Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Winners of the Patricia Briggs giveaway, Misc. News + a Fantasy Book Critic Update!!!
Congratulations to Kimberly Colville (South Dakota), Derek Davenport (Canada), and Edna Meredith (Michigan) who were all randomly selected to win a SET of Patricia Briggs’ Mercedes Thompson books including copies of “Moon Called”, “Blood Bound” and the new release “Iron Kissed”, all thanks to Ace Books!!! Remember, you can order a copy of “Iron Kissed” HERE and there's an excerpt from the book HERE :)
Just a heads up regarding giveaways. Please read the rules before entering! I do delete multiple entries. So if you’ve made a mistake or if you’re not sure whether your submission went through or not, just shoot me an email or leave a comment and I can check for you, otherwise duplicates will be trashed. The same goes for multiple entries from the same household. In other words, don’t have your mom, dad, brother, sister, or grandparents sign up for the same giveaway if you all live at the same place. It’s only ONE ENTRY per household. Why do I bring this up? Well for some reason there was an extraordinary number of duplicate entries—over 200!!!—in the Patricia Briggs giveaway so I wanted to address the issue. In short, just please read the rules! Thanks for entering and good luck :D
In news, I want to direct your attention to FantasyBookSpot which is currently hosting their 2nd Annual FBS Book Tournament. Basically it’s like the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament, but instead of teams you have 64 books that were released in 2007 squaring off in single elimination rounds until only a champion is left standing. There’s also a tournament for the Best All-Time Book. I participated last year and I have to say it was a lot of fun :) Plus, the website seems to have taken it up a notch with an actual award (see inset) for the tournament winner! So all you have to do to join in on the festivities is sign up with the FantasyBookSpot Forum HERE, and visit the threads HERE. For more information on the 2nd Annual FBS Book Tournament click HERE and don’t forget that voting for the first round ends Saturday night, March 15, 2008.
In movie news—which I know I’ve been neglecting—director Zack Snyder (300, Dawn of the Dead) recently revealed HERE five images from his adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic Watchmen comic book which is slated for release next year on March 9th. The photos depict five of the main characters from the movie including The Comedian, Nite Owl, Ozymandias, Rorschach (see above), and Silk Spectre. Personally, I’m excited that an adaptation is finally on the way, but at the same time I’m worried at how faithful it might be, and after seeing these images I’m still undecided. Nevertheless, Zack did a fantastic job with 300 so I’m hoping he can capture the same magic again with Watchmen…
In comic book news, I can’t believe that I forgot to mention this, but last week saw the release of “The Dark Tower: The Long Road Home #1”, the start to a new five-issue miniseries based on Stephen King’s amazing epic and featuring the same creative team behind the bestselling “The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born”. I won’t reveal any synopses because that will spoil it for readers who haven’t read “The Gunslinger Born” yet, but the new series is said to be based on new material rather than the existing Dark Tower novels…
For Frank Frazetta fans, another of his classic paintings is coming to life as a one-shot comic book this May written by Joshua Ortega (Red Sonja, Star Wars, The Necromancer) with art provided by Josh Medors (G.I. Joe: America’s Elite) and Jay Fotos: Set in the Land of Iparsia, 500 years before the epic "Shadows of Mirahan" storyline from Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer, this is a dark fantasy story of druids, demons, and the mysterious and beautiful witch-goddess known as Kallista… Check out some interior pages HERE.
Around the blogosphere:
~If you haven’t picked up a copy of Patrick Rothfuss’ “The Name of the Wind” yet, then be sure to check out Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin’ Book Reviews which is giving away a copy of the book sporting the much improved new cover art :) Find out the details HERE.
~Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review has a review HERE of Russell Whitfield’s “Gladiatrix”, which I have to say sounds pretty interesting :)
~Jeff VanderMeer has a great interview HERE with Toby Barlow, author of “Sharp Teeth” (Reviewed HERE) that was done in verse no less! There’s also happens to be a giveaway running for the book HERE ;)
~Michael Swanwick’s “The Dragons of Babel” has been reviewed by Andrew Wheeler HERE and the Neth Space HERE who also asks the author Five Questions HERE. I recently received “The Iron Dragon’s Daughter” + “The Dragons of Babel” from SFBC so at some point I hope to read them back-to-back and review the two books together…
~Of Blog of the Fallen has an interesting post HERE on 59 titles he wishes more people would talk about. Sadly, I’m not familiar with many of the titles that are mentioned so I really need to work on that ;)
~As usual, Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist is keeping busy. Not only is he showing his support for David Debord’s independently released novel “The Silver Serpent” (Reviewed HERE) with a giveaway HERE, but he’s also offering readers a chance to win one of Todd Lockwood’s amazing lithographs HERE! Plus, he has a review HERE of R. Scott Bakker’s “Neuropath” which sounds terrific and is a title that I’ll hopefully get to review in the near future :)
~Paul Di Filippo from Sci Fi Weekly has reviewed Kay Kenyon’s “A World Too Near” HERE, which is the second book in her The Entire and the Rose quartet. Like the Swanwick books, I hope to read/review “Bright of the Sky” and “A World Too Near” together sometime soon. Also, just a reminder that there’s a giveaway currently running for a SET of the two books HERE. Lastly, I just wanted to give a huge shoutout to artist Stephan Martiniere whose illustration for “City Without End” (see inset above)—the third volume in The Entire and the Rose—recently won the Silver Spectrum Award! Much deserved because Stephan is just a tremendous artist…
~SciFiChick is giving away a copy of the “Something Magic This Way Comes” anthology HERE, which is edited by Martin H. Greenburg and Sarah A. Hoyt. Angela also has a review of the new “Goblin War” novel HERE and an interview HERE with the author Jim C. Hines who was also interviewed at FantasyBookSpot HERE
~Over at The Genre Files, Darren got the opportunity to read a manuscript copy of Richard K. Morgan’s take on fantasy with “The Steel Remains” HERE, and claimed that the book “could just turn out to be one of the most important fantasy novels, epic or otherwise, to have been written in the last ten or twenty years”. As a huge fan of the author, this was already one of my most anticipated releases of the year, but now I absolutely can’t wait to have my greedy hands on a copy :)
Finally, just a little update on what I have coming up on Fantasy Book Critic. Besides the regular reviews, interviews and giveaways that I have in the works, I’m starting up a somewhat new feature. Beginning with Christopher Golden’s “The Lost Ones”, a short interview will accompany my review of the book. My thinking is that authors are pretty busy, as am I, and while I would love to comprehensively interview every writer, I know that’s not feasible :) So what I’m hoping to accomplish with these short Q&As (expect 4-5 or so questions) is to touch on a few key issues that I think readers will be interested in, while providing a little extra insight and bonus material to my boring old reviews :) For now, I’m concentrating on authors I’ve already interviewed including Neal Asher, Stephen Hunt and Jacqueline Carey who have already agreed to participate, but if things work out, I would like to make it a regular feature. And just to give you an idea of who I might be interviewing in the future, I’ve included below a list of some of the titles that are currently in my Review Pile. Please note that the dates next to the authors are the tentative publication dates for each title, and the reason they are there is because I review books by their release date. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t review already released books, because I do, but if I listed every single title that I have to read, then the list would be too long to manage ;) FYI, this same list can be found on my Myspace Page which is updated weekly, along with an index of all of the website's reviews, interviews and other articles:
“The Magician and the Fool” by Barth Anderson (March 25, 2008)
“Infected” by Scott Sigler (April 1, 2008)
“Empress” by Karen Miller (April 1, 2008)
“Paper Cities” Edited by Ekaterina Sedia (April 1, 2008)
”Line War” by Neal Asher (April 4, 2008)
“Blood Ties” by Pamela Freeman (April 7, 2008)
“The Resurrectionist” by Jack O’Connell (April 8, 2008)
“Shadow Gate” by Kate Elliott (April 15, 2008)
“The Crystal Skull” by Manda Scott (April 15, 2008)
“The Sharing Knife: Passage” by Lois McMaster Bujold (April 22, 2008)
“Fallen” by Tim Lebbon (April 29, 2008)
“Death’s Head: Maximum Offense” by David Gunn (April 29, 2008)
