I’m going to let you in on a little secret: promises are made to be broken. In truth, trust exists to be tested.

We’re often called upon to give our word, for what it’s worth, but keeping it is never so simple. Of course it can be done, and indeed, we should endeavour to honour as many of the bonds we form as possible. But sometimes, circumstances arise; unavoidable, inescapable circumstances that require us to behave badly in service of the greater good. To do something we have sworn not to, or say what someone else would rather we wouldn’t.

I’m sure I sound like someone with a guilty conscience, and perhaps I am. I’d argue that we all are, to a greater or lesser extent. Thankfully, the consequences of betraying a vow in our world are in nothing compared to what we’d face if we came from Kharein, the capital city of Darhan.

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The power of the Wheel of Time Re-read compels you! Hopefully!

Today’s entry covers Chapter 14 of A Memory of Light, which features unexpected villainesses, unsolicited movie reviews, and surprisingly lethal applications of standard cartoon gags.

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.

Also, for maximum coolness, the Wheel of Time Re-read is also now available as e-books, from your preferred e-book retailer!

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!

[“Behind every wall, every window. The world behind the world, and we’re smack in the middle.”]

Hi-ho, Tor.com! Leigh Butler here, of The Wheel of Time Re-read!

As dictated by my accidental semi-cornering of the hilariously specific niche market of Commenter on All Things Wheel of Time, it is my pleasure to bring you a spoiler-free advance review of “River of Souls”, Brandon Sanderson’s (and Robert Jordan’s) contribution to the epic fantasy anthology Unfettered, due out this month.

Pretty cool, eh? Why, yes, yes it is. Click the jump to find out what I thought of the story in particular, and why this anthology is awesome in general. Hooray!

[DO EEEET]

My standard spoiler warning for this series: Antiagon Fire is the seventh novel in L.E. Modesitt, Jr.’s Imager Portfolio series, and the fourth one following the adventures of Quaeryt Rytersyn. The first three novels in the series had a different protagonist and were set in the same fictional world but several centuries after the events portrayed in the Quaeryt novels.

In other words, you may want to stop reading this review if you haven’t at least read the first three Quaeryt novels: Scholar, Princeps and Imager’s Battalion. If you’d like a refresher, you can find my reviews of those novels here, here and here. (You can also find my look at the initial Imager trilogy here.)

So, in summary: if you’re not familiar with this series yet, please check it out because it’s excellent—but stop reading this review here to avoid spoilers.

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A special five story preview of Shawn Speakman’s epic fantasy anthology Unfettered will be released at Phoenix Comicon this Memorial Day weekend. This week, we’re taking a spoiler-free look at all five stories, many featuring new glimpses of our favorite fantasy worlds.

I read Terry Brooks’s Shannara trilogy when I was pretty young, and if I’m being honest, I don’t remember them all that well. But I do remember how much I enjoyed reading them. I remember liking Allanon best and imagining that he would appear at my house one day and tell me that I was descended from a magical line of elves. I remember being inspired by the idea that a magical world could be our distant future, rather than a mythic past, and using colored beads as my elfstones.

I wish I had gotten my hands on Terry Brooks' short story “Imaginary Friends” back then, too, because I would have adored it.

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Unfettered is coming, a masterful anthology of epic fantasy edited by author Shawn Speakman, featuring unfamiliar stories set in familiar worlds. A sneak peek of Unfettered will debut at this year’s Phoenix Comicon, which runs through Memorial Day weekend, and all this week Tor.com will be discussing the stories included in that sampler: including new tales from the worlds of Terry Brooks, the Vault of Heaven, and what may possibly be the last glimpse we’ll get from inside the world of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time.

Unfettered is more than just an anthology, however.

[More about Unfettered, its stories, and how to obtain it]

A special five story preview of Shawn Speakman’s epic fantasy anthology Unfettered will be released at Phoenix Comicon this Memorial Day weekend. This week, we’re taking a look at all five stories, many featuring new glimpses of our favorite fantasy worlds.

When Tor.com asked me to write an appreciation of Shawn Speakman’s “The Unfettered Knight”—Shawn’s own story in the anthology he’s editing and publishing—I said yes. Not for any of the obvious reasons. Not because this is one of the stories in the awesome, forthcoming fantasy anthology Unfettered. Not even because the book is Shawn’s effort to pay medical bills resulting from his recent bout with cancer. No, none of that. I said yes because I liked the story.

[Read on]

Welcome back to A Read of Ice and Fire! Please join me as I read and react, for the very first time, to George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

Today’s entry is Part 29 of A Storm of Swords, in which we cover Chapter 49 (“Catelyn”) and Chapter 50 (“Arya”).

Previous entries are located in the Index. The only spoilers in the post itself will be for the actual chapters covered and for the chapters previous to them. As for the comments, please note that the Powers That Be have provided you a lovely spoiler thread here on Tor.com. Any spoileriffic discussion should go there, where I won’t see it. Non-spoiler comments go below, in the comments to the post itself.

And now, the post!

[Oh, what, “tenterhookian” is totally a word]

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.”]

Welcome back to A Read of Ice and Fire! Please join me as I read and react, for the very first time, to George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

Today’s entry is Part 28 of A Storm of Swords, in which we cover Chapter 48 (“Jon”).

I decided to only do one chapter today because for one, I’m feeling a bit under the weather, and for another, a little bird has told me that People are saying Chapters 51 and 52 really need to go together. So we’ll do 49 and 50 next week and 51 and 52 the week after that. Okay? Okay!

Previous entries are located in the Index. The only spoilers in the post itself will be for the actual chapters covered and for the chapters previous to them. As for the comments, please note that the Powers That Be have provided you a lovely spoiler thread in the forums here on Tor.com. Any spoileriffic discussion should go there, where I won’t see it. Non-spoiler comments go below, in the comments to the post itself.

And now, the post!

[Next up: giggling at farts and sticking crayons up my nose]

What is the curse of the Dungeons and Dragons movie? Why is it that when the words “Dungeons and Dragons movie” are spoken aloud, cringing and boredom follow? Is it like the cinematic equivalent of Macbeth? Should we be saying “the elvish film” instead of “the Scottish play?” And why would Warner Bros. be taking a shot at it? Either way, it is a bit too late—did you watch that trailer for Dungeons and Dragons 3: The Book of Vile Darkness? I’m as much of a fan of Vecna’s favorite book as anybody, but that doesn’t appear to be… very good. “I’ve traveled to the floor of the pit of my own free will!” and all that jazz. Even power word kill can’t save it. Not even Thora Birch and Jeremy Irons—or cameos from Richard O’Brien and Tom Baker—could save the first Dungeons and Dragons movie. At least Dungeons and Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God had the good graces to be a low budget made for television movie….

But what if there was a good Dungeons and Dragons movie?

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Conservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha Lee is a terrifying collection of short stories to review. The stories themselves are rarely scary in the traditional sense, but their individual complexity and astonishing level of variety make this an impossible book to encompass in just a few paragraphs.

It’s not that there aren’t any hooks or approaches; it’s more that there is such a bewildering number of them that, as a reader or reviewer, you feel somewhat like you’ve wandered onto a hitherto undiscovered island full of skittery, unfamiliar species that keep turning out to be something else than what you initially expected. More than a review, Conservation of Shadows needs its own monograph. Towards a Taxonomy of Yoon Ha Lee’s Short Fiction, maybe.

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Welcome back to the Short Fiction Spotlight, a weekly column co-curated by myself and the marvellous Brit Mandelo, and dedicated to doing exactly what it says in the header: shining a light on the some of the best and most relevant fiction of the aforementioned form.

This week, we’ll be reading through two of the seven Nebula-nominated novelettes, namely “Fade to White” by Catherynne M. Valente and “Portrait of Lisane de Patagnia” by Rachel Swirsky. I figured it’d be a bit much for me to review “The Finite Canvas” by my aforementioned collaborator, but let it be said that her story is deservedly in contention for the iconic award as well, alongside shorts by Catherine Asaro, Ken Liu, Andy Duncan and Megan McCarron.

So why these two tales above the others? Well, because a single thread connects them: both explore the idea of the image, and the terrible power of the picture of perfection.

[Read more]

It does not compute that there is not a Wheel of Time Re-read, therefore there is one! Hooray!

Today’s entry covers Chapter 11 of A Memory of Light, in which Egwene almost puts her foot in it, Rand learns about that whole discretion/valor thingy, and Mat really, really, really needs to fire his travel agent.

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!

[Crush! Kill! Destroy! Or Not!]

Welcome back to A Read of Ice and Fire! Please join me as I read and react, for the very first time, to George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

Today’s entry is Part 27 of A Storm of Swords, in which we cover Chapters 46 (“Samwell”) and 47 (“Arya”).

Previous entries are located in the Index. The only spoilers in the post itself will be for the actual chapters covered and for the chapters previous to them. As for the comments, please note that the Powers That Be have provided you a lovely spoiler thread in the forums here on Tor.com. Any spoileriffic discussion should go there, where I won’t see it. Non-spoiler comments go below, in the comments to the post itself.

And now, the post!

[“Death’s a capricious thing, innit?” “Yes. Yes, she is.”]

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has announced that author Steven Gould has been elected the new president of SFWA by a landslide margin, replacing outgoing SFWA president John Scalzi.

Gould joins Rachel Swirsky as the incoming Vice President, Susan Forest as Secretary, Bud Sparhawk as Treasurer, Lee Martindale as South/Central Regional Director, and Tansy Rayner Roberts as Overseas Regional Director.

SFWA’s statement is below.

[SFWA Board Election Results]