Justina Robson

Blood of Ambrose is Joe Mallozzi’s Book of the Month for July

Stargate writer/producer, avid reader, and all around great guy Joe Mallozzi has announced his June and July selections for his Book Club reads. For those who don’t know, Joe picks one or more titles a month, invites his many fans to read them along with him, and then invites the authors in for a lengthy Q&A. I had the honor to be the first such guest, but he’s gone on to have scores of authors on, including our own Justina Robson, David Louis Edelman, and Joe Abercrombie, as well as our friend & frequent cover artist John Picacio. Now, he’s chosen James Enge’s Blood of Ambrosefor his July selection, and before that, our friend Michael Moorcock’s Elric: The Stealer of Souls,(the new Del Rey edition with the fabulous interior artwork by John Picacio). Both great choices and I’m excited to see the interviews with both authors. Meanwhile, Enge himself is over the moon to be in the same post with Moorcock. Who wouldn’t be?

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Enge, Sturges, Robson, Lloyd and Me

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There’s a fantastic interview with Blood of Ambroseauthor James Enge over on SFScope. Conducted by Sara M. Harvey, and well-worth reading, here’s a taste:

The genesis of Morlock was, I think, frustration with two of my favorite writers, Tolkien and H.G. Wells. I was annoyed that Tolkien so obviously favored elves over dwarves, and that Wells did the same with Eloi over Morlocks. Morlocks did stuff—they worked and learned and thought and created. They seemed to me more authentically human than the empty, shiny Eloi. So what if they lived underground and weren’t so pretty? The cannibalism is a little harder to stomach, as it were—but I’m sure that’s exactly why Wells put it in. That’s his thumb on the scale, trying to tilt our judgment of his characters.

Then over at The Agony Column, Rick Kleffel and I talk about Steampunk, Victoriana and Elizabethan SF, with a bit about Chris Roberson, George Mann, and old series Doctor Who. Here’s a direct link.

Meanwhile in response to my accidentally traumatizing her with an offhand statement, Justina Robson asks What is Fantasy About? Please go join in the discussion. I sense brilliance on the verge of conception.

Then Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review gives an 8 out of 10 to Matthew Sturges’ Midwinter.They say:

…a book that any fantasy fan will get a lot out of. …there is no denying the sense of urgency that leaps out off the page and drives the story along [at] a very fast pace. The constant plotting and scheming underneath the surface adds to this urgency as well as giving the reader the best possible reason to keep reading. There are loads of questions that all need answering and it’s all credit to Sturges that these are the kind of questions where you care enough about the answers to invest more time in reading the book. You also cannot deny the dangers that our travellers must face on their journey and these make for some great moments where anything could happen and spectacle is the order of the day!

Hey, I’d be rushing out to get that now if I hadn’t read it already. But if you need more convincing, Jessica Strider at Sci-Fan Letter interviews Matthew Sturges, about the book and the craft of writing in general.

I was doing a presentation about writing comic books for a group of fourth-graders, since I’m most known as a comic book writer. Most of the questions were what you’d expect from nine-year-olds: Who’d win in a fight between the Hulk and Superman, that kind of stuff. Just as the questions were dying down, a kid in the back raised his hand and asked, “How much do you make?” I paused for a second and said, “I do okay, I guess.” He wasn’t satisfied, “Can you give me a dollar amount?” “That’s an inappropriate question,” said the teacher, embarassed. “Why?” said the kid. “How can I tell if I want to do that job if I don’t know what it pays?”

Meanwhile, The King of the Nerds (what a title!) has some very positive thoughts about Tom Lloyd’s The Twilight Herald:

…one heck of a wild ride, with action, excitement, danger, violence and epic confrontations occurring left and right… I’m not certain I would say The Twilight Herald is an improvement over The Stormcallerbut Lloyd at the least reveals an impressive level of verstatility in terms of style between the two novels. Furthermore he maintains an ability to include a subtle over-arching theme of revenge across the entirety of the novel that is never overwrought or glaring. Lloyd is keeping me guessing with the series and, criticisms asside, that is something I can definatley appreciate.

And that’s enough news for one morning, right?

Update: Well, no, because there’s a terrific interview with Tom Lloyd that is up at Fantasy Book News & Reviews.

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Spring/Summer 2009: A Look at the Future

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Want another reason to feel good about the future?
Here’s a peak at our Spring/Summer 2009 Season:

March:
Tom Lloyd, The Twilight Herald (Book Two of the Twilight Reign)
Less than a year after being plucked from obscurity and poverty the charismatic new Lord of the Farlan finds himself unprepared to deal with the attempt on his life that now spells war, and the possibility of rebellion waiting for him at home.

Matthew Sturges, Midwinter
Mauritaine once heroic Captain in the Seelie Army, now accused of treason and sentenced to life without parole, is offered one last chance to redeem himself, an opportunity to regain his freedom and his honor in the secrete service of Queen Titania.

