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WARDS OF FAERIE by Terry Brooks: 5 reasons to read it . . .

Wards of Faerie, the first fantasy novel in the brand new Dark Legacy of Shannara series by Terry BrooksHurrah! It’s released today! The new Terry Brooks novel, Wards of Faerie (UK | ANZ), book one in the brand new fantasy series The Dark Legacy of Shannara, has finally arrived.

It’s set in Terry’s core Shannara world (after all his fans begged him to return to it) and it’s delighting Brooks fans far and wide already. In the words of Aidan Moher at A Dribble of Ink:

WARDS OF FAERIE is the best novel Brooks has written in years . . . It’s full of hair-raising escapes . . . magic and monsters.

And if you’ve never tried Terry yet, this is your chance – and here are 5 very solid reasons to do so!

 

‘Terry Brooks is a master of the craft and a trailblazer . . . Required reading’ Brent Weeks, author of the Night Angel Trilogy

‘I can’t even begin to count how many of Terry Brooks’s books I’ve read (and re-read) over the years’ Patrick Rothfuss, author of THE NAME OF THE WIND

‘Terry Brooks has been my constant companion over a lifetime of exploring my beloved fantasy genre. I say with all honesty I would not be writing epic fantasy today if not for Shannara. If Tolkien is the grandfather of modern fantasy, Terry Brooks is its favorite uncle’ Peter V. Brett, author of THE PAINTED MAN

‘If you haven’t read Terry Brooks, you haven’t read fantasy’ Christopher Paolini, author of ERAGON and BRISINGR

‘Terry’s place is at the head of the fantasy world’ Philip Pulman, author of THE GOLDEN COMPASS

Cover launch! BLOODFIRE QUEST by Terry Brooks

The fantasy novel The Dark Legacy of Shannara Book Two: Bloodfire Quest by Terry Brooks, endorsed by Brent WeeksThis week, we’re supremely excited to be releasing the first book in a brand new series from the master of fantasy Terry Brooks. It’s The Dark Legacy of Shannara Book One: WARDS OF FAERIE (UK |ANZ).

It’s what all Terry’s fans have been crying out for: a series that returns to Terry’s core world of Shannara, and I can assure you this is what we’ve all been waiting for . . .

But before we release the book later this week, we wanted to unveil the stunning new cover for book 2 in that series: BLOODFIRE QUEST, released in March 2013. It’s from the highly talented illustrator Stephen Youll – thanks Steve for another great cover!

I hope you’ll all agree that with these two books, we’re establishing a stunning new look for Terry – something that really shows off the grandeur, the edge-of-your-seat excitement and, for this series in particular, the truly thrilling darkness of his writing. See both covers for the series below in their full-size splendour . . .

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Cover Launch: THE EXILED BLADE by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s Assassini trilogy – described by the Sunday Times as “Gritty, grimy, decadent and compelling” – is a dark vision of a Venice in peril, and the rise of a young man cursed with amnesia and a taste for human blood. This epic tale began with THE FALLEN BLADE [UK | US | ANZ] and continued in THE OUTCAST BLADE [UK | US | ANZ]. 

The third and final instalment, THE EXILED BLADE, will be published in April 2013. For now, here’s the finished cover – courtesy of our talented designer Emma Graves – in all its grandeur.

If you’ve not yet delved into the depths of Grimwood’s dark, dangerous Venice, you can read a sample chapter from THE FALLEN BLADE here.

                                              

How to create a fantasy book cover: The making of the new-look Terry Brooks

Wards of Faerie - the brand new fantasy novel from fantasy legend Terry Brooks, book one in his Dark Legacy of Shannara series - endorsed by Christopher PaoliniDo you ever wonder what goes into producing the cover artwork for some of the biggest fantasy books out there?

We asked the highly talented illustrator Stephen Youll about how he created the cover artwork for WARDS OF FAERIE (UK |ANZ), the first book in Terry Brooks’s brand new Dark Legacy of Shannara series – out next week on 23rd August.

We wanted a fresh new look for this series – both to appeal to Terry’s die-hard fans and to show that it’s a great point for new readers to get on board with the Terry Brooks phenomenon.

We were delighted with this artwork Stephen produced, so here, in his words, is how it came together:

For Terry Brooks’s first book in the new Dark Legacy series I was asked to create a dragon skull, hanging in a stone alcove with interesting lighting that gave the cover a rich and bold look to it that was different to everything else that was out there. Not much of a challenge?

Step 1: This involves the creation of the alcove shape in the wall. I quickly established the arched alcove with light and shadows on top of  a stone textured background.

step 1- background alcove shape1 - creation of fantasy novel WARDS OF FAERIE by Terry Brooks

Step 2: I added the detailed panels from texture cloned from an old door and colored it to match the stone. (more…)

Trudi Canavan’s Recipe for a Delicious Sequel

THE TRAITOR QUEEN (UK | US | AUS) has gone straight into the Sunday Times fiction chart at number one in the UK, showing that her fans have been desperate for the final instalment in this fantastic series. To mark the publication, we asked her to tell us how she feels about reaching the end of such a beloved series, here’s what she said:


Sequels. Prequels. Love them or hate them, you can’t escape the fact that every author who has a book published will be asked if there will be more. When the last page was proofed of the last book in the Black Magician trilogy I had been working on it for over seven years and I have to admit it, I was tired of the world and (gasp!) even sick of the characters I had lived and loved and cried with for so long. So my answer then was ‘no’.

