According to an interview with the New York Times, George R.R. Martin’s former personal assistant, Ty Franck, has partnered with Telltale Games as a story consultant for the developer’s upcoming adaptation of Game of Thrones. Also notable is that, in addition to his direct work with Martin’s series, Franck is also one-half of the Hugo Award-nominated “James S.A. Corey”, a pseudonym shared by him and Daniel Abraham, under which they write The Expanse, a popular science fiction series.
“Telltale has a story consultant assigned by HBO,” The New York Times reported, “the science-fiction author Ty Corey Franck, who is the personal assistant to George R. R. Martin, the author of the books that inspired the TV series and an executive producer on the show.” Franck has experience with adaptations from both sides of the table, having recently published, as James S.A. Corey, a Star Wars Legends novel, Honor Among Thieves. Read More »
Hi, all! My name’s Brian McClellan, author of the Powder Mage trilogy from Orbit Books. My second book, The Crimson Campaign, will hit bookshelves, e-readers, and MP3 players worldwide on May 6th, 2014. It’s the sequel to my flintlock epic fantasy debut, Promise of Blood. Needless to say, I’m a little excited.
The Crimson Campaign starts up where Promise of Blood left off and takes us deeper into the world of flintlock rifles, black powder sorcery, vengeful gods, political intrigue and international war. Inspector Adamat tracks a psychopath holding his family hostage, Field Marshal Tamas is cut off behind enemy lines with no hope of rescue, and Taniel Two-shot finds himself friendless in an army he once thought he knew.
To fill the time between the first and second novels, I wrote a number of pieces of short fiction set in the Powder Mage universe and featuring side characters from the novels. It started as a kind of a lark (hey, I have this story idea, I think I’ll write it and see if anyone likes it), and the response ended up blowing me away. People seemed to really love the idea of crawling deeper into the world. The first of these stories “The Girl of Hrusch Avenue” is available as a free download for the next eleven days courtesy of A Dribble of Ink. It features a young Vlora surviving on the streets of Adopest. I hope you enjoy it. Read More »
Given my interests in Native American literature and genre fiction, it is inevitable that I’ve also become interested in the ways in which the indigenous peoples of North America are represented in science fiction and fantasy. For the purposes of this particular article I’m thinking primarily of their representation in Anglo-American sf and fantasy, and I’ll be focusing on, so far as I’m aware, representations by non-Native writers. (Nor is this intended to be a comprehensive survey of appearances by Native Americans in sf though that may be a project for the future.)
I want to begin with Joe Abercrombie’s Red Country (2012), where we meet Crying Rock, described as ‘an old Ghost woman with a broken sideways nose, grey hair all bound up with what looked like the tatters of an old Imperial flag, and a face so deep-lined you could’ve used it for a plate rack’ (p. 55). A couple of pages later, one character says of another, ‘His Ghosts massacred a whole fellowship o’ prospectors out on the dusty not two weeks ago. Thirty men, maybe. Took their ears and their noses and I shouldn’t wonder got their cocks besides’ (p. 57). A few pages later, ‘[t]he old Ghost woman had the reins, creased face as empty as it had been at the inn, a singed old chagga pipe gripped between her teeth, not smoking it, just chewing it’ (p. 64). Only on the following page is Crying Rock finally introduced by name, having said a few words ‘[s]o slow and solemn it might have been the eulogy at a funeral’ (p. 65). And much later still, we see Crying Rock as tracker: ‘’Til that moment Shy had been wondering whether she’d frozen to death hours before with her pipe still clamped in her mouth. She’d scarcely blinked all morning, staring through the brush they’d arranged the previous night as cover’ (p. 301). Read More »
Anime was always a part of my life growing up. From Speed Racer as a kid, to Sailor Moon as a pre-teen, to the first time my friend and I discovered Akira as high schoolers, I’ve been attracted to their unusual fantasy and science fiction tales. I’m also a raving Harry Potter fan.
So, I sorta have to be obsessed with Nacho Punch‘s mashup of Harry Potter and post-apocalyptic/cyberpunk ’80s anime, right?
Oh, right, spoilers (if you’ve been living under a rock for a decade and haven’t read Harry Potter.)
News broke earlier this month that after a 21 year absence, Tad Williams is returning to Osten Ard, the fantastical world that put him on the fantasy map, with The Last King of Osten Ard, a sequel trilogy to his enormously popular and influential epic fantasy, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn.
“I believe I can now write a story worthy of those much-loved settings and characters,” Williams said, explaining the origins of the unlikely sequel. “One that people who haven’t read the originals can enjoy, but which will of course mean more to those who know the original work. More than that, I feel I can do something that will stand up to the best books in our field. I have very high hopes. I’m excited by the challenge. And I’ll do my absolute best to make all the kind responses I’ve already had justified.”
Though the news was released earlier than Williams originally hoped, he’s only a few chapters into writing the first volume, he’s not shy on providing details of what fans can expect from the new trilogy.
“[The Last King of Osten Ard] is going to be at least as bursting-at-the-seams as the first one,” he said. “Since the originals are already written, I’m not going to spend anywhere near so much time setting up the world. Stuff is going to be happening from pretty much go. And one thing I can definitely tell you. LOTS of Norns. A much closer look at the Norns, collectively and individually, then we had in the first books. Much like what we learned of the Sithi in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn.” Read More »
