Saga (a Simon & Schuster Imprint) Picks Up Stina Leicht’s Flintlock Fantasy Series!
That title is a bit of a mouthful, but I wanted to make sure the gravity of the situation could sink in before you read the rest of this post. That’s right. Stina Leicht — one of our lovely hosts — has just announced her two book deal with Simon & Schuster imprint, Saga. And it’s a secondary-world flintlock fantasy. From the author of Of Blood and Honey and And Blue Skies From Pain. If that doesn’t entice you, then perhaps the description will: The future for the ancient Kingdom of Eledore is grim. A small pox epidemic is sweeping through the land. A decadent aristocracy employs immense magical powers to quibble with one another, and dominate the populace, the Regnum of Acrasia has declared a holy war against magic, and an ancient evil living beneath Eledore threatens to break free. Can Princess Suvi navigate her family’s deadly politics, create justice for her people, unify the survivors, and hold back a demon horde at the same time? Disowned and cast off, can her twin brother Nels successfully fight a war that no one is willing to acknowledge against a nation whose technology is far superior? You can read more about the books on Stina’s blog (including a little snippet). Needless to say, we’re super excited about these books and cannot wait for them to be in our hands! Delicate, book-loving hands. After all, Jen and I have spent the last three years handselling Stina’s previous books on the intergalactic scene, so we’re happy we’ll get to handsell some more of her work (this time to the Necrophages of Sirius, who are really into that whole flintlock thing). Congrats to Stina and to Simon & Schuster’s new imprint, which will clearly be successful because they have good taste.
Mining the Genre Asteroid: Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin
A century and a half after Earth has been wrecked, humanity exists in two spheres. There are the hardscrabble colonies, where survival is the watchword, as man tries to live on alien, often unfriendly environments. The people are often poor, desperate and technologically backward. And then there are the Ships that travel the spaceways. Technologically advanced and relatively rich, the Ships have a strict regime for keeping themselves from being overpopulated. Every person who reaches their fourteenth birthday must train for an ordeal called the Trial.
My Superpower: Gregory A. Wilson
My Superpower is a regular guest column on the Skiffy and Fanty blog where authors and creators tell us about one weird skill, neat trick, highly specialized cybernetic upgrade, or other superpower they have, and how it helped (or hindered!) their creative process as they built their project. Today we welcome Gregory A. Wilson to talk about his paternal hilarity. —————————————————— A quick perusal of previous My Superpower entries on Skiffy and Fanty reveals one essential truth: like rappers, for whom every other rapper is a sucker MC afraid to step to the mic and face the miraculous madness (I’m patenting that, by the way — it’s got just enough street cred to work), many contributors to this guest column are anxious to claim that their superpowers are more badass than everyone else’s — even when they involve creating apparently self-deprecating yet still awesome powers like (I quote) “a Non-Event Sphere” where nothing happens, or (again I quote) being “selectively stupid.” So I wish to go on the record and say, right at the outset, that my particular superpower is not likely to trump anyone else’s. You may well have this superpower yourself, and it may even be more powerful than mine. I may be the sucker MC (I’m certainly afraid of the miraculous madness). It’s not broadly applicable or particularly useful outside of one specific context. But within that context, my superpower is completely MC-style legit. I am funny as hell. To my six year old.
Recommended Reads for January 2014
Recommended Reads is a monthly feature in which the Skiffy and Fanty crew tell you about one thing they recently read that they think you might like too. (Note: this is a tad late; sowwies) Here are our picks:
191. Myke Cole (a.k.a. Sergeant Tibbs): Breach Zone (2014)(An Interview)
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode191AnInterviewWMykeCole/SandF%20–%20Episode%20191%20–%20An%20Interview%20w%20Myke%20Cole.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSMagic wars, goblins, and love, oh my! Myke Cole returns once more with another incredible work of fantasy fiction, Shadow Ops: Breach Zone. We dig into the complicated relationship between the military and the general public, the development of the novels in Shadow Ops series, and so much more. Spoiler warning: if you have not read the previous two books in the series, Control Point and Fortress Frontier, we recommend doing so before listening to this episode. While we don’t ruin those books, we obviously discuss some of the details in their connection to Breach Zone. We hope you enjoy the episode! Note: If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show! Here’s the episode (show notes are below): Episode 190 — Download (MP3) Show Notes: Myke’s Website Myke’s Twitter Myke’s Books You can also support this podcast by signing up for a one month free trial at Audible. Doing so helps us, gives you a change to try out Audible’s service, and brings joy to everyone. Our new intro music is “Time Flux” by Revolution Void (CC BY 3.0). That’s all, folks! Thanks for listening. See you next week.
Geekomancer Under Glass — Video Games I Want To Play
Hello all! This is Mike, your resident Geekomancer. Thanks to my novel contracts, my free time to *be* a geek has been lessened. I’ve had to make some tough leisure time choices, and more often than not, video games lose out, since it’s easier for me to sit back and absorb some narrative via TV and film. My friend Gregory A. Wilson has figured out a great way to have his cake and eat it too. He broadcasts his video gaming on Twitch TV, a broadcasting system. Through his stream, I’ve discovered a number of great video games that I desperately want to play, but haven’t made time. And all of this in a Golden Age of independent video game design. Therefore, I’m going to sublimate some of my yearning into this blog, and do my best to add to Skiffy & Fanty readers’ T0-Be-Played pile:
