Night Shade Books Sale!

Night Shade Books, the publisher behind many of Glen Cook's novels amongst many other greats is having a 50% off sale if you buy 4 or more titles. Check it out here. Even though I just loaded up there have been a few titles I've been meaning to pick-up. A couple recommendations would be Richard Kadrey's Butcher Bird or Liz Williams’s Detective Chen series. The sale ends June 17th. The sale includes forthcoming titles as well so you can pre-order John Joseph Adam's new anthologies By Blood We Live or The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes like I probably will. By Blood We Live includes a story by Sergei Lukyanenko of Night Watch fame, which is one of the main reasons I want it since so little of his other work has made it into English.

Some News & Upcoming Interview & Free Stuff

As mentioned in one of my BEA posts John Joseph Adams has signed for The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination. JJA just posted a description to the new all original anthology:

From Victor Frankenstein to Lex Luthor, from Dr. Moreau to Dr. Doom, readers have long been fascinated by megalomaniacal plans for world domination and the madmen who come up with them. Typically, we see these villains through the eyes of superheroes (or other good guys) as they attempt to put an end to their evil ways. This anthology, however, will explore the world of mad scientists and evil geniuses–from their own point of view.

Evil geniuses are always so keen on telling captured heroes all their fiendish plans. Isn’t it about time someone gave them a platform such as this one to reach the masses with their messages of hope death and prosperity destruction.

I should have my interview with S.M. Peters posted up in the next couple of days. A few other interviews are in the pipeline as well. I promise they'll be good ones too as I made some great connections at Book Expo this year. Lastly, Audible.com is offering Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder as a free unabridged audio download if you sign up. Check it out here.

Checking in from Book Expo | Saturday

As expected today was a quieter day, but the quality was very high of stuff to collect. I managed to catch the tail end of the SFF discussion with Mieville and Ringo. I took a little video, but I haven't gotten a chance to download it to see if any was good. If so expect a post next week.

Here is the swag: [Signed] Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson (Tor) Surprisingly this was a finished book, not a galley as most other books I grabbed were. [Signed] The Affinity Bridge by George Mann (Tor) Steampunk. Nuff said. Hitchhikers Guide Limited Edition Promo Book for And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer (Hyperion)More about this later. [Signed] Salt Water Taffy by Matthew Loux (Oni) Because it looked fun. [Signed] Taking Woodstock by Elliot Tiber & Tom Monte (Square One) Because the movie looks good. Ask Arthur Frommer by Arthur Frommer (Wiley) Because I travel.

While in line for the Sanderson and Mann books I found myself behind the very friendly Literary Agent and fellow blogger Jenny Rappaport. Jenny represents David J. Williams and John Joseph Adams who I consider the best anthologist today. She mentioned a new project just signed for JJA, which is of course an anthology, but in this case all stories will be original instead of a mix of new and old reprints. It is tentatively titled The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination to be published by Tor. The premise is superhero stories from the villains perspective à la Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible. Grossman is slated to contributing to the book. Sounds like it will be a good one, but alas it won't be out until 2011 most likely.

Tired. Feet hurt. Sleep now.

Checking in from Book Expo America | Friday

So far the show has been much better than expected. There were some worries that the show is going downhill, and while it is definitely smaller I found everything I wanted and more. It is especially still a fun place to walk around if you love books. There are hundreds of authors throughout the event. I met China Mieville at his signing and got his autograph on The City & The City. He was much friendlier than I expected given his serious look in his photos and tone when I've heard him interviewed. I also managed to get Neil Gaiman's autograph on The Graveyard Book and my first edition hardcover of American Gods. Here he is signing my copy of The Graveyard Book: I left with the biggest grin. I've grabbed a few good galleys and spoke to some of the publishers such as Orbit and Overlook. The Orbit people were especially friendly and they're definitely reading the bloggers. Tomorrow there is a talk with China Mieville and John Ringo I hope to attend. Well here is the swag I picked up:

• Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie (Orbit) This is the one I was most excited about grabbing. I don't think they were actually giving them out but Alex from Orbit was very kind.
• [Signed] Soulless by Gail Carriger (Orbit) Gotta love Zombies in a Victorian steampunk setting.
• Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)
• The Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage (Coffee House) I read Savages' Firmin a few months ago a love the heartbreaking story of a rat who is born smart and lives in a bookstore.
• [Signed] The City & The City by China Mieville (Del Rey)
• This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper (Duton) Because it looks interesting.
• New World Monkeys by Nancy Mauro (Crown) Who couldn't love a title like this?
• [Signed] An Edible History of Humanity by Tom Standage (Walker) I loved the author's A History of the World in 6 Glasses so this should be a good treat.
• The Magicians by Lev Grossman (Viking) I was underwhelmed by Grossman's first book Codex, but the premise sounded interesting enough to give it a shot.

Please feel free to post your jealousy over my grand swag. I don't expect to pick up as much tomorrow, but there were rumors of the new Hitchhikers Guide being given out.

At Book Expo America Friday and Saturday

I'll be attending Book Expo America or BEA for those in the know. It is the largest gathering of Publishers in the US with hundreds of authors doing signings and loads of ARCs being given out. I hope to do a post each day about the swag I grab and the authors I meet. Some of this year's highlights include signings by Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and Brandon Sanderson. Mieville is also giving a talk about Sci-Fi/Fantasy I hope to get to.

Tim Lebbon Guest Post + GIVEAWAY + EXCERPT

I'm very happy to introduce our first author guest post here at Mad Hatter's as award-winning author Tim Lebbon visits us on his Blog Tour as his 8th stop to promote the new paperback edition of FALLEN. The previous stop was at Graeme's where you can check out a great interview with Tim.

To begin, I have one copy of Tim Lebbon's FALLEN courtesy of the fine people at Allison & Busby to give away. Send an email to madpye (AT) yahoo (dot) com with your full name and snail mail address. The deadline is midnight next Wednesday (June 3rd). I'll announce the winner on Thursday. This contest is open to anyone in the world. To enter for a chance to win a signed hardback copy of The Island, which is set in the same world as FALLEN follow this contest link. Be sure to enter this code: KONRAD. The contest is open to anyone in the UK. Without further adieu Tim Lebbon's Guest Post:

Previously on this Blog Tour I’ve chatted about new novels FALLEN (paperback) and THE ISLAND (hardback), their characters, the world of Noreela and its timeline and background, what inspires me, and what goes on in my head to even give these stories a chance at being told. I’ve also talked about sentient tumbleweed and fictional characters taking charge of my life … Now I thought I’d share with you a little of what it’s like to live a writer’s life – with the constant shadow of deadlines, the chasing of fleeting ideas, the writing blocks, the inevitable self-doubt… Deadlines are like monsters from a really bad Jean-Claude Van Damme movie (are there any other sort?), stalking me from the future, closing mindlessly and mercilessly, and every morning when I wake up they’re that much nearer, and I can hear the chomping of their jaws and the clacking of their teeth as they do their best to distract me from the writing that will, I hope, see them turn away, at the very moment they might have closed their drooling, stinking molars together through my soul… Ideas stalk, but in a more benign, yet no less disturbing way. They’ll circle and watch for the best moment to arrive, and their best moments are usually my worst. Many times I’ve had a great idea sing in and make itself known just at that strange moment between waking and sleep, when the world is quiet and all manner of possibilities lie in the dreams bubbling just over the sleep horizon. Up, out of bed, beside lamp on, notebook open, wife stirring in annoyance, and even then the frantic scribbling does little to bring justice to the idea that is already over there in dreamland, laughing at me. Other times it’ll be when I’m driving that the idea bullet hits, taking out a large chunk of my concentration as I try to negotiate the next deadly traffic jam of white van drivers and boy racers. On the loo, walking the dog, watching something on TV or a movie—and the wife hates it even more when I press pause and disappear into my office to rattle down a couple of hundred words of what, I hope, might become the next scene, chapter, or book … Deadline still stalking, ideas circling at a taunting distance, this is the Middle of the Novel, where the beginning still seems great, the ending is a shining beacon luring me on with promises of brilliance, but the current location is just not working at all. This middle is painfully bad, it’ll break the book and upset my editor and destroy my career. It’s the worst Middle of the Novel there has ever been, because it’s the parched Desert where Ideas Die. I write on, because that’s all there is to do, and eventually there’s an oasis in the distance … but is it real, or is it a mirage? And so to the ending, when everything I’ve been working on for several months starts to come together into this great climax I have been thinking about forever. Plot strands converge, schemes cross paths, characters have changed enough to fulfil the destiny I—or more likely, they—have always intended for them. But … will it work? Is this really such a great idea after all, or is it a stinking pile of cliché? There are 130,000 words behind me laughing at my back as I run away from them, fleeing a fight and edging nervously around where the last 20,000 words are meant to go. Help me help me somebody help me! And now I’ve written the ending, it’s something close to what I’d hoped, or at least the novel as a whole bears a passing resemblance to the idea I had in the beginning—but only a fleeting likeness, because everything changes in the telling, and my favourite Arthur Machen quote never seems more pertinent than now: “I dream in fire but work in clay.” It’s delivery time, when I send this new baby off into the internet ether winging its way toward my agent and, from his hands, into the hands of my editor. Now the real angst begins, because is this the worst novel I’ve ever written? Even worse, is it the worst novel ever written by anyone, ever? Of course it is … and the period after delivery that should be for relaxation and casual research about the next book are sleepless and disturbed. My editor will hate it, the edit notes will mean a complete rewrite, acceptance and the delivery advance are still months away, and my kids need new shoes! And even when the edit notes aren’t too bad and my editor says how good the book is, I start to wonder if it’s too different from my last books, will readers who liked the horror go for the fantasy, will fantasy readers like this new horror novel, will I shed any small readership I’ve managed to attract by changing tack? Is this novel the equivalent of career suicide? What was I thinking? But already my head’s spinning with new ideas, because there’s always more to do. The new idea is taking shape, the new novel forming like a shape in the mist. I can never concentrate on anything for too long, not without new ideas intruding … my head’s always working, and that makes relaxing difficult. These new ideas, they’re just … well … Am I weird? Am I really weird. Do people in my village talk about me behind my back, look at me, say, ‘There’s that weird writer bloke Tim Lebbon’? I should take a break, of course. Spend some time with my wife and kids. But there’s a new deadline beckoning now, making low, grunting noises as it gears itself up to steaming in at me with fangs gnashing and the promise of eternal damnation if it catches me and flings me behind it. So the promise of ‘I’ll have a bit more time soon’ is always an empty promise, because as I get older and my career moves on, Time seems less and less easy to find. I dream of a machine that makes time, and there’s a twinge of, ‘Hey!’, but of course that’s a stupid idea. So I deal with the time I’ve got, and tell the kids that no, I can’t come out to play right now, I have this guest blog to write for this Blog Tour I’m on and… And I love every single minute of it all. With FALLEN and THE ISLAND, the deadlines kept me focused, and I hit both of them (in fact, THE ISLAND was early …!). Brainstorming these two novels felt like having a personal movie screen and library, always active, inside my own mind. Writing the endings was like discovering what happens at the end, as much a thrill as reading the ending of a great novel, and with both FALLEN and THE ISLAND the endings were mysteries to me until I wrote them. Writing something different from my earlier horror novels was rewarding and satisfying, and readers’ and critics’ reaction has been fantastic. New ideas hit and excite me as much now as a great idea did ten years ago. Yes, I’m a bit strange, but who’d want to be normal? And my family seems quite settled with my slight oddness, and my kids love the fact that I can tell stories. So what are the worries and concerns about being a writer? All part of the wonderful, thrilling process, that’s what. Speaking of which, I feel a new idea circling in now, so if you’ll excuse me …

