Happy Launch Day Arthas!

Today is the big day! Arthas formally hits bookstores and you can get your very own copy! It was a lot of fun to “debut” the book a couple of days ahead of time at Starfest this weekend. People were very excited to have the chance to pick up a book so new and shiny that it hadn’t even hit stores yet. I sold over thirty-five copies, and some people were already well into the book by the time they left the convention!

As you all know from reading the blog, there is a limited edition print run of 10,000 copies in the gorgeous leather box featuring my signature on the book. I’ve already done five thousand, and Pocket says they want five hundred more! We may run out that full ten thousand, who knows? I’ll be signing more on Tuesday and my hand is feeling fine.

I am theater trained and I miss acting, so I always love to do readings from my books. I like to think I’m pretty good, but I have to say…Chris Metzen is better! Here’s a link to him reading from the prologue of ARTHAS and also some very cool wallpaper of that incredible cover.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml

And fun fact? A huuuuge snowstorm rolled into Colorado on Friday, the first night of Starfest. dropping up to 18 inches of snow. Hm…..big old snowstorm the same day Arthas becomes available for purchase in Denver? Coincidence? YOU TELL ME. He’s a pretty powerful dude, that Lich King….

StarFest, April 17-19 in Denver

So for those of you who know me, you know I always attend Starfest. I bring lots and lots of books, many of them out of print, and I love to see so many familiar faces.

Familiar faces whose names I ALWAYS FORGET because I am really, really bad about that. So if you do show up and I have that deer in the headlights look, be gentle and remind me of your name. Because I DO know it…I just can’t call it up. ><

The really fun thing about this weekend is, we’re debuting ARTHAS. That’s right, before it even officially hits bookstores, I will be bringing 50 copies to StarFest! I’m really excited about this and hope to report on Monday that I didn’t bring a single copy home!

Please go to www.starland.com for more information if you’re going to be in Denver this weekend. If you come, tell me you read my blog!

Hope to see you there!

Online Q&A Thursday, 4/9

I know, I should have posted about this sooner, but I’ve been busy!

I’m doing an online Q&A tomorrow night at 9 EST, which should be a pretty good time for all time zones. It’s going to be hosted by Medievaldragon, who has done several interviews with me for Blizzplanet.com. To participate, go to Coveritlive.com and sign up.

I should warn you, I am a technophobe, so this will be interesting. See you there!

Update on Aaron Allston, fellow Star Wars author

So in the midst of all my happy news about Star Wars, I have just gotten some distressing news about Aaron Allston. As many of you know, Aaron, Troy Denning and I are working closely together on FATE OF THE JEDI, a nine-book Star Wars series. Aaron’s book OUTCAST was just published on March 24 to good reviews and a #3 spot on the New York Times Bestseller list. Aaron himself was out touring to promote the book.

On April 3, he suffered a heart attack and was admitted to a hospital in Texas. He underwent quadruple bypass surgery and currently is in intensive care but stable condition.

Aaron’s family has set up a blood donation sponsorship. If anyone in the Dallas area would like to donate blood, you can go to the National Blood Exchange http://www.aabb.org/Content/Programs_and_Services/National_Blood_Exchange/ or Carter BloodCare http://www.carterbloodcare.org/. Say that you are donating blood for Aaron Allston, patient of Carter Blood Care in Bedford, TX, and give his sponsor number: SPON 047786.

Please send any well-wishes to:

Aaron Allston
c/o Del Rey Books
1745 Broadway
New York, NY 10019

But please DO NOT send any perishable items or flowers, as Aaron will not be able to receive anything this week.

I had a wonderful time meeting Aaron a year ago when we all first brainstormed this series together. He is a warm and humorous man and made me feel very welcomed right away. His writing is playful, fun, exciting, and moving. He has my hopes and prayers and I’m sure all of yours as well. If you’re in the Dallas area and would like to donate blood, please know that you are doing something positive to help someone who truly deserves it. Please spread the word!

More on the Collector’s Edition of ARTHAS!

Well, this is getting awfully exciting, I have to admit!

A few days ago, Blizzard put up an ad on their login screen about the Collector’s edition. If you clicked on it, it took you here:

https://premierecollectibles.com/wow

Golly.

And no, the number ten thousand is not an error….so far I have signed five thousand copies, but they decided to make the limited edition go to ten thousand in case there was sufficient demand. They could go back to print, and I would get to have another signing marathon…which I would be delighted to do!

