The Dragon Page "Cover to Cover"
Conversations with Authors of Science Fiction and Fantasy
Some books I know I’m going to love within the first few pages. Other books I discard in a few paragraphs. And then there are the books where I can’t put them down, yet I also can’t decide at the end if I liked them or not.
Tony Ballantyne’s Recursion fits that latter category.
I really enjoyed the writing style. While the book is targeted for the young adult, descriptions and dialogue do not blatantly point it out. Readers who enjoy writers like Raymond E. Feist and J. K. Rowling will not be disappointed by Reiffen’s Choice.
This week, we present a World Fantasy Convention 2006 panel on vampire fiction.
Paula Guran, editor of Juno Books, is the moderator, and the panelists are Dean Anderson, P. N. Elrod, Charlaine Harris, Suzy McKee Charnas, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a techo thriller with near future sci-fi thrown in. It is a well written and enjoyable tale that is full of the flavor of India, its culture and people, from a forward looking perspective.
I’m a sucker for Star Wars books. After reading Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command) captured the frenetic, everything-is-happening-at-the-same-time pacing of the original Star Wars trilogy and provided an engaging story to boot, I bought any post-Return of the Jedi book I could get my hands on.
Alice is a fascinating individual. While earning her Bachelors degree at Webster University she studied the worldwide distribution of folkloric creatures such as lake serpents like Ogopogo, Bigfoot and the Chupacabra, topics near and dear to my heart. She went on to earn her Masters in Folklore from the University of Oregon, were she translated the Mabinogi. Who else do you know that can cuss in Medieval Welsh?
This week, we present another World Fantasy Convention roundtable where Summer talks to Writers of the Future former winner and current judge K. D. Wentworth (an active SF writer and two-time Nebula Award finalist), Illustrators of the Future winner Laura Jennings, and Writers of the Future winner Diana Rowland.
Touted as a book of “Insights into the World of Warcraft“, The Battle for Azeroth: Adventure, Alliance and Addiction is more of a class guide and compendium of essays about the different aspects of Blizzard Entertainment’s smash hit game. Players and non-playing family and friends will likely find something of interest in this book.
This week we have a roundtable discussion from this year’s World Fantasy Convention. It’s a chat that spans everything from Tim’s new book, Three Days to Never, his involvement as a judge of the Writers of the Future contest, a little detail on what finalists go through at their “bootcamp”, and more. Just remember, it’s always about the pneumatic tubes.
Interview: Michael and Summer talk with Steve Alten about Resurrection, the second book in his “Domain” trilogy. Steve’s a busy author with so many monsters to juggle, and he tells us all about the mythology behind the “Domain” trilogy, and how he has woven a story around the Mayas and the prophecies surrounding their eerily accurate calendar, which ends without explanation on December 21, 2012, and it’s implication that humanity, or life as we know it, will end in the near future, makes for an irresistible tapestry to wrap around a mystery.
Interview: Michael, Evo and Summer talk with Scott Lynch about his debut novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora. “Lies” is the first in a seven book epic, “The Gentleman Bastards” sequence, and the story of how the book came to be published is just as interesting as the story itself.
Interview: Podcast novelist Scott Sigler joins Michael and Evo to push, er, discuss his latest audio drama addiction.
THE ROOKIE is set amongst a lethal pro football league 700 years in the future. Aliens play positions based on physiology, creating receivers that jump 25 feet into the air, linemen that bench-press 1,200 pounds, and linebackers that – literally – want to eat you. Organized crime runs every franchise, games are fixed and rival players are assasinated.
The 22nd Annual Writers of the Future Awards Ceremony was held on Aug 18, 2006 at the Balboa Park Air & Space Museum in San Diego, and Michael and Summer talk with the quarterly winners and the Grand Prize winner of the 2006 Writers of the Future contest
Interview: This week, Michael and Summer talk with dark fantasty/horror author Tim Lebbon about his new fantasy duology, Dusk and Dawn, exploring a world that had lost it’s magic through the changes imminent as magic returns and faction struggle to control the new magic.
For the first time in twenty years, a significant Star Trek milestone will pass without a movie or television episode to mark it. But while there will be no new big- or small-screen adventures for the crew of the Starship Enterprise when the series turns forty in early September, the legacy of Star Trek will be celebrated on the printed page thank to Pocket Books.
