Hannah’s Book Round-up

Book News

Pratchett and Transworld look for new writers

This is a news post to anyone out there who is secretly sitting on a stonkingly good sci-fi book idea and has just been waiting in the wings for their moment to shine.  Now all you have to do is put that idea to paper and send it off to the lovely people at Transworld Publishing. The chosen writer will receive a publishing contract with a £20,000 advance, and get to meet none other than Sir Terry Pratchett himself.

The Terry Pratchett ‘anywhere but here, anywhen but now’ Prize is open now with the deadline for submissions set for 31 December 2010. More details can be found here.

I’m very tempted to give this one a go myself. In fact, maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the prize at all…

F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre Dies in apparent suicide

Author of The Woman Between The Worlds and MacIntyre’s Improbable Bestiary, F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre died on 25th June in an apparent suicide. He had been staying in Coney Island Hospital a few days beforehand after the police had been alerted. A body identified as MacIntyre’s was found in his burned apartment a day later.

More on this sad event can be found here.

Out Now

Many, many new Doctor Who books

Den Of Geek caters pretty well to the die-hard Doctor Who fan. So here in the Book Round-up, I want to do my bit, and what a bit it is. Not one, not two, but three Doctor Who books have been released in the past few months, giving any Matt Smith fans out there a delicious trio of other-worldly goodness to choose from.

There’s Night Of The Humans, which sees the Doctor and Amy land in ‘the most hostile environment in the galaxy’. That is until the Doctor gets himself kidnapped and leaves everything up to Amy. In this case ‘everything’ refers to saving the Doctor and doing something about the large comet that’s hurtling towards everyone.

Or there’s The King’s Dragon, which starts well enough, when Amy and the Doctor find a planet of wealth and prosperity, just dripping with riches and happiness. But things turn ugly when the true owner of said riches turns up and demands them back. Statues start oozing gold, gunships start hovering menacingly, and basically things start to get a little difficult.

And finally there’s The Glamour Chase, which sees the Doctor and Amy go back in time to an amazing, ground breaking historical moment in which treasures from another planet are unearthed during an archaeological dig. The only problem is this fascinating little delve into Earth’s history has flagged up the rather worrying fact that genuine Earth human, Amy, has never heard of it, despite its global recognition. Why not? Thus starts a worrying spiral into an existence where reality and illusion are murky and vague.

Okay, so a slightly monopolised Doctor Who book round-up this time, but I just couldn’t resist. There’s something about a man and his screwdriver…