http://privateerpress.com/content/privateer-press-announces-skull-island-expeditions-digital-publishing

Yep. Last year I wrote a novella for Privateer Press set in the world of Hordes. It is called Instruments of War and I had a great time writing it. I haven’t been able to talk about it much because Privateer Press hadn’t made their official announcement yet. One day I posted on Facebook about how I was writing about a fantasy race that was so hard they made the Klingons look like hippies. This is that story.

As most of you know, I love to paint miniatures and I love wargames and RPGs. I’ve been playing Warmachine for a year now and I’ve painted a pile of them. (as can be seen on my Sunday afternoon nerd hobbies posts). I’ve got a big Skorne army and a huge Mercenaries army. They’ve got a big world, fun game setting, and some great groups of characters to work with. I even had Trip Jones make a comment about playing Warmachine during Monster Hunter Legion, because I’m as big a geek as Trip is. 🙂

I’d been posting on the PP forum, mostly to put up pictures of my minis to get feedback from much better painters. One day there was a post about how the players wished there were Warmachine novels, but some of the posters didn’t understand just how challenging it was to actually create a series of IP related novels. So I chimed in, introduced myself and what I did for a living (got to establish that street cred). Turned out that some of the folks at PP were already fans of mine and they were happy to find out I was a fan of theirs. Next thing I know, I’m writing a novella about one of my favorite characters and telling their origin story.

Don’t worry, this will not cut into the speedy writing of future MHI/Grimnoir/D6/other things. The PP stories are shorter, and as a writer there is a huge time difference between writing in somebody else’s world instead of having to do all the extra work of creating your own. And since I’m already a complete geek for this game setting, it wasn’t like the homework part is a challenge. Here, Larry, read more game books. Oh no. My job is soooo hard. 🙂

So I will let you guys know when this is available. I’m pretty pleased with it, and you don’t have to be familiar with the setting to enjoy a story of sheer badassitude.

http://www.kmistudio.com/blog/index.php/gallery/image_full/262/

Coming in September, and it is awesome. 🙂

 

And don’t forget to get your Hugo voting membership by January 31st. Only you can make literati heads explode. http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/how-to-get-correia-nominated-for-a-hugo/

The Hugo awards are the most prestigious thing you can get in sci-fi/fantasy (other than fat royalty checks, obviously). Getting nominated for a Hugo is a great resume builder. I was a finalist for the Campbell award for best new writer a couple of years back, and though the Campbell is a separate award from the Hugo, it works through the same system, same voters, and is even given away at the same ceremony. Going through that experience was very enlightening.

The Hugo is pretty fancy, but basically, like most awards, it is a popularity contest. So who decides? Anybody who attended the last WorldCon (Chicago 2012) or who is a supporting member of the current WorldCon (San Antonio 2013) or next WorldCon (London 2014) can nominate.  But you need to buy your membership by January 31.

Monster Hunter Legion is eligible… I’m just pointing that out. The fact that I write unabashed pulp action that isn’t heavy handed message fic annoys the literati to no end. When I got nominated for the Campbell, the literati message-fic crowd had a conniption fit.  A European snob reviewer actually wrote “If Larry Correia wins the Campbell, it will END WRITING FOREVER.”  (I’ve since won the prestigious Audie and got nominated for the Julia Verlanger for best fantasy novel IN FRANCE, and all writing still hasn’t been ended, so I must still need a Hugo nomination).

Okay, so you’re not going to be in Texas this year, but how about this? For $60 you can buy a supporting membership (and later on you can upgrade it to a full membership if you actually want to attend). This allows you to nominate whoever you want for the various Hugo awards. You tell them what you think the best books of the year were, the best TV shows, movies, even book review sites.

$60! Sure, Correia, I love sticking it to the man, and having Monster Hunter Legion get nominated for best novel would make literati snob’s heads explode, but I don’t know if exploding English professor’s heads is worth sixty whole dollars! That would buy several pounds of little chocolate doughnuts or half a box of 9mm!

