An excerpt from The Republic of Thieves, the next Gentlemen Bastards book by Scott Lynch is available online. However, consider yourself warned – it ends on a horrible cliffhanger and the book is not supposed to be out until next year!
Aug
13
2010
Aug
12
2010
You know how I mentioned yesterday that CryoBurn, the next Miles Vorkosigan novel by Lois McMaster Bujold, was to be released in its final hardcover format in November? Lois McMaster Bujold announced today that the publication date has actually been moved forward to October 19. She also said that she will be starting the book tour on Saturday, October 16 at Uncle Hugo’s in her hometown of Minneapolis.
Aug
11
2010
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that regular blogging will resume soon. There’s a lot of unpacking to do, but at least it doesn’t look like complete chaos in here anymore. In the meantime, here is some news I found as well as a preview of what is coming up next week.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s blog has some information on how to get a taste of CryoBurn, the new Miles Vorkosigan book coming out in November, before it is published. The first five chapters are available to read on Baen’s website. Also, there is an e-ARC for sale – basically, you can read the unfinished version early for $15 and since this is a program run by the publisher, the author still receives royalties from the sale (as opposed to ARCs on eBay).
Now for the announcement I’ve been wanting to make for weeks now but didn’t want to mention too early. On Monday, I will be posting my review of Lord of the White Hell: Book One by Ginn Hale. On Tuesday there will be an interview with Ginn Hale, who very kindly agreed to answer some questions when I emailed her in a state of oh-my-goodness-I-loved-this-book shortly after finishing the first half of Lord of the White Hell. She’ll be talking some about other stories she is working on (including the sequel to Wicked Gentlemen!) as well as some of her favorite books from childhood, the thought process behind the cultures she creates, and the role of empathy in writing.
Aug
08
2010
This was a very good week for new books as I’m very interested in all the books that showed up and one is a definite must read since I already read the first book and loved it.
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
The Black Prism is the first book in the Lightbringer series and will be released in hardcover on August 25. The first three chapters can be read online and there is also going to be a book tour that covers some of the western US as well as Texas and Florida.
I liked the first book in the Night Angel trilogy by Weeks (although not quite enough to read the next two immediately as I haven’t even gotten them to add to the giant to-read pile yet). This one sounds very compelling – the description has me pretty intrigued since just the first paragraph makes me ask so many questions that I would like to know the answers to:
Gavin Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace. But Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live: Five years to achieve five impossible goals.
But when Guile discovers he has a son, born in a far kingdom after the war that put him in power, he must decide how much he’s willing to pay to protect a secret that could tear his world apart.
Lord of the White Hell: Book Two by Ginn Hale
Lord of the White Hell: Book One will be released later this month on August 15, and this second half of the story will be published one month later on September 15. I read book one a couple of weeks ago and loved it (enough that I want to buy the final version since I have the ARC) so I really cannot wait to read the rest of it. The review for part one is in progress now so I can put it up right around the release date.
Kiram fought his family and Cadeleonian bigots to remain in the Sagrada Academy to prove himself as a mechanist and to dispel the deadly shadow curse that threatens to destroy his upperclassman, Javier Tornesal. But when his efforts provoke retaliation, Kiram’s family and home are endangered. Both Kiram and Javier risk everything in a desperate gambit to combat the curse. But they never imagined their battle with come so soon, or that it would be lead by the one person they trust most of all.
Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison
This is a rarity for a review copy – it is is not a book that just came out or is coming out soon. It was originally published in 1952 and this particular edition is 5 years old. It sounds like a delightful fairy tale and sometime when I’m closer to caught up on reviews I’ll have to read it (it shouldn’t take that long to read – it’s fairly short). Oh yes, and the endorsement on the book by Ursula K. Le Guin doesn’t hurt, either.
A young woman is transformed by a magical journey from the dark ages to modern times, from brooding medieval forests to bustling Constantinople. Halla is turned out of her father’s castle by her new stepmother. Her nurse transforms herself into a bear to look after Halla. This is just the first of the wondrous and natural changes in Naomi Mitchison’s magical 1952 novel. Travel Light will appeal to fans of the Harry Potter series and Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, as well as to readers of Ursula K. Leguin and T.H. White.
Aug
07
2010
Elizabeth Bear is giving away two ARCs of The White City on her blog. Simply leave a comment amusing enough to make her want to give it to you and you could get a hold of a copy of this novella, which is being published by Subterranean Press in December. She is accepting entries until August 11.
I’m not going to enter because I think this sounds like a good one to have as a signed limited edition. It’s Elizabeth Bear! And Subterranean Press! And the description makes it sound really, really good:
For centuries, the White City has graced the banks of the Moskva River. But in the early years of a twentieth century not quite analogous to our own, a creature even more ancient than Moscow’s fortress heart has entered its medieval walls.
In the wake of political success and personal loss, the immortal detective Don Sebastien de Ulloa has come to Moscow to choose his path amid the embers of war between England and her American colonies. Accompanied by his court–the forensic sorcerer Lady Abigail Irene and the authoress Phoebe Smith–he seeks nothing but healing and rest.
But Moscow is both jeweled and corrupt, and when you are old there is no place free of ghosts, and Sebastien is far from the most ancient thing in Russia…
Aug
06
2010
July was a slight improvement – four books read! Two of them were actually fairly long so I was happy with that number, especially considering nearly every weekend in July was taken up by new home related things. Now if only I were caught up on reviews…
Books read in July are:
27. The Devil in Green by Mark Chadbourn (Review)
28. Lord of the White Hell: Book One by Ginn Hale
29. Naamah’s Curse by Jacqueline Carey
30. The Last Stormlord by Glenda Larke
Favorite book read during July: Lord of the White Hell: Book One – which is pretty decent considering I really enjoyed Naamah’s Curse. I’m working on a review of the former now, but it will not be posted until closer to the release date of August 15. I liked it well enough that I added the finished copy to my wish list, though.
So what did you read this month? Anything good?
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