April:
Ian McDonald, Brasyl(coming in trade paperback!)
Be seduced, amazed, and shocked by one of the world’s greatest and strangest nations. Past, present, and future Brazil, with all its color, passion, and shifting realities, come together in a novel that is part SF, part history, part mystery, and entirely enthralling.

James Enge, Blood of Ambrose
Behind the King’s life stands the menacing Protector, and beyond him lies the Protector’s Shadow… Against this evil, Morlock Ambrosius–stateless person, master of all magical makers, deadly swordsman, and hopeless drunk.

May:
Joel Shepherd, Crossover(coming in mass market!)
The first novel in a series that follows the adventures of Cassandra Kresnov, an android created by the League, one side of an interstellar war against the more powerful, conservative Federation. The product of an experimental design and dangerously intelligent, Cassandra raises probing questions and experiences moral awakening. Soon she has deserted the League in search of a new life in the territory of the Federation.

Sean Williams, The Hanging Mountains(Books of the Cataclsym: Three) (coming in trade paperback!)
In this third installment of Williams’s Books of the Cataclysm, Sal and his companions seek the source of the flood in the legendary Hanging Mountains, hoping to head off a crisis that was put in motion a thousand years ago. They uncover uncomfortable truths about the world and how it relates to the one that came before — our world.

Mark Chadbourn, World’s End(Age of Misrule 1)
A dragon firebombs a freeway. Shapeshifters stalk the commercial district. The deadly Wild Hunt wreaks havoc on the highway. The Age of Misrule has dawned. In times of trouble, heroes arise!

June:
Joel Shepherd, Breakaway(coming in mass market!)
Cassandra Kresnov is a highly advanced hunter-killer android. She has escaped the League and fled to Callay, a member of the Federation. Breakaway is a great story with a cracking plot and strong characters. At its heart is the enigma of Cassandra: Is she more human than human, or is she totally untrustworthy?

Mark Chadbourn, Darkest Hour(Age of Misrule 2)
The Eternal Conflict between the Light and Dark once again blackens the skies and blights the land. And in the middle are the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, determined to use the strange power that binds them to the land in a last, desperate attempt to save the human race.

July:
Joel Shepherd, Killswitch(coming in mass market!)
Two years after the unhatching of Callayan President Neiland’s plot to make the capital city of Tanusha the center of the Federation, Callay is under siege. So begins the third installment of this gripping trilogy from an exciting new sci-fi author. When Cassandra’s lover, Special Agent Ari Ruben, discovers a plot to kill her using a killswitch, which her old masters in the League built into her brainstem, Sandy is forced to go underground to stay alive.

Ian McDonald, Desolation Road
It all began 30 years ago on Mars, with a greenperson. But by the time it all finished, the town of Desolation Road had experienced every conceivable abnormality…

Mark Chadbourn, Always Forever (Age of Misrule 3)
Mankind’s days appear numbered. Our only hope – the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons – are scattered and broken after a terrible defeat. Their last chance may lie in the great court of the old gods, reached by an otherworldly ship filled with fantastical and frightening creatures.

August:
Mike Resnick, Stalking the Dragon(A Fable of Tonight)
It’s Valentine’s Day and private detective John Justin Mallory must undertake a nocturnal hunt for the miniature dragon that takes him to some of the stranger sections of his magical Manhattan.

Justina Robson’s Chasing the Dragon(Quantum Gravity Book Four)
Returning to the life of a guns-blazing secret agent, cyborg Lila Black finds herself having inherited all of her former boss’s old offices and whatever mysteries they contain… But there are more immediate concerns. Like resurrecting her lover, Zal. And her husband, the demon Teazle, is embroiled in a fatal plot in Demonia, and her magic sword is making itself happy as a pen whose writing has the power to affect other worlds. The world is off its rocker and most everyone is terrified of faeries.

I’ll say more about these individual titles as we get closer to 2009, debuting more cover art as it comes in, and profiling some of the new authors and introducing them to you. Meanwhile, you can download a PDF of the whole Spring/Summer 2009 catalog here. But for now, what do you think?

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Justina Robson on Keeping It Real

As I reported earlier, writer/co-executive producer of Stargate: Atlantis Joseph Mallozzi featured Justina Robson’s Keeping It Realon his blog’s book club discussion. I’m a few days late on gettting the link up, but Justina has now answered, indepthly, all his readers questions. The full interview is up here. And here’s one of my favorite bits:

The demons and devils were really refreshing to work on for me. I’ve been a Christian fundamentalist of a kind in my youth, and an occult student, and a devotee of all things theological and then I discarded formal approaches and religions altogether for a kind of atheism and went on a more personal kind of spiritual quest, which I am still on. But I used to have very fixed ideas and literal notions of all kinds of things and being able to finally sift through all that and find my version of what the truth is was just tremendously exciting and liberating. Of course it’s just my version and although I’m passionate about writing this stuff and feeling it’s true I know it’s only a way of seeing things. Hence the book’s title.

And, of course, the third book in the Quantum Gravity series, Going Under,was just recently released. You can read a substantial excerpt on our new sample pages site here.

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