Update

I continue in my reading of Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series, although a househunting expedition to Ireland has slowed my reading rate at the moment. The review of the third book should be up shortly though.

Currently, as well as the four remaining books of that series, I also have Ian Cameron Esslemont's Night of Knives, China Mieville's Looking for Jake, CS Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy, Paul Kearney's This Forsaken Earth and Paul J. McAuley's Cowboy Angels waiting to be read, although Peter F. Hamilton's The Dreaming Void will take precedence when it is released on 2 August. Hopefully I can pick up the pace a little in the next few weeks (although a major house move may interfere with that).

Speaking of Paul Kearney, apparently he is close to finalising a deal for a new series and a reprint of his superb Monarchies of God series in one volume, as well as determining the fate of the final Sea Beggars volume after Bantam declined to carry on with the series. Watch this space, or indeed, Paul's website.

It's been a sad few weeks for SF figures passing away. Fred Saberhagen, best known for his Beserker series of SF novels, passed away on 29 June at the age of 77. Douglas Hill, who wrote a number of SF novels for younger readers, passed away on 21 June at the age of 72 after being hit by a bus in Palmer's Green, London. His many works included the enjoyable ColSec Trilogy. British actor and voice artist Peter Tuddenham passed away on 9 July at the age of 88. Tuddenham did voice work for several episodes of the original Doctor Who series but is best known for voicing the three recurring AI characters in Blake's 7, namely Zen, ORAC and Slave.