Ahoy.

Costa Rica pics 'n' video, for anyone who wants to see a middle-aged out-of-shape white guy and his smokin' hot wife run around Central American rainforests and beaches and stuff.

Also, a very long (and very spoiler-filled) interview with yrs trly, about Shadows of Mindor and other things Star Wars, at Star Wars Action News. The sound on my end is pretty crummy due to technological difficulties with my cell phone, but for those of you who can stomach a Full Hour of Me, there it is.

And, while I'm thinking about it, there's another interview out there, on Mindor and a variety of Caine-related shit, at Dragon Page.

Just goes to show: no matter where you go, once you get there, there you are.

Greetings.

Sorry I haven't been around. I went through a particularly bad patch of Whatever the Fuck is Wrong With Me from the end of December through the end of January . . . and as I started to recover, my time and attention were consumed by helping the Fabulous Robyn plan and execute arrangements for a mostly-spur-of-the-moment trip to Costa Rica, because the US economic downturn has decimated Costa Rica's tourist trade (which makes travel and lodging there considerably less expensive than, oh, mostly anywhere. Except maybe New Jersey.).

For the record: if you're ever feeling unwell enough to require a regenerating adventure, Costa Rica is your place. Lane-and-a-half mountain roads twisting between sheer rock faces and thousand-foot drops . . . temperate rain forests that can be reached only by 4X4 (I'm not kidding -- the unpredictable winds and narrow defiles means you can't even go by helicopter unless you're making a HALO insertion) . . . dinner at El Avion, which is a three-star restaurant at Manuel Antonio built around (and inside!) the very same CIA C-135 that triggered the Iran-Contra scandals after being shot down by the Sandanistas . . . zipline tours through the rain forest canopies . . . white sand beaches, catamaran tours to watch dolphins and sea-birds chase flying fish . . .

There may be photos (and video!) forthcoming, for anyone who can sufficiently steel themselves to enjoy watching other people have fun.

I think the Fabulous Robyn and I might just retire down there.

Anyway: back in the country and back to work.

Finally: does anybody around here know a reliable way to get in touch with Scott Lynch?

Hey. Blade of Tyshalle will be released in e-book form Tuesday, December 9th.

Spread the word.

Okay, people. I'm far enough out from under various deadline pressures that I feel the need to catch up with what's current in Our Beloved Genre. As most of you know, I tend more toward reading classics than reading What's Hot Right Now . . . so much so that I don't have a friggin' clue what WHRN might actually be.

I'm about to order 5-10 books from Amazon.com. One will be Scott Lynch's second Gentlemen Bastards book, because I need to catch up there with the third looming on the near horizon. At least one (possibly more) will be John Scalzi's, because I've become a Whatever addict and I'm interested in seeing how he does with fiction. Another will be Steve Donaldson's latest Covenant entry.

Who should I be looking at for the rest?

(Don't bother recommending Big Gunners like Neal Stephenson and George R.R. Martin -- they are on my back-list, and I will no doubt catch up with them later on.) I'm looking for, as John Cleese would say, something completely different.

Who gets you people all hot'n'bothered these days?

Go vote. All of you.

Well, okay . . . all of you who are United States citizens of legal age. Go vote.

Everyone else, take the day off.

There is news.

Right now, the e-books of Heroes Die and Blade of Tyshalle have a tentative (repeat for emphasis: tentative) release date of November 4th.

This may be shifted pending resolution of a minor contractual issue, and/or the pitched firefight in the streets between fraudulently-registered Democratic ineligible and/or imaginary voters (i.e., Mickey Mouse) and crypto-fascist Republican vote-suppressors (i.e., Alberto Gonzales).

For you handicappers out there, here are words to live by:

Never bet against the Mouse.

I'd just like to touch on the question of Caine's Adventure-related POV, since it seemed to come up quite a bit in the last thread.

It's not intended to be a literal transcription of his Soliloquy; it's basically a magic trick, not unlike the illusion a first-hander is subjected to, as an Actor's Soliloquy comes to feel like his or her own thoughts--to make him feel like he is the character.

