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Jo Fletcher Fridays: Blood’s Pride by Evie Manieri
It’s time for another Jo Fletcher Fridays installment and this week we have 3 Hardcover copies of Blood’s Pride by Evie Manieri up for grabs. This is Evie’s debut novel and the first book in her Shattered Kingdom’s trilogy.
To get your hands on one, all you have to do is help us spread the word. Re-tweet this tweet, like it on Facebook or comment here in the blog for your chance to win. Do all three and triple your chances! We’ll have a drawing and announce the winners next Monday so tweet away.
Blood’s Pride
by Evie Manieri
A generation has passed since the Norlanders’ great ships bore down on Shadar, and the Dead Ones slashed and burned the city into submission, enslaving the Shadari people.
Now the Norlander governor is dying and, as his three alienated children struggle against the crushing isolation of their lives, the Shadari rebels spot their opening and summon the Mongrel, a mysterious mercenary warrior who has never yet lost a battle. But her terms are unsettling: she will name her price only after the Norlanders have been defeated.
A single question is left for the Shadari: is there any price too high for freedom?
Here’s what people are saying about Blood’s Pride:
“Evie Manieri clearly has a talent for intricate plot details and I could hardly believe that amongst all of today’s fantasy, she could come up with a world so different and unlike anything I’d come across before.” – Book Monkey
“…delightfully dark and delicious …one of my tips to watch this year in the Fantasy debuts categories.” – Falcata Times
“…a truly exciting debut that suggests this is just the tip of a potential ‘fantasy classic’ iceberg.” – Fantasy Book Review
“…a dashing first novel, highlighted by an intricate plot well served by complex and unpredictable characters, and an overall delectable theatrical quality that sets the book apart from many other fantasy works.” – Fantasy Book Critic
You’ve got three chances to win what sounds like a great read from a new author. And of course, this one counts towards your Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge as well. Don’t forget to check back Monday to see if you’ve won and every Friday for more free books from JFB! Thanks Jo!
SF Manga 101: Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex
Glenn Hough (gallyangel) is a nonpracticing futurist, an anime and manga otaku, and is almost obsessive about finishing several of the lists tracked on WWEnd. In this series on SF Manga Glenn will provide an overview of the medium and the place of science fiction within it.
And in the Beginning there was the Major…
What Shirow started over two decades ago is still rolling along. The Ghost in the Shell manga I talked about way back at the start of this little series, is now informally known as GITS 1.0, which is followed by GITS 1.5 and GITS 2.0. Next come the Stand Alone Complex series of takubons and three original novels. There have also been three movies, two seasons of the Stand Alone Complex TV series, and numerous specials. As of this writing, the newest installment OAV, Ghost in the Shell: Arise (which concerns how the Major was recruited and Section 9 was created) is just out. The accompanying manga is also just out in the monthly anthologies and has not even been collected into a takubon yet. This just about sums up the official GITS franchise. Oh, did I mention games. Can’t forget about those and all of their accompanying books. (Imagine the shelf space it all takes up!)
This is what Kodansha says about the first manga Takubon of GITS:SAC.
Stand Alone Complex takes place in the year 2030, in the fictional Japanese city of New Port. The story follows the members of Public Security Section 9, a special-operations task-force made up of former military officers and police detectives. The manga presents individual cases that Section 9 investigates, along with an ongoing, more serious investigation into the serial killer and hacker known only as “The Laughing Man.”
Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge: July Review Poll is Open
For July we had 15 WoGF reviews posted in the blog so you have your work cut out for you to read all these reviews and pick your top 3. As always, there are 3 prizes awarded each month. We’ll keep the poll open until August 25 so you have plenty of time to read all the reviews.
- The Etched City by K. J. Bishop – Stephanie (Rhetori_Cat)
- The Whitefire Crossing by Courtney Schafer – Sue Bricknell (SueCCCP)
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood – Rob Weber (valashain)
- The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon – Rae (ParallelWorlds)
- Seraphina by Rachel Hartman – Steff (MMOGC )
- Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer – Beth Besse (Badseedgirl)
- The Whitefire Crossing by Courtney Schafer – Brett Ellis (Brett72)
- The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater – Wendy (nightxade)
- Outlander by Diana Gabaldon – Alex Hammel (ahammel)
- Fools by Pat Cadigan – Allie McCarn (Allie)
- The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett – Scott Lazerus (Scott Laz)
- Mayhem by Sarah Pinborough – Pat Doherty (Patremagne)
- Sword of Fire and Sea by Erin Hoffman – Emily Sandoval (ersandoval)
- Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear – Lynn Williams (lynnsbooks)
- Half World by Hiromi Goto – Tanya (metalorchid)
Thanks to all our reviewers last month. If you didn’t make the July list, don’t give up. You have plenty more chances! Please help us spread the word about the review poll and encourage your friends to come over and vote. A lot of effort goes into these great reviews each month so show some love for our reviewers and vote!
As you can see, the WoGF just keeps on going and going. We had 336 readers last month and now we’re up to 353! Way more than we ever expected and we’re especially pleased that folks are still joining in even though the challenge is more than half over. Brave souls, all. We also jumped from 377 reviews to whopping 418 out of 781 books read. Well done, my friends, well done!
General Stats After 7 Months:
- Time Remaining: 147 days
- Participants: 353!
- Books Read: 781
- Books Reviewed: 418
One of the great things about this challenge is the lasting legacy of these book reviews. When you read and review a book you’re telling everyone that visits that novel page after you, whether that’s today or next week or next year or 10 years from now, that this book is worth a second look. People pay more attention to books that have reviews and member ratings. If they don’t see them they often skip right by thinking no one was interested — why waste my time? Just the fact that your review is there gives them pause to consider investigating further and, if they like what they read, that book is far more likely to end up on their reading list. How many books have made it to your reading pile because of a review?
