Safe delivery of Librarian into the world: check. All went well and we’re now back home while I try to keep my eyes open °_°
And, a bit before Librarian was actually delivered: safe delivery of manuscript of The House of Binding Thorns, the sequel to The House of Shattered Wings, to both my editors at Roc/Gollancz. Good thing I did that first…
Also, was rather chuffed to see that The House of Shattered Wings is on the longlist for a Legend Award, and the cover is on the longlist for a Ravenheart Award. Voting is open to anyone, and there’s a lot of other cool books and art on that list (Black Wolves!)–if you’re so minded to drop by, it’s here.
(I’m really pleased at that, because part of the reason I’m writing epic fantasy is because I found David Gemmell’s books as a teenager: The King Beyond the Gate and Tenaka Khan made a profound impression on me, and I subsequently devoured all the other Gemmell books I could find in libraries. I was really sorry I came into the UK SFF scene too late to meet him and tell him how much his books meant, and still mean, to me).
So…
Locus just released its 2015 Recommended Reading list, and The House of Shattered Wings is on there, under Best Fantasy Novel. Which is, er, kind of amazing.
(equally amazing is that I also have “The Citadel of Weeping Pearls” under Best Novella, “In Blue Lily’s Wake” and “Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight” under Best Short Story. That list also has a lot of my friends–congrats to everyone on it!)
And here’s some quotes from the Locus summation of 2015:
“[a novel] which featured some of the most striking and memorable fantasy settings of the year, Aliette de Bodard’s House of Shattered Wings, with its ruined Paris haunted by fallen angels” Gary K Wolfe
“Aliette de Bodard delivered her best novel to date, with The House of Shattered Wings. I’m not usually one for tales of fallen angels, but this story of Europe in ruins, where Lucifer and his cohort have taken up residence in Paris was a page-turner and deserves to stand among the fantasies of the year.” Jonathan Strahan
“I (…) had fun spotting Parisian landmarks and learning about Vietnamese dragon lore in Aliette de Bodard’s The House of Shattered Wings.” Cheryl Morgan
“Aliette de Bodard’s The House of Shattered Wings (Roc) reimagined Paris after a devastating war, as seen from several different vantage points in society. It’s not de Bodard’s first novel, but it is surely the one that will propel her to the recognition she deserves.” Graham Sleight
“The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard is a novel I’d like to call epic, though its particular subgenre is impossible to pin down. Set in a Paris that never was – decayed from the aftermath of a great and terrible war, possessed of a baroque, fin-de-siècle air – ruled by fallen angels and magicians, it’s a novel of secrets and murder, outsiders and alchemists, power and change. Difficult to describe, but fantastic to read. Although a sequel is alleged to be forthcoming, it stands alone – which always makes for a pleasant change.” Liz Bourke
The Locus Poll and Survey for 2015 is also open–come and check it out and vote for your favourite fiction of the year (I’m going to be on auto-repeat, but don’t hesitate to vote in that kind of poll even if you don’t think you’ve read enough in the field this year: everybody’s votes count, and “I’m not voting because I’m not well-read enough” is a very common way people, especially those from non-dominant cultures, exclude themselves)
So… will be briefly in the UK (London/Manchester) this weekend, for the Gollancz Festival.
My full schedule (and the face-to-face schedule of all events) is here: note that both Manchester on Friday and London on Saturday have sold out, but there are still spots for the Sunday event. Though sadly I can’t do the mass signing on Sunday, as I have to get home.
There’s also an online event if you can’t make it to any of these: the schedule is below (and yeah, some of us will be waving trying to look smart in the bus Friday afternoon 🙂 )
Proud to be a part of the Gollancz festival, a weekend of events in Manchester and London. See here for more details.
My schedule:
-Friday 6:15-06:45, Manchester Room 2: Introducing the class of 2015 (with Al Robertson, Alex Lamb, Tom Toner and Mark Stay)
-Friday 7:30-8:30, Manchester Room 1: Introducing the class of 2015 (with Al Robertson, Alex Lamb, Tom Toner and Mark Stay)
-Mass signing afterwards
-Saturday 3:15-4:45, London Room 1, Writing real and imagined cities (with Ben Aaronovitch, Suzanne McLeod, Bradley Beaulieu and Stephen Hunt)
-Saturday 6:00-6:30: London Room 2, Would I lie to You (with Ben Aaronovitch, Suzanne McLeod, Bradley Beaulieu and Stephen Hunt)
-Mass signing afterwards
-Sunday 12:30-1:45: Introducing the class of 2015, the trials and tribulations of being a new writer
(I’ll sadly have to skip the mass signing afterwards due to, er, an impending Eurostar!)