But wait there’s more! See anybody who buys a supporting membership is allowed to vote on all the nominees in every category. In previous years, in order to have informed voters, they’ve sent out the “Hugo Voter’s Packet” which includes eBooks of every nominees’ stuff. This isn’t just best novel, but all the Campbell nominees’ books, all the short stories, novellas, novelettes, all of the supporting works, comic books, graphic novels, supporting works, and pretty much all of that. Heck, I got Schlock Mercenary stuff last time!  Basically, you get more money worth of reading material than the cost of your supporting membership, plus exploding literati heads!

(just imagine with me… Should I vote for the heavy handed message fic about the dangers of fracking and global warming and dying polar bears and robot rape as a bad feminist analogy with a villain who is a thinly veiled Dick Cheney? Or should I vote for the LAS VEGAS EXPLOSION SHOOTING EVERYTHING DRAGON HELICOPTER CHASE ORC SACRIFICING CHICKENS BOOK!?! Grglglgggggsllll………BOOM!)

And for my Texas readers, if I get nominated, I will go to San Antonio, hang out on the River Walk gorging myself on awesome barbeque and burritos bigger than my head, and I will sign all your books! I’ll sign firearms! I’ll sign firearms accessories! I’ll sign your beautiful Texas women!*

*due to legal reasons Larry Correia promises not to “steal all the white women”. For new readers, I give you my greatest piece of hate mail ever: http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/im-taking-your-jobs-and-your-women-hate-mail-time/

Give me an excuse to go to Texas! Please. I haven’t been to Texas in three years. Okay, really I will probably be going there on tour this year anyway (thinking of doing a Texas to Florida road trip), but seriously, I love San Antonio.

So for $60 you can stick it to the man, and the next time one of your coworkers looks over your shoulder to see what you’re reading, and they’re all like “I’m a douchebag that only reads what English professors or Oprah’s book club say is profound. That’s stupid and has guns and is stupid in your stupid face.” And then you can say, “But it got nominated for a Hugo.” And then they will EXPLODE!**

** Disclaimer, annoying coworkers may not literally explode.

And here’s the kicker, it doesn’t take very many votes for something to actually get nominated! I was shocked how few it was. The thing is, the same group of people vote every year, so their favorites insta-win, and since most readers who disagree don’t realize that their opinion actually matters, they don’t even bother. In the smaller categories, like Best Fanzine (which ELITIST BOOK REVIEWS should totally win), it only takes like 30 votes! In best novel, the biggest, baddest award, it only takes like 100… Seriously. All these years you’ve thought these fancy awards meant something, it is actually a popularity contest where the nominees have been decided by the tiny percentage of people who cared enough to show up. (sort of like life, imagine that).

If you want to poke the establishment in the eye, you will need to buy your supporting membership (and don’t forget you’ll get a big packet of free eBooks and stories so it is actually a decent deal) you’ll need to do it before the end of the month.

Details:  http://www.lonestarcon3.org/hugo-awards/index.shtml

Application: http://www.lonestarcon3.org/paypal_test/display_entry_new.php

And once you’ve done that, you can nominate. The nominations stay open for a few more months, so I’ll post about some of the things I think which are awesome, but which normally have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning.  http://www.lonestarcon3.org/hugo-awards/hugo-nom.html

So please tell your friends. I will continue to bug you about this for the rest of the month.

The man who simply does not give a crap, AGENT FRANKS. 🙂

 The Drowning Empire is a serial which will be appearing every Friday on this blog based on the Writer Nerd Game Night monthly Legend of the Five Rings game. It is set in the Empire of Rokugan, and is a world based on fantasy samurai, locked in perpetual battles of honor and glory. 

For more details on Rokugan and the game itself: http://www.l5r.com/  

Not an Ending, but Not Quite a Beginning

Gather around, friends. Yes, come closer. Has it really been months since you last were treated to the adventures within the Emerald Empire? My, my…how time flies.

When last we met, the Empire has just defeated the Dark Oracle of Fire. Impressive, it was. Names like Hida Makoto, Ide Todo, Kakita Fujo, and Kuni Magatsu became household names…indeed even my father, Ikoma Katsu became known for his tales of The Paper Lanterns. That story ended, but it was not the end. Time and fate are ever the tricksters that way. No matter what we do, the decisions fathers make affect their sons.

