Monthly Archives: September 2007

Interview

Interview | Tobias Buckell

By Aidan Moher September 4th, 2007

Tobias BuckellTobias Buckell’s got class.

Not only did he have this interview back safely in my hands only hours after sending him the questions, but he was also kind enough to send copies of his first two novels, Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin, in a nice padded envelope with a handwritten note thanking me for taking a look at his novels.

Buckell has a great personal web site where he runs a wicked blog (that is updated much more often than A Dribble of Ink, I must grudgingly admit…), and has a whole bunch of cool content. The best of which includes the entire first third of Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin (found HERE and HERE, respectively). He’s been a pleasure to work with (and his novel is pretty darn good, too!), so I hope you have as much fun reading the interview as I had conducting it!

Enjoy.
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News

An Aside | “Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here!”

By Aidan Moher September 3rd, 2007

I’ve always thought of music as a deeply personal adventure: everyone’s tastes differ; everyone has deeply hidden guilty pleasures *coughjustintimberlakecough*; and everyone has strong emotional attachments to certain songs. Music evokes many, many memories for me, particularly about novels I was reading at the same time as I was deeply listening to a particular band or album.

 

“My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.”
      Edith Sitwell (1887 – 1964)
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Review

Review | Red Seas Under Red Skies – Scott Lynch

By Aidan Moher September 1st, 2007

Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

Red Seas Under Red Skies

Author – Scott Lynch

Paperback
Pages: 488 pages
Publisher: McArthur & Co / Orion Con Trad
Release Date: Jun 15 2006
ISBN-10: 0575079258
ISBN-13: 978-0575078024

Of all the novels being released this year, Red Seas Under Red Skies topped my list of most anticipated novels. This is doubly impressive when one considers that Red Seas Under Red Skies is only Scott Lynch’s second novel. His first novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora (review HERE) was just that damn good. It’s not often that a debut novelist comes out with the best book of the year, but in 2006 that was the truth.

So it was great anticipation that this summer began and I cracked open my nice shiny trade paperback copy of Red Seas Under Red Skies. I read eagerly, expecting to burn through the novel and finish it in record time. It’s summertime, I thought to myself, I’ve got all the time in the world to read!

It took me almost a month to finish.

As I read the novel, and as a took a couple of days to gather my thoughts into a more coherent pattern, I had a difficult time deciding how to review the novel. Do I review it as a sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora (in which case it was a disappointment)? Or do I review it simply against all other novels equally (in which case it’s one of the best I’ve read this year)? In the end, I decided that the only fair route was to examine it from both angles and take a fair look at the novel that way.
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