Adventures in Reading

Viewings

2009-11-25T06:44:00.003-06:00

I promise, I have at least five books on tap to review for you all, plus a couple of graphic novels posts. Really.

In the meantime, the Wheel of Time fans out there should check out this page about Min's Viewings over at The Thirteenth Depository.

What struck me early on is the evidence from the viewings that unless Mat, Perrin, and Rand are all together at the end, there is no chance of defeating the Dark One. I mean, it's kind of obvious and we take it for granted, but Jordan did a great job of setting this up in terms that seem rather stark and blunt when pointed out.

The page is updated with detail from The Gathering Storm.

By the Mountain Bound, by Elizabeth Bear

2009-11-23T00:01:00.001-06:00

By the Mountain Bound
Elizabeth Bear
Tor: 2009

By the Mountain Bound is a remarkable novel. It is a prequel to All the Windwracked Stars, but it is a prequel that does not simply tell of events that came before, it is a prequel that makes the events of All the Windwracked Stars all the richer and more powerful. During the early chapters of All the Windwracked Stars we see that Muire is the lone survivor of a war that claimed the waelcryge and from which she ran. We see her alone in the snow at the end of the world. We are told of a war that was faught and that so many of the waelcryge, warriors of Light, were Tarnished. We learned that the Tarnishing of their power, of their light was of far greater significance than is conveyed in the first novel.

In By the Mountain Bound readers are shown the loss and the power in the word “tarnished” that is never quite captured in All the Windwracked Stars. This is the story of what happened before the fall. For a moment, though, Elizabeth Bear makes the reader forget that we know how this all ends.

Bear gives us three viewpoint characters: Muire, Mingan, and Strifbjorn. Readers know Muire from AtWS, but though Mingan is an important part of AtWS, here he is brought to life in a very unexpected manner. The depth to his character is surprising (though not surprising given the author), as is his more sympathetic nature. Here Mingan is a much more developed character compared to the somewhat sinister character he was in the background of All the Windwracked Stars. Even Muire, though, is different here. For a member of the warrior class, Muire is comparatively meek and quiet. She is the historian. Muire is a different character here than in All the Windwracked Stars. She’d have to be. She has not yet gone through the end of her world. Strifbjorn is the, comparatively, new character in By the Mountain Bound. Strifbjorn is the war chief of the waelcryge, the immortal children of the light, and it is he who finds the woman who is neither mortal nor waelcryge. This beginning of the end of the world.

There are no stock characters here (or in anything Elizabeth Bear writes). Each character comes across as real and layered. Even the minor characters who are given names but do not have anything to do in the novel have a sense of solidity, as if only they were given a voice we would see that their motives and desires were as strong as those of the main characters. This is something which Bear does especially well. Her characters are not just waiting offstage for the chance to step into the spotlight, they each have their lives and sometimes we get to see what they are.

By the Mountain Bound also opens up all sorts of questions and new ways to read All the Windwracked Stars, except to even mention what those questions are would be to spoil part of By the Mountain Bound. It is a rare novel that makes the preceding novel so much richer and opens up new avenues for Elizabeth Bear to explore in The Sea Thy Mistress.

By the Mountain Bound is a rich and beautiful novel. It stands as one of Elizabeth Bear’s best, and that is high praise indeed.

Reading copy provided courtesy of Tor Books.

Previous Reviews
Blood and Iron
Whiskey and Water
Ink and Steel
Hell and Earth
Hammered
Scardown
New Amsterdam
Seven for a Secret
A Companion to Wolves
All the Windwracked Stars

The Ebb Tide

2009-11-22T16:34:00.001-06:00

My review of The Ebb Tide, by James Blaylock is up at the Sacramento Book Review.

In case y'all were wondering.

Burn Me Deadly, by Alex Bledsoe

2009-11-16T20:48:00.002-06:00

Burn Me Deadly
Alex Blesdoe
Tor: 2009

Burn Me Deadly opens with a damsel in distress and a suspicious Eddie LaCrosse just the man to save her, which looks great on paper, but does not go so well for either the damsel or Eddie. The damsel mentions “Lumina” and is murdered. Eddie is beaten and thrown off a cliff. So is his horse. Eddie lives, the horse does not. Near death, Eddie is rescued by the kindness of a stranger who returns him to town for healing.

This second Eddie LaCrosse novel from Alex Bledsoe is set approximately two years after the events of The Sword-Edged Blonde. Where the first novel was an active case for Eddie, to use a cliché, this time it is personal. Like any hard-boiled dick, Eddie has a thing for the dames. He’s loyal to his woman, that damsel in distress will get him every time. Twice if she’s dead.

Burn My Deadly is a quest of revenge and mystery. The revenge part is obvious, but the mystery is that Eddie doesn’t know who was behind the murder of Laura Lesperitt (the damsel) or who to go after. But he’s got ideas. Some “dragon cult”, for starters. With each passing chapter the scope of what is really going on grows and the stakes increase accordingly. What begins as a relatively simple story of revenge becomes much bigger than that.

That doesn’t address what readers really want to know here. “That’s great, Joe, but is it any good?” Hell yeah, it’s good. Fans of The Sword-Edged Blonde will be delighted with Burn Me Deadly. The action is just as good, the story is bigger, and the mystery stays fresh. Like Glen Cook before him, Alex Bledsoe deftly works a hard-boiled detective story in a traditional fantasy setting and he does so with style and verve. Eddie cracks wise, he gets into scrapes, his life is continually in danger, and through it all he retains his moral center and gruff edge. He’s the hero you want on your side, but it’s better if you don’t need him. It’s also better if you can pay. Reading about Eddie LaCrosse is a delightful experience if you like your delight with a bit of snark.

The bottom line is that there is not a lot of hard-boiled fantasy / mystery blends out there and if that sounds at all appealing you should check this out. If it doesn’t sound at all appealing…you should check this out.

Reading copy provided courtesy of Tor.

Previous Review
The Sword-Edged Blonde

Stuff: 11/13 Edition

2009-11-13T06:26:00.002-06:00

Stephen King has a new story up at The New Yorker: "Premium Harmony"

Mary Robinette Kowal will be editing the first volume of The Hugo Award Showcase, the "2010" edition, which one imagines will be for the 2009 fiction.

Here's a compilation of Q&A sessions between Brandon Sanderson and the Storm Leaders on the current Wheel of Time tour. There's not a lot of new here, but it's interesting all the same.

Scott Westerfeld contributes to The Big Idea over at Scalzi's blog. I've GOT to read this one.

Clarkesworld Magazine is having a Citizenship Drive.

October 2009 Reading

2009-11-11T19:36:00.004-06:00

Here's my monthly wrap-up of what I read the previous month. Links, as always, go to the reviews.

