For the past few days Joe Abercrombie has been teasing fans on his blog with early drafts of artwork. It was obvious to most early on that these teases were pointing towards an comic adaptation of Joe’s first book The Blade Itself. Today the full announcement has been made via Joe’s blog.
And new pages will be added every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In addition to these freely available versions, you can also buy hard copies via Comixology – http://www.comixology.com/ – and there are also plans for hardback versions of collected series later.
This is great news, I’ve been a long time fan of Joe’s work and feel this only opens his work up to a whole new audience. And who knows, maybe if this is as successful as his prose then we may one day see a screen adaptation (you listening HBO?)
This extract looks to be from early on in the book – based on the blurb released – and depicts Shy and Lamb’s discovery of their burned out home. For the eagle eyed among you, there are some further hints to the identity of Lamb.
Red Country is released 18th October in the UK and 23rd October in the US.
Few bits of catch-up news and some of the things that interest me in the coming months…
Game Of Thrones
HBO have signed a deal with UK based Blinkboxto stream S1 and 2 –http://www.blinkbox.com/TV/Series/1024/Game-of-Thrones?icn=GameOfThrones&ici=DHB_homepage – both are now available – £1.89 per episode or £17.99 for the series. Blinkbox are part of Tesco and looking through their site have quite a lot to offer. There is no monthly subscription, you pay-per-view. As part of the deal with HBO shows like Boardwalk Empire and True Blood are also available. Whilst this is good news to non-Sky customers I do worry if it will have a knock on effect. If viewers can now what the show without signing up to Sky will it affect their viewing figures, and also with S2 now available to view 7 months before the proposed release date for the DVD/BluRay boxset, will this affect those sales as well?
Staying with GoT, Irish actor Ciaran Hinds has been cast as Mance Rayder.
Mance is the King-Beyond-The-Wall, he’s been mentioned numerous times during S1 & 2, and the last time we saw Jon Snow he was being taken to see him. Mance has amassed a Wildling army and is heading for the Wall.
Ciaran is a well known actor appearing in films such as Munich, John Carter, Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. He’s probably most well known for his portrayal of Julius Ceaser in Rome.
Dredd
The official trailer for Dredd was released a few weeks ago.
I’ve been a fan of Judge Dredd and 2000AD since the comic first came out in 1977, whilst I am looking forward to this film, I have some reservations. But those reservations are dwindling as the release date draws ever nearer and more information about what we can expect are made known.
Red Country
Publisher Gollancz have released a new trailer for Joe Abercrombie’s next book Red Country.
And a newish blurb.
They burned her home.
They stole her brother and sister.
But vengeance is following.
Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she’ll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she’s not a woman to flinch from what needs doing. She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old stepfather Lamb for company. But it turns out Lamb’s buried a bloody past of his own, and out in the lawless Far Country, the past never stays buried.
Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts. Even worse, it will force them into alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust. . .
The past never stays buried . . .
Red Country is out September 3rd in the UK.
Gypsys Kiss and more…
I mentioned a while ago that my current WIP – Gypsys Kiss – now has the first part completed and edited, I’m doing some research for parts 2 and 3 before continuing with the writing. In the mean time I’ve begun work on an as yet untitled project that I aim to have completed in time to submit for the Abaddon Books open submission month in September – http://abaddonbooks.blogspot.com/2012/07/write-for-abaddon.html – I’ve got about 3.1/2 chapters done (approx 9,000 words) and hope to have a first draft early in next month. This will hopefully give me time to re-read, edit and get it submitted.
I’ve also re-visited a 60 minute pilot script I started about 18 months ago (I had 20 minutes written and the rest notes). The aim on this one is to get it finished and an outline of the other six episodes in time for the next submission window for the BBC Writers Room in the Autumn.
Joe has posted the UK cover for his next book Red Country.
Carrying on the theme of maps and weapons used on the previous two books – Best Served Cold & The Heroes – this one shows the area the story is set in with some knives.
The wrap around gives you the full effect and the blurb…
They burned her home.
They stole her brother and sister.
But vengeance is following.
Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she’ll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she’s not a woman to flinch from what needs doing. She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old stepfather Lamb for company. But it turns out Lamb’s buried a bloody past of his own, and out in the lawless Far Country, the past never stays buried.
Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts. Even worse, it will force them into alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust…”
Looking good and will sit nicely alongside the rest of the collection with the battered document style. And if further proof were needed as to who everyone assumes (hopes) the character “Lamb” is, then read the first line of Joe’s text where he quotes a familiar line.
There’s been a couple of updates on two on-going projects of interest over the past 24 hours.
First up (A) Red Country by Joe Abercrombie. The publication dates have only just been announced and now the American cover has been released.
This follows the theme already seen with the re-releases of The First Law trilogy and Best Served Cold. Not sure I’m overly keen on this style of cover, I much prefer the UK ‘damaged parchment’ style.
In Newcastle-upon-Tyne, AD 2142, Detective Sidney Hurst attends a brutal murder scene. The victim is one of the wealthy North family clones – but none have been reported missing. And the crime’s most disturbing aspect is how the victim was killed. Twenty years ago, a North clone billionaire and his household were horrifically murdered in exactly the same manner, on the tropical planet of St Libra. But if the murderer is still at large, was Angela Tramelo wrongly convicted? Tough and confident, she never waivered under interrogation – claiming she alone survived an alien attack. But there is no animal life on St Libra. Investigating this alien threat becomes the Human Defence Agency’s top priority. The bio-fuel flowing from St Libra is the lifeblood of Earth’s economy and must be secured. So a vast expedition is mounted via the Newcastle gateway, and teams of engineers, support personnel and xenobiologists are dispatched to the planet. Along with their technical advisor, grudgingly released from prison, Angela Tramelo. But the expedition is cut off, deep within St Libra’s rainforests. Then the murders begin. Someone or something is picking off the team one by one. Angela insists it’s the alien, but her new colleagues aren’t so sure. Maybe she did see an alien, or maybe she has other reasons for being on St Libra .
This is Peter’s first standalone in a long time, and his longest book since The Night’s Dawn trilogy. His next project is a return to the world of the Void but set on a different planet and with no plans to include any previous Commonwealth characters.
Great North Road is due for release September 27th in the UK & December 26th in the US.
I like these informative insights into a writers methods, as one myself – albeit juts starting out – I find it incredibly interesting seeing how others manage their word counts. Looking at his cutting of chapter two its a marvel that he can get rid of 2,400 words – that’s a decent short story – and still have a chapter that works.
Looking forward to more posts like this, and more news on the progress of the book.
Hot on the heels of his Last Words update last week – http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2012/03/13/last-words/ – Joe Abercrombie has posted another, more in-depth, update about the first rough draft of (A) Red Country.
Some interesting insights into how Joe works, and how the whole process is going. Some interesting questions raised as well. In his previous post Joe had the title A Red Country, here he uses Red Country? So I believe there will be two different titles for the UK and US markets, one with the A and one without, perhaps he’s trying both out to see how they feel.
More interesting is one line near the end of the article where he is talking about the characters that have appeared in previous books. – They need to feel consistent and vivid, and as a result I probably need to do a read through of the First Law and Best Served Cold – so he only needs to re-read First Law and Best Served Cold. From that can we assume there will be no characters from The Heroes making a return? Also, we already know that Nicomo Cosca is in the new book – hence the re-read of BSC – but why would he need to re-read First Law, there has been no mention so far of any characters from there?
Or has there?
A lot of speculation has been hinging on a certain character by the name of Lamb, he is the step-father of the central figure in the story. All that Joe has revealed so far about Lamb is that he has a bloody past, bloodier than most. Makes me wonder even more if this is a subtle clue that perhaps Lamb appeared in First Law but under a different name.
He’s said it’s looking at around the 170,000 mark which would make it his shortest book to date. Publication is possibly September/October 2012.
Interestingly I notice that this is the first time he’s put the title without the A in brackets, he has been unsure up to now whether or not to have the letter in the title. Does this mean he’s now settled?
Philip Norris 