If you've been following Tim's Blog Tour here is the link to the next installment of the extract from FALLEN to get a taste of Lebbon's Norella: EXCERPT. Start back at the beginning of the tour to get caught up to the samples. You can also read my review of Lebbon's (with Christopher Golden) The Map of Moments here.

Join Tim on June 1st for his final stop on the blog tour at the SFX Magazine Blog where they'll have an exclusive extract from The Island. To order a copy of the newly release paperback of FALLEN visit here.

To catch up on the tour here is the full list of other stops on the tour:

11th May - My Favourite Books 13th May - Allison & Busby 15th May - Highlander’s Book Reviews 17th May - Falcata Times 20th May - Speculative Horizons 23rd May - Fantasy Book Spot 25th May - Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review 27th May - Mad Hatter's Bookshelf & Book Review 1st June - SFX Magazine Blog

REVIEW | The City & The City by China Miéville (Del Rey)

The City & The City was one of those books that everyone has been hotly awaiting since announced. I must admit I fell into the trap as well with the entire mystique surround its release. Even to the point where the author asked reviewers to be very vague about some of the details. After reading I can certainly see why China and his publisher wanted to keep things quite. A loose word here or there could ruin the entire experience, which is why I'll keep this brief.

The City & The City is a detective murder mystery a la Raymond Chandler with a little fantasy mixed in narrated by Inspector Tyador Borlu of Beszel Extreme Crime Squad. The setting is quite strange in that it is a divided city. Think East/West Berlin only with the streets split in half with one side of the populace on each side and neither being able to acknowledge or see the other. Borlu lives in Beszel and the other half of the city is called Ul Qoma.

The style of writing is almost as if it were written in another language and than translated into English, but it works beautifully. Some may consider this work too high brow, but I think it can be enjoyed by anyone willing to put in the effort. It will certainly make you think. I found myself putting the book down a few times between chapters just to ponder what it would be like to live or visit a city such as this. A few brief chapters have Borlu accompanying visitors around the Bezel, which gives you a bit more insight into the alienness of it all. Borlu's investigation takes him to the other side of the city so you do get a complete view of each.

The City & The City twists and turns into something I was never expecting, but is all the more satisfying for doing so. I give The City & The City 9.5 out 10 Hats. I would have given it 10, but I do have to leave room for improvement. I'm even contemplating getting the Subterranean edition, but I haven't decide if it will live up to repeated readings. I'll definitely be checking out China's Un Lun Dun and maybe some other works by him in the next couple of months.

