I've been interviewed!

It looks like another premiere knocked at my door, I have been interviewed for the first time. This happened at Temple Library Reviews and the interviewer is that blog owner, Harry. Besides the flattering offer for this interview, Harry makes an even more flattering introduction of me and my blog (I hope that does go too much to my head ;D). If you would like to see my first attempt to handle an interview from the other side of it you can read it here.

"The Absence" by Bill Hussey

"The Absence"

by Bill Hussey

Format: Paperback, 448 pages

Publisher: Bloody Books

It was a tragic accident. That's what his family told Joe Nightingale, but the boy is tormented by sinister visions of his mother’s death.

Seven months after the fatal car crash, the Nightingales learn they have inherited an old house from a distant relative, the reclusive Muriel Sutton. Hoping to escape the shadows of the past, they decide to spend the summer at Daecher's Mill. But darker shadows await them...

Who are the guests that have been brought here over the years? Why did the late Muriel Sutton murder her little sister, Alice? And what is the connection between Joe and this lonely Fenland millhouse? Something is moving in the attic. It looks and sounds like a little girl, but its eyes are old and its voice runs like water...

It is a weaver of shadows. A creature of Absence...

Bill Hussey made last year an impressive debut with his novel, “Through a Glass, Darkly”. “Through a Glass, Darkly” was the best horror novel I read last year and when I found that Bill Hussey will be publishing his second novel this year, “The Absence”, I was very curious to see how he follows the footsteps of his great debut.

“The Absence” is centered on the Nightingale family, shaken by the tragic loss of the family wife and mother, Janet. One of the things I liked at this novel is how Bill Hussey creates and builds the main three characters, Richard, Joe and Bobby Nightingale. He captures in them a wide range of emotions, each one sounding true and adding a brick at the foundation of their characterization. And because each of them sound so realistic I was drawn closer and closer to the characters and I felt more or less sympathetic to their situations, but in close relationship with their problems. The other characters, with a more or less role in the story, are carefully built as well and every single one playing their role well.

Another thing that attracted me at “The Absence” is the excellent knowledge and documentation that Bill Hussey shows in the setting of his novel. The author makes very good descriptions of the Fens, where the action is taking place, managing to create an almost visual image of the places. Not only the descriptions of the setting denote the passion of the author for the Fens, but also the legends and myths of this area present in the novel. And through a mix between legend and real life situations the story is created.

The author plays in his story with some well known horror elements and themes, making me think of a mix between H.P. Lovecraft and Koji Suzuki but with a lot of personal touch from Bill Hussey that makes “The Absence” a captivating novel and hooked me from the start. The story has many grotesque and powerful images and scenes and what I liked especially at them is that Bill Hussey doesn’t force these elements just for the sake of creating horrific situations, but they come as the needed and fitting pieces in the puzzle. I find the end of the novel a bit rushed and simplistic, but this is compensated by the Epilogue, one that I didn’t see it coming and never crossed my mind.

Personally I enjoyed more the debut novel of Bill Hussey, “Through a Glass, Darkly”, but “The Absence” is not far behind. The novel offers besides a very good horror story a perspective on the career of Bill Hussey and his development as a writer. And if he continues to produce novels like his first two Bill Hussey will easily become one of the heavy names of horror genre.

"Arthas: Rise of the Lich King" contest winners

Thank you to the nice people from Simon & Schuster and Sneak Attack Media who made this contest happen and who provided the 5 copies of Christie Golden’s “Arthas: Rise of the Lich King”. And thank you all who took part to the contest.

The winners are:

- Jake Woodworth from Chittenango, NY
- Stacia Helpman from Eastlake, OH
- Shaun Duke from Felton, CA
- Scott Sink from Covington, OH

- Anita Yancey from Barnesville, GA

Congratulations to the winners!

Zombie Chicken Award

One of the joys that my blog offers me is when it receives blog awards. And once again my blog received such an award, Zombie Chicken Award, from Kristen, the amazing blogger of Fantasy Cafe. Thank you very much, Kristen!