I’ve learned since then to never give such definite answers to these kinds of questions.

You see, even as I wound up the story in The High Lord, there were little ideas twitching in the corner of my vision whispering, ‘This could be fun to develop.’ Then it occurred to me that the story of the Sachakan War, the impetus for the formation of the Magicians’ Guild of Kyralia, might fill a book. Still, I ignored these ideas, knowing they weren’t substantial enough. Yet.

By the time I had written the Age of Five trilogy, those ideas had grown up, met, had a few parties, married and bred new bold little ideas, all demanding to be written. Enough time had passed that I was ready to venture into the world of Sonea and the magicians of the Guild again.

So first came The Magician’s Apprentice (I am still amazed that nobody had yet written a book by that title), set around six hundred years before the events in the Black Magician trilogy. (It turns out it’s impossible to make it clear in the narrative that a book is a prequel. You can’t have characters thinking that it’s six hundred years before an event that hasn’t happened yet. It really did my head in.) Then came the Traitor Spy trilogy, set twenty years after the Black Magician trilogy. I learned that writing a sequel has its own challenges and rewards. Thinking about this recently, this recipe popped into my head:

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Michael Cobley on Alien Worlds

Alien worlds constitute one of the key themes, not to say essential furniture, of space opera. From before Edgar Rice Burroughs, SF writers have whisked us across a pangalactorama of worlds weird and wonderful, wild, wasted and withdrawn. Alien worlds have been the fabulous, concocted canvasses on which we’ve projected our fears and desires, sometimes even consciously. Over the last few years, however, astronomers have confirmed the existence of a growing number of actual worlds orbiting neighbouring stars out in the real galaxy, along with the likelihood that some are capable of supporting life.

Two purple sea urchins: Public domain photo found here: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/animals/erchin-4.htm
If life on Earth looks like this, what will it look like on other planets?

Now these ground-breaking scientific discoveries may not affect the aesthetics of space opera but they sure give me pause for thought. When you consider the proliferation of lifeforms into almost every environmental niche that Earth has to offer, and the astonishing shapes which some have adopted . . . and when you realise that often truth is not only stranger than fiction but stranger than we can imagine, then the hunger to know what lives on those distant worlds becomes a near-exhilarating craving.

And that is why I write space opera. True, the strangest worlds I’ve depicted have been either virtual (the Glow) or the decrepit remains of corroded universes (in the tiers of hyperspace), but even that is of a piece with the basic human need to imagine alternatives. Sometimes, that need springs from the sheer electric joy of speculative invention, and other time it is driven by the pressing urge to examine the world around us and understand the ways in which it has gone wrong. It is said that although SF writers have their eyes fixed on the stars, their feet are planted firmly on the ground. Because in order to depict a plausible alien world – whether in terms of the biosphere or the customs and structure of an alien society – an SF writer needs to have at least an awareness of how those contexts work here on Earth. Political journalists need to know how politics really work; SF writers need to know that and a whole lot more.

A photo of NASA's Mars Curiosity rover: This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted".
Technology for finding out about other planets advances all the time – NASA’s ‘Curiosity’ rover landed on Mars last week, who knows where we’ll explore in future.

That’s not to say that explorations of alien worlds are merely an excuse for some didactic lecture. SF writers are dealers in dramatic prose, and we use metaphor, allegory and simile to tell stories, not expound forth a doctorate. Those real alien worlds have assumed the role played by Mars up until the mid-20th century, although as the astronomical/astrophysical sciences are constantly refined we may obtain hard reliable data about them sooner than we think. Still, their existence means that others exist further away, beyond the reach of today’s tech, playing host to who can tell what wonders and that, in conjunction with the ongoing attempt to grapple with the problems of our own civilisation, means that space opera will be with us for quite a while yet.

the three covers for the novels in Mike Cobley's Humanity's Fire trilogy

Cover launch! EXISTENCE and the new-look David Brins

EXISTENCE, a science fiction novel from the award-winning David Brin, admired by Stephen Baxter

This November, we’re releasing the paperback edition of David Brin’s science fiction masterpiece EXISTENCE (UK | ANZ). It’s his first novel to be released in ten years, and he’s truly returned in triumphant form.

It’s a breathtaking novel about First Contact – one that asks ‘why are we alone?’ and ‘are all civilisations doomed to fail?’ And it does it in spectacular, imaginative, mind-boggling, heart-thumping style.

