For A Very Important Date

I'm late, wouldn't you know. Don't look so surprised! Why, it's the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and it begins... two days ago.

Damn it.

Well, Saturday I was busy taking over the world. Seriously: I've never been better at Risk than I was on that fine day. But alas, the time for global dominion is over. Today, it's all about Edinburgh.

There aren't many perks to living in Scotland. There are some incredible vistas to be seen around the Highlands and Islands; Irn Bru is everywhere; and there's the annual Fringe Festival, "the world's largest arts festival." Edinburgh, during the four weeks of the festival each year, undergoes a radical transformation - like Bumblebee or Anakin Skywalker - wherein each of the hundreds of venues is given a liberal sprinkling of plastic chairs and ordered, under pain of men in gravity-defying hats what look like distressed cats, to host a variety of performances. There's art, dance and exhibition. Enough nonsense to make you wish you'd never been born.

Gratefully, the Fringe also means a bunch of theatre and comedy, the likes of which Scotland won't see again till the festival returns next year. That's why the other half and I are off through to Edinburgh, is just a few short minutes. If all goes to plan, we'll see the Chinese State Circus do Mulan, some puppets doing some puppety things, and perhaps a man will be funny - one can only hope. All this... and ale. Oh yes: ale.

Enough ale for everyone, but alas, ale doesn't tend to post very well. In the interim, courtesy of Westeros - I really should sign up, shouldn't I? - Aidan just broke a bit of news about The Long Price Quartet author Daniel Abraham's next novel over on A Dribble of Ink, and given how excited the lovely Aidan (a man of wealth and taste) is about all this, The Dragon's Path has just jumped to near-enough the top of my Most Anticipated Novels of Next Year list.

I actually have that list.

Also, Tales of the Ketty Jay teller Chris Wooding has blogged about The Iron Jackal, book three of that space-trucker lark. Specifically, he's blogged about how The Iron Jackal will no longer be called The Iron Jackal, because... there's no Iron Jackal in it.

That should tide you over.

Never fear: we'll be getting back to all things fantasy and sci-fi tomorrow - one thing in particular, admittedly - but today... today, I'm all about the arts.

Wish me fun! :D

Retribution Keeps Falling

This just in!

Chris Wooding is many things. A Brit, for one; a young adult author, for another. Increasingly, however, the most distinctive of the many hats he's worn in his time is the one that boasts, in boldface, Esteemed Author of The Tales of the Ketty Jay.

For myself, I had a great time with the first novel in that breakout fantasy series last year. Retribution Falls was a few evenings worth of whimsical, action packed, light-hearted entertainment, and I know I'm not alone in that opinion, so it's curious to see so little buzz across the blogosphere about The Black Lung Captain, the second of The Tales of the Ketty Jay scheduled for release here in the UK this July.

Nonetheless, Wooding just announced on his blog that he and Gollancz have inked out a deal for two further volumes in the franchise. As Chris reports:

"The first, with a working title of The Iron Jackal, will probably land on the shelves a year after the release of its predecessor, making it July 2011. The fourth is a bit far in the future to predict with much accuracy, but it’ll be targeted for roughly July 2012, assuming that year’s predicted Armageddon doesn’t put a crimp in book sales. News on US release dates for the new books when I get it; we still have to sort out all the little contract details in the UK first."

All of which is fine news indeed with which to start another day in the speculative blogosphere.

You can read the whole story here, and don't forget to pop along to Wooding's website to pass along your congratulations.

Let's get The Black Lung Captain buzz started... now!