From the teeming cities of earth to the scrupulously realized landscapes of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, The Quiet War, an exotic, fast-paced space opera, turns on a single question: who decides what it means to be human?

Twenty-third century Earth, ravaged by climate change, looks backwards to the holy ideal of a pre-industrial Eden. Political power has been grabbed by a few powerful families and their green saints. Millions of people are imprisoned in teeming cities; millions more labour on Pharaonic projects to rebuild ruined ecosystems. On the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the Outers, descendants of refugees from Earth’s repressive regimes, have constructed a wild variety of self-sufficient cities and settlements: scientific utopias crammed with exuberant creations of the genetic arts; the last outposts of every kind of democratic tradition.

The fragile detente between the Outer cities and the dynasties of Earth is threatened by the ambitions of the rising generation of Outers, who want to break free of their cosy, inward-looking pocket paradises, colonise the rest of the Solar System, and drive human evolution in a hundred new directions. On Earth, many demand pre-emptive action against the Outers before it’s too late; others want to exploit the talents of their scientists and gene wizards. Amid campaigns for peace and reconciliation, political machinations, crude displays of military might, and espionage by cunningly wrought agents, the two branches of humanity edge towards war . . .

Jonathan Oliver, the commissioning editor for Solaris Books since it was acquired by Rebellion has confirmed a two book deal with Paul Kearney. The novels, entitled Corvus and Kings of Morning, are due for delivery in 2010 and early 2011 respectively and are set in the same universe as Paul’s successful The Ten Thousand, previously published by Solaris.

Paul’s agent, John Jarrold, was quoted as saying “The immediacy of Paul’s prose and characterisation always puts me in mind of David Gemmell, who I was lucky enough to publish in the mid-1990s…With The Ten Thousand he has created a world ripe for re-visiting. Can’t wait to read these books! And I’m very pleased to have concluded my first deal with Jon Oliver and the ‘new’ Solaris.”

Here’s the cover for my next novel, The Office of Shadow, the sequel to Midwinter. It continues the story of the struggle between the Seelie Kingdom of Queen Titania and the Empire of Mab. It’s a story of high adventure and espionage in Faerie; if Midwinter was “The Dirty Dozen with elves,” then this is “The Sandbaggers with Elves.” That fellow on the cover is Silverdun, Mauritane’s stalwart companion from Midwinter, and the young lady with him is Sela, a new character with an extremely weird and troubled past.

Professor Richard Helms heads up a tight-knit band of scientists and soldiers sent to explore New Amazon, a lush but savage planet seemingly determined to attack them at every turn. When they are done cataloguing every detail of this vast, unfamiliar ecosystem, they will burn it to the ground and make it fit for human habitation. But when the team falls under attack, Helms and his followers are forced to flee into the depths of the jungle. Here, old enemies and petty rivalries surface as they struggle to survive. They soon end up fighting for their lives – against the planet they are exploring, the robots designed to protect them and, most of all, against each other. For the countdown into madness is ticking. Palmer burns a new path for science fiction in this gripping, dark tale of man’s place in the universe.

We had such great success with the release of Chapter One from The Gathering Storm on Tor.com that we decided we just couldn’t stop there.

For all of our new and pre-existing Tor.com members, we’ve got a little present. Consider it half love-letter (totally platonic, we swear!), half-thank you for being part of our community.

In conjunction with Macmillan Audio, we bring you the entirety of Chapter 2 of The Gathering Storm, from the upcoming audiobook.

The audio is live now on Tor.com. Just log in to listen, enjoy, and discuss.

Six foot six inches tall, with brown eyes and dark hair, Rory McCann from Glasgow began his working life at the top – as a painter on the Forth Bridge in Scotland. He came to notice in a television commercial for Scotts’ Porridge Oats, in which he appeared as a scantily-clad hunk in a vest and kilt and little else wandering snowbound streets but warmed by the inner glow of the porridge. He claims that as a consequence he was often approached by people demanding that he “lift his kilt.” In 2002 he was seen in the TV comedy-drama ‘The Book Group’ playing a wheelchair-bound lifeguard, a part for which he won a Scottish BAFTA award for the best television performance of 2002. Since then he has taken television roles as Peter the Great and a priest in ‘Shameless’. He made his Hollywood debut in Oliver Stone’s ‘Alexander’. He divides his time between homes in London and Glencoe, Scotland, where he aims to have his own castle. He is an accomplished singer, pianist and harmonica-player as well as an all-round sportsman.

‘I can now say that Disney optioned On Stranger Tides and will use elements of the book in the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I can also say that I did not ever specify that Serena and I get parts in the movie or have dinner with Johnny Depp! (Not that we’d mind.)’

The book follows the exploits of John “Jack Shandy” Chandagnac, who travels to the new world after the death of his puppeteer father to confront his uncle, who apparently has made off with the family inheritance. During the voyage, he gets to know a woman named Beth Hurwood and her father, an Oxford professor. Before they arrive, their ship is waylaid by pirates and, with the help of the professor and his assistant, the captain is killed and Chandagnac is forced to join the pirate crew. The reader discovers a sinister plot being concocted by the professor involving his dead wife, his living daughter and Blackbeard. Chandagnac, now known as “Jack Shandy”, must put a stop to these plans and save Beth Hurwood.

