August is holiday season in publishing in the UK – the office quietens down, agents and authors are away (our very own Cory Doctorow is relaxing beside a lake in Canada internet-free for the month of August) – and those of us still at work daydream of time away. Said daydreaming has led me to imagine the perfect fantasy or science-fiction book lovers getaway… where in the world could you go to get a truly out-of-this-world experience?
1) New Zealand
Of course, one destination high up on the list for fantasy lovers has to be New Zealand – home of the Lord of the Rings and probably as close to Middle Earth as you can hope to get. Apart from hiking alongside Mount Doom, halting black riders at the Ford of Bruinen or finding the Pillars of Argonath, you can still visit Hobbiton in Matamata on the North Island – the only remaining set from the original movies.
It’s great to know they’ve got a network on board – and one that is bound to get 100% behind the show. In the meantime, if you haven’t already, why not check out the fantastic teaser trailer from HBO?
There’s been quite a lot of activity on the Voyager website recently — including loads of updates to our Author pages and to our Latest Releases section. To celebrate this big step forward in Voyager’s online presence, we’ve got a great new contest lined up (okay, as if we need any excuse!!)
To make things a bit more interesting, and to encourage you to take a look around the site, we’ve decided to test your book cover knowledge. All of these covers can be found somewhere on the Voyager website — but are you savvy enough to guess them all from a 100×100 sample? Those of you who are will be entered in to win one of five awesome mystery Voyager goody bags… and since we’ve just moved around in the office we’ve found a ton of gems that are in desperate need of a good home .
Name That Cover!
1) 2) 3)
4) 5)
Please submit your guesses to thevoyager@harpercollins.co.uk and include the title of the book and the author in your e-mail. Contest will close at 9am Monday 2 August, 2010. UK/Eire only.
The Guardian has a great article about the anticipation surrounding HBO’s small screen adaptation of A Game of Thrones (although by their definition I guess this is the ‘nerd’ section of the web!) We also hope that the BBC announces they are officially picking the series up too… with a ton of excitement being generated this side of the pond, they’d be mad not to!
In the meantime, why not share the GRRM-love? If there’s anyone you know out there who’s not yet into GRRM… drag them into the nerd section of the bookshop, point them to Amazon or lend them your old beaten up copy of A Game of Thrones and get them hooked on A Song of Ice and Fire.
David Brawn the Publishing Director for Estates here at HarperCollins HQ in Hammersmith, is the font of all Tolkien knowledge (well in the building at least!).
He has put together a special blog celebrating the 80th anniversary of J.R.R. first putting pen to paper and starting work on The Hobbit…
My daughter came home from school on the last Thursday in June happier than I think I have seen her for a long time. Why? She had just sat the last of her GCSE exams, and for her the summer was about to start. I suggested that she show some sympathy for the examiners, the poor army of academics whose summer won’t begin until they have finished marking the work of hundreds of thousands of students – but my sympathy was, of course, not shared by my daughter. So much for Sweet Sixteen!
Last night, Clerkenwell Tales hosted China Miéville and Voyager science-fiction author Cory Doctorow for a reading and signing. The demand was so great they moved the event venue from the store to the church next door to accomodate more people. If you get a chance, definitely check out Clerkenwell Tales — it’s a fantastic bookshop in London on a really interesting street with loads of restaurants and bars, well worth a visit.
An eager audience filled the church, sipping wine and tapping away at the most iPads I’ve ever seen in one room! Cory read a chilling passage from his YA novel For the Win and China changed his mind from reading a short story to reading a chapter from his latest book, Kraken. Then emcee Robert Sharp from English PEN led several interesting discussions, covering topics like writing by hand, Cory’s immense system of archiving, whether it’s necessary for authors to blog and all sorts of questions from twitter and from the audience.
Left to right: Cory, China and Robert
There was a moment of drama as an audience member was taken ill (thankfully @booksellerpete has assured us that she is completely fine!), and the event spilled out onto Exmouth Market street — where the quick thinking event organisers brought out tables for Cory and China to sign books – and the wine continued to flow out of doors! Speaking of iPads, I think Cory even got the chance to sign one… now that’s pretty cool.
All in all the evening went extremely well, and I hope that Clerkenwell Tales will continue to host such interesting and creative events. Were you there? Comment and let me know!
The weather is perfectly hot and sunny in London (shocking!) and for those of you not watching, the golf, the cricket or eagerly awaiting the start of the new football season, it’s the perfect time to sit in the park, drink Pimms and read a good book or three! Voyager has a great line-up for alternative summer reads…smart, sexy and – oh yes, plenty of magic and sci-fi too.
To celebrate the announcement that Terry Goodkind is to publish a new story featuring his much loved characters Richard and Kahlan Rahl we are giving away x5 copies of Confessor.
This month’s book of the month is Fiona McIntosh’s second instalment of the gripping epic, fantasy Valisar Trilogy, Tyrant’s Blood.
Ten years have passed since Loethar, the barbarian warlord from the Likurian steppes, devoured the Devona Set with his army of mercenaries, decimating their ruling families and settling in their primary kingdom of Penraven.
Here at Voyager we see and read about dragons all the time – I mean, we’re constantly gawping at the beautiful Jackie Morris-designed covers for Robin Hobb’s The Rain Wild Chronicles and following the latest adventures of Naomi Novik’s Temeraire. But real life dragons? Well we’re about to pack up the Voyager desks and ship ourselves to Indonesia, just so we can have these guys flying above our desks as we work!! Surely that would count as inspiration…
Photo: Reddit user Biophilia_curiosus
(And yes, we know we’re a few months off this news, but we love it anyway! If you come across any pics, stories or fun websites relating to science fiction and fantasy that you think Voyager would love, please e-mail us: thevoyager@harpercollins.co.uk. We’re working on getting a permanent ‘story tip-off’ box added to the blog, so keep an eye out.)
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