Wednesday 15 February 2017

Philip Pullman announces a follow up trilogy to 'His Dark Materials!'

So Philip Pullman may have faded into the background in recent years, but I'm sure we all remember his name to some degree and his internationally best selling trilogy His Dark Materials took the fantasy work by storm in the 90s, selling over 17.5 million copies that were translated into 40 different languages! These books captured many a teenagers mind and my imagination was most definitely snared; the series was among my favourites while I was growing up and, although I wasn't overly impressed by the cinematic adaptation of The Golden Compass, I must have read the actual books a dozen times.

Thus, I am excited to learn that after nearly two decades, Pullman has decided to return to the worlds of the series and plans to release a new trilogy as a follow up to His Dark Materials! Pullman has yet to reveal much about the contents of the new books, but has hinted that it will feature many of the original characters and, what is best of all, the first instalment--The Book of Dust--is set for publication on 19th October 2017! I think we've all got a pre-order to add to our Amazon accounts here and have a brilliant excuse for bit of reminiscent re-reading over the next few months!

Thursday 2 February 2017

Release date of The Core (Demon Cycle Book 5) is announced!

The Demon Cycle by Peter V. Brett is one of the most exciting fantasy series being written at the moment and has had a long run, with The Painted (Warded) Man being released back in 2008 in the UK and 2009 in the US. Brett has published the next instalment of the series every year or so since then, along with a number of subsidiary short stories, and it's grown to be a hugely successful series, selling over 2 million copies worldwide! I'm excited to learn that the release date for the fifth and final book in the series has been announced, with The Core being due to be released on the 10th August 2017 in the UK and 15th August in the US!

Needless to say, I can't wait (even though I have fallen behind with the series and still need to catch up on book 4) and I'm really looking forward to reading it. With the announcement, Brett has also written a pleasantly sentimental article about his experience writing the series and how it all began, which his fans might find interesting and can read on his blog here.

Wednesday 1 February 2017

GRRM is all set to release a new aSoIaF short story!

We've all be waiting for The Winds of Winter to be released for years now and we all know that the sixth instalment of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice & Fire doesn't even have a release date (as of publishing this post). It's a long and frustrating wait to be sure, but I'm glad that everyone has started to get off GRRM's back about the delay - art can't be rushed and, in the end, we'll get the book he wants us to read eventually and we'll enjoy it a lot more than a rushed, error-filled 'fan-pleaser.'

The good news, however, is that GRRM's wetting our aSoIaF appetites in October 2017! He has written an anthology called Book of Swords, which contains 15 short stories, one of which is a never-before released story set in Westeros!

It's not the news we've all been hoping for, but it'll certainly be an interesting read and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy! The book, which is once again edited by Gardner Dozois, is available for pre-order on Amazon now!