This is just a funny… episode(?) of BEARDO, one of my favourite daily comic strips:
Beardo is by Dan Dougherty. I only discovered the strip a little while ago, but I’m loving the gentle sense of humour. There have also been some great sequences – the series from April 15th-28th was really great (a little bit about the creative process, and the value of, well, taking a walk home…).
A new series for the blog (although, I may have done some similar, occasional posts way back when), in which I take a look at an author I’ve never read but really want to. And perhaps should have read by now…
GARY GIBSON, author of many well-received sci-fi novels, published by Tor in the UK. And definitely an author I should have read by now… I’ve always been drawn more to fantasy than science fiction (with the exception of Star Wars and Warhammer 40k, but that’s through long years of familiarity), which probably goes some way to explaining the oversight.
I was reminded of his work today, because Gibson’s Angel Station is Tor’s eBook of the month (DRM free, don’t forget). The author’s novels have received some rather nice new covers for the earlier books (The Shoal series, and his first two stand-alones), to match the style of his latest novel, another stand-alone, Marauder (the full artwork for which graces the top of this post).
Over on the Tor blog, you can read a quick Five Question Interview with the author, which is quite interesting.
Here are the new covers and the novels’ synopses, in chronological order…
ANGEL STATIONS
Aeons ago, a super-scientific culture known as ‘Angels’ had left incomprehensible relics all over the galaxy. Among these phenomena were the Stations, whereby human spacecraft could jump instantly from one part of the galaxy to another. And from them the brilliant Angel technology could be explored and exploited.
One of these stations orbits the planet Kaspar, where the only other known sentient species outside Earth has been meticulously allowed to continue evolving in its own world of primitive ignorance. But suddenly Kaspar’s mysterious ‘Citadel’ has become the vital key to repelling the fast-approaching threat of the stellar burster.
At what cost, though, to its native inhabitants… and to the human residents of the orbiting Angel station?
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AGAINST GRAVITY
It’s the late twenty-first century, and Kendrick Gallmon, survivor of an infamous research facility called the Maze, is trying to pick up the pieces of his life, even though he knows the Labrat augments inside his body are slowly killing him.
Then one day his heart stops beating, forever, and a ghost urges him to return to the source of all his nightmares, a long-abandoned military complex filled with entirely real voices of the dead.
I really like this cover. Reminds me a little of the artwork for Chris Wooding’s Fade, actually.
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The Shoal Sequence:
STEALING LIGHT, NOVA WAR, and EMPIRE OF LIGHT
In the 25th century, only the Shoal possess the secret of faster-than-light travel, giving them absolute control over all trade and exploration throughout the galaxy. This gives the Shoal absolute control over all trade and exploration throughout the galaxy.
Mankind has meanwhile operated within their influence for two centuries, establishing a dozen human colony worlds scattered along Shoal trade routes. Dakota Merrick, while serving as a military pilot, has witnessed atrocities for which this alien race is responsible.
But the Shoal are not yet ready to relinquish their monopoly over a technology they acquired through ancient genocide.
Marauder, below, is also set in the Shoal universe, but is a stand-alone…
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Final Days Series:
FINAL DAYS and THE THOUSAND EMPERORS
It’s 2235 and through the advent of wormhole technology more than a dozen interstellar colonies have been linked to Earth. But this new mode of transportation comes at a price and there are risks. Saul Dumont knows this better than anyone. He’s still trying to cope with the loss of the wormhole link to the Galileo system, which has stranded him on Earth far from his wife and child for the past several years.
Only weeks away from the link with Galileo finally being re-established, he stumbles across a conspiracy to suppress the discovery of a second, alien network of wormholes which lead billions of years in the future. A covert expedition is sent to what is named Site 17 to investigate, but when an accident occurs and one of the expedition, Mitchell Stone, disappears – they realise that they are dealing with something far beyond their understanding.
When a second expedition travels via the wormholes to Earth in the near future of 2245 they discover a devastated, lifeless solar system – all except for one man, Mitchell Stone, recovered from an experimental cryogenics facility in the ruins of a lunar city. Stone may be the only surviving witness to the coming destruction of the Earth. But why is he the only survivor – and once he’s brought back to the present, is there any way he and Saul can prevent the destruction that’s coming?
