Archive for Other people's business
A fabulous interview with Maurice Broaddus
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On the Amazon.com blog, Omnivoracious, writer, editor and all-round good egg Jeff Vandermeer interviews Maurice Broaddus, talking about faith, and the ways in which it informs his writing.
It’s a fascinating interview, and well worth 10 minutes of your time.
Amazon.com: Are there forms of fantastical or horror fiction that lend themselves more readily than others to religious issues?
Maurice Broaddus: I think horror naturally lends itself to religious issues. The first question I get asked is how I can be a Christian and write horror. The total depravity of man (if you want a Calvinistic loaded phrase), the nature of good and evil, the mystery of the afterlife, unseen spiritual forces (like angels or demons), or the meditation on mortality/our fear of death. So it was not hard to get thoughtful works of horror from the likes of Brian Keene or Kelli Dunlap.
Fantasy works just as well. It’s the world of Tolkien, Lewis, L’Engle, and MacDonald. Though, it seemingly is the form that more readily lends itself to allegory, which, when not done well, is little more than thinly veiled propaganda. That being said, we used a lot of contemporary and urban fantasy in the anthology, from Mary Robinette Kowal and Ekaterina Sedia to Jay Lake and Jennifer Pelland.
One might think that science fiction would seem to be the one least likely to lend itself to religious themes, with the (false) opposition between science and religion. Yet Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow was an amazing book. And Gary Braunbeck goes dark science fiction in his tale for the anthology.
Maurice’s King Maker is out now in the UK, and his Dark Faith anthology (co-edited with Jerry Gordon) is available from Apex Publications in May.
Regrets
Posted by: | CommentsStolen from With thanks to Mark Charan Newton and Dan Abnett on Twitter for pointing this out.
Head over to Moronail.net for some more great inspirational posters!
(Warning: some of them are NSFW)
SciFi Now Magazine
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This month’s issue of SciFi Now magazine (issue 38) has just hit the shops in the UK.
SciFi Now have an excellent monthly section called Library. As you would expect, it’s devoted to the written word. One regular mini-feature within Library is The Inside Scoop, where authors talk about their writing process. This month it’s the turn of Kaaron Warren. It’s a short piece, but makes for very interesting reading. You can pick up SciFi Now from most good newsagents for the unusual price of £4.40 (I’ve never seen a magazine at £4.40, have you?)
The current issue has lots of other cool stuff, and I’ll be taking my copy with me into the bath, later. And no, I’m not Twitpiccing it! Jeez – what are you like?!
Mass debates on cover art
Posted by: | Comments(Just don’t read that out loud if you’re in polite company).
There has been a lot of conversations online recently concerning cover art, and the depiction of black characters as part of the overall design. Angry Robot author Maurice Broaddus has written about it on his blog. Not surprising, as his Knights of Breton Court trilogy for Angry Robot features the main cast on the covers, and they’re *gasp* not white! [cue: end of the world music]
Read what he has to say here. Do read the links from his post, too, as they provide excellent background reading. His, is always an interesting blog.
The Bookman continues to attract critical acclaim:
This is a steampunk gem. The settings are marvellously detailed, giving you the feeling that there is a London in which Lizards reign and whales swim up the Thames to sing lullabies to the city dwellers… Bring on a sequel, Tidhar! I’m craving to know what happens after the ending!
Read the rest of the review over at SFF World.
Dan Abnett, meanwhile, continues to dominate Borders’ US blog, Babel Clash and has taken the opportunity to talk about Triumff and his other work for Angry Robot.
It’s energising to find an imprint like Angry Robot that happily wears its awareness of those risks on its sleeve, and is eager to see them being taken. It’s about attitude.
This is the bit where I snap my fingers and say someting street, like “you go, girl”. Honestly – if you were in the office right now, you’d see I can make it work.
Over at the superb Falcata Times, Mike Shevdn’s Sixty-One Nails is given the once-over:
If you’re looking for something in the UF Genre for someone special in your life or if you’re just wanting something that’s pretty unique and mind blowing then you just have to buy this book… The second novel in the series is out next year but take a tip from me. Get this now before the hype hits.
The sequel (The Road to Bedlam) hits the UK this summer.
And finally, UK Steampunk author Adam Christopher listed what he’d like from the Apple iPad, and rather encouragingly he had this to say aout Angry Robot:
If the tablet can deliver an exemplary reading experience, I want to subscribe to publishing houses. For an annual fee, I’ll take everything from Angry Robot Books, thanks very much, delivered to my tablet on release… There’s not a single title from Angry Robot that hasn’t been an excellent read, and I’ll happily take the rest of their output on spec.
It brings a tear to my eye, it truly does…
A few more snippets of loveliness for you, because we care
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Lord Abnett of Englandshire moves into his second week blogging at Babel Clash, and some very fine insights there are, too. A must-read for all would-be authors, whether you want to write original fiction, or tie-in. His most recent blogs are looking at the transition from creating tie-in fiction into being master of his own universe, with the writing of his first original novel, the fabulous Triumff: His Majesty’s Hero:
My own private universe
England, my England
In that second one he even talks about the yet-to-even-be-flipping-announced Triumff sequel, so check it out. And you can continue to penetrate Dan’s mind via the medium of letters combined into word-format over at Babel Clash for the rest of this week.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy blog reviews Aliette de Bodard’s Servant of the Underworld.
With Servant of the Underworld Aliette de Bodard has managed to create a living, breathing world from a long dead civilisation. It is clear that a massive amount of research about the Aztec people has gone into this novel, and it really does show. You could be forgiven for thinking that Aliette had lived among the living breathing Aztec’s rather than studying a people that died out centuries ago… Servant of the Underworld is an intelligent, involving and very rewarding novel which I have no hesitation in recommendation to one and all.
5 *****
Val’s Random Comments blog also talks about Servant of the Underworld:
An interesting and unusual setting, a well rounded main character (did you ever meet a priest of the dead being the good guy in a fantasy novel?) and a brisk pace. This novel has a lot going for it… Servants of the Underworld is one of the better débuts I have read recently. Definitely worth checking out. I am certainly going to keep an eye out for the second book.
Meanwhile, Maurice Broaddus (author of the superb King Maker) has been interviewed over at The Occult Detective and he’s a great interviewee.
Mr. Broaddus is more than the words he writes on a page… Maurice draws you in with a warm smile and a twinkle in his eye that belies the deep reflection that comes from a man who knows that there is more to life than the day to day drudgery. Maurice Broaddus is a man who knows all to well that what truly matters are the affairs of the heart and the weight of the soul.
Colin Harvey’s Winter Song gets the review treatment at The Future Fire.
That the characters, social interactions and cultures are so nicely constructed and observed is no detraction from this novel’s claim to be a hard science fiction adventure, and it is the stronger book for it.
A few things to help your Friday along
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Dazed Rambling have a good write-up of J Robert King’s wonderful Angel of Death.
King manages to handle the characterization of our two main characters expertly. The Angel of Death experiences a lot throughout the novel and changes accordingly and though the change is sometimes radical, it cannot be said that they are unexpected or unwarranted. The same goes with Leland, who is pretty much put through the wringer in the novel and shows it more and more as the novel progresses.
Read the full review here.
Over at Babel Clash, Dan Abnett continues his fascinating insight into all things writery: Hi, I’m Dan and I’ll be your God-Emperor of mankind.
Finally (for now) here’s an interview I did with The Literary Project some time ago, which has gone live today.
Your Thursday linkages of joy
Posted by: | CommentsDan Abnett continues his quest for world domination over at Babel Clash (the Borders US genre blog). Yesterday he talked about writing in someone else’s universe, with his post Put Everything Back Where You Found It. Some really interesting stuff, there.
Over at State of Review Kell’s Legend comes under the spotlight, and again impresses.
I have to say that I really enjoyed this novel… At the heart of this novel is a very good hack and slash but, instead of just getting blood and guts you get a fairly decent story with a really great main character and a interesting supporting cast… I have already preordered the next book in the series as I really enjoyed reading this book. If you love Gemmell you will love Remic.
Another Angry Robot author threatening to take over the blogosphere is Lavie Tidhar, author of our current steampunk release, The Bookman. At The Mad Hatter’s Bookshelf and Book Review Lavie tells of the story of the weirdest book he’s ever read…
Book some time with Lavie
Posted by: | CommentsAs well as being a great storyteller, Lavie Tidhar (author of The Bookman – out now, fact-fans!) is one of the hardest-working bloggers around! In addition to writing guest posts for a whole bunch of other interesting folk, and for his own website, Lavie runs the World SF Blog.
Fan-favourite site io9 recently picked up on a post at the World SF blog, which asks: Why is English the language of SF?
Meanwhile, over at SF Signal, Lavie asks: What do we talk about when we talk about steampunk?
And at the Shine Anthology site (yes, we know it’s for a different publisher, but we’re all mates, really) Lavie talks about Optimism in Israeli SF.
Go. Read. Enjoy.
Into the Interzone
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You know, the Angry Robot authors are a clever and talented bunch. Not content with writing some of the finest genre novels around, they’re constantly filling in those odd moments between counting their gold by writing short stories.
Some of those short stories find a home in Interzone - the UK’s longest-running genre fiction magazine. In the current issue (number 225) there are stories by Winter Song author Colin Harvey (The Killing Streets) and The Bookman scribe, Lavie Tidhar (Funny Pages).
Excellent stories, from two excellent writers in an excellent magazine.
And with the collapse of Borders in the UK (Interzone’s primary retail outlet) wouldn’t now be a good time to subscribe?
The anatomy of a cover
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One of our most popular covers to date (and we’ve had a lot of popular covers in our short time on this earth) was Vincent Chong’s wonderfully-realised cover for Nekropolis (Tim Waggoner).
Vinnie’s just published a guest blog over at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist in which he discusses the process of creating cover art from commission to conclusion, using Nekropolis as his example.
The first step after being commissioned is to come up with a concept for the cover. Sometimes the client already has a specific idea of the image they’re after or the scene they want illustrating, and will send details of this to me in a brief.
First of all I researched and gathered together any reference material that might be useful or could be used as inspiration and then I did a few different quick sketches to try out various poses.
It’s a great read, and a fascinating insight into the work of a cover artist. Head on over to Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist to read it all, and to see the rest of the cover roughs.
