Richard [K] Morgan's News and Views


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Wednesday, 15 October 2008

A Thousand Thank Yous and Good Night (Sort of)


Well, you lot have really gone and done it now, haven't you........

Not sure what I did to deserve it, but as of the last couple of months fan-mail volume has gone right through the roof. I am totally bogged down with kind words. As a result of which, I've finally had to admit defeat. From now on in, I'm not going to be able to answer mails directly.

Boo - hiss!!!

Yeah. It doesn't feel good, doing this, especially since the people who fanmail me are arguably core among those who've contributed the most to the success of my books. What a reward for all that enthusiasm, eh? But logistics is logistics, people, and if I don't change something here soon, I'm not going to have any time to actually write the books themselves.

So here's the plan:

1) Please feel free to keep mailing me - I will certainly (at some point) read and appreciate every communication I get. You will still be getting through.

2) Professional communications - requests for interviews, queries about film rights, game tie-ins, other side projects etc - will be answered as soon as I can get to them. This is still the right channel for that stuff.

3) From now on, I will be enabling the comment facility on this blog, so feel free to drop in with, well, comments. Praise, confusion, abuse, back and forth chat, whatever occurs to you. I'm aiming to use a little of the time this change will free up to post a bit more often, and I will try and drop my own comments into the mix from time to time as well. I'll be around.

Keep in touch.

And many, many thanks.


Item 'A Thousand Thank Yous and Good Night (Sort of)' posted by Richard Morgan at 23:01

21 Comments:

Hi Richard,

Don't worry about it mate. I'm sure that if most people had a choice between you answering fan mail and writing more fiction the result would be pretty clear. The Steel Remains was fantastic, and we want more :)

Gareth

By Anonymous GarethC, at 16 October 2008 02:14  

Yes, more books (or well-deserved relaxation) is a fine alternative. Can't wait for Steel Remains to be released in the states!

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 16 October 2008 06:25  

Hi Richard

Already a fan of your work, I was over the moon when The Steel Remains was announced and even more pleased by the actual read.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing the way the story develops in further volumes.

Finally, as a gay man I must say that I appreciate the way that Ringil's sexuality alters the way that he is going to interrelate with other characters and that his motivations are different from many classic fantasy tropes where dynastic concerns are prevalent. The handful of reader reviews I've seen seem to think it's all about the sex or about some muddled political correctness. They don't seem to get that things are different when you can't take traditional family and power relationships for granted.

Keep up the good work, and and finally I really enjoyed the audio interview you did with Rick Kleffel some time ago.

cheers
Mike

By Blogger Mike, at 16 October 2008 06:52  

Hey, don't worry, I am frankly quite surprised that you have managed to find the time to reply to all your fanmail! Just keep up the good work, and you will have a reader for life!

By OpenID kzl-101, at 16 October 2008 21:09  

You don't need arse-lickers - get on with the work.

By Anonymous Ben, at 19 October 2008 23:48  

Hopefully we have not seen the last of Takeshi Kovacs and Carl Marsalis.

Even the last of Chris Faulkner. He was shaping up nicely at the end (although I think the perspective was a bit too bleak for my liking - at least for forty something years in the future).

I suppose I had better try the dungeons and dragons book in the interim. A genre I have always approached with a degree of caution (before backing away in a hurry).

If you have done to the D&G genre what Altered Carbon did to tec noir/SF then it will probably be worth a bash.

By Blogger John The Geophysicist, at 20 October 2008 16:16  

New reader here, bought Thirteen last July on a whim and when I finished it I immediately ordered The Steel Remains and now I'm waiting for the new editions of the Kovacs Trilogy from play.com...

Please, don't tell us what happened to Carl Marsalis at the end of the book, I don't want to know if he lived or died, I loved the indeterminate ending.

By Anonymous Giacomo, at 21 October 2008 19:49  

Good wishes from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I don't know how to be a fan and all that. But I know I reread three books once or twice a year: Dune, Hitchhiker's Guide, and Market Forces. My complements to the author.

Looking forward to The Steel Remains being released in the US.

By Anonymous Justin, at 22 October 2008 03:31  

Read all your Sci-Fi stuff in the past and am a big fan of it, but as a hetero-sexual man (uh rarr and all that) I picked up the steel remains with a little trepdation - but was pleasantly surprised.

I had vague suspicons that I'd have to slog through some sort of 'Brokeback Mountain' thing, which really isnt my sort of thing, but the reality was I could read the gay scenes without batting an eye-lid be it hardcore or not.

I was a little disappointed by the lack of girl-on-girl action though :P

Overall i'm glad you portrayed his sexuality as part of the book, and didnt overplay it or use it as some pathetic attention seeking headline grabber (Lyn Flewellign anyone?)

Keep up the good work!

