Winterbirth Czech cover art

Brian Ruckley posted the Czech cover for the first book in his Godless World series, Winterbirth. I wanted to share because I think it looks great. The author mentions that he's not sure who the characters are from his book and it's not the kind of cover I would usually go with but there's something.... a "cool" factor maybe... I still haven't read this series but I hope to correct this early next year. You can read Brian post here.

Brandon Sanderson - The Way of Kings

One of the series I'm eagerly waiting for and that will probably be released next year judging by Brandon Sanderson enormous number of words he can write is The Stormlight Archive.

A couple of months ago and again this week, Aidan at A Dribble of Ink posted more info on the first title in the series, The Way of Kings. You can take a look at the post here :

http://aidanmoher.com/blog/2009/07/asides/an-aside-details-on-the-way-of-kings-by-brandon-sanderson/

http://aidanmoher.com/blog/2009/11/asides/an-aside-synopsis-for-the-way-of-kings-by-brandon-sanderson/

Gaming disgression - Dragon Age Origins

I have been playing the game for almost 30 hours now and I can't stop (and that's probably why my Acacia review is still not done). Dragon Age : Origins, the "spiritual" successor of Bioware Baldur's Gate series is simply astonishing. For once I dread the 60/70 hours of gameplay to complete the game, I want even more (Ok this is nothing in comparison to my 375 hours of WOW but this is another story). If you're a gamer and you like RPGs you can't miss this one (moreover, it's on PC, XBox360 and PS3....). I play the PC version of the game mostly because you can "scroll out" the view to get a more strategic camera angle (and the controls on that type of game are simply better on PC than on consoles). However, even though the graphics are better on PC, I miss my big tv screen and PS3 for the visual experience.

I play a mage elf and I'm not used to go with this class. Well I think that will become an automatic choice in the future, way too much fun!

The immersion into the newly created world of Bioware (they also set aside the D&D license for a new stats system) is amazing. Apart from a good epic fantasy novel, I don't think you can get immersed into a rich fantasy world better than this.

For those of you who still haven't seen anything of this title, here's a trailer (the heavy metal song is not the best choice but... wow!).

Epigraphs and new poll

Now that the dust is almost settled, we can move out from The Gathering Storm hype... while waiting for my review :). My last poll asked the readers whether or not they are going to read Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson latest opus and the majority is going to, at least by judging with my "non-scientific" poll.

Let's follow with my next interrogation. Many writers (and correct me if I seem mistaken), mostly in fantasy literature recently, are putting epigraphs at the beginning of their chapters. Epigraphs are used to set an atmosphere, suggest a theme or simply give some information.

Some writers like Joe Abercrombie are using real world famous or "infamous" quotes (and an interesting back story for Monza in Best Served Cold) while others are working with epigraphs to add essential information for the story (a la Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy). R.A Salvatore used a kind of epigraph in his Drizzt Do'Urden novels to add insights from the PoV of the drow himself. R. Scott Bakker and Steven Erikson (only in his first few books) are including this writing tool to insert historical facts from their created world or citations from wise imagined philosopher of the past. I'm not sure if we can consider Scott Lynch interludes to be a part of this but anyway it's an fascinating inclusion.

There's one of the uses of epigraphs that I don't really like and if you've read my reviews of Erikson's novels you know that it's poems. It's not that I hate those but in as much quantity as in the two latest Malazan novels, I don't think it's compelling. The same applied for me when I read the songs in LOTR.

Usually, I read all the epigraphs and it's generally worth it. It can be of great help when in need of more "meat" for world building. And you, do you like to read epigraphs at the start of a chapter?

Brandon Sanderson Q&A

Audible.com asked the readers/"listeners" to propose them questions for Brandon Sanderson. They chose 7 of them and they posted his answers today. The questions are mostly about The Gathering Storm but the eventuality of a Mistborn prequel is also discussed.

Here you go!

Nights of Villjamur UK PB cover

As posted on Mark Charan Newton blog, here's the UK paperback cover for Nights of Villjamur. Not bad but I prefer the US cover even if its less "fantasy-looking". Enjoy!

Covers galore!

A lot of new covers were unveiled lately. Here's a little round-up.

