This page is now in a sort of log format. It's written by Nathan Archer, author of some books. Installments so far:
Just saw the raw artwork for Star Trek: Voyager -- False Colors. It's been moved up to November 1999. It looks great! I hope it'll look even better in color, with the words lettered in.
That was the good news. The bad news is that due to contract disputes between Marvel and the packager, Spider-Man: Goblin Moon is no longer being distributed. Whether this condition is permanent or temporary I don't know. It sucks, either way. Remind me not to work for sleazy packagers in the future.
I'm working on a couple of novels, and one's on an editor's desk awaiting a decision, but I don't have any details on any of that stuff yet.
Spider-Man: Goblin Moon is out! Check out your local bookstore. And here's a shot of the cover proof.
Also, I'm trying my hand at comic books -- look for Star Trek: Voyager: False Colors, a 44-page prestige-format one-shot from DC/Wildstorm, currently scheduled for March 2000!
And I'm working on some novels, too, but there's no sale to report yet on those...
Spider-Man: Goblin Moon is written and turned in and we're awaiting final approval from Marvel. And I've now seen editions of Mars Attacks: Martian Deathtrap in Spanish and Hebrew, which is a kick.
Just a quick note -- Kurt Busiek and I have finished the outline for Spider-Man: Goblin Moon and are awaiting Marvel's final approval. The editor at Byron Preiss has okayed it.
Oops. Been awhile since I added anything.
I've signed a contract with Byron Preiss Multimedia to co-author a Spider-Man novel with Kurt Busiek; we've got a pretty good idea what we're going to do, but won't actually start work until February, when Kurt's got more time. Working title is Spider-Man: Goblin Moon, and yes, that means the villain will be the Green Goblin. It's a hardcover. It's gonna be fun!
In other news, Mars Attacks: Martian Deathtrap has earned out its advance and started paying royalties. My thanks to everyone who bought a copy. (For a look at the cover, click here.)
And there are other projects in the works, but nothing definite.
Predator: Cold War is in the stores!
For those who missed it before, here's the cover proof. I haven't gotten my author's copies yet -- or the on-publication payment -- but I've seen the book in the stores, often accompanied by Predator: Concrete Jungle, which I assume got re-ordered. This is a Good Thing from my point of view, as I could sure use some royalty money.
I haven't sold anything more lately; I've been working on a bunch of stuff that hasn't gone anywhere, had a couple of deals for more licensed work that fell through. Rats.
Hey, here I am again. Mars Attacks: Martian Deathtrap is out in paperback and seems to be doing well -- if you didn't want to shell out for the hardcover, you can now read my deathless prose for a few dollars less. And the movie's coming next month!
(No, Martian Deathtrap is not the same story as the movie, not even close, but what the heck.)
And I've just gotten the proofs for Predator: Cold War, which is scheduled for May 1997. I'm going to see if I can get the cover proof scanned and uploaded for you to look at. I don't think it's quite as wonderful as the cover for Predator: Concrete Jungle, but it's not bad at all.
Hmmm... still don't have the URL handy for those Mars Attacks! pages, but they're out there. You can find them with a search engine, I'm sure, but I really should get those links.
I've been busy lately, though it may not look like it, since I don't have anything definite and new to announce. I've been working on an unsold, unfinished novel called One Hundred Suns, and trying to find a publisher for my collaborative novel The Spartacus File (written with Carl Parlagreco), and talking to the Star Trek folks about maybe doing another book for them, but so far none of that is definite.
Once again it's been awhile since I added anything.
This time it's mostly been because Mars Attacks has, well... maybe ''taken off'' isn't the right phrase, but it's certainly been getting some attention. More than my previous three books put together. I've been doing phone interviews and stuff, and I signed several copies -- both the finished book and bound galleys -- and wow, this is a kick!
I have no idea how well it's actually selling. And of course, it's the one that I wrote just for fun, rather than to make serious money or anything.
I should probably put up some links to the Mars Attacks pages out there -- at least one of them links back here, and I feel guilty about not returning the favor. Unfortunately, I don't have the URL handy. I'll try to add it soon.
