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Archive for December 2011

Cover Takes – Opinions Wanted!

Dec31

Even after the product launch has begun, I’m still tinkering — and such is the way of it in the new world of agile product development. My current cover (to the left) now has an awesome image, but the overall effect isn’t quite bookish enough. So in the interest of total transparency (or mind numbing boredom?) I’ll continue to let you in on these intermediate steps of the creative process.

My cover designer, Pete Garceau, has whipped up a couple concept sketches. To the right is a darker colored take and below one in the original color scheme. You can click them to embiggen.

These are NOT in any way finished. Just concepts.

What I want to know for you, reader, is:

1. Which color scheme do you like, and why?

2. Your opinion of The Darkening Dream font/logo?

Please let me know in the comments!

Discover more about my novel, The Darkening Dream here or on all sorts of other links in the left sidebar.

It’s worth noting, that in the specialized world of book design the book designer (interior), the cover designer (logo design cover layout), and the illustrator (who paints the image on the cover) are sometimes all different people!

NOTE: I updated this post at 10:43am PST with slightly newer takes on the covers. The “older” two can be found here and here.

Related posts:

  1. New Cover Art is here!
  2. The New Cover Concept
  3. Making of a Cover
  4. Cover Commission
  5. Untimed – The Second Cover
By: agavin
Comments (19)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Book Cover, Book design, Color Schemes, Cover art, Cover Design, Covers, E-book, The Darkening Dream

Kotaku Dreams

Dec30

Gaming site Kotaku has run a quick little feature on The Darkening Dream today.

What do you do after founding and retiring from one of video games’ most successful development houses? If you’re Naughty Dog co-founder Andy Gavin, you write books.

The first of said books is The Darkening Dream, a shadowy fantasy novel about a young girl caught up in a battle that pits ancient supernatural forces like vampires and Egyptian gods against each other.

You can check out the full post here.

Thank you guys! And I’ve already seen a big sales jump. I hope all the fans of my old stuff love my new stuff too.

Discover more about my novel, The Darkening Dream, here.

Related posts:

  1. Done Again, Hopefully
  2. Call For Feedback
  3. Beginnings and Endings
  4. The Darkening Dream
  5. Video Game Page & Book Status
By: agavin
Comments (5)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Arts, Darkening Dream, Egyptian pantheon, Fiction, Kotaku, Naughty Dog, press, The Darkening Dream, Video game

The Look – Pastor Parris

Dec29

Pastor John Parris is the junior of my two point of view villains in The Darkening Dream. Given the kind of occult woodblock look I’ve been developing I tend to focus on the character’s magical nature to develop their icon.


With Parris I got off to a false start, drawn in by this classic image of Baphomet. It has strong associations with the occult, witchcraft, and demonology. All good stuff that Parris likes to keep close at hand, wrapped in black silk coverings. Or perhaps in a human-skin pouch.

I even had my artists do this rendition (above). But this was a red herring. Truthfully, Baphomet is a nineteenth century rendering, a reinvention of such things in light of 1800s eclecticism. It’s more akin to the effect this image has for us moderns, being cool, exotic, and devilishly naughty. Parris comes from a school of magic that is much more about really believing in fire and brimstone.


So I turned to this kind of image (above) showing a seventeenth century witches sabbath. This is totally apropos, but I didn’t know how to make an icon out of it.


Then I found this view (above) of the witches table. Parris is a ritualist and he often employs candles (lychnomancy) in his magic. The scene was too visually complex, but it was a start.


So I did a ghetto version for my artists (above), using Photoshop to strip away some of the excess and they came back with below, which was about perfect. This shows the tools of Parris’ trade: the candle, the powder horn, bowls for mixing, blades for bloodletting.

Discover more about my novel, The Darkening Dream.
To find out about developing a style for the interior art, see here.
Or for more information on Pastor John Parris, the warlock.

By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Baphomet, demons, John Parris, Magic, Occult, Parris, Pastor John Parris, Pastor Parris, Salem Witch Trials, Succubus, The Darkening Dream, Warlock, Witchcraft

Guest Interview – Farsighted

Dec27

I’m experimenting again by allowing a guest post/interview by a fellow author.

– Andy


About Farsighted!

Alex Kosmitoras may be blind, but he can still “see” things others can’t. When his unwanted visions of the future begin to suggest that the girl he likes could be in danger, he has no choice but to take on destiny and demand it reconsider. Farsighted is the winner of the 2011 Dragonfly eBook Awards. Get it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

About the Author: Emlyn Chand has always loved to hear and tell stories, having emerged from the womb with a fountain pen grasped firmly in her left hand (true story). When she’s not writing, she runs a large book club in Ann Arbor and is the president of author PR firm, Novel Publicity. Emlyn loves to connect with readers and is available throughout the social media interweb. Visit her on her website, Twitter, Facebook, or GoodReads.

Let’s get to know the author a little better through this rousing Q&A…

 

Q: What was it like writing from the viewpoint of a blind, teenage boy? Were there any parts of Alex’s personality/life you found hard to come up with?

