: We will be moving this Video Chat in order to accommodate my Australian fans. Because of the tightness of my schedule, that means the video chat will be put off probably until Saturday, September 10th. I will post the new date and time on the main webpage.*

University Book Store (University of Washington): Monday, August 29th, 2011 7:00pm

Seattle, WA

Dragon*Con: Friday, September 2– Monday, September 5, 2011

Atlanta, GA

— Panel: How much violence is too much/not enough? Friday, September 3, 2011 8:30pm – 10:30 pm

Where: Manila / Singapore / Hong Kong (Hyatt)

—  Dragon*Autographs: Sunday, September 5, 2011 11:30am-12:30pm

Please note that there will be NO books for sale at this signing, so please bring your own copies for me to sign. (I will sign bookplates  for those who forget their books… but let’s be honest, that’s not quite as cool as a signed book, is it?)

Where: M301-M304 (Marriott)

— Possible Signing at nearby bookstore TBA

Powell’s Signing: Thursday, September 8, 2011 7pm

Beaverton, OR

Mysterious Galaxy: Friday, September 23, 2011 7:30-9:30 pm

Redondo Beach CA

Live Twitter Interview with Bryan Thomas Schmidt at #sffwrtcht  — 6pm PST, Wednesday November 2, 2011

OryCon: Friday, November 11, 2011 — Sunday, November 13, 2011

Portland, OR

Powell’s Mass Signing: Sunday, November 13, 2011, 4pm or 5pm

Beaverton, OR

 

*UPDATE: NOTE CHANGES TO THE WEBSTREAMING EVENT ABOVE*

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Writing Advice Update: Magic Systems & Finishing Book 2

This month in my Writing Advice Update, I discuss one of the most important subjects in fantasy: creating your own magic system. Along the way, I discuss working with a high-magic versus low-magic worlds, magic and technology, well-defined and ill-defined magics and the benefits of each, and what kinds of questions you need to ask yourself while you’re creating your system if you want to be rigorous.

And thanks for your patience in this slightly delayed post — as I mentioned earlier, we had a couple big posts earlier this week, and I’ve just finished the first draft of The Lightbringer Trilogy #2 yesterday! It’s called The Blinding Knife and will be out in September 2012 (ish). Now I get the joy of editing for the next few months, and then Orbit begins work on production.

Hope you enjoy the writing advice update!

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Massive Black Prism Review Round-up

Since The Black Prism came out, I have been doing my best to keep my eye on the reviews that came out for the book, in the hope of course of convincing more of you to go out and buy it! But also, after you read it, to give you a chance to see if other people had the same thoughts about The Black Prism that you did. I also like to keep my eye on the reviews myself, because if one person said I did something wrong, it’s easy to dismiss. But if 12 people say it, then I will think twice about it in the future. Unfortunately I’ve been so busy with writing The Blinding Knife that I haven’t had time to post all of the reviews that have come to my attention since I did my first review round-up last year.

But now I have corralled a list, and pulled out what I hope are the pertinent quotes. Mostly pro, but a few con as well. I’ve put all of these reviews over on my Reviews Page. If you know of other dedicated book blogs or review sites that have covered The Black Prism that I’ve missed, please let me know. And if you prefer to get your epic fantasy in mass market paperback, The Black Prism will be shipping August 23rd (definitely should be in stores by the 29th) with a nicely reworked map and the first chapter of The Blinding Knife as a teaser!


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Perfect Shadow Limited Editions Update

I’ve just talked with Bill over at Subterranean Press, and he’s told me that the two limited editions of Perfect Shadow that Subterranean Press is putting together will be shipping in December.  We had initially hoped (and told you) that Subterranean would be able to ship these in late summer or early fall, but we’ve run into some snags on the production side.

Obviously, I’ve already written the novella! It’s done! And I want you to get your hands on it as soon as possible. So what happened is that basically, I really swung for the fences on my preferred artists. And after waiting a long, long time to hear back from one artist in particular, it just didn’t work out with scheduling. I’m still really excited about the product that Subterranean Press is putting together, and believe that you will all think that it was worth the wait. If you have further concerns, you can email Subterranean directly from their webpage.

And my monthly Writing Advice post will be available on Thursday because I have another big post that I’ve been working on for a  long time that I will be posting on Tuesday.

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International Editions and Book Tour Dates Imminent

Just a few quick news items this week.

