From Brooks’ official website:

The Wards of Faerie, Book I in the Legacy of Shannara series, will be published in August 2012. It is the story set 100 years after the events of the High Druid of Shannara trilogy, where the people of the Four Lands have become largely distrusting of magic after the failed Third Council of Druids. But when a Druid stumbles upon information that might lead to the re-discovery of the lost Elfstones of Faerie, Ard Rhys of Paranor Khyber Elessedil must decide to undertake the most dangerous of missions to acquire them—at all costs.

Jeez, a quest to find the Elfstones? How original. I’m a longtime Brooks fan, but in recent years, I’ve become tired of his re-using the same tools and ideas in novel-after-novel. His creativity was one of the staples of his early books (if, I suppose, you disregard The Sword of Shannara‘s purposeful similarities to The Lord of the Rings and instead look at the several novels that followed), but has been sorely lacking since Antrax. Whatever. I’ll read them, and probably make the same complaints I do every time. The most interesting news, though, comes from details about the publishing schedule:

That means fans will be able to read the entirety of the Legacy of Shannara trilogy in the span of a year—August 2012 (The Wards of Faerie), March 2013 (Book II), and August 2013 (Book III) respectively!

But that’s not all. Del Rey Books has agreed to make The Wards of Faerie a very special publication in its own right. Here are the highlights:

• Interior color artwork for the first time since publication of The Sword of Shannara
• A new two-page map of the Four Lands and beyond by Russ Charpentier
• Detailed schematics of Paranor

In a world where George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss and Scott Lynch are ostracised for taking years between volumes, Brooks writes so bloody fast these days that he’s a couple of books ahead of publishing schedule. Crazy. Still, there’s a definite reflection of this on the quality of his work. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll actually hold true to my promise to myself and wait until the trilogy is out in its entirety and read it as one long novel (which I’ve always felt might improve my experience with Brooks’ more recent works, which are, essentially, long novels split over three volumes.)

It’ll be cool to have interior illustrations, which were a huge factor in first attracting me to The Sword of Shannara way back in the day. And, well, Charmentier’s maps are always gorgeous, so I certainly can’t complain about that.

What do you think, Shannara fans?

To celebrate today’s release of Spellbound by Blake Charlton (a very generous and kindly friend-of-the-blog), I’ve got two chapters from the novel, ripe for the reading. If you’re curious about my affection for the series, my review of Spellwright should shed some light on that:

Charlton’s inventive debut is comfortable in its tropes, but also willing to turn convention on its head and remind us of that sense of wonder than drew us to Fantasy in the first place.

Today we’ve got Chapter Three and tomorrow I’ll be rolling out Chapter Four. Bu… but, what about the first two chapters? Ain’t those important, too?

Well, yeah, and, luckily, Tor.com’s got you covered with Chapter One and Chapter Two of Spellbound, all ready to go.

So, then, here’s today’s excerpt, Chapter Three!

High up in Avel’s sanctuary, Nicodemus crouched in a dark hallway and waited for the sound of footsteps. If this raid on Typhon’s library was timed correctly, he would shatter the demon’s mind as if it were a stained-glass window. For nearly ten years, Nicodemus had waged clandestine war against the demon. It was almost time to end that war.

But the attack had to be perfect. He needed to catch all three librarians together and unaware.

So he crouched in the dark and waited for footsteps.

None came.
Read More »

Over on Tor.com, I’ve blogged at some length about the recent announcement of Dragon Quest X Online: Rise of the Five Tribes, the next iteration in the long-running series, and the first to take the series seriously online. I’m not terribly happy with the decision, nor are a lot of other fans:

Having first discovered Dragon Quest with the eighth entry, Journey of the Cursed King, and subsequently completing many of the earlier entries (thanks, in part, to the Nintendo DS remakes of Dragon Quest IV, V, and VI), my reaction to Dragon Quest IX’s shift to a more social game was mixed. I missed the pre-defined characters and found the multiplayer (even when played locally with a friend) to be unnecessary. To me, Dragon Quest has always been an escape, a world to lose myself in for a few hours every week. If I want to play with friends, I load up World of Warcraft or invite them over to play Mario Kart. Like a troubled teenager, my enthusiasm for Dragon Quest X Online: Rise of the Five Tribes is having trouble finding it’s identity; I find myself at once perplexed by this evolution, and drooling for more Dragon Quest. It does sound like people will be able to play offline, with a party filled with computer-controlled NPCs, which might be some consolation for anti-social dicks like me, but, really what’s a long-time fan have to do to get a more traditional adventure?

Check out the whole article about Dragon Quest X Online: Rise of the Five Tribes on Tor.com. What do you think about the announcement?

As I ponder my own review of George R.R. Martin’s latest volume in A Song of Ice and Fire, I stumbled across this interesting blog that chronicles Stefan Sasse’s experience as he re-reads A Dance with Dragons, a novel that’s found enormous success commercially, but a very critical response from many readers. It’s similar to what Tor.com’s doing with Robert Jordan’s A Wheel of Time, but looks more critically and in-depth at the novel on a chapter-by-chapter basis. It’s my own opinion that A Dance with Dragons (and, to an extent, A Feast for Crows) is unfairly maligned, and analyzing the novel without any of the anticipation and expectations that are loaded upon a first read might give a clearer picture of the strengths and weaknesses in the narrative.

You can find Sasse’s re-read project HERE and his original review of A Dance with Dragons HERE.

Not only is this a decent way to re-cap the novel, Sasse has some good point about the narrative and it’s place in the overall scheme of A Song of Ice and Fire. He’s nearly done the novel, now, and I’ll be curious to see if he goes back and gives a similar treatment to the earlier novels in the series.

Via Winter is Coming:

We have some exclusive casting news for you, the House Gatewatch faithful. British actor Patrick Malahide has been cast as Lord Balon Greyjoy.

[…]

This probably completes the casting for Ironborn speaking roles this season as it looks like Aeron and Victarion will be shuffled off to later seasons. Malahide looks to be a solid choice for the role, being an experienced character actor and one that tends to play the villainous roles. Balon isn’t a villain per se, but he definitely has an edge to him. As a Greyjoy fanboy, I approve of this casting.

For the rather small role he’ll play in season two of Game of Thrones, I don’t have much to say. Looks scary and angry enough.