A: You know, it wasn’t as hard to write blind as I initially thought it would be. It didn’t take long to begin “seeing” Alex’s world the way he does. I wrote the entire story without knowing what anyone or anything looked like (except for Alex himself). When it came time to shoot the book trailer, the directors were asking me questions about the scenes and which props they should bring, and I really, really didn’t know what to tell them!

As I got to know Alex better and better, it became easier to tune into his way of seeing things. I read books about coping with blindness in a school setting and spent a great deal of time pondering how I might behave if I couldn’t see. In the story, Alex has always been blind; he’s always known the world to be a certain way. Not everyone understands that, and they have trouble talking about it with him. I gave Alex a tendency to overcompensate. He knows who he is and what he’s capable of, and he wants the world to know it too, so sometimes he overdoes things a bit.

 

Q: Your cast of characters has international flavor? What’s behind that choice?

A: I don’t see why my characters all need to belong to the same culture or ethnicity. What fun is that? Culture shapes our characters in a big way, so by diversifying my cast, I was able to hit on more types of personalities and situations. Grandon is based on my hometown; it’s small and kind of boring. I couldn’t wait to escape and move on to bigger and better things. My home town was mostly Caucasian, but somehow I ended up with a very diverse set of friends even though they made up less than 1% of the student body. Fast forward a few years, and I end up marrying a man from India. He’s from New Delhi, like Simmi. I’ve always been fascinated by other cultures; I even decided to pursue my Master’s in Sociology for this very reason. I credit two early life influences for this attraction: 1) My adoration of A.C. Slater in Saved by the Bell, 2) Disney’s Aladdin being the best movie ever.

 

Q: What was the inspiration for Farsighted?

A: Everything started with a single image—my face in these tacky oversized sunglasses reflecting out at me from the car’s side mirror. I was daydreaming while my husband drove us across Michigan for my sister’s wedding. Something about my image really struck me in an almost horrific way. I felt the glasses made me look blind but found it so weird that there was still a clear image within them; it seemed so contradictory. At the time, my book club was reading The Odyssey, which features the blind Theban prophet, Tieresias. I started thinking about what it would be like to have non-visual visions of the future and began forming a modern Tieresias in my mind. Lo and behold, Alex Kosmitoras was born. I didn’t want him to be alone in his psychic subculture, so I found other characters with other powers to keep him company. Thank God for my poor fashion sense. 🙂

 

Q: What would you like readers to take away from Farsighted? Is there a different message for adults than for teens?

A: First and foremost, I hope that readers will enjoy themselves. My primary goal is to tell an interesting story that people will find entertaining and be glad they read. Secondly, I’d like to infuse contemporary Young Adult fiction with a bit more diversity and teach readers about the beauty of other cultures and other ways of life. I also hope that Farsighted is a book that leads to introspection—what would I do if put in Alex’s place? Did Alex ever have a choice or was this path his destiny? What would it be like to see the world the way he sees the world?

I like to think of anything I write as being kind of like a Disney movie, in that the primary audience will be children, but there are extra tidbits for the adults too. Farsighted has been infused with a great deal of research about runes, classic mythology, and Eastern spirituality, but you don’t need to understand any of that to be entertained by the story.

 

Q. There have been articles written this year about YA being too dark for teens. What are your thoughts on this?

A: I definitely agree. I want to get back to the core of the YA genre, and I attempted to do that with Farsighted. I also think that paranormal has gotten a bit too out there. One thing I hear from readers quite a bit is that the paranormal seems normal in Farsighted. They don’t question the existence of the powers, and it doesn’t seem out there like some other books of the genre do. That was important to me. I wanted my story to be run by the characters, not the fantastic elements. This is a story about Alex, not about a blind psychic.

 

Q: What motivated you to structure the book around the runes?

A: Remember how I said my Master’s degree is in Sociology? It’s actually Quantitative Sociology. I’m a numbers person as well as a word person. I love things to be organized just so. If you set a stack of papers in front of me; I’m going to fuss with them until they are lined up in a perfect stack. It’s just the way I am. Shaping each chapter around a rune gave the story order, which made me feel happy and comfortable. Whenever I got stuck and didn’t know what should happen next, I was able to learn more about that chapter’s rune and get the inspiration I needed to continue. The runes themselves tell a story, one that is successfully completed. I felt that boded well for Farsighted.

 

Q: What is your writing process like?

A: I begin with a seed of an idea and work out from there. With Farsighted, I started with Alex and created the rest of the story and characters to fit around him. Using the runes as a structural framework for this novel created an outline for me too. I’m a numbers person as well as a word person. I love things to be organized just so. If you set a stack of papers in front of me; I’m going to fuss with them until they are lined up in a perfect stack. It’s just the way I am. Shaping each chapter around a rune gave the story order, which made me feel happy and comfortable. Whenever I got stuck and didn’t know what should happen next, I was able to learn more about that chapter’s rune and get the inspiration I needed to continue. The runes themselves tell a story, one that is successfully completed. I felt that boded well for Farsighted.

 

Q: What do you like to read? Who is your favorite author?

A: I LOVE YA—I read it, write it, love it! My favorite author is JK Rowling. The more I read, the more I realize how brilliant she is as an author. If you remove the dialogue tags from Harry Potter, you still know which character is speaking, and Rowling managed to create an intricate beautiful world without allowing her character development to suffer, which is tremendously rare. I consider her literary God. Suzanne Collins, and JD Salinger are classic faves.

My all-time favorite book is A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, definitely. The novel has so many layers and entertains on so many levels. Also the characters in that novel seem more real than those from any other I’ve ever read. It’s just beautiful—that’s the only word for it.

 

Q: If you had to be stuck on an island for a year with three literary characters, who would they be?

A: First up, we’d obviously take Robinson Crusoe. He knows what he’s doing, and he can be the provider. I’ll also take Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games—if we get in any kind of danger, she’d be a great protector. Lastly, I’d take Ron Weasley. Ron and I can live the good life, while the other two make sure we all stay safe and well-fed. I know I would never get bored with Ron around—he’s just 24/7 entertainment.

 

Q: You’ve taken a risk by going with an unconventional ending. Without spoiling the story for your readers, can you tell us why you made this choice? Are you glad you did this? Do you feel it’s been successful? Why or why not?

A: Yeah, I ended with a cliffhanger, which goes against traditional publishing wisdom. But you know what? I. AM. INDIE! Being indie means taking risks and breaking the mold and, boy, am I excited to do it. The ending is kind of polarizing, people either love it or wish there was more there. The joining thread is almost everyone mentions looking forward to the next book in the series. Farsighted demands a companion, and people see that. I think it was a good decision since this is the first in the series and since I enjoy toeing the line of convention. It’s fun to shake things up.

Related posts:

  1. Guest Interview – The Gaia Wars
By: agavin
Comments (8)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Alex, Alex Kosmitoras, E-book, Emlyn Chand, Farsighted, goodreads, guest post

11 reasons you should buy The Darkening Dream

Dec26

1. It’s a great book.

2. It’s only $2.99 — but the price might go up soon.

3. You loved Crash Bandicoot.

4. You loved Jak & Daxter.

5. I was a great boss, friend, or co-worker.

6. My vampires don’t sparkle.

7. There are several beheadings.

8. Decrepit ancient Egyptian gods are cool.

9. The girl on the cover is really cute.

10. I handed you a glass of $100 wine at some point.

11. The book includes a “cesarian by vampire scene.”

And 4 refutations to your protests:

1. I’m poor – but it’s only $2.99.

2. I don’t have a Kindle – you can read Kindle books on a smartphone, iPad, or the web.

3. I’m too lazy to click twice – bad excuse.

4. I don’t read – do you really want to admit that?

Buy it now!

Then after you do, retweet, share, like, or otherwise spam this post or a link to the book on all of your social media! 🙂

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream for Christmas!
  2. The Darkening Dream – Soliciting Reviews
  3. The Darkening Dream
  4. All Things Change
  5. On Writing: Passes and Plots
By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Amazon Kindle, Andy Gavin, Crash Bandicoot, E-book, IPad, Jak & Daxter, Kindle, Naughty Dog, The Darkening Dream

The Darkening Dream for Christmas!

Dec25

As a surprise move, I’m stealth launching The Darkening Dream — right now! — although only the Kindle edition.

If your stocking has been stuffed with a brand new Kindle, or you already have one, or you read on the Kindle app anywhere (iPad, Android, etc.)…

Buy it now!

Stealthy introductory price of $2.99. Which is certainly a bargain given that it took me two busy years to write and a lot of work to produce the layout, cover, etc.

So, you might ask (after you have purchased your copy — hint hint), what is a stealth launch?

Well, firstly, while the book is totally done and the E-Book version is all typeset, I’ve only put up the Kindle version. In the next week or so I’ll try and get all the other E-Book variants up (B&N, iTunes, etc.). Also, I’m still finishing up the paper editions. These will look great but they take a bit longer because I have to wait for physical proofs (5 days), make changes, then wait again, etc.

But also, I’m bucking the marketing machine that over the last thirty years has moved more and more to “big launch and then go away” mentality. Pretty much all big products: movies, albums, books etc. are marketed this way now. The marketeers build everything up for a big launch, hope for the best, then turn elsewhere a few scant weeks later. Truth is, this serves the marketeers more than it does the customer. Novels don’t age very fast. I enjoyed The Maltese Falcon as much as any book I read this year and it’s 81 years old. And the potential reader who happens to stumble upon my book doesn’t really care if it was published today — or last year. And it will take me time to collect reviews, get the other editions out, build up more web linkages etc. Later, when I have more of that in place I’ll begin the bigger marketing push.

So try it out and see what you think. Afterward, please review the book on Amazon. Reviews matter!

If you’re still not convinced:

Find out more about the book here
or read the sample chapters
or even check out a bit about the characters.

