The Qwillery

On Friday and Saturday of last week I attended Book Expo America (BEA) and BookCon at the Jacob Javitz Center in New York City. I mostly go to connect with publishers and publicists that I interact with because of The Qwillery. It's a wonderful professional resource for any one in or connected to the book industry including bloggers. I generally only see some of the publicists twice a year - BEA and New York Comic Con (NYCC). I was also able to meet some publicists that I had not yet met. I had a fascinating discussion about UK vs US covers with a wonderful publicist from Quercus, which has recently been acquired by Hachette. I also picked up a few signed books and met some authors I was interested in interviewing and/or including in the 2014 Debut Author Challenge.

The BEA floor is huge and I can not even guess how many miles I walked, but I did realize that I am a wee bit out of shape (read very out of shape) and I will be starting an exercise program of some sort so that I don't need 3 days to recover from NYCC in October.

Saturday was BookCon as well as BEA. I did not know what to expect since this was the first year for BookCon and 10,000 tickets were sold. Imagine approximately10,000 additional people being let into less than 1/3 of the space for the entire BEA. It was incredibly crowded, very chaotic, hard to walk around, loud, and somewhat fun. It seemed very much like New York Comic Con. I must note that one of the exhibitors who was in the BookCon section of BEA did not show up for BookCon. I can only guess at the reason but I suspect that they did not want to be part of what became the public part of the show. In addition the BEA section of the Exhibit Hall seemed much less crowded than the day before. It was actually nice to get away from BookCon and take a break in the much more quiet BEA. However, I do not know what that means for BEA attendance while BookCon is taking place. Fewer professionals coming that day because of BookCon? Everyone was at BookCon? Your guess is as good as mine. I believe that the idea of BookCon is good one but since this was the first year there is much to be worked out. I hope that the publishers have better ways of controlling lines for some of the signings and it's all better organized than this year.

BookCon will be held on Saturday and Sunday next year, which also extends BEA by one day. Again only part of the Exhibit Hall will be open to BookCon attendees as it was this year.

Enough about that stuff. You want to see some pictures. (I'll also do another post about the books I picked up. There are not many because I only take a few books and am not interested in a haul of books that I probably won't read.)

And last but not least:

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound

Doreen’s Thoughts

What a great premise – four different authors take on the same concept, raising the dead for a price! Even though the stories were basically the same, as the tagline said, “It’s all in the execution. . .”

Kelley Armstrong’s ‘Suffer the Children’ takes place in the backwoods of Canada during the late 19th Century. In it, Addie is a young fosterling being raised by Preacher and his wife, Sophia. After a tragic epidemic killed most of the children in the village, a peddler and his old assistant come into town offering to raise the children – for a price. What follows next is a sad tale as parents are asked the question – what are you willing to pay to bring back your loved one? Armstrong does a terrific job as she shifts her perspective back and forth between Addie and Preacher in telling the tale.

Christopher Golden’s story, ‘Pipers,’ raises an army of the dead to face the cartel that has been terrorizing their small Texas border town and riffs on the story of ‘The Pied Piper.” Golden’s main character, Zeke Prater, loses his daughter during a massive cartel drive-by attack and then takes up an offer to get revenge for her murder. Along with 22 other “proxies” - family members willing to raise the dead, Prater uses a bone pipe and blood magic to raise the girl. When the group of avengers is double-crossed, things go south quickly. Out of all of the stories, I liked the ending to this one the least. But Golden does a great job describing how the dead are healed as they come back to life, and the ending definitely was in keeping with the overall premise of the four stories.

David Liss uses medieval England as the setting for his “A Bad Season for Necromancy.” His con man, Reginald January, takes on the persona of a gentleman of leisure so that he might secure for himself a wealthy bride. But when he discovers a book for raising the dead, he uses it as a threat against a group of Four Widows and their entourage who have acquired their wealth through the deaths of relatives. When they refuse to pay his blackmail, he raises a dead husband in revenge and, at that point, loses control of his own power. He winds up raising his own father to get him out of his dilemma. This story was very interesting as its use of language mimicked stories from that time period.

Lastly, Jonathan Maberry sets his character, Captain Joe Ledger, in the middle of a war zone in Afghanistan with three other military team members in an effort to rescue another lost team. While I don’t typically enjoy militaristic stories, the addition of an elder demon/deity was a nice touch. The story itself flashes back to the past, focusing on the first team’s efforts and how their mission went wrong, before jumping to the present, where the second team tries to recreate the story and find the lost team members. The story is dark and graphically violent, with what seem to be flesh-eating zombies in thrall to the demon/deity.

Overall, the stories were basically the same – what happens when someone offers to bring back the dead, but the delivery of each author was distinct and unique. As mentioned before, the premise bring up many questions – what would you be willing to give to have your loved one restored to life? Are you willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice, a life for a life? If you do pay, what will you bring back? Four Summoner’s Tales was an experiment that delivered well on its premise.

OCTOBER 10, NEW YORK, NY—As announced today at New York Comic Con, Dark Horse is set to publish a new creator-owned series from Bram Stoker Award winner Jonathan Maberry (Ghost Road Blues)—Bad Blood! With art by the Eisner Award–winning Tyler Crook (B.P.R.D., The Sixth Gun), this five-issue miniseries promises a vampire tale with an unlikely hero.

Being bitten by a vampire pissed him off, but seeing his best friend brutally slaughtered started a war. Trick Croft was an average college student—sort of—until vampires attacked. Then he found out his blood was poison to the bloodsuckers. And Trick will do anything to eradicate them.

“Bad Blood tells the story of Trick, a teenage slacker on the losing side of a fight with cancer. When he’s attacked by a vampire, he figures it’s game over. Except that the chemo drugs in Trick’s blood poison the vampire. As punishment, the vampires begin slaughtering everyone Trick loves. So he goes hunting for the vamps to try to destroy them,” writer Jonathan Maberry explains. “His only superpower? The chemo drugs in his system are deadly to the undead. His only ally? A heroin-addicted Goth chick. Bad Blood brings the pain in a downbeat tale of heartbreak, loss, and courage.”

Bad Blood #1 (of 5) is on sale January 1, 2014, in comic shops everywhere!

Amanda Stevens