Tired of reading me make an arse of myself?
Now you can LISTEN to me make an arse of myself, because I’ve been interviewed by Michael Stackpole, Summer Brooks and Michael Mennenga at The Dragon Page. I am really not so good at this spoken interview business yet … but conversation runs towards language, violence, and innovation in fantasy, plus an enormous amount of dithering and massive over-use of the meaningless phrases, “if you like,” and “kind of”. It starts about 15 minutes in, by the way, because Mike Stackpole takes that long to really rip a book to shreds (not mine, I’m relieved to say).
Not like me to link to the blog of another author, you would have thought, but in this case it’s OK to share the glory because the redoubtable Pat Rothfuss, stablemate at Gollancz, owner of the most exciting new beard in fantasy, and author of the vastly successful Name of the Wind, has been speaking about The First Law. A little quote:
“The books are good, really good. They pulled me in. Well-developed world. Unique, compelling characters. I like them so much that when I got to the end of the second book and found out the third book wasn’t going to be out in the US for another three months. I experienced a fit of rage, then a fit of depression, then I ate some lunch and had a bit of a lay down.”
I owe him a beer now if I’m ever in the States, but it’s OK because Marcus Sakey emailed me the other day promising me a beer if I’m ever in the States for giving his The Blade Itself a shout. Authorial karma.
Hey, maybe I could just get Marcus Sakey to drop off a beer to Pat Rothfuss…?
11 comments so far
Very humble performance Joe. I thought you were more the “Oh lord its hard to be humble” guy. Just my 2 cents again…
I enjoyed that interview! Thanks for posting it, Joe.
Did I miss it, or did you avoid saying “Bayaz” every time you spoke about the character? I’ve been hoping I’d hear you say the name at some point just so I’d finally know how to pronounce it. 🙂
Daft sod,
What are you talking about? I am the very GOD of humility.
Susanne,
Well, I say it as it reads – Bay as in Micael Bay, then Yazz as in 80s British dance singer Yazz. Incidentally, I didn’t have these two figures in mind in conceiving the character.
But, call me weird, I quite like the idea of people having their own pronunciations for the names…
Really? I thought the image of Bayaz singing “The Only Way is Up (Baby)” whilst strutting in unnecessary slow-motion against the backdrop of a massive explosion was quite effective.
Adam – thanks for the laugh with that image. But for the record slow-motion is ALWAYS necessary. 🙂
And hi, Joe.
I tried to count the “kind ofs” but I gave up after 30… Sweet Jesus man I hope you don’t speak like that on like, kind of, every day of your life!
From one Joe to another:
‘lo, Joe.
I just picked up your book, The Blade Itself, after Pat recommended it on his blog. It was hard to find down here in Western Australia, would you believe. I went to six book shops and was about to give up and Amazon that sucker, when I found it at Borders (should’ve headed there first). So looks like you’re selling dry down under – good stuff.
All the best, mate.
Oh, shiny! Thanks, Joe. So I’m guessing the stress is on the second syllable?
I quite like the idea of people having their own pronunciations for the names
You wouldn’t want to hear my pronunciations of them names. For native speakers it’s probably an intuitive thing – as a German, I actually have to think about how something might be pronounced, working from example. This strategy, however, falls flat on its face in most cases, as symbol-to-sound correlation is a myth in the English language. To wit: ghoti. 🙂
Many thanks for explaining!
NB Word verification for this comment: Zceguvuk. If that isn’t an orcish name, I don’t know what is.
Adam,
Anything’s effective in slow motion.
Elena,
Hi yourself.
Jebus,
I speak kind of like that. I think I got kind of better as things kind of went on, you know.
Captain Joe,
Well, it’s a good thing if there were millions of books there to begin with. Let us hope that was the case…
Susanne,
Emphasis on the Bay, in fact.
I did some honest sleuthing. Looks like it was the case, Joe, looks like it was…
Heh.
thanks for the interview post, and especially the shout-out to Rothfuss, from whom I heard of your books which I’m about to dig into. You can now use the $.80 you earned from me buying your 3 books towards buying Pat a beer.
cheers,