It’s September 1. Do you know where your sample chapters are?

Why, right here — that is, if you’re looking for chapter 1 of The Broken Kingdoms. There is now a page devoted to book 2 live in the overhead navbar, too.

As I mentioned awhile back, I’ll be posting the first three chapters of book 2 over the course of the next three months, leading up to Launch Day (November 3rd!). Chapter 2 will be posted on October 1, and chapter 3 on November 1. Many of you have already read an early excerpt from chapter 1, of course — it appeared in the back of the US edition of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, as a little lagniappe from the folks at Orbit. You’ll notice here that the full version of chapter 1 is quite a bit longer. You’ll also notice, if you hadn’t already figured it out from the teaser in 100K, that this book is very different — a different story altogether, in a different setting, with a different protagonist. This makes it a gamble, as marketing strategies go; I blogged about this a little over at Whatever.

But all marketing-related anxiety aside, I have to say… I’m really, really excited to finally be able to share The Broken Kingdoms with you. I won’t talk about the plot until the book is available to read, but let me just share an anecdote. When I was a teenager, I went to see The Empire Strikes Back with my father. I’d been stupidly excited about it beforehand, and Dad less so, but he indulged my early geekery whenever possible, so he let me drag him to it. Afterward our positions reversed — Dad absolutely loved it, but I was pissed when I walked out of that theater, because the movie hadn’t done what I wanted it to do. There were no happy endings, no big explosions, and HOMG HAN IN CARBONITE WHUT OH NOES. But the movie stuck with me, needled me, for weeks afterward. Eventually I realized that although the movie hadn’t given me what I wanted, what it had given me was a powerful, unpredictable story that succeeded in emotionally chaining me to those characters, in a way that Star Wars itself hadn’t done. The first movie was dazzling, great fun, all that, but it was the second movie that made me give a damn.

I tried to do that with this book. You’ll have to tell me, in November, whether I succeeded.

In the meantime, an additional reminder — those of you who’ve been waiting for the audiobook of 100K? It’s out today, from Brilliance Audio. I haven’t heard it yet myself, but the folks at Brilliance have struck me as being really thoughtful and professional about the production process (they asked me how to pronounce the names!), so I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve spoken with the narrator, an actress named Casaundra Freeman, and I love her voice. She’s the perfect Yeine, IMO. So those of you who get that version — let me know what you think!

BTW: If you decide to post about chapter 1 of The Broken Kingdoms here, please try to avoid — or at least warn for — spoilers!