Twisted Kingdom

There are a couple challenges going on where people are reading the The Pulitizer and The Booker awards for fiction. After seeing the challenges, I got browsing some of the awards for fantasy and science-fiction. One such award is the Locus Award. One of the awards is for art, voted for by Locus readers, and I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the work by these artists. This years winner was John Picacio.

Michael Whelan is an author I recognize, it appears he does the covers for authors such as Anne McCaffrey. He also does his own art which the second person is. He has been around for a while, it seems, and he has some amazing pictures! You can visit his website to see more.

In 2002, Bob Eggleton won. These two paintings were not used as book covers, but he is also a fantasy and science-fiction cover artist.

Michael Whelan then won from 1980-2000. That's pretty impressive.

In 1979, Boris Vallejo won. He has a lot of art, and he does superheroes, so his art is recognizable. Just two paintings that I thought were impressive.

Since I do not have a review for this blog tonight, I decided that my poppet should not have the night off so soon, so I took some pictures of the books I received from Carl for the Once Upon a Time Challenge and the two books that I got in the mail today.
First up, Poppet met Conan today. I have known these books existed forever, but never read them. They are classics in fantasy, that's for sure, and the amazing thing is... Robert E. Howard only wrote for 12 years. He commited suicide when he was 30. Pretty impressive, huh, just imagine what he could have accomplished if he lived longer!Then, I have The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint and Ravens of Avalon, which is the newestl novel based on Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon series. I am thinking since it falls chronological in the earlier part of the series, I might have to reread the rest of the series. Just throwing this out there, anyone interested in reading Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon series in a group setting? It would be chronological, not in order of release dates.... Since I have read them before it would be fun to have people to discuss the books with. Just comment in the comment section if you are interested. I would have to look up the correct order because I read them originally as I found them.

That was actually hard to find out. The chronological order of the Avalon series is...
1. Ancestors of Avalon (I have never managed to finish this book...)
2. Ravens of Avalon
3. The Forest House
4. Lady of Avalon
5. Priestess of Avalon
6. The Mists of Avalon

Great series, but when I read them, I read The Mists of Avalon, then Priestess of Avalon, then The Forest House, and then Lady of Avalon. I have had Ancestors of Avalon since it came out, but I just cannot seem to get into it. So, why did I get Ravens of Avalon... I'm a sucker, plain and simple. I see Bradley and I hope that it will be good, even though she died 8 years ago and it is actually Diana Paxson that I am supporting.

I am all for diversity in the world, but this is a post about books. Since it all started with a fantasy author, I decided to vent my frustration here instead of on my own blog. I am of the scary notion that books should have the same title regardless of where they are produced. I know, this is something that has been going on for generations, but it's so confusing! People recommend books, but they are not the same titles as you have, so you search looking for the titles in your country. Even for translated books, all good if the content inside is different, but I strongly believe that the books should have the same titles for simplicity sake.

I bring this up because I live in Canada. We do not seem to have our own publishing traits, it is either we get books at the same time they are released in the US or Canada. If you discover the book when it first comes out, differing titles should not confuse you too much. It is when you discover an author later on that the problems start. My problem of the day? Sara Douglass. I know this is not her fault, it's the publishers fault, but I am super annoyed. I tried to read her Troy Game series about a year ago, but I could not get into book one. Instead of giving up on her as an author, though, I decided that I was going to read her other trilogies. In Australia, and thus originally Canada, her first trilogy was referred to as the Axis trilogy. Then, she wrote another trilogy and called it The Wayfarer trilogy. That's fine, but in the US all six books were put together and renamed The Wayfarer series. I have the Axis trilogy, but the other day I went to the store and picked up The Wayfarer trilogy. Tonight, I took all my books and put them together. You know what I have? A MESS!!!

Let me elaborate. I knew the titles I was looking for, but instead I just went by the trilogy name. The three books I bought say book one, two, and three of the Wayfarer Redemption. You know what I have in actuality? The US releases of book two and three of what I know as The Axis trilogy and book one of the Australian version of The Wayfarer trilogy. That means, I have book two and three of The Axis trilogy twice. I should have looked at book titles, but I was concerned with the trilogy, and since I live in Canada, normally it would have been the Australian versions of the books. I think it started out that way, but time went by and now we sell both the Australian versions AND the United States versions. This makes it VERY confusing for new readers of Douglass. You know, just so you know, the back covers say different things, so it does look like different books. I just had not read the other books yet, I like to own all the books before I start.

So, that is my vent: Books should have the same title regardless of the country. It would just make things EASIER! Heaven knows we try and make life easier in every other aspect, why not book titles too!