Book link: US UK Canada Subterranean

Tim Lebbon is Coming | Upcoming Guest Post, Free Excerpt, and Giveaway

We'll be having our first author guest blog later this week from Tim Lebbon as he makes his way here on his Blog Tour 2009. In addition we'll be sharing an exclusive excerpt from Lebbon's Fallen and a giveaway of The Island. Visit Graeme's Fantasy Book Review for today's Blog Tour stop.

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW | Thor: Ages of Thunder by Matt Fraction (Marvel)

I've long been a fan of Norse mythology so in turn Thor is about the best it can get in graphic novels to me except for maybe Gaiman's work. I was also itching for a warm up to Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout and this certainly fit that. Thor: Ages of Thunder collects Matt Fraction's attempt at reinterpreting the Norse myths surrounding Thor and his brethren in a nice slightly over sized hardcover. Let me first say that the art is absolutely amazing. Although it is a different style than Alex Ross it is just as impressive in its epic scale. Each frame deserves a place in a museum.

Thor: Ages of Thunder stands apart from the rest of the Thor series' past and present so it can be enjoyed on its own without any prior introduction to past reading. This is a different Thor than depicted most elsewhere. He is tired of being the one who always has to clean up all of the other Gods problems, especially the mischievous Loki. Thor has turned into a vengeful and unforgiving God. In it Thor fights everything from frost and storm giants to zombie hordes and even Odin the all-father, which gives Zircher's art a chance to cut loose on an incredible scale.

I'd almost go as far to say Fraction's take is better than Walter Simonson's legendary long run at Thor, but I'd probably be lynched by comic book I mean graphic novels aficionados. I give Thor: Ages of Thunder 9.5 out of 10 Hats. If you are a fan of the Norse myths or just love a beautifully rendered epic give this one a try.

Book link: US UK Canada

REVIEW | Ghost Ocean by S.M. Peters (Roc)

About a year ago I was in my local bookstore and saw a little mass market sticking out of alignment from the rest of the books. At the time it seemed like it was beckoning me. The book turned out to be the most ambitious steampunk novel I've read called Whitechapel Gods by S.M. Peters which was his debut novel. I don't think it got noticed as much as it deserved when first released. The striking cover is perfect for the story which evokes a Victorian England where there is a disease turning people into machines. If you are a fan of steampunk than by all means get yourself a copy of Whitechapel Gods. With Ghost Ocean we see Peters turn his able sextant to Urban Fantasy. Judging by its cover of a pretty girl in a leather jacket it could be lost in the sea of other Urban Fantasies, but it is definitely a cut above the average. Ghost Ocean is very strange with the most bizarre cast of characters placed in the fictitious town of St. Ives where it is almost always raining and monsters of all kind dwell. Told from multiple view points and jumping around in time and memory it could take a little while to get a handle of what is going on just in time for Peters to change the rules, however it is well worth the effort. The story completely fakes you out from what you think is going to be a daughter's search for her father's killer, but is more about the ancient evils that surrounds Te, the main protagonist. Te is a paranormal investigator in training to Babu Cherian who worked with her father before his death five years prior. Along the way you learn Te has been held in the dark about nearly everything and everyone in her life as her father wanted to shield her from this life. It is actually surprising how well adjusted she is given her upbringing by a clearly uncaring mother and a mostly absent father. My one caveat is Te's relationship to Jack, her doting neighbor, in which she leads him around like a puppy into trouble time and time again. But to Te it is all about filling the gap of loneliness inside of her and Jack also provides her a connection she needs to stay grounded. After a very powerful monster escapes its prison Te is brought in on the secrets of her father's past and into Babu's mysterious group of monster hunters in search of the creature. My favorite character from the odd group is probably Munin who is mathematical genius/mad scientist with a toy ray gun. All over St. Ives there are creepy crawlies aching to be set free. The grotesque description of many of the creatures, most notably Bird will stay with you for a long while as will the freak people that surround her. In some ways Ghost Ocean is a dark version of American Gods with Peters' use of mythology and his own inventiveness able to make it stand apart. Ghost Ocean is a wild adventure that keeps pushing harder and further to up the stakes. Fans of Neil Gaiman, Simon R. Green, or Christopher Golden should definitely find Ghost Ocean engaging and fresh. If you are a guy who loves Urban Fantasy, but have trouble finding new books beyond Dresden and John Taylor give this one a try. I give Ghost Ocean 8 out of 10 Hats. It is clear that Peters has a long and bright future in front of him as his writing has improved between books. I'll be checking out anything he writes in the future. I'm hopeful Peters gets moved up to a hardcover or at least trade paper release for his next book as I'd love to have copies that will hold up on my shelves. Book Link: US Canada UK Edit: See interview with S.M. Peters here.