A Dribble of Ink

The children of the embassy all saw the boat land. Their teachers and shiftparents had had them painting it for days. One wall of the room had been given over to their ideas. It’s been centuries since any voidcraft vented fire, as they imagined this one doing, but it’s a tradition to represent them with such trails. When I was young, I painted ships the same way.

I looked at the pictures and the man beside me leaned in too. ‘Look,’ I said.

‘See? That’s you.’ A face at the boat’s window.

The man smiled. He gripped a pretend wheel like the simply rendered figure.

‘You have to excuse us,’ I said, nodding at the decorations.

‘We’re a bit parochial.’

‘No, no,’ the pilot said. I was older than him, dressed-up and dropping slang to tell him stories. He enjoyed me flustering him. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘that’s not…It is amazing though. Coming here. To the edge. With Lord knows what’s beyond.’ He looked into the Arrival Ball.

There were other parties: seasonals; comings-out; graduations and yearsends; the three Christmases of December; but the Arrival Ball was always the most important. Dictated by the vagaries of trade winds, it was irregular and rare. It had been years since the last.

China Mieville’s a big deal these days.

How big? The City & The City was nominated for almost every single genre award (and won many of them). Perdido Street Station was recently chosen by readers of Tor.com as one of the ‘Best SFF Novels of the Decade’ in a reader poll. But, perhaps the most damning evidence is a recent party thrown by Tor UK to celebrate… the announcement of new cover art for his old books.

Yeah. Not a new book announcement. Not a celebration of his success on the awards circuit. Not a milestone in his career. New book covers.

Hidden in amongst this ‘celebration’ were several bloggers and industry folk who, by attending the party, were able to acquire early galleys of Mieville’s hotly anticipated Embassytown, the author’s first foray into hard Space Opera. Jealous fits could be heard the world over from those fans who didn’t get a copy.

Well, it’s not a galley, but now Mieville fans can get an early glimpse of Embassytown courtesy of Pan Macmillan (Mieville’s UK publisher), who have made the prologue and Chapter One of Embassytown available on their website.

It’s almost hard to believe, given the various delays, but The Wise Man’s Fear had been sitting on store shelves and cracked open in the sweaty hands of fervent fanboys (and fangirls!) for three days. Not surprisingly, there are a number of (generally glowing) reviews on the web. Since I couldn’t finish the book in time for release (I read slower than molasses climbs a hill), I thought I’d round up some of those reviews for those still sitting on the fence.

Brandon Sanderson, author of The Way of Kings:

Why do I recommend it?

Because it’s awesome.

Why is it awesome?

This often stops me. Why IS Pat’s writing awesome?

Well, the books have an absolutely wonderful magic system. One part science, one part historical pseudoscience, one part magical wonder. It’s the type of magic system that I’m always delighted to read, and ranks among my favorites in fantasy literature. But that alone doesn’t describe why the books are awesome.

In many ways, Name of the Wind is like an old, familiar coat. A young man orphaned at a young age. Time spent on the streets living as a thief and a street rat. A wizards’ school. Those who have not liked the book have often complained about the familiar tropes. What I love about how Pat uses these tropes, however, is the realism he strives to impart.

Read More »

From Martin’s website:

No. Sorry. Not done yet.

I’m close, though. Watch this space. When the book is done, you will read it here.

Meanwhile… there is news. Big news. The end is in sight, at long long last, and we’re close enough so that my editors and publishers at Bantam Spectra have set an actual publication date.

[…]

Yes, I know. You’ve all seen publication dates before: dates in 2007, 2008, 2009. None of those were ever hard dates, however. Most of them… well, call it wishful thinking, boundless optimism, cockeyed dreams, honest mistakes, whatever you like.

This date is different. This date is real.

Barring tsunamis, general strikes, world wars, or asteroid strikes, you will have the novel in your hands on July 12. I hope you like it.

(For what it’s worth, the book’s a monster. Think A STORM OF SWORDS.)

The dragons are coming. Prepare to dance.

And hey… thanks for waiting.

So. July 12th, 2011. That’s, like, just around the corner. Martin (and his publisher) seem very confident about his date. What do you think? Can we get honestly excited now?

Via The Mad Hatter’s Book Shelf & Book Review:

The Foul, Unnatural Murder of Gaelan Starfire & the Birth of Durzo Blint

“I got a bit of prophecy,” the old assassin said. “Not enough to be useful, you know. Just glimpses. My wife dead, things like that to keep me up late at night. I had this vision that I was going to be killed by forty men, all at once. But now that you’re here, I see they’re just you. Durzo Blint.”

Durzo Blint? Gaelan had never even heard the name.

***
Gaelan Starfire is a farmer now, happy to be a husband and a father; a careful, quiet, simple man. He’s also an immortal, peerless in the arts of war. Over the centuries, he’s worn many faces to hide his gift, but he is a man ill-fit for obscurity, and all too often he’s become a hero, his very names passing into legend: Acaelus Thorne, Yric the Black, Hrothan Steelbender, Tal Drakkan, Rebus Nimble.

But when Gaelan must take a job hunting down the world’s finest assassins for the beautiful courtesan-and-crimelord Gwinvere Kirena, what he finds may destroy everything he’s ever believed in.

I enjoyed The Black Prism well enough, but I’ve not read Weeks’ Night Angel Trilogy, but this prequel novella has me somewhat interested. More than anything, I like the idea that Orbit Books will be releasing an eBook edition of Perfect Shadow (an awful title, but whatever) both as a treat for fans of the series and as incentive for skeptics like me to give Weeks’ successful series a closer look. Plus, I’m a sucker for peerless-in-the-art-of-war-immortals-turned-farmer character archetypes.

Also, Weeks is an awesome interview.