Jul 21
An Aside | Starcraft II: Ghosts of the Past Trailer
Asides, Videogames2 Comments »Seeeeeeeriously. This trailer gets my inner-SF fanboy all hot, sweaty and bothered. In a very, very good way.
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Jul 21
An Aside | Saladin Ahmed sells three novels to DAW Books
Asides1 Comment »
From Ahmed’s blog:
Ahem! That is to say I have signed up with legendary SF/F publisher DAW books, who will publish three books set in my 1001 Nights-inspired heroic fantasy world The Crescent Moon Kingdoms (the setting for my short stories “Where Virtue Lives” and “Judgment of Swords and Souls”). While selling my first novel to any major publisher would be a thrill, DAW represents a particularly exciting –
OMIGODISOLDMYBOOK(S)!OMIGODISOLDMYBOOK(S)!OMIGODISOLDMYBOOK(S)!
OMIGODISOLDMYBOOK(S)!OMIGODISOLDMYBOOK(S)!OMIGODISOLDMYBOOK(S)!
OMIGODISOLDMYBOOK(S)!OMIGODISOLDMYBOOK(S)!OMIGODISOLDMYBOOK(S)!
OMIGODISOLDMYBOOK(S)!OMIGODISOLDMYBOOK(S)!OMIGODISOLDMYBOOK(S)!
A-HEM! Seriously, I can’t describe how huge a moment this is for me, so I won’t even try. I’ve been reading DAW books for twenty years now — since I was fourteen. I couldn’t be happier with the home my novel has found.
On the strength of stories like Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela and Mister Hadj’s Sunset Ride, Saladin Ahmed is quickly becoming one of my favourite short fiction writers. In a genre that so often relies on familiarity and conventions, Ahmed makes every effort to explore mythologies and cultures ignored by other writers. Needless to say, I’m thrilled that Ahmed has found a home for his longer fiction.
Jul 21
Cover Art | Final Artwork for ‘The Broken Kingdoms’ by N.K. Jemisin
Cover Art2 Comments »
A few months ago, I raised a bit of a stink by posting a leaked version of the cover for N.K. Jemisin’s The Broken Kingdoms. Oops. I thought it was awesome, and most people agreed. Now, we get a look at a new, revised (and final) version of the cover. New layout for the type (which I’m not a fan of, I liked the more traditional layout on the early cover) and the colours seem to pop a bit more. Still a damn fine cover.
Jul 20
An Aside | ‘Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning’ from R.A. Salvatore and 38 Studios
Asides, Videogames1 Comment »
From USA Today:
A six-time All-Star pitcher, Schilling four years ago started 38 Studios (named after the uniform number), which is unveiling its first release, the role-playing game Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, this week at Comic-Con in San Diego.
[...]
To create the game, which is due in fall 2011, Schilling has drafted an all-star team that includes artist and toy creator Todd McFarlane (Spawn), best-selling author R.A. Salvatore (The Ghost King) and game studio Big Huge Games (Rise of Nations), acquired by 38 Studios last year. “I wanted to put together a team like the 1927 Yankees (which included Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig), arguably the greatest team that was ever assembled,” Schilling says, “and to do that, in my mind, I had to start with some visionairies.”
The first peek into their collective vision is a special poster and one-minute cinematic that McFarlane created for Comic-Con. “We are going to set the mood,” says McFarlane, who along with the other principals will make a presentation Thursday. “We will show a little bit of a hint of magic in it, a hint of the scale of the bad guys (and) the intensity of some of the action.”
Salvatore, who has written numerous books based in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, is tight-lipped about Amalur, but says that he has created a Tolkienesque 10,000-year-long back story: “I think we can say that we are talking about a high fantasy world with multiple races.”
The goal is a game that combines role-playing complexity with action-game intensity. “I hope it will be a breath of fresh air,” game designer Ken Rolston says.
38 Studios hopes to create a franchise for multiple games, books and other products; planning is already underway for a massively multiplayer online game.
I’m still unsure about this odd mix of ‘celebrities’ hooking up to create an ambitious MMORPG. Schilling’s a big videogame fan… but he made his living by being a baseball player. Has McFarlane’s design and art grown up since the 90′s? Salvatore’s well respected (and I’m a huge fan of his Demon Wars series), but a “Tolkienesque 10,000-year-long back story” isn’t exactly in his wheelhouse. Still, I suppose we could/should wait for the official announcement (along with video, screenshots and gameplay details?) at Comic Con 2010.
