Cool Book Giveaway Contests
May
29
2008

I just saw on Ann Aguirre’s blog that Renegade, the short story about March from the Jax Universe is up on the “Free Reads” section on her site now. If you read the story and leave a comment on that post about what you liked best or liked the least about the story, you will have a chance to win a galley of the next novel in the Jax series, Wanderlust. The contest runs until June 2.

Also, I saw news on another interesting contest over at The Book Swede today. Chris reviewed and enjoyed Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan, and announced that there will be a contest on the author’s new website for not only a signed copy of the book but also a 250 pound book voucher to spend at the book retailer of your choice. That sounds like a contest to look out for.

Fun ways to waste time
May
27
2008

I recently became addicted to the never-ending book quiz on Goodreads. Unfortunately, it lies and it just ended for me, but since members of the site are adding new questions every day, I’m sure there will be more before too long. Not all the questions are science fiction and fantasy related (in fact, very few are) but it was kind of fun to see what I remembered from high school literature and books I read a long time ago. I was amazed at how much useless trivia I remember from reading “The Baby-sitters Club” books as a kid.

If you haven’t checked out Goodreads, it’s a great place to read book reviews, meet other book-a-holics, keep track of your books, and simply check out what your friends are reading. I also use it to view what books I have available to choose from that I have not yet read when trying to decide what to read next. It’s a lot of fun, as is LibraryThing.

LibraryThing is also a great place for keeping track of your books, and it tends to have more active forums than Goodreads for discussing various book-related topics, such as fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, nonfiction, and so on. You can also get recommendations based on books you own or even anti-recommendations (which are semi-accurate, kind of like Amazon recommendations). It’s also a good place for reading book reviews. LibraryThing is less social than Goodreads, although I don’t actually have friends on LibraryThing so I’m not sure how that part of it compares.

One of my favorite recent LibraryThing discoveries is the Early Reviewer books. Every month the option is available to request books to review, and if you are lucky, you may get one of these books. Early Reviewer books are either relatively new releases or books that have not yet been released. My copy of Last Dragon was from this program, which was quite a surprise since there were only 15 copies and 800 people requesting it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a copy of Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, which was one of the books they were giving away this month.

Of course, Amazon is also a fantastic way to waste time with all the books to drool over and add to the wish list, reviews to peruse, and author blogs to read. Neil Gaiman, Robin McKinley, Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Brandon Sanderson, Carol Berg, and Daniel Abraham all have blogs on Amazon Daily.

Does anybody know any other fun book sites?

Around the Blogosphere
May
24
2008

It’s kind of strange not to have a review that needs to be written since last weekend is the first time I’ve been caught up with reviews since March. I’m hoping to finish Dune in the next couple of days since it’s a long weekend and then it’s on to Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris, the winner of the what to read next poll.

In the meantime, here are some interesting reviews or other speculative fiction related posts I’ve seen lately.

On his blog, Neil Gaiman recently wrote that ARCs for The Graveyard Book are going out and the first review of the book is up. I want this one. A lot.

SQT over at Fantasy & Sci-fi Lovin’ Book Reviews recently read and enjoyed the second First Law book, Before They Are Hanged. It made me want to pick up the copy I still have on my bookshelf, but it will have to wait a bit like most of the other unread books.

It’s a little over a week old but I have to include this review of Ian Cameron Esslemont’s Malazan novel Night of Knives from Speculative Horizons because I really enjoyed reading it.

OF Blog has a review of Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy edited by Ekaterina Sedia. Also of interest is the recent abundance of favorite author polls.

Fantasy Book Critic has a fantastic interview with Greg Keyes, author of the recently completed “Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone” series. There is also a review of the new story collection by Keyes, The Hounds of Ash and Other Tales of Fool Wolf. I’m not normally a big short story fan, but this one did sound good to me.

Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review has a review of the forthcoming Tobias Buckell novel Sly Mongoose. This one sounds very good, too – the to-read list just gets longer and longer.

Sarah of Jumpdrives and Cantrips reviewed a science fiction classic – Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.

Fantasy Debut has a review of Dru Pagliassotti’s Clockwork Heart.

Robert Asprin has died
May
23
2008

Robert Asprin, author of the Myth and Phule series and one of the original editors of Thieves’ World, died yesterday. As I mentioned in my review of Dragons Wild earlier this week, he was one of my favorite authors when I was growing up, and I’ve read and reread his early books probably dozens of times. Though Asprin had a very difficult personal life for many years that was reflected in his professional struggles, he at least was able to climb back in the last few years of his life and was reportedly living happily in his adopted home of New Orleans when he died.

Upcoming Releases
May
22
2008

I’ve seen a couple of release dates lately that caught my interest.

Nation, the upcoming young adult book by Terry Pratchett, is scheduled for release on September 30 of this year. This is not a book in the Discworld universe but is a book he has had in mind for a few years and finally decided to write. It is available for preorder on Amazon.

There is an announcement on George R. R. Martin’s news page that the next “Wild Cards” book, Busted Flush, will be available in this December. It can also be preordered from Amazon.

Ann Aguirre Answers Reader Questions
May
20
2008

This post on Ann Aguirre’s blog answering reader’s questions about her novel Grimspace is absolutely hilarious. Apparently the ladies go wild for Vel. Who would have guessed a bug-alien would be so hot?

Edit: Oops, had the wrong link to the post. I guess I didn’t actually copy the link and the last one I had was for a work-related site I was debugging in Internet Explorer earlier. It actually goes to the right post now, though!