Your reviews for this challenge help encourage people to read more books by women and not just for the challenge. There are now hundreds of novel pages on this site that have come alive because of the work you’ve done. That is a very positive step in the right direction and we can’t thank you enough. This is all your doing and we are thrilled and humbled by your response to our challenge. On behalf of the whole WWEnd team, thank you.
JFF: Swords of Good Men Winners!
Our Jo Fletcher Fridays re-tweet contest for Snorri Kristjansson’s Swords of Good Men has closed. We had 44 entries and have drawn our 3 random winners.
Congrats to our winners:
Cathy Willey
(@crwilley)
Val Everett
(@BadHg21)
Kelly Joe Burchard
If you are one of our prize winners please send your mailing address to us at “info [at] worldswithoutend [dot] com” so we can get your books in the mail right away.
Our thanks to Jo Fletcher Books for donating the prizes.
WoGF Review: Half World by Hiromi Goto
Tanya F. (metalorchid), has been a fan of sci-fi since childhood, a love that kicked off with Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. She enjoys plots that involve time travel and alternate histories, but also can’t resist a lengthy, world weaving fantasy epic, or a well crafted short horror story.
Editor’s note: This review counts for the July review poll.
When we first meet Melanie Tamaki, the shy and neglected protagonist of Hiromi Goto‘s Half World, she is running with all her might, as she is being chased down the street by a pack of bullies who are slinging pebbles and harsh insults at her back. The opening scenes introduce us to a downtrodden protagonist who seems unlikely to become her own hero. However, deftly weaving together elements of horror, fantasy, and Chinese and Japanese spirituality, Hiromi Goto turns the hero’s quest on its ear, providing us with a believable heroine and a thrilling, fantastical coming of age story.
Melanie is a teenager who has been left to scrape together small bits of comfort while her ailing, disinterested mother spends most of her days wasting away in a daze. The Half World of the title refers to the otherworldly, purgatory setting where Melanie must find her mother, who has disappeared suddenly. But Melanie has already been living in a half world, of sorts; it is a world frequently occupied by impoverished and misunderstood children who must carve out a safe space for themselves when neither home life nor their school provide it. Melanie’s comfort is found with crows circling about the dock side of her town, and with the surly but compassionate neighborhood grocer, Ms. Wei, an older woman who has lost her partner of many years, Nora Stein, and now resides in a world of whispered stories and piles of books.
WoGF Review: Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear
For Lynn Williams (lynnsbooks) books are much more than a hobby or a pastime they’re really an obsession. If she’s not reading a book, she’s talking about books on her blog, Lynn’s Book Blog, or deciding which books to buy next. Lynn reads all sorts of books, sometimes straying into YA, but her first love is fantasy. Recently she started to cross into science fiction thanks to the suggestions of some very excellent bloggers.
Editor’s note: This review counts for the July review poll.
As part of World’s Without End WoGF reading challenge for July I read Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear. I must say that I’ve been enjoying myself with this challenge. It’s given me the incentive to pick up authors that I haven’t previously read and it’s introduced me to some amazing books that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading. So I expected much the same with Range of Ghosts – after all this book has received a lot of glowing reviews and the author is very well respected (not to mention can I just bring your attention to that gorgeous cover). Anyhow, I won’t say that there was an immediate feeling of love for this and I certainly didn’t feel it started off easily but, after my initial hesitancy, the story did win me over and I will definitely pick up the next book.
The story starts with the aftermath of a fearsome battle. A lone survivor makes his way through the dead bodies. Temur. Injured on the battlefield and suspected dead, he now makes his way South to the mountains to hopefully live out a quiet life in exile. We then skip to a different storyline. To the once Princess Samarkar. Originally heir to an empire her claim ended when her father’s new wife bore him a son and she became a bartering tool, sent to a marriage that ended in failure and bloodshed. Samarkar has renounced her royalty to become a wizard. In doing so she not only renounces all her worldly status but also her ability to bear children.
Revenge of the Geezers
After the current series’ trend toward ever more youthful Doctors, the BBC has tapped 55 year-old Peter Capaldi to be the 12th Doctor. That makes him the same age as William Harnell, when he started.
I had hoped for a mature Doctor (in the tradition of classic Who), but I was convinced it couldn’t happen. Boy, am I thrilled to be proven wrong!
WoGF Review: Sword of Fire and Sea by Erin Hoffman
Emily Sandoval (ersandoval) is a bookaholic, whose poison of choice is fantasy and science fiction. At her day job, she’s an engineer working on satellites, and in her spare time she writes epic fantasy novels. She blogs irregularly about writing and the genre, and joined the Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge to force herself to slow down between books and write the occasional review.
Editor’s note: This review counts for the July review poll.
Sword of Fire and Sea by Erin Hoffman was a light, fun book. By no means perfect, but quite enjoyable.
Captain Vidarian Rulorat is commissioned by the fire priestesshood to transport one of their own to a place of safety, beyond the reach of the Vkortha who are hunting her. Thus, he sets himself a course that will change his life and change the world.
The magic system is one of elements—earth, air, water, and fire—the source of which are the four goddesses. Most magic users are women, priestesses, and can wield only one element, but during the course of saving the fire priestess Ariadel’s life, Vidarian finds himself suddenly in possession of both fire and water magic, and the subject of prophecy. The magic is never described in much detail, but I enjoyed seeing Vidarian stumble through discovering his own, rather than having a teacher on hand to give him all the answers.