Jul 16
An Aside | Cyanide Studio announces ‘A Game of Thrones: Genesis’
Asides, Videogames9 Comments »
From Shacknews:
‘A Game of Thrones: Genesis’ plunges you into the heart of the battles and intrigues between the Families that shaped the Kingdom of Westeros.
However, victory does not necessarily result from brute force. The innovative game mechanics provide players with numerous paths to success: will you opt for a military, economic or diplomatic approach? Trickery, treachery and deceit are widespread and you will constantly have to watch your back if you want to avoid a bitter defeat!
Peacefully or forcefully annex surrounding territories, besiege enemy castles, send spies to infiltrate behind enemy lines, assassinate trouble-making officers or capture them to ask for a ransom… When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground!
Sounds akin to the famed Civilization series, which is likely a good things, given the political machinations the series is known for. Though, from the sounds of the announcement, it will be presented as an RTS/RPG hybrid (similar to Warcraft III or Dawn of War II?) Rather than focussing on the story presented in the novels (oh god, a Jaime Lannister hack-n-slash *shudder*), it sounds like it’s taking a wider look at the history and politics of the world. Still, if it’s going up against the likes of the soon-to-be-released Civilization V, then Cyanide Studio likely has their work cut out for them. I’m just glad it’s not a God of War ripoff! Now, an old humourous LucasArts-style adventure game would’ve been something to see!
Is it worth getting excited over? Will it be good? Only time will tell, I suppose.
Jul 15
Free Readin’ | ‘Shades of Milk and Honey’ by Mary Robinette Kowal
Free Readin'3 Comments »
It’s atypical for A Dribble of Ink, when compared to the types of novels and the authors I usually cover, but something about Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal has my attention. Maybe it was this glowing review from Joe Sherry, who I’m a fan of. Or her short fiction, which I’ve not read, but is loaded up and ready to go on my eReader.
Either way, if you’re interested, you can read a sample ofShades of Milk and Honey on Kowal’s website.
Jul 14
Review | City of Ruin by Mark Charan Newton
Reviews9 Comments »
City of Ruin
Author – Mark Charan Newton
Hardcover
Pages: 400
Publisher: Tor (UK)
Release Date: June 4, 2010
ISBN-10: 0230712592
ISBN-13: 978-0230712591
The New Weird. It’s that strange little literary movement that, according to Mark Charan Newton, is dead. And yet, he’s flying that mantle high, telling anyone who’ll listen that City of Ruin, the second volume of his Legends of the Red Sun series, has been let of its leash by virtue of a four book publishing deal; it’s going to be weirder, more true to Newton’s original vision of the sun-deprived Boreal Archipelago. Nights of Villjamur, Newton’s first novel (REVIEW), dabbled in the New Weird, but City of Ruin is meant as a love letter to two ailing genres (it’s also very much in the vein of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth novels and Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun), and promises to be the unrestrained novel Newton wanted to write in the first place (it’s not easy to sell giant spiders, floating spaceship islands and geriatric cultists to publishers, I guess.)
The New Weird movement is one I’ve only watched with vague disinterest from the sidelines. It just wasn’t for me. I’m too traditional, too happy to read novels I recognize. Why would I need weird for weirdness sake? At least, that’s what I thought. I was worried that the New Weird would take too much to wrap my head around, would be more trouble than it was worth. But, if City of Ruin is such an example of the genre then, well… the New Weird just isn’t as weird as the reputation that precedes it. Rather, it’s Fantasy with an open mind, Fantasy that steps away from Elves and Dragons and replaces them with smoking, male banshees and corpse golems. My early perceptions of New Weird were that I’d constantly be forced to reevaluate how I approached the place and setting of the novel, to push aside preconceptions and learn again how to listen to a story; but, really, in the end, a hulking, angry coin golem is just a fresh coat of paint on a troll, and a city-stomping cephalopod is just a dragon in disguise.
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Jul 14
Cover Art | Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan (eBook edition)
Cover Art3 Comments »
From Irene Gallo, at Tor.com:
With Crossroads, we wanted to show Perrin at his breaking point. After engaging in a despicable act he, in a fit of justifiable rage, finally chooses to throw away his axe of war. The trick was getting the moment right. Attempts to show the action came across a bit cartoony. Instead, we decided to depict the minutes just after. The point was to show what Perrin, in this character-defining moment, was leaving behind.
Striking the right emotional chord through mood and atmosphere would be no easy task. According to artist Greg Ruth, “There’s a time in winter here in New England where it’s early in the woods and the canopy of trees keeps the snow from getting too high on the ground, but it’s cold as hell and so deathly quiet. I loved the idea of trying as best as I could to convey that silence and chill as a kind of indictment on the bloody events that precede this scene. If the idea was to get the moment after the action, then the world surrounding the figure and the axe had to convey the emotion as much or more than anything else. Capturing that particular lighting was tough.”
The story of Wheel of Time is a fabric of profoundly difficult and personal decisions. In the end, Greg Ruth created a moment when a giant hero with the weight of the world on his shoulders is at his own private crossroads.
Greg Ruth‘s sumi-e styling is initially a little startling, giving the cover a bit of a cartoony, comic book feel, but as I look at it longer the heavy contrast between the white snow and the dark shadows fits the emotional tone of the scene depicted. I also love how we see Perrin through the arc of his axe, such an iconic image for his character.
Jul 13
Free Listenin’ | ‘The Way of Kings’ by Brandon Sanderson
Free Readin'No Comments »
No doubt about it, The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson is going to be one of the biggest publishing events of the year. Tor Books, looking to replace the soon to be completed (by Sanderson, nonetheless) The Wheel of Time series, is pumping a lot of money and resources into setting up the (allegedly) 10 volume Stormlight Archive as the next series to sit a top the Epic Fantasy heap. Whether it will work out that way or not remains to be seen. Still, early impressions of The Way of Kings are very positive, and Sanderson’s involvement with the final volumes of The Wheel of Time will certainly help him grow as an author.
While waiting for the late summer release of The Way of Kings, registered users at Tor.com (if you’re not registered, its free and absolutely worth the 120 seconds it takes) can listen to chapters 4, 5 and 6 in audio format.
Of course, the prologue and the chapters 1, 2 and 3 are available to read, as well.
Jul 12
Cover Art | Kraken by China Mieville (Limited Edtion)
Asides7 Comments »
And the full artwork:
Seriously, with the reveal of Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes, this has been a bloody good day for cover art. Kraken‘s been blessed with some great cover art already (US/UK), but this one easily takes the cake. Just gorgeous artwork from Vincent Chong, and another wonderful design from the folk at Subterranean Press.
Jul 12
Cover Art | The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie (UK Edition)
Cover Art6 Comments »
The UK releases of Joe Abercrombie’s novels are known for having some of the most iconic, beautiful covers in the genre, especially when put against the bland, lookalike covers pasted on the front of most novels being published today. So, kudos once again to the art team at Gollancz, for sticking to their guns and producing a fifth cover that’s just as lovely as the previous four. It fits Abercrombie’s style to a ‘T’, and looks like a book I’d be forced to pick up from store shelves (which I can’t say about the bloodtastic US cover, though it’s an improvement over Best Served Cold).
Plus, it’s got a map. I love maps.
Jul 09
An Aside | Artwork from the limited edition of ‘The Blade Itself’ by Joe Abercrombie
Asides12 Comments »From the Subterranean Press Blog:
Beautiful art, but, erm… a little Science Fictiony for Abercrombie’s work. Any guess for what it might portray, cause I’m at a loss.
Jul 08
An Aside | Night Shade Books Responds to Its Author Controversy
Asides5 Comments »
Not aware of the Night Shade Books controversy? Go read about it, then come on back.
Via Genreville:
First and foremost, we at Night Shade Books would like to apologize for any problems we’ve caused any of our authors. The last three years have been brutal on us, although not in any way we could have expected. While we’ve faced the same difficulties every small and independent press has suffered in this age of sales downturns, higher-than-expected returns, and other challenges, what has caused us the most trouble have been our successes. Night Shade has grown faster and more uncontrollably than we had any idea how to handle. What started as two guys shipping books out of a garage now consists of a full staff working out of an office in San Francisco. We’ve shuffled around a lot of our responsibilities, but in many ways, we’re still figuring this out as we go.
This has led to some major miscommunication, and sometimes flat-out lack of communication, with our authors, sometimes, even amongst ourselves. We screwed up: Details were missed, one of us assumed another was handling a situation, or a reluctance to deliver bad news turned into an unprofessional excuse to procrastinate. The issues that have come up today, at their core, are really ones of communication. All this could have been avoided through simple phone calls and emails, through us letting people know what was happening.
That said, this has been a wakeup call for us. We have been working hard to improve all areas of Night Shade Books. Perhaps not fast enough, nor in the places that needed the most work. Doing royalty statements by hand was fine when we were doing five books a year, but now, with over 150 books in print, it has become a cumbersome, time-consuming, painful process that too often has been put off until later. And, as evidenced by the two books we sold as ebooks without the proper permissions, clearly we need a better contract/rights management system. We are already working on this: Last month we hired a new employee, whose primary responsibility will be managing our contracts and subrights, as well as developing and implementing a royalty system that won’t take two people a month to run royalties. We have already addressed the issues currently at hand involving Elizabeth Moon, Brendan Halpin, and Liz Williams. We have also contacted SFWA, and will be working hand-in-hand with them to find out if any other authors have issues with us, but haven’t come forward yet, and get those problems resolved.
