James Haley!
James, I'll be mailing off a signed copy of Dragonforge to you this Friday.
There are still two more drawings to go, but if you're impatient for a copy, I noticed yesterday that Amazon has changed the status of Dragonforge to "in stock." I don't know if it's actually shipping yet, but it can't be more than a matter of weeks now. I believe it was the third week of June last year when I first spotted a copy of Bitterwood, so Dragonforge should start hitting the shelves any day now.
In a strange twist of fate, I just learned this week that a book entitled Dragon Forge by James Wyatt was just released this month. Last year, when I chose Dragonforge as a title, it was after a great deal of googling and searching on Amazon to make certain that there wasn't another book by that name. I am disappointed that google hasn't yet perfected the art of returning hits from the future. Wyatt's book is also the second book in a series, and his overarching title for the series is "The Draconic Prophecies," while my books feature both dragons and prophets (as the name of my blog implies). In another coincidence, it looks like one of his main protagonists is a storm dragon named Gaven, while one of my lead protagonists is a sky-dragon named Graxen.
I haven't read his book, but it looks like his Dragon Forge is a thing, while my Dragon Forge is a town. The plots don't seem all that similar from the synopisis. Still, what a small world.
Finally, Angela, the SciFi chick, has just published a review of Dragonforge (the one by me!) on her blog. She writes: "Maxey’s sequel has exceeded my expectations, leaving me eagerly awaiting the next installment. And Dragonforge has definitely topped my list of favorites for 2008 so far." Read the full review here.
2 comments:
Speaking of Dragon Forge and Dragonforge... I wanted to ask: Why did you name the book Dragonforge? Since there is a Dragon Forge in the book, why make it one word? Just curious!
This is one of the few things I've ever had a strong disagreement about with my editors. Possibly the only thing, really. When I first proposed the book title in July of last year, I hadn't fully settled on whether the name of the town was one word or two words. But, as I wrote, it began to feel natural for it to be two. Since the book is about a turning point in a revolution, it seemed like having it as two words was a nice parallel with Valley Forge. And, most Forge towns in the US are two words: Clifton Forge and Pidgeon Forge, for instance. I actually emailed them and told them I had settled on the two word format fairly early, maybe August or September, but when I got the book cover, it was one word. I was informed that the marketers thought it looked better as one word. I shrugged it off, and figured it really wasn't that big of a deal on the cover, but I wasn't going to change it inside the book. Now that I've seen a second book with the two word version of the title, I'm glad they stood their ground! If I had to do it all over again, I'm not sure whether or not I'd change the name inside the book or not. I'm a little more distant from the book now than six months ago and changing it doesn't seem as unthinkable as it did while the book was still fresh in my mind, but my logic behind the two word version still holds up.
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