In this guest post fantasy author Karen Azinger tells about creating the fantasy world of Erdhe forThe Silk & Steel Saga.

Karen Azinger is the author of The Silk & Steel Saga and The Assasin's Tear (a short story collection).

Click here to visit Karen Azinger's official website.

GUEST POST: KAREN AZINGER TELLS ABOUT CREATING THE FANTASY WORLD OF ERDGE FOR THE SILK & STEEL SAGA

Martha Wells' The Serpent Sea was published in December 2011 by Night Shade Books.

Martha Wells is the author of five Ile-Rien novels (The Element of Fire, The Death of the Necromancer, The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air and The Gate of Gods), Books of the Raksura series (The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea), City of Bones, Wheel of the Infinite and two Stargate Atlantis novels (Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary and Stargate Atlantis: Entanglement). She has also written short stories and non-fiction articles.

Martha Wells' official website can be found here.

Here's a description of The Serpent Sea:

Moon, once a solitary wanderer, has become consort to Jade, sister queen of the Indigo Cloud court. Together, they travel with their people on a pair of flying ships in hopes of finding a new home for their colony. Moon finally feels like he's found a tribe where he belongs.

But when the travelers reach the ancestral home of Indigo Cloud, shrouded within the trunk of a mountain-sized tree, they discover a blight infecting its core. Nearby they find the remains of the invaders who may be responsible, as well as evidence of a devastating theft. This discovery sends Moon and the hunters of Indigo Cloud on a quest for the heartstone of the tree – a quest that will lead them far away, across the Serpent Sea...

In this followup to The Cloud Roads, Martha Wells returns with a world-spanning odyssey, a mystery that only provokes more questions – and the adventure of a lifetime.

Here's the review:

A REVIEW OF MARTHA WELLS' THE SERPENT SEA

Bradley P. Beaulieu and Stephen Gaskell's science fiction novella, Strata: A Story of the Future Suns, was published as an e-book in December 2011.

Here's a description of Strata: A Story of the Future Suns:

Strata is a stand-alone novella by two Writers of the Future Award winners.

It’s the middle of the twenty-second century. Earth's oil and gas reserves have been spent, but humankind's thirst for energy remains unquenched. Vast solar mining platforms circle the upper atmosphere of the sun, drawing power lines up from the stellar interior and tight-beaming the energy back to Earth. For most of the platforms' teeming masses, life is hard, cramped — and hot. Most dream of a return Earthside, but a two-way ticket wasn't part of the benefits package, and a Sun-Earth trip doesn’t come cheap.

Kawe Ndechi is luckier than most. He's a gifted rider — a skimmer pilot who races the surface of the sun's convection zone — and he needs only two more wins before he lands a ticket home. The only trouble is, Kawe's spent most of his life on the platforms. He’s seen the misery, and he’s not sure he's the only one who deserves a chance at returning home.

That makes Smith Pouslon nervous. Smith once raced the tunnels of fire himself, but now he's a handler, and his rider, Kawe, is proving anything but easy to handle. Kawe's slipping deeper and deeper into the Movement, but Smith knows that's a fool's game. His own foray into the Movement cost him his racing career — and nearly his life — and he doesn't want Kawe to throw everything away for a revolt that will never succeed.

One sun. Two men. The fate of a million souls.

Here's the review:

A REVIEW OF BRADLEY P. BEAULIEU AND STEPHEN GASKELL'S STRATA: A STORY OF THE FUTURE SUNS

Prolific science fiction and fantasy author Anne McCaffrey died Monday at her home in Ireland shortly after suffering a stroke. She was 85.

Anne McCaffrey published nearly 100 books in her lifetime and was best known for her popular "Dragonriders of Pern" novels.

Anne McCaffrey was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for a work of fiction and the first woman to win a Nebula Award.

More info.

Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus was published by Doubleday (and by Vintage Books in the UK) in September 2011.

Here's information about the author:

Erin Morgenstern is a writer and artist. Most of her writings and paintings are fairy tales, in one way or another. She lives in Massachusetts.

Click here to visit the author's official website.

Here's a description of The Night Circus:

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway — a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love — a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

And here's the review:

A SHORT REVIEW OF ERIN MORGENSTERN'S THE NIGHT CIRCUS