Richard [K] Morgan's News and Views


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Thursday, 5 March 2009

Oz and the Dark Delays


Yes - some of you will probably have already noticed that The Cold Commands has surreptitiously changed its name to The Dark Commands, and is also now showing a UK publication date in mid-2010.

Sad but true. On both counts.

The title change alone is a big disappointment for me - I loved the alliteration of the thing (my London editor's idea, curse him, not mine), and the thematic implications. But unfortunately, the way the narrative is unfolding there's nothing remotely cold about any of it; worse still, there are a number of components that have fairly demolished any hope of using any title containing the word cold.

Dark, on the other hand..... Well - you know me by now.

I'm also pretty pissed off - with myself - about the publication push-back, but there's not a lot to be done about that either. Basically, I've spent the last year trying to kick start the second narrative for Ringil and Co, and the process has been fascinating and frustrating in about equal measures.

See, I'd always talked a good fight about making each book in this trilogy a self contained novel, but it wasn't until quite recently that I realised how deeply satisfied I was with the ending of The Steel Remains. Sure, there are loose ends, but when wasn't that true of one of my books? But my characters all ended up where I wanted them to be, they bedded down into the consequences and outcomes of what they'd seen and done with the pleasing clunk of emotional deadbolts falling into place - so rolling them all out of bed again, splashing water on their faces and getting them to open up and let in the morning light has proved a lot more problematic than I'd expected. I started at least twice and then had to tear up what I'd written because it was some weak-assed shit. Worse still, when I did finally get onto what felt like the right track, it involved at least a couple of scenes that I really didn't want to write. If you guys thought The Steel Remains was brutal, you ain't seen nothing yet.

And won't see it for a while yet, either. Sorry about that.

These scheduling issues are further complicated by the fact that I'm off to Australia in April and will be there for a couple of months, doing bookshop signings, SF club appearances and general publicity in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane and Tasmania, and kicking off with a Guest of Honour gig at SwanCon 09 in Perth (oh, okay, yes, alright, and having some serious antipodean downtime along the way). I'll post details of those gigs later in the month as my publishers in Oz and I get them thrashed out. Meantime, you can get more on SwanCon from their website which is here.

And back here in Scotland, the great January sale in February has spilled over into March. It should run for at least a couple more weeks. There's an update on what stuff I've got left posted in Comments on the original entry, so if you're still looking for something, check it out or drop me a mail. I'll be locking up the store before I head out to SwanCon, so there's not a lot of time left, but until I serve notice of that, it's safe to assume we're still rolling.


Item 'Oz and the Dark Delays' posted by Richard Morgan at 23:52

22 Comments:

Hi Richard,

You know it's all okay with us (fans). Rather wait a bit than get some weak-assed shit... As you've said before, you write what you like to read, and you know we like to read what you write. Keep it real!

Besides, that gives me time to catch up on the 100 or so books in my library I haven't read yet.

By 2010 I should have your books pretty much memorized.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6 March 2009 02:14  

Great news about the Oz visit, but I'm surprised I've not seen any publicity down here about it.

By Blogger Mike, at 6 March 2009 03:54  

The tour sounds good - have you been to Australia before?

By Anonymous Gareth, at 6 March 2009 04:46  

Looking forward to seeing you at Swancon. More than one GoH has sorted out their writing dilemmas during the course of the con, so fear not!

By OpenID stephbg, at 6 March 2009 06:33  

I'm not sure if TSR is number one or two in my 'Richard Morgan favourites' list... and thats coming from a sci-fi fan who has never really gotten into fantasy! TSR is a great read and I look forward to the follow up, whenever that may be.

Mark C

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6 March 2009 13:28  

Just to echo the sentiment. I'd rather you delayed and were happy with the finished product, than rushed it out badly written.

Take your time, the withdrawal symptoms shouldn't be too bad by 2010.... :-D

Cheers,
Tim

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8 March 2009 16:35  

Hey Richard, at least there is good news (for me) mixed in with the bad news...I look forward to seeing you in Canberra!

By Anonymous Shaanti, at 9 March 2009 09:40  

By the way, some very entertaining blogs on the pressures on authors to produce have been posted in the last couple of weeks.

