Escapist Newsletter (Vol. 3 Issue 1)

Now on with the good stuff…Check out the shiny new cover for Devon Monk’s second novel in her Magic series, Magic in the Bone, which will be released on May 5, 2009. On top of this new goodness, Devon has also announced the title to the third novel, which will be, Magic in the Shadows.

Here are this month’s new releases:

Jan 5th:

• One More Bite by Jennifer Rardin (Jaz Parks #5)
• Hammer of God by Karen Miller (Godspeaker Trilogy #3)

Jan 6th:

• Dawnkeepers by Jessica Andersen (Final Prophecy #2)
• Wild Thing (anthology) – Maggie Shayne, Marjorie M. Liu, Alyssa Day, Meljean Brook
• Mean Streets (anthology) – Jim Butcher, Kat Richardson, Simon R Green, Thomas Sniegoski
• Real Vampires Don’t Diet by Gerry Bartlett (Glory St. Clair #4)
• Witch Heart by Anya Bast (Elemental Witches #3)
• A Veiled Deception by Annette Blair (Vintage Magic Mystery)
• Lord of Misrule by Rachel Caine (Morganville Vampires #5)
• Bedeviled by Maureen Child
• Night of the Loving Dead by Casey Daniels (Pepper Martin Mysteries #4)
• Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich
• Night Huntress by Yasmine Galenorn (Sisters of the Moon #5)
• In Shade and Shadow by Barb & JC Hendee (The Noble Dead)
• A Witch’s Beauty by Joey W. Hill
• Mona Lisa Darkening by Sunny (Monere #4)
• Just Another Judgement Day by Simon R Green (Nightside #9)
• Stay the Night by Lynn Viehl (Darkyn #7)
• Princess of the Sword by Lynn Kurland (Nine Kingdoms #3)
• Bones of the Dragon by Margaret Weiss & Tracy Hickman (Dragonships of Vindras #1)

Jan 20th:

• Kiss of a Demon King by Kresley Cole (Immortals After Dark #6)
• The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan

Jan 27th:

• Men of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong (Otherworld)
• Vamps #2: Night Life by Nancy Collins (Vamps #2)
• Unfallen Dead by Mark del Franco (Connor Grey #3)
• Darkness Unknown by Alexis Morgan (Paladins #5)
• Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand by Carrie Vaughn (Kitty Norville #5)
• The Vampire’s Revenge by Raven Hart
• Spiral Hunt by Margaret Ronald
• Horizon by Lois McMaster Bujold (The Sharing Knife #4)

Sherrilyn Kenyon has thrown up a snippet from her next story (I think it’s Dream Warrior, but I’m not sure) involving Nick and Ash and the new DOWs.  If you want to know what I’m talking about, you better go read it.

For those Battlestar Galatica fans out there, the Sci-Fi Channel has put into play a new television series called Caprica.  It’s the prequel to the events in Battlestar Galactic.

It’s been announced that Catherine Hardwicke will not direct the Twilight sequel, New Moon. Supposedly, the filming schedule isn’t going to work with her schedule next year, but there are a few doubts on that.

There’s been some great new preorder links up at Amazon.  Check it out – Bound by Shadows by Keri Arthur (8/25/09) and Deamfever by Karen Marie Moning (8/25/09).

There’s another article at Fangoria talking about more issues that the new director will probably end up dealing with in the sequel, New Moon.  One of the concerns is trying to expand the role of Edward Cullen (since we all know he disappears for the majority of the novel).  However, good news is both Pattison and Stewart are coming back (which would make a terrible movie if they didn’t).

Stephanie Meyer has confirmed that Chris Weitz (American Pie and The Golden Compass) has been named as the New Moon director.

For some of you die-hard Sci-Fi/Fantasy fans who may have not heard the news, legendary (or so I’m told) Forrest J. Ackerman (ultimate science fiction fan, publisher, author and agent) has passed away.  I’m not really familiar with him, but SciFiGuy has a lovely collection of Ackerman tidbits up at his site.

Now I am in heaven. Diana Gabaldon posted page 4 from the upcoming Outlander comic and it has better shots of Jamie. Ooh la la.  You can see the text associated with this over at her site.