Best Novel (The August Derleth Fantasy Award)
Memoirs of a Master Forger, by Graham Joyce, writing as William Heaney (Gollancz)

Best Novella
The Reach of Children, by Tim Lebbon (Humdrumming)

Best Short Fiction
Do You See, by Sarah Pinborough, from Myth-Understandings, ed. by Ian Whates (Newcon Press)

Best Collection
Bull Running for Girls, by Allyson Bird (Screaming Dreams)

Best Anthology
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 19, ed. Stephen Jones (Constable & Robinson)

The PS Publishing Best Small Press Award
Elastic Press, run by Andrew Hook

Best Non-Fiction
Basil Copper: A Life in Books, by Basil Copper, ed. Stephen Jones (PS Publishing)

Best Magazine/Periodical
Postscripts, ed. Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers (PS Publishing)

Best Artist
Vincent Chong

Best Comic/Graphic Novel
Locke and Key, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW Publishing)

Best Televison
Doctor Who, head writer Russell T. Davies (BBC Wales)

Best Film
The Dark Knight, directed by Christopher Nolan (Warner Brothers)

The Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer
Joseph D’Lacey, for Meat (Bloody Books)

The Karl Edward Wagner Award (the Special Award)
Hayao Miyazaki

“I’m having a good week,” said Joyce

[...]

“It’s extraordinary really: everything’s quiet for a couple of years and then this,” said Joyce. “I’ve been a professional writer for 20 years, and there are contours in that time, crescents and troughs … This is a crescent.”

[...]

“Fantasy gets a mixed reception – a lot of fantasy is formulaic but most of the award-winning fantasy on the contrary tends to be the stuff at the edges of the genre, rather than swimming in the middle,”

We’ve been calling it Shifting Winds up until this point, but that was never intended to be the final title. After a long round of conversations with Tor and Harriet, we settled on TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT as the title. There are various reasons for this, which I’ll go into more once the book is out next year. I’m pleased, however, as this was the title I suggested. It’s actually appropriate in an interesting way. Harriet was the one who came up with the name for the first of the three, and the second one gets the title I proposed. And so, we will (as I’ve been saying for a while) use Mr. Jordan’s title for the final of the three, A MEMORY OF LIGHT.

I thought for a while on that last choice. If you’ve been following along these last couple of years, you know that my original intention was for this to be one book. When it was split, I still wanted it to be one book in name, in an attempt to honor Mr. Jordan’s wishes that it be one book. (I still plan to suggest an omnibus edition at a later point, but the three books together will probably be too long for that to be an option.) Anyway, I was going to have A MEMORY OF LIGHT be the title (along with a subtitle) for each of the three books. When that fell through, I was left thinking on my next step.

Mr. Jordan named the final book A MEMORY OF LIGHT. It’s one of the things we have from him, and I wanted very badly to use it. But at the same time, he named the three books AMOL, and I wondered if it wouldn’t be better to let fans think of them as AMOL together, never using the title itself in case we managed to get that omnibus done. In the end, however, I decided that the title was simply too good not to use. I can’t count on that omnibus, and I feel that using the title on the last third of the book is the best way to honor Mr. Jordan’s wishes. It wasn’t an easy decision, and some will disagree with it.

This is a reference to the Towers of Midnight located outside the city of Imfaral in Seanchan. The significance is that the Towers is a fortress complex with thirteen spires, and was the place where the a’dam was created (or at least handed over to the first Seanchan Emperor). This to me suggestions that the book will resolve the Seanchan plot thread ahead of the Last Battle in the finale book which is, as it should be, A MEMORY OF LIGHT.

• Stories from the Spinner Rack by George R.R. Martin
• The King of Norway by Cecilia Holland
• Forever Bound by Joe Haldeman
• The Triumph by Robin Hobb
• Clean Slate by Lawrence Block
• And Ministers of Grace by Tad Williams
• Soldierin’ by Joe Lansdale
• Dirae by Peter S. Beagle
• The Eagle and the Rabbit by Steven Saylor
• Seven Years from Home by Naomi Novik
• The Custom of the Army by Diana Gabaldon
• The Pit by James Rollins
• Out of the Dark by David Weber
• The Girls from Avenger by Carrie Vaughn
• Ancient Ways by S.M. Stirling
• Ninieslando by Howard Waldrop
• Recidivist by Gardner Dozois
• My Name is Legion by David Morrell
• Defenders of the Frontier by Robert Silverberg
• The Scroll by David Ball
• The Mystery Knight by George R.R. Martin

In “What The Storm Means,” Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, struggles to unite a fractured network of kingdoms and alliances in preparation for the Last Battle. As he attempts to halt the Seanchan encroachment northward—wishing he could form at least a temporary truce with the invaders—his allies watch in terror the shadow that seems to be growing within the heart of the Dragon Reborn himself.

This is the 4th time that the prologue to a Wheel of Time novel has been released online as an eBook. The previous prologues were published by Simon & Schuster. If you’re wondering why you have to “pay twice” for this content, keep in mind a few things: First, you don’t have to buy it. It is being made available to you over a month early, and you’re paying for that opportunity. Also, the prologue is about 20,000 words, which is close to 100 pages in some books. Thirdly, if you would rather not pay, you can still get free content from this book in the form of chapter 1, Tears from Steel, which is currently available for free from Tor.com.

Shawn: Many writers don’t have an opportunity to pick their cover art. They barely have a hand in it. How has your experience been with cover art and the art departments who are supplying them?

[...]

I’ve been pretty happy with my covers, but I’ve only been there to nod and say yes to them. Not much more input than that. Every now and then they’ll change a small thing if I want, but that’s about it. Mostly, I’ve been lucky and happy with my publishers’ choices.

[...]

[Comment From Nalo Hopkinson]: Do you have your plot all worked out ahead of time?

David Anthony Durham: Nalo, I have the beginning and the end worked out. The middle is often a mystery. The writing process for me is really about exploring that middle, and figuring out how to get to the ending I know is coming.