April 2007 - All quiet on the Jude Fisher front...

Well, I'm afraid there won't be any more Jude Fisher books for a while, but if you've enjoyed the fantasy novels and have a penchant for pirates, exoticism and romance, you'll probably enjoy what I'm writing now, under my own name.

Please do take a look at the new site -- www.janejohnsonbooks.com -- from which you can contact me and sign up for updates via occasional e-bulletin. In the meantime, thanks for visiting!

February 2006 - Lots and lots and lots of news...

Well, it's been a long time since I updated the site, but there are extenuating circumstances... It has been a rather extraordinary year, and the upshot of it is that I am now married to a wonderful Berber man I met in Morocco.

Bizarrely, it all started with a book, my next work of adult fiction, which although not strictly genre fantasy, shares a lot of curious coincidence with Katla Aransen's story. There has been a legend in the Cornish side (my mother's side) of the family that during the seventeenth century one of our clan was stolen by Barbary pirates and sold into the slave trade in North Africa. My sister and I, both raised in the Cornish school system, had never heard a whisper of such tales and put the legend down to Mother's propensity for embroidering the past; but in 2004 Giles Milton's WHITE GOLD was published in which the attack by Barbary pirates on a church in Mount's Bay, Cornwall in 1625 was mentioned, during which 60 men, women and children were taken captive and sailed to Morocco to be sold as slaves. What a gift for a novel-writer.

I decided to do some serious research. I tracked down the likely lost relative by Cornish parish records; and then travelled to Morocoo to see what I could find out there. The only person free to make the trip with me, in February 2005, was my climbing partner Bruce. I bribed him with the prospect of some rock-climbing in south-west Morocco if he could put up with me researching my way around the north coast. I had stumbled on a little climbing guide book published the year before by Cicerone Press to a remote spot called Tafraout: it had a spectacular photo on the front, and Bruce was soon as fired up by the idea of Morocco as I was.

We went to Rabat and Sale and I soon discovered that there were no written records relating to the Sale-captured slaves of the time; so my research became a search for people and places, for faces for characters, for locations for scenes. I became fascinated and entranced by the sheer foreignness of Morocco: it is beautiful and raw and teeming with life, stuffed with colour and history. It is a land of shocking contrasts -- wealth and poverty; modern and ancient; desert and oasis; mountains and urban cityscapes. We saw awesome, jaw-dropping and fabulous (in the proper sense) sights wherever we went.

But by the time we reached Tafraout, our luck seemed to have run out. In this rock-desert village rain is a rare phenomenon, according to the guidebook. Unfortunately we were in for three straight days of rain and Bruce was champing at the bit. To cut a very long story short... On our first day in Tafraout we met some other British climbers and went with them to a little restaurant they'd found, and there as I immediately said to Bruce, was my pirate chief -- in full Berber regalia, robe and turban -- with a striking profile, flashing eyes and a regal manner. I was very impressed: and the food was fantastic, too, the best we'd had anywhere in Morocco.

At last the weather cleared: Bruce and I set out for one of the toughest mountain routes in the valley, the iconic Lion's Face. But the rain had created seasonal waterfalls which we had to climb in order to get to the foot of the route: it took way longer than we had planned even to start the climb. At five we reached the crux and found it impossible to traverse -- a mudslide had come down out of the headwall. With the light failing, we realised we were going to be stuck on the mountain overnight. In February, with snow on the tops, and dressed only in lightweight gear, with no shelter in sights, this was no small disaster...

Well, obviously I survived. But it was a turning point in my life. On the mountain that night, shivering and suffering stage one exposure, I made several decisions, one of which was to pack in the day-job (publishing) or at least working daily in an office; another was to go back to the restaurant, Chez Sabir, and talk more with Abdel. And I wanted to write my book; and travel more.

Everyone in the village was happy and relieved to see us safe (though it took us 5 hours and 5 terrifying abseils into the void, into gullies and thorn-trees, to get off the mountain, sacrificing gear as we went). On the day we left, Abdel took me aside and gave me an antique Touareg ring, to 'make sure you come back'. On the plane on the way home, Bruce joked that I was now Abdel's third wife.

I did go back. And by the end of last year and 15 trips back and forth to Morocco, I was Abdel's first and only wife. I'd given up on romance in everything but fiction: it just goes to show that there are miracles in the world. I've put some photos up in the Gallery: do have a look and share a little of the miracle.