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream – Soliciting Reviews
  2. All Things Change
  3. The Darkening Dream
  4. Christmas is for Dim Sum
  5. The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing
By: agavin
Comments (8)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Android, Andy Gavin, Christmas, E-book, IPad, Kindle, The Darkening Dream

The Look – al-Nasir

Dec24

In the process of developing the interior look of my book, The Darkening Dream, I wanted to create glyphs to represent each point of view character. In general, despite my big library of occult titles, I find a lot of references on the web (Google for the win!). Ultimately, I’m trying to produce original works, but reference art is very useful in communicating with your artists.

Let’s start with one of the easiest: al-Nasir, my 900 year-old vampire villain.


In life, al-Nasir, was a Moorish warrior who ruled over the Caliphate of Cordoba. If this floats your boat, check out his detail page on the blog. He’s a violent warrior, so a sword was a natural. The above weapon is a photograph of an actual Nasrid sword from the eleventh century. Contrary to popular imagination, Moorish swords were not curved, at least in this period.


As the style I’m going for is an illustrated, “old school engraving” style, I showed the artists this image, which is a similar kind of sword, but as an drawing was useful in demonstrating how to convert the photographic image into a more illustrated form.


But al-Nasir isn’t just any old medieval Moor, no he’s a vampire, and one who specializes in the flying bat form. So I found this odd sixteenth or seventeen century engraving. The bat wings are really cool and in just the kind of naive wood block style I’m going for.


I rotated the sword, then used Photoshop to snip out the bat wings and build a composite to show the artists exactly what I had in mind. I call this “ghetto art” and it might be ugly but it’s invaluable in communicating visually. Below is the resulting final image, which they got pretty much dead on (haha) with the first try.

For more about my novel, The Darkening Dream.
To find out more about developing a style for the interior art, see here.
For more information on al-Nasir, the badass 900 year-old Moorish vampire.

By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: al-Nasir, Nasir, Sword, The Darkening Dream, Vampire

Naughty Dog – 25 Years!

Dec23

www.vg247.com has written a very nice piece on Naughty Dog’s 25th anniversary.

There’s been a few anniversaries in the gaming world this past year: Ubisoft’s 25th, Blizzard’s 20th. But it seems there may have been one that slipped under the radar, which is a big surprise considering this studio is now perhaps one of the most widely-recognised on the triple-A scene.

Naughty Dog is 25 years old this year.

But all things have an origin.

Jamming, man

In 1986, high school students Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin joined forces to found what was then known as Jam Software. The pair had been experimenting with computer programming, tooling around with C++, before combining their talents.

But it was in 1989 that the first seeds of the company as we know it today were sown. Making a new beginning, Jam Software was renamed Naughty Dog, with EA-published RPG Keel The Thief for Apple IIGS, Amiga and PC the first release under the new moniker. Its next effort, Rings of Power for the Genesis or Mega Drive, arrived in 1991 – another RPG published by EA.

And in 1994, Naughty Dog developed a 3DO fighting title for the now defunct Universal Interactive Studios (better known in recent years as Vivendi Games) called Way of the Warrior, with both single-play and multiplayer.

Based on Way of the Warrior’s success, Mark Cerny, then head of Universal Interactive Studios, agreed to back the company’s next games. What came afterwards signaled the beginning of Naughty Dog’s true success.

“Whoa!”

In 1996, with a distribution deal secured, Naughty Dog released a unique platformer called Crash Bandicoot. It was published by the fresh-faced Sony Computer Entertainment, which had released its debut console, the PlayStation, over 1994 and 1995.

Despite a few errors (our first game was actually published in 1985) this is a nice article with lots of good stuff and some fun videos from the different eras. Check out the full text here.

And if you are interested in what I’m doing now, here.

Related posts:

  1. Naughty Dog – A Pedigree Breed
  2. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 1
  3. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 2
  4. New Naughty Dog Franchise – The Last of Us
  5. Crash Bandicoot as a Startup (part 7)
By: agavin
Comments (14)
Posted in: Games
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Apple IIGS, Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter, Jason Rubin, Mark Cerny, Naughty Dog, Playstation, Video Games, Vivendi Games

New Cover Art is here!

Dec22

The new cover for The Darkening Dream is almost done! To the left is the current mockup (click the double spread below if you want to see a large version). It still needs a few tweaks and real titles (those are NOT final titles), but it’s real close.

As I’ve discussed before, I commissioned a new cover a couple weeks ago from artist Cliff Nielsen, worked through a whole batch of ideas and sketches, shot the model in the studio, and voila!

I’ve basically got the E-Book interiors done too, having learned over the last two days how to generate MOBI and EPUB files from my base HTML. I even caught and reproed a bug in Calibre which a super responsive programmer fixed in an hour. These files took a lot of work but they look really awesome with all the little interior illustrations and very nice, clean, formatting.

My last thing is to get real titles done and then I’m ready to go with the E-Book version by around the New Year! Although, titles and Amazon approval might drag that out by a couple days.

Please write in the comments what you think of the cover.

The old cover -- made by yours truly

To see photos from the cover shoot, click here.
For more info on the new cover artist, click here.
For more information on The Darkening Dream.
For more posts on writing, click here.