PS. If I knew you answered mail before this point I'd have sent you some!

Fake edit: please excuse spelling etc...

By Anonymous Antony - Doncaster (UK), at 22 October 2008 23:13  

Just finished Steel Remains. As expected a totally excellent and enjoyable read. Can't wait for some more of the same. Also looking forward to some more of your great Sci-Fi novels.
As always I await with feverish anticipation more novels appearing in my local (UK) bookshop.

By Anonymous Andrew, at 23 October 2008 14:08  

If I were a Hollywood producer, I would so be making Market Forces into a movie right now.

On Amazon it's now 25 in sci-fi high tech - though I've no idea what that really means...

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 27 October 2008 17:46  

Me either, I'm afraid.

The option on MF is still running at Warner Brothers, so a film's not impossible, but as usual that's all the solid news there is. How far forward we are in "development hell" is anybody's guess....

Meantime, let's hope that amazon high score, whatever else it may signify, will also mean the book finally earns out in the US - to date, it's the only one of my novels still not showing an American royalty! Still not quite sure what I did to upset so many readers on that one........

By Blogger Richard Morgan, at 28 October 2008 09:26  

Richard

Been meaning to email for a while just to say how totally excellent I have found all your books so far! Started off with Market Forces, picked up a copy of Altered Carbon and never looked back. Looking forward to getting "The Steel Remains" for my birthday next week!! Keep up the stunning work - thanks for writing

Row x x x

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 28 October 2008 16:11  

Hi Richard,

Maybe articles like this one will help sell Market Forces.

http://gawker.com/5069293/novelists-write-our-way-out-of-the-financial-crisis

And/or, if the U.S. publisher ever comes out with a mass market paperback edition, then I suspect that will help sales.

L

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 28 October 2008 16:48  

to be honest, i just picked up altered carbon because it was the first book i saw to do for my high school book project. I ended up thoroughly enjoying it which is saying a lot coming from a kid who only reads when he has to. thanks and keep writing

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 30 October 2008 03:57  

Interestingly enough, Market Forces was my first Morgan novel, bought on a whim from the SF Book Club here in the States. I found it to be a brilliant satire and future extrapolation of our very skewed corporate culture. I then rapidly made my way through the superb Takeshi Kovacs novels, which are as good as dark noir space opera gets.

As a lifetime epic fantasy fan, I was really looking forward to what you might do the genre in The Steel Remains, and I wasn't disappointed. I read roughly seventy-five novels per year, and yours has come in second-best, beaten out (just barely) by Matthew Stover's Caine Black Knife, another author not afraid to go the distance with language, violence and sex.

And by the way, I bought a copy of Thirteen from The Signed Page, and you have one very bizarre signature. :-)

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 31 October 2008 14:57  

It's about time you get enough fan mail to have to make this decision :P

I have already said my piece on The Steel Remains (positive comments for the record) so there is no need to rewrite them here.

Keep on writing and it is a book I am eagerly waiting every year :)

By Blogger Joni, at 05 November 2008 18:21  

Richard,

reading a Morgan is like a get-together with good friends you usually only meet once a year. You know you're in for a no-holds-barred and no-BS experience.

So, thank you for Tak, Faulkner, especially Marsalis and Ertekin and Ringil.

By Anonymous Jason, at 08 November 2008 17:53  

I'll add my thank yous to the list then shall I? The Steel Remains was just brilliant, loved it and can't wait for more. Getting a response to the fanmail I sent you a while back was, honestly, a bit of a thrill so I'm glad I got in before the volume of love got too great! Having said that I also felt at the time that not enough people out there could possibly be appreciating your skills if you could still find the time to reply to emails, so it's a good sign that it's gotten to this point. By all means spend your precious time writing :)
Finally, unlike Antony from Doncaster I'm not a heterobloke but as a gay girl I too lamented the lack of girl on girl action (although something tells me you'll probably get around to that eventually!) You did a fantastic job with Ringil, and while I agree it's not just about the sex, I'll be honest and say the sex scenes in your novels have been one of the reasons I've loved them so much - even when they occur between straight couples, or in the case of TSR between men, they stir the emotions, and the blood, and allow some pretty deep insights into the characters in question.

By Anonymous Fabienne, at 19 November 2008 04:05  

This post has been removed by the author.

By Blogger Francesco Troccoli, at 06 December 2008 19:17  

Another newish reader here. I've just finished the Kovacs trilogy (I've read and reread Altered Carbon at least 10 times, just finished Broken Angels, Woken Furies and Thirteen.) I have to say, I have a million questions for you about your writing style (I'm a writer, sort of) but I think I'll hold off, keep reading this blog, and buy The Steel Remains and Market Forces as soon as possible! Keep up the good work!

By Blogger Rourke, at 29 December 2008 23:33  

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