Posts Categorized: News

TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (eBook)One Wheel of Time fan recently had the chance of a lifetime. Known as “Luckers” on the Dragonmount forums, this fan sat down with Brandon Sanderson and railed off a series of questions regarding some of The Wheel of Time‘s mysteries, both big and small. Most of the questions were answered with “RAFO” (Read and Find Out), or some variation thereof, but others were met with refreshing honesty (or devilish smiles, which tell almost as much). It’s a great read for fans of The Wheel of Time who’re just itching to get their hands on the final volume in the series, A Memory of Light, which releases early in 2013.

There are, of course, spoilers out the wazoo, up-to-and-including Towers of Midnight, and, some might consider, beyond. So, you’ve been warned. Read More »

Unfettered, edited by Shawn Speakman

GRIM OAK PRESS TO PUBLISH UNFETTERED FANTASY ANTHOLOGY

Genre’s Best Writers to Contribute Against Fellow Writer’s Cancer Debt

SEATTLE, WA — Grim Oak Press, a new publishing company formed by webmaster and freelance writer Shawn Speakman, will be producing Unfettered, a fantasy short story anthology by some of the best writers in the genre, for a very good cause.

In 2011, Speakman was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He completed the recommended chemotherapy, but lacking health insurance, the treatment left him with almost $200,000 of financial debt. At the suggestion of New York Times bestselling author Terry Brooks, and with the help of nearly two dozen authors who call Speakman a friend, Grim Oak Press will publish the short story anthology Unfettered, with the proceeds helping to alleviate the medical bills.

Authors contributing include: Terry Brooks, Patrick Rothfuss, Naomi Novik, Brandon Sanderson, RA Salvatore, Tad Williams, Jacqueline Carey, Daniel Abraham, Peter V.Brett, Robert VS Redick, Peter Orullian, Todd Lockwood, Carrie Vaughn, Blake Charlton, Kevin Hearne, Mark Lawrence, David Anthony Durham, Jennifer Bosworth, Lev Grossman, Steven Erikson, and Shawn Speakman

Some of the authors will be writing short stories set in the fantasy worlds that made them famous. Other writers will be creating entirely new tales. The contribution by so many noteworthy authors of bestselling titles speaks to the generosity found within the science fiction and fantasy communities.

Unfettered will be published as a trade hardcover as well as a leather-bound, signed and numbered edition limited to 500 copies and autographed by all contributors. Speakman will also publish his full-length urban/high fantasy novel, The Dark Thorn, through Grim Oak Press to further offset treatment expenses.

Orders are currently being accepted for The Dark Thorn, which is tentatively scheduled to publish in August 2012. Unfettered will be released by early 2013.

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If you’d like more information about Grim Oak Press or wish to set up an interview about its projects, please email Shawn Speakman at [email protected]

For anyone with even a vague interest in Epic/High/Secondary World/Traditional/Whatever Fantasy, that’s a monstrous who’s-who list of the biggest names in the industry at the moment.
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ORB, SCEPTRE, THRONE, a MALAZAN novel by Ian Cameron Esslemont

In the nameless shanty town rambling westward of Darujhistan, an old woman squatted in front of her shack carving a stick beneath a night sky dominated by the slashing lurid green banner of the Scimitar. Her hair was a wild bush about her head tied with lengths of string, ribbon, beads, and twists of leather. Her bare feet where they poked out beneath her layered skirts were as dark as the earth the toes gripped. She droned to herself in a language no one understood.

An old woman living alone in a decrepit hut was nothing unusual for the shanty town, peopled as it was by the poorest, most brokendown of the lowest class of tannery workers, sewer cleaners and garbage haulers of Darujhistan. Every second shack seemed occupied by an old widow or grandmother, the menfolk dying off early as they do everywhere – the men claiming this proves they do all the hard work, and the women knowing it’s because men aren’t tough enough to endure being old.

And so this woman had lived in her squalid hut for as long as anyone could remember and none remarked upon it, except for all the surrounding old widows and grandmothers who amongst themselves knew her as ‘that crazy old woman’.

Squatting in the mud before her hut she brought the thin stick she was carving close to eyes clouded by milky cataracts and studied the intricate tracery of curve and line that ran end to end. She crooned to herself, ‘Almost, now. Almost.’ Then she glanced fearfully, and rather blindly, to the starry night sky and its intruding alien banner, muttering, ‘Almost now. Almost.’

Malazan fans are wide and plenty these days, so surely there’re a few people out there who will ravenously gobble up this excerpt from Ian Cameron Esslemont’s bizarrely titled Orb, Sceptre, Throne, the latest instalment in the overarching Malazan story. Me? I’m not one of them, for various reasons.

You can find the excerpt from Orb, Sceptre, Throne on Tor.com.

J.K. Rowling, author of THE CASUAL VACANCY

When Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock.

Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.

Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…Pagford is not what it first seems.

And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?

Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.

I’m calling it now, Fairweather was a squib.

In seriousness, I’m looking forward to this, despite it having no seeming ties to the Harry Potter universe. I was considered Rowling’s humour to be one of the under-appreciated strengths of the Harry Potter universe, and to see her embrace that in The Casual Vacancy has me curious. Plus, well, I’ve long had a soft-spot for small town murder mysteries and I think Rowling will do an admirable job, especially if she’s able to capture some of the community-as-character magic that helped Harry Potter climb to such heights.

The Casual Vacancy will be released on September 27th, 2012 by Little, Brown.

A Song of Ice and Fire meets Minecraft

A Song of Ice and Fire‘s Westeros meets Minecraft, births and awesome video. I don’t have much to saw other than, “Awesome.” Brandon the Builder would be proud (and probably perplexed by the computer running Minecraft.)

There’s a great video after the jump.

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