The Studio has an exceptionally powerful piece of speculative technology (direct CNS stimulation by focused induction) to help maintain this illusion. I, on the other hand, have to pull off this trick with nothing more than a succession of black marks on a page.

So:

Some of these black marks represent Caine's Soliloquy, some reflect sense impressions and others denote visceral reactions. Some indicate other things. All of them together are intended to give you, the reader, the illusion of riding along inside Caine's head (and body). That's the whole story.

If worrying about his Soliloquy distracted you from the story, that means I (in that section, anyway, at least for you) screwed up, and let you see the Man Behind the Curtain.

Sorry.

I hate it when that happens. It's kind of like discovering I've been walking around with my zipper down.

Back to Ayn Rand for a moment, it's worth noting that the #1 cheerleader for the deregulated trading in derivatives that is the fundamental cause of the current global financial crisis, Alan Greenspan, is an avowed admirer of Ms. Rand's political philosophy, and spent roughly the last 15 of his 19 years as Fed Chairman assuring Congress that the "rational self-interest" of derivatives traders would "weed out" weak securities . . .

Also (speaking of libertarianism), has anybody been paying attention to this guy? It may be that I owe Cheryl Morgan (who once wrote that she could tell I'm a libertarian by looking at my author photo) an apology. I saw Bob Barr interviewed on CNN yesterday and realized (with considerable consternation) that "Holy crap! I do have a libertarian moustache."

For the record:

Feel free to post extravagant praise of Caine Black Knife (or of anything else I've written, for that matter). You can also post less-than-extravagant praise, or even bitch about how shitty something is.

But comments containing spoilers will be summarily deleted.

You have been warned.

Look for "The Big Idea of Caine Black Knife" on John Scalzi's Whatever this coming Tuesday, which is -- by no coincidence at all -- CBK's on-sale date.

He's pretty effing cool.

In response to Rob Locke in the previous comments thread:

My take on Objectivism can be summed up by a paraphrase of Samuel Johnson:

"I have read Ayn Rand's work, and found it to be both original and good. Unfortunately, however, the parts that were good were not original, and the parts that were original were not good."

To put it another way: what was useful in her philosophy was cribbed from Nietzsche, and what wasn't cribbed from Nietzsche wasn't useful.

Nietzsche himself points out the inescapable flaw in rational self-interest (I am again paraphrasing here):

"Man is not 'the rational animal,' he is the rationalizing animal. The primary use to which we put our reason is to justify our irrational desires and prejudices."

Hokay. Here's the rundown.

The medical test came out negative, which means that Whatever the Fuck is Wrong With Me is still wholly in the Whatever stage. So it goes.

However, in the interim, I have been introduced to a new medication regimen that has me feeling sharper than I have in years. So, downside: lots of pills. Upside: unlike all previous meds, these seem to be working.

In the midst of all this, I finally delivered Luke Skywalker & the Shadows of Mindor, and due to the heroic (no exaggeration) efforts of my long-suffering editor, Shelly Shapiro, it looks like Del Rey will manage to cram it through production in time for its scheduled Dec 30 release. Shelly has now ascended to my short list of Personal Heroes.

Thanks to all & sundry for expressions of support.

The unnamed game tie-in I'm supposedly writing is on temporary hold, as I wait for supplementary materials that the parent company has so far failed to provide. So, for now, I'm working on interviews 'n' shit in support of Caine Black Knife, including an essay for Scalzi's "The Big Idea" feature. And I'm getting back to pulling together the Revised Editions of Iron Dawn and Jericho Moon, as well as getting my shit together on the final Caine novel, His Father's Fist.

As to the similarities in the underlying philosophical stance between Cainism and Satanism, and between the Church of the Beloved Children of Ma'elKoth and Catholicism, well . . . pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Let me just say that I know a bit about how religious doctrine can be (and has been) tailored to promote secular political ends, and leave it at that.

Caine Black Knife comes out in ten days. Meanwhile, just so you know:



'nuff said.

