Daniel Abraham

[Jussi]

There are new blurbs for The Dragon's Path and Leviathan Wakes in Amazon:

Summer is the season of war in the Free Cities.

Marcus wants to get out before the fighting starts. His hero days are behind him and simple caravan duty is better than getting pressed into service by the local gentry. Even a small war can get you killed. But a captain needs men to lead -- and his have been summarily arrested and recruited for their swords.

Cithrin has a job to do -- move the wealth of a nation across a war zone. An orphan raised by the bank, she is their last hope of keeping the bank's wealth out of the hands of the invaders. But she's just a girl and knows little of caravans, war, and danger. She knows money and she knows secrets, but will that be enough to save her in the coming months?

Geder, the only son of a noble house is more interested in philosophy than swordplay. He is a poor excuse for a soldier and little more than a pawn in these games of war. But not even he knows what he will become of the fires of battle. Hero or villain? Small men have achieved greater things and Geder is no small man.

Falling pebbles can start a landslide. What should have been a small summer spat between gentlemen is spiraling out of control. Dark forces are at work, fanning the flames that will sweep the entire region onto The Dragon's Path -- the path of war.

http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Path-Dagger-Coin/dp/0316080683/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285929133&sr=1-9

Welcome to the future. Humanity has colonized the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond - but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, The Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for - and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to The Scopuli and rebel sympathizer, Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations - and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

http://www.amazon.com/Leviathan-Wakes-Expanse-James-Corey/dp/0316129089/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285929133&sr=1-3

The Dragon's Path will be published in April 7th in both UK and US. The book is going to be trade paperback, there won't be a hardcover edition from Orbit.

[Ran]

*shakes a fist at Orbit*

[DanielAbraham]

No cover art.

I want cover art.

[Foreverlad]

No cover art.

I want cover art.

Yeah. What that guy said.

[Rex Tyrannus]

Oh, hey, Amazon has the new cover copy for Leviathan Wakes. Awesome.

Whatever marketing person wrote that has my undying gratitude. Hell, it made ME want to read the damn thing.

[polishgenius]

Out of all the fantasy releases scheduled for next year, I'm most hyped for The Dragon's Path. Given that I am hugely excited for Dust of Dreams, Stonewielder, The White-Luck Warrior, The Republic of Thieves, Ghost Story and The Wise Man's Fear, that says a lot.

[Rex Tyrannus]

It says you are a person of distinguishing taste.

[CryHavoc]

Possibly a silly question, but is Leviathan Wakes distinct from Leviathan Wept? Are they related? Or are the names just similar?

[Rex Tyrannus]

Yes, totally separate. Leviathan Wept is the title of a short story by Daniel. Leviathan Wakes was the title I picked for the novel. We're hoping the different author names will reduce the confusion.

[DanielAbraham]

Possibly a silly question, but is Leviathan Wakes distinct from Leviathan Wept? Are they related? Or are the names just similar?

Utterly and totally unrelated. Just similar names.

[red snow]

2011 is set to be the year where I buy more new books than any other. I'm going to need a new bookshelf.

Between the two of Daniel's threads (not many authors have two active threads running here) it's sounding as though Dragon's path is going to be great fun. It's as though after TLP he's decided to jump in with both feet as far as Epic Fantasy is concerned. Hopefully fandom will be more keen on embracing full-on fantasy too.

EDIT: when's the book out? I couldn't find it in bookdepository and Amazon says it's out on 7th April (my brithday!) in paperback but I don't really believe anything amazon says.

[CryHavoc]

Thanks for the clarifications, everyone. And, red snow, me too. There are way too many books I have to read this year. I guess it's a good problem to have. :D

[DanielAbraham]

EDIT: when's the book out? I couldn't find it in bookdepository and Amazon says it's out on 7th April (my brithday!) in paperback but I don't really believe anything amazon says.

From what I'm seeing, I think they're really shooting or April. I've been getting them supplementary matter all this last week - the final map, a little q&a thing for the back of the book, the dedication and acknowledgments, stuff like that - and they're definitely putting more pressure on Dragon's Path than on Leviathan Wakes (which comes out in June). So I think the ARCs of Dragon's Path will be heading out pretty soon here. We're already done with the editorial revisions, but if we do copyediting in the next couple months and galley proofs either in December or early next year, I can't see any reason they wouldn't make their deadlines.

