Twenty Palaces

The Game of Cages post

My original plan was to place all book information into one convenient post. Hah! Turns out that doesn’t work very well; there’s too much! New plan: create a dedicated page for each book.

Game of Cages is the second book in the Twenty Palaces series. (Book one is Child of Fire which came out in September, 2009 and was named to Publishers Weekly’s list of best 100 books of 2009). Check out this Chris McGrath cover:

God, I love that cover. You know what? The inside of the book is gorgeous, too.

The series follows Ray Lilly, an ex-con and former car thief press-ganged in to working for the Twenty Palace society. There are, scattered around the world, a small number of spells and spell books. The magic they allow people to do is often dangerous, but nothing is as risky as the summoning spells that let sorcerers to summon strange, extradimensional beings to our world.

These beings, which the society calls predators, view our world as a fresh hunting ground and see humans as prey.

The Twenty Palace Society hunts these creatures–and the people who summon them–with brutal, ruthless zeal. While Ray is not exactly the nicest guy in the world, he’s a saint compared to the society members he’s forced to work with.

In Game of Cages, Ray is given an emergency job–a predator is going to be auctioned off, and some of the wealthiest and most dangerous people in the world have gathered at a remote mountain mansion to place their bids. Unfortunately, the sale goes wrong and the creature escapes into the small town below with the bidders in close pursuit. Can Ray destroy the predator before it destroys the town?

It already has a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. Read the first chapter here and the second chapter here. The third will go online on August 30th, the day before the book comes out.

You can order the book from any of these sellers: Amazon.com | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository (free int’l shipping!) | Books a Million | Borders | Indiebound | Mysterious Galaxy

And be sure to look for book 3 in the series, CIRCLE OF ENEMIES, due out sometime in 2011.

Game of Cages Chapter One

Del Rey included a teaser for Game of Cages in the back of Child of Fire, but it was just a few pages, not the whole first chapter. Behind the cut, for those who are interested, is the full deal: the complete chapter one of my upcoming novel.

GAME OF CAGES
CHAPTER ONE

It was three days before Christmas, and I was not in prison. I couldn’t understand why I was free. I hadn’t hidden my face during the job in Hammer Bay. I hadn’t used a fake name. I honestly hadn’t expected to survive.

I had, though. The list of crimes I’d committed there included breaking and entering, arson, assault, and murder. And what could I have said in my defense? That the people I’d killed really deserved it? more »

Reviews

I keep forgetting to mention this: I’m not planning to link to reviews, good or bad. I’m grateful to the people who write them (tremendously grateful), but I think it’s intrusive for a writer to comment or link to it.

Just my opinion, naturally.

I should have done this a while ago

Actually, maybe I have and just don’t remember.

Anyway, I thought people might be interested in seeing the query letter I wrote that caught the interest of my agent (and a couple others besides).

Here it is with the addresses stripped out:

Dear Ms. Blasdell:

Ray Lilly is just supposed to be the driver. Sure, he knows a little magic, but it’s Annalise, his boss, who has the real power. Ray doesn’t like driving her across the country so she can hunt and kill people dabbling in dangerous magic, but if he tries to quit he’ll move right to the top of her hit list.

But Annalise’s next kill goes wrong and she is critically injured. Ray must complete her assignment alone; he has to stop the man who is sacrificing children to make his community thrive, and also find the inhuman supernatural power fueling his magic.

Harvest of Fire is a completed 99,000-word contemporary fantasy in the tone and style of a crime thriller.

I have sold several short stories to the magazines Black Gate and On Spec. The latest is “Eating Venom,” due out in the next issue of Black Gate.

Thank you for your time,

While I’m proud of those short fiction sales, I’m not sure they did much to catch anyone’s interest. At least, editor and agent both convinced me to publish my novel under a different name than those shorts.

Also, the synopsis covers only the characters, setting and the big plot twist that finishes the “first act” of the novel, which falls around page 30-50. That recommendation came from “Agent Kristin” who runs the “Pub Rants” blog (pubrants on LJ) and it really works.

For the synopsis, I described the whole book, right up to the end, ‘natch.

Notice also that I used the word “magic” three times in two paragraphs–word echoes are my enemy.

Anyway, I hope that’s interesting or useful.

Sample Chapter of Child of Fire

Here is the first chapter of Child of Fire. It’s under 5K words, and I’ll put the bulk of it under a cut to spare the sensitive and uninterested.

CHAPTER ONE

It felt good to sit behind the wheel again, even the wheel of a battered Dodge Sprinter. Even with this passenger beside me.

