Grete’s got four copies of J. R. Ward’s Lover Avenged (part of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series) to give away over at BookThing – you can check out the post here and what you need to do, to get a copy (not much, just comment on the site!)

Good luck.

Have read both The Naming of the Beasts (Mike Carey) and The Ghost Brigades (John Scalzi) recently (as in, over the last couple of days).  Both very different books, but both excellent.  The Carey book is, well, hard to put into a box. Maybe urban fantasy, maybe urban private detective fantasy, maybe just urban, whatever it is it’s the fifth in the Felix Castor series and well worth reading.  The books can be a little bleak at times because the subject matter is a little bleak, but the payout is worth it.  The Scalzi book is clearly sci-fi with a solid emotional backing, and is the second in the series (although not a direct sequel).  It’s engaging, and packed a bigger emotional punch than the Carey book for me but that’s because it tugged at all the tight emotional triggers.  I’ve reviewed them both over on Grete’s BookThing website (the links above take you there).

This is the press release.

The first annual David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy has been won by Andrzej Sapkowski for his novel Blood of Elves (published in the UK by Gollancz).

The Award was accepted on Sapkowski’s behalf by his UK editor, Jo Fletcher.

Presented before an audience of publishing industry professionals, authors, media and fans at the Magic Circle headquarters in Euston, London on 19th June, the Award has been established in memory of fantasy author David Gemmell, who died in 2006. The trophy, supplied by Raven Armoury, takes the form of a butterfly axe, named Snaga, that featured in Gemmell’s fiction.

Born in Poland in 1948, Andrzej Sapkowski worked in business before turning to writing. His cycle of tales set in the world of The Witcher have made him a bestseller in his native Poland and internationally.

The other shortlisted authors were:

• Joe Abercrombie: Last Argument of Kings (Gollancz & Pyr)
• Juliet Marillier: Heir to Sevenwaters (Tor)
• Brandon Sanderson: The Hero of Ages (Tor)
• Brent Weeks: The Way of Shadows (Orbit)

Each of the runners-up were presented with a miniature version of Snaga.

The Award was decided by an open ballot, and attracted over 10,000 votes from 75 countries.

**Photographs of the award ceremony to follow.

Further information: millerlau@clara.co.uk

Official website: http://GemmellAward.com

Stan Nicholls (Chair)
Deborah Miller (Award Administrator)

Congratulations to Andrzej Sapkowski, and to everyone involved in the award (the first of hopefully many David Gemmell Legend Awards).

You can now follow the David Gemmell Legend Award website and info on Twitter.

Here’s the official press release,

From:  Stan Nicholls – Chairman, DGLA Steering Group
Deborah J. Miller – Awards Administrator.

PRESS RELEASE: 22/09/08:

We are delighted to announce that preparations are underway to present the inaugural ‘David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy’ for the best Fantasy novel of the year (2008). The Award has the official support of Stella Gemmell, and has been instigated by friends and professional colleagues to celebrate David’s life and literary legacy.

Nominations are currently being sought from Editors of every major genre Fantasy list for full-length novels, in the English language, first published in 2008. The nominated novels must be deemed Fantasy in the spirit of David Gemmell’s own work. All nominated work will be added to the ‘Longlist’ – which will then be voted upon by the reading public on the Award website.

Voting will not be closing until March 2009, which will ensure readers a chance to read, and vote upon, all the nominees. The top 5 novels will go forward to the Shortlist phase, with the winner decided by a panel of Fantasy experts (to be announced on the website). The Award trophy – a replica of ‘Druss the Legend’s’ famous battleaxe, Snaga – will finally be presented in June 2009, at a ceremony in London. It is expected that the DGLA will soon become the most prestigious Award for authors working within the genre Fantasy field.

For any further information, please check the website for frequent updates: http://GemmellAward.com

Or, contact the Awards Administrator on:
Admin@GemmellAward.com

Children’s author Eoin Colfer has been commissioned to write a sixth instalment of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series.

More here.

Not sure how I feel about this (mostly because it’s far too early for my brain synapses to be actually functioning).

Today’s turning into a bit of a linkfest.

Stan Nicholls – Interactive Interview! – Wonderlands

Well worth a read, great insight into Stan.

Wonderlands is extremely proud to announce that we are the organisers & co-sponsors of “THE DAVID GEMMELL LEGEND AWARD FOR FANTASY” having recently received the support and blessing of Stella Gemmell. The website will be online next week. Further details to follow shortly…

Read here for more information

I guess this is sort of a review. I blogged a short while ago that I was reading a Constantine graphic novel (Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits, an anthology), and I promised to maybe let you know if I enjoyed it. So here I am. Dangerous Habits is the comic from which one of the main threads of the Constantine movie is taken, and there are a couple of other minor references in the movie to this anthology. I wanted to read this anthology as my introduction to the Hellblazer world exactly because it was the movie that got me interested in the character.

That was probably a mistake. Dangerous Habits is not, it would appear, a typical collection of Hellblazer stories. It’s enjoyable, and I wanted to finish the material, but I got the immediate feeling that this was really a transition period in Constantine’s life and not a regular story about his world.

The artwork is okay, I’m really not that enthused about comic / graphic novel artwork, I guess I’m more interested in the story and characterisation, hence my tendency towards regular fiction. I found myself focussing on the words, and really not looking that much at the art. Every few pages I would encourage myself to go back and look at the pictures. Maybe I’m so used to having to use my own imagination 100% to form images around the words I’m reading, I’m just not used to having them presented for me. I love movies, so I obviously have no problem watching someone else’s visualisation, but if I’m reading words on a page, I’m really not expecting someone else to present images showing me how things look.

Anyway, I found the writing ok, the overall storyline is interesting and the side-characters were interesting. However, I found both showdowns between Constantine and the Forces of Darkness to be lacklustre and without logic. Supreme evil isn’t necessarily entirely stupid. Of the two showdowns, the first, smaller one was the most absurd and beyond logic and destroyed any credibility the story had for me. The final one simply iced the cake, and although I can see where it was coming from and what it was trying to do, I just didn’t feel it was given enough context for it to be viable.

Now, this may be entirely because I’ve not read anything else in the Hellblazer universe, maybe the way the enemy behaved is entirely in-character and in-keeping with it’s normal behaviour, but if that is the case then Constantine has an easy life.

Overall, maybe I picked the wrong entry into Hellblazer, but this was a disappointing purchase which provided a few hours of diversion but no real feeling of satisfaction.

I have Hellblazer: Bloodlines, another anthology which I’m intending to read as well, and hopefully I’ll see some of the material which causes so much enthusiasm among the fans.

It’s been a long time since I read and subsequently reviewed a book. That’s mainly because it’s been a long time since I read (or at least, finished) a book. I asked Grete specifically for something that was easy to read and entertaining, and she had no problem recommending the Jim Butcher books, of which Storm Front is the first.

The first thing that struck me about the book is the similarity to the Dirk Gently stuff by Douglas Adams. This isn’t a bad thing, I loved the Dirk Gently books and the Dresden Files (the name of the series for which Storm Front is the first one) felt comfortable almost from the first chapter.

Jim’s writing is clean, tidy and easy to read. The books are detective novels in the classic style with the current popular added theme of the supernatural / magical / mythical world playing a great role. Our hero is Harry Dresden, the only wizard in the phone book. The first person style makes it very easy to get into Harry’s head early and within a few pages we’re already empathising with him and feeling his pain. The pace is good, carrying us through the introduction of the world (modern America) and the principal characters, and into the story all in a fairly short time. We meet pretty archetypical police staff, paranormal magazine reporters, bad guys and people who need the services of magical private investigators.

The story arc is pretty simple, I can’t decide if I was pleased or upset at the lack of major twists. I certainly felt that there was going to be a huge twist at the end, and it never arrived. Having said that I don’t think the story suffered for it, it was unpretentious, and delivered exactly what it set out to do at the start. There was plenty of action, humour and good character interaction. In any first person style work, you spend a lot of time in the head of the main protagonist and so you have to feel something for them, otherwise the story just isn’t going to be worth reading. Harry Dresden is interesting, witty and worth spending time with, so it was no chore to listen to his thoughts and follow the story through his eyes.

It was a fun book, worth reading, and although I don’t think it made me laugh as hard as it could have done, it certainly kept me interested all the way through, and it’s a long while since I actually finished a book as quickly as this one. Worth getting, worth reading, and easily worth the price.