Joshua Palmatier's Blog, page 46
October 23, 2012
New Book Discussion
We're discussing Mercedes Lackey's Redoubt, the fourth book in The Collegium Chronicles, over at the DAW Books blog (
dawbooks
)! Stop on by and check out the book, or leave a comment if you've read it already.
dawbooks
)! Stop on by and check out the book, or leave a comment if you've read it already.
October 15, 2012
New Book Discussion!
The last book discussion for DAW's September releases is now up at the DAW Books blog (
dawbooks
)! We're talking about Blood Spirits, the sequel to Sherwood Smith's Coronets and Steel. Swing on by to check it out, unless you've already read it, in which case, swing on by and let everyone know what you thought!
dawbooks
)! We're talking about Blood Spirits, the sequel to Sherwood Smith's Coronets and Steel. Swing on by to check it out, unless you've already read it, in which case, swing on by and let everyone know what you thought!October 10, 2012
New Book Discussion
I've just posted the new book discussion at the DAW Books blog (
dawbooks
). We're discussing the paperback release of C.S. Friedman's A Legacy of Kings, the third and final novel in her Magisters Triology. Swing on by and check it out!
dawbooks
). We're discussing the paperback release of C.S. Friedman's A Legacy of Kings, the third and final novel in her Magisters Triology. Swing on by and check it out!New York Comic Con!!!
I can go! In fact, I can participate by being on a panel!
So, in a strange turn of events over the last week or so, it appears that I will indeed be going to NYCC. I wasn't expecting it. The publicist at Penguin said she'd try to get me on a panel, maybe do a signing, but couldn't promise anything, and the initial word was that the best that could be arranged was a signing at the Penguin booth on Sunday. I was happy with this. But then, in the last week, I got an email that something got canceled and they were proposing a replacement panel and would I be interested in being on that panel? I said yes. And lo! The replacement panel topic was approved and so now I have a panel and a follow-up signing to that panel to attend. So, here's my schedule for NYCC--otherwise known of as "from nothing to lots":
Saturday: 2:45-3:45pm: Panel on Blending Genres, mixing genres in books, such as fantasy with westerns, or mystery with sci-fi and romance, etc. My Benjamin Tate series mixes "settling the Old West" and "discovering a new continent" historical with fantasy.
Saturday: 4:45-5:45pm: Follow-up signing for the panel, where the panelists can be found and plugged for signatures. Typically, the panelists' books are also for sale at the signing, although since this was so last minute I'm not sure what they'll have available.
Sunday; 3-4pm: Signing at the Penguin Booth (#921 I believe). I'll be there to sign copies of my books. I believe they're also giving away some copies of the trade paperback of Well of Sorrows, but I'm not positive and I don't know how many copies they'll have if they are.
So, that's the schedule. Stop by for the panel on Saturday, get me to sign copies of my books for you afterwards, and then stop by the Penguin booth on Sunday to chat and perhaps get a free book to keep for yourself or to pass on to a friend! See you there!
So, in a strange turn of events over the last week or so, it appears that I will indeed be going to NYCC. I wasn't expecting it. The publicist at Penguin said she'd try to get me on a panel, maybe do a signing, but couldn't promise anything, and the initial word was that the best that could be arranged was a signing at the Penguin booth on Sunday. I was happy with this. But then, in the last week, I got an email that something got canceled and they were proposing a replacement panel and would I be interested in being on that panel? I said yes. And lo! The replacement panel topic was approved and so now I have a panel and a follow-up signing to that panel to attend. So, here's my schedule for NYCC--otherwise known of as "from nothing to lots":
Saturday: 2:45-3:45pm: Panel on Blending Genres, mixing genres in books, such as fantasy with westerns, or mystery with sci-fi and romance, etc. My Benjamin Tate series mixes "settling the Old West" and "discovering a new continent" historical with fantasy.
Saturday: 4:45-5:45pm: Follow-up signing for the panel, where the panelists can be found and plugged for signatures. Typically, the panelists' books are also for sale at the signing, although since this was so last minute I'm not sure what they'll have available.
