Friday, May 28, 2010

Today was a Good Day

Hey folks,

A couple nice things happened to me today (well, besides waking up next to the most beautiful woman in the world and spending the day with our son).

First, the Fantasy Book Critic posted a great review for Shadow's Son which you can find at: http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/.

Then, this afternoon I got a call informing me that we had sold the Shadow trilogy to Polish publisher Papierowy Ksiezyc. That makes seven publishers and counting.

So, thank you all for your support.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Kind Words

A couple weeks back, I received copies of the Shadow's Son ARC (advanced reading copy) from my U.K. publisher, Gollancz. On the first page was written a foreword by Gillian Redearn, Senior Commissioning Editor. I'd like to share it.

She wrote:

"Dear Reader,

Shadow's Son is an extremely entertaining fantasy novel.

If you want to get caught up in an adventure, if you want a book that can make you feel that pause in time that occurs between an assassing taking aim on their target and releasing the trigger, then you've found the novel you're looking for.

This is the story of an assassin. Caim. He's good at his job. He likes his job, which helps when you've had to infiltrate a castle unseen, lurk in the shadows for a day, climb into the rafters of the great hall and perch there for hours -- in the cold, the darkness, the silence -- waiting for the perfect moment to take out your mark. Caim likes his life, too, which is a shame because if he wants to keep it, he's going to have to escape from his cold perch on a rafter inside a great hall inside a castle, and do it with fifty of his target's servants hot on his heels, all eager to avenge their master.

It's a lot of fun.

[...]I'm delighted to introduce you to the next bloody, twisty, dark author whose novel you simply must read: Jon Sprunk.

Hell hath no fury like an assassin wronged . . ."


Thank you, Ms. Redfearn, for those kind words.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

It's Here!



Yes, the day has finally come. Today I received the first copies of Shadow's Son just as they will shortly appear in bookstores all across the country. It's impossible to describe the feeling. I thank all those who have been involved in this project, beginning and ending with my lovely wife, without whom none of this would have been possible.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Pennwriters Conference 2010

This year's annual conference was held at the beautiful Best Western Eden Resort in Lancaster, PA. I've got to say upfront that I think this conference gets better every year. Big kudos to Ayleen Stellhorn, this year's conference organizer.

As before, the conference offered a program of workshops and seminars about writing, marketing, publishing, and such. I was able to attend a few of these and found them all excellent. I was also able to volunteer more this time around than in previous years, and I really enjoyed that.

But the best part was reconnecting with people I hadn't seen since my last PW conference (in 2008). I was given some awesome marketing advice from NYT-bestselling author Maria Snyder (I also snagged an autographed copy of Storm Glass). And I had a wonderful conversion with agent Jennifer Jackson (of The Donald Maass Literary Agency) in the hotel lobby. Pennwriters does a lot of things right with their conferences; getting top-flight agents and editors to attend is one of them.

So now that the conference is ended, I'm left feeling a little sad that it's over, but I'm also energized to dive back into my work-in-progress.

Thank you to all my fellow Pennwriters.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Iron Man 2

My wife and I saw it on Saturday. I was prepared to be underwhelmed because, well, it's a sequel, but I came out feeling quite good about the movie. I like how it extended the mythic structure of the "maker-warrior," delving deeper into Tony Stark's internal demons while at the same time introducing new challenges.

Robert Downey Jr. does an outstanding job as Tony. Don Cheadle is solid as his best friend Lt. Col. Rhoades. Sam Rockwell is both funny and swarmy at the same time.

That's not to say the movie was without flaws. In my humble opinion, IM2 suffers the same setbacks as the original, namely (A) a lack of chemistry between Stark and his love-interest/girl-friday Pepper Potts, and (B) epic fail on the big "boss" fights.

Overall, I highly recommend Iron Man 2.