ACHUKAblog
A thrilling new fantasy series-full of deadly magic, double crosses, and a dangerous quest in a new world-from Sara Raasch, the New York Times bestselling author of the Snow Like Ashes series.
An action-packed political thriller filled with betrayal, plot twists, and touches of romance. Booklist
Magic, politics, and religion collide in unexpected ways in this action-packed fantasy adventure. Kirkus
“Variously described as folklore, fantasy and mystery, The Wren Hunt wears its labels lightly, shedding one genre for another with a sort of slippery grace that initially confuses. But the story takes flight once Wren is ensconced in the judges’ territory, and the book settles into a deft equilibrium between thriller and myth. Watson’s writing has the sort of poise rarely found in a debut, moving the plot at a steady pace, shot through with moments of true beauty.” Kiran Millwood Hargrave, GUARDIAN Review
Waterstones
Second book in new fantasy adventure trilogy, perfect for readers aged 9+ and fans of Philip Pullman, Piers Torday, Katherine Rundell and Frances Hardinge.
Dragon’s Green by Scarlett Thomas, reviewed by Tony Bradman
Dragon’s Green is the first book for children by Scarlett Thomas, whose adult novels include The Seed Collectors and The End of Mr Y. Of course, doing well in one kind of writing doesn’t guarantee success in another. Many good writers for adults have tried their hand at stories for children only to fail, and vice versa. But I’m pleased to report that this opening volume of a fantasy trilogy is a cracker.
via Dragon’s Green review – this tale of a magical education is a cracker | Books | The Guardian.
Third book in the series, an earlier title having been shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. With lots of line illustrations by James de la Rue, this is fantasy adventure in the mode of Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell.
This Guardian book blogger writes well, and speaks a lot of sense. She should read Fire Colour One by Jenny Valentine to help her fall back in love with YA 🙂
Love triangles: why are there so many in teen fiction?
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All I see is fantasy/dystopian genres attempting to conform to popular film ideals. It almost seems like there is a checklist being passed round: star-crossed lovers and/or a love triangle/love square? Tick. Fight-to-the-death competitions? Tick. The swinging bait of a sequel at the end of a novel because all recent YA films have not been standalone? Tick. I’m obviously not saying everyone does this, but I do feel as if there are certain “ingredients” authors feel they must include if their book is going to be published and become a success.
via Falling out of love with YA | Children’s books | The Guardian.
The Edge Chronicles 12: Doombringer: Second Book of Cade
This was the second of two significant book launches I attended last week.
Having been an enthusiast for the Edge Chronicles since the series began with Beyond The Deepwoods in 1998, it was only fitting that ACHUKA should be in attendance for the launch of Doombringer – the latest title and 12th book in the sequence.
The event was held at Waterstones in Brighton, where both the author, Paul Stewart, and illustrator, Chris Riddell, have their homes.
It included live drawing by Riddell, accompanied by music composed by his son, and a question and answer session during which the symbiotic relationship between author and illustrator was entertainingly revealed.
Chris Riddell – live drawing
Riddell has never been ‘just’ the illustrator of these works. His drawings and sketchbooks have helped to create the world of The Edge.
At the primary school where I used to work, The Edge chronicles were actually more widely read than Harry Potter – partly because the illustrations made them more accessible, and no doubt helped by the fact that Stewart and Riddell had visited the school early in the series, and the library wall displayed a giant Riddell drawing in memory of the occasion.
Stewart’s writing is beautifully fluent and free of the fantasy excesses that are so easy to mock and mimic.
This is a classic series that will stand the test of time and one would hope that Riddell’s laureateship, and the greater attention that role will bring to any work he is associated with, will help attract many more new readers to this series as it nears its conclusion. (Stewart and Riddell are currently working on the thirteenth title, which they say will be the last.)
Chris Riddell – live drawing
A good obit for Tanith Lee by Andrew McKie for the Herald:
Tanith Lee, who has died aged 67, was an inventive and prolific writer, chiefly of fantasies, though in the course of some 90 novels and 300 short stories she also ventured into science fiction, horror, the reinvention of fairy-tales, historical fiction, children’s and young adults’ literature; she also wrote two episodes of the cult BBC TV series Blake’s 7.
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Her settings and atmospheres were strongly in the tradition of “the Weird”, owing much to the influence of writers such as Lord Dunsany and his mystical countryman Æ (George William Russell), C.S. Lewis and Jack Vance. Her own work, like that of Angela Carter, often commandeered the tropes of mythology and fairy tale to explore sexuality, identity – especially feminine identities – mortality and isolation.
One of Tanith Lee’s prominent themes was the moral and erotic development of characters placed in hostile, or at least unpredictable, worlds which the heroine (or hero) comes, if not to control, at least to meet on her own terms through a deliberate effort of the will.
From the mid-1970s, when she published her first adult novel, The Birthgrave, which was nominated for a Nebula Award, and became a full time writer, most of Lee’s books enjoyed a respectable degree of commercial and critical success. But despite having had “quietly phenomenal sales, now and then”, in recent years she found it increasingly difficult to interest publishers in her work. Most of her backlist is now out of print.
In 2012 she told an interviewer: “most of the so-called big publishers are unwilling even to look at a proposal. They aren’t interested in seeing anything from me, not even those houses I’ve worked with for many years … I can only conclude (without knowing any figures) that a lot of this is financial. I have had people say to me, ‘We would like to publish this, but though it would sell, it wouldn’t sell enough. And so they won’t let us buy it’.”
Full obit via Tanith Lee | Herald Scotland.
All the best people write fantasy, says Philip Womack, the author of The Darkening Path trilogy. He explains how to do it, in this Guardian Children’s Book piece… Follow the link below…
via Philip Womack: how to write a fantasy world | Children’s books | The Guardian.
A highly recommended Guardin feature on Ursul Le Guin and an extract from her acceptance speech:
As Ursula Le Guin receives the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the National Book Awards, she talks to Hari Kunzru about alternative fictional worlds
via Ursula Le Guin: ‘Wizardry is artistry’ | Books | The Guardian.
Ursula Le Guin speaking at the National Book Awards presentations:
Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom – poets, visionaries – realists of a larger reality.
Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.
Yet I see sales departments given control over editorial. I see my own publishers, in a silly panic of ignorance and greed, charging public libraries for an e-book six or seven times more than they charge customers. We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience, and writers threatened by corporate fatwa. And I see a lot of us, the producers, who write the books and make the books, accepting this – letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish, what to write.
Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.
I’ve had a long career as a writer, and a good one, in good company. Here at the end of it, I don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. We who live by writing and publishing want and should demand our fair share of the proceeds; but the name of our beautiful reward isn’t profit. Its name is freedom.
