The august Michael Ventrella has interviewed me to find out just what happens when you point at gun at asparagus. Of course, we're all dying to find out.

http://michaelaventrella.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/interview-with-gregory-frost/


-gf

Red Rocket Studio

For readers and writers of sf and fantasy, join the discussions at:

Red Rocket Station

http://www.redrocketstation.com/

Frost Weighs in on SF SIGNAL

This month SF Signal's MIND MELD posed the following question to a group of sf and fantasy writers: 

In a created fantasy world, gods can proliferate by the hundreds. When building religious systems for fantasies, what are the advantages/disadvantages of inventing pantheons vs. single gods, or having no religious component at all?

Find out the answers by visiting SF Signal's site.

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Frost Weighs in On SF SIGNAL

SF Signal's MIND MELD asked a collection of sf and fantasy writers the following question:

In a created fantasy world, gods can proliferate by the hundreds. When building religious systems for fantasies, what are the advantages/disadvantages of inventing pantheons vs. single gods, or having no religious component at all?

Read the answers here.

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Library Journal Picks Shadowbridge

Shadowbridge ranks among top four fantasy novels.

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Hardwired for Fantasy

Lynne Jamneck interviews yours truly for Suite.101

best,

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Bookgasm has a...bookgasm over LORD TOPHET

Lord Tophet
Author: Mark Rose

Gregory Frost’s LORD TOPHET is the completion of a two-book adventure started so magnificently in the opening SHADOWBRIDGE. In the first book, we discovered the young woman Leodora, who became a successful puppeteer under the stage name of Jax.
As she traveled the various worlds, all of which are sited on huge bridges that span an apparently endless sea, we learned more of her background and that of her traveling companions: the odd and taciturn Soter, and the god-touched musician Diverus. Jax’s search for something — perhaps news of her long-lost mother and father, perhaps just for something she can cling to — left the reader aching for more at the conclusion of the first book.

Now, at the conclusion of the second, one must hope that Frost finds a way to resurrect this storyline and continue these remarkable tales of the traveling puppet show and the unique societies of the bridgelands and the capricious gods who occasionally touch down in the bridges’ attached dragon bowls.

In this novel, Jax, Soter and Diverus continue on their travels until they encounter the devastation of Lord Tophet, a Lord of Chaos who devours spans and those who live on them, who leaves in his wake nothing but blight and destruction. Finally, after almost a book and a half of avoiding the subject, Soter tells Leodora of the fate of her mother and father, and how Lord Tophet was directly to blame. Soter only wishes to go elsewhere, to avoid the Lord, but it is not to be.

These are books about stories, as Frost often throws in a marvelous and lushly detailed parable right in the middle of the text, often as a part of Jax’s performance. These tales all have a timeless feel of myths of all lands, and make one think of Sir James George Frazer’s THE GOLDEN BOUGH, with its catalogue of common religious themes spread among fables and stories. Frost’s storytelling — both the stories within the story and the overlying tale of Jax — is intricate, detailed, filled with surprising twists, and emotionally felt. The fantastical elements are expertly interwoven and prevent one from thinking, “Well, that’s just too crazy” — a common failing among many modern fantasies today.

This duology is a perfect read for those who love and understand the arcs of storytelling, and how sometimes, a good story is better than even having one’s own adventure. Very worthwhile. —Mark Rose

Shadowbridge, the Musical

Okay, this doesn't happen too often (or not often enough, anyway, to me).
Singer/songwriter (and fellow blogspot blogger) John Anealio contacted me through Facebook to let me know that my novels Shadowbridge and Lord Tophet inspired him enough to write a song for my main character, Leodora, called, appropriately enough, "Leodora."

Needless to say, I am personally blown away. Will come back to earth real soon now....

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Amadis of Gaul, the book that drove Don Quixote mad

This came this morning from my friend, Sue Burke, in Madrid:

In January, I began translating Amadis of Gaul, a medieval Spanish novel of chivalry that became the Renaissance's first best-seller. You can read a chapter a week at http://amadisofgaul.blogspot.com

The novel tells the story of Amadis, the greatest knight who ever lived, and his adventures and love. The book zoomed to success and quickly spawned dozens of sequels and spin-offs across Europe. A century later, in 1605, it was even satirized by Miguel de Cervantes in "Don Quixote," in which a crazy old man imagines himself a valiant young knight-errant like Amadis.

