Tag Archives | british fantasy society

Juror for British Fantasy Awards 2014

By on in blog, yonder

Have belatedly noticed that the juries for this year’s British Fantasy Awards have been officially announced, so now I can tell you –  I’m a juror again, yay!

I was chuffed to be asked back again this year, but had to remember not to mention it before the official post went up. Which I then totally missed. Oops. In my defense, I forgot most things during May while I was finishing that last draft. No kitchen fires, but my head was so elsewhere that I wouldn’t have been surprised.

I’m on the jury for Best Small Press  – which means a hell of a lot of reading, as we’re considering overall output from several small presses, as opposed to those namby-pamby Best Novel jurors who only have to decide between  a handful of books 😉

I think the plan is to announce details of the nominees for all categories this Friday, at the British Fantasy Society open night in London.

More details of the other juries here, and I’ll try to remember to  link to the nominee announcement once that’s out. Congrats in advance, everyone, and good luck!

Update: details of all shortlisted nominees are now up on the British Fantasy Society site.

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Mrs Darcy Versus The Aliens, Jonathan Pinnock (BFS Review)

By on in books, reviews, words

Fresh from Salt Publishing’s new genre imprint, Proxima, this is a tentacle-heavy Austen homage for fans of Blackadder-style innuendo and puns that would make the Pope groan. The truth is out there, though it is not yet universally acknowledged.

The cast of Pride and Prejudice are carrying on much as we left them, though Jane and Charlie Bingley are having financial problems (something to do with an African Princess’s bank account and an ill-advised partnership with Mr Bradford) and Charlotte’s taken up with the nefarious Mr Byron. Don’t Bonaparte that cheroot, Lord B.

Click here for the rest of the review

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To Indigo, Tanith Lee (BFS Review)

By on in books, reviews, words

to indigo coverIt’s always interesting when writers write about writers, and that memory of Misery you just had isn’t out of place here. We’re not talking Sarah-Jessica adverts for laptops, or Bukowski’s bourbon product-placement. No, Lee’s author protagonist is not an advert for the literary profession. A few chapters into Roy’s life, and the formulaic thriller hack is not an advert for anything at all.

Middle-aged, alone and repressed, Roy’s small-minded life is continuing to be as dull and unpleasant as normal, until a chance encounter with Sej. Sej appears to be a doppelganger of a character in one of Roy’s novels, the secret side-project that no one else has ever read.

Click here for the rest of the review

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Advent Thanksgiving: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

By on in advent, reviews, words

daughter of smoke and bone laini taylor coverMy Advent Thanksgiving series is a series of posts about stuff I liked in 2011. Music, books, tv, games, handsome gentlemen – you get the idea.

This one’s  a no-brainer. If you haven’t already seen my gushing review of this for the BFS, click here to read it.

When I started doing book reviews it was because I thought it would be cool – I’d just joined the British Fantasy Society, and when they tweeted that they needed more reviewers it seemed an ideal way to get involved. Plus, hey, free books!  I was right, it is cool, and perhaps book reviewing should get it’s own Advent Door as it’s definitely made 2011 fun. I’ve discovered new writers and read great books I might not have found out about otherwise, often before they were published. It’s connected me to other reviewers with similar tastes, and now I review for Slacker Heroes too.  It’s hard to believe that this time last year I didn’t have a blog and hadn’t ever reviewed a book (except out loud, ranting, raving or recommending to my friends).

But when I offered to get involved with reviews there was another factor, apart from coolness and book-greed. Hope. I knew that Laini Taylor and Stacia Kane (two of my favourite writers) both had new books out soon. I didn’t expect it to work out, but I crossed my fingers and squinted my eyes up and hoped I might get to read one of them early. I was willing to risk reading bad books by other people if it meant I was in with a chance of getting one of theirs. I didn’t think I actually would, but you gotta hope, right?

daughter of smoke and bone laini taylor fan art

But I did! Hope works, people! The reviews person at the BFS had approximately 90 seconds grace between sending out the ‘Would anyone like to review ‘Daughter of Smoke and Bone‘ and getting a shrieking, capitalised response from me, begging for the review copy. Which I got. W00t!

I then panicked that the book might not be as good as I hoped, that my high expectations would sour it, and I left the book on my table for a while. I worried. Then finally I began, and loved it. Phew. I still want more Dreamdark books, and I miss Magpie and her band of crows. But Karou and the warring angels were a sumptuous substitute for the sequel to Silksinger (ooh, so many Esses) and now I have two Laini Taylor series to recommend. Marvellous.

(Just need someone from Harper Collins to send me an ARC of Sacrificial Magic now… #cheeky).

Here’s a great trailer for the book, and another link to my review.

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