Oh, and that means I have yet another name. Gabriel King, Jude Fisher, Jane Johnson ... and now Madame Bakrim. When I'm in Morocco that is.

Book News

The Rose of the World is now out in paperback in the UK and US, bringing the fantasy trilogy to a close.

The Shadow World, the follow-up to The Secret Country, was published in the UK in hardback at the start of the year; it'll come out in the US in spring 2007.

I've just completed and delivered the third and final volume in the series, Dragon's Fire, written entirely in Morocco.

So now I'm working on the historical novel, the fictionalised account of Catherine's abduction by Barbary corsairs. No title yet: always the hardest part!

Two more children's projects underway, too, but much too early to talk about them. And I'd very much like to gather up the local Berber folk tales and write them down, too. So much of that traditional mountain culture is being lost: it'd be good to chronicle it with Abdel's help while I can.

August 2005 - Convention & Bookstore Signings, New Book News

I will be attending Cascadia Con this coming weekend, and doing bookshop visits in Seattle on Friday 2 Sept; various panels and signings at the convention on Saturday and Sunday; then onto New York on Monday 5th and 6th.

In October I'll be doing bookshop events in Reyjavik, Iceland, to celebrate the publication of The Secret Country there: more details to come.

The Shadow World, the book which follows The Secret Country (as Jane Johnson) has just been completed and delivered to my publishers (Simon & Schuster US and UK; and rights in the series have so far been sold in Italy, Germany, Iceland, Russia, Poland, Denmark and Greece. The third volume -- Dragon's Fire -- has just been sold to the UK and US publishers.

August 2005 - New Interview Online

There's a new Jane Johnson / Jude Fisher interview online at SFSite.com.

January 2005 - Projects & Publications Update

The Rose of the World is just out in the US, some months ahead of the UK edition (which is due in the summer). It's quite strange to know that the end of the huge saga is now in the hands of readers across the Atlantic: it's been in my head for so long that I'm very much looking forward to seeing how others respond to it!

In the UK next month my children's book, The Secret Country -- the first book ever to carry my real name -- is published by Simon & Schuster. It is (apparently, though I never had any specific audience in mind when I wrote it) being published for readers from 8-12 years of age, but so far all my readers have been adults, and they seem to have enjoyed the experience of entering the story as much as my experience of creating it, so I suspect these labels are fairly arbitrary marketing tools. For my part, I have read and loved the works of Philip Pullman and C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling and Alan Garner alongside all the so-called adult novels I've read, without ever making a distinction. The Secret Country is a fair bit shorter than Rose of the World, though!

I'm now about two-thirds of the way through the sequel, The Shadow World; but I've also started work on my next big project, a novel which will draw on some curious family history and the Sallee Rovers, the Moroccan corsairs who raided along the Cornish coast (among other areas of Europe) in the 17th century. Not exactly epic fantasy, but certainly an epic tale full of exoticism and adventure. No title for that one yet, but I'll keep you posted...

September 2004 - Projects & Publications Update

Sorry for the long gap: I'm afraid this summer has been dedicated to climbing, and as such the writing has been rather sidelined by my obsession for sun and granite. Actually, not that much sun, since the Cornish summer has been rather disappointing!

On the books front, I should report that the COMPLETE VISUAL COMPANION TO THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy comes out from HarperCollin shortly as a handsome trade paperback with flaps, including a lot of new images which we weren't cleared to use before now, and finally completing the story, since we were not allowed to speak of anything which might have happened after Frodo and Sam set foot on Mount Doom!

And in Spring 2005 I finally emerge from the closet as Jane Johnson (rather than sheltering beneath the pseudonyms!) with the publication of my first children's book, THE SECRET COUNTRY, from Simon & Schuster UK and US. Telling the story of Ben, who enters the very strange Pet Emporium with the intention of acquiring a pair of rare Mongolian Fighting Fish and comes out instead with a talking cat which comes from another world, the one in which all the magic things that used to exist in our world now live, it's primarily aimed at the 9-12 year-old market; but it's just the sort of thing I like reading as much now as I did then. More on this anon.

ROSE OF THE WORLD, the culmination of the Fool's Gold series, will be released by DAW in the US in February 2005, a few months ahead of the UK edition.

