This is designed to be a quick reference page for those of you who like your information fast. (Note I didn't promise interesting, just fast!). Here you'll find all sorts of odd details about projects I'm currently working on and other things that take my fancy. As this page is new there isn't a lot here yet. But have no fear I'll be filling in the blanks...and if there's no news for a couple of months then I'll do as Grift taught me: make some up!

---

May 20th

• Hi Everyone! Thanks for stopping by, even though the site hasn't been updated for a few weeks. I've been really busy working on the new book, plus I've had some sort of flu bug that has hung around my throat for weeks, making speaking rather difficult (some might say that's a good thing!). I'm still rather croaky, but feeling much better now. On another personal note, my Mom in England has had a stroke, and she's been in hospital for six weeks so we're all pretty worried about her.
• I'm still putting the final touches to Fortress of Grey Ice. The second book in the series has a lot of surprises in it, and you'll meet new characters and learn more about the clanholds, the Sull, and the band of dispossessed clansman and other misfits known as the Maimed Men. Long defeated Clan Dhoone begins to reemerge as a force to be reckoned with, and the Clan Wars expand outward embroiling the Dog Lord and Hail Wolf in much infighting. Meanwhile Spire Vanis prepares for invasion and the Sull prepare for war. There are a few new point-of-view characters, but I'm not giving away all my secrets at this point so I'll just say Raina Blackhail is one of them and leave it at that! Oh, and remember how the Dog Lord stole the Dhoone guidestone from the Dhoonehouse when he was seventeen? Well that will come back to haunt him in Book II. Enough said! (-:
• No contest this month, but on June 1st I'll be giving away some UK copies of Cavern, plus some German editions, so please stay tuned.
• I think that's all for now. Biggie, my new kitty is living proof that I have no ability to name pets. She's the smallest, weediest cat you've ever seen, and when I tell people her name they laugh. I feed her tons of food, and her diet is supplemented by lizards, spiders and snails (yuck!) but she just won't grow any bigger. She spends her days sitting on the front wall, in a thicket of thorny bougainvillea, waiting for humming birds. Have no fear, bird lovers, she's not quick enough or smart enough to catch one! Anyway, I hope you're enjoying the warm weather we've been having. Thanks again for stopping by. Cheers, jv.

  April 1st

• Hi everyone! No April Fool's Day jokes for me this year. Last year I reported on Cavern of Black Ice ballooning around the world, but no one went to the page to check it out! )-: So this year I'm sulking. No gardening or house disasters to report this month (fingers crossed) though the small fountain-thingy outside my window has hit the bucket. So no more tranquil-running-water sounds for me. Yes I could leave a faucet running instead, but I worry about water conservation. A shortish update this month as I'm hard at work on Fortress.
• The winner of last month's Grand and Mysterious Giveaway Contest is:
  • Neil Frederick of physics.ucsd.edu. Lucky Neil will receive the Grand and Mysterious Mystery Prize (it's really a jvj.com t-shirt--extra large!), as well as a signed paperback edition of Cavern of Black Ice courtesy of my UK publisher Orbit books
  • Cora Wright of act.gov.au and Brandie Mostrom of stanford.edu will both receive signed paperbacks of Cavern. As always, sorry if you didn't win. I feel bad. )-:

   

  Here are the two new British covers for Cavern of Black Ice and Fortress of Grey Ice. My UK publisher Orbit Books decided to go with a new look for the series, and as all the books in the series have the word "ice" in the title they decided to give a frozen icy look to the covers. I think they look marvelous, though the details are rather hard to see on images this small. The Fortress cover will feature original artwork, and the artist is working on the finished painting as I type. I'll post it online as soon as I receive a copy.

• I think that's all for now. Please stop by next month to learn about the latest giveaway (I tend to run them every-other-month). I'll post more news later in the month...if anything turns up. Many thanks for stopping by, JV.

   

  March 8th, 2000

• Just a little note to let you know that jvj.com is swapping servers this week, so if you notice any glitches-- disappearing files, inaccessible pages, slow download times etc--please let me know and I'll set my team of experts on it (okay, it's just John Yang in Florida...but he's good enough to be a whole team! Thanks, John).

  March 3rd, 2000

• Hi all! Happy Springtime (if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, of course). A bit of a short update for now; there'll be more later in the month. Things are pretty quiet here; writing, a bit of gardening (I'm a dab hand at growing weeds and attracting snails), teaching Biggie to chase and eat aforementioned snails, replying to email, making pancakes with with the atomic weight of plutonium, the usual stuff. I have no news--I hate it when that happens. Another slow month like this one and I'm going to have start making it up. I do write fiction after all! (-:
• Right. This month I'm running The Grand and Mysterious Giveaway Contest. I know what you're thinking: "My, that sounds impressive. It's bound to be something good." Well, what it really means is that I haven't decided what to giveaway this month, so the prize will be a surprise to the winner and me! Anyway, rest assured, I will be giving away something, plus a couple of paperbacks for the runners up. All you have to do is email me saying, "I want that mystery prize!" And your name will go in the hat for the grand drawing on Match 31st.
• The Book of Words has gone digital! Yes, Baker's Boy, Man Betrayed and Master & Fool are now available as print-to-order books. Visit my publisher Warner Aspect to find out how you can acquire your own custom printed series.
• Also, Peter Monks and the crew at WordsMoo have emailed me to let me know that WordsMoo is now up-and-running and better than ever, with new areas and environments (the city of Bren is complete!). If you'd like to play or get involved in any way, please visit the WordsMoo Website for details. Many thanks to Peter for all his hard work (yes, I will drop by soon. I promise!).
• I think that's all for now. Many thanks for stopping by, JV.

