.

News! News, I say!

Although the exclamation points would seem to indicate I’m shouting. Whatever.

SO we get to announce some foreign rights sales on ILLUMINAE today. These announcements tend to take time, but I swear by Thor’s hammer and Odin’s Beard and Loki’s perfectly sculpted cheekbones (seriously, wtf Hiddleston) there will be more. They just take time YES I KNOW I SAID THAT ALREADY.

First, the wonderful folks at Allen and Unwin will be bringing ILLUMINAE to all our fellow Aussies, oy, oy, oy. Second, the lovely people at Novo Conceito will be publishing ILL to all our friends in Brazil oh hey that rhymes.  (I actually have no friends in Brazil, and have no idea if the Novo Conceito guys are brutal tyrants who beat their authors with willow switches but I trust both of these situations change soon – here’s hoping it’s a “no” on the brutal tyrants thing).

To friends in other nations, like I say, we hope to have more news soon.

What’s that? You haven’t heard of ILLUMINAE? You cut me, bro. Cut me deep 😦

We dont’ have official jacket copy yet, but you can read a little about it here on Goodreads. And you know, add it to your TBR and tell all your friends and drive your parents/partners insane with your incessant ranting about how awesome it sounds.

K go.

Letters, of course. *ba-doom tissssssh*

– crickets –

It’s a little over 8 months until the final book of the Lotus War hits shelves. 8 months until the series that completely changed my life does it’s final twirl upon the stage and makes you all ugly cry like a 5 year old Jay when Bambi’s mother buys the farm (Spoiler for those who haven’t seen it – she doesn’t really buy a farm, that’d be silly, she’s a fkn deer how in god’s name could she operate a tractor or complain about the injustice inherent in the subsidy system).

Since STORMDANCER sold waaaaay back in January of 2010, the day to day of being me has changed a little . . . radically, and like a random Vlog Brothers video into a never ending youtube hole of Sci-Show and Crash Course, this trilogy has pretty much been the gateway drug into some seriously incredible times for me. I’ve met a ton of amazing people, had people make me songs and poems and art and got fan mail from countries I’ve never visited, had my work translated into a bunch of languages I can only say a few choice curse words in, and of course, I’ve had the singularly amazing experience of walking into a bookstore and seeing something I created siting there for all the world to see and buy and enjoy/light on fire. To everyone who’s come along for the ride – you’re 100% awesome and I’m eternally grateful.

But, all good things come to an end, as they say. D:

BUT, don’t despair – you may have seen the news about my new co-authored SciFi series, and hopefully there’ll be some MORE news soon one some solo stuff, AND we still have 8 months of reveals and giveaways and all that awesome stuff on tLW#3 to go. I’ve seen preliminary sketches for the cover, and Jason Chan has done an AMAZING job again – I realize at this stage, me saying Jason Chan has done another awesome job is like saying HOLY SHIT THE SUN CAME UP HOW DOES IT KEEP DOING THAT, but bear with me. I can’t show you anything as cool as cover sketches today, but I do have something of a reveal for you – the title for tLW#3. Now don’t scroll down to the bottom of the page until I . . . . goddamn it, I told you not to do that.

Coming up with the title for KINSLAYER was like masturbating with a cheese grater (mildly amusing, but mostly painful) but I’ve pretty much known what book 3 would be called since I started planning the trilogy – the name can actually be found in STORMDANCER if you look hard enough. A couple of you clever types have even written/tweeted/smoke-signaled me and told me you already know what the title is and YES YES YOU’RE VERY SMART HERE IS A COOKIE FLAVORED COOKIE.

Now, many of you have said KINSLAYER was a pretty dark book. Someone suggested FEELSCRUSHER should be the title for tLW#3, and while I was fully prepared to roll with it, my editor threatened to release a vid of me performing Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”  at a dodgy karaoke bar in downtown Melbourne, and while I THOUGHT all copies of it had been destroyed, apparently not, so FEELSCRUSHER . . . no.

Instead, we have:

This title maybe feels a little . . . grim. And if you’ve read KINSLAYER, you just KNOW that not everybody in this story is getting out alive. Hell, maybe the bad guys win – I’m probably enough of a bastard to pull that one on you, right? So, in an attempt to alleviate any dread/foreboding/general squirtiness in your guttywuts about the fate of your favorite characters. I’ve put the title on some pictures of happy puppies and smiling children to maybe lighten things up a little.

After all, everything looks better with a cute kitten in the picture, right?

Yeah, no.

Everyone’s going to die in this book, aren’t they? D:

ANYWAY, loots!

To celebrate the name launch, I’m gonna give away books – most book 3’s in series don’t get ARCs and tLW is no exception. BUT, I’m about nothing if not the lurve, so I’m gonna give away a signed copy of STORMDANCER and KINSLAYER instead!!!!11!1one

How to go in the running to win? Pimp my shit, damn you!

Link this article in your FB or Twitter or whatever. Make sure you tag my Facebook or Twitter page when you do it, so I know you’re pimpin’.  I hate providing sample tweets – they make me feel like I’m telling you what to say. But a sample pimp tweet might look like:

So @misterkristoff ‘s new book has a title, and it’s <insert expletive/praise here> https://misterkristoff.wordpress.com

I’ll draw a winnah at the end of February. The random number generator’s decision is final, and no arguments with the random number generator will be entered into because it’s a random number generator and it can’t do anything except randomly generate numbers so why in the hell you arguing with it, jesus…

I just like saying it, okay?

Random number generator.