Heir Apparent, by Vivian Vande Velde
While many fantasy fans will enjoy Vivian Vande Velde’s YA novel Heir Apparent, it will resonate most with readers that are familiar with fantasy-based computer games. If you’ve ever happily played a Sierra game into the wee hours of the night...
Fantasy geeks take note.
On January 27, NPR's "All Things Considered" ran an article on the changing image of dragons. If interested, click here to listen to Rick Kleffel talk about modern dragon PR, using evidence from ...
Only to be expected
The film adaptation of Annette Curtis Klause's wonderful YA novel Blood and Chocolate is out today, and the reviews are uniformly unenthusiastic. There's a lot of comments along the lines of "it'...
Austen sequel goodness
Margaret C. Sullivan, editor of AustenBlog, has written a sequel to Northanger Abbey entitled There Must Be Murder. Sullivan's story will be published as a serialized novella, with one chapter app...
The Oxford Murders, by Guillermo Martinez
It’s a good thing that Guillermo Martinez’s mystery The Oxford Murders was only 200 pages long, seeing as I had to read half of it twice (and I suspect I’m not the only one). Mr. Martinez is all too willing to embrace big words, obscure metaphors, and complicated mathematical references. Happily, his elegantly wrought whodunit is entertaining enough to hook readers, despite...
Manhwa for the masses
I'm currently enjoying two very similar manhwa titles: Sun Hee Lee's Neck and Neck (released through TokyoPop), and YunHee Lee's Angel Diary, from Ice Kunion. I think Ice Kunion is doing a slig...
Finally, covers I like!
I know that a lot of my posts tend to be about cover art that I hate. It's not that I don't find covers that I like, it's that when I see covers that are unbelievably bad or embarrassing I feel l...
The Rhythm of the Road, by Albyn Leah Hall
Albyn Leah Hall is an author to watch, but nobody would describe her as being remotely Wordcandy-friendly. Her book The Rhythm of the Road is full of familiar images from country music: miss...
The Magic Pudding
The hardworking people at Dover Thrift have just released a handsome illustrated edition of Norman Lindsay's 1918 novel The Magic Pudding: Being the Adventures of Bunyip Bluegum and His Friends Bi...
Classier and classier...
Zenescope Entertainment is offering another twist on the popular revamped fairytale genre: an R-rated comic book version! Doesn't their "Grimm Fairy Tales" series look delightful?Dude, that's ful...
Shojo exhibit hits DC
The international touring exhibit "Girl Power! Girls' Comics from Japan" is coming to Washington D.C. on January 30th. Curated by Dr. Masami Toku, Associate Professor of Art and Art History at C...
Must-see PBS TV.
PBS's upcoming TV adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is scheduled to air on January 21st and 28th. I have yet to enjoy a televised version of a Bronte novel, but this one looks pretty impr...
Holy cow--is she smiling?
Unable to get Sarah Michelle Gellar to stop looking like a wet week, Joss Whedon has turned to comic books to continue his story. Behold: Buffy the Vampire Slayer's season eight, coming soon to a...
Greywalker, by Kat Richardson
Kat Richardson’s debut novel Greywalker is a rare beast: a female-oriented fantasy/horror story without a single kinky sex scene. There’s a minor romantic subplot (and the heroine encounters a few alternate romantic possibilities), but Richardson seems much more interested in her cloudy Seattle setting, her levelheaded P.I. heroine, and her tense, action-packed plot...
Another step backward.
First we have the new and, ah, "improved" Meg Cabot website, now we have a revised cover for the first book in Herbie Brennan's Faerie Wars series. I am not sure what our authors are thinking thi...
New website
So, it looks like Meg Cabot has launched a new website layout...I am pretty sure I liked the site much better before this latest redesign. It had this fun, bubblegum pink look and feel to it. The ...
Wordcandy Book Snippet
Excerpt from:Helen Huddleson, by Amanda McKittrick RosWhy you should buy a copy of your very own:This was an author who was confident that her books would be admired for the next thousand years, a...
No cover art yet...
We don't have any cover art yet for the seventh Harry Potter book, but if you're a budding designer (or you just like to draw), then The Leaky Cauldron has a fun contest for you. In honor of the...
Flora Segunda, by Ysabeau S. Wilce
Ysabeau S. Wilce’s Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Adventures of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), A House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog is...
Lyra! Mrs. Coulter! Lord James Bond!
New Line has released a load of Golden Compass stills, and they look lovely:You can view the rest here and here.
My cat would love it.
I'm usually a big fan of West Elm's designs, but I'm not sure about this bookcase:It looks cool, but wouldn't stuff get knocked off? Still, it's only $149, and that's nothing to sneeze at, booksh...
Size 14 is Not Fat Either, by Meg Cabot
Size 14 Is Not Fat Either is the best series installment Meg Cabot has produced in years. It’s sunny-tempered (well, as sunny-tempered as a story featuring a beheaded cheerleader can be) and witty, and it does a great job of displaying Cabot’s gift for engaging characterization...
Fanfiction DOES pay--if you're really good at it.
These Three Remain, the final volume of Pamela Aidan's Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman series is newly available this week.This trilogy began as a Pride and Prejudice fanfic on the Republic of Pember...
2007: WOOT!
So here's the flip side of our "Best of 2006" list on the main site--the top ten things we're looking forward to in 2007. We're happy to report that there's a ton of stuff coming out over the nex...