So, I was enjoying some quiet time at my local bookstore (Bolen Books, it’s great, visit if you’re ever in Victoria, BC), and I saw this. Once I was convinced it wasn’t a hallucination, I pondered the question, “Someone, somewhere, created this for the sole reason of fucking around with me, didn’t they?”
Crown Books is described by Publishers Weekly as having a ‘somewhat checkered history,’ but recently hired Phoebe Yeh hopes to establish its presence as a Young Adult imprint. The first round of acquired books has been announced, and among them is a name that should be well known to Science Fiction and Fantasy fans: Lou Anders.
Anders is best known as the Hugo Award-winning editorial director of Pyr Books, an imprint of Prometheus Books known for beautiful covers, and publishing some of the industries most exciting young authors. Anders has also won acclaim as a short fiction editor, having worked on a few high profile anthologies, such as Swords & Dark Magic and With Great Power.
Frostborn, the first volume in a Norse-inspired young adult fantsy series called Thrones and Bones, is described as ” involving a dead Viking sea captain, wyverns, and a 1,200-year-old dragon.” Anders further describes the plot of the novel as being about, “[a] brave frost giant’s daughter who befriends a cunning boy in a land inspired by Norse folklore as they become embroiled against warriors, wyverns, and the past.” It is Anders’ first novel.
Yeh discusses Anders’ novel and his jump from adult fiction (he’s written and published adult short fiction) to young adult:
Due in August 2014, the novel, Yeh explained, “is a very commercial fantasy adventure. The author is a terrific author and editor of adult science fiction, but hasn’t written for children before. He brings a brand new voice to children’s literature.”
Frostborn is due for release in North America on August 2014 and will be followed by two books, Frostforged and an unnamed sequel.
So, let’s talk about the recently revealed cover for The Way of Kin— err… wait, I mean Words of Radiance, the second volume in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive. I won’t ever blame you for mistaking the two books, so, please, afford me the same luxury.
Now, let’s talk a little bit about one of publishing’s biggest catch-22 arguments. Fans have cried ‘foul’ time-and-again when publishers step in and change the style of a series’ covers midway through. It’s great when a completed series gets a re-issue, but, I think I can speak for most fans when I say that it’s nice to have a matching set of books on your bookshelf. On the flip side, though, there are a lot of cases of lazy design work, with the publisher, or at least the art department, jumping on board with what worked in the past and riding it until it keels over from exhaustion. A good example of this is the early cover for Brent Weeks’ The Black Prism. Orbit found huge success with Weeks’ first trilogy, in large part because of the striking covers. Back then, the hooded dude was still waiting tables, just trying to catch a break. Now, he’s everywhere, we’re sick of him, but he established a strong brand for Weeks and his Night Angel Trilogy. The first cover leaked to the public looked like a sequel to Weeks’ first trilogy even though it was an entirely new series. The cover was changed before publication. And then a new cover was issued for the recent trade paperback edition of the novel. It’s gorgeous. Orbit has done a great job of recognizing the need to create a strong brand for Weeks, but not at the expense of driving the concept into the ground. Read More »
Can’t wait to get your hands on The Republic of Thieves (possibly the most anticipated fantasy novel of the year)? Want to help support the families of the firefighters killed in a wildfire last month? In a show of absolute generosity, Scott Lynch is auctioning off a one-of-a-kind (literally, there’s only one of these) galley proof of The Republic of Thieves.
Info from Lynch:
I’ve been a volunteer firefighter for eight (how can that be possible?) years now, and we’re all well-versed in the theory and actuality of wildland fires (though most of the grass and forest fires I’ve been on-scene for have been very tame by the standards of the big western/southwestern conflagrations). We know that these things can turn on a dime and be deadly in their capriciousness, but even so I don’t think we’re ever quite prepared for sudden mass casualty disasters, not in this day and age. Training and technology help us feel invincible, until suddenly we’re simply not. On June 30, 19 firefighters were killed near Yarnell, Arizona when the wildfire they were fighting overran their position.
[…]
This is straight from the desk of the author (yours truly), annotated and scribbled on in a number of places, containing assorted notes and corrections. This is the one and only unbound manuscript of any of my novels I am ever going to offer for public sale. All the others will be deposited (as have unbound manuscripts of The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies) in the Rare Books and Special Collections Department of the Northern Illinois University Libraries. So if you’ve ever wanted a truly rare piece of Lynchiana, or know anyone who does, this will probably be hard to beat.
This auction will last for five days, ending July 30th. Every penny of the proceeds will go to the Yarnell Hill NFFF Fire Hero Fund. I’ll post a photo of my check (with my personal info blotted out) when it’s about to go in the envelope.
So, if you’re interested in bidding on the auction, you can find it here on ebay. At the time of this being written, the auction is already at $260. A bargain, I’d say.
Map by Dave Senior and Daggers by Didier Graffetaption
Today, Joe Abercrombie, best known for his fantasy trilogy, The First Law, announced his next novel today. It’s called Half a King, it’s unrelated to The First Law and it is aimed ‘partly at younger readers (maybe the 12-16 range).’ Abercrombie explains his decision to leave the world of The First Law and adult fiction behind (albeit temporarily):
[Half a King is] much shorter – 80,000 words compared to 175,000 for my shortest, Red Country, and 230,000 for my longest, Last Argument of Kings (though still over twice the length of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, believe it or not). It’s set in a very different world with what you might call a viking or anglo-saxon feel. It’s much more focused, with a single point of view. It’s not so overtly ‘gritty’ although it’s a long way from smooth.
[…]
I’ve published six hefty adult fantasy books in seven years. Although I’ve tried to make them all different in some ways – different structures, different settings, different points of view – they’re all pretty beefy, they’re all set in the same world, they have a similar tone, they cover some of the same ground. Though I’m very happy with and proud of the result, Red Country was a difficult book to write. I felt at times somewhat uninspired. Somewhat burned out. I really didn’t want, as I had every time in the past, to go straight on to working on the next book in the First Law world right after finishing one. I felt the need to step back, recharge the batteries, try something at least a little bit different. But at the same time I didn’t want the acorn to fall too far from the tree – I wanted it to be something that my established readers would enjoy, or perhaps even love with a flaming passion. I wanted to set up two separate lines of work that would complement each other creatively and commercially.
More than any other contemporary author, Abercrombie is known for injecting life (and, perhaps it could be argued, popularizing entirely) the fantasy’s popular movement towards ‘grimdark’ storytelling (don’t know what that it? Let Elizabeth Bear tell you), so it’s unusual (but, if you ask this guy, refreshing) to see him step away from that completely for his next series.
As much as I enjoy Abercrombie, I can only take so much of his trademark droll dialogue, self-destructive characters (despite my love for them!) and frenetic violence before I feel like the world’s about to fall out from under my feet. Abercrombie describes Half a King as ‘punchy’ rather than ‘gritty,’ and he hopes ‘to deliver a slap in the face with every page.’ The biggest issue with some of his recent books is their tendency to feel like the author was trying to ‘out-Abercrombie’ himself, to up the ante beyond what he’d done previously. So, I’m looking forward to this change of pace. It sounds like just the thing to re-energize the (self-described) burned out author.
Abercrombie’s future plans? To finish this trilogy, and then begin working on a new adult trilogy set in The First Law universe:
My plan now is that the two sequels, cautiously titled Half the World and Half a War, will be my main focus for the next year or so. I’m already a few chapters into the first draft of the second book. I hope to have those two books finished not long after the publication of Half a King in July 2014. Then I’ll start work on the adult trilogy in the First Law world. So that’s me kept pretty busy ’til … at least winter 2017, I’d say. Which is both rather nice and rather horrifying.
Half a King will be published by HarperCollins in July, 2014. The sequels, Half the World and Half a War, will follow at six-month intervals. It’s interesting to note that Abercrombie has sold more than three million books to date. That’s a hell of a lot.
