We’ve known for a while that Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro’s eagerly-awaited adaptation of the Lord Of The Rings prequel, The Hobbit, would comprise two movies, due in December 2011 and 2012. But the make-up of those two movies has been up for debate… until now.

We spoke exclusively to both Del Toro and Jackson for our birthday issue, and they told us the latest, which is…

So there you go. The second film will not, as had previously been suggested, a film that will bridge the 60-year gap between The Hobbit and the start of Fellowship Of The Ring.

Jim Butcher sold an untitled Dresden Files short story collection to Anne Sowards at Penguin via agent Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. The book, which will collect earlier short stories featuring characters from the Dresden Files series, will include some brand new stories, and is expected to be published in Autumn 2010.

After a long fought out epic campaign the David Gemmell Legend Award has come down to the final five. They’re slaughtered, butchered and above all fought heroically for their place in the final five despite some dodgy backroom tactics from alleged fans.

Shortly we’ll get to work on a new area for each author and allot them their own “Guild” which you the reading public can sign up for along with having the chance to show your support for your favourite author as well as letting people know why they should vote for your guy/girl. In short, the “Guild Members” are voting on who should become the Hero/ine of the Awards for its first year.

Now without further ado, the final five in alphabetical order:

ABERCROMBIE, Joe – Last Argument of Kings (Gollancz)
MARILLIER, Juliet – Heir to Sevenwaters (Tor UK)
SANDERSON, Brandon – The Hero of Ages (Tor US)
SAPKOWSKI, Andrzej – Blood of Elves (Gollancz)
WEEKS, Brent – The Way of Shadows (Orbit)

Thank you to everyone who voted and we hope you’ll continue to support your “champion” for this next stage. So get those foam fingers at the ready, wave those pennon’s and above all support your favourite. After all your vote could make all the difference between your author winning or just getting pipped at the post.

The folks at Audible.com are very excited that METAtropolis has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form — it’s that whole “hey, we’re breaking ground by being the first audiobook nominated for a Hugo” thing. The Audible folks are also aware that when you’re an audiobook up against The Dark Knight, Wall*E, Hellboy II and Iron Man, which combined brought in a couple billion in worldwide box office, you’re sort of the underdog, aren’t you.

So Audible decided to help even the odds by offering up METAtropolis for free, for a limited time. Go to the page I just linked to, sign up for Audible if you haven’t already done so, and then get your personal copy of the world that Elizabeth Bear, Toby Buckell, Jay Lake, Karl Schroeder and I have imagined (and which Michael Hogan, Scott Brick, Kandyse McClure, Alessandro Juliani and Stefan Rudnicki perform for you as narrators)

Tad Williams sold a new urban fantasy series to long-time editor Betsy Wollheim at DAW, via agent Matt Bialer of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.

Bialer’s assistant, Lindsay Ribar, says that “as this is his first urban fantasy series, each book will be significantly shorter than his usual epic fantasy fare.”

In the series, “Doloriel is an angel. He doesn’t know who he used to be back on Earth, but now he works as an afterlife investigator for the Heavenly Host, making sure the souls being judged haven’t inflated their claims. It’s a minor job, but a cool one, since it means he often gets to go back to Earth to investigate, wearing a body and calling himself Bobby Dollar—or Bobby D. Doloriel’s latest assignment as Bobby D is supposed to be routine: figure out what happened to a recently disappeared soul, finish the paperwork, and make it look good for the folks upstairs. But a series of not-so-coincidental encounters—including one with a terribly attractive demon named Sennaie—makes him sure that there’s more at stake here than one missing soul.

“Knowing that he’s in over his head, Bobby D tries to pull out, but his bosses won’t let him. Somehow, his identity—more specifically, his identity from his former life back on Earth—is the key to the entire mystery, and he has to find out who he was before he becomes an unwitting pawn in a game of power that could end in the destruction of the entire human race.”