Books
99. Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan
100. Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell
101. Crossroads of Twilight, by Robert Jordan
102. Night of Knives, by Ian Cameron Esslemont
103. Outcast, by Aaron Allston
104. The Ebb Tide, by James Blaylock
105. Chasing the Dragon, by Justina Robson
106. Burn Me Deadly, by Alex Bledsoe
107. Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman
108. Imaro, by Charles Saunders
109. Seven for a Secret, by Elizabeth Bear
110. Ace in the Hole, by George R. R. Martin (editor)
111. Jhereg, by Steven Brust
112. Knife of Dreams, by Robert Jordan
113. The Gathering Storm, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Reviews are forthcoming for Imaro and Ace in the Hole.

Graphic Novels
79. Fables: The Dark Ages, by Bill Willingham
80. Star Wars Legacy: The Hidden Temple, by John Ostrander
81. DMZ: Friendly Fire, by Brian Wood
82. DMZ: The Hidden War, by Brian Wood
83. DMZ: Blood in the Game, by Brian Wood
84. Jack of Fables: Americana, by Bill Willingham
85. Jack of Fables: Turning Pages, by Bill Willingham
86. Ex Machina: Fact v Fiction, by Brian Vaughan
87. Transmetropolitan: Gouge Away, by Warren Ellis
88. Uptown Girl: All the Right Friends, by Bob Lipski
89. Mouse Guard: Winter 1152, by David Petersen
90. Transmetropolitan: Spider’s Trash, by Warren Ellis
91. Y: The Last Man: Ring of Truth, by Brian K. Vaughan
92. Preacher: Ancient History, by Garth Ennis
93. Girl Genius: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones, by Phil and Kaja Foglio
94. 100 Bullets: Split Second Chance, by Brian Azzarello

Previous Reading
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September

Jhereg, by Steven Brust

2009-11-09T00:01:00.003-06:00

Jhereg
Steven Brust
Ace: 1983

Vlad Taltos is an assassin in the city of Adrilankha. He is a human in a land ruled by Dragaerans who have lives spanning thousands (upon thousands) of years. Vlad is a skilled assassin who has succeeded by virtue of skill, hard work, and with the good fortune of having some powerful friends. Besides being an assassin, Vlad also operates as mid-level mob boss in Adrilankha.

The primary storyline of Jhereg regards Vlad’s acceptance of a contract to kill a Dragaeran named Mellar, a member of the ruling Council of the Jhereg crime organization of which Vlad is ultimately a member. Mellar managed to steal the entire treasury of the Council and disappear. Vlad’s contract is not simply to kill Mellar, but to do so in a expeditious manner. Too many delays and word will get out that the Council can be hit, and that word may be enough to bring down the whole organization.

The rest of the novel works like many an urban secondary world detective novel, only here the successful conclusion of the case will result in the death of the target, rather than the resolution of a mystery. Of course, Jhereg predates Glen Cook’s Garrett PI novels by half a decade, not to mention later works from Alex Bledsoe. I mention Cook and Bledsoe because they are very much in the vein of Jhereg and they are the easiest comparisons to what sort of novel Jhereg is.

With that said, Steven Brust did it first and he is very much his own man here.

Jhereg was my first real experience reading the fiction of Steven Brust (his Firefly fanfic novel nothwithstanding). I had seen the man twice at the Fourth Street Fantasy convention and was impressed by Brust in person, and plenty of people there spoke highly of his fiction, but somehow over the last two years I still delayed reading Jhereg. It’s one of those novels you put off reading for no good reason and then realize when you’re done that you were a damn fool for waiting because it’s really that good.
Jhereg really is that good.

The novel opens slowly, with a bit of history of the character, and Brust takes his time setting up the central conflict. The initial impression is that Brust is clever with dialogue, but the reader will expect to be merely satisfied by the end of the novel. But here’s the trick Steven Brust pulls off. The longer you stay with Jhereg the better it gets. The world becomes deeper and richer, the characters more compelling. Vlad Taltos becomes an old friend who you don’t mess with. Brust lures the reader in chapter after chapter. Before you know it, you’re hooked and you don’t want to put Jhereg down for fear you might miss what’s in the next chapter, and the next.

There is really no better way to be introduced to Steven Brust. This is the first of twelve novels featuring Vlad Taltos and if Jhereg is any indication (it should be), once you read one, you’ll want to read the rest.

If you haven’t read Brust before, you should. Fans of Glen Cook and Alex Blesdoe owe it to themselves to find the early Vlad Taltos novels and give them a shot (the first three are also collected in the omnibus edition The Book Jhereg).

The Edge of the World

2009-11-08T09:56:00.001-06:00

My review of The Edge of the World, by Kevin J. Anderson is up at Fantasy Magazine.

Go check it out!

September 2009 Reading

2009-11-07T23:08:00.002-06:00

Here's my monthly wrap-up of what I read the previous month. Links, as always, go to the reviews.

I'm a little behind in putting out the list. Clearly.

I broke out the graphic novels from the rest of the books.

Books
90. We Never Talk About My Brother, by Peter S. Beagle
91. Invincible, by Troy Denning
92. Millenium Falcon, by James Luceno
93. It, by Stephen King
94. Winter’s Heart, by Robert Jordan
95. Mage-Guard of Hamor, by L. E. Modesitt, Jr
96. Pandemonium, by Daryl Gregory
97. Purple and Black, by K. J. Parker
98. Filter House, by Nisi Shawl

Graphic Novels
63. Ex Machina: The First Hundred Days, by Brian K. Vaughan - September
64. DMZ: On the Ground, by Brian Wood
65. Y: The Last Man: One Small Step, by Brian K. Vaughan
66. Crisis on Infinite Earths
67. Transmetropolitan: The New Scum, by Warren Ellis
68. Bone: Eyes of the Storm, by Jeff Smith
69. DMZ: Body of a Journalist, by Brian Wood
70. Y: The Last Man: Safeword, by Brian K. Vaughan
71. Jack of Fables: Jack of Hearts, by Bill Willingham
72. Ex Machina: Tag, by Brian K. Vaughan
73. DMZ: Public Works, by Brian Wood
74. Echo: Moon Lake, by Terry Moore
75. Jack of Fables: The Bad Prince, by Bill Willingham
76. Transmetropolitan: Lonely City, by Warren Ellis
77. 100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call, by Brian Azzarello
78. Bone: The Dragonslayer, by Jeff Smith

Previous Reading
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August

Forthcoming 2010: Q1

2009-11-06T00:01:00.002-06:00

Welcome to the latest installment of "Stuff I'm Looking Forward To This Year". As always, I take my information from the Locus Forthcoming list, plus a little bit of extra research when I'm aware of things that should be on the Locus list and are not.

January
Prince of Storms, by Kay Kenyon: This is the conclusion to Kenyon's series The Entire and the Rose. It's some of the best science fiction being published today.

The Best of Joe R. Lansdale: Does the title not say everything you need to know about this? Lansdale is one hell of a writer and a Best Of will surely be one of the year's best publications.

Iorich, by Steven Brust: Last month I read Jhereg, the first Vlad Taltos novel from Steven Brust. Iorich is the twelfth novel in the Vlad Taltos series and there are six other ancillary novels set in that world. So, even though there is no chance I am going to be caught up with Brust by the time this novel is published, it is a mark of just how much I liked Jhereg that Iorich is on the list.

