Jacqueline Carey has updated her official site and posted the first chapter from her next Kushiel book, Namaah’s Kiss. Its due out June 24th, which of course feels like far too long a wait.
Amazon needs to start teleporting books. I just placed an order of some things that are out now and that I want right off, and some things that aren’t out yet but that I still want right now. A delivery estimate for May 1 to May 21 for Corambis makes me all sad. The reading of the first chapter that Monette put up a while ago on her lj really whet my appetite. And speaking of her livejournal, right now she’s auctioning off three ARCs of Corambis.
I also ordered The Shadow Queen by Anne Bishop, The Last Paladin by Kathleen Bryan (aka Judith Tarr), Lace and Blade, Lace and Blade II and another unreleased item, Kings and Assassins by Lane Robins. Now, if I could only have all of these to curl up with right now, I’d be a happy girl. I am in the mood for fantasy with a good dose of romance and angst.
I should have been spending most of the day on a subtitling job, but I’ve found myself distracted by a few things, such as a couple of posts on a Swedish blog about Science Fiction and Fantasy. One is a longer essay about the two Swedish translations of Tolkien, which raised some very interesting points about how non-native speakers may perceive a language and about the role of the translator, and another is a shorter commentary about fantasy in general.
Perhaps this is only new to me, but there’s a cover and a summary up at Amazon for Jacqueline Carey’s next book, Naamah’s Kiss. June is too far away, I need something like that to curl up with right now..
Over the last two weeks of vacationing in our little cottage near Sundsvall (that’s up along the eastern coast of Sweden, pretty much in the middle of the country lengthwise), I have continued the little reading frenzy that resulted in a couple of reviews before we left. Since I now have some class work to catch up for a summer class on writing historical novels), these books will have to be satisfied with shorter commentaries rather than full reviews.
In a remarkable move, Archaia Studio Press has made almost all the issues of its flagship title, Artesia, available for free at Wowio. This includes all three initial series of six issues, through Artesia Afire. The on-going Artesia Besieged, however, is not included, nor are the annuals Smylie created.
Artesia is, hands down, the best epic fantasy being produced in American comics. There is now absolutely no excuse to give these a try.
The first chapter of Kushiel’s Mercy can now be found on Jacqueline Carey’s website. The book is due out in June.
The news has been spreading like wildfire that Brandon Sanderson, author of Elantris and the Mistborn series, has been personally chosen by Robert Jordan’s wife and editor, Harriet McDougal, to complete the final book in the Wheel of Time Series, A Memory of Light. A press release and links to further information can be found here.
If you haven’t picked up all the Christmas gifts (for yourself or others) yet, perhaps some ideas of interest can be found on our little list of books that we wouldn’t have minded getting (except for the fact that we already have them all).
Subterranean Press has begun serializing a story by Daniel Abraham. Looks like it’s quite amusing. The first part of the serial can be found over at Subterranean Online.
Daniel Abraham, an excellent writer currently best known for his Long Price Quartet (beginning with A Shadow in Summer), has begun to post on his blog about an informal symposium on epic fantasy that he organized involving a number of authors, including George R.R. Martin, S.M. Stirling, Walter Jon Williams, Melinda Snodgrass, and others. His first post outlines very broadly some interesting areas in which the discussion ranged, and he promises more details posts in the future giving readers a fuller idea on these topics. Definitely something to keep an eye out for.
Daniel Abraham’s debut novel, A Shadow in Summer, has seen its paperback version finally released. First in the Long Price Quartet, the paperback release precedes the publication of the next installment of the series, A Betrayal in Winter
Summer vacation usually means a chance to catch up on some reading, and this year was no different, though it took some effort rounding up enough books to keep us happy for two weeks. Clearly, we’ve been slacking when it comes to finding new things to try out. In the end, however, we ended up finding some new favourites, both among recent and older books.
The fourth chapter of The Mirador can now be read on Sarah Monette’s official website, and if offers another tantalizing teaser (which may or may not make the wait easier) for the book that is due out in August.
It took some effort this year, but we finally managed to put together a decent-sized order of books to bring along for our vacation. In case we’re not alone in suffering a shortage of ideas for what to read, we figured we’d share a few of the titles we’re picking up as well as some of the books we’ve either read recently or will be picking up as soon as they’re released.
