A Dribble of Ink

As they’re wont to do, Suvudu has released another 50-page excerpt of an exciting new novel on their website. This time around, it’s Mark Charan Newton‘s City of Ruin, one of my favourite novels of last year!

‘Last year?’ you say.

‘Well,’ I respond. ‘You see, Newton’s books are released about a year ahead of time in the UK and Canada… so I get to read them early!’

‘I wanna read them early!’ you whine.

‘Then rejoice! Just check out The Book Depository. Free worldwide shipping from the UK! Even better, if you like City of Ruin, you can also order its sequel, The Book of Transformations, which won’t be out in the US for at least another year!’

‘Thanks, Aidan!’ you shout. Absolute jubilation warps your face and tears of joy rolling down your cheeks. ‘You’re an amazing blogger and advocate of great Fantasy novels.’

‘Yah, I know.’

Newton has some interesting thoughts on City of Ruin:

[City of Ruin] is about a siege. It’s a war story. Villiren is a city under threat from an outside force, a race not natural to the world in which the book is set. I invested a lot of the narrative in building up to the war, because to make this war story more powerful, I added in some personal stories. The reasoning was that if the reader was invested in characters beforehand, then they would care when the invasion begun and their lives are at threat. So there are love affairs, a crime plot (with a serial killer), a gang leader whose marriage is breaking down uncontrollably.

You can read the first 50 pages of City of Ruin, and read the rest of Mark’s thoughts on the novel, on Suvudu.

Today, the dead town seemed completely empty, though he knew it wasn’t so. Wax had come here hunting a psychopath. And he wasn’t the only one.

He grabbed the top of the fence and hopped over, feet grinding red clay. Crouching low, he ran in a squat over to the side of the old blacksmith’s forge. His clothing was terribly dusty, but well tailored: a fine suit, a silver cravat at the neck, twinkling cuff links on the sleeves of his fine white shirt. He had cultivated a look that appeared out of place, as if he were planning to attend a fine ball back in Elendel rather than scrambling through a dead town in the Roughs hunting a murderer. Completing the ensemble, he wore a bowler hat on his head to keep off the sun.

A sound; someone stepped on a board across the street, making it creak. It was so faint, he almost missed it. Wax reacted immediately, flaring the steel that burned inside his stomach. He Pushed on a group of nails in the wall beside him just as the crack of a gunshot split the air.

Despite having some issues with the final two volumes of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy, I loved, loved, loved the first volume, The Final Empire. It’s with that enthusiasm that I choose to look towards The Alloy of Law, Sanderson’s next Mistborn novel, set hundreds of years after the events of the original trilogy.

In anticipation of the release, Tor.com has released the prologue and first chapter of The Alloy of Law. There are five more excerpts to come. My first impression? Waxillium is still a stupid name.

Via The Hollywood Reporter:

Tom Hanks’ Playtone Productions is set to produce an open-ended series, American Gods, for HBO, based on Neil Gaiman’s award-winning novel, while the company’s next project, Major Matt Mason, is in talks with Robert Zemeckis to direct in 3D, Playtone partner Gary Goetzman told The Hollywood Reporter.
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The series-in-development, revolving around the question “are you a god if no one believes in you?” is executive produced by Goetzman and Hanks, with Bob Richardson, and Gaiman on board as executive producer and writer.

Now slated for six seasons, each season will be of 10-12, hour-long episodes with a budget of around $35-40 million per season, targeted to debut on the cable powerhouse in 2013 at the earliest.
Rich in religious folklore that spanned millennia and featuring deities from Greek and Nordic mythology, and even the Judeo-Christian monotheistic God making an appearance, in the contemporary U.S., American Gods will be effects-heavy to do justice to the awe-inspiring power of the divine beings. “There are some crazy things in there. We’ll probably be doing more effects in there than it’s been done on a television series,” said Goetzman.

With the screaming success of Game of Thrones, it was inevitable that HBO would dip their pen back into the endless inkwell of classic speculative fiction. This time around, it looks like that will be tackling another of my favourite narratives, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods

The obvious hitch, here, of course, is that American Gods, though complex and layered, is not long enough to support six seasons of television. This makes me wonder whether the first season or two might not cover the novel and then move beyond to cover content included in Anansi Boys, some of Gaiman’s short fiction and, of course, storylines exclusive to the television series. I’m worried, too about how well the story and the characters will translate to the screen. Much of Shadow’s appeal in the novel was his enigmatic personality and some of the novel’s greatest twists might be more difficult to pull off under the more direct narration of television. Ideally, I’d love to see the show follow a format similar to The Wire, exploring a new facet of the world, a new story arc and a new cast of characters with each season.

Of course, as with anything Hollywood/TV, it’s best to take this news with some tempered expectations and enthusiasm. These things have a habit of falling through before they ever materialize.