It’s been a while….

 Seven Shades of Evil, Stinger, Swan Song  Comments Off on It’s been a while….
Feb 132023
 

Hello!

It’s been a while since the last update, but that doesn’t mean nothing’s going on!

Mr. McCammon recently completed Seven Shades of Evil, the next book in the Matthew Corbett series, which is a collection of short stories set in Matthew’s world. Some have been previously published, but four of the stories are brand-new, including one that’s over 100 manuscript-pages long. It’s too early to say anything about when it might be published, but I hope to have that information in the next couple of months.

Also from the I-can’t-talk-about-it-yet department, if all goes according to plan, there will be several McCammon re-releases this year. One of those is a new trade paperback edition of Swan Song from S&S Saga, which will be released on April 4, 2023. This edition includes a new afterword by Robert McCammon. It can be pre-ordered from Amazon US, Amazon UK, BookDepository, B&N, BAM!, and other retailers.

There are also several planned international editions this year, including Polish and French translations of Swan Song, a Czech translation of Boy’s Life this month, Polish translations of Usher’s Passing, The Queen of Bedlam, and The Listener, and a German translation of Freedom of the Mask in April!

I’ve heard no more about the Peacock series inspired by Stinger, but if/when I do, I’ll let you know! If you missed that news, Peacock placed a straight-to-series order for the project being produced by James Wan and written by Ian McCulloch. The series is “inspired” by Stinger, so I wouldn’t hold my breath about it being a faithful adaptation of the novel. But we’ll see….

From the Not-That-Robert-McCammon Department, there’s a new book out called Walter Johnson Had No Idea: A Life with Baseball that is written by another man named Robert McCammon. That book is not written by the author of Speaks the Nightbird, Boy’s Life, etc.

More information when I have it! Until then, I hope your 2023 is going well! Mine is, but I’m also trying to figure out how it’s already the middle of February….

Hunter

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Feb 012022
 

Hello, all.

Well. News to tell.

I found this image online. This may not be the image he’s talking about, but it’s the same idea! –Hunter

I remember as a little boy being fascinated by a drawing of a man’s face that showed a smile, but it was cleverly done so that when you turned the drawing upside down the same face became a frown. You may have seen this because I’m sure it’s still floating around somewhere.

Anyway…I determined some time ago that life was very much like that drawing, or rather the “idea” behind the drawing. Smile or frown? The same face, just depending on how you looked at it. And you know some things that seem “bad” or disappointing in the short run turn out to be good things in the long run.

So…let’s get to the news, and you can decide for yourselves whether to smile or frown, or whether what is a frown today becomes a smile tomorrow as it did for me.

Supply chain problems have hit the publishing industry in the form of paper shortages. Simply put, many printers around the country can’t get enough paper to do their work, so this is throwing all schedules off by at least several months. Lividian Publications, scheduled to publish the new Matthew Corbett novel The King of Shadows in April, has not been immune to this nationwide problem. When I first heard from Lividian’s owner and publisher Brian Freeman that the book will be delayed quite some time by this unhappy circumstance you can believe I frowned Bigtime…but then I heard Brian’s alternate idea, and here it is:

The King of Shadows limited edition will be released in June of 2022, depending, I understand, on the slipcase production.

And now, the really cool stuff that made me smile:

Lividian will be publishing trade paperbacks of the Corbett novels beginning with Mister Slaughter, all the books with covers done by the award-winning, acclaimed, and extremely talented artist Vincent Chong. You can see these covers below and judge (or delight, as I did) for yourselves.

The schedule would be:

Mister Slaughter in July of 2022.

The Providence Rider in August of 2022.

The River of Souls in September of 2022.

Freedom of the Mask in October of 2022.

Cardinal Black in November of 2022.

And The King of Shadows regular hardcover edition in December of 2022.

 

Wow! I’m smiling right now thinking about this!

This schedule will see me finish the book of Corbett short stories I’ve wanted to do for a while, titled Seven Shades of Evil, and then finish also the last book in the series, Leviathan, so there should be no long delay as there’s been in the past. And I have to say the long delay of The King of Shadows has been primarily of my doing, since it took me awhile to saturate the idea with the bourbon of imagination and the scotch of effort. Ahem. And then it did take a long time to write, as it’s pretty involved and everything had to mesh just so.

But…there you have it! I’m really excited about this schedule! You can look at Vincent Chong’s covers and see that the trade paperback editions are getting some absolutely beautiful reasons to collect the series!

Onward and upward. As always, thank you for your readership and your patience with the current situation. Lividian and Brian Freeman have found a way to turn a frown into a smile, and in my case an absolute cross-eyed grin.

Best Wishes,
Robert McCammon

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Jun 142021
 

Robert McCammon, June 2021

Hello, all!

I finished The King of Shadows toward the end of April. Since then I’ve been resting up because as I think you’ll understand when you read the book, it was quite a lot to put together. For one thing, it took me a while to refine what began simply as a ‘what-if?’ idea that at first seemed so outlandish and ‘out there’ it couldn’t possibly work. Well, I’m happy to say it did, but not without a lot of thrashing and gnashing. Matthew and Company came through for me once again. I’m pleased to say it’s a hefty book too, running about 560 pages.

I wanted The King of Shadows to be completely different from anything that had come before, and I wanted it to have that ‘weird’ and ‘otherworldly’ edge. Also I became very interested in the backstories of both Cardinal Black and Maccabeus DeKay…how did they become what they are? So you’ll find in The King of Shadows the stories of how the young Adam Black became the infamous Cardinal, and how “Mac” DeKay devolved from being a wealthy young man faithful to his father and involved in the sport of horse racing to being the scarred—and soul-scarred—and masked creature of the ‘present’.

Another thing I wanted to play with was the idea that instead of a human antagonist, a physical place could be antagonistic. Thus you’ll find in The King of Shadows a beautiful Mediterranean island called Golgotha that hides a multitude of secrets, and puts both Matthew and Hudson at risk like never before…but maybe not in the way you would expect!

Next up will be a book of seven short stories involving Matthew, Hudson, Minx Cutter, and Katherine Herrald titled Seven Shades of Evil. Some of these stories have previously appeared in other places, but I believe there will be at least three new ones and two of those will be “novelette” length. Seven Shades of Evil will be sort of a compendium of various “problems” Matthew and Company are called upon to solve during Matthew’s career with the Herrald Agency—these being done in the time between the spans of the regular books—and we’ll begin with one of the earliest events and end with one in his later life.

And so we are moving toward Leviathan, the last book in the Matthew Corbett series. It will be set in Italy and will involve—must involve—the worst of the worst that Matthew has yet to face. As someone from the realm of the past tells Matthew in The King of Shadows: “I have a feeling that Professor Fell will seem as a kindly old uncle bouncing baby Corbett on his knee when you meet who’s waiting for you in the future. Because take it from me, my boy…the worst is yet to be.”

You can take that as truth, because the person who tells this to Matthew is none other than Tyranthus Slaughter, returned from the dead.

So…on we go!

Publication of The King of Shadows is probably not going to be until early in 2022, but I hope you’ll feel the wait was worth it when you read the book. Until then, I’ll be working on Seven Shades of Evil and putting Leviathan together.

I hope everyone has a happy summer, and thank you again for your readership and support. I’m certain that in some other realm Matthew and his companions wholeheartedly thank you as well!

Best Wishes,
Robert McCammon

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