Done!

Just finished the first draft of Your Itch.  Starting revisions tomorrow, I think.   I have no idea what I think of this one; have to wait until the revisions to see how it feels.

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corwin

Site administrative account, so probably Corwin, Felix or DD-B.

0 thoughts on “Done!”

  1. w00t. Totally excited to read this one, especially given the little pieces I know about it (I am especially excited about the giant ninja battle).

  3. Kit @ 1: I don’t mind you mentioning the ninja battle, but don’t tell anyone about the zombie monkeys.

    Reesa @ 2: Love you too!

  4. Whoops, I already posted on wikipedia about the section where Vlad stops the robot rampage by sneaking up behind ZORGON 3000 and pressing the big red button in his control panel.

  6. Congrats. What only a year wait for the rest of us? :(

    GWW @5
    Really? I always thought miniature ninjas were the best.

  8. This sounds great:D

    I’ve been waiting my entire life for a book that combines 1980’s ninja movies and the stainless steel rat together in a fantasy setting and it looks like I am finally going to get my wish!

  10. I can’t wait to read it! Zombie monkeys vs. giant ninjas: it doesn’t get much better than that.

  11. Needs pirates too. Loish saying “ARRRGH Matey” or “Walk the plank you scurvy Teckla” would make any book an instant best seller. I would even buy 2!

  15. You know, if Vlad were to say the wrong thing around the Necromancer an army of zombie monkeys is not out of the question. You have to be careful what you say around demons. They are always very literal minded. Reap more souls that way.

  16. Michael@14: He does, and then he teams up with Bumblebee and Ratchet and totally kicks some serious Decepticon ass.

  17. Speaking of Your Itch,

    I’m wondering how you pronounce the final “ch” in Dragaeran words. In my head it’s always been hard as in “k”, so Aerick, Iorick. But maybe I’ve been wrong all these years….

  18. Glad to hear draft 1 is done. Actually, draft 1- 1/2 since you started over…Does this mean you can spend some time RenFesting?

  19. Steve The Younger@18 –
    There’s a pronunciation guide at the front of my copy of Jhereg… Maybe this didn’t carry over to other editions. It says “īŌ rich”.. so it’s a “ch” and not a k. Except, you know, in a rich Hungarian brogue.

    Also, if you dig around there’s .wav’s of Steve pronouncing these things.

  21. Can’t wait to see where this one falls in the timeline.

    On the subject of time, it seems like this one percolated a whole lot longer than it took to write. Of course, perspectives from out here aren’t worth spit, except for amusement value.

    Nonetheless, Congrats on the rough carving.

  22. If only a ninja can kill a ninja, who can kill a zombie ninja? He’s already dead?!? Dude, this is too heavy. Can’t we get back to philosophy and politics? At least I can sleep at night.

  23. Jeff @19

    any idea where to start looking for those .wav files? I would love to hear them!

  24. Congratulations – and good luck with the rewrites! Hope this means we get to see you out at Fest…

  26. Wahoo!!! Congrats!!!

    From the Kitty-Core (Kiera, Mario & Vlad)

    P.S. Mom & Dad say Congrats too!

  27. Apologies if this has been asked before and already answered, but I was wondering, when is the next “Book of” compilation due to be released? They seem to generally contain 2 or 3 books, and with Jhegaala out now, we’ve got 4 that haven’t been collected yet, I believe. If Iorich’s first draft is now done, and it goes to print as quickly as Jhegaala did, we’re likely to have 5 out, uncollected, within a year or so, right?

    I first got into the Vlad books about a year ago (late comer, I know), via the collections. I enjoyed the books so much that I bought the uncollected ones in paperback to read them, but I’d like to round out my collection with the trades if possible.

    I’ve been really sorely tempted to buy Jhegaala in hardcover, but, partly out of sensitivity towards my limited budget, and partly out of a desire not to have 3 different editions of a series (I hate that), I’ve so far resisted, even though I know you make more off of the hardcovers than anything else, and I like supporting good authors. I probably won’t be able to resist buying it in paperback, but those are relatively cheap, and I can always pass those on to the secondary market of a used book shop once I’ve got a trade with them in it.

  29. Taellosse @ 26: The omnibus editions are of those books published by Berkely and they are all out. The rest are published by Tor, and so far as I know, Tor has no plans to do omnibus editions.

    Thanks for asking.

  31. If Iorich decides to be the 12th book in the series, and there are still projected to be either 18 or 19 books in the series, and we’re averaging a book every year or two when the author doesn’t get distracted by Dumas homages or other tangents, we could be done with this whole series in another ten years. It seems like almost no time at all, considering I came into the series around Phoenix (in 1990).

    How do you feel about being on the home stretch? What will you do with all your spare time? Have you thought about starting a new cycle beginning with Jhereg all over again?

  32. I think besides all the creatures in the cycle, there should also be books titled Serioli and Jenoine. There’s probably also room for books named after the gods such as Verra (although Demon Goddess might make a better title).

    In other words I think he’s more likely to run out of stories than title options for Vlad Taltos
    tales.