February
Mirror Kingdoms, by Peter S. Beagle: I have only just discovered Peter Beagle and this is a career retrospective collection from SubPress. Count this as one of the year's essential collections.

Horns, by Joe Hill: You've read Heart-Shaped Box, right? On the strength of one novel, I'm ready to go anywhere Joe Hill is willing to take me.

The Iron Khan, by Liz Williams: This is the fifth volume of the Detective Inspector Chen series. I've read the first three and have the fourth begging me to be read.

March
Bone and Jewel Creatures, by Elizabeth Bear: C'mon now, it's a new novella from Bear. Click on the link and check out the cover.

Chill, by Elizabeth Bear: Chill is the follow up to last year's novel Dust. It's one of the few Elizabeth Bear novels I haven't read, but I do have a copy, so I'll try to catch up before Chill is published.

Warriors, by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois: Military SFF, edited by GRRM, and featuring a new Dunk and Egg story? Not to mention the rest of the contents of the antho.

The Trade of Queens, by Charles Stross: This is the concluding volume to The Merchant Princes. I don't consistently love the execution of this series, but I'm generally interested enough to want to know what's next. Well, this is what's next.

I am also hard at work in compiling a list of the top books I'm anticipating for all of next year. I'll publish that list in late December or early January.

Seven for a Secret, by Elizabeth Bear

2009-11-05T00:01:00.000-06:00

Seven for a Secret
Elizabeth Bear
Subterranean Press: 2009

Elizabeth Bear returns to the sorcerer Abigail Irene and the wampyr Sebastian in this follow up to her linked collection New Amsterdam. Seven for a Secret is a novella which is set near the end of Abby Irene’s life. Her exile from England is at an end and she now resides in a much changed London. London is an occupied city in 1938, with the Prussian Army having been victorious in the last war.

Abby Irene is now in her 80’s, but in Seven for a Secret she isn’t the protagonist of the story. There are two real storylines working in Seven for a Secret. The first is of two teenaged girls, Prussian soldiers who are called “Sevens”. They are given great responsibility for their age because of what they will be able to do in the future. At the start of the story it is not clear exactly what that may be. The other storyline mostly centers around Sebastian as he investigates why these two girls give off a scent similar to werewolves – even though werewolves shouldn’t exist any longer. At least not in London.

Seven for a Secret touches on loss and memory, on being the resistance in an occupied city, and on how governments might use supernatural elements. It’s a story of young girls, an old woman, and an even older vampire.

Moreso than in New Amsterdam, Elizabeth Bear will try to break your heart. Seven for a Secret is laced with emotion and loss. Those who remember the character as a much younger and spry woman will mourn for the loss of youth, but readers can jump in here and find their own way to a broken heart. The two Prussian girls, Ruth and Adele, opens up an entirely different aspect to this alternate history and it is brutal. Sebastian looking at Abby Irene will do it, but so will Sebastian understanding what the girls will face in the future.

Let me just put it this way: Seven for a Secret is really good. I wrote about New Amsterdam last year, but this is so much better and it screams out for a re-read. Seven for a Secret also begs for a sequel. Bear is at work on a novella called The White City, but that’s a story set before the New Amsterdam tales. I want to know more about Ruth and Adele and how that all works out. Bear does well to leave the reader wanting more, but damnit, I want more.

Chasing the Dragon, by Justina Robson

2009-11-04T00:01:00.003-06:00

Chasing the Dragon
Justina Robson
Pyr: 2009

Chasing the Dragon has that “middle book” feel to it that even the second and third Quantum Gravity books did not have. Each of the previous volumes had complete stories which also built upon the one before it. Chasing the Dragon has a story entirely dependant on Going Under, but it reads more as a middle book. It is set up, wondering, and wandering.

There are a couple of things going on in Chasing the Dragon. First is that after the events of Going Under, Lila Black has returned to Otopia (Earth, our world) to find that 50 years have passed. She’s having a difficult time adapting to that fact, that the world she knew is long gone and so are most of the humans she once knew. Zal is fifty years dead, though she believes there will be a way to resurrect / restore him somehow.

So much of Chasing the Dragon is Lila moping around and being cranky. There is also a bit of a side story (though it may well be central to the series plot) of Lila hearing a "Signal", something that seems at least partially sentient though incomprehensible. It is referenced, but seldom explored.

The second thing going on is a bit more confusing because it’s about Zal. It happens early enough in the novel that I don’t think this should be considered a spoiler, but we find Zal in some weird alter-dimension. He’s either dead, mostly dead, or not dead at all. Justina Robson isn’t entirely clear, though I guessed “mostly dead” at the time. Zal doesn’t have his memories and there are other beings with him. It’s almost like he’s kept as a pet.

I hate to say this because I very much like this series and hope for a satisfying conclusion with some future volume, but Chasing the Dragon was a bit of a disappointment. There are some interesting things going on here, a couple of major developments, but they don't add up to enough to recommend the book. Even though we don’t know what the larger picture is supposed to be, there is little sense of how Chasing the Dragon really connects to the previous books. By the end there are hints of different potential directions Robson can take the series, so we know that this is a set up novel. It’s just not a satisfying one.

Reading copy provided courtesy of Pyr.

Previous Review:
Keeping It Real (book 1)

The Gathering Storm, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

2009-11-03T00:01:00.004-06:00

The Gathering Storm
Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Tor: 2009

Let’s just get one thing cleared up before we start here. If it wasn’t obvious by the last eleven posts of the series re-read, I’m a bit of a Wheel of Time fanboy. There’s nothing I can do about that and I’m quite happy with it. This is a seminal series of my fantasy reading life and Robert Jordan has stuck with me over the last fifteen years when other authors failed me. So, please understand that while I may recognize flaws in the novel (and the series), I can easily gloss over them because this is a series I love dearly. Never is anything so egregious that it will hamper my enjoyment of the series.

That’s my admission of bias.

I will attempt to be very light on revealing spoilers since the novel has only been on the market for a week, but some events that happen early on in the novel may be touched on more than some would like to know. So, if you don’t want to know any details, please step away and come back when you’re done with the book. I’ll be gentle with the spoilers, though.

This has been pointed out elsewhere, but a major focus of The Gathering Storm is the dueling stories of Egwene and Rand. Continuing on her story of defiance from Knife of Dreams, Egwene is strong at heart, firm in her need to both do what is right for the White Tower as well as her need to heal the Tower the right way. The way she behaves and acts is as important as the result she is looking to achieve. Egwene demonstrates leadership through example. She does not permit the rebel Aes Sedai besieging Tar Valon to rescue her because she knows that her example of moral defiance and the small conversations she has with the Tower Aes Sedai will do far more good than she ever could as the head of a besieging army. In this way she is setting herself up as a viable alternative to Elaida. In this way she is also shown as something of a mirror to Rand.