Related posts:

  1. The New Cover Concept
  2. Cover Commission
  3. Making of a Cover
  4. Untimed – The Second Cover
  5. Dreaming Along
By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Art, Book Cover, Cliff Nielsen, Cover art, Darkening Dream, E-book, The Darkening Dream

The Hobbit Trailer

Dec21

Nerdgasm update. If you can’t wait for December 14, they’ve released a second Hobbit trailer:

I can see them trying to squeeze every last bit of “bigness” out of what’s in the book. The Hobbit — brilliant that it is — was written before everything had to be designed for the trailer!

And if you missed the first, more serious one:

The feeling of the prequel going second is interesting. It looks great, but it also feels slightly anticlimactic (for those of us who know the stories in detail) following on Return of the King. But still, it might actually be a more fun film(s) — the book is a little better paced than the masterpiece — which brilliant as it is, is a bit odd in the structural department. Don’t get me wrong though, I have read them half a dozen times. 🙂 Even the Silmarillion, which is actually one of my favorites. Although I can’t say I’ve read all of those extra lost tales whatever books Christopher Tolkien pushed on us (a few though).

Also check out this silly Hobbit themed Air New Zealand flight video.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed
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or win Crash & Jak giveaways!

Latest hot post: War Stories: Crash Bandicoot

The Hobbit Poster Dwarves

Related posts:

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By: agavin
Comments (11)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Bilbo Baggins, Hobbit, hobbit release date, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson, Silmarillion, The Hobbit

Din Tai Fung Dumpling House

Dec21

Restaurant: Din Tai Fung

Location: 1108 S. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia,California 91007. (626)574-7068

Date: December 8, 2011 & February 28, 2012

Cuisine: Chinese Dumpling House

Rating: Amazing Taipei spinoff

_

I love dimsum so much I was willing to drive 45 minutes out into the wilds of Arcadia to try this place. And it was well worth the journey. The “juicy pork dumplings” alone were worth the price of admission.


Classical Arcadia was a place of legendary beauty, filled with bucolic green hills, lazy shepherds, and nubile nymphs. Arcadia Ca features strip malls.


The chefs hard at work in their little glass tank.


Din Tai Fung is so popular we had to wait 30 minutes on a random thursday at 1pm. But they are nothing if not organized. The staff all wear secret service ear pieces and our order was taken before we even sat.


The huge menu. And it has pictures!


Some stuff appears to be take out friendly.


The setup of chopsticks, tea cup, and ginger.


Marinated cucumber in a sort of garlic ponzu type sauce. Nice and crunchy, but I was saving room.


“Hot and Sour Soup (pork).” A well implemented version of the classic.


“Seaweed and Bean Curd in Vinegar dressing.” Interesting “salad”.


Chicken and veggie bits over noodles. Looks bland enough but it tasted great.


“Juicy pork dumplings.” These are sometimes called Shanghai style “soup” dumplings. I’ve had lots of them but these were easily the best ever. These succulent little mouthfuls were superbly balanced.


“Shrimp and Pork Wonton with Spicy Sauce.” This was absolutely delicious. The dumpling could have been almost anything as the sauce made it more about texture than flavor, but they would have been good plain too.


“Pork sticky rice.”


This sticky log of rice contained bonus roast pork. Yum yum. You’ll notice the DTF food is heavy on both the carbs AND the pork.


“Noodle with mince pork sauce.” This was yummy too, although I have had better of this dish — in Xian China.


“Noode with spicy sauce.” This was actually tastier than the pork ones as the sauce had this nice spicy vinegar tang.


“Braised beef soup.” You can’t see them, but the soup is filled with more of the spaghetti-like noodles. The beef tasted like short rib.


“Vegetarian dumplings.” These were some of the better veggie dumplings I’ve had. Still, they don’t hold a candle to the meaty ones.


“Shrimp Fried Noodle.”


“Pork and Shrimp Shu-mai.” Not only did these look great, but they tasted fantastic. These were my second favorite after the straight pork ones.


“Shanghai rice cake with chicken.” This tasted fine (like soy sauce, in a good way). The rice cake has a weird chewy texture, not unlike jellyfish. It was actually kind of fun.


“Pork buns.”


Unlike the typical BBQ pork buns, these just had the slightly spiced (buy yummy) pork balls inside, not the sweet red BBQ pork. Still good.


“Juicy Pork & Crab dumplings.” Like the pork ones, but with a slightly weird crab aftertaste. We all preferred the plain pork ones, but I still happily kicked back about 5 of these.


“Sautéed mustard cabbage with garlic.” Fine for what it was. Boring!


“Sauteed Bok Choy with Garlic.” You’d swear it was the same as the mustard greens, and you’d be wrong!


“Pork Chop Fried Rice.” Pretty much exactly what you’d expect.


Yum yum, drown that baby!


“Fish dumplings.” I haven’t had a lot of fish dumplings, but these were superb! Almost as good as the pork. Well not quite, but they were really good.


Now the dessert buns. First the “black sesame.”


This were really good, with a sweet nutty taste. The bun itself is identical to the pork bun.


