Blogflog - New Pub Date for Crimson Death
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lkh_lashoutsLink: New Pub Date for Crimson Death
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's blog. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.
Crimson Death, the new Anita Blake novel, will be published on September 13, 2016. For those of you who follow my blog, you know I’m still writing the book, what you don’t know is that I finished it once already. I typed, The End, one glorious morning as I watched the sun rise; but once the euphoria of the writing high faded and I got some sleep, I knew something was wrong. I’d known something was wrong for weeks, maybe months, but definitely weeks. I was too close to finishing the book, so I ignored my muse and my characters arguing with me. One character in particular wasn’t happy. Damian, who started life as a Viking until one dark night he and his brothers in arms tried to raid the wrong castle. She-Who-Made-Him, a master vampire that traumatized him so badly he’s afraid to speak her name, held him as a virtual slave for centuries. She let him go, and he still doesn’t know why, but he was allowed to go to America where he became a manager at one of the hottest dance clubs in the country, Danse Macabre. In fact, he first appears in the book that introduces the club. The Killing Dance is the sixth book in the series, and this is Damian’s introduction:
“I TURNED to find another new vampire. He was tall and slender with skin the color of clean white sheets, but sheets didn’t have muscle moving underneath, sheets didn’t glide down the steps and pad godlike across a room. His hair fell past his shoulders, a red so pure it was nearly the color of blood. The color screamed against his paleness.”
Originally, I thought Crimson Death would be a short novel like my books, Micah and Jason, called Damian, but very quickly I realized it was going to be a big book. I believe my largest word count was 300,000 words. I’m one of those writers that writes long and then cuts, but this was excessive, even for me. It was another clue that my muse and I were debating with each other. The original plot had Damian kidnapped and Anita coming to his rescue. It would take me typing to the end, or what I thought was the end, to be willing to listen to my muse, and to Damian. He finally got through to me and not literally said, but basically told me, “I’ve been in the series since book six and now I’m finally getting my own story in book twenty-five and I’m just the damsel in distress. All those newer characters that have come on stage and been heroes, or major love interests, or something more than just the victim du jour, and now I’m just as unhappy, just as powerless, just as afraid as I began. Nineteen books and I haven’t grown at all.” He was right, and it was unusual for me, because I’m all about the character growth and letting my fictional friends have interesting lives, except for him. Damian had been almost static, I don’t know why, but he finally stepped up and threw the gauntlet down.
“You can do better than this,” he told me, and he was right. I turned my plot on its ear and now Damian is going back to Ireland to help solve a mystery. He’s going back to face his greatest fears to save lives as a consultant with the Irish authorities about their sudden vampire problem. Sudden, because Ireland isn’t supposed to have any vampires. It’s one of the few countries on the planet that has no folklore about them. The only dead that walk in Irish myths are ghosts and the shades of heroes. But Damian knows differently, he knows that there is a vampire so powerful and so frightening that to even speak her name is to risk her power seeking you out, even across an ocean. She-Who-Made-Him says the vampires plaguing Dublin are not her doing, and that she’s grown weaker since Damian left her side. U. S. Marshal Ted Forrester, AKA Edward, is already there acting as a consultant. He wants fellow marshal Anita Blake to come help hunt the undead and to bring the only vampire that might know the truth about what’s happening. Anita thought Damian was going home, but Ireland was never home, it was the place where he died.
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's blog. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.
Crimson Death, the new Anita Blake novel, will be published on September 13, 2016. For those of you who follow my blog, you know I’m still writing the book, what you don’t know is that I finished it once already. I typed, The End, one glorious morning as I watched the sun rise; but once the euphoria of the writing high faded and I got some sleep, I knew something was wrong. I’d known something was wrong for weeks, maybe months, but definitely weeks. I was too close to finishing the book, so I ignored my muse and my characters arguing with me. One character in particular wasn’t happy. Damian, who started life as a Viking until one dark night he and his brothers in arms tried to raid the wrong castle. She-Who-Made-Him, a master vampire that traumatized him so badly he’s afraid to speak her name, held him as a virtual slave for centuries. She let him go, and he still doesn’t know why, but he was allowed to go to America where he became a manager at one of the hottest dance clubs in the country, Danse Macabre. In fact, he first appears in the book that introduces the club. The Killing Dance is the sixth book in the series, and this is Damian’s introduction:
“I TURNED to find another new vampire. He was tall and slender with skin the color of clean white sheets, but sheets didn’t have muscle moving underneath, sheets didn’t glide down the steps and pad godlike across a room. His hair fell past his shoulders, a red so pure it was nearly the color of blood. The color screamed against his paleness.”