The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken - excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all…

Since I don’t know if I can handle a wrath from the zombie chickens here are my nominees:

- Fantasy Art & Portraits

- Fantasy Book Critic

- Fantasy Debut

- OF Blog of the Fallen

- Speculative Horizons

Cover Art - "The Ghost King" by R.A. Salvatore

When it comes to Forgotten Realms novels one of my main sources of information is the website dedicated to these novels, Forgotten Realms: The Library. Through this site I found out the other day the cover art for the upcoming novel in the Drizzt Do’Urden’s series of novels written by R.A. Salvatore, “The Ghost King”. I am in love with Drizzt Do’Urden and his adventures and although I believe that his series went just a bit too far I still enjoy these novels and I will always have a weak spot for them. R.A. Salvatore’s “The Ghost King” is the third novel in the “Transitions” series and it will be published in October this year. And once again the cover art for one of the Drizzt’s novels is made by the magical artist, Todd Lockwood.

When the Spellplague ravages Faerûn, Drizzt and his companions are caught in the chaos. Seeking out the help of the priest Cadderly-the hero of the recently reissued series The Cleric Quintet-Drizzt finds himself facing his most powerful and elusive foe, the twisted Crenshinibon, the demonic crystal shard he believed had been destroyed years ago.

2008 Nebula & James Tiptree, Jr. Awards

This week-end two more awards named their winners, Nebula Award and James Tiptree, Jr. Award.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America announced the 2008 Nebula Awards winners:

Best novel: “Powers” by Ursula K. Le Guin

Best Novella: “The Spacetime Pool” by Catherine Asaro

Best Novelette: “Pride and Prometheus” by John Kessel

Best Short Story: “Trophy Wives” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Best Script: “WALL-E” by Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy: “Flora’s Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room)” by Ysabeau S. Wilce

***

The James Tiptree, Jr. Award Council announced the 2008 James Tiptree, Jr. Award winners. The Award was founded in 1991 to honor Alice Sheldon, who wrote under the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr. and is presented each year for works that explore and expand gender roles in Science Fiction and Fantasy. This year we have two winners:

“The Knife of Never Letting Go” by Patrick Ness

“Filter House” by Nisi Shawl

Congratulations to all the winners!

In the mailbox

The poll is close to the finish now and it looks like Mark Charan Newton's "Nights of Villjamur" is the winner if major changes won't appear. Anyway you will see the winner soon lined up at my reading queue (thank you all for voting). Until then here are my latest arrivals in the mailbox:

- "The Born Queen" by Greg Keyes (through the courtesy of Pan Macmillan);

War is coming.
With the usurper Robert Dare having fled, Princess Anne has finally ascended to the throne to the Kingdom of Crothney, but it may already be too late to stop the approaching destruction. Dark monstrosities prowl the countryside, and as the holter Asper soon discovers, the Sedos power that granted humanity its freedom may now be responsible for the corruption that will eventually destroy it.
As the combined forces of Hansa and the Holy Church mass against the Queen they claim to be an unnatural shinecrafter, Anne’s mother Murielle sets out on an embassy of peace to Hansa, accompanied by the knight Sir Neal MeqVren. But, there is more to Murielle’s mission than first appears, a fact that puts both of them at the mercy of Hansa’s unstable king, and the unkillable Robert Dare.
The world has been poisoned, and only the one who gains control of the legendary Sedos Throne can heal it. Anne knows that it must be her, but as she embraces her powers, and the violent impulses they bring, she finds herself changing. Only she can stand against the forces that threaten Crothney, but the cost of her victory may be too great for the world to bear…

- "Line War" by Neal Asher (through the courtesy of Pan Macmillan);

