Hippoi Athanatoi

The annual Locus Magazine poll is currently running, and voting is open to everyone who’s interested. The awards has one of the largest voter bases among SF/F literature fandom, and is very well-laid out, with suggestions for each category plus room to include fill-ins.

The deadline is April 15, so vote quickly.

It seems our instructor has once again remembered her notion about putting me on horses other than Murphy for a while, as he was in our lesson today but she put me on Fleur. Given that its not so cold any longer (though it was still quite windy today), I don’t really mind, though she is a bit less interesting to ride than Murphy. Still, given my problems the last few dressage lessons on Murphy, some variety is probably a good idea.

The Dabel Brothers are continuing their teasing when it comes to their planned comic book adaption of Steven Erikson‘s acclaimed Malazan Book of the Fallen epic fantasy series. First, they gave us Whiskeyjack and now some friends have joined him. The new sketches feature Sorry, Tattersail, and Topper.

An except from Fatal Revenant, the second book in The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, has been added to Donaldson’s official site. The second half of the first chapter will be posted on May 9th, and the book is due out in October.

After a bit of a reading dry spell, the Easter weekend ended up being dedicated to a bit of unplanned but very enjoyable binge reading as the copy I won of Anne Bishop’s Belladonna arrived, shortly followed by the long-awaited Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner.

Sarah Monette has put up the first chapter of The Mirador, the sequel to Mélusine and The Virtu, on her website.  The book is due out on August 7th, and hopefully we’ll get a few more sample chapters before then, as the first chapter looks very promising (not the least the addition of Mehitabel as a narrator).

Another brief report this week. Our regular instructor was away, and the girl who filled in for her decided a trek in the woods was a good idea, considering the fairly nice weather. Not a favourite thing of mine to do, though at least I got Murphy (anyone else is pretty much out of the question, in any case). It was also a bit better than last year, since they had cleared up some new paths, which meant we spent most of the time in the woods and not along a road (which I absolutely loathe). Murphy enjoyed himself (he tried to sample every tree and bush that we passed by) and was forward without being frisky. He did give some suspicious sideways glances to some stacks of branches and stuff, but other than that he was his usual, rock-solid self.

We got back to the stables with about 10 minutes left of the lesson, and ended up giving the horses (and ourselves) quite a work-out. I had kept my coat on since the wind had been pretty chilly during the day, so now I ended up riding in four layers of clothing. I was pretty soaked when we finished up as she had us cantering and working quite hard at it for a good while. The horses were nicely warmed up by the trek, though Murphy objected rather firmly to suddenly being asked to work, and tried to act as if I was some beginner he could easily dissuade. It didn’t work, and he ended up doing a fairly nice job after we had sorted out our differences. Though he did try to kill Amadeus while we were cantering.

Jacqueline Carey has updated her official site with a sample chapter from for Kushiel’s Justice, the second book in the second Terre d’Ange trilogy. She also notes that the Signed Page will have signed copies available and that they will be holding a contest for a copy of the book as well.

Nippon 2007, site for this year’s ... has announced that the final ballot was incorrectly reported due to technical errors. Specifically, in the Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) category, it appears that Pan’s Labyrinth should be on the list while Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest should be removed.

Our lengthy list of all the nominees, including a bevy of useful links, has been updated accordingly.

Dog show time, that is. We only got back some hours ago from taking our dog to his first ever dog show. Which he found immensely entertaining since there were so many people and so many dogs to say hello to. We did not find it quite so entertaining to try to control him. Boxers are ... lively, and this one is extra energetic. At 7 months, he easily drives us all crazy on a regular basis.

I am not sure how the judge managed to get a good look at him, since he was either acting like a whirling dervish or lying down on his back (yes, in the show ring ;P), but somehow he did and he ended up placing him first of the boxer puppies. Of course, there was only one other entry, but the critique he got was pretty good. So, no doubt we’ll try a show or two more in the future. And I really need to get moving on making a dog blog, or at least on giving Ringo a little page of his own.

Via Making Light, the nominees for the Hugo Awards have been published. There’s a lot of interesting titles on the list, which we’ve linkified extensively for the benefit of the curious.

Daniel Abraham has given the Fantasy Book Critic an informative interview covering a wide range of topics. He discusses his start in publishing (including how he became an colleague and friend of George R.R. Martin) to his current projects, including the forthcoming A Betrayal in Winter, the sequel to the critically-acclaimed A Shadow in Summer.

Also discusses is his work on the latest Wild Cards book, Inside Straight (due from Tor at the start of 2007), and a new, all-original Wild Cards comic series from Dabel Brothers Productions and Marvel Comics.

Theory-time today, so we ended up spending the lesson discussing the theoretical aspects of (I think I’ve got the English terminology right this time) shoulder in, haunches in, counter haunches in (I’ve also seen this called haunches out) and half pass. Which probably won’t help too much with my tendency to over-think things, as I have a feeling I will need to break out a book or two to study up on this before the next class. It did, however, help clear up some questions, though sadly not in regards to what on earth I am going to do about my legs being all over the place.

Didn’t get much of a chance to check out Murphy, but he seemed a little less irritable. Of course, that could be because I wasn’t coming into his stall with a saddle, just with some nice, minty treats. But even that is occasionally regarded with suspicion.

A “sizzle trailer”—featuring partially-completed effects, and in some cases very rough test imagery, aimed at international exhibitors and distributors—has shown up online for the filmed adaption of Phillip Pullman‘s much-praised young adult fantasy novel, The Golden Compass. It looks like a lush realization of the novel’s alternate world.

Over at Comic Book Resources, Howard Chaykin spends some time discussing his work on adapting Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser to comic form.