Let's start with the one that will make the news slightly more than the others, Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold mass market paperback cover. Orbit books released the cover today. Personally I think they misfired with this one. It looks like some cheap "suspense/horror" cover.

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Next on the list is the cover for the second e-book of the Wheel of Time series, The Great Hunt. I posted the first one here (which was not much to my taste). Harriet (Jordan's widow and editor) chose a different artist for each e-book cover. Tor Books posted the cover by Kekai Kotaki. Much better than the first one. The trollocs in front are one of the best representation I've seen.

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After being featured on a couple of blogs this week, Brent Weeks felt that he had to speak about his new cover. It's not the final version but here's the cover for his upcoming book The Black Prism. By the way, as Brent wrote on his website, the blurb for the book posted on Amazon is not right (written before he started to work on the book...). By looking at his site, I also discovered the covers for his omnibus version of The Night Angel trilogy and the french covers for the first two books of the series. Here a look :

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Finally, let's compare the new covers for Guy Gabriel Kay next novel, Under Heaven. I go for the second one, the US cover.

Dust of Dreams Review

Dust of Dreams, Steven Erikson ninth book of the Malazan book of the Fallen series, is the penultimate novel of this monumental saga. As Erikson himself states at the beginning of the book, this is the first part of a two novels conclusion and doesn't follow a traditional arc. The series will end with The Crippled God which should be released in 2010, but it's not the end of the Malazan world stories. Steven said that he will write at least two more trilogies set in the same world but aside from the book of the Fallen tale. You can also take a peek at the novels of the co-founder of this amazing world, Ian C. Esslemont set in the same time period as the book of the Fallen.

The story... briefly... this is the direct follow-up of Reaper's Gale and set in the same time period as Toll the Hounds. The Bonehunters set out from Letheras to join with their Perish and Khundryl allies to get to Kolanse (also accompanied by the letherii forces). In the wastelands they will eventually go through, K'Chain Che'malle and their human destriant, newcomer Kalyth, are looking for a Shield Anvil and a Mortal Sword. While Draconus gets back from Dragnipur, Icarium is lost in multiple personalities and the Shake are looking for the first shore and Karkhanas. The "Snake" is fleeing and Setoc (wolf gods destriant) meet with mighty travellers while running away. The Elder gods are gathering at the summons of the Errant.

Hopefully, Dust of Dreams feels like well concocted preparation for the grand finale and not a book to fill in or to expand uselessly the series. In the previous Malazan novels, we always see a lot of new characters beside some good old ones, a score of new storylines and a big convergence near the end. In this case, the confluence is not of the usual style, it's almost always on the verge of it but not quite. So the gathering of the numerous arcs that will happen in the next opus is going to be huge.

We return mostly to existing storylines and get a good dose of the protagonists we love (with a touch of new characters too). Even though the author mentions that we don't see many resolutions of story-threads, there's a satisfying advancement in the general plot. When Fiddler cast the tiles, when Bottle speaks with Quick Ben or even more when the Elder Gods are gathering, we received plenty of new information to quench our thirst of knowledge about what's going on. Still, we can keep speculating and that's an aspect of this series that I will miss when we get to the end.

In this novel, the series title takes all the more sense. It's not just the Crippled God that is fallen but a significant portion of the races of the world. Epic's not going to get better served than in this case. There is something else I realised while reading this book. Taking into account that so much happened since the first book, the legends that were created in the story previously now feels like grandiose myths. You don't need to be told by the protagonists that someone achievements were great, you actually know and believe it. Coltaine's one of the best examples.

The writing is in the usual Erikson style, not much to add at this point in the series, it's a "well-versed" narrative, it's still distinctive and serve the story accordingly although Fisher's poem are ever present at the start of almost each chapters... I'm still annoyed by this but I just have to skip them. One of the problems I had with the book aside from this was the whole White-face Barghast storyline. It's arduous to read at times and too long for its interest by my taste. However, the Malazan marines are back in their full glory (or at least getting ready for that glory). I think the best moments of this novel are probably the ones when the squad members of the Bonehunters are tackling each other. There's a good deal of humor as in the previous novels. With Tehol and Bugg, Ublala, the Bonehunters and a score of delightfully imaginative swearing.

