The 'Catch Up' Post...

I’ve been away the last week, visiting the in-laws in Plymouth and showing the baby off, and very nice it’s been too! I’ve also been trying to catch up on some reading (because the pile is getting very big now) and the plan is to have reviews up for ‘Swords & Dark Magic’, ‘Salute the Dark’ and ‘The White Road’ up over the next few days. You might even get to see what I thought of the first ‘Savage Sword of Conan’ collection as well. Stick around, I’m pretty excited about what’s on the blog this week… :o)
That’s all to come though, this post is more about a couple of things that have been mentioned on line while I was away (hence the catchy title)...



Everyone has been posting about this and that’s far too many links to include in one simple blog post. I got an email from the publicist at Tor so I’m going from that instead ;o) If you’re a fan of Brandon Sanderson then you’ll probably want to know that Tor.com have the first fifty pages of ‘The Way of Kings’ for fans to whet their appetites on. You need to be a registered user to get the whole excerpt but even if you’re not you still get the prelude and prologue to chew on. That can’t be bad!
I enjoyed ‘Elantris’ but never read ‘Warbreaker’ and never finished the ‘Mistborn’ series either (just couldn’t get into it…) ‘The Way of Kings’ does sound interesting though so I reckon I’ll give it a go.



Adam linked to a post from Sara Douglass who talks about her cancer and how it will inevitably kill her.

I am sick of this tawdry game. I am sick to death of comforting people when all I want is to be comforted. I am sick of being abandoned by people for months on end only to be told eventually that ‘I knew they were thinking of me, right?’ I am sick of being exhorted to be silent and sweet and stoic. I know I face a long and lonely death and no, I don’t think I should just accept that.
I don’t think I should keep silent about it.

Damn right. It can only be good for everyone if things like this are talked about.
For what they’re worth, all my best wishes go to Sara Douglass and her family at this time.



And finally, Pat links to a piece written by Stephen Deas who is understandably a little hacked off by the fact that someone got him to autograph an advance copy of ‘The Thief Taker’s Apprentice’ and then promptly went off and sold it on ebay. I wonder if Stephen wasn’t so much hacked off about the money as he was about the fact that he feels a little taken advantage of by someone whom he thought was a fan but was just on the take. Either way it’s not particularly nice.

My advice (for what it’s worth) is to go down the whole ‘personalised book signing’ route. If you’re a fan then it’s a little bit special and it should also cut down on the number of ebayers who would want to buy the advance copy (not something I do anyway but I certainly wouldn’t want a book that was signed for someone else…)
Does anyone really care what I do with my advance copies once I’ve finished reading them? You do? Ok then… If I like ‘em I keep ‘em. If I don’t then off to the charity shop they go (or to friends). I get these books for free and it’s always felt wrong to make money off them because of that…

Oh well, back to the reading… :o)