Back From The Edge: Wyrmeweald

Random House have just announced a new series from Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, entitled Wyrmeweald.

The WYRMEWEALD trilogy, launching in May 2010, is set in a Wild West world where dragon-like beasts roam supreme and pioneering fortune-hunters clash with brutal bandits. It is a grand-scale adventure; a frontier fantasy, a dangerous romance, a tale of savage revenge – and ultimate heroism.

Stewart and Riddell, renowned for the bestselling Edge Chronicles series, have sold over two million books in the UK alone and stand as one of the most recognised and applauded creative partnerships working today. WYRMEWEALD represents a new direction for the pair, as Paul Stewart explains; “The Edge has dominated our lives for ten years and we’ve loved every moment of it, and we wanted to do something new, something which is familiar enough to appeal to our fans but different enough to bring a freshness and element of surprise.”

Inspired by the landscapes of the American West and the remote Scottish highlands (which they visited on a tour with the Scottish Booktrust) Stewart/Riddell wanted to create a threatening, expansive wilderness as Paul continues; “I love old cowboy films which are about real life, hardship, toil, survival. I love that elemental danger. And of course there’s always a good love story!”

WYRMEWEALD is a story of revenge, unexpected alliances, deceit and half-truths. Set in a world populated by wyrmes (the medieval word for dragons), with violent and morally complex elements, it will appeal to adult fantasy readers too. Readers of all ages will be captivated by the compelling hero and heroine, Micah and Thrace.

Annie Eaton, fiction publisher at Random House Children’s Books commented..

“A new project from Paul and Chris is always exciting but with Wyrmeweald they have surpassed themselves. I read it in one sitting; it’s dark, at times quite violent, thought-provoking, it’s got characters you love and love to hate, a richly imagined landscape and a love story to get your heart pounding. We just want everyone out there to read it, existing fans and new readers too.”

I for one am very excited about this new series, and BCF will hopefully bring you a review as soon as possible! :0)

Merry Christmas!

The team at The Book Club Forum wishes you all a very happy Christmas! May Santa be good to you all, and bring lots of books!

Calling All Writers – Your Messages!

Our visiting Featured Author at the moment is Lynne Rees, who came to my attention when I read Messages, one of my favourite books of the year. Following on from that came Your Messages, an online writing project. It’s now in it’s second year, and it’s something I’m enjoying reading every day.

In the words of Lynne..

Thanks for mentioning this, Michelle. Your Messages was a writing project, devised to co-incide with the new edition of Messages, that Sarah and I ran online in November last year. Each day we posted a 300 word prompt from the book and anyone could respond with their own original 300 word piece, before 8am GMT the next morning. At the end of the month we chose a selection of the strongest pieces and these were published in an anthology, Your Messages, which was launched at The Poetry Cafe in London in February this year.

We were stunned by the high quality of writing and by the enthusiasm of so many writers, some of whom responded every day of November, and by the support of so many of them at the launch – we had writers from Texas and Austria and from all over the UK too.

I don’t think we’d really forseen how successful the project could be though, because at the end of the month we found ourselves reading through the equivalent of two copies of War and Peace to make our selections! But it was very much worth the time and effort because we met up with a wonderful community of writers and stayed in touch… so much so that the demand was still there for a similar project this year. You can check on either of the following links for details (they both take you through to the same page):

www.yourmessages.org
http://writeyourmessages.blogspot.com/