Kate is known for her enormous epic fantasy tales, full of brilliant characterization, in-depth politics and mind-blowing plot twists and turns.  Now, in Cold Magic, she’s created an alternate Victorian England where airships rule the skies and Cold Mages will do anything to keep technology from getting into the wrong hands.  It’s a world where magic rules the day and science hides at night, and where one young woman must discover her destiny.

But if you need more convincing, Ms. Elizabeth Moon had some stuff to say on Cold Magic:  “It’s a definite hands-down great read. It’s a great story beyond the alternate-history setting–and that’s done extremely well. The whole cold magic concept got me shivering…I don’t think I’ve ever run across anything like it…but the characters, the mysteries, the background history, the cultural complexity,  were all so intriguing I couldn’t stop reading.  And a sense of humor, to boot.”

The history of the world begins in ice, and it will end in ice.

It is the dawn of a new age… The Industrial Revolution has begun, factories are springing up across the country, and new technologies are transforming the cities. But the old ways do not die easy.

Cat and Bee are part of this revolution. Young women at college, learning of the science that will shape their future and ignorant of the magics that rule their families. But all of that will change when the Cold Mages come for Cat.  New dangers lurk around every corner and hidden threats menace her every move.  If blood can’t be trusted, who can you trust?

You can find Kate on Facebook as Kate Elliott and on Twitter as KateElliottSFF.

Kate has an awesome website full of writerly advice here — but if you’re at World Con this weekend, stop by to meet her!

But in case you’d like to read a bit, we do have a extract for those excited to read. Or you can go ahead and be a fan now. But Jesse also has a contest running on her blog, she’s also running around at the Borders Babel Clash with Mira Grant (Feed).  Once you get hooked, the next book, FLIP THIS ZOMBIE will be out in January 2011!

The book is about two unlikely heroes — a couple on the verge of divorce.  On their way to marriage counseling, they notice a few odd things: a missing guard, a lack of cars on the freeway, and their counselor ripping out the throat of her previous client.

Now it’s up to David and Sarah to work together, save their marriage — and survive in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

The Black Prism hit the New York Times Extended List at #23! It will be published on Sunday September 4th and you can find it here (on Sunday).

A bit about the story (SPOILERS AHEAD! Don’t read unless you’ve read Soulless and Changeless!)

Quitting her husband’s house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season.

Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London’s vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead.

While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately tries to hold the Woolsey werewolf pack together, Alexia flees England for Italy in search of the mysterious Templars. Only they know enough about the preternatural to explain her increasingly inconvenient condition, but they may be worse than the vampires — and they’re armed with pesto.

And you have seen the video about the cover design right? Trust me, it’s amazing.

And for those of you in the UK — you’ll be seeing SOULLESS, CHANGELESS and BLAMELESS in stores together this September!

Jane True Vs. Sabina Kane

N.K. Jemisin is guest blogging at Scalzi’s Whatever in the next few weeks.

Gail Carriger is over at Zombie Popcorn for The Gail Carriger Show! And we just found out that the Soulless audiobook was named one of Audible‘s top 20 sleeper hits.

And at Jeff Somers’ blog – you can literally ask him anything!

And Rachel Aaron has a new post up in the Magic District — but my favorite one that she wrote is the one about the knife test that she puts all her characters through. Interesting reading. . .

Me?

I’m a yellow magic drafter!

Take the quiz at Brent Weeks.com

It seems that I like to blow things up. Hm…Don’t know if that surprises anyone. But wait, it gets better! “Yellows tend to be clear thinkers, intellect and emotion in perfect balance.”

Whoa. Thanks Brent! I am in perfect balance:)

We’re excited for Nora, especially because you can look forward to reading the second book, The Broken Kingdoms in November 2010. 

To give you a little bit more about the book:

In the city of Shadow, beneath the World Tree, alleyways shimmer with magic and godlings live hidden among mortalkind. Oree Shoth, a blind artist, takes in a strange homeless man on an impulse. This act of kindness engulfs Oree in a nightmarish conspiracy. Someone, somehow, is murdering godlings, leaving their desecrated bodies all over the city. And Oree’s guest is at the heart of it. . .

And, to give you an early look, here is the new cover.