Strange Chemistry, the YA imprint of Angry Robot Books, is delighted to announce the signing of Danielle Jensen, in a three-book World English Rights deal concluded by Strange Chemistry’s editor Amanda Rutter and Tamar Rydzinski of the Laura Dail Literary Agency.

The first of the three books is called Stolen Songbird and will be published by Strange Chemistry in early 2014.

Trolls are said to love gold. They are said to live underground and hate humans, perhaps even eat them. They are said to be evil.  When Cécile de Troyes is kidnapped and sold to the trolls, she finds out that there is truth in the rumours, but there is also so much more to trolls than she could have imagined.

Cécile has only one thing on her mind after she is brought to Trollus, the city she hadn’t even known existed under Forsaken Mountain: escape. But the trolls are inhumanly strong. And fast. She will have to bide her time, wait for the perfect opportunity.

But something strange happens while she’s waiting – she begins to fall in love with the handsome, thoughtful troll prince that she has been bonded and married to. She begins to make friends. And she begins to see that she may be the only hope for the half-bloods – part troll/part human creatures who are slaves to the full-blooded trolls. There is a rebellion brewing. And her prince, Tristan, the future king, is its secret leader.

As Cécile becomes involved in the intricate political games of Trollus, she becomes more than a farmer’s daughter from Goshawk’s Hollow. She becomes a princess, the hope of a people, and a witch.

Danielle Jensen said: “I am beyond excited to begin work on the trilogy with Amanda and everyone else at Strange Chemistry. It is a dream come true to see my novels on their way to publication.”

Danielle was born and raised in Calgary, Canada. At the insistence of the left side of her brain, she graduated in 2003 from the University of Calgary with a bachelor’s degree in finance.

But the right side of her brain has ever been mutinous; and in 2010, it sent her back to school to complete an entirely impractical English literature degree at Mount Royal University and to pursue publication. Much to her satisfaction, the right side shows no sign of relinquishing its domination.

Danielle can be found on her website danielleljensen.com as well as on Twitter @dljensen_.

The May booklist “Maypole E13”  is online now with nigh on 450 books, magazines and paperbacks in superb condition.

The list includes early UK firsts of Philip K. Dick, Frank Herbert and Kurt Vonnegut as well as some superb paperbacks. Don’t miss out!

From award-winning British fantasy author Freda Warrington, A Taste of Blood Wine (Titan Books, May 2013) is the first novel of a gothic vampire melodrama.

To celebrate the return of the critically acclaimed Blood Books in collectable paperback and e-book edition, Titan Books and Freda Warrington are serialising two rare and risqué stories set within the universe of the Blood Books across a series of websites and blogs. 

We’re publishing the fourth part of a short story called Little Goose. Read the rest of the tale here: http://titanbooks.com/blog/freda-warringtons-blood-wine-tour/

—

Little Goose: Part 4

By Freda Warrington

Her designs grew wilder. Eggs of dark pink tourmaline cupped in storms of jet. Snow-white jade, cracked with veins of blood ruby.

One day her father came unannounced, and I must be stuffed like a corpse into a cupboard. Yet I have ways of watching unseen, and I saw.

He stalked the gallery, a forensic examiner. He frowned. His nostrils flared as if he could smell me. Rebecca watched in silent annoyance as he perused her workbench; the designs scattered everywhere, the new pieces taking shape in chaos. He picked up drawings, judged and set them down again, lips pursed.

‘You have done all this in so short a time?’ he said.

‘Why?’ Her voice was high and taut. ‘Is the work substandard?’

‘No. No.’ Then, harshly, ‘How long have you been taking drugs?’

She was indignant, outraged. ‘I’m not taking anything!’

‘Have you looked at yourself in the mirror?’

She clutched her dressing gown to hide her throat. For she had indeed the look of one who makes love to a vampire, then rises from bed to work the night through. Drained, pale skin. Eyes like feverish rubies deep in purple-brown pits. ‘I’ve been working hard, that’s all.’

