Conspiracy Interview

Greetings fellow conspirators!

Our first Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes interview is up! The good folks over at the Adventures in Sci Fi Publishing podcast have been doing a bunch of post-SDCC coverage, and as I mentioned back here, Lou Anders had interviewed me for the show.

The main interview for this episode, conducted as always by host Shaun Farrell, spotlights two of this years L. Ron Hubbard Presents: Writers of the Future contest winners. The SDCC interviews, beginning with mine, come in at around the 37:26 mark. It's OK if you skip ahead to listen (I won't tell), but don't forget to check out the rest, as I've said before AISFP is a podcast worth subscribing to.

Episode 83 of AISFP is available now, go listen and spread the word!

Ken Kelly Spotlight

Ken Kelly is a friend to the Apes. He’s going to be contributing to the Conspiracy illustrated novel. If you look to the left you’ll see an angry Ursus daring you to click on him, that’s one of Ken’s pieces.

He’s also been a friend to the crew at BLAM! Ventures since we were booth neighbors at a Big Apple Con a few years back, so we’re kind of fond of him here. While we’ll be doing a profile on him here at some point in the future, I just wanted to point you in the direction of something that showed up in my Google Reader tonight.

(Sorry, no apes in these pictures, so you get a couple of giant crabs)

Ken’s Robert E. Howard series of painting has been featured on the Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog. It’s a gorgeous collection of paintings from the late ‘70s through to 1980. For those of you not familiar with Ken’s work (and you really should be, or we’ll have to send Ursus to “help” you get familiar with them) go check it out!

Not quite the SDCC wrap up

Yeah, one more day, then I will post it. Really. Truly. In the meantime, I'm going to do a little cross-blog promotion.

My blog, The Manakalita Manifesto, is now not only a place for my personal blatherings and stories, but is also home to the first in what I hope to be a series of interviews with creators I admire.

For the inaugural edition, I asked a writer familiar to The Conspiracy Apes blog: Chris Roberson. If you recall, Chris was the first--as far as I can tell--person outside of the fan clubs to write about the Conspiracy novel. His entry on us got noticed by a few others and the story is making its way onto the web in part because of that post.

I had originally asked him to do an interview earlier in the year for a book he had released in late 2008, but that didn't work out. Fortunately, Chris is a pretty prolific guy, and his latest novel is out now in the UK, and here in October. That made it the perfect time to have a chat with him about the new book, and a few other things he's got going on.

Please check out my interview with Chris, and I promise not to shill for my blog here anymore (than necessary).

Robert J. Sawyer blogs us, Lou Anders stops by

I've been negligent in mentioning this, mainly due to the fact that the blog app I've been using on my iPhone to blog the con not having the functionality to do links easy (we'll forget my laziness in not wanting to type out the url), but we got another author talking about us!

Robert J. Sawyer was cool enough to give us a mention on his blog the other day when our editor Rich dropped him a line about the project. Mr. Sawyer is a well known and respected author and futurist, and he's got a new TV show being adapted from his novel FlashForward set to go on ABC soon. He's a big fan of the POTA movies, and from his reaction to the news of our novels, I'd say we caught his interest.

* * *

Among the many fans and convention-goers who stopped by over the weekend was Lou Anders, editorial director for Pyr Books. Lou had given us a mention last week on his personal blog, and along with the many other things he was doing at San Diego, he was out and about conducting quick interviews for the podcast Adventures in SciFi Publishing, of which I was one (my first for this project). I'm not sure if I will make the cut or not, but don't let that stop you from checking out the podcast. Hosts Shaun and Sam do an excellent job of bringing you entertaining and informative interviews and industry news, and if you have any interest in SF/F publishing and how it works you should check out the show archives, it's a treasure chest of awesome advice. I know Sam was at the convention, and she was on my list of people to track down and stalk--uhm, I mean talk to, but I sadly didn't get the chance.

Here's Lou at the booth, doing what I like to call his "Action Lou Anders" pose:


We were both wearing orange shirts. I was much less action oriented in the picture he took of me, however. I'm thinking it was just a coincidence.

I still have a couple of bits left over from SDCC, not all necessarily Conspiracy related, which I'll put up tomorrow.

Ape Love

Hey all,

I'm Christian Berntsen, one of the co-writers of the Conspiracy novel. Just wanted to introduce myself, and let you know a little of what to expect here.

We will be charting the course of the book's creation here to varying degrees (meaning we'll hint, and occasionally reveal, but not spoil anything), give you updates regarding our company BLAM! Ventures--which is putting this whole shebang together, profile the creators involved (there's a LOT of them), and point you to the places Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes pops up on the web and elsewhere.

On the latter point, I'd like to direct you to two very fine gentlemen, author and publisher Chris Roberson, and Pyr Books editorial director Lou Anders.

Chris gave us a very nice write up on his blog this morning, showing off that cool Joe Jusko art we'll be featuring at San Diego Comic Con this week. Take a look at his site, read what he has to say about us, and if you get a chance, check out some of his writing. If you're a lover of alternate histories, pulp adventure and everything in between, you'll enjoy what he has to offer. He also runs an independent publishing company with his wife called MonkeyBrain Books, specializing in science fiction and fantasy fiction and nonfiction genre studies (some cool and eclectic stuff there).

Lou was less verbose, but no less kind in his posting of our info and link. As I metioned Lou is the editorial director for Prometheus Books science fiction and fantasy imprint Pyr, and has been bringing award winning fiction to us for the past several years by the likes of Ian MacDonald, Kay Kenyon, Mike Resnick, and a host of others. Any of them would be well worth your time, and if you are looking for advice on writing or publishing in general, track down any interview with Lou and you won't be sorry.

As others talk us up, we'll make note and repay them in kind here. I know many of the POTA fan clubs have been buzzing about the book for a little bit now, and I only expect that excitement to grow as we get closer to next spring.

While I'm here, I'll direct you to my personal blog for a moment (if I may be so self-serving), and show you what I posted yesterday: here it is.

I'll leave you with that, the writing life is less glamorous than it seems, as I still have a job to get to in the morning. Until next time...