Unconfirmed rumors are circulating that Universal is talking with Tolkien Estate about creating a Middle-earth theme park. The rumors emerged on New Year’s day on the Orlando United forum where a user reported claims that Universal Studios asked Warner Bros. to raise the topic with Tolkien Estate. At this point, it is unclear whether the user has insider knowledge, or is simply reporting what others have said.

From the source post:

“…here is how I heard that it played out. Universal asked Warner Bros. to approach the Tolkien family since the Tolkien’s trust WB with the success of the LOTR series. WB described how Universal was willing to work with JK Rowling and how the 2 of them (WB and JK) held Universal’s feet to the fire to uphold Rowling’s vision of the IP. And I believe that the Tolkien’s may have actually talked to JK Rowling. This was before Universal said a word to the Tolkien’s. So after WB stoked the fire, Universal entered the picture with an impressive plan.

As of now there is a lot of hammering out to go, but Universal has gotten a lot farther than Disney ever did.”

Tolkien aficionados would recall, of course, that the professor had a notoriously low estimation of the creative works of Walt Disney. Letter #13 in Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien makes his position clear:

“It might be advisable [...] to let the Americans do what seems good to them — as long as it was possible [...] to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing).”

That’s not to say that Universal would fare any better with Tolkien Estate in any quest to create a Middle-earth theme park. The Estate is well-known to be wary of merchandising, and is currently engaged in a legal stoush with Warner Bros. and Saul Zaentz, alleging that the companies are merchandising beyond what was contractually agreed upon in the 1969 rights deal.

Micechat, a site that specialises in theme park news, claims Universal “is very close to acquiring the rights to develop and produce attractions based on the successful Lord of the Rings franchise of films”. So we might see whether there’s anything to this rumour quite soon.

Source

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There are two things that most writers want when they’re at the pre-publication stage: advice on how to make their stories better, and opportunities to meet the editors and literary agents who will make their dreams come true. Craftfest and Agentfest, part of Thrillerfest, are designed to fill those needs.

At Craftfest, you’ll attend sessions on the craft of writing commercial fiction, taught by bestselling authors and some of the top editors in the field. There aren’t many conferences where you’ll learn about dramatic structure or characterization from Lee Child, John Sandford, Steve Berry or acclaimed agent Donald Maass. While the line-up of presenters changes from year to year at Craftfest, you’ll find that every instructor at is of the same high caliber.

There are typically over 50 agents at Agentfest to take your pitches. You can see some of the agents who’ve attended in the past here.

If you’re looking to pitch to the top agents representing mystery, thriller and suspense, this is where you’ll find them all in one place. And if you’ve never pitched before, don’t worry, there’s a workshop beforehand to teach you the ropes.

At Thrillerfest, you’ll get two days of multiple tracks of panels and spotlight interviews with the biggest names in the field, all designed to teach you about the business of writing commercial fiction. You’ll find panels with some of the most respected editors from the Big Six Publishers: Neil Nyren, senior vice-president and publisher of Putnam and Mark Tavani, senior editor at Ballantine Books have been speakers in past years. There are also workshops on related subjects– everything from martial arts to the espionage business—taught by experts.

One of the best things about Thrillerfest is that you get the opportunity to network with authors of all levels of experience—from long-time bestsellers to novices. At my first Thrillerfest, imagine my surprise when I was joined at breakfast by Erica Spindler and Heather Graham. That’s one of the most amazing things about Thrillerfest: everyone is approachable and open.

And while the opportunity to meet big name authors in your genre is a pretty compelling reason to attend, an even better one is that at Thrillerfest you have the chance to meet writers just like you who will likely go on to be your ally in the industry throughout your career—and I can attest to that myself. I met legal thriller writer Allison Leotta when we sat next to each other on stage for the 2011 Debut Author class and today we’re best buds, calling each other for advice and appearing at events together.