Sunday; 3-4pm: Signing at the Penguin Booth (#921 I believe). I'll be there to sign copies of my books. I believe they're also giving away some copies of the trade paperback of Well of Sorrows, but I'm not positive and I don't know how many copies they'll have if they are.
So, that's the schedule. Stop by for the panel on Saturday, get me to sign copies of my books for you afterwards, and then stop by the Penguin booth on Sunday to chat and perhaps get a free book to keep for yourself or to pass on to a friend! See you there!
October 5, 2012
An Author Interview!
So, author Jean Marie Ward interview me at Balticon and it has now appeared up at the site BUZZmag.com. Click through here to see what I had to say. Mostly I talk about the Well of Sorrows series, using the pseudonym, etc. I'm sure it's horrendously embarrassing.
October 3, 2012
DAW's October New Releases!
It's a new month, which means new books from DAW! This month we have new Mercedes Lackey and Celia Jerome, plus some paperback releases from Mercedes Lackey and R.M. Meluch as well. Swing on over to the DAW Books blog (
dawbooks
) and check out all of the books, the cover art, and a little description of each!
dawbooks
) and check out all of the books, the cover art, and a little description of each!September 26, 2012
New "October Daye" novel!
The newest book discussion is up at the DAW Books blog (
dawbooks
)! We're discussing Seanan McGuire's newest October Daye novel, Ashes of Honor, the sixth book in the series. Stop on by and check it out!
dawbooks
)! We're discussing Seanan McGuire's newest October Daye novel, Ashes of Honor, the sixth book in the series. Stop on by and check it out!September 22, 2012
Book Review: "Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues" by Diana Rowland
I was looking forward to reading Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues, the second book in Diana Rowland's White Trash Zombie series, since I finished the first book. I really liked the first book--the writing, the character, the storyline, and the treatment of zombies. So I got to this one as soon as I could once it was out.
The premise is that Angel--a white trash chick with small problems with the law and perhaps major problems with drink, drugs, and her family life before she became a zombie--is now working at the coroner's office collecting dead bodies and is attempting to get her unlife back together. She needs the job for its access to brains, of course, but she also needs it to help pull herself out of her troubles and help with her probation. She's on the right track, but when someone holds her up at gunpoint and steals one of her bodies--one that she's suspicious of even before the holdup--she gets blamed for "losing" the body and those in power use her as the scapegoat for the screw-up at the office. Her past is coming back to haunt her, and to make it worse, it appears that something rather sinister is going on at the corporation where she picked up the body that was stolen. When she begins to check it out, things go from bad to worse fast.
I want to say up front that I really loved this book, still love the character and the treatment of zombies. As a reader, I'm rooting for Angel and want her to succeed. The zombie worldbuilding is stellar, both thoughtful and appropriately gross without being gratuitous in any way. This type of zombie makes sense, and the rules are clear. This being a second book, I expected some typical second book syndrome to kick in, but I think Diana Rowland handled the second book appropriately. She doesn't linger on the zombie aspects from the first book too much; they're there, but that stuff has been moved to the back burner. Instead, we get NEW aspects of zombies that weren't covered in the first book because they wouldn't have come up then. But with the conspiracy plot in this book, the fact that we're learning this new stuff about zombies now makes perfect sense. Once that conspiracy plot really kicks in, the book drew me in and kept me reading.
And that's my only small quibble about this book: it took a good chunk of pages before I felt that the story really got started. Mostly, I was impatient for things to start moving and was happy when they did. So if you start this book and it seems perhaps a little slow at first, I suggest you just keep on reading, because it gets good after a short while, and when it's good, it's good. You won't be disappointed. This is the only aspect of the book that spoke of second book syndrome to me.
So, a great urban fantasy series continues. I highly recommend this series for those looking for something different in that jam-packed field. I think you'll love the character and the detail of the zombie worldbuilding. Meanwhile, I'm left to wait impatiently for the third book in the series to come out.