Then two other experimental types: “sweet taro” and “red bean.” All were pleasant, but the taro was like a bun stuffed with whipped sweet mash potato and the red bean — well like red bean.


Some kind of specialty “sweet rice” with bits of fruit and red bean paste.


I actually enjoyed this dessert. It’s sickly sweet with a peculiar Chinese flavor and very sticky.

Overall, Din Tai Fun was awesome. I’m so hungry just writing up this post and I want to go back right away. I don’t want to drive the better part of an hour just this second, but I want the “juicy pork dumplings.” It’s also a good deal. Four of us completely polished off the above. And yeah we pigged out. And it cost like $65!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Mark’s Duck House
  2. Food as Art: Ping Pong
  3. More Mark’s Duck House
  4. Christmas is for Dim Sum
  5. More Modern Dim Sum
By: agavin
Comments (7)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: China, Chinese, Chinese cuisine, Chinese Food, dimsum, Din Tai Fung, Din Tai Fung Dumpling House, dumpling, Dumpling House, Hot and Sour Soup, Noodle, pork, Restaraunt, Restaurant Review, Shanghai, Taipei

The Game of Thrones Set – Belfast

Dec20

Yet more Game of Thrones goodies. This one details the effort of capturing the look from the Belfast set (Northern Ireland for the geographically challenged).

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql6kqCK_85g]

Check out my own Fantasy novel, The Darkening Dream.

Related posts:

  1. Game of Thrones – The Houses
  2. New Game of Thrones 2 Teaser
  3. More Game of Thrones CGI
  4. Inside Game of Thrones
  5. Game of Thrones Season 2 Peek
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Television
Tagged as: A Song of Ice and Fire, Belfast, Game of Thrones, HBO, Making of, Northern Ireland, Programs, Television, Television program

Making of a Cover

Dec19

On Sunday we shot the live model for my new cover for The Darkening Dream.


The artist, the amazing Cliff Nielsen, works out of a 1903 former power station! This was totally awesome given the 1913 setting of The Darkening Dream.


The interior is even crazier!


And our studio location where Cliff has set up his stage area and lighting.


The artist behind his camera. Turns out he’s a Canon 5D Mark II shooter as well!

Enter our lovely young protagonist, Sarah Engelmann, played by the talented Dana Melanie.


It just takes a bit of costume and some hair styling to take her back a hundred years! This cover is a bit allegorical. In the book, Sarah is plagued by dreams of violent super natural deaths, and entangled with more than a bit of the violent supernatural during her waking moments.


So for the cover we are trying to capture a bit of a nighttime Sarah caught in the junction between these waking (natural) and sleeping (supernatural) worlds. Just a note for total verisimilitude, Cliff will have to Photoshop off the nail polish (like 2 minutes work) because Western women didn’t wear nail polish between late antiquity and the 1930s! (Although the Chinese did)


Cliff earning his keep.


He shot using the 24-70 2.8L which is a great lens for studio work.


Hair fix.


I thought this shot during break an amusing contrast of period and modern.


Dana was a fantastic sport and even put up with a second — and creepy — crucifixion pose. In the context of The Darkening Dream this isn’t really Jesus type crucifixion, but more Conan on the Tree of Woe or Odin sacrificed and hung from the world tree Yggdrasil. Rest assured, it has certain magical/occult significance in the story.


Cliff had to shoot from high up on a ladder.


During this part of the shoot it was suggested that I draw in a small dark mustache and cultivate a sinister silent movie villain laugh.


Or perhaps it’s the reverse.

All in all, it was a fantastic shoot and we got great images. I can’t wait to see the finished cover in a couple of days.

Read more about The Darkening Dream here.
Or check out the cover design here.
Or read the first two chapters for free.

Related posts:

  1. Cover Commission
  2. The New Cover Concept
  3. The edits are all in!
  4. Untimed – The Second Cover
  5. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 4
By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Book Cover, Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Cliff Nielsen, Cosmetics, Cover art, Dana, Nail polish, Photoshop, Sarah, The Darkening Dream

Sample Chapters!

Dec18

With my novel The Darkening Dream steaming along toward release, it’s high time that I offer a taste of the book itself. So to that effect, I’ve put up the first two chapters as a sample.

Check them out here!

I even used my CSS mastery to format them in fairly close approximation of the real book. Although I used times, which is a good looking screen font, instead of Arno Pro like the printed book. But I did include the appropriate interior art that I’ve been developing. This includes chapter heading illustrations and custom separators. Each different point of view has a separate icon, in the case of these two chapters the horn for Sarah (our protagonist) and the tree for Charles. Why, is fairly clear even in these brief chapters.

Please share your opinions on the opening either here or below the sample itself.

Also for those who care about the geekdom, I upgraded the little red buttons I use on various places on the site to support roll over highlighting. This was easy, but figuring out how to flow the pair of them underneath the sidebar book cover took longer than all the other tasks today, including the styling of the sample. HTML/CSS is like that. At first I forgot about display:block and then, for some slightly mysterious reason, I had to use float:left to get them to sit side by side. Go figure.

