Posts Tagged: Del Rey

The High Druid's Blade by Terry Brooks

On Suvudu, Shawn Speakman, webmaster for Terry Brooks, reports on the first details about The High Druid’s Blade, the Shannara novel recently completed by Brooks and set for a 2014 release. Speakman says:

The High Druid’s Blade takes place a century after Witch Wraith. It is the first Shannara stand alone novel since 1996’s First King of Shannara. Terry has long been entrenched in long epic series. Instead, with Blade, he is telling a very different tale. Fewer characters being scattered to the winds of the Four Lands. Instead, Terry has crafted a more personal journey, of a hero unable to protect his family unless he unleashes the power of his ancestors.

Brooks also revealed on the tour that the main protagonist of The High Druid’s Blade will be a Leah, a family that has been integral to many novels in the series since The Sword of Shannara. This will, however, mark the first time that a protagonist of a (chronologically) post-The Sword of Shannara novel will feature a sole protagonist that isn’t of Ohmsford blood. The Leah family, thanks to events in The Wishsong of Shannara, are in possession of the Sword of Leah, a sword imbued with the magic of the Druids. Is there a connection here between the High Druid (who’s identity I know, but for fear of spoiling Witch Wraith, Brooks’ upcoming novel, I won’t reveal), and the Leah family? Additionally, Brooks said that the novel will take place in areas of the Southland that have not been explored in previous novels.

"Love and Social Science Fiction" by Karen Lord

It’s social science fiction, experimenting with questions of power, compromise, dependence and independence, identity and self-determination.

When I started thinking about how to describe The Best of All Possible Worlds, I decided not to call it a romance for two reasons. First, I didn’t think it was a romance. I have a certain admiration for romance writers because they possess a skill set that I don’t have, not yet. I knew that what I’d written lacked the tension and angst and passion I associate with the traditional romance template. Calling it a romance, then doing a bait and switch into Science Fiction, felt dishonest. Second, I couldn’t guarantee there would be any romantic subplots in the sequel (though I also can’t guarantee there won’t be).

Don’t think I’m being polite when I say I admire romance writers. Remember that Sturgeon’s Law applies to all genres. A good, well-written romance is as beautiful and rare as a good, well-written science fiction novel. Even better than both is a blend of genre, a book that can give you a little bit of this and a little bit of that and somehow bring it all together in a very satisfactory, holistic and human way. People fall in love in the future, they encounter mysteries both mundane and uncanny, have adventures, make bad career decisions, experience personal crises and grow – sometimes all at the same time. I don’t mean to suggest this should be all packed in haphazardly like a soap opera, drama piled upon drama for no good reason. There must be order: minor subplots tweaked to reinforce the main plot, characters and situations juxtaposed in ways that create resonance, themes and motifs orchestrated to please and satisfy the subconscious. Read More »

Witch Wraith by Terry Brooks

Seems alright. Inoffensive, at least. The trilogy (Wards of Faerie (REVIEW), Bloodfire Quest) as a whole has a nice continuous look, including the screaming red I’m-not-a-sticker sticker. Still, we all know it’s the big, juicy name of the author that will sell these books, not the cover. In all, I’d say it’s a wash with the US cover.

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 »

Bloodfire Quest by Terry Brooks

Publisher: Del Rey - Pages: 368 - Buy: Book/eBook
Bloodfire Quest by Terry Brooks

In recent years, I’ve reviewed several novels by Terry Brooks, most of which I walked away from with disappointment and uncomfortable acceptance. Slowly, with each new release, I was beginning to understand that Brooks, an idol of my adolesence, just wasn’t the same author I grew up with. This isn’t a comment on his skill, or his prose ability, necessarily, but rather an observation about the stories he now chooses to tell. His early novels were doorstops and told a complete story arc from beginning to end. After his third novel, however, he began to split these novels into ‘trilogies,’ and release them on a yearly basis. There’s little less satisfying than picking up a new book from a favourite author and being left hanging, asked to wait politely for a year and then pony up another $25 to continue with the fun. Whether it was marketing malfeasance on the part of his publisher, or a conscious decision by Brooks, excitement was slowly replaced by… not apathy, exactly, but controlled optimism. Brooks was on a treadmill.

Then I read Wards of Faerie (REVIEW), the first volume in his The Dark Legacy of Shannara trilogy, and, like the clouds parting over the Battle of Pelennor Fields, I was suddenly heartened and reminded of why I first fell in love with Brooks’ novels as a teenager. Read More »