ARCs are in!

And they are gorgeous.

The cover looks even better in person.

Thanks to my daughter for being willing to model the book for everyone. They are both chic AF, ya'll.

So, yeah. Life is good.

FanX in Review

The Salt Lake and Utah Valley areas are pretty awesome when it comes to nerdery. There are a lot of great conventions, conferences, symposiums, retreats, and pretty much anything else a budding writer/nerd enthusiast could want.

This past weekend was one of them: Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience!

FanX is sort of the younger sibling of the giant Comic Con in Salt Lake every fall--I think Comic Con caps out at around 150k memberships, while FanX is somewhere between 50-100K. But it is still quite the Con, and was a lot of fun.

I was on two panels (one on Joss Whedon and his protagonists, the other about Vampires), both of which were great! We had great moderators, great panelists, and of course great audiences. Between the panels and just wandering around the Con, I was able to meet a lot of great authors. That's one of my favorite aspects of these things--meeting awesome people. And did I ever.

So, FanX was definitely a success. It makes me look forward to World Horror (in Provo) and SL Comic Con that much more!

Now, enjoy this picture of me, looking somewhat professional and like I sort of know what I'm talking about:

Ta-da!

Worth a thousand words and all that...

Like father like daughter.

Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience!

Hey alls!

Salt Lake Comic Con's FanXperience is coming up later this month! It's basically an excuse to have another Comic Con event, and let me tell you the ones that these people put on are fantastic. There are tons of celebrities, lots of cool booths and shops and statue replica thingies and cosplaying and all kinds of other awesome events. Not to mention...I'll be on panels at this one!

I'm on two panels at FanXperience. Check 'em out!

Thursday 24 March at 3:00 PM (Room 151A) - "The Whedon Effect: Perfectly Imperfect Protagonists Then and Now"
Comic Con's description: "Joss Whedon is an undisputed master of the smart snarky hero/heroine that could really use therapy. Still they manage to save the world anyway, and we love them for every flaw. From Buffy and Angel, to Malcolm, River and the Firefly, and now to his grand twists on the Marvel Universe, Whedon has a way of changing the landscape and giving us worlds and characters we can't let go of... even years later. A discussion with authors and superfans of why we love these damaged characters and where Whedon seems to be headed next."

Friday 25 March at 1:00 PM (Room 255F) - "Buffy, Twilight, Vampire Diaries: Why Are Vampires So Popular?"

Comic Con's description: "Vampire lore has existed from the beginning of literature. Why does it remain so popular? What more can creators do to make them unique to their stories?"



I'm very excited to be on both panels. As you can see, both cover topics that I love to talk about. If you'll be at FanX, come check them out! Say hi! Get a business card (because I'll have official business cards)! It's gonna be awesome.

What have I been doing for like the past six months? you ask.

Let me tell you:

TAKING CARE OF A BRAND NEW BABY, that's what.

This, folks, is baby B. Back in late August my incredible wife had a very short but intense labor, totally rocked it, and little B is the result.

In December my wife went back to work, and I've been doing the stay-at-home-dad thing while also trying to write full time. It has been an interesting process (one worthy of another blog post entirely), but I'm happy to say that things are going wonderfully on both fronts (baby and writing). And it looks like blogging may finally be working its way back into my regimen as well :-).

I've included a picture montage of the past six months for you. Enjoy (because, seriously, my child is freaking adorable).

Things started out a bit slow.

Sleep was the general order of the day.

But soon B's curiosity took over.

She's become a wide-eyed observer of the universe
(and totes has FOMO--if she knows Raych and I are doing
 something and she isn't part of it, she definitely lets us know).

Her personality has begun to emerge, and let me tell you--she's an absolute card.

We've explored the outside world together (and sometimes she wasn't that impressed tbh).

She experienced her first Christmas. (Also pictured: her amazing, gorgeous mother.)

Alaskan blood runs strong in her veins.

She owns a pair of mighty fine kicks (probably a few dozen pairs, actually).

And when she isn't wearing her mighty fine kicks, one of her recent hobbies includes chomping on her own toes.

She got her first haircut just last week and had a ball.

We're pals, she and I.

And she's pretty much had me wrapped around her finger from day one.

So yeah. That's why I haven't blogged for the past six months. Pretty great excuse, if you ask me.

Where to buy DUSKFALL

In other news, one of the many cool things that's been happening lately is seeing Duskfall pop up for pre-order in all kinds of places. I figured I'd collect all the locations I can find where DF is available for purchase and list them here, for your convenience (and for my ego).

You'll notice the gorgeous cover art is already up on most of these websites--I'm still completely fanboying out about that.

In most online places, Duskfall is available in trade paperback for $14.95 and in ebook format for $7.99.

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Book Depository

iTunes/iBooks

Kobo

I'll try to update these links as they become available!

DUSKFALL Cover!

Long time no blog!

So, some of you may have already heard this already, but I just have to post it here. Something awesome happened:

Yeah. That's the cover of my first novel, Duskfall, coming out June 21st. Well, what do you think of this cover, Chris? some of you may be asking. Allow me to respond.

IT.

IS.

AMAZING.

Folks, this cover is gorgeous. It is everything I've ever hoped for in a cover. It is beautiful, it is detailed enough to draw me in but subtle enough to leave me with questions (or at least I think it would if I hadn't read this book a dozen times already), it totally avoids typical fantasy cover cliches, I love the title font, I love the fact that my publisher came up with "Chaos Queen Quintet" (because that sounds much cooler than the "Chaos Queen Series"). I love it all. This cover is divine. (It reminds me of a UK Joe Abercrombie cover, which are some of my favorite covers of all time.) Huge thanks to the folks at Titan for coming up with such an awesome design.

So, yeah. I'm very happy about it.

That's all for now--there's a lot of other stuff going on right now that I'm excited to blog about, so hopefully I'll be posting a bit more in the future. But, in the meantime, here's some awesome things people are saying about my book cover:

My publisher, Titan Books, revealed the cover on their blog.

Stefan over at Civilian Reader had some pretty neat things to say about it.

My agents-across-the-Atlantic featured it on their blog.

More info to come!