By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, CSS, Sample Chapters, The Darkening Dream

The New Cover Concept

Dec17

As I’ve discussed before, I commissioned a new cover a couple weeks ago for The Darkening Dream. Well I’ve got a concept sketch now (to the right, click it to embiggen). You can compare it to the old cover at the bottom of the post.

NOTE: This is still just a sketch, not the final new cover and the titles are quick hacks that I whipped onto the concept sketch. Still, I wanted to see what people think.

We shoot the model this weekend. Cliff Nielsen, the artist uses a composite style in which he blends photographic and hand drawn elements. The final result will even better and much much more detailed and specific. This sketch is to get a sense of layout, color, and positioning.

Overall I’m stoked.

The interior is also rocking along and I hope to have the E-Book on the “shelf” (i.e. Amazon etc) right around the New Year.

So write in the comments: What does this cover say to you, would you pick up the book and see what it’s about? What do you think it’s about?

The old cover -- made by yours truly

For more info on the new cover, click here.
For more information on The Darkening Dream.
For more posts on writing, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Cover Commission
  2. Untimed – The Second Cover
  3. The Darkening Dream – Soliciting Reviews
By: agavin
Comments (12)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Cliff Nielsen, Cover art, Darkening Dream, Design, E-book, The Darkening Dream

Quick Eats – Il Pastaio

Dec16

Restaurant: Il Pastaio

Location: 400 N.Canon Drive. Bevery Hills, CA 90210. Phone: 310.205.5444

Date: December 2, 2011

Cuisine: Italian

Rating: Excellent neighborhood Italian

_

Il Pastaio is one of the Drago brothers many many excellent Los Angeles Italians. This is probably the flagship of brother Giacomino Drago’s collection of seven restaurants. The pastas in particular (the name does mean the Pasta Maker) are incredible. This meal, however, was just a quick lunch.


A lobster salad with marinated peppers and cucumbers. I’m a huge lobster salad fan and this was no disappointment. Look at all that juicy lobster meat!


Gnocci in pink sauce. A classic, but very good.


A spinach parpadelle with a meat ragu. I love this kind of hearty meat ragu. yum yum.


To avoid carb coma.


And parked outside was this totally whacky but cool chopper. If you zoom in you can see that every part of it from engine block to the seat is custom tooled!

Anyway, while this is just a mini glimpse at Il Pastaio’s cusine, it’s a fantastic place. I’ll have to come back and document a much more extensive meal.

Older brother Drago restaurant is reviewed here and Giacomino’s via alloro.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For a 50+ meals in Italy, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Quick Eats: Osteria Latini
  2. Quick Eats: Piccolo
  3. Quick Eats: Osteria Latini 2
  4. Quick Eats: Divino
  5. Quick Eats: Caffe Delfini
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Beverly Hills, Drago, Giacomino Drago, Il Pastaio, italian, Italian cuisine, Italy, Lobster, Meat

Maison Giraud

Dec15

Restaurant: Maison Giraud [1, 2, 3]

Location: 1032 Swarthmore Ave, Pacific Palisades, Ca 90272. 310-459-7562

Date: December 5 & 10, 2011

Cuisine: French

Rating: French “home” cooking at it’s best

_

I’ve been waiting for Maison Giraud, the new local (just blocks away!) Pacific Palisades restaurant/bakery from acclaimed LA French chef Alain Giraud to open for what seems like forever. The day it did I was there for some pastries. Then we kept trying to get in for dinner. We had to come on a monday at like 5:30!


The Swathmore Ave frontage has been revealing itself in stages since at least the 4th of July.


Inside the chef peers down at your from the French-style board.


Today’s menu.


A pair of nice French whites, one a Sancerre, the other a Viognier.


House baked bread.


They call this a tart, but it’s really a flatbread (aka pizza). “Camille’s Potato and Rosemary Flat Tart. Creme Fraiche, Gruyere.” Pretty yummy.


And another. “Crispy Tomato and Basil Flat Tart. Roasted onions, parmesan.”


“Seared Scallops, leek fondue, meyer lemon & pistachio sauce.” This was one of the best seared scallop appetizers I’ve had — and I normally prefer my scallops raw.


“Arborio Risotto, mushrooms, aged parmesan, fresh herbs.” A lovely mushroom risotto. The weather was cold and dreary (in relative LA terms), so this was perfect.


“Seared Atlantic Salmon. Garlic potatoes, cipollini, bacon, red onion sauce.”


“Cocotte. Beef Bourguignon.” Basically beef stew with the classic additives: potato, carrots, onions, etc. But this was one damn fine beef stew.


Bread dipping good!


We had to get back in a hurry, so we didn’t have time for dessert, but I had that Vacherin Glace one time when the chef was cooking at Bastide (in 2004) and it was one of the best desserts of my life.


I liked the Maison so much that I brought my son back for breakfast on Saturday. This is from the bakery, a fresh apple turnover. Yum!


And fresh OJ.

A decent, if slightly foamy cappuccino.


French toast. Very nice typical variant. My favorite part was the fresh Chantilly cream which was incredible. I’m a big sucker for whipped cream.


