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OCTOBER 2007
Dear Readers,
 Welcome to the wonderful world of Del Rey in October. We've got some great books for you this month, but before I tell you about them I want to draw your attention to a recent Washington Post article, which investigates the existence of "robobugs," or high-tech surveillance equipment designed to look like insects. Apparently many witnesses have seen suspiciously large and robotic-looking dragonflies at political rallies in D.C. The paranoid among them posit that they are tools of the Department of Homeland Security, keeping tabs on our nation's politically active. Of course any official contacted denies the existence of such equipment.
I would like to suggest that these dragonflies are in fact extraterrestrial, that they are here to gather anthropological data for a Wild Kingdom-like show broadcast to the far reaches of the Milky Way. Right now there could be unnamed spacemen and women snacking on galactic finger food while the sonorous tones of some celestial Don Pardo details the complex ritual of Earth's political process. Who knows, maybe all these stories of abduction are really some gonzo, Crocodile Hunter TV series for aliens. I think they may even pirate reruns of "Cops." Is there a better measure of our society?
But back to business. Many of you are gearing up for Halloween, no doubt. I hope everyone enjoys themselves and manages to scare some children. Of course we here at Del Rey would hope that anyone who does, does so in a wholesome way. We would never advocate the intentional scarring of young psyches. Adult psyches, however, are in full season. That's why we have Eat the Dark by Joe Schreiber, a chilling novel that is sure to get under your skin. Star Wars: Death Star is another title we've got new this month, plus the final book in Morgan Howell's Queen of the Orcs trilogy. Then there's Helfort's War: Book I: The Battle at the Moons of Hell, a new space opera from Aussie author, Graham Sharp Paul. And last, but certainly not least, Naomi Novik's New York Times-bestselling newest installment in her wonderful Temeraire series, Empire of Ivory.
As always, dear readers…
Enjoy yourself,
Fleetwood
frobbins@randomhouse.com
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DEL REY NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
ADVANCE COPY GIVEAWAY
Ten lucky readers will receive advance copies of Shadowbridge by Gregory Frost, a lyrical fantasy that Publishers Weekly calls "a sparkling gem of mythic invention and wonder." What we ask in return of those who do win is that you send us your comments on the book, good or bad, in an email. To enter the drawing, please send your name and address in the body of an email with the subject heading SHADOWBRIDGE by November 9th to delrey@randomhouse.com. Winners, chosen at random, will be notified by email. In sending your comments on the book, please tell us if you do not want us to publish them in a future DRIN.
AUTHORS ON TOUR
JOE SCHREIBER, author of Chasing the Dead, will be appearing as listed for readings/signings of his latest book, Eat the Dark.
10/20 @ 1-4 PM
Borders Express, 3575 Capital City Mall, Camp Hill, PA
10/27 @ 2 PM
Portage District Library, 300 Library Lane, Portage, MI
11/3 @ 1 PM
Borders Express (formerly Waldenbooks), 828 Park City Shopping Center, Lancaster, PA
11/3 @ 5 PM
Borders Express, 1665 State Hill Road, #A7, Wyomissing, PA
1/28, 2008 @ 6:30 PM
Hershey Public Library, 701 Cocoa Avenue, Hershey, PA
MICHAEL REAVES AND STEVE PERRY are appearing as listed below to promote their new book Star Wars: Death Star.
10/23 @ 7 PM
Powell's Bookstore in Cedar Hills Crossing, OR
11/16 @ 7PM
Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, CA
JASON THOMPSON, author of Manga: The Complete Guide, will be appearing:
10/27 @ 2 PM
Borders Books & Music #86, 3700 Torrance Blvd, Torrance, CA
CONVENTION NEWS
Among the Del Rey authors and editors attending the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, New York, November 1-4, are Charles Coleman Finlay, Morgan Howell (aka Will Hubbell), Alan Dean Foster, Daryl Gregory, Douglas Anderson, Peter Brett, Liz Scheier, Chris Schluep, and Fleetwood Robbins.
Harry Turtledove will be GoH at RAD CON 5, February 15-17, 2008 in lovely Pasco, Washington.
MANUSCRIPT DELIVERED
Super-advance shout out: Greg Bear has delivered the manuscript for City at the End of Time, which we will publish in August 2008.
ACQUISITIONS
Del Rey has acquired mass market rights for French SF master Maurice G. Dantec's Babylon Babies, which we will publish under the title Babylon A.D. to tie into the Fox motion picture of the same name. The movie, scheduled for release February 29, stars Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, and Gerard Depardieu. Mathieu Kassovitz, whose other work includes Gothika, directs. Our edition will go on sale in late January.