As a matter of fact, that’s why I volunteered to write this guest post for ITW: I’ve gotten a lot from Thrillerfest over the years and I wanted to give something back by spreading the word. If you’ve been looking for a writer’s conference that will open doors for you, you might want to read about a few of Thrillerfest’s success stories:

• Jennifer Hillier, author of CREEP and FREAK (Gallery Books)

• Boyd Morrison, author of THE ROSWELL CONSPIRACY, THE CATALYST, ROGUE WAVE and THE VAULT (Pocket Books)

• Jenny Milchman, author of COVER OF SNOW (Ballantine)

Are you ready to find out more? Click on the links above to go to the Thrillerfest website; you’ll find everything you need. And if you come to Thrillerfest in July, make sure to look for me and say hello.

Alma Katsu is the author of THE TAKER and THE RECKONING, paranormal thrillers published by Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster. THE TAKER was an ALA Top Ten Debut Novel of 2011 and has rights have been sold in 15 languages.

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Scoundrels: Star Wars by Timothy Zahn

Ocean’s Eleven meets Star Wars in this classic adventure set just after Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. From #1 New York Times bestselling author Timothy Zahn, and starring Han Solo, Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian, and more favorites!

The Death Star has just been destroyed and Han Solo still needs the money to pay off the bounty on his head. Now the opportunity to make that money and then some has walked into his life in the form of the perfect heist. With nine like-minded scoundrels, he and Chewbacca just might be able to pull it off and live to tell the tale!

Source

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The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a fable that reshapes modern fantasy: moving, terrifying and elegiac—as pure as a dream, as delicate as a butterfly’s wing, as dangerous as a knife in the dark. It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family’s lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed—within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it. His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duck pond is an ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang.

The book is scheduled to be released June 18.

Source

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It also gives us a reason to curl up with a good book.  Summertime is a time for activity, and doing things, getting things done.  We open up, we strip down to basics (sometimes literally!), we get out there, we move and shake and we do.  But wintertime – ah, now that’s a time for curling up, for retreating into ourselves, for hands wrapped around steaming hot mugs of cocoa, and polar fleece and crystal gossamer on windows.  Oh, and if you have one, wintertime allows for that slice of divine that is a fireplace, with the warmth of the crackling flames, the smell of wood burning and a sense of contentment that cannot be duplicated in any other way.  Yes, winter activities are fun, and there’s nothing like the exhilaration that comes from defying the cold, but in the end we all wrap that shawl over our shoulders or exchange that second set of socks for fleecy slippers, slip into the well worn sweatshirt that fits just right, or throw on that flannel anything and we snuggle.  We snuggle against each other or into ourselves, as we read.

Earlier today I took my dog for a romp on a frozen lake in the heart of the city.  Outside it was heavy and grey and cloudy, threatening snow; in fact, the flakes started falling pretty thickly as we were trekking across the deeply frozen water.  There was already a layer of old snow on top of the ice, so I walked easily; Belle, however, would occasionally lose traction and slide as she gamboled around.  The sounds of the city were hushed and distant for us far out on the lake; tracks left behind by skiers and ice skaters criss-crossed our path but at this time of day we were alone on the expanse of white.  It was easy to imagine existing in our own little world of swirling flakes and powdery footing and the flush of cold on my cheeks and the tips of my fingers.  I was meditative but Belle was energized, and the red of her coat flashed fantastic against the whites and greys and darks of the landscape as she cavorted and rolled and snuffed and slid as only young dogs can do.

Upon returning home, I brewed a fresh pot of coffee while Belle cleaned the recalcitrant snow that remained stubbornly lodged between her toes.  I knew what was next on my agenda, and no, it had nothing to do with last night’s dinner dishes that had been rinsed but were still piled in the kitchen sink, nor the round of online banking and bill paying that shouldn’t be put off until tomorrow.  But those things could wait.  Now, while my cheeks were still tingling and my glasses were still clouding up from the warmth of my house, now it was time to read.

