Showing posts with label Elizabeth Bear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elizabeth Bear. Show all posts

Saturday, April 19, 2014

A Quick Comment on the Gemmell Award Shortlists, and One of the Nominees. Sort of…

This post is a bit of a break from the norm for me. I’m also not really sure what it’s meant to do. It’s a bit waffley, for which I apologise only slightly, and in not entirely a heartfelt manner. Fiction awards mean very little to me, being neither author, editor, publisher, nor agent. (At least, not yet…) This means I have never (to my recollection) written a post of any worth/note about shortlists or winners.

Brett-DaylightWarUKAward lists tend to pass me by without comment or thought. Invariably, this is because there aren’t any books featured that I’ve read – or, if there is, it is one that didn’t leave much of an impression one way or another. This year has been a bit different, however. For example, Kameron Hurley’s God’s War has been cropping up on a few shortlists, and it’s a book I rather enjoyed. So that made a nice change.

The shortlists for the Gemmell Awards were announced today at Eastercon. In a real break from the norm, the shortlist for the Legend Award (best fantasy) features not only five authors I have read, but also a book I feel particularly strongly about. So I thought I’d write a quick blog post about it. The book in question is Peter V. Brett’s The Daylight War, the third in his Demon Cycle series.

Saturday, March 02, 2013

Upcoming: “Shattered Pillars” by Elizabeth Bear (Tor)

Bear-ShatteredPillarsThe Shattered Pillars is the second book of Elizabeth Bear’s The Eternal Sky trilogy, and the sequel to Range of Ghosts. It’s a series I’ve been meaning to read, but I wasn’t in the US to pick up a copy of the first book when it first came out, and by the time I returned, I was swamped with other books for review. I will make more of an effort to get around to this series, though. Soon…

Set in a world drawn from our own great Asian Steppes, this saga of magic, politics and war sets Re-Temur, the exiled heir to the great Khagan and his friend Sarmarkar, a Wizard of Tsarepheth, against dark forces determined to conquer all the great Empires along the Celedon Road.

The Shattered Pillars will be published by Tor on March 19th 2013.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Upcoming: “Fearsome Journeys” ed. Jonathan Strahan (Solaris)

Solaris-FearsomeJourneysA very exciting new anthology will be landing in May 2013 from Solaris. The collection, edited by super-editor Jonathan Strahan, brings together some of the best and most exciting new and established authors in fantasy. Here’s the proposed line-up:

“The Effigy Engine: A Tale of the Red Hats” by Scott Lynch

“Amethyst, Shadow, and Light” by Saladin Ahmed

“Camp Follower” by Trudi Canavan

“The Dragonslayer of Merebarton” by K.J. Parker

“Leaf and Branch and Grass and Vine” by Kate Elliott

“Spirits of Salt: A Tale of the Coral Sword” by Jeffrey Ford

“Forever People” by Robert V.S. Redick

“Sponda the Suet Girl and the Secret of the French Pearl” by Ellen Klages

“Shaggy Dog Bridge: A Black Company Story” by Glen Cook

“The Ghost Makers” by Elizabeth Bear

“One Last, Great Adventure” by Ellen Kushner & Ysabeau Wilce

“The High King Dreaming” by Daniel Abraham

Can not wait to read this anthology. Fearsome Journeys is already available for pre-order from Amazon US & UK.

Thursday, January 03, 2013

Free eBook: “Some of the best from Tor.com 2012”

SomeOfTheBestFromTorCom2012Tor.com, that great hub for all things SFF, has released a free eBook anthology! The book collects (as the name should suggest) some of the best short stories from the past year (10 of them, to be exact).

Now, these stories are still available for free on the website itself, but if you find yourself wanting to read them while away from your computer or internet connection, then this eBook will help you out.

The roster of authors is impressive, too: Gene Wolfe, Rachel Swirsky, Michael Swanwick, Charles Stross, Paul Cornell, Brit Mandelo, Katheryn Cramer, Pat Murphy, Adam-Troy Castro, Elizabeth Bear.

Kindle US | Kindle UK | Apple | Nook

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

“The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2013”, Table of Contents (Prime)

grunge border and backgroundI don’t think I’ve ever picked up one of the Year’s Best fiction books. I once bought one of the politics collections, because it had an article by Matt Taibbi in it. This year’s SFF collection, however, looks pretty good – not to mention containing authors whose work I’m both aware of and interested in. [I found out about it from SF Signal. The book is published by Prime Books.]

This could be a good end-of-year read, or gift for the SFF fan in your life, or even a good place to start for someone who wants to give the genres a try. When you consider that the book features such rising stars as Aliette de Bodard, a slew of (to me) unknowns, and more established authors like Ursula le Guin, Jay Lake and Robert Charles Wilson, this is a pretty solid selection.