The Polity is under attack from a ‘melded’ AI entity with control of the lethal Jain technology, yet the attack seems to have no coherence. When one of Erebus’s wormships kills millions on the world of Klurhammon, a high-tech agricultural world of no real tactical significance, agent Ian Cormac is sent to investigate, though he is secretly struggling to control a new ability no human being should possess . . . and beginning to question the motives of his AI masters.
Further attacks and seemingly indiscriminate slaughter ensue, but only serve to bring some of the most dangerous individuals in the Polity into the war. Mr Crane, the indefatigable brass killing machine sets out for vengeance, while Orlandine, a vastly-augmented haiman who herself controls Jain technology, seeks a weapon of appalling power and finds allies from an ancient war.
Meanwhile Mika, scientist and Dragon expert, is again kidnapped by that unfathomable alien entity and dragged into the heart of things: to wake the makers of Jain technology from their five-million-year slumber.
But Erebus’s attacks are not so indiscriminate, after all, and could very well herald the end of the Polity itself . . .

- "Shadow of the Scorpion" by Neal Asher (through the courtesy of Pan Macmillan);

Raised to adulthood during the end of the war between the human Polity and the vicious arthropoid race, the Prador, Ian Cormac is haunted by childhood memories of a sinister scorpion-shaped war drone and the burden of losses he doesn’t remember.
In the years following the war he signs up with Earth Central Security, and is sent out to help either restore or simply maintain order on worlds devastated by Prador bombardment.
There he discovers that though the old enemy remains as murderous as ever, it is not anywhere near as perfidious or dangerous as some of his fellow humans, some of them closer to him than he would like.
Amidst the ruins left by wartime genocides, he discovers in himself a cold capacity for violence, learns some horrible truths about his own past and, set upon a course of vengeance, tries merely to stay alive.

- "Avempartha" by Michael J. Sullivan (through the courtesy of Robin Sullivan);

When a destitute young woman hires two thieves to help save her remote village from nocturnal attacks, they are drawn into the schemes of the wizard Esrahaddon. While Royce struggles to breech the secrets of an ancient elven tower, Hadrian attempts to rally the villagers to defend themselves against the unseen killer. What begins with the simple theft of a sword places the two thieves at the center of a firestorm — that could change the future of Elan.

- "The Stranger" by Max Frei (through the courtesy of Overlook Press);

Max Frei’s novels have been a literary sensation in Russia since their debut in 1996, and have swept the fantasy world over. Presented here in English for the first time, The Stranger will strike a chord with readers of all stripes. Part fantasy, part horror, part philosophy, part dark comedy, the writing is united by a sharp wit and a web of clues that will open up the imagination of every reader.

Max Frei was a twenty-something loser—a big sleeper (that is, during the day; at night he can’t sleep a wink), a hardened smoker, and an uncomplicated glutton and loafer. But then he got lucky. He contacts a parallel world in his dreams, where magic is a daily practice. Once a social outcast, he’s now known in his new world as the “unequalled Sir Max.” He’s a member of the Department of Absolute Order, formed by a species of enchanted secret agents; his job is to solve cases more extravagant and unreal than one could imagine—a journey that will take Max down the winding paths of this strange and unhinged universe.

- "Lamentation" by Ken Scholes (through the courtesy of TOR).

An ancient weapon has completely destroyed the city of Windwir. From many miles away, Rudolfo, Lord of the Nine Forest Houses, sees the horrifying column of smoke rising. He knows that war is coming to the Named Lands.
Nearer to the Devastation, a young apprentice is the only survivor of the city – he sat waiting for his father outside the walls, and was transformed as he watched everyone he knew die in an instant.
Soon all the Kingdoms of the Named Lands will be at each others' throats, as alliances are challenged and hidden plots are uncovered.
This remarkable first novel from an award-winning short fiction writer will take readers away to a new world – an Earth so far in the distant future that our time is not even a memory; a world where magick is commonplace and great areas of the planet are impassable wastes. But human nature hasn’t changed through the ages: War and faith and love still move princes and nations.

Thank you all very much!