Tor.com is going to be exploring Glen Cook’s beloved and awesome fantasy series, The Black Company. Starting next week, Tor.com will launch The Black Company reread, which will delve deep into this epic series, revisiting all your favorite moments. But if you’re new to this dark fantasy series, now is the time to jump in! This is gritty fantasy with aspects of military fiction and intrigue, playing out over an epic span of time.

As an incentive, for one week only, the ebook version of The Black Company, the first novel of the Chronicles of the Black Company series, is available for just $2.99. Links below, or at your preferred ebook retailer.

Kindle | Nook | iBook

And join us next week for the Black Company Reread! Read the details on how Graeme Flory will break the series down and why he was inspired to tackle a reread.

It looks like J.J. Abrams has given Chris Pine a new ride and he promises she won’t get a scratch, but we really, really doubt it. Though the likelihood of him blasting some sweet beats while flying the Falcon are pretty high. 

Your collection of daily offsite links includes a Robo-statue, more Star Trek/Star Wars collision, an impending Halloween treat and more!

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Welcome back to the British Genre Fiction Focus, Tor.com’s weekly column dedicated to news and new releases from the United Kingdom’s thriving speculative fiction industry.

It’s been another weird year, weather-wise. But with the sun in the skies, and temperatures on the rise, it might just be that summer... is coming.

To celebrate—because any old excuse will do, in truth—a special heated edition of the British Genre Fiction Focus, featuring an inferno, a literary sweatshop of sorts, the back of a very angry man, and an account of the passionate (to put it politely) reaction to Charlaine Harris’ last Sookie Stackhouse book.

This week’s new releases are rather less fiery, I’m afraid, with publishers everywhere making way for Dan Brown’s new novel. But nothing stops the Elves, evidently! And as an antidote to Inferno, why not try the third volume of The Dagger and the Coin by genre giant Daniel Abraham?

Let’s get this roast on the road!

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ABC and Marvel Studios have released a 3-minute extended teaser for this fall’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show which details the characters, situation, and the threats they face in much more detail. Also there’s lots of Coulson. Lots and lots of Coulson. (He’s yelling at the newbies! Oh we love that man.)

There’s also more information on the mysterious new superhero featured in the original teaser. The internet has been speculating that he’s playing Rage, or possibly a younger Luke Cage, but we think we’ve got him pegged, and it’s not either of those characters.

[Who is the S.H.I.E.L.D. mystery hero?]

For a long time now I have been afraid of Sofia Samatar's fiction. Knowing the effect her poetry has had on me—in Goblin Fruit, in Stone Telling, in Strange Horizons—I have trembled at the thought of allowing her words any deeper purchase on my psyche. Given her ability to incapacitate me with a few well-turned stanzas, what havoc might she wreak with a whole novel?

Through some terrible and wonderful magic, A Stranger in Olondria has anticipated these fears and commented on them. With characteristic wit, poise, and eloquence, Samatar delivers a story about our vulnerability to language and literature, and the simultaneous experience of power and surrender inherent in the acts of writing and reading.

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It’s here! Brandon Sanderson’s new YA novel The Rithmatist hits the shelves today, and we want to give you a copy of your very own, signed in our offices by Brandon and Rithmatist illustrator Ben McSweeney. (You can check out Ben’s illustrations in our excerpt here.)

Winners will also receive a goody bag filled with Rithmatic chalk. We’ve got ten copies, so comment in the post to enter! 

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A purchase does not improve your chances of winning. Sweepstakes open to legal residents of fifty (50) United States and the District of Columbia, who are 18 or older. To enter, comment on this post beginning at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) May 14, 2013. Sweepstakes ends at 12:00 p.m. ET May 18, 2013. Void outside of the 50 US, and DC where prohibited by law. Please see full details and official rules here. Sponsor: Macmillan Publishers, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010.

Tor.com is pleased to announce that the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas has revealed the 2013 finalists for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for the best novel of the year. The nominees include three Tor novels: Existence, by David Brin, The Rapture of the Nerds, by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross, and The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi. Congratulations to them, and to all the other nominees! You can see the full announcement below.

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Georgette Heyer was not known for paying much attention in her historical fiction to the problems faced by the lower classes, especially in her Regency novels, by now almost entirely focused on comedy. The lower classes, when they appeared at all, showed up as loyal, devoted servants—sometimes too devoted—thieves, or comedy figures. But after three straight Regency novels, in Arabella, she suddenly decided to introduce a touch—a mere touch—of poverty, as if to acknowledge that even in the idealistic Regency world of her creation, genuine, real poverty could appear.  And as if to immediately soften this, she surrounded this poverty with witty dialogue, romantic banter, and what by all appearances is the expected romantic ending. Appearances only; a closer look shows that the ending has, shall we say, issues.

[Which means, of course, that I have to massively spoil the ending. But since most of you will guess the main parts of it anyway, I don’t feel that bad about it.]