“The Queen’s Bastard” by C.E. Murphy (April 29, 2008)
“Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow (April 29, 2008)
“The Last Wish” by Andrzej Sapkowski (May 1, 2008)
“The Kingdom Beyond the Waves” by Stephen Hunt (May 6, 2008)
“The Year of Disappearances” by Susan Hubbard (May 6, 2008)
“The Host” by Stephanie Meyer (May 6, 2008)
“A Kiss Before the Apocalypse” by Thomas E. Sniegoski (May 6, 2008)
“Kethani” by Eric Brown (May 6, 2008)
“The Digital Plague” by Jeff Somers (May 12, 2008)
“The Wolfman” by Nicholas Pekearo (May 13, 2008)
“Madapple” by Christina Meldrum (May 13, 2008)
“The Edge of Reason” by Melinda Snodgrass (May 13, 2008)
“Snuff” by Chuck Palahniuk (May 20, 2008)
“Mind the Gap” by Christopher Golden + Tim Lebbon (May 20, 2008)
“The Mirrored Heavens” by David J. Williams (May 20, 2008)
“Cosmos Incorporated” by Maurice G. Dantec (May 20, 2008)
”Promise of the Wolves” by Dorothy Hearst (June 3, 2008)
“Daemons Are Forever” by Simon R. Green (June 3, 2008)
“The Unblemished” by Conrad Williams (June 10, 2008)
“Kushiel’s Mercy” by Jacqueline Carey (June 12, 2008)
“Tigerheart” by Peter David (June 17, 2008)
”Escapement” by Jay Lake (June 24, 2008)
“Havemercy” by Jaida Jones + Danielle Bennett (June 24, 2008)
”The Grin of the Dark” by Ramsey Campbell (July 8, 2008)
”An Autumn War” by Daniel Abraham (July 22, 2008)
”The Time Engine” by Sean McMullen (July 22, 2008)
“The Veil of Gold” by Kim Wilkins (July 22, 2008)
“By Schism Rent Asunder” by David Weber (July 22, 2008)
“Vicious Circle” by Mike Carey (July 28, 2008)
“The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls” by John R. King (August 5, 2008)
Just a heads up regarding giveaways. Please read the rules before entering! I do delete multiple entries. So if you’ve made a mistake or if you’re not sure whether your submission went through or not, just shoot me an email or leave a comment and I can check for you, otherwise duplicates will be trashed. The same goes for multiple entries from the same household. In other words, don’t have your mom, dad, brother, sister, or grandparents sign up for the same giveaway if you all live at the same place. It’s only ONE ENTRY per household. Why do I bring this up? Well for some reason there was an extraordinary number of duplicate entries—over 200!!!—in the Patricia Briggs giveaway so I wanted to address the issue. In short, just please read the rules! Thanks for entering and good luck :D
In news, I want to direct your attention to FantasyBookSpot which is currently hosting their 2nd Annual FBS Book Tournament. Basically it’s like the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament, but instead of teams you have 64 books that were released in 2007 squaring off in single elimination rounds until only a champion is left standing. There’s also a tournament for the Best All-Time Book. I participated last year and I have to say it was a lot of fun :) Plus, the website seems to have taken it up a notch with an actual award (see inset) for the tournament winner! So all you have to do to join in on the festivities is sign up with the FantasyBookSpot Forum HERE, and visit the threads HERE. For more information on the 2nd Annual FBS Book Tournament click HERE and don’t forget that voting for the first round ends Saturday night, March 15, 2008.
In movie news—which I know I’ve been neglecting—director Zack Snyder (300, Dawn of the Dead) recently revealed HERE five images from his adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic Watchmen comic book which is slated for release next year on March 9th. The photos depict five of the main characters from the movie including The Comedian, Nite Owl, Ozymandias, Rorschach (see above), and Silk Spectre. Personally, I’m excited that an adaptation is finally on the way, but at the same time I’m worried at how faithful it might be, and after seeing these images I’m still undecided. Nevertheless, Zack did a fantastic job with 300 so I’m hoping he can capture the same magic again with Watchmen…
In comic book news, I can’t believe that I forgot to mention this, but last week saw the release of “The Dark Tower: The Long Road Home #1”, the start to a new five-issue miniseries based on Stephen King’s amazing epic and featuring the same creative team behind the bestselling “The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born”. I won’t reveal any synopses because that will spoil it for readers who haven’t read “The Gunslinger Born” yet, but the new series is said to be based on new material rather than the existing Dark Tower novels…
For Frank Frazetta fans, another of his classic paintings is coming to life as a one-shot comic book this May written by Joshua Ortega (Red Sonja, Star Wars, The Necromancer) with art provided by Josh Medors (G.I. Joe: America’s Elite) and Jay Fotos: Set in the Land of Iparsia, 500 years before the epic "Shadows of Mirahan" storyline from Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer, this is a dark fantasy story of druids, demons, and the mysterious and beautiful witch-goddess known as Kallista… Check out some interior pages HERE.Around the blogosphere:
~If you haven’t picked up a copy of Patrick Rothfuss’ “The Name of the Wind” yet, then be sure to check out Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin’ Book Reviews which is giving away a copy of the book sporting the much improved new cover art :) Find out the details HERE.~Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review has a review HERE of Russell Whitfield’s “Gladiatrix”, which I have to say sounds pretty interesting :)
~Jeff VanderMeer has a great interview HERE with Toby Barlow, author of “Sharp Teeth” (Reviewed HERE) that was done in verse no less! There’s also happens to be a giveaway running for the book HERE ;)
~Michael Swanwick’s “The Dragons of Babel” has been reviewed by Andrew Wheeler HERE and the Neth Space HERE who also asks the author Five Questions HERE. I recently received “The Iron Dragon’s Daughter” + “The Dragons of Babel” from SFBC so at some point I hope to read them back-to-back and review the two books together…
~Of Blog of the Fallen has an interesting post HERE on 59 titles he wishes more people would talk about. Sadly, I’m not familiar with many of the titles that are mentioned so I really need to work on that ;)
~As usual, Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist is keeping busy. Not only is he showing his support for David Debord’s independently released novel “The Silver Serpent” (Reviewed HERE) with a giveaway HERE, but he’s also offering readers a chance to win one of Todd Lockwood’s amazing lithographs HERE! Plus, he has a review HERE of R. Scott Bakker’s “Neuropath” which sounds terrific and is a title that I’ll hopefully get to review in the near future :)
~Paul Di Filippo from Sci Fi Weekly has reviewed Kay Kenyon’s “A World Too Near” HERE, which is the second book in her The Entire and the Rose quartet. Like the Swanwick books, I hope to read/review “Bright of the Sky” and “A World Too Near” together sometime soon. Also, just a reminder that there’s a giveaway currently running for a SET of the two books HERE. Lastly, I just wanted to give a huge shoutout to artist Stephan Martiniere whose illustration for “City Without End” (see inset above)—the third volume in The Entire and the Rose—recently won the Silver Spectrum Award! Much deserved because Stephan is just a tremendous artist…
~SciFiChick is giving away a copy of the “Something Magic This Way Comes” anthology HERE, which is edited by Martin H. Greenburg and Sarah A. Hoyt. Angela also has a review of the new “Goblin War” novel HERE and an interview HERE with the author Jim C. Hines who was also interviewed at FantasyBookSpot HERE~Over at The Genre Files, Darren got the opportunity to read a manuscript copy of Richard K. Morgan’s take on fantasy with “The Steel Remains” HERE, and claimed that the book “could just turn out to be one of the most important fantasy novels, epic or otherwise, to have been written in the last ten or twenty years”. As a huge fan of the author, this was already one of my most anticipated releases of the year, but now I absolutely can’t wait to have my greedy hands on a copy :)
Finally, just a little update on what I have coming up on Fantasy Book Critic. Besides the regular reviews, interviews and giveaways that I have in the works, I’m starting up a somewhat new feature. Beginning with Christopher Golden’s “The Lost Ones”, a short interview will accompany my review of the book. My thinking is that authors are pretty busy, as am I, and while I would love to comprehensively interview every writer, I know that’s not feasible :) So what I’m hoping to accomplish with these short Q&As (expect 4-5 or so questions) is to touch on a few key issues that I think readers will be interested in, while providing a little extra insight and bonus material to my boring old reviews :) For now, I’m concentrating on authors I’ve already interviewed including Neal Asher, Stephen Hunt and Jacqueline Carey who have already agreed to participate, but if things work out, I would like to make it a regular feature. And just to give you an idea of who I might be interviewing in the future, I’ve included below a list of some of the titles that are currently in my Review Pile. Please note that the dates next to the authors are the tentative publication dates for each title, and the reason they are there is because I review books by their release date. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t review already released books, because I do, but if I listed every single title that I have to read, then the list would be too long to manage ;) FYI, this same list can be found on my Myspace Page which is updated weekly, along with an index of all of the website's reviews, interviews and other articles:“The Magician and the Fool” by Barth Anderson (March 25, 2008)
“Infected” by Scott Sigler (April 1, 2008)
“Empress” by Karen Miller (April 1, 2008)
“Paper Cities” Edited by Ekaterina Sedia (April 1, 2008)
