News

Cover Art | Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton (US Edition)

By Aidan Moher December 18th, 2009
Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton (US Edition)

The Mad Hatter, who has some uncanny ability to dig out Cover Art before it’s supposed to be revealed, posted the artwork for the US edition of Mark Charan Newton’s Nights of Villjamur.

Over all I think the cover is solid, but for one (major) caveat. I like that they’ve strayed away from the figure-centric cover that’s been plaguing the other releases of Newton’s novels, and I like the typhography (especially with the cool looking white stuff behind the title), but wow did they completely miss the tone of the novel. A bright sunny day? Is that supposed to be Villjamur? In any case, the novel’s bloody good, this is just a strange decision by the Bantam Spectra marketing team.

News

An Aside | New Dark Tower painting from SF great Michael Whelan

By Aidan Moher December 18th, 2009

The Long Road by Michael Whelan
Source

Michael Whelan is my favourite Fantasy/Science Fiction artist. It’s not even close. This painting, depicting Roland of Deschain and the long road he travels in his search for the Dark Tower, is another example of why. Whelan has stepped away from the cover art business in recent years, but is currently working on a painting for Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings, which is released next year. I can’t wait to see it.

Cover Art

Cover Art & Synopsis | Blood of the Mantis by Adrian Tchaikovsky

By Aidan Moher December 18th, 2009
Blood of the Mantis by Adiran Tchaikovsky

Driven by the ghosts of the Darakyon, Achaeos has tracked the stolen Shadow Box to the marsh-town of Jerez, but he has only days before the magical box is lost to him forever. Meanwhile, the forces of the Empire are mustering over winter for their great offensive, gathering their soldiers and perfecting their new weapons. Stenwold and his followers have only a short time to gather what allies they can before the Wasp armies march again, conquering everything in their path. If they cannot throw back the Wasps this spring then the imperial black-and-gold flag will fly over every city in the Lowlands before the year’s end. In Jerez begins a fierce struggle over the Shadow Box, as lake creatures, secret police and renegade magicians compete to take possession. If it falls into the hands of the Wasp Emperor, however, then no amount of fighting will suffice to save the world from his relentless ambition.

A few weeks ago, I posted the covers to two of Tchaikovsky’s novels, Empire in Black and Gold and Dragonfly Falling, which I was quite fond of, in a schlocky-ass-kickery-Fantasy kinda way. Pyr Book released the cover to Tchaikovsky’s third novel, Blood of the Mantis, also with art by Job Sullivan and I’m not quite so enamoured with it.

It’s full of energy and evocative imagery, which I’ve come to expect from Pyr, and I don’t even mind the dreaded ‘hooded-figure’, but the CGI artwork is a bit more obvious this time, compared to the previous two covers. Reminds me a bit of that scene in The Lord of the Rings movie when Frodo falls in the Dead Marshes and is attacked by those weird ghosts. Still, the colour scheme is great, and it’ll certainly stand out on the shelves next to its two companions.

Feature Article

Article | On finishing my first novel, Through Bended Grass

By Aidan Moher December 17th, 2009

Two weeks ago, I finished writing my first novel.

So that’s it, I can officially say I’ve done it, I’m not a quitter. A smidge under two-and-a-half years (2 years, 4 months, and 21ish days, to be exact), from the first typed word (‘Bye’, if you’re curious) to the last (‘Man’, again for you curious types) and I’m still in bloody love with it. Sure, after a few edits and several read-throughs, it might lose some of that lovely new-car-smell, but right now I’m in that honeymoon period, and we’re very very much still in love.

Through Bended Grass, a fantasy by Aidan Moher

Through Bended Grass is the story of Rowan Hayes, a young mother searching desperately for her son, violently stolen from her home by his Fey father. Dragged halfway across the globe, she is forced to the gritty streets and wondrous countryside of modern day Ireland, but soon finds herself embroiled in the mysterious, bastardized world of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Fey folk of ancient legend, and exposed to a host of dangerous characters she thought only Fairy Tale. Rowan soon learns that her halfbreed son is purported to be the lynchpin in a mysterious war engulfing the Fey world, and threatening to spill into hers. Travelling through both our world and the alien landscape of the Fey, Rowan must face challenges both physical and spiritual to have any hope of ever seeing her son again.

Perhaps, though, it’s easier to sum Through Bended Grass up with my submission to agent Colleen Lindsay’s ‘Query in 140 Characters or Less’ contest, in which I was selected runner-up out of over 300 entries:

LABYRINTH – (David Bowie and Muppets) + Fey mythology x The dirty streets of Ireland = THROUGH BENDED GRASS, a 90k contemporary Fantasy.

I tend to think of Through Bended Grass (when I’m thinking highly of myself, and feel like an ego-stroke) as Tad Williams’ The War of the Flowers meets Mark Chadbourn’s The Age of Misrule by way of Neil Gaiman. I know, I know, setting the bar a little high, and if I become half the author those three are I’ll be lucky, but I wear those influences very clearly on my sleeve. They’ve been there since the beginning (well, except Chadbourn, I came to him late; but we must’ve been drinking from the same well, give some of the similar themes and mythology we work with) and their work made an indelible mark on Through Bended Grass.
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