I am eagerly waiting for the UK publication of SPELLBOUND, the second book in the Spellwright Trilogy. It took me nearly ten years to publish my first novel, SPELLWRIGHT. I wrote and rewrote it continually during my twenties as I tried on many different lives—High school English teacher, American football coach, biomedical technical writer, and finally medical student.

SPELLWRIGHT became a composite of my twenties as I looked back on my experiences as a learning disabled teenager. The character of Nicodemus was the ultimate receptacle of that endeavor. I was halfway through medical school when SPELLWRIGHT came out; I was both pleased with the results and apprehensive about attempting to produce another novel of equal or, hopefully, improved quality.

I had a decade to produce my first novel; now, for my second, I had only a year. Though intimidated, I now had many new experiences in medical school from which I could draw. I am very happy with the result, SPELLBOUND. In this book, I continued the development of Nicodemus; however, I also created a new protagonist, a young physician named Francesca DeVega, who shares the limelight with Nico. Writing Fran is a true joy. Into her I poured all that I had discovered in medicine—the long hours, the moments of great satisfaction and frustration, the rare and precious moments of humor, and the horror of disease.

So far in the US edition of SPELLBOUND has enjoyed a wonderful critical reception; with many critics praising Francesca’s character in particular. I very much hope that readers across the Atlantic will agree.

 Author Q&A

Do you identify with the character of Nicodemus Weal or Francesca DeVega more? Rachel, Walthamstow

Clearly, I’ve drawn on a lot of autobiographical material in the creation of both characters: my experiences as a disabled student for Nico, and my experiences as a medical student for Fran. When I started Spellwright at the age of 20, I closely identified with Nico; however, it took me over ten years of rewriting to get that book into stores, and by that time I had ceased to identify with him. He had seemed to take on a voice of his own, one that was more juvenile, more desperate, and more earnest (or at least less sarcastic) than my own voice.  

Though I could relate to Nico’s problems, they were much more dramatic than my own. When creating Fran the same process (that of a character seeming to take on its own voice) happened much faster.  Perhaps for this reason, I have a ball writing Fran. She is easily my favorite character. So, if I had to answer your question frankly, I would say that I identify more with Nicodemus. However, if you grant me a bit more license, I can tell you that the character I identify with the most strongly is Magister Shannon.

He is older than either of the major protagonists. He spends more time looking back into his past and those of his friends than into the future, unlike Nico or Fran. And though Shannon is also invested into the plot, he is slightly removed from it. In essence, Shannon’s relationship to the action of the trilogy is similar to an author’s relationship to a novel. 

If they make SPELLWRIGHT and SPELLBOUND into films, who would you cast as the main characters? Louise, Southampton

I am horribly ignorant of all things cinema and television. When I set down to become a novelist med student, I knew some things would have to give. Two of those were television and movies. Hrmmm…if I had a genie in a bottle, I’d wish for Hayao Miyazaki to make The Spellwright Trilogy into an animated movie. But if I had to cast a non-animated movie…well…hrmm…this is going to be a demonstration of my ignorance but…

For Nicodemus it would have to be someone with green eyes, olive skin, and long black hair. Honestly, I can’t think of any Hollywood actor who fits that bill. Many of my readers are suggesting James Franco, but I think that guy’s way too pail. Joaquin Phoenix might be closer, but I think we might have more luck in Bollywood. How about Hrithik Roshan? Or one of the actors that played the werewolves in the Twilight movies? See how hopeless I am?

 For Francesca: a tall athletic woman who could pull off her spitfire wit; perhaps a young Gabrielle Reece? Or Mila Kunis (if they put her in elevator shoes).

For Magister Shannon… Needed: a mature badass. Laurence Fishburne with some silvering dreadlocks? Yeah, that might work.

For Deirdre, Penelope Cruz. Phew! Such a relief to have one I could think of quickly.

How much of what you write is planned out beforehand, and how much comes to you as you write it? Sam, London

Ah, yes, the notorious “Plotter vs. Pantser” question. (“Pantsers” write by the seat of their…as you might guess.) Personally, I’m more of a plotter than pantser.  For a ~130,000 word novel, I compose a ~15,000 word outline.  I start writing, trying to stick to my outline but always going with what I feel is working best for my characters and story. When I’ve wondered off of my outline, I stop and rewrite the outline before venturing forth again.

What were you doing when you found out your book had an offer from a Publisher? Maddie, Surrey

I was in a coffee shop reading up about all the homework I would have in my first year of medical school. When my agent called and gave me the news, I laughed so loudly everyone in the coffee shopped looked at me like I was crazy.

Favourite fictional character? Oliva, Hainault

That I’ve written? Francesca DeVega, of course.

That someone else wrote? Lionel Essrog from Jonathan Letham’s Motherless Brooklyn.

