Huge Discounts! Hmmm.
Good news! Red Country is out in the UK in three days time! More good news! It’s an amazon book of the week, and they’ve slash, slash, slashed the price of the hardcover to an it-should-be-criminal £7.64, that’s 55% off, or a saving of a stonking £9.35 on the RRP of £16.99. It’s a fair […]
Awards, Panels, Public Votes
Couple of interesting award-related things happened up at Eastercon over the weekend. The first was that The Heroes is on the shortlist for the David Gemmell Legend Award this year. The cover is also shortlisted in the cover art section – congratulations to Dave Senior and Didier Graffet who already won the award for Best […]
The Death of Books
Thanks to Chris Wooding for bringing my attention to an excellent and carefully researched article by Lloyd Shepherd over at The Guardian, written in response to the endless doomsaying about the imminent demise of publishing, which pretty much reflects my own much less carefully researched feelings. Namely that – despite the big trouble in the […]
Authority, Heroism, and Linking
Occasionally ideas come to me. Diamond-edged insights into the nature of fantasy and the role of my own work within it. Often in response to negative reviews about my work, as it happens… But not very often. Which is why it becomes necessary for me to link to other people’s. In this case, BC Woods […]
Bankrupt Nihilism
Those of you who’ve followed this blog for a while (I am reasonably confident there are at least two) will be aware that at times in the past I’ve picked up and examined negative criticisms from around the web, but always in a positive and respectful way (ahem), using them as a springboard for a […]
The Valley of Osrung
Having acquired an axe for the foreground, the next element we needed in our cover for The Heroes was the background. The all-important map. I seem to have acquired a reputation in fantasy circles as some kind of anti-map guy. Occasionally I’ll read posts here or there about how much I hate maps, as though maps are a […]
What is Sword and Sorcery Anyway?
SF Signal’s latest Mind Meld feature asks the question, “what is your definition of Sword and Sorcery?” of thirteen writers and editors, all involved with the recently released S&S anthology Swords and Dark Magic. They include such luminaries as Michael Moorcock, Steve Erikson, Garth Nix, Scott Lynch, Lou Anders, and that there Joe Abercrombie bloke….
The New Sword and Sorcery
The cover for Swords and Dark Magic, an anthology in which I’ve got a story coming out in June next year. You’ll note the sub-title, “The New Sword and Sorcery”. The editors – Lou Anders (who publishes the First Law in the US, among many other things) and Jonathan Strahan – perceived something of a […]
People Suck, War is Bad, and the World is a Bottomless Shithole
An interesting negative review of Best Served Cold from Elizabeth Vail at Green Man Review got me thinking a little bit t’other day, not only because it’s quite amusingly snarky, but also because it seems to coalesce some criticisms of the book I’ve seen a few times, and also hints at some interesting attitudes to […]
Am I Genre Enough?
By heavens, the entire blog-o-verse has been ON FIRE with discussion of my reading habits and I didn’t even realise until just now! Well, perhaps I’m being a touch over-dramatic (what, me?) Not the entire blog-o-verse, just a couple of bits of it. And not really on fire, just smouldering very slightly. And not really […]
