Posts Tagged: Daniel Abraham

Art

Cover Art for The Spider’s War by Daniel Abraham

By Aidan Moher September 17th, 2014
the-spiders-war-by-daniel-abraham

I’ve got one response for this:

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(Okay, I actually have more than one response, natch, so bear with me. Orbit Books is one of the few big SFF publishers that understands the value in building a brand for its authors. When they weren’t happy with Brent Weeks’ cover for The Black Prism, they recovered the whole series and created an eye-catching and instantly recognizable series on bookstore shelves. They’ve done so with James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse, and Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch series. The packaging and branding for Daniel Abraham’s The Dagger and the Coin was never their finest work, but it was bold and the emblematic weapon (sword, axe, torch, shield and spear) were consistent and matched scale. Read More »

News

Daniel Abraham on Cibola Burn, the future of The Expanse, and The Spider’s War

By Aidan Moher March 6th, 2014
Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey

Buy Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey: Book/eBook

In a recent blog post, Daniel Abraham pulled back the curtain on several of his projects, including news about his fan favourite series, The Dagger and the Coin and The Expanse.

Abraham discussed the upcoming additions to The Expanse series, which he writes alongside Ty Franck under the name James S.A. Corey, beginning with some hints of what readers can expect from the fourth volume in the series, Cibola Burn. “There are some things about [Cibola Burn] that made me *very* *nervous*,” he said. “But all our beta readers said we got away with it.”

The next Expanse novella, which “used to be called ‘Beloved of Broken Things’, will be released as ‘The Churn'” sometime before the release of Cibola Burn.

Abraham expressed excitement for the announced television adaptation of The Expanse, calling the first script “effing AWSOME.” He admits, however, that Hollywood is a fickle beast and that there is not much tangible value to be taken from a first script and some concept art (besides the goosebump factor, of course.) The show is still a long way from appearing on television screens.

The fifth volume, tentatively titled Nemesis Games, “is well under way,” confirmed Abraham.

He also had news for fans of his fantasy series, The Dagger and the Coin. Page proofs of The Widow’s House, a final stage of the editing process, have been submitted to his publisher, Orbit Books, and he’s currently working on the final volume, currently titled The Spider’s War. “I’m already feeling a little wispy about ending my time with these characters,” Abraham said of the series finale. “I shall be bloody bold and resolute. And there are some scenes coming up soon that I’ve been waiting five or six years to write.”

Busy guy, that Daniel Abraham.

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In Discussion: James S.A. Corey on the Television Adaptation of The Expanse

By Aidan Moher September 11th, 2013
The Expanse by James S.A. Corey

We got very lucky. That has a lot to do with it. [We] managed not to turn into squeeing fanboys.

James S.A. Corey has a lot of fans. ‘His’ books, The Expanse series, have been nominated for the Hugo and appeared on the New York Times Bestsellers list. It wasn’t much of a surprise, then, when Variety revealed that The Expanse series was optioned for television by some of the people behind the Iron Man films and Breaking Bad. I reached out to ‘Corey’ to find out more about the project.

“We got very lucky. That has a lot to do with it,” said Daniel Abraham (who, along with Ty Franck, forms James S.A. Corey) when I asked him about how the project came together. As often happens in Hollywood (or an industry as small as science fiction/fantasy publishing), it all began with a daisy-chain of acquaintances and friendly introductions. “We actually had a fair number of inquiries from one place and another about the film rights, and we have a manager out there — Brian Lipson — who knows his way around. He put us together with Sean Daniel and Jason Brown, who’d been handed Leviathan Wakes by Ben Cook. Sean, in addition to producing some obscene percentage of all the good films ever made, knew Mark and Hawk.” Read More »

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Available Now: Unfettered from Grim Oak Press, ed. Shawn Speakman

By Aidan Moher June 24th, 2013

Unfettered, edited by Shawn SpeakmanAt long last, Unfettered, a fantasy anthology edited by Shawn Speakman, is available for purchase. So, please excuse me while I have a little fangasm.

If you’re unaware of the anthology, Unfettered has a history that stretches back to Speakman, owner of The Signed Page, being diagnosed with Hogdkin’s lymphoma in 2011. Uninsured (due to a past cancer diagnosis), Speakman did the only thing he could think of to deal with the monumental medical bills accrued during his cancer treatment: he called his friends, he made a book.

Oh, yeah… his friends include Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, Naomi Novik and Lev Grossman. Each author contributed an original short story to the anthology and, as the title suggests, were not restrained by an overall thematic structure as is often the case with anthologies.

Authors and stories included in the anthology:

– Foreword by Patrick Rothfuss
– Introduction: On Becoming Unfettered
– Imaginary Friends by Terry Brooks
– How Old Holly Came To Be by Patrick Rothfuss
– The Old Scale Game by Tad Williams
– Game of Chance by Carrie Vaughn
– The Martyr of the Roses by Jacqueline Carey
– Mudboy by Peter V. Brett
– The Sound of Broken Absolutes by Peter Orullian
– The Coach with Big Teeth by R.A. Salvatore
– Keeper of Memory by Todd Lockwood
– Heaven in a Wild Flower by Blake Charlton
– Dogs by Daniel Abraham
– The Chapel Perilous by Kevin Hearne
– Select Mode by Mark Lawrence
– All the Girls Love Michael Stein by David Anthony Durham
– Strange Rain by Jennifer Bosworth
– Nocturne by Robert V.S. Redick
– Unbowed by Eldon Thompson
– In Favour with Their Stars by Naomi Novik
– River of Souls by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson
– The Jester by Michael J. Sullivan
– The Duel by Lev Grossman
– Walker and the Shade of Allanon by Terry Brooks
– The Unfettered Knight by Shawn Speakman

The slam dunk here looks like Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson’s “River of Souls,” which is a deleted sequence from A Memory of Light, which explores the off-screen actions of Bao, the Wyld, who Wheel of Time fans might recognize by a different name. With Jordan’s Wheel of Time series concluding earlier this year, this on-the-cutting-room-floor excerpt from the series is one last chance to dip a toe into Jordan’s world.

I’ve not had a chance to read through the entire anthology, but a meander through its pages, along with the handful of stories I have read, Unfettered seems to live up to its promise of being one of the most comprehensive and exciting anthologies of mainstream fantasy released in years. The Table of Contents won’t set anything afire for pushing boundaries, but the (admittedly male-heavy) list of authors includes Sanderson, Carey, Abraham, and Rothfuss, and looks to provide a variety of short stories that is sure to please readers.

Unfettered can be purchased now from Grim Oak Press, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

Disclaimer: I provided editorial feedback to Todd Lockwood on his story, Keeper of Memory, which appears in Unfettered.