The premise is that Angel--a white trash chick with small problems with the law and perhaps major problems with drink, drugs, and her family life before she became a zombie--is now working at the coroner's office collecting dead bodies and is attempting to get her unlife back together. She needs the job for its access to brains, of course, but she also needs it to help pull herself out of her troubles and help with her probation. She's on the right track, but when someone holds her up at gunpoint and steals one of her bodies--one that she's suspicious of even before the holdup--she gets blamed for "losing" the body and those in power use her as the scapegoat for the screw-up at the office. Her past is coming back to haunt her, and to make it worse, it appears that something rather sinister is going on at the corporation where she picked up the body that was stolen. When she begins to check it out, things go from bad to worse fast.
I want to say up front that I really loved this book, still love the character and the treatment of zombies. As a reader, I'm rooting for Angel and want her to succeed. The zombie worldbuilding is stellar, both thoughtful and appropriately gross without being gratuitous in any way. This type of zombie makes sense, and the rules are clear. This being a second book, I expected some typical second book syndrome to kick in, but I think Diana Rowland handled the second book appropriately. She doesn't linger on the zombie aspects from the first book too much; they're there, but that stuff has been moved to the back burner. Instead, we get NEW aspects of zombies that weren't covered in the first book because they wouldn't have come up then. But with the conspiracy plot in this book, the fact that we're learning this new stuff about zombies now makes perfect sense. Once that conspiracy plot really kicks in, the book drew me in and kept me reading.
And that's my only small quibble about this book: it took a good chunk of pages before I felt that the story really got started. Mostly, I was impatient for things to start moving and was happy when they did. So if you start this book and it seems perhaps a little slow at first, I suggest you just keep on reading, because it gets good after a short while, and when it's good, it's good. You won't be disappointed. This is the only aspect of the book that spoke of second book syndrome to me.
So, a great urban fantasy series continues. I highly recommend this series for those looking for something different in that jam-packed field. I think you'll love the character and the detail of the zombie worldbuilding. Meanwhile, I'm left to wait impatiently for the third book in the series to come out.
September 21, 2012
Book Discussion!
The newest book discussion is now up at the DAW Books blog (
dawbooks
)! Swing on by to read about Jennifer Roberson's latest novel The Wild Road, the third book in her Karavans Universe. Or leave a comment if you've already read the book!
dawbooks
)! Swing on by to read about Jennifer Roberson's latest novel The Wild Road, the third book in her Karavans Universe. Or leave a comment if you've already read the book!September 16, 2012
Book Review: "Libriomancer" by Jim C. Hines
Libriomancer is the first book in Jim C. Hines' newest series, Magic Ex Libris. It's also Jim's first foray into the urban fantasy field. It certainly adds a new and unique twist to that field, even if it does still have vampires in it.
The basic premise is there's a special type of magician in the world, ones who are able to essentially "reach" into the magic created by the readers of books and draw out aspects of that book and make those objects, items, etc, real. These magicians are called libriomancers, and the main character in Libriomancer, Isaac Vainio, is one of those magicians. Unfortunately, he's been put into retirement after he lost control of his magic while in the field protecting the world from this magic while hiding the magic's existence at the same time. Now, he's nothing but a librarian, use of the magic forbidden to him, even though he's still tagging those books with ideas and items that are far too dangerous to be used by libriomancers and so must be "locked". This exile from the field abruptly ends, however, when he's attacked by vengeful vampires, saved when he's forced to use his magic and by the arrival of a longtime dryad "friend". This attack starts Isaac on the road to a return to using magic . . . and opens up the possibility of a war waged between the vampires and the libriomancers. Isaac appears to be the only one willing or able to stop it.
I liked this book, especially as an entry into the urban fantasy field. Yes, it has vampires, but the vampires aren't the main focus of the novel. Instead, the focus is on Isaac and the magic itself, as Isaac first returns to using the magic (thus introducing us to it) and then finding that there are depths to the magic that he never suspected and must explore if he's going to survive and stop the war. So the vampires in the book are mostly being used as tools, which is good, since the urban fantasy field is filled with far too many vampire books in my opinion. This novel--and this series--will have massive appeal to the geek audience out there, the "readers since childhood" who have long wished that they could reach into the books they love and pull out that phaser or that sword or perhaps that crown or ruby necklace. Jim uses that long-lived and buried-deep obsession of the true SF&F fan to capture our imaginations and draw us into the story, having Isaac use it to defend himself, heal himself, and fight for his own survival all at the same time.
