Monthly Archives: September 2009

News

An Aside | Tor.com launches Print on Demand imprint

By Aidan Moher September 10th, 2009

To make the world of publishing even more confusing, Tor.com – which is not the same as Tor Books, apparently – is stepping into the publishing fray, by becoming a new imprint for Macmillan. There first title is a print-on-demand run of Year’s Best Fantasy 9, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.

Year’s Best Fantasy 9, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.

This highly anticipated release also marks something we’re particularly proud of: Tor.com’s debut as a publishing entity, distinct from Tor Books and as a separate imprint under our shared corporate overlords at Macmillan.

YBF 9 is available only as a print-on-demand book, in keeping with our mission of always exploring alternative forms of publishing. Similar to the launch of the Tor.com Store, this title is one of our various publishing projects that seek to experiment with the available alternatives to publishing’s traditional sales, distribution, and delivery mechanisms.

Year’s Best Fantasy 9 is available in the Tor.com Store, of course, as well as via online retailers such as Amazon, B&N, and more.

Don’t worry, you’re not the only one who’s confused about how a website can also be an imprint of a large publishing company. In any case, the list of authors and stories included in the anthology is certainly impressive:

“Shoggoths in Bloom” – Elizabeth Bear

“The Rabbi’s Hobby” – Peter S. Beagle

“Running the Snake” – Kage Baker

“The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm” – Daryl Gregory

“Reader’s Guide” – Lisa Goldstein

“The Salting and Canning of Benevolence D.” – Al Michaud

“Araminta, or, The Wreck of the Amphidrake” – Naomi Novik

“A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica” – Catherynne M. Valente

“From the Clay of His Heart” – John Brown

“If Angels Fight” – Richard Bowes

“26 Monkeys and the Abyss” – Kij Johnson

“Philologos; or, A Murder in Bistrita” – Debra Doyle & James Macdonald

“The Film-makers of Mars” – Geoff Ryman

“Childrun” – Marc Laidlaw

“Queen of the Sunlit Shore” – Liz Williams

“Lady Witherspoon’s Solution” – James Morrow

“Dearest Cecily” – Kristine Dikeman

“Ringing the Changes in Okotoks, Alberta” – Randy McCharles

“Caverns of Mystery” – Kage Baker

“Skin Deep” – Richard Parks

“King Pelles the Sure” – Peter S. Beagle

“A Guided Tour in the Kingdom of the Dead” – Richard Harland

“Avast, Abaft!” – Howard Waldrop

“Gift from a Spring” – Delia Sherman

“The First Editions” – James Stoddard

“The Olverung” – Stephen Woodworth

“Daltharee” – Jeffrey Ford

“The Forest” – Kim Wilkins

An interesting business model… to say the least. I’m still not sure why Macmillan is positioning Tor Books and Tor.com as separate entities.

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News

An Aside | Greg Keyes added to ‘Swords and Dark Magic’ Anthology

By Aidan Moher September 9th, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, I brought news about the Swords and Black Magic anthology, coming from Lou Anders, Jonathan Strahan and EOS Books. Well, I’m happy to also announce (via the beauty of Facebook) the inclusion of one of my very favourite authors to the anthology: Greg Keyes, author of The Born Queen and the upcoming Elder Scrolls novel, The Infernal City

The Hounds of Ash by Greg Keyes

Keyes sent me a message today, confirming his inclusion:

I saw the aside [on] Dribble of Ink concerning the Swords and Dark Magic anthology. I’ve got a piece in there, too, a new Fool Wolf story. The whole thing is shaping up to be damn cool.

That brings the confirmed list of authors to: Joe Abercrombie, Gene Wolfe, Michael Moorcock, Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, Scott Lynch, James Enge, C.J. Cherryh and the newly announced Greg Keyes. Seriously, this anthology just keeps getting better and better. Now if only we could get a George R.R. Martin story in there….