What you will read next is a collection of works from another dark time in the Empire. It seems the Empire has been in constant dark time of late doesn’t it? First, the War of Dark Fire to go along with the Race for the Throne, then the Destroyer War ravaged the land. Can you imagine the Kaiu Wall being breached? Can you imagine the Scorpion having their own wall to keep back the tainted creatures that are spat forth from a new portal to hell? Tell me, can you imagine the Spider—servants of the accursed Daigotsu—refusing to help the Empire in the Destroyer War unless they were made a Great Clan?

For a generation after those events, we knew relative peace under the reign of Hoketuhime. The Empire is again now in chaos. True there are some who can ride that chaos into legend, but those men and women are few, and far between. Perhaps my companions and I will become like our ancestors, and bring glory to our names.

Or, perhaps not.

Indulge me, if you will. History is a funny thing. They say that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Is this the case? History is often written by the victor of one situation or another, but more frequently history is written by those who were bored enough sit down and put quill to parchment.

So I ask you this, dear reader: what if history is wrong?

My father told many tales of the Paper Lanterns, as I, Ikoma Uso, will share many tales set during a time when the Empire began slowly drowning…

…hmmm, drowning. There is so much meaning locked inside that word, both for good and ill.

I apologize, readers. It appears I am very much my father’s son. Perhaps less…boastful…but prone to tangents nonetheless.

As a bard of the Ikoma Family, like my late father, I will strive to give you a complete picture of the Empire seventeen years after the War of Dark Fire ended. Though not as overtly destructive as that time, the current timeline has the Empire eroding from the inside out. Famine, revolt, war, piracy and banditry, and the incursion of gaijin threats are slowly drowning the Empire.

I have used that word several times now. Drowning. It fits the situation well. The Empire is out of its depth. Water can be the life-giving force for every person—from the lowest peasant to the most honor-bound samurai. But water can also cause destruction unlike any other element. Water is cunning. It is—pardon the pun—fluid. You cannot fight a war against water. You’d have better luck noticing a difference in the ocean after spitting into it.

But then, that was the entire goal of the Dark Oracle of Water.

I will not spoil the ending for you. There is a special realm of hell devoted to that sort of storyteller.

Storyteller. There is another interesting word, both with negative and positive connotations. I tell this story slightly older, and significantly wiser. Do I see the end of this tale? In a very literal sense, no. Because there is no beginning or end in the Celestial Order. There is only a cycle.

That said, I do not know if I see an end to the Dark Oracle of Water. I have not seen it yet. If I don’t survive, then hopefully I will join my ancestors, and some other storyteller will finish my tale. If I survive, well, then I will finish the tale as I will remember it.

Do you see the issue there?

So, do you trust me? Do you trust that I can give you, the discerning reader, an unbiased account of the adventures my companions and I had? If not, I completely understand.

If so, you are a fool.

Read these words, friends. Maybe they are real. Maybe not. After all, who am I to judge their authenticity? Perhaps this is not even really me.

All I can say is that I pray the names Ikoma Uso, Akodo Toranaka, Tamori Isao, Yoritomo Oki, Moto Subotai and Suzume Shintaro are remembered well.

Of course, that is all a matter of perception, is it not?

This is the story of those six samurai. It spans their entry in the Topaz Championship, through their investigation of the plight facing the Empire, and into the great events beyond.

This, my friends, is the story of The Drowning Empire.

 

An Empire chokes,

enemies on every side.

We drown. Yes, we drown.

Signed, Ikoma Uso

Just a Bard

***

This week’s episode was written by Steve Diamond of Elitist Book Reviews. http://elitistbookreviews.blogspot.com/

If you want to check out some of Steve’s fiction, he cowrote Son of Fire, Son of Thunder with me here: http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=monshuntnati-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=0984006559

For the gamers who want to know more of the behind the scenes crunch (and for everybody on this first one because I posted character sketches) here is where I’ll be posting everything in one place on the L5R forums. http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=295&t=101206&p=1332536#p1332536

To be continued next Friday with a letter from Moto Subotai:  http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/the-drowning-empire-episode-2-letter-from-moto-subotai/