SDCC 2011: Anne Rice Talks About Her New Book, ‘The Wolf Gift’ via MTV Geek

MTV Geek had the pleasure of chatting with acclaimed author Anne Rice recently at San Diego Comic-Con 2011. She’s…excited about a werewolf-themed new book she’s working on, “The Wolf Gift” —

“It’s about a young man who becomes a werewolf. It’s my take on what that experience is like for that young man, to experience that transformation and how it works in his life and how he copes with it.”

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Your urban fantasy dreams could be glowing on your bedroom wall soon via i09

Check out this spooky, lovely, intense poster for The Hollows Insider, Kim Harrison’s collection of new fiction, maps and source material about her Rachel Morgan novels. And now imagine this poster glowing in the dark. Woo.

We’re thrilled to have the exclusive first look at this poster, [and] check out an exclusive excerpt from the book…Here’s the official blurb for The Hollows Insider:

For the first time, Kim Harrison illuminates every aspect of the world that has captured so many followers. “The Hollows Insider” will feature in-depth, new information on all the characters and settings, an overarching mini-story, maps and illustrations, and Harrison’s own thoughts on how she works her magic. As wondrous and engaging as the “Hollows” novels, this is the ultimate guide to the wildly popular series.

Read the Excerpt here

Lu’s dystopian novel is a ‘Legend’ in the making via USA Today

Though her novel Legend won’t be released by Putnam until Nov. 29, the young-adult book is already taking a page out of Twilight and The Hunger Games with a film adaptation in the works. And Lu will bring Legend to San Diego’s annual Comic-Con this week to reach potential readers early.

In a story that reads like Les Misérables meets Blade Runner, Lu pits teenage versions of Valjean and Javert against each other in a near-future dystopian America divided into the Republic and the Colonies. There are also trials — “SATs on steroids,” Lu says — that weed out the smartest teenagers and send those who don’t make the grade off to an awful fate.

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Read an Excerpt here

‘Game of Thrones’ Author George R.R. Martin Spills the Secrets of ‘A Dance with Dragons’ via Wall Street Journal

Mr. Martin talked to the Wall Street Journal about “A Dance with Dragons.”

Explain to me how this new novel fits in with “A Feast for Crows.”

Well, when I was writing “A Feast for Crows” I reached a certain point where it became clear that the book was so big that I could not [publish it]….So when I decided to split the book in two, I made the decision not to split the book chronologically. Instead I said I’m going to split the book by character….“A Feast for Crows” and “A Dance With Dragons” are parallel books, they cover the same time frame but with different characters and in different geographical locations. “Dance” does go a little further than “Feast.” In the last half of “Dance” I pick up some of the “Feast” characters in events subsequent to “Feast.” So it’s a little more complicated than the usual series book.

How far are you into the next book in the series? Is it still going to be called “The Winds of Winter”?

“The Winds of Winter,” yes, that’s my plan. I’m not working on it at the moment because I’ve got a lot of other stuff to do. I have my book tour and I’m about to leave on that in a few days. And I’ve got some conventions I’m about to attend. And we’ve got this huge concordance, “The World of Ice and Fire,” which is also overdue that I have to finish by the end of the year. But I do have probably about 100 pages on “The Winds of Winter,” I don’t know exactly.

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Young Adult Fiction: Let Teens Choose via Huffington Post

It’s hard to know how to respond to Meghan Cox Gurdon’s June 4, 2011 article chronicling the “darkness” of modern day YA fiction in the Wall Street Journal [and Ru Freeman’s Huffington Post support for it, on June 21]. I purposely waited a couple of weeks to let the early responders poke holes in her reasoning the way good educators and the writers of tough Young Adult fiction always have to respond to this kind of ill-thought-out and self-serving “reporting.”

Gurdon says the intellectual freedom side of the argument is that kids who have gone through truly tough times relate to these stories and feel less alone…She also says, without any back-up, that these stories may cause kids who haven’t had those experiences to respond negatively to the doom and gloom and that those who have, may wallow in them. A few may — and I’d have no problem with that — but it’s not my experience. Laurie Halse Anderson, Sherman Alexie, Lauren Myracle, Lois Lowry, Robert Cormier (were he still alive), Judy Blume and even I could paper Ms. Gurdon’s cubicle with letters and emails saying things from, “Until I read your book I didn’t even know what happened to me was rape,” “When I read your book I realized somebody knew what my life was like and I felt less alone,” “Thank you for giving me a voice,” to “I think I’m one of those people who treat hurt people bad(ly),” “I didn’t know what some of the people in my class had gone through until I read your book.”

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