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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 6:26AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Feb 19, 2006
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I'm personally very excited to get started on our 12th Book Club selection, Brimstone Angels for a number of reasons . First, it marks the return of one of our favorite authors to the Book Club, Erin M. Evans (check her out on her blog, SlushLush.com). You may remember Erin from our discussion of The God Catcher, one of our favorite reads from last year. In the meantime, she's been busy writing and creating a little hero of her own! (Gold Piece, finally someone to share baby stories with!) Secondly, Erin is a former editor at Wizards, and brings great insight into the whole writing process from start to finish for those of you interested in those publishing-type questions. And finally, Brimstone Angels is the first Neverwinter novel not written by R. A. Salvatore. If you're a fan of Salvatore's books, the Neverwinter campaign setting, or anxiously awaiting the video game release, you'll definitely want to pick up a copy and get involved with the discussion. Angels is available in both paper and e-book format, so pick your pleasure. There's a sample chapter up on the product page as well. If you need something to keep you occupied and get you in the mood for Demons and Devils (Oh my!), Erin's blog has a few great posts related to Brimstone Angels that you won't want to miss including one on sexy devil women and one on a sexy devil man. That's a lot of sexy devils! If you’re new to the Book Club, we’ll be reading around 50 pages a week and then commenting on them. We’ll start the discussion next week on Monday, May 7th, so pick up your copy and get ready. In the meantime, drop by this forum to let us know you’ll be participating and ask Erin any questions.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 3:01PM
#2
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Date Joined:
May 21, 2009
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Hooray! It's book club time!
Thanks for linking to those blog posts, dadocollin--I promise that's just the start of behind-the-scenes lore, writing tricks, game ideas, and so forth. Baby means a lot of the blog posts I had planned got put on the back-burner. :p
Anyway, I can't wait to get started! AS much as I loved The God Catcher, I'm even more excited about Brimstone Angels.
-Erin
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 3:27PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Jan 16, 2012
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Count me in for sure! I actually just finished reading Brimstone Angels but I'll happily re-read it to participate in this discussion. Can't wait!
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 3:37PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Sep 30, 2006
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Awesome! I can't wait to read through this again.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 4:07PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Mar 15, 2010
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Looking forward to this - I have my copy here, ready to go 
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 8:55PM
#6
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Date Joined:
May 21, 2009
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I have to say, I love all the warlocks. Setting the mood.
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1 year ago ::
May 01, 2012 - 5:54AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Feb 19, 2006
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I also found this in the comments of one of the blogs from Erin about swearing in Brimstone Angels: "Quick story: I used to work at WotC as an editor, and periodically we’d all read one of the books we’d put out and sort of post-mortem it with the editor. When we did Realms of the Dead, my story was called out for using those creative swears. I pointed out I would have much rather the Shepherd said “Get the f*** out of the way” to show his utter, utter terror, but we didn’t do things like that so I was stuck with “stlarn” and “hrast.” In the ensuing discussion (which was very spirited and interesting!), Phil Athans agreed that authors could indeed use s***. But no f***s. So I went wild."
I laughed very hard when I read this. I was always curious why certain authors used the "creative swears" and others didn't. It actually created some inconsistencies between books in the same locations. I hope you still drop and f-bomb in a draft every once in a while just to see if they're still on their toes.
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1 year ago ::
May 01, 2012 - 8:35AM
#8
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I've got my copy and started reading the prologue last night. I need to do a little tiefling research!
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1 year ago ::
May 01, 2012 - 9:11AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Feb 19, 2006
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If you have any confusion about the change in devils/demons in 4th edition, especially succubi/erinyes, make sure you read Erin's blog about Sexy Devil Women. I'm curious to hear if Erin has been the subject of any Blood War purist hate mail. There's also this interview with Erik Scott de Bie in which we learn that one of Erin's characters from her short story "The Resurrection Agent" gets resurrected for Brimstone Angels and that a sequel is already in the works. For those of you who are really into Neverwinter, I'll also say (being as spoiler-free as possible) that from some other tidbits I've picked up here and there, you're going to see direct links between this novel and the Neverwinter campaign setting (and upcoming game) and a connection to at least one character from Salvatore's Neverwinter.
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1 year ago ::
May 01, 2012 - 12:47PM
#10
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Date Joined:
May 21, 2009
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Thanks for all the reference-posting, dadocollins. If you haven't read "The Resurrection Agent" and want some backstory, it's actually available for free on Wizards.com. I would encourage you to seek out Realms of the Dead still--lot of good stories in there. Swearing: I do think there's a place for invented swears, but the question you have to ask as the author is "Why am I using it?" If it's mostly for flavor, invented is great! But if you're trying to convey the character's mood, there are places where an invented swear is going to work against you. I think when you want to shock the reader the way the character is shocked, to impress upon the reader the forcefulness of the character's emotion, you're going to have to use a word that jumps out. And s*** is always going to jump higher than tluin. And I never leave the f-bombs in the final draft. I know they can't go through. The only one I slipped into Brimstone Angels was in a scene I cut, where two devils were arguing and I knew that one definitely told the other to "shut the eff up." But in drafting, my brain couldn't find the natural "translation" for it, so I sent it to my editor that way. Fortunately, she advised me to cut the whole scene, easy-peasy. Tieflings: There should be enough information to tell you "What is a tiefling?" in the text, so don't worry about getting lost there (there's a bit more history in Chapter One). If you are wondering "What happened to tieflings from 3.5 to 4 E?" that's a bit trickier. The gist is that they are now a true-breeding race which has common characteristics: horns, tails, solid eyes, pointed canines. They also can have bright red skin, but not all do (the twins do not). If the question is "Why did that happen?" that is a question this series will answer.
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