News Post: Exclusive Spellwright Excerpt & DIY Book Tour FTW
Hermanos y Hermanas de la Fantasía:
Here’s a pretty frakken important med student tip: Should you be listening to a Medical Spanish podcast about sexually transmitted diseases, do *not* listen and practice pronouncing the vocabulary from said podcast while running on a treadmill in the gym. ¡Estoy embarazada! Oh…wait…that mean ‘I’m pregnant?’ ¡Ay caramba, Charlton!
Excerpt!
More of Spellwright has escaped onto the internet. In addition to the first few chapters on my website, you can now, on Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, read an exclusive excerpt featuring a blind grammarian investigating a murder and encountering some sharply worded linguistic weaponry.
Other Spellwright Internet Ancillaria:
A big debt of gratitude to Alec and ediFanoB over at Only the Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy for bringing this linguistic gem to my attention:
RisingShadow.Net provides a thoughtful and positive review of Spellwright.
I love that as a writer of lots-o-magic, light-on-the-brutality fantasy, I’m getting reviews stating that “it was refreshing to read classic and traditional fantasy” versus the in-vogue darker, grittier, spill-so-much-blood-we-should-chat-about-physiology fantasy. That said, I _love_ a lot of what that camp is producing: GRRM, Joe Abercrombie, & Scott Lynch. (Esp. Lynch. Such a nice and creatively profane man.)
Oh…Books! Has a graced me with a blush-inducing profile, Spellwright review, and favorite poem section
Across the Atlantic, Floor to Ceiling Books features a UK vs. US cover smackdown with Spellwright’s two faces getting in the fray. Between Two Books starts out on a Spellwright read and also compares the two covers.
Across the Pacific, Australians can enter a contest to win a copy of Spellwright from Voyager AUS!
The Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf has a fun post about The Weirdest Book You Ever Read.
Lots of interesting author responses including Lev Grossman, Lou Anders, Sam Sykes, and the charming Gail Carriger. I put down my $0.02 with a book called Kill as Few Patients As Possible, by Oscar London.
DIY Book Tour FTW!
Should you want to be dazzled by the light glinting off my head, hear me read, see me get nervous about signing books while talking at the same time, here’s the present calendar for the Spellwright Tour: California Edition
March 14th, 2:00pm: Mysterious Galaxy, San Diego, CA (event page)
- A wonderful wonderful indie book store. If you’re anywhere near SD, you have to stop by and meet the ppl who work there.
- So far, this is the only event planed in SoCal. Should you happen to be a bookseller, reading club, person who sometimes wonders what it would be like to play D&D with Bill Shakespeare and Chris Marlowe (answer: gratuitously awesome!) drop me a comment here and we’ll hang out.
March 19th, 7:30pm: Kepler’s Books, Menlo Park, CA (event page)
- This’ll be the big hometown event. Introduction by my mentor, the wonderful Dr. Abraham Verghese. Come meet Stanford Medicine folks, my high school Latin teacher, &c, &c.
March 27th, 3:00pm: Borderlands Books, San Francisco, CA
April 7th, 7:30pm: Books Inc., Mountain View, CA
April 8th, 5:00pm: Medicine & the Muse, Stanford, CA
- Come see other local talent and me headline for keynote speaker Malcolm Gladwell!
April 17th, 7:00pm: SF in SF, San Francisco, CA
- I’m honored to read with the charming, witty, best-selling Steampunk Princess Gail Carriger. The two of us are old writing friends and scheming for a ridiculous and hilarious performance. SF in SF might never recover!
April 21st, 7:30pm: Clayton Books, CA
Depending on availability of funds, time, and sanity there will also be a Spellwright Tour: North West Edition late in the summer, and a Chicago Edition and North East Edition in the early fall.
Comments
13 Responses to “News Post: Exclusive Spellwright Excerpt & DIY Book Tour FTW”
Nina
4:16 pm Feb-7-2010
North East better = NYC Mister! You owe M a coffee date and Linds and myself (and M) Doctor Who, cookies and kittens.
blakecharlton
2:07 am Feb-8-2010
how could i possibly miss NYC? beside having you all & the promised introduction to The Doctor, it’s got the highest concentration of couches i can crash on in the nation
hope to get out there soon!
