Page 16 of posts by: montsamu

Coming to Town: Stuart Rojstaczer for The Mathematician's Shiva

Posted on 2014-09-08 at 13:39 by montsamu

"Her craziness was happily wed to her intellect. There are no reasonable geniuses in this world, I am convinced." So writes middle-aged fictional geophysicist Alexander "Sasha" Karnokovitch of his mother, within the pages of actual geophysicist Stuart Rojstaczer's debut novel The Mathematician's Shiva. A brilliant mathematician, Rachela is rumored to be taking the secret proof to the Navier-Stokes equation to her grave. But first, and trust me, somehow this all works, Rojstaczer gives us alternating scenes

Posted in Coming to Town | Tagged Stuart Rojstaczer, the mathematician's shiva, the regulator bookshop

Coming to Town, belated edition: Lev Grossman at Flyleaf Books for The Magician's Land

Posted on 2014-09-07 at 03:23 by montsamu

Lev Grossman was recently in the Carolinas for a stop on his tour for The Magician's Land, which debuted on the NY Times bestseller list at #1. At a "standing room only" event at Flyleaf Books, he talked about The Magicians and The Magician King, read from The Magician's Land, and engaged in a lively Q&A session with the audience. Since, he has also just appeared at The Bookmarks Festival of Books and Authors in Winston-Salem; previously, he was a guest of the North Carolina Literary Festival in April, as

Posted in Coming to Town | Tagged flyleaf books, lev grossman, the magician's land

September newsletter: John Hodgman, tiltExpo, HMLT, Stuart Rojstaczer, Kim Harrison, John Darnielle, The Escapism Film Festival, Scott Westerfeld, and more!

Posted on 2014-09-05 at 10:00 by montsamu

Vol 4. No 9. September 5, 2014: The first Friday of the month has no fewer than five events to pique your interest, and the first week of the month has already brought the first of five six! seven! new books by North Carolina authors that will hit stores in September.

Let's start with those events happening today (Friday, September 5):

• While most festival events are on Saturday and are free, the Bookmarks Festival in Winston-Salem, NC does have a pair of ticketed "Eat and Greet" sessions on Friday

Posted in newsletter | Tagged clay and susan griffith, david drake, Escapism Film Festival, james maxey, jason mott, jenna black, John Darnielle, john hodgman, kim harrison, lewis shiner, lisa shearin, matt ross, Scott Westerfeld, Stuart Rojstaczer, tiltExpo, tony daniel, william gibson

Paul Kincaid's From the Other Side, August 2014: New books from NewCon and Beccon, and two sf novels getting serious mainstream attention

Posted on 2014-09-03 at 14:35 by montsamu

From the Other Side, August 2014

By Paul Kincaid

[Editor's Note: "From the Other Side" is Paul Kincaid's monthly column on books and news from the other side of the Atlantic.]

So the biggest science fiction event in Britain has come and gone. For the record, I thought Capaldi makes a very interesting Doctor, but Moffatt remains a terrible scriptwriter. It seems to me that Doctor Who is going the way of Sherlock: glitzy and full of in-references for the fans, but rather short of coherent storytelling and

Posted in From the Other Side | Tagged david mitchell, howard jacobson, ian whates, john clute, nina allen, paradox, paul kincaid, stay, the bone clocks, the race

The Hardest Part: Lou Anders on Frostborn

Posted on 2014-08-25 at 14:01 by montsamu

In his ten years and counting tenure at Pyr, award-winning editor and art director Lou Anders has been on the other side of the desk from many fantastic fantasy novels and their authors, from James Enge's Blood of Ambrose to Clay and Susan Griffith's Vampire Empire and Allen Steele's Apollo's Outcasts, he's made suggestions and fought for cuts and rewrites. As he writes here, he intended to (and in fact did) approach writing a novel with a willingness to revise to sell, but something happened along the way

Posted in The Hardest Part, Uncategorized | Tagged frostborn, lou anders, thrones and bones

