Gemmell and Free Stuff mb

Fantasy Book Critic have dug up an old David Gemmell short story "Dawn of a Legend". It's an excerpt from his first attempt at writing Druss's back story back in 1983. So if you're an old Gemmell fan wanting to rekindle fond memories or a Gemmell virgin wanting your first taste of his work, go give it a quick read.

Oh and just because I like to complain and to fill this post out a bit, Speculative Book Review blogged that Kay Kenyon's Bright of the Sky was available for free on Kindle. What they should have said was that it's available for free for USA residents. Poor little aussies like me can't even buy the book let alone read it for free.

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K J Parker is Tom Holt...

After exhaustive research, that being the quick poll with 4 votes, reading one post on a forum and a interview, I'm outing Mr Holt. That or dribbling shite.

Here's my evidence:

1. Someone mentioned on the sffworld.com forums years ago that K J Parker may be Tom Holt.
2. Parker's bio say he/she/it are married to a solicitor. Tom Holt was a lawyer.
3. The quick poll. 50% for K J Parker being Tom Holt sways me even if I was one of those two votes;)
4. Tom Holt interviewed Parker for Subpress...
5. This Holt interview. The following quotes are pretty telling.

Which Internet sites do you list as your Favourites? Apart from the dazzling plethora of Tom Holt fan sites, you mean? A couple of engineering discussion forums

Hello The Engineer Trilogy.

Old technology - a water-wheel or a longbow or a scythe or a blacksmith's anvil - has beauty and grace, and more often than not is a masterpiece of ergonomic design, refined by centuries of evolution. Modern stuff is just grey boxes.

 Longbow, blacksmith's anvil sound familiar?

Now I could be way off base and just dribbling shite like I said but my main point here is to say that I find it very annoying that who ever K J Parker is, she/he/it has chosen to be so mysterious about there sex and who they really are. WTF is up with that? Do readers really care what sex the author is or what other books said author has written?

Clearly I do but only as far as I like to know who the freaking author actually is!

End rant

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Sanderson Chat Q&A and Tweets of Interest

From today, tonight or yesterday....

The chat log can be viewed here at Dragonmount.com. A few interesting tidbits. Below are a few of the tweets before he started the chat.

For those asking, I've decided that I will write the last WoT book before the sequel to Way of Kings. AMOL has already been delayed too long

Good news unless you want book two more than AMOL.

The initial release dates for the three wot books were November 2009, 2010, 2011. I hit the first two. Last one will be tougher.

I won't say it won't be November 2011, but I also won't promise that it will be. If not November 2011, it will be Feb/March 2012.

Looks like atleast a two year wait and perhaps closer to three for the second Stormlight Archive book.

I will keep you up to date as I write. Watch next spring/summer to know for certain. I have research I need to do before I can write it.

If you are curious, the reason this one might take so long has more to do with timing than anything else. Though I do have research to do.)

These days, it looks like I'm writing faster than I am because I had a 3-year buffer. I used to write books 2-3 years before they came out.

Finished Warbreaker summer 2006; came out 2009. Finished TGS December 2009, and it came out November. TofM will have a 4 finish-to-release.

If I start AMOL January 2011 (as I plan) and take the same time to write it as the others, we'll have real trouble getting it out that fall.

For those of you wondering when Harriett became RJ's editor, this interview will enlighten you. You may also want to keep an eye on 17th Shard the official Brandon Sanderson fansite which should be going live soonish.

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Need a K J Parker Fix?

Subterranean Press has it for you.

We'e just kicked off the Summer issue of Subterranean Online with "Amor, Vincit, Omnia", a novelette by K. J. Parker centering on a particularly elusive bit of magic

It's a pretty good length and from what I read of it worth the read.

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Tor.com Erikson/Sanderson

For those of you who have already read the first three chapters of The Way of the Kings on Tor.com you can now listen to the next three.

Audioslice picks up where print left off, featuring an exclusive excerpt of Chapters 4, 5, & 6 from the audiobook release of The Way of Kings. This first volume of Brandon Sanderson’s new series marks the return of the beloved narrator team of Kate Reading & Michael Kramer.

For Erikson fans, Tor is also doing a reread of the Malazan Book of the Fallen like they did for WoT and if that's not enough you can pick up some pretty nice desktop art for your puter.

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Way of the Kings Video

Stormblessed.com have video up of  Brandon Sanderson reading excerpts from The way of the Kings from JordanCon.

Mr. Sanderson reads part of Chapter 3 and Interlude 5 of The Way of Kings, and talks a little about literacy and gender roles, plus the “spren,” spirit-creatures that play an important part in the book.

What's Stormblessed? Well apparently some enterprising people have decided that The Way of the Kings needs a community fan site already even though the first book hasn't even been published. I guess you need to get in early if you want the next wotmania/dragonmount. The site needs a bit of work if they want it to reach that level.

For those of you who want more:

• Read the first three chapters of Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings
• Teaser excerpt from Brandon Sanderson's THE WAY OF KINGS
• Interview with Brandon Sanderson

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Robin or Megan?

Image via Wikipedia

Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden aka Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm is a bit wierd. I was just adding Hobb's blog to the author blogs list when I noticed there was a link to her other pen name Megan Lindholm. Nothing strange about that but what I did find strange was that she also blogs at that site and what she posts there is different to what she posts at the Hobb blog like there not the same person.

Obviously she posts on both blogs as a promotional thing but what I can't figure out is why she just doesn't post the same stuff on each blog if it's not related to either pen name instead of posting different snippits of her life on each one.

I'm actually suprised she doesn't have a blog for Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden.

News? Not really, but I thought it was interesting, as was this...

Urban Dictionary: wierd
Used by people that cannot correctly spell the word "weird."

Stupid i before e except after c!

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