And to celebrate the US and UK release of The House of Shattered Wings, here is some art! Below, courtesy of Faithom, a sketch of head of Asmodeus, head of House Hawthorn, having an argument with Selene, head of House Silverspires (from chapter 10 if you’ve read the book!).
And below is the painting the amazing Tade Thompson very kindly did for the ebook In Morningstar’s Shadow (which you can still get if you send me a picture of you with the book, ebook or audiobook!). We had to darken it quite a bit for lettering, both to match the darkness of the UK cover, and because it was hard to set letters against the background of the Arc de Triomphe–so I thought I’d post the undarkened version, so you can see the detail (and the creepy eyes in the night!).
So you can now buy The House of Shattered Wings both in the US and the UK–I thought it was high time to round up a few of the things that have been going on with the novel, just in case you’re feeling indecisive (or if you want to know more!).
Gripping (…) De Bodard aptly mixes moral conflicts and the desperate need to survive in a fantastical spy thriller that reads like a hybrid of le Carré and Milton, all tinged with the melancholy of golden ages lost.
Will grab readers and force them to pay attention to the amazing writing and the phenomenal characters (…) It’s a whirlwind, it’s heartbreaking and it’s one of the best fantasy novels of 2015.
A fascinating Paris of decay and cruelty. Phillippe is a marvel of a character, unreliable as a narrator but compelling in his flaws and his deep well of homesickness.
Especially haunting(…) convey(s) a visceral sense of immediacy (…) a surprising but compelling murder mystery, which plays out according to the supernatural terms de Bodard has laid out so evocatively.
Grimly prosaic (…) wrapped up in intrigue and politics (…) comes closer to the blunt, grounded violence of Game Of Thrones than the high gothic fantasy it outwardly resembles (…) a grim story with high-flown conventions, but by finding so much ugliness even in supernatural beauty, de Bodard makes both seem more compelling, and more concrete.
The year’s best urban fantasy by far (…) takes a whole hoard of over-familiar fantasy tropes and turns them, evidently effortlessly, on their collective head (…) There’s an intelligence—and, yes, an elegance—to The House of Shattered Wings that is as rare and precious as angel essence.
One of the most unusual and absorbing books I’ve read in years (…) a vivid sense of remembered splendour and grandeur (…) a powerful novel that sinks deep into the reader’s psyche, taking you into a world so rich and characters so compelling that they linger for months after turning the last page. Don’t miss it.
a novel that is not easy to put down (…) has has some incredible moments that will leave you wanting more (…) a thrilling, gripping read, that will leave you wanting another hit of angel essence.
So… many many thanks to everyone who’s signal boosting The House of Shattered Wings: it’s pretty amazing to see the book in people’s hands!
I wanted to give people a heads-up that I recorded for the BBC World Service: it’s a roundtable on magic chaired by Tim Marlow and featuring Scott Penrose (head of the Magic Circle in the UK), Kevin O’Regan (experimental psychologist) and me as the fantasy novelist :). You can listen to it here, or it’ll be broadcast tomorrow at 8:00 GMT in the UK.
Also, because it’s been amazing, and because I put it late, I’m extending the preorder offer for another two weeks: get back to me with a picture of the book/your ebook reader with the book on it/the audiobook before September 8th, 23:59 GMT +1, and you can get a FREE copy of In Morningstar’s Shadow, an exclusive ebook of short vignettes that illuminates corners of the world and characters of the novel. For more info on the ebook see here.
ETA: this is for either the US or UK edition.
The caveat is that this is basically run solely by me and that I’m running a bit ragged: I will do my best to get back to you as soon as I can–if I don’t, I beg for your patience.
(if you’re seeing this on LJ or DW, please go to the original post to send the form: the captcha isn’t working in crossposts).
So… with apologies for the delay (I meant to do this earlier, and then I got a little, er, overwhelmed with stuff). I know this is a bit last minute, but still…
Pre-orders for books are a bit like release week for movies: they’re important for how a book performs and therefore pretty important for the author. On the other hand, I’m well aware of how much trust you put in me as a writer, when you order a book a long time before you actually get *anything* in your hands. Accordingly, I would like to offer a little incentive…
If you preordered or preorder The House of Shattered Wings in any form (ebook or physical), you’ll get a free, exclusive ebook: a series of vignettes set in the world of The House of Shattered Wings, hopefully to whet your appetite. They start during the Great Houses War in 1917, and go up to twenty years before the start of the book; a condensed prequel with a glimpse at characters beyond the scope of the book.