See the paperback cover to the left and just a few of the reviews this unmissable book has been receiving:

‘Cleverly argued and uncomfortably plausible’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

‘A masterpiece of rock-hard SF’ SUN

‘Brin tackles a plethora of cutting-edge concepts…with the skill of a visionary futurologist’ GUARDIAN

‘Bursting with ideas, including near-future tech, first contact with aliens, and the exploration of what it means to be human’ i09.com

‘Existence is my top SF novel of 2012 and I recommend it without hesitation’ SFFWORLD.COM

But it’s not just EXISTENCE that we’re releasing this winter. We’re also giving a makeover to some of David Brin’s most classic titles. See the new-look covers below in all their glory…

New-look covers for David Brin's classic science fiction titles EARTH, POSTMAN, the UPLIFT trilogy and the second Uplifgt triology, called EXILES

See more info about each title below! (more…)

Horrible Fantasies and Fantastic Horrors

The cover for Tim lebbon's newest fantasy novel The Heretic LandQuite a few reviews of ECHO CITY and my new Orbit novel THE HERETIC LAND refer to my ‘horror writing credentials’, and it’s true that I’ve written lots of horror novels (and novellas, and short stories) in my time, and I still do!

So even though these two novels are definitely built upon a fantasy base – with other-worldly settings, new landscapes, flora, fauna, societies, species of human, religions, and politics – I thought for this gust blog post it might be interesting to examine a few instances in THE HERETIC LAND where my fantasy edges into horror. Or horror edges into my fantasy. You know what I mean . . .

Apocalyptic landscapes . . .

Unlike ECHO CITY, in this new novel the action ranges over large distances. ECHO CITY was quite a claustrophobic novel, especially as much of the action took place below ground. It was set in a large city, and not much happened beyond the city walls (I say not much, because there was some action out beyond the boundaries of what most characters believed to be the extremes of their environment . . . but I won’t spill the beans in case you haven’t read it yet). Perhaps partly because of this, THE HERETIC LAND takes place on two island continents. And one of these places isn’t in a very good shape at all.

The action starts centuries after a terrible war left the island of Skythe a ruin, its people dead or diseased, the land infected with the fall-out of forbidden magic . . . and the whole place slowly, gradually dying. A pretty horrible place really, and something similar could be found in many post-apocalyptic horror novels (in fact several of my fantasy novels, ECHO CITY included, have been called post-apocalyptic novels set in a fantasy land . . . and I’ll not argue with that).

And as well as this there’s the polluted, magic-tainted sea between the two lands of Skythe and Alderia. And here be . . .

Monsters . . .

I like monsters. A lot. I’ve written a little about monsters we all recognise – vampires (occasionally), and the huge SF zombie thriller COLDBROOK is due out soon – but what I love most is making up my own monsters. In THE HERETIC LAND, perhaps my favourite are the Deep Pirates of the Forsaken Sea. These grotesque things – part human, perhaps? – live for unknown lengths of time, use sea creatures as mounts, and love the taste of human flesh. And here it is:

The pirate had human qualities merged with the worst aspects of the sea. Bare, thick torso spotted with shellfish, a large head with shockingly human features, long flowing hair which was said to consist of poisonous fronds, long limbs that ended in claws ten times larger than the most monstrous crab’s, and thick legs that parted into powerful tentacles, each of them suckered and spiked. Its scale made it even more awful – ten times the size of a human, it was a blight on reality.

The decapus beneath it was a vivid red, its tentacles longer and more deadly, its beak clacking, and its huge eyes reflecting sunlight with an alien regard.

Euch. You’ll get to meet the Deep Pirates in THE HERETIC LAND. Close up. (more…)

Cover launch! ARALORN by Patricia Briggs

The cover for Aralorn, a fantasy omnibus of Masques and Wolfsbane from Patricia Briggs, author of the Mercy Thompson novelsCalling all fantasy and Patricia Briggs fans! 

I’m delighted to be able to unveil the cover for a very exciting new title to be released in October this year: ARALORN (UK | ANZ).

It’s an omnibus edition of two fantasy titles that are yet to be released in the UK: Masques and Wolfsbane, from the fan favourite (and New York Times bestselling) Patricia Briggs.

Masques was in fact the first full-length novel that Patricia wrote, but since then it’s been revised and updated. It features the wonderfully unconventional heroine Aralorn, a girl who flees her noble birthright and the expectations piled upon her to become a mercenary and shapeshifting spy. 

Patricia Briggs recently revisited the series with Wolfsbane, and so we decided to collect these two novels in ARALORN. With these stories, the author expertly turns her hand to a setting which is a little more historical/high fantasy than urban fantasy – but fans of the Mercy Thompson and Alpha and Omega novels will undoubtedly also love this book.

ARALORN shows off Patricia at her best – with characters that are so intriguing that you’ll never want to say goodbye to them. The relationship between Aralorn and her mysterious companion Wolf, for example, is so deliciously intense that you’ll definitely want to see it through to the end.

Look out for ARALORN (UK | ANZ) this October. And you can find the blurb and a larger version of the cover below. (more…)