Hey, gang. Sorry I haven't been around lately. I've been struggling through a pretty severe attack of Whatever the Fuck is Wrong With Me, and I've barely had the energy to write, let alone enough to spare for this space.

The good news is that one of the specialists I've been consulting sporadically for the last three or four years has had a sudden brainstorm. Test results should be arriving tomorrow or Monday, and with any luck at all they will finally give me a clue to WTFIWWM.

Meanwhile, thanks to all who still come here. When I'm feeling better, I'll probably have something to say about the US presidential campaign, as well as a hint or two of "The Big Idea of Caine Black Knife."

(Yeah, I checked out Scalzi's "Whatever," and now spend entirely too much of my time and attention reading Whatever he has to say. About anything. Those of you who haven't been there yet, you don't know what you're missing. Really.)

Anyway, this was just to let people know I'm still alive, and that I haven't entirely abandoned this place.

There will be updates.

On the "my take on Jacen" question, let me quote my response from March of this year over on SFFWorld.com's Stover Forum:

---------------

I am familiar, in broad outline, with the events of the Dark Nest and Legacy series. Haven't read 'em because I've been too busy with the Prequel and OT eras.

As to the specifics of your question, however, I can't give a satisfactory answer. Part of this is due to the simple fact that neither Jacen nor Vergere was originally my character (in fact, the only characters in TRAITOR who were original to that work were the World Brain and Ch'Gang Hool, the Shaper Master -- who was basically just a walk-on, anyway -- and the various extras). Vergere was the creation of Jim Luceno, I believe, and Jacen's roots go so far back into the EU that he was already well-established by the time KJA picked him up for the Young Jedi Knights.

In the Literature forum over at TheForce.Net, there are several lengthy threads discussing the validity of the choices made for Jacen and Vergere. There is really nothing I can add to the discussion, largely because my opinion is exactly that: my opinion, no more. When you come right down to it, on this point I'm exactly on the same level as all of you: a reader trying to assess someone else's story.

But due to my privileged position as a Star Wars novelist, my opinion would be given more weight by the fans than it actually deserves -- it would tend to tip the perceptions of, at least, my particular fans, and even others would be tempted to end arguments with "Well, Matt Stover says . . ." I've decided I just have to keep it to myself.

Sorry for a lengthy reply that doesn't end up saying much. It is what is is.

-----------------------

And that's as far as I am willing to go on the subject.

Except perhaps to point out once more that what a story means is what it means to you as you read it. Nothing more . . . but more important: nothing less.

And thank you, Joe, for pointing out that Barra Coll Eigg Rhum is based on the Fabulous Robyn -- though the truth is deeper than that: Robyn invented her in the first place, and (graciously, at my request) gave me permission to write books about her, back in the Bad Old Days. As opposed to the Bad New Days. I used Robyn herself as the model to fill in the nooks and crannies of the character, that's all.

Just so you know:

The Fabulous Robyn, in only her second triathlon -- and only fourth competitive race of any kind -- placed fifth in her age group (out of more than seventy competitors). She was less than two minutes off the podium.

This woman is amazing.

It's 2 AM
The fear is gone
I'm sittin' here waiting
The gun's still warm
Maybe my connection
Is tired of taking chances . . .

Or, y'know, maybe it's 4 AM, and maybe I'm up because my wife, the Fabulous Robyn, is competing in the Pleasant Prairie Triathlon this morning. This is only her second tri, and we have to get her to the staging area by around 5.

And maybe that song is going through my head because it was the unofficial theme of the Navy SEALS she used to hang out with in the Phillipines, back in the 80s, and I wish some of them could see her now. I'm pretty sure they'd be both surprised (a little) and proud (a lot) of the extraordinary woman she grew up to be.

That's all.

For Pizzone:

I've only published five short stories, so far as I recall.

"Br'er Robert" and "In the Sorrows" are available free online -- a quick Google search should be able to find a Web archive.

"Precursor" is in the DAW anthology LEGENDS: TALES FROM THE ETERNAL ARCHIVE, and is out of print.