Here’s a little teaser of each section:
The Face of Heaven (House Silverspires, Ile de la Cité 1917, during the Great Houses War) If one was dedicated, and silent, and watchful, one could learn to see angels again.
Paid Debts (Houseless areas near Galeries Lafayette, 1925) Imadan wasn’t a fool, ordinarily. He knew the rules and the strictures of post-war Paris; he knew all the dangers that should be avoided.
What has to be done (House Silverspires, Ile de la Cité, 1958) Emmanuelle woke up, still woozy with sleep; and then felt it.
(the actual ebook wouldn’t have come into fruition without Tade Thompson and Rhiannon Rasmussen-Silverstein, who provided cover art and lettering for said cover art in record speed–I know everyone is very busy and am very thankful. Any issues with actual formatting, I’m afraid, are solely at my door…).
So… how do you get this?
It depends. In the UK/Commonwealth, Gollancz is very kindly running this: see below for details. If you preordered/preorder the UK ebook or the physical book (aka “the one with the multicoloured wings”), then follow the instructions there.
ETA: for accessibility reasons, the address is gollanczgeeks followed by the @, followed by “orionbooks.co.uk”.
If you ordered the US edition (US edition only please–the one with the burning feathers :p), then fill in the contact form below and I’ll email you EPUB/MOBI/PDF versions of the ebook. Because I’m at Worldcon anyway, I’m going to let this run on the same timescale as the Gollancz promotion (the deadline is 11:59pm GMT on August 19th), so you can actually order the US edition on release day or shortly after and you’ll still get the ebook.
ETA: if you have the actual book (which is either happening because you got an early UK edition at, say, Fantasy in the Court or Nine Worlds or some booksellers, or because it’s August 18th/19th in the US, or some other reason I’m not privy to :)), email me a picture of the book as your proof of purchase.
The caveat is that this last bit is basically run solely by me and that I’m running a bit ragged: I will do my best to get back to you as soon as I can–if I don’t, I beg for your patience (also, I literally cobbled this form together this morning, so I hope it works).
Welcome back to Shattered Wings Thursdays, the weekly feature of art related to The House of Shattered Wings. 26 days to release of the Roc hardcover edition (and 28 days to the Gollancz trade paperback). Getting closer and closer!
Ludwig Rösch (Austrian, 1865-1936), Die Pilgramkanzel in St. Stephan. Pastel on paper, 65 x 52 cm.
So, by popular (well, twitter) request, the last few episodes of this will focus on the different magical factions of the city of Paris: I won’t have time to do them all, as I’ve only got 3 of these left, but I hope to tackle some ground!
House Silverspires is the heart of the book: its setting, and a place a lot of characters in the book call home. It stretches, as said before, over Ile de la Cité: only the eastern part is inhabited, the Prefecture, Commerce Tribunal and other buildings in the West are only sparsely populated. Though founded by Lucifer Morningstar (oldest and most powerful among Fallen), House Silverspires is currently headed by his Fallen student, Selene, after the disappearance of Morningstar twenty years before the start of the novel.
As said previously: the colours of Silverspires are red and silver, and its coat of arms is the sword of Morningstar (one of those big, unsubtle two-handed swords) against the silhouette of Notre-Dame. Its motto is “Aspicete solem ortum” (“look to the risen sun”). Its philosophy of life can best be summed as “whatever works”. Anything is acceptable as long as it keeps intact its dominant status in the city, and the House has a (well-deserved) reputation for ruthlessness and playing fast and loose with rules (though Selene has pursued a gentler policy). It is also, unquestionably and even in decline, the foremost House in the city, an impregnable fortress with an iron grip on politics.
Notable characters from Silverspires: Selene’s lover, the archivist Emmanuelle; Javier, the House’s priest (and resident Spanish-French) who acts as Selene’s right hand; Madeleine, the geeky alchemist who provides the House with its magical artifacts; and Isabelle, a newly arrived and naive Fallen.
So… by the magic of Rafflecopter, the following people have won a signed hardcover of The House of Shattered Wings:
-Peter S K
-Michelle Clarke
-Jessie M
Congratulations!
Yeah, I added a third hardcover as there were so many entries! Really delighted at the enthusiasm for this.
If you feel like you missed out: the RT Book Reviews giveaway of 5 ARCs is still on-going here. (and even if you don’t, there’s an extra excerpt with the giveaway, featuring geeky alchemist Madeleine and Head of House Hawthorn Asmodeus).
One of the darkest and strangest fantasies I’ve ever read, containing the creepiest villain ever, the appalling Asmodeus, it haunts you long after you’ve finished it.
(yes, the same Asmodeus that’s in the excerpt. Isn’t life fun? 🙂 )
