Originally published on guardianbooks.co.uk A wealthy dynasty brought to its knees by popular revolt, the highest in the land caught in a web of corruption, and at the heart of it all a powerful woman with remarkable hair. If you see the Murdoch clan, Chipping Norton set and Rebekah Brooks in these archetypes then you have clearly [...]
So. I’m trying to get an Advance Reading Copy of A Dance With Dragons, because everyone is excited about it and Vandermeer has one and I feel left out. So far, no luck, although I’m told I’m on the list as soon as any arrive in the UK. Which is cool. So why are so [...]
Andrezj Sapkowski has won the innugural David Gemmell award for Fantasy fiction (Fantasy with a big F, as the organisers say). There is a lot to like about the Gemmell’s. I loved David Gemmell’s novels as a teenager and was sad when he passed away. I can really enjoy a rollicking good heroic fantasy, mark [...]
I saw Seamus Heaney interviewed about his translation of Beowulf tonight on the BBC documentary about the ancient epic. He said the most beautiful thing, that Beowulf was born into life as an intelligence and shaped by pain into a soul. An idea I must remember. Elsewhere.. Jetse de Vries gives some statistical feedback on [...]
Its a tough life being a writer. Take poor old William Gibson. I read all of Gibson’s books obsessively in my mid-teens. I’ve traveled great distances to see him speak. I’ve even twice been compared to him in pseudo psychometric testing. But when I was less than gripped by his new novel ‘Spook Country’ I [...]
