Posts Tagged With: Jim Butcher

Fantasy Blogosphere: September 26, 2011

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Jeff Pelletier

Reviews of The Magician King, American Gods and Goliath this week, along with interviews with George R.R. Martin, Lev Grossman, Tad Williams and Terry Brooks. The Times profiles Jim Butcher, and A Game of Thrones makes first appearances in the comic book and video game industries.

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Fantasy Blogosphere: September 19, 2011

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Jeff Pelletier

An geek’s dream team of interviews this week, with all-star authors like Lev Grossman, Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, Daniel Abraham, Peter S. Beagle, and more. The Night Circus makes some noise, placing in first in Amazon’s top 5 fantasy bestseller list for the week, and the detailed observer will notice reviews and interviews with author Erin Morgenstern popping up around the ‘webs. The talk is Harry Potter fans are hungry, and The Night Circus may be just the dish. Also, for a few weeks in a row, old-school “Choose Your Own Adventure” style books are making appearances in the fantasy blogosphere. Did someone say comeback?

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Fantasy Blogosphere: August 1, 2011

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Jeff Pelletier

George R.R. Martin reviews flood the blogosphere this week, with reviews of books 2-5 in A Song of Ice and Fire crossing your internets. Shadowplay, Prince of Thorns and Perfect Shadow are also reviewed, and we round out the week with a bases-loaded interview pack: GRRM, 2 (yep, two!) interviews with Felicia Day, and a chat with Jim Butcher. Righteous!

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Amazon’s Top 5 Fantasy Books, July 31, 2011

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Jeff Pelletier

George R.R. Martin owns 4 out of the top 5, making room for Jim Butcher’s Ghost Story, which debuts at number 2 this week.

  1. A Dance with Dragons (Kindle) by George R.R. Martin
  2. Ghost Story (Kindle) by Jim Butcher
  3. A Game of Thrones (Kindle) by George R.R. Martin
  4. A Clash of Kings (Kindle) by George R.R. Martin
  5. George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire 4-Book Boxed Set (Paperback) by George R.R. Martin
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Fantasy Blogosphere: July 25, 2011

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Jeff Pelletier

If you’re lucky enough to be inside with air conditioning right now, you’ll likely have more time than usual to browse the interwebs. Luckily, the fantasy blogosphere is chock full of goodies this week, with reviews of books by Tad Williams, Mark Charan Newton and Glen Cook, and interviews with Mark Lawrence, Ellen Kushner and David Anthony Durham. A few big fantasy film happenings: Harry Potter concludes and io9 looks at potential fantasy series to replace it, and The Dark Tower gets cancelled. Bring on the Dragonlance feature film!!

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Fantasy Blogosphere: May 2, 2011

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Jeff Pelletier

Great reviews of great books by great authors, from The Heroes to The Long Price Quartet to Summer Knight and more. Interviews with George R.R. Martin, Guy Gavriel Kay, Daniel Abraham and more, and Game of Thrones gets renewed for a second season on HBO.

Game of Thrones: Episode 2 Preview

Game of Thrones: Episode 3 Preview

 

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Fantasy Blogosphere: March 21, 2011

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Jeff Pelletier

Reviews of The Wise Man’s Fear, The Crippled God, Death Mask and more. Interviews with Guy Gavriel Kay and Terry Brooks, and a barrage of new Game of Thrones HBO series videos, this time each featuring an individual family. I for one am a little disappointed the House Stark video is set to “private” on YouTube.

HBO Game of Thrones Baratheon Trailer

HBO Game of Thrones Targaryen Trailer

HBO Game of Thrones Lannister Trailer

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Fantasy Blogosphere: January 31, 2011

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Jeff Pelletier

Let the fantasy onslaught begin! Everyone seems to have finally returned from their New Year’s hangover/vacation, because the fantasy blogosphere was hectic this past week, to say the least. Kick it off with reviews of the most recent novels by Joe Abercrombie, Jim Butcher and Steven Erikson, skip on over to interviews with George R.R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie and James Enge, and round out the week with news about the Dark Tower tv series, D&D appearing on tv, and Orbit acquiring three new Dresden novels.

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Top 10 Fantasy Books for 2011

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Jeff Pelletier

As I did last year, I’ve compiled a list of what are perhaps the most highly anticipated fantasy novels for 2011. The first three are actually carried over from last year, as they failed to be released in 2010, which arguably leads them to only be more highly anticipated.

