Mira Grant is an amazing new talent and we are delighted to be publishing her. We’ve barely announced and already the buzz is rolling: Look for this in stores in the US and the UK in Summer 2010.

I am also really happy that she got a chance to defend the change from the usual urban fantasy look, and explain that we’re not just doing it for shock value, it actually really fits the tone of the book. (If you’re new to this ongoing conversation, check back on the original cover launch here.)

Jane True is a quirky character that finds herself thrown completely out of her “safety zone” one day and I suspect most female readers will relate to that much more than the usual crossbow-weilding kind of heroine. Not that we don’t all love some crossbows-and-vampire-slaying action. If you’re a fan of Sookie Stackhouse, I suspect you’ll really adore this new series.

You may notice a slight difference in the cover: the original cover had a little less hair coverage. We decided to cover Jane up a wee bit more after considering some of the initial reactions. It’s a sensitive subject, and we wanted to avoid any misunderstanding. That said, it IS a sexy book and not for children.

Dark, bloody, depressing, uncompromising, with a poignant ending that should satisfy most fans and characters that stay true to themselves till the very end, Fall of Thanes is an impressive conclusion to what is definitely one of the best fantasy series of the new millennium.

At Grasping for the Wind, John writes:

“The story has a great sense of oppression about it, and readers will wonder if all will finally end well for the characters we have come to appreciate.”

And The Mad Hatter’s Book Reviews says:

“Fall of Thanes is one of the bloodiest books I have read in the last few years save The First Law trilogy although the Godless series may have a higher body count.”

UPDATE: Simon over at BookGeeks gives it a great review as well:

Fall of Thanes was for me a strong conclusion to a very enjoyable trilogy, a sequence of books that embodies everything I enjoy about traditional epic fantasy, and I look forward to seeing what Brian Ruckley does next.”

Uncompromising. Bloody. Cold. Now that’s what we’d call a perfect beach read!

(*) This being The Godless World, that snowball is probably gritty and specked with blood and bits of mail.

The black-tie event was rather appropriately held at the Magic Circle headquarters in London, and we had to scale a rune-encrusted spiral staircase to reach the intimate plushly-red theatre. Or take the lift. All very atmospheric. And we were then treated to a short piece from Druss’s call to arms, read by James Barclay, before the ceremony itself. Our Hachette sister company Gollancz published the winning title in the UK, Blood of Elves, by Polish fantasy author Andrzej Sapkowski. However, as already reported, this was published by Orbit in the US so we also had cause to celebrate this too.

Jo Fletcher of Gollancz received the award itself - a huge great axe - on behalf of Andrzej Sapkowski courtesy of the Raven Armoury, but the short-listed authors also gained their very own mini-Snaga axes (to fight off the competition in future, no doubt …) We caught a few shots of Brent Weeks’ prize before putting it in the post to him, so see below for these. Other highlights included a charity auction, where prizes such as a rare first edition of Legend, use of a Jaguar for the weekend and the right to be written into Stan Nicholls’ next novel were up for grabs. Money raised went to Medecins Sans Frontieres. Here are some other comments, pictures, blogs etc. from the night from the British Fantasy Society, SFX and the MyFavouriteBooks blog.

The award itself is designed to honour the memory of David Gemmell and also to raise the profile of fantasy fiction in the UK. We don’t currently have a fantasy award to call our own, and organiser Deborah Miller and her team thought it was high time they did something about this, helped by French genre publishers Bragelonne, sponsoring this year’s event. Read more on Deborah’s mission here. Certainly the first event was a huge success and long may it continue! It’s great that fantasy talent can be recognised and rewarded in this way and if brings more people to enjoy the books, that’s great news too. And that’s not just from the Publisher’s point of view, honest.

There are plenty of fine things said about The Way of Shadows [UK/US/ANZ] on the Gemmell Award site and other reasons to read the book, if more are needed, are as follows:

‘A proper good yarn … Weeks tells his tale skilfully and tautly. And he dazzles with some jaw-dropping moments’ SFX
‘This unapologetically grim fantasy fable serves up a heady mix …. never wears out its 650-page welcome’ DeathRay
‘The most impressive debut novel I’ve read this year’ SFFworld.com

More pictures below the jump

Snaga

Snaga in its case

The shortlisted authors (and their representatives!) with their baby Snagas

Blood of Elves US edition

Andrzej Sapkowski’s Blood of Elves has won the inaugural David Gemmell Legend award! The announcement was made at the awards ceremony on Friday in London.