‘You will burn yourself out! What is it that keeps you awake, speed, cocaine? For God’s sake, Rebecca, what’s happening to you?’

I chose my moment. Stepped out of the shadows, strolled up the gallery stairs in my robe, dishevelled, cool and ironic, as if in a movie. I said, ‘Rebecca, are you not going to introduce us?’

She looked mortified. There was a terrible silence. At last, in a small voice she said, ‘Father, I’d like you to meet Sebastian.’

It was worse than I had expected. When he looked at me – I say looked; really it was like being X-rayed – he saw what I was. Not literally, perhaps, but so keenly that he was half a whisker from the truth. His eyes burned me black.

‘I knew it would be something like this. Knew. I see it all. He’s the one forcing you to work too hard. He’s the one who procures the drugs, yes?’

‘No! He is my inspiration!’

A hissing sneer of contempt. ‘I know him, and dozens like him. They’re all the same. They want to feed off your glory, your money! “One more objet, dearest, for us. A few extra works, and we’ll be rich.” He’ll bleed you dry!’

‘Get out!’ she screamed. ‘You’ve never let me live my own life! You have to let me go!’

‘Make a choice,’ he said, droplets spitting from his lips. ‘Go on seeing him and you will never see me again.’

In answer, she drew close to me and slid her hand through my arm. ‘You make a choice, Daddy,’ she answered. ‘Let me grow up, or get out. They’re not all the same. Everyone I’ve ever loved, you’ve driven away! Well, not this time. Not this time.’

White-faced and vibrating with emotion, her father left.

And I would have been proud of her if only, sadly, he had not been so right.

Apart, they were paralysed.

For weeks they sulked and grew gaunt, while their workbenches lay idle, and their phones rang unanswered. I know, for I watched them both, even when they had no idea I was there. They wasted in every sense. Yet neither, straight-backed and stubborn, would give in.

I haunted the old man’s house. He was there at his workbench, playing a file, not on gold but on his own callused fingertips. Staring at the dark.

‘Go to her, Bartholomew,’ I whispered. ‘Take her in your arms and tell her you’re sorry.’

He started, but looked at me without surprise, didn’t even ask how the hell I got in. Hoarsely he said, ‘She sends you as a go-between?’

‘No. I came because I can’t bear to see her pining.’

‘She has her lover, what use has she for a father? I have only loved her all her life. I only taught her everything she knows.’

‘And this is how she thanks you,’ I added. ‘Have pity on her. She can’t work.’

‘Can’t she.’ A sneer of grim pleasure.

‘Nor can you.’

‘You only care for her work, for the wealth and glory you leech from it! I know you were forcing drugs on her. Nothing else could make her look so ill. I know your sort, predators on my daughter. Happy now, are you? You cut the goose open in your greed and look! No more golden eggs!’

‘I am irrelevant,’ I said softly. ‘It’s that your daughter dares to defy you, that’s what you can’t accept. It’s that she dares to step from under your wing and be an artist in her own right, to be better than you. And you know you’re in the wrong but you can’t admit it. You’d rather torture her for the rest of time with your hubris than admit you’re wrong.’

‘You devil!’

With a roar he leapt at me and I, taken by surprise, defended myself. The file jabbed into my eye. Searing pain jolted through my skull. My hand sprang out to grip his throat. What must he have seen? My white face, my eye socket a gelid mess with the file sticking grotesquely from it. And I, not screaming but enflamed, monstrous. For then he was unmanned. He turned purple, he screamed, he twitched and I – I swear I did not mean to harm him but the pain, turning from fire to ice as my unnatural body pushed out the foreign object – the pain took over and I had him to my lips, my mouth full of his neck, his neck a spouting hose of blood, delicious, hot…

 —

The first book in Freda Warrington’s Blood Books series, A Taste of Blood Wine, is out now from Titan Books, £7.99. Read the rest of the short story Little Goose here: http://titanbooks.com/blog/freda-warringtons-blood-wine-tour/

© Freda Warrington 

AN INTERVIEW WITH RAYMOND E. FEIST

by Craig Knight

Thirty years ago it began with Magician and rather fittingly concludes with Magician’s End. Did you ever imagine the Riftwar Cycle would be so successful and span so many books?

