Client website updates: Les Edwards & Edward Miller

Spent most of last week with my head down, working hard on the July update for the two sites I run on behalf of Les Edwards and his artistic alter-ego, Edward Miller.

Les is a truly terrific artist; I've been a fan of his work since I was a teenager and our house is decorated with prints of some of mine and Jo's favourite pieces: 'The Darkest Part of the Woods' and 'Atkinson Revenant' in the dining room, 'The Croglin Vampire' here in the office, 'Cities' and 'Blood Follows' in our living room (actually, 'Blood Follows' is the original artwork, but we don't like to show off...) and we've just acquired a print of 'This is Now' for the bedroom. We would have bought the original artwork of that one as well, but we were reliably informed that a certain author (whose mini story collection it graces) beat us to it...

Anyhow, there are about 50 new images across the various galleries on the two sites. Generally, the first few images in each gallery are the new ones (although I'm working on ideas for the best way to make that a bit more user-friendly and obvious). Here are some of my favourites from the new batch:

The afore-mentioned 'This is Now', which was used on a Subterranean Press chapbook of three Michael Marshall Smith short stories given to attendees of the 2007 World Horror Convention in Canada:

Edward Miller artwork for 'This is Now' by Michael Marshall Smith

The quite lovely artwork for the Subterranean Press edition of Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora (note to Gollancz with regards to their original UK cover: this is how it should've been done, folks...)

Edward Miller artwork for 'The Lies of Locke Lamora' by Scott Lynch, Subterranean Press edition

And here's the artwork for the Gollancz UK (just to show they're back on the ball...) edition of Chris Wooding's forthcoming novel The Fade:

Edward Miller artwork for 'The Fade' by Chris Wooding

They're all 'Edward Miller' rather than 'Les Edwards' pieces, I know, but that's because there's just something in the use of colour, form and texture in the Miller work that really appeals to me.

I also sent Les a few questions for an interview piece, which I posted yesterday evening over on www.uksfbooknews.net. He has some interesting things to say about the use of fantasy art in book design, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

And I shouldn't leave without mentioning that Les is having a summer sale between now and the end of September. Buy any of the fine art prints available on either website (the vast majority of the images are available as prints, apart from the pencil sketch prelims and anything where the copyright of the work is no longer owned by Les) and you'll enjoy a 20% discount on the usual prices.

July 3, 2007 | Filed Under Freelance Work | Leave a Comment 

New Arrivals - late March '07

Another month, another batch of great new books that I really, really wish I had time to read...

'Fragile Things' by Neil GaimanFragile Things by Neil Gaiman

I realised the other day - when this paperback edition of Gaiman's second (third) short fiction collection arrived - that I'm shockingly far behind with my Gaiman reading - I still haven't set aside time for American Gods, and I haven't even bought a copy of The Wolves in the Walls yet, nor much of his recent graphic novel output.

So, given my love of Gaiman's short fiction, and my (increasingly rash-seeming) vow to read more short fiction this year, I might have to bump this one up the list...

'The Execution Channel' by Ken MacLeodThe Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod

This is one I definitely want to read sooner rather than later, not least because my good friend Joe Gordon had some very good things to say about it when we were chatting by email a couple of weeks ago. I also want to read it while it's still topically speculative, instead of historically retrospective... well, hopefully things won't get quite so bad as Ken is forecasting in Execution Channel but then you just never know. After all, George Orwell's prediction of a Big Brother-obsessed mindless drone-society was only 20 or so years out... Mind you, I've never watched the TV series, so I don't know how faithful an adaptation it is...

Have also received hardback copies of The Intruders by Michael Marshall Smith, and Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box - both of which I've read and thoroughly enjoyed already - as well as John Meaney's Bone Song, which is right up there on the to-be-read list (which I really need to update sometime).

April 2, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 2 Comments 

New Arrivals / Recommended Reading - late Jan '07

No fewer than four must-read new titles came in at the back end of last month, which threatened to throw my to-be-read list into fresh disarray. As it happens though, I've already finished one of 'em(The Intruders - highly recommended!) and started another. Hmmm. So, perhaps not so much 'disarray' as 'temporary abeyance'...

