The first trailer for George R.R. Martin’s HBO Game of Thrones series hit this week, so if you’re itching to check it out, click play below. After you’ve got your fix, I encourage you to check out a few of the reviewed we’ve compiled this week, and a great interview with N.K. Jemisin we located as well. Winter is Coming!
Brandon Sanderson is making the rounds, with The Way of Kings slated for release in August. He’s interviewed at The Dragon Page, Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist and Tor.com over the past few weeks, and The Way of Kings sounds like its going to be a great one. Also reviewed this week is Swords & Dark Magic, an anthology in the classic sword & sorcery genre featuring tales by newer authors like Steven Erickson, Scott Lynch, Joe Abercrombie, and many others you’ll recognize. We’ve found reviews of books by Jim Butcher, Tad Williams, Scott Lynch, Stephen King, and Guy Gavriel Kay among other reviews that hit the fantasy blogosphere recently. Wrapping up this week don’t miss the cover art that was recently released for Scott Lynch’s forthcoming The Republic of Thieves; its a beautiful cover for what is likely to be an equally beautiful novel.
Dead in the Family holds the number one slot, and Charlaine Harris continues to dominate the Amazon Fantasy Top 5 Bestseller list this year, with two novels this week making the list. Breaking Dawn also holding strong, while Containment and Changes bounce back into the list, having both appeared in previous weeks.
Just giving everyone a heads up that I’ve been working on some technical upgrades here at Fantasy Book News this weekend, and will be away next weekend, so look for the Amazon Top 5 and Fantasy Blogosphere posts to return the weekend of June 12. Enjoy the Holiday weekend to everyone, and get in some good reading!
We’ve found so many reviews this week you won’t know where to begin. From Warriors to Furies to Empires you can check out reviews of some of fantasy’s hottest authors and recent works here.
Last on our list this week is an interview at The Dragon Page with Charlaine Harris, and I have to say I was disappointed. Not in the interview, the interview is in fact great, but I was really hoping to find a mastermind behind the wild success of Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels. Rather than sounding like the Sookie novels were planned, well organized and well thought out prior to being written, Harris comes off as aloof, making it sound like all the novels in the series were just written on a whim, and that the success really has nothing to do with any semblance of a structured plan. To me, this lends even more credibility to the notion that the whole vampire romance/urban fantasy genre is a fluke, a fad that will pass as quickly as pogo balls and hot pink Hammer pants. The guys at The Dragon Page seem to hint that they feel the same way, but they dance around it a bit, as is only natural when you’re interviewing one of the genre’s heavyweights. They even go so far as to mention an impending collapse, stating that Harris, Jim Butcher and Laurell K. Hamilton would be the only authors in the genre able to survive such an implosion. I’ve been covering the Amazon top 5 fantasy bestsellers for over a year now, and I won’t say I’d welcome such an implosion, but it would freshen up the list a bit. Just sayin’.
Dead in the Family holds strong in the number one slot, with Breaking Dawn and Lover Mine also maintaining positions in the top 5. Two new entries to the Amazon top 5 fantasy bestseller list this week: Bullet by Laurell K. Hamilton and Containment by Christian Cantrell. Vampires continue to dominate in 2010.
Reviews take a back seat this week as we mark the passing of a legend. Legendary fantasy and comic book artist Frank Frazetta has died at age 82, and the world has lost one of its most famed fantasy artists in one single moment. Below you’ll find the obituary from Boston.com, along with a few galleries of some of Frank’s art, which I’ve enjoyed over the years. He’s the only artist for which I’ve ever downloaded fantasy art and used it as my desktop background image. He’ll truly be missed.
On a lighter note, Jones soda has created a variety of D&D Spellcasting sodas, which I strongly advise you check out. Also, Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay is getting some good press this week, and Joe Abercrombie has some surprising news regarding the launch date of his forthcoming The Heroes. Giddy up.
Changes by Jim Butcher drops off the fantasy top 5 for the first time in 7 seven weeks, to make way for newcomer Light of Eidon, by Karen Hancock, which debuts in second place. Charlaine Harris continues to have a extremely strong showing, with two books placing in the top 5 yet again this week.
by Charlaine Harris
by Stephanie Meyer
by Christian Cantrell
by Charlaine Harris
by Jim Butcher
by Laurell K. Hamilton
by J.R. Ward
by Karen Hancock
by Charlaine Harris