Genres: fantasy
A girl's quest to find her father leads her to an extended family of magical fighting booksellers who police the mythical Old World of England when it intrudes on the modern world. From the bestselling master of fantasy, Garth Nix.
In a slightly alternate London in 1983, Susan Arkshaw is looking for her father, a man she has never met. Crime boss Frank Thringley might be able to help her, but Susan doesn't get time to ask Frank any questions before he is turned to dust by the prick of a silver hatpin in the hands of the outrageously attractive Merlin.
Merlin is a young left-handed bookseller (one of the fighting ones), who with the right-handed booksellers (the intellectual ones), are an extended family of magical beings who police the mythic and legendary Old World when it intrudes on the modern world, in addition to running several bookshops.
Susan's search for her father begins with her mother's possibly misremembered or misspelt surnames, a reading room ticket, and a silver cigarette case engraved with something that might be a coat of arms.
Merlin has a quest of his own, to find the Old World entity who used ordinary criminals to kill his mother. As he and his sister, the right-handed bookseller Vivien, tread in the path of a botched or covered-up police investigation from years past, they find this quest strangely overlaps with Susan's. Who or what was her father? Susan, Merlin, and Vivien must find out, as the Old World erupts dangerously into the New.
Read more: The Left-Handed Booksellers of London - Garth Nix
Philip José Farmer has died
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Fandom
Philip José Farmer, a prolific and popular science fiction writer who shocked readers in the 1950s by depicting sex with aliens and challenged conventional pieties of the genre with caustic fables set on bizarre worlds of his own devising, died on Wednesday, February 25th. He was 91 and lived in Peoria, Illinois.
Source: The New York Times.
Baby Doll by Sinisalo a Nebula nominee
- Written by Sini
- Category: Fandom
The Nebula nominees are announced and the Risingshadow.net staff is really excited about the nomination of Johanna Sinisalo's Baby Doll in the novelette category!
Congratulations Johanna!
Novels category nominees:
Little Brother - Doctorow, Cory
Powers - Le Guin, Ursula K.
Cauldron - McDevitt, Jack
Brasyl - McDonald, Ian
Making Money - Pratchett, Terry
Superpowers - Schwartz, David J.
Photo by Heini Lehväslaiho.
Thesis about Soviet chilren's fantasy fiction
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Fandom
A thesis about Soviet children's fantasy fiction (Fantastic in Form, Ambiguous in Content: Secondary Worlds in Soviet Children's Fantasy Fiction) by Jenniliisa Salminen was examined in Turku University on February 13, 2009.
The thesis can be found here: https://oa.doria.fi/handle/10024/43575
New Tolkien book to be released in May
- Written by Thialfi
- Category: Fandom
HarperCollins is to publish a new book by J. R. R. Tolkien. The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, edited and introduced by Tolkien’s son Christopher, will be published in hardback in May 2009.
The previously unpublished work was written while Tolkien was professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University during the 1920s and '30s, before he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The publication will make available for the first time Tolkien’s extensive retelling in English narrative verse of the epic Norse tales of Sigurd the Völsung and the Fall of the Niflungs.
Further details about the contents of the book will be revealed closer to publication.
In Norse mytholgy, the warrior Sigurd is the mythical son of Sigmund and Hjordis, as depicted in the Volsung Saga. The Sigurd myth has influenced numerous modern stories. Richard Wagner's opera Siegfried is a retelling of the Sigurd myth. Tolkien used certain elements in his books, such as the sword reforged and the cursed ring, there are also numerous elements in The Children of Hurin.
The David Gemmell Legend Award
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Fandom
The DGLA will be presented for the very first time in 2009 for the best Fantasy novel of 2008. The award will be given to a work written in the 'spirit' of the late, great David Gemmell, a true Master of Heroic Fantasy.