The Latest SFF News From The Web

Welcome back to another weekly round up of the best SFF news and fun from around the web. This week we have everything from the Goodreads Awards and the Disney acquisition of all things Star Wars to an enormous Gollum and because you requested it, news straight from the publishers.

To start us off, this is without a doubt the best pumpkin I’ve seen this Halloween.

The KRANG-O-LANTERN!

(via mikev.me)

BOOKS AND PUBLISHING NEWS

COVER REVEAL!
Gollancz have officially revealed the cover to the forthcoming Charlain Harris novel, Dead Ever After due out 07.05.2013. If you’re a fan of Sookie Stackhouse then it’s time to start getting excited.

In celebration of Halloween, Paul Cornell takes us through the Things That Really Scare Us over on the TOR BOOKS blog. A far more interesting read than you might at first think. Check it out here. 

Excited for HALO 4? Continuing with Tor Books UK, here’s a free extract from the latest HALO novel, The Thursday War.

And on the point of game tie-ins, Headline Publishing have announced that Hitman: Damnation is coming and is a prequel to what is sure to be another hit game in the hit series. It’s sure to be a Hit, man. *chuckle*

MANGA! Orbit Books will be publishing Cassandra Clare’s Infernal Devices Manga! This is great news. There seems to be a really cool shift with publishing at the moment in that they are branching into territories other than the straight 100K novel. Let’s hope we see more of this soon.

The Black Library are turning out some cracking audiobooks lately and if you haven’t caught anything by them then here’s a chance to listen to an extract from ANGEL EXTERMINATUS. 

And sticking with the Black Library for one more, The Black Library Weekender is this coming weekend and it looks set to be incredible. By the looks of things, pretty much every BL author is going to be there. McNeil, Cawkwell, Thorpe, Green, Abnett. Gutted I can’t make it. More info here. 

GOODREADS AWARDS

Take a moment and check out the calibre of authors that are nominated for this years Goodreads Best Fantasy Award. It’s stunning. I really don’t know who I could vote for out of that list. Mark Lawrence, Michael J. Sullivan, Brent Weeks, Stephen King… Get yourself over there and get voting for your favourite.

Neil Gaiman

A few years ago Neil Gaiman started something called All Hallows Read where the idea is to give a scary book or a scary story to another person. Last year he tweeted pictures of himself dropping books in random places for people to find but this year he’s reaching out to everyone by giving us all a completely free and exclusive story, Click Clack The Rattle Bag. It’s available over at Audible and is 100% FREE! What a gent. The UK link is here. For the USA click here. 

This weekend just gone I tore my way through HORNS by Joe Hill. It’s a truly incredible book and is without a doubt, one of the creepiest, most page turniest books I have read in a long, long time. Mr Gaiman seems to agree as he picks Joe Hill’s books  for his Halloween reading recommendations in the above GooglePlay video.

Looking for an excuse to celebrate tonight? Well, just in case you missed it, Gaiman also announced he is releasing a new adult novel soon.

To round this Neil gaiman segment up, I met with the guy in HarperCollins, London last week. Doubt believe me? Here’s a picture. Now, tell me you’re jealous.

SEGA meets Marvel

LOOK! It’s Sonic dressed as THOR! (via bunnyfood)

Disney and Star Wars

Some say it was inevitable, some say it’s all a dream and some say it’s a sign of the apocalypse. Whichever it is, Disney have officially bought LucasFilm and everything that comes with it including all the franchises (Indie, Star Wars, Willow…) and the off-shoot companies such as ILM and SkyWalker Sound. More here. 

Because I couldn’t have put it together any better, here’s a Guardian article with some of the best new Disney/Star Wars mash up images. To be fair, they are coming out so thick and fast that by the time I’ve finished writing this sentence there will be thousands more, they’re certainly worth a Google.

If you want proof of why this is a TERRIFYING thing though, check out this video that Disney officially released today via their Twitter. I watched it once and can’t bring myself to see it again. *shudder*

LOTR

GOLLUM has taken over Wellington Airport in New Zealand! Seriously, can you believe the size of that statue? Head on over to TheONEring.net for more. 

NaNoWriMo

Are you still looking to start writing that novel but haven’t gotten round to it due to the mountain of excuses you keep coming up with? Well look no further than NaNoWriMo where you aim to write at least 50,000 words of your novel in the month of November. It doesn’t matter how good your prose is, it doesn’t matter if your story is about a dog that eats crayons, what’s important is that you get your words out of your fingers and on to the screen.
Do it! No more excuses. Consider yourself told…
More information here on the NaNoWriMo site.

MOvember

Okay this one isn’t so much genre related (unless you have always fancied trying to grow a ‘stache to rival the great Mandarin as pictured above) but it is for a good cause.
Every November 01, men all over the world shave their faces clean and then for the rest of the month they grow the most ostentatious moustaches their bodies can muster. Be it a handlebar or a Fu Manchu, the facial hair gets funky and it’s all in the name of charity and mens health, specifically awareness of prostate and testicular cancer. It’s a great thing to get involved with and all it costs you is a bit of pride. I’m doing it! If you’re interested in signing up then here’s the link. 

Have a great week, World. See you in seven.

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