[pat5150]

Hi guys!

Richard Morgan sent out the synopsis of his new epic fantasy series this morning via Gollancz. It looks quite good!

Simon Spanton gave me permission to post it on the blog. So if anyone is interested, you know what to do!

Cheers,

Patrick

This post has been edited by Cougar: 23 October 2008 - 07:00 PM

[Abyss]

There are times when being blocked from all things bloggy REALLY sucks.

This is one of those times.

- Abyss, argh.

EDIT to add found it elsewhere. Looks excellent. RM doing a multiple POV fantasy saga thing. So psyched. Thanks Pat for the head's up.

- Abyss, now with less argh.

[Tremolo]

Damn that sounds tasty! Cheers Pat

This post has been edited by Cougar: 23 October 2008 - 06:57 PM

[drinksinbars]

love richard morgans stuff, this should be awesome.

sort of sounds liek a deathstalker novel without the scifi elemnt:)

[Mort]

Gimme Gimme Gimme!

Thanks for that Pat. I was just sittign at hoe looking at the RM novels I have and thinking how much I'd like another one to read...

And it sounds awesome... apologies to all for the lack of any constructive criticism.

[Dagger]

Is this going to be a stand-alone novel or a series? Either way, I'm in but I'm curious if this is going to be one book or several.

[Falco]

Shmehh. Morgan has struggled to hit the heights of the Kovacs stuff with his latest coupla offerings. I'll be skeptical till I actually read it.

[Abyss]

Falco;216087 said:

Shmehh. Morgan has struggled to hit the heights of the Kovacs stuff with his latest coupla offerings. I'll be skeptical till I actually read it.

I'm only a bit of the way thru BLACK MAN, so i can't really eval that, but MARKET FORCES was written (originally as a screen play) years before the Kovacs stuff, then released once his books started selling, hence, it's not as good because RM wasn't as good.

- Abyss, liked it, far from loved it.

[caladanbrood]

Well, I must admit that left me utterly confused:o I'll just wait till it's released to find out what it's about...

[Mort]

I enjoyed Black Man. And Woken Furies read well to me. I thnk the main gripe some people have is the fact that RM has moved away from the hard boiled detective SF that AC was. In some ways all his novels since then have been a bit of an exploration.

And I really don't know why everyone didn't like Black Man...

[polishgenius]

Black Man was ace, but I think it lacked a little bit of the focus of Altered Carbon.
I liked Market Forces, apart from the ending.

And on reading that synposis: that, frankly, could be brilliant. Not that the actual setting seems anything special (and Scaled Folk is an oddly unassuming name for a mighty enemy) but this being Richard Morgan, I'm hopeful.

For some reason the synopsis puts me in mind of something written collaboratively by Martin, Erikson, and Warren Ellis. And if anyone's in any doubt, that's a good thing.

[Mentalist]

lol, I've never read anything by Ellis, but if we put Martin and SE together, we'd have a very long list of favourite dead characters.... perhaps TOO long...

[Falco]

Abyss;216099 said:

I'm only a bit of the way thru BLACK MAN, so i can't really eval that, but MARKET FORCES was written (originally as a screen play) years before the Kovacs stuff, then released once his books started selling, hence, it's not as good because RM wasn't as good.

- Abyss, liked it, far from loved it.

Ahh OK didn't know that, explains a lot. Black Man was quite good, but just didn't my admittedly atmospheric expectations...

[Abyss]

kud13;216262 said:

lol, I've never read anything by Ellis, but if we put Martin and SE together, we'd have a very long list of favourite dead characters.... perhaps TOO long...

Yes, and then you factor in Ellis and end up with Belgarion making sex upon their somewhat decomposed yet reanimated corpses.

- Abyss, just read 'Crooked Little Vein' *shudders* (means that in a good yest disturbing way)

[Abyss]

Just finished this a few weeks back but waited for the Forum migration before posting.

Loved it. loved loved loved it. I'm going SPOILERS in here so you are warned..... i'm not reviewing, i'm discussing....