The award — chosen by popular vote — honors works “written in the ’spirit’ of the late, great David Gemmell, a true Master of Heroic Fantasy.”

Blood of Elves is out now from Orbit in the US. ( print | ebook )

You can read an extract from the book here.

Rival nominee Joe Abercrombie was also in attendance, and reports:

“The validity of the David Gemmell Legend Award was called into serious question on Friday night when I didn’t win.”

Joe did get a chance to wield the axe though.

As he explains on his blog, the instalments will be broadcast on Radio 4 this week as part of the Woman’s Hour programme at 10.45, with a repeat at 19.45 GMT, Monday 22nd to Friday 26th June, before being made available via the BBC’s iPlayer.

In an earlier blog post, Philip introduces the play and talks about some of the background ideas and major themes:

“It’s not science fiction - it’s a straight thriller set in the world of art forgery and art theft. It stars Indira Varma and David Schofield, and is directed by my long-time collaborator and dashed nice chap Toby Swift.”

Check out those blog posts for more information and tune in for drama all this week!

A few weeks ago, I was sitting at home when I got a text from a friend. It was a jpg, and I couldn’t quite make out the image. I handed my phone to my son, and he squinted at it saying, ‘It looks like YOU! Yeah, I think it is you, on a poster or maybe a book cover … Fall of Thrones? No, the Fall of THANES?’

Read more

According to Ms Canavan, all work and no conventions makes for a dull Trudi, so after Conjecture she’ll be making plans to attend WorldCon in Montreal. Karen Miller will be back at home though, to put on her K E Mills hat, and start the 3rd Rogue Agent novel, in which events of the past come back to haunt our intrepid heroes in ways they certainly weren’t expecting!

While half the Orbit Antips are swanning at NatCon, the rest of us are at home working, including Glenda Larke has just handed in Book Two of The Stormlords: Stormlord Rising and is now taking a break from writing to catch up on housework (yuk!, says Glenda) before starting book 3. Pamela Freeman has finished Full Circle and has just put Otlee’s Story, a new short story set in the Domains, up on her website for those who can’t wait until the next book. Pamela says that the French edition of Blood Ties now available, s’il vous plait.

Here’s news from Joel Shepherd, author of The Trial of Blood & Steel Quartet: Well Sasha (book one) is being reprinted here with Orbit in Australia, and Petrodor (book two) comes out in mass market next month, Tracato (book three) will be released in trade paperback in August.

I’d like to introduce new Orbit Oz author Sam Bowring. Sam has more than a few strings to his bow. When he’s not scribing, he’s a writer for the Logie Award winning Rove writing team, and a stand up comedian. His first book in The Broken Well Trilogy, Prophecy’s Ruin, will be released in October this year, with the next two coming out during 2010.

You can catch my news at my website but the short version of the last month is that when I’m not working on Transformation Space, I’m deeply, deeply hooked by Battlestar Galactica season 3 (better late than never!). Oh, and there’s that film option for Nylon Angel that I have hanging around on my desk. Must get around to signing it…

So that’s about it.

‘Later

MDP

US Cover

Kevin J. Anderson makes his epic fantasy debut this month with his newest novel, THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, a thrilling tale of high seas adventure set against a backdrop of two nations at war, fighting for control over the world they know as well as Terra Incognita: the wider and far more mysterious world beyond, the world they have yet to discover, and explore – and survive.

And a rollicking story is not all Anderson has for his readers this time around. As an innovative companion to THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, Anderson has also co-written (with his wife Rebecca Moesta) the lyrics for an epic rock CD, “Terra Incognita: Beyond the Horizon,” based on one of the book’s storylines. Anderson says, “My work has always been heavily influenced by music, especially progressive rock—but Terra Incognita truly takes this into new territory.”

UK Cover

Accomplished keyboardist and composer Erik Norlander of the group Rocket Scientists came aboard early on to write the music and produce the recordings. Vocals are by James LaBrie, of Dream Theater; Michael Sadler, of Saga; John Payne, of Asia; and Lana Lane, the “Queen of Symphonic Rock”. Additional artists performing on the CD are members of the groups Kansas, Shadow Gallery, IQ, Ghost Circus, Under the Sun, and Prymary. Together, the creative team has sold over 45 million recordings worldwide.

Links

• Visit the widget to preview tracks from the album and read chapters one through three
• Visit the Roswell Six myspace page
• Read the Bookgasm.com review
• Read the Fantasybookcritic review
• Read the UnBound review
• SFsite.com covers the CD and the book