As the title suggests, some assorted author news culled from the dangerous, nefarious reaches of the intarwebs.Although Adrian Tchaikovsky's next book, Salute the Dark, is not released until February 2010, the author of the Shadows of the Apt series has already announced that the fifth book in the series - due for release in August 2010 - will be called The Scarab Path, and that he's currently working on book seven (I half-expect that if I go to dictionary.com and type in 'workaholic' it will pop up with a picture of Tchaikovsky). He's also revealed a full 'dramatis personae' has been posted online, due to requests from fans - be warned, if you've not read the first three books then it may contain spoilers.
Andy Remic, author of the highly enjoyable Kell's Legend, has revealed that he has finally received his first hatemail, which accused him of being a "dick-less ladyboy fagot" [sic]. Remic's posted the entire (highly amusing) message on his blog. Here's an entertaining snippet:"HOW DO YOU GET PULBISHED? IS THE EDITOR OF YOUR PUBLISHING HOUSE RETARDED? DOES THE EDITOR KNOW HOW TO READ? I HAVE READ FORTUNE COOKIES WITH MORE WIT, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, AND PLOT THAN YOUR NOVEL."
Ah, God bless the interwebs - allowing anonymous, illiterate dickheads to vent their anger since 1989. In this particular case, I wonder whether the abuser actually knows anything about Andy Remic. I mean, calling a man who climbs mountains in extreme weather conditions a "dick-less ladyboy fagot" is really the height of stupidity.
In other news...
Alan Campbell, author of The Deepgate Codex, has a few choice words for the 'literary Taliban' (literary snobs, in other words):"Of all the genres, fantasy seems to me to represent the greatest departure from reality. Yes, it requires the reader to suspend disbelief and use his imagination. And, yes, there's a lot of crap out there, just as there is in any other corner of the bookshop. But to dismiss fantasy outright is narrow minded and snobbish. What do we gain by restricting our literature to what we can perceive, rather than what we can imagine? Impossible worlds? Monsters and magic? Milton, Homer, and Shakespeare did not find them too ridiculous to write about. The Literary Taliban might look down on Fantasy with a vague air of contempt, but I think our culture would be so much poorer without Beowulf, without dragons, Titans, Oberon and Puck, vampires, hellfire and Quidditch."
And lastly...
Peter V. Brett, author of the hugely successful The Painted Man, is running a competition for ARCs of his highly anticipated sequel, The Desert Spear.
7 comments:
Interesting that he 'deviated' from the titling scheme for the fourth book, but then returned to it with the fifth. I wonder what the reasoning behind that was?
Tchaikovsky, I meant :-)
I also need to start this series at some point.
My speculation is that in this volume the "dark magic artefact" some people have been chasing around forcefully in volume 2 and especially volume 3 is going to be used - the chase was one three threads of the previous novel and the most developed; and I guess it would not do to put Mosquito on the cover since it does not read "sexy"
I am curious about "Scarab" though, very curious actually...
This series is slowly becoming the most complex fantasy one I am reading these days
Adam - forgive me for potentially being really thick, but I've not quite woken up yet. What do you mean by 'titling scheme' - are you referring to the actual titles used on the books, or the artwork? I presume you mean the titles, since I don't think the artwork for the fifth has been released yet, but I don't quite see how he's deviated...? God, I really need some coffee.... ;)
Oh, and yes - you really ought to check the series out. Give it a chance, the first book is solid without being spectacular, but the second is excellent.
Liviu - Agreed, I think the change in artwork reflects perhaps the darker nature of the 4th book. And yes, it's a very layered story.
I meant that the first three books and the fifth have insects or insectoid-themed names (the first book references wasps, then you dragonflies and mantises and then a scarab) and the fourth doesn't. I could understand if he was switching to a new title scheme altogether (like JV Jones' SWORD OF SHADOWS series, which is dropping the 'Ice' thing from Book 4 onwards), but this seems a bit less planned.
That said, if there are going to be ten books altogether, he might find it difficult to find ten insect-appropriate titles and isn't going to be limited by that, which might be healthier ;-)
It's a damn good series and I'm very happy that he's releasing two books a year. I really like the covers but the art for the US versions are stunning, one of the very few times US covers beat UK ones.
Adam - ah, of course - see what you mean now. Yeah, it's unusual that the title for book 4 is different...but then so is the artwork. Will be interesting to see whether there's a proper reason for this...
Jebus - Agreed, the US covers are pretty cool. Not sure if they're better though.
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