Has your success in writing afforded you the opportunity to travel somewhere (for a con/signing) that you’d always dreamed of? @Whittaker83 

I am absolutely thrilled that this year my US publisher is sending me on a six city book tour! We started in my home town of San Francisco then Portland, Seattle, San Diego, Houston, and finally Dallas. I’ve been attending conventions, especially the World Fantasy Convention for years, and it’s lovely to meet readers and other writers there. But there is something so nice about getting to visit readers in their own towns, see the sights and their favorite bookstores. 

Who does your hair? Myke Cole, US coastguard

Gillette.

What do you like to read?  Who are your favourite writers?  Edward, Hertfordshire

I go out of my way to be as capricious of a reader as possible. I believe it is good for the soul and the mind to read both fiction and non-ficiton, books for adults and books for children, etc etc. I put back about 3-4 books a month, mostly audiobooks. My most recent reads are Watership Down by Richard Adams and A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin.

Some of my (many many) favorite authors are John Gardner, Ursula K. LeGuinn, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Daniel Abraham, Abraham Verghese, Oliver Sacks, and Atul Gawande.

Best moment of being a published writer? Luke, Edinburgh

I was visiting a different medical school and stopped by their bookstore to buy a textbook. When I handed my credit card to the cashier, he said “You’re Blake Charlton!” My stomach felt like I was going up too fast on an elevator. I’m pretty sure that might be the last time that I’ll ever feel that way, but once is enough.

 Worst moment of being a published writer? Luke, Edinburgh

Reading my first lone star review.

You have written about how medicine and the human body weave a narrative much akin to the woven narrative of fiction, does this mean we’ll be seeing future fictional works from you surrounding the theme of medicine? Michelle, Chicago

Thank you kindly for this assessment; it makes me smile. Likely, you have heard the writerly commandment “write what you love.” I try to obey that commandment, and I am endlessly fascinated by medicine. However, I believe that if you just “Write what you love,” you are in danger of writing warm mush, a literary love-in. So I try to add the commandment, “Write what you fear.” Doing so adds a level of tension and power to prose; it forces an author confront the parts of themselves they would rather not. In short it makes their prose matter in a deeply personal way. Having grown up with a disability I am most fascinated by the phenomenon of healing, most frightened by disability and disease. It is difficult to imagine a future in those themes (in hopefully many different forms) play a prominent role in my writing.

Were you trying to pass on a message of strength or overcoming obstacles through the struggles and triumphs of the main character for other dyslexics? Ama, Berlin

In Intimations of Immortality, Wordsworth has a few lines about persisting after something of life has been lost.

“Though nothing can bring back the hour,

 Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; 

We will grieve not, rather find,

 Strength in what remains behind;

In the primal sympathy,

Which having been must ever be…”

From the first time I heard that poem as a young teenager, I have taken great comfort in that idea and tried to set my life’s work, both in medicine and in publishing to fostering that “strength in what remains” and in fostering that “primal sympathy.” It is that message of strength I hope to convey and to encourage regarding disability.

What would be your perfect day? Imran, Stratford

My life is so schizophrenic that I’d have to ask for three kinds of perfect days. A perfect medical day, in which I am not at all tired when the alarm goes off at 0430, in which I get into the hospital and find all my patients are thriving, in which I come up with successful diagnosis and medical plans for every patient I admit that day, and in which I get out of the hospital before 7pm and get in a nice long run while listening to a great audio book before collapsing into bed to do it all again.

 A best writing day would start at the crack of noon. I would sit around in my PJs all day and the characters would be taking to me and the words would be flowing. I’d pause only for a long run, again with a wonderful audio book, and then work late into the night and wrap up a difficult chapter and go to bed knowing I’d produced some of the best prose of my career.

 A best personal day would be filled with friends, family, and lots of sunshine. I’m fortunate to have plenty of all three components in California…though I could use a bit more time to enjoy them.

What can’t you live without? Lauren, Cheshire

Purpose, work, love, coffee.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers? Keith, Yorkshire

There is now and likely always will be more love than money or fame in publishing. Make sure you’re working for the right thing.

 www.blakecharlton.com

Click on the picture to buy the books!

Want to learn more about Isaac Asimov?
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Featured Asimov title

I, Robot (Movie tie-in edition)

The classic collection of robot stories from the master of the genre. One of the Voyager Classics collection, now I, Robot is a major movie starring Will Smith.

In these stories Isaac Asimov creates the Three Laws of Robotics and ushers in the Robot Age.

When Earth is ruled by master-machines, when robots often seem more human than mankind, the Three Laws ensure that humans remain superior and the robots are kept in their rightful place.

But an insane telepathic robot results from a production error; a robot assembled in space logically deduces its superiority to non-rational humanity; and when machines serve mankind rather than individual humans, the machine’s idea of what is good for society may itself contravene the sacred Three Laws…

Amazing and timeless robot stories from the greatest science fiction writer of all time.