In other news, I just received word that the first half of my manga short story, “A Warrior Made,” for Tokyopop’s Warcraft Legends Volume 4 is done. The artist is In-Bae Kim and the art is fantastic. Warcraft Legends Volume 3 is out already, with my goblin Winter Veil story, “I Got What Yule Need.” I enjoyed writing that one a lot–I like humor and the story really just came to me. This one is quite different. It is the story of Thrall’s mother, the great orcish warrior Draka, and how she went from being so sickly as a child to the proud warrior she later became.

I will be attending StarFest this year in Denver, April 17-19, and I will be premiering ARTHAS there before it even officially goes on sale in bookstores. I will also have copies of many of my other novels for sale, including many that are out of print and hard to find. Stop on by and say hello!

Sign, Sign, everywhere a sign-…ing

So when you’re unpublished and indulging in your little fantasties, daydreaming about how your life is going to completely change once you sell that first book and it becomes a runaway bestseller…you dream of signings.  Dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of adoring fans, gazing at you raptly, begging for your signature.  Confidently, you smile, say “Of course!” and sign, much to their delight.

And this, my friends, is the difference between fantasy and reality.

Nearly every author I have ever met has nodded sympathetically when I recount going to signings at bookstores, only to sit for two hours under a sign that says “Author Christie Golden” and still have people assume I am a store employee.  “Where are the cookbooks?  Where is the bathroom?”  I point to the sign and say, “Sorry, not an employee…an author. ” Sad part?  They usually just go “Oh,” and find an employee.

So yeah, for most of the published population, signings just are not what you imagine they will be.

And even when they are, there’s something very real world-y about them.

Both Blizzard and Pocket Books are very excited about my forthcoming novel, ARTHAS: RISE OF THE LICH KING.  And hey, so am I.  It’s my second hardcover ever and I am very proud of the book.  I absolutely loved writing it.  Pocket is so excited they are going to package 5,000 copies as a boxed, special edition, featuring my signature.

This is great.  This is hugely exciting.

And then the boxes of the sheets arrived.  Three of them.  Wow.  Five thousand sheets of paper is, uh, a lot.  To sign in a very short time.    I’ve been hard at work for a few days now and am barely halfway through the first box, and my signature has gotten very…um…interesting?

No, I’m not complaining.  Really I’m not.  The fact that there is a special edition out there that’s “special” because it’s signed by me…even thirty-four books later, I still find this terribly cool.  And I don’t begrudge a single one of those five thousand (actually, 5,250, just in case I or someone else messes one up).  I try to think of who might be reading this, and how pleased they will be, and I send him or her good thoughts.

But next time, I think I’ll ask for just a little bit longer to sign that many. 

P.S.  Edit because I originally said “50000.”  Which…yeah. 

Birthday at a Book View Cafe…

So this weekend, a Very Cool Website got launched, one that I am excited to be a part of.  It’s www.bookviewcafe.com and it’s a site where I and several other professional female authors are offering our work…for free.  That’s right, free.

Many of us have short stories of novels that are out of print or experimental, and we’re making them available to the public.   We’re still experiencing a few bugs, as most new websites do, but come check us out!  My offering is A.D. 999, which I wrote under a pen name almost ten years ago.   It’s historical fantasy and I’m very proud of it.  Take a look.

Also…Today is my birthday.  Coincidentally (if you believe in coincidences) I was assigned the blog topic for today.  So I talked about birthdays.  It can be found at http://blog.bookviewcafe.com/

Drop in, have a cup of virtual coffee, hear what I think about birthdays, particularly my own, and browse at your leisure.

Blizzcon, Ho!

Once again this year I will be a guest at Blizzcon, the gaming convention hosted by Blizzard Entertainment, the good people who bring you Diablo, Warcraft/World of Warcraft, and StarCraft.  The convention will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center.  If you are not already one of the lucky 8,000 who were able to get tickets, then you can catch some of the action on Direct TV.  More info here:

http://www.blizzard.com/blizzcon/dtv/?rhtml=y

I won’t be on any panels (although you never know, I might sneak on one if I can be of use!) but I will be available at the Tokyopop booth.  As I said earlier, I’ve done a couple of stories for them, one a goblin story called “I Got What Yule Need” and an orc story called “A Warrior Made.”  If I’m remembering correctly, the first story comes out in Legends 2….and I think I recall hearing that they have some advance copies at the booth…!  I can’t wait to see it!

