Books

An Art Historian Ensured This Where’s Warhol? Book Was As Accurate As Possible

As satisfying as it is for kids to find its striped shirt protagonist, Where’s Waldo? books aren’t particularly educational. So for Where’s Warhol?, a parody that has kids hunting down Andy Warhol instead, art historian Catherine Ingram ensured its detailed illustrations were as accurate as possible. The $10 picture book features 12 illustrations from artist…

The Single Most Important Thing You Can Do To Make Your Writing More Awesome

There’s no magic bullet for being a decent writer, or making people bond with your characters or fall in love with your story. Writing is a million different skills and challenges, and each story is different. But the more I struggle to make this work, the more I think there’s one key thing that makes…

At Last, You Can Get All of Leigh Brackett’s Stark Stories in One Volume

Leigh Brackett was known as the Queen of Space Opera long before she co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back. And now, you can find out why. Haffner Press has collected all of the novels and stories she wrote about space adventurer Eric John Stark into one amazing volume. Featuring cover art from Raymond Swanland (see roughs…

Margaret Atwood’s Next Book Is a Prison-Bound Take on The Tempest

This year marks 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare, and to commemorate the bard, acclaimed authors are taking some of the most popular plays and retelling them with weird and wonderful twists. Margaret Atwood has revealed her own entry in the project: a novel that turns the fantastical world of The Tempest into…

Game of Thrones Producer Defends Sansa Rape Scene: “We Can’t All Be Arya”

The wedding of Sansa Stark to the sociopath Ramsay Bolton, and his subsequent brutal treatment of her, including a wedding-night rape, shocked and upset a lot of people—at least in part, because it seemed to be a narrative misdirect so great that it amounted to a bait and switch. Prior to that, Sansa seemed to…

What’s the Worst Retelling of Ancient Mythology You’ve Ever Seen?

This weekend, Gods of Egypt arrives, and it’s already looking pre-mummified. But this is by no means the first time someone has made an uninspired, boring, or just plain dreadful retelling of classical mythology. What’s the worst adaptation of myths of all time? Please include a picture, poster, clip, comics panel, book cover or other…

Check Out the Glorious Storyboards for One of Game of Thrones‘ Biggest Scenes

There were a number of incredible moments in Game of Thrones season five, including that massive Wildling/White Walkers fight. But the scene where Drogon flies into the arena in Meereen was incredible, especially after years of imagining it. And now you can see storyboards from it! Storyboard artist Adrien Van Viersen has posted all of…

Meet the Creators Who Are Masterminding the Return of Xena: Warrior Princess

It’s been over 20 years since Xena: Warrior Princess first came to our screens, but the love of Xena (and Gabrielle) burns as bright as ever. Now Xena’s coming back, in a big way. We asked Javier Grillo-Marxuach, showrunner of the new Xena TV show, and Genevieve Valentine, writer of the new Xena comic book,…

George R.R. Martin is setting aside all other writing work until he finishes The Winds of Winter, the infinitely anticipated next installment of A Song of Ice and Fire. The author announced this on his blog in the comments of this post. There’s still no ETA on when the book might be done, but he’s…

Teen Mulder and Scully Will Investigate Crime in New X-Files Young Adult Novels

Mulder and Scully’s newest adventures might be coming to a close on TV tonight, but they’re getting more stories to tell in a duo of new Young Adult novels… or at least their teenaged versions are. Sadly—or thankfully, depending on your point of view—these books won’t see teen Mulder and Scully team up for some…

10 Books That Will Change How You Think About Fairy Tales

Fairy tales are everywhere these days. They rival superheroes at the movies and TV, and novelists rush to create their own darker, more relevant versions. But how well do you really know fairy tales? Here are 10 books that will change how you see the fairy tale. Top image: Fairies by Arthur Rackham 1) Seven…

Rejoice! Pierce Brown Is Planning Another Red Rising Trilogy

Pierce Brown has been making waves with his fantastic Red Rising trilogy, and now that the third book in the trilogy, Morning Star, has been released, he’s announced that he’s writing three more books! Brown’s trilogy takes place in a stratified society, where people are divided into color groups. A Red miner named Darrow is…

Return To The World Of Dara In Ken Liu’s Next Fantasy Epic, The Wall Of Storms

We really loved Ken Liu’s debut novel, The Grace of Kings when we tore into it last year. He took us to a deeply unique fantasy world in the grips of a fantastic transformation, and we have a long excerpt from the next book in the series, as well as a first look at its…

Umberto Eco Asked the Hard Questions About the Myths We Can’t Help Believing In

Most people know Umberto Eco as the author of The Name of the Rose (pictured above), a Medieval detective story that caused a sensation. But the postmodern author, who died today, published a slew of novels that questioned the nature of belief and truth. Eco wasn’t really known as a science fiction author, although he…

Want to add some fresh excitement to your reading list? Over on Twitter, people are tweeting lists of amazing science fiction and fantasy authors (who happen to be women and people of color) under the #YouDon’tKnowSFF hashtag. As in, you don’t know the whole genre unless you’re reading these folks. Top image: The Vorkosigan saga…

What Happens When You Burn Out on Writing?

Elizabeth Bear is one of those authors who seems like an incredible writing machine. She’s put out a huge number of books in the past 10 years, winning tons of acclaim along the way. But in a brave post on Charles Stross’ blog, she talks about the cost of being that prolific. She writes: Between…

This New Warcraft Guidebook Is Jam Packed With Gorgeous Art

The world of Warcraft is very frequently a ridiculous place—mainly because game makers Blizzard have been making up the fantastical universe as they merrily went along for 22 years. A new book however, is attempting to sort all that out, and in the process, give us some rather smashing art to gawp at. For all…

Richard Kadrey Has Written His Craziest Novel Yet—and We’ve Got The First Look

Richard Kadrey has written some pretty demented stuff, including the out-of-control Sandman Slim urban fantasy series. But his latest book, The Everything Box, could be his wildest ride yet. It’s been getting compared to Chris Moore, and we’ve got the exclusive first look! In The Everything Box, an angel misplaces an all-powerful device that’s basically…

23 Things from The World of Ice and Fire That We’d Love to See on Game of Thrones

George R.R. Martin’s novels about Westeros are fiendishly addictive, because he’s created a world that’s just crammed full of amazing details. And Game of Thrones captures that feeling pretty well—until you read Martin’s guidebook, The World of Ice and Fire and realize just how much more there is. On almost every page, there’s something that…

The Walking Dead Has the Most Wonderfully Gory Pop-Up Book You’ve Ever Seen

Castles, spaceships, maybe even a few animals, those are the typical things that will jump out as you turn the pages of most pop-up books. But when it’s a pop-up book about The Walking Dead, you instead get zombie heads that explode with incredibly gory details. Designed by paper engineers David Hawcock and Becca Zerkin,…