The first chapter of Kushiel’s Mercy can now be found on Jacqueline Carey’s website. The book is due out in June.

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

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. 

The third chapter of The Mirador is now up at Sarah Monette’s official website. This is the sequel to Mélusine and The Virtu, and this chapter (like the two earlier previews) is a real treat.

Subterranean Press has just announced that they’ll be producing limited editions of the first two Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson. If the limited edition run does well, Subterranean will produce limited editions of the following books. Besides the high-quality that Subterranean promises to bring to the book, one of the most exciting things about it all is that Michael Komarck will be providing the full-color interior illustrations. He’s a fabulous artist who’s created what’s widely-considered the definitive depiction of Jaime Lannister, and promises to be a name fans of genre art will be hearing quite a lot of in the future.

Via SF Scope and the Science Fiction Book club blog, we’ve learned that Lloyd Alexander—the author of such memorable Young Adult books such as the Prydain and Westmark series—passed away while in hospice care, two weeks after the death of his wife of 62 years. He will be missed.

Sarah Monette has now put up the second chapter of The Mirador on her website (the first is also up there). This is the sequel to Mélusine and The Virtu.

For May, Jacqueline Carey has updated her official site with a second sample chapter from for Kushiel’s Justice, the second book in the second Terre d’Ange trilogy. 

It’s International Pixel-stained Technopeasant Day today (all started due to these comments from the SFWA’s current vice-president), which means a heap of free stories from published authors. Browser the community—John Scalzy, Charles Stross, Diane Duane, and many more have contributed works.

The top five nominees in each of the Locus Poll categories have been posted. The results will be revealed on June 16th during the Locus Awards Ceremony.

Kurt Vonnegut, acclaimed author of novels such as Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle has passed away at the age of 84.

Sarah Monette has posted to her livejournal that she will be auctioning off a freshly printed ARC of The Mirador, with the proceeds from the auction going to the John M. Ford Memorial Book Endowment. The auction will open on April 12th and it will run for twenty-four hours, closing at the same time on April 13th. More details here.

The annual Locus Magazine poll is currently running, and voting is open to everyone who’s interested. The awards has one of the largest voter bases among SF/F literature fandom, and is very well-laid out, with suggestions for each category plus room to include fill-ins.

The deadline is April 15, so vote quickly.