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with Naomi Novik
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Interview with Naomi Novik, author of Empire of Ivory
Del Rey: First of all, congratulations on winning the 2007 John W. Campbell Award for best new writer. It must have been an incredible experience not just to win but to be there in Japan to accept the honor.
Naomi Novik: It was amazing. Just the fact of getting nominated for the Campbell and the Hugo alone was fantastic, not to mention that it was a good excuse to go to Japan. You know, it's a cliche that it's an honor just to be nominated, but I profoundly felt that way. I was asked by an interviewer very early on, before His Majesty's Dragon came out, which I would rather have: a New York Times bestseller or a Hugo Award. Well, I didn't get a Hugo, but to me, the Campbell was just as much of an honor.
DR: And you didn't do too badly with the Times, either. Your latest book, Empire of Ivory, debuted at #15 on the Times list, I believe.
NN: Those two things both matter deeply to me as an indication that people are reading my work and connecting with it. It's extremely important to me as a writer that I feel I'm reaching people. I don't need to be making a fortune, but I do want to feel that I'm not writing into the ether. And of course what it also means is the freedom to keep going. That's the real reward, that I get to keep doing this.
DR: Empire of Ivory is the fourth book in the Temeraire series. Are you planning a definite conclusion for the series, or is it open-ended? And how far ahead do you plot things out?
NN: I definitely know in detail what's going to be happening a couple of books ahead of where I am. And then I have a general game plan where I know that the books end with the end of the Napoleonic wars, and the series has a definite arc to it.
DR: What year are we in now?
NN: Empire ends in August of 1807.
DR: You're not very explicit about exact dates in the books. Readers sort of have to infer what year it is by their own knowledge of history.
NN: Yes, I have a timeline myself, and you can pin things down pretty well by the placement of historical events like Trafalgar. But I generally don't want to nail things down too strongly. For one thing, travel in this time period was very different. A sea journey, the same journey, might take four months or eight months, depending on what time of year you did it, what kind of weather you ran into, what kind of ship you were on, whether you just had bad luck. And it was very much subject to the vagaries of the wind and the sea, and so I actually take the liberty of letting journeys sometimes take however much time is best for my story, my narrative, because I am aiming for an historical affect.
Read more. . .
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Jonathan Bresman, author of the upcoming MAD About Star Wars, has the unique distinction of being the missing link between two of pop culture's biggest idiots: Alfred E. Neuman and Jar Jar Binks. While anyone else with a smidgen of dignity would try to conceal this shameful fact from the general public, Bresman parlayed it into a book deal.
Bresman has a sordid past that includes stints as conceptual researcher on Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, as www.starwars.com's production correspondent, and as author of the Del Rey book The Art of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. In addition, he had the misfortune of having to run around in a primitive Jar Jar Binks costume in early videomatic footage of the film, and embarrassed himself by proving to be an utterly incompetent stormtrooper in the Special Edition of The Empire Strikes Back. Prior to his ordeal at Lucasfilm, he had survived an internship at MAD Magazine only to return a decade later for more abuse as senior editor, a position he has held for the past three years.
In 2006, while looking for ways to make a few extra bucks for himself, it occurred to Bresman that 2007 was the thirtieth anniversary of Star Wars and that MAD should use the occasion to cash in on its vast library of Star Wars parodies. Somehow Lucasfilm and Del Rey were duped into giving this dubious enterprise their blessing, and Bresman was off and running.
Not content to simply reprint the three decades of classic MAD spoofs, satire and silliness inspired by Luke, Anakin, Yoda and the rest of the Star Wars gang, Bresman also decided to supplement the parodies with behind-the-scenes stories from MAD's artists and writers, as well as from Star Wars' cast and crew. The results include such funny revelations as the real reason why Lucasfilm's lawyers never sued MAD, the bizarre tale of "Starr Wars" - the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky/Kenneth Starr parody that was later made into a set of stamps in formerly Soviet Abkhazia, and the sad story of how Fox News and the Bush White House loved MAD's Attack of the Clones parody, failing to realize that it was ridiculing the war in Iraq, not praising it.
The end product is a collection of, in Bresman's words, "sci-fi stupidity." Despite this, George Lucas himself thought it was worth his time to write a foreword for, stunning Bresman and, quite frankly, everyone else connected with the book.
MAD About Star Wars clearly demonstrates that when Star Wars gets the MAD treatment...
Sith happens! On sale now. $21.95 each. Cheap!
World War Z
An Oral History of the Zombie War
by Max Brooks
"Probably the most topical
and literate scare since
Orson Welles'
War of the Worlds
radio broadcast."
--Dallas Morning News
The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched firsthand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of 30 million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.
For more about Max Brooks, his books, podcasts, a Zombie War survival calculator, and more, visit WorldWarZ.net.
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