Friday Quick Updates: Charles Soule, Teen Author Summer Slam, Maggie McNeill, book clubs, the Baen Writers Bootcamp, and more

Posted on 2014-08-15 at 13:37 by montsamu

Friday, August 15, 2014: Like clockwork, once the newsletter goes out, events I missed come to mind or come pouring in. While I've updated the online newsletter with these "NEW-NEW" August events, here they are:

• NEW-NEW: 15 (Friday) 8 pm — Michael D. Acosta’s film Devolve Babylon to show at Geeksboro Cinema in Greensboro. Recently selected into the Eastern North Carolina Film Festival, DVDs are available at: WWW.gogwellfilms.com
• NEW-NEW: 19 (Tuesday) 7 pm — The RTSFS book club discusses John Scalzi’s Red

Posted in Friday Quick Updates

August Newsletter: Mur Lafferty wins the Manly Wade Wellman Award; events with Charles Soule, Lev Grossman, and John Scalzi; more news and links; and an announcement on the future of Bull Spec

Posted on 2014-08-14 at 13:26 by montsamu

Vol 4. No 8. August 14, 2014: Well, it was bound to happen. In about a year of monthly guest hosting on Carolina Book Beat, I hadn't had a podcast fail. Well, it happened in early July, as guests Wilton Barnhardt and Jeff VanderMeer were really quite fantastic, but if you didn't catch it live, you missed it. Mea culpa.

July was a banner month for events, with Barnhardt, Jay Posey, VanderMeer, Lydia Netzer, Deborah Harkness, D.B. Jackson a.k.a. David B. Coe, and Mur Lafferty all holding events, not to mention

Posted in newsletter

Paul Kincaid's From the Other Side, July 2014: Irregularity edited by Jared Shurin, and other happenings and books pre-LonCon

Posted on 2014-08-01 at 17:52 by montsamu

From the Other Side, July 2014

By Paul Kincaid

Most disturbing news of the month came right at the beginning of July when we learned that Terry Pratchett had pulled out of this summer’s International Discworld Convention in Manchester because of what he calls ‘The Embuggerance’. So far his early-onset Alzheimer’s disease has not affected his attendance at events like that, but now, as he says, it ‘is finally catching up with me’. Though he still seems to be keeping up with his writing schedule. In the

Posted in From the Other Side | Tagged british film institute, hannu rajaniemi, irregularity, jared shurin, joe abercrombie, jurassic london, national maritime museum, nine worlds, paul kincaid, rachel pollack

Coming to Town: Deborah Harkness for The Book of Life, interviewed by Sharon Stogner

Posted on 2014-07-22 at 19:08 by montsamu

Deborah Harkness was at Raleigh's Quail Ridge Books on Saturday as part of her ongoing tour for The Book of Life, the highly-anticipated final installment of the bestselling All Souls Trilogy which began with A Discovery of Witches.  The sequel Shadow of Night debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and in total, over one million copies have been sold in the States with publications following in 38 countries. While we couldn't have this interview for you prior to her reading and signing, Quail

Posted in Coming to Town | Tagged deborah harkness, quail ridge books, sharon stogner

Coming to Town: D.B. Jackson (David B. Coe) at Quail Ridge Books for A Plunder of Souls, interviewed by Margaret S. McGraw

Posted on 2014-07-18 at 16:34 by montsamu

D.B. Jackson (also known to fantasy readers as David B. Coe) is an Award-winning author of fifteen published novels. He’s currently on a book signing tour to promote the newly released A Plunder of Souls, third in the Thieftaker Chronicles, and will be at Raleigh’s Quail Ridge Books and Music on Monday, July 21^st, at 7:30pm. Jackson is a frequent visitor in the Carolinas, including the South Carolina Writers’ Workshop, ConCarolinas in Charlotte, and most recently, ConGregate in Winston-Salem. Here, Jackson

Posted in Coming to Town | Tagged david b coe, db jackson, margaret s mcgraw, quail ridge books