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Who's your favourite fantasy book heroine? @SciFiNow lists its top 10: http://t.co/6o0dFhL3hm
Verdict: carrot
LIVING in a city and dealing with rush-hour traffic and urban crime can cause a hankering for the simpler life.
The urge to move to a small town, to experience a close-knit community and to get back to “real” values, whatever they may be, is a strong one.
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Gewilde misdaadskrywer Piet Steyn is onlangs oorlede en sy redakteur, Francois Smith, het ’n huldeblyk aan hom vir Rapport geskryf. Volgens Smith was Steyn en sy vrou Annie onuitputbare bronne van oorvertelstories en sal Steyn se misdaadromans nog generasies wat kom vasgenael hou.
Piet Steyn se eerste manuskrip het in 2007 by my beland, en ondanks ’n obskure Bybelse titel en ’n woordverwerkerstyl wat ’n mens seker as oud-Vrystaats kan bestempel, is ek aangegryp. Uit die staanspoor was die elemente daar wat sy Pine Pienaar-reeks so ’n sukses gemaak het: ’n Meesleurende storie en ’n baie fyn oor vir dialoog.
Steyn is in 1944 op Odendaalsrus in die Vrystaat gebore en het ook daar skoolgegaan. Na skool het hy by die Suid-Afrikaanse lugmag aangesluit en daarna sy BSc-graad met wiskunde en fisika as hoofvakke aan die destydse Potchefstroomse Universiteit vir CHO verwerf. Hy het ook sy nagraadse onderwysdiploma daar afgelê. Na ’n kortstondige loopbaan in die mynbedryf het hy op Welkom skool gaan gee.
Steyn het meeste van sy lewe aan die opvoeding gewy en het eers in 2005 besluit om te skryf. Snoeiskêr het in in 2008 verskyn, Bottelnek in 2009, Tou in 2010 en sy laaste roman, Tik in 2012. Lees hier meer oor Steyn en sy loopbaan:
Piet Steyn is op 28 Augustus 1944 op Odendaalsrus in die Noordwes-Vrystaat gebore “voor die goud ontdek is en vóór die stad Welkom sy beslag gekry het”, soos hy sê. In hierdie windverwaaide sandwêreld het hy grootgeword.
Piet het sy vader op ’n vroeë ouderdom verloor en moes daarna vir homself sorg. Die kerk het hom deur sy skoolloopbaan gehelp.
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Foto te danke aan Eastern Times
Jo-Anne Richards and Michael Stanley (writing duo Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip) will be discussing their new books at Indulgence Cafe on Wednesday 12 June.
Richards’ book The Imagined Child came out in March, while Stanley’s Deadly Harvest will be out in July.
Dinner, which is optional and costs R85, will be served from 6 PM and the discussion will start 7 PM.
Don’t miss it!
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Verdict: carrot
I loved this book. It was beautifully written and I had to hold my breath in moments where I recognised what I had missed in my life.
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By Sally Partridge for The Times
Imagine the surprise when Anthony Horowitz was commissioned by the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to resurrect the bones of the legendary Sherlock Holmes.
Horowitz, along with other teen serialists such as Christopher Pike and RL Stine, has been nourishing the current rising generation of readers.
But a closer look at his career reveals the novelist has as much stake in the crime genre as he does in youth fiction.
Horowitz has been writing novels since 1979, debuting with The Sinister Secret of Frederick K Bower. He became known for his collection of detective books for younger readers, The Diamond Brothers series.
His talents also found their way to the small screen in the form of murder serials like Foyle’s War, The Midsomer Murders and Agatha Christie’s Poirot.
It was in the new millennium, however, that Horowitz became a household name around the world. In 2000 he released the first of his hugely successful Alex Rider books, Stormbreaker, about a 14-year-old boy who becomes a spy for the British government.
Stormbreaker was a triumph for the young adult genre. Not only was it fast-paced and thrilling, but it had a cinematic touch, thanks to Horowitz’s screenwriting background, while the political element showed a clear divide between wrong and right. It captivated its young audience and taught lessons about the world, a balance many authors fail to achieve.
The novel was followed by nine bestselling instalments, which earned the author numerous awards and sold more than 13 million copies worldwide. A prequel to the Alex Rider books, Russian Roulette, is due to be released in October .
Horowitz’s latest offering, Oblivion, is the final instalment in his hugely popular Power of Five series about a group of teenagers with super powers battling those intent on destroying the world.
Stories about teens with superpowers are commonplace, but Horowitz sculpts his plots with skill, making his books stand worlds apart from their competition.
To the delight of fans young and old, Horowitz returned to the world of detective fiction with House of Silk. For the novel, Horowitz stepped into the shoes of Doyle, who wrote the Sherlock Holmes books.
It was in House of Silk‘s weave of mystery and suspense, however, where the author really made the famous citizen of 221B Baker Street his own. Horowitz can be called the modern Doyle, our age’s master of mystery and suspense.
Whatever comes next for the author, whether it is a crime outing or a young adult fiction novel, we can be sure he’ll keep us on the edge of our seats.
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Uitspraak: wortel
Poppekas, Deborah Steinmair se tweede roman, is nie waarna dit met die eerste oogopslag mag lyk nie. Die titel—dalk een van die minder geslaagde aspekte van die teks—kan die leser laat wonder of ’n tienerstorie vol bloed en monsters hier aangebied word. (Die grieselige poppemeester-hand en bykans lewelose figuurtjie aan toutjies op die voorblad versterk ongelukkig hierdie indruk.) Tog word die lokreël deur Marita van der Vyver op die voorblad (“Lanklaas só lekker gelees aan ’n Afrikaanse storie”) baie vinnig ’n realiteit vir dié lesers wat die moontlike hindernis van die titel en voorblad oorkom.
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Uitspraak: wortel
Een stad, drie rooikoppe, sewe dae is die debuut van Adeline en Lili Radloff. Dié twee susters se roman is vermaaklik en energiek; dit sorg vir ’n lekkerlees-storie wat jou laat áánhou lees. Op die buiteblad word die roman beskryf as ’n “Moderne stadsriller wat lees soos ’n kombinasie van Marita van der Vyver en Deon Meyer”.
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AFP Relaxnews:
The latest James Bond novel named Solo will follow the suave British spy on an African adventure, its author William Boyd revealed.
“The journey Bond goes on takes in three continents — with the main focus honing in on Africa,” Boyd told the London Book Fair.
“It’s what happens to Bond in Africa that generates his urge to ‘go solo’ and take matters into his own hands in the USA.”
Solo, due out in September, comes 60 years after the publication of the first novel featuring Agent 007, Casino Royale by the spy’s creator Ian Fleming.
Fleming died in 1964 after writing 14 Bond novels, but other authors have since kept alive the series, which has sold more than 100 million books.
Skyfall, the latest film in the hugely successful franchise spawned by the novels, took more than $1 billion at box offices worldwide last year.
Solo is the first Bond adventure by 61-year-old Boyd, who used Fleming as a character in his book Any Human Heart.
Explaining his choice of title, he said: “In my novel, events conspire to make Bond go off on a self-appointed mission of his own, unannounced and without any authorisation — and he’s fully prepared to take the consequences of his audacity.”
The book will be set in 1969 and features a 45-year-old Bond, Boyd revealed in February.
The author was born in Ghana and has written novels set in Africa before, including A Good Man In Africa (1981) — which was turned into a 1994 film starring original 007 Sean Connery — and Brazzaville Beach (1990).
Solo will be published worldwide in hardback, e-book and audio format on September 26.
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Verdict: carrot
This thriller pulls the reader into a fascinating plot from which it is difficult to escape. The book radiates creepy phantasies and gives gruesome portrayals that crawl up in ever more grisly detail.
You cannot put it down. A diseased psychopath, a rotten mind, serial killing with a difference, forensic pathology, detective work and a historical Anglo-Boer War connection combine to make a great story.
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By Aubrey Paton for The Times
The Forgotten, by David Baldacci, Macmillan
It’s difficult to credit how slavery, outlawed nearly two centuries ago in most civilised countries, is alive and booming in the 21st century – and not just in remote Third World states but in the US, that bastion of democracy.
US Army special agent John Puller visits the upmarket retirement village of Paradise on Florida’s Emerald Coast to check on his aunt after reading a disturbing letter from her, but finds her dead.
Puller is not satisfied her death was accidental and when more corpses are discovered, he is convinced all is not well in the apparently idyllic town.
He uncovers a corrupt network of kidnapping, murder, human trafficking, gangsters and bent officials in this action-packed thriller.
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