  33. Lewis @32…Steve?!? Run out of stories?!? Have you spent an evening with this man? :)

    Running out of stories is not, i predict, ever going to be a problem. The hard part is for the rest of us to figure out if he is leading up to some horrible joke or pun, or actually trying to tell us something….
    On the other hand, i *can* completely see him deciding, at some point ,to make us all sit and beg for a good long while before he concedes to our desperate need and gives us more Vlad stories…
    So perhaps you have hit upon a valid concern….(great title ideas btw, i dearly hope he uses all of them)

    (more more more more) lol

  34. I often wonder what the Necromancer would do if she met the stiff from “Weekend At Bernie’s” (really don’t know what that says about me). I will start getting ready to sleep outside my local Borders in anticipation for this one.

  36. Mark W @ 35: Grrr! Why couldn’t I have thought of that when I was sticking all the Hamlet puns into Athyra? *sigh*

  37. Shadow@34 : Weekend at Bernies2 turns Bernie into a zombie (and some other folks into goats) No I’m not kidding. Yes it’s a bad movie (Could there be any doubt?)

  38. gailmom@33 Considering that he’s got a book named after Sethra and another named after Morrolan as well as Vlad himself having gotten title honors, I would think that Demon Goddess is a given at some point. She’s worked pretty hard to make sure that one of her priestesses is now part of the weapon that once (or will in the future) kill her, hasn’t she? (At least that’s my interpretation of the events between Phoenix and Issola. Of course I tend to think like a Yendi so I’m probably wrong.)

  39. There may have been a comment regarding this aspect of Jhegaala somewhere else, but I thought I’d make the observation here in hopes, since szb is in the revision stage of Iorich, that maybe he’ll revise the entire book in line with this comment/observation if Iorich is like Jhegaala in this aspect. :-)

    Am I the only one who noticed that Jhegaala is the first book in the series that didn’t feature a member of, or give us deep insight into the character of members of the House after which the book is named?

    Maybe I’m just too hidebound, but I hope there’s an Iorich featured in Iorich!

  40. @skzb #29: That’s a shame. I don’t imagine my small voice makes any difference, but if they were to change their mind, I, for one, would buy them.

    Does Berkely retain the exclusive publishing rights to those early books, or when you moved to Tor, did you bring those with you? I imagine the odds of omnibus editions eventually being made for the whole series goes up significantly if Tor has access to all of it, so they can produce their own from the beginning.

  41. Berkely still owns them. I wouldn’t mind if Tor had them, but as long as they stay in print, I don’t feel like I have any cause for complaint.

  42. re jamesN@39 – We got an entire biology text worth of info about the actual Jhegaala though.
    Considering that the DNA of the house is based on the creature it’s named after, that should tell us quite a lot.

    Here’s how on reviewer interpreted the role of the Jhegaala in the novel:

    The Part headings and descriptions of the Jhegaala’s life cycle are meant as a parallel to the plot and Vlad’s own internal shifts.

    Part One: (Egg) is the stage where the mother must leave the vulnerable egg alone with a father or father-substitute. The parallel to Vlad’s inquiries about his early days with his absent mother, and clues from his own father-substitute, is obvious.

    Part Two: (Apoptera) is the stage of curious inquisition with all senses, while sight (and insight, by frequent metaphor in the book) is the last to develop. During this stage Vlad is inquisitive but ignorant, constantly assaulted by smells, and tastes, but sights are always obscured by darkness or shadow. His understanding is similarly bewildered.

    Part Three: (Steminastra) is the Jhegaala’s vulnerable yet reckless stage. The plot shows Vlad undertaking self-healing spells in a way that shows (in retrospect) “reckless disregard for the size and characteristics of his predators”.

    Part Four: (Notonide) is the Jhegaala’s fast adolescence, a period of high vulnerability, intense and rapid physical transformation, development of wings and venom glands, and yet the Jhegaala is “never so much itself as when under intense pressure”. Vlad is during this time helpless and tortured, being crippled and intensely damaged, and yet learning fast and finding the information levers and threats (the venom glands) that will allow him to be effective when he is himself again.

    Part Five: (Levidopt) is both a state of maturity and a recapitulation of the previous developments. The parallel to Vlad’s reassessment of the rest of the story in light of his new outlook is evident. An interesting side note — in this stage, Vlad spends most (all?) of his time bedridden, gathering information and manipulating events from his immobile position.

  44. @skzb #41: Ah well. I can definitely see where you’re coming from, but it’s a bit of a shame, nevertheless. I guess I’ll have to either be satisfied with different footprints for the first third of the series, or replace them with editions that do match. At some point, anyway.

  45. Price be damned! I’m looking forward to this new release date so much! I re-read all my paperback books so much that they seem to wear out so much faster than the hardcover. The price is only a matter of longevity in the book.

    I am however looking for the story line to progress chronologically. I’m super interested in the whole Great Weapon story line.

    Thanks for all the great nights spent reading your novels and losing imense amounts of sleep.

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