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Halloween Photobomb Contest

We’re happy to announce our BIENNIAL Halloween Photobomb  Contest! (No, we didn’t forget last year, we just like to keep things fresh. Fresh like pickled ginger.)

Grand Prize:
Signed Hardcopies of The Black Prism (with NEW cover! & old cover so you don’t miss out on smolderingly handsome Gavin), The Blinding Knife, and The Broken Eye — and the first 6 chapters of The Blood Mirror!

Grand Prize

 

Second Place:
Signed Trade Paperback Copies of The Black Prism, The Blinding Knife, and The Broken Eye, or the new slipcover for The Black Prism.

TPB Collage

Third Place:
A signed copy of The Broken Eye in Trade Paperback, or the new slipcover for The Black Prism.

Broken Eye TPB

RULES:

  1. Take a picture of any one of Brent’s books (must be identifiable, and for the sake of this contest, no e-readers) in any exciting, interesting, exotic, or funny locale or with an exciting, interesting, exotic, or funny celebrity or person in an amazing costume*. The picture does not have to be an actual photobomb…. but, uh, that would be nice, since it is in the title of the contest and all.
  2. To enter, email your photo with subject line “Halloween 2015 Contest” to elisa@brentweeks.com by Friday, November 6th at 5PM Pacific Standard Time.
  3. You can enter as many submissions as you like — but you can only win one prize.

Although I appreciate a good Photoshop job as well as anyone, heavily Photoshopped pictures will not be eligible for prizes. Obviously, touching up a real photo is fine. Even PhotoShopping in laser beams is fine–though that’s not the point of this contest, and we’ll do a Photoshop anything goes contest later. Photoshopping in Chris Pratt holding my book when he isn’t actually holding my book is not fine. (Because you would totally win if you actually could get a pic of him holding my book.)

*Don’t Photobomb inappropriately or illegally, yo.

International submissions are encouraged!

Posted on in Contests, Midcyru, Seven Satrapies

Limerick Contest

Once there was a boy who wrote books
He would do whatever it took
To please all his fans
Except guys named Dan
To give them an excellent look!

Our last limerick contest was a few years ago and we’ve decided to run another!

This time, the top five winners will each receive their choice of a brand new dust jacket for the hardcover edition of The Black Prism or a signed trade paperback of The Broken Eye.

Guidelines:
The last word in lines 1, 2, and 5 must rhyme and contain 8-9 syllables each.
The last word in lines 3 and 4 must rhyme and contain 5-6 syllables each.
All submissions must be sent to elisa@brentweeks.com by Monday, October 12 at 5pm Pacific Standard Time.
The subject line of your email should read “Limerick Contest”.
The BEST limericks have some kind of turn in the last line. (Not like Brent’s above.)
It must be about an event, character, or object in either the Night Angel Trilogy or The Lightbringer Series.

Famous limericks:
1. There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man,
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

3. There was an Old Man of Peru
Who watched his wife making a stew.
But once, by mistake,
In a stove she did bake
That unfortunate Man of Peru.
– Edward Lear

4. There was a young lady of Niger
who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
with the lady inside,
and the smile on the face of the tiger.
— Edward Lear

5. A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill can hold more than his beli-can.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week
But I’m damned if I see how the heli-can.
– Dixon Lanier Merritt

Posted on in Contests

Black Prism Book Cover

Know what I hate? I hate it when my book covers don’t match. Turns out I hate it even more when MY book covers don’t match.

I thought maybe some of you hate that too, so the following has been in the works a while.

What am I talking about?

matchy_matchy

Orbit came out with this cover for The Black Prism: rugged dude, dangerous, looks good. But the continuation to this, replicating that feel for the next few books, didn’t work so well… so when it came time to release the trade paperback edition, Orbit went to this. Now THIS is great. Light, magic, and a hooded man. (A hooded man? Well, looks like I’m destined for hooded men. C’est la vie.)

So check this out… if you match up all the paperbacks, they look like this.

