Random Bits #7

A quick bit of Random Bits on a Tuesday - we look at new books coming from Hot Key Books and the new cover for Darren Shan's Zom-B from Simon & Schuster. And for good measure, because I adore this book so much, the paperback cover for Daughter of Smoke and Bones.

Hot Key Books have announced their debut list to all the world and there are some corkers.  I'm particularly excited about there three titles:

I love anthologies and Under My Hat has every one of my favourite authors in it.  Charles de Lint!!!  Jane Yolen!!! Garth Nix! Holly Black! Jim Flipping Butcher! Tim Pratt! Delia Sherman (I love her) Tanith blinking Lee! *points at the picture* Just look at them all! The list is so incredible, my eyes have started watering. This anthology should win awards purely going by the names of awesome contributors.  These guys and girls are the who's who of writing speculative fiction for younger readers and older teen readers and adult readers too.  *muppet flail*  My friends, I think I'm in heaven.

 I have no idea what this book is about.  From the cover I get a bit of Howl's Moving Castle and Avatar with a bit of Stardust.  Ah, but cleverly, I've gone and read the write-up about this one and I'm loving it even more:

Set in an imagined world where water has run out and the Cloud Hunters take to the sky to harvest water from the clouds.

In a world where water is scarce and jellyfish swim through the sky, mollycoddled teenager Christian dreams of excitment and danger.  When he meets the exotic and alluring Jenine and her family of Cloud Hunters, he becomes determined to fulfil that dream...

I do like Gareth P Jones's writing - he constantly surprises me with brilliant books and just lets his imagination run wild:

Sam Toop lives in a funeral parlour. While his dad buries the dead, Sam is haunted by their constant demands for attention. Trouble is afoot on the "otherside" and there is a mysterious disease imprisoning ghosts into empty houses, leaving Sam caught in the middle.

The list looks like so much fun.  This link will take you to their catalogue as it stands at the moment.
Next up is the cover for Darren Shan's new book: ZOM-B.  I couldn't believe it when I saw it - it is both gory and gross and perfect at the same time.  I love it!

I mean, come on - who in their zombie-loving mind won't like this? From Amazon: Zom-B is a radical new series about a zombie apocalypse, told in the first person by one of its victims. The series combines classic Shan action with a fiendishly twisting plot and hard-hitting and thought-provoking moral questions dealing with racism, abuse of power and more. This is challenging material, which will captivate existing Shan fans and bring in many new ones. As Darren says, "It's a big, sprawling, vicious tale...a grisly piece of escapism, and a barbed look at the world in which we live. Each book in the series is short, fast-paced and bloody. A high body-count is guaranteed!"

I have no words.  I have grabby hands looking at this cover.  I didn't think Hodder would have been able to entice me into buying my fourth copy of the same book, but they have.  Here's my review I did for it all that time ago.