[LMB] (news) _The Sharing Knife_ duology

[Lois McMaster Bujold]

Hi all --

    I am very pleased to report that Eos/HarperCollins has bought the 
rights to _The Sharing Knife_.  Plans are to publish it in two volumes, 
the first sometime in the fall of 2006, (earlier than I was expecting) 
and the second, if the schedule permits, some six to nine months 
thereafter.  (So readers won't be stuck waiting a whole year for the 
second half of the story.)

    I am quite happy with this, as now no one will be asking me to make 
major cuts for mere length, a possibility, or threat, I was not looking 
forward to.  This past year I've really enjoyed writing this story just 
the way it seemed to want to flow, without the constraints that tend to 
stem from anxiety over marketing considerations, contract deadlines, and 
all that.  As a result it will be slightly different from my more usual 
style in, well, several ways in addition to falling into two parts, but 
that's probably going to be the most apparent. 

    Although I was suspecting as early as last winter that it might 
indeed undergo mitosis, I wrote it as a single volume, so the editorial 
pass is doubtless going to include some adjustments to the transition 
into the second half, which is currently a simple jump-cut and then the 
action continues, like "Aragorn sped on up the hill." only rather less 
fraught.  The first volume is should work fairly well as a temporary 
stand-alone, as it ends at a very organic point of semi-closure that 
I've had my eye on for the purpose ever since it became clear to me how 
long this one was going to run.   The second half is more problematic, 
but by the time the second volume is published, the first should still 
be widely available.  (And perhaps someday someone will publish an 
omnibus edition and put it all back together, like _Cordelia's Honor_.)

    My editor and I have not yet discussed sub-titles for the individual 
halves, although I have a few ideas in that direction.   The book's 
working title till I was about nine-tenths through was the eponymous 
_Dag & Fawn_, so I suppose I could subtitle each with the name of the 
character it most concentrates upon.  Other possibilities include but 
are not limited to, _The Sharing Knife, vol. 1: Dag and Fawn_, and _The 
Sharing Knife, vol. 2: The Wide Green World_, although at one point I 
really hankered after that latter for the title of a potential sequel.  
Well, we'll see.  Better ideas may yet occur.

    Ta, Lois.

   


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