Early on in The Gathering Storm, after another attack by a Forsaken almost causes Rand to mirror the actions of Lews Therin and kill Min, Rand decides that being hard as stone is no longer hard enough. He must be as hard as cuendillar. For several novels now Rand has been holding on tightly to his humanity, with only a small soft core he leaves for the women in his life. Rand realizes, or simply believes, that to make it to Tarmon Gai'don he must strip even that away. Between shutting Min away, exiling Cadsuane, and changing his attitude about what he is willing to do to defeat the Dark One, Rand is on a very fast decent into darkness. Others have talked about Rand’s behavior in terms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and his journey from being a decent man from a small village to a man who has to be a killer.

I am so very fortunate to not have experience with PTSD, but this is an excellent explanation as to the entire direction of Rand’s behavior throughout the series. It also demonstrates part of the difference between Rand and Egwene. Egwene has been taught by the Aiel on how one with honor behaves, how to be better and stronger, and what it means to live towards an ideal. This has given her the strength to make her decisions, to stand on her own as the Amyrlin Seat, and to take all the beatings she has been given as “penance” as a prisoner of the White Tower and still hold to her duty. Rand, on the other hand, had to deal with becoming a killer of men and knowing that in the potentially short time he had left to live, he would have to kill again and again and do so without compunction.

To use the analogies of being hard like stone and being able to bend, Egwene is the one who is strong but able to bend and survive. Rand is making himself so hard that he will eventually crack and break. It’s clear very early on that he is in a very bad place. This is only worse when he has to use the True Power to free himself from an impossible situation. The True Power, if you don’t remember, is the one that is provided via a link to the Dark One and it is drawing on his own essence. It’s what Moridin uses to have the black lines of saa cross his eyes and what the other Forsaken use sparingly because of the risks. Rand taps into that early on in the novel and even the voice of Lews Therin is absolutely horrified by what Rand just did. Like I said, Rand is in an exceptionally bad place.

The two storylines of Egwene and Rand are exceptionally well done. Egwene, in particular, should be singled out as a character done well and one of the best storylines in the last half dozen volumes of the Wheel of Time. The various events which take place as part of Egwene’s storyline will be pivotal for the next two volumes (and beyond). Egwene’s storyline is at times thrilling, heartbreaking, and when some of the early reviews say that they wanted to stand up and cheer during The Gathering Storm, they were probably talking about something to do with Egwene late in this novel. Folks, if you’re a long time fan of The Wheel of Time (and you should be if you’re reading this twelfth volume), some of this stuff is as good as anything you’ve gotten earlier in the series. Seriously. This could be Joe the Fanboy talking, but Egwene in the late stages of this novel is just spectacular.

Rand, obviously, has a very different journey and as well done as Rand’s chapters are, they are somewhat difficult to read as we see Rand going into dark places indeed. There are two reunion scenes which readers have looked forward to for a while and neither one goes well. There is also the things Cuendillar-Hard Rand says to Nynaeve, and an action which Rand does which Nynaeve is both horrified about and also finds herself wondering if it was perhaps truly necessary if he is to defeat the Dark One. It’s interesting and brutal and is not at all pleasant.

Those are the two primary aspects of The Gathering Storm and combined, is by far the strongest aspect of the novel. Everything else is secondary to those storylines.

This does mean that Mat and Perrin are given much smaller roles and Elayne is completely absent from this volume. Readers are given short glimpses of Perrin and the fallout from the battle of Malden and the rescue of Faile. We don’t see a whole lot of what’s going on there, except that Perrin and Faile are relearning who they are together after being given a chance to grow while separated. Mat gets a bit more to do in The Gathering Storm, but his is likely to be the most controversial aspect of the novel.

There were concerns going into this novel about how well Brandon Sanderson was going to be able to step into the world that Robert Jordan created. Most fans of the series felt good about the decision Harriet (Robert Jordan’s wife and editor) made to hire Brandon to finish the series, but even the most positive couldn’t help but wonder if Sanderson would really be able to pull it off, that he would be able to write the characters in such a way that they feel the same. That he would somehow make the characters feel “right”.

Mat is perhaps the only character who feels “off” (and perhaps Perrin, to a lesser extent). Here Mat talks a bit too much, his jokes feel flat, and some indefinable bit of “Mat-ness” isn’t quite there.

Here’s the thing, though. Brandon stopped in Minneapolis on his tour for The Gathering Storm and he talked a little bit about Mat, though not in regards to the character feeling “off”. Thankfully, nobody was so gauche to actually bring it up directly. What Brandon had to say about Mat was that he had just experienced the most surreal and absolutely weird situation he had ever had in his life, which is Tuon herself. Mat had never been in love with a woman before and when he did fall in love with Tuon it changed his worldview. After finally declaring herself married to Mat; she leaves and returns to Ebou Dar to take up the Seanchan Empire. Mat is usually the one doing the leaving and here he is left, this time by the woman he loves. Worse, he may be about to find himself on opposite sides if it comes to war. He is out of sorts, not sure how to behave or deal with what just happened. He’s not sure what to do in the future.

Now, I can’t say if this played in to how Brandon wrote Mat (assuming that those chapters / sections were written by Sanderson and not Jordan), if this was the plan all along, or if Mat just feels “off” because he feels “off”, but it was interesting to hear Brandon talk about what was going on in Mat’s world. It’s clear from the Minneapolis signing that he did think a lot about Mat. It’s questionable if he pulled off the character or if the change was intentional.

On the other hand, Mat did ask Verin if she "saidared" something, and that was just priceless.

Taking a look at The Gathering Storm as a complete novel, Sanderson did an excellent job of pulling together storylines, answering a good deal of questions, and telling as complete a story as possible given that this is volume twelve of fourteen. There is no resolution, as such, because Tarmon Gai'don is still coming, but Sanderson told complete story arcs for both Egwene and Rand and did a hell of a job with it. Others characters received short shrift, but it seems necessary and appropriate for Sanderson to have done so in order to do justice to Egwene and Rand. Brandon was capable of handling some seriously emotional sequences (Verin, anyone?) and he did so with great skill.

The Gathering Storm is a richer and more fully satisfying Wheel of Time novel than we have seen in a good many years. It is difficult to compare the first experience of reading The Gathering Storm to reading those first five novels of the series all those years ago, but this novel holds up well compared to anything that came after the fifth book.

The Gathering Storm shows that Harriet’s judgment in choosing Brandon Sanderson was sound, that he was the right writer for the job. For fans, there is a sense of relief that Brandon was up to the task and that he delivered the book we hoped for.

Call me a fanboy for believing this, and perhaps this is more than a little presumptuous to say, but I think Robert Jordan would be proud of this one. Folks, Brandon did well, and he should be proud of himself, too. He wrote a novel that “feels” like it is part of The Wheel of Time. It was worth the wait.

Reading copy provided courtesy of Tor.

Previous Reviews
The Eye of the World
The Great Hunt
The Dragon Reborn
The Shadow Rising
The Fires of Heaven
Lord of Chaos
A Crown of Swords
The Path of Daggers
Winter's Heart
Crossroads of Twilight
Knife of Dreams

Amazon's Top 10 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2009

2009-11-02T20:30:00.004-06:00

Amazon.com has published their editor's choice Top 10 list for SF&F books. It's a very interesting list.

