Broos Campbell

Looking for someone?

2010-01-06T19:54:00.000-08:00

I absquatulated a while back to http://www.brooscampbell.com. I've got a blog there called Beyond the Graves, which I post to from time to time. Come on over and say hello.

Fans of nautical fiction in general and hot pirate sex in particular might also want to go to Lisa Jensen's blog, where she's posted the first chapter of the sequel to The Witch from the Sea. She offers us a juggling act, a cutpurse, a knife fight and some sweet interplay between Tory and her lover in the space of a few hundred words. Nice!

Interview from McBooks Press blog

2007-10-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

Chris [Christopher Wofford, marketing director at McBooks Press in Ithaca, N.Y.] sat down with The War of Knives author Broos Campbell [hey, that's me!] this morning to check in and see how Peter Wicked is coming along, chat about Toussaint, the movie, and play a little fantasy cinema with characters in the Matty Graves novels.

Christopher: So, what have you been up to, working on the third novel in the Matty Graves series?

Broos: I just turned in an extensive rewrite of Peter Wicked, book three in the series, and the glossary. I still have to finish the maps and the historical note. That last will be difficult in that I pretty much made everything up, except for the layout of the White House. And even then I needed a column for Matty to hide behind at one point. I don't think there were any columns on the main floor of the President's House at the time. Other than that—pure lies.

C: How has writing this one compared with the others? Is this indeed a trilogy, or is this more of an open-ended serial venture?

B: I hated The War of Knives until fairly far into the revisions. Jackie Swift, who is a fantastic editor, cajoled and pushed me along until it started running on its own accord. Now I like it a lot. I'm having a similar experience with Peter Wicked. It's only now, in what I hope is the last rewrite, that I've gotten to admire it. If I can read it for the hundredth time and still like it, I figure it's pretty good.

I hope Peter Wicked won't be the last of the series. I have plans for another triplet, set in the Mediterranean during the Barbary Wars. I wrote a rough draft of the first one a while back.

C: Regarding the movie production of Toussaint, what do you think of the casting of Don Cheadle in the role of Toussaint Louverture? Any opinions? I'd say that's great casting. I mean, who better? Although, that Chiwetel Ejiofor's pretty sharp too.

B: They're both in Talk to Me, which I haven't seen yet but want to. Don Cheadle is an excellent choice to play Toussaint. I'm not sure who Ejiofor is cast as, but I hope it's as Christophe. He was a complex man.

Mos Def and Jonathan Rhys Meyers seem to have joined the cast, too. Mos Def would be great as the monster Dessalines, and Rhys Meyers as Sonthonax, the subtly wicked French minister to the colony. I don't know which roles they actually have, though.

Naturally I'm glad that anyone's doing a biopic on Toussaint, as it'd be a boost to me, but mostly I'm hopeful about the movie for Toussaint's sake. His is a great story, filled with glory and tragedy. I hope also that it reawakens interest in Haiti. Those poor people have had a shockingly terrible time for two centuries now. We owe them much better than we've given them.

C: Who'd play Matty Graves in the movie version of The War of Knives?

B: Dunno. Whoever the American version is of Ioan Gruffudd, who did a fine job as Horatio Hornblower. If you darkened his skin a bit and taught him to talk like Davy Crockett, he'd be a hoot. He's getting on a bit, though. He must be 30 by now.

I know who I'd want to play Cahoon, the Irish sergeant in The War of Knives—Rick Crawford, the Belfast actor who helped me with Cahoon's dialect.

—Peter Wicked will be published by McBooks Press in September 2008.

New galley

2007-10-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

OK, so I'm over at my new digs in the Val, and the kitchen is way dinky. I was consoling myself by pretending my apartment is in Manhattan, which would make it huge.

It didn't work.

So I took a new tack. Now I tell myself I'm practicing for when I live on my boat. Boom, instant mansion.

I just picked up a copy of Seaman Garnery: Voyages, Aventures et Combats, which is part of the memoirs of Louis Garnery, who was a French sailor and prisoner of the British during the Napoleonic Wars. I haven't gotten far enough to tell yet, but from what I hear he made a bunch of it up. I'm cool with that.

I've moved

2007-06-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

I'm never around here. I'm over at my other website. I'm not sure that it's easier to maintain, but it gets more traffic. Come say arrrrr matey at www.brooscampbell.com.

