The Elf Fantasy Fair is Europe’s largest fantasy event and will be held at Castle de Haar Haarzuilens in Holland on the 19th and 20th of April 2008. Robin Hobb will be in attendance on both these dates and is looking forward to having a wonderful time.

The Elf Fantasy Fair has been held every April since 2001 with approximately 25,000 people attending. For more information and to book tickets online - http://www.elffantasy.eu/?langswitch_lang=en

As the review summary states, The Mad Ship is a  ”spell-binding story full of wonderful characters and intrigue”. This is Robin Hobb, once again, at her very best. She takes the excellent Ship of Magic and improves upon it and this is not something that is easily done.

With a rating of 8.9 out of 10 this places The Mad Ship at #15 in our list of the best one hundred fantasy books of all time.

The full review can be read by following this link - The Mad Ship book review 

Renegade’s Magic by Robin Hobb and published by EOS entered The New York Times bestsellers list at #26. Other fantasy entries include Terry Goodkind’s Confessor.

To view the complete list, click on the following link http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/books/bestseller/0127besthardfiction.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Eos are celebrating their 10th anniversary and they are giving away free e-books. Every 2 months during 2008 they will be giving away a free eBook starting with Robin Hobb’s Shamen’s Crossing which is available for download by clicking on this following link.

http://outofthiseos.typepad.com/blog/2008/01/free-e-book-rob.html

Is there a catch? Yes, although not exactly a catch, unfortunately this offer is open to US residents only…

There is a great section when you’re looking for new authors and new books to read. It’s a list of books that Robin Hobb in her own bookcase and as far as I’m concerned, if it’s good enough for Robin Hobb, it’s good enough for me.

The books that really caught my eye were Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Warrior’s Apprentice and Peter S Beagle’s The Last Unicorn.

John Howe is possibly the best illustrator of fantasy books and has been for some time. He has worked with JRR Tolkien and Robin Hobb and created some unforgettable artwork that accompanies the stories perfectly and really does add to the whole reading experience.

You should take a look at his portfolio and see what I mean http://www.john-howe.com/portfolio/gallery/

I’ve just been looking at the site and some of the books are ranked far too lowly, Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb and The Illearth War by Stephen Donaldson especially so I’ve raised their rating to where I feel it should be. Also, over the weekend I will be adding the facility to allow visitors to the site the ability to post comments on the books and to give their own rating of the book, this should give a much better overall review to the books and a far more comprehensive experience for our site visitors.

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 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.

So far there are very few fantasy books that I have given up on midway through. Once I have bought a book and invested time in reading through at least some of it I carry on either through wanting to get my money worth or in the faint hope that things might improve towards the end.

The only book so far that I have thrown down in disgust is Robert Jordan’s New Spring: A Wheel of Time Prequel. From reviews that I have read on Mr Jordan his work seems to be a mixed bag. The impression I get is of an other who wrote a couple of good books and is now milking it for everything that can get out of it. If New Spring is anything to go by then I’m afraid I can not argue with these sentiments.

A very poor book, avoid if possible and read some Hobb or Erikson instead.