Interviews:

• Lina Gardiner, author of Grave Illusions, by Patricia’s Vampire Notes
• Noah Wyle talking about the upcoming vampire film, The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice, by iF Magazine
• Jonathan Frakes, director of The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice, by iF Magazine
• Stacia Kane, author of Personal Demon, by Bitten by Books
• Sharon Shinn, author of Archangel, by Word Wenches
• Marcus Pelegrimas, author of Blood Blade, by Popin’s Lair
• Shirley Damsgaard, author of the Ophelia & Abby mystery series, by Amberkatze
• V.G. Ford, author of Not Your Father’s Horseman, by Sarah Wagner’s Words and Worlds
• Adrianne Brennan, author of Blood of the Dark Moon, by Coffee with Oly
• Jennifer Turner, author of Eternal Seduction, by Bitten by Books
• Joss Whedon about his upcoming series Dollhouse, by SyFy Portal
• George RR Martin & Other Wild Card Authors of the Wild Card series by Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist
• Brian Slattery, author of Liberation, and Nick Harkaway, author of The Gone Away World, by i09
• Rhonda Leigh Jones, author of The Maestro’s Butterfly, by Metro Spirit
• Patrice Michelle, author of Scions: Revelation, by Bitten by Books
• Angela James, Executive Editor At Samhain Publishing, by The Galaxy Express
• Yasmine Galenorn, author of the Sisters of the Moons series, by Fairy Findings
• Maria Murnane, author of Perfect on Paper, by American Bibliophile
• Raven Hart, author of The Vampire’s Seduction, by Random Minutiae
• Jennifer Rardin, author of the Jaz Parks series, by Reading With a Bite
• Rae Lori, author of A Kiss of Ashen Twilight, by EDC Magazine
• Jeaniene Frost, author of the Night Huntress series, by Amberkatze
• Carrie Jones, author of Need, by Jeri Smith-Ready
• Leslie S. Klinger, author of The New Annotated Dracula, by Vampire Wire (Vampire Chats)
• Jocelynn Drake, author of Nightwalker, by Urban Fantasy Land
• Guy Gavriel Kay, author of Ysabel, by Dark Fantasy Magazine
• Kelley Armstrong, author of the Otherworld series, by the Readers Quill
• Orson Scott Card, author of the Ender series, by SciFi Wire
• Casey Daniels, author of the Pepper Martin Mysteries, by AmberKatze Reviews
• Anya Bast, author of the Elemental Witches, by Drops of Crimson – You may have to search for the interview, DoC does not have permalinks
• Justin Gustainis, author of the Morris & Chastain Investigation series, by Darque Reviews
• Yelena, from Maria Snyder’s Poison Study, by Jezebel of Hell’s Belles (by Jackie Kessler)
• Kelley Armstrong, author of the Otherworld series, by Unbound
• Justin Gustainis, author of Evil Ways, by Urban Fantasy Land

I just came across this tidbit of information in the Sharon Shinn interview. Shinn is working with Laurell K. Hamilton, Yasmine Galenorn, and Marjorie Liu on an anthology that involves “feminist fairy tales with a twist”. That’s all I know, but I like twisted fairy tales, so it has definitely caught my interest.

Check out these shiny covers for a few novels being released next year: Jenna Black’s novel, Speak of the Devil (July 28, 2009), Rachel Caine’s Carpe Corpus (June 2, 2009), the anthology What Happened in Vegas…After Dark (May 1, 2009), and Charlaine Harris’ Dead and Gone (May 5, 2009).

Shiny news! Nalini Singh announced that we’ll be getting two Psy-Changeling novels in 2009.  Branded by Fire comes out July 7, 2009.  Now we’ll have Dev’s story, Blaze of Memory, out in November.  That’s so exciting.

Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist has the first and second excerpts from Bones of the Dragon, the first volume in Weis and Hickman’s new fantasy series, Dragonships of Vindras.

I also stumbled upon the information that Kim Harrison’s Black Curse tour has been hit hard by the recession.  What this means is she isn’t visiting any stores east of the Mississippi!  That sucks for me, but at least her fans out west will still be able to see her.

True Blood has scored a couple of Golden Globe nominations – Best Dramatic Series and Best Actress in a Drama (Anna Paquin).

Janet Evanovich announced the title to book 15 in the Stephenie Plum series.  It’ll be called Finger Lickin’ Fifteen and will be out sometime next summer (I’m guessing June).

Urban Fantasy Land had a Round-up of Holiday Well-Wishers for the month of December.  So if you’re not ready to throw out that Christmas tree yet, head on over for some more merriness.

Lilith Saintcrow will be a part of two upcoming anthologies. She’s currently working on two stories, the first one being The Heart Is Always Right, involving gargoyles, a Beauty and the Beast, plus vampires. This story is for the Supernaturals on Vacation anthology, which will be released sometime next year (exact date unknown). The other story, Say Yes, is for a YA vampire fiction collection. I’m not sure what the working title on this anthology is, so I’ll keep you posted as I learn more.