Curling up in “my” chair (a wide-armed, deep seated monstrosity known as “Mom’s Throne” because it’s quite imposing looking, and I’m the only one that sits there), with my coffee within arm’s reach and all three critters curled up on their respective couch or chair cushions, I opened up my book-of-the-moment, a touching novel by Minneapolis native Peter Geye entitled The Lighthouse Road (Unbridled Books, published October 2, 2012) and disappeared into its pages.  Set in Gunflint, Minnesota (now a popular resort area on Lake Superior just south of the Canadian border) between 1895 and 1937, it follows the story of Norwegian immigrant Thea Eide, her young son Odd Einer Eide, and the woman who is the fragile thread that connects them to each other.  It’s a lovely book, one I heartily recommend, but to be honest, were it not due back at the library tomorrow (unfortunately, not one that I can renew), it probably would not have been my book of choice to read after coming off a chilly morning’s outing.

If I had had my druthers, I probably would have picked a book that wasn’t as contingent on the cold and of being at the mercy of winter as The Lighthouse Road is.  Too much of a good thing, don’tcha know?  And although no one in Peter Geye’s book falls victim to the harsh climate (as is way too often the case with books set in the North Country), it still remains a vital impact on the lives of the characters that come to life in the novel’s pages, in a way to which I could heartily relate (even while sitting in my comfortable chair in my toasty house drinking my accessible hot beverage of choice).

No, if I had free rein, I probably would have picked something else, something not quite as akin to what I had just walked in from.  That made me wonder – if I was free from obligation (ah, and what lovely obligation it is!) or out from under the strictures of timing – what would I read?  What would be a perfect book to sink into on a quiet winter’s afternoon?  What would take me from a chilly Minnesota day, transport me elsewhere, then safely bring me back again in time to get dinner on the table?  Undoubtedly, many, many books would adequately do this… but were there books out there that would be just perfect?

So I thought that I would throw that question out to our LitStack readers.  Is there a book that you feel would be the perfect “snuggling in” read on a snowy day (or night)?  Is there something you’ve already read that you might default to if you decided to just get away from it all for a few hours, just because you know it would warm your soul as well as your imagination?  I’d be interested to know your thoughts and recommendations, if you have any.

And yes, I came up with what, for me, would be the perfect book – but I’m not going to tell you what it is just yet.  In fact, I’m going to come up with a list of books that I think would be wonderful candidates for curling up with on a cold and or snowy and or rainy and or languid afternoon, and if anyone wants to comment themselves, I’ll throw those in as well, maybe as early as next week.  But right now, the winter light coming in through the picture window is dimming to the point where I’ll need to rouse myself and turn on some lights, which means that dinner plans need to come into play, which means that I’d better get to those dishes and other busywork, and that my time for reading and writing needs to come to an end, at least for now.

Besides, it feels a little chilly here.  I think I’ll go throw on another pair of socks.

~ Sharon Browning

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Here a just of few of some of our favorites. Tell us, LitStackers, what books are you most looking forward to in 2013?

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© 2009 Mari Kurisato

This month, we have the honor of hosting Jay Lake as our January Featured Author. Jay Lake lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works on numerous writing and editing projects. His books for 2012 and 2013 include Kalimpura from Tor and Love in the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime. His short fiction appears regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. He is a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

We begin our month-long feature of Jay with Green:

Her exquisite beauty and brilliant mind were not enough to free her from captivity. That took her skills with a knife, plus the power of a goddess.

She was born in poverty, in a dusty village under the equatorial sun. She does not remember her mother, she does not remember her own name–her earliest clear memory is of the day her father sold her to the tall pale man. In the Court of the Pomegranate Tree, where she was taught the ways of a courtesan…and the skills of an assassin…she was named Emerald, the precious jewel of the Undying Duke’s collection of beauties. She calls herself Green.

The world she inhabits is one of political power and magic, where Gods meddle in the affairs of mortals. At the center of it is the immortal Duke’s city of Copper Downs, which controls all the trade on the Storm Sea. Green has made many enemies, and some secret friends, and she has become a very dangerous woman indeed.

Acclaimed author Jay Lake has created a remarkable character in Green, and evokes a remarkable world in this novel. Green and her struggle to survive and find her own past will live in the reader’s mind a long time after the book is closed.

You can read more about Jay on his website.

