It's News To Me #15

All week I've been awaiting the time when I can call into work and say, "I'm not coming in today, my wife's having a baby." But, still no contractions, nothing at all. I guess he's quite comfortable where he's at and let's be honest, it only goes downhill from there.

Other than that, here's some interesting stuff going on in science fiction and fantasy this week.

Cover Art

As an Abercrombie fan, I'm already guaranteed to read this, but a nice cover definitely helps. The Heroes also happens to be a cool name and I'm sure he'll find a way to make that somehow ironic. This is the UK edition with the US shown below.


also making its rounds is the crazy awesome-looking new Kraken (by China Mieville) cover from Sub Press. How cool are they?


News

There's a new weekly feature going on at fantasyliterature.com called "Why You Should Read... (insert author name)" and last week's featured author was David Gemmell. Amanda Rutter has enlisted a group from around the blog-o-sphere to plead their case as to why people should be reading their favorite author. You may be seeing a certain blogger from OTBSFF, any guesses as to which author I picked?

There's an excerpt of Chris Wooding's sequel to Retribution Falls, Black Lung Captain over at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist. I have yet to read either, but both are very much in my To-Read pile after my experience with Wooding's Malice.

After reading my review of The Left Hand of God along with the comments of a few people who were in agreement, The Speculative Scotsman asks, "As reviewers, do you read other reviewers' reviews before composing your own?" I still like that Larry at Of Blog of the Fallen will review reviewers' reviews, but that's an entirely different subject. :)

Speaking of reviews, I always take a step back when someone give a book a perfect rating and that's just what The Bird of the River by Kage Baker received from one Graeme Flory. I may just have to check this out.

One last news item I'll mention is that the SF and Fantasy Masterworks blog is going strong. Nine reviews are already up and they're really making me want to get back to the classics. I do like to throw them in every now and then and this is a great opportunity to see which ones pique my interest.

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

Better luck in 4 years...

My heart goes out to Holland, who once again cracks under pressure. I was with you all the way and I wish you the best of luck in four years.

So... too much fantasy in your Fantasy?

Subpress has just posted some art from Abercrombie's The Blade Itself. Far and away one of my favorite fantasy series, I was excited to see what Alex Preuss would imagine the world of the the First Law trilogy to be like. The color plate is beautiful... but is it true to the story? I can't shake the feeling that I am either looking at a steampunk cover or some hard scifi futurism. It just seems like too many straight lines in the architecture of a preindustrial civilization.

The Bigger they Come...

A number of SF/F titles this year have had a certain amount of... momentum behind them before hitting market. Call it hype, publicity, expectation, buzz, whatever you will, they have a had a lot of it. For some of those titles the hype led to a feeding frenzy, hitting el numero uno on the NYTimes Bestseller list, ect. For others, the process of hype backfired leaving a trail of devastating reviews and disappointed readers.

The question I have been struggling with is whether to quietly sweep these books under the rug after their fall from grace or showcase then in all their mediocrity. A majority of book bloggers keep yearly TOP 10 lists - is there a reason no one keeps DO NOT READ lists? It seems these would have almost as much value as top ten lists and the process of building them is virtually identical. For the most part reviewers aren't afraid of posting negative reviews, so why are there no WORST lists?

Do you think these lists would have any value, and if so why are there none out there now?