1. Palimpsest, by Catherynne M. Valente
2. The Red Tree, by Caitlin R. Kiernan
3. The Other Lands, by David Anthony Durham
4. American Fantastic Tales: Boxed Set, by Peter Straub
5. Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest
6. The Other City, by Michal Ajvaz
7. Yellow Blue Tibia, by Adam Roberts
8. Eclipse Three, by Jonathan Strahn
9. Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing, by Christopher Barzak
10. The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart, by Jesse Bullington

As if I needed it, I think I just found another reading list.

What is somewhat curious, though, is that China Mieville's The City & The City made their overall top 10 list, but not the SFF list.

catching up again with my anticipated reading list

2009-11-02T20:16:00.002-06:00

Back in January I posted a list of the 16 books I was most interested in reading this year. In July I took a look at how I was doing at that time. Here's one more peak.

1. ~~The Gathering Storm, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson~~
2. A Dance with Dragons, by George R. R. Martin
3. Best Served Cold, by Joe Abercrombie
4. ~~Seven for a Secret, by Elizabeth Bear~~
5. The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Three, by Jonathan Strahan, editor
6. ~~Chasing the Dragon, by Justina Robson~~
7. ~~The Revolution Business, by Charles Stross~~
8. ~~The Walls of the Universe, by Paul Melko~~
9. The City & The City, by China Mieville
10. ~~City Without End, by Kay Kenyon~~
11. The God Engines, by John Scalzi
12. Steal Across the Sky, by Nancy Kress
13. ~~Warbreaker, by Brandon Sanderson~~
14. ~~Federations, by John Joseph Adams, editor~~
15. The Son of Retro Pulp Tales, by Joe R. Lansdale
16. Republic of Thieves, by Scott Lynch

Three of these books have not yet been published, and of those, we won't see the Martin and Lynch this year.

That just leaves me with five books to read from my original list. I own the Strahan, pre-ordered the Scalzi, and have the Kress coming from the library. I feel god about getting the Abercrombie from the library by the end of the year, but I'm just not so sure I'm going to get to the Mieville this year.

But, given that I made this list back on January 6, I think I've done fairly well in identifying new 2009 books that I was interested in and then getting a hold of them to read.

2009 World Fantasy Award Winners

2009-11-01T17:09:00.004-06:00

Thanks to Cheryl Morgan's live reporting, we have the winners of the 2009 World Fantasy Awards

Novel: The Shadow Year, by Jeffrey Ford AND Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan (tie)
Novella:"If Angels Fight", by Richard Bowes
Short Story: "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss", by Kij Johnson

Collection: The Drowning Life, by Jeffrey Ford
Anthology: Paper Cities, by Ekaterina Sedia (editor)

Artist: Shaun Tan
Special Award: Professional: Kelly Link & Gavin G. Grant for Small Beer Press and Big Mouth House
Special Award: Non Professional: Michael Walsh for Howard Waldrop Collections

Lifetime Achievement: Ellen Asher and Jane Yolen

Congratulations to all the winners (and extra yay to Kij Johnson)

Thoughts on 2009 World Fantasy Award Nominees: Novel

2009-11-01T00:01:00.001-05:00

The House of the Stag, Kage Baker (Tor)
The Shadow Year, Jeffrey Ford (Morrow)
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury)
Pandemonium, Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)
Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin; Knopf)

We have to start with the one novel I haven’t read: The House of the Stag. I have mixed expectations about this, mostly because the last couple of Company novels from Kage Baker were disappointing and they’ve soured me just a bit on Baker. On the other hand, when Baker is on her game, she’s a damn fine storyteller. I can’t talk about The House of the Stag in comparison to the other nominated novels, but I can’t ignore it, either.

Out of the four nominated novels I was able to read before the World Fantasy Awards was given out, Tender Morsels was easily the most disappointing. Margo Lanagan’s story is a reimagining of “Snow White and Rose Red” and it is a brutal, brutal story. Nominally a YA novel, Tender Morsels features repeated abuse, rape, and incest in an intensely patriarchal society (not that women can’t have positions of prominence, but they also shouldn’t be caught alone with a male…the men have all the power). While the portrayals of these terrible are not graphic in terms of physical description, they are viscerally graphic and hang over the entire novel. I’m not sure exactly how to talk about Tender Morsels. It’s a novel that just failed to work for me in any way, that I had to force myself to continue to read because of the award nomination. Otherwise I would have put this book down after maybe fifty pages. The novel is perhaps too emotionally graphics, but it is also such a bleak story with many men who come across as one dimensional monsters. Simple because it is a fairy tale or not, it’s not something I ever want to read again. Very much not recommended.

The Shadow Year is an expansion of Ford’s critically acclaimed novella “Botch Town” and as such, I only reluctantly read The Shadow Year. I wasn’t a fan of “Botch Town” and that makes me the one person who wasn’t. So much moreso than Tender Morsels, I can see the craft and the skill in the storytelling in The Shadow Year. It’s a quiet novel of growing up and secrets in a smallish town / city, with just a hint of magic in the air. Only problem is that Jeffrey Ford is very much a hit or miss writer for me and despite his obvious skill, The Shadow Year was a miss. I don’t have a good reason for why, only a knowledge that it didn’t hit.

Thus far we’ve briefly looked at two novels I didn’t enjoy and one I haven’t read. Now we’re going to move onto the two novels I could appreciate.

The first of those two is Daryl Gregory’s debut novel Pandemonium. This is what I had to say about Pandemonium when I first reviewed it: The rest of the novel? It’s damn good. It’s a very strong debut. Based solely on Pandemonium, Daryl Gregory is an exciting new author and one to watch.

The second is The Graveyard Book. This is what I had to say about The Graveyard Book in my previous review: The Graveyard Book is the sort of book where you don’t talk about genre or publishing categories when you talk about it. You just hand it to a friend, your mother, your priest, your cabbie, a stranger and say “read this. It’s really good,” and expect them to thank you later.

Outstanding. Spectacular. Delightful. Wonderful. There are all sorts of adjectives to use when talking about The Graveyard Book. Choose one. I’ll probably have meant that one, too.

The Graveyard Book was a superior novel and one of the best of last year. It’s the class of the World Fantasy Award nomination novels. I can see The Shadow Year potentially winning this award, and I definitely appreciate Pandemonium, but I think the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel should go to The Graveyard Book. It’s really quite good and deserves all the acclaim it has received.

Thoughts on 2009 World Fantasy Award Nominees: Novella

2009-10-31T17:11:00.001-05:00

“Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel”, Peter S. Beagle (Strange Roads)
“If Angels Fight”, Richard Bowes (F&SF 2/08)
“The Overseer”, Albert Cowdrey (F&SF 3/08)
Odd and the Frost Giants, Neil Gaiman (Bloomsbury; HarperCollins)
“Good Boy”, Nisi Shawl (Filter House)

Now it is time to look at the Novella nominees for the World Fantasy Award.

