Well everyone, this is the moment I’ve been counting down toward for quite awhile. Today my self-published versions of the Shadowdance Trilogy (plus Blood of the Underworld) are officially pulling from sale from Amazon, B&N, and the like. Why’s that? Because Orbit is taking them over, and they’re replacing them…with these.
The above makes for a great background if your monitor’s big enough. Just saying*
I can’t describe how much I love those covers. Going in, I was really curious to see what their creative team would come up with to surpass my own, but well, surpass them they did. If you’d like to see them in their full form, just click: A Dance of Cloaks, A Dance of Blades, and A Dance of Mirrors. I absolutely, positively cannot wait until I can hold the print versions of these in hand.
Now, there’s a few things I get asked a lot, and I’m going to try to answer those here.
1: No, these books are not totally rewritten from scratch, nor has Orbit somehow mandated down to me a bunch of changes against my will. This was a collaboration, with the goal of making these books the best they could be. Basically Devi (story editor and overall awesome lady) would read through it, marking down questions, oddities, or most commonly, places I messed up, dropped a plotline, had a character behave out of of character, etc. I’d then fix it, send it back, see if it would suffice. All three books have undergone several of these story edits, and that’s not counting the actual line edits for simpler stuff like misspelled words, jacked up grammar, etc.
However, nearly all three books has new chapters, new scenes, some even a new character or two. As the release for each book gets closer, I’ll be writing up a little primer detailing what the changes are for those who have already read the books and just want to see. Possible side note: those of you with digital copies, Devi is looking into letting all of you update your older copies you’ve purchased with the new ones at no cost. It’s going to take a bit of cooperation from Amazon/B&N/Apple, but keep your fingers crossed.
2: Yes, these will indeed be in bookstores. Like, regular, normal, walk into a Barnes and Noble and see it on a shelf bookstores. I also hereby require you to make sure that my books are very prominently placed in the store. Just be sneaky about it. If the people working there catch you, you’re totally on your own. (Okay seriously, don’t do that – angry emails from librarians and booksellers is totally not a way to brighten my day)
3: Yes, A Dance of Death is now renamed A Dance of Mirrors. Why? Because I hated the old title. Hated it within a week of hitting publish. It always felt melodramatic and unimaginative. A Dance of Mirrors may not be much better, but at least I like it more, and the change was totally my decision. With these re-releases, I jumped at the chance.
4: The Watcher’s Blade books are being merged with the earlier Shadowdance Trilogy, effectively becoming the Shadowdance Series. So Blood of the Underworld, when it goes back on sale, will now be A Dance of Shadows. This is also why the book is currently being removed from sale. Also, of all the books, that book in particular has been thoroughly overhauled, with some dramatic story changes. Again, I’ll explain more as we get closer to its release.
5: When are these going on sale? Glad you asked!
A Dance of Cloaks: October 8th
A Dance of Blades: November 5th
A Dance of Mirrors: December 3rd
6: Preorders you say? Why yes, they are up for preorder! Below is a smorgasbord of links to all the various websites and their preorder pages (which as I find more, I’ll try to update them here as much as possible – as for you Apple people, you’ll need to just search on iTunes).
A Dance of Cloaks
A Dance of Blades
A Dance of Mirrors
7: Last, if you’re one of my longtime readers, I want to thank you for being patient with me during this little hiccup in my usually speedy publishing schedule. I believe these books will be much improved over the old ones, and hopefully now stand a little bit taller among the other amazing fantasy books out there. Once the three book blitz in Oct-Nov is done, and the newer books can start coming out (plus a Thren Felhorn novella sometime in December, I believe), I think you all will get to see just how much better a writer the people at Orbit are helping me become.
Thanks everyone. The fun times are coming, and I can’t freaking wait.
David Dalglish