This is the third in a series of Top 10 posts covering the fantasy industry. Last week, we covered the Top 10 Fantasy Book Trends of 2010. Next week, we cover the Top 10 Fantasy Video Games of all time.

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin

While fans are frustrated with the time between the previous novel in the Song of Ice and Fire series and A Dance with Dragons, 2011 would be a fantastic time for Martin to release the latest novel in the series, with HBO launching the Game of Thrones television series in 2011. Rumor has it Martin will be announcing something in the coming weeks. Pick up A Dance with Dragons over at Amazon.com.

A Dance with Dragons

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch

The Republic of Thieves has a tentative release date of Spring 2011, likely due to Lynch‘s bout with depression, which he’s discussed publicly. Here’s to hoping Lynch is hanging in there, as fans of Locke Lamora and crew are salivating for the next installment in this series. Pick up The Republic of Thieves over at Amazon.com, which recently announced the release date as February.

The Republic of Thieves

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

Set for release on March 1, 2011 (according to Amazon.com), the second novel in Rothfuss‘ trilogy is likely to be one of the top-selling fantasy novels of 2011. Fans of Kvothe are extremely excited to see where Rothfuss takes the flame-haired hero next. Pick up The Wise Man’s Fear over at Amazon.com.

The Wise Man's Fear

The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

Joe Abercrombie is hands-down one of the best in the business at this point, and The Heroes is the second stand-alone novel following his First Law trilogy.  I’ve only read the first novel in the First Law trilogy, but I can’t wait to play catch-up and get to his more recent work. Pick up The Heroes over at Amazon.com.

The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

Requiem by Ken Scholes

Requiem is the fourth book in the Psalms of Isaak quintet. I’ve read Lamentation, the first in the series, and have read reviews of the second and third novels in the series. If Requiem continues the reported increase in quality, The Psalms of Isaak is shaping up to be one of the highest quality fantasy series of the current generation of writers.

[Book cover not yet released]

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Top 10 Fantasy Book Trends of 2010

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Jeff Pelletier

I’ve been tracking the top 5 books in the fantasy category on Amazon’s bestseller list for a while now, and I figured I could pull some interesting data from the weekly posts.

This is the second in a series of Top 10 posts covering the fantasy industry. Last week, we covered the Top 10 Fantasy Books of 2010. Next week, we cover the Top 10 Fantasy Books for 2011.

Kindle vs. Hardcover

I’ve only been tracking formats since September, but this is still 33% of the year’s worth of data. Starting on September 5, 2010, and reviewing the data weekly, 48 times Kindle editions of books were in the top 5, and only 37 times hardcover editions of books made the top 5. One interesting note here: Kindle sales were stronger in September and October, then as Thanksgiving rolled around, hardcover sales surged. But, once we got to the final week of the year, the day after Christmas marked the first week where all five novels in the top 5 list were Kindle editions. An inkling of what’s to come in the new year?

Epic Fantasy vs. Urban Fantasy

In the epic vs. urban smack-down urban fantasy wins, hands down. Urban fantasy novels appeared in the top 5 a whopping 198 times, to only 43 for epic fantasy. Epic fantasy was helped tremendously by the Jordan/Sanderson novels, but it just wasn’t enough to come close. Even though we see a traditional spike of epic fantasy sales around Christmas every year, urban fantasy is riding strong from 2010 into 2011.

Most Weeks at #1

Towers of Midnight spent the most weeks in the #1 spot, with 16. Second was Dead in the Family, with 11 weeks. Tied for third were Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer, and Dead Witch Walking, by Kim Harrison. Rounding out the top 5 novels in #1 for the most weeks was Bite Me, with two weeks in first place. The following novels all grabbed first place for one week only: A Game of Thrones, No Mercy, The Legend of Sigurd & Godrum, Calling Home, Changes, Once Bitten, Wit’ch Fire and Eclipse.

Longest Streak at #1

Towers of Midnight spent 14 weeks at #1, from September 5 through December 19, showing that even with the influx of urban and vampire fantasy, traditional epic fantasy still holds a place in fans’ hearts. Second was Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris with 7 weeks at #1, and third was Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison with 6 weeks at #1.

Longest Streak in Top 5 (any position)

Amazingly, both Dead in the Family and Breaking Dawn tied, for spending 33 consecutive weeks in the top 5 each. In second place for this category is Towers of Midnight, which spent 19 consecutive weeks in the top 5 list.

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