While you are reading this, I am probably lying on a beach somewhere with a book and a glass of sangria! Because I have no idea what the Internet will be doing while I’m away, I am presenting you with a top ten list of author blogs you really should add to your Google Reader for their combination of articles and information about the books they’re writing. No doubt there are plenty more than these 10 to highlight, so feel free to add any that you particularly love to the comments section!

1) Mark Charan Newton

2) Sam Sykes

3) Brandon Sanderson

4) Kate Elliott

5) Jim C Hines

6) Mark Chadbourn

7) Jeff VanderMeer

8) China Mieville

9) Christopher Fowler

10) Maggie Stiefvater

Short and sweet this week! I will see you next Wednesday with a resumed World Wide Wednesday – look after the Internet for me…

Here we are once again in the middle of the week – I do love Wednesdays! And this Wednesday for me signifies just a couple more days in work before a well-earned vacation. Don’t worry, I have something slightly different planned for the WWW post during my absence which will be scheduled to go up regular as clockwork *grin*

1) 200 SFX Features

Over here in the UK we have a magazine called SFX (I’m pretty sure it is delivered to foreign climes as well!) and it covers all manner of genre topics. They are celebrating the 200th issue with a nice little feature on their website: showcasing a number of their articles, pictures, interviews, reviews in a potluck fashion. Should give you plenty to read!

2) Genre Diversity

Mark Charan Newton is up to his old tricks – he has posted on his blog about those review sites that are tackling some of the older works of speculative fiction, and how this diversity is good for the genre. The comments are particularly illuminating.

3) National Buy A Book Day

I urge you all – if you never ever click through to any of the other links I provide each week, please click on this one. Philip Athans speaks passionately about the bookselling industry and the fact that it finds itself in dire straits.  He invites every one of us to go out on 7th September and buy a full-priced book from a bricks and mortar store to keep alive the industry that provides each and every one of us so much entertainment.

4) Today’s superheroes send wrong image to boys!

Steve from Steve’s Fantasy Book Reviews read this post which declared that superheroes send the wrong images to boys and was prompted to write a two post rebuttal. Well worth reading!

5) Twitter for Authors

An odd link, this one. I know that only a few of our readers will be authors, but I think these handy posts about using Twitter might be useful for anyone who wants to engage more with other readers.

6) Favourite SF/F Settings

The latest Mind Meld from SF Signal deals with favourite SF/F settings.Which are yours?

7) Forbes Highest Paid Authors

For all those would-be writers out there, these numbers might make you think more seriously about whipping that manuscript into shape – the names on this list of highest paid authors are the exception rather than the rule though!

8) More Awards!

Although we often complain that genre fiction is not recognised by the literary prizes, we do have such a large number of awards that are dedicated to speculative fiction. Here we have the list of the World Fantasy award Nominees. Have you read any of those nominated?

9) 10 Reasons Why Transformers is PURE awesome!

You’ll have to forgive me this one *grin*. I am a massive fan of the Transformers animated movie (none of this live action rubbish!) and it turns out that James from Speculative Horizons is just as much of a fanboy, giving 10 reasons for why the movie is so awesome!

10) Untapped Audience for SF Magazines

Another blog post where the comments section is actually of more interest than the post itself – here Will Ellwood guests over on Damien G. Walters’ blog about the untapped audience for SF magazines.

That’s all folks! I’ll be sunning myself on a beach next Wednesday, so do think of me jealously!

Welcome to Wednesday! I’ve got a lovely lot of links to share with you this week, so let’s get right on down to it! No dilly-dallying today!

1) Cover Art Cliches for 2009

Orbit have done a survey of the cover art on display during 2009, and A Dribble of Ink brings us the results with some added commentary – personally, I can see the 2010 version being dominated by hooded men!

2) Trailing the Book Trailer

We have a lovely new blog on the blogosphere – A Fantastical Librarian (add immediately to your blogrolls!) Mieneke has kicked off with an interesting look at book trailers and how they might affect purchasing habits.

3) Top 10 Urban Fantasy Pet Peeves

I enjoyed this very entertaining and tongue-in-cheek look at pet peeves in Urban Fantasy – I identified with the bulk of them as well! What are your pet peeves?

4) Formidable Female Protagonists

In the second of an ongoing series, Floor to Ceiling Books takes a look at one of the formidable female protagonists in fantasy fiction – this time round, Alanna the Lioness from the Tamora Pierce books is the subject. (Artwork provided by Bunni of Fu)

5) 2011: The Year of the Fantasy Doorstop

Stomping on Yeti is already looking ahead to 2011 – but mainly because he is dreading the effect it will have on his wrists, what with the number of massive fantasy books on their way next year! Which are you looking forward to?

6) Announcing the No. 1 YA Novel!

In a previous edition of WWW, I told you about the top 100 countdown of YA novels taking place on Persnickety Snark’s blog – and she has very recently announced the winner (and the full 100 in one post)… Is it worthy? Have you read it?

7) Shadows of the Apt Week

Over on Steve’s Fantasy Book Reviews, Steve hosted Shadows of the Apt week, featuring an interview with Adrian Tchaikovsky, a look at the cover art of the series and previewing The Scarab Path.

8) What do you want from an Award Winning Book?

The Man Booker Prize longlist has been announced and a new prize – The Green Carnation – has been announced. One of the judges of the Green Carnation poses the question: what do you want from an award winning book?

9) Fiction for Coffee Lovers

I adore lists of books. They’re dangerous for me; I always end up adding to my wishlist and buying more as a result of them. Read In A Single Sitting has started providing themed lists – I’ve seen one for coffee lovers and one for those who have recently had birthdays. I love this method of highlighting books!

10) Best American Fantasy series discontinued

Since Larry was so heavily involved, I leave it to him to pass over the news that BAF is no more, alas!

On that slightly sad note, I will bid you adieu for another week!

After a brief hiatus, here I am back again with a look at what has been steaming up the Internet over the last couple of weeks. Just a quick heads up: I am an accountant and have a horrible month end process, so, for the foreseeable future, the first week of the month will be missing WWW (thank you Kat, my benevolent Overlady!) in order that I can concentrate on the day job.

1) Malazan Book of the Fallen is complete

Steven Erikson revealed this via Facebook, and Wertzone brought the news to the rest of us: Erikson has completed the Malazan Book of the Fallen! What better time to begin a re-read of the existing books – or even your first effort at reading what is becoming a latter day fantasy classic? Well, what do you know: Tor.com are hosting a handy re-read that is so far up to Chapter Seven of Gardens of the Moon – get on board!

2) Man Booker Prize long list announced

Last week the long list for the Man Booker Prize was announced. Not the sort of books you’d usually read? Why am I bringing you this news? Well, mostly because of the glaring lack of genre fiction included.

3) Do you Pod Cast?

I don’t tend to myself – if I have down-time then I can be found reading. But I know plenty of other people enjoy podcasts, so I bring you a handy list of some book-related podcasts courtesy of Read In a Single Sitting. In similar news, the excellent site SF Signal has started its own podcast.

4) The expectations of authors and readers…

Okay, so this requires a little explanation: The Book Smugglers wrote a review of Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce (a link to our own review by Kelly, who loved the book!). Usually we don’t link to other reviews (because there are plenty to be found here, and we are jealous of our loyal readers! *grin*), but this one is interesting. Ana and Thea comment on a culture within the book they find distasteful – and the comments section exploded. Including a post from the author about her intentions when she wrote the book (comment #29, although all of it is worth reading). This led Mr. Sam Sykes to pose the question: Does this book belong to author or reader?

5) Sacred Cows!

First of all, we have our own guest reviewer Paul Smith taking a look at the sacred cow that is Tolkien, and attempting to question why we as readers are unable to criticise this great influence on fantasy fiction without inviting heated criticism. In rebuttal, Adrian Faulkner speaks out in defence of Middle-Earth.

6) I Am Number Four!

I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore is looking to be another big event in genre fiction this year – after the buzz surrounding The Passage. To whet your appetite Dave Brendon brings you the first eight chapters of this exciting looking book!

7) Fantastic Foreign Cover Art

Not much to actually say on this post, but I enjoyed the pictures! I bring you an analysis of some foreign cover art.

8) Themed Reading

Time to catch you up on a few of the tremendous themed initiatives taking place around the blogosphere: The Book Smugglers are in the middle of a celebration of YA fiction; Presenting Lenore is hosting a Dystopian August; My Favourite Books are loving short stories for the month of August; and Jenny’s Books is bringing us a week of Diana Wynne Jones love!

9) David Gemmell

We love David Gemmell here. We even hosted a Why You Should Read… edition of David Gemmell. So imagine our delight when we found Fantasy Book Critic hosting an until-now-unreleased excerpt of his work? Go read!