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Out Now from Clive Barker

Imajica (paperback)

A book of revelations. A seamless tapestry of erotic passion, thwarted ambition and mythic horror. Clive Barker takes us on a voyage to worlds beyond our knowledge, but within our grasp.

John Furie Zacharias, known as Gentle, a master forger whose life is a series of lies. Judith Odell, a beautiful woman desired by three powerful men, but belonging to none of them. Pie’oh’pah, a mysterious assassin who deals in love as well as death. These three are united in a desperate search for the heart of a universal mystery, and will find the truth that lies in a place as mysterious as the face of God, and as secret as the human soul. They discover the Imajica.

Imajica is many things: an epic novel of vast panoramas and intimate, obsessive passions, embracing ghosts and reflections as well as the human and the divine.

List of Clive’s books (Most Recent Editions)

   

   

   

 

Like Isaac Asimov and the other greats of science fiction on our list, it would be impossible to list all of Ray’s incredible body of work. But check out Raymond Bradbury’s official website for the latest releases in hardback and paperback.

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Out Now from Ray Bradbury

We’ll Always Have Paris (Paperback, 2009)

From one of the greatest living literary imaginations and the celebrated author of FAHRENHEIT 451 comes a collection of never-before-published effortlessly beautiful tales. Recently described in The Times as ‘the uncrowned poet laureate of science fiction’ Ray Bradbury has won numerous awards including a Pulitzer Prize special citation in 2007 and an Emmy.

 In this new volume of never-before-published stories, follow a space shuttle crew as they voyage sixty million miles from home, discover what happens when a writer ‘with the future’s eye’ believes his friend to be writing stories aboard a UFO, and listen in on a couple talking themselves backwards through time to the moment when they first held hands.

This entertaining and gripping collection is a treasure trove of Bradbury gems — eerie and strange, nostalgic and bittersweet, searching and speculative — to delight readers of all ages.

Try a Bradbury classic:

Fahrenheit 451 (Paperback, this edition 2008)

The hauntingly prophetic classic novel set in a not-too-distant future where books are burned by a special task force of firemen.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.

The classic novel of a post-literate future, ‘Fahrenheit 451′ stands alongside Orwell’s ’1984′ and Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity. Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which over fifty years from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.

     

    

  

Following college, he spent eight months managing a comic shop and pondering what to do with his life. He then went into medical publishing, but contented himself with writing books he never hoped to sell.

In June of 2007, his hard work and perseverance paid off, as he sold his 4th novel, The Painted Man.

He lives in Brooklyn NY with his wife Dani and cat, Jinx

Want to learn more about Peter V Brett?
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Out Now from Peter V Brett:

The Desert Spear (May 2010)

The sun is setting on humanity. The night now belongs to voracious demons that arise as the sun sets preying upon a dwindling population forced to cower behind ancient and half-forgotten symbols of power. These wards alone can keep the demons at bay, but legends tell of a Deliverer who once bound all mankind into a single force that defeated the demons. Those times, if they ever existed, are long past. The demons are back, and the return of the Deliverer is just another myth… or is it?

Out of the desert rides Ahmann Jardir, who has forged the warlike desert tribes of Krasia into a demon-killing army. He has proclaimed himself Shar’Dama Ka, the Deliverer, and he carries ancient weapons that give credence to his claim. Sword to follow the path of the first Deliverer, he has come north to bring the scattered city-states of the green lands together in a war against demonkind – whether they like it or not.

But the northerners claim their own Deliverer. His name was Arlen, but all know him now as the Painted Man: a dark, forbidding figure whose skin is tattooed with wards so powerful they make him a match for any demon. The Painted Man denies that he is the Deliverer, but his actions speak louder than words, for he teaches men and women to face their fears and stand fast against the creatures that have tormented them for centuries.

Once the Shar’Dama Ka and the Painted Man were friends, brothers in arms. But betrayal has turned them into fierce adversaries.

As old allegiances are tested and fresh alliances created, the people are ignorant of the emergence of a new breed of demon, more intelligent – and deadly – than any that have come before.

List of Peat’s Books

Want to know more about Blake? Follow the links below…
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 Out Now from Blake Charlton:

Spellwright (Hardcover – May 2010)

In a world where words can come to life, an inability to spell can be a dangerous thing. And no one knows this better than apprentice wizard Nicodemus Weal.

Nicodemus is a cacographer, unable to reproduce even simple magical texts without ‘misspelling’ – a mistake which can have deadly consequences. He was supposed to be the Halcyon

Nicodemus Weal is a cacographer, unable to reproduce even simple magical texts without ‘misspelling’ – a mistake which can have deadly consequences. He was supposed to be the Halcyon, a magic-user of unsurpassed power, destined to save the world; instead he is restricted to menial tasks, and mocked for his failure to live up to the prophecy.