Cover Art

Cover Art & Synopsis | City of Ruin by Mark Charan Newton

By Aidan Moher September 8th, 2009

Mark Charan Newton, author of Nights of Villjamur (REVIEW), has revealed the title, synopsis and cover art for the second volume in his Legend of the Red Sun sequence.

City of Ruin by Mark Charan Newton

Viliren: a city of sin that is being torn apart from the inside. Its underworld is violent and surreal. Hybrid creatures shamble through shadows and there is a trade in bizarre goods. The city’s inquisition is rife with corruption. Barely human gangs fight turf wars and interfere in political upheavals. The most influential of the gang leaders, Malum, has nefarious networks spreading to the city’s rulers, and as his personal life falls down around him, he begins to embrace the darkness within.

Amidst all this, Commander Brynd Adaol, commander of the Night Guard, must plan the defence of Viliren. A race that has broken through from some other realm and already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of the Empire’s people. As the enemy gather on the next island, Brynd must muster the populace – including the gangs. Importing soldiers and displacing civilians, this is a colossal military operation, and the stress begins to take its toll.

After a Night Guard soldier is reported missing, it is discovered that many citizens have also been vanishing from the streets of Viliren. They’re not fleeing the city, they’re not hiding from the terrors in the north – they’re being murdered. A serial killer of the most horrific kind is on the loose, taking hundreds of people from their own homes. A killer that cannot possibly be human.

It is whispered that the city of Viliren is about to fall – but how can anyone save a city that is already a ruin?

Alright, let’s get the good out of the way. The book sounds awesome. Nights of Villjamur was great (if uneven) and City of Ruin promises to further build on what Newton’s created. I’m bloody excited to get my hands on it, needless to say.

Then… there’s the cover. More specifically there’s the foxy anime lad, ripped from some obscure Japanese manga (complete with silver hair, natch) that ‘graces’ the cover. Now, Newton’s a friend of mine so I’ve had a bit of an inside track on City of Ruin, including a mention a little while ago that City of Ruin would be eschewing the style set by Nights of Villjamur (moody, dark city-scape) by including a character.

What hurts most is that (and I would bet a bucketload of whatever strange currency they use in Newton’s home country) that the artwork of the city exists without the character super-imposed on top of it. Had Tor UK had a bit of courage (as they did with the first volume) and not fallen back on the standard character-based cover, we could have ended up with another cover that would have stood nicely beside Nights of Villjamur. Instead, we have a cover that utterly fails to capture the rich, eerie tone of Newton’s world.

Bah.

News

An Aside | Vote for A Dribble of Ink!

By Aidan Moher September 8th, 2009

A couple of a weeks ago, I got a few emails informing me that I had received a nomination for a Book Blogger Appreciation Week award – several, in fact. I blushed a little, but more or less wrote it off to me nominating myself and then forgetting.

Well, apparently someone likes A Dribble of Ink, because it made the short-list (along with four others) for Best Speculative Fiction Blog. I’m blushing even more, now.

Book Blogger Appreciation Week short list

The others nominated (which all deserve the honour, so I’m not sure how I was included above so many other great blogs) are:

Bibliophile Stalker
Scifiguy.ca (go Canadians!)
The Book Zombie
The Galaxy Express

So get on over there and vote! It doesn’t have to be for me (you know, it’s an honour to be nominated, and all that…), but take the time to pick you favourites among the mountain of awards being given out. You can vote HERE.

Cover Art

Cover Art | Dragon Keeper and Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb

By Aidan Moher September 7th, 2009

Hot on the heels of the recently released UK cover art for Robin Hobb’s Dragon Haven, we have a look at the US cover (as well as a looked at a tweaked version of the Dragon Keeper, where they tooled around with the typopgraphy, because, you know… that’s where the problem was) and, well… it’s not so pretty.

Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb

Since first unveiling the cover for Dragon Keeper, I’ve learned that EOS comissioned Hobb’s sister’s neighbour’s landlord’s highschool-aged son’s teacher’s grade 10 Computer Animation class to do the artwork. In recompense, they were allowed to skip two periods to watch Reign of Fire and Dragonheart. Lucky kids!