All posts by Peter David

Peter David visits the Crimson Keep on his Own

Writing is, by and large, the loneliest profession you can undertake.  It’s not like a typical office job where, if you run into problems, you can go to your supervisor and get some guidance from him or her.  It’s not like your friends can inform you about a procedure you didn’t know about that will solve the situation for you.  In writing, there’s you and the computer screen and that’s it.  It’s your story to tell:  Not your editor’s and not your fellow writers, neither of whom is in your office to pitch in any way.

The Crimson Keep stories haven’t been that way.  Crimson Keep began when Crazy 8 launched a round robin challenge at Shore Leave many years ago.  We took turns wedging our bodies (easier for the skinny guys; more problematic for me) into a space between two brick pillars and produced the very first combined Crazy 8 combined writing endeavor.  Each of us had an hour to come up with our contribution, which naturally became more challenging the further in we went because there was more for each new writer to read.  Should really have given the later writers ninety minutes, now that I think back on it.

We later did a second group story, minus the part about sitting at a convention.  The only hitch with both group stories is this:  I have no recollection which parts of the stories were mine.   Just as it’s difficult for writers who are undertaking a group effort to, say, write a sitcom script, it’s hard to remember which joke was whose.

That was solved when we planned Tales of the Crimson Keep, in which each of us would contribute our own story to the endeavor.  I wasn’t sure what I could come up with that wouldn’t step on somebody else’s undertaking, and eventually, I seized upon an idea that had been done in a couple of episodes of Xena, Warrior Princess.  I would come up with a story set in an entirely different time period and have the characters “reincarnated” so that they looked and sounded identical to the way they used to be, but had no recollection of their previous lives.  Toss in a young man from the Keep who had been trapped for centuries, set it during World War II so we could have Nazis for our villains, and the story practically wrote itself.

If you are encountering the Keep for the first time, welcome to the magic show.  If you’ve been following us all this time, thank you for your support and patronage.

Tales of the Crimson Keep – Newly Renovated Edition is now on sale in the usual variety of formats.

The Hidden Earth Trilogy Finally Concludes!

I cannot tell you how pleased I am that we have finally published Order of the Chaos, the conclusion of the Hidden Earth trilogy.

The series has had such an odd history.  The first edition, Darkness of the Light, was published by Tor in 2007.  They promised me they would publicize it if I got a pub quote from Neil Gaiman.  I asked, but Neil was too busy, and so the Tor publicity department buried it.  No one knew the book existed.  I went into bookstores throughout Florida (during a vacation) and one had ordered a single copy; no one else got any.   The sales were so pathetic it damaged my career in the long run.

I turned in the sequel, Heights of the Depths, and eighteen months later my editor, Jim Frenkel, still hadn’t gotten around to reading it.  Since the contract stated it had to be published within eighteen months of turning it in, I got the rights back.  Jim pleaded, Jim squawked, and I’m reasonably sure the event blacklisted me at Tor.  On the other hand, Frenkel was eventually fired for sexual harassment.  Make of that what you will.

Crazy 8 published the novel, along with a rerelease of the first title as well.  And now, finally, the third book is ready.

This will be an actual trilogy.  I am not planning to turn this into an endless series.  I had a beginning, middle, and end in mind.  I won’t be turning out volume fourteen years from now.

The paper edition is available now, and the ebook should be available within a few weeks (I’ll announce it again.)

So please kick back and order Order of the Chaos and see how the Damned World finishes.

Love, Murder & Mayhem – When the Ideas Don’t Come … Until they Do

“I have no idea what to write.”

That was what I told my wife, Kathleen.

People always ask where writers get their ideas. They never understand the simple fact: we become writers because our brains are wired in such a way that the ideas come to us with such ferocity that we are compelled to write them down, and then ideally distribute them to as many people as possible with—ideally—our names accompanying them in as large letters as possible.

But sometimes the ideas don’t come. Especially, for me, when it comes to something very specific. In this case, it was for Russ Colchamiro’s new short story anthology for Crazy 8 Press, Love, Murder & Mayhem. The story was to have a science fiction setting and involve love and murder. I had thought about it, pondered it, but nothing was coming, maybe because writing science fiction isn’t really my strong suit. Fantasy, yes. Star Trek, of course. Superheroes, definitely. But an SF themed story just wasn’t singing to me.