'The Intruders' by Michael MarshallThe Intruders by Michael Marshall

Michael Marshall (Smith) fans are going to love this one. It's a classic MM(S) tale: the protagonist, Jack Whalen, is basically an ordinary guy with a background in taking care of himself - in this case he's an ex L.A. cop - who finds himself flung into having to deal with an extraordinary situation, and with little idea of how big a situation he's landed in, or how deep the trouble goes.

In this case events are triggered by the disappearance of his wife, Amy, with whom he's very much in love, and the re-appearance of an old high school acquaintance, Gary Fisher; the golden jock who went off the rails following a suicide by a secret admirer and has since wound up practising law, and who is now dealing with a rather odd-feeling last will and testament.

But of course, nothing is ever quite as it seems in an MM(S) novel, and The Intruders is no exception. I'll say no more, to avoid spoilerage - although speaking of which, if you're planning on reading The Intruders, then do not read the blurb on the back of the book as it contains a moderate spoiler that could damage the narrative tension of a particular segment - but suffice to say it's full of all the MM(S) hallmarks: rich prose, great characterisation and an absolutely wonderful observational eye. No other writer I've encountered to-date is quite as good at summing up the intricacies of human relationships in so few words. And dammit, he writes a damn good shoot-out as well...

'Black Man' by Richard MorganBlack Man by Richard Morgan

And, having finished a contemporary conspiracy-plot thriller, I've launched myself straight into a high-tech, futuristic techno-thriller by another of my very favourite authors: Richard Morgan. Black Man is, as far as I can ascertain so far, set in the same milieu as Morgan's earlier Takeshi Kovacs novels, although I think it might be set in a much earlier time-frame; I'd have to check back with the earlier books to find out for sure.

I'm only a few chapters in so far, but already the book has the classic Morgan hallmarks; special agents running more or less amok, hard-pressed police detectives having to deal with far out-of-the-ordinary cases (in this case a downed spacecraft that crashes in the Pacific Ocean en-route from Mars) and a dark, gritty atmosphere that you can taste in the back of your mouth.

I'm looking forward to losing myself in this one over the next couple of weeks and I'll let you know how I get on, of course...

'Ysabel' by Guy Gavriel KayYsabel by Guy Gavriel Kay

For years now, I haven't met a Guy Gavriel Kay novel that I haven't instantly liked; well, not since his debut trilogy outing, The Fionavar Trilogy, which frankly I wasn't too keen on at all (the author and I have exchanged emails on the subject at some point, and apparently I'm not alone in the hate/love thing... although he did explain that there's a fair bit more to the series than I first read into it... but I was only 17 or so at the time, so we can blame the callowness of youth...)

Anyhow, Ysabel is a rare outing for Kay, in that it's set in a contemporary environment, albeit one in which the mythical past seems to be magically impinging. In his last few novels he's established an alternative version of our own world's Iron Age and Medieval histories and has written about various time periods within this new timeline. I'm intrigued to find out whether this new novel represents a blurring of the boundaries between our own world and this alternate universe, or whether the 'contemporary' setting of Ysabel actually turns out to be the modern-day equivalent in that world all along... if you follow me.

I'll be reading this one before too long, I expect, so again, I'll report back as and when.

'The Terror' by Dan Simmons title=The Terror by Dan Simmons

Now, this one looked highly intriguing when it turned up, but I have to confess to being somewhat worried by the daunting 784 page-count. Plus, whilst I enjoyed the artistry of Ilium - Simmons' re-mix of The Iliad - I probably didn't get as much out of it as I should have, given the rave reviews it received elsewhere. So, my initial reaction to The Terror was coloured by the worry that I might suffer the same fate here - and at a considerable investment in precious time as well.

Then I had a coffee with the esteemed John Berlyne, proprietor of The Works of Tim Powers and UK reviews editor for SFRevu, and he said that it was an absolutely wonderful book. In fact, he went as far as to say that it's one of the best three books he's ever read... and this from the guy who's one of the world's leading authorities on Tim Powers (you can read his review on SFRevu).

So now I'm really going to have to read it. Although I might wait until the end of October and take it away on my hols to read by the pool. A chilling tale of terror set in the Arctic ice fields might be just the antidote to all that Maltese sunshine I'm planning on soaking up...

February 15, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 3 Comments 



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