BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict

Subject: RE: BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Oct 17 - 05:57 PM

So, faithful Wars-of-Light-and-Shadow fan that I am,
I ordered hardcover copy of this same off-the-presses new book
from three different sources.
Here's an update on the status of those orders --
and the fans who ordered as I ordered are in the same status scenario.

1. United Kingdom, through Amazon UK.
That order was delivered a week or two ago, in mint condition;
it is already battered from how much I have carried it from place to place
and how I have squashed the spine to get the pages to lie open.

2. USA, through Amazon dot com in the US.
That hardcover copy has been shipped and is supposed to be delivered this weekend, before the end of October.
We'll see if, as it's a US copy, it has the same ISBN or a different one
than Order no. 1 which was for sale in the UK.

3. Barnes and Nobel pre-paid pre-order, placed in a local branch through their customer service desk (rather than online).
Delivery tentatively targets 23 January 2018 for filling the order.

(what's wrong with this picture?)

Subject: RE: BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Oct 17 - 04:36 PM

One caveat for books like this one:

they do stuff to your dreams.
Especially when you stay up late reading at night.

Subject: RE: BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Oct 17 - 08:05 PM

My copy was just delivered to me by UPS in its little brown van. Thank you, UPS.
Thank you, "Amazon Way" in Dunfermline, Fife, KY11 8ST,
currently in the United Kingdom,
the return address does not trouble to say Scotland.
Thank you wherever you are.

One new book in pristine condition. Worth every cent.
And one that I will read and re-read many times, always with pleasure.

Even though it isn't the end of the series,
a lot of things are resolved in this, the tenth book.

If Janny Wurts rubs you the wrong way, steer well clear, because this is vintage Janny Wurts.
Personally I don't favor equally all of her work.
But this series has a special place in my regard and in my heart.

Subject: RE: BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Oct 17 - 02:54 PM

And I finally decided I could afford the cost of being impatient.
My pre-orders, the ones that might, or might not, get filled
before New Year's,
are still current.

AND at the same time
I went ahead and got online
and ordered the hardcover "Destiny's Conflict"
from the United Kingdom distribution.
Top speed express international shipping.
Of course the shipping costs more than the book does.

With the privilege of the fast shipping
comes a tracking service through my e-mail.
The shipment is paid for,
the order has been placed,
and the book left the UK on some freight flight or other
and has landed in Philadelphia, before sunrise today.
The book shipment may arrive by this weekend.

Subject: RE: BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Oct 17 - 02:49 PM

Janny Wurts's website has a chat area where the author posts things like updates about publication of her books.

To get to the chat section,
find the menu at the top,
hover the cursor over BOOKS,
and click on CHAT AREA.

Her latest comment to her readers in her country,
the United States (she lives in Florida, survived the hurricanes):

"Publisher HarperCollins in NY doesn't publish the book --
HarperCollins Voyager in UK does, and
HarperCollins 360 distributes the book in USA / Canada.

"[Said distributor,] HarperCollins 360 feeds the import book titles
into the same channel that distributes HarperCollins Voyager NYC/USA,
but:
a separate office handles the books published in, not imported to, the US --
the NY editorial office that handles the USA published books
has nothing to do with / could not care less
about mine [my books].

"I have to COUNT MY BLESSINGS that we have a publisher, period --
there have been SO MANY tripping points where it could have gone down."

She's correct: this series of volumes, now numbering 10 with the latest release, has been published over a period of twenty-plus years.
And no, the publisher with which she began then, is not the same as the publisher she has now. I believe two of her earlier publishers have died the death, while she goes on fighting to keep her series of books alive.

Subject: RE: BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict
From: keberoxu
Date: 10 Oct 17 - 06:35 PM

Status update:

Destiny's Conflict can be found in bookshops in Australia and Tