Neal: My next book is The Departure, which is a title full of double meanings. It is a departure from the Polity in that I am telling the tale of the early years of the ‘Owner’ who will be found in short stories in my collection The Engineer ReConditioned. It comes out next August...Pat's Fantasy Hotlist, whether he'll be staying around or leaving, has a few more interviews for the rest of the year. Most recently Jasper Kent is up, and yet another author I've only heard good things about. Hmm...
- Can you tell us a little more about the road that saw this one go from manuscript form to finished novel?Peter F. Hamilton talks about his Void trilogy, with more parts to come:
Once I was happy with the text I started sending it directly to publishers (reasoning, wrongly, that it would be easier to get over the single hurdle of being accepted by a publisher than having to face being accepted first by an agent and then by a publisher). All the feedback that wasn’t cursory was pretty positive in terms of the content, but at the time publishers couldn’t really find much of a place for horror. Peter Lavery at Macmillan was particularly enthusiastic and suggested I contact John Jarrold as a literary agent. John managed to get it seen by more publishers, but still without a bite.
NewsReturn 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.
Short version: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:
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!
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.
Arya and Bran look happy to be there. I'm guessing they still don't know what's about to happen to them.
Casting for HBO's A Game of Thrones has been spot on in most instances, yes, I know my superfluous opinion really matters, but ever want to see all of the actors/characters in one place? I found a blog that has put them altogether with fan art: Lexicopia.
The release date is becoming more and more real and now we have a blurb for Scott Lynch's third book in the Gentlemen Bastards series, The Republic of Thieves (pre-order) [US] [UK]:After their adventures on the high seas, Locke and Jean are brought back to earth with a thump. Jean is mourning the loss of his lover and Locke must live with the fallout of crossing the all-powerful magical assassins the Bonds Magi. It is a fall-out that will pit both men against Locke's own long lost love. Sabetha is Locke's childhood sweetheart, the love of Locke's life and now it is time for them to meet again. Employed on different sides of a vicious dispute between factions of the Bonds Sabetha has just one goal - to destroy Locke for ever. The Gentleman Bastard sequence has become a literary sensation in fantasy circles and now, with the third book, Scott Lynch is set to seal that success. (source: Pat's Fantasy Hotlist)Check out Camorr for the full excerpt (23 pages of manuscript).
GiveawaysMost Interesting UniversesF: Shadows of the Apt by Adrian Tchaikovsky
SF: The Gaean Reach by Jack Vance
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The one Universe I would like to live in
F: Legacy of Kushiel by Jacqueline Carey
SF: The Culture by Iain M. Banks
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