Posts Categorized: Art

God's War by Kameron Hurley

There has long raged a debate about the quality of UK vs. US cover art and the different ideals behind design aesthetics in the two regions. In general, fans seem to consider the UK to be the stronger market, and for a long time they were, but it’s my feeling that in the past couple of years, thanks to publishers like Tor, Night Shade Books, Pyr Books and Orbit Books, that the US has eclipsed the UK and is generating much more interesting cover art in general. Hurley herself said, “I am told the UK market is way more stuck-up about their covers. I adore my Conan covers, but $1 says the more mainstreamy-cover sells more books.”

If this is a ‘mainstreamy’ cover, I’m not sure I like where Del Rey UK is taking the series. Still, It’s nice to see Hurley seeing a release from a major publisher. What some people might not know is that Del Rey was originally meant to publish Hurley in the US, first picking up her novel, God’s War, before, for a variety of reasons that I’m not clear on, deciding to let Hurley and the series go. It, and its edits, were then picked up by Night Shade Books. Read More »

A few days after announcing his next trilogy, The Song of the Shattered Sands, Bradley P. Beaulieu announced today that he has left his former publisher, Night Shade Books, and will be republishing eBook editions of The Lays of Anuskaya, as well as entirely self-publishing the final book in the series, The Flames of Shadam Khoreh. These new editions will feature new covers.

The Winds of Khalakovo by Bradley P. Beaulieu
The Straits of Galahesh by Bradley P. Beaulieu
The Flames of Shadam Khoreh by Bradley P. Beaulieu

Beaulieu gives reason to his decision to redesign the covers for their eBook release:

As part of the gear-up for the release of my third book, The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, I’m also re-releasing The Winds of Khalakovo and The Straits of Galahesh. I have to admit some disappointment that the previous versions didn’t have a unifying theme. So I designed these around that basic premise, that they would look and feel like a series. I hope I’ve hit the mark.

Read More »

Fearsome Journeys, edited by Jonathan StrahanJonathan Strahan, a popular anthologist, has announced his next project, Fearsome Journeys, a collection of stories from some of today’s best traditional Fantasy authors. The Table of Contents is impressive:

  • Introduction, Jonathan Strahan
  • “The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats”, Scott Lynch
  • “Amethyst, Shadow, and Light “, Saladin Ahmed
  • “Camp Follower”, Trudi Canavan
  • “The Dragonslayer of Merebarton “, K J Parker
  • “leaf and branch and grass and vine”, Kate Eliott
  • “Spirits of Salt: A Tale of the Coral Sword”, Jeffrey Ford
  • “Forever People”, Robert V S Redick
  • “Sponda the Suet Girl and the Secret of the French Pearl”, Ellen Klages
  • “Shaggy Dog Bridge: A Black Company Story”, Glen Cook
  • “The Ghost Makers”, Elizabeth Bear
  • “One Last, Great Adventure”, Ellen Kushner & Ysabeau Wilce
  • “The High King Dreaming”, Daniel Abraham

I mean, I was sold on this by Daniel Abraham alone (we all know of the enormous crush I have on the man’s fiction), but look at the rest of that Table of Contents: Bear, Kushner, Ahmed, Parker, Lynch? It’s like Strahan reached into my mind and gathered together a list of authors to appeal directly to me. I suppose the list of included stories is a little short, but, given the amount of short fiction that I read (i.e. not enough), I’ll take quality over quantity with a smile on my face. Also, note that the page count is listed at 416 pages, meaning an average of 33 pages per story. This collection reminds me a lot of Swords & Dark Magic, also edited by Strahan, alongside Lou Anders, which collected some wonderful authors together to celebrate the resurgence of Sword & Sorcery-styled Fantasy. Strahan suggests that this could be the beginning of a new series of anthologies, thought that depends on the success of this publication. So, well, buy it, damn you.

Fearless Journeys will be released on May 28th, 2013 by Solaris Books.

Speculative Fiction 2012, The Years Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary, edited by Landon and Shurin

It’s a nice cover. Clean, and reminiscent of high end literary journals without looking stale. It’s a cute play on expectations to change the letters of the keyboard as well.

Of the project, Landon says:

Our goal, if any such thing can be claimed, is to create a record of all the incredibly rich content being created on the web. We put out a call for submissions from the community at large and received over 200. Accounting for our own finds, that means well over 300 pieces of non-fiction that range from reviews, to essays about the field, to what it means to live the genre life (or something to that effect).

I’m very excited for this project, and contributed several handfuls of links and articles around the web for consideration by Shurin and Landon. I’m hoping to see some of these articles, written by my favourite online members of the fan community, make it among the 40-50 articles published in the collection. Speculative Fiction 2012, The Years Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary is a great step towards not only chronicling the best online fan writing, but also for providing a new audience for these writers. How great would it be to see a collection like this appear in packages distributed to members of major conventions, like WorldCon or the World Fantasy Convention? Speculative Fiction 2012, The Years Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary is set for release in late February or early March by Pandemonium Fiction.

You like Fantasy Maps? We got Fantasy Maps.

Map from The Other Lands by David Anthony Durham

If you read A Dribble of Ink, chances are that you’re an entrenched Fantasy fan, yah? And, if you’re such a committed Fantasy fan, chances are that you love maps. I mean, don’t we all have a little Bilbo Baggins in all of us? I sure do. So, I pleased to run across a large collection of various Fantasy maps collected together on A Fantasy Reader, gathered together from across the ‘net.

Maps included among the many are:

Joe Abercrombie

Abraham, Daniel

Hobb, Robin

Jordan, Robert

Keyes, Greg

If you’re serious about maps, like I am, you’ll want to keep an eye on this Index of Fantasy Maps, which has been updated frequently since it first began in 2009. What are your favourite maps?