Under a Vampire Moon
An Argeneau Novel
Paperback | Kindle
By Lynsay Sands
Avon
Release date: April 24, 2012

Holy hotstuff! Under a Vampire Moon is the 16th book in the Argeneau and Rogue Hunter series by prolific novelist Lynsay Sands and is like a mini-vacation in book form.

At the behest of her old college girlfriends, Carolyn Connor heads to St. Lucia for a much-needed getaway with the girls. After going through a complicated and contentious two-year divorce ordeal that isn’t quite over yet, the last thing on Carolyn’s mind is meeting anyone new. However, newlyweds Marguerite Arganeau-Notte and Julius Notte have much grander designs for her besides tourist activities and fruity umbrella drinks [...]

Zone One: A Novel
By Colson Whitehead
Hardcover | Kindle
Doubleday
Release date: October 18, 2011

Zone One begins not with the outbreak of a zombie plague, but a few years into its aftermath, when survivor camps and a new government, the American Phoenix, has already been established. In most other places – the great ‘out there’ – the dead still roam in search of live human food. Colson Whitehead tells the story from the point of view of an extraordinarily average young man called Mark Spitz who is part of a sweeper unit sent out by the military, which has set up a command station in Chinatown, to kill and dispose of the walking dead all over the island of Manhattan, beginning in Zone One, lower Manhattan [...]

This news is a few days old now, but for those who have not yet heard, a director has been chosen to fill in the space vacated by The Hunger Games helmer Gary Ross for the upcoming sequel, Catching Fire.

Stepping in for the blockbuster sequel, currently set for release on November 22, 2013, will be Francis Lawrence. Lawrence, who has directed such titles as I Am Legend, Water For Elephants, and Constantine, appears to have been chosen only because he was one of the few whose schedule was clear…something that may not bode well for the constantly growing fanbase. [...]

Last week, Titan Books announced that novelist Greg Cox is set to pen the official novelization of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. You can now pre-order the paperback* edition of the novelization; the book will also be available for the Kindle this July.

One notable piece of information here is that this is the first novelization of the Christopher Nolan Batman films that legendary comics scribe Dennis O’Neil has not written. Fans of these Batman novelizations shouldn’t worry though, because Cox is no stranger to the concept. Cox has previously written novelizations of other comic book-related work such as Infinite Crisis, Countdown, Final Crisis, as well as novels based on properties like Star Trek, Underworld, Warehouse 13, and original tie-in novels based on Terminator: Salvation and CSI, so his work should be at home with the adaptation of The Dark Knight Rises [...]

The Big Bag of Weed
Weed: 420 things you didn’t know (or remember) about Cannabis
Written by I.M. Stoned
The Quotable Stoner
Written by Holden Blunts
The Danktionary
Written by Will B. High
Adams Media
Release date: October 15, 2011
Cover Price: $19.95

Fittingly wrapped in a large Ziploc baggie, The Big Bag of Weed is both a delightful trilogy of gateway books for the novice stoner and a buzz-inducing trip down memory lane for the veteran pothead. Written with the hip clarity of Chuck Klosterman and the accomplished vernacular of Snoop Dog, these three booklets are a hilarious and informative tribute to the richness and immensity of pot culture in America.

Authorship is variously attributed to Holden Blunts, Will B. High, and I.M. Stoned, the kind of Hancocks you’ve encountered on bathroom stalls. Don’t worry though. The quality of writing elevates it far above the juvenile and introductory material makes sure that these books aren’t just for the chronic weed smoker [...]

The Troupe

By Robert Jackson Bennett
Published by Orbit Books
Released February 21, 2012
Paperback | Kindle

Holy Author of Creation! Robert Jackson Bennett’s latest book, The Troupe, is the wondrous and heartrending tale of 16-year-old George Carole, a gifted pianist whose mother died in childbirth and who is on a quest to find the father he’s never known. After reluctantly telling George that his father is in show business, he leaves his nagging grandmother to work at Otterman’s theater in the hopes of finding him one day. As soon as he learns his father’s traveling vaudeville troupe, The Famous Silenus Troupe, is performing in the nearby town of Parma, George quits his job and jumps on a train.

What he notices first as he steps off the train is that tiny Parma is creepy. The quality of light is all wrong and there’s an extra-dark darkness that hovers over the town. As he gets close to the hotel where the troupe is staying, George notices something else – all the sounds of the world die out and a mysterious man in a gray suit emerges from the thickening shadows. He heads straight for George and asks him about Heironimo Silenus [...]