So far, these guys seem to be running a pretty tight ship.

[The Evil Hat]

I just ordered Leviathan Wept. For the second time, as amazon waited a month and then cancelled my order the first. Still, looking forward to it and the other new books.

[Calibandar]

Hi Daniel,

Does the 592 page count sound right to you then?

[DanielAbraham]

Hi Daniel,

Does the 592 page count sound right to you then?

Depends on the font size and layout, but that's the right ballpark, yeah.

[MattL86]

So, why does Abraham write under a zillion (3) names? It's confusing, and the first site that comes up under his name is never updated. I did find a semi-updated journal after a short search, but I think all these things (the variety of pseudonyms and weak online presence) hurt his sales a fair bit. He posts here a lot I guess.

Just that the Long Price Quartet was truly great IMO and outside of this board it's underappreciated. There isn't even a paperback version of the 4th book (unless I'm mistaken). I don't think quality has anything to do with it so I am looking for something to blame I guess...

[The Evil Hat]

Abraham answered this in the Long Price thread:

It's funny, but that's not really what the numbers show. People (apparently) become fans of projects more than of authors. In my circles, it's called the Donaldson Problem after something Stephen R. Donaldson is alleged to have said after The Mirror of Her Dreams / A Man Rides Through sold massively less than Thomas Covenant, and The Gap Into sold a whole bunch less than *that*. It went something like "I thought I had a hundred thousand Stephen R. Donaldson fans. It turned out I had a hundred thousand Thomas Covenant fans." (caveat: I don't know that he ever actually said that.)

To pull out a couple other examples from my immediate circle, S. M. Stirling's Embervese is pushing up against the NYT top 10, but his other stuff -- some of which I think is even stronger than the Emberverse books -- don't do particularly well. And George's side projects -- Wild Cards, Hunter's Run, etc. -- do decently, but nothing compared to his Ice & Fire stuff.

By comparison, I've heard some analysis of Walter Jon Williams -- who is for my money one of the most consistently solid authors in the field -- and why he doesn't own the world outright. That one went like this: You don't know what a Walter Jon Williams novels is going to be like. It could be post-singularity, it could be high space opera, if could be near-future techno-thriller, it could be old school cyberpunk, it could be military space opera, it could be regionalist New Mexican literary SF, it could be New Weird. The man's done it all. And so, if you're in the mood for military space opera, you reach for someone who does that -- Bujold or Weber come to mind -- instead of Williams, even though Dread Empire's Fall is a freaking brilliant set of books.

The exception to this appears to be YA. Westerfelt can write anything he damn well pleases. My guess is that YA readers are still reading for novelty, where the rest of us read for comfort and consolation. That's just my take on it, though.

[DanielAbraham]

I don't think quality has anything to do with it so I am looking for something to blame I guess...

The lousy web presence thing is an issue. I'm working on that, just not as hard as I'm working on the other stuff. :)

At heart, though, I think a lot of who wins and who loses is a crap shoot. There's some amazingly great popular stuff, there's some amazingly bad popular stuff, there's junk no one reads and there are gems no one reads. When they said the race goes not always to the swift, they were kind of talking about publishing. But that's just the nature of the game. To quote Robinson Jeffers, be angry at the sun for setting if these things anger you.

But the web presence ups my odds. The convention appearances up my odds. Frankly, hanging out here ups my odds.

Doesn't mean it isn't gambling.

[Myrddin]

The lousy web presence thing is an issue. I'm working on that, just not as hard as I'm working on the other stuff. :)

At heart, though, I think a lot of who wins and who loses is a crap shoot. There's some amazingly great popular stuff, there's some amazingly bad popular stuff, there's junk no one reads and there are gems no one reads. When they said the race goes not always to the swift, they were kind of talking about publishing. But that's just the nature of the game. To quote Robinson Jeffers, be angry at the sun for setting if these things anger you.

But the web presence ups my odds. The convention appearances up my odds. Frankly, hanging out here ups my odds.

Doesn't mean it isn't gambling.

You're using three pen names? Isn't it hard to "brand" three names at once?

As an aside, is DA your real name or are all three pen names? Just curious if you started writing fantasy under your given name and then decided to start using pen names after the fact.