A Dribble of Ink

Well, we can put that one in the books! George R.R. Martin has confirmed that principal photography has been completed on A Game of Thrones, the television adaptation of his revolutionary A Song of Ice and Fire.

Martin on the next step in production:

Which is not to say the work is done. Now comes editing, special effects, scoring, and all the other behind-the-scenes stuff that makes up post production. The cast and crew get to go home for a while; for the producers, the road goes ever on and on.

And, geez… doesn’t it seem like just yesterday that we were hearing rumblings of HBO looking into the series? That casting was underway? That the pilot was written? And now the first season is done. I can almost taste the bloody show!

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.