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MARAUDER
Megan Jacinth has three goals, and they all seem unattainable.
First, she needs to find her oldest friend Bash, who she’d left for dead to save her own life. Then she needs Bash’s unique skill-set to locate an ancient space-faring entity. Lastly she must use this Wanderer’s knowledge to save human-occupied worlds from an alien incursion.
The odds seem impossible, but the threat is terrifyingly real. Megan finds Bash, but the person she’d known and loved is a husk of his former self. Bash is also held captive by her greatest enemy: Gregor Tarrant. Tarrant wants the Wanderer too, even more than he wants her life, with motives less pure than her own. And he’s close to finding Megan’s most closely-guarded secret. A race across space to reach the Wanderer seems Megan’s best option. But this entity is also known as the Marauder, and is far from benign. The price for its secrets may be just too high. Megan should know, as she still bears the scars from their last encounter…
I actually have a copy of Final Days, somewhere, so I think I’ll try to get that read. But I may start with Angel Stations. We’ll see.
[If you’re in the UK, Amazon are selling the eBook for less than £4, which is less than Tor, but obviously locked to your device with DRM… The same goes for Nova War and Final Days; Stealing Light and Empire of Light are under £5.]
Anyone read Gibson’s work? What did you think?
Today, I get to share with you an excerpt (the first chapter) from Stephanie Saulter’s excellent debut, GEMSIGNS. The first novel in the ®Evolution series, I’ve almost finished reading it, and have thoroughly enjoyed it (review next week). Read on… Continue reading
This was funny, and a good example of what Brian Michael Bendis can do, when he’s aiming for amusing. (The Miles Morales issues of Ultimate Spider-Man have a fair amount of humour, too, so I’ll try to find some amusing pages/panels from that to share, too.)
This was a limited edition print, available in 1988. I found it over on Brian Michael Bendis’ Tumblr. Just really liked it, so I thought I’d share it on here. I’ll probably be sharing a lot more pieces of art/images, just because.
Deborah Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches and it’s sequel, Shadow of Night, seem to have taken readers by storm (the former debuted on the New York Times Bestseller list at #2). The series features a mysterious, magical text, vampires and witches. It actually sounds pretty intriguing, and I should really get around to reading it at some point. (Emma already reviewed the first novel for CR, in February 2011.)
In celebration of the paperback release for the second novel (of three, in the All Souls trilogy), Harkness’s US publisher organised a Q&A. Below are some of her answers.
NB: I have tweaked the wording of the questions, but none of the author’s answers were changed, altered or truncated.
A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES, the first book in your series, begins with Diana Bishop stumbling across a lost, enchanted manuscript called “Ashmole 782”, in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. Your protagonists, Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont, are still trying to uncover its secrets in SHADOW OF NIGHT. You had a similar experience while you were completing your dissertation. What’s the story behind your real-life discovery, and how did it inspire the creation of these novels?
I did discover a manuscript – not an enchanted one, alas – in the Bodleian Library. It was a manuscript owned by Queen Elizabeth’s astrologer, the mathematician and alchemist John Dee. In the 1570s and 1580s he became interested in using a crystal ball to talk to angels. The angels gave him all kinds of instructions on how to manage his life at home, his work—they even told him to pack up his family and belongings and go to far-away Poland and Prague. In the conversations, Dee asked the angels about a mysterious book in his library called “the Book of Soyga” or “Aldaraia.” No one had ever been able to find it, even though many of Dee’s other books survive in libraries throughout the world. In the summer of 1994 I was spending time in Oxford between finishing my doctorate and starting my first job. It was a wonderfully creative time, since I had no deadlines to worry about and my dissertation on Dee’s angel conversations was complete. As with most discoveries, this discovery of a “lost” manuscript was entirely accidental. I was looking for something else in the Bodleian’s catalogue and in the upper corner of the page was a reference to a book called “Aldaraia.” I knew it couldn’t be Dee’s book, but I called it up anyway. And it turned out it WAS the book (or at least a copy of it). With the help of the Bodleian’s Keeper of Rare Books, I located another copy in the British Library.
Are there other lost books like this in the world?
