TABLE OF CONTENTS



MARCH 2008

Dear Readers,

The Ides of March have not yet come or gone, but as a dedicated observer of that most compelling and inauspicious of days, I cannot help but polish my armor in compulsive anticipation (stained as it is with venom from my latest noble deed—I must remember to instruct my squire on the proper uses of scrubbing salts). What momentous histories that date conjures! The fall of empires is never to be taken lightly; indeed, one fell next door to my castle just the other day, and the impact was so thunderous that nearly all my dishware slipped from the cabinets and smashed. I comfort myself, however, in the immortal saying: the fault lies not in our stars, but in our shelves.

But what raging and glorious battles of empire there are to be found in the stars this month! Karen Traviss' Revelation is aptly named, delivering a ripping tale for the penultimate book of the Legacy of the Force series. A whole planet joins battle in Deluge, the conclusion to Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's Petaybee series; don't miss the author's essay below. We've also a collection of the tales of a rather modern knight-like chap by the name of Indiana Jones; I haven't heard of him myself, but he certainly seems to be a nobly adventurous fellow. No doubt he's a good one to have around when the Ides arrives. I shall be sure to take notes for my next daring exploit.

Read well and be merry,

Sir Kaitlin
kheller@randomhouse.com



 

NEWS

DEL REY NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS


AUTHORS ON TOUR

PETER F. HAMILTON, author of Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, will be touring at the locations below to sign his new novel, The Dreaming Void.

SEATTLE, WA
Thursday, 4/10 @ 7:00pm
University Bookstore
4326 University Way NE

PORTLAND, OR
Friday, 4/11 @ 7:00pm
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton

SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Saturday, 4/12 @ 4:00pm
Borderlands
866 Valencia Street

SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Saturday, 4/12 @ 7:30pm
Writers With Drinks
The Make-Out Room
3225 22nd St.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA
Sunday, 4/13 @ 3:00pm
Books Inc.
301 Castro Street

SAN DIEGO, CA
Monday, 4/14 @ 7:00pm
Mysterious Galaxy
7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd

SALT LAKE CITY, UT
Tuesday, 4/15 @ 7:00pm
Barnes & Noble
1104 East 2100 South

DETROIT, MI
Wednesday, 4/16 @ 7:30pm
Borders Books & Music
43075 Crescent Blvd, Novi

NEW YORK, NY
Saturday, 4/19 @ 1:00pm
New York Comic Con
Jacob Javits Center
SF Roundtable
Panel Room 3 (1E15)

AUTHORS ATTENDING NEW YORK COMIC CON

Del Rey is pleased to announce that this year, New York ComicCon's guests will include the following Del Rey and Villard authors!

Terry Brooks, Dark Wraith of Shannara
Peter David, Tigerheart
Peter F. Hamilton, The Dreaming Void
Nina Harper, Succubus in the City
Kazu Kibuishi, Flight Explorer, Volume 1
Naomi Novik, Victory of Eagles
Alissa Torres, American Widow

ComicCon will run April 18-20, 2008, in the Jacob Javits Center, New York City. For much, much more information, see the NYCC website at www.nycomiccon.com.

NEW PROJECTS

Three very exciting new projects have recently come to Del Rey! Betsy Mitchell and Kaitlin Heller have acquired epic adventure/fantasy The Red Wolf Conspiracy and its two sequels, by Robert V.S. Redick, from UK publisher Gollancz. The epic fantasy trilogy chronicles the last voyage of a ship on its way to make peace with a foreign empire—and the conspiracy discovered aboard. The first novel came out in the UK in February; Del Rey will publish next year. FantasyBookCritic.com praises the book as "A fully realized world that is brought to life with amazing clarity and imagination. The author rewards readers with an entertaining, fast-paced saga of high-seas adventure that is part fantasy quest, part political intrigue, and part coming-of-age tale... fun to read, intelligently crafted, highly imaginative, and undeniably charming."

Urban paranormal Harvest of Fire and two sequels by debut author Harry Connolly have been picked up by Betsy Mitchell. The series features the embattled driver for a wealthy sorceress whose allegiance to a secret society puts them in constant danger.