  February 1st, 2000

• Hi, everyone. Thanks for stopping by. I've been attempting to teach Biggie to fetch sticks like a dog this week (I'm a frustrated dog owner really!). She loves chasing sticks, but prefers to climb up a tree and squirrel them away afterward rather than return them to me. I guess the word "Fetch!" means "Run away with this and never come back!" in feline-speak.

  People are always asking about the sequel to Cavern, Fortress of Grey Ice, so this month I've scanned the cover art. The painting is by the brilliant Greg Call, and features Ash March and the Sull Far Rider Ark Veinsplitter battling a Shadow Warrior by the light of a camp fire. What you're looking at is a promotional cover flat, produced for book buyers and store owners to give them a sneak preview of upcoming titles. The type face and color of the text may change a little by the time the book goes to press, but the wonderful painting will remain the same. I was going to wait a little before uploading the cover art, but an eagle-eyed reader in England had already spotted it on amazon.com's UK website, so I guess I'm giving little away! (-:

• The paperback edition of Cavern will be out in August of this year. And for those who can't wait for the hardback edition of Fortress of Grey Ice to be published (March 2001), you should know that an entire chapter from Fortress will be featured in the paperback edition of Cavern. So you'll finally get the answer to one of those annoying cliffhanger endings that closed the first book in the series ("Which cliffhanger?" I hear you ask. "The Crouching Maiden, Effie, Sarga Veys, Angus Lok? Tell me, I need to know!" Okay, it concerns the character the Dog Lord once referred to as "The tried and trusty sheepdog of the Phage.").
• As always, the first of the month means pulling winners from the Virtual Hat. I'm beginning to hate doing this, as it always means that lots of folk don't win anything. If only I had more books...and a friend at the Post Office...I could send everyone something! Aah well. The winners of the three signed hardback editions of Cavern are:
  • Alicia Hines of nmsu.edu

    Dirk Rehm of rehm-web.de

    John Kurilec of yahoo.com

   

• I think that's all for now. I'll root around in the garage and see what else I have to give away later in the month, so please check back. Have a wonderful Valentine's Day. Cheers and Many Thanks, jv.

  January 10th, 2000

• Hi everyone. Happy New Year. I hope you're keeping well, and staying well away from that nasty flu bug. I had a pretty quiet time over the Holidays, writing and cooking, playing with Biggie and stopping the dining room ceiling from falling in (plumbing emergency in the overhead bathroom!). Sadly, little Nog hasn't come back. I received such a lot of mail about her; quite a lot from fellow cat owners telling tales of how their cats went missing for weeks on end only to turn up just when their owners had given up hope. Thanks for writing. It made me feel a lot better.
• This month I'm giving away three hardcovers of Cavern of Black Ice. To be entered into the grand drawing all you have to do is email me saying, "I want one of those books for the new Millennium!" (correct spelling of the word "millennium" is optional!). Your name will go in the hat and the winners will be drawn on Feb 1st.

  I haven't been reading a lot of fiction recently, but occasionally I still read books that may help me in the research for Fortress of Grey Ice. Last week I finished a wonderful book, One Man's Wilderness, a diary written by Richard Proenneke (and edited by Sam Keith) during the year he lived alone in the Alaskan wilderness of Twin Lakes. During this time Proenneke built his own cabin, killed and cured his own meat, tracked bears and wolves, cooked some mean-looking pancakes (there's a photo of them in the book--never have I seen a more delicious-looking stack!) and took thousands of wildlife photographs. He comes across as a practical and ingenious man, able to fashion door hinges from wood, chimney flues from oil drums and windows from plastic sheets. He loved Alaska, and spent a lot of time cleaning up after seasonal hunters, who flew in to shoot game and then left the corpses to rot. If you're like me, and you enjoy books about Alaska and surviving under sub-zero conditions, you should give it a try.

• I think that's all for now. I'm still working on Fortress (no, Y2K didn't wipe it off my hard drive!). Biggie's asleep by my feet (again), and all the house plants needs watering. I'd better be off to find the watering can and a box of Miracle Gro--those poor plants need all the help they can get! (-: Thanks for stopping by, JV.
  

  ---

Archived Newsheets

September-December 99 Newsheet

June-August 99 Newsheet

March-May 99 Newsheet

January-February 99 Newsheet

November-December 98 Newsheet

August-October 98 Newsheet

May-July 98 Newsheet