We are considering The Fantasy News Network for our "Award of Excellence." Its design is good, and Its visual appeal is high. It's intentions are good too: it wants to be a comprehensive fantasy news site. Yet the site is currently in a "ditch," and it's wanting for robustness (many links are broken). Should it receive the award? Send us an email if you feel strongly.
A new fantasy series, The Demon Child Trilogy, by Jennifer Fallon, is being published by HarperCollins Australia. The first book in the series, Medalon, is scheduled for release this month. It will be Fallon's first release. The next book, Treasure Keep, should be out by May next year.
Fallon's first novel focuses on R'shiel Tenragan, daughter of the First Sister of the Blade (the group that oppresively rules Medalon with the help of their elite defenders), and her half-brother Tarja. They flee Medalon when the politics of the Sister's becomes too much for them, and their lives change forever. Meanwhile, the Harshinis (a magical race who had peacefully coegsisted on Medalon for centures), who had theoretically perished, are still alive far south of the border. One of their outcast is called upon to find the demon child, the half-human child of the dead Harshini king Lorandranek.
The series promises lots of drama, action, and an "electrifying" plot. So far it looks promising. For extracts, press releases, and character illustrations, check out Fallon's official website www.jenniferfallon.com
We heard about an online animated fantasy series at popopt.com, and went to check it out. The story is rather interesting, and the animation style is intriguing. There are seven episodes, and each is about five minutes long, and very fast loading: definitely worth taking a visit to Popopt.
John Crowley, author of such beloved fantasies as Little, Big has released a new book: Daemonomania.
Warcraft III, the "role-playing strategy" game from Blizzard Entertainment scheduled for release next year has evolved a bit in the last few months. Producer Chris Millar says the game was too "real-time strategy" oriented, and has become more strategic. The primary resource in WC3 is gold, which allows players to access heroes, magic items, and spells. "special items" are now being considered for implementation, but this would be difficult, as the game includes sixty different unit-types (twelve for each of the five races). Speaking of unit types, Mr. Millar says the units in WC3 are more valuable than in previous games such as Starcraft: there are no "expendable" units. The AI is also supposed to be more tactical: no more mad RTS rushes. All this is part of Blizzard's plan to depart from typical RTS. The 3D graphics (Blizzard's first) are coming along nicely, giving the game a very different feel from their previous RTS games. Check everything out at blizzard.com/war3/.
Have you seen the Lord of the Rings movie preview? If not, do so now! It's fantastic! (if a bit large in size.) If you haven't heard, New Line Cinema is producing an incredible screen presentation of J.R.R. Tolkien's works scheduled for release next year. The production, from shooting to effects editing, has taken almost three years, making this the largest production ever in the southern hemisphere (it's being shot in New Zealand). The movie, written by Oscar nominees Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, presented by an international cast, and including over 1,200 state-of-the-art special effects shots, looks very promising. Check it out.
Warcraft III news - 8/12/2000
Lord of the Rings preview - 8/10/2000
If there's any ground-breaking fantasy news out there that we missed (gasp), please notify us! The subject should be "fantasy news."