General note: this is basically stuff I didn't know or thought someone here might be interested in.
The cover interview is with Robert Jordan:
- "physics is a great grounding for writing fantasy."
- "there's going to be one more main-sequence Wheel of Time novel, working title A Memory of Light. It may be a 2,000-page hardover that you'll need a luggage cart and a back brace to get out of the store. . . . Well, it probably won't be that long, but if I'm going to make it a coherent novel it's all got to be in one volume."
- Judging by the accompanying pictures and my recollection, he has lost a fair amount of weight since 1998.
Ad notes:
- Hey,
yhlee, the last Deathstalker book is now out in paperback.
News notes:
- "New writer Blake Charlton sold his Spellwright trilogy, about a dyslexic sorceror in a world where 'spells must be literally spelled correctly,' to Jim Frenkel at Tor." (I always like noting new writers' sales.)
- The Data File selects out genre-related entries from the 100 best first lines as a quiz.
- "Borders Group is being considered for buy-out by a number of groups." For all that I've grumped about Borders' recent change to inter-shelving hardcovers and paperbacks, I still far prefer Borders to B&N, and hope that if it is sold, any changes are for the better.
Review notes:
- The Rabbi's Cat, by Joann Sfar (142pp, Pantheon Books, 0-375-42281-1), is "an edgy, philosophical fantasy graphic novel set in 1930s Algeria, originally published in French. The action centers on an old Sephardic rabbi, his beautiful nubile daughter, and their cynical, amoral cat." Said cat eats a parrot, gains the gift of speech, and starts asking difficult questions.
- 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style, by Matt Madden (206pp, The Penguin Press, 1-59420-069-6) is just what it sounds like.
Forthcoming book notes:
- Tim Powers, Three Days to Never, August 2006.
- Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith, October 2006 (finally! I heard him read from this next Tiffany Aching book in 2004 at Noreascon and have been drooling after it ever since.).
- Alan Garner, reprints of Elidor and The Owl Service, March 2006.