The van rumbled like a garbage truck, handled like a refrigerator box, and needed a full minute to reach highway speeds. I’d driven better, but I’m a guy who has to take what I can get while I’m still alive to get it.

The passenger beside me was Annalise Powliss. She stood about five foot nothing, was as thin as a mop handle, and was covered with tattoos from the neck down. Her hair was the same dark red as the circled F’s I used to get on my book reports, and she wore it cropped close to her scalp. It was an ugly cut, but she never seemed to care how she looked. I suspected she cut it herself.

She was my boss, and she had been forbidden to kill me, although that’s what she most wanted to do.

more »

The Child of Fire post

My first published novel Child of Fire, (cover art at the bottom of this post) is out right now. Yaaaaayyyyyyyy!!!

You can buy a copy from any of the online booksellers listed in the sidebar to the right, or in pretty much any brick-and-mortar store. (Call ahead to make sure they have it.)

If you’d like to read a sample chapter first, that’s available now, too. There’s also the starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. Finally, the book has made Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2009 list!

The sequel, Game of Cages, has been revised, copy edited and the galleys have been checked. Yay! The tentative release date for that one is August, 2010.

The best summary of Child of Fire I have is the one I used in the query letter that caught my agent’s attention. Here it is (edited slightly because I can’t resist):

Ray Lilly is just supposed to be the driver. Sure, he has a little magic, but it’s Annalise, his boss, who has the real power. Ray may not like driving her across the country so she can hunt and kill people who play with dangerous spells–especially summoning spells–but if he tries to quit he’ll move right to the top of her hit list.

Unfortunately, Annalise’s next kill goes wrong and she is critically injured. Ray must complete her assignment alone–he has to stop a man who’s sacrificing children to make his community thrive, and also find the inhuman supernatural power fueling his magic.

Child of Fire is a contemporary fantasy in the tone and style of a crime thriller.

Here are some of the blurbs the book has collected so far:

“Every page better than the last. Cinematic and vivid, with a provocative glimpse into a larger world. Where’s the next one?” — Terry Rossio, screenwriter (Aladdin, Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean)

“[Child of Fire] is excellent reading and has a lot of things I love in a book: a truly dark and sinister world, delicious tension and suspense, violence so gritty you’ll get something in your eye just reading it, and a gorgeously flawed protagonist. Take this one to the checkout counter. Seriously.” — Jim Butcher

“With an engaging protagonist, an unusual setting, fascinating magics, dark mysteries, and edge-of-your-seat action, [Child of Fire] is everything you could want in a supernatural thriller. An exciting and original start to a great new series that will leave readers hungry for more.” — Victoria Strauss (see also: Writer Beware)

“[Child of Fire] is a fine novel with some genuinely creepy moments. I enjoyed it immensely, and hope we’ll see more of Ray Lilly.” — Lawrence Watt-Evans

“Connolly’s story jets from 0 to 60 in five pages, and never lets you brake for safety. He’s a fantastic new voice.” — Sherwood Smith

“Redemption comes wrapped in a package of mystery and horror that hammers home the old saying ‘Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time’ … and even then you’d better check the yellow pages for one bad-ass exterminator first.” — Rob Thurman

“Classic dark noir, fresh ideas, and good old-fashioned storytelling.” — John Levitt

There may have been other blurbs, but I don’t have a copy of them.

And here’s the cover art:

It’s by Chris McGrath(!)

The tags for each book are the working titles:  Child of Fire is tagged as Harvest of Fire, in case you want to read back through all the posts about it (although I can’t imagine why).

Be sure to give the sample chapter a try! And thanks.

Who is this guy?

When I signed on with Del Rey, they asked me for a biography. Unfortunately, my biography is so unbearably dull that, instead of providing one, I gave them a list of things that didn’t kill me.[1]

• A tumble down a flight of stairs onto a concrete basement floor when I was five
• Beatings by nuns in elementary school
• Beatings by junior high public school kids
• Daisy’s green dock light of hope
• A combination of a good friend, a sports van and several six-packs
• An avalanche of beers and bong hits beyond that
• A Separate Peace
• Years as a fan of ’70’s and ’80’s heavy metal
• Ten months living on a couch in a friend’s Seattle apartment
• Seven years picking up dirty towels and flushing urinals at a gym
• Four exceedingly gentle attempts by my then-girlfriend, now-wife to break up with me
• That guy in the Volvo who turned in front of me, nearly snagging my front bicycle tire on his rear bumper
• A long string of menial jobs answering phones, filing and making copies.
• My son (so far)
• Deadlines
• This book (whichever it happens to be)

[1] For values of “kill” that include ruining my life or making me miserable.

If you need to contact me, email me at harryconnolly at sff dot net.