Straight From the Toolbox!
by wjw on February 13, 2012
First, there are still a few places available in the science fiction and fantasy master class taught by Nancy Kress, Daniel Abraham, and myself. If you think you might want to write this sort of thing professionally, then do the professional thing and apply!
Toolbox grad Sean Craven is saying nice things about me, and about the workshop, over on his blog. Check it out for a personal view of the workshop, and for a very personal list of his five favorite Walter Jon Williams novels.
(In fact let me say that I have no objection whatever if any of you want to list your favorite WJW novels on your blogs. I won’t try to stop you in any way!)
And nextly, 2007 Toolbox grad Saladin Ahmed has just published his first novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon.
Saladin brought this novel to the workshop, and afterwards reworked it and sold it to DAW along with a pair of sequels. He’s also been nominated for the Nebula and Campbell awards, and is a damned nice guy, besides.
We are proud of him, we are.
And as for Throne of the Crescent Moon, it’s Arabian Nights fantasy as it might have been envisioned by Fritz Leiber— Fritz Leiber in his prime, when he was turning out all those fine stories about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.
Like a good Leiber story, it’s wry in the right places, and sentimental when you’re not expecting it. If you like sophisticated sword and sorcery— and especially if you’re someone who thinks sword and sorcery can’t be sophisticated at all— you probably want to give this a try.
