Cassandra Rose Clarke: My Favorite Novel… (Guest Post)

I know that Margaret Atwood has an unsavory reputation in a lot of genre circles, but that hasn’t stopped me from reading her 2000 novel The Blind Assassin several times since the first time I read it in high school. And I rarely reread novels. Along with One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Blind Assassin is easily one of my favorite books of all time.

The Blind Assassin is a tricky book to pin down. It won the Man Booker Prize and was included on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 greatest English-language novels since 1923. It also contains a science fiction story (of the “talking squids in space variety,” even). The book is not science fiction in and of itself, but you’d have to be pretty determined not to read it, at least in part, as a love letter to the pulp SF novels of the ’30s and ’40s.

Interview with CASSANDRA ROSE CLARKE

An author who looks like she’s going to have a very good year – with a well-received YA novel already out (The Assassin’s Curse) and an upcoming adult novel (The Mad Scientist’s Daughter) that has also caught bloggers’ notice, Clarke’s work is generating a lot of interest and discussion online. It was, therefore, a perfect time to get in touch, and ask her about her novels, writing, genre-blending, and more.

Strange Chemisty: First Experiments…

It was an exciting day when Angry Robot Books announced the launch of their YA imprint, Strange Chemistry. Doubly so, when we were told that Amanda Rutter would be the imprint’s editor – some, if not most, of you will remember Amanda’s excellent book and review website, Floor-To-Ceiling-Books. So, knowing that she has impeccable taste in books, this bode well for Strange Chemistry’s line of books. Now that the first five title have been announced, I thought I’d put together a single post about them all, providing synopses and artwork. It’s a nice clutch of novels.

Artwork: THE ASSASSIN’S CURSE by Cassandra Clarke (Strange Chemistry) + Giveaway!

Here we have yet another interesting cover for one of Strange Chemistry’s upcoming, first wave of releases. And I really like it – especially the designs around the edges that look like Arabic text (they remind me ever-so-slightly of the Turkish signatures I used to see when I lived in Istanbul – the beautiful intricacy, only pared back quite considerably in this instance). It’s not as immediately eye-catching as the previous two Strange Chemistry covers I’ve seen (for Shift and Blackwood), but it’s still really nice and the novel sounds pretty cool.