Originally, I thought Crimson Death would be a short novel like my books, Micah and Jason, called Damian, but very quickly I realized it was going to be a big book. I believe my largest word count was 300,000 words. I’m one of those writers that writes long and then cuts, but this was excessive, even for me. It was another clue that my muse and I were debating with each other. The original plot had Damian kidnapped and Anita coming to his rescue. It would take me typing to the end, or what I thought was the end, to be willing to listen to my muse, and to Damian. He finally got through to me and not literally said, but basically told me, “I’ve been in the series since book six and now I’m finally getting my own story in book twenty-five and I’m just the damsel in distress. All those newer characters that have come on stage and been heroes, or major love interests, or something more than just the victim du jour, and now I’m just as unhappy, just as powerless, just as afraid as I began. Nineteen books and I haven’t grown at all.” He was right, and it was unusual for me, because I’m all about the character growth and letting my fictional friends have interesting lives, except for him. Damian had been almost static, I don’t know why, but he finally stepped up and threw the gauntlet down.
“You can do better than this,” he told me, and he was right. I turned my plot on its ear and now Damian is going back to Ireland to help solve a mystery. He’s going back to face his greatest fears to save lives as a consultant with the Irish authorities about their sudden vampire problem. Sudden, because Ireland isn’t supposed to have any vampires. It’s one of the few countries on the planet that has no folklore about them. The only dead that walk in Irish myths are ghosts and the shades of heroes. But Damian knows differently, he knows that there is a vampire so powerful and so frightening that to even speak her name is to risk her power seeking you out, even across an ocean. She-Who-Made-Him says the vampires plaguing Dublin are not her doing, and that she’s grown weaker since Damian left her side. U. S. Marshal Ted Forrester, AKA Edward, is already there acting as a consultant. He wants fellow marshal Anita Blake to come help hunt the undead and to bring the only vampire that might know the truth about what’s happening. Anita thought Damian was going home, but Ireland was never home, it was the place where he died.
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no subject
Date: 2016-04-14 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-14 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-14 09:47 pm (UTC)I bet all of this is nearly a direct quote from her new editor, not "Damian." Including “You can do better than this."
no subject
Date: 2016-04-14 11:00 pm (UTC)But that plot sounds super thin. Super thin. Especially since Ireland totally has myths of bloodsuckers. And also Bram Stoker. It's one thing to say that in your world there were no vampires in Ireland (except for Damian's master apparently, and Damien, and anyone else she turned- did no one notice them for hundreds of years or something?) but quite another to claim the real-world country (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhartach) has no vampire myths. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_folklore_by_region#Celtic_.28Gaelic.29_Nations)
no subject
Date: 2016-04-15 12:33 am (UTC)It really does. Usually I can look at one of LKH's 72 plotbunnies that show up in her novels and figure out how each could inspire a full plot pretty quickly. This one, I've got nothing. Maybe if Damian turned out to be behind it all, idk, but we know that won't happen.
And saying Ireland has no vampire myths honestly makes me embarrassed for her. She didn't even bother to read the Wikipedia entry. 2/3 of those examples are clearly undead!
no subject
Date: 2016-04-15 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-16 11:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-18 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-16 11:37 am (UTC)Nope, no Vampire folklore at all! *headdesk*
no subject
Date: 2016-04-14 11:39 pm (UTC)For "muse" read "new editor", right?
no subject
Date: 2016-04-15 10:15 am (UTC)Ireland isn’t supposed to have any vampires. It’s one of the few countries on the planet that has no folklore about them. The only dead that walk in Irish myths are ghosts and the shades of heroes. But Damian knows differently
So either she did no real research about Ireland's folklore, or her Ireland's vampires are much, much smarter than every other vampire in her series.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-15 08:59 pm (UTC)I don't buy for a second that she "writes long and then cuts." It drives me nuts that she has to perpetuate this myth. There are too many issues with word/phrase repetition, grammar, spelling, inconsistent details, and basic timeline to give any indication anyone even ran a spellcheck. The fact that she spends so much time info-dumping and only has any form of revelation occur at the end of any segment or chapter is evidence to me that she's working through her thoughts on the material as she goes and never restructures so that there's distributed story ballast to make sure the whole thing floats. Entire books work that way, with most of the action happening in the epilogue, after the emotional denouement that she wanted has had its moment.