Not until I got deep into the Serpent War saga.  Then it started to dawn on me we might end up doing all 5 Riftwars.  Didn’t know how many books that would take at the time.

How do you feel now that the Riftwar Cycle has come to an end and you reflect on the series and its conclusion?

It’s too soon for anything like perspective.  I’m pleased the series found an audience and that for the most part that audience stuck it out.  I find like any project I can look back and think of a couple of things I could have done better, but that’s always the case.  On the whole I’m pleased with how things turned out.

Looking back at the entire series, is there anything you would have done differently with the benefit of hindsight?

Appropriate follow-up to the previous question.  Nothing major.  There are a couple of places where I think I could have made a different choice.  And some stuff that got put in that never went anywhere.  In Shadow of a Dark Queen I introduce Miranda through the gimmick of her saving Erik and Roo while she’s disguised as an old crone, a whole spy disguise thing I basically dropped as soon as Miranda came on stage.  I could have cut that entire bit, for example.

There are quite a few plot strands to resolve from the previous books, not least being Pug’s prophesised demise. What can readers expect to encounter in Magician’s End?

Without getting into spoilers, I hope the reader finds the conclusion makes sense given what has occurred in the previous books.  There will be some triumphs among all the ashes, and a few happy endings for some characters.  What I hope the reader finds satisfying is the explanation of why things went the way they did.

Has writing Magician’s End been more difficult or challenging than previous books as you seek to bring things to a conclusion?

Not really.  The most challenging aspect was the wrapping up of loose ends, some of which go back to Magician.

Will you be bidding a fond farewell to Midkemia or do you think you’ll return at some point in the future?

Never say never.  Midkemia is a virtual world, and I’m writing basically a history of an imaginary place.  Lots of things went on after the Rifwar Cycle, though not on that comic scale, of course.  I certainly could do more stories in Midkemia.

Do you have any other projects planned that you can tell us about?

At this point I’m in discussion with my publisher about what’s next.  We’ve more or less agreed in principle to a new series, The War of the Five Crowns, which appears to be a trilogy.  The first book is entitled King of Ashes.

I’m sure all your readers will want to express their heartfelt thanks for giving us such a fascinating and enjoyable story over the years. Do you have any words for your fans before we get to grips with Magician’s End?

Yes, please.  Thank you for the support.  Without your affection and spending your hard earned money on my stories, I’d be doing something else.  So, again, thank you all very much.

Check out our review of Magician’s End HERE

From The David Gemmell Legend Awards:

We’re very sad to pass on the news that Deborah Miller, author and principal founder of the David Gemmell Awards For Fantasy, passed away on Monday. Deborah had been battling breast cancer for some years, and went into remission several times. The condition recently surfaced again, and she fought it with her usual resolve, but treatment proved ineffective. She passed peacefully, with her husband, Bill, at her side. Deborah faced her illness with courage and good humour.

Her fiction and the Gemmell Awards will stand as permanent memorials to an exceptional person, an indomitable spirit and a good friend.

The inspirational visual effects wizard has died in London at the age of 92, according to the BBC.

His hand-made models and frame-by-frame animation style have graced movies since 1949 and influenced many directors from Steven Spielberg to Tim Burton.

Following the success of HORROR FOR GOOD in raising funds for amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, Nightscape Press presents FANTASY FOR GOOD: A CHARITABLE ANTHOLOGY edited by Jordan Ellinger and Richard Salter.

