Ran Posted February 23, 2006 Share Posted February 23, 2006 Re: iBooks, Alas, it seems they haven't been able to survive the loss of Byron Preiss. They've declared bankruptcy. I hope this will prove to be only a bump in the road for the continuation of Wild Cards story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJMiller Posted February 23, 2006 Share Posted February 23, 2006 You and me both. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hauberk Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 John, I just wrapped up Death Draws Five. I have to say, aside from iBooks crappy copyediting, I very much enjoyed it. Carnifex/Kid Wolverine/Billy Ray has always been a favorite. I've also always been a fan of Yeoman, so any appearance is a worthy one (and the commentary on his status as Ace or not was nice... I've always assumed that he wasn't but some interesting points were raised). Mention of the Mechanic was nice as well (I really like Mr. Belew). However, I think my favorite element had to be the resolution in the Highwayman arc (forgot how to do spoilers here, so I'll be intentionally vague. Besides, you wrote it, you know what I'm talking about ) I will say that I was a little disturbed by the appearance of the Living Gods early on. Reminders of Aces Abroad (what I consider to be the weakest card in the Wild Cards deck) freak me out just a little. However, as I said before, it turned out just fine. Also, on the new character front, the Midnight Angel and John Nighthawk were both pretty darned cool (though, I think that Nighthawk edges Angel out on the personality side). One request, next time around, it would be nice to see an update on the Great and Powerful Turtle (I know, it's GRRM's character), even if it was just a post-Suzanne-Summers-Three's-Company-"Chrissy say's she's having a great time!" kind of update (though I would prefer more detail than that). Thanks for doing what you do! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 For spoilers: [spoiler=DDF]Blah Blah Blah[/spoiler] Tell me more about the Yeoman-as-Ace discussion! Waiting until my birthday to order another batch of books, so won't be able to read it myself until then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hauberk Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 I can't recall the exact details but SPOILER: YeomanIt was an internal dialogue from Mr Nobody, IIRC, recalling what he knew about Yeoman. He initially was dismissive of him having any powers (what does the Wild Card have to do with a bow?) but then glossing over some of his achievements that suggested that there could be something more. Yeoman doesn't have any massive screen time, but the very fact that he and Wraith made an appearance was spectacular! Edit: For what it's worth, he's also featured on one of the playing cards drifting in front of the Midnight Angel on the cover. His card... an Ace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJMiller Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 John, I just wrapped up Death Draws Five. I have to say, aside from iBooks crappy copyediting, I very much enjoyed it. Carnifex/Kid Wolverine/Billy Ray has always been a favorite. I've also always been a fan of Yeoman, so any appearance is a worthy one (and the commentary on his status as Ace or not was nice... I've always assumed that he wasn't but some interesting points were raised). Mention of the Mechanic was nice as well (I really like Mr. Belew). However, I think my favorite element had to be the resolution in the Highwayman arc (forgot how to do spoilers here, so I'll be intentionally vague. Besides, you wrote it, you know what I'm talking about ) I will say that I was a little disturbed by the appearance of the Living Gods early on. Reminders of Aces Abroad (what I consider to be the weakest card in the Wild Cards deck) freak me out just a little. However, as I said before, it turned out just fine. Also, on the new character front, the Midnight Angel and John Nighthawk were both pretty darned cool (though, I think that Nighthawk edges Angel out on the personality side). One request, next time around, it would be nice to see an update on the Great and Powerful Turtle (I know, it's GRRM's character), even if it was just a post-Suzanne-Summers-Three's-Company-"Chrissy say's she's having a great time!" kind of update (though I would prefer more detail than that). Thanks for doing what you do! You're entirely welcome. This book was a monster to do (since I wrote it approximately two and half times) but mostly I was able to do what I wanted in it, and am extremely gratified that Wild Card fans have largely enjoyed it. (My biggest complaint is that George diidn't like Mushroom Daddy as much as I thought he should, and he never let me do the big reveal on Daddy. I will say that it involved Daddy and Jerry getting stuck in a stairwell with a bunch of MAGOG members and a slew of bad guys with guns. The end result was not pretty, but it was, I think, effective.) The typos are irritating. I think this is the first time I've ever seen a book with vastly more typos in it than were in the submitted manuscript, and I hope it will be the last. Frankly, I don't think it was even copyedited. I think the hard copy I handed in was put on disk, and then the disk was run through spellcheck. If it was copyedited, I never saw a copyedited ms, though they had the ms for almost a year before actually publishing it. I'm afraid I don't know how to do the spoiler blocking thingy, so I won't comment on the Yeoman, ace or not, discussion. If there's enough interest it might be an idea to start a spoiler thread on DD 5, but so far there hasn't been an overwhelming cry to discuss the book, so maybe not. I like both the Angel and John Nighthawk a lot. [Whoops. I just said something that I realized was a spoiler, so I edited it out] Nighthawk, though, has the potential to be my best character, I think, if the series goes the right way to showcase him. I don't think this is going to happen, however. The Turtle is having a great time, trust me. I don't know if he's ever going to appear on stage again, however, in a significant manner, as the theme for the new triad is: "It's 2007. Do you know where your children are?