Monthly Archives: May 2008

I’m constantly on the prowl for new blogs to add to my RSS reader and I like to spread some of the wealth around by pointing you guys, my readers, in the direction of some of the newest and coolest Speculative Fiction blogs popping up around the web.

So once you’re finished checking out all the sweet swag here at A Dribble of Ink, why not take a look at some of these newer blogs:

I’m sure they’d appreciate new visitors (if you don’t visit already!) and their content is certainly worth looking at. Who knows, maybe you’ll even find your new favourite blog!

Over at Shawn Speakman’s blog, though unrelated to the original post, he and I started to discuss titles for novels, mostly concerning the two we are working on, and it got me thinking in general about some of my favourite titles out there.

I’ve always been a fan of poetic titles – The Blade Itself, The Darkness That Comes Before, The Wooden Sea, Blood Follows, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, The Lies of Locke Lamora – but they obviously don’t always fit every sort of novel. There are plenty of more traditional titles that I really like as well – The Book of Joby, Faith of the Fallen, The Naked God, Wizard and Glass, The Name of the Wind, To Green Angel Tower.

So I thought to myself, ‘why not ask my readers!’ It was a pretty brilliant idea, so I ask:

What are some of your favourite titles?

and

What, in your opinion, makes for a good title?

The Steel Remains by Richard MorganPatrick St. Denis made an interesting post over at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist regarding the US release of Richard Morgan’s upcoming Fantasy novel, The Steel Remains. Here’s what he had to say:

In light of all the grumbling generated by the fact that there was no US pub date regarding Morgan’s fantasy debut, The Steel Remains (Canada, USA, Europe), I decided to inquire to lay the matter to rest.

I heard back from Betsy Mitchell, editor in chief at Del Rey Books, this morning. With the fall season already crowded, they felt that the book would benefit from a spring release date. Hence, the US edition of The Steel Remains will be published on February 24th 2009.

You see, sometimes I am the bringer of good news!;-)

I worry about Del Rey. I understand how release schedules work, but I find it hard to believe that they have many authors (Terry Brooks being probably the sole exception) that are more popular at the moment that Morgan. With web site’s like The Book Depository making is easy (and cheap) to import novels from the UK, I imagine that they’ll lose a lot of sales in the six months between the UK and the US release.

I suppose, however, that they know their business better than I do. I’ll be picking up the UK release, though (unless someone at Gollancz wants to send me a review copy *winkwinknudgenudge*). At the very least it’s nice to have the release date confirmed.

An astute poster over at Brooks’ official forums, ardrhys11892, dug out the cover for Terry Brooks’ upcoming novel, The Gypsy Morph, which is the conclusion to The Genesis of Shannara Trilogy.

The Gypsy Morph by Terry Brooks

I’m a huge fan of the trilogy, which is the best stuff Brooks’ has written in ages, but I’m not sure how much I like the cover for the third and final volume. Definitely a disappointment after the wicked cover for his previous novel, The Elves of Cintra.