Posts Tagged: Del Rey

Suvudu Cage Match, Moiraine vs. The Dagda MorI was asked to contribute another write-up for Suvudu’s 2012 Cage Matches. This time around, it’s The Wheel of Time‘s Moiraine Damodred, diminutive Aes Sedai, versus Terry Brooks’ hulking demon lord, The Dagda Mor. A taste:

The vicious sound of her Warder locked in battle with the Demon clawed at her, but Moiraine could not waste a thought for Lan, no matter his peril. The Dagda Mor dropped from the sky, and Moiraine caught a bat-shaped beast winging away into the dark night. Even hunched, the Demon towered over the diminutive Aes Sedai. Tufts of green hair, like saw-grass, sprouted over its entire body. In its hands was a long, gnarled staff, the end glowing green as magic coursed between the Demon and the shaft.

Moiraine wore a brocaded blue silk dress, horizontal slashes of alternating blue and white crossing her chest, and a black belt circling her waist. On her feet were high-calfed leather boots and gossamer stockings, made from Shara’s finest silk. Over all this, she wore a dark blue cloak trimmed in white, too light for travel, but so perfectly fitted that it gave the Aes Sedia a regal look, hinting at her noble Cairhienen background. The hood of her cloak was drawn up, so that the only hint of life in the shadowed recesses was the sparkle of her eyes and the glint of light caught in the small blue stone that sat suspended on her forehead by a silver chain.

“Can we get on with this?” the Dagda Mor growled. Moiraine’s eyes snapped up from admiring her outfit, startled from her reverie by the Demon’s words.

Read the Moiraine vs. The Dagda Mor cage match!

I accepted the gig before I thought about the fact that I’d be assuming a character from The Wheel of Time, which has one of the largest and most loyal fan bases in all of Fantasy. To say I was nervous for the fan reaction would be an understatement of enormous proportion. I had some fun with the match, though, so I hope they’ll enjoy it!

My previous cage matches:

2010

2011

2012

BLOODSHOT and THE ELFSTONES OF SHANNARA for Suvudu Cage MatchYep, it’s that time of year again. The 2012 Suvudu Cage Matches are live and, like the previous two years, I was lucky enough to be asked to contribute to the event. This time around, being just a bit of an old-school Terry Brooks fan, I was charged with pitting the Dagda Mor, Brooks’ demonic lord from The Elfstones of Shannara, against Cheshire Red, the slick vampire/thief from Cherie Priest’s Bloodshot and Hellbent.

Here’s a little taste:

Astride his Northland Bat, the Dagda Mor circled slowly above the human city, watching the girl. She lurked in the shadows, thinking herself hidden, but mere darkness could not hide her from the demon’s magic. The Dagda Mor gripped its Staff of Power in skeletal hands, feeling its magic throb like a living thing. The girl was a tool, a piece of the puzzle that he would use to finally acquire a magic that had eluded him for thousands of years–the only magic more powerful than his.

The demon watched the girl climb up the zig-zagging metal ladders and platforms, reaching the top of the building and then effortlessly leaping across the gap to the other. She took one quick glance around the rooftop, never looking towards the sky, then knelt before the door. In a moment, the door popped open and the girl disappeared inside. The Dagda Mor waited.

The moon had barely moved from its place in the sky when the girl re-appeared through the same door, quietly closing it behind her. The Demon dropped from its bat mount and plummeted to the alleyway below. It landed without and sound and melted into the shadows, waiting for the girl as she clambered expertly down the metal ladders.

Read the full Dagda Mor Vs. Cheshire Red cage match!

I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with both Brooks and Priest, so it was quite an honour to be able to assume two of their characters for this cage match. I hope I was able to do their characters some bit of justice.

But, what do you think? Who would win the fight? Or are such cage matches just a fanciful waste of time?

My previous cage matches:

2010

2011

From Brooks’ website:

MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SALE – SOLD! To Warners and Weed Road

Warner Brothers has optioned Terry Brooks’ best-selling MAGIC KINGDOM OF LANDOVER series of books for Akiva Goldsman’s Weed Road Pictures and Andy Cohen’s Grade A Entertainment. Goldsman and Cohen will produce with Weed Road’s Kerry Foster and Alex Block overseeing for Weed Road. Warner Brothers’ Matt Cherniss brought the book series into the studio and will run point. Brooks was represented by Anne Sibbald of Janklow & Nesbit Associates.

The film will be based on the first book in the series, MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SALE – SOLD!, which was first published in 1986 by Del Rey Books, a division of Random House. The most recent book in the six book, ongoing series is A PRINCESS OF LANDOVER which came out in 2009. Other titles in the series are: THE BLACK UNICORN, WIZARD AT LARGE, THE TANGLE BOX, and WITCHES BREW.

Brooks is a prolific author best known for the LANDOVER series and the SHANNARA series of fantasy books, which began with THE SWORD OF SHANNARA. There are currently 19 books in the SHANNARA series with the next book due out later this year.

Weed Road is in preproduction on A WINTER’S TALE written and to be directed by Goldsman. Recent credits include PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 and FAIR GAME.

Cohen last produced UNTRACEABLE starring Diane Lane. He’s currently working on the stage show, HEATHERS – THE MUSICAL and the indie film, IN SIGHT.

As one of the few Brooks fans among the blogosphere, I’m excited about this. I feel that Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold! is a better fit for film than Brooks’ more popular Shannara novels, but I’ll also keep any of my enthusiasm in check until principal filming begins.

For those unfamiliar with the novel, you can read the first 50 pages of Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold! for free via Suvudu.

THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON by Saladin Ahmed

Throne of the Crescent Moon

By Saladin Ahmed
Hardcover
Pages: 288 pages
Publisher: DAW
Release Date: 02/07/11
ISBN: 0385343841

EXCERPT

Some readers might first discover Throne of the Crescent Moon through a review such as this one, others might be captured by the cover, yet others might hear about it through word of mouth. These are all common ways for a novel to find new readers, to catch the eye of potential fans. Throne of the Crescent Moon, however, has another aspect that might attract readers browsing at their favourite bookstore: the name of the author stretched large across the cover. Saladin Ahmed. In a genre dominated by Georges and Patricks, Robins and Brandons, Ahmed’s starkly Muslim name is an anomaly, a curiousity that promises to be something different, something exciting. Of course, a name is just a name, and the story between the covers of Ahmed’s debut could be a trite rehash of the typical kitchen-boy-saves-the-world novel that we’re all sick of, his ethnic background and religious heritage could have no impact on his novel, leaving readers with a story as prototypical as the cartoony cover art—but just cracking open the novel and reading the first page makes true on those promises. This is something different, something with balls, something worth getting excited about.

Throne of the Crescent Moon is the debut novel from acclaimed short fiction author Saladin Ahmed and follows one of the larger adventures of Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, the last real ghul hunter in the great city of Dhamsawaat who was first introduced to readers in Ahmed’s short fiction, including the wonderful Where Virtue Lives. Throne of the Crescent Moon is a Sword & Sorcery novel planted firmly in the tradition of the works of Leiber and Howard, and throws readers in alongside a cast of damaged, but eminently likeable heroes of sometimes questionable moral character (but always, in the end, with their hearts in the right place) and serves up more action, atmosphere and memorable scenes than many novels three times its length.
Read More »