Liz Scheier has acquired innovative science fiction novel Ice Song and its sequel, by Kirsten Imani Kasai, a fantasy about a young mother who must cross a continent in pursuit of the wealthy madman who has abducted her infant twins.

DARK WRAITH EARLY COPY CONTEST

Be the first on your block to read the first-ever graphic novel set in the Shannara universe! On sale late this month is Dark Wraith of Shannara, written by Terry Brooks. Illustrations are by Edwin David and the adaptation by Robert Place Napton, both veterans of the comics/graphic novel field. The story is set a few years after the events of The Wishsong of Shannara and the Shannara novella "Indomitable." Its main characters are siblings Jair and Brin Ohmsford, the young woman Kimber Boh, Cogline the Druid, the evil and dangerous Croton Witch—and featuring the return of Weapons Master Garet Jax! In the story, Jair Ohmsford discovers that he can draw on a form of magic that allows him to transform into other living creatures, both human and other.

To enter the drawing for an early copy of Dark Wraith of Shannara, please send your name and address in the body of an email with the subject heading DARK WRAITH by Friday, March 14, 2008 to delrey@randomhouse.com. Winners, chosen at random, will be notified by email.

What we ask in return from the lucky winners of these early copies is that you please send us your comments on the book, good or bad, in an email. In sending your comments on the book, please tell us if you do not want us to publish them in a future DRIN.


Illustration from Dark Wraith of Shannara © Edwin David

OUR LATEST BESTSELLER!

Del Rey is proud to announce that Elizabeth Moon's climactic Vatta's War novel Victory Conditions has just hit the New York Times hardcover list at #19! Look for it in your local bookstore, and don't miss Elizabeth Moon's brand-new fantasy novel set in the world of Paksenarrion, coming next year from Del Rey!

AWARDS AND HONORS

The Science Fiction Writers of America have bestowed the title of Grand Master, its highest honor, on Michael Moorcock, author of Elric: Stealer of Souls, a brand-new, fully illustrated omnibus edition of classic fantasy and never-before-seen material about the tragic Emperor of Melnibone, now onsale from Del Rey.

Bruce Sterling, author of The Zenith Angle and upcoming novel The Caryatids, has been nominated for the Nebula Award for best novella. "Kiosk" is one of six finalists. Nebula Award winners will be announced at the end of April.

2007 Nebula Award ballot

CRITICS' PICKS

Locus magazine's recommended reading list for 2007 features Harm by Brian W. Aldiss and Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan. The 2007 list was created by Locus editors and reviewers, including Charles N. Brown, Gary K. Wolfe, Jonathan Strahan, and others.

STAR WARS ILLUSTRATOR'S RIDE FOR KIDS

One of our Star Wars Essential Guide to the Force artists, Tommy Lee Edwards, is once again participating in an annual motorcycle ride for charity. The ride takes place in North Carolina on May 3rd, and the riders raise money for the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation. This year, LucasFilm is supporting the illustrator's endeavor by allowing him to create an original limited-edition Star Wars print, available to anyone making a donation of at least $30. In keeping with the theme, Tommy has created an all-new exclusive illustration of speeder-bike troopers for this one-time exclusive print. It measures 30" x 15" and is printed on a high-quality stock.

To donate or find out more, visit his website. Contributions will be accepted until May 3.




  IN DEPTH WITH

with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough


Apres Nous, DELUGE!: Author Elizabeth Ann Scarborough on the creation of the Petaybee series

When Anne McCaffrey and I began the Petaybee series with Powers That Be, we wanted to write about things we had in common: love of animals and a belief in music as communication, a slightly slanted association with the military, and our crosscultural experiences, hers with Ireland, mine with the Native culture of Alaska. We also wanted it to have a point, which was about environmentalism and the relationship of people with their planet.

On Petaybee, the relationship is dramatized by the planet's ability to communicate in a direct and unambiguous way with its people, and to occasionally engineer its events to help its inhabitants protect it and themselves.

The adventures in the first three books took place mostly in the winter and on land. Because Murel and Ronan are selkies like their father, the twins' journeys take place largely in the oceans and waterways, as well as in space. Also, because the twins are the age they are, they become Petaybee's agents in offworld affairs. We wanted to break the usual YA mold in which the parents must be dead or inactive. Sean Shongili and Yanaba Maddock-Shongili, the twins' heroic parents, have a very active part on Petaybee during these stories, but they are not in a position to give their children much help or advice. Often it's the other way around, which helps the kids realize their own strengths.

In Deluge, Ronan and Murel enlist the help of the proto-Petaybean sea creatures they met in Maelstrom to rescue Petaybee's old friend Marmion, the planet's wealthy and benevolent patroness (introduced in the first trilogy). By trying to help the Kanakas escape a colony world constantly bombarded by asteroids, Marmie incurs the wrath of political enemies in the Company, who arrest her and jail her and her employees, without benefit of hearings or trials, at Gwinnet Prison Colony.

When the twins arrive there, they encounter an essentially stripped and ruined planet they know reflects Petaybee's own fate if the Company gets its way. They are also caught up in a more immediate evil and one that has relevance on Earth. The Company imprisons the children of prisoners and recruits them as child soldiers. Little do they realize they are imprisoning two thirds of Petaybee's planetary Coast Guard and Navy along with the other kid cannon-fodder. And even dead planets can fight back!



An Editor's View: Shelly Shapiro on Karen Traviss' new Star Wars novel, Legacy of the Force: Revelation

Nine books telling one story—it seemed easy, after having completed the 19-book series that was Star Wars: The New Jedi Order. But Legacy Of The Force is, in many ways, a more tightly focused story, and by the time we were coming to the end, I was beginning to imagine a future with nothing more than trilogies. The eighth, or penultimate, installment was particularly difficult. Karen Traviss had to create an exciting buildup to the climax of the entire story arc, while making sure that Revelation was a satisfying read in and of itself. She had multiple puzzle pieces to assemble, storylines to complete, character motivation to solidify—and she still had to leave the reader with a feeling of breathless anticipation. Of course we had the overall story planned—in generalities. With each book bar the first, each author had to adjust to where the previous author had left off, and then craft a storyline that would leave the next author in pretty much the planned jumping off point. Details shifted organically through the development of the story—and we all adjusted. But Karen didn't have that luxury for Book Eight. Troy Denning was taking her material and running with it for Book Nine—the final novel—and we all knew what had to happen in that book! So Karen had to make sure all her pieces fit seamlessly. Not an easy task. If it weren't for email, we would have razed whole forests to the ground with all the back-and-forth messaging that went on between the three authors. But Karen is nothing if not heroic—and extraordinarily talented. When Revelation arrived in my inbox and I read it... I was blown away. The book was a terrific read, and it left me feeling that breathless anticipation I was looking for. I knew perfectly well what was going to happen in Book Nine, and still I couldn't wait to read it. I was energized, and eager to start planning yet another multi-book series—and that, to me, was a revelation!

 

FREE PDF DOWNLOAD!

Del Rey is delighted to make available to you the first chapter of THE DREAMING VOID, Peter F. Hamilton's latest novel, which goes on sale March 25, 2008. THE DREAMING VOID is set in the same vast future Hamilton created in Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, and certain characters have survived the hundreds of years since that story ended, but many more are introduced in this new book, the first of the Void trilogy. The novel is receiving rave reviews, including this starred review from Kirkus:
"Dozens of scenarios, a surprisingly well-delineated cast of thousands, plotting enough to delight the most Machiavellian of readers and, this time out, a far leaner and more purposeful product: a real spellbinder from a master storyteller."

"Peter F. Hamilton [is the] owner of the most powerful imagination in science fiction, author of immense, complex far-future sagas. His latest, The Dreaming Void, is his best yet."
—Ken Follett, author of Eye of the Needle and Pillars of the Earth

Click here to download





NEW RELEASES

DELUGE
by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (Fantasy)
Hardcover

InterGal Corporation has long desired to exploit the resource-rich Petaybee, but the planet and its guardians, have successfully thwarted the Corporation—until now. In a bold two-pronged assault, the predacious Corporation has arrested Petaybee's leading off-world champion while InterGal's military arm has dispatched an invading force to subdue the planet once and for all. As Ronan and Murel's parents work to foil the invasion, the twins are captured and sent to a desolate prison world where an old enemy, Dr. Mabo, waits to continue her cruel experiments on the shape-changing siblings. The twins' only hope of escape lies in the uncharted seas of the prison planet. But in the murky depths, something else is waiting...

