It's called disclosure, ya d--- h---

That line, from Miss Mona Lisa Vito, seems appropriate to a post written in New Jersey. The disclosure arises in my stating, for the record, that I've become a friendly acquaintance with Chris Evans.

Who is that? Evans is the Military History Editor at Stackpole Books, and is also the author of The Iron Elves, a fantasy series. I began reading his novels after seeing them compared with Glen Cook's Black Company. Meanwhile, I've watched as Stackpole released affordable paperback editions of books first published in hardcover by J.J. Fedorowicz, Helion, and other companies. I've had one of my books published each with JJF and Helion, so I keep tabs on what happens with those companies' titles.

I read the first Iron Elves volume, A Darkness Forged in Fire, last summer while attending the Denver Publishing Institute. Soon after, I started planning my late-October reconnaissance-in-force to New York, and contacted Evans via email. We arranged a meeting, and had a pleasant lunch together, discussing many book topics.

We met up again this weekend, at Luna Con, a science fiction and fantasy convention held in Rye Brook, New York. Evans was a guest of the con, and held a reading and book signing. In and about those, we had further discussions, and I was introduced to an author whom Evans had met earlier in the day.

It was Peter Brett, author of The Warded Man (also known as The Painted Man, in some editions). Brett proved to be a great guy, as we got to know each other a bit, and he read a section from his short story collection The Great Bazaar and other Stories. I was intrigued enough to seek out the paperback of The Warded Man, but as the preceding link shows, that will not be released for a few more days.

I'm currently reading the second Iron Elves novel, The Light of Burning Shadows, and I'll discuss this series in a future post. I'll also soon be posting reviews of a couple of Stackpole books provided to me as review copies. When these posts are available, feel free to take them with as many grains of salt as necessary. I feel better mentioning the above from the outset, rather than hide it all, and have it somehow revealed later to my adoring public. However, if any of you out there are truly not aware that most reviews on the web are solicited, well, there's this bridge in my new part of the world that just might be for sale. You read it here first ;-)