Joe Abercrombie, that devilishy handsom fellow who often ekes his way into A Dribble of Ink was invited by SFX magazine to write an article concerning A Game of Thrones and it’s influence on his own writing and the Fantasy genre as a whole.

Until now the article was only available to those who were able to pick up a copy of the print magazine (i.e. not me), but SFX’s Book Club has just recently released a PDF version of it available to the public. It’s definitely worth giving a read and Abercrombie wrote a terrific follow up to the article on his blog.

You can download the article HERE.

By now, most fans of the work, will know that Brandon Sanderson, author of Mistborn, was chosen to complete the final volume of Robert Jordan’s magnum opus, The Wheel of Time. Luckily for us, over at his blog, Sanderson has been detailing his travels as he rereads the first 11 novels in the cycle.

It’s interesting to read the thoughts of someone who is both a fan and, literally, and author of the works. This obviously requires him to tackle the reread in a slightly different manner than most readers and some of his thoughts on the earlier volumes are quite interesting. If anything his comments as he rereads has settled any concerns I might have had that the final volume wouldn’t be handled correctly. He seems determined to stay true to what Jordan originally envisioned and I feel confident that Sanderson will be able to handle the job as well as any author out there.

If you’re a fan of Jordan’s work and find yourself a little skeptical about the final volume, then take the time to look over Sanderson’s blog and maybe he’ll be able to allay some of those fears.

You can find the all of the Wheel of Time related posts HERE.

Over at his blog, Ecstatic Days, Jeff Vandermeer has taken the time to give up and coming writers some tips from the heart… or rather, tips from the evil monkey chained to his desk. Always worth listening to, Vandermeer pulls back a little bit of the curtain and says things that most writers probably think, but don’t want to say.

A couple of my favourites:

You can find the whole thing HERE.

Darren over at The Genre Files, a rad SFF blog that you should all be reading, recently had the luck to get a copy of Richard Morgan’s upcoming fantasy The Steel Remains and took the time to do a nice, detailed review of why it kicks so much ass.

This is easily one of my most anticipated novels of this year (despite the fact that I’ve yet even to read any of Morgan’s novels) and I’m intensely jealous of Darren for getting to read a manuscript copy of Morgan’s first try at Fantasy. From all accounts, it sounds like Morgan’s going to bring the same violent, gritty and readable style to fantasy as he did to SF. My frothing anticipation for The Steel Remains grows ever stronger.

Here’s a quote from Darren’s review:

If, like me, your interest in the novel just skyrocketed to even higher heights, you can check out the full review HERE.

In this latest edition of Free Readin’ I offer you a free PDF version of blogger-extraordinaire Jeff Vandermeer’s upcoming novel The Situation!

Okay, so I’m not actually offering it to you, Vandermeer’s publisher, PS Publishing and Wired’s Geek Dad are… but I’m still pointing you in the right direction!

You can find the free PDF version of The Situation (as well as check out a fun interview with Vandermeer) HERE!

Be sure to check out Vandermeer’s terrific blog and if you’re interested in picking up a real hardcopy of the novel you can order that HERE.