On 5 April I reported that an editor at Gollancz/Orion, Simon Spanton, had read part of a novel on a writer's blog, and had promptly signed the author to a multi-book contract. The author/blogger concerned was 26-year-old Scott Lynch and his first book was entitled The Lies of Locke Lamora. There is to be a seven-volume series.
The editor was quoted as saying, as editors do, that The Lies of Locke Lamora 'is going to be a big book for us.' For my part I was, shall we say, cautious.
Well, it seems that Simon Spanton's judgement was sound. Rights to Lamora have so far been sold in America, France, Germany, Russia and Holland. Which ain't at all bad. No Hollywood deal yet, but these epic fantasy things are thought to be hot right now: witness the forthcoming Narnia and Eragon.
Lamora is described as a more sophisticated Harry Potter type book, with adult themes and language. It's the story of a thief who operates in a Rivendell-like city, only darker. And it's not out till next July by the way. Control yourself.
The original blog which aroused all this excitement seems to have disappeared.
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2 comments:
Howdy! Like my editor, I Google the phrase "Locke Lamora" about five times a week (okay, hour, five times an hour), and when I found this entry I thought I'd pop in to say hello.
The original blog is gone mostly because Blogger locked me out of it and wouldn't let me back in. I don't regard this as a bad thing, because that blog was intended to showcase the oh-so-precious neurotic mutterings of an unsold, unpublished writer, and much to my embarrassment it promptly helped sell several books.
I suppose the -Gentleman Bastard- sequence is epic fantasy, but perhaps not in the sense the term is most commonly used. Comparisons to -Harry Potter- leave my editor and I both highly amused, though if they mean that the book is likely to sell enough copies to rebuild the Great Wall of China, well, let me just fetch my pointy hat and my broomstick...
I don't know if Scott Lynch will get this but I just wanted to say that through the luck of whatever, a copy of your book proof ended up in my possession. I loved it. I'm desperately waiting on anything there is to follow.
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