Yes, please.

One of the great strengths of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which was lacking in its sequels, was its sense of unabashed adventure. It never took itself too seriously, and the series really fell off the tracks once they started trying to establish a larger story and motive and the characters. It’s encouraging to see that the fourth movie looks to return to those adventurous roots and focus on just making a fun pirate movie again. Tim Powers’ On Stranger Tides is wonderful source material for the movie. Plus, more Jack Sparrow is always a good thing….

From Bullington’s blog:

This new novel, titled Hook and Cod, takes place in the Low Countries shortly after the Saint Elizabeth Flood of 1421 devastated the region and complicated aggressions between the local warring factions of the Hoekse and the Kabeljauwse–the Hooks and the Cods.

It’s wonderful to see authors like Bullington continuing to find success in taking ‘REAL LIFE’© history and turning it towards the fantastic. Fans of Tim Powers, author of The Anubis Gates, should take note. It’s being published by Orbit Books and, based on the previous covers for Bullington’s novels (like the one posted above and THIS one), I can’t wait to get a glimpse at the cover art.

I like good news. I also like when cool people like N.K. Jemisin (INTERVIEW), author of the wonderful The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (REVIEW), are at the centre of good news. So, it was to my delight to see that Jemisin has recently signed a new two-book deal with Orbit Books for the Dreamblood Duology due out in 2012.

An early synopsis of the first volume, Reaper:

In the city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Along its ancient stone streets, where time is marked by the river’s floods, there is no crime or violence. Within the city’s colored shadows, priests of the dream-goddess harvest the wild power of the sleeping mind as magic, using it to heal, soothe… and kill.

But when corruption blooms at the heart of Gujaareh’s great temple, Ehiru most famous of the city’s Gatherers — cannot defeat it alone. With the aid of his cold-eyed apprentice and a beautiful foreign spy, he must thwart a conspiracy whose roots lie in his own past. And to prevent the unleashing of deadly forbidden magic, he must somehow defeat a Gatherer’s most terrifying nemesis: the Reaper.

Those familiar with Jemisin’s short story “Narcomancer”, may recognize the setting:

I’ve been playing with the land of Gujaareh for several years now, in various forms. The setting was born from my longtime fascination with ancient Egypt, and the magic system from my longtime fascination with Freudian dream theory and Jung’s ideas about the collective unconscious. Some of you may remember my short story, The Narcomancer. … While these two new books are in the same setting, they don’t involve any of the short story’s characters, and focus on completely different subject matter. Just think of “The Narcomancer” as an unrelated side-story to the Dreamblood books.

The best news of all is that Orbit Books will be releasing the two volumes of the Dreamblood Duology in subsequent months (July and August, 2012), meaning we lucky readers will see five novels from Jemisin between 2010 and 2012. Not bad for a new writer.

Tor.com Fantasy

Promote your Page too

Well, it’s official. I’ve accepted a gig with Tor.com and will now be running their new satellite site called Tor.com Fantasy. It’s located on Facebook and twitter (@tordotfantasy) and it’s my job to troll the Internet, find all the cool and interesting Fantasy-related shit and write about it. We’re covering it all: books, movies, videogames and anything else that catches our eye. Really, it’s not a whole lot different than what I do now, just with a bigger audience. The goal isn’t to promote just Tor material (in fact, only a small percentage of the content there will be from Tor) but to promote all corners of Fantasy nerdom equally.

How will things change around here? Well, they won’t really. I’ll still be running A Dribble of Ink as I always have.

“But Tor’s paying you now!” you might be thinking. Well, yeah… they are. But, I hope I’ve proven in the past three-and-a-half years that I’m an honest, upfront blogger and writer. I hope my integrity’s been established and I’ll continue to run A Dribble of Ink with the same blueprint I’ve always used. I told this to Tor.com when I was offered the job and they replied, “Good! We’d expect no less.” It’s an independent blog and I have complete freedom to run A Dribble of Ink however I like. I wouldn’t be where I was without ruffling a few feathers, right?

I understand that people might be skeptical when I review Tor material, which is fine. That’s your right and it’s my responsibility to prove otherwise. You might find my reviews of Tor novels (and all novels, really) to shift somewhat in style, to a more essay-like analysis of the text, rather than a Red Light/Green Light style of buying guide, but I hope that my reputation as a reviewer has earned me at least a bit of trust. If not, I’ll start back at the beginning and gain your trust again. The proof, as they say, should be in the pudding.

It’s going to be a very organic learning experience as we get Tor.com Fantasy (and its sister site called Tor.com Steampunk) off the ground, so I hope you’ll all join me for the ride. We’ll be doing a ton of cool giveaways and hosting a lot of cool exclusive content.

Got questions about the job? Ask away. Suggestions about how to make Tor.com Fantasy awesome? Let me know.

She called herself Audra, though that wasn’t her real name; he called himself Miles, but she suspected it wasn’t his, either.

She was young (how young she would not say), beautiful (or so her Emil had told her), and she had a keen interest in stories. Miles was old, tattooed, perverted, and often mean, but he knew stories that no one else knew, and she was certain that he was the only one who could help her get back home.

She found him among the artists, makers, and deviants. They called him Uncle, and spoke of him sometimes with loathing, sometimes respect, but almost always with a tinge of awe-a magician in a world of technicians, they did not know what to make of him.

But Audra saw him for what he truly was.

Christie Yant is one of the hardest working, most genuine people you’ll find in the publishing industry. She’s been a well of wisdom for me as I’ve pursued the publication of my own fiction, and so it’s an absolute delight to see her story, ‘The Magician and the Maid and Other Stories’, from the John Joseph Adams-edited The Way of the Wizard, featured in its entirety on the almighty io9.

Go check it out. And if you enjoy it, her story ‘The Gift’ is also available for free!