Fantastic news just in: The Magician’s Apprentice (AUS / UK / US) has won the 2010 Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel!
Many congratulations to Trudi – and, indeed, to all of the shortlisted authors in what was a very strong field.
Click on the image above to read an extract.
Fantastic news: Sony have optioned the movie rights to Jeff Somers’ Avery Cates novels. A very wise move in our opinion, as there’s no doubt that these books would make the most awesomely full-throttle, kick-ass movies ever.
Read all about it here, and if you haven’t been lucky enough to experience the explosive, pedal-to-the-metal action-fests that are the Avery Cates novels yet, check out the third instalment, The Eternal Prison (UK/US/ANZ), released in February in the UK and Austalia, and already available in US. And while you’re at it, why not take a peek at our very attractive reissues of The Electric Church (UK/US/ANZ) and The Digital Plague (UK/US/ANZ).
To follow on from Darren’s post, Michael Cobley has started his year with a bit of a roar. The mass market of Seeds of Earth was out yesterday. Then book two of this trilogy, The Orphaned Worlds is out in April (see the amazing cover, right) and Michael’s not slowing down any time soon …
He has a short story, Black Fragmentia, out in the latest edition of PS Publishing’s Postscripts Quarterly (PS 20/21). Then The Maker’s Mark (set in the Seeds of Earth universe) is to appear in Newcon Press’s Conflicts short story anthology, due out in February/March 2010. March will also see Michael at Glasgow’s Aye Write festival as one of their featured authors. Amongst other things, he’ll be participating in a panel entitled ‘The Early Days of a Better Future’, along with other genre authors Ken Macleod, Richard Morgan, Hal Duncan and Debbie Miller. Then, in April, Michael will be at this year’s annual SF/F Eastercon convention where he’ll be chairing a couple of panels.
And lastly, as a treat for his fans, Michael is running a little competition to give away copies of the Seeds of Earth mass market edn. On ruminating his test question, Michael says he swung ‘between absurdly easy (how many letters are there in Greg’s surname and can you chew gum and walk at the same time?) or arcanely obscure (what is the Irish Gaelic translation of the 5th word on the 9th line on page 156?)’ but ultimately he went for something inbetween, and see here for more details. The deadline is 28th Jan … unless he changes it.
Looks like Michael has a busy Spring season ahead, and we’ll be keeping an eye on his rather stellar trajectory. Go Mike!
And D is for The Deed of Paksenarrion, an omnibus edition of Elizabeth Moon‘s much loved fantasy series. Comprising The Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, Divided Allegiance and Oath of Gold, this massive tome is a wonderful read in its own right but also serves to whet the appetite for Elizabeth’s first new fantasy in almost two decades. Oath of Fealty will be published in March, but meanwhile, you can discover for yourself what prompted praise like this:
‘Engrossing’ Anne McCaffrey
‘A superlative fantasy trilogy’ Booklist
‘Elves, dark sorcery, and high chivalry … thrilling’ blogcritics.org
and you can read an extract from The Deed of Paksenarrion here.
Robert says:
When I first started writing Mr Shivers, I eventually realised that what I was trying to write was a mythology.
Myths are fundamentally part of our deep collective subconscious. They’re figures and stories that are instantly recognisable, buried so deep they’re practically ingrained in us. I wanted to use mythology of the Great Depression and Southern folklore, things we all could identify without thinking – Hoovervilles and dirt roads and bogwater ditches, ramshackle homes sitting abandoned in empty fields, and desperate drifters trekking across harsh countries. Overloaded Zephyrs and Fords trundling west, kicking up dust. The echo of blues and gospel music haunting the hobo camps, and trading liquor or tobacco for a knife or a place to sleep. And always the promise of greener pastures out there, hiding somewhere behind a stretch of the horizon.
