Justin Thyme

I've just posted two three more installments to my original Dragonlance/Nehwon crossover fan fiction story, Across World Bubbles.

Just in time for Christmas, issue #10 of the fantastic comic/fiction magazine Murky Depths is out. It includes my postmodern fairy tale, Christmas Miracle, penned under the unintentional pseudonym, Jeff Cook. Please buy a copy, or better yet, subscribe, so you won't miss my upcoming Western monster horror story, Warm August Tequila.

Across World Bubbles - Dragonlance/Nehwon Crossover Fan Fiction

I've just posted the first part of a Dragonlance/Nehwon crossover fan fiction story I wrote almost 16 years ago. Do take a look.

The rejection letter for this story, which I still have, is dated February 28, 1994. Why do I still have it? Because it was the first rejection letter I ever received in which I got a hint that a story of mine, under different circumstances, might have been published. It reads, "TSR doesn't own the rights to Fritz Leiber's characters for new fiction, only for games. The resulting legal hassle (sadly) makes the story unpublishable."


Sadly, it says. Isn't it amazing how one kind word can inspire a frustrated author to keep trying? Later that year, the same editor bought an adventure of mine for publication in Dungeon magazine, and thus my writing career heaved itself up from the unappreciated muck and shouted to the impersonal heavens, You like me! You really do like me!

hey doorknobs, how about some dragonlance fan fiction?

Before I became a Dragonlance author, I was a Dragonlance fan fiction author. Back then, there weren't any websites for fan fiction and we carved our stories on stone tablets and left them in temples for monks to copy and illuminate.

I've just posted one of my first Dragonlance fan fiction stories, written in the early 90s. It's about one of our most favorite characters - Tasslehoff Burrfoot. I think it captures the pre-Summer Flame innocence of the world of Krynn. If you're a Dragonlance fan, I think you'll like it. Go take a gander. Just make sure you put it back when you're done, or the geese will be sore.

Legally Dead


BTW, I have another bit of fan fiction I will be posting soon. It's a Dragonlance-Nehwon crossover once again involving that incorrigible kender, Tasslehoff.

A Question

Why did John McCain pick Raistlin's unstable nephew as his running mate? Sure he wears white robes, but he's no Par Salian.

It's a good thing Obama, the Kwisatz Haderach, chose good old Biden Idaho as his running mate instead of the Bene Gesserit witch, Lady Hillary.

Update: Sorry, wrong Palin.

A Rose by Any Other Name

An interesting post, via Colleen Lindsay, about what goes on behind the scenes when it comes to choosing the title of a book. Also some interesting stuff about cover art.

I thought now would be a good time to repost the original artwork for my novel, Conundrum. This is the art created from my cover art suggestion. Ultimately, this piece was nixed in favor of a more conservative look, but I agree with the artist, Matt Stawicki, that this version is considerably better:

Compare here to the published version. It's much more tame.

Matt also did the artwork for Dark Thane; notice the title of this piece - Kingdom of the Dead, which was my original title for Dark Thane.

Of course, Mark Zug did a fantastic job portraying Cael for the cover of Thieves' Guild. Dragonlance covers are often ordered before the novel is finished being written. Such was the case with both Dark Thane and Thieves' Guild. When my Guild novel was originally listed on Amazon. com, I was still only about half finished writing the novel. This was the original cover:

If you are familiar with Dragonlance and the time period in which Thieves' Guild takes place, you might notice something odd in the cityscape of Palanthas - the phallic image of the Tower of High Sorcery. It's not supposed to be there. In fact, it's been missing from the skyline for almost forty years. As soon as I saw the cover listed on Amazon, I contacted the publishers to let them know. The cover was modified to this:

Also of interest is Cael's staff. It's a cane. In my draft to that point, he was carrying a staff. Rather than ask them to revamp the cover to accomodate a staff, I changed the novel and made his weapon a cane that was magically able to extend and retract, from staff to cane, and then, of course, to sword. So that little piece of the novel was actually born from the cover art.

Krynn's a Small World After All

Occasionally I get emails from Dragonlance fans overseas, which is always nice but sometimes a surprise as I have not been able to keep track of all of the foreign editions of the books I've written. Sometimes translations are issued under different titles, and sometimes — especially when companies merge, or are sold, or Shit Happens — I'm just not told when a book is translated and released elsewhere.

So I thought I'd offer up the following synopses of my novels and put out this international call for help. Basically, if you've read or have seen a book with the following description, drop me a line. Make your subject line "Letters from Krynn" so your email won't end up in my box of mummified SPAM. Or leave a comment below.

PS. I'm not just looking for foreign editions. If you have bought one of the English language versions somewhere other than the US, let me know where. I'm going to create a quilt of flags and post it to the right, showing every country where my books are sold, English or otherwise.

So I'd love to hear from you, and maybe get a cover scan or even a copy of one of the foreign editions I didn't know I had.

The Rose and the Skull - Gargantuan dragons soar over Krynn, battling for control of the lands below. On the isle of Sancrist, the weakened Knights of Solamnia ask their old enemies the Knights of Takhisis, for help. But when the Grand Master of the Knights of Solamnia abruptly dies, the knights are challenged, while the secret of the Grand Master's death is kept by a lonely and frightened gully dwarf.

The Thieves' Guild - For three thousand years Palanthas has shone as a beacon to the world. Even now, ruled by the Knights of Neraka, she glitters in the night. Yet at the core of the gleaming city lies a dark center: the Thieves' Guild. Though the Dark Knights ruthlessly crushed the old guild beneath an iron heel, a stronger, darker guild has arisen, only to be challenged by a strange young freelance thief who claims to be the son of the hero Tanis Half-elven.

Conundrum - On a dark spring night, nine weeks behind schedule, the MNS Indestructible, a Class C Submersible Deepswimmer, departs Sancrist Isle with a crew of twenty tinker gnomes and a callous disregard for the inevitable. Armed with top-secret devices, this band of intrepid explorers sets out on a legendary journey to sub-navigate the continent of Ansalon and determine why very large rocks float. This is the story of a single member of that ignoble crew: Conundrum, the heroic gnome featured in Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's best-selling War of Souls trilogy.

Dark Thane - War is brewing in Krynn once again, yet the young thane of the dwarves of Thorbardin, Tarn Bellowsgranite, defies tradition and seeks an alliance with the hill dwarves. Fundamentalist extremists within his kingdom plot rebellion and Tarn is forced to make the most difficult choice in his life - to retain his crown or save the life of his young son.

Next Time You're in France

Find that place where the ladies wear no pants, and pick up a copy of ...


Or

How Y'all Are?

A big welcome to all the dl3e.com readers who have been visiting the blog and thanks to whoever posted the link.

A blog is a great way to communicate directly. Please feel free to leave comments or ask questions. Don't be shy. You don't have to join anything, you can post anonymously if you so desire - all that is required is that you enter the goofy password, which is there to keep out the spambots.

Current project - I am rewriting The Sword of the Prophet to give it a bigger bite and make it more recognizable. I'm also playing around with some short stories that I wrote last year, tightening them up in preparation for flooding the specfic market.

And I hope you'll visit my webzine, Southern Gothic, and read some of the stuff there. It isn't exactly fantasy, in fact, there isn't much there in the way of fantasy at all, but there is some good fiction and poetry. I'm the editor and I think you'll find it a tasty treat.

How to Write a Dragonlance Novel

Steffen asks in comments to the last post:

Don't you have any plans of writing Dragonlance again?

Not at the moment. I received an email from an editor a couple of months ago asking if I'd be interested at some point in the future. Which brings us to the next question.

Do you have to wait for a contract from Wizards of the Coast to be allowed to write a Dragonlance novel, or do you simply write a short outline for a novel and send it in to Wizards?

The answer to these questions is yes, but not simply. What happens is, Margaret Weis and the editors get together and outline where they want to world of Krynn to go in the next year, what areas they want to explore and which characters they want to do the exploring. Then they go to the authors and ask if we'd be interested in writing a story about this character, or tell what happens to the gnomes when..., or set a story in the arctic region, etc.. I might be asked to write specifically about one of these, or I might be asked if I have other ideas.

With The Rose and the Skull, I was asked for a story about Lord Gunthar's death and Sir Liam finishing the Measure. With Thieves' Guild, they wanted a story about a guy claiming to be Tanis' son who gets involved with the Guild in Palanthas. For Conundrum, I was asked to elaborate on a single sentence in the first War of Souls novel, which stated that Conundrum arrived at Schallsea as the last surviving passenger of a doomed submersible. And for Dark Thane, I was eventually asked for a story about what happened to the dwarves after the fall of Qualinost.

In each case, I took this single sentence request and fleshed it out into an outline. I tend to get rather detailed in my outlines; they usually run about 9,000 words. I then send in the outline, and once it is approved, I start writing. I think I went through four outlines before The Rose and the Skull outline was approved. At some point in here, I get the contract. Then I turn in the first draft and hope for the best. For Conundrum, I had relatively few changes to make in the final draft. With Dark Thane, the entire first draft was rejected and I had to write another entire novel, starting over from scratch.

So, even though there are no Dragonlance plans for me at the moment, that doesn't mean they won't come to me at some point and ask for a story about this or that, or that I couldn't send them an idea of my own and see what they say. Right now, I don't have any Dragonlance ideas, and I've spent most of this year working on screenplays.

Speaking of, wouldn't a Dragonlance movie be cool?

Dragonlance Arcana

Ok, as promised below, here is a bit of Dragonlance arcana. The original cover for The Thieves' Guild included the Tower of High Sorcery. Compare this to the cover in the right-hand column under My Novels. As Thieves' Guild takes place just before Dragons of a Fallen Sun, the Tower can't be there.

The first I saw of the cover was when it appeared on Amazon.com a few months before publication. I sent an urgent email to WotC alerting them of this error, thankfully not too late for the cover to be changed before publication.

Also, I had not yet turned in the final draft of Thieves' Guild when the cover appeared. Cael's cane wasn't a cane in the novel at this point, it was a staff. I had to go back and write the cane-form into the story to explain its appearance on the cover.

The Original Conundrum

I was visiting the website of Matt Stawicki the other day when I noticed that he had posted the original artwork for the cover of Conundrum. Matt is the artist who created the excellent cover art for both Conundrum and Dark Thane.

As the author, I had very little input into the creation of the cover art for my novels. Early in the process of writing the novel, I was asked for a suggestion or two for possible cover art, along with descriptions of the main characters, and usually I wouldn't see the cover until the book was listed on Amazon.com. It's not like I always thought it would be before I published my first novel, with the author and the artist closely collaborating to achieve just the right look.

Even so, Matt did a wonderful job with both Conundrum and Dark Thane. I couldn't have been more pleased.

With Conundrum, there were two versions. The image below is the original version, and I think it is superior to the version that actually appears on the book, but the editors felt that it was just too silly for a Dragonlance novel. Alas. Thanks to Matt for allowing me to post it here.



Well, let this be a bit of Dragonlance Arcana. The cover for Thieves' Guild was also altered, but not because it was too silly - the original cover, as it appeared on Amazon, had the Tower of High Sorcery visible in Palanthas at a time when it obviously wasn't supposed to be there. A hasty correction was made. I might still have a copy of that cover lying around somewhere. If I can find it, I'll post it here.