Check out Patrick Rothfuss' blog on http://www.patrickrothfuss.com/blog/labels/the%20longest%20fucking%20blog%20ever.html

and another blog by John Scalzi:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/02/26/10-things-to-remember-about-authors/

By Anonymous Shaanti, at 9 March 2009 10:08  

have fun down under, sir; my dad's from Perth, and it's one hell of a town. very laid-back, very cool.

By Blogger David J. Williams, at 9 March 2009 16:39  

Holy Freejoli, I finally got through slogging out "Thirteen/Black Man."

Let me say first, I got turned onto your stuff by my latter-day hippy Father-in-law, and I loved it (Takishis, of course) from the first... And yes, I even liked Thirteen more than I hated it (and there were times I had steam coming out of my ears...)

But sheesh, it's time to spend some time in Flyover Country, USA and get over some of these anti-American problems we're having. Can I invite you out to Kentucky for a beer (we've got some fine American pale ales at the BlueGrass Brewing Co.) some time?

Or better yet, a Bourbon?

And before you get all Jesuslanded out on me, I'm actually an ex-rugger Brit-o-phile FROM New York. It's my hippy Father in law that's from here! Quelle Suprise!

I am going to give him a new nickname: "Morgan's #1 Jesusland Fan" I shall be #2.


LOL.

Best, you crazy Scottsman. Must be the fried pizza, I'm thinkiing...

By Blogger JakeGint, at 9 March 2009 23:16  

The address to the Pat Rothfuss blog didn't come out right - hopefully the correct one is below:

http://www.patrickrothfuss.com/
blog/labels/the%20longest%20fucking
%20blog%20ever.html

By Anonymous Shaanti, at 10 March 2009 01:59  

Some assistance:

Patrick Rothfuss ("In the Name of the Wind") official website.

and

John Scalzi's Whatever: "Ten Things to Remember About Authors"

Love Scalzi, have not yet read Rothfuss, but will check him out, thx.

_________

By Blogger JakeGint, at 10 March 2009 15:39  

Don't worry about the delays! It is a while, but not forever. In the meantime I'll be very happy to re-read The Steel Remains, because I am in love with it. It's the first book of yours I've read and it's definitely made me want more. But you should definitely make sure you're happy with what you're writing, first and foremost. As for The Steel Remains I love the characterisation (Ringil, especially) and the story and just the way things aren't perfect by the end of the book. (A little sad, though, that Seethlaw had to die, though the way it was Ringil who dealt that deadly blow... Vey fitting.)

So, make those Australian fans happy and have a good holiday. :)

As for the title, yeah, I think we all loved The Cold Commands as well, but The Dark Commands sounds really good too.

So, hope all goes well.

Christa

Oh, and I do have a question. Is the title for the trilogy officially A Land Fit For Heroes?

By OpenID rocks-not-dead, at 10 March 2009 21:16  

I'm definitely supposed to be writing something or other in Arabic right now. I'm re-reading Thirteen instead, which probably won't help my attitude toward this whole educational process. Then again, if I try to memorize one more word that just sounds like "Sa'ah", my head will explode.

Anyway. As I was reading Thirteen, I wondered why all that legal mess surrounding Sevgi and Ethan's baby had to happen in the first place. Why didn't Project Lawman sterilize the thirteens if they were so worried about those genes spreading? I can't exactly picture them choking over the morality issues.

Also, my friend who was grumpy about Takeshi killing the Carrera's Wedge guys is now reading Market Forces. I look forward to his reaction. I have no doubt it'll be entertaining. If anything particularly good comes up, I'll share the highlights.

By Blogger DJ, at 11 March 2009 00:56  

Hi Jake,

Thanks for the kind words. In answer to the steam coming out of your ears, and so as to clear up any misunderstandings, here's a pertinent excerpt from an interview I did for Clarkesworld a while back:

"Jesusland is not an indictment of all the 200+ million Americans living in its territory, it's a portrayal of certain ruinous socio-dynamic tendencies common to that region running amok, and the catastrophic impact they have had (that I believe, in fact, they are having even now) on America's very great potential as a modern nation."

