The Guardian has an exclusive excerpt from Philip Pullman’s latest book, Once Upon a Time in the North, which takes place in the same world as his acclaimed His Dark Materials trilogy and a few decades earlier.

The most interesting thing was the bears. The first time Lee saw one slouching casually out of an alley he could scarcely believe his eyes. Gigantic, ivory-furred, silent: the creature’s expression was impossible to read, but there was no mistaking the immense power in those limbs, those claws, that air of inhuman self-possession. There were more of them further into town, gathered in small groups at street corners, sleeping in alleyways, and occasionally working: pulling a cart, or lifting blocks of stone on a building site.

The townspeople took no notice of them, except to avoid them on the pavement. They didn’t look at them either, Lee noticed.

“They want to pretend they’re not there,” said Hester.

Link

Paul Graham Raven of Futurismic writes:

Regular readers will be familiar with the Friday Flash Fictioneers from Futurismic’s free fiction round-ups. We’ve teamed up and collected over sixty of our best flash stories from the last nine months, and yours truly has edited them into ILLUMINATIONS, all profits from which will be donated to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children here in the UK.

ILLUMINATIONS is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial licence - the stories are already out there in the magical tubes of the internets, so we thought we’d like to set them free formally at the same time as making them available in one convenient and attractive package!

ILLUMINATIONS will be available in book form from Odd Two Out Publishing after 25th March 2008 (or from the authors themselves) for GB£6.99, or as a downloadable PDF for an as yet unannounced price.

Link to full announcement at Futurismic.com

From The Canadian Press:

A group of crusading intellectual property lawyers at Stanford Law School say they will help defend a small publishing house being sued by author J.K. Rowling over its plan to print an unauthorized companion guide to her Harry Potter series.

Full story on Google News; you can find the online version of the Harry Potter Lexicon at hp-lexicon.org or visit the publisher here.

From the Dragonmount website:

It is with great sadness that I tell you that the Dragon is gone. RJ left us today at 2:45 PM. He fought a valiant fight against this most horrid disease. In the end, he left peacefully and in no pain.

George R. R. Martin put up a blog post on the topic:

Although he had been fighting amyloidosis for several years, the news of his death still came as a shock to many, including me. He was so optimistic and determined that you had to think that if anyone could beat the disease, it would be him.

So what happens to A Memory of Light, the unpublished final book in the Wheel of Time series? According to wotmania:

[Jason] said that Jordan has been dictating outlines and plot lines and everything else related to the final book. He used the phrase “army of writers” to talk about the people that were converting those tapes into written form.

It would appear that the final book will still be published, I’m sure details regarding that will work themselves out.

James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces - which you’ve probably heard of, but here’s the Wikipedia link if not - is working on a novel now:

The publisher of Harper Collins told The Associated Press that the novel, "Bright Shiny Morning," was a "kaleidoscopic" portrait of modern Los Angeles.

The book is set to come out in summer 2008. View the full story here.

So, here it is at last: The final confrontation between Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the “symbol of hope” for both the Wizard and Muggle worlds, and Lord Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named, the nefarious leader of the Death Eaters and would-be ruler of all. Good versus Evil. Love versus Hate. The Seeker versus the Dark Lord.

View the full New York Times review here. There are some small spoilers but nothing, in my opinion, that would affect your enjoyment of the book.

Note: this post is spoiler-free.

Security guru Bruce Schneier writes:

It’s online [Note: link is spoiler safe]: digital photographs of every page are available on BitTorrent.

I’ve been fielding press calls on this, mostly from reporters asking me what the publisher could have done differently. Honestly, I don’t think it was possible to keep the book under wraps. There are millions of copies of the book headed to all four corners of the globe. There are simply too many people who must be trusted in order for the security to hold. And all it takes is one untrustworthy person — one truck driver, one bookstore owner, one warehouse worker — to leak the book.

But conversely, I don’t think the publishers should care. Anyone fan-crazed enough to read digital photographs of the pages a few days before the real copy comes out is also someone who is going to buy a real copy. And anyone who will read the digital photographs instead of the real book would have borrowed a copy from a friend. My guess is that the publishers will lose zero sales, and that the pre-release will simply increase the press frenzy.

I’m kind of amazed the book hadn’t leaked sooner.

Paper-based media also has its share of spoilers and early releases:

With only two days to go before the publication of the seventh and final instalment of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, both the New York Times and the Baltimore Sun have broken one of the most stringent embargoes of recent times and published a review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

After reading a copy “purchased at a New York City store yesterday”, one of America’s most influential literary critics, Michiko Kakutani, hails the volume in the New York Times as a dose of “good old-fashioned closure”.

Bloomsbury described the review as “very sad” to Reuters, pointing out that there was only one more day until the official release of the book around the world.

Link to Guardian article (some very vague spoilers, mostly about book structure/pacing)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows US, UK, and UK adult cover art, from left to right:

Links to larger versions:

• Large US cover
  
• Large UK cover (including back)
• Large UK adult art (including back)

The jacket text on the UK covers reads:

Harry has been burdened with a dark, dangerous and seemingly impossible task: that of locating and destroying Voldemort’s remaining Horctuxes. Never has Harry felt so alone, or faced a future so full of shadows. But Harry must somehow find within himself the strength to complete the task he has been given. He must leave the warmth, safety and companionship of The Burrow and follow without fear or hesitation the inexorable path laid out for him…

In this final, seventh instalment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to many questions that have been so eagerly awaited. The spellbinding, richly woven nerrative, which plunges, twists and turns at a breathtaking pace, confirms the author as a mistress of storytelling, whose books will be read, reread and read again.