10) SlushPile Hell

And just a funny to finish off with… Check out this site: it is Made of Win! The description: “One grumpy literary agent, a sea of query fails, and other publishing nonsense”. The name: SlushPile Hell. I fall over myself at some of the snarky replies to *terrible* book queries!

Okie doke! See you next Wednesday!

Eeep, things have been up and down at FanLit the last week or so thanks to various server shenanigans. Hopefully it is getting back to normal now – and, as such, I bring you the top ten items brought to my attention over the last week. Enjoy!

1) Robert Rhodes is a winner!

Our very own Robert Rhodes (who writes our 25 Heroes in 2010 stories) came 2nd in Pyr’s essay writing competition to celebrate their five year anniversary! We are thrilled for him and have a link here to his winning entry: Why Fantasy and Science Fiction Matter.

2) Tor.com are two years old

And, as such, they have produced a post highlighting the top moments at Tor.com over the last two years. At the moment Tor.com are hosting the Malazan Re-read (conducted by me and Bill) and so I have had more reason than most to hop over there on a daily basis, but I would urge y’all to bookmark it as well – the community is vibrant and there are daily posts on interesting matters.

3) Bella and Edward: Romantic or Dysfunctional?

Okay, I confess outright: this is one of mine. I’ve been perplexed about the vitriol directed towards Bella and Edward’s relationship when I’ve seen other examples of dysfunctional relationships in both literature and TV/film. Do you feel the same?

4) What Sword and Sorcery Means

The latest Mind Meld brought to us by SF Signal asks various prominent authors in the fantasy genre what sword and sorcery means to them – some very interesting comments!

5) Wizard’s Tower Press

We have a new science fiction and fantasy publisher! Wizard’s Tower Press opened for business on July 17th 2010. They aim principally to focus on bringing out of print genre novels to eReaders, and they also have a magazine forthcoming. I have no doubt we’ll hear plenty more from these guys.

6) 100 YA Books

The amount of YA books that have a genre bent is truly incredible, which is why I’m bringing you Persnickety Snark’s first two posts showing a countdown of the top 100 YA books. It will be interesting to follow this series as the countdown continues. You can find our FanLit YA reviews here.

7) For Jessica

This is not my usual fare for you, but I was linked this through Twitter and found myself stunned by the strength of the writing and the heartbreak of the tale. I give you: “For Jessica” – I hope it moves you as much as it did me.

8) Leaving the Kitchen

This is another interesting article that found its way to me through Twitter – seriously, I follow so many great people who drop these gems into my lap. Here we have William Kostakis trashing Alexandra Adornetto’s article which compares Edward Cullen to actual boyfriends (yeah, yeah, we are a little Twilight heavy this week…

9) Fictional animals being maltreated

Intriguing title for an article where Vincent of Un:Bound talks over the nature of conflict in literature – budding writers will enjoy this one.

10) Worldbuilding

Well, it looks as though Sam Sykes has taken over from Mark Charan Newton as “author with stuff to say on the Internet” – this week Sam brings us an entertaining article about worldbuilding in fantasy fiction.

And there you have it! Do let me know which of these articles intrigued you enough to click through this week!

Well, I don’t know about our worldwide readers, but over here in the UK we’ve lost our wonderful summer weather that just invites you to take a book down to the beach and spend the day immersed in your favourite fantasy world. Hopefully you are experiencing the weather you like best to read by, wherever you are!

And, by the way, I am trying something new today – no pics in WWW to see whether I can help speed up the site a little. Pics are nice, but the words are more important!

1) Nightshade

This first entry comes courtesy of Adventures in Reading – a description of the showdown between Nightshade and some of its authors. Aidan from A Dribble of Ink then updates us with a statement from Nightshade. Hopefully this is a good start to resolving the issue!

2) Malazan Goodness!

Bill and I – two of your friendly FanLit reviewers – are being hosted for the foreseeable future over at Tor.com for a Malazan Re-read. Yes, we’re officially mad! Bookmark the link to the Index, and join us in our discussions of the Prologue and Chapter 1 so far. Chapters 2 and 3 will be up later today! A Fantasy Reader gives us a few other tidbits of Malazan news.

3) Another Babel Clash Mash-up

In a regular feature authors are invited to Babel Clash – the current incumbents are Mark Chadbourn and Justina Robson, who have been having some very interesting conversations relating to why science fiction is the poor neighbour, what makes a book real and when the die hards meet the Twihards.

4) What SF/F Stories Should Become Lego Construction Sets?

John over at Grasping for the Wind often asks the most pertinent questions of the blogosphere – this question is one of the most serious and thought-provoking *snark*. It is, at the very least, amusing and makes me want to buy some of these non-existent Lego sets!

5) Deficiencies in online book discussions

This one feels very pertinent thanks to the start of the Malazan re-read I’ve embarked on, and the way we are asking readers to contribute their own thoughts – Larry talks about online book discussions, and the ways in which they are apt to fail.

6) Meme With Relish

Not sure where the name comes from, and why this is done with relish, but the latest meme doing the rounds of various book blogs is an interesting one and proves both revealing and personal.

7) How U Rite Grrl??

In his own inimitable style, Mr Sykes brings us a blog post on how to write female characters in fantasy fiction. Genuinely thoughtful, despite the title!

8) Female authors in speculative fiction

Linked to number seven vaguely is this post about female authors writing in the speculative fiction field – hands up who does read more male authors than female? Hopefully this post will give you some ideas about which female authors to tackle.

9) It is coming…. It is here!

A number of us have been getting excited about new release ‘The Passage’ by Justin Cronin – Keith B Walters brings us his take on a signing/reading session done by Justin. Exciting, non?

10) War! What is it good for?

Finally Juliet E McKenna (one of those aforementioned female authors writing in the speculative fiction field – and doing a damn good job of it) guest blogs on the nature of war.

And that’s your lot, folks!

Okay, after our little break while we waited for our systems to catch up with our scintillating articles, here is another vibrant issue of World Wide Wednesday: your weekly trip through the joys of the Internet!

1) SFF Masterworks

First up, there is a little project in the works right now. You can find the SFF Masterworks Read blog here: an audacious project to read all of the SF and Fantasy masterworks as issued by Gollancz. The various members of the reading project will be familiar to you from other review blog sites, and have decided to turn their weight of knowledge on all things speculative fiction to the classics. Definitely worth a read!

2)Halfway Through 2010

Incredibly, we’re already over halfway through 2010 (and I’ve been involved with FanLit for six months now!) and a few of our favourite blogs listed their stats and top reads of the year so far – some interesting results and, inevitably, I added to my wishlist again!

3) Whitewashing…AGAIN!

An evil concept. A truly horrible habit. One which the Book Smugglers are true crusaders against. This time Babbling About Books brings us the news that whitewashing is again being used.

4) A few Angry Robot articles

As you know, while Angry Robot Books have been on hiatus, they’ve used their blog to bring us some great little articles from well-known bloggers. Here is a quick catch-up: The adorable Harry Markov from Temple Library Reviews discusses “Cross Genre: The Rise to Power” while Adam Christopher talks about “The Big Magic Shelf“.

5) Omnivoracious!

The Amazon Omnivoracious blog is pretty decent to read most of the time, but this last week even better because one of the most public-facing authors – Mark Charan Newton – has been guest blogging (yes, yes, I know I mention Mark a lot but he writes a *lot* of interesting stuff! As soon as he gets less interesting, I’ll stop mentioning him!)

6) Beating a Dead Horse

Fantasy and Scifi Lovin’ News and Reviews beats the dead horse of how female “superheroes” are perceived, using television and film as examples. It is an interesting article and might make you reconsider some preconceived notions.

7) Wheel of Time

Adam Roberts – a rather clever and snarky author – turned his jaded gaze on the Wheel of Time, reading through the series and jotting down his thoughts on each of the books. This might offend long time fans of the series, but it is funny and, behind the sarcasm, Roberts does make some good points on Jordan’s magnus opus.

8) The Chylde of the Nyte Chronicles

After Gavin Smith’s attempt at paranormal romance – where he brought us the tale of vampire hobbits – Sam Sykes has jumped right on board this particular bandwagon, and writes about the Chylde of the Nyte!

9) Do you like podcasts?

I have to confess that I am not currently on board with the idea of podcasts, but I know a lot of people love them, so I’m bringing you a handy link to Steve’s Fantasy Book Reviews podcast, where there is a book club running: so far they’ve tackled many modern and classic reads, including The City and The City. Worth a listen!

10) The iPad

It’s been out for a little while now. I’m tempted. I know that some of my fellow FanLit reviewers have already taken the plunge with eReaders. Here we have a little article on one of the uses (or not) of the iPad. (I would be interested to hear whether our followers have joined the electronic movement where books are concerned!)

