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Post by scottoden on Aug 18, 2016 0:49:07 GMT -5
So, what do you get when you mix Norse and Anglo-Saxon myth, Tolkien's orcs, history, and REH-inspired action? Hopefully a decent book! I've spent the last few years working on this one while recovering from the loss of my folks; now, it's just about ready. Look for the hardcover or ebook in the spring of 2017, from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press . . .
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Post by thedarkman on Aug 18, 2016 7:14:44 GMT -5
Looks great Scott. Can't wait to get my copy this coming spring. It's gonna rock!
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Post by deuce on Aug 18, 2016 21:21:25 GMT -5
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Post by zarono on Aug 19, 2016 6:53:55 GMT -5
Awesome cover! Can't wait to read the book, I hope it's a monster hit and then we see the movie in 2019.
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Post by scottoden on Aug 19, 2016 7:02:00 GMT -5
Awesome cover! Can't wait to read the book, I hope it's a monster hit and then we see the movie in 2019. Aye, from your lips to Odin's ear!
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Post by scottoden on Aug 19, 2016 7:04:37 GMT -5
The title of the book, by the way, is a paraphrase of the first line from REH's excellent "Spears of Clontarf". I've had to explain it quite often, since a gathering of ravens is actually an "unkindness". Much like my last one, The Lion of Cairo, hints and homages to REH abound.
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Post by deuce on Aug 19, 2016 11:06:18 GMT -5
The title of the book, by the way, is a paraphrase of the first line from REH's excellent "Spears of Clontarf". I've had to explain it quite often, since a gathering of ravens is actually an "unkindness". Much like my last one, The Lion of Cairo, hints and homages to REH abound. It's also a paraphrase of the title of Keith Taylor's epic Ravens' Gathering: www.fantasticfiction.com/t/keith-taylor/ravens-gathering.htmBottom line, a great title.
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Post by almuric on Aug 19, 2016 19:35:33 GMT -5
Oooooh, can't wait! :-)
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Post by scottoden on Aug 25, 2016 13:44:18 GMT -5
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Post by BlackHeart on Aug 30, 2016 14:37:12 GMT -5
Hope soon to read it, comrade Sounds interesting. Bob has done historical fiction in Bran MacMorn, so, I dont espect nothing less quality to find in a book of one of his fans.
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Post by Von K on Sept 22, 2016 10:44:53 GMT -5
That's an awesome cover Scott, and a very intriguing blend of elements for the concept. I seem to recall you mentioning something orc related on the old forum a few years back. Great to see it finally come to fruition. How much did your conception change from it's original form during the writing process?
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Post by scottoden on Sept 30, 2016 23:58:46 GMT -5
How much did your conception change from it's original form during the writing process? Oh, man . . . it changed 180-degrees. When I first started in on this idea, my goal was to create a secondary world where Orcs served in the same capacity as mamelukes or janissaries to a Human empire cut from the same cloth as the Ottomans -- religious zealots who preached conversion with the edge of the sword. The balance of the world were splintered kingdoms of varied Celtic/polytheistic DNA. But, it had been done before. Many, many times. What would I bring to the table that might make the story different, I asked myself. My answer was a resounding "nothing." So I went back to square one and started exploring Tolkien's influences -- Norse and Anglo-Saxon myth, the whole "Northern thing". And I found that, with some grinding and filing of sharp edges, Orcs fit into the idea of Norse myth *extremely* well. I began reverse engineering in earnest; I gave them a name ("Orc", of course, is English from Anglo-Saxon and Latin) and a history that mirrored the creation of the race as told in the Silmarillion: rather than Elves twisted by Morgoth's evil (a stance JRRT later recanted), these historical/mythical Orcs were once Norse dwarves, taken by Loki and fed the afterbirth of Angrboda's monstrous children: Fenris, Jormungandr, and Hel. This made them cunning, fierce, and functionally immortal -- they could die from violence, but were immune to age, disease, and poison. Their Achilles' heel was in their blood -- genetic hemochromatosis: their blood is so iron-rich as to be black, and if they grow lazy or indolent they run the risk of dying from a literal hardening of their arteries and tissues. I also tied them to various other mythological creatures, such as Grendel, the Fomorians, and the kallikantzaroi of Medieval Greek fairy tales. My run-of-the-mill secondary world fantasy became a somewhat unique historical fantasy with a huge bent toward "real" mythology -- and the story at the heart of it was a simple revenge tale drawn from Beowulf and some of the Norse sagas: the protagonist, Grimnir, is drawn out from hiding by the need to collect weregild for the slaying of his brother. He is profane, barbaric, blasphemous, and cruel . . . but he operates under an unspoken sense of right and wrong. He is loathe to give his word on anything, but once given his word is as unyielding as stone. He ventures from Denmark to England and finally to Ireland . . . just in time to take part in that monumental clash of the Old Ways against the New: the battle of Clontarf. I expect there will be some push-back over the idea of inserting Orcs into early Medieval history/myth. I hope it works for readers as well as it worked for me!
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Post by Von K on Oct 4, 2016 14:01:31 GMT -5
That’s fantastic Scott.
I tend to view each author’s offering on it’s own merits, so I’d hope I wouldn’t bring any preconceptions regarding orcs to the table. Your new book has a unique take on them and a very well realised one. Their origin story sounds great. Just the sort of thing one might expect to find when cracking open the pages of the Elder Edda.
I like your dark blood rationale too.
You seem to be weaving strands for your own personal mythology for the Orcs in the way that REH did with the Picts.
Thank you for offering us this glimpse into your creative process.
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Post by scottoden on Oct 4, 2016 18:09:38 GMT -5
My pleasure, Von! Thanks for asking. REH and the Picts were a major source of inspiration for this. "Worms of the Earth" is as fine an example of historical fantasy as you're going to find, so I tried to emulate Howard's manner of weaving history with fantasy: make the created bits *look* like they belong. I used kennings and imagery from the Skaldskaparmal and the Hattatal, from Beowulf, and from works like Burnt Njal's Saga as well as REH's "Spears of Clontarf" and "The Grey God Passes". And I mined JRRT to get the "facts" about Orcs, which I then reverse-engineered into a "found" document called "The Lesser Gylfaginning" -- a fragmentary prose-poem thought to have been an aborted version of Snorri's work of the same name. I created a scholarly history of it and a few other similar artifacts and then conveniently "lost" them during WWII This sort of world-building helped fix the newly-minted myths in my mind, and gave me reference points for my characters. That remains by biggest hurdle: making the Orcs, called kaunar, seem real. Time will tell if I did it well enough.
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Post by deuce on Oct 12, 2016 19:43:57 GMT -5
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