I just moved the Bodhisattva over to our own host so I’d very much appreciate it if everybody who links to me make the appropriate changes.

I still have to do some things like redo my own blogroll (if you weren’t on my old please let me know so I can check out your site and add you!)! I also have a few comments that need to be brought over and some aesthetic stuff needs to be done (header etc), but all new posts will now be over there. I can now be found here. I know a lot of Heliotrope contributors/hopefuls monitor this blog/feed for updates so you want to switch over, and I know even more kind of use The Bodhisattva as a window into FBS, which will still continue - but it’s going to be more everyday thoughts and commentary over there as well (back to basics)!

For my first post over there I pass along Fantasybookspot.com’s latest exclusive content!

Thank you all very much!

Moving the Bodhisattva to our own host so if there is a problem with page it will be temporary. You can blame Damon for living on the wrong side of the world and being asleep when he should be awake fixing whatever techy gibberish I mess up.

I guess while I’m at it, I’ve mentioned we are going to have a new look soon at FBS, and with that we would be interested in hosting any established bloggers related to the fields we cover (basically any fiction at this point), be a reviewer, writer, or alarming fanboy/girl. The definition of an ‘established’ blogger will be in our hands and open to any may want take advantage of our existing and growing viewership at FBS. It is WordPress-based, but hosted by us, unfiltered and you can import your existing content rather easily.

At any rate, for me this is rather freeing as it kind of eliminates the inner-squabble I have about whether to do something here or at FBS. I will also be spearheading our Comicbookspot.com front with very active posting at a different blog hosted at FBS and have a lot of stuff lined up in terms of interviews and commentary from a more more book-person/reviewer related vantage point. Brian is going to be heading up our Mystery front and I’m sure he’ll have some cool stuff in the works over there. The Bodhisattva will become again more commentary-based, in terms of every day thoughts of books I read: right now I have the end of Legacy of the Force series, Erevis Cale, Ian Esslemont and Ken Macleod on my mind, so back to regular posting after we complete this switch as I have more time due to the next issue of Heliotrope being pretty much done on my end until I receive work from the contributors.

Once again I want to thank everybody who has supported FBS, Heliotrope and the Bodhisattva - we are working very hard to improve everyday and I think in the next couple months you will see that we are entering another phase!

Over at FBS I just put up the first chapter of Alan Campbell’s recently released Iron Angel. This is the sequel to his Scar Night. The publisher’s website has much of the excerpt but not the chapter in its entirety as shown at FBS.

Check it out!

The first installment, Scar Night, was reviewed at FBS by Craig Gidney here.

Over at the Mysterybookspot.com Brian gives people trying to take their first or second step into mystery with A Mystery/Crime Fiction Primer.

When I look at something like this I can’t help but think how much I don’t like the ’specialist’ mentality. That isn’t to say that these authors consider themselves what people slot them as but the fact that people can file on some type of consistent basis/outcome for some completely senseless reason bothers me. I admit this just be an artificial way for me to raise authors I enjoy, but in discussions we had at the old ‘bookspot I look at the authors of some of my favorite mystery books - Chabon, Lethem, Auster, Banville (Benjamin Black), Jeffrey Ford, Eco, Kobo Abe and what I’m left with are authors that certainly are not considered mystery writers. I look at a Ian Pears and I find I only like the work he did where we unshackled himself from the members only jacket (An Instance of the Fingerpost).

Another danger in labels is that mystery is taking taking (for me) the role of fantasy where just about every quality book can claim it by single element. Isn’t VanderMeer’s Shriek: and Afterword essentially a mystery? Danielewski’s House of Leaves? Hell, Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is a one big mystery surrounded by min-mysteries, with more consistent talk of what, and whodunit than any mystery/crime book you will find on the web right now.

At any rate check out Brian’s list and be on the lookout for some sweet new exclusives coming up. Hopefully my interviews will be coming up soon, and a fresh new look for FBS, and sweet Heliotrope announcements for issue#5!

Just wanted to mention that we have and welcome the new reviewers at FBS and take a look at what’s going on this week!

- Jeff Sullins pulls one out of the Tad Williams archives and takes a look at War of the Flowers.

- Medora checks out Kathleen Bryan’s The Golden Rose.

Welcome to both!

- Brian flips through what I think is arguably one of the best titles out right now, Jason Aaron’s Scalped in the collected format Scalped: Casino Boogie.

- Val continues his studies of the classics with Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and tackles Jordan’s eternal wheel, this time A Crown of Swords.

- Amber continues Karen Chance’s Cassandra Palmer series with book III, Embrace the Night.

Expect a new look at FBS soon to go with our new dwellers!

Heliotrope is out! Get your nostalgic fill as this issue represents the last look at this format as we bring you new hotness next fall! In this issue our line-up includes:

G-O-O-D-B-Y-E by Nick Mamatas
Succession At Quandon Creek by Anna Tambour
The Shadow Cabinet: Spotlight on Dedalus by Jeff Vandermeer
A Virtual Anthology: Weinachtabend by Ian R. MacLeod
The Devil and Mr. V by Catherynne M. Valente
What Burns Within (excerpt) by Sandra Ruttan

Check the issue out!

Thank you to all to contributors and be on the lookout for issue#5 announcements in the very near future!

Damon has announced a contest at FBS that gives two people the opportunity to win an old fashioned physical copy of Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother (a book, not a person).

ENTER HERE

It was released online for free download last month and you can check out Mr. Doctorow’s tour schedule here.

Just want to highlight some recent FBS stuff:

- Craig Gidney gets the Truth About Celia by Kevin Brockmeier.

An elegiac mediation on grief created out of scraps of genre fiction.

-Val continues going through the classics, this time hangin’ on Discworld for the second spin with The Light Fantastic. I love me some Discworld as it’s really one of the few childhood books that I enjoyed that has evolved with the reader over time.

He also checks out Mark Summer’s The Last King. Being the go-to-guy recently he also reviews the first title I had to cut-and-paste, Leerling Tovenaar Vader & Zoon by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, giving you the heads up (don’t tell Richard Morgan!) on the newest wave, the Dutchmasters.

-Speaking of classic, Roxy digs into the one O.G. IA reading Pebble in the Sky.

- Brian reviews one of my favorite writers period, giving you the low down (or at least one hell of a long quote) from Brian Evenson’s The Open Curtain. If you are one of those people looking for great writers and you have gone through all the Booker long lists, already have a residence in Ambergris, and applied for the job of fantasy writer’s assistant, this is the guy.

If Jim Thompson were alive today he’d want to write a novel like this.

-Also a reminder that we put up an exclusive chapter excerpt of R.A. Salvatore’s The Ancient.
———————————————————

Part of my lack of blogging here is I really get conflicted sometimes. Should I make a blog post, or post a psuedo-E article at FBS? Should I talk about a specific subject here or make a column? We are going to rectify this problem as I think Brian and I are going to sign our FBS exclusive contracts, yet, in one motion usher in a new age of independence. Next couple of months is going to bring a lot of our plans into the first visible signs of fruition, and I want to thank all our readers who are with us as we continue to try to always improve The Spot. Damon, Mark and Dave are working on a number of projects that include, but not limited to, our first major step into Crime/Mystery.

Heliotrope will be out next week. There has been some confusion because though I posted we are currently closed to submissions on the front page there was a area that stated we were still open to them. I apologize for that - to be clear we are closed to submissions currently and I’m at work putting together our Fall issue (which is basically filled - excluding some names in the black book I’m looking to hear back from). I have got some worried queries lately - Heliotrope is fine and when you see release of the initial contributors to that fall issue you will believe it! It’s a bit of a special, focused issue - but more on that and even bigger news later!

More soon!

In my new life, with a shift from perhaps overrated to the now underrated in an oversaturated sandbox I have myself in need of moral support. Having no wonder twin, and not even being a citizen of Exor, I have instead chosen to get my mind meld on.

Thanks to John DeNardo for the invite and for making me look novice in comparison to his other choice of company!

Check it out!

As I said in a previous post Damon was at the NYC Comic Con and before he got kicked out by the Empire for harlaning the Princess he was able to steal some con exclusive goods:

Signed books, comics, posters and magazines for the faithful!

If interested just say the word and you’re in!