Yearly Archives: 2011

Hot off the presses:

THE SACRED BAND by David Anthony Durham

Durham admits that this is an early cover and is likely to change somewhat before it hits shelves. Still, given the care and attention that Doubleday heaped on The Other Lands, this cover is sure to be absolutely gorgeous in person. I’ve never liked the font that they use for this series, but I do appreciate them sticking to their guns and producing a trilogy with closely matched covers. Love the palette. Most interesting, perhaps, is the dragon featured on the cover. Durham’s novels have always seemed marketed at a crowd outside of the regular Fantasy readers, and a dragon is usually the first cliche you’d want to avoid for such a market.

THE DRAGON REBORN by Robert Jordan

The Dragon Reborn

AuthorRobert Jordan

Paperback
Pages: 705
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: November 15, 1990
ISBN-10: 0812513711
ISBN-13: 978-0812513714


Yarr! There be spoilers for the series ahead. Ye’ve been warned!

Imagine this:

When Robert Jordan originally pitched the idea of Wheel of Time to his publishing company it was supposed to be a trilogy. In the outline, the first novel was supposed to end with Rand claiming Callandor. Uh, yeah. In reality it took just shy of 2,137 pages or 824,372 words for Rand to claim that glowing sword in The Dragon Reborn. Readers often complain about the turgidness of the middle volumes in the series, but it’s evident even in the early volumes that Jordan had bitten off much, much more than he could chew in the space he felt he had. He proposed a trilogy, Tor Books told him six books. We all know how it’s gone since then.
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UK Cover
BLACKVEIL by Kristen Britain
US Cover
BLACKVEIL by Kristen Britain

Two very different takes on Blackveil by Kristen Britain. I’ve never read Britain’s Green Rider series, but in my younger days I was always very attracted to the cover for the titular first volume, Green Rider. I mean… who didn’t think a disappearing ghost horse was cool?

The US cover features art from Donato Giancola, one of my favourite Fantasy artists and hits on every note that originally drew me to The Green Rider. It’s a Fantasy cover to the nth degree, but sometimes I like that. Still, my tastes have grown in the past 13 years and, as much as I can appreciate the US cover, the UK cover appeals to me much more and matches just as well with the series’ previous UK covers (Green Rider, First Rider’s Call, The High King’s Tomb); I imagine those four look mighty fine side-by-side on a bookshelf.

Either way, Britain’s not done poorly in either region.

The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham

Last week, I broke the seal by releasing the first look at Daniel Abraham’s The Dragon’s Path, the first volume of his much-anticipated new series, The Dagger and the Coin. You can read the prologue here. To celebrate the launch of his new website, Abraham has posted the first chapter of the novel, giving readers their first look at Captain Marcus Wester, one of the three main characters from the novel.

Marcus rubbed his chin with a callused palm.

“Yardem?”

“Sir?” rumbled the Tralgu looming at his side.

“The day you throw me in a ditch and take command of the company?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It wouldn’t be today, would it?”

The Tralgu crossed his thick arms and flicked a jingling ear.

“No, sir,” he said at last. “Not today.”

“Pity.”

If you’re an Abraham fan, you’re already dying to get your hands on the book. If you’re not, I’ve got a few reasons why I think you should be excited for The Dragon’s Path. When you’ve read the prologue, you can head to Abraham’s website to read chapter one of The Dragon’s Path. I have a feeling this isn’t the last excerpt we’ll see before the novel’s release in April.