Week-end update

I finished The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin last week and the review was posted yesterday. In audiobook, I'll catch up with Locke Lamora since the audiobook edition of Red Seas Under Red Skies was released. I'll be ready if Republic of Thieves makes its way before the end of the year. So far the book is as good as The Lies of Locke Lamora, so glad to return to the Gentleman Bastard. I didn't know that "Jean" was pronounced like the french name...

I'm kind of itching to pick up Dark Jenny right now (which I received this week, still no sign of The Crippled God) but I'll try to finish The Unremembered first. I didn't have much time to read in the last two weeks so progress is slow but I'm more than half way through.

Books received

Finally, The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss is home. Along with Dark Jenny by Alex Bledsoe, the reading pile will again be reorganized.

Best SFF Novels of the decade

Tor.com posted the final results for their poll on the Best SFF novels of the decade. Here they are:

1. Old Man’s War by John Scalzi - 295 votes
2. American Gods by Neil Gaiman - 270 votes
3. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss - 231 votes
4. Blindsight by Peter Watts - 221 votes
5. Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey - 194 votes
6. A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin - 179 votes
7. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke - 167 votes
8. Anathem by Neal Stephenson - 141 votes
9. Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson - 125 votes
10. Perdido Street Station by China Mieville - 124 votes

My vote was for Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson which ended in 38 place with 49 votes. Sadly, I have only read 3 of the top ten novels! However, since I'm more of an epic fantasy reader than the whole SFF library, it's understandable. Most of the names don't come as a big surprise. From that list only, I admit that I would chose A Storm of Swords as my best. What's yours?

Author update

The Cold Commands is done, at least it is now entering the edit phase. Richard Morgan shared the news on his blog today. Another big title that will be on time for the end of the year (still October...). Here's a glimpse of what Richard had to say :

DONE!!!!!

Final line penned (er – keyboarded) this morning – The Cold Commands is a wrap! As they say in Spanish, Cha-Chan!!!

Of course, this is all slightly deceptive. There’s actually a fair bit of work still to be done. The rough cut goes out to Simon Spanton at Gollancz tomorrow, and I now have to back up and read the whole manuscript through from scratch, trying to form some kind of overall impression of where we’ve been and what we’ve ended up with. There’ll be tweaking, there’ll be proofing, there’ll be polish to layer on – less at the front end than the back, since the earliest sections have been buffed smooth with a couple of years of constant revisiting and revising as the story inched its way forward. The back end, though, is probably still altogether too cask-strength rough and ready in places. Will need tempering.

Poll

The poll is over and it was a close call, almost fifty-fifty for the interest in author cover quotes. I'll post more details later this week along with a new poll.

Have a nice week!