Un:Bound

All Change, time for a move

2011-09-25T10:19:00.000+01:00

Hi folks, well this is officially the last post on the the old Hagelrat blogspot address. This site will remain up as an archive but for all the great new posts , reviews and appearances we have scheduled you now need to head over to www.unboundblogzine.com The home page links through to all three of the blogs (video editions gets is own spanking new logo soon) and if you are a little patient

Just one more thing,

2011-09-02T17:38:00.000+01:00

before we disappear for around a month ____ “I know if you try to explain it, whatever reason you come up with, it’ll be wrong.” ‘The Office of Lost and Found’ is now available in hard copy. Published as an ebook through Anarchy Press, VHK has now made the book available through Lulu for those who still crave the pleasure of a physical book. Available now as paperback with a version of the

Fork in the Road

2011-08-26T20:36:00.000+01:00

It's time for a change, so Un:Bound will be effectively closed over September. This will all still be here or the time being, but there will be no new posts. In October we will return from FantasyCon refreshed, reinvigorated, refurbished, revamped and probably other stuff beginning with RE. In the mean time feel free to browse the archives, revisit old interviews, I will be putting up more of

Events | Theakstons Crime Harrogate

2011-08-21T06:00:00.000+01:00

Our ‘occasional’ team member, Keith B Walters was at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival last month. Not that we saw too much of him as he was busy attending all the events with his ‘blogger in residence’ hat firmly in place and a Press pass which he assured us he hadn’t made at home. Whilst all of his other crime related reports can be seen over at his own blog http://

Fantasy Con 2010 | BFS Award Highlights

2011-08-20T08:54:00.001+01:00

Last year Un:Bound stepped in to film the awards last minute due to a lost camera. If you are going or thinking of going or didn't think your were thinking of going but might, or something, here is a short highlight reel from last years awards ceremony. More Book related video goodness can be found at www.unboundve.com

Grandville by Bryan Talbot

2011-08-19T12:00:00.001+01:00

All is not well in the town of Nutwood, somewhere in leafy southern England. A well-respected local gentleman, and an English diplomat normally working in Napoleons France, is dead. The local police think it’s suicide. But in that case, why did he send a message asking for an urgent meeting with the Prime Minster and the Minister of Defence shortly beforehand? To solve the mystery, Scotland

Writers Reading | MD Lachlan

2011-08-19T06:00:00.000+01:00

MD Lachlan is author of Wolfsangel and Fenrir, the first two parts of an extremely excellent werewolf series moving through time and mythology. Lachlan talks about music and writing feeding into each other, it's a twist for writers reading, but a god fit for our Friday vibe. _______________________________________ ‘When I was a child Running in the night Afraid of what might be Hiding in the

Work experience at Tor/Pan Macmillan publishing

2011-08-18T16:09:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone! It's been a while! I won't bore you with the details of the past year at university, I'm going to talk about relevant stuff! (What? Relevant stuff? No way! I thought you were just a drunken student waste!) Yes, yes, I have been doing book stuff too! There are two video reviews on their way and (buh buh buh buhhhh!) I've done two weeks of work experience at Tor, an imprint of

Blood | K J Wignall

2011-08-18T06:00:00.001+01:00

Bloodby KJ Wignallpub: Egmont design: Sharon Chai out in September Blood is Wignall's first foray into the YA market. It's a successful move. Will has been a vampire (he prefers the term undead) for over 700 years. All that time he has known nothing about who made him or why, but now, suddenly things have changed. The book is a supernatural adventure, with a good historical grounding and a

Stuff, some good, some bad, some interesting.

2011-08-17T09:26:00.000+01:00

First of all the unbound team was terribly sorry to hear about Colin Harvey passing. We met Colin through Alt.Fiction and he was lovely to work with. On a happier note huge congratulations to Lou Morgan for signing with Solaris. I was privileged to be an early reader for Blood & Feathers and you all have a real treat coming. Solaris have been turning out excellent titles and this will sit well

Banners in the Wind by Juliet E McKenna

2011-08-14T10:03:00.004+01:00

The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution Book 3 It’s a good measure of this book that, considering that I started at the third book of the series, I still found it readable and found myself interested in going back and reading its predecessors to gain the full story in detail rather than the occasional reference to past events made in the book. The premise of the book is also interesting. The