SPOILERS SPOILERS
THE SPOILERS REMAIN
SPOILERS FUCKING
SPOILERS
WILL SPOIL YOU
SPOILERS
SPOILERS


I've always liked RM's work, the Kovacs books are great, i think Black Man was brilliant, even Market Forces was mildly entertaining. This, this was a whole new level for him.

He throws you into the world and makes it clear you are coming in at a pause, so to speak. A big war against genocidal lizard men just ended, and three of the heroes from that war are getting on with their lives.

Ringil, Egar, Archeth... great characters. let's get the obvious out of the way, Ringil is gay. He fucks men. He's up front about it. His pov included comments about anal and oral sex that would give the average Jordan fan heart palps. He's also flawed and nasty and noble all at once and possibly one of the coolest fantasy characters in ages. The description from Egar of how Ringil rallied the soldiers at Gallows Gap to charge was one of the best bits of text i have ever read in a fantasy book... 'men laughing as they died'... holy. fuck.

Egar was great fun - barbarian who misses civilization and just plain badass. We never get the description of how he became Dragonbane but we believe it just based on how he fights. "I'm with the faggot." LOL.

Archeth was a stand-out too. Her mixed race origins, her fight to stay decent, and the way she names her blades and fights with them all were great to read. I liked how RM didn't feel the need to explain everything with her... the text just says something like 'Archeth pulled Bandgleam out and threw, pulling out Laughing Girl before the blade hit home..." and it just works. She has four blades and has names for all of them... She has a history with another race that left the world, she has a detached bio-computer ship pilot living in her library and it just all falls together so well.

The elves dwenda/dwellers were good bad guys. RM skipped a lot of the pretentious nonsense instead having them be powerful but vulnerable, contemptuous of humans but afraid of them and attracted to them... given the author's creativity with the other races that appear briefly (notably the lamprey women), i sort of wish he had done something more interesting than other-dimensional lightning elves, but then Ringil's relationship with the leader wouldn't have made much sense if they were truly alien. As it was the transition from Ringil trying to kill him to them sheboinging in interdimensional spaces to turning on him at the end was the only part of the plot i found weak. It just didn't read true the way their relationship evolved and devolved.

I am totally curious whether it's Ringil the 'Dark Lord' prophecy is referring to. The ending is ambiguous.

I totally enjoyed this book. RM stays firmly in my pre-order list and i hope he does more in the fantasy genre.


- Abyss, ...found the headtrees just creepy...

This post has been edited by Abyss: 24 September 2008 - 04:43 PM

[Pig Iron]

I liked it. Kind of Abercombie with less humour (not that it was devoid of humour) and more buttsex. Ringil was a great character, being gay very effectively made him an outsider. *Edited for spoiler*

This post has been edited by Pig Iron: 25 September 2008 - 07:56 PM

[RodeoRanch]

I love his "Altered Carbon" stuff so I'll definitely pick this one up sometime. Probably in paperback form.

[Greymane]

I loved this, best book of the year IMO. Ringil, Egar and Archeth are all amazing characters, and the world was interesting, familiar and fresh at the same time.

My prediction; Ringil is being manipulated by the Sky Dwellers into becoming the 'dark lord' of the marsh woman's prophecy. Though in this type of harsh world, I wonder exactly what a Dark Lord would be...

[Abyss]

Has anyone found anything anywhere on a gay reader's perspective on the characters in this book?

- Abyss, curious.

[stone monkey]

The fact that Ringil is unrepentant about his sexuality probably makes him the most accurate gay male character in fantasy, he certainly reminds me of at least a couple of gay men I know (they're not sword wielding badasses btw, just not camp and not willing to take any shit from anyone about who they are)

In a lot, most where they appear even, of previous genre fantasy novels (it's something of an 80s trope imo) gay male characters seem to appear as bad guys of the "if you thought he was evil before, wait til you find out that he likes fucking other guys!" stripe; which is a truly mendacious use if you ask me.

I too would be interested in finding if our gay members concur.