Classic Eggs Benedict.


Some more baked goods. Muffins.


And the ultimate pain aux chocolate. This is the only place in LA I’ve tasted where the croissant type pastry actually tastes like it does in France.

So far, I’m very pleased with Maison Giraud. The food is essentially French comfort food with a bit of international adaption, but everything has been spot on fresh and well done so far, and the bakery is outrageously good. Given how incredibly lame most of the Pacific Palisades food offerings are this is all incredibly welcome.

For my early preview, see here.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Maison Giraud at Last
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Atlantic Salmon, Beef Bourguignon, Brunch, Creme Fraiche, dessert menu, Dinner, Eggs Benedict, French Toast, Maison Giraud, Pacific Palisades, Potato, Restaraunt, Restaurant Review, Sancerre, Stew, Viognier

The Darkening Dream – Soliciting Reviews

Dec14

With my planned launch getting closer I started aggressively soliciting online book bloggers for reviews of my first novel, The Darkening Dream. This is a rather tedious process (spent about 10 hours on it yesterday) of combing through lists of review sites, then checking out their policies (sometimes nicely tabbed at the top, sometimes mysteriously difficult to find) and then constructing review query emails.

Still, it’s amazing how many cool review sites are out there these days, and how many of them cover independently published books.

To that effect, if any of you readers run a legitimate book blog*, I’d be happy to trade you a free advance copy (electronic or paper) for a review. No requirement that it even be a good one 🙂 I like to think the book itself will stand (or flop) on it’s own, and I’m a firm believer in editorial freedom (and my own right to knock or praise things on this site as I see fit). For more information on the book itself, click here, or on the cover to the right. I’ll also post any reviews I find out about on my review page with a link back (unless they are scathing and not in the least bit funny :-)).

If you’re interested in reviewing, contact me here.

On the production front I’m awaiting (hopefully any minute) the final sketch for my new cover. The interior layout is also proceeding apace. I have final artwork back on my interior icons and hope to get an alpha of the complete paper typography any day now. I’ll share some of this with you shortly via other posts and even a planned two chapter sample. I also taught myself today how to generate epub and mobi files for the e-book version, which was a piece of cake.

*NOTE: by “legitimate book blog” I mean any site which regularly reviews books in a reasonably professional manner and has a publicly posted submissions policy.

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream
  2. About Book Reviews
  3. Uncharted 3 Reviews Live
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Advance copy, Andy Gavin, Book Bloggers, fiction reviews, Literature, online reviews, Review site, reviews, Reviews and Criticism, The Darkening Dream

Already Dead

Dec13

Title: Already Dead

Author: Charlie Huston

Genre: Hardboiled Vampire

Length: 288 pages

Read: Dec 1 – Dec 9, 2011

Summary: Good hardboiled fun

_

Already dead is a contemporary New York take on the vampire myth, mated with, and steeped in the tradition of hardboiled crime fiction. Crucial to the hardboiled style, established by such masters as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, is the voice. Huston may be writing decades later but from the first few pages it’s obvious that he’s highly adept at the hardboiled voice. The novel is written in a lean mean first person present, unsentimental, even stripped of all dialog tagging (this last goes too far and it’s sometimes hard to tell who is speaking).

The protagonist is a vampyre (I don’t normally use the ‘y’ but this book does), and he’s also a sort of private dick for the seedy supernatural side of the Manhattan underworld. Huston’s vampires are not obviously supernatural, but the product of a Vyrus (his spelling). The narrator is very specific on the pros, cons, and lifestyle choices required to “live” with the Vyrus. This is no small part of the story’s appeal. The plot, is modeled after the hardboiled classics. He protag is hired to find someone. Several forces all have a steak in the outcome. The protag gets beat up a lot. There’s twisted sex wound up in the reveal.

This may be formula, but the execution is top notch and the ride well worth it.

For more book reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Dead Beautiful
  2. Better Off Dead
  3. The Postman Always Rings Twice
  4. Storm Front
  5. The Big Sleep
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Already dead, Book Review, Charlie Huston, Fiction, Hardboiled, New York, Novel, Vyrus

Untimed Fourth Draft Finished

Dec12

After nine days of solid crunch I’ve finished the fourth (and hopefully final) draft of my second novel, Untimed (read more about it here). This involved reading the book three whole times in one week. Ug! But the book is essentially done done! I have just a few little tweaks remaining and some work to do on promotional/pitch materials and I’ll need to figure out how to sell it. This book really kicks ass. It clocks in at 75,000 words (just 300 pages) but a tremendous amount happens. Plus the voice is great and (I hope) hooks from the first line.

Now I really have to start gearing back into the production on my first novel, The Darkening Dream, and get that out the door. And start thinking about a new book for January. Woah!

To find out more about my writing, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Untimed – The Last Draft?
  2. On Writing: Yet Another Draft
  3. Untimed – Two Novels, Check!
  4. Untimed – Two Novels, Two Drafts!
  5. Weekend Draft
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, drafts, Fiction, Line Editing, Novel, Untimed, Writing
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