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What’s your “desert island” book?

Elaine Cunningham(co-author of The City of Splendors): I’ve never been able to answer this question. I love books and I read widely, but narrowing the field down to one book? Can’t do it. (Friend Elaine)

Ed Greenwood (author of The Sword Never Sleeps): 101 Ways To Get Off Desert Islands. Seriously? I can’t pick one. If I can cheat, it would be one of the doorstop anthologies of English literature, so as to cram as many great novels, short stories, and poems into my hands. The Lord of the Rings would in the running, too.

Richard Baker (author of Avenger): Lord of the Rings. I’m a fan of the classics, I guess. I re-read it once every three or four years. (Friend Richard)

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I am a very logical person. I also love fantasy. There was nothing worse to me, as a child, than the thought that the world might actually be every bit as boring as it seemed, when books and stories were so much more exciting. I mean, that’s kind of leading you on, isn’t it? To show all this fabulous, fantastic stuff, like dragons, and faeries, and magic, and then to tell you: “Sike! Too bad, so sad—you can’t have it, ’cause it’s not reee-aaaal.”

Of course, no one ever told me it wasn’t real—at least not up front. No, for some reason, the combination of a scientific brain and a love for fantasy is exactly the kind of thing that adults find really funny. They love messing with you. Never giving you a straight answer. Making you believe ridiculous things.

Like this one time, one of my friend’s moms, who insisted that magic was real, told me that my My Little Ponies moved around at night when I was asleep. Okay, so magic is one thing, but my toys? Moving around and doing stuff when I was asleep? Not a comforting thought. Who knows what diabolical plots they could be up to?

Anyway, she encouraged this thought for months. Leading me on with little bits of found “evidence” and getting other adults to back her up, until she had me really concerned. Then and only then, once she had planted this idea firmly in my head, did she tell me it was untrue.

And she expected me to believe her! When by her own admission now, she was untrustworthy! When did the lies stop? I wasn’t dumb. I knew that if I asked another adult, they would just tell me what she wanted them to tell me—they’d done it before, and they’d do it again.

It was clear that it was up to me to figure out if magic were real, and if my ponies were really on parade. Because adults simply couldn’t be trusted. Not with that kind of responsibility, anyway.

So I was resolved to do what any logical child of two scientists would do. I would test her theory. Scientifically rigorously. 

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Pitching a book to a publisher is a lot like online dating. You’re putting yourself out there with no real idea as to how you are being received. The readers on the other side—and they are Legion—hold the power to reject you before they even read so much as the first line of your (cover letter / profile). Or worse, they could read all of it—aloud, to their co-workers, who are helpless on the floor with gales of laughter. They have the luxury of being heartlessly judgmental of you, and you have not one word with which you can defend yourself, because you do not even know you are being attacked.

But how are you going to make them understand how awesome you are with just one sentence? How can you defend yourself from all possible attacks before they happen? And, most importantly, how can you make sure that, if anyone’s going to be doing any rejecting, it’s you?

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What’s your favorite color?

(This is being hosted over at the new WotC Novels Book Club now!)

 

Elaine Cunningham(co-author of The City of Splendors): Autumn. That whole spectrum of color. (Friend Elaine)

Ed Greenwood (author of The Sword Never Sleeps): Blue. Except in some pregnancy tests.

Richard Baker (author of Avenger): Red. My wife says I look good in red! (Friend Richard)

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As an editor, people I barely know often ask me to recommend a book. A job hazard, I suppose, much like a waiter is expected to be able to recommend their restaurant’s best dish, but it’s a subject I warm to readily enough, so I don’t really mind.

“Okay, sure,” I answer. “What kind of book are you looking for?”

“I don’t know—what’s good?” they ask.

“What’s good,” indeed. Such an innocent question with such a complicated answer! Beyond the garden of good and bad writing, lies a field of subjectivity and taste. Do you like your fantasy served with a side of romance, or laced with the grittiness of a hard-boiled detective novel? Do you prefer the flavors strong and dark as Turkish coffee, or light and sweet as a fine Riesling? Are you willing to pull open the jaws of its literary devices to get at the rare delicacies within, or do you want it served in perfect bite-sized portions?

For all the Realms-curious bibliovores out there, I’ve prepared a list of just a few of the offerings on the Forgotten Realms menu that I’d recommend to friends interested in picking up one of our books, along with some tasting notes.

Read the menu here!

Rich or Famous?

(This is being hosted over at the new WotC Novels Book Club now!)

 

Elaine Cunningham(co-author of The City of Splendors): Are you asking which I prefer, or which I am?  Because I’d hate to say “neither” if it turns out that you’re offering a choice.  (Friend Elaine)

Ed Greenwood (author of The Sword Never Sleeps): Rich. Fame is a pain, but with lots and lots of money I could help so many people and right so many small wrongs, and feel very good about doing so. I don’t feel any need to have influence or power; my I-want-to-rule-the-world phase lasted for about an hour, as a youngster, when I was first forced to attend school and wanted to wipe away the whole notion.

Mark Sehestedt (author of The Fall of Highwatch): Me or you?

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What’s your favorite movie?

(This is being hosted over at the new WotC Novels Book Club now!)

 

Elaine Cunningham(co-author of The City of Splendors): “Bizet’s Carmen,” by Francesco Rosi.  A really well done film version of the opera with Placido Domingo as Don Jose and Julia Migenes-Johnson as Carmen. (Friend Elaine)

Ed Greenwood (author of The Sword Never Sleeps): I really can’t pick just one, but at the forefront would be Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V. I’m also partial to The Princess Bride, The Man Who Would Be King, Excalibur, the Errol Flynn Adventures of Robin Hood, and a long list of mainly fantasy, mainly romantic epics, large and small.

Richard Baker (author of Avenger): I like a lot of movies, but I guess The Sand Pebbles is pretty close to the top. There aren’t many great Navy movies, which is a bit of a shame. (Friend Richard)

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You get one superpower. What is it?

(This is being hosted over at the new WotC Novels Book Club now!)

Elaine Cunningham(co-author of The City of Splendors): The ability to write as fast as Ed Greenwood. (Friend Elaine)

Ed Greenwood (author of The Sword Never Sleeps): Invisibility. I could learn so much more, and have such naughty fun doing it.

Richard Baker (author of Avenger): Invincibility. It’s a very forgiving power, no learning curve. (Friend Richard)

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To read the full story of the signing, check it out here!

What word do you really love?

(This is being hosted over at the new WotC Novels Book Club now!)

Elaine Cunningham(co-author of The City of Splendors): “Schadenfreude.” This word sums up why I love the German language. There’s no single-word equivalent in English. (Friend Elaine)

Ed Greenwood (author of The Sword Never Sleeps): I have lots of them. “Indubitably” is one. “Chatoyence” is another. Then of course there’s “paycheck.”

Richard Baker (author of Avenger): “Dovetail.” It’s the word I used to empty all 7 letters on my rack in a game of Scrabble the first time I ever managed to do it, and score that big fat 50 point bonus. (Friend Richard)

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