My thoughts on “If Angels Fight”: The story consists of the search for Mark Bannon, a long dead scion of a major political family...a man who the narrator has been able to find over the years, even though Mark really is dead. That would be impossible to explain. My main problem, though, is that every step of the search results in long digressions about that new person meeting Mark. It becomes tedious because there is no core story, just digressions. For me, the digressions don't work.

My thoughts on “Good Boy”: Regarding “Good Boy”…honestly, I don’t know. It’s a blending of tribal spiritual practices, computers, biology. It deals with medicine’s inability to cure a malady in a time and setting where futuristic medicine is quite powerful, and that older traditions may be able to cure the malady. It’s about mothers and daughters. It was good, but unremarkable. From reading Filter House, that is also the overall impression I have with Shawl’s fiction, which also suggests that as accomplished as Nisi Shawl is as a writer, her stories so far just do not work for me. No harm. No foul.

“Odd and the Frost Giants”: Originally published in the UK for World Book Day, “Odd and the Frost Giants” is a weaker entry from Neil Gaiman, especially in a year that we have the inevitable comparison of a YA novella to The Graveyard Book (or even just to the previously published “The Witch’s Headstone”). Most stories would come up wanting in such a comparison. “Odd and the Frost Giants” may be aimed at a slightly younger audience than The Graveyard Book is and that may explain some of the over-simplistic storytelling here. Odd is a young boy who doesn’t quite fit in, is not well liked by his step father (as is the case in many a story of this sort), and prefers to spend time by himself out in the woods. When he frees a bear’s paw Odd finds himself among exiled Norse gods and in an adventure he could scarcely have imagined. It’s an adventure that would change him forever. On one hand, “Odd and the Frost Giants” is a solid story for younger readers that can also be appreciated by older readers. On the other hand, it’s not *that* good. It’s a perfectly decent story and parents should feel at ease giving this to their kids to read. It’s a good story and age appropriate. It’s just not award-level work. Not this award.

I rank this above “If Angels Fight” and “Good Boy” simply because of an enjoyment factor that so significantly trumps those two stories that I can’t drop this one down farther.

My thoughts on “The Overseer”: “The Overseer” did not grip me from the start, but the deeper we got into the history of Lerner and the betrayals and the nastiness, the more engaged I became. Every notable character in this story, save two of them, is a fairly despicable human being. They aren’t good people, but watching the haunting and the paranoia unfold is a pleasure for this story.

My thoughts on “Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel”: There is nothing flash here, but we are left with something quite wonderful in the end. A story of grace and power and beauty, a story that ends just when it needed to and leaves the reader satisfied.

This was a disappointing category with only one true standout. If I had anything to say about it, which I do not, this award would go to Peter Beagle's story. I don't know if it will because "Good Boy" will likely offer a strong challenge. Hopefully the award will go to Beagle.

Thoughts on 2009 World Fantasy Award Nominees: Short Story

2009-10-30T21:17:00.002-05:00

“Caverns of Mystery”, Kage Baker (Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy)
“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss”, Kij Johnson (Asimov’s 7/08)
“Pride and Prometheus”, John Kessel (F&SF 1/08)
“Our Man in the Sudan”, Sarah Pinborough (The Second Humdrumming Book of Horror Stories)
“A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica”, Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld 5/08)

Welcome to the first of the World Fantasy Award coverage posts. I’m going to take a look at the Short Story category today. If this is your first time reading one of my award wrap-ups, welcome. I list the stories out in reverse order of my esteem for them. The first story listed is, relatively speaking, in the place of dishonor. This year that dishonor goes to…

“Pride and Prometheus”.

My thoughts on "Pride and Prometheus": Kessel’s story is well written and there is a strong aspect of intellectual interest to the chronology of the story and working out the little clues as to what is going on. John Kessel works in the inherent horror of the situation perfectly. The main problem here is simply that because I am not a fan of the original source material, I am not the ideal reader for “Pride and Prometheus”. For me, the story only works on the “hey, Kessel’s doing something kind of cool here” level.

A counterpoint to "Pride and Prometheus" would come from a person who I recommended this story to. She is a fan of Jane Austen's work and is very familiar with the characters / setting. She loved the story. I can only appreciate the story on an intellectual level.

My thoughts on "Caverns of Mystery": The story features Baker's usual quietly graceful writing. Seldom is Baker ever flashy in her storytelling, but "Caverns of Mystery" fails to deliver...well, mystery, or wonder, or anything to compel readers to want to commit to the story. Obviously that statement cannot be entirely true given the World Fantasy Award nomination, but "Caverns of Mystery" isn't even the best story in Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy, let alone one of the best five fantasy stories of 2008.

The struggle here is how to articulate this. "Caverns of Mystery" isn't bad, it's just ordinary. It's the sort of story that if I wasn't trying to talk about the World Fantasy Award nominations, or of it was not nominated (which it shouldn't have been), I would never have mentioned the story at all. It's just a story. Competent. Well written. Ordinary. Slightly boring.

My thoughts on "A Buyer's Guide to Maps of Antarctica": “A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica” has been recognized and praised by many and is being reprinted in Best of the Year anthologies, and the story deserves that praise. On its surface it is not a straightforward narrative going from Point A to Point B, but in a sense, it does. It features a hero, a villain, a conflict, and a resolution. Valente just tells the story in a non-traditional manner, one which serves the emotions of the story in a more authentic manner. The story works.

My thoughts on “Our Man in the Sudan”: The deeper level of spookiness that pervades the story, beyond what Stephen Jones said about it, is that for so much of the story the reader never knows what happened to Cartwright. The death is written off as just a death, but Fanshawe has very strange messages from Cartwright prior to his death. It’s that feeling of knowing something is around the corner, but you don’t know exactly what.

At the very least “Our Man in the Sudan” is a fascinating look at the environs of Khartoum, but there is more than that. There is atmosphere and there is *something* going on. There are hints of what it is, but Pinborough never comes right out and tells the reader. That’s okay, because the story works.

My thoughts on “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” from much earlier this year: The story is in turns clever, sweet, funny, and sad. After reading last year’s nominated story “The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change” I was quite impressed with Kij Johnson’s storytelling skill and was curious to read more of her work. “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” is a story of one woman’s healing among a show full of performing monkeys – monkeys that accepted her, not the other way around.

It’s good. It’s really good. Last year’s story was one of my favorite nominated stories and after reading this, I expect “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” will be one of this year’s favorites.

Sarah Pinborough’s story was an excellent one and well worth the nomination, but I’ve been enamored with “26 Monkeys” since it was nominated for the Nebula earlier this year. It’s just one of those stories that connected with me and grabbed me and didn’t let go. With that said, I have a feeling “Our Man in the Sudan” will win this award. I would much prefer if the John Kessel or the Kage Baker stories fail to win the award, and I don’t have a problem with Catherynne Valente winning, but if I was on the jury this would be a two horse race between Sarah Pinborough and Kij Johnson. You can’t go wrong with either.

