Category Archives: Peter Roman
It’s not often I’m eligible for an award, you know
I just realized my first Cross novel, The Mona Lisa Sacrifice, is eligible for this year’s Aurora Awards. The Aurora Awards are often called Canada’s equivalent of the U.S.’s Hugo awards for science fiction and fantasy, although apparently that comparison is a contentious one. At any rate, The Mona Lisa Sacrifice is eligible for an award, so feel free to nominate it if you’re the type who likes to nominate things. Otherwise carry on with your Internet browsing.
Details on how to nominate are on the Auroras website.
A list of eligible works is on the Can Spec Fic List.
A call to represent western Canada is on the VCON site (the Vancouver convention is where the Auroras will be awarded this year).
OK, back to writing.
You just hit Level 3!
I just finished the first draft of The Apocalypse Ark, the third book in the Cross series. Like most of my first drafts, it’s pretty rough — there are a few scenes still missing, other scenes are more or less placeholders until I write something better, some characters will change in the next draft, and so on. But now I have something to work with. And I can prove to all my loved ones that I wasn’t just playing video games in my office all day!
(Bonus feature: I came up with some great ideas for the next Cross books, based on what happens in The Apocalypse Ark. Gotta love when that happens!)
The end is halfway nigh
Today I hit the 30,000 word mark on the third Cross book, The Apocalypse Ark. That’s probably the rough halfway point. So there’s that.
Plotting
The second Cross book is off at the publisher’s and the third one is starting to emerge from the strange mists of my imagination. Or maybe it’s just the flu.
A dream of a novel
A number of people have asked where I got the idea for The Mona Lisa Sacrifice. It’s a bit, um, out there, after all.
It has its origins in a poem I read in my university days: “The Dream of the Rood.” I studied it in an Old English and medieval literature class taught by Nicholas Watson when he was still at the University of Western Ontario, where I earned my BA and Master’s degrees. I started a PhD at another university but never finished it. That’s another story….
Part of the poem tells the story of Christ’s crucifixion as seen by the cross itself. It was an interesting POV, and the poem stuck with me, in the way that random bits of culture and history can. Years later, I started thinking about the poem again and the idea of the cross as the body of Christ itself suddenly came to me. And that’s where the book began.
Another shred of cultural shrapnel, Keats’s “This Living Hand,” also made its way into The Mona Lisa Sacrifice. As did the Gaudi church that figures prominently in the book’s opening scenes — and which inspired my own pilgrimage to Barcelona. (Thanks, Robert Barsky!) There are no doubt others, of course, but these are big ones for me.
So if you want to get ideas for a book, get out there and live life. And, of course, read read read and read some more.
Here’s a link to the full text of Dream of the Rood, if you’re interested.
A little Cross news
OK, I’ve been AWOL here for a little while because of, well, life. You know how it goes.
A lot of you have been asking about the sequel to The Mona Lisa Sacrifice. I’ve finished a working draft of it and submitted it to the publisher. It’s called The Dead Hamlets, and it involves the haunting of a certain Shakespeare play. Hopefully there’ll be more news on that soon.
I’ve also got part of the third Cross book written and I’d like to finish that next. It’s about the end of the world, so I’d like to publish it before the real apocalypse happens.
Here’s the first few paragraphs from The Dead Hamlets, just to tease you:
I lost the angel Baal on a dark and stormy night in Berlin. Some might say the weather was a sign of things to come, or maybe a sign of things past. But if there was one thing I’d learned over the ages, it was that the weather was usually just the weather. Usually. So instead of killing Baal and getting drunk on his grace, I found a bar on a quiet street and got drunk on regular spirits instead. It wasn’t the same, but I’d learned to make do.
Make that drunker. I hadn’t been sober in months, not since the Barcelona Incident. The less said about that, the better. Let’s just say if I didn’t have a reason to kill angels before, I had one now.
If I had been sober, Baal might not have been able to lose me in the crowd at Potsdamer Platz, disappearing like he was just another person. Sure, he looked like a regular person most of the time, just another mortal hurrying his life away to the grave. But appearances can be deceiving. Take me, for instance. I look like one of you too, but I’m not. I wish I were. So do the angels. But if wishes were stars, the heavens would be on fire.
I wasn’t any more sober than I am mortal, so I lost Baal in the rain and the crowd. Which meant I’d thrown away the money I’d paid to the priest who had come to me in Spain with Baal’s location. It wasn’t the first time drink had cost me dearly. I’ve lost fortunes over the centuries, thanks to my bad decisions. It wouldn’t be the last time either. There’s no way I’m going to spend the rest of eternity sober, not with the sort of things that happen to me on a regular basis.
I told myself that it didn’t matter as I stumbled out of the rain and into the bar. I’d find Baal again, or I’d find some other angel to kill. There were always other angels to kill. Not as many of them as there used to be, granted, because I’d hunted down my fair share of them over the centuries. But there were enough seraphim left to get me through a few more Dark Ages. God had made a lot of spares.
I hope you get to read the rest soon.
The Word on the Street is… Vancouver!
I’m reading at Word Vancouver (formerly Word on the Street) again this year, and I’m flattered to be featured on the Word Vancouver website! I’ll be reading at the festival Sunday, Sept. 29, at 1-1:15 p.m., at the Canada Writes tent. I guess I’d better read something from The Mona Lisa Sacrifice!
I’ll be reading right after YA star Elsie Chapman and right before bestselling mystery writer Cathy Ace, and it’ll be hosted by Jenn Farrell, so it promises to be a fun time. See you there!
An interview with The Danforth Review
The Danforth Review has always been one of my favourite places to hang out online, so I was delighted when host Michael Bryson asked to interview me about my new novel, The Mona Lisa Sacrifice. Click the link to discover how MLS is like Don Quixote, why I’d cast Seth Rogen in the movie and what I did with the Rob Ford video.
Win a free copy of The Mona Lisa Sacrifice
Win a signed copy of The Mona Lisa Sacrifice! I’ve teamed up with Beneath Ceaseless Skies magazine to give away a free copy of my new novel, The Mona Lisa Sacrifice. All you have to do is go over to BCS and post a comment. While you’re there, why don’t you read some of the fine, fine stories published by BCS, my favourite genre magazine. You won’t be sorry.
Those of you who have been following along will know that BCS published two of my weird western stories featuring the angel gunslinger Azrael: The Angel Azrael Rode into the Town of Burnt Church on a Dead Horse and The Angel Azrael Delivers Small Mercies. (And you can now buy Small Mercies on Kobo.)
Now go read some free stories and win a free book!
The Vancouver launch is at the best nerd pub in the city!
The time is nigh! The time for the Vancouver launch of The Mona Lisa Sacrifice, that is. I’ll be reading from my new book at the Storm Crow Tavern, Vancouver’s prime haven for geeky nerds and nerdy geeks, on Thursday, Aug. 22. The reading is scheduled for sometime between 7 and 9. I won’t commit to anything more specific than that because, well, have you seen the drinks list at the Storm Crow?
There will be food and drink — and games, because that’s the kind of night it’s going to be. There will also be books for sale, if that’s the sort of thing that interests you.
The pic above is a scene from a typical night at the Storm Crow. You know you want to be there.
You can RSVP at the Facebook event if you like.
peter darbyshire 