Fantasy – Geek Book

The Magicians

Posted on 21 September, 2009 by bookGeek

The popularity of web site Will It Blend? is indicative of how people enjoy mashing things together. Of course this kind of sharing and combining has been going on in the arts for quite some time. The new Lev Grossman novel, The Magicians asks ‘will it blend?’ of two rather popular fantasy series, J.K. Rowling’s world of Harry Potter and the tales of Narnia from C.S. Lewis. Grossman’s thoughts on both are tossed on top and then the author begins to play a symphony across the full range of buttons from stir to liquefy. What comes out is not children’s fantasy but at times a rather bitter mix.
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The World of the Magicians

Posted on 4 July, 2009 by bookGeek

Soon I should be reading Levi Grossman’s new book, The Magicians and offering up a review shortly after. It’s being billed as a Harry Potter for grown-ups and I have to confess I’m pretty excited to get my hands on it.

Until then, would be fans can dive into the world of the book well before it is released in August. The protagonist is a fan of the fantasy world of Fillory which you can explore now at that site. Fillory is the creation of Christopher Plover who now exists on the web. (I feel for any kid out there that runs across this and decides he’s going to do a report on Plover for school. Then again- based on some of what I’ve seen they may get a good grade.) And what modern school of wizardry wouldn’t have its own web page (click on the flower at the bottom.)

It’s interesting to see how the internet is providing a completely additional layer to this story. Hopefully the book deserves all this work, I’ll let you know. I just wish stuff like this had been around when I was in Junior Highschool saving my allowance for weeks to buy one of the cheaper guides to Middle Earth.

FLURB, a Webzine of Astonishing Tales

Posted on 5 March, 2009 by bookGeek

FLURB is not new. Issue number 7 is now up. But it is new to me. What I’ve read so far is different, but good. The text is mixed with illustrations. You can check it out and it wont cost you more than bandwidth and time.

Suvudu Free Book Library

Posted on 4 March, 2009 by bookGeek

Random House seems to be hopping into the “give the first one away free” game. The Suvudu Free Book Library is your new place to pick up the first book from some of their Scifi/Fantasy series. I saw Red Mars over there – you can’t go wrong with stuff that solid. Just be prepared to fork over the cash when you want to keep going, and with the line up they have it’s a slim chance you wont want to.

New Tor Site – Free E-books

Posted on 20 July, 2008 by bookGeek

Tor has launched their new social, sci-fi, fantasy and much more, blogging, new fiction, super duper site. Right now there are 2 short stories up and available to read/download. They are “After The Coup” by John Scalzi, and “Down On The Farm” by Charles Stross. Both in worlds developed by the authors in full novels. Scalzi’s story is in the Old Man’s War universe and is a great read. Stross’s story is from his “Laundry” stories, which I don’t know but I liked this story. Nice mix of magic, math and computing.

On top of all that, for a limited time every ebook and piece of art they made available during their promotional period leading up to the launch of the site are all available right here. Every book is available in multiple drm free formats. I’ve read 3 so far and loved all 3. I’m working on my fourth now. There are over 20 total and so I’ll have lots of fun stuff to read for some time.

If they stick with what it says in the post – all this will no longer be available 7 days from now. They will shut it all down after the 27th. The artwork is also amazing and available in a wide number of sizes. This is when the Down Them All plugin for firefox really comes in handy. Right-Click, Save As just wont cut it for this much awesome stuff.

The Homeless Moon Chapbook

Posted on 19 July, 2008 by bookGeek

The Homeless Moon is the web site of 5 writers, Michael J. DeLuca, Jason S. Ridler, Scott H. Andrews, Erin Hoffman and Justin Howe. They have put together a chapbook of fun short stories that they have made available to order or download for free.

Mistborn

Posted on 8 March, 2008 by bookGeek

I read this book after receiving a free copy from Tor’s program giving out an e-book a week. Sanderson has gained quite a bit of attention recently after being named the author that would finish Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I never got into the Wheel of Time books, so I wasn’t so hot to find out about the writing of the person who would be completing the saga, but I was interested a little more, knowing that Sanderson’s work was going to be even that much more under the watchful eye of a large set of committed fans.

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The Children of Hurin

Posted on 3 March, 2008 by bookGeek

Throughout much of his life, J.R.R. Tolkien worked on a series of stories set in his well known middle earth. A few he considered his “Great Tales” and he would return to them often, writing them multiple times and in multiple forms. One story that he worked on often over many years was the tale of Hurin and his children Turin and Nienor. Following his death, Tolkien’s youngest son Christopher has worked to collect, edit and publish much of what his father wrote but never published. The tale of Hurin’s children has been told in part already in some of those works. But it is in this book that for the first time the complete tale is told from start to finish of “The Children of Hurin.”

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Free Sci-Fi/Fantasy E-books

Posted on 17 February, 2008 by bookGeek

If you fill out the form at Tor.com they will send you an email a week, with a link to download a free e-book from one of their authors. You also become entered in a drawing to win an Asus eee PC Galaxy. Not bad. There will be, I think, 12 ebooks total. They come as PDFs with no DRM. Nice.

I’ll have a review of the first, “Mistborn” by Brandon Sanderson as soon as I finish it.