Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. It was Independence Day in the States and we blew up a respectable amount of stuff in celebration. I personally managed to unwittingly turn a Chinese lantern into a floating fireball of death. An unknown insect made a suicide dive into my wife’s cornea, but nobody was permanently damaged and we all had a good time. Despite the ongoing festivities, I managed to find a few links for you. In the coming weeks, if you find something interesting you think everyone should read, drop me a line via the contact form and let me know, or just post it below. Let’s get started:

1) 10 Classic SFF Books that were Originally Considered Failures: Fellowship of the Ring sure turned out to be a real stinker.

2) Free Kitty Norville: Tantor is releasing the first audio chapter of Carrie Vaughn‘s Kitty’s Big Trouble for free.fantasy book reviews science fiction book reviews

3) Really bad SFF covers: Some of these are truly awful, and some are not so bad. I personally enjoyed the Space Cat Weasel things. Let’s rename some of these soon.

fantasy book reviews science fiction book reviews4) Doh! Germans ship A Dance with Dragons Early: Oh boy. Watch out for spoilers. The web is apparently crawling with them after Amazon Germany started accidentally shipping Martin‘s highly anticipated release way too early.

5) 60 Rules for Short SF (and Fantasy): Terry Bisson writes 60 rules to follow when writing short fiction. This is all pretty solid advice. I did find it amusing that he used the word “quotidian” in the rule about ordinary language.

6) 2011 David Gemmell Award Winners: A solid lineup with several of my favorites.

Author

  • Justin Blazier

    JUSTIN BLAZIER (on FanLit's staff since September 2009) is a Cyber-Security Analyst/Network Engineer located in Northern Kentucky. Like many fantasy enthusiasts, Justin cut his teeth on authors like Tolkien, Anthony, and Lewis. Due to lack of space, his small public library would often give him their donated SFF books. When he is not reading books he is likely playing board games or Tabletop RPGs. Justin lives in a quiet neighborhood with his wife, their daughter, and Norman the dog.