“I’m all about the character growth and letting my fictional friends have interesting lives.” The sound you just heard was the primal scream of a thousand sporkers. I can't even comment because there is no way to negate that enough. Her whole 'Damien came to me and lectured me about lack of character development' business smacks of an editor, or maybe Jon Her Husband Jon aka her only beta reader decided he identified with Damien and wanted mainstage-worthy story in which he got to fulfill Hamilton's vaunted performative masculinity fetish. I am actually intrigued by the notion that she might have an editor with some integrity and influence working with her, though. Is it wrong that that gives me hope (and also a little schadenfreude)? And the whole damsel in distress line... I just cannot with her dismissive, hateful feminine framing of being in a position to need assistance.
People have been living in Ireland since 10,000(ish) BC, and there have been some major influxes of peoples who settled there and contributed culturally and genetically, so even as an armchair critic and supernatural fiction fan, there is a lot to work with if you are writing about someone who specializes in the dead and the supernatural. This could be fascinating in the hands of a competent author. I am already cringing over how she will inevitably latch on to a few shreds of incomplete historical factoids and try to paste together a whole world out of it. She works against herself, because the moments in which she dangles the world-building possibilities often have potential (which she then further complicates with all of her racial, gender, and religious garbage). Sorry, Ireland.
How did Ted end up here? I feel like she skimmed the back panel of a Robert Ressler book and decided it was the best way to justify Anita and her Manly Circus going on a field trip, and throwing in Tedward is a fanwank choice. Plus, if she just turned the plot on its ear, and made it into some kind of vampire mystery it was not before and Damien is now the protagonist (kind of), isn't she now writing an entirely new book? One which is still not a noir mystery explored through the eyes of a complex, morally-grey animator with major identity and existential crisis and deep ties to the supernatural community that often conflict with her strong personal attachment to law enforcement. Which is what we all signed on for. She didn't care about this at best tertiary character for nineteen books. I am skeptical that she can make anyone else care about him now, no matter how terrifyingly huge his penis is.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-16 11:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-16 07:46 pm (UTC)The eyeroll this inspires is downright painful.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-16 11:05 pm (UTC)Not to mention the fact that he would clearly prefer to just be with Cardinale/Cardinal as opposed to part of the cast of thousands.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-16 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-18 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-16 06:22 pm (UTC)I really can't wrap my mind around Damian's supposed Viking history with the Irish history I learned while travelling last year. If Damian was a Viking raider and got vampired on the first castle he and his buddies came to sack, WHAT CASTLE AND WHERE. Because I'm pretty sure the English would have a thing or two to say about Dublin Castle being used by vampires, likewise on a few other fortresses in the countryside and I'm pretty sure a lot of those were built well after the Vikings landed. And, like, if Damian was one of the Viking settlers of Dublin, it makes no sense that he'd then also go raiding in his own backyard, not when he's likely got livestock and/or crops to look after.
Doubly does not make sense after LKH retconned fairies out of the ABVH worldbuilding because at least that way you could have handwaved a bunch of stuff as "fair folk."
no subject
Date: 2016-04-16 07:11 pm (UTC)No, this is canon no matter what LKH tries to claim now.
I'd expect vampires to have political and military power in the Anitaverse, and the castles that went along with them. But that, of course, would change history in ways that LKH refuses to address.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-16 07:36 pm (UTC)Also I refuse to believe that there are meant to be zero vampires in modern Ireland outside of Morvoren's hidden enclave. Planes are a thing! There's a ferry! I'm sure some of them could even fly on their own from Scotland! I refuse to believe that absolutely no vampires arrived in Ireland and went "this is nice," and decided to stay. There's nothing in the Anitaverse to say this couldn't happen.
I feel like I should start a betting pool now to see if LKH lumps the Republic of Ireland in with the rest of the UK.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-16 11:12 pm (UTC)Or else have the vampire totally putting Stoker on about what vampires are really like.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-17 07:16 am (UTC)Especially if most vampires realise it's all bullshit and find it the funniest thing ever. Anita, being the most literal person on earth, gets in a huff about how the book/movies ARE ALL WRONG SO WRONG and that probably just fuels the amusement for any vampire around her. *STARES AT JEAN-CLAUDE* (Also specially since he was giving her shit back in Bloody Bones about maybe hanging out with Vlad Tepes).
no subject
Date: 2016-04-18 02:22 am (UTC)That would be hysterical...and interesting. So not like to happen.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-17 03:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-17 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-19 12:12 am (UTC)It's a very dark world. And it's not the all-too-common "darkness" hack writers continually go to of rape everywhere. It's dark because of all the things out there that want to eat and kill humans, and because maybe being killed and eaten isn't even the most frightening thing. Becoming one of the monsters is the most frightening thing.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-17 03:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-17 07:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-26 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-26 06:30 pm (UTC)