At this time, we would very much like any of our authors, past or present, who have or have had issues with our conduct or business practices, to step forward either to us or to SFWA, so that we can attempt to resolve any hardships we have may have caused.
Does this make their actions acceptable? No. Is everything peachy keen now? No. Is it a good step in the right direction for them to begin rebuilding burned bridges? Yeah. In a situation that could have been disastrous for the small publisher, it’s nice to see them step forward with enough integrity to say ‘We screwed up’, rather than bandy around the issue, tossing out hollow excuses and bland apologies.
As a blogger, I’ve not personally worked with Night Shade Books, but it pleases me to see a professional response to a unprofessional faux pas. Nightshade Books is, at the moment, best known for publishing The Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, which is appearing on many ballots for Best Novel, including the Hugo Awards and the Nebula Awards. What’s most interesting is that they cite the success of this novel (presumably, given the torrent of coverage it’s been given over the past several months) and one of the key factors that led to this breakdown in communication.
It would be a shame to see them thrown under the bus for this incident. Still, there’s much rebuilding to do, and Night Shade Books needs to make sure they use the experience to come out stronger on the other side, to show complete and utter loyalty to their readers and their writers. The first step to this recovery begins now, and this letter is the first effort to reform that chain of communication that was lost. Good luck to Night Shade Books and all their authors as they try to sort through this mess, we’re all rooting for you!
Jul 07
Free Readin’ | Mall of Cthulhu by Seamus Cooper
Free Readin'3 Comments »
This edition of Free Readin’ has got a bit more meat behind it than usual. Recently, a handful of authors published by Nightshade Books have become rather vocal about some of the inappropriate business practices of the small publisher, including copyright infringement and
Appropriate to this novel, is a statement made several weeks ago by Brendan Halpin (the real name of Seamus Cooper) about his novel, Mall of Cthulhu:
Night Shade has stolen the ebook rights to The Mall of Cthulhu. They do not own them and are offering an electronic edition for sale through webscription.net, which is affiliated with Baen Books, a real publisher who should know better. Nine months ago, Night Shade made a verbal offer to pay me a small sum for the rights. I agreed. They’ve never paid me. They claimed their unauthorized edition was an oversight, and that was somewhat credible at the time. Nine months later, it’s clear that this is not an oversight. It’s a theft of my intellectual property.
I’ve given away the ebook of Mall of Cthulhu in hopes of cutting the legs out from Night Shade and webscription’s piracy of my work. (Guess what, Cory Doctorow? My problem is piracy and obscurity!) If you’d like a free electronic copy, scroll down here, or go to scribd. If you like it, please consider buying the Kindle edition, published by me and sold by Amazon, who pay me regularly for the copies I sell through them. (It’s only 3 bucks! Less than a latte!)
Further issues have been reported by Liz Williams, another Nightshade Books author. We don’t know the full story, but it’s a shame to see a small, well regarded publisher treat their authors in such a manner.
Of course, the upside to us fans is that Mall of Cthulhu has been released by Cooper/Halpin for free! If you’re interested in the novel, or just curious about the situation, you can read many more details of the situation (and how you can help, by buying a Kindle copy) on Halpin’s blog, or some interesting commentary at Adventures in Reading and Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review.
EDIT: Nightshade Books has issued a press release regarding the mishandling of the authors in question.
Jul 06
Free Readin’ | ‘The Dervish House’ by Ian McDonald
Free Readin'2 Comments »
In the sleepy Istanbul district of Eskiköy stands the former whirling dervish house of Adem Dede. Over the space of five days of an Istanbul heatwave, six lives weave a story of corporate wheeling and dealing, Islamic mysticism, political and economic intrigue, ancient Ottoman mysteries, a terrifying new terrorist threat, and a nanotechnology with the potential to transform every human on the planet.
The works of Ian McDonald have long been on my Pile o’ Shame, among those books I know I should read but have slipped off my radar for one reason or another. Like many of his other novels, The Dervish House is set in the near future, taking a glimpse of where our world might be directed. This time around, he turns his eyes to Istanbul, a culture and society that’s terribly misunderstood in the West, which makes it the perfect setting for a writer like McDonald.
Thanks to Tor.com, you can read a juicy excerpt from The Dervish House.
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