More details regarding submissions will be coming soon but for now check out their Facebook page HERE

The words were gentle strokes, drawing her awake.
“Hello.  Hello there.”
She felt the light on her eyelids, and knew that if she opened her eyes they would sting, and she would have to shade them with her palm and let the light bleed through a crack.
“Feel like talking?”  A man’s soft voice.
And then her mind cleared enough to wonder: who was this man at her bedside?
She tried to sigh, but no breath came.  Her eyes flew open in alarm.

In the future, love is complicated.  Technology moves ever forward.  To be disconnected from the maze of social networking is to be an outcast.

Even death doesn’t have to be the end.  An impossible love story is about to unfold between a hit-and-run victim and her killer.

Love Minus Eighty is a disquieting vision of our romantic future, as hopeful as it is horrifying, by Hugo Award-winning author, Will McIntosh.  Imagining love and loss one hundred years into our future, it is both chilling and touching, and fits neatly into a canon of intelligent, mind-expanding science fiction such as Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, Hunnu Rajaniemi’s The Quantum Thief and Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City.

Will McIntosh is admired for his inventive and subtle approach to science fiction, writing books as conceptually cool as they are deeply human.  Love Minus Eighty is the expansion of a short story, for which he won the 2010 Hugo Award and was shortlisted for the Nebula.  He is also the author of the novels Soft Apocalypse and Hitchers, out now in ebook.

Love Minus Eighty will be published by Orbit on June 11th 2013.

Alexandra Arlango, Commissioning Editor – Original Content at AudioGO Ltd in London, has acquired world rights to an original SciFi/Horror novella from award-winning author Sam Stone.

The novella, entitled The Darkness Within, is an exciting and pervasive story set on a spaceship in the far-distant future, and what happens when an alien infection takes hold …

Arlango says about the project: ‘How exciting! I am very pleased to be working with Sam Stone again. Last year AudioGO published her collection of short stories, Zombies In New York And Other Bloody Jottings, and since I came across her work I’ve been a great fan. Not only does she come up with deliciously sinister tales, but the worlds she creates are atmospheric and her characters memorable. They are perfect for audio.

‘I was thrilled to meet Sam earlier this year, and we started talking about other ideas and things that we could work on together. The result? The Darkness Within, an exclusive new novella commissioned by AudioGO. It might well be set in space. And it might well feature new, malevolent life-forms … You’ll have to find out more for yourself. What I can tell you is that I had to stop reading, and look away from the page several times because it was so creepy. This Halloween, things will definitely go bump in the dark!’

AudioGO is the home of BBC Audiobooks and manages all the Doctor Who audio releases among their 10,000 catalogue items. Their clients include books by P D James, J K Rowling, Ruth Rendell and Bernard Cornwall. Their horror catalogue includes work by Bram Stoker, Rachel Caine, M R James, Stephanie Meyer, James Herbert and Fangoria’s Dreadtime Stories. For more information, visit www.audiogo.com/uk/.

Sam Stone’s first novel, Killing Kiss, won the silver award for Best Horror Novel in ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year competition, and her subsequent novels and short stories have gained her much acclaim, including winning the British Fantasy Award. Recent works include the novella Zombies at Tiffany’s and the vampire novel Silent Sand, and Killing Kiss was recently sold to Germany. She holds an MA in Creative Writing and is a noted public speaker and lecturer. Sam’s website is at www.sam-stone.com.

Anatomy of Death (in five sleazy pieces) is the third in the PentAnth series from Hersham Horror Books.

It collects together five stories that all have their roots in the gloriously lurid horror heyday of the 1970s, with contributions from Stephen Volk, Johnny Mains, John Llewellyn Probert, Stephen Bacon and Mark West.

The book is available in paperback from Amazon for £4.50 and as an ebook for £2.02.

More details can be found at the Hersham Horror website - http://silenthater.wix.com/hersham-horror-books - and there is a dedicated Facebook page for the anthology at http://www.facebook.com/pentanth3