“Q-Less”
Written by Hannah Louise Shearer and Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Directed by Paul Lynch
Season 1, Episode 6
Production episode 40511-407
Original air date: February 7, 1993
Stardate: 46531.2

Station log: Bashir is hitting on a pretty Bajoran woman in the replimat. At the next table over O’Brien is rolling his eyes and snarfing on his coffee. To Bashir and the woman’s disappointment, and O’Brien’s great relief, they’re interrupted by a summons to a runabout landing pad. The Ganges spent too long out of coverage, and their battery is drained of power, and Dax forgot to pack the USB charger. They barely made it to the station. Dax and Ensign Pauley are trapped inside, and they can’t get the door open. Confusing the issue is that Bashir is reading three lifesigns. (Further confusing the issue is the fact that the station has transporter technology, and they could just beam the people off the runabout, but we’ll let that go.)

O’Brien plugs in a charger, and they get the door open. The chief recognizes the third passenger as Vash, who’s been in the Gamma Quadrant for two years. “A friend dropped me off,” she says offhandedly, and as they escort Dax, Pauley, and Vash to the infirmary, we get a look at Q hiding in the background. (Amusingly, Vash doesn’t recognize O’Brien at first. Nobody ever pays attention to the transporter operator...)

[Still chasing your own tail?]

Welcome back to the Short Fiction Spotlight, a space for conversation about recent and not-so-recent short stories. While catching up on a bit of magazine reading, I noticed that one author in particular had a strong showing in April: Karin Tidbeck, who had two separate stories out last month, one of them here at Tor.com (“Sing”). We see this a lot from some delightfully productive folks, of course, but it’s still notable to me whenever I encounter two stories in a month, in different publications, from a writer whose work I genuinely enjoy. There was also a stand-out story in the newest issue of Apex by Emily Jiang that I wanted to talk about.

[Onward.]

“His Silicon Soul”
Written by Marty Isenberg, Robert N. Skir
Directed by Boyd Kirkland
Episode #060
Music Composed by Carl Johnson, Harvey R. Cohen
Animation by Dong Yang Animation Co., LTD.
Original Airdate—November 20th, 1992

Plot:“Batman” wakes up in a crate, and quickly discovers he’s actually a robot duplicate, created by the supercomputer HARDAC as a back up plan to take over the world

[Machine that thinks he’s a man... and a man that thinks he’s a god]

See this hat? This is a Wheel of Time re-reading hat. I Re-read Wheels of Time in this hat.

Today’s entry covers Chapters 12 and 13 of A Memory of Light, in which variously shocking revelations are made, and some of them make a hell of a lot more sense than others.

Previous re-read entries are here. The Wheel of Time Master Index is here, which has links to news, reviews, interviews, and all manner of information about the Wheel of Time in general. The index for all things specifically related to the final novel in the series, A Memory of Light, is here.

I am also thrilled to continue to tell you that the Wheel of Time Re-read is also now available as e-books,from your preferred e-book retailer! How cool is THAT, seriously.

This re-read post, and all posts henceforth, contain spoilers for the entire Wheel of Time series. If you haven’t read, read at your own risk.

And now, the post!

[“I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”]

We’ve arrived at the end of our brief focus on Martha Wells. I shall be disappointed if she needs further introduction (aside from those books of hers I’ve covered in this space, you should all go read City of Bones and The Death of the Necromancer right now, I mean right away people, what are you waiting for, they’re right there—ahem), so without further ado, let me present Martha Wells: the author of thirteen novels, mostly recently the Books of the Raksura (The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, and The Siren Depths, Night Shade Books) and Emilie and the Hollow World (Angry Robot Books).

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What would you do if you found out that the men in your family could time travel? Well, in About Time, the young man in question does the practical thing—he gets himself a girlfriend (Rachel McAdams) by going back and re-wooing her correctly. But the Butterfly Effect is still a possibility here and it looks like he might lose her forever by abusing the privilege. His dad is Bill Nighy, though, so he'll probably be all right. We're excited for this movie! It looks absolutely adorable, and will be out in the U.K. on September 6, so hopefully the U.S. will get it around about the same time.

[Watch the trailer]

The character of Superman, first created in comics by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1933, has a longer history of screen adaptations than most people realize.

Though many know the most recent movies were preceded by the 1978 movie Superman, which starred Christopher Reeve and was followed by three sequels in the 1980’s; and some are aware that pop culture has a friendly niche for the 1950’s Superman television show featuring George Reeves, two episodes of which were mashed into a theatrical release titled Superman and the Mole Men in 1951; fewer know of the serials Superman and Atom Man vs. Superman, that ran before feature films in theaters in the late 1940’s, and in which Kirk Alyn was the first actor to play the role in a screen adaptation.

[Superman goes back even earlier than that, though]

Somewhere in the world, Nathan Fillion grabbed Zelda and stabbed Link, making him the most unbeatable boss in video game history. To be frank, we're a little worried about him showing up as the final boss in every single video game ever. How could anyone ever win again? And why would they want to?

Your daily collection of offsite links includes weddings, Star Wars locales and more! (Image via Reddit)

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For over a decade, Barnes & Noble buyer Jim Killen has been a driving force behind Barnes & Noble’s science fiction and fantasy sections. Each month on Tor.com, Mr. Killen curates a list of science fiction & fantasy titles, sometimes focused on upcoming titles and sometimes focused on a theme.

Here’s the Barnes & Noble science fiction and fantasy picks for May.

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