Club Jade

The author of the bestselling Belgariad and Malloreon fantasy series has died last night at the age of 77. As one of the giants of epic 80′s fantasy, Eddings has been an inspiration and influence to many.

Late again… I have no good excuse. Nor for why I only read three books in the whole month. (I haven’t even finished one in May yet, though I’m working on it.) Stupid sexy internet. (more…)

Sorry to be so late, but I assure you, these are indeed all the books I read last month. If this has taught me nothing else, it’s that I read a lot less books than I thought I did… (more…)

This video (Chris Dane Owens, “Shine”) is completely awful, yet disturbingly mesmerizing. Watch it. Then, go to Tor.com for a thrilling Choose-Your-Adventure guess at the plot!

The A Song of Ice and Fire TV show moves one very big step closer to reality with this morning’s news that HBO has greenlit the pilot. There’s no guarantee that they’ll pick up the series from there, but the script is “very faithful” to the book, according to author George R.R. Martin. Whether that makes it good TV we’ll just have to wait and see…

As I’m technically still reading the most shameful series of my adolescence, linking MGK Versus His Adolescent Reading Habits might very well be an act of supreme hypocrisy.

Oh well. I might still be an Expanded Universe fan (or am I?) but at least I never read The Wheel of Time. It’s a slim victory if anything, but I’ll take it. At least until I remember how many Melanie Rawn novels I own in hardcover.

UPDATE: But wait, there’s more!

A point that’s often made when arguing the merits of media tie-in novels is that they bring additional readers to the science fiction/fantasy genre. My own experience runs completely counter to this: Star Wars didn’t get me into SF/F; SF/F got me into Star Wars. Granted, I grew up in a family of readers, and Heir to the Empire was not the first genre novel I borrowed from my parent’s bookshelves before I was old enough to drive. So, I admit, I get a little miffed at the notion that reading these things makes us knuckle-draggers. (What’s wrong with an intelligent reader enjoying a little melodramatic space trash, huh? Wait, don’t answer that.) So, for the sake of science random internet polling: (more…)

Why does it always come back to Harry Potter?

Science fiction author Gregory Benford has a bug in his bonnet, and it’s called fantasy fiction. In his world, it seems all fantasy is based on Dungeons & Dragons.

Needless to say people disagree, including some folks in Benford’s comments, author Scott Lynch and (for the snarkful among us) Fandom Wank.