From Steve Thomas:
So awesome. As if I didn’t want to travel to The Shire and Rivendell already. Love the old school style. If interested, you can purchase prints through Thomas’ Zazzle page. He also has a whole whack of other posters, including similar travel posters for the rest of our Solar System.
“Tunny.”
“Uh?” He opened one eye and the sun stabbed him directly in the brains. “Uh!” He snapped it shut again, wormed his tongue around his sore mouth. It tasted like slow death and old rot. “Uh.” He tried his other eye, just a crack, trained it on the dark shape hovering above him. It loomed closer, sun making glittering daggers down its edges.
“Tunny!”
“I hear you, damn it!” He tried to sit and the world tossed like a ship in a storm. “Gah!” He became aware he was in a hammock. He tried to rip his feet clear, got them tangled in the netting, almost tipped himself over in his efforts to get free, somehow ended up somewhere near sitting, swallowing the overwhelming urge to vomit. “First Sergeant Forest. What a delight. What time is it?”
“Past time you were working. Where did you get those boots?”
Tunny peered down, puzzled. He was wearing a pair of superbly polished black cavalry boots with gilded accoutrements. The reflection of the sun in the toes was so bright it was painful to look at. “Ah.” He grinned through the agony, some of the details of last night starting to leak from the shadowy crannies of his mind. “Won ’em . . . from an officer . . . called . . .” He squinted up into the branches of the tree his hammock was tied to. “No. It’s gone.”
Forest shook his head in amazement. “There’s still someone in the division stupid enough to play cards with you?”
“Well, this is one of the many fine things about wartime, Sergeant. Lots of folks leaving the division.” Their regiment had left two score in sick tents over the last couple of weeks alone. “That means lots of new card-players arriving, don’t it?”
“Yes it does, Tunny, yes it does.” Forest had that mocking little grin on his scarred face.
“Oh, no,” said Tunny.
“Oh, yes.”
“No, no, no!”
“Yes. Up you come, lads!”
It’s Joe Abercrombie, no mistake. With each new novel, Abercrombie seems to be further cementing his style, to the point that his writing is distinctive enough to be recognized even without his name attached. This excerpt should enough to either A. whet your appetite for The Heroes or B. make you into a slavery, bloodthirsty fool who can’t wait until the initial release of the novel. I won’t tell you which category I fall in.
Head on over the the Orion Books/Gollancz Blog for the full excerpt from The Heroes.
From a Goodreads interview with Brooks:
I’m working on a book that’s the first of a trilogy that takes place after High Druid of Shannara, which is in the future of the Shannara world. I’m doing something entirely new. It’s centered around a search for all of the elfstones that are referred to repeatedly in the other books. They disappeared in the old world of fairy, and nobody knows what happened to them. In this series of books we are going to find out. People have asked about this for years, so I think there will be some pretty strong interest in the story line. Just the other day I was wishing I hadn’t [already] used the title The Elfstones of Shannara, because it would be so much better if I could use it now!
One of my biggest criticisms of Brooks’ latest novel, Bearers of the Black Staff, is that he too often dips his pen back into the same inkwell, building stories with the exact same blocks time and time again. Particularly, he’s used the Blue Elfstones as a plot device in the same manner for books on end. I hoped he would one day challenge himself, and put aside those familiar building blocks to more widely explore his mythos. Sounds like I’m getting (almost exactly) what I was asking for. It’s just too bad the book won’t be on store shelves for two-and-a-half years.
Stolen from Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist:
Savaged by the K’Chain Nah’Ruk, the Bonehunters march for Kolanse, where waits an unknown fate. Tormented by questions, the army totters on the edge of mutiny, but Adjunct Tavore will not relent. One final act remains, if it is in her power, if she can hold her army together, if the shaky allegiances she has forged can survive all that is to come. A woman with no gifts of magic, deemed plain, unprepossessing, displaying nothing to instill loyalty or confidence, Tavore Paran of House Paran means to challenge the gods – if her own troops don’t kill her first.
Awaiting Tavore and her allies are the Forkrul Assail, the final arbiters of humanity. Drawing upon an alien power terrible in its magnitude, they seek to cleanse the world, to annihilate every human, every civilization, in order to begin anew. They welcome the coming conflagration of slaughter, for it shall be of their own devising, and it pleases them to know that, in the midst of the enemies gathering against them, there shall be betrayal.
In the realm of Kurald Galain, home to the long lost city of Kharkanas, a mass of refugees stand upon the First Shore. Commanded by Yedan Derryg, the Watch, they await the breaching of Lightfall, and the coming of the Tiste Liosan. This is a war they cannot win, and they will die in the name of an empty city and a queen with no subjects.
Elsewhere, the three Elder Gods, Kilmandaros, Errastas and Sechul Lath, work to shatter the chains binding Korabas, the Otataral Dragon, from her eternal prison. Once freed, she will rise as a force of devastation, and against her no mortal can stand. At the Gates of Starvald Demelain, the Azath House sealing the portal is dying. Soon will come the Eleint, and once more, there will be dragons in the world.
And so it ends. Having only read the first two volumes of the series, all I see are a lot of hard-to-pronounce names and potential, but fans are sure to be salivating for The Crippled God. It all kinda makes my head hurt.
Directly from Abraham on the Westeros Forums:
The dragons are gone, the powerful magics that broke the world diluted to little more than parlour tricks, but the kingdoms of men remain and the great game of thrones goes on. Lords deploy armies and merchant caravans as their weapons, manoeuvring for wealth and power. But a darker power is rising – an unlikely leader with an ancient ally threatens to unleash the madness that destroyed the world once already. Only one man knows the truth and, from the shadows, must champion humanity. The world’s fate stands on the edge of a Dagger, its future on the toss of a Coin.
There’s not a single novel (even from the ‘Big Three’ of Rothfuss, Lynch and Martin) that I’m anticipating more than this. It sounds more traditional than Abraham’s Long Price Quartet, but I feel that will only help in finding him the larger audience he deserves. We don’t know why Tor Books dropped him after The Price of Spring, but I still expect them to be rue the decision not to stick with Abraham once the wide Fantasy market catches on to him. Because, frankly, it’s only a matter of time.
Abraham admits that this is early catalog copy, so it will change (and become less generic) as the book moves closer to publication. He was also pretty clear that the ‘game of thrones‘ line wasn’t written by him, which is good to hear! Ain’t no good to rip off your friends.
Absolutely cannot wait for The Dragon’s Path. It’s the first volume in The Dagger and the Coin series.