—Broos

Feature article in QUARTERDECK

2007-04-06T14:26:00.001-07:00

George Jepson at Quarterdeck, a newsletter of interest to fans of fiction set during the age of sail, put me on the cover of the April issue.

THE WAR OF KNIVES begins shipping

2007-03-16T15:44:00.000-07:00

I just got a case of the hardcover edition of The War of Knives. The wife says, "I love, love, LOVE the cover." It features a maniacal-looking Matty with a bloody sword in his hand, and where there isn't an illustration, the dust jacket is lime green.

Lime green is one of the hot colors this season. The others are brown and a sort of muddy turquoise. The paperback edition of No Quarter, which McBooks is releasing at the same time, has the muddy turquoise.

The wife does television merchandizing and designs kids' clothes and bedding. She says pink is also in this season. I hope no one uses pink on one of my books.

Unless girls like it. Whatever the girl wants the girl gets, says I.

A nice review in Publishers Weekly

2007-02-20T13:07:00.000-08:00

Publishers Weekly likes The War of Knives: A Matty Graves Novel. In a review in the February 19 issue, some kind soul calls it an "entertaining sequel to No Quarter," and goes on to call it "an elaborate swashbuckling tale that will appeal especially to fans of high historical adventure." Hoo roar for me, yay.

Book 2 on its way

2006-08-27T06:20:00.000-07:00

I've been working on the line edits for Book 2 in the series, The War of Knives (ISBN: 978-1-59013-104-6), which is due out in April 2007. The paperback for No Quarter should be released at the same time. In WK, Matty gets himself caught up in the civil war in Haiti between Toussaint L'Ouverture and Andre Rigaud. He learns to speak Kreyol, too, which gave my head a workout.

Read No Quarter for free

2006-06-20T21:16:00.000-07:00

L.A. Public Library has put No Quarter on its June buy-list. The more people who request it (ask your local librarian), the more likely LAPL is to order more copies of it. You can read it for free and give my sales a nudge at the same time. Arrrr.

Review copy of No Quarter for sale

2006-06-15T16:23:00.000-07:00

There's a review copy of No Quarter for sale on Amazon. I'd think it's cheesy, but I know how little reviewers get paid. Anybody want their palm greased?

No Quarter beats Pope, Kent, and Lambdin

2006-06-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

Get on board, mateys! No Quarter is hovering around No. 87 on Amazon's sea adventure sales list, topping books by longtime favorites Dudley Pope, Alexander Kent, and Dewey Lambdin.

And don't forget the signing at Glendale Borders on Saturday, June 17, at 3 p.m. Hope to see you there.

Book signing at Glendale Borders

2006-05-31T09:58:00.000-07:00

Ahoy, me minions,

I'm scheduled to appear at the Borders book store in Glendale, Calif., at 3 p.m., Saturday, June 17, to oughty graf copies of No Quarter. It's me sister's birthday, I think, so help me pack some bodies into the place. Arrr.

Here be a link to a treasure map to help ye navvy gate: http://www.bordersstores.com/events/event_detail.jsp?SEID=88668

Arrrrr.

Kicking Crichton's pants

2006-05-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

No Quarter came in at No. 28,755 on Amazon yesterday (May 18, 2006), beating out perennial bestseller Michael Crichton and his Great Train Robbery at No. 28,767. On the other hand, No Quarter was hogtied and slapped around like a redheaded stepchild by The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage at No. 28,753. And, erm, we kinda liked it.

2006-05-10T12:20:00.000-07:00

No Quarter: A Matty Graves Novel

It's 1799 and seventeen-year-old Matty Graves is a midshipman aboard the USS Rattle-Snake. Matty already knows how to fight sea battles and sail the great warships of the U.S. Navy, but serving aboard the Rattle-Snake calls for more than that. Matty's captain is his own cousin Billy. But Billy is a drunk and maybe a coward. Then there's the Rattle-Snake's sarcastic first lieutenant, Peter Wickett. He's more than willing to run the ship--but has he also set his sights on mutiny?

"Campbell brings to his writing a feel for his period and an understanding of naval seamanship and traditions that are not often seen in maritime fiction. His characters are sharp, genuine and fascinating, his plotting fast-paced and authentic."

--James L. Nelson, author of The Only Life That Mattered

Click here for the Quarterdeck newsletter and an article about Broos.

You can reach the author at broos.campbell@yahoo.com