1) I probably shouldn't encourage competition, but I hope everyone even remotely interested goes for Tor's Call for Contributors as Tor's pretty much always had the best blogs out there. The more people going for it, the more that stays the same. Now I just need to type up my own pitch and wait for the polite rejection.
2) Speaking of promoting things, The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams and Legend by David Gemmell are both available for 99p on Amazon. I don't know if Jen's read much Gemmell but it wouldn't surprise me if she had - there's a similar heroic feeling to both. Well worth getting both. I'd love to tell you about good bargains outside of Amazon, but people don't seem to be publicising that nearly as well.
3) I've been following the Pathfinder 2 play test and one of their more controversial rules seems aimed at stopping characters from having so many magical items they resemble Christmas Trees. I'm all in favour of this, as I play RPGs to emulate the books I read, and how many fantasy books can you think of where multiple characters had multiple magic items? Its what makes it such a shame that in many other ways, they're reinforcing the dependence on magic items. That said, I'd love to read more books (not LitRPG) based on the idea of characters deriving much of their power from the items they have. I feel like the only one where I've done so is the XianXia book I Shall Seal The Heavens. Coincidentally, this is also the only book I've read where people's butts explode all the time, and again I'd like to read more books like that.
4) It recently occurred to me that I've not really read much of the new hotness - I've yet to read Kings of the Wyld, Court of Broken Knives or Blackwing. I really should but as I sit here, I'm kinda jaded about the thought of reading about another group of warriors, mystics and politicians beating off great odds. I'd love to see some big mainstream fantasy where the heroes are doctors, teachers, potters - whatever. Something moving Fantasy beyond Action-Adventure. I think its why the grand saga of Jade City has stuck in my memory where a lot of books I maybe enjoyed more at the time haven't.
5) Not really a thought, but I'm touting for business. If there's any authors out there reading this looking for a review or interview, ping me through my twitter of @PeatLong
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