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?

10 thoughts on “Nibbling Around the Edges of Respectability

  1. Grant says:

    So is there a chance then that we might see NAT on tv or the big screen sometime in the next 2 or 3 years?

  2. Sagune says:

    How to do a grand plié:

    1.) Stand with arms out straight on either side (palms facing forward) and the heels of your feet together, toes pointing as out as possible (try making a straight line across)

    2.) Slowly bend your knees, bringing your hands in a downward sweeping motion at the same time (palms facing down now)

    3.) Keep bending your knees (lifting your heels at the same time) until your in a squatting position. Your arms should now be held in front of your body, finger-tips an inch or so apart, in a sort of simulated “O” shape.

    4.) Now, straighten your legs and slowly bring your heels back down to the ground in their original position. Your arms should remain in that “O” shape as you bring them straight up in front of you.

    5.) By the time your heels are back on the ground and your legs fully straight again, your arms should have reached the level of your chest, and you then simply spread them from the “O” position, back to either side of your body.

    …hope that was useful. LOL!

  3. yutt says:

    Cherie Priest and Devon Monk? Are you competing against real people, or D&D characters?

    1. Sarah says:

      lol…awesome

      While their names are *cough* interesting, I do know that Priest is a great writer. Boneshaker was fantastic and there aren’t many steam-punk authors out there that can write well…that I’ve been able to find anyway.

  4. Sarah says:

    All I’m saying is that if NAT is made into a show, I am hoping that they don’t butcher the WHOLE universe and story like they’ve done with True Blood and Sookie Stackhouse. I stopped watching the show after the first season because it’s completely unrecognizable as the world the Harris created beyond the characters having the same names.

    That being said, Eric Northman is hot. lol

  5. Trey says:

    I personally don’t think the Night Angel Trilogy would make a goof TV series. In order to reach a wider audience, the script would be more dramatized. Such a change would ruin the story-line of this particular series.
    The Night Angel Trilogy would make a much better movie trilogy than a TV series, as the movie could show the series for how it really is. TV series are always changing in order to ensure they get renewed for another season. Movies don’t have to be watered down in order to get a sequel.

  6. Is there anything we can do to help you win, like vote or something?

  7. Darakna says:

    Congrats, Brent!
    But I’ll always love paper and ink best. Nothing can compare to the way you describe your characters – you give us a visual, yet a visual we created (you don’t force eye color, hair color etc. down our throats, yet with their actions I think everyone created a very similar Kylar and Durzo ) … You are an artist, and everything that’s gonna be on TV or even Graphic AudioBook I listened, is at best a great copy … but never a perfect one.

    Book: 10
    AudioBook: 8 … if you include music 8,5 maybe 9 (still searching for an OST or something XD).

  8. Lydia says:

    A TV series would be awesome, but an actor can never match up to your imagination and somewhere along the line they always butcher the story. Just look at what happened to Terry Goodkind’s Soward of Truth Series when it was aired on TV.

  9. Em says:

    Ah yes, I remember reading that on this site and thinking, “TV series maybe, film – yes please!” but as previously mentioned it couldn’t be perfect. Then again, directors and such like can but try!

    Personally ever since I read NAT I’ve just been hoping moviemoviemovie, because damn there are some action scenes that my imagination is itching to physically *see*…

    …Whether they’d be done just right is the gamble though.

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