Hippoi Athanatoi

After we returned from the WorldCon, I finally managed to squeeze in a week of reading (before getting back to work on this site, among other things) which resulted in me finishing two books by a pair of my favourite authors that had been sitting on my shelf (the books, that is) for far too long: Banewreaker by Jacqueline Carey and The Runes of the Earth by Stephen R. Donaldson.

Peter S. Beagle, author of such fine novels as A Fine and Private Place and Tamsin, is preparing to pursue legal avenues to recover hundreds of thousands of dollars due to him from the sales of DVDs and videotapes of The Last Unicorn. His business manager, Connor Cochran, has called on fans to help through various means, from direct donation to letter writing campaigns to just spreading the word. Read more about the situation here.

A few quick hits, of free or very, very cheap stuff that I recommend taking a look at:

• Amazon Shorts is a new initiative by Amazon, providing original short stories and essays by a number of fine authors for the low price of $0.49 each. Notable among them are Robin Hobb’s "The Inheritance" a short story set in Bingtown, an essay by Gardner Dozois explaining how he puts together his award-winning Year’s Best SF anthologies, and an essay by Robert Silverberg discussing how he went about creating his Roma Eterna series of alternate history stories. There’s much more besides that, and I’m looking forward to seeing what other authors and material they introduce.
• Kelly Link—who recently won a Hugo for her story "The Faery Handbag"—has made her first story collection, Stranger Things Happen,  available for download. Her stories are sometimes quirky, often amusing, and always interesting. Give it a try.
• Finally, Neil Gaiman has put up a long excerpt from the audio book of his forthcoming novel, Anansi Boy, read by comedian and actor Lenny Henry. Henry’s reading—and the story he’s reading—are both very funny, and worth giving a try. I think this one’s on my to-buy list. More information, and the link to the mp3, can be found at Neil’s journal.

As part of her update for September, Jacqueline Carey has put up a synopsis of the forthcoming novel about Imriel, Kushiel’s Scion. She also notes that the publication date, at least for the time being, is set to June 2006. Much too far away, if you ask me, especially after reading that little teaser.