Posts Categorized: News

Pathfinder_RPG_Core_Rulebook_cover

Max Gladstone, celebrated author of the Craft Sequence, beginning with Three Parts Dead revealed today that he is beginning work on a Pathfinder Tale, a tie-in novel for Paizo’s immensely successful tabletop roleplaying game.

“I’m really excited about this project,” Gladstone said on his blog. “I’ve been tabletop gaming since I was a kid; it’s how I learned to talk, like in a group with people, and how I formed my closest and earliest bonds with friends.

Gladstone’s Craft Sequence is known for its weird and wonderful take on traditional fantasy tropes, and the author is excited by the opportunities presented by the deep, wide world of Golarion. “I’m itching to do something fun with the Pathfinder world’s almost but not quite medieval modes of production, murder hobos, planar travel, elves, and sideways transhumanism, with mystically reified morality axes, Vance-adjacent magic, chance-dependent physics—god, consider the sheer potential for shenanigans, and that’s just talking about the ruleset!” he said. “Then we get into dead gods, kingdoms ruled by demonic contracts, undead stuff, yes yes yes. This gnarled conceptual space has so much storytelling potential—so many dark corners and intriguing tangles to explore, Planetary style.” Read More »

ann-leckie

Today, Orbit Books announced that they have purchased two new science fiction novels from Ann Leckie, Hugo Award-winning author of Ancillary Justice and former editor of GigaNotoSaurus.

“The first novel is tentatively scheduled for Fall 2017 and will be set in the same universe as her previous Ancillary books,” Orbit revealed in the official press release, satisfying fans of her hugely successful Radch Empire trilogy. “The second will be an unrelated science fiction novel.”

“Ann Leckie is a major new voice in science fiction,” said Tim Holman, Publisher at Orbit Books. “The unprecedented success of her debut novel, Ancillary Justice, marked the beginning of what promises to be a remarkable writing career, and we are hugely looking forward to continuing our partnership over the coming years.”

“I’m so happy to be able to continue working with Orbit!” said Leckie. “It’s been an amazing couple of years together, and I’m looking forward to spending more time in my science fictional universe, and more time with my readers.”

The two novels will be published by Orbit simultaneously in North America and the United Kingdom.

guy-gavriel-kay

Few writers keep news of their upcoming novels as tightly under wraps as Guy Gavriel Kay. Today, however, the Canadian author took to Twitter and announced the title of his next novel almost a year ahead of release. It’s going to be called Children of Earth and Sky.

Little else is known at this point, but given Kay’s predilection for basing his fantasy world’s on the cultures and histories of our world, perhaps we could have some fun trying to put together the pieces and figure out where this one might be set?

Children of Earth and Sky will be released in Spring 2016.

The 2015 nominees for the Arthur C. Clarke Award were announced today:

  • The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey (Orbit)
  • The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber (Canongate)
  • Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson (Solaris)
  • Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta (HarperVoyager)
  • The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (Orbit)
  • Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel (Picador)

The Clarke Award is given to the best science fiction novel first published in the UK, and boy are there some doozies on this list. I’ve only read Mandel’s Station Eleven (which is sublime), but the rest of the list, such as Carey, North, and Itäranta, includes some of the best reviewed and critically acclaimed science fiction from 2015.

“This is a quintessentially Clarke Award kind of a shortlist,” said Tom Hunter, director of the award. “We’ve got six authors who have never been nominated for the Clarke Award before and while the subject matter may often be dark, when we think about what this list says about the strength of science fiction literature itself, I see a future that’s full of confidence, creativity and diversity of imagination.”

If you’re unimpressed by other 2015 award ballots, you can do a lot worse than starting at the top of this list and working down. Hunter believes that award shortlists should be viewed as an opportunity for readers, not a challenge. “A good shortlist isn’t a statement about what you should like,” he said. “It’s an invitation to go beyond the limitsof what you already know so you can experience and enjoy something new. Why limit an appreciation of a literature that’s built on the power of human imagination?”

More of Hunter’s thoughts on the award, and the list of panelists who determined the short list, is available on the Arthur C. Clarke Award’s official Facebook page.

Tide of Shadows and Other Stories Cover Art

I am pleased to announce Tide of Shadows and Other Stories—a collection of five science fiction and fantasy stories spanning adventure, comic whimsy, and powerful drama—from a star-faring military science fiction tale of love and sacrifice, to a romp through the dragon-infested Kingdom of Copperkettle Vale. Tide of Shadows and Other Stories will be published by A Dribble of Ink as an eBook on May 4, 2015.

Pre-order Tide of Shadows and Other Stories

Table of Contents

  • “A Night for Spirits and Snowflakes”
  • “The Girl with Wings of Iron and Down”
  • “Of Parnassus and Princes, Damsels and Dragons”
  • “The Colour of the Sky on the Day the World Ended”
  • “Tide of Shadows”

Read More »