Absolutely! Entire books have been written about famous lost volumes – including works by Plato, Aristotle, and Shakespeare to name just a few. Libraries are full of such treasures, some of them unrecognized and others simply misfiled or mislabeled. And we find lost books outside of libraries, too. In January 2006, a completely unknown manuscript belonging to one of the 17th century’s most prominent scientists, Robert Hooke, was discovered when someone was having the contents of their house valued for auction. The manuscript included minutes of early Royal Society meetings that we presumed were lost forever.
SHADOW OF NIGHT opens on a scene in 1590s Elizabethan England featuring the famous School of Night, a group of historical figures believed to be friends, including Sir Walter Raleigh and playwright Christopher Marlowe. Why did you choose to feature these individuals, and can we expect Diana and Matthew to meet other famous figures from the past?
I wrote my master’s thesis on the imagery surrounding Elizabeth I during the last two decades of her reign. One of my main sources was the poem “The Shadow of Night” by George Chapman – a member of this circle of fascinating men – and that work is dedicated to a mysterious poet named Matthew Roydon about whom we know very little. When I was first thinking about how vampires moved in the world (and this was way back in the autumn of 2008 when I was just beginning A Discovery of Witches) I remembered Roydon and thought “that is the kind of identity a vampire would have, surrounded by interesting people but not the center of the action.” From that moment on I knew the second part of Diana and Matthew’s story would take place among the School of Night. And from a character standpoint, Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman, and the other men associated with the group are irresistible. They were such significant, colorful presences in Elizabethan England.
In SHADOW OF NIGHT, we learn more about the alchemical bonds between Diana and Matthew. In your day job, you are a professor of history and science at the University of Southern California and have focused on alchemy in your research. What aspects of this intersection between science and magic do you hope readers will pick up on while reading SHADOW OF NIGHT?
Whereas A Discovery of Witches focused on the literature and symbolism of alchemy, in Shadow of Night I’m able to explore some of the hands-on aspects of this ancient tradition. There is still plenty of symbolism for Diana to think about, but in this volume we go from abstractions and ideals to real transformation and change – which was always my intention with the series. Just as we get to know more about how Elizabethan men and women undertook alchemical experiments, we also get to see Matthew and Diana’s relationship undergo the metamorphosis from new love to something more.
Did you have an idea or an outline for SHADOW OF NIGHT when you were writing A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES? Did the direction change once you sat down to write it?
I didn’t outline either book in the traditional sense. In both cases I knew what some of the high points were and how the plot moved towards the conclusion, but there were some significant changes during the revision process. This was especially true for Shadow Of Night, although most of those changes involved moving specific pieces of the plot forward or back to improve the momentum and flow.
The events in SHADOW OF NIGHT span the globe, with London, France, and Prague as some of the locales. Did you travel to these destinations for your research?
I did. My historical research has been based in London for some time now, so I’ve spent long stretches of time living in the City of London – the oldest part of the metropolis – but I had never been to the Auvergne or Prague. I visited both places while writing the book, and in both cases it was a bit like traveling in time to walk village lanes, old pilgrim roads, and twisting city streets while imagining Diana and Matthew at my side.
It’s perhaps lazy to refer to Twilight, given the inclusion of vampires in your novels. But, unlike Stephanie Meyer’s leading couple, Bella and Edward (who meet in the halls of a high school and, from my limited exposure to the movies, seem entirely controlled by their rampant hormones), your main characters Matthew and Diana are established academics who meet in the library of one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Your vampires and witches drink wine together, practice yoga, and discuss philosophy. Did you conceive of these characters because of something you thought missing in the fantasy genre?
There are a lot of adults reading young adult books, and for good reason. Authors who specialize in the young adult market are writing original, compelling stories that can make even the most cynical grownups believe in magic. In writing A Discovery Of Witches, I wanted to give adult readers a world no less magical, no less surprising and delightful, but one that included grown-up concerns and activities. These are not your children’s vampires and witches.
A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES was a huge success, and has now been published in 37 countries. What’s your reaction to the novel’s success? Was it surprising how taken fans were with the novel?
It has been amazing – and a bit overwhelming. I was surprised by how quickly readers embraced two central characters who challenge our typical notion of what a heroine or hero should be. And I continue to be amazed whenever a new reader pops up, whether one in the US or somewhere like Finland or Japan – to tell me how much they enjoyed being caught up in Diana’s world.