I suppose I could post some other things, like the various little pieces I've written about how I got interested in Mars Attacks in the first place... maybe I'll add some of that, too. Eventually.
And hey, I just discovered something. If anyone's tried to e-mail me from here, it hasn't worked. I'd sort of wondered why I hadn't gotten any e-mail about this page, and now I know -- I typoed my e-mail address in the link.
Aaargh!
So here's a link that ought to work better: To e-mail me, click here. Don't expect a real quick reply, though; I only check it maybe three times a month.
Wow, it's been awhile, hasn't it? Time got away from me, and I almost forgot this page was here.
I got some advice on HTML -- mostly, ''Get an editor, stupid'' -- so I have a slightly better idea what I'm doing now. But not much.
Anyway, one reason time got away from me is that just about the time I put this page up in the first place I got a call from an editor offering me work -- if I could do it really fast.
I'm not at a point in my career where I turn down work, even if it means I had to work really fast, and besides, I thought the job sounded really cool, so I took it, and wrote Mars Attacks: Martian Deathtrap. Which is based on the old trading cards 'n' stuff and was a lot of fun -- I killed off a lot of characters in this one, and that's even in comparison to the Predator stuff.
Someday I'd like to see a book out there with my name on it that doesn't have a colon in the title, but what the heck, this one was worth doing.
It was a rush job, as I said, and it'll be out in May. In hardcover, yet. If you want to see the cover, click here. Be prepared to wait awhile while it loads, though; it's kind of a big file.
Oh, yeah -- I also finished Predator: Cold War, as indicated on the bibliography at the bottom of the page. Last time I explained how three books written over two years wound up all being published in four months; well, this time two books I finished less than a month apart are going to be published a year apart.
Okay, here I am, with my very own Web page, which I asked for because it seemed like a very cool concept, but now that I've got it I don't know what to do with it, really. I don't have any nifty graphics or anything.
I sort of assume that if you're here you know I wrote some books (there's a list below so I guess I'll just resort to telling you the story of...
I always liked making up stories, like any kid, but I didn't take it very seriously. In college back in '77 there was this guy who had written a bunch of stuff -- he'd sold some feature articles to some diddly-squat small-town newspaper and a gag short story to some obscure magazine for a few dollars, and had written a couple of dozen unsold stories and even an unsold novel. I looked at all that work and what he'd gotten out of it and decided on a nice safe government job. I wrote a bunch of stuff just for fun, but didn't try to sell anything.
Except that a few years later that guy, Lawrence Watt-Evans, was actually making a living writing and it looked like fun, and early in 1993 I didn't have a nice safe job any more, so I asked Lawrence how one got work as a writer.
I happened to ask that the same day John Ordover, one of the Star Trek editors, had asked Lawrence if he wanted to write a Deep Space Nine novel, because the show had just started and they needed to build up some inventory of novels. Lawrence wasn't interested, but I was.
So in the spring and summer of 1993 I wrote Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #10: Valhalla. And with that credit I was able to land a job novelizing comic books based on the "Predator" movies, so in the fall and winter of 1993 I wrote Predator: Concrete Jungle based on Mark Verheiden's Predator Volume 1.
I spent most of 1994 collaborating on stuff that hasn't sold yet -- Carl Parlagreco and I wrote a science fiction novel called The Spartacus File, and Kurt Busiek and I edited an anthology called The Ultimate Superhero. Late in the year, though, John Ordover had another new Star Trek series to write about, Star Trek: Voyager, so from November 1994 to March 1995 I wrote Star Trek: Voyager #3: Ragnarok.
And since finishing that I've been working on novelizing the sequel to Predator Volume 1. As of right now, September 1995, I've got Predator: Cold War mostly written.
After that, who knows?
Incidentally, Valhalla got delayed, Ragnarok was rushed through the system, and as a result my first three novels were published in a four-month period. Wasn't my idea, and I didn't write them that fast.
So that's the story of my Fabulous Career. If you've got questions, comments, suggestions as to what I should put on this Web page, you can click here to send me email. In particular, should I try to gussy this place up with graphics and stuff?
***************************************Nathan Archer*******