About the world, almost all of the book happens between Lether and the wastelands connecting with Kolanse. This is not the greatest addition to the discovery of the world but we get to see the inside of a K'Chain Che'malle rooted skykeep. The magic system was already fully established but Erikson actually added another layer to it, the Icarium way.

Why should you read this book? First, there's the easy answer, because if you have read the first eight books, it's not this book that will make you stop and it should not. Even though there was some problem in the first few books with the timeline and we won't get to see the finality of all the innumerable story arcs, Erikson is actually going to pull it off with a massive scale convergence connecting together a score of plots in the most captivating way I can imagine. Can't wait to read how it's all going to unfold.

Technically, the Bantam Press cover is looking good, portraying the herald of death himself, Toc. The map and appendix (Dramatis personae) are as welcome as in the previous iterations. The book is 889 pages.

Dust of Dreams review score :

Characterization............. 8.5 /10
World building............... 10 / 10
Magic system................. 10 / 10
Story.............................. 8.5 / 10
Writing........................... 8 / 10

Overall (not an average) 8.5 / 10

Enjoy!

Malazan empire page

Richard Morgan writing for games

There had been no update in a while on Morgan's website. Today he explained why. For almost a year now, the author has been working with EA Games! He announced that he was consulting on three separate games, all of them being in the Sci-fi realm (http://www.richardkmorgan.com/news.htm).

Kotaku is speculating that the games could be the next Dead Space installment, an new IP for Epic and another mysterious game not yet unveiled (read more here).

Here's a exerpt of what Richard wrote on his website :

"That was a year ago. Now, without breaking any Non-Disclosure Agreements, I can cautiously reveal that I've been pulled in to consult on three separate games, have spent more time on airplanes and in overseas hotels during the last year than in my entire previous life, and have hit one of the steeper learning curves of my creative existence. Gaming turns out not only to be exactly as fascinating a medium as you'd expect, it's also a very young industry and its norms have yet to be fully formed. So while it shares some characteristics with the movie world, gaming has yet to produce its version of Story guru Robert McKee or the cut-and-dried writing formula requirements that have strangled so much creativity in places like Hollywood. What you can put into a big budget game is still very much up for grabs, and what's more, with the breakneck pace of technological development backing the field, it's constantly changing as well. One producer I'm working with at the moment likens what we're doing to working in Hollywood circa 1920, when everyone was still working out what you could do with this wild, new medium called film; the only difference is that the rate of evolution in technique for video games is running at about a dozen times the speed it ever did for film.

The field is open, the potential huge and, in story terms, only just beginning to be properly tapped For a writer, that's a pretty close definition of paradise."

Till the end of the year and covers battle

The end of the year won't offer much in term of fantasy release, at least no big guns. Here's a couple of releases worth mentioning. I think it should be a good time to return to my growing pile of books already in my possession that I wanted to read for a while. Some of those novels have alternative covers, which one would you go for?

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The Infernal City : An Elder Scrolls Novel
Greg Keyes
November 24

Four decades after the Oblivion Crisis, Tamriel is threatened anew by an ancient and all-consuming evil. It is Umbriel, a floating city that casts a terrifying shadow-for wherever it falls, people die and rise again. And it is in Umbriel's shadow that a great adventure begins, and a group of unlikely heroes meet. A legendary prince with a secret. A spy on the trail of a vast conspiracy. A mage obsessed with his desire for revenge. And Annaig, a young girl in whose hands the fate of Tamriel may rest . . . . Based on the award-winning "The Elder Scrolls," The Infernal City is the first of two exhilarating novels following events that continue the story from "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion," named 2006 Game of the Year.

Greg Keyes is a good author in my opinion. I have read his Kingdom of Thorn and Bone series and its good fantasy, accessible and straight to the point. Since he already wrote novels set in pre-established worlds (Star Wars universe), he could come up with something nice.

