Everyone, I would like you to meet the newest edition of The Name of the Wind.
I’m now in trade paperback. Today, I am a man.
I don’t know what it is about being in trade paperback, but it makes me feel kinda literary. Which in turn makes me feel kind of dirty. Which makes me feel sexy. Which makes me feel pretty, then embarrassed, and finally kinda tired and confused. Plus hungry.
I never used to appreciate trade paperback books. I just didn’t get them. At best they seemed pointless. At worst they were a type of perversion. They were what happened when a paperback and a hardcover had an illicit, incestuous lovechild.
But now I get the appeal. With trade paperback you have the easy-to-read larger type of the bigger book, but it’s a size that you can actually carry around with you. It can still stop a small caliber bullet, but you can bend the cover back if you’re reading it in the bathtub. It slices. It dices. It’s all things to all people. Ego sum alpha et o.
I really shouldn’t be blogging right now. I’m way too tired to be sure if I’m making much sense. It’s still yesterday for me. I haven’t been to bed yet.
This newest version of the book also proudly proclaims itself to be, “The New York Times Bestseller,” which I have to admit gives me a bit of a tingle.
Also, for those of you who haven’t already heard, The Name of the Wind is now available in all manner of electronic formats. Kindle and Sony and whatever. So now you godless heathens can have your bookless versions of my book. Ick.
Lastly, it looks like we’ll finally be getting an audio book before too long. A few weeks back I spent several hours on the phone pronouncing all the weird names and languages I invented. “Saying things like, “Cealdish. No. Wait. That’s not right. It’s Cealdish. CEaldish. CeALDish. No. Wait…”
It was magical experience, let me tell you. And by magical, I mean vaguely humiliating. I can hear the characters say these things in my head, but it’s hard to make my mouth make the shape of the word. Like Imre. There are two different ways to say it, depending on who’s talking.
Anyway, there are the newest additions to the family. Share and enjoy.
More news on the way,
pat
Another list of books.
So when I was at NADWcon last weekend, I was on a panel titled: “What To Read When You’re Not Reading Pratchett.”
My co-panelists were Marian Crane and Kristine Smith. And we spent a pleasant hour discussing books we loved with the audience.
Rather than slow the panel down to a crawl by spelling out all the author’s names and/or the titles of the books. I offered to post up the list of books we compiled here on my blog.
However, I was moderating the panel, and when I moderate, I’m usually too busy abusing my power to take notes. Luckily, Marian was nice enough to jot down the books recommended by both the panelists and the helpful, clever members of the audience. Then she mailed them to me so I could post them up here for everyone to see.
I feel I should mention that we made no attempt to make this list comprehensive. These were just the books that came up in our discussion:
Our main criteria selection were books that were strong in: Worldbuilding, Characterization, and Language. (As those are areas where Pratchett excels).
We tried with somewhat less success to bring up titles that focused on other things we liked about Prattchett’s writing: the inclusion of humor, careful handling of ethical issues, and a “feel-good” quality to the books themselves. This was somewhat less successful, as these are more ephemeral things, and harder to point at in a book.
What to read after you’ve read all available Pratchett books:
Douglas Adams: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, science fiction comedy
Neil Gaiman: fantasy and horror novels and graphic novels
Peter S. Beagle: The Last Unicorn, A Fine and Private Place, The Innkeeper’s Song. fantasy
Steven Brust: Vlad Taltos/Dragaera novels, fantasy
Glen Cook: Garrett, P.I. novels, fantasy mystery
Brandon Sanderson: Mistworld novels, Warbreaker, Elantris, fantasy
Jim Butcher: Dresden Chronicles, urban fantasy
Robert Jordan/ Brandon Sanderson: Wheel of Time series, fantasy
Lyndon Hardy: Master of the Five Magics series, fantasy
Walter Jon Williams: Drake Maijstral series, sf
Robert Zelazny: The Chronicles of Amber & many more, fantasy and sf
C.J. Cherryh: nearly anything, fantasy and sf
Barbara Hambly: nearly anything, fantasy and sf
Patricia McKillip: nearly anything, fantasy
Lois Bujold: the Miles Vorkosigan series, sf
P.C. Hodgell: the Kencyr novels, fantasy
Robin Hobb: the Assassin series, the Liveship Series, fantasy. Look also for her books as Megan Lindholm
David Weber: Honor Harrington series, sf
Diane Duane: ‘Wizard’ series and ‘Middle Kingdoms’ Series, fantasy
David Brin: the Uplift War series, sf
Ellen Kushner: Swordspoint and sequels, fantasy
Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett: Point of Hopes, Point of Dreams, fantasy
Ursula K. Le Guin: Earthsea books, Left Hand of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven, many others, fantasy and sf.
Orson Scott Card & Kathryn H. Kidd: Lovelock (The Mayflower Trilogy), sf
Peter David: Sir Apropos of Nothing trilogy, fantasy
Martha Wells: The Element of Fire, the Cloud Roads, many others, fantasy
Angela Carter: novels and short stories, magic realism
Tanith Lee: fantasy novels and short stories
Liz Williams: Inspector Chen novels science fantasy, mystery. Also see Inspector Chen series from Xiaolong Qiu, modern mysteries
Michael Marshall: The Straw Man and other novels, horror/sf
Georgette Heyer: comedy of manners
P.G. Wodehouse: comedy of manners
E.F. Benson: Mapp & Lucia novels, comedy of manners
Galen Beckett: The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, historical fantasy/alternate universe
Jacqueline Carey: Terre d’Ange novels, historical fantasy, alternate universe
Dorothy Dunnett: The Lymond Chronicles, House of Niccolo Series, historical fiction
Mary Stewart: The Merlin Chronicles, historical Fiction
Ray Bradbury: Something Wicked This Way Comes, fantasy/horror
Christopher Fry: ‘The Lady’s Not for Burning’, play, historical romantic comedy
Tom Stoppard: ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’, play, historical comedy/drama
Jasper Fforde: Shades of Grey and other novels, sf
William Goldman: The Princess Bride, fantasy
C.S. Lewis: The Screwtape Letters, Christian satire
Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, alternate history
Daniel Keyes: ‘Flowers for Algernon’ short story, sf
Lloyd Alexander: The Chronicles of Prydain, children’s Fantasy
Lee Martinez: The Automatic Detective, sf comedy/ Mystery
Barry Hughart: The Master Li books, Chinese historical fantasy
E. Hoffmann Price: The Devil Wives of Li Fong, The Jade Enchantress, Chinese historical fantasy
Fritz Leiber: ‘Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser’ fantasy series, other fantasy and horror novels
Vernor Vinge: ‘A Fire Upon the Deep’ and other sf novels
Phil and Kaja Foglio: Girl Genius graphic novels, steampunk fantasy
Hiromu Arakawa: Fullmetal Alchemist manga and anime Series, steampunk fantasy
There’s a fair amount of overlap between this list and my personal list of Must Read fantasy that I posted a while back. Some of that’s because I was on the panel, but another big piece of it is because some books are simply great reads. Classics become classics for a reason.
It goes without saying that if you were there at the panel and remember a book that didn’t get added here, you should feel free to mention it in the comments below.
pat