Last summer, Warner Brothers acquired the movie rights to the All Souls trilogy (Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer David Auburn has been tapped to pen the screenplay). Are you looking forward to your novels being portrayed on the big screen? Any casting ideas, from family, friends or fans that have caught your fancy?
I was thrilled when Warner Brothers wanted to translate the All Souls trilogy from book to screen. At first I was reluctant about the whole idea of a movie, and it actually took me nearly two years to agree to let someone try. The team at Warner Brothers impressed me with their seriousness about the project and their commitment to the characters and story I was trying to tell. Their decision to go with David Auburn confirmed that my faith in them was not misplaced. As for the casting, I deliberately don’t say anything about that! I would hate for any actor or actress to be cast in one of these roles and feel that they didn’t have my total support. I will say, however, that many of my readers’ ideas involve actors who have already played a vampire and I would be very surprised if one of them were asked to be Matthew!
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Fans of the novels can also join Deborah Harkness and her editor Carole DeSanti, the author of The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R, for a virtual book event on BookTalk Nation on June 4th at 2pm EST. You can join by phone and buy personalized copies of the book by ordering online here. For more about Harkness’s All Souls trilogy, be sure to check out her website.
A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night are published by Penguin in the US and Headline in the UK.
A 14 year veteran of the video game industry, Richard Dansky is the Central Clancy Writer for Ubisoft/Red Storm. Named by Gamasutra as one of the top 20 game writers in 2009, he has written for games ranging from OUTLAND to the upcoming SPLINTER CELL: BLACKLIST (which I’m rather looking forward to). Richard is also the author of six novels, including the critically praised Firefly Rain. He lives and works in North Carolina with his wife and their statistically improbable collections of books, scotch and cats. His latest novel is Vaporware.
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ON WRITING FICTION VS. WRITING GAMES
The big difference between writing games and writing fiction is whose story you’re actually telling. When you’re writing fiction, you’re writing a singular, defined narrative. The characters do what you want them to do. They say what you want them to say, when you want them to say it, and the plot moves, one page at a time, toward the conclusion. The reader receives the narrative; the story’s told in linear fashion, and while the reader can adjust the way they receive it by reading out of order – or by skipping the bits with Tom Bombadil and getting straight to the barrow-wights – the text is set on the page. It’s the writer’s story, not the reader’s.
In games, it’s not your story, it’s the player’s. Every piece of writing you do, every word you put on the page isn’t there to advance your story to a singular conclusion. It’s there for the player to pick up and put on and experience, and then to make their own. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s true. Without the player actually playing, those story elements sit there inert. They’re pure potential, waiting to be actualized by the player engaging with them. Until then, they just sit in memory, waiting to be triggered by the player’s actions.
What this produces is a very different kind of story. For all the classical genre tropes that so heavily infest game writing, classical storytelling techniques need to be adjusted to allow the player room to play. It’s what I called “the player-shaped hole” at my Game Developers Conference talk a few years ago, the possibility space around what the player might do at any given moment. And even in the most straightforward game, the list of things the player can do at any given moment is surprisingly large. Shoot? Maybe, but even with that there are innumerable choices to be made (weapon, rate of fire, choice of target, etc.). Move? Duck? Jump? Check inventory? Use a healthpack? Fiddle with the controller? All of these things the player can do, things that might be incorporated into their personal story of playing have to be accounted for so that when the player looks back on their experience, it feels like all the choices they made were the right ones at the time. Before it happens, it has to be open; in hindsight, it has to be seamless.
That’s not to say that the gap between writing fiction and writing games is insurmountable, though I confess, as someone who’s done both, it’s often easier to go from the ultimately interactive scenario of game writing to the ultimately dictated scenario of fiction than the other way around. And a look at the writers working both sides of the fence these days – Austin Grossman, Erin Hoffman, Lucien Soulban, Jay Posey, and many more – might even suggest that there’s some potential benefit to laboring in the vineyards of games and learning the hard way to tell stories not your own.
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If you want to learn more about Richard Dansky and his work, be sure to check out his website and follow him on Twitter.
An intriguing tweaking of the classic Snow White Fairy Tale
A beautiful, sexy, contemporary retelling of the classic Snow White fairy tale, illustrated by Les Edwards.