Source, Source

Green
Jay Lake
Tor Books
First Edition: June 2009
ISBN 978-0-7653-2185-5

—♦—

Green is the first volume of a trilogy from prolific author Jay Lake, as his first foray into novelized high fantasy fiction.  Published in 2009, it was followed by Endurance in 2011, with the third volume, Kalimpura, arriving in 2013.  The “Green” of the title refers to the lead character, whom we known at the onset only as “Girl” when she is taken at aged 3 from her impoverished village and placed into isolated training in a foreign land across the sea.  Years later, after apparently proving her worth by surviving, she is given the moniker of Emerald; in defiance she refers to herself only in the forbidden tongue of her native land.  However, her vocabulary has atrophied over the years to the point where she cannot conjure the word for emerald – so she embraces the closest word she can recall: green.

Green the novel and Green the heroine are both far more complex and difficult than it might originally appear.  A lot of people first encountering this work assume, due to the cover art and the publicity blurbs, that it is your typical kick-ass ninja girl heroine overcoming overwhelming obstacles to right the wrongs done to her and her world story.  And to be honest, it is – all but the “typical” part, and that is part of the novel’s greatest strengths and deepest weaknesses.

Anyone who assumes that Green is a young adult novel due to the age and/or sex of the main character is in for quite a surprise.  Although I would not say that Green is too adult for maturing audiences, it certainly does not handle adult issues with kid gloves.  Plus, those issues have the added wrinkle of being acted upon by a heroine who has been subjected to a very wide sampling of knowledge but very narrow spectrum of experience, due to her imperfect understanding of her early memories and the stringent sequestering that has been her sole existence for virtually her entire life.

The youngster we are introduced to at the start of the book has only a few memories of her earliest life, before she was sold to a mysterious man in black (whom she nicknamed “maggot man” due to the pale softness of his skin), but those select memories are razor sharp in her mind:  her Papa and their solid ox, named Endurance, and a journey towards the funeral rites for her grandmother.  They do not include her name, the name of the town in which she lives, or the country where she was born – although her recollections of hot, blasted sands and rows upon rows of irrigated rice paddies remain.

The “maggot man” takes her across the sea to the magnificent city of Copper Downs where she is immediately deposited at the fortress of her unseen patron, the Factor.  Known only as “Girl”, her new world consists of a single tower in that fortress, named the Pomegranate Court because of the tree growing in its courtyard.  For the next 8 years, she will have no contact with the outside world other than the Mistresses who arrive to train her in domestic and discerning arts:  cooking, cleaning, music, sewing, biology, metallurgy, animal husbandry, movement and defense, mythology, philosophy, literature, etc. and occasional visits from Federo, the man who originally purchased her for the Factor’s service.  But there is nothing that gives her insight into life outside of the high stone walls that surround her.  Any inquiries (or indeed, any independent thought or action) is met with derision, censure and beatings.

When she does finally quit herself of the Pomegranate Court, it is through violence and with the aid of the enigmatic Dancing Mistress, a creature of the pardine race (who resemble upright feline creatures of great strength and agility).  With Copper Downs in chaos, the girl now calling herself Green flees back across the sea to the land of her birth not only for refuge but in an attempt to find a personal anchor to her stolen life.  After a disappointing homecoming, she finds herself again in the company of women at the temple of the Lily Goddess in the great city of Kalimpura; this time, however, by choice, not by coercion.

At the temple, she pieces together a more coherent picture of her world and learns to tap into mysticism as well as to develop her inner strengths and desires.  Just as she must decide whether to follow the path of the Lily Blades (the respected/feared peacekeeping force of the temple), however, the Dancing Mistress appears and implores Green to return to Copper Downs, where the consequences of her flight has had repercussions far beyond what Green had ever anticipated.

Green as heroine fits our tidy expectations in that she is physically adept, strong, intelligent and independent.  What she doesn’t have, however, is awareness or insight to the same degree as her baser elements.  Her moral compass is fixedly pointed at her own core and therefore she cannot see beyond her own perceptions, narrow as they are.  Having never had positive examples of healthy relationships, she doesn’t connect deeply with anyone, and key figures in her life can flit between friend and foe in a single thought.

This feels wrong.  We want our heroes to reflect a greater good, a fuller understanding, a higher level of intuition, than other more mundane characters.  While reading Green, I often found myself grimacing at the actions she took and the motivations that she attributed to them.  Even though poetry runs through her thoughts, she doesn’t have as much empathy as I wanted her to, her sensuality seems remote and removed from anything of value, she doesn’t appear to have a moral fulcrum on which to balance her values.  Except for an unfocused guilt resolved through a simplistic ritual, nothing seems to affect her deeply, although she does muse prolifically on the injustices of her life and world.

It wasn’t until the end of the book that I realized my dissatisfaction with Green as heroine had more to do with me than with her.  I had been projecting my own biases on her rather than absorbing the totality of what had shaped her:  isolation, remote relationships, barely a modicum of emotional support and virtually no sympathy or concern for the individual as individual, plus no knowledge of men outside of Federo and the specter of the Factor and his rigid expectations.  Once I stepped back I was able to see that Green was what one might expect of an emotionally stunted, impersonally groomed girl (girl – not woman) who had for her whole life been treated like a commodity rather than a person, in a sterile and highly performing environment.  After realizing this, the book made much more sense to me and my discomfort was more atmospheric than challenging.

Yet before I can attribute character genius to author Lake, I have to overcome other uncomfortable observations that are harder to dismiss.  The sense of the story being off balance and unrelatable is not totally due to my own perceptions.  Let me give you an example:  the daily ritual of sewing a bell onto a cloth of silk that is central to being female in Green’s native land.  It is perhaps Green’s only real tie to her beginnings, and her efforts to maintain this ritual against all odds are touching and beautiful.  It’s also a ritual that is highly impractical to the point of being ridiculous.  In the third paragraph of the book, we learn that by the time she marries, a girl “will dance with the music of four thousand bells.”  By the time she dies, she may have the music of as many as 25,000 bells to carry her from her life.  Now, I don’t care how tiny these bells may be (although at one point Lake states that Green uses bells of “many sizes” on her improvised silk), 4,000 bells are going to be difficult to maneuver on a silk garment and the weight of 25,000 bells will make it pretty darned impossible to wield.  Yet Green at times will travel through water and across rooftops, silently, with her silk accompanying her.

Sorry – not gonna happen.  Great idea, but an implausible application which then makes the reader less willing to step aside for other implausibilities that are more central to the story.  And we won’t touch upon whether or not an 11 year old girl no matter how meticulously primed would have the skills, wherewithal and focus to do what Green did when she broke the Pomegranate Court.

There is no doubt that Jay Lake is a narrative master.  The lilt and grace of Green’s meandering inner thoughts are gorgeous:

This was a Stone Coast I had known only from Mistress Danae’s books, for I had never left the Pomegranate Court to walk the high crags or upland meadows.  Little engravings and bad poetry had told their story, but as a child might recount solstice gifts, with eccentric details and much missing of the point.

But sumptuous narrative can only carry a story so far, otherwise it tends to become ponderous and feel uneven, which was something I encountered while reading Green.  I’m hoping that some of the inconsistencies and difficulties encountered in Green become ameliorated in Jay Lake’s second volume of this series, Endurance.  I have a very strong premonition that they will, and I’m eager to crack open the next book to find out.

~ Sharon Browning

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While still in the early stages of our Neil Gaiman reread, Magic and Good Madness, (look out for our Sandman reread starting this month!) we are nonetheless always excited to hear about Gaiman’s upcoming publications. HarperCollins has just announced they will be creating a beautiful print edition of Gaiman’s inspirational “Make Good Art” speech delivered to the 2012 graduating class of Philadelphia’s University of the Arts. The edition will be designed, inside and out, by legendary book deisgner (and Batman collector) Chip Kidd. It is sure to be a perfect gift book. “Make Good Art” will be out May 14th.

You can watch Gaiman deliver the speech in full here:

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