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Yea! SERVANT wins Whitney Award
I’m totally blown away. No way. NO FREAKING WAY. No way.
Servant of a Dark God just won the Whitney award for speculative fiction. Look who the others were in the category–three New York Times best sellers and a book that had something like 11 or 12 printings in Europe before coming to the US. Holy crap. I’m thrilled the academy voters liked it so much.
Servant of a Dark God
by John BrownThe Maze Runner
by James DashnerWings
by Aprilynne PikeWarbreaker
by Brandon SandersonI Am Not A Serial Killer
by Dan WellsWhen I informed the academy president, Robinson Wells, I couldn’t come, he asked if I had a speech should I win. There was no way I was winning. So I was like, yeah, whatever. So I wrote him this:
Yeah, like that’s going to happen (grin). But should something go wrong with the chads, you can simply say that “John told me if he won, that would mean the events in Revelations were probably upon us, and he’d be headed to his father-in-law’s underground bunker with his wife who was the brains behind the whole operation. He’s thrilled so many of you liked his story enough to vote for it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But he’s also sad that you’ll all be toast before Fox News airs at 9 PM.”
Holy, heck. I’d better get to that bunker.
Here are the other categories and winners:
- Best Romance: Counting the Cost by Liz Adair
- Best Mystery/Suspense: Methods of Madness by Stephanie Black (absolutely love the cover)
- Best Youth Fiction: The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
- Best Speculative Fiction: Servant of a Dark God by John Brown
- Best Historical: The Last Waltz by G.G. Vandagriff
- Best General Fiction: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
- Best Novel by a New Author: I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells and Gravity vs. The Girl by Riley Noehren (it was a tie, obviously)
- Best Novel of the Year: In The Company of Angels by David Farland
Of course, you had to have read all the books in a category to vote on them. You can see the finalists in each category here. So while Farland’s book didn’t win in his category (I”m assuming with the hard core historical fans), it did win with those who read every finalist. Same with Dan Wells. So what this tells me is that depending on the cross-section of voters a lot of us could have been winners. I’m just happy I got the cross-section I did–ye speculative nut jobs 🙂 Hooray for the Whitneys!!
Smith’s grocery and Curse update
SERVANT has been spotted in the Orem, Pleasant Grove, Salt Lake City, and West Jordan Smith’s stores. It appears we’re still running, folks. Fingers crossed. Please post a comment if you see it in your local Smith’s.
As for CURSE OF A DARK GOD, I’m moving along. I’m such a slow writer. But I had to yank about 50-70k words from draft 2. Just yank them right out and start over. I’ll give a full report when I’m done, but I’m very excited about this new version. Sugar is becoming a fell-maiden. Talen is becoming more heroic. And I’m just having a great time.
Audio for my presentations
Folks. I have 2 mp3 files. One for Story Turns. One for Vivid & Clear. They are each about 48mb in size. But I don’t have the time to figure out how to make them available to you.
But I know someone out there does have the skillz to mash the slides with the audio in a short period of time and make it available. Maybe create something to upload to YouTube.
So if you have been waiting for this and would like to offer your services, I’d be happy to throw in a free copy of the ebook edition of Bad Penny and Servant for your efforts. It would in no way cover your time, but it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. And the project will also give you all sorts of glowy goodness inside knowing that you’ve served a whole bunch of writers.
That’s my offer: glowy goodness and ebooks.
If you’re interested, click my picture in the left sidebar and and let me know 🙂
Audio production of “Loose in the Wires”!
Earlier this year, Gary Dowell, an editor at Tony C. Smith’s District of Wonders, contacted me, wanting to know if they could make an audio production of “From the Clay of His Heart”. I was, of course, delighted. Smith’s podcasts include the Hugo Award-winning Starship Sofa.During our conversation, I suggested that if they were looking for a shorter contemporary fantasy with some more humor, they might also want to consider “Loose in the Wires”.
I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed writing that story.
It all started with one sentence.
I was generating ideas, brainstorming, and out popped this line: “Bill had two African gods in a Smucker’s jelly jar in his trunk.”
That was the trunk of his car. And these were, of course, live gods. But what would fit in Smucker’s jar? How did they get there? What would they do? And what was going to happen with Bill?
I loved the sound of that line, the image, the situation, but one snippet of an idea is not enough to build a story. I toyed around with the idea now and again. And then years later I was listening to O is for Outlaw by Sue Grafton. The voice of one of the characters was exactly what I needed. He was all hick. And as soon as I decided that’s what my character would be, the story began to hum with electricity. Very soon after that, I finished it. Orson Card published it in the debut issue of Intergalatic Medicine Show.
For a long time, I’ve wanted to make an audio production, but just haven’t had the time. Well, District of Wonders decided to pick that one up too.
The audio production of “Loose in the Wires” will be featured in their upcoming February, 17th episode.
I’m told the production of “From the Clay of His Heart” should be done soon. I’ll let you know the date it will be available as soon as it’s scheduled.
“From the Clay of His Heart” reprinted
I loves me golem story. It was such a joy to write. Obviously, two editors found it a joy to read as well. So it was just reprinted in Year’s Best Fantasy 9 edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer and published by Tor.com.The good thing is that there is a whole boatload of other great stories in this anthology including one of my favorites, Kij Johnson’s “26 Monkeys and the Abyss.”
Here’s the Amazon link.
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Aw 🙁 Oh well, we’ll cope.
Look how strong you are!
Any update on the release window?
Still trying to nail down dates with artist. This is the last piece of the puzzle. As soon as I have that, I’ll announce! Thanks for checking and asking.
Hi Jon
Can you remind me what’s going on with this new version of SERVANT – is it a re-edit, a ‘Director’s cut’, an overhaul…?
I have the original Tor version so just wondering what the differences are between the two? Will you be releasing any notes (maybe a blog post) comparing them? It would certainly help me decide whether to pick up the new version before CURSE comes out.
Also, can you recommend where would be the best place to order your new books in the UK?
Thanks
Tim F
Tim,
You betcha. This was a signficant edit, but it involved mostly line edits and resequencing and one important addition, so the base story remains the same.
Line edits are things that make individual sentences or paragraphs read more clearly.
Resequencing is moving chapters or sections around and does affect the experience. The biggest resequence was switching the first 8 chapters back to the original order I intended. Then there were two or three other sections that needed to be moved around inside the story.
Those are the bulk of the edits.
I did add a short section to the ending to clarify a few things that should have been revealed in the first version and that lead into book 2.
You will be able to get the books on Amazon in the UK in paper and electronic format. And I’ll be holding a sale in the first week or so of the release so previous readers like you can get either format as cheaply as possible.
Does that help?