POISON is a beautifully illustrated retelling of the Snow White story which takes all the elements of the classic fairytale that we love (the handsome prince, the jealous queen, the beautiful girl and, of course, the poisoning) and puts a modern spin on the characters, their motives and their desires. It’s fun, contemporary, sexy, and perfect for fans of ONCE UPON A TIME, GRIMM, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN and more
This book isn’t very long, so it’s a little tricky to review at any great length without ruining the whole story. Pinborough has taken this classic story and approached it with a modern sensibility, tweaking the tale here and there to make it a little more edgy and fresh. I must admit that I’m not the greatest fan of fairy tales to begin with, which probably makes you wonder why you should care about my opinion on this book. My lack of familiarity with the source material will also have had an impact on how much I got from this novella. I can see why people will enjoy this, though. I liked it a fair bit, too.
Poison is basically a story about two young women: one an evil step-mother (Lilith) and the other a princess (Snow). They are the same age, more or less, with the King having decided on a younger model after the death of Snow’s mother. They are also, of course, very different. Snow is carefree, confident, and quite fun (she can often be found drinking and hanging out with the dwarfs, pulling practical jokes), and she’s a bit of a tomboy. Lilith, on the other hand, is cold, calculating, self-conscious, surprisingly insecure, and highly resentful of the male-dominated world in which she lives (understandably – she seems to be better suited to ruling than her warmonger, imperialist husband). She yearns for power and the ability to wield it, and takes her husband’s latest campaign abroad as an opportunity to wield it in his name.
Pinborough’s characters are interesting – they are clearly identifiable as those in the original, but updated and a little more modern. At times, the dialogue and writing felt a little archaic, which was at odds with the contemporary feel I think the author was going for. Nevertheless, they’re all pretty interesting. Lilith controls a psycho-Aladdin, for example! That was a very cool development, I thought. That’s also all I’m going to say about it, lest I ruin that darkly delightful character for you. Lilith’s grandmother, the old crone of the story, is as wicked and devious as the Queen. She’s also a bit dotty, which added some extra levity (she mothers Lilith a bit, and her first scene made me chuckle). The Huntsman seems to be the typical manly-man of fairy tales (who seems to have some magical stud-powers…).
Despite not being the biggest fan of fairy tales, I thought this was a pretty interesting, quick read. I didn’t love it, unfortunately, and there were a couple of fleeting lulls in the narrative, but it was still a good read. If you’re looking for a new, fresh and modern take on this classic fairy tale, and enjoy the swathe of fairy-tale-related reinterpretations (Grimm and Once Upon a Time in particular, I think), then Sarah Pinborough’s Poison will be right for you.
A quick, fun, diversion; an intriguing contemporary take on one of the all-time classic stories. I’m looking forward to seeing what the author’s done with Beauty and Charm, the other two novellas in the ‘series’ (also published this year by Gollancz).
The Complete Covers for Sarah’s three Fairy Tale reinterpretations
I wrote an earlier “Upcoming” round-up for the talented, unstoppable Sarah Pinborough. Since then, though, I’ve learned that she has another novel coming out this year. Here’s some info and details about The Language of Dying…
Tonight is a special, terrible night.
A woman sits at her father’s bedside watching the clock tick away the last hours of his life.
Her brothers and sisters – all broken, their bonds fragile – have been there for the past week, but now she is alone.
And that’s always when it comes.
The clock ticks, the darkness beckons.
If it comes at all.
The Language of Dying will be published by Jo Fletcher Books in December 2013.
I kind of stumbled across this by accident, but it sounds pretty great. So, here’s some information about David Towsey’s debut novel, Your Brother’s Blood, coming from Jo Fletcher Books in September 2013… The publisher’s blog included the following comment, “Think The Road – but also think Warm Bodies, this book is going to stir up a storm.” This sounds right up my alley, then. Here’s the synopsis…
Thomas is thirty-two. He comes from the small town of Barkley. He has a wife there, Sarah, and a child, Mary; good solid names from the Good Book. And he is on his way home from the war, where he has been serving as a conscripted soldier. Thomas is also dead – he is one of the Walkin’. And Barkley does not suffer the wicked to live.
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