What next? Well, I've a couple of things up my sleeve which I'm thinking about between routes; I'll let you know as soon as they take on their full form.

May 2004 - Forthcoming Appearance in the Netherlands

I'm joint Guest of Honour with Clive Barker at the Elf Fantasy Fair in the Netherlands in June (18th to 20th). We'll be talking about writing and editing fantasy, about LORD OF THE RINGS, ABARAT and the FOOL'S GOLD series, as well as reading excerpts from our work, signing books etc. Here's the link for more information: www.elffantasy.nl.

March 2004 - Rose of the World first draft finished

I'm very happy to report that I've just finished the draft of volume three of the Fool's Gold trilogy, Rose of the World, and that it's turned into rather a vast monster; over 820 pages in manuscript. I really should have killed off more of my characters earlier in the saga! I'll be polishing the text for the next couple of weeks, then turning it in to my publishers; but in the meantime I'm posting up a chapter from the book to give you a taste of what's to come, and hope you enjoy it.

What else is there to report? I have, I must admit, been very remiss about updating the site; largely because I have been so focused on finishing the series: it has proved to be quite an undertaking alongside the editing and the whole Lord of the Rings experience. I did, of course, attend the world premiere of Return of the King in Wellington, and meant to report my experiences; but time has moved on and here we are three months later with a blockbusting, 11-Oscar-winning movie (and a hands-down win on the BBC's Big Read, in addition!). Amazing. But entirely well deserved and a tribute to the entire team. Such a shame that awards are not given for such a wonderful ensemble cast: everyone else finally received their just desserts, so it seems a pity not to be able to applaud the extraordinary, beyond-the-call-of-duty commitment of the actors who brought our favourite characters to life.

October 2003 - Event Alert!

As reported on the fabulous www.theonering.net:

Brian Sibley and Jude Fisher, authors of official guides to the Lord of the Rings films, are to share their experiences of the blockbuster trilogy at the Science Museum in London.

The two authors will talk to film fans in the museum lecture theatre at 2pm on Saturday 8 November. A book signing will follow the event at 3pm in the Science Museum's Ottakar's bookshop.

The talk is just one of a series of events at the museum to accompany The Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy - The Exhibition.

Hundreds of props from the movies including models, armoury and costumes are on display alongside interactive computer demonstrations of the cutting-edge technology used to bring the story to life.

The family exhibition has opened before the final instalment of the film trilogy and the Science Museum is its only European host. Visitors also have a chance to see the first two films of the trilogy at the Science Museum's cinema.

Jude and Brian will share their experiences on the set of the three movies and of working with the cast and crew to create their books which include The Lord of the Rings: The Making of the Movie Trilogy (Sibley) and The Official Illustrated Movie Companion (Fisher).

The event is free, but tickets must be pre-booked on 020 7942 4739. (Maximum 2 per person.)

August 2003 - Summer Update

It's been a busy and rather curious summer, one way or another. Sorcery Rising saw publication in paperback on both sides of the Atlantic, and now Wild Magic is out there too and so the publicity bandwagon has been rolling along with events in London and Norwich, pieces in the Guardian (a column in the Travel magazine entitled 'I lost my heart in' -- well, it had to be South Island, New Zealand: where else?), an invitation from the Guardian to select my favourite 10 tales of adventure (that was before I saw the wonderful Pirates of the Caribbean -- those of you who've read WILD MAGIC will understand why I was chuckling away at various points in the movie); interviews on radio around the UK, including Radio London and Radio 2.

And now the DVD of The Two Towers is about to be released -- pre-orders already breaking all records -- and The Lord of the Rings publicity machine starts to kick in. I'm recording material for a Tolkien documentary next week, having already contributed almost 4 hours of interview footage for the extended cut of the DVD for November, which will I'm sure condense down to about three and a half minutes of cogent speech!

On the HarperCollins side of things, it's also been a bit of a rollercoaster, with Dean Koontz, David Eddings and Terry Goodkind all making the bestseller list; and I've gone part-time at the office after a fairly bizarre turn of events.

About 4 years ago -- during the days when I wore my Gabriel King hat and had only just tried the Jude Fisher one on for size -- I started writing a children's book called The Secret Country. I got about halfway, then got hooked on Sorcery Rising and made myself put the children's book away in a drawer. I kept thinking about it, but working full time and writing the fantasy and the Visual Companions at weekends meant I was already somewhat overstretched; so in the drawer it stayed. Until a couple of months ago when my British agent berated me for not giving him anything new to sell.