I wanted to take that and mix it with an even older mythology. Something much more primal, much more savage. Maybe when these wanderers struck out for the West they stumbled across something in the far ranges. An old story that’d been going on since before time was time. Maybe they’d found a place where the very bones of the earth rose up and pierced the rock and the dust. And maybe there was something living in those bones, something that’d been making its home there and had just been returning after a long while abroad . . .
It was about then that I realised Mr Shivers had been wandering for a while, but it was about time someone set him to paper.
Mr Shivers [UK|US|AUZ] is available from all good booksellers now.
C is for Cobley. Michael Cobley‘s Seeds of Earth, the opening volume of his Humanity’s Fire series, was published last year to great acclaim and a very gratifying response from the reading public, whose voracious demands sent it back for multiple reprints.
The mass market paperback is now unveiled for your reading pleasure – and a pleasure it is, indeed. The great Iain M. Banks thought well of it, calling Seeds of Earth:
‘Proper galaxy-spanning Space Opera with lots of weird aliens, secret ancient technologies and mysterious hyperweapons – a worthy addition to the genre’
Volume two, The Orphaned Worlds, will be published in trade paperback in April, giving you ample opportunity to addict yourself to this wonderful new series.
You can read an extract from Seeds of Earth here.
B is also for Bennett. Robert Jackson Bennett, whose remarkable debut, Mr Shivers, is published this month in the UK, US and Australia. Robert’s US editor, DongWon, has waxed lyrical about Mr Shivers in this post, and has summed up the excitement perfectly. Go read it (the post and the book).
‘Mr Shivers is a startling début, a deft amalgam of thriller, cerebral horror and American gothic’ Guardian
You can read an extract here.
B is for Bakker, the author of the groundbreaking Prince of Nothing trilogy, who now returns to the world of Earwa with the first book of The Aspect-Emperor, The Judging Eye.
For readers who haven’t heard the buzz, no less an authority than Steven Erikson says:
‘Exquisitely intelligent and beautifully written . . . this is fantasy with muscle and brains, rife with intrigue and admirable depth of character, set in a world laden with history and detail. Take note, one and all, something remarkable has begun here . . .‘
You can read an extract from The Judging Eye here.
Fans of rich, robust fantasy rejoice! R. Scott Bakker is back.
It seems appropriate to begin the New Year with an ABC (for those of us who celebrated the Yule so . . . enthusiastically, that they’ve managed to mislay, for the moment, the neurons that deal with such matters). And so, in the finest traditions of children’s television, these are Orbit UK’s new releases for January . . .
A is for Abraham, whose Long Price Quartet has garnered extraordinary praise from the great and good of the literary world – not least, this fulsome endorsement from Junot Diaz, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Literature:
‘Daniel Abraham is one of the reasons the fantasy genre continues to haunt my dreams. Abraham is fiercely talented, disturbingly human, breathtakingly original and even on his bad days kicks all sorts of literary ass . . . If you are meeting him for the first time I envy you: you are in for a remarkable journey.’
Orbit is delighted to be publishing Daniel Abraham‘s Long Price novels – A Shadow in Summer, A Betrayal in Winter, An Autumn War & The Price of Spring – in two omnibus editions: Shadow and Betrayal & Seasons of War. You can read extract from Book One here.
As Darren said in his round-up, the fantastic final volume of Pamela Freeman’s beautifully written Castings Trilogy is now here. Full Circle (UK I ANZ I US) is a tremendous read, set in a troubled land of warlords and outcasts where the echoes of past atrocities taint the present. The Eleven Domains were forged in blood a thousand years ago and old wounds have been reopened as a ghost army marches to avenge ancient wrongs. But don’t just take our word for it, read a free extract HERE and check out just some of the praise we’ve had, below.
Plus, we have our fingers crossed for Pamela this weekend, as her illustrated children’s book Victor’s Challenge is on the shortlist for its category at the prestigious Australian Aurealis Awards.
PRAISE FOR THE CASTINGS TRILOGY
And see Blood Ties (bk 1, UK I ANZ I US) and Deep Water (bk 2, UK I ANZ I US) here too:
