I’ve had this book on my radar for a while (thanks, certainly, to the wonderful cover art and interesting synopsis), but a recent essay of Jemisin’s, titled Power and Privilege in Fantasy, put it right back near the top of my I’m-slavering-with-unabashed-anticipation list.
Now, we can check out the first two chapters of Jemisin’s debut novel thanks to her website, with a third chapter on its way. Chapter One can be found HERE and Chapter Two can be found HERE.
I’m in the final pages of Daniel Abraham‘s A Shadow in Summer and am absolutely in love. The Cambist and Lord Iron, which first appeared in 2007’s Logorrhea Anthology and is included in his upcoming short-fiction collection, Leviathan Wept, is different in tone than The Long Price Quartet, but it’s still a great introduction to Abraham’s work (or a great read, if you’re already familiar with him.
Born Edmund Scarasso, Lord Iron had taken his father’s title and lands and ridden them first to war, then to power, and finally to a notorious fame. His family estate outside the city was reputed to rival the king’s, but Lord Iron spent little time there. He had a house in the city with two hundred rooms arranged around a central courtyard garden in which trees bore fruits unfamiliar to the city and flowers bloomed with exotic and troubling scents. His servants were numberless as ants; his personal fortune greater than some smaller nations. And never, it was said, had such wealth, power, and influence been squandered on such a debased soul.
No night passed without some new tale of Lord Iron. Ten thousand larks had been killed, their tongues harvested, and their bodies thrown aside in order that Lord Iron might have a novel hors d’oeuvre. Lord Biethan had been forced to repay his family’s debt by sending his three daughters to perform as Lord Iron’s creatures for a week; they had returned to their father with disturbing, languorous smiles and a rosewood cask filled with silver as “recompense for his Lordship’s overuse.” A fruit seller had the bad fortune not to recognize Lord Iron one dim, fog-bound morning, and a flippant comment earned him a whipping that left him near dead.
There was no way for anyone besides Lord Iron himself to know which of the thousand stories and accusations that accreted around him were true. There was no doubt that Lord Iron was never seen wearing anything but the richest of velvets and silk. He was habitually in the company of beautiful women of negotiable virtue. He smoked the finest tobacco and other, more exotic weeds. Violence and sensuality and excess were the tissue of which his life was made. If his wealth and web of blackmail and extortion had not protected him, he would no doubt have been invited to the gallows dance years before. If he had been a hero in the war, so much the worse.
And so it was, perhaps, no surprise that when his lackey and drinking companion, Lord Caton, mentioned in passing an inconvenient curiosity of the code of exchange, Lord Iron’s mind seized upon it. Among his many vices was a fondness for cruel pranks. And so it came to pass that Lord Iron and the handful of gaudy revelers who followed in his wake descended late one Tuesday morning upon the Magdalen Gate postal authority.
You can download a PDF of the story HERE (right/Option click, save as) or listen to an audio version HERE.
Whatever you celebrate this time of year, I hope it brings much joy to you, your family and your friends. Merry Christmas from A Dribble of Ink.
The Mad Hatter, who has some uncanny ability to dig out Cover Art before it’s supposed to be revealed, posted the artwork for the US edition of Mark Charan Newton’s Nights of Villjamur.
Over all I think the cover is solid, but for one (major) caveat. I like that they’ve strayed away from the figure-centric cover that’s been plaguing the other releases of Newton’s novels, and I like the typhography (especially with the cool looking white stuff behind the title), but wow did they completely miss the tone of the novel. A bright sunny day? Is that supposed to be Villjamur? In any case, the novel’s bloody good, this is just a strange decision by the Bantam Spectra marketing team.
Michael Whelan is my favourite Fantasy/Science Fiction artist. It’s not even close. This painting, depicting Roland of Deschain and the long road he travels in his search for the Dark Tower, is another example of why. Whelan has stepped away from the cover art business in recent years, but is currently working on a painting for Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings, which is released next year. I can’t wait to see it.
