A competition winner and interesting news for Manga fans...

A warm welcome to September, my favourite time of the year (the only month that has my birthday in it!) After last month I'm not going to tell you what I've got lined up in the way of book reviews, suffice it to say that I'm looking at the pile of books next to me and I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in...*

What I can tell you though is that, as promised, our resident mouse (who laughs at mousetraps and acts like he has his own key to my house) has picked a winner for the 'Crystal Rain' giveaway from last week. The lucky winner on this occasion is one Patrick Howson from Essex (Waylander on the SFX and Scifinow forums). Nice one Patrick, the book is in the post even as we speak...


It's not just books that come through the door these days. I got home, on Saturday night, to a package introducing me to Yen Press, the Hachette Book Group's move into manga and other graphic novels. I don't know about you guys but the closest I've got to manga was watching 'Akira' so the teaser booklet (that came in the pack) made for some interesting reading. Once I got my head round starting at the back of the book, and finishing at the front, I really got into the excerpts from each of the first round of books that Yen will be releasing. I will offer up a 'pretty please' right now for review copies of 'Zombie Loan' and 'Alice on Deadlines' especially...
Yen Press have a temporary website Here where you can get more information on upcoming titles and also sign up for a newsletter.
That's all for the moment but if you're sat there all bored at work (or cannot be bothered doing coursework) swing by here for loads of cool sci-fi/fantasy stuff!

(* Oh all right... This week, look out for reviews of Paul S. Kemp's 'Shadowstorm', John Beachem's 'Storms of Vengeance' and 'Dead Men's Boots', the new Felix Castor novel by Mike Carey)