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hauberk Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 John, See Ran's post two above yours for spoiler code... just copy and paste. Replace "DDF" with whatever comment you want to title the spoiler and then replace "blah blah blah" with the spoiler text. I will say that I heard what I consider to be some magic words in your post... "new triad!" w00t! Edit: A couple of other things: Is the iBooks thing going to slow the new triad? What happened with Baen? IIRC, they did the Card Sharks triad but, compared to the previous run, that seems like an awfully short relationship. I've always heard good things about the way Jim Baen runs his ship (and I'm incredibly intrigued with any business model that is includes giving product away as a marketing exercise). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJMiller Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 John, I will say that I heard what I consider to be some magic words in your post... "new triad!" w00t! Edit: A couple of other things: Is the iBooks thing going to slow the new triad? What happened with Baen? IIRC, they did the Card Sharks triad but, compared to the previous run, that seems like an awfully short relationship. I've always heard good things about the way Jim Baen runs his ship (and I'm incredibly intrigued with any business model that is includes giving product away as a marketing exercise). Yes, we are working hard on getting a new triad placed with a new publisher. Things are looking good, but needless to say I don't want to say anythng official until contracts are in place. Forgive me if I've said some of this here already (it's hard to keep track sometimes) but one of the lessons we took from DD5 was that the history and character interrelationships are getting so complicated that we are having trouble getting new writers interested in the series (most can't get up to speed with the intricate history), and (without casting any aspersions whatsoever on the readers) I can imagine that a lot of readers are having trouble getting into the series (although, probably not fans of ASoFaI). So the next triad (hint for longtime fans: the long awaited Committee plotline) will see a whole slew of new, younger (the old guard was also rather aging) characters. The catch phrase is "It's 2007. Do you know where your children are?" And no, this is not a rhetorical question. It does have an answer, but it would premature to state it now. The iBooks debacle will have no impact on this. However, they do own reprint rights to the first 8 books. While they went under owing us something in four figures (and we have idea how much, really), actually we were lucky. We were fully paid for DD5, though clearly I'll never see another penny out of it, no matter how well it sells. The question is, does iBooks still retain paperback rights? We don't know about that, either, right now. Baen. Well, that was an experience. When the first, or maybe it was the second, of the Card Sharks trilogy was coming out, Baen paid a FRIGGING ENORMOUS (I can't emphasize that enough) amount of money to famous novelist Newt Gingrich for his WW II book. And he ate almost all of it. They ended up pulping an entire warehouse of books. It almost sunk him. In the meantime, he could't pay us our relatively miniscule advance for a long, LONG time because he owed the Newtster so much frigging money. Let's just say that it was not a good fit. Almost sunk Wild Cards, as well, though we hung on and now, thanks at least in part to George's appearance at #1 on the NYT bestseller list, there has been a resurgence in Wild Card interest. I hope that in months to come I'll have lots of good news to post. As a teaser, we might have to have another thread in this topic (non Wild Cards related) for a project George and I are doing together, that has taken ELEVEN YEARS to finally get an okay. No exaggeration. More details when contracts are actually signed. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hauberk Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 Interesting about the Newt Gingrich thing... Unfortunate as well, but interesting. I'll be here, waiting with baited breath for your teaser announcement! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJMiller Posted March 17, 2006 Share Posted March 17, 2006 Interesting about the Newt Gingrich thing... Unfortunate as well, but interesting. I'll be here, waiting with baited breath for your teaser announcement! We should know more soon. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 A largish news update on George's site, here, regarding iBooks and the future of Wild Cards. As John has said previously, things look optimistic. Also, George linked to several Wild Cards sites I've never known of. For the hard core fans, the Captain Comics forum has a wealth of interesting information, not least because John's posting there, too. Get a few more hints about future plans, too! I hope Amazon'll still have copies of DD5 in May. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoth Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 I saw DD5 in Borders today. Why doesn't Amazon have it then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 Amazon does. Usually ships in 24 hours. But I'm not ordering anything from them until May or so, and as noted on the Captain Comics forum, with iBooks out of business no one knows how many got of out their warehouse before they shut everything down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoth Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 D'oh. Misread your post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 Ran: why not ordering from Amazon until May? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 Ahh, well, we tend to just order in bulk for convenience's sake -- not like either of us has a great deal of time to read for leisure. And my birthday is in May. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 Heheh, what a coincidence. Well, I have the book in my hot little hands already, but it's on my TBR pile. HIGH on the pile... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJMiller Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Just a snippet of news. The proposal for the next triad has been sent to Bantam, who has the right of first refusal for all of George's projects. It was accompanied by a gorgeous portrait of nine new (and one old) characters, which I wish I could share but unfortunately is not for publication. I suppose I can list the characters depicted if there's interest. This is going to be a great triad. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 I suppose I can list the characters depicted if there's interest. Share, share (including the name of the portrait's artist ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted March 23, 2006 Share Posted March 23, 2006 Yeah, tell us more.... or as much as you can anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.