And Kathleen said, “Sean and I came up with a story idea ages ago. But we never wrote it.” Sean is her brother.

“What is it?” I asked.

“We were joking about how it would be great to have someone sleep for us, because we had so much stuff to do,” she said. “And that kind of led us to the idea of what if you could? And that led to the idea of what if one of the sleepers discovers that one of his ‘brains’ was a murderer?”

Immediately my mind raced. “Oh my God, that’s perfect. Can I take that?”

“Sure,” she said.

And I did. And I wrote it. And I credited both Kath and her brother in the byline.  Because sometimes you get your ideas from the people sitting right next to you.

So be sure to go out and buy Love, Murder & Mayhem so that you can read “Mortal Coil” plus a bunch of other great stories.

But mostly mine.  Well…ours.

Love, Murder & Mayhem is now available for sale both in print and ebook formats.

Peter David is a prolific author whose career, and continued popularity, spans nearly two decades. He has worked in every conceivable media: Television, film, books (fiction, non-fiction and audio), short stories, and comic books, and acquired followings in all of them. He is also a founding member of Crazy 8 Press.

In the literary field, Peter has had over a hundred novels published, including numerous appearances on the New York Times Bestsellers List. His novels include Artful, Sir Apropos of Nothing (A “fast, fun, heroic fantasy satire”—Publishers Weekly), Knight Life, Howling Mad, and the Psi-Man adventure series. He is the co-creator and author of the bestselling Star Trek: New Frontier series for Pocket Books, and has also written such Trek novels as Q-Squared, The Siege, Q-in-Law, Vendetta, I, Q (with John de Lancie), A Rock and a Hard Place, and Imzadi. He produced the three Babylon 5 Centauri Prime novels, and has also had his short fiction published in such collections as Shock Rock, Shock Rock II, and Otherwere, as well as Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Peter’s comic book resume includes an award-winning twelve year run on The Incredible Hulk, and he has also worked on such varied and popular titles as X-Factor, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Fallen Angel, Supergirl, Fallen Angel, Young Justice, Soulsearchers and Company, Aquaman, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Star Trek, Wolverine, The Phantom, Sachs & Violens, and many others. He has also written comic book related novels, such as The Hulk: What Savage Beast, and co-edited The Ultimate Hulk short story collection.

Peter is the co-creator, with popular science fiction icon Bill Mumy (of Lost in Space and Babylon 5 fame) of the Cable Ace Award-nominated science fiction series Space Cases, which ran for two seasons on Nickelodeon. He has written several scripts for the Hugo Award winning TV series Babylon 5, and the sequel series, Crusade. He has also written several films for Full Moon Entertainment and co-produced two of them, including two installments in the popular Trancers series as well as the science fiction western spoof Oblivion, which won the Gold Award at the 1994 Houston International Film Festival for best Theatrical Feature Film, Fantasy/Horror category.

Peter’s awards and citations include: the Haxtur Award 1996 (Spain), Best Comic script; OZCon 1995 award (Australia), Favorite International Writer; Comic Buyers Guide 1995 Fan Awards, Favorite writer; Wizard Fan Award Winner 1993; Golden Duck Award for Young Adult Series (Starfleet Academy), 1994; UK Comic Art Award, 1993; Will Eisner Comic Industry Award, 1993, and the Julie Award in 2007. He lives in New York with his wife, Kathleen, and their daughter Caroline.

Sir Apropos Returns in New Novel This Summer

sirapropos0101_1I have just completed Pyramid Schemes, in which our ragtag anti -knight returns. This time Apropos winds up in an Egyptian-esque realm where he winds up being tasked to free the slaves and winds up coping with a mummy’s curse.

It will be published during the summer by Crazy 8 Press. If you are a legitimate reviewer, please drop me a line at padguy@aol.com and we’ll see about getting you a review copy.

By the way, I must highly recommend the brand new audio-dramatizations of the first two Apropos novels. Check out Graphic Audio for more details.

What I’m Working on: Peter David

021Greetings to all my Crazy 8 fans.  Been a while since I’ve taken the time to say hi.  I thought I’d bring you up to speed on what’s been going on in my life creatively.