Some weeks it is a positive breeze bringing you the fun that can be found in and around the Intarwebs, but this week everything seemed a little slow: maybe the holiday season is starting? (Actually, I think it is probably a certain football tournament keeping things quiet in the blogging world – I know for sure that my reading has slowed down while the tournament has been on!) So here are the ten items I want to highlight for you this week, and here’s hoping everything gets back to normal next week.

1) Anywhere But Here, Anywhere But Now

This is the announcement by Terry Pratchett of a new award for aspiring debut novelists: he and Transworld are offering a £20, 000 advance to the winning entry! Check out the link to find out the criteria and what Sir Pratchett wishes to see from the final novel chosen.

2) Minotaurs are the New Vampires!

The Onion brings us the entertaining tale of a publishing executive desperate to find the new vampires – and bringing us minotaurs! To get ahead of the trend, Gavin Smith (a science fiction debut author this year with Gollancz) has decided to tackle the new subject head-on: take a look at his tale of vampire hobbits and minotaur true love (Twilight Eclipse of the Cows)!

3) 10 Fun Days of YA Fiction

The glamorous Carolyn from Book Chick City is spending the next 10 days focusing on some of the quality YA being released at the moment (speculative fiction and other genres).

4) David Gemmell Award

Last Friday the David Gemmell award winners were announced: the surprise winner of the Best Novel prize was Graham McNeill with Empire, Warhammer tie-in fiction. Joe Abercrombie (also nominated) presents us his report on the David Gemmell award.

5) Book Smugglers’ Half Year Report

Since we’ve reached the halfway point in the year, the Book Smugglers have umm’d and ahh’d over their best books so far in 2010 and bring us these lists. I don’t know about you, but my wishlist grew exponentially just looking at what they’ve picked!

6) Voices of the Dead

Sam Sykes doesn’t mind being compared to other authors – but he wants to be judged on his own merits! The comments are just as interesting in this case as the blog post itself, since a few well-known names pitch in.

7) Goodreads – Janny Wurts

Here at FanLit we rather like Janny Wurts, so we’re thrilled that there is a Goodreads project group set up to discuss her long-running fantasy opus! (We also rather like Goodreads – and most of us can be found loitering there in some form or another – check it out and sign up!)

8) Earth’s Children

One of the longest-running series EVER finally looks like nearing completion: Jean M Auel has handed in the manuscript for the final novel in the Earth’s Children series. All those complaining about GRRM‘s rather sluggish pace on releasing books have no grounds for complaint!

9) Alt.Fiction Podcasts

Last week I brought you the news that Alt.Fiction had taken place here in the UK: for everyone who couldn’t attend, there were some podcasts recorded on the day which can be found on the Alt.Fiction Podcast page.

10) Lou Anders

Yep, I checked back and realised it wasn’t that long ago I gave you a Lou Anders interview, but this is a different one and I found it very entertaining (told you it was a slow week!)

Okay, that’s me all done! Do let me know which of these features are of the most interest to you: have you been waiting years to read the last Earth’s Children book? Did you attend the David Gemmell Award ceremony, or have you read Empire by Graham McNeill? We’d love any feedback!

Well, the Internet has been ablaze with news and chatter this week! Lots of interesting tidbits to bring you, so let’s get started immediately if not sooner…

1) The Way of Kings

Just about every major book blog brought to you the extract of Brandon Sanderson‘s The Way of Kings from Tor.com. The Speculative Scotsman has a bit to say on the subject, and links through to virtually every pertinent piece of information. I am most definitely excited about this major fantasy release! Stefan and Bill will be reviewing that for us (actually, they’ve got a duel going on).

2) Where to start with Terry Pratchett

Adam Whitehead has run a few of these handy little guides to key SFF authors, and this time he turns his extensive knowledge to that icon of English speculative fiction, Sir Terry Pratchett.

3) Book Blogger Appreciation Week

Although this week-long celebration of blogging is going to be of more interest to the bloggers amongst our FanLit readers, I think it is something to highlight because I’m sure it will be a great resource for finding new blogs of interest, especially in the genres that FanLit doesn’t tackle!

4) Events! Alt:Fiction and Book Expo America/Book Blogger Convention

I realise that my previous bias has been towards reporting events run in the UK (and usually those I have been to). I am planning to continue that tradition by giving you a few reports of the Alt:fiction one-day convention that ran in the UK on 12th June. In a reverse of this usual trend, I am bringing you a belated couple of accounts from both Book Expo America and the Book Blogger Convention that happened a couple of weeks back in the States!

5) Good Female Genre Writers

There are a lot of readers who bemoan the fact that they don’t seem to read enough good female genre writers. Stomping on Yeti brings us this handy guide (via Sandra McDonald), which shows a video and lists in a neat fashion female genre writers that should be read.

6) World Cup of Fiction

So, unless you exist in a little bubble of happy ignorance you will know that the football World Cup is currently being played in South Africa. Jeff VanderMeer has introduced the idea of a literary World Cup to celebrate the fact, and, unsurprisingly given his wide reading in different languages, Larry from OF Blog of the Fallen has been all over that idea, producing the first of many daily World Cup posts.

7) A Mash Up of Authors

Again, this news raced all over the various book blogs, so I randomly chose Ken from Neth Space to bring you the news: which is that Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter are collaborating for two books! For me, this is an intriguing and unusual collaboration and I’m pretty excited to see what they are able to come up with.

8) The George R R Martin experiment

Now this is an unusual re-read of the Song of Ice and Fire books – Victoria from Speculative Book Review is intending to read only the POVs of those characters she likes. It is an unusual experiment, and is being done to check whether the story is still understandable when only dealing with a handful of characters. What do you think – good experiment or silly experiment? Since I’m talking about GRRM, he brought us a teaser from the upcoming HBO series of A Game of Thrones – excited much?

9) Fantasy Films vs. Fantasy Books

This is an article written by yours truly and hosted on the Voyager blog: asking why are fantasy films taken more seriously than fantasy books.

10) Mark Charan Newton speaks…

This was supposed to be just bringing you a couple of posts about hype, started by Mark and continued by Sam Sykes and then Gav of Next Read – but then Mark also wrote this lovely and thoughtful post looking back on his first year of being a published author.

I am feeling ill today – sympathy please – so this Top 10 will be brief to the point of brusqueness!

1) Do you like tattoos?

Lurv a la Mode is getting really tired of the tattoos all over book covers right now! Is this one of your pet peeves? Are there any other cover conventions that you find difficult to take?

2) In celebration of authors

A couple of Wednesdays ago I introduced you to the Author Fan Letter blog crawl that was occurring – it has now all wrapped up and there is a handy summary post to show links to all the blogs who participated.

3) Why Sex and the City 2 is a science fiction movie

You’re getting this link because it amused me thoroughly – I watch Sex and the City, and have been to see the second movie (that public confession makes me squirm), so I found this an entertaining little foray into how it can be imagined as a science fiction movie!

4) The Price of Spring

A Dribble of Ink brings us the news that Daniel Abraham‘s book The Price of Spring is not receiving a paperback release. This is the final book in The Long Price Quartet, which is widely deemed to be criminally under-read, and Aidan bemoans the fact that quality does not always equal success. Read our reviews of this epic.

5) Reader Expectations

So, when you pick up a book, how much are your expectations governed by factors you know about the author and the way in which their book was sold. For instance, if you knew an author had received a seven figure advance for a book, would it affect the way you then read the book? Babbling About Books wants to know.

6) Limitations of Genre Coverage

In another of his ever-interesting blog posts, Larry (OF Blog of the Fallen) addresses the limitations of genre coverage in certain recent lists that have been produced of speculative fiction that *must* be read.

7) Legends of the Red Sun Interviews

I am a real sucker for unusual interviews, and, with the release of Mark Charan Newton’s City of Ruin, Dave Brendon showcases his interviews with three of the characters from Nights of Villjamur.

8) The Silence of the Dying

This particular link made me very tearful: Sara Douglass is incredibly ill with cancer and speaks out about her experiences with the silence of dying. It is poignant and powerful, and gives a lot of food for thought.

9) Send Diana Wynne Jones best wishes

This is more sad news – it feels like we’re losing so many of our best-loved authors. Diana Wynne Jones is extremely ill and it is asked that we all send her our best wishes. One of my very favourite books is The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, and her YA fiction has led to many films such as Howl’s Moving Castle. She is incredibly talented and the world will lose a wonderful writer when she goes. Please go and say nice things.

10) Do you have to like the main character to enjoy a book?

This is an interesting topic: in many of the fantasy books we read these days, the main characters are not always the more likable, so Steve’s Fantasy Book Reviews poses the question: do you have to like the main character to enjoy the book?

Well, I’m off to spend some time on the sofa in front of Friends (always my viewing choice while ill!) Have fun this week, y’all!