So the partial text emerged into the daylight again and was sent out to a variety of children's publishers and suddenly we had an auction. Publishing, and being published, has always been about 30% hard graft and 70% serendipity, and this was no exception. Before I knew what was happening the project was sold internationally and now I have two books to deliver next spring! Something had to give. So now I work 4 days a week and write for 3. And feel almost sane as a result.

Then, just as life seemed to be making sense, my editor for the adult fantasy novels -- Darren Nash -- got made redundant at Simon & Schuster. I know how corporate publishing works: I've spent nearly 20 years involved in it and I know what happens in times of economic hardship, and what an easy target fantasy/sf makes. So in some ways it came as little surprise. But there's Darren with a new baby in a job which he was persuaded to take when they fired my original editor, John Jarrold, last year: no matter how necessary cutbacks may look on paper in an accountant's office, the reality is cruel and crazy. I shall miss Darren, as I have missed John, immensely, for their commitment, enthusiasm and expertise: there's not many of us left fighting on the front line now.

April 2003 - Wild Magic details now on-site.

The books section of the site has been updated with publication details of Wild Magic the forthcoming sequel to Fool's Gold.

The book is due for publication in the UK by Earthlight in August 2003, and slightly earlier in the US, by DAW in July 2003. The cover blurb and artwork for both versions is up on the books page now.

February 2003 - Book Soup signing report.

Announced at short notice, with no publicity other than the odd mention on a few select websites, and scheduled for a Thursday afternoon when most people would surely be at work, I wasn't really expecting the signing at Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard to generate massive interest, even though it meant a rare appearance from Viggo Mortensen.

But on arrival at the store, any thoughts of being away by teatime were quickly dispelled: not only were there already hundreds of people tailing back around the block, but the person at the head of the queue was Renee Zellweger (three days before she was to take a Best Actress Golden Globe for Chicago)...

Viggo seemed taken aback by the turnout, for I don't think he has yet apprehended or accepted the A-list status which the heroic role of Aragorn in THE LORD OF THE RINGS movie trilogy has earned him; but little did he know that the initial 200 would double, then treble by the end of the day!

Viggo turned up in a striking home-designed T-shirt. 'WAR is NOT the answer!' it declared on the chest; and on the back: 'Support our Troops: bring them HOME': sentiments which were strongly echoed by the crowd; and echoed, too, the fine introduction to the VISUAL COMPANION to THE TWO TOWERS which Viggo had contributed. News cameras turned up, and were treated to shots of the message, too, and the event took on greater significance than a mere book-signing.

We started at 3pm; by 5pm we were being drip-fed red wine; 6pm we were trying to snack on fruit and cheese and crackers to keep our strength up; and still the queue grew. "Can you speed up?" hissed Allison, the manager. We looked at each other in consternation: we were going as fast as we could, but Viggo had three times as much as me to sign, with photos and movie memorabilia as well as the VISUAL COMPANION and his own art and poetry books, SIGN LANGUAGE, THE COINCIDENCE OF MEMORY and HOLE IN THE SUN.

We tried to speed up. By 7pm, the queue had only got longer. Clive Barker tried to get in to say hi to us both, and was turned away by the security staff: it was mayhem. At 8, I had to leave -- never expecting a signing to run longer than 5 hours, I had already booked my evening. I felt like a complete heel: after all the event was to promote my book, and Viggo had agreed to come largely out of solidarity and friendship, rather than any wish for the limelight. Trooper that he is, though, V was there till 11.30pm...

It was a thoroughly memorable occasion: not just for the sheer numbers of folk who had such patience to queue for hour upon hour, or the phenomenal quantity of books signed; but to experience the solid antipathy to war in Iraq from such a huge cross-section of people.

January 2003 - Quick News-Flash. Signing Alert.

My Two Towers Visual Companion just hit the New York Times bestseller list at #6 (fantastic!)

And I will be signing copies of The Two Towers Visual Companion - along with the one and only Viggo Mortensen - at Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard, L.A. on Thursday January 16 at 3pm. See you there!

December 2002 - Overseas Markets news. Exclusive Two Towers Visual Companion images.

