Posts Tagged: Tor

Bouyed by seeing the Internet’s recent enthusiasm about John Scalzi’s Redshirts winning the Hugo Award for ‘Best Novel,’ Steven Erikson has announced that his next novel will not be a Malazan novel (though, Adam Whitehead of The Wertzone reveals that Fall of Light, the second novel in the Kharkanas Trilogy, is still in the works, merely delayed), but Willfull Child, a satirical riff on Star Trek.

Willfull Child is described as a ‘smart, inventive and hugely entertaining spoof on the whole mankind-exploring-space-for-the-good-of-all-species-but-trashing-stuff-with-a-lot-of-hi-tech-kit-along-the-way type over-blown adventure.’

An excerpt of Willfull Child last year on on Tor.com.

More details are available via the Amazon.co.uk page for the novel:

These are the voyages of the starship, A.S.F. Willful Child. Its ongoing mission: to seek out strange new worlds on which to plant the Terran flag, to subjugate and if necessary obliterate new life life-forms, to boldly blow the…

And so we join the not-terribly-bright but exceedingly cock-sure Captain Hadrian Sawback – a kind of James T Kirk crossed with ‘American Dad’ – and his motley crew on board the Starship Willful Child for a series of devil-may-care, near-calamitous and downright chaotic adventures through ‘the infinite vastness of interstellar space’…

Erikson is a delightful and sharply funny person, and I’ve always felt that this sense of humour was one of the highlights of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, so I’m glad to see him momentarily shifting away from the dark, sprawling world of the Malazan/Kharkanas novels into something entirely different. Mind you, it sounds alarmingly like Scalzi’s Redshirts, but Erikson and Scalzi are such stylistically different writers that I think the outward similarities only make me more curious to read Willfull Child.

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

So, let’s talk about the recently revealed cover for The Way of Kin— err… wait, I mean Words of Radiance, the second volume in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive. I won’t ever blame you for mistaking the two books, so, please, afford me the same luxury.

Now, let’s talk a little bit about one of publishing’s biggest catch-22 arguments. Fans have cried ‘foul’ time-and-again when publishers step in and change the style of a series’ covers midway through. It’s great when a completed series gets a re-issue, but, I think I can speak for most fans when I say that it’s nice to have a matching set of books on your bookshelf. On the flip side, though, there are a lot of cases of lazy design work, with the publisher, or at least the art department, jumping on board with what worked in the past and riding it until it keels over from exhaustion. A good example of this is the early cover for Brent Weeks’ The Black Prism. Orbit found huge success with Weeks’ first trilogy, in large part because of the striking covers. Back then, the hooded dude was still waiting tables, just trying to catch a break. Now, he’s everywhere, we’re sick of him, but he established a strong brand for Weeks and his Night Angel Trilogy. The first cover leaked to the public looked like a sequel to Weeks’ first trilogy even though it was an entirely new series. The cover was changed before publication. And then a new cover was issued for the recent trade paperback edition of the novel. It’s gorgeous. Orbit has done a great job of recognizing the need to create a strong brand for Weeks, but not at the expense of driving the concept into the ground. Read More »

Thieves Quarry by D.B. Jackson
Ideology, Politics, and the Writer

This is a post about writing; it is not a post about politics.

This is a post about writing; it is not a post about politics. I want to make that clear from the outset. I am not trying to write a polemical piece, nor am I looking for a fight. Please, let’s try to keep comments and discussion to the writing issues.

My first series, the LonTobyn Chronicle (which I wrote as David B. Coe), was a fairly straightforward epic fantasy trilogy. But I originally conceived of it as something I called “an ecological fantasy,” because it played on ecological issues. I didn’t worry about putting off readers; in my callow arrogance I just figured that those who were interested in the issues would see what I was doing, and those who didn’t would still enjoy the story. The problem was, I used too heavy a hand in weaving those issues into my narrative. In its review of the final volume of the trilogy, Publisher’s Weekly noted this, saying, “Characterization, although present, plays second fiddle to ideology in this epic. It’s as if Robert Jordan began channeling Will and Ariel Durant.” Read More »

A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Yesterday, Tor.com hosted one of their ongoing #TorChat twitter conversations, and invited Brandon Sanderson, co-author of A Memory of Light, the final volume of Robert Jordan’s long-running Wheel of Time series, to answer fan questions. And, well, it being Sanderson and Wheel of time, the questions were endless. And spoiler-filled. Egads, by the end of the chat, my virgin ears were stuffed full of more spoilers for A Memory of Light than I cared for. They were popping up on my twitter feed left and right. Ah well.

To save those of you still waiting to read the book from unwanted spoilers, I’ll hide them behind the jump. Read More »

A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

A Memory of Light, the final volume in Robert Jordan’s long-running Wheel of Time series, is, undoubtedly, one of the most anticipated Fantasy novels of the past twenty years, and its release today is one of the biggest events in Fantasy publishing history. I’ve gathered here many of the reviews published of the novel, and they are all glowing. Reviews that aren’t specifically marked as spoiler free are in their own section, after the jump. Enjoy!

Spoiler Free

Leigh Butler, Tor.com:

[T]his is the last Wheel of Time book you’ll ever get to read for the first time. Maybe that’s only a blip in the grand scheme of things, but for those of you like me who have invested literally decades into seeing this to the finish, you owe it to yourself to enjoy this as much as humanly possible.

Jason Denzel, Dragonmount:

The Wheel of Time books have ended for me. I cannot deny the bittersweet emotions that brings. But a strong ending gives more meaning to the journey that came before it. Sure, I can pick apart small nuances of this final book that weren’t perfect. Some little parts may not have rung as true as they could have. But by and large, it delivered in a big way.

Read More »