"Equipment" is available in the back of the mass market edition of SHATTERPOINT.

And you can find "The Persian, the Coon, and Bullets" in the forthcoming CATOPOLIS anthology, because the editor's a friend and she asked nicely. And paid well.

For the record, the opening story of BLADE ("Zero") was originally sent around as a stand-alone novella, and was soundly rejected by such luminaries as Gardner Dozois (and a couple others I currently disremember). He said it was pretty well done, but not outstanding enough for his magazine. I thought he was wrong, so I put it in BLADE OF TYSHALLE.

It's still my favorite sequence of that novel.

For Snooty English Major --

Thanks. I mean it. But sign your posts.


For all the rest of you folks:

Yeah, Star Wars is good entry level stuff -- and if any of my original work sold that well, I'd be a much, much wealthier man. Which is my point. I'm limping into middle age, and I'd like to get Robyn and myself that little acreage with a nice house and lots of trees. And maybe a swimming pool . . . and, yeah, I wouldn't mind the helicopters and the armored fortress.

A thank you to everyone for the kind words and assorted ego-boostage. Which will likely trigger another mini-essay on The Tyranny of Praise . . . which relates, oddly enough, to the King quote.

Hmm. Something there, I think. Check back later.

In response to Tim's question in the previous Comments section:

There are a number of female HD fans (judging by my fan mail and store-signing experiences), many of whom seem to be particularly engaged by Hari and Shanna's unhappy relationship, and Hari's damn-the-torpedoes commitment to it.

Women sometimes seem to have a more difficult time with BLADE, though a substantial percentage of the positive reviews that book got came from female reviewers.

The real problem with gathering feminine readership for the Acts of Caine, it seems to me, is that HD depends on an SFF-savvy reader -- for it to have full effect, the reader should already be well-versed to the point of exhaustion with the various tropes that the story is twisting into less-familiar shapes. Which seems to be more of a guy thing, overall.

Make sure the woman you lend the book to has already read Conan and Bran Mak Morn, Elric and Hawkmoon and Fafhrd & Gray Mouser and the like, and I'm pretty sure she'll like Caine.

This is a problem with male readership as well. As one editor at Del Rey told me:

"What stops Caine from being more successful is that he's only accessible to people who are already hardcore fans. Write something 'entry-level' -- not necessarily Harry Potter, but even more grown-up entry-level like most of Jonathan Carroll or Neil Gaiman, something where someone who knows nothing about SF and fantasy can enjoy it -- and you're golden."

Unfortunately for me and my career, I've never been able to pull something like that together, outside of Star Wars.

Though I haven't given up on it. Not quite.

Hmp. Looks like the ARC seller is an actual fan.

His testimony . . .

Go figure.

Now I feel bad for all the nasty things I've been thinking about him. Mostly.

Hey, I don't want to discourage fan activity; I need all I can get. But selling ARCs in advance of the book's release is still a Major No-No.

Here's the poop on the Blade of Tyshalle reprint:

I just heard from my editor that the current market conditions for mm reprints makes a re-issue of an 800-page novel from 2001 kind of problematic. (My understanding is that minimum print run is something like 5,000 copies, and none of the big chains can be counted upon to carry a re-issue.)

HOWEVER --

It looks like he's gotten the go-ahead to produce an e-book version, and also format it for print-on-demand. So some version of the novel should be available (provided any and all potential contractual issues can be swiftly worked out -- because the contract for Blade is from 1998, before there were such things as e-books and POD) for those folks who really, really want to read it before they pick up Caine Black Knife.

So, overall, not bad news. As news goes.

By the way: some turd is spamming Stover-related sites, selling discounted ARCs of CBK off eBay.

Screw this guy. He's taking money out of my pocket.

ARCs sold as collector's items are one thing. I'm okay with that. But selling discounted ARCs as a substitute for the actual book costs me money that I just can't fucking afford. If any of you feel the need to actually grab one of these, do me a favor and buy the real one too.

That's all.