First, in my assistant’s slow quest to reach her level cap, she’s recently been grinding on a laggy server called WordPress tutorials. Most recently, she’s cast an AoE spell on the international editions page. Check it out. It looks spiffy.

Second, I will soon be able to announce some book tour dates for the mass market paperback release of The Black Prism, which has official release date of the 29th of August, but may be shipping up to a week early. You can order the book here, here, here, and here (or if you love e-books, you can grab the Kindle, Nook, Kobo, or Sony eReader versions) or from your favorite book retailer.

I can’t announce specific tour venues yet, but I will be hitting Portland, Seattle, and L.A.  And in my continuing bid to not abandon any corner of the country, I’ll be doing my first ever event in the South around the time of DragonCon in Atlanta.

Third, we’re looking into celebrating the paperback release with some sort of open chat with those of you who are on the Ning forum. Not sure yet how we’re going to bring order to the chaos, but we’ll think of something!

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Nibbling Around the Edges of Respectability

Long, long ago, in ages immemorial, when Brent was a young lad, he told his wife (ok, maybe he wasn’t that young of a lad): “Darling, three things I know to be true:

“Antipenultimately, when Brent Weeks starts speaking of himself in the third person, trouble is afoot.

“Penultimately, there are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who know binary and those who do not.

“And ultimately, even if I get these ninja-assassin-kick-ass novels published, I will probably never get the respect I don’t deserve!”

Yet here I stand, doing an awkward plié, at the border of the mainstream… I’m not flexible enough to do a plié, so sometimes I have stumbled gracelessly, fouling my tutu on The Onion‘s A.V. blog. And now, once again, I find myself at the edge of the limelight, trying to go en pointe, when everything within me screams, “Allemande left!” In plain speech, The Night Angel Trilogy was mentioned in The Christian Science Monitor’s culture blog, as being one of the ten fantasy novels that would make great TV shows.

And now, as a special peek behind the curtain, for those of you who tolerated the previous paragraphs, I will show you exactly how book marketing works. The Christian Science Monitor says, “Cable viewers… couldn’t hope for better source material”!

[Pause for effect. Listen to the appreciate oooh’s from the audience.]

A slightly more honest rendition would be: “A blog that is in some obscure way connected to The Christian Science Monitor says, ‘Cable viewers who want blood and sleaze in equal amounts (I know you’re reading, True Blood fans) couldn’t hope for better source material.'”

Boy, honesty sucks.

And, speaking of the respect I don’t deserve: I recently found out that I am a finalist for the Endeavor Award, which is awarded to a distinguished Science Fiction or Fantasy novel published by a Pacific Northwest author announced every year at OryCon in November. See, I even have a logo:

 

The other contenders for the award are Cherie Priest, Patricia Briggs, Patricia McKillip, and Devon Monk, so even though I’m going to lose, at least I’ll lose in excellent company! Maybe someone can show me how to do a plié?

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Writing Advice Update: Fireworks & Reading Your Novel

Happy 4th of July (early)! And for those of you not in the U.S.A. this weekend, I pity you and your lack of fireworks. 😉

Here’s what I’ve got coming to my backyard…

 

…well, on a slightly smaller scale, perhaps.

Fireworks aside, it’s Writing Advice time again, and this month we’re addressing the most important question you may ever email me:

Can I (Brent) help you be a writer? And perhaps the second-most important question: Will I read your novel/screenplay/poem/magnum opus? Go here for my response, as well as some thoughts on Sparkly Vampires, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Main Thing.

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Should Evil Ever Win?

My friend Shawn Speakman over at the huge SFF blog Suvudu sometimes poses some Big Questions to authors in the genre. This past week, he included me. I am more than happy to have been able to join Terry Brooks, C.S. Friedman, newcomer Peter Orullian, and Dave Wolverton in answering “Why do you think evil never wins at the end of a story?  Wouldn’t it be refreshing if the antagonists won and the protagonists lost?  Has no one ever come up with the idea or do publishers just never publish such stories?”

But rather than steal his thunder, I’ll just post the link here. Please feel free to comment!

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Ulyssandra

You know you’ve made it as a writer… when parents borrow a name you made up to give to their kid!

That’s exactly what this adorable little girl’s parents did — meet Aurora Ulyssandra (ok, ok, so it’s just the middle name that’s from The Night Angel Trilogy, but still!):

Now, those are what I call real fans. 😉

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