Stuff: 10/30 Edition

2009-10-30T00:01:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to listen to this for a while but The Sofanauts has a podcast regarding the state of Asimov's Magazine. Participants are Jeff VanderMeer, Sheila Williams (the editor of Asimov's), Jeremy Tolbert, and Brian Bieniowski.

Elizabeth Bear has posted the first chapter of her new novel By the Mountain Bound. It's in three Parts. One, Two, and Three.

The Amazon Blog is counting down the Top 100 books of the year.

Publisher's Weekly reveals their Top 10.

No, you're not getting my list until the end of the year. Geez.

Carrie Vaughn announces there are four more Kitty Norville books forthcoming: three novels and a short story collection. Woo to the hoo!

Pat gets cranky about the state of SFF fandom. Personally, I think he's at least partially cracked. I don't see it the way he does.

Oh, and here's a bunch of reviews of The Gathering Storm. Mine is coming next week.
Pat's Fantasy Hotlist
Neth Space
OF Blog of the Fallen
The Wertzone
Dragonmount
Grasping for the Wind
Tor.com
Tarvalon.net

Knife of Dreams, by Robert Jordan

2009-10-28T19:56:00.003-05:00

Knife of Dreams
Robert Jordan
Tor: 2005

With Knife of Dreams Robert Jordan picks up the relatively glacial pacing of the previous two to three novels (the cleansing notwithstanding) and begins to move the characters to a point where readers can reasonably say that an end is in sight. Even if that end is still one large novel told in three volumes away. To be fair, while Knife of Dreams reads faster than the previous volumes we shouldn’t assume that what we have is anything like the first four novels in the series. This is still a novel in which characters wait around for things to happen and Elayne still spends much of the novel trying to maneuver herself onto the throne of Andor while her rivals besiege Caemlyn. That said, there is much to like here.

One of the freshest storylines in Knife of Dreams is that of Egwene al’Vere. Egwene is the rebel Amyrlin Seat and, at the end of Crossroads of Twilight, was captured by the Aes Sedai of the White Tower after partially blocking the harbor. Though she is prisoner, Egwene decides to act as the Amyrlin she knows herself to be and allow her actions and words to slowly bring about change inside the White Tower and be a quiet pocket of resistance. She receives regular beatings as penances, but never wavers in her stance and gradually, over a period of two weeks (or so) begins to see results.

The Egwene chapters are some of the most effective and most interesting in the novel. Egwene in the White Tower gives a true comparison in how things have changed since she was first a novice and also a stark demonstration of the growth and maturity Egwene has experienced over the year(s) from when she first left Emond’s Field to now. As much as any other character, Egwene is a far different woman than the girl who we met in The Eye of the World, and her quiet leadership in Knife of Dreams is a storyline which promises to have as much impact on the world as anything Rand or the Seanchan do. Plus, Egwene’s determination is just compelling storytelling that gets beyond the regular machinations of the Aes Sedai in Salidar or the Tower itself.

My Noal Charin watch continues and for the first time Mat asks Noal straight out if he was Jain Farstrider. Noal reluctantly admits that Jain was a cousin, but given how Robert Jordan has set all this up, there’s no reason to actually believe that. Tuon’s presence here allows her to ask a question nobody else would have, which is asking who Jain Farstrider was. Everyone from the Randland side of the ocean would have already known. But, this lets an outsider ask the question and Noal answer. His answer is revealing.

“He was a fool,” Noal said grimly before Mat could open his mouth, though Olver did get his open and left it gaping while the old man continued. “He went gallivanting about the world and left a good and loving wife to die of a fever without him there to hold her hand while she died. He let himself be made into a tool by---“ Abrubtly Noal’s face went blank. Staring through Mat, he rubbed at his forehead as though attempting to recall something.

Young Olver is a huge fan of Jain Farstrider comes to Jain’s defense and reminds Noal of of some of the great things Jain did.

Noal came to himself with a start and patted Olver’s shoulder. “He did that, boy. That much is to his credit. But what adventure is worth leaving your wife to die alone?” He sounded sad enough to die on the spot himself.

This may not be the heart of the novel or the series, but the Noal Charin / Jain Farstrider bits are some which add so much richness to the history and shape of the world and story. It also provides something to wonder about. If Noal really is Jain Farstrider as an old man, what happened to him? The most common theories is that he ran afoul of the Shadow at some point and was captured by either Graendal or Ishamael and was left a broken man. But, the question is whether Noal can be considered a potential sleeper agent with a hidden compulsion. Probably not, but just maybe. It’s worth wondering about.

Another interesting thing around is the storyline is Mat with Aludra the Illuminator and what appears to be the introduction of gunpowder and artillery cannon to the world. How will this change things and can it be accelerated enough to make a difference in the Last Battle? Between Aludra’s cannon and the inventions created as a result of Rand’s school, the world is about to undergo its first technological revolution since the Breaking some three thousand years ago. Rand’s got people inventing “steam wagons”, which is an early version of cars / trains.

Now, Knife of Dreams has a solid focus on Perrin and a couple of climactic battles near the end of the novel and it features the resolution to the Faile kidnapping story (finally!), but more than anything else, what people will take from this novel is the letter from Moiraine to Thom and the confirmation of what many people were guessing for years: Moiraine isn’t dead. She needs rescuing. Hell yeah.

For me, The Wheel of Time has always been about the little things more than the big story arcs. It gets me through the times when the major story arcs had slowed to a crawl and it adds richness to the times when Jordan is absolutely nailing the major story arcs. Knife of Dreams succeeds as well as it does because of those smaller moments as well as the battles (also finally, another Trolloc battle here). The Ogier. Nynaeve beginning to rally the Borderlands so that Lan won’t ride alone. Steamwagons. The changing corridors and the loosening of the pattern. The detail about the Amayar. Rand briefly seeing “black flecks” in his vision, which makes me wonder about that link to Moridin and the saa. The revelation to folks that Rand really is hearing voices. Anytime the Forsaken get together. Seriously, Knife of Dreams is a novel loaded with awesome bits to quietly thrill longtime fans of the series and reward them for their wait.

Is this a better book because the last couple weren’t quite as good? Yeah, maybe. I’m not exactly unbiased here and I can only admit that I love this series and frequently overlook flaws. But, this one is just better than Wheel of Time had been for a while and the Egwene chapters are top notch.

All that is left now is A Memory of Light, the three volume conclusion to The Wheel of Time which begins with The Gathering Storm.

Except for whenever I write about New Spring, this will be the last trip through memory lane. The Gathering Storm has been published and it is all new content from now. I have thoroughly enjoyed the re-read of the series and I’m ready to jump back into a new Wheel of Time story*.

Previous Reviews
The Eye of the World
The Great Hunt
The Dragon Reborn
The Shadow Rising
The Fires of Heaven
Lord of Chaos
A Crown of Swords
The Path of Daggers
Winter's Heart
Crossroads of Twilight

*at this point I am 300 pages into TGS.

Registration Open for Shared Worlds Teen Writing Camp

2009-10-27T19:40:00.002-05:00

Completely ganked from Jeff VanderMeer's blog, but I think this is a very cool thing and wanted to help spread the word.