Okay, gang, time to buckle up ready for another thrilling ride on the ‘coaster that is World Wide Wednesday! Since I am aching and tired from a three day weekend playing field hockey, this will not be the scintillating prose you usually receive from me: I’ll be back to my sparkling best next Wednesday, promise!

Oh, and: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FanLit! As of yesterday, we’re 3 years old — thanks for reading!!

1) Save Realms of Fantasy!

This first mention is for Realms of Fantasy, a glossy magazine currently threatened by lack of subscriptions. In my opinion, us genre fans should be falling over ourselves trying to keep speculative fiction magazines open. Many of our favorite authors got started by writing short fiction for magazines. Take a look at Realms of Fantasy and consider a subscription. You can get Realms of Fantasy delivered to your Kindle, too (you can sample it first, of course).

2) Don’t Put My Book in the African American Section…

NK Jemisin (author of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms) has noticed that in certain locations her book is being marketed as that of an African American author, rather than as a fantasy author, and she has words to say about it!

3) Morals and values and lessons, oh my!

I found an interesting little Q&A session with YA authors about how much they consider morals and values when writing their novels for impressionable teenagers (and younger). This is a good look at whether YA authors should bear this in mind while crafting their novels.

4) Angry Robot Books New Publishing Schedule

We reported not too long back about the acquisition of Angry Robot Books, which has affected their publishing schedule. Recently they have revealed their new publishing schedule, including US/Canada releases.

5) Top Ten Awful Romantic Cliches

I enjoyed this little rundown of the top ten awful romantic cliches from Babbling about Books so I’m bringing it to you!

6) Publishing Apocalypse

Our favourite Speculative Scot talks about the nature of publishing right now, and whether we really are facing the end of publishing as we know it.

7) Short Story Appreciation Month

All the way through May Gav at Next Read hosted a short story appreciation month, which garnered guest reviews from editors, authors and fellow bloggers as well as Gav’s own reviews. He has posted a handy little summary of all the reviews that were posted in May, and I urge you to have a look – I’ve already noted some new authors I am planning to pick up off the back of this!

8) Del Toro departs The Hobbit

Many of us have been following the progress of The Hobbit movie with great interest, and here is a new development: Guillermo Del Toro has quit as director and MAY be replaced by Peter Jackson. Wert has the story!

9) Full Moon!

Themed monthly postings do seem to be all the rage – and Dark Fiction Review has recently kick-started a Werewolf Month, comprising book and film reviews, articles and interviews. Jump on board from the beginning!

10) The Mad Hatter talks to The Editor

The Mad Hatter has Lou Anders of Pyr in the hotseat! (Our apologies to Mr. Anders about the hat. We just love Photoshop!)

Is that 10? *squints* It appears to be – but on this occasion, since we do like the madness of Sam Sykes on FanLit, I’ve decided to add a teeny tiny further entry: Sam Sykes meets John Scalzi!

Ah Wednesday, how I love thee! Wednesday means the middle of the week, and we’re halfway to the weekend at last. Wednesday means bringing you, our loyal FanLit readers, the very best of what is going on out there in the wide world of the Internet. Without further ado, let’s get started!

1) Three of the Best

This event has received a write up from a few notables – in the UK on Thursday 20th May, at Forbidden Planet, three fantastic authors of speculative fiction came together for a mass signing: these being Mark Charan Newton, Adam Nevill and China Mieville. A crowd of bloggers descended and most have provided their feedback of the event: Dark Fiction Review, Speculative Book Review, Floor to Ceiling Books, Speculative Horizons, and Next Read.

2) Negative Reviews

Sharon from Dark Fiction Review also pulled together a fascinating article on negative book reviews, talking to a UK-centric crowd of bloggers, authors and publicists. Larry from OF Blog of the Fallen had his own thoughts on the matter.

3) Completing a Trilogy

The lovely Tia has invited David Williams to Debuts & Reviews to discuss completing a trilogy. It would be great if you guys could head over there and show Mr Williams some love in the comments section.

4) The Republic of Thieves

The Gollancz team have allowed Speculative Horizons the honour of revealing the new cover art for The Republic of Thieves – I think it looks simply gorgeous; what do you all think? While we’re talking cover art, the French have done it again – Mihai Dark Wolf brings us the new cover for Prince of Dogs by Kate Elliott.

5) Rural Fantasy

We all know about urban fantasy – both the original kind as written by Charles de Lint and the more recent efforts by Kelley Armstrong and Kim Harrison – but are you on Rural Fantasy? Mark Charan Newton describes the genre and offers up some examples of the craft, including Mythago Wood – be sure to read the comments where a number of readers familiar with this subgenre give their opinions on what you should be reading.

6) Publisher Spotlight

Sometimes it seems as though ideas come to those on the Interwebs at the same time across space and regions – one such is a sort of publisher spotlight. Wondrous Reads shows us a profile of UK publisher Simon & Schuster Children’s, while Tia is conducting a slightly different sort of profile where she studies the publishers who send review copies, starting with Small Beer Press.

7) Myths & Misconceptions

Our newest guest reviewer, Paul, has once again penned an article for his own blog that I think is essential reading – especially if you’ve been looking at China Mieville‘s books and wondering a) where to start and b) whether his books are for you. He talks about the myths and misconceptions that particularly surround Mr Mieville’s Bas-Lag books.

8) The Future Is…

Angry Robot’s latest guest blogger is Adam Christopher, and he talks all about whether the future of books is the eReader. Are you ready to make the switch? Or will you always be a paper-based reader? What advantages can you see to buying an eReader?

9) What Fantasy Series is Under-Rated?

SF Signal bring us another entertaining Mind Meld – this time asking various authors which series, comprising three or more books, is under read and under rated. The results make interesting reading – and had me compiling a massive wishlist!

10) Optimism and pessimism

Alastair Reynolds is invited to blog over at Borders on the optimism and pessimism found in the world of science fiction.

Alright, people, we’re all done – thanks for joining me in another exciting episode of World Wide Wednesday!

As is usual, seven days in the world of the Internet is plenty of time for people to write interesting articles and share fabulous news – and I’m here once again to bring you my ten favourites!

1) Go, Tia!

Well, I simply can’t start with anything else but the wonderful news that FanLit guest reviewer Tia Nevitt is to be a published author! We’re all fabulously excited and offer our congratulations and best wishes to Tia.

2) Minors Who Review Adult Books

This, for me, is a very interesting issue: should minors read certain books, and are they qualified to comment on them? Babbling About Books brings us the full discussion, including some handy links to various other commentaries.

3) Is Science Fiction dying?

This is a thorny issue that often comes up on the Interwebs. The latest person to have a crack at it is Gav from Next Read. In three posts, he rants on the following: Where Is The New Blood In Science Fiction?; Why Don’t Science Fiction Fans Look To The Future? and SF Is In Danger Of Being Introspective and Inbred!

4) What Qualifies a Book Blogger?

You discerning lot read FanLit because we produce unbiased and fair reviews of all sorts of fantasy books – but, really, what qualifies a book blogger to produce reviews?

5) Bringing Magic Into The Present

Thanks to the purchase of Angry Robot Books by Osprey Publishing (as reported last time out), the release schedule of books has been pushed back and so Angry Robot are inviting some of their favourite bloggers to take the floor and write articles of interest – the first is by Adele of Un:bound, who talks to us about bringing magic into the present.

6) The Ever-Changing Personality of the Bad Guy

Voyager are also inviting bloggers to submit articles of interest for their blog, and one of the first pieces was regarding Bad Guys in Fantasy. Do you agree or disagree? Head over and provide some comments!

7) Beta Readers

We all know authors use beta readers to test early versions of a manuscript, and I am definitely not alone in thinking this would be a great service to provide to a favourite author, but Patrick Rothfuss explains why he can’t take up strangers as beta readers.

8) On Torrents

Piracy of books is becoming a greater problem – especially with the rise in popularity of e-Readers. Ros from Warpcore SF tells us exactly why we shouldn’t torrent books, including some useful links back to articles by authors on how torrenting is affecting their outputs.

9) Genre-Lized Anxiety

Ari Marmell intelligently discusses the issue of genre, and how generalised the idea of “fantasy” can be. Is genre impossible to define?

10) Good Show Sir!

This is a heads-up to those of you who may not yet be aware of the site Good Show Sir, which aims to bring you the tackiest in science fiction and fantasy book covers! The pictures are hilarious, to say the least, but do check out the comments for each of the submissions as well! We’re sure to be using some of these in our regular cover renaming contests.

All done, peeps! Thanks for reading once again – and in the comment section below, please link any relevant and interesting articles that we may have missed in the last seven days.

Phew, it’s good to be back! I do apologise for my unscheduled absence last week and hope that you weren’t too desolate without the usual World Wide Wednesday post to ease you towards the weekend. Despite having two weeks of Interweb-related fun to catch up on, I’m still going to maintain the top 10 posting – will just force me to only bring you the very best of the posts out there!

Just a quick announcement first! I read through the entertaining and witty suggestions as to my absence last week and my winner of the copy of Morpheus Road is Jenni – you wouldn’t *believe* the amount of things I’ve found under my couch cushions. Jenni, please contact Justin within 5 days to claim your prize.

1) Fan Fic Rumblings

By far the biggest issue of recent days is the Fan Fic discussion that has reared its head on the blogs of Diana Gabaldon (who appears to have subsequently removed her posts on the subject) and George R R Martin. The Book Smugglers gave a series of handy links in their latest Stash and News post – also providing some arguments on the pro side of Fan Fic. Certainly this is a heated issue, with passionate proponents on both sides.

2) Author Fan Letter Blog Crawl

A number of blogs have combined forces and come up with the idea of publicly posting the Fan Letter that they wish to issue to their favourite author. Kassa kicked everything off with a handy introductory post that also gives you the schedule of Fan Letters and the blogs they will be published on – this is running throughout May, so head on over and show some support.

3) Mother’s Day

Y’all over in the States celebrated Mother’s Day recently, right? (This confuses me – over here in Britain, we celebrate it in March!) The Huffington Post therefore decided to bring us the 12 most horrifying mothers from literature!

4) Frank Frazetta

And now some sad news. We regret to announce that Frank Frazetta sadly passed away May 10th. Our own Greg has this to say: “He was one of the most successful fantasy illustrators and I have him and Boris to thank for getting me to pick up my first fantasy novels. I kinda outgrew Boris somewhat – his work, while amazing, was just a little too smooth and sexy which took away the realism – but never Frazetta. To this day I can look at a Frazetta painting and feel a thrill, like I need to be ready for a fight. I don’t think anyone else can capture the raw and violent excitement of a battle, warrior, or monster.” We pass on our best wishes and sincerest sympathies to Frank Frazetta’s family and friends.

5) Angry Robot Books part company with Harper Collins

That’s right – after a year of trading under the banner of Harper Collins, Angry Robot Books have been brought by Osprey Publishing, who, at the moment, deal only with non-fiction. Obviously this decision has sparked a lot of discussion and Adam Christopher brings us his thoughtful analysis on the sale of Angry Robot.

6) Fantasy Art – Tuomas Korpi

Dark Wolf ‘s Fantasy Reviews has given us another excellent artist interview – this time with Tuomas Korpi. Often, these spectacular artists are ignored in favour of the authors producing the stories, so it is a credit to Mihai that he constantly flies the flag for fantasy art. Also, we all need to offer Mihai our congratulations – he is going to be a father later this year!

7) A New Reader!

Along similar lines, we at FanLit want to extend our congratulations to Graeme, who is now the proud father of Hope Aleta Flory! If ever a baby were born to read, she is the one!

8) The Future of Genre Fiction

Marc Marion has conducted an interview, featuring John Ottinger III, Mark Chitty and the Smuggler girls Ana and Thea – asking questions about the future of genre fiction. Part 1 is up now (as linked) and part 2 will follow soon.

9) China Mieville wins the Arthur C Clarke award – but is it science fiction?

Well, the Arthur C Clarke award winner was announced two Wednesdays ago, and the immediate aftermath involved discussions about whether The City and The City is actually science fiction. Jason from Kamvision then discussed the nature of genres, as an oblique follow-on to this.

10) I Pity New Writers

Lastly for this week, but by no means least, Mark Chadbourn takes a sympathetic look at the lot of new writers with the advent of the Internet and reviewing sites. Be sure to read through to the comments, which are just as interesting. Mark Charan Newton (it must be something about authors called Mark!) also posted about Writers and the Internet.

And that is the lot for this week! Seemed like a very quick update to write thanks to all the marvellous content that has been posted in the last two weeks. I guess now is a good time for FanLit to express our gratitude and admiration to all of those bloggers, authors, publicists, and numerous others who are putting out quality articles and interviews that generate discussion on that subject we all love – literature.

See you next time!

We know you’ve been sitting in front of your computer screen for hours, pressing “refresh” because you’re dying to read Amanda’s World Wide Wednesday post.

We’ll, we’re afraid we’ve got bad news. Seems that Amanda has gone missing. We can’t find her. Searches of her house only turn up empty beer cans, orange cat fur, a purple fedora, and … other unmentionables.

This strange plot reminds us of a book that Bill reviewed this morning. So we came up with the bright idea of offering you a signed copy of  D.J. MacHale’s Morpheus Road: The Light if you can help us. Tell us what you think happened to Amanda. We promise to check out all leads. The person whose clue helps us find her will win. We can only ship this book in the US, but tell us if you’re in the UK and you will be eligible to win a different UK prize. Assuming that we find her, Amanda will choose the winner next Wednesday.

About the book: D.J. MacHale, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Pendragon series, has a new adventure for readers in Morpheus Road. Marshall Seaver is being haunted. In The Light, the first installment of this chillingly compelling trilogy, sixteen-year-old Marshall discovers that something beyond our world is after him. The eerie clues pile up quickly, and when people start dying, it’s clear whatever this is — it’s huge. Marshall has no idea what’s happening to him, but he’s soon convinced that it has something to do with his best friend Cooper, who’s been missing for over a week. Together with Coop’s sister, Marsh searches for the truth about what happened to his friend, ultimately uncovering something bigger than he could ever have imagined.

About the author: D.J. MacHale is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Pendragon series. He has written, directed and produced many television series and movies for young people including the cult-favorite TV show ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK. His work has been seen on Nickelodeon, The Disney Channel, HBO, Showtime, PBS, Discovery Kids and the broadcast networks. D.J. lives with his family in Southern California. Here’s his website.

Okay, folks! What happened to Amanda???

Well, here is my very first World Wide Wednesday as a 30 year old, so let’s get straight to it in a very grown-up and efficient manner!

1) Arthur C. Clarke Analysis

The Arthur C Clarke award has been mentioned a couple of times on previous WWW – today is the day that the award winner is revealed in a glittering ceremony (to which your humble scribe has been invited!) There have been a couple of posts detailing which of the shortlist should be the winner of the Arthur C Clarke award.

2) On Capsule Reviews and Egotistical Bloggers

After Aidan’s last article on how librarians buy books he noticed a comment regarding capsule reviews, and invited John Ottinger to his blog to discuss the merits of different book reviewing.

3) Crooked Cogitations

Jason from Kamvision is a little fed up at some of the snobbery and self-righteous indignation inherent in the SFF community. He believes that we should be far less dismissive – especially when we consider how dismissive other crowds are of us.

4) The SFF Literary Pub Crawl

Ken over at Neth Space asks 5 questions of his interviewees in a fab little feature, one of which is to do with their favourite watering hole. Ken pulls a number of responses together in order to take us on the SFF Literary Pub Crawl, which is great fun to read!

5) Men & Reading

Larry at OF Blog of the Fallen links to an interesting article in a recent blog discussion post: originally posted in the Huffington Post, the article is titled ‘Why Men Don’t Read: How Publishing is Alienating Half the Population‘. He then discusses the 800 lb Gorilla in the room – discussing where the article goes wrong, but also where it has a kernel of truth.

6) Zero to Published in 12 Meandering Steps

Rich Matrunick has written a fab little article for the lovely chaps and chapesses over at Speculative Book Review, detailing in an amusing fashion the 12 meandering steps to being published.

7) Cover Matters: Survey Results

A little while back, I invited all of you to take part in The Book Smugglers survey on book covers and they now present to us the results of the ‘cover matters’ survey with some very interesting results and commentary.

8) Ye Olde Authors Layeth The Smackdown

Niall – the ever-speculative Scotsman has an entertaining glance at an article from The Examiner about author’s trash talking and laying the smackdown – I leave him to tackle the subject in his inimitable fashion!

9) Psychopathic Chocolate Bunnies

Un:bound have recently welcomed a new guest blogger in the form of Vincent Holland-Keen, who writes candidly about the principle of show, don’t tell in relation to some of his work. Apart from being an interesting read, I love the title of the article!

10) Mind Meld: Coolest Robots

I really enjoy the Mind Meld topics run by SF Signal, and responded to by greats of the genre – one of the more recent concerned the Coolest Robots in Science Fiction – another amusing and entertaining read!

I think that I’m starting to get the hang of these blogosphere updates by now, but I would still love any feedback that you want to provide. Am I highlighting the right stuff? Am I missing any genres you’re dying to hear more about? Am I missing other media such as TV or movies? Any feedback is gratefully received!

Have a good week, FanLit lovelies!

It’s Wednesday! Hump Day, as it’s known to some people! And this Wednesday is slightly different, being my last Wednesday in my 20s – surely no better way to celebrate that than with a quick look at the movers and shakers on the Internet this week?

1) Plagiarism

Our first topic this week is rather a serious one, and I need all you readers to take in the gravity of the situation. Persnickety Snark has been a victim of the silent crime of plagiarism, and blogs movingly about it. Liz at My Favourite Books has come out in support of the fight against plagiarism – you can find additional links at the foot of her post to take you to other blogs who have made comments. The community is fighting back against plagiarism.

2) The Nature of Awards

Recently I have brought you plentiful notice of the various awards that are going on, including the Arthur C Clarke and the Gemmell. Now James from Speculative Horizons has written an article that made it to the blog of a UK national newspaper, no less. He has generated lots of discussion with his comments on why the Gemmell award is bad for the fantasy genre. The Guardian blog takes James’ point in asking what fantasy means to the reader. In a less scathing manner, Floor to Ceiling Books examines what ‘best’ means when judging the Arthur C Clarke award – some very good comments on this article too.

3) How Libraries Choose Books To Purchase

On Writer Beware Blogs! there is a wonderful guest post by Abigail Goben (a public librarian) detailing how she chooses the books to purchase for the library – looks as though some people do still judge books very much by the cover!

4) Orbit Digital Short Fiction Program

In the original press release, it is stated that Orbit (US) has offered to publish digital editions of all original short fiction written by its authors. Amongst others, John Scalzi raised a lot of questions about the short fiction program, for some of which he received replies from Tom Holman of Orbit – well worth a read, both for interest value and to find out more of the nature of royalties etc. with regards to book selling.

5) The Relationship Between Agent and Writer

On Babbling About Books, there is a discussion about respect, professionalism and maturity – in the relationship between agents and writers. But is does occur to me that the same qualities should be shown in any formal relationship, including that of author and blogger.

6) 12 2010 Novels that stand out so far

Fantasy Book Critic have read a LOT of books so far this year and identify the 12 novels from 2010 that have stood out so far. Do you agree with their list? Are there any that you prefer to those they have listed? Get over there and add your own comments!

7) 2010 Locus Award finalists

Well, it is awards season! As well as all those other short-lists that have been announced recently, the Locus award finalists for 2010 have been released and SF Signal brought us the best coverage, including some handy links to the free fiction from the short-list.

8) Meg Cabot Twitter Party

Any Meg Cabot fans around here? The Book Smugglers on 22nd April when they are hosting a Meg Cabot Twitter Party with fabulous prizes to be won!

9) Artwork by Martin Bland

Walker of Worlds has become rather a fixture on these weekly round-ups thanks to his rather excellent sci-fi appreciation month during April – and here he presents some rather stunning artwork in the field of science fiction by Martin Bland.

10) Minority SFF

Our other fixture on WWW – Mr Newton – has written an article on minority SFF, himself prompted by an article on Tor.com – both extremely interesting and worth a few minutes of your time.

Hello everyone! Thanks for once more directing your mouse towards FanLit and giving us love – now I am going to direct your mouse towards those stories that have been floating around on the Internet in the last week or so!

1) A New Language
Adam Whitehead, amongst others, brings us the story that the HBO Game of Thrones production team have commissioned the Language Creation Society to develop the Dothraki language.

2) When do you put a book down?

The new Speculative Book Review team have started writing articles as well as the indepth book reviews and interviews we’ve seen so far – in the latest, they ask us: when do you decide that the book you are reading is not for you? The comments on this article are just as interesting to read – how about you hop over there and add your own take on it?

3) Tie-In Fiction

Mark Charan Newton is a familiar name by now to those who follow the World Wide Wednesday posts closely – I can’t help it, the man just generates discussion! His latest concerns tie-in fiction after the announcement that Graham McNeill’s Empire (a novel set in the Warhammer universe) had been shortlisted for the Gemmell Award – what do you think about tie-in fiction?

4) Stephen King readers

This one is just a shout out to set your blog readers to Stephen’s Lot – in an ambitious undertaking, one reader is aiming to chronicle his way through all of Stephen King‘s published work. I’ll let Adam explain in his own words!

5) 15 Years of Voyager

Voyager Books are celebrating 15 years of publishing some top quality speculative fiction – bringing us such genre giants as George R R Martin and Raymond E Feist and introducing us to some great new authors such as Blake Charlton. Check out the Voyager website for their 15 year trailer to join the celebrations (great giveaway over there as well!)

6) Science Fiction for Fantasy Buffs

As part of the sci fi appreciation month over at Walker of Worlds (as previously highlighted on an edition of WWW) he invited John Ottinger III in to discuss those science fiction books he feels would be great for fantasy buffs. This is a great way to dip your toe into the world of sci fi if you haven’t yet had a go.

7) Poetry in Fantasy and Science Fiction

Graeme Flory confesses that poetry in fantasy and science fiction makes him glaze over! Head over and join the discussion on his blog – do you hate it or is that your favourite part of The Lord of the Rings?

8) Are bookstores killing themselves?

Cara talks about the invisibility of speculative fiction in her local bricks and mortar bookstore, and wonders whether bookstores are killing themselves. Does she have a point? How do you go about purchasing most of your books? In a happy coincidence, The Mad Hatter is also discussing how he purchases books.

9) The Black Prism

In our first edition of World Wide Wednesday we brought you the artwork for The Black Prism, the new book by Brent Weeks. The guy with his finger on the pulse – Aidan Moher – provides some handy free reading of the first three chapters so you can judge if this is a book you’d like to read on its release!

10) Vampire Week!

And finally a quick heads up to the fact that the lovely Wondrous Reads is hosting a vampire week over at her blog from 19th to 24th April – anyone who has an interest in our fanged friends of fiction should make sure you have Wondrous Reads added to your blog reader.

Is it Wednesday again already? These come round awfully quickly! Welcome to World Wide Wednesday, and FanLit’s quick guide to the Top 10 most interesting events of the last week on the Internet.

1) Book Covers: A Reader Survey

With all the discussion about cover art, and cliched representation of book contents, The Book Smugglers have decided to ask the readers what they feel about the subject. There will be future results posts after the Smugglers have compiled all the replies, which I’ve no doubt will be brought to you on a future edition of WWW! Go and vote in the Reader Survey now!

2) Fandom and Piracy

Charles at Bibliophile Stalker has just completed the fifth part of an essay on fandom and piracy – click through to his website to find the first four parts of this thoughtful contemplation of who commits piracy and why they do it.

3) The Nature of Blogging

A few of the old guard in the blogging hierarchy have recently posted on the nature of blogging. Nextread asks us “Should a blogger spend your money for you?” and discusses how reviewing might affect who purchases what books – there are some very interesting comments continuing the discussion. James at Speculative Horizons rants a little on those people who start blogging just to get the free books. Both worthy posts that constantly question why bloggers are doing what they do. Larry at OF Blog of the Fallen has also commented recently on the growth of more social blogging.

4) The Arthur Clarke award shortlist

As I pointed out last Wednesday, the shortlist for the Arthur Clarke award was on the verge of being announced. We now know the six novels that are shortlisted, and Niall at Torque Control has handily rounded up the various links and commentary on the books put forward.

5) Award Season!

It is clear that the literary award season is upon us! As well as the Arthur Clarke shortlist being announced, the BSFA Best Novel award went to The City and The City by China Mieville, the Hugo nominations have been revealed, the Gemmell award shortlist has been published and the Australian Shadows winners are now known. There are some fabulous books being discussed thanks to these various awards – hopefully you’ll discover a new author!

6) Eastercon!

Over the Easter weekend, one of the largest conventions held in the UK took place – known fondly as Eastercon, it is four days of panels, trading and fun, descended upon by fans, authors and industry people. There are a number of reports to be found on the Internet, including this one and this one.

7) Do you like zombies?

At the moment zombies are big news, especially with the fact that Romero is releasing his first book through Headline later this year. With the general zombie love-in, Niall at the Speculative Scotsman talks about the speed of zombies!

8) Where to start with Guy Gavriel Kay?

In a second edition of what looks like an ongoing feature, Adam over at the Wertzone introduces us to the work of and advises us where to start with Guy Gavriel Kay. This is a classic fantasy author who has received glowing reviews from the FanLit crew, and we urge you to head over to the Wertzone and then decide which of his books to pick up first! (BTW, we’ll be posting two reviews of GGK’s new novel, Under Heaven, in the next few days. In short, we loved it).

9) April is Sci Fi Appreciation Month!

Over at the Walker of Worlds, Mark Chitty has decided to host a Sci Fi Appreciation Month during April – this will include guest reviews, features, interviews and competitions celebrating everything to do with science fiction. For both veterans and newcomers to the genre, this will be well worth a visit throughout April.

10) Scrying the Fantastic

Lastly, let me bring you a new resource for UK-centric readers. A group of bloggers (including me) have set up Scrying the Fantastic to alert you to new releases from your favorite UK publishers. (FanLit tracks US publication dates on our new release page, so it’s nice to have this additional resource because publication dates often vary in the UK).

And that’s the lot, dear readers! Please join me again next Wednesday for another World Wide Wednesday.

By [the_author_posts_link]
The last Wednesday of March, so let’s celebrate with our by-now customary trip through the byways of the Internet, seeking out all the stories and announcements you might have missed in the excitement of instantly clicking to FanLit (because that’s what you all do, right?!)

1) How Do You Organise Your Library?

We all love a gratuitous look at other people’s shelves, and find out how/whether they organise their books, and Grasping For The Wind asked the blogosphere the question ‘how do you organise your library?’ Many bloggers, including our very own Bill, offered up their own methods so feel free to drool/throw jealous comments towards them. In a similar vein, you can find some ‘Beautiful Bookshelves‘ here as well!

2) Introducing Speculative Book Review

A few of our fellow bloggers have joined forces to create a monumental new review site, called Speculative Book Review. Go and show them some love! (But not too much! FanLit should be your only true love!) As well as book reviews, they are providing some nice articles, including this one where Peter William attends a reading/signing by Patrick Rothfuss.

3) The Heroes

This news has sent the Internet aflutter over the last day or so: Joe Abercombie‘s forthcoming fantasy The Heroes has had blurb and cover art attached – many blogs have run with this news but I shall send you particularly to The Speculative Scotsman for his take on The Heroes.

4) Anyone for a new Twilight novella?!

Atom brought us news that Stephenie Meyer has penned a new novella in the world of Twilight, entitled The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. My Favourite Books have brought us the complete press release dealing with Stephenie Meyer’s new novella!

5) World Horror Con

On the weekend of March 25th-28th, Brighton in the UK hosted the World Horror Convention. The event was sold out for months beforehand, and well attended by a huge number of horror fans. Some of the highlights included Neil Gaiman popping in as a surprise guest to interview James Herbert, which no doubt delighted those there. Adele (Hagelrat) over at Un:bound gives us the rundown on her visit to WHC in two parts: WHC Part 1 and WHC Part 2.

6) A new direction for publishers?

In an acknowledged innovative new method for publishers to deal with online reviews, Headline books invited a vast crowd of UK bloggers to attend a party at their HQ along with six of their authors. There are a number of write ups of the Headline Blogger Party, including this one by Alex Bell (author of Lex Trent Versus the Gods), and this one by Carolyn over at Book Chick City.

7)Protagonist Analysis

I pulled out Paul C Smith’s blog last time around, and encouraged you to click because of the quality of his work, and then he goes and starts a series of articles on famous speculative fiction protagonists – starting with the greatest anti-hero of them all: Elric of Melnibone. Look out for more in this series!

8) Bram Stoker Awards

As part of the World Horror Con (which you’ve read all about now thanks to my links above? *grin*) the Bram Stoker Awards winners were announced. Mihai (happy birthday) over at Dark Wolf’s Fantasy Reviews had already asked the nominees how it felt being nominated for the award and now he brings us the list of winners. Congratulations to all the winners!

9) And they say SF is dying!

With a heading lifted directly from the original post, Fantasy Book Critic bring us the glad news that SF is not dying! This is a list of 41 SF novels currently on the ‘long list’ for the Arthur Clarke award (the shortlist of which will be announced on March 31st – so should be floating around on the blogosphere as you read this, and will no doubt be brought to you on a later edition of WWW).

10) 24-hour Read-a-thon!

Yes, you did read that right! Dewey’s 24-hour Read-a-thon is taking place on Saturday 10th April and running through until Sunday 11th. It literally is exactly what it says: 24 hours of unadulterated reading bliss, with various mini challenges and cheerleaders to add to the fun! If this one is coming up on you a little too fast to sign up, it also takes place in October 2010.

In the immortal words of Looney Tunes: “That’s all, folks!” See you next Wednesday!

By [the_author_posts_link]
Okay, people, welcome to Wednesday! The middle point of the week – all downhill to the weekend from here *grin*

Time for us to take our customary spin around the Interwebs, where I bring you interesting discussions and articles from some of the best bloggers out there.

1) Is Urban Fantasy REALLY all about sex?

We’re starting out with something a little risque! Philip Palmer (author of Debatable Space amongst others) poses the above question in an article on his blog. It has led to some interesting comments both on his blog and on others, including Gav from Next Read. Gav is certainly making a good point with regards to what constitutes urban fantasy!

2) The Men of Urban Fantasy Week

Since we’re in the genre of urban fantasy, I wanted to highlight the Men of Urban Fantasy Week that Book Chick City is hosting – it is a fine mix of reviews, interviews and guest posts regarding the men who write in the field of urban fantasy. Definitely worth checking out – you might find your new favourite author in that little lot!

3) Novel Survey Results

This is an interesting little article by Jim C. Hines: he has collected information from professionally published authors in order to bust some of the myths about making it as a novelist. The results so far are extremely interesting – take a look here and here for the two part article. Hopefully this will be helpful for all you budding novelists out there!

4) Female Characters in Fantasy Fiction

I’ve noticed this particular discussion coming up in a couple of locations recently, with articles about female characters in all forms of speculative media (films as well as books). The post that prompted much of the discussion was actually dealing with strong female characters in films and was a little controversial! Take a read of that one here, then a follow up article written by Jim C. Hines (yep, him again) here. One last article I want to highlight takes a look at the role of female characters in fantasy literature and can be found here. All three articles are not new this week, but I think they deserve attention.

5) The British Science Fiction Association Survey

Recently the British Science Fiction Association have completed a survey with authors where there are answers to questions such as ‘How do authors perceive their work and how is it received?’ So far Torque Control has published the responses of John Meaney, Kit Whitfield and Paul Cornell, which are fascinating to read!

6) The British Fantasy Society

Sticking with the bodies that are championing speculative fiction over here on the shores of Blighty, the British Fantasy Society has announced the longlist of books for the BFA Award 2010: there are some 94 books on the longlist, recommended by BFA members. Those members will be voting on the longlist up until the 31st May 2010, and then the shortlist will be compiled from their votes. What do you think of the books included? Have you read many of them? Which would you vote for?

7) Fondest Memories of Life as a Writer

Over at SF Signal, some of the giants of science fiction are sharing their fondest memories of life as a writer – I don’t know about you, but I love hearing tales of authors discussing meeting their own heroes, talking about those first uncomfortable book signings, and not knowing what to wear to awards dinners.

8) The Unreliable Narrator

Paul C Smith is relatively new to the world of blogging – I’ve only been subscribed to his site for a week or so – but with articles like this, where he gives us an essay on the unreliable narrators present in Gene Wolfe’s work, I feel we should all be subscribing! I found the article very well-written, and now (dammit!) I have pencilled in some Gene Wolfe to read!

9) Writer on the Verge

No, this isn’t a pointer towards a writer who is about to plunge over the edge thanks to bad reviews, or anything like that! I, in fact, want to highlight a delightful little interview conducted by all round nice guy Blake Charlton, author of Spellwright – he chats with writer on the verge Saladin Ahmed, who has some of his writing on his site. The interview can be found here and I, for one, am extremely intrigued by the work that Saladin Ahmed is producing.

10) A Richard Morgan update

Adam Whitehead, over at the Wertzone, certainly has his finger on the pulse – seriously, he is the guy that most often comes up with the goods before the rest of us even know something has happened! And he was the first to showcase the US cover for The Dark Commands, the long awaited follow-up to The Steel Remains, and the latest announcement concerning its release – check out all the information here.

And that’s a wrap! Please do let me know if you think I’m not covering your favourite blogs, or reaching out to find the information you’d most like to see. Comments always welcome!

By [the_author_posts_link]
Welcome to another exciting edition of World Wide Wednesday, with your host Amanda Rutter. We’re going to take a quick look at some of the stories and interesting articles making waves in my usual (can you say ‘usual’ when it is only the second occurrence of the event?) Top 10 fashion.

1) SFX Top 25 Sci-Fi and Fantasy Novels

As voted for by their readership, SFX recently posted their top 25 novels of all time – and the blogosphere seemed to collectively go ‘huh?’ In a great show of initiative Gav from Nextread and Adele from Un:Bound decided to come up with their own list, and invited comment about the books they’d chosen. How many of the books from the SFX list have you read? Do you think the list by Gav and Adele is more representative of the speculative fiction people are reading these days? Comments below – and also do go and visit their sites to leave your own thoughts on the lists they’ve come up with!

2) Head to head with the editor!

Mark Charan Newton interviews his editor Julie Crisp and the results are genuinely illuminating. They discuss such matters as what Julie looks for in a submission and how much trouble those author egos can be! Thanks to the interest generated by this interview, Julie is now working on a blog post describing the process she works through once a manuscript is submitted – look out for that one on a future edition of World Wide Wednesday.

3) Angry Robot Month

Over at Temple Library Reviews Harry has decided to correct the error of not reading enough Angry Robot books (that would be books published by Angry Robot as opposed to books about Angry Robots!) and is conducting an Angry Robot month. Click here to see the current reviews and interviews of the books and authors from the Angry Robot stable, and do keep checking back to catch up with Harry’s endeavor.

4) Where do you start with Peter F. Hamilton?

I know this is a fantasy site, but I also feel it’s worth highlighting a) other speculative fiction genres and b) handy little articles that help the new sci-fi reader. For your pleasure, Adam over at The Wertzone has done just that! He has taken a good look at the works of Peter F. Hamilton and advised where you should start depending on your personal taste.

5) Pyr Celebrates 5th Anniversary with Essay Contest

Want a free trip to DragonCon? Submit a short essay on this theme: Five reasons why science fiction and fantasy is important to you. Second and third place winners will receive Pyr books. The grand prize winner will receive a trip to DragonCon, in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend. Entries are due by June 1. See all details at Pyr’s website.

6) Steampunk Week

The Book Smugglers decided to answer all those questions you might have about what steampunk actually is – and then reviewed some excellent examples of the genre. The whole week’s worth of fun can be found by clicking here.

7) Cage Match!

Suvudu (Random House’s speculative fiction blog) is currently running a series of cage matches – pitting some of the well-known heroes from speculative fiction against each other. Have you ever wondered who would win in a battle between Jaime Lannister and Hermione Granger? Find the answer over at Suvudu!

8) Sad news from Scott Lynch

The author of The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies has broken his long silence concerning the reasons behind the delay of The Republic of Thieves. Sadly, Scott Lynch has been suffering with bouts of depression – read this story in the words of the man himself in a blog entry named Your Mood and How To Swing It. I’m sure the Fanlit peeps are not alone in sending Scott Lynch our sympathy and best wishes.

9) The Art of Todd Lockwood

In a fabulous coup, Mihai from Dark Wolf’s Fantasy Reviews has managed to snaggle Todd Lockwood for a great interview. They discuss how Todd Lockwood started out, what inspires his work and how much of the artist ends up in the final result. It is well worth reading for an insight into the work of one of the finest artists producing work for fantasy books today.

Art by Todd Lockwood; used by permission

10) And finally….. HUB Magazine

I invite you to hit the link and find out a little bit about Hub Magazine – a free weekly e-zine providing short form fiction in the genres of fantasy, sci-fi and horror. As with any anthology format, it can be a little hit and miss, but overall it gives you a quick fix each week and will open you up to new authors you might not even heard of yet! Go check it out!

And that’s me done for another week. As always, give me love in the form of comments and tell me if you’d like to see anything done differently – and I’ll see you next Wednesday for another exciting episode of World Wide Wednesday.
Happy reading!

By [the_author_posts_link]

Welcome y’all to a new (and, we hope, regular) feature at Fantasy Literature! I’ll be scanning the blogosphere on a weekly basis and providing you with some handy links to the very best of the articles, interviews, and miscellaneous goings-on provided by FanLit’s friends. I’m testing this out in a handy Top 10 format. If you’d like to see any changes to this feature, or you have suggestions for ways to make it better, or if you think I missed something important, please leave a comment!

Without further ado…

1) (A new cover for) The Black Prism by Brent Weeks

This one can be found over on A Dribble of Ink run by Aidan Moher. Aidan is the acknowledged king of cover art, and he has a great deal to say on the subject. In fact, recently there have been a number of discussions around the subject of cover art prompted by Aidan, including one conducted by Mark Charan Newton which can be found here.

Here is the new artwork – are you a fan? The Black Prism is being released by Orbit Books in August 2010.

2) Where Stories Are Made: Tim Waggoner

This is a regular feature found over on the site run by Carolyn, Book Chick City. The whole site is worth a read, since she deals very much in urban fantasy and horror (which are sometimes under-represented on this site – reasonable, really, considering we are FANTASY literature ). Carolyn is spending some time asking various authors how they go about producing the novels we love to read and the answers are very often illuminating. Her most recent victim has been Tim Waggoner. He is out of the  Angry Robot Books stable and has a new novel – Dead Streets – out now.

3) A seriously interesting article with a seriously long title!

Next on the agenda are three interlinked articles by Justin Allen, under the snappy title:

For the Love of Pete, Don’t Mix Your Genres;
Or. The New York Times Book Review Hates YOU, but I Don’t;
Or. Why Where Your Book Gets Shelved Determines Your Intelligence,
Work-Ethic and Value to Society

You can find the first part over at SF Signal, the second at Debuts and Reviews and the third at Grasping for the Wind. You should definitely take a read of these and then leave your comments at Grasping for the Wind!

4) Whitewashing – looking at White Cat by Holly Black

The Book Smugglers are definitely the champions against whitewashing (the reprehensible activity of using a white character on a front cover to represent a character who is not white) – well, I’ll let them speak about it for themselves in an article posted last month. Recently they were alerted to the possibility of whitewashing with Holly Black‘s latest book The White Cat, and did a sensitive and in-depth analysis to see whether they agreed. I urge you to read up on this subject – it is something The Book Smugglers are extremely passionate about.

5) Horror Round-up

Yes, yes, we’ve covered the fact that this is FANTASY literature – I don’t need to go into it all again – but Jason over at Kamvision has been exploring some horror titles that are either out now or forthcoming. I wanted to bring this one to your attention because some of the titles (such as Wolfsangel by M.D. Lachlan and Thirteen Years Later by Jasper Kent) will or have already found their way to the review pages of Fantasy Literature. The barriers between the various genres are being beaten down in all sorts of ways right now, and I think we definitely lose out if we don’t even consider dabbling our toes outside of straight-up fantasy! Ooh, I’ll slip off my soapbox there and give you the links to Kamvision’s handy guides: here is Part One and here is Part Two!

6) Story Remix!

Now this is an interesting little project! I’ll allow Mark Charan Newton (he of Nights of Villjamur fame) to explain what is going on. I love this idea – although I wasn’t brave enough to enter my own entry – and I have found the results posted so far to be incredibly entertaining. The first entry is here and the second is here. I would urge you to check back periodically to Mr. Newton’s website – his blog entries are often incredibly thoughtful.

7) Nextread’s Writing Magazine open for entries!

Gav over at Next Read has bravely decided to start a new online magazine for speculative fiction, so, for all those who were dismayed at the fact that MCN’s project above is closed to entries, get scribbling and write something for Gav! All the details for submission can be found here – the first issue is inviting work with the theme Science Fiction combined with Myth. What are you waiting for?! As an aside, Gav also celebrated World Book Day by inviting readers of his blog to give the one book they feel everyone should read – the results are illuminating.

8) Blogosphere Interviews by Sam Sykes

Sam Sykes is being published this year by Gollancz – a review of his debut novel (Tome of the Undergates) and an interview with the man himself will be forthcoming from FantasyLiterature in the next few weeks. In the meanwhile I want to bring to your attention a feature he has been running just lately on his blog – Tales of the Blogosphere – in which he interrogates the people behind some of the big blogs and brings to your attention newer blogs you might have missed up til now. So far he has tackled: The Book Smugglers, Speculative Horizons, Floor to Ceiling Books and A Dribble of Ink.

9) 25 Authors Worth Watching in 2010 and Beyond

Stomping on Yeti is a speculative fiction blog well worth clicking your mouse towards. He recently decided to turn the spotlight on 25 authors he feels are worth watching in 2010 and for the future. So far he has produced three in-depth posts, dealing with information concerning these new authors, what work they might already have published and what we can expect to see from them in 2010. I will just give one warning: my wishlist grew exponentially with each post he put up! Here are Part One, Part Two and Part Three – how about letting us know which of these authors you are most interested in?

10) HBO has picked up A Game of Thrones

Finally, I leave you with the happy news (and news which you have probably already seen – the Internet was abuzz with this last week) that HBO have commissioned a full series of A Game of Thrones. I don’t think anyone provided as good coverage on this as Adam Whitehead over at The Wertzone, so here is your link!

And that’s a wrap, people! I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick canter around the Internet – because this is such a fledgeling feature, I would be grateful for any feedback as to what you would like to see in the future and anything you think I should avoid.

Have a great week – good reading!
~Amanda

This is not usually the kind of stuff we post here, but I take full responsibility. I just can’t pass up a jab at Terry Goodkind.  ~ Kat
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