Things have been exceedingly busy, which regrettably has taken time away from my Crazy 8 activities.  For instance, we have regained the rights to the Sir Apropos of Nothing books.  For those of you who haven’t had the chance to experience the adventures of Apropos—a snarky aspiring knight who was born to a tavern wench, lame of leg but sharp of wit—you’re going to have a great time meeting him. There are currently three books in the series, and I am working on a fourth one in which Apropos finds himself in Egypt (or the Apropos equivalent of it) wherein he accidentally frees the Jews and unleashes a mummy’s curse.  The title?  Pyramid Schemes.  I will endeavor to have it out for you this year.

At the moment, though, I am finishing the third of three Star Trek: New Frontier novellas.  Entitled The Returned, they will be coming out in July, August and September of this year as ebooks, followed by a collection of them in a single print novel.  We’ll be picking up exactly where we left off in Blind Man’s Bluff some years ago, and I hope it will be worth the wait.

I’ve also completed my first Halo novel.  In Hunters in the Dark, something has triggered the Halos to detonate, and our heroes must trek to the damaged Ark to discover a way of shutting them down.  I desperately argued to call it Raiders of the Lost Ark, but couldn’t convince them to go for it.

Meanwhile my Marvel work continues as I’m writing two comics that are part of the Secret Wars crossover:  Future Imperfect, focusing on the return of the Maestro (the future Hulk who has crossed over to the dark side) and 2099 featuring the introduction of the 2099 Avengers.  I hope you’ll all be on board for that.

So all is going well and is quite busy here at Casa David, and I hope you’ll be there later this year when we release our short story collection, Pangaea.  It promises to be exciting.  And excitement is what we’re all about here at Crazy 8.

The Camelot Papers Part of a Major Fantasy Bundle

CAMELOT_PAPERS_2B-GHA few months ago, Kevin Anderson contacted me and invited me to be a part of a bundle.  I said what I would naturally say in this situation:
 
What’s a bundle?
 
Well, it turns out to be a golden opportunity for book fans.  You get to buy nine novels at once and you determine how much you’re going to pay for them.  You can’t beat that with a stick.
 
So if you’re a fan of Neil Gaiman, Kevin Anderson, or any of the other superb writers in this endeavor, I would invite you to hasten over to storybundle.com during the next three weeks and check it out.  The following is the official press release.  
Peruse away!
Neil Gaiman. Brandon Sanderson. Tracy Hickman. Peter David. Kevin J. Anderson. These are just some of the authors included in StoryBundle’s Truly Epic Fantasy Bundle, also known as our best bundle yet.
At StoryBundle, we’ve had the chance to work with a few wonderful curators over the years, and one of our favorites—Kevin J. Anderson—has outdone himself in assembling our Truly Epic Fantasy Bundle. Here’s Kevin, to introduce the bundle:
I’ve participated in several book bundles over the past couple of years—horror, science fiction, fantasy—but I’ve never been so excited about such an awesome batch of titles.
The new “truly epic fantasy bundle” that debuts today from StoryBundle is a veritable Who’s Who of bestselling modern fantasy, featuring works by Neil Gaiman (an original American Gods novella), Brandon SandersonDavid FarlandTracy HickmanJames Artimus OwenKristine Kathryn RuschPeter David, Kevin J. Anderson and a collaboration between popular game designer Peter J. Wacks (Cyberpunk, Interface Zero) and prog-rock recording artist Mark Ryan (whose first Vizuddha album had 2 million downloads).
With StoryBundle, you can name your own price, pay what you think the batch of books is worth, and you’ll get the first batch of six. If you pay $12 or more, you’ll get three bonus books—Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson, The Immortals by Tracy Hickman, and The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson. – Kevin J. Anderson
The initial titles in the bundle (minimum $3 to purchase) are:
  • The Sacrifice by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
  • Spirit Walker by David Farland
  • MythWorld by James A. Owen
  • The Camelot Papers by Peter David
  • The Monarch of the Glen by Neil Gaiman
  • Bloodletting by Peter J. Wacks and Mark Ryan
If you pay more than the bonus price of just $12, you’ll get three extra bonus books:
  • Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson
  • The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson
  • The Immortals by Tracy Hickman
The Bundle is available for a very limited time only, via http://www.storybundle.com, and allows easy reading on computers, mobile devices and Kindles via file transfer, email, or other methods, with multiple DRM-free formats (.epub, .mobi) available for each book.