”Line War” by Neal Asher (April 4, 2008)
“Blood Ties” by Pamela Freeman (April 7, 2008)
“The Resurrectionist” by Jack O’Connell (April 8, 2008)
“Shadow Gate” by Kate Elliott (April 15, 2008)
“The Crystal Skull” by Manda Scott (April 15, 2008)
“The Sharing Knife: Passage” by Lois McMaster Bujold (April 22, 2008)
“Fallen” by Tim Lebbon (April 29, 2008)
“Death’s Head: Maximum Offense” by David Gunn (April 29, 2008)
“The Queen’s Bastard” by C.E. Murphy (April 29, 2008)
“Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow (April 29, 2008)
“The Last Wish” by Andrzej Sapkowski (May 1, 2008)
“The Kingdom Beyond the Waves” by Stephen Hunt (May 6, 2008)
“The Year of Disappearances” by Susan Hubbard (May 6, 2008)
“The Host” by Stephanie Meyer (May 6, 2008)
“A Kiss Before the Apocalypse” by Thomas E. Sniegoski (May 6, 2008)
“Kethani” by Eric Brown (May 6, 2008)
“The Digital Plague” by Jeff Somers (May 12, 2008)
“The Wolfman” by Nicholas Pekearo (May 13, 2008)
“Madapple” by Christina Meldrum (May 13, 2008)
“The Edge of Reason” by Melinda Snodgrass (May 13, 2008)
“Snuff” by Chuck Palahniuk (May 20, 2008)
“Mind the Gap” by Christopher Golden + Tim Lebbon (May 20, 2008)
“The Mirrored Heavens” by David J. Williams (May 20, 2008)
“Cosmos Incorporated” by Maurice G. Dantec (May 20, 2008)
”Promise of the Wolves” by Dorothy Hearst (June 3, 2008)
“Daemons Are Forever” by Simon R. Green (June 3, 2008)
“The Unblemished” by Conrad Williams (June 10, 2008)
“Kushiel’s Mercy” by Jacqueline Carey (June 12, 2008)
“Tigerheart” by Peter David (June 17, 2008)
”Escapement” by Jay Lake (June 24, 2008)
“Havemercy” by Jaida Jones + Danielle Bennett (June 24, 2008)
”The Grin of the Dark” by Ramsey Campbell (July 8, 2008)
”An Autumn War” by Daniel Abraham (July 22, 2008)
”The Time Engine” by Sean McMullen (July 22, 2008)
“The Veil of Gold” by Kim Wilkins (July 22, 2008)
“By Schism Rent Asunder” by David Weber (July 22, 2008)
“Vicious Circle” by Mike Carey (July 28, 2008)
“The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls” by John R. King (August 5, 2008)
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4 comments:
the future looks very exciting. can't wait for STeel Remains.
Reapers Gale rocks. Still got a long way to go till i'm done. slow reader and all that.
Keep up the great work Robert!
: )
Another great list of titles. I did not know about the Dantec translation - I have the book in the original French though I have not read it yet; I own all of his books except the last one and read 2 until now - Sirene Rouge and Babylon Babies - this one I own both French and English and I intend to get Cosmos in English too
I did not know about the McMullen book either since I stopped following the Moonworlds series when the second book (Glass) disappointed me after the great start in Voyage, but I may give it a try
Lots of other titles I am looking forward there; I see you intend to read BSRA by D. Weber; at Baen it's snippet 68 and Eric (Flint) who does the cutting has this nasty habit of torturing us with cut in mid-suspense and it's the first thing I check on the 3 snippet days...
Anyway you should read first OAR (Off Armageddon Reef) since BSRA is the immediate continuation and see how you like it. It's really fun after the extended prologue and though people reacted mixed at the naming drift - so you get grand inquisitor Clyntahn as main villain instead of - well this one is obvious though it's not clear to whom of the two the reference is intended, some go with the ex-Prez, I go with my Senator - I thoroughly enjoyed it and reread it several times already.
Liviu
Now I think I know everything after this post. Seriously. I added you on MySpace too and well I look forward to all these inetersting things happening.
I couldn't resist participationg in the "Something Magic this way comes" the title reminds me of a song I can't find. It was a really cool one too.
Reanimated, thanks! Hopefully if all goes well I'll receive an ARC of "The Steel Remains" whenever they become available :) And I'm glad you're still enjoying "Reaper's Gale" :D
Liviu, I'm actually not familiar with Dantec's work and "Cosmos Incorporated" just recently showed up, but I have to say it sounds very interesting :)
I love Sean McMullen's Moonworlds Saga and thought "Glass Dragons" was better than the first one. I wasn't as impressed with "Voidfarer" but I'm really looking forward to the new book!
I haven't read anything by David Weber so I thought it was time I started :) I have a copy of "Off Armageddon Reef" somewhere. I just need to find it...
Personally, one of the books that has me really excited is "The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls". I just can't get enough of Sherlock Holmes :)
Daydream, thanks for adding me to Myspace! The anthology title is obviously a play on 'something wicked this way comes' which is of course the title of a Ray Bradbury novel. Maybe you'll find the song here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_wicked_this_way_comes_(phrase)