Read an excerpt

STAR WARS: LEGACY OF THE FORCE: REVELATION
by Karen Traviss (Science Fiction)
Mass market

During this savage civil war, all efforts to end Jacen Solo's tyranny of the Galactic Alliance have failed. Now with Jacen approaching the height of his dark powers, no one—not even the Solos and the Skywalkers—knows if anything can stop the Sith Lord before his plan to save the galaxy ends up destroying it. As Luke Skywalker contemplates once unthinkable strategies to dethrone his nephew, the hour of reckoning for those on both sides draws near. The galaxy becomes a battlefield where all must face their true nature and darkest secrets, and live-or die-with the consequences.

Read an excerpt

THE ADVENTURES OF INDIANA JONES
by Campbell Black, James Kahn and Rob Macgregor (Tie-in Novelization)
Trade paperback

With bullwhip in hand, Indiana Jones has unearthed a wealth of ancient treasures. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the fearless archeologist journeys from Nepal to Cairo to the Mediterranean, dodging poisons, traps, and snakes, battling rivals old and new-all in pursuit of an ancient artifact that holds the key to dazzling, invincible power. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom finds our intrepid hero in a remote village in India, where a mysterious old shaman tells him that his arrival has been foreseen-and that he must retrieve a stolen mystical stone. And finally, Indy must face the most challenging and personal endeavor of his life: rescue his estranged father, the eminent professor Dr. Henry Jones, from a Nazi's lair, and recover the legendary Holy Grail. Yet Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade doesn't mean the adventure is over. . . .

Read an excerpt

MAELSTROM
by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (Fantasy)
Mass Market

The planet Petaybee has agreed to harbor a group of new refugees, workers indentured to the powerful InterGal Corporation. But the mission to collect the immigrants becomes a rescue operation when it is revealed that InterGal is doing nothing to help these survivors of a world devastated by a meteor shower. Twins Murel and Ronan set out to persuade the frightened refugees to leave their world, but the twins soon discover that they've taken on more than they expected, and a tragic misunderstanding endangers the whole resettlement operation. Now it is up to the twins to smooth the waters before a maelstrom of revenge destroys Petaybee's harmonious way of life. But even as they uncover startling new facts about Petaybee's past that will change everything they thought they knew about the planet, the forces of InterGal are gathering, preparing to strike...


Read an excerpt

DEATH'S HEAD
by David Gunn (Science Fiction)
Mass Market

Sven Tveskoeg, an ex-sergeant demoted for insubordination and sentenced to death, is a vicious killer with a stubborn streak of loyalty. Sven possesses a fierce if untutored intelligence and a genetic makeup that is 98.2 percent human and 1.8 percent . . . something else. Drafted into the Death's Head, the elite enforcers of Emperor OctoV's iron will, Sven is given a new lease on life. Armed with a SIG diabolo-an intelligent gun-and an illegal symbiont called a kyp, Sven is sent to a faraway planet, the latest battleground between the OctoV and the rival empire of the Uplifted. There he finds himself in the midst of a military disaster, one that will take all his courage-and all his firepower-to survive.

But an even deadlier struggle is taking place, one in which Sven knows he is a pawn—and pawns have a bad habit of being sacrificed. But Sven is nobody's sacrifice. And even a pawn can checkmate a king.


Read an excerpt


  Click here for new MANGA RELEASES





You have received this message because you have subscribed to the Del Rey Internet Newsletter.
To unsubscribe, send a blank e-mail to unsub_Drin-dist@info.randomhouse.com.
To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to sub_Drin-dist@info.randomhouse.com.
Messages must be sent from the relevant e-mail address (the one you want to subscribe or unsubscribe).
To change your subscription address: unsubscribe with your old address, then subscribe with your new one.

The Del Rey Internet Newsletter is copyright 2008 by Del Rey Books, except for the IN DEPTH section, which is copyright by the author. The DRIN may be reproduced only in its entirety, and not for profit.