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Year: 2012

Amazon.com Announces Pre-Orders for J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy

Amazon.com Announces Pre-Orders for J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy

rowling1Amazon.com has announced that J.K. Rowling’s next novel, The Casual Vacancy, will be available September 27.

From the description it’s not immediately clear if the book has an fantastic elements at all, and in fact it may be a straight-up literary thriller:

When Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…. Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the town’s council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations? Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.

The Casual Vacancy will be published in hardcover for $35 by Little, Brown and Company on September 27, 2012. No details on page length are available, and the publisher has not yet released the cover art.

Complete details on Amazon.com here.

Goth Chick News: Vampire Novel of the Century? I’ll Be the Judge of That

Goth Chick News: Vampire Novel of the Century? I’ll Be the Judge of That

interview-with-vampireLast week, beloved editor and big cheese John O’Neill told you about the 2011 Bram Stoker Award winners which included what I consider a travesty of justice perpetuated on the vampire-genre-loving community by the Horror Writers Association (HWA).

In January the HWA, an international association of writers, publishing professionals, and supporters of horror literature, in conjunction with the Bram Stoker Family Estate and the Rosenbach Museum & Library, announced the nominees for the one-time-only, Bram Stoker Vampire Novel of the Century Award.  The Award was to mark the centenary of the death in 1912 of Abraham (Bram) Stoker, the author of Dracula.

A jury composed of writers and scholars selected, from a field of more than 35 preliminary nominees, the six vampire novels that they believe had the greatest impact on the horror genre since publication of Dracula in 1897.

Eligible works must have been first published between 1912 and 2011, and published in or translated into English.

Beyond this, the criteria for consideration seem a tad vague, but from the descriptions of the six finalists described by the HWA, here are the other points considered.

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Rich Horton and Sean Wallace explore War and Space

Rich Horton and Sean Wallace explore War and Space

warandspace1Rich Horton has been a Contributing Editor for Black Gate since…. you know, I’m not even sure I remember. When we were in Kindergarten, maybe.  Or possibly since that drunken weekend when we assembled Goth Chick in our old laboratory. Good times, good times.

There was a day when I thought Rich and I would conquer science fiction together. We were two freelance journalists telling it like it is. When Tor started printing books with ink made in Singapore sweat shops, we blew the lid off the whole thing. Sleep didn’t matter, friendships didn’t matter. Only the truth mattered. And hot babes. Babes were on us like… like… well, not really. But anyway, we were unstoppable. The world was ours for the taking. At least, that part of the world that didn’t include women.

Then Rich met Sean Wallace, and Sean offered him something I never could: an actual wage. Rich dropped me like a hot potato for a career as one of the hottest anthologists in the field, and never looked back. Last time I saw him he was driving a Lamborghini Diablo and talking to J.K. Rowling on his cell.

I confronted Sean on the front steps of the Prime Books skyscraper in ’06. I was in a snarling rage, and threatened his life. He punched me in the nose and made me cry.  Then he bought me a hot chocolate and a bus ticket back to Chicago, and that was that.

That was nearly a dozen acclaimed anthologies ago, including three volumes of The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, my favorite of the annual survey anthologies. Now Rich and Sean have teamed up for War and Space: Recent Combat, a reprint anthology collecting some of the best tales of space warfare from the last few decades, including “Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359” by Ken MacLeod, “Art of War” by Nancy Kress, and “The Political Officer” by Charles Coleman Finlay. This isn’t your typical military SF collection however, as Sean makes clear in a question to a reader in the comments section of his blog:

Will you still like it even if it’s not, well, in the vein of Baen military sf? I have to admit that we went a bit broader with this, and while we love it a lot, I just hope people aren’t expecting something a bit more militaristic?

Coming from a guy with a mean right hook, that sounds great to me.  War and Space will be released on May 2 by Prime Books. It is $15.95 for 384 pages in trade paperback.

Charlene Brusso Reviews Magic on the Line

Charlene Brusso Reviews Magic on the Line

magiconthelineMagic on the Line
Devon Monk
Roc ($7.99, 356p)
Reviewed by Charlene Brusso

When most folks think of settings for urban fantasy, chances are Portland, Oregon doesn’t appear very high on the list–but a dip into this gritty paranormal series will definitely change your opinion. Monk’s Portland is rife with rain and muddled with magic–magic that comes at a painful price. Cast a spell, get a headache–or worse.

There’s also an organization called the Authority, highly secret, incredibly powerful, which has set itself up to police the use of magic. Unfortunately the Authority branch in Portland is currently run by Bartholomew Wray, an ambitious power monger who wants to clean up what he sees as a city of mages out of control.

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Art of the Genre: House Davion and the Federated Suns

Art of the Genre: House Davion and the Federated Suns

House Davion, everything you could want from a gaming history text
House Davion, everything you could want from a gaming history text
You hear strange things sometimes in this business, rumblings, rumors, and empty promises, but I have to say one of the best of the past year was a possible FASA reunion for what would have been the company’s 30th Anniversary at GenCon this August.

I mean, can you imagine it? Bradstreet, Deitrick, Laubenstein, Nelson [all three of them], Aulisio, Berry, Marsh, Harris, MacDougall, Holloway, Elmore, and countless others all sitting around a booth with countless Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Star Trek, and Battletech memorabilia and artwork? I mean, even Jordan Weisman would probably show up so someone could write him a check for something.

It would have been a lofty enterprise, and I can’t imagine the line waiting for signatures at that station, or the books that would be held in the hands of the throngs of fans. I run the fan page on Facebook for both Laubenstein and Deitrick, so I know they were into the idea, but unfortunately it fell flat after initial interest in the idea came forward back in September 2011.

Still, thinking about all the incredible artwork these artists put out in their tenure made me grab down one of my absolute favorite FASA supplements, House Davion and the Federated Suns, for the Battletech RPG.

I did a post last year about John Wick and his creation of the ‘Way of’ books for 1st Edition L5R and stated that there was only one other collection of gaming supplements that could match them for incredible written content. Those, of course, were FASA’s House books, and as a historian I still get giddy about reading a thousand and eleven year alternate future.

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New Treasures: Alaya Johnson’s Wicked City

New Treasures: Alaya Johnson’s Wicked City

wicked-cityYeah, pretty much the last thing I expected to distract me this week was yet another urban fantasy featuring a kick-butt female protagonist and a city overrun by vampires.

In my defense, the city is Prohibition-era Manhattan and our protagonist Zephyr Hollis, newly arrived from the ranches of Montana, isn’t a vampire hunter but a socially conscious teacher who’s not above mingling with men — and the Others, otherworldly creatures that include vampires — in discreet speakeasies. The quirky setting and fine attention to detail intrigued me, but it was the engaging narrator that kept me reading. The novel is Wicked City by Alaya Johnson, and it was this jacket copy that first hooked me:

It’s summer in the city and most vampires are drunk on the blood-based intoxicant Faust. The mayor has tied his political fortunes to legalizing the brew, but Zephyr Hollis has dedicated herself to the cause of Faust prohibition — at least when she isn’t knocking back sidecars in speakeasies.

But the game changes when dozens of vampires end up in the city morgue after drinking Faust. Are they succumbing to natural causes, or have they been deliberately poisoned? When an anonymous tip convinces the police of her guilt, Zephyr has to save her reputation, her freedom and possibly her life. Someone is after her blood — and this time it isn’t a vampire.

In a New York City populated by flappers and vampires, debutantes and djinn, it’s best to watch your back. You never know what’s lurking in the shadows.

It’s too early to tell if the novel is going to live up to its early promise, but so far indications are good. Wicked City goes on sale today; it is available in hardcover from Thomas Dunne Books, at $25.99 for 306 pages.

The 2012 Hugo Award Nominations

The 2012 Hugo Award Nominations

among-othersThe nominations for the 2012 Hugo Awards have been announced by Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention. Chicon 7 will be held over Labor Day weekend right here in Chicago. The nominations are:

Best Novel

  • Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)
  • A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra)
  • Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit)
  • Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan / Del Rey)
  • Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (Orbit)

Best Novella

  • Countdown by Mira Grant (Orbit Short Fiction)
  • “The Ice Owl” by Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November/December 2011)
  • “Kiss Me Twice” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, June 2011)
  • “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s, September/October 2011)
  • “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” by Ken Liu (Panverse 3)
  • Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld / WSFA)

Complete list after the jump.

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John R. Fultz’s Seven Kings due in January

John R. Fultz’s Seven Kings due in January

seven-kingsJohn R. Fultz’s second novel Seven Kings, the sequel to his breakout fantasy epic Seven Princes, will be available January, 2013.

Seven Kings, the second volume in The Books of the Shaper, will be published by Orbit in trade paperback. The cover is by Richard Anderson.

On his blog Fultz spills some additional details on the new installment:

I finished the final revisions about a month ago. I don’t want to say too much about the plot, but you will see much more of Khyrei and its poisonous crimson jungles than in the first book.

Plus: More Giants…

Barnes & Noble’s inhouse magazine Explorations called Seven Princes “flawless – and timeless – epic fantasy… Seven Princes is as good as it gets.” Here on the blog Brian Murphy said:

Seven Princes is bold, brash, and big. This is a novel written with bright strokes of character and setting, bursting with world-shaking adventure, intrigue, and conflict. It reads big, and feels big, and it’s unrepentantly so.

Stay tuned — we’ll keep you posted on the latest Books of the Shaper news as word escapes from the haunted towers of Castle Fultz.

New Treasures: Warhammer 40K: A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns on Unabridged Audio

New Treasures: Warhammer 40K: A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns on Unabridged Audio

prospero-plus11When I drove my son Tim to Blue Lake Fine Arts camp in Michigan last summer, during the five hour drive we listened to Steve Lyons’ The Madness Within and Sandy Mitchell’s Dead in the Water, both 65-minute audiobooks in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

And boy, they were great. Both were extremely polished, with professional readers and solid production values, including subtle sound effects and rousing music.

Best of all they were terrific stories — especially the Ciaphas Cain tale Dead in the Water. Commissar Cain is a rogue with no interest in heroics of any kind, but an enviable talent for getting out of sticky situations. When he’s posted to Archipelaga, a feral ocean world slowly being pacified by the Imperium, he soon finds himself investigating the mystery of a missing squad, and facing a dangerous and unknown enemy.

Cain’s an engaging and frequently very funny protagonist, and the story was the perfect length. After that I was on the hunt for more audiobooks from Black Library.

Last week my wishes were granted. In fact, they were exceeded in spectacular fashion: with the arrival of unabridged audio adaptations of two seminal works in The Horus Heresy cannon:  A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns, both New York Times bestsellers.

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Rich Horton Reviews Arctic Rising

Rich Horton Reviews Arctic Rising

arctuic-rising-tobias-buckellArctic Rising
Tobias S. Buckell
Tor ( $24.99, hc, February 2012, 304 pages)
Reviewed by Rich Horton

Tobias S. Buckell began his novelistic career with a very nice linked trio of books that fit fairly readily with what has been called “New Space Opera” – adventure stories set in space (or at least on distant planets), the main difference between “New” and “Old” Space Opera being a greater concern in the newer stuff for non-white characters, and perhaps a lesser belief in the primacy of humanity’s position in the Universe. His career hiccuped a bit in recent years, partly simply because he was changing course to a different sort of book, but more seriously because of some health issues. But his new novel, Arctic Rising, is now out, and it’s another cracker – as full of action and neat Sfnal ideas as his first three books, but set on Earth in the near future, and taking as its subject a central contemporary concern, global warming.

The protagonist of Arctic Rising, Anika Duncan, is an airship pilot for the United Nations Polar Guard. As the story opens she and her partner notice a radiation signature on a ship entering arctic waters, but when they investigate, the ship shoots them out of the sky, seemingly a rather disproportionate response. Her partner dies, and Anika is eager to find justice for him, but soon realizes that the investigation has hit a brick wall. When she makes noise, things get worse quickly, in classic thriller fashion: Anika’s home is bombed, she’s beaten up and only barely escapes being killed. She ends up on the run with a sort of “prostitute with a heart of gold” – that is, a brothel operator who has taken a shine to her. The one clue she has leads her to a ship run by the radical Green organization Gaia, who have a plan to stop global warming. But it turns out their tech can be used in multiple ways …

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