Cities and suburbs, real and imaginary.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

i was going to do something else, but then i saw this:

something new was added to my amazon.com page:

under Editorial Reviews:


Book Description
The debut of a brilliant new voice that will change the fantasy genre forever.

An intricate web of stories weave together to tell a tale of revenge, justice, ambition, and power. Zhan has been sent to find her grandfather, a man accused of killing not only Zhan's family, but every man, woman, and child in their village. What she finds is a shell of a man, and a web of deceit that will test the very foundations of a world she thought she understood.

A tale of revenge that grows into something more, Last Dragon is a literary fantasy novel in the tradition of Gene Wolf and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. J.M. McDermott brings the fantasy genre to new literary heights with a remarkable first novel that will leave critics and readers alike in stunned awe.

About the Author
J.M. McDermott graduated from the University of Houston in 2002 with a BA in Creative Writing. He resides in Arlington, Texas with an assortment of empty coffee cups, overflowing bookshelves, and crazy schemes.






Let me go on the record and state this very clearly: I DID NOT WRITE THAT! I wrote the biography. I did not write the book description. I don't want to call the guy a liar, but it would have never occurred to me to say my name in the same breath as Gene Wolf and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I'm trying to track down who wrote that. They deserve a cookie.

5 comments:

Alina said...

Congratulations on that review! I look forward to seeing your book when the Discoveries imprint launches.

J m mcdermott said...

I tracked down who wrote that.

'Twas the same editor that bought the book, and who is trying to sell it.

Thus, this book description is by someone who has a vested interest in selling the book.

Still, it is never a bad thing to see something like that about your baby.

Alina said...

I'm curious to know a little more about that novel in terms of how it was written, if you don't mind telling. How long did it take you to write it? How long was the idea in your head before it was ready to be written? How many drafts before you sent it to Wizards? How long did they take to reply? Stuff like that. If it's top secret then that's cool too. Congrats again!

J m mcdermott said...

I started the book when I was 22. I finished it when I was 23. I started sending it out when I was 24. I got an unofficial offer when I was 25.

(This is where Hasbro came in and bought Wizards of the Coast and the new imprint had to be re-approved and contracts had to be re-written and all sorts of nasty business gunk gumming up the works, so don't use my response time as typical anymore at all.)

I got a contract and an official offer when I was 26. I got the ARC Galley Proofs finished at 27. I'll be 28 when the book hits stores.

Daunting, no?

Of course, I've written two books since. People seem to think one of them is pretty good. I'll update about them when I can.

Alina said...

Wow! Yeah, that's really daunting, but I guess the writing business requires a bit of patience. I look forward to hearing about the new ones as well.