The Odds and Ends Edition

Past the break, find out how you can get some Free Fiction from upcoming Star Wars author Paul Kemp, as well as former Star Wars author Sean Williams, a link to a contest to win the latest book from Walter Jon Williams and other media tie-ins from Kevin Anderson and Karen Traviss. All this and more after the break.

This new semi-regular column for NJOE is going to focus mostly on Star Wars authors’ non-Star Wars books, with a little ‘media tie-in fiction’ for good measure. I’m going to bring you previews, new titles and release dates, with the plan of tacking these much the same way we do the entire Star Wars line of novels. I’ll give you links to places where you can find free downloads of fiction by these novelists, and I intend to review novels that fit into this category right here in this column. It is my hope that with all of this you’ll get excited about reading more books from the authors you’ve discovered through Star Wars.

So without further ado, let’s start with…

FREE FICTION:

We know Paul Kemp is writing Star Wars: Crosscurrent (1/26/10), but if you’d like to get a feel for his writing, Wizards of the Coast is offering, for a limited time only, a free pdf download of Paul S. Kemp’s Twilight Falling, the first book in the Erevis Cale Forgotten Realms trilogy. I’ve never read a Forgotten Realms book, but I’ve downloaded it and maybe I’ll feature it as a review sometime in the near future.

New Jedi Order writer Sean Williams also has a free download of his book The Crooked Letter offered by publisher Pyr. Again, I’ve downloaded it but not yet read it. I’m going to quote the site to give you a feel for what the book is about:

When mirror twins Seth and Hadrian Castillo travel to Europe on holidays, they don’t expect the end of the world to follow them. Seth’s murder, however, puts exactly that into motion.

From opposite sides of death, the Castillo twins grapple with a reality neither of them suspected, although it has been encoded in myths and legends for millennia. The Earth we know is just one of many “realms”, three of which are inhabited by humans during various stages of their lives. And their afterlives…

In the tradition of Philip Pullman and Ursula K. Le Guin and inspired by numerous arcane sources, the Books of the Cataclysm begin in the present world but soon propel the reader to a landscape that is simultaneously familiar and fantastic.

And in the category of ‘Nearly’ Free Fiction, the eBook edition of EMPRESS, by Karen Miller (author of Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Wild Space and 2 upcoming Clone Wars novels), is now available from select retailers for just one dollar, but only through the end of March (today!).

Visit http://www.onedollarorbit.com for details

Again, quoting the publisher:

In a family torn apart by poverty and violence, Hekat is no more than an unwanted mouth to feed, worth only a few coins from a passing slave trader.

But Hekat was not born to be a slave. For her, a different path has been chosen.

It is a path that will take her from stinking back alleys to the house of her God, from blood-drenched battlefields to the glittering palaces of Mijak.

This is the story of Hekat, precious and beautiful.

I’ve heard this is a dark novel, the first in a trilogy, but again I’ve not yet read it yet myself.

STAR WARS AUTHOR’S NON STAR WARS BOOKS

Speaking of Karen Miller, she also goes by the name K.E. Mills and it was recently revealed that the next book in her Witches Incorporated series, called Wizard Squared will be out in mass market paperback March 10th, 2010. A description from the publisher:

When the members of Witches Incorporated receive a visitor from an alternate reality, they are shocked to discover that Gerald Dunwoody is responsible for the chaos in this parallel world. This evil Gerald has turned into a raving tyrant whose use of black magic has made him unstoppable. Unfortunately for them, this problem is about to cross over to their world very quickly because evil Gerald is searching for new worlds to conquer. And the only person who can stop him is good Gerald…who has just disappeared on assignment overseas. Once they realize that Gerald has been kidnapped by his alternate self, Melissande and the rest of Witches Inc. cross through to the alternate reality to save him. But it appears that they’re too late, because good Gerald has succumbed…and now there are two evil Geralds to contend with.

Recently released form Walter Jon Williams is his new novel, This Is Not a Game. From the publisher:

“Once upon a time, there were four of them. And though each was good at a number of things, all of them were very good at games…

Dagmar is a game designer trapped in Jakarta in the middle of a revolution. The city is tearing itself apart around her and she needs to get out.

Her boss Charlie has his own problems — 4.3 billion of them, to be precise, hidden in an off-shore account.

Austin is the businessman — the VC. He’s the one with the plan and the one to keep the geeks in line.

BJ was there from the start, but while Charlie’s star rose, BJ sank into the depths of customer service. He pads his hours at the call-center slaying on-line orcs, stealing your loot, and selling it on the internet.

But when one of them is gunned down in a parking lot, the survivors become players in a very different kind of game. Caught between the dangerous worlds of the Russian Mafia and international finance, Dagmar must draw on all her resources — not least millions of online gamers– to track down the killer. In this near-future thriller, Walter Jon Williams weaves a pulse-pounding tale of intrigue, murder, and games where you don’t get an extra life.”

You can enter to win a free copies over at Fantasy Book Critic now until April 9th. You can also read an excerpt from the novel here.

MEDIA TIE-INS

There isn’t really new news to be had concerning Batman and Superman - Enemies & Allies, the new novel coming May 5th, 2009 from Kevin Anderson, but he did recently reveal the cover (above). This is supposed to be a cold war era tale about the ‘first’ meeting between these two heroes (I say ‘first’ because at this point there have been many tales of the so called ‘first’ meeting between these two icons, but that shouldn’t detract from it being an interesting read).

In other Kevin Anderson (and Brian Herbert) news, the next two Dune novels have had some name changes. Jessica of Dune has been renamed The Winds of Dune (art for the cover shown above), and Irulan of Dune to The Throne of Dune. The Winds of Dune is set around the same time as Paul of Dune (last year’s Dune novel) – between Herbert’s original Dune novel and Dune Messiah. The timeframe for The Throne of Dune is between Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. I’ve been mostly pleased with the continuing Dune novels from these authors, and you can expect a review in this column as soon as I can get my hands on The Winds of Dune.

From Karen Traviss, Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant, the second book in the Gears series, will be released in the US on July 28th, 2009 at $13.00. The first book was a TPB (large size softcover) and at this price, I expect book 2 to be the same. From Karen’s blog:

My next Gears of War novel - GEARS OF WAR: JACINTO’S REMNANT - will be out on July 28 from Del Rey in the US, and August 6 from Orbit in the UK. That’s book two in the series. ( See, I can count, too.) No cover art to show you yet, but I can guarantee it’ll be fabulous and worth the wait. I don’t get excited about much in this business, but Gears artwork is always a treat I look forward to

Now, I don’t have details for you on Gears book three yet. (I’m not very informative today, I admit. Sorry.) But all will be unveiled in in the fullness of time.

For the folks who worked out that I was a tad extra-busy and asked what’s been occupying me - well, you can see that much of my time has been spent wisely with chainsaws.

A QUESTION FOR YOU

Finally, Sean Williams recently answered the question “Who are Your Literary Influences in the Ongoing Conversation of Science Fiction?” for a column called ‘Mind Meld’ .

There are mentions of lots of Star Wars authors throughout, which is interesting due to all the animosity that seems to exist in the fan community between ‘tie-in’ or ‘media’ scifi and ‘serious’ scifi. What’s interesting to me is that the authors themselves don’t seem to feel that way so much. Coming from a site where we fall much more firmly in the ‘tie-in/media’ camp, how do you all feel about this?