Linda DeMeulemeester's Grim Hill novels to become an animated TV series.

Toronto-based Wizard Hat Productions is going to turn the Grim Hill book series into a animated series.
The books by Linda DeMeulemeester will be turned into 26 half-hour CG-animated episodes targeted at tweens. From the press release: “Wizard Hat is thrilled to work with Lobster Press and Linda DeMeulemeester to bring these unique and exciting stories to television,” said Pam Slavin, Partner and Executive Producer, Wizard Hat Productions, Inc. “’Grim Hill’ has attracted legions of fans who have been asking for a TV show based on the popular books, and we’re looking forward to bringing the adventures of Cat, Sookie, Jasper and Clive to life on air.” The popular five-book series, first released by Lobster Press in 2007, has received numerous accolades including the Silver Birch Award, voted favorite book of 2008 by kids grades 3-8. The Grim Hill books pit typical teens against powerful, magical creatures in the town of Grim Hill. Each thrilling tale combines celtic myth and dark faerie lore with face-paced action and adventure, and scary moments are diffused with humor.

Late-Breaking News

Matthew Hughes has accepted an offer to write a fantasy adventure novel set in the world of the roleplaying game Pathfinder. The game company is allied with the publisher Paizo, which this summer is bringing out the trade paperback of Matt's standalone Archonate novel Template (originally published in limited editions by PS Publishing.)


 Dave Duncan's  new novel Pock's World (his first SF novel since 1991) was released  October 2010 by Edge Publishing.

Pock’s World, long settled by humankind, is accused of being infected by humanoid aliens. It has been quarantined and may have to be sterilized. Five people are chosen to go there and examine the evidence: saintly but ruthless Father Andre; Ratty Turnsole, a muckraking reporter ripe for romance; ambitious politician Athena Fimble; manipulative bureaucrat Millie Backet; and shady billionaire Linn Lazuline. Some of them carry grudges - all have their own agendas.  Pock’s World surprises them all. Nothing is what they expect. Quickly entangled in love, politics, religion, and deceit, they discover that the clock is already ticking and the fate of humanity itself is at stake.

In Recent News

Dave Duncan's latest, Speak to the Devil, the first book in a new series "The Brothers Magnus" is now available in hardcover from Tor. It received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and Top Pick from Romantic Times. For more see the announcement at Dave's website.

Dave's three short novels published as "The King's Daggers" will be reissued some time this year in print-on-demand format as an omnibus volume entitled, The Monster War, A Tale of the King's Blades. "All the old gang are in there: Durendal, Ambrose, Bandit, Snake, plus a lot of information missing from the main series. I look forward to having three more books published in 2010 (The mass market edition of Ill Met in the Arena was released in January). For estimated release dates, please check the Availabilities page. Forthcoming: A hardcover original fantasy from Tor: Speak to the Devil, Book One, and a trade paperback original Science Fiction from Edge: Pock's World. ("This will be my first Science Fiction since Hero! in 1991.)"

Five of Dave's out-of-print titles are now available in print-on-demand and e-book formats. The first two are Science Fiction standalones, and the other three comprise "The Great Game" trilogy. "If you collect my books or buy them as gifts, you might want to consider the Personalized Print on Demand editions from E-Reads and SharedBook. The Seventh Sword series is currently available. I expect other volumes will follow. Please see the webpage for full details."

As well, Dave's 1988 fantasy series "The Seventh Sword" is now available in Amazon's Kindle store. Dave says, "This was my most successful series ever...I still get fan mail about it." The three titles are The Reluctant Swordsman, The Coming of Wisdom and The Destiny of the Sword.

Grim Hill: the Family Secret, the fourth book in Linda Demeulemeester's popular middle-grade fantasy series from Lobster Press, was recently reviewed by Kirkus Reviews. The reviewer says "the fascinating look at Sweden’s history and culture makes it an entertaining and worthwhile read." Grim Hill: The Family Secret held the number seven spot on the list of the top ten new Canadian children's titles for the week ending June 1st 2010.   
 
The first book in the series,  The Secret of Grim Hill,  was nominated for both Saskatchewan's Diamond Willow Award and Atlantic Canada's Hackmatack Award for 2010. Besides bookstores, the series is now available in Scholastic's Arrow Book Club. The Secret of Grim Hill also won the Ontario Library Association's Silver Birch Award. As well, The Canadian Toy Council named it as one of the "Great Books for Children" for 2008; and  it has been shortlisted for the British Columbia Young Readers' Choice Red Cedar Award. The second book and third books in this popular series, Grim Hill: The Secret Deepens and Grim Hill: The Forgotten Secret are now available. To read more, visit Linda's Grim Hill website. 

Vampire enthusiasts can read about the new Canadian vampire anthology, Evolve, (EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing), edited by award-winning Nancy Kilpatrick, at http://www.vampires-evolve.com/index.htmlhttp://www.vampires-evolve.com/index.html . The site also provides links to information on the contributors, including Mary Choo ,whose short story, "Resonance," appears in the collection, along with Rhea Rose's story "Alia's Angel".

Hespira, the third in the series of Matt Hughes' Henghis Hapthorn novels, is now available from Night Shade Books.Russell Letson, noted Jack Vance critic and aficionado, has placed Matt firmly on the shulders of the master with a review of Hespira in the April Locus. He says, "The voice at the center of this book is quite recognizable, a performance of the Vancean sensibility and prose style. I also found it to be the center of the book's appeal. (There should be no complaints about basing a book's voice on a predecessor – compare the voice of hard-boiled fiction that originates with Hammett and especially Chandler, or the Forester-out-of-Austen prose of Patrick O’Brian.) Hughes's command of the irony, understatement, and detachment of Vancean language is unstrained (an Archonate prison is a 'contemplarium'), as is his grasp of the Vancean-ramble approach to narrative. The various puzzles are allowed to accumulate, theories are proposed and tested, and above all places are visited and savored – hotels, rustic inns, country estates, tourist overlooks, restaurants plain and fancy, ferry boats, space yachts. The puzzles are solved, their connections (or lack thereof) revealed, and a dramatic struggle finishes the whole tale in a satisfactorily gaudy manner.

Eileen Kernaghan's Wild Talent: a Novel of the Supernatural is reviewed by Ursula Pflug in the April 2009 issue of The New York Review of Science Fiction. Pflug writes, "Acclaimed Canadian author Eileen Kernaghan ... is known for her painstaking historical research and her interest in diverse cultural and historical manifestations of spirituality. Wild Talent is no exception." And from Canadian Children's Book News, spring 2009: "Eileen Kernaghan creates a richly atmospheric tale ... The vividly realized setting and quietly appealing protagonist lend this story an irresistible allure, both to readers of historical fiction and those who will be drawn by its more fantastical and otherworldly elements."

A collection of Eileen's speculative poems, Tales from the Holograph Woods, has been released by Wattle & Daub Books . "Blake, Yeats, Thomas, Stevens and Plath – are echoed in her poems, as are the mythologies and philosophies to which she turns in her search for meaning not confined to the corners of present time and space." —Alexander M. Forbes, Canadian Literature.

September 2009, $12.95 ISBN 978-0-9810658-2-3 Wattle and Daub Books, Grandview RPO, PO Box 78038, Vancouver BC V5N 5W1.