Uuuuurrrrggghh.
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, a landmark epic fantasy trilogy published in the ’90s. So, when Hodder & Stoughton, one of my favourite SF/F imprints, announced they’d be publishing the series in the UK with brand new covers, I was appropriately excited. I’m usually a fan of Hodder & Stoughton’s covers, and Summers’ previous work for Hodder & Stoughton is stylish—particularly his cover for Lavie Tidhar’s A Man Lies Dreaming—but these are a big miss for me.
Even in a vacuum, where the series doesn’t already have some of the most iconic cover art, by one of the field’s legendary artists, these just aren’t right for the series. Memory, Sorrow and Thorn might have inspired George R.R. Martin to write A Song of Ice and Fire, but they’re not edgy or dark. They’re bright, expansive, and full of colour—these covers do little to convey the tone and spirit of Williams’ classic tale.
That all said, I do think the cover for Stone of Farewell is the best of the bunch, and is nice in a gritty, punch-you-in-the-face kind of way. Reminds me a bit of Stina Leicht’s (very good) contemporary Irish fantasy, Of Blood and Honey.
What do you think?
Of all the wonderful opportunities that come along with being a parent, introducing your child to your favourite books, movies, comics, and music is one of the greatest. When deciding on how to decorate our nursery, my wife and I quickly settled on a theme inspired by two of Hayao Miyazaki’s wonderful films: My Neighbour Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service. These woodblock-inspired posters from Bill Mudron would fit beautifully in our nursery. The drawn back perspective, with an emphasis on Miyazaki’s wonderful worlds, is a nice contrast to the character-centric imagery that you often see associated with films. You get a strong sense of the characters living in this world, of it continuing on past the rolling credits. Terrific stuff.
Posters of Mudron’s Studio Ghibli woodblock prints are available through his online store.
Sci-Fi Bulletin is reporting that Tanith Lee passed away on Sunday, May 24, 2015.
Lee was an incredibly prolific writer, with 90 novels, and over 300 pieces of short fiction to her name, spanning science fiction and fantasy, horror, and crime. Most notably, she is the author of The Flat-Earth Cycle, a huge fantasy series with dozens of related novels and short stories.
Twitter is currently overflowing with love for Lee and her vast works of fiction.
Lee was 67 years old.
What if I wrote an epic fantasy series that grounded readers first in the familiar, then took them to the stuff I’m doing that I feel is unique and new?
The journey to Trial of Intentions began in the year 2000. It started with a simple notion: What if I wrote an epic fantasy series that grounded readers first in the familiar, then took them to the stuff I’m doing that I feel is unique and new? That journey takes its next step on May 26th, when Trial of Intentions is released. But like any good story, there’s much more to it than that. And some of it is painful.
About the time I wrote the first book of the series, The Unremembered, I landed a literary agent. I won’t share his name. Suffice it to say he’s a noted agent in the field of science fiction and fantasy. He decided to represent me on the strength of a short story collection I’d had published by a small press. So, cool, right?
As we got to know one another, I shared with him my desire to write and publish books in horror, science fiction, thriller, and even (gasp) mainstream, in addition to fantasy. He nodded sagely to all this.
When I turned in the manuscript to book one of my epic fantasy series, he proceeded to tell me we should shelve it, and that I should focus on my thriller ideas, which he said he liked very much. I think my brow pinched in confusion. I’d just finished a book. He could go market it. Sell it. Make a commission. But I saluted and went off to write the thriller books that I was also eager to write. Read More »
In collaboration with editors John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey, A Dribble of Ink is proud to introduce a series of interviews with the authors of The End Has Come, the final volume in the The Apocalypse Triptych. Following on The End is Nigh, and The End Is Here, The End Has Come contains 23 stories about life after the apocalypse.
Interview with Sarah Langan about “The Uncertainty Machine”
“Prototype” shows us a drastically changed world. How did this story evolve over the course of writing for a triptych?
I was really glad John contacted me, because I’d already written a couple hundred pages of a YA series (KIDS) set in the post apocalypse, but needed to more firmly build the mythology and rules of my strange world.
I got that opportunity– with The End Is Nigh I wrote “Love Perverts” which covers the basic themes of the YA series (parents selling out their childrens’ futures; survivors tending to be the least moral of a particular group), and also the nature of the apocalypse (asteroid). My story in The End is Here shows how the villains of my world came into existence (cyborgs!). And in The End Has Come, “Prototype” shows the world itself, and sets up the rules. Writing these stories has really crystalized things for me. I’m CRAZY excited to dig back into KIDS with this new perspective. Read More »
