Freda Warrington’s Blood Wine Tour

From award-winning British fantasy author Freda Warrington, A Taste of Blood Wine (Titan Books, May 2013) is the first novel of a gothic vampire melodrama.

To celebrate the return of the critically acclaimed Blood Books in collectable paperback and e-book edition, Titan Books and Freda Warrington are serialising two rare and risqué stories set within the universe of the Blood Books across a series of websites and blogs.

We’re publishing the final part of a short story called Little Goose. Read the rest of the tale here: Freda Warrington's Blood Wine Tour

Little Goose: Part 5

By Freda Warrington

She saw, when I went back to her, that something dreadful had happened. My eye was healing but still clotted, hideous. I sat in shadow to hide it but my…

Interview with Charles Stross & Cory Doctorow

To celebrate the launch of the off-the-wall post-singularity novel Rapture of the Nerds we've been lucky enough to grab the gestalt entity responsible - Charles Stross & Cory Doctorow - and ask them about the book, working together and plans for the future.

Ant: So how did this collaboration come about?

Charlie: (We get asked this so often that it's an FAQ. Here's the canned answer.)

In stages. At first, Cory and I were chatting in email; one of us raised the idea of writing a story together -- it's quite common for SF authors to do this sort of thing for shits and giggles. So I rummaged in the dumpster of dead projects and coughed up…

Awards Round-up April 2013

It seems that there have been a number of Award related events happening over the Easter weekend. Not only has the Philip K Dick award winner been announced but also the British Science Fiction Awards have been presented and this years Hugo's shortlisted.

The winner of the 2013 Philip K Dick award is Brian Francis Slattery for his post-apocalyptic tale Lost Everything (another book to add to the "must read list"). I am delighted to announce that the winner of the BSFA award for best novel goes to none other than Adam Roberts for Jack Glass - a very well deserved win and a highly rewarding read. Considering the competition the novel was up against (Kim Stanley Robinson, Chris Beckett, M. John Harrison and Ken Macleod) it can't been an easy decision.

The Hugo award shortlist seems a bit light-weight this year, distinctly lacking some of the novels that should have been major contenders (such as Alastair Reynolds and Lavie…

A Chinese Future?

At the beginning of March Art of War - the 5th book in David Wingrove's re-imagined epic Chung Kuo series was released (expect a review of books 4 and 5 on SFBook soon). To celebrate David Wingrove has kindly graced our site with an article about "Future Histories", an insightful look at how he wrote about China in the distant future.

Future histories. I used to love reading Isaac Asimov’s and Robert A. Heinlein’s, ditto Frank Herbert’s and Ursula LeGuin’s. And I’m a sucker for Iain Banks’ Culture novels. I love the incredible sense of time and space these futures envisaged. But – with maybe LeGuin’s as an exception – I never felt they captured the true feeling of actually living in those futures. Of how the all-too-human characters reacted to events – the kings and the paupers, each suffering in their own fashion.

Chung…

Interview with Michael Marshall

We have been lucky enough to review the new Michael Marshall novel - We are here - a powerful yet subtle tale that keeps the reader gripped right to the end, currently being published by Gollancz.

We managed to catch up with the author to ask him a few questions about his latest book and other topics of interest. Part one of the interview was published on the Gollancz blog a few days ago.

Ant: What inspired you to write "We are here"?

Michael: The initial impulse for “We Are Here” came from watching my young son as he interacted with the world – starting to learn the boundaries between what (and who) is real, and what’s not. It was a short step from there to exploring the way in which our lives are structured…

Interview with James Baylock

Last week we were lucky enough to review the new James Baylock novel The Aylesford Skull - a rip-roaring steampunk adventure that hit all the right notes.

This week we have been honored with an interview from the author himself, who happened to be good friends with one of my favourite authors.

Ant What made you choose to once again enter the world of steampunk and continue the Narbondo series?

James Mainly I was nostalgic to write more Victorian adventures involving my long-time cast of characters. What actually triggered my re-entry, so to speak, was reading a collection of stories by James Norman Hall titled Dr. Dogbody’s Leg, which is a particularly wonderful book set during the Napoleonic…

Book of the Year 2012 - Winner

Due to an authors concern with the Book of the year Poll this year I have decided that the winner will be chosen by myself instead (these polls seem to attract trouble for some reason). Apologies to anyone who took the time to vote and I would like to thank each and every one of you for all for the support shown over the last month. Next year I plan on creating a shortlist and winner internally to avoid any further difficulties.

It's been a very tough decision to choose just one book, each of the nominated twelve are worthy of the honour - themselves chosen from over 160 book reviews written and published this year on SFBook. In the end through much thought I short-listed them to a final 3:

Vote for the Book of the Year 2012

Voting is now open for the SFBook Book of the year 2012 with nominations listed from each book that became "book of the month" during 2012.

It has been an incredible year with some really outstanding novels being launched, a big congrats goes to each author who made the poll.

Listed below are the 12 finalists, you can vote for you favourite by either clicking the big image on the right, or by following the link here.

The Winner will be announced right here in early January 2013.

Book of the Month December 2012

The final book of the month for 2012 goes to Lavie Tidhar's award winning novel Osama.

Fighting of tough competition from the likes of Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie and James Smythe Osama is a triumph of literature that deserves to be a part of everyone's collection.

Interview with Lavie Tidhar

Last week we reviewed the quite incredible novel Osama which co-incidentally won the World Fantasy Award around the same time. We've been lucky enough to be granted an interview with the talented author, Lavie Tidhar.

Ant Not only have you won the World Fantasy Award for Osama but you managed to beat some very stiff competition including Stephen King, George RR Martin and Jo Walton - how does that feel?

Lavie It feels very surreal! And the award banquet and ceremony had to be the longest two hours of my life. You just wait for it to be over already! Very surreal, and quite humbling.

Ant Did you ever think Osama would get such high praise?

Lavie Well, I mean, I fully…