Registration is now open for the 2010 teen science fiction/fantasy writing camp Shared Worlds. Shared Worlds is a unique two-week inter-disciplinary experience on beautiful Wofford campus in Spartanburg, South Carolina. (It’s also fun!) A number of scholarships will be made available. The official sponsors of the camp include Tor Books, Wizards of the Coast LLC, and Realms of Fantasy. SF Signal and io9 have also provided support.

Instructors for 2010 will include Spiderwick Chronicles creator Holly Black, critically acclaimed YA and adult authors Kathe Koja and Marly Youmans, Nebula Award winner Michael Bishop, writer and gaming expert Will Hindmarch, and World Fantasy Award winner Jeff VanderMeer, plus Wofford College’s own Dr. Christine Dinkins, philosophy professor, and Jeremy Jones, lecturer and camp director. Artist Scott Eagle will also conduct a workshop during the camp. Although the full 2011 roster will be announced later, Shared Worlds is pleased to note that Philip K. Dick Award finalist Minister Faust and Nnedi Okorafor, winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature for her novel Zahrah the Windseeker, have both accepted invitations to attend as visiting writers.

“We feel this is the only writing camp of its kind available to teens,” says Shared Worlds assistant director Jeff VanderMeer. “Not only do they learn the skills necessary to build their unique fantasy or SF worlds, which will hold them in good stead in any career they decide to pursue, but they also get expert creative writing instruction and lots of practice developing their ideas collaboratively as a member of a world-building team. As an added benefit, we take the time to conduct one-on-one sessions with each student so we have a better understanding of not only their writing but what they want to get out of the camp.”

The 2010 summer camp will be held from July 18 through July 31.

Recent highlights from the website :

* Students can register now for the 2010 camp.

* The Shared Worlds chapbook, designed by renowned designer John Coulthart and featuring a selection of student writings, can now be viewed online.

* The complete wikis for the worlds created in 2009 are now available. Students create the wikis during the two-weeks of camp.

—Quatteran
—Doegum
—Doxus Olum

returned and forthcoming

2009-10-26T18:16:00.003-05:00

I'm back from a four day weekend trip to South Carolina and since I spent a fair amount of time in airports and on planes, I was able to do copious amounts of reading.

As such, I was able to finished five books.
Imaro, by Charles Saunders
Seven for a Secret, by Elizabeth Bear
Ace in the Hole, by George R. R. Martin (editor)
Jhereg, by Steven Brust
The Living Dead, by John Joseph Adams (editor)

I also expect to finish Robert Jordan's Knife of Dreams tonight. See, while I was away a little birdie dropped a copy of The Gathering Storm in my mailbox (the day I left for SC, no less), and even though I won't be reading it well before everyone else, I do plan to make a decent dent in it tonight.

I expect I may end up with one of the more gushing reviews Aidan pointed out recently. I'm a Wheel of Time fanboy at heart. This is one of the most formative series of my reading life and even the volumes that have serious flaws still provide me with hours of enjoyment. I may (or may not) notice some of the flaws which are likely in The Gathering Storm, but I will be as honest as possible in reviewing the book - which will also include a clear disclaimer of my bias. It's not going to be an impartial reading. It can't be. That's okay.

In other news, on vacation I picked up a copy of Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest. That's one of my more anticipated volumes of the year. Also, Barnes and Nobles had the two volumes of GRRM's Dreamsongs retrospective collection for $6 each. In hardcover. Yeah, I pounced on that and damn near doubled the weight of my luggage.

In terms of blogging this week, I've got a couple of ideas of how I want to proceed but nothing definite.

The World Fantasy Awards will be given out this weekend and I want do a bunch of posts about the nominees, but I'm a little behind on what I want to do. I can adequately cover the short fiction, but I don't know if I'll get The House of the Stag done before the awards are given. There's no chance to catch up on the anthologies and collections.

Otherwise, I've got a host of reviews lining up which should provide a couple weeks worth of content. After I write them, of course, but that's something to look forward to. Real content!!

Swords and Dark Magic Table of Contents

2009-10-21T06:39:00.002-05:00

Jonathan Strahan has announced the Table of Contents for the forthcoming swords & sorcery anthology Swords and Dark Magic, edited by Strahan and Lou Anders.

1. Introduction, Lou Anders & Jonathan Strahan
2. “Goats of Glory”, Steven Erikson
3. “Tides Elba: A Tale of the Black Company”, Glen Cook
4. “Bloodsport”, Gene Wolfe
5. “The Singing Spear”, James Enge
6. “A Wizard of Wiscezan”, C.J. Cherryh
7. “A Rich Full Week”, K. J. Parker
8. “A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet”, Garth Nix
9. “Red Pearls: An Elric Story”, Michael Moorcock
10. “The Deification of Dal Bamore”, Tim Lebbon
11. “Dark Times at the Midnight Market”, Robert Silverberg
12. “The Undefiled”, Greg Keyes
13. “Dapple Hew the Tint Master”, Michael Shea
14. “In the Stacks”, Scott Lynch
15. “Two Lions, A Witch, and the War-Robe”, Tanith Lee
16. “The Sea Troll’s Daughter”, Caitlin R Kiernan
17. “Thieves of Daring”, Bill Willingham
18. “The Fool Jobs”, Joe Abercrombie

Is that an exciting list of writers? Oh...lord, yes. I discovered most of these writers in my mid to late twenties, but this is the kind of stuff I cut my fantasy-teeth on when I started reading in the genre. (more or less)

Hoo-damn.

Stuff: 10/20 Edition

2009-10-20T06:14:00.002-05:00

Galley Cat has the cover for Point Omega, the forthcoming Don DeLillo novel. Point Omega will only be 128 pages, which after reading his equally slim novel The Body Artist, doesn't exactly fill me with hope. That said, it's DeLillo.

Over at Omnivoracious, Jeff VanderMeer interviews Subterranean Press founder and publisher Bill Schaefer. SubPress is one of my favorite publishers and it's a good interview.

Classic SF Book Covers (via Genreville)

It's not final cover, but Jonathan Strahan has posted the Todd Lockwood art for his forthcoming Night Shade dragon anthology Wings of Fire

I'm behind on posting (and writing) reviews, but in the next few weeks I've got some stuff planned (but not written). If all goes well, we should see reviews of:
Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman
Chasing the Dragon, by Justina Robson
Burn Me Deadly, by Alex Bledsoe
Knife of Dreams, by Robert Jordan

Also, I'm hoping to get to reading a handful of books I've purchased and also received:
Finch, by Jeff VanderMeer
Seven for a Secret, by Elizabeth Bear
Metatropolis, by John Scalzi (editor)
Busted Flush, by George R. R. Martin (editor)
The Living Dead, by John Joseph Adams (editor)
Canticle, by Ken Scholes
Jhereg, by Steven Brust
The Quiet War, by Paul McAuley
The Gathering Storm, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

And then there's still those graphic novels I want to do. Plus a World Fantasy Award wrap-up post.