Good news for fans of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. The prolific author just announced that there will be a new book in the series: The Wind Through the Keyhole. King says that the idea for the novel came from him while working on his new novel 11/22/63, and will cover events occurring Wizard and [...]
Suvudu » Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games

In a move that leaves me a bit bewildered, director Christopher Nolan has cast his villains for his 2012 The Dark Knight Rises.

Christian Bale will reprise his role as Batman one more time and be pitted against villains Catwoman and Bane!

And I can’t believe Bane is one of them…
Suvudu » Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games

Dark Fiction Magazine is planning a site launch for All Hallow’s Eve (awesome!), and they provided me with a few sneak peeks of the site. Sounds pretty cool. Here’s a description from their team:

Dark Fiction Magazine (www.darkfictionmagazine.co.uk) is pleased to announce the launch of a new service for fans of genre fiction. Beginning Oct 31st (Halloween), Dark Fiction Magazine will be launching a monthly magazine of audio short stories. This is a free service designed to promote genre short fiction to an audience of podcast and radio listeners. A cross between an audio book, an anthology and a podcast, Dark Fiction Magazine is designed to take the enjoyment of short genre fiction in a new and exciting direction.

Dark Fiction Magazine publishes at least four short stories a month: a mix of award-winning shorts and brand new stories from both established genre authors and emerging writers. Each episode will have a monthly theme and feature complementary tales from the three main genres – science fiction, fantasy and horror.

Fantasy Book News

Original post by news@mmorpg.com and software by PC Game Reviews

Fantasy Games and Books

Somehow I keep tricking myself into reading the next book in the Chronicles of the Necromancer.  I either forget how bad the previous one is or hold out hope that something interesting will happen in the next installment.  Maybe it’s the name: Chronicles of the Necromancer sounds pretty bad ass, especially when you find out the necromancer is the good guy.  I won’t make that mistake again.

The series started out innocently enough.  The second son of a monarch is forced to watch the murder of his parents and younger sister by his older brother in a fairly entertaining round of Regicidal Rampage.  Tris then flees for his life as big brother uses his far superior resources to hunt him down and kill him.  This is where the book begins to sour.  The chase seems to take forever.  Tris begins to understand his powers as a necromancer but it takes too long and the journey is just not very interesting.  When they come back in and take down the usurper, your so happy that the book is almost over that you don’t notice how boring it all is.  Overall I would give round one a four out of ten.  Failing grade and nothing to write home about.

Normally I would not reveal plot lines in a review, but I just don’t care with these books.  I can’t even remember most of the second book or why I decided to punish myself by continuing.  I bought the third, the reason for this review, well after reading the first two.  I had definitely forgotten the first couple when I made that choice.  I almost put it down several times in the reading but muscled my way through for sheer kitsch value at the end.  Unfortunately, it’s not purposefully bad.  Otherwise it might have made a good campy extreme out of itself.

The biggest insult is how bad the writing is.  I honestly wish I knew how some of these things get through a publisher.  It’s not easy to get published yet crap like this is more prevalent than it has any right to be.  The dialog is blander than Buzz the Bee on the back of a box of Honey Nut Cheerios.  I’m afraid to say I don’t think Ms. Martin has ever heard the words metaphor or simile.

Unfortunately, I did buy the fourth one when I bought the third (I usually pick up series in twos), so I have to decide what to do with it.  I’m thinking dog toy.

Sci-Fi & Fantasy Review