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And since the book will not be out until fall, I'll just remind people that my current in-print books are Glimmerglass, A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, Thaliad, The Foliate Head, and The Throne of Psyche. Click on the tabs above to find out more about them.
Image: Detail with wing and name, cover for Maze of Blood... from the wonderful hands and brain-maze of Clive Hicks-Jenkins. See the finished image here!
How you manage to turn out such wonderful novels year after year I'll never know!
ReplyDeleteThe review is just drenched in good things. I'm chaffing at the bit for the Fall already. (Considering the weather at the moment this is somewhat unfair....)
Chafe not! We want a long and languorous summer. Preferably starting now.
DeleteThis one was actually written in 2007 at Yaddo. I knew something about it wasn't quite right. Finally re-structured the whole shebang and added a new opener and a few other small bits, cut some others. I'm so glad I sat on it a while...
That's one heck of a striking cover. Since I taught a couple stories by Howard and am one of the few people to write a blog review of his massive volume of collected verse, I'll be looking forward to this one.
ReplyDeleteGood! That's interesting. Which ones did you teach? I don't use his characters, but I do have some cameo pieces in the spirit of some of them...
DeleteThe syllabus included the short story "The Tower of the Elephant" and two narrative poems: "The King and the Oak" and "Solomon Kane's Homecoming." When I designed my SF/fantasy course, I wanted to give students a brief but memorable encounter with highly influential pulp—although doing so scandalized one of my colleagues. To prepare, I ordered a batch of recent Howard-related 'zines; they were such an interesting intermingling of scholarship, creative writing, and factional fandom...
DeleteFactional, yes. Little intimidating, the Howard fandom... But they love him. How was the writing in the 'zines? I've never looked at any of those.
DeleteThat's interesting--I am surprised that anybody cares, these days. There's so much pop culture in English departments that I thought it might be hard to find somebody who would object.
Stanza Press did a Robert Howard collection that was the complete "Weird Tales" poems. "The Singer in the Mist."
The quality of the writing varied wildly, but the occasional enlightening article made the 'zines worth the read. Howard fandom permits no skepticism regarding the quality of his writing, but I've come to understand that they're rabidly protective of him because they've found solace in identifying with his manly out-of-placedness.
DeleteI too was surprised to find that despite the proliferation of pop culture in academia, professors tended to object to the one place where it arguably belonged: in a course called "Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction." They kept insisting that I make my students read Frankenstein for the thousandth time.
...all of which is to say, in a long-winded way, that Maze of Blood looks neat.
Thanks! I didn't expect news of it to appear so soon, but I've been pleased that a number of sf/f/h writers have already posted about it on blogs and facebook.
DeleteAcademia is a strange world--I enjoyed my stint there, but I have also enjoyed leaving it! Interesting little contradiction there.
That's an interesting description, the "manly out-of-placedness." The world is full of people who don't quite fit... maybe most of us.
How you managed to have a book in your back pocket with all the publications you have had in recent years I don't know, but we are all the happy recipients of your effort.
ReplyDeleteWell, it was sitting there a long time...
DeleteWow, very nice. And a reason to look forward to fall this year!
ReplyDelete'Tis.
DeleteFall. Isn't that right before winter? Noooo! Cannot wait until spring...