Today I received my author copies for the trade paperback edition of Fathom. Soon (Feb. 2, if not sooner at your local bookstore) you’ll be able to own one of your very own, nipple-slip cover and everything! Nice how they kept that.
To refresh your memory with regards to this project, I shall reach back into the mists of time and retrieve a pitch summary I wrote long ago:
An ageless water witch schemes to bring old gods back to glory, but awakening the Leviathan is no small feat–and it’s none too compatible with the survival of humanity. Nevertheless, a handful of ambitious villains are open to recruitment and the ranks of darkness fill with surprising speed. Aided by an eighteenth-century Spanish pirate and his deranged young lover, the witch strives to bring about the end of the world.
But between the cracks hide forgotten old things. Ignored–but far from powerless–they claim a hero of their own. The soul they salvage was destined for a watery grave, but the timing is right and the lingering elementals have better ideas.
Now the End of Days is challenged by a strange and powerful new creature, distilled from stone by a servant of the earth who refuses to surrender his green fields and muddy plains. Not yet.
Add to his arsenal a hapless insurance inspector and the irate priest of a fire god, and suddenly rural Florida doesn’t seem quite so sleepy anymore.
To be clear, this novel has absolutely nothing to do with the Eden books or the Clockwork Century. It’s a one-off semi-modern fantasy that took me years to write; and it’s the only long project I’ve ever set on my true home turf — in Florida. So if you didn’t take a chance on it due to the prohibitive hardback price, but you’re curious all the same … here’s your chance to pick it up at a more comfortable price-point. (And feel free to scroll down through my Reviews Page to get an idea of what the critics thought.)
Anyway! Now for the usual stuff.
Here are the recent stats on the Clockwork Century story, “Far-Fetched” — about an apprentice airship engineer named Huojin and his adventures aboard the Naamah Darling, now with Bonus! mayhem in the Shanghai Tunnels of Portland:
Project: “Far-Fetched”
Deadline: February 20, 2010
New Words Written: 1011 (better but not great)
Present Total Word Count: 2906
Things Accomplished in Fiction: Did some shopping; learned about the “Unheavenly City;” things got weird.
Things Accomplished in Real Life: Did day-job work in the morning; had a laughable conversation with Capital One; dealt with health insurance changes by phone and it worked out okay; nabbed lunch from Subway; cleaned apartment somewhat; reapplied Frontline to the cat and did some more flea-spraying (we didn’t seem to catch the whole problem the first time); did laundry.
Other: You know, I think I rather like this little story. Even so, I’m going to spend the rest of the evening working on other things. Projects/proposals are backing up over here, and the week is going to be a little packed with two rounds of out-of-towners, another interview, and a dentist appointment. I mean, besides the usual.
Total Official Word Count of 2010: 15,043 words