Courage, combat, romance, sorcery, intrigue, and danger, medieval-style. This novel drove Don Quixote mad. What will it do to you?

(Note: It's Creative Commons 3.0, distribution and derivative works permitted [encouraged], so if it does something creative to you, go for it.) 

Interview at The Fix-Online-short stories

The Fix Online Short Fiction Review has an interview with me (ostensibly on the topic of short fiction) at
http://thefix-online.com/interviews/gregory-frost/

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Books Without Borders

An essay on the state of bookstores, the slow death of a chain, and what it may mean for all writers.
http://www.wildriverreview.com/oped_bookswoutbordes.php

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Don't take my word for it....

New review of Shadowbridge and Lord Tophet on LiveJournal.

Concludes the reviewer: MUST HAVE

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LORD TOPHET IS LOOSE!

LORD TOPHET, the sequel to SHADOWBRIDGE, released today, July 29th. This volume concludes the story of Leodora and Diverus, so don't wait for volume three to come out, because there isn't one. As with its predecessor, the reviews coming in are raves, therefore rather than having me tell you shamelessly that book is exceptional, I'll let them do it:
—Publishers Weekly: "Frost brings the charm of an ancient storyteller and the wit of a contemporary tale-spinner to this dramatic tale, effortlessly manipulating his troupe of mortals and immortals and bringing the truths and myths of Shadowbridge equally to life."


—Paul Witcover, SciFi Weekly: "His pages bristle with the kind of lively energy I associate with Miyazaki films, and his delight in the stories his characters hear and transform and retell is palpable and contagious."


—Fantasy Book Critic: "...not only is Lord Tophet...a richly rewarding experience, it is also one of the few must-read fantasies of the year."


LORD TOPHET

by Gregory Frost

Del Rey Books $14.00

ISBN: 978-0-345-49759-8

Author Interview at Fantasy BookSpot.com

Interview with Jay Tomio, tied in to LORD TOPHET, the sequel to SHADOWBRIDGE.

On the Spot at The Bookspot.

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The Liars Club Takes Philadelphia

On June 12th, D.H. Dublin (Jon McGoran), Jonathan Maberry, L.A. Banks, Gregory Frost, and Kelly Simmons took over a Barnes & Noble and held the audience hostage while they read and discussed the process of writing. No audience members were injured.
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Jason Van Hollander dips into Classic Imagery to Illustrate Attack of the Jazz Giants

Golden Gryphon Press chose the cover artist for Attack of the Jazz Giants, and in "Six-Degrees of Separation" event, they selected Jason Van Hollander, a multiple World Fantasy Award winning artist who also happens to live a block from me.



I live in an artistic community, though you wouldn't know it if you came to visit. On the surface, everything appears to be normal here, the way it would be if we'd all been taken over by pods from outer space. My next door neighbor, Bryan Willette, is a stained glass artist. Up the street is carpenter, and next to him a guy who builds movie sets. Across the street from Jason, a photographer. Behind us, a guitar virtuoso. A few blocks away, a children's book illustrator/writer.



This communal spirit created a rare collaborative bond between us. Not only was Jason showing me sketches for the cover, he was also proposing to include interior illustrations for the stories.




I printed out the stories that we'd selected for the collection and he read them. He asked questions about them. He followed me home in the dark. (You, you foolish people, you think I'm kidding.)We spent time in a few libraries, researching source material. I hunted up images of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope for him, while he invaded the stacks on a quest for odd Russian iconography for another set of drawings. He threw himself into the creation of the book, vanishing for days, weeks, at a time, only to turn up with another weird piece of carefully stippled illustration--of Elvis nailed up as Jesus, of a drug-warped head of Edgar Allan Poe topping the body of the Conqueror Worm, of the Virgin Mary reflected in the protective goggles of a face that looks remarkably like his own.




All of this time and effort he put into the project was out of pure love for it, because the publisher couldn't pay for interiors. They were getting them because he was compelled to create them.




