Guest Blog by Trent Jamieson & Giveaway - January 28, 2011

Please welcome author Trent Jamieson to The Qwillery.

Death takes the Stage and Why that's a Good Thing.

The character of death has always lurked at the edge of fiction, occasionally taking centre stage. And, right now, there are a heap of novels being published featuring Death (or people working for Death, Psychopomps, Reapers, whatever you want to call them). Death is the new black.

And, having devoted the last few years to writing about Pomps, I can understand the appeal. In fact, I think it's a very good thing.

With Death you get a chance to really explore life, after all what places life in starker relief than death? Death’s inescapable we’re all heading there. And yet it's so easy to ignore the important stuff: a life well lived; a love well loved; being open to the opportunities to not just help yourself, but others, too.

These seem to me to be absolute imperatives. But just as there many approaches to the subject of death, there are at least as many approaches to living a good life.

When I started my Death Works books with Death Most Definite, that was one of things that I wanted to look at. Surely, if you work for Death you’d have everything else sorted?

Then, of course, I realised that sometimes this just wouldn’t hold true. All of us can forget the meaningful things, as though this life is never going to end. And, maybe if you work so closely to death (people dying, crossing over) you're even more susceptible to forgetting that you're going to die, too. After all, death is what happens to other people. Not you.

Which is exactly the thinking of my protagonist, Steven de Selby. He has pretty much everything, but he’s really taken it for granted. By yanking it away from him, I could explore just what happens to a character when they realise what they thought was important, isn’t really that important, after all.

The results are messy for poor Steve. But mess makes great story! Steve is fundamentally a good person who has lost his way. If the Death Works books are about anything they’re about him facing up to that, scrambling in the dark perhaps, but moving towards being a better person.

In book two, Managing Death, Steven has to deal with the fallout from the first book. He has to get his house, and his business in order, and he may not be up to the task. He's moved higher up the chain of command, and is greater risk of losing sight of everything that's important to him.

He can be a bit of an idiot. He makes a lot of mistakes. But his heart is in the right place, even if his head isn’t. Oh, and there’s something out to destroy the world, something so big that people are starting to ignore it, in the hope that it will go away.

If I’ve done my job properly these books should be funny, dark, a little scary, and possessed of a heart that beats with love and terror.

When Death is your job title you never know what tragedies the working day will bring. But the stakes are always high, and you forget that at your peril. Let’s hope Steve has a good memory.

 
Death Works Series 

Death Most Definite

Book 1
Steven de Selby has a hangover. Bright lights, loud noise, and lots of exercise are the last thing he wants. But that's exactly what he gets when someone starts shooting at him.

Steven is no stranger to death-Mr. D's his boss after all-but when a dead girl saves him from sharing her fate, he finds himself on the wrong end of the barrel. His job is to guide the restless dead to the underworld but now his clients are his own colleagues, friends, and family.

Mr. D's gone missing and with no one in charge, the dead start to rise, the living are hunted, and the whole city teeters on the brink of a regional apocalypse-unless Steven can shake his hangover, not fall for the dead girl, and find out what happened to his boss- that is, Death himself.

Managing Death

Book 2

It's not easy being Death. For starters, people keep dying. And then, they keep getting up again.

Steven de Selby got promoted. This makes the increasing number of stirrers (and the disturbing rumors of a zombie god rising sometime soon) his problem. That time management seminar he keeps meaning to take would also remind him that he's got a Death Moot to plan, a Christmas party to organize, and an end-of-the-world thing to avert.

Steven must start managing Death, before Death starts managing him, or this time the Apocalypse will be more than Regional.

About Trent

Trent Jamieson lives in Brisbane, Australia. A multiple Aurealis Award winner for short fiction, he has taught short story writing at the Qld University of Technology, and Clarion South. Death Most Definite, Book One of the Death Works Series was published by Orbit Books in September 2010. Book Two, Managing Death was released in Jan 2011, and Book Three The Business of Death is due for publication in September 2011. He has just sold a two book series of Steampunkish novels to Angry Robot Books, the first of which, Roil, is due for publication in September 2011.

September's going to be a busy month!

His webpage is at http://www.trentjamieson.com/

He also produces a series of ridiculous writing blogs called Trent's Book Corner.

Watch them at your peril here http://www.youtube.com/user/Trentonomicon


The Giveaway

What:  One commenter will win Mass Market Paperbacks of the first 2 Death Works books: Death Most Definite and Managing Death.

How:  Leave a comment telling The Qwillery what sort of supernatural or paranormal job you would like to have? Please remember - if you don't answer the question your entry will not be counted.

You may receive additional entries by:

1) Being a Follower of The Qwillery.

2) Mentioning the giveaway on Facebook and/or Twitter. Even if you mention the giveaway on both, you will get only one additional entry. You get only one additional entry even if you mention the giveaway on Facebook and/or Twitter multiple times.

3) Mentioning the giveaway on your on blog or website. It must be your own blog or website; not a website that belongs to someone else or a site where giveaways, contests, etc. are posted.

There are a total of 4 entries you may receive: Comment (1 entry), Follower (+1 entry), Facebook and/or Twitter (+ 1 entry), and personal blog/website mention (+1 entry). This is subject to change again in the future for future giveaways.

Please leave links for Facebook, Twitter, or blog/website mentions. In addition please leave a way to contact you in case you are a winner. If The Qwillery can't contact you, you can't win!

Who & When: The contest is open to all humans on the planet earth with a mailing address. Contest ends at 11:59pm US Eastern Time on Friday, February 4, 2011. Void where prohibited by law.



*Giveaway rules are subject to change.*