Fellow Blizzard author Richard Knaak will aslo be there, and we’ll be doing some signings at the Tokyopop booth:  12-1 and 5-6:30 on Friday, October 10, and 10-11 and 4-5 on Saturday, October 11.  While I do hope for some time to go and enjoy the con (I’m a geek just like everyone else) the booth is a good spot to find me.  There will be free postcards in the goodie bag of ARTHAS featuring the awesome cover, and I will happily sign those as well as any books you bring.  I’m told that the Blizzard store on site will be carrying the books too!

I look forward to meeting some of you there!

A long time ago in a movie theater far, far away….

…a 13-old-girl had her universe completely, utterly, and irrevocably changed.

Yep, I’m talking about Star Wars.  Back in the good old days my mom would drop me off for the 1:00 show and pick me up sometime around 6:30.  I’d watch that movie again and again and again…absorbing it into my very soul, probably.

Flash forward a few decades to January of 2008, when my agent calls me and says, “Del Rey and Lucasfilms would like to know if you’d like to write for them.  It would be three books, hardcover, part of a nine-book series co-authored with Aaron Allston and Troy Denning.  And it would be dealing with Luke, Han, Leia, and their children.”

…Some decisions are just easier than others.

The hardest part of all of this was keeping my mouth shut about it.  I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, I was so excited.  But now I’ve finally been allowed to speak, so here we are!

Last year Del Rey put out a nine-books series entitled “Legacy of the Force.”  It was an ambitious and exciting undertaking–three authors, nine books, each author alternating.  The three authors then were Troy, Aaron and Karen Traviss.  If you look at Karen’s website you can see that she more than has her hands full with many other projects, including more Star Wars novels, and so when the opening came for this one, “Fate of the Jedi,” I got lucky enough to to be asked to step in.

And it’s been wonderful.  My editor, Shelly Shapiro, is great to work with, and Sue Rostini over at Lucasfilms–indeed, everyone I have met there–has been fantastic about providing me with needed info about the expanded universe and seems very pleased that I’m on board.  Troy and Aaron are of course veterans of the Star Wars EU, and they have made me feel very welcome and part of the team.  In March, we all got together and worked the nuts and bolts of this huge story arc, and I have to tell you, I’m very, very excited about what’s in store for the readers.   There are some wonderful things we’re going to share with you.

So it took a little while, but that 13-year-old girl who stared in wide-eyed wonder at the adventures of Luke, Leia and Han now gets to write new adventures for these well-loved characters.

Now…the silence was officially lifted on the 15th.  Why, you ask, are you waiting until now to say something on your blog?  Well, I reply, it’s because I wanted this announcement to coincide with the redesign of my website.  It was kind of like announcing an open house party and then realizing your house needed cleaning.  My husband Michael very graciously donates his time to designing and maintaining my site, and all was looking good until we had a technical failure and he lost almost everything he’d done.  So he had to start from scratch.

The website still has a few things that need to be worked out, but by and large, it’s ready for my Star Wars Open House.   So come drop in, take a look at the very cool new design, and enjoy.

And…may the Force be with you.

Projects Updates #2: The Dark Templar Trilogy and Arthas

Let’s address ARTHAS first.  Unless something changes, it is indeed a hardback coming out in April of 2009.  While unfortunately there are no plans to put a sample chapter in the goodie bag for Blizzcon, do look for a postcard of the incredible cover.  I met with some folks at Blizzard to discuss the upcoming trilogy, and they showed me the art.  Like everything Blizzard does, this one is fantastic!  More on my trip in a separate post.

As for TWILIGHT, the third and final book in the Dark Templar trilogy set in the StarCraft universe, current plans are for that to come out in May of 2009.  The reason for the delay is…well, we can blame that fallen paladin for this too!  Yes, I was hard at work on ARTHAS and so the projects got swapped around a bit.  I am currently on my final edit for TWILIGHT and it’s fun to revisit this series.  I really loved Jake and R.M., and enjoyed the “voice” in which the story is told.  I like to describe the series as Bladerunner meets Indiana Jones.  I’m quite proud of it and I hope you all go out and pick up FIRSTBORN and jump right in, knowing that the third book is indeed on its way!