Halo: Glasslands
By Karen Traviss
Paperback | Kindle
Tor
Release date: October 25, 2011

Glasslands is the first book of a trilogy in yet another Halo spin-off series written by New York Times bestselling sci-fi and fantasy author Karen Traviss. It takes place after the events of Halo 3; the Covenant has collapsed and the war is… over? Although the fighting has ceased for the moment, no peace deals have been brokered and all sides are tensely assessing the situation.

Full disclosure here: This was my first foray into the Halo universe, so please be kind in the comments section below. Thanks. Being an utter noob to such an elaborately crafted, highly developed saga such as this was more than a little intimidating for me. But I’m your Book Slave, dammit. I’m committed to reading every book that lands on my desk and so, I sought council from real life Halo fanatics to help get me up to speed. Oh boy, did I get an earful [...]

The Kindle ebook deal of the day over at Amazon today is 10 titles in the 33 1/3 book series that focuses on specific albums from artists like David Bowie, Public Enemy, The Beastie Boys, Bob Dylan, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, and more for just $.99 each.

Here’s are all 10 selections from the sale:

- David Bowie’s Low
- Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
- Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street
- Kinks’ The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society
- The Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique
- Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited
- Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds
- The Pixies’ Doolittle
- Johnny Cash’s American Recordings
- Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea [...]

Star Trek: That Which Divides
The Original Series
By Dayton Ward
Pocket Books
Release date: February 28, 2012
Paperback | Kindle

Star Trek: That Which Divides is an example of a great Star Trek story. It takes us to the era of The Original Series with Kirk, Spock, Scotty, and McCoy all in the officer’s lounge playing a poker game in which Spock is cleaning them out. Kirk aboard the Enterprise is en route to the Kondaii system to investigate a spatial rift that is surrounding a planetoid that is a key mining colony and to investigate a Federation vessel that crashed there and look for survivors. The rift opens up every three years allowing trade between the small planetoid and the other inhabited planet in the system. The species in the system are called the Dolysians and they are humanoid. They have low level warp technology which allows them to send ships through the rift [...]

Lionsgate recently made it clear that they had every intention to bring back The Hunger Games director Gary Ross for the sequel, Catching Fire, after rumors began swirling that he wouldn’t be returning.

But apparently Lionsgate’s intentions, no matter how persuasive, have failed them. It’s being reported that Ross has informed the studio that he will not be jumping back into the director’s chair for Catching Fire, and Lionsgate is said to be “in shock” over the decision.

Read a statement from Ross below, as well as one from Lionsgate. [...]

Dracula
Illustrated Classics Edition
By Bram Stoker
Illustrations by Becky Cloonan
Harper Design
Release date: April 10, 2012
Hardcover | Kindle

Vampires are all the rage these days, with Twilight and True Blood, and no doubt Johnny Depp will make his mark on the genre next month with Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows. But everyone knows there would be no vampire tales today if not for the granddaddy of them all, Dracula.

Now, Harper Design has released a new illustrated edition of Bram Stoker‘s 1897 novel with art by illustrator and comic book artist Becky Cloonan (American Virgin, Conan The Barbarian). This illustrated classics edition is not a mash-up or an redo — this is the full version as written by Stoker, the words are exactly the same, nothing has been changed or deleted. What is different about this version of the novel is that it is now a 384-page hardcover book which contains more than 50 original illustrations by Cloonan and it’s damn gorgeous [...]

Everyone’s familiar with Ernest Hemingway 1952 story The Old Man and the Sea – the classic tale of a downtrodden old fisherman who ventures out to sea where he hooks a marlin that won’t give in too easily. The story turns into an epic struggle between man and fish, as well as a triumph of wills.

Artist Marcel Schindler has created a stop-motion animation of his illustrative narrative of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. You can watch the 4-minute video here below [...]

Timothy Zahn returns yet again to the Star Wars universe, with a new publication to be released at the end of this year focusing on Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian. Entitled Star Wars: Scoundrels, the book will be released on Boxing Day, which is December 26.

Zahn’s new adventure is essentially a heist/crime story, which is an awesome idea, as this concept has never been explored in the Expanded Star Wars Universe. Picture this: mixing up the stories of Ocean’s Eleven, The Usual Suspects, and The Italian Job, and chucking them all into the backdrop of the Star Wars galaxy… Sold on the idea yet? I can tell you with absolute certainty that I am.

The Expanded Universe has been advancing sub-genre stories like this for a few years now, the best known being Deathtroopers, mixing up Horror and Zombie stories into Star Wars lore. This year’s Darth Plagueis played more like a Godfather-esque tale inside the context of Sith lineage; and the recent Dark Horse comic book series Agent Of The Empire captures the Bourne/007 spy genre wonderfully [...]

Are you a rabid fan of The Hunger Games, the mega hit first movie based on Suzanne Collins‘ popular book series? If so, you now have the option to purchase the entire town that was transformed into District 12, the home district of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson).

The town’s real name is Henry River Mill Village, and it’s located about 70 miles away from Asheville, North Carolina. [...]

During a video game panel at Emerald City Comic-Con this weekend, Dark Horse Comics announced that they would be publishing a new concept art book for developer Valve’s hit sequel, Portal 2.

The book, titled The Art of Portal 2, gives fans a look at the game from initial concepts to the final product, with added insight from both artists and writers who have worked on the Portal game series. At 184 pages, fans will get their fill of mostly never-before-seen art, including looks at the Aperture Science facility, characters such as Chell, and the design process of Valve. [...]

Confessions of a Conjuror
Written by Derren Brown
Channel 4
U.S. Edition | UK Edition

Derren Brown is a relative celebrity in the UK, but not one to be found in the weekly glossy trash mags, no. That’s because he’s far too intelligent for those depths. Trouble is, America may not have heard of him, save for certain worldwide controversy.

He’s known famously in the UK as a Mentalist, [a real-life and better-than Simon Baker by far] using magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection, and showmanship as well as old school theatrics to rival Mesmer, Houdini, Penn and Teller, and even that lazy David Blaine. Derren honed his skills at Bristol University, testing students and none another than Ricky Gervais’s sidekick Stephen Merchant [famous for now] as well as working part-time in a restaurant in Bristol as a table hovering close-up magician. Someone in Channel 4 Television noticed him in 1999 and produced a few TV specials Derren Brown: Mind Control and following series – approaching the general public with mind-bending psychic feats and illusion [...]

I read The Hunger Games for a couple of reasons: pop culture relevance and simple curiosity. I wanted to get it read prior to the release of the film, too. The book is simple and incredibly melodramatic, but it’s also surprisingly engrossing and the characters are quite well rendered. It feels like a hundred other genre all-ages books I’ve read and it also lacks a central voice, other than the fact that “bad people suck,” to quote a friend. The classic genre films and books of this type had something to say deeper, and at least to the author, more important than just the adventures of so and so.

What this book and film has is a well-developed and interesting female hero in Katniss Everdeen. She’s strong and imperfect, but a good role model for young girls, unlike a certain vampire lover we all know too well. Now a good role model for young girls isn’t a requirement for me to like a book or movie, but if kids are going to grab onto this story, at least the hero is worth their time [...]

The Gold Box deal of the day over at Amazon today is a Certified Refurbished Kindle Fire for only $139 (refurbished usually sells for $169); a new full-color Kindle Fire ebook reader is typically $199.

Note – this deal is valid only for today, Thursday, March 29, 2012, til 11:59pm PST while supplies last.

Per Amazon:

Limit 5 per customer. A Certified Refurbished Kindle Fire is a pre-owned Kindle that has been refurbished, tested, and certified to look and work like new. They come with the same one-year limited warranty as a brand-new Kindle Fire. [...]

By one of the most important and influential works of literature, George Orwell‘s seminal 1949 novel 1984 has been adapted for the stage and screen many times before. It’s legacy lives on in film, music, books, and comics. Now the book is getting the celluloid treatment once more.

Brian Grazer and Ron Howard‘s production company Imagine Entertainment is teaming with LBI Entertainment to mount a new film adaptation of 1984, and Shepard Fairley, the street artist responsible for the iconic “Hope” poster for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign who brought the 1984 project to the attention of Imagine and LBI, might be taking an important role in the production once all is said and done. Both production companies had been seeking the rights from Orwell’s estate and decided to team up on the project [...]

The eBook deal of the day today for the Amazon Kindle is Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley for only $2.99 each.

Note, this deal is valid through the end of today, Sunday, March 25, 2012, until 11:59pm PST. This title is part of Amazon’s Big Deal Kindle sale, where all ebooks are all $3.99 and under. Other ebook titles included in The Big Deal sale are books from the Kurt Vonnegut Series, as well as Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, Terry Goodkind’s Wizard First Rule, and all four books of the Samantha Moon series (only $.99!).

- Samantha Moon: All Four Novels by J.R. Rain – $.99
- Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind – $2.99
- I Am Legend by Richard Matheson – $2.99
- The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Maxwell – $2.99 [...]