Mark Chadbourn | Signing

2011-08-13T08:37:00.000+01:00

Mark Chadbourn is the author of the popular 'Age of Misrule' and 'Swords of Albion' fantasy series' is appearing at Leicester Highcross Waterstones on Saturday 20th August. Known for the sense of realism he brings to his novels he also has a passion for fairy tales and mythology that he blends with history to offer a fantastically rich read. An interview with Mark will be on LeftLion on Monday

The Sight by David Clement Davis

2011-08-04T09:13:00.005+01:00

I am! Yet what I am no-one cares or knowsMy friends forsake me like a memory lostI am the self consumer of my woes It is not often I begin a review with poetry. Actually, it’s rare I start anything with poetry. So why start now? Well, you’ll have to read “The Sight” to find out! And why should you do that? Because it’s an excellent book and has been one of my top favourites since I first read it

Alt.Fiction 2011 Podcasts Mythology

2011-08-03T14:47:00.000+01:00

I know a number of people have been waiting for this one in particular. They are slow going as the outside noise and acoustics in the room made recording trickier than last year and a lot of work is being done to clean these up as best we can. But here is it Un:Bound and Alt.Fiction present 'Using Mythology in Writing' with Mark Chadbourn, Adrian Tchaikovsky and K.A.Laity

Fables from the Fountain | edited by Ian Whates

2011-07-31T17:15:00.000+01:00

First of all I adore the cover of this book. There is something deeply comforting about the familiar look and feel of an old fashioned British pub that this cover evokes. Reading is always a personal experience, every reader receives a book differently. This is possibly even more marked in Anthologies. The editor takes time and care in constructing the table of contents just to have the readers

Lois Gresh | Writers Reading

2011-07-22T06:00:00.002+01:00

What's on My Bookshelves? (with added bonus: What's on My Walls?) by Lois H. Gresh Thank you, Adele, for inviting me into your virtual living room today. Nice to be here, and a warm hello to everybody! While writing this post about what's on my bookshelves, I realized two things: (1) all of these bookshelves were once in a 2-bedroom apartment, and before that, crammed into the living room and

Writer's Reading | Luca Veste

2011-07-15T06:00:00.000+01:00

I have a confession to make. The pictures you’re seeing attached to this piece are staged. Well, not staged, more managed. You see, over the last few years I’ve been a bit disorganised with my books. I’ve been buying so many, that to actually place them in size order, alphabetically, has been something I’ve avoided doing until I had to take these pictures. So, lest the world see my untidy

The Ruby Slippers | Helen Burke

2011-07-06T06:00:00.002+01:00

I find it hard to garner any enthusiasm for contemporary poetry so when I say I love Helen Burke's work, her humour an wit, I hope you will all accept that as being all the praise she needs. Her book The Ruby Slippers is now available and I am ordering a copy for myself so I thought I would share the link to the books site with you all in case anyone else out there is looking for a fresh,

New Project with Jeff VanderMeer

2011-07-05T06:00:00.000+01:00

Underland press have a fun new project with Jeff VanderMeer that they thought the Un:Bound readers might be interested in and I agree, so here is the information from Underland. 'The project, authored and edited by Jeff VanderMeer, is called If You Lived Here: The Top 30 All Time Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Worlds. It's a compendium, of sorts, but also a travel guide to places like Dune,

How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf | Molly Harper

2011-07-04T06:00:00.000+01:00

How to flirt with a naked werewolf by Molly Harper pub: Pocket Books Molly Harper writes sweet, funny romance, with a paranormal twist. In Naked Werewolf her heroine, Mo (not short for Maureen) is running away from overbearing parents to live in Alaska where an attractive young woman is bound to attract attention. The sweet and lovely Alan is making a definite bid for her affection but it's

Release Day!! The Office of Lost and Found

2011-07-03T06:00:00.003+01:00

Vincent Holland-Keen's 'The Office of Lost and Found' is available now! HE is trying to track reviews on his blog so you can check those out for yourself, but if you like, quirky, funny, dark and brilliant you want to download Anarchy Books most recent release now! It's available on Amazon for download NOW!! There is a new trailer below and now if you'll excuse me I have some serious happy

Alex Keller | Signing

2011-07-02T15:11:00.001+01:00

Alex Keller (@locksley_uk ) is signing books in Highcross Waterstones today. I popped down to say hi. Books were selling well and Alex was charming to everyone. We reviewed Haywired some time ago and I am looking forward to getting stuck into Re-wired, the sequel. Speaking of which, I have a signed copy of Re-Wired to give away. All you have to do is comment, naming a children's book you love

Iron Crowned | Richelle Mead

2011-07-02T06:00:00.000+01:00

Iron Crowned by Richelle Mead Ever since I first stumbled onto Succubus Blues I’ve been a fan of Richelle Mead’s books. Falling somewhere between paranormal romance and urban fantasy both Mead’s series are sexy and fun balancing the romantic and sexual tones of PR with a serious amount of ass kicking and brilliant characters that I identify more strongly with UF. Iron Crowned is the third in

Restoration | Guy Adams

2011-07-01T18:27:00.003+01:00

Restoration - the world house By Guy Adams Pub: Angry Robot In the first novel Adams created a terrifyingly vivid world, within the constraints of a house, built as a prison, limited only by the imagination of the prisoner. In the Restoration the prisoner is free and our small band of heroes have to try and restore the timeline, knowing what it will cost them to do it but that it will cost us

Alt.Fiction 2011 - All Wrapped Up... almost

2011-06-27T17:00:00.012+01:00

First of all a few thank you's from me as the pocastathon could not have run as a one woman band. Vincent Holland-Keen, V.C.Linde, Kat Heubeck and Paul Jessup all helped either on the day, behind the scenes or both with research and question prep and co hosting. I am also getting help sorting the final edits out from Phil Knott and hoping that the lovely Gav of GavReads will help get everything

Guest Post | World in a Satin Bag's Shaun Duke

2011-06-19T20:51:00.000+01:00

In 2006, I started writing a dark young adult fantasy novel called The World in the Satin Bag on my blog (http://wisb.blogspot.com/). It was an experiment. A wild, nutty thing I decided to do to see if I could actually finish a novel (and to see if I could keep a blog going for a long time). I was a new writer then, and new writers, as far as I can tell, have a tendency to start lots of long

An Evening of Erotica!

2011-06-17T19:00:00.001+01:00

An Evening Of Erotica Leicester Libraries is hosting Erotic Fiction authors C.M Kempe and Lucy Felthouse for readings followed by a q&a session on Tuesday 28th June 6:00-7:30pm at the Central Library. During Lucy’s first year studying Creative Writing at the University of Derby, she was dared to write an erotic story. It went down a storm and she's never looked back. Lucy has had stories

Alt.Fiction 2011

2011-06-17T18:35:00.000+01:00

Next weekend is a very busy weekend for me. It's Alt.Fiction, and I run a stream of podasts, which means moderating two whole days of panels effectively. So this is the action plan, starting in the Mac suite at 10am Saturday MILITARY SCIENCE FICTIONGavin Smith, Graham McNeill, Gav Thorpe THE EDITORSMarc Gascoigne, Helen Marshall, Steve Tribe, Julie Crisp BREAKING INTO WRITINGRod Rees, Guy Haley,

The Office of Lost and Found | Vincent Holland-Keen #2

2011-06-16T19:28:00.000+01:00

Awesome!! It's finally here, we have a release date!! And if you search Vince on Un:Bound you will find his entertaining post series, my rave review of the book and all sorts of other fun stuff. He is a vital part of the Un:Bound team and Video Editions wouldn't happen at all without him, so we could not be more delighted to see him finally published. For all of that, I would point out, it's

Inside the Book Prison: Let's Talk Hunger Games

2011-06-15T02:39:00.006+01:00

Hunger Games. That's all I ever hear about whenever the talk comes around to the new "it" in YA fiction. It's like the Twilight series, but good. It tackles all these great themes. It's got a kickass premise. Hollywood's banking on it being the next big thing, too, gearing up for the first film in a projected four-part series (never mind there are only three books - if Harry Potter and Twilight

The Wrestling - Simon Garfield.

2011-06-13T13:43:00.003+01:00

by HarbingerI am sorry I have been AWOL the last few months. This is post is really just a reminded to everyone out there that I am still alive, and still intend to review. I've not been around, as it is Dissertation time and I have been working a little else for ages. In addition I am currently preparing to move house, with all the stresses that that places upon me, I have to cope day in day out

The Gabble

2011-06-09T11:59:00.001+01:00

Written and Illustrated by Thomas Siddell, who was kind enough to give me the go-ahead for posting this.Published by Titan Books