So, the first shot at a cover for Steven Erikson’s upcoming science fiction novel, Willfull Child, was a bit of a whiff. This new one is… better, at least?
Posts Tagged: Steven Erikson
No. No. Just… no.
What is he going to do to me with that gun? No. Oh god. no. Read More »
Art by Marc Oliver Orth
Bouyed by seeing the Internet’s recent enthusiasm about John Scalzi’s Redshirts winning the Hugo Award for ‘Best Novel,’ Steven Erikson has announced that his next novel will not be a Malazan novel (though, Adam Whitehead of The Wertzone reveals that Fall of Light, the second novel in the Kharkanas Trilogy, is still in the works, merely delayed), but Willfull Child, a satirical riff on Star Trek.
Willfull Child is described as a ‘smart, inventive and hugely entertaining spoof on the whole mankind-exploring-space-for-the-good-of-all-species-but-trashing-stuff-with-a-lot-of-hi-tech-kit-along-the-way type over-blown adventure.’
An excerpt of Willfull Child last year on on Tor.com.
More details are available via the Amazon.co.uk page for the novel:
These are the voyages of the starship, A.S.F. Willful Child. Its ongoing mission: to seek out strange new worlds on which to plant the Terran flag, to subjugate and if necessary obliterate new life life-forms, to boldly blow the…
And so we join the not-terribly-bright but exceedingly cock-sure Captain Hadrian Sawback – a kind of James T Kirk crossed with ‘American Dad’ – and his motley crew on board the Starship Willful Child for a series of devil-may-care, near-calamitous and downright chaotic adventures through ‘the infinite vastness of interstellar space’…
Erikson is a delightful and sharply funny person, and I’ve always felt that this sense of humour was one of the highlights of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, so I’m glad to see him momentarily shifting away from the dark, sprawling world of the Malazan/Kharkanas novels into something entirely different. Mind you, it sounds alarmingly like Scalzi’s Redshirts, but Erikson and Scalzi are such stylistically different writers that I think the outward similarities only make me more curious to read Willfull Child.
Art by John Howe
One evening, I had the chance to sit down with Steven Erikson and several other people over a glass of wine and dinner. It was a wonderful evening, full of laughs, camaraderie and discussion. Despite what you might think, me being a book blogger and Steve being a popular author, only a small portion of the evening was spent discussing fiction, books or writing. However, one short conversation, not with Mr. Erikson but with one of his friends, led me to think a lot about why I read, and when I read.
The conversation began with a question, “Do you read before bed?”
Some of us answered no, others, including myself, said, “Yes, I can’t fall asleep otherwise.” Those who answered “no,” had some interesting reasons, though they escape me now, but one of the other diners, a woman whose name I’m sorry to say I can’t remember, began talking about why she reads before bed. She made an observation that has stuck with me since. You see, she reads before bed because it allows her to put aside the events of her day, the events that might be coming the next day, and immerse herself in the emotions, problems and triumphs of the people living in the fiction she holds in her hands. Instead of falling asleep thinking about what needs doing tomorrow, or how her exam went poorly, she falls asleep wrapped in thoughts of these characters, wandering through these other landscapes. Read More »
Last night I had the opportunity to meet with Steven Erikson, author of the Malazan Book of the Fallen and The Kharkanas Trilogy, at a book signing and then at dinner afterwards. I didn’t spend any time picking his brain afterwards, as the dinner was a more casual affair with a group of several friends and family members, though his story about climbing to the top of the Flatiron building in New York City, home of the Tor Books offices, was somewhat harrowing, but there was some interesting information that came out of the reading, some of which, I believe, is new.
- Regarding the oft-rumoured Encyclopaedia Malazica, Erikson suggested that there is, of course, interest from publisher (presumably Tor, though he didn’t indicate which publishers), but that work won’t begin on the project until Ian Cameron Esslemont has finished his currently planned contributions to the Malazan series. This includes one more novel after Blood & Bone.
- He didn’t say much about Esslemont’s fifth book, but mentioned that it will be set on the continent of Assail. He also discussed the process they use for writing an interweaving the stories, indicating that they focus discussions more on thematic elements rather than plot, allowing each other to explore those decided themes however they choose, including killing off characters and significant world-altering plot points, if necessary. It sounds like a very organic way of allowing two writers to work in one world.
- There’s a significant encounter in Toll the Hounds between one of Erikson’s characters and one of Esslemont’s characters (fans who have read TtH will know the encounter I speak of) that was decided, in true RPG-nerd fashion, by a good ol’ fashion roll of a twenty-sided die. Erikson suggested that the end of that novel would have been much different if the die had rolled differently.
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