It's News To Me #24

Some of my favorite authors are doing some great slash silly things this week, from Brandon Sanderson to George RR Martin and HBO (some day it will be for the book) and even Peter V. Brett. Now I only need more reading time.

And then there's some (possibly) big-ish news from the blogosphere. I'll explain down there.

Cover Art


Another novella from Peter V. Brett is coming out from Subterranean Press called Brayan's Gold. From the SubPress website:

Return to the world of The Warded Man and The Desert Spear in an illustrated new novella by Peter V. Brett.

Humanity has been brought to the brink of extinction. Each night, the world is overrun by demons—bloodthirsty creatures of nightmare that have been hunting the surface for over 300 years. A scant few hamlets and half-starved city-states are all that remain of a once proud civilization, and it is only by hiding behind wards, ancient symbols with the power to repel the demons, that they survive. A handful of Messengers brave the night to keep the lines of communication open between the increasingly isolated populace.

Arlen Bales is seventeen, an apprentice Messenger in brand new armor, about to go out for the first time alongside a trained Messenger on a simple overnight trip. Instead Arlen finds himself alone on a frozen mountainside, carrying a dangerous cargo to Count Brayan’s gold mine, one of the furthest points in the duchy. And One Arm, the giant rock demon, hunts him still.

But Brayan’s Gold may offer a way for Arlen to be free of One Arm forever, if he is willing to wager his life on the chance.

News

An interesting point was brought up by ChrisW at sffnews about the split of the final books of The Wheel of Time. He makes the point that we were told the book had to be split because it was getting too big for this publishing world we live in...and then comes The Way of Kings, a doorstop by a Balrog's standards and published by the same people. Hrmmm?? Thoughts?

Chris also has some inciteful comments about the whole Postmodernism in fantasy, Brandon Sanderson, Jeff Vandermeer kerfluffle. Gave me a few chuckles.

Short version:

Vandermeer: Brandon is clueless.
50 other random dudes: Hear here!!
Brandon's side kick: You misunderstand him.
Sanderson: Damn, you got me, I'm a simpleton but in my defence I wasn't really trying to define it.
Vandermeer: No worries mate, not everyone can be as smart as me. I can jog and text at the same time!

Speaking of Brandon Sanderson, Pat's got a great Brandon Sanderson interview up at the Hotlist put together by Pat himself and friends. Seriously check it out, I mean it, it's really great. Here's a snippet:

When I approached writing the Stormlight Archive--when I approached creating Roshar--I very consciously said, “I want to create something that feels new to me.” I’m not the only one who does this, and I’m certainly not the one who does it best, but I wanted a world that was not medieval Europe. At all. I wanted a world that was its own thing. I started with the highstorms and went from there.

On that note, Pat just announced that may be bowing out of the game. The Fantasy Hotlist was the start of my blogging addiction, so it'll be sad to see one of the pioneers leaving.

And then here's Larry's parody of said announcement. And then the defense of said parody.

Movies/Videos/TV (or Everybody's Doing It #2)

Things seem to be moving along with A Game of Thrones on HBO. There's a Making Of blog and this exiting look at the show, including short interviews from the extremely excited George RR Martin, Sean Bean, and writers E.B. Weiss and David Benioff:



Here's another teaser trailer, "Raven":



Winter is Coming, the blog following production of HBO's A Game of Thrones since 2008, also has some great production stills. Yes, I'm salivating. (Thanks A Dribble of Ink)

This one cracks me up:

Arya and Bran look happy to be there. I'm guessing they still don't know what's about to happen to them.

And that's the news...at least to me.