Trade Paperback
But… what if you’re one of those amazing fans I like so much who buys in hardcover? Granted, you get the book a year earlier, but… that one not-quite-matching cover…

Some people can just let something like that go. I, sadly, am not one of those people.

So I started talking with Orbit. Orbit is amazing. They really bend over backward to make cool stuff happen for fans and authors. They were totally willing to redesign and resize things from the trade paperback to look awesome on a hardcover. (Thanks, Orbit!) They are also, however, owned by a much larger conglomerate. A conglomerate that has rules.

So here’s what I can’t do: get a design, print out a bunch of covers at a professional printer, and send them to you at cost. I can’t sell them AT ALL… unless I buy the rights to the design, which would run me $12,000. Printing costs, over another $1,000; shipping, over another $1,000. (It’s $6.80/cover just to cover the cost of  printing, shipping, and packaging the cover so it doesn’t get destroyed in the mail–without counting labor of redesign for the larger size or my assistant to pack them, track them, and go to the post office to send them.)

I love y’all, but I am so done with eating Ramen. And trying to just cover my costs at that rate would look like a huge cash grab because I simply don’t have the economies of scale that a publisher has. I want those of you who bought in hardcover early to get something nice, but it has to work for all of us, whether a lot of you are interested in getting that cover, or only a few.

But… Clever Brent is clever.

Since I’d never intended to make money on getting these to you, how about… we call it a promotional deal? We could do contests and stuff? And give them away free?

So. Orbit worked up the design—thanks Lauren and Alex and team! And I got some professionally printed on my own. Now, giveaways!

HOW DO I GET ME MY SHINY NEW COVER, WKS!!!!?

1) Book Tours. If you come to a signing I do, I’ll have a small number of these with me. Ask me if you want one. Covers are challenging to bring without denting, but I’ll do my best.

2) Skill Giveaways. Like a Limerick Contest, coming tomorrow! (What? Writing limericks is totally a skill!) Or our upcoming Halloween Photobomb Contest.

3) Other Giveaways, including random drawings for FB and Goodreads followers. (To be announced soon.) Pretty much, any time I do a giveaway, I’ll have the cover be an option until I run out.

4) Last, I’m opening a small Web Store soon. If you buy a hardcover of The Black Prism, I can sign it, and I’ll throw in the new cover for free. (More details to come!)

These, however, are the only ways you can get this cover for now.

So I probably should have given this up, but just look at this line up:

Lightbringer Covers

Ah, doesn’t it make you feel better inside?

 

Black Prism HC

 

 

Posted on in Seven Satrapies

Retribution, Poisoner’s Knife, and More

Nope, check the date. Not April 1. Nope, this isn’t a Kickstarter. It’s here. It’s now. It’s for real. Well, a real replica. This one doesn’t do magic. Believe me, I tried.

May I present to you Retribution as covered by the black ka’kari.

Retribution

 

I’m really impressed with the quality of the work Windlass Steelcrafts has done. It was a huge concern of mine to only be associated with work I can be proud of. I’m proud of this. Windlass got their start outfitting the British Gurkha regiments with kukris and has supplied not only a lot of Hollywood with props and replicas, but also a number of the world’s militaries with their swords. Retribution and the Poisoner’s Knife are 1085 high carbon steel, hand forged and heat treated in a computer controlled oven. This is considered “battle steel” and although more pure now than what sword smiths of old would have used, is basically what would have been used if the story were non-fiction. They’re full tang for added strength, will hold a good edge, but are flexible enough to take a blow. A sharpening service is available.

So… should the Zombie Apocalypse occur… this purchase could really be considered insurance… right? Right? And with that black finish, it won’t give away your position to other raiders. Er, raiders, I mean. Not other raiders. My fans would be only good guys, right? Right?

Also, for a limited time, when you buy Retribution or the Poisoner’s Knife, you will receive a certificate of authenticity, hand signed by me.

Purchase the replica of Retribution HERE.

scabbard

The language on the sides of the blade and down the length of the scabbard is comprised of a real font designed in the Middle Ages to speak to immortals. If yours doesn’t auto-translate into a language you can read, check your ka’kari. 😉  If you’re rusty on your Hyrillic, it says Mercy down one side and Justice down the other. The scabbard says Retribution. The sword belt has vials for your favorite poiso–err, colored water! Or could hold spikes that would definitely not be for throwing, especially in the states of New York or California. You can find the scabbard and sword belt HERE.

About a different kind of translation:  In the books, the Poisoner’s Knife was a dainty thing, almost concealable in your hand. We tried it. It didn’t seem right. Sort of like if you look at Michelangelo’s statue of David from the ground, he looks all sorts of awesome, but if you were to look at him straight on, his proportions are all weird. Why? Because Michelangelo crafted David to look awesome for the way his audience was going to encounter him, rather than slavishly making his proportions “correct.” I believe in the same principle. In the books, a tiny dagger could be badass because it’s tiny–but that just doesn’t work when you’re doing cos-play or you want to show your friends This Cool Thing. Ergo, the Poisoner’s Knife here is NOT small: it’s awesomely big. I think it works better this way, and I like to trust other artists to tweak things in the medium where they’re the experts. Similarly, we tried other things with Retribution (it IS a shape-shifting sword after all). We tried different shapes or even bigger, and they just didn’t work as well as we thought this does. This is one rendering of these blades, and if you prefer the ones in your imagination, great! The power of books is to engage your imagination; the power of costuming is to see and hold and feel a real, particular object.

And kill zombies with it.

Purchase the Poisoner’s Knife HERE.

Dagger
And last, the perfect complement to your wetboy cos-play or to fend off zombie bites — I didn’t put zombies in Night Angel, did I? Why didn’t I put zombies in Night Angel? — these awesome vambraces are available HERE.
Vambraces1

I hope you love the work we’ve done. It’s taken a lot of time. (How much? Well, you might notice we managed to sneak in the sword design into the Graphic Novel. Thanks, Andy MacDonald for the extra work!) See? Foreshadowing!

 

Retribution_Durzo

 

 

Posted on in Art, Midcyru

Most of Those Color Quizzes are Total Crap

Because the magic system of my Lightbringer Series is intensely concerned with color and perception, and because I treat these in a mostly scientific fashion, I tend to get a lot of emails from readers pointing out the latest BuzzFeed or whatever quiz. “This woman can see millions more colors than the average person! Can you?” Or, “Are you a tetrachromat? Take this test and see!”

This link explains why most of those are complete garbage. And my thanks to Unreasonably Dangerous Onion Rings for taking the time to debunk this so that I could spend my time writing novels.

http://unreasonablydangerousonionrings.com/2015/03/03/you-are-not-a-tetrachromat-and-this-graphic-is-bullshit/

The TL;DR: It is physically impossible for these tests to tell if you a functional 4th cone because computer monitors make their colors by mixing only 3 colors, RGB.

This is not to say that all the information or all the quizzes on the internet are worthless. Ones like this are very interesting http://www.xrite.com/online-color-test-challenge, but still limited by the quality of your computer monitor, and how well you’ve calibrated it. So comparing your score to someone else’s is almost meaningless, unless you were both using the same computer. (Naturally, I got a perfect score.)

Or things like this are really closer to astrology, but are fun nonetheless: http://www.astro.com/cgi/atxgen.cgi?btyp=cf and the Lüscher Color Test: http://www.luscher-color.com/ is significantly more scientific from what I can tell, and is used as psychological diagnostic tool. But either to protect their intellectual property, or because of the flaws of RGB screens, it is only available in physical form. I’ve taken the test. Very interesting.

Sidenote for my own readers: in my world, I have 50% of women be tetrachromats. In the real world, it’s possible that 12% of women are tetrachromats. And most of those non-functionally tetrachromatic, because they’re never taught how to even distinguish those extra colors. I use this 1) there would be a competitive advantage for such women in a world with the kind of magic mine has and 2) because it makes for better fiction. It is genetically possible, though incredibly rare, for tetrachromacy to occur in men. It would, however, usually come with other unpleasant disabilities which I chose to elide. This series is reality-heavy as it is.

P.S. It’s totally fine to tag me when you find cool color stuff online. I most likely have already seen it, but it may be a new discovery, I certainly don’t mind when people tag me on things I’ve seen a dozen times, so don’t worry about it!

Posted on in Seven Satrapies

David Gemmell Legend Award: Shortlist

david-gemmell-award

The Broken Eye has made it to the shortlist of the David Gemmell Legend Award! A huge thanks to all who voted–and I mean that. All of you, not just all of you who voted for me. (Ok, a small place in my heart is significantly warmer toward the latter.)

The DGLA is a new award, and it’s a different kind of award. Every kind of award comes with certain limitations, but those limitations can either be ameliorated or exaggerated. In certain Hugo categories, there have been people who win the award 12 or more times, or categories where it seems groups simply trade the award back and forth. That kind of result shows the weaknesses not of the field of SFF, but of an award’s rubric for selecting its ‘best of’.

The Gemmell Awards have their own weakness–and no one has ever denied this. It’s an award decided by several consecutive popular votes. If Brandon Sanderson campaigned hard, he could likely win this award every year not featuring a Martin book. Brandon has chosen to not campaign–which I think is both honorable and wise.

With a new award especially, if too few writers win it, the award itself is weakened. As Mark Lawrence points out in his post, this year’s short list includes Sanderson, Lawrence, and me–each of whom has won before. Joe Abercrombie hasn’t won the Legend Award but has been on the short list four times now. On one hand, this isn’t surprising, nor is it a weakness:  OF COURSE writers who have moved readers previously will continue to do work that inspires readers to make a few clicks on a webpage.

But the goal of the David Gemmell Awards is “to recognise and promote writers and artists in the fantasy field. … Gemmell supported and encouraged new authors and artists as well as being part of the pantheon of great fantasy writers worldwide.” Certainly, the Gemmells honor the kinds of works that readers have long loved but that awards committees have either looked down on or decided didn’t need honoring because they thought selling a lot of books was reward enough.

But if readers only vote every year for their favorite author–rather than their favorite book–and they never even read the others, then the Gemmell Awards will have failed. The long list and short list should be a place to discover books that other fantasy fans are passionate about. The winner should represent the best of those as decided by fans. “Should.” But how close what the award is trying to achieve and what it will actually achieve is up to you.

All that to say, I absolutely believe you should vote for what you believe to be the best book on the ballot, regardless of whether its author has won before. BUT, if you think two books are equally good and one of them hasn’t won the award yet, I would urge you vote for that one.

That is, unless you’re stuck between my book and Abercrombie’s. I think ultimately, it’s in the interests not just of SFF fandom, but also in the best interests of Joe “Little Axe” Abercrombie himself to remain the Losingest Gemmell Nominee of All Time.

Click HERE to vote.  Voting ends Friday, July 17th at midnight.

Posted on in Contests

The Black Prism in China

UPDATE: We think we have identified the artist. Check out Jian Guo’s other amazing work HERE, including some amazing tributes to Tolkien and covers for other fantasy authors such as Marion Zimmer Bradley and Gene Wolfe. (Thanks to Miro below, who gave us the tip!)

Exciting news! The Black Prism publishes next month in China, thanks to the work of Chongqing Books. Look at this awesome cover:

 

Tlack prism China

I have the enormous privilege to see a lot of cool takes on cover art that are each influenced by their country, culture, and audience’s expectations of what a fantasy cover should look like, but few have been as striking as this. I love how it unfolds the longer you look at it. It’s a little bit Link from Legend of Zelda, a little Lord of the Rings, and a little bit the stained glass sequence from Beauty and the Beast.

I love it. (If anyone can tell me the artist’s name, I’d be more than happy to link to him or her!)

 

Posted on in Seven Satrapies