But not everyone interprets prophecy in the same way. There are some factions who believe a cacographer such as Nicodemus could hold great power – power that might be used as easily for evil as for good. And when two of the wizards closest to Nicodemus are found dead, it becomes clear that some of those factions will stop at nothing to find the apprentice and bend him to their will…

Want to know more about Cinda Williams Chima?
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Out now from Cinda Williams Chima:

The Demon King (Paperback – August 2010)

Times are hard in the mountain city of Fellsmarch, and reformed thief Han Alister must rely on all his skills to provide for his mother and his sister.

While out hunting one day, Han and his Clan friend, Dancer, discover three young wizards using a magical amulet to set fire to the sacred mountain of Hanalea. Han wrestles it from them, but without realising that his heroism has put him and his family in great danger. For the young arsonist is Micah Bayar, son of the High Wizard, and the amulet a treasure with immense power; it once belonged to the Demon King, the legendary wizard who nearly destroyed the world a millennium ago. The Bayars will stop at nothing to get it back.

Meanwhile, Raisa ana’Marianna, Princess Heir of the Fells, has just returned to the city after spending three years with her father’s Clan in the mountains. She aspires to be like Hanalea, the legendary warrior-queen who vanquished the Demon King and saved the world, but her mother has other plans for her – plans that will put both the queendom and Raisa’s future in great danger. The Seven Realms will tremble when the adventures of Han and Raisa collide in this stunning new page-turner from bestselling author Cinda Williams Chima.

Cinda’s Voyager books

The Exiled Queen (Coming Soon, Preorder Now – 3 Feb 2011)

He writes columns for Make, Information Week, the Guardian online and Locus. He has won the Locus Award for his fiction three times, been nominated for the Hugo and the Nebula, won the Campbell Award and was named one of the internet’s top 25 influencers by Forbes magazine and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He hopes you’ll use technology to change the world.

Want to know more about Cory? Follow the links below…
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Now out from Cory Doctorow:

Makers (Paperback – July 2010)
Read an extract from Makers

 Perry and Lester invent things. All sorts of things. Seashell robots that make toast, Boogie Woogie Elmo dolls that drive cars. They also invent an entirely new economic system for the technological era, dubbed ‘New Work’, which leads barefoot bankers to microinvest in high-tech communal start-ups all over the country, just like Perry and Lester’s. They are transforming a country, and journalist Suzanne Church is there to document every moment.

But when the ‘New Work’ bubble finally bursts, it puts the dot.com-bomb to shame. Down but not out, Perry and Lester go back to what they do best – making stuff. Jealous of their new-found success, a rogue Disney executive convinces the police that their amazing 3-D printers are being used to run off AK-47s, and things get very dark very quickly…

 List of Cory’s books

  

  

 

Sara’s first novel, BattleAxe, was published in 1995 and she has been writing and publishing ever since. Three of her novels are winners of the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy.

Sara lives in Hobart, Tasmania.

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Out Now from Sara Douglass

The Twisted Citadel (Book Two of The Darkglass Mountain Trilogy) 

Evil has awoken under DarkGlass Mountain. Kanubai, Lord of Chaos, held prisoner for millennia inside a crevasse, has found an ally to lend him the strength to rise from the darkness and be reborn into sacrificed flesh. His ravenous skraeling army swarm over the sides of their master’s glass tomb, awaiting his word to slake their appetites upon the fearful Isembaardians across the river.

But hope remains: despite the death of his first child and the loss of his wife, Ishbel, Maximillian Persimius, King of Escator, has finally accepted the legendary mantle of the Lord of Elcho Falling. With the last of the SunSoar, Axis and his father StarDrifter to aid him, and the enigmatic power of the tyrant of Isembaard in his camp, Maximus must awaken the power of Elcho Falling and rally his forces to combat the shadow of destruction falling across the lands.

But Kanubai is not the most dangerous player for destruction, as Maximus and his friends will soon discover.

List of Sara’s books

 Want to learn more about Raymond E. Feist?
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Out Now from Raymond E. Feist:

At the Gates of Darkness (January 2010)

 The conclusion of the bestselling Demon War series, which began with Rides a Dread Legion.

Recent events have devastated the Conclave of Shadows; the discovery of the Demon horde on the heels of the taredhel invasion of Midkemia, the threat of the star elves themselves, and the terrible personal cost paid by Pug and his family. But grieving must wait.

At a deserted fortress in the Valley of Lost Men, the Conclave’s agents witness horror beyond their imagination, orchestrated by a familiar enemy. But Belasco’s motives are as yet unclear. The Conclave must regroup and discover the true meaning behind the chaos seeded by the evil magician if they are ever to find a way to stop the destruction of Triagia before the demon horde even arrives.

List of Ray’s books by series