Only two artists I've ever worked with have solicited opinions from me about the artwork they proposed to put on my books: Thomas Thiemeyer, who painted the magnificent covers for the Shadowbridge books; and Jason Van Hollander, whose strange and grotesque artwork is the personification of Arkham House the way it used to be--the distorted, twisted architecture of Innsmouth and a dozen other Lovecraftian landscapes.




Derangement turned inside out. And yet, like a diseased mirror, his work reflects the range of dark fantasy and horror and, yes, humor that lies between the covers of Attack of the Jazz Giants & Other Stories. I can't imagine these stories of mine now without the accompanying illustrations. And in the process I gained a mordant, talented, remarkable friend.

So long as his sly wit graces the neighborhood, I'll know that we've not yet been taken over completely by the pod people.











gf (with assistance from Don Lafferty)

A Day at the Poe House

I visited the Edgar Allan Poe house (yes, yes, I was in the Poe house...so don't make that joke, I already did) this afternoon to hear a lecture by Edward Pettit, a local (Philadelphia) Poe expert. The subject of the talk, however, was author George Lippard, who was a good friend of Poe's--one of the few who stayed a friend of his to the very end. Lippard was, in his day, a huge best-selling writer with his novel The Quaker City or The Monks of Monk Hall. It was, as Pettit informed us, a kitchen sink of a novel, filled with endless acts of depravity, nightmarish hallucinations, an evil cabal of the wealthiest men in the city, premonitory visions of the decayed Philadelphia of 1950, and, lest that fail to do you in, necrophilia. No wonder it was so popular.

Lippard was a novelist, editor, publisher, and a proto-Marxist who campaigned for the rights of the downtrodden. His output was prodigious--approximately a million words a year for the ten years he wrote before his untimely death from consumption. He is all but forgotten now (in fact he was referred to as a forgotten author by the 1870s), but Pettit and others are attempting to rescue from obscurity this gothic novelist of grotesque and noir sensibilities. And while we're at it, the same for Charles Brockden Brown!

If any of that sounds like fun, go to http://omnigatherum.com/blog.html
where you can read pieces of Lippard's work; or to Pettit's Ed and Edgar blog at http://bibliothecary.squarespace.com/

gf out

Every Angel is Terrifying

John Kessel and I are in the process of collaboratively podcasting readings of each other's stories in preparation for a tour we're doing in May across North Carolina. We'll have CDs of these readings to give out at our events there.

In the meantime, Dr. Kessel has posted a podcast of my reading of his story, "Every Angel is Terrifying." If you don't know this story, it's his remarkable response to and continuation of Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find."

The recording can be found HERE.

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(This post duplicates content found at Live Journal post, Frostbites)

Amazon.com Interview now up

For those who want to know ALL the secrets behind SHADOWBRIDGE (like that's going to happen)...

Jeff VanderMeer has done an interview with me for Amazon.com. It's up at
OMNIVORACIOUS

Enjoy,
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Publish Post

Jeffrey Ford Weighs In

When it rains it pours, I guess.
I spent the day at the ALA mid-winter conference in Philadelphia. Never mind that it's 50+ degrees here so "winter" is one of those sillyass words that gets thrown around by clambrained maroons like Senator Inhofe, who thinks global warming was invented by an evil cabal of liberal activists bent on kicking the shit out of Exxon or something ... and by the way, when can we start?

A great time was had by all. Librarians are wonderful folk. You'd almost think they got into this particular occupation because they feel that books--and by extension thought--mattered. Jeepers, Mr. Kent. No wonder Vice President Emperor Zombie would like them rounded up.

Last night was a Random House party at the Mummer's Museum. Much dancing to live string band music (especially by one particular couple from Random House). About half a million copies of Magic in the Mirrorstone were signed and given away. Some will go on library shelves. Some were for the librarians themselves. Ann Veddies came up with a brilliant scheme I will hereafter adopt: to sign the LAST page of one's story in a collection instead of the first. That way, whatever pithy comment flows out of one's addled brain, it seems like an afterword.

But I digress....

Jeffrey Ford has posted to his blog a very nice piece on Shadowbridge, and in the interest of increasing his traffic flow (what else?) I point you to it: http://14theditch.livejournal.com/ It's much better than me tooting the horn. Really. You've never seen me toot.

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