• Overseas Markts: SORCERY RISING has now been sold in 7 countries. Apart from the UK and US markets, agent Danny Baror has placed translation rights in Germany, Holland, Italy, Japan and Russia.

• Images from the Two Towers Visual COmpanion have been added to the Lord of the Rings Gallery page of the site. You'll have to scroll down to the end to see them...

November 2002 -Tour News. New Links.

• Tour news: Catch up with Jude Fisher at the followings times and locations:

• 6th November all day - Waterstone's Piccadilly
• 9th November 2pm - Borders, Lakeside, Thurrock
• 12th November 6pm - Borders, Cambridge
• 14th November 6pm - Ottakar's, Greenwich
• 20th November 6pm - Ottakar's, Milton Keynes

Dates to be confirmed (before Christmas) for:

• Border's, Oxford Street
• Ottakar's, Putney
• Forbidden Planet Bookshop, New Oxford Street
• Edinburgh, Glasgow and Ayr

• New Links have been added to the Links page of the site...

October 2002 - New Book on the way. New Review & Top 100 Listing.

• WILD MAGIC (all 187,000 words of it) is delivered in manuscript to DAW and to my new editor, Darren Nash, at Simon & Schuster. Ta da!

• STARLOG reviews Sorcery Rising thus:

"My, but SORCERY RISING has a plethora of characters. There's Katla, the rock-climbing swordmaker; Saro, the unwanted younger son; the lusty, vengeful Tycho; and dozens of others. The amazing thing is that author Fisher manages to make each of them integral to the plot. Fisher ultimately pulls it all together to form a compelling and intriguing whole that will have readers eagerly awaiting the next volume."

• And Amazon.co.uk have picked Sorcery Rising as one of their 'Best SF & Fantasy titles of 2002'.

August 2002 - Visual Companion tops Booktrack Bestsellers List

• Very exciting news - the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Visual Companion is currently the top selling hardback non-fiction title in the UK -- WH Smith are selling it alongside the newly released DVD!

July 2002 - Times Review / Two Towers Visual Companion cover art / SFSite.com Review

• The following review appeared in the Times (UK) w/c July 8th:

"If gallivanting around the galaxy is not your thing, you can always go for a sea voyage on a pagan long boat in Jude Fisher's SORCERY RISING, the first of a series, FOOL'S GOLD.

I'm usually highly suspicious of publishers turned author, but Fisher (aka Jane Johnson, from HarperCollins' Voyager imprint) is a brilliant exception. Making good use of her background as publisher of the works of Tolkien and her literary degrees in Anglo-Saxon and Old Icelandic, she has created a simply but effective fantasy world, Elda, that is plainly inspired by our own Dark Age past of northern barbarians (in this case, the Eyrans) and southern sophisticates (the Empire of Istria).

This tale of magic, mystery, intrigue and feud works well, and the characters are so convincing (including a strong and appealing female lead) that I can't wait to read the next instalment."

Tim Cadman: The Times

• And here's the rather splendid UK cover art for the forthcoming (Nov '02) Two Towers Visual Companion (click on the cover if you'd like to see a larger version in a pop-up window):

• And finally, author Victoria Strauss reviewed Sorcery Rising on SFSite.com, saying:

"...it's all terrifically entertaining, with rollicking action, an exotic world vividly grounded in earthy detail, and characters who step right off the page -- especially Katla, who manages to remain sympathetic despite her pigheadedness; Saro, whose growing disillusionment with his people's restrictive faith is convincingly drawn; and Virelai, whose conscienceless opportunism is as understandable as it is reprehensible."

Please feel free to read the full review here.

June 2002 - News Round-up

• Simon & Schuster UK have gone back to press with the trade paperback edition of SORCERY RISING; whilst US publishers, DAW Books, have also increased their initial print run.

• Fantastic endorsement for SORCERY RISING received from Robin Hobb: "Relentlessly sweeping from the very first page", she says, and concludes her letter to John Jarrold, the publisher, with: "Really, what you should be putting on the books is 'Don't read Jude Fisher's book: you might like it better than mine!' :)"

• Jude is currently working on two projects; she's just started on THE VISUAL COMPANION to THE RETURN OF THE KING and is completing work on the follow-up to SORCERY RISING: WILD MAGIC.