Posts Categorized: News

News

An Aside | Read my Suvudu Cage Match!

By Aidan Moher March 5th, 2012

BLOODSHOT and THE ELFSTONES OF SHANNARA for Suvudu Cage MatchYep, it’s that time of year again. The 2012 Suvudu Cage Matches are live and, like the previous two years, I was lucky enough to be asked to contribute to the event. This time around, being just a bit of an old-school Terry Brooks fan, I was charged with pitting the Dagda Mor, Brooks’ demonic lord from The Elfstones of Shannara, against Cheshire Red, the slick vampire/thief from Cherie Priest’s Bloodshot and Hellbent.

Here’s a little taste:

Astride his Northland Bat, the Dagda Mor circled slowly above the human city, watching the girl. She lurked in the shadows, thinking herself hidden, but mere darkness could not hide her from the demon’s magic. The Dagda Mor gripped its Staff of Power in skeletal hands, feeling its magic throb like a living thing. The girl was a tool, a piece of the puzzle that he would use to finally acquire a magic that had eluded him for thousands of years–the only magic more powerful than his.

The demon watched the girl climb up the zig-zagging metal ladders and platforms, reaching the top of the building and then effortlessly leaping across the gap to the other. She took one quick glance around the rooftop, never looking towards the sky, then knelt before the door. In a moment, the door popped open and the girl disappeared inside. The Dagda Mor waited.

The moon had barely moved from its place in the sky when the girl re-appeared through the same door, quietly closing it behind her. The Demon dropped from its bat mount and plummeted to the alleyway below. It landed without and sound and melted into the shadows, waiting for the girl as she clambered expertly down the metal ladders.

Read the full Dagda Mor Vs. Cheshire Red cage match!

I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with both Brooks and Priest, so it was quite an honour to be able to assume two of their characters for this cage match. I hope I was able to do their characters some bit of justice.

But, what do you think? Who would win the fight? Or are such cage matches just a fanciful waste of time?

My previous cage matches:

2010

2011

News

An Aside | The DEATH STAR cost *how* much?

By Aidan Moher February 28th, 2012
The Death Star costs HOW much?

Because the folk at Centives.com have too much time on their hands, we now have a vague idea of how much it would cost to produce the Death Star in our current currency/economy. It’s not cheap.

Oh, and the cost of the steel alone? At 2012 prices, about $852,000,000,000,000,000. Or roughly 13,000 times the world’s GDP.*

*Gulp*

And how many Death Stars could we theoretically produce, regardless of cost?

[W]e’ve calculated that from the iron in the earth, you could make just over 2 billion Death Stars.

So, let’s see, $852,000,000,000,000,000 x 2,000,000,000 *pulls out calculator.*

Anyone got $1.69683934 × 1027 sitting around burning a whole in their pocket? If so, I think we could take over the known universe.

News

An Aside | First details on J.K. Rowling’s next novel, for adults.

By Aidan Moher February 23rd, 2012

J.K. Rowling, author of Harry PotterAfter several years of voracious fans re-reading Harry Potter and waiting impatiently for the sometimes-enigmatic author to breath a word about her next novel, J.K. Rowling has finally announced her next novel. It’s coming from Little, Brown, doesn’t have a title, isn’t related to Harry Potter and is aimed at an adult audience. I can almost hear you salivating with unbound excitement and lust.

Via Booktrade:

“Although I’ve enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series, which has been published so brilliantly by Bloomsbury and my other publishers around the world. The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry’s success has brought me, and with that new territory it seemed a logical progression to have a new publisher. I am delighted to have a second publishing home in Little, Brown, and a publishing team that will be a great partner in this new phase of my writing life.”

Of course, we find out little-to-nothing about the book, but it’s nice nonetheless to know that Rowling’s ready to break her relative radio silence and has proceeded far enough along with the novel to sign a deal. Any guesses what type of novel she’ll write? More importantly, though, do you think she will fall victim to Stephen R. Donaldson’s theory that fans follow series around, rather than authors?

News

An Aside | Official release date for A MEMORY OF LIGHT by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson

By Aidan Moher February 16th, 2012

The Wheel of Time, A MEMORY OF LIGHTWell, it’s official, and likely to annoy some fans of The Wheel of Time:

From Tor.com:

A Memory of Light will release on January 8, 2013, in the final month of the Year of the Dragon.

Consider that the first draft of the novel has completed for a few months (and some parts of it, including the ending, for years), a lot of us expected that the book would hit shelves this holiday season, somewhere between September and November. To see it pushed into 2013 is a bit of a surprise. No surprise gifts underneath the Christmas tree, I guess. Oh well, though, at least that gives me a few extra months to catch up to the series and read the final volume alongside the rest of the fans.

Now, the real question is, when will we get the cover art and who will be the artist responsible?

News

An Aside | New Synopsis for THE BROKEN ISLES by Mark Charan Newton

By Aidan Moher February 13th, 2012

The Broken Isles by Mark Charan NewtonVia the Pan Macmillan website:

War spills into the Boreal Archipelago, as two rival cultures bring their eternal battle into this adjacent realm.

Fresh from a military victory, Commander Brynd Lathraea plans to rebuild the city of Villiren, where he is confronted with a dilemma. There are friendly forces who have no other choice but to live alongside his own people, and their numbers will be required to fight in the looming conflict. The commander turns politician as he seeks to build bridges and embrace mysterious new technologies to further his ambitions. However, many in Villiren are sceptical of aliens coming to their city, tensions run high, and even the dream of a peaceful future brings with it inevitable clashes of beliefs.

Meanwhile, Villjamur has been destroyed. A vast swathe of refugees from the legendary city are now on the run from an immense alien presence in the sky. Villages are being cleared and people are dying en masse. And Inquisitor Fulcrom finds himself at the helm of an operation to aid the refugee exodus to the coast, but it’s a race against time before this threatened genocide is complete. Ancient civilisations line up on the field of battle. Exotic creatures and a possible god walk alongside citizens of the Empire. As the Legends of the Red Sun series draws to a close, there will be one final and immense conflict to decide the fate of multiple cultures forever.

The Broken Isles concludes Newton’s Legends of the Red Sun tetralogy, which reminds me that I still have to read the third volume, The Book of Transformations, especially since I enjoyed City of Ruin (REVIEW) so much.

Are you looking forward to the concluding volume of Newton’s series? What do you think of the first three volumes?