Nina
1:33 pm Feb-8-2010
Linds’ couch is nicely downtown (and watch how I’m offering it up for her) but mine is fulllll length and has kitties (also I slept on mine for a summer once and my back survived intact!). So obviously we are all in agreement that you should just come and live on our respective couches for a week or two. Enough time to hit every bookstore in NYC?
blakecharlton
6:26 pm Feb-9-2010
careful what you offer; you might have a iternerate author on your couch whining about problems in his latest draft way more than you expected
Nina
11:33 pm Feb-10-2010
*itinerant? We might entirely enjoy such an experience. (Though I warn you, we might drag you up to Wallyworld to visit DE - isn’t there a bookstore there you could hit?.) Linds can tell you I give good troubleshooting.
blakecharlton
1:04 am Feb-11-2010
Wallyworld! i might get PTSD if i see Gables House again
i have been flirting w/ the idea of stopping by new haven… hrmmm…
Nina
8:37 am Feb-11-2010
Which one was Gables?? Was that the jock one just above the SAC? (Where Will Bonner and Dan theothergayone lived?)
If you get as far as New Haven then obviously at least a visit *with* DE is called for, but I personally quite like going back to Wallyworld once every….er, ok. Haven’t done it in a while:) But Archie Moore’s! HALF MOON CHAI! Panda Garden scallion pancakes! (Tom’s to see if my picture is still on the wall:) …Plus then you can leave and feel so grateful that you *can leave*.
blakecharlton
8:18 pm Feb-11-2010
Gables was only a jock house of you count real time strategy games as sports
do give my best to DE; tell him i remember that year of sharing an office fondly.
Lit McLite
9:46 pm Feb-9-2010
I don’t suppose north-east will ever involve Bangor, ME?
And… now that I’ve finished reading way too much of a book that isn’t even released yet (why do I do this to myself?), I must finish ‘Ruthless Magnate, Convenient Wife’ before the roommate returns from wherever she is and catches me at it and mocks me mercilessly.
Also, nothing I’ve seen yet has made me change my mind on the pre-order. Yay!
blakecharlton
1:01 am Feb-11-2010
I’ll admit that Bangor wasn’t eggsactly on the list. but maybe they have an amazing genre bookstore? somehow whenever i’m in ME, i always kinda frightened that i’ll bump into steven king in his brief cameo just before the world descends into a horror film. but that’s like…irrational…right?
so how ruthless, exactly, is that magnate. because the last one i got from the factory, was a freaken pushover
Lit McLite
3:48 pm Feb-11-2010
I don’t think there’s a good /genre/ bookstore here. Or if there is, it’s covered in snow. My friend’s aunt’s cousin (or some other obscure relation) runs a bookstore downtown that I go to, but it tends to the mainstream, as such places do.
And Stephen King rarely emerges from his castle, I promise. I attend his Alma Mater, and have yet to encounter the man, I promise.
Also, the magnate really isn’t all that ruthless. He ends up falling in love with his baby-mama/coerced-contracted wife in the end, after all.
blakecharlton
8:24 pm Feb-11-2010
hrmm…snow…that sounds so…difficult. and riddle me this, why is everyone on ever social media channel ever from manhattan complaining about the snow? where are the Canadians, Vermonters, Maininites (err…Mainers? Mainenese?) and assorted ppl north of NYC?
and i don’t believe you about the king thing. this is totally the thing that’s supposed to lull me into a false sense of security early in the movie
too bad about #magnatefail. did he at least have a magnatetic personality.
okay, okay, sorry about that pun…well…kina
Lit McLite
3:49 pm Feb-14-2010
The pun was amusing at the least- and actually, the snow didn’t come this far north. It’s been unseasonably warm here (this means: It occasionally hits above freezing), which is kind of nice.
And he really does keep to himself, I promise.
(Mainiacs, is, I believe, the accepted term. But I am a military brat and only live here for the Adventure and Fun, so I wouldn’t know for sure.)