Over at Adventures in Scifi Publishing, Shaun and Sam chat with Robert Buettner about his Jason Wander series, which continues this month with book three, Orphan’s Journey. Look for Orphan’s Journey, along with the reissues of books one and two, out now from Orbit. And visit Robert online at robertbuettner.wordpress.com/.
Publishers Weekly gives Marie Brennan’s Midnight Never Come a starred review in this week’s issue:
“Stunningly conceived and exquisitely achieved… Brennan’s myriad fantastical creations ring as true as her ear for Elizabethan and faerie dialogue.”
You can read the whole review here (with a bit of scrolling)
Over at Fantasy Book Critic, Robert reviews Blood Ties, book one in the Castings Trilogy and concludes:
“… Pamela Freeman’s “Blood Ties” will probably be one of my favorite fantasy novels of the year and I absolutely can’t wait to finish reading the trilogy…”
Read the whole review here. You can catch an interview with the author over at Grasping the Wind, and visit the author’s site at www.castingstrilogy.com.
Jennifer Rardin stops in at Scifi wire to talk about the latest in her Jaz Parks series, Biting the Bullet. Next up in the series is Bitten to Death, out in August, and One More Bite, out in January 2009.
On the PaperCuts blog Dave Itzkoff has a very cool little interview with physicist Michio Kaku on the reasons we won’t teleporting, time traveling, or – er — precoging anytime soon. Left out of his theory, however, is whether investing in the Time Travel Fund increases your odds, so I’m still hopeful.
The web-comic Unshelved took a look at Jeff Somer’s The Electric Church over the weekend. Check it out!
Here’s video, along with the complete audio podcast, of Iain M. Banks and Ken MacLeod’s readings and conversation at last weekend’s Aye Write! festival in Glasgow.
If you haven’t discovered the Culture yet, check out this post at Slashdot by reviewer (and astrophysicist!) Simon DeDeo. For US newbies we can heartily recommend either Consider Phlebas or The Player of Games, both out this month from Orbit.
Pop over to Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist for a chance to win a copy of Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Last Wish.
The Last Wish introduces The Witcher, one of the best loved heroes of fantasy in Europe, and recently the star of the hit PC video game from Atari. You can check out the trailer for the game here, and some gameplay animation here (rated mature). There’s an enhanced edition of the game set for release this summer. The Witcher is currently PC only, so console players will have to wait (or talk their significant others into a video card upgrade… hmmm.)
Geralt was also the object of some gentle ribbing at Penny Arcade. Having read the book that inspired the game, we can assure you that yes, he is indeed the Witchest.
The Last Wish will be available from Orbit in the US in May.
Over at her livejournal Jo Graham discusses the “Warrior Princess” archetype in fantasy, and explains how she aimed to make Gull – the priestess in Black Ships – distinct from it.
“I think it’s important that our stories talk about the full range of human experience. Throughout human history important and interesting things have been done by people of both genders, playing a variety of gender roles. Our popular fiction chooses to focus on a few. Why not talk about Ruling Queens? About Sacred Whores, as Jacqueline Carey does in Kushiel’s Dart? About the neglected male archetypes of The Priest and The Psychopomp?”
You can read the whole post here.
Black Ships is out now in the US, and is forthcoming in the UK. Click here to read an excerpt.
