Over at the Westeros Forums there was a bit forumwide vote to determine who, in their minds, were the ten best writer’s of speculative fiction. It’s an interesting list, with a lot of terrific authors, but obviously lists are subjective. One much also consider that not only are the Westeros Forums a fantasy based forum, they’re also a George R.R. Martin dedicated forum, so we shouldn’t be too surprised who made the top of the list.

That all being said, Westeros is a great forum with a lot of well read posters and, as expected, they’ve put together a solid list that any newcomer to the speculative fiction field would be smart to take a look at. You can find the thread and discussion dedicated to the list HERE.

Werthead, poster on Westeros and also the scribe of the wonderful Wertzone, tallied the votes and even wrote a bit about each of the finalists:

The List

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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?

Patrick 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:

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.

Just in time for the weekend, I present to you the juiciest edition of Free Readin’ yet! Many of you are probably aware of Tor’s Watch the Skies campaign in celebration of their upcoming web site relaunch. Every week they send out a full, free e-book to those who have signed up for their mailing list.

So check out their web site, sign up for the the newsletter (I certainly did!) and reap the rewards. Below you’ll find PDF and HTML versions of each of the novels they’ve already given away, including one from A Dribble of Ink favourites Brandon Sanderson and Tobias Buckell!
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