Here’s the next round of new covers: Lilith Saintcrow’s Redemption Alley (August 2009); Nalini Singh’s Branded by Fire (July 7, 2009); Anya Bast’s Witch Fury (June 2, 2009); and JF Lewis’s Revamped (March 10, 2009).

The Weekly Geeks community got together and voted on their Top 10 books published in 2008.

Keri Arthur, as well as Toni Andrews, Jenna Black, Rinda Elliot, Jackie Kesslar, Karen Mahoney, Devon Monk, Lilith Saintcrow, and Rachel Vincent, are all teaming up for another great group author blog. These ladies are the Deadlines Dames or they will be once they have their website running after the new year.  The website is due to premiere sometime this month, so keep your eyes out for it.

I was just made aware of an ongoing project taking place over at the Telegraph. Alexander McCall Smith, author of No 1 Ladies Detective Agency, is currently writing an online novel called Corduroy Mansions with new chapters being added daily. The project started in September and has plans to go until February 2009, so only about half the novel has been published.  You can also follow this project on Twitter.

Den of Geek has a pretty interesting article on the Top 50 Special Effect shots.  It looks like they are making their list to be “of all time”, because there are some older movies on the list as well.  I know that after reading it, I got the urge to go pop a few of these in the DVD player.

Here’s the cover for Marjorie Liu’s Darkness Calls (June 30, 2009).

For Justin Gustainis fans, I happened to have found out that the title of the third Morris Chastain Investigation novel will be Sympathy for the Devil.  No tentative release date yet, but it will be out sometime in 2009.

I came across this Top 10 Movies of 2008 list and I think I’ve only heard of 1 or 2 of them. With that said, I now have a list of movies I want to check out.  The curious thing is, The movie the Curious Life of Benjamin Button is listed as being a great movie, however, io9 has claimed that Fincher filmed the wrong aging backwards story.

So this article is old, a year old in fact, but I’m not posting it because of the topic.  No, I’m posting it because of the great debate between a book blogger and a newspaper book reviewer.  In actuality, it’s not really a debate, but it shows the difference between book bloggers who do it because they love to read and paid book reviewers who do it for the “free books”.  With that said, if you haven’t added Urban Fantasy Land to your Google Reader or RSS feed yet, then you really need to.

Suburban Vampire has an extensive list of upcoming 2009 vampire movies.  There’s a few I haven’t heard of so I’m going to be on the lookout for them.  She has also updated her list for all vampire movies over the next couple of years.

Here’s the cover for Kelley Armstrong’s The Awakening (April 28, 2009).

New Excerpts:

• Everyone has seen the excerpt for the next Sookie Stackhouse novel, Dead and Gone, right?
• Eileen Wilks has posted an excerpt for Mortal Sins, due out February 2009.
• Karen Chance has the second chapter up for Curse the Dawn.  It’s at the bottom of the first chapter, which was posted awhile ago, so you have to scroll past that to get to the new stuff.  I really can’t wait for Curse the Dawn now.
• Sherrilyn Kenyon has posted an excerpt for Dream Warrior, which is due out February 2009.
• Ann Aguirre has an excerpt up for Doublebind, the third Sirantha Jax novel which is due out in October 2009.

Buzzy Multimedia Publishing takes a look at the many faces of Fantasy.  They look at the varied tastes of Fantasy and even give some good examples.

I may have stumbled onto the title for Jackie Kessler’s fourth Hell on Earth novel, but I haven’t seen anything official yet.  It may be called Hell to Pay, but once I know for sure, I’ll pass it along.

There’s another new anthology coming out called Death’s Excellent Vacation edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner.  The only author I  know of that’s going to be in it is Jeaniene Frost, but once I know more, I’ll let y’all know.  Oh, it has a publication date of sometime in 2010.

I’ve never heard of the Virginia Festival of the Book, but Kim Harrison is going to be there March 18-22, 2009.

Last bit of news.  I just went through and revamped the Series page, so that’s a bit different.  I’ve added a few new series, but if I’m still missing any, let me know.  I’ve also retired my 2008 TBR list, so if you want to see it, you’ll have to click the link.  Otherwise, 2009’s is now active.

And as an end of year wrap up, I’ve read a total of 134 novels, with 53 of them being new authors.  That was a lot of books and everyone made it on here with a review.  I still have 165 new authors to try, so I’m sure that number will get higher in 2009 and that doesn’t include the authors I find after today.