If you'd like to have a look at the whole interview, it's at:

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/morgan_interview/

It's a little incoherent in places because its a transcribed audio, and as anyone who has met me can probably testify, I tend to gabble on like a motorhead who's just snorted his whole supply - but still, it covers the Jesusland angle, and a lot of other stuff including The Steel Remains pretty thoroughly.

By Blogger Richard Morgan, at 11 March 2009 20:58  

Does anyone mind if I cry over the delay ? I was hoping to be reading Ringil's next adventure on my honeymoon! Now there seem's no point in getting married. OUCH! Sorry dear. No worries chief, good luck down under :-)

By Blogger Chris, at 15 March 2009 00:33  

Hi Richard,

Slightly off topic but have you any plans for a follow up to Market Forces?

Found it an amazing story and watched Death Race the other day which fired up my imagination.

Regards

Ronin

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 21 March 2009 21:33  

Well, can't say it isn't a shame - but waiting is part of the game. The under-fire contract stuff is the necessary evil we suffer for you folks being able to (largely) support yourselves by writing. That said, I look forward to the next work - brutal or not.

Had some friends who had the same reaction to the "Jesusland" stuff, steam + ears and all, but I sort of recognized the typecasting - and the point of it - especially when the other regions were just about as rigidly cast.

Out of curiosity, should you happen to see this (at this summat late date): Are you most comfortable in novel form, or am I just somehow missing your short story works? Or do you not work in that format?

By Anonymous TechSlave, at 24 March 2009 06:09  

Richard K--

Thanks for the reply. I'm familiar with the Clark stuff, and the general "take" as it's not uncommon in the Euro set. Yes, you guys are "typecast" as well. Imagine that?

I guess my only request would be to "tone it down a bit, brother.*" The artist's greatest challenge is to fit his themes/message into his text without coming off as bombastic, over-the-top, etc. I found that "13" got bogged down quite a bit in the more obviously didactic parts, that seem almost limned by yellow highlighter-- "deep, author thoughts/plaints to follow."

Don't mean to be so much of a tweak, but given the celerity of most of your work, it's perhaps even more painful when the "insert lecture here" breaks into the flow. Keep in mind that as you get bigger (and I'm sure you will get bigger) editors will succumb to Stephen King syndrome, and edit you even less, so the responsibility to discipline will be more and more tossed on your shoulders.

That said...

I have yet to read the fantasy series, so who knows, you may have already addressed these issues and I'm a volume and half behind...

All tweaks and twinks and political differences aside -- I look forward to your long and successful career.

best,

Jake in J-land.
_______________

* Brother Maynard in Holy Hand Grendade Scene/ MPHG. (I'm reading Michael Palin's Python Years Diaries right now... quite a time capsule and glimpse of the OxBridge mind that seems too sane to be Python.)

By Blogger JakeGint, at 27 March 2009 20:27  

So let me get this straight: you specialize in brutal fantasy. Grin.

I was pleasantly suprised when my copy dropped the letter K from your name. Little things like middle names are ever so unimportant.

By Anonymous JH, at 12 April 2009 00:45  

OZ had no great delay, for the record. The only question is: Who is the real wizard?

By Anonymous Meridian, at 6 December 2009 06:41  

Mr. Morgan!

Just re-read "The Steel Remains" and I think it would be great if you graced us with another update on the status of the sequel. :) We are counting down to 2010, and are now mere...months away from publication...still?...perhaps? How about a release of an excerpt? lol

I'm thinking it must be a double edged sword for authors these days to receive these sorts communications from fans...I remember when I was a child and had to actually write a letter to Stephen Donaldson...in care of ... his publisher? ... to express my adoration and hope for his series to be finished in a timely fashion. In any event, us fans are closer to you nowadays, and we need to be fed... ;)

On a more substantive note, I'm still hoping Seethlaw isn't really dead. *g* I found him so...interesting, and his motivations and inclinations are still so unknown, since none of the narrative was from his pov. I know you said you're happy about how you resolved things at the end of Book 1, but personally, I still have a million questions. LOL

In any event, write fast and well. Hope your muses are treating you kindly. Happy Holidays! Here's hoping you're thinking in terms of a gift for your fans...

Best--
Theresa
New York City - USA

By Blogger Theresa, at 24 December 2009 22:17  

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