In a fascinating article , Raymond E Feist talks at length about habitual and obsessive behaviour, smoking … and how all this has a large bearing on writing.

http://www.crydee.com/raymond-feist/talks/may2005

I have finally found the time to get around to putting up proper reviews for the 7 books that make up the Narnia Chronicles. These reviews will be added in stages during the next few weeks and even the 3 pages that are now live are far from complete. Please keep an eye on the C.S. Lewis biography page for updates. 

Trudi Canavan has not had the best year in her life. Find out why on her blog

http://www.trudicanavan.com/trudisblog.php

After finishing The Other Wind I am lucky enought to have the second book in the excellent Liveship Traders trilogy to start on. Already a hundred pages in and Robin Hobb’s writing is as excellent as ever, this book is building up to be even better than the first installment, hopefully this will be as rewarding a trilogy to read as The Farseer Trilogy was.

Fingers crossed.

I have read the first four books of the Runelords series and was blown away by the first, The Sum of All Men. However, the books became weaker and weaker and after The Lair of Bones I decided to give up on the series altogether.

Just to make sure that I was not making a mistake and in the hope that Farland pulls something out of the bag with the latest additions to the series I went onto amazon.co.uk and had a look at some of the customer reviews for Worldbinder and Sons of the Oak …

… I think this following readers review gave me the answer I was looking for - “it seems clear that Farland’s become even more bored of this series than we have, and has stopped even pretending to try.”

It’s such a shame but I will definitely not be spending any money or time on completing the Runelords series

The review of The Other Wind is now complete and highly praises Ursula Le Guin’s latest edition the the Earthsea collection. You can read the review here http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/Ursula-Le-Guin/The-Other-Wind.html

The Other Wind has entered the Top 100 fantasy books at #8
http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/top-fantasy-books.html

I have finished the book and am readying myself to write the review but I’m finding it quite difficult to put the reading of the book into words. It is a short book when compared to Steven Erikson, George RR Martin or Robin Hobb put more than long enough to get the story across.

It is more thought-provoking than action packed and the book is still with me a few days after completion which is always a good sign. I will try and put all these feelings into the review but a nice thing about The Other Wind is that it was a fitting end to the Earthsea saga and left me wanting to re-read the rest of the series.

In my honest opinion this is the best cartoon strip of all time. Rob, a human, Bucky, a cat and Satchel, a dog all live under the same roof and can of course all talk. Darby Conley has the animal charactersitics down to a tee, from Satchel’s loyalty to Bucky’s selfishness and egotism. If you have never read this before then you must sign up for the free daily Get Fuzzy email, it cheers up my day!

http://www.comics.com/comics/getfuzzy/

David Farland has agreed to a new contract with Tor books for the publication of the 8th and 9th books in his Runelords series. Both these book will be released in 2009.

There are authors out there such as Stephen King and James Herbert that have also dipped into the fantasy realm with some of their offerings. Although chiefly known for writing horror they have published a few fantasy gems between them. I have also included a Robert McCammon novel simply because it is excellent and contains fantasy elements.

• Fluke by James Herbert
• The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King
• The Dark Tower (7 books) by Stephen King
• Swan Song by Robert McCammon