Sean Williams

The US cover of The Blood Debt is online at the Pyr-o-mania blog page. Greg Bridge's artwork looks better every time I look at it. I can't wait to see this in print. Lou Anders is a legend.

While on the subject of the world of the Change: I've just started The Dust Devils, the second book of The Broken Land. In The Stone Mage & the Sea I referred to pseudo-mechanical creatures called "strand beasts" that wander endlessly across the desert of the Interior. At last, I'm getting to explore these creatures in more detail. They're inspired by Theo Jansen's incredible strandbeest, a new form of nature described as "skeletons which are able to walk on the wind". Eventually, he "wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives." There's a webcam on the site but I haven't seen what it reveals yet, as day here is night at the other end of the world. What wonders await?

While re-researching strandbeests, I stumbled across another site called Sodarace: "the online olympics pitting human creativity against machine learning in a competition to design robots that race over 2D terrains". Because fantasy and science fiction always overlap in my books, it seems fair to mention that here. I approve, also, of AIs getting the upper hand.

Quote of the day:

"Williams' mix of grand metaphysical vision, weird landscapes and wild adventure makes for a great read, but it's the deeply human story at the heart of The Crooked Letter, which really makes it something wonderful."
Hal Duncan (Vellum)