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Burn Me Deadly
Alex Bledsoe
November 10

Above Angelina's Tavern in down-and-dirty Neceda you'll find the office of Eddie LaCrosse, a freelance sword jockey who, for twenty-five gold pieces a day, will take on any task short of murder for hire. Eddie's on his way back from a routine investigation when his horse almost runs down a half-naked blonde in serious trouble. Against his better judgment, he promises to protect the frightened young woman, only to find himself waylaid by unknown assailants and left for dead beside her mutilated body. Eddie isn't the kind of guy to just let something like this pass. But who killed Laura Lesperitt? Eddie's quest for payback leads him to a tangled mystery involving a notorious crime lord, a backwoods dragon cult, royal scandals, and a duplicitous femme fatale who has trouble keeping her clothes on. As bodies pile up, attracting the unwelcome attention of the king's guards, Eddie must use all his wits if he hopes to survive...

Which cover is the best? For me no real success with either one... About the book, it's the second novel in the Eddie LaCrosse Mystery series. The first book received good reviews, so probably a series to look for in the future.

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Beyond the Wall of Time
Russell Kirkpatrick
November 24

The wall of time has fallen and the Gods are free to ravage the world. The few that know of their escape into mortal lands are under the control of the malevolent Husk. Stella, a queen in hiding, makes a deal with the Undying Man even though she knows his agenda comes first. Noetos seeks revenge for the deaths of his loved ones, not yet realizing the enemy is closer than even he can imagine. And the unconventional cosmographer, Lenares, is the only one with the power to prevent the Gods from destroying the world - if only the others would believe her. The queen, the fisherman, and the cosmographer must travel to Andratan to confront Husk. But whether they can break free of his hold on them, and defeat the Gods, is another matter entirely.

Kirkpatrick sold a lot of copies of Across The Face Of The World (from the Fires of Heaven trilogy). I have never read any of his books and this is his Broken Man/Husk Trilogy final novel. For the cover, I would go with the first one, mostly because of the ugly border of the second one.

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Rage of the Behemoth
Antology
Already released (june 2009)

This RotB Anthology contains 21 stories about the biggest, baddest, boldest behemoths ever to roar across the pages of heroic adventure! Over 150,000 words of monstrous mayhem record the ferocious battles that rage between gargantuan creatures of myth and legend and the warriors and wizards who wage war against, beside, and astride them. Behemoths and battles will be presented in four-story sections of five different habitats introduced by the stunning illustrations of John Whitman and headlined by well-known authors Mary Rosenblum, C.L. Werner, Brian Ruckley, Lois Tilton, and – writing together for the final time - Andrew Offutt and Richard K. Lyon.

Ok this one is already released (and went under the radar) but I wanted to mention it mostly for the presence of Brian Ruckley in the list of author. I still haven't read his Godless World series, but it's at the top of my list. If your a fan you might want to check this out.

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Finally, here are the two covers (and the blurb) for the upcoming novel Spellwright by first time author Blake Charlton. The first one by Todd Lockwood looks way better.


Imagine a world in which you could peel written words off a page and make them physically real. You might pick your teeth with a sentence fragment, protect yourself with defensive paragraphs, or thrust a sharply-worded sentence at an enemy’s throat.

Such a world is home to Nicodemus Weal, an apprentice at the wizardly academy of Starhaven. Because of how fast he can forge the magical runes that create spells, Nicodemus was thought to be the Halcyon, a powerful spellwright prophesied to prevent an event called the War of Disjunction, which would destroy all human language. There was only one problem: Nicodemus couldn’t spell.

Runes must be placed in the correct order to create a spell. Deviation results in a “misspell”—a flawed text that behaves in an erratic, sometimes lethal, manner. And Nicodemus has a disability, called cacography, that causes him to misspell texts simply by touching them.

Now twenty-five, Nicodemus lives in the aftermath of failing to fulfill prophecy. He finds solace only in reading knightly romances and in the teachings of Magister Shannon, an old blind wizard who’s left academic politics to care for Starhaven’s disabled students.

But when a powerful wizard is murdered with a misspell, Shannon and Nicodemus becomes the primary suspects. Proving their innocence becomes harder when the murderer begins killing male cacographers one by one…and all evidence suggests that Nicodemus will be next. Hunted by both investigators and a hidden killer, Shannon and Nicodemus must race to discover the truth about the murders, the nature of magic, and themselves.