If that were it, then the book would be a one-trick pony and could easily be set aside. The saving grace of this book is that there's more. As I said in the summary, Jim takes that basic and powerful idea and then goes beyond it. There are more depths to the magic than simply drawing magical object from the books for use in the modern day world. Isaac discovers that there's more going on with the libriomancers and their powers than he thought. At the same time, he's forced to deal with his relationship with the dryad Lena who saved his life; more importantly, he's forced to deal with her magical nature. Everything he encounters brings up moral questions about the magic and its use, questions that do not have simple or easy answers. In fact, most of those questions aren't really answered, at least not in this book.
Which brings up the ending of this book. I've read some reviews where the readers loved it, and others where readers hated it. My opinion is that it ended exactly the way it should have ended, especially considering the moral questions mentioned earlier. Will the solution work long term? I don't know. I guess we'll have to read book 2 to find out. *grin*
In the end, I think this book is a great entry into the urban fantasy field and its magic will appeal to all of the true reader geeks out there. It's different, fun, yet serious at the same time.
The basic premise is there's a special type of magician in the world, ones who are able to essentially "reach" into the magic created by the readers of books and draw out aspects of that book and make those objects, items, etc, real. These magicians are called libriomancers, and the main character in Libriomancer, Isaac Vainio, is one of those magicians. Unfortunately, he's been put into retirement after he lost control of his magic while in the field protecting the world from this magic while hiding the magic's existence at the same time. Now, he's nothing but a librarian, use of the magic forbidden to him, even though he's still tagging those books with ideas and items that are far too dangerous to be used by libriomancers and so must be "locked". This exile from the field abruptly ends, however, when he's attacked by vengeful vampires, saved when he's forced to use his magic and by the arrival of a longtime dryad "friend". This attack starts Isaac on the road to a return to using magic . . . and opens up the possibility of a war waged between the vampires and the libriomancers. Isaac appears to be the only one willing or able to stop it.
I liked this book, especially as an entry into the urban fantasy field. Yes, it has vampires, but the vampires aren't the main focus of the novel. Instead, the focus is on Isaac and the magic itself, as Isaac first returns to using the magic (thus introducing us to it) and then finding that there are depths to the magic that he never suspected and must explore if he's going to survive and stop the war. So the vampires in the book are mostly being used as tools, which is good, since the urban fantasy field is filled with far too many vampire books in my opinion. This novel--and this series--will have massive appeal to the geek audience out there, the "readers since childhood" who have long wished that they could reach into the books they love and pull out that phaser or that sword or perhaps that crown or ruby necklace. Jim uses that long-lived and buried-deep obsession of the true SF&F fan to capture our imaginations and draw us into the story, having Isaac use it to defend himself, heal himself, and fight for his own survival all at the same time.
If that were it, then the book would be a one-trick pony and could easily be set aside. The saving grace of this book is that there's more. As I said in the summary, Jim takes that basic and powerful idea and then goes beyond it. There are more depths to the magic than simply drawing magical object from the books for use in the modern day world. Isaac discovers that there's more going on with the libriomancers and their powers than he thought. At the same time, he's forced to deal with his relationship with the dryad Lena who saved his life; more importantly, he's forced to deal with her magical nature. Everything he encounters brings up moral questions about the magic and its use, questions that do not have simple or easy answers. In fact, most of those questions aren't really answered, at least not in this book.
Which brings up the ending of this book. I've read some reviews where the readers loved it, and others where readers hated it. My opinion is that it ended exactly the way it should have ended, especially considering the moral questions mentioned earlier. Will the solution work long term? I don't know. I guess we'll have to read book 2 to find out. *grin*
In the end, I think this book is a great entry into the urban fantasy field and its magic will appeal to all of the true reader geeks out there. It's different, fun, yet serious at the same time.
