Tad Williams' Shadowrise

One final thanks (this week, at least) to Deborah for these excerpts. This is the third and final excerpt from  Tad Williams‘ upcoming release–Volume 3 in the Shadowmarch series, Shadowrise. The book will be released in March.

Today’s excerpt is from Chapter 11 (Cut and Thrust):

“Princess Briony,” said Lady Ananka as the servitors cleared away the most recent course, “can you tell me how children are raised in the north?”

A few whispers and quiet anticipatory laughter ran the length of the royal table. Briony wished her friend was beside her, but Ivgenia had been assigned to one of the lesser tables at the other end of the hall and she might as well have been in another country.

“I’m sorry, Baroness, but I did not hear your question.”

“How are children raised in the north?” the king’s mistress asked. “Are they allowed to run wild there, as the Marchfolk allow their sheep and other animals to do?”

Briony smiled carefully. “Not all our animals run wild, Lady, but for those who live in areas where grass grows freely it only makes sense to take advantage of the bounty the gods provide.”

“But it is the children I am interested in, dear,” said Ananka with acid sweetness. “For instance, I was told that you were taught to fight with a sword and shield. Most exciting, I am sure, but to us it seems a little…uncivilized. I hope I do not offend.”

Briony did her best to keep smiling, but it was growing harder. She had not expected the assault to begin quite so early in the evening — they had only finished the soup — but no one could stop this except the king, and Enander seemed much more interested in his wine and the conversation of an attractive woman on his other side.

It is like one of Shaso’s knife exercises, Briony told herself. Combined with playing one of Finn’s invented parts. If I could do both of those, I can achieve this, too. “How could you possibly offend, Lady?” Briony asked the king’s mistress, letting no hint of irony into her words. “When you and His Majesty have so kindly given me a place here, as well as the priceless gift of your friendship?”

“Of course,” said Ananka slowly, as if reassessing her strategy. Another flurry of whispers ran around the table. Those who had been deliberately ignoring Briony for social reasons were now regarding her openly, able at last to indulge their curiosity. “But I inquire because there is something else I wanted to ask. Something that I hoped you could…help me understand.”

Whatever happens, do not be drawn into a fight, Briony told herself. She has the high ground here and all the other advantages. “Of course, Lady Ananka.”

Ananka put a grave expression on her handsome, long-boned face. “Is it true that you challenged Hendon Tolly to a fight? A…swordfight?”

The whispers became something louder and more violent – laughs, gasps, expressions of disbelief and disgust. Women who had never done anything in their lives more strenuous than sewing stared at Briony as though she were some freakish example of the gods’ displeasure – a two-headed ram or a legless cat. The looks on their faces ignited a flame of anger in Briony’s gut, and for a moment it was all she could do not to stand up and sweep her crockery onto the floor.

Every night this woman tormented her. Gods, I wish I had my sword now…!

“If you lose your temper, you will likely lose the fight.” She heard Shaso’s gruff voice as if he stood at her shoulder. “The warrior who can keep his thoughts clear is always armed.” Briony took a breath. “To play calm, you must remember calm.” That had been Nevin Hewney in one of his sober moments. “Bring that feeling to your thoughts. Taste it like a piece of fruit.” She thought of riding the wagon when they had first crossed into Syan, how the great expanse of the Esterian river valley had opened before her like the arms of a welcoming friend.

“I did challenge him, Lady,” she said, her voice light. “I regret it now, of course. It was not seemly and it put a burden on my other guests.” Nothing wrong with a small feint in return, though, was there? “No hostess should ever force her guests to participate in her own bad manners.”

Another quiet chuckle ran around the table, but Briony fancied the laughter might have become a tiny bit more sympathetic.

“You put a sword to his throat, did you not?” asked Ananka sweetly, as though she too sought only to minimize an unfortunate moment.

“I did, my lady,” she said. She was pleased to realize that much of her anger had passed through her like a storm. “I certainly did, and as I said, I am ashamed. But let us not forget, he is the man who usurped my family’s throne. Imagine how you would feel if one of your loyal nobles,” Briony turned with a smile, looking up and down the table, “turned out to be a traitor? Unbelievable, I know, but we trusted the Tollys, too.”
For the first time she seemed to have Enander’s attention. “Did you have no idea, then?” the king asked. “Did this Duke Hendon not live at your court?”

“The duke was his brother Gailon, Majesty,” Briony gently corrected him. “And Gailon was, I must admit, a better man than I gave him credit for. Hendon killed him, too, as it turns out.”

Now the whispers were unleavened by laughter. “Terrible,” said one of the women, an old duchess with a wig like a bird’s nest. “You poor thing. How frightened you must have been.”

Briony smiled again, as shyly and humbly as she could. At the end of the table Ananka’s face was set in a mask of polite sympathy, but Briony had no doubt that the baronness was none too happy with the way the conversation had slipped her reins. “Frightened – yes, of course. Terrified. But I did only what any young noblewoman would do when her father’s throne was in jeopardy. I ran away in search of friends. Trustworthy friends, like King Enander. And again I thank him…and the Lady Ananka…for all they have done for me.” She lifted her cup and bowed her head in the direction of Enander. “May the Three Brothers give you long lives and good health to equal your great kindness, your Majesty.”

“His Majesty,” echoed the others, and drank up. Enander looked surprised but not unhappy. Ananka was hiding her irritation well.

Briony considered it a victory on both counts.

I posted two other excerpts earlier this week, they can be found here and here.

Tad Williams' Shadowrise

Thanks again to Deborah Beale’s kindness, here is the second excerpt from  Tad Williams‘ upcoming release–Volume 3 in the Shadowmarch series, Shadowrise. The book will be released in March.

In this second installment, we get a look at a snippet of Chapter Six (Broken Teeth):

Barrick had often criticized his sister Briony for her slovenly habits. She let dogs sleep in her bed even on warm nights, dropped her shoes wherever she took them off, and would cradle the muddiest, most disgusting creature in the world to her breast as long as it was a baby — whether puppy, foal, kitten, lamb, or chick. However, despite all the times Briony had driven her more fastidious brother into a rage, his strongest wish now was that he could speak to her again and apologize for saying that she was the most untidy thing that had ever lived…because now he knew better. No creature, not even some blind worm living in the very privies of Kernios, could be more disgusting than the raven Skurn, with his meals of frogspawn and festering mouse carcasses, his verminous, patchy feathers, and his constant smell of blood, rot and ordure.

The big dark bird ate constantly, head bobbing up and down over some horror or other with the infuriating regularity of a waterwheel in a strong current. And Skurn ate anything and everything – bugs out of the air, droppings of other birds off the trees, slugs and snails and anything else too slow to avoid his horny black beak. Nor was he a tidy eater: his breast was always covered with a drying crust of whatever he’d eaten last, often with some bits still faintly twitching. And his other habits were even more dreadful. Skurn was not careful about where he defecated at the best of times, but when he was startled he gave up all discretion: wayward droppings might splash on Barrick’s shoulder or even into his hair.

“But us doesn’t shit on you a-purpose,” Skurn pointed out after one such accident when he was startled by a falling branch. “And as must be said, so far us’s kept you clear of the silkins.”

That at least was true. Since Skurn had returned he had helped Barrick through Silky Wood with little contact from the creatures after whom it was named. A pair of silent stalkers had followed them for a while a few sleeps back, but had come no closer than the lower branches. Perhaps, Barrick thought with a touch of pride, word had spread of how he had dealt with their kin. (More likely, though, he recognized, was that they were simply waiting until more of them had gathered.)

He hadn’t seen a sign of them at all yesterday or today, and had actually managed a few hours of sleep while the raven Skurn played sentry – or claimed he had, anyway: not only was Skurn self-serving, he was old. Once Barrick had actually seen him doze off in midflight, lose control of his wings and crack his head against a tree trunk, spinning to the ground like a clump of black leaves. As he hurried toward him, Barrick had been sure the raven had broken his neck.

Is it a heresy, Barrick couldn’t help wondering, to pray to gods whose existence you are confused about and whose kindness you certainly doubt, begging for the safety of a brute of a bird you do not even like?

Tad Williams' Shadowrise

Last week, I covered Deborah Beale’s use of Twitter to market (husband and business partner) Tad Williams‘ upcoming release–Volume 3 in the Shadowmarch series, Shadowrise. In a follow-up to the interview, Beale was kind enough to provide compilations of her tweets. Here is the first of three excerpts. Over the next few days I will post two more excerpts.

In this first installment, enjoy an excerpt from Chapter Three (Silky Wood):

“I have a plan, bird.” Barrick Eddon unwound another strand of prickly creeper from his arm, hook by barbed, painful hook. “A very clever plan. You find me a path that doesn’t take me through every single thorn bush in Fairyland…and I won’t flatten your nasty little skull with a rock.”

Skurn hopped down to a lower branch, but prudently remained out of Barrick’s reach. He fluffed his blotched feathers. “It all do look different from up in sky, don’t it?” The raven’s tone was sullen. Neither of them had eaten since the middle of the day before. “Us can’t always tell.”

“Well, fly lower.” Barrick stood up and rubbed at the line of small, bleeding holes, then pulled his ragged shirtsleeve back down.

“’Fly lower,’ says he,” Skurn grumbled. “Like he were the master and Skurn the servant, ‘stead of equable partners as us’n be by agreement.” He flapped his wings. “By agreement!”

Barrick groaned. “Then why does my…partner keep leading me through all the pointiest bits of territory? It’s taken us a day to go a few hundred paces. At this pace, by the time we bring the…” It suddenly occurred to Barrick that perhaps a dark forest, filled with who knew how many or what kind of listening ears, might not the best place to talk about Lady Porcupine’s mirror, the object he was sworn to carry all the way to the throne of the Qar. “At this pace, by the time we find them even the immortals will have died.”

Skurn seemed to soften a bit. “Can’t see the ground from high because trees be too thick, ‘special them Hartstangle trees. But us daren’t fly no lower. Don’t you see? Silks be strung in the high branches and some even wave above the treetops, just to catch fine fellows like us.”

“Silks?”

My thanks to Beale for providing these excerpts.

Tad Williams' Shadowrise

As damn fine a writer and editor that Deborah Beale is, I consider her equally great as a marketing genius. I’ve written before about some of her and husband/business partner/writer Tad Williams marketing ventures before in this post from last October. I recently joined Twitter (find me here as Talkingwithtim) and have started observing how folks that I respect utilize it to their advantage. This March, Volume 3 in Williams’ Shadowmarch series, Shadowrise, will be released. To whet the appetite of fans anticipating the book’s release, Beale is twittering (as MrsTad)  excerpts from the book. The most recent series of tweets started on January 23.  I had to ask Beale a few questions about the effort, and she was more than happy to oblige me in this mini email interview. My thanks to Beale for her time and efforts, as always.

Tim O’Shea: How did you come up with the idea to start sharing excerpts from Tad’s new novel, Shadowrise via Twitter?

Deborah Beale: It wasn’t a flash-bang moment; it just occurred to me sometime back that it would be a cool thing to do. I was waiting for a finished manuscript from Tad, and I wanted to fit in with the publishers wishes too, which means streaming something close to publication date. Now, of course, I’m wondering who else might be doing something like this. There was one fiction-experiment last year, I can’t remember the details but it didn’t end well. I’m just throwing stuff out there for our followers and mailing list (who got a free short story for Xmas.) And I’m having fun with it.

O’Shea: How logistically challenging has it been to parse out the 140 character increments?

Beale: This is the best, best bit. First of all, as I’m sitting there actually tweeting, it puts Tad’s line-by-line prose into my face, I mean, really up close. And I’ve been amazed all over again by what an EXTREMELY FINE WRITER Tad is. I’ve actually paused as I’ve been doing it, to observe the text. It’s such a beautiful thing.

Secondly, I don’t think about the 140 character limit at all. Instead, I break the text into short pieces that resonate for me, just standing there in that little white box. Some are poetically effective: some end on a word that intrigues or surprises. Some sentences primarily move the story along, or are the punchline to a joke. As a writer, it seems to me that Tad’s text is soaked in surprises – taken slowly, it’s even more evident.

O’Shea: What’s been some of the reactions to the effort–have you lost any followers or if have you gained some (as a result)?

Beale: I think people are enjoying it – they tell me they are. Right now the people who follow us are up close and personal. It might not always be that way, especially when the Otherland game is launched.

O’Shea: Have you heard from other authors interested in trying to do something similar?

Beale: No. But it seems a pretty obvious thing to do, to me.

O’Shea: You use YouTube, your blog, Twitter–how else are you going to harness the potential of the Internet to make people aware of Shadowrise or other projects by you and/or Tad?

Beale: I think I’m going to relax about it and have fun with it all this year. First of all, my businesswoman head says, two novels – Shadowrise and Shadowheart – are being published this year, and there will be marketing and publicity as a result of that. So I’ll grab what opportunities come my way, but probably put less into making opportunities (and put my energy instead into a writing new novel.)

O’Shea: Any other ideas you might test run via Twitter? (or feel free to substitute with another question that you would rather discuss)

Beale: I’ll definitely be tweeting pieces of Shadowheart as the book finalizes – that’ll be in the fall, I think. I’ll be tweeting more episodes from published books, too. I need to formalize it, make it a regular thing – I’m working on that. I’m open to any requests. The shaping thing at the moment is how deliciously Tad’s prose breaks up into little pieces. To steal a metaphor from my friend Ellen Kushner – it tastes so lovely in my mouth!

Can I just add one final point? Tad has always written long novels, and that can be a brake on the wheels for some readers. So I want to say, with the new novel Shadowrise (March, DAW Books in the USA), people who haven’t read Tad’s books before should just read the synopses at the start of the book, and jump right in. There’s a good reason for doing this, if peeps haven’t encountered Tad’s work yet. Shadowrise might possibly be the best book Tad’s written – it’s extraordinary, a peak experience for a fantasy reader, I think. (Usual disclaimer: biased? Moi?) It’s just a dazzlingly, blindingly, good book.

First up in that category is The Dragons of Ordinary Farm by Tad Williams and Deborah Beale, who I interviewed back in July. Williams and Beale’s book were ranked in Liz Rosenberg/Barnes and Noble’s Best Children’s Books of 2009: Chapter Books list. Congrats to Williams and Beale on earning an inclusion in such a valuable collection of books.

Here’s some details about the book: “Tyler and Lucinda have to spend summer vacation with their ancient uncle Gideon, a farmer. They think they’re in for six weeks of cows, sheep, horses, and pigs. But when they arrive in deserted Standard Valley, California, they discover that Ordinary Farm is, well, no ordinary farm.

The bellowing in the barn comes not from a cow but from a dragon. The thundering herd in the valley? Unicorns. Uncle Gideon’s sprawling farmhouse never looks the same twice. Plus, there’s a flying monkey, a demon squirrel, and a barnload of unlikely farmhands with strange accents and even stranger powers.

At first, the whole place seems like a crazy adventure. But when darker secrets begin to surface and Uncle Gideon and his fabulous creatures are threatened, Lucinda and Tyler have to pull together to take action. Will two ordinary kids be able to save the dragons, the farm — and themselves?”

And here’s some background on Williams:
“Tad Williams has held more jobs than any sane person should admit to—singing in a band, selling shoes, managing a financial institution, throwing newspapers, and designing military manuals, to name just a few. He also hosted a syndicated radio show for ten years, worked in theater and television production, taught both grade-school and college classes, and worked in multimedia for a major computer firm. He is cofounder of an interactive television company, and is currently writing comic books and film and television scripts as well as novels.”

Finally, some background on Beale:
“Deborah Beale is a mother, businesswoman and writer. She collaborates with Tad Williams as well as managing the business arising from his books and their joint enterprise. For many years before this, Deborah was a book publisher in the UK, publishing across all fields of fiction and non-fiction, and specializing in SF and fantasy. Deborah was a founder member of the Orion Publishing Group.”

Did I mention you can read the first eight chapters here for free? My thanks to Williams and Beale for the interview.

Tim O’Shea: Am I correct in thinking the key to your collaboration is flexibility and revision. Deborah you write the first draft and then turn it over to Tad a turn–correct?

Deborah Beale: Yes, although the entire process is evolving and one of the fun things is playing with what comes along.

O’Shea: In this collaboration, what do you view are the assets that you believe the other brings to Ordinary Farm?

Tad Williams: An outsider’s fascinated eye for California and a certain gothic darkness.

Beale: All the experience of a world-class writer and a certain steadying calm.

O’Shea: This first book in the Ordinary Farm series is set in the summer –in young adult literature would you say summers are an archetype of sorts? In setting the story in summer (while admittedly you dodge the “why aren’t they in school” question), but do you also appeal to the children’s perception of a summer break being rife with unlimited potential?

Beale: An archetype? – ooh, yeah. There’s a lot in what drives me that comes from a younger age, and yearning for what were basically big American ideas. The summer, for instance – that’s a big American idea, or at least it was to me when I was 8 or 9.

Williams: All of those things are true. Plus summer is a traditional time of remaking oneself, of learning and changing.

Beale: It’s a bridge from a younger self to another self.

O’Shea: Was Ordinary Farm always conceived as a series of books, or did it initially grow out of an idea for a standalone novel?

Williams & Beale: It was always meant to be a series, but how many, we didn’t quite know. We offered two to Klett Cotta, Tad’s German publishers, first of all, because they’d loved the idea from the start. They came back and said, No, not two, but we’d like to commission five. We smiled a lot that day.

O’Shea: Deborah, as a veteran editor of many books (as well as a founder member of the Orion Publishing Group), what is the key to hooking a reader with your story?

Beale: A list:
Suspense, withholding of information, good characterization, good balance of spookiness and fear. Living vicariously in the story – making it fun, so you wish it was happening to you. But also, a good shot of oo-err reality – you might wish it was you, but if it was, you might not be that happy!

O’Shea: I was struck by your use of italics in your writing–for emphasis. How hard is it to pace something like using italics–if used too often in a page or in a chapter it dilutes the device of emphasis. Do you debate on aspects of the novel like that, or is just one of you in charge of what gets italicized?

Williams: All of that stuff goes with word usage, grammar, syntax. That’s final assessment at polished draft stage. But you have to see it in proofs so you can get things and catch all mistakes — like the last person in the room looks around, checks under the bed and turns the light off.

Beale: That’s like the material handling of the language. Ideally when you’re paying attention to the surface of the text, it’s late in the process.

O’Shea: Deborah, on your Twitter account, you wrote: “The man is asleep and totally wiped: he’s working so hard at the moment that his brain won’t shut off at night.” When you see Tad working this hard are you worried for him on some level, or do you know he’s ultimately happy when he’s working this hard.

Beale: It’s really about doing whatever you need to do as a writer to make a business for yourself. So it comes with the territory – the up and down nature of things.

O’Shea: Tad–when you’re juggling multiple books and drafts like this, does it ever stop being enjoyable for you?

Williams: The only thing that’s ever not enjoyable is if I feel like I’m in too much of a hurry to do my best work – and when I feel like that, it’s a warning sign that something’s not working properly. But I don’t mind juggling lots of things if I can give them all the proper attention.

Beale: You thrive on that…

Williams: I do have multiple things going on all the time.

O’Shea: Greg Swearingen provided illustrations for the book–can you talk about how he was selected to contribute to the book? How do his illustrations serve to compliment the story?
Beale: Our former editor at Harper Collins, Brenda Bowen, is responsible for the production. I think it’s gorgeous, we were just so thrilled with illos after we’d seen them in rough form.

O’Shea: What’s the appeal to writing dragons?

Williams: It’s one of the great archetypes. It’s been done a great deal in the last 20 or 30 years so that makes it even more of a challenge to carve out new territory.

Beale: I wanted to create a ride on a dragon. And I saw it as something terrifying and transformative. So that became the seed of one of the book’s storylines.

O’Shea: Back in 2001, Deborah, you wrote “It is in fact a great problem for any writer, and it doesn’t lessen if a writer is blessed enough that it becomes his or her full-time work. You really need solitude, and there is never enough solitude.” You both are active parents, clearly involved in your children’s lives, compare 2001 to now–do you two both have a harder time finding the solitude to write, or is it easier now? What’s the trick to finding the time to write?

Williams: It’s definitely easier because the children don’t need the same day to day, hour to hour work of keeping their little bottoms clean.

Beale: But when they come home from school it’s like this total drama moves through the house, slamming doors and spreading whatever kind of day they’ve had, over as many people as possible. So it’s a new age, with a whole new set of demands!

The trick – well, the trick is to figure out what you want to do, work supremely hard, put it at the center of your life and pay the price for it all. Then you’ll have found the time to write, and by then you will be writing. It’s really best done earliest in life because it can be destructive.

O’Shea: You are aggressively marketing the book (surprisingly not something every successful author like you two are bothers to do)–on May 20 you released a sneak peak of the first eight chapters–what other marketing efforts are you doing to bring attention to the book?

Beale: There are videos on YouTube – there’s a set called “Being Creative” which we made for Harper Collins’ library & educational market, and then there’s another 4 or 5 which are interview bits, us on the sofa. We’re probably going to start adding to these on a regular basis. There’s a whole bunch of stuff due to go up on Harper Collins’ website. Our special Ordinary Farm webpage is here. Tad’s on Facebook – he’s killingly funny and gets to act out his comic alter-ago. I’m on facebook.com/boudicca, and on Twitter as MrsTad. Twitter’s closer-in to my daily consciousness, as it were.

O’Shea: In the course of writing the book, which characters became increasingly more enjoyable to write as the novel evolved?

Beale: Well, Tad’s not very connected to Ordinary Farm at this exact moment, because he’s heavily involved with finishing Shadowrise. But I’m deep into the first draft of A Witch At Ordinary Farm and I have to say, I’m loving writing Tyler now he’s a year older and I get to think about how he evolves. Basically I suspect he’s bi-polar, but we haven’t discussed that really, so we’ll see. Also, writing Colin in this book is very enjoyable. I get to deepen him, and work with his complexity, and he’s really opening up to me as a character.

O’Shea: Is there anything about Dragons of Ordinary Farm you’d like to discuss that I neglected to ask you about?

Williams: One of the fun things is you can read it as a straightforward adventure, but some of the ideas are going to be quite big. Like, what is the long-term meaning of the fault line… Because it isn’t going to stay static. There’s an idea about evolution at work, and an idea about parallel universes. There will be time-travel paradoxes too.

Beale: I just think it’s a gorgeous great jewel chest stuffed with ideas. Ideas are like jewels I think: they thrill me and sometimes they’re beautiful.

O’Shea: The Dragons of Ordinary Farm will be released later this year in Germany. How much are you two consulted when your work is translated into other languages?

Williams & Beale: It depends on the individual relationships concerned, but we’re good friends with our German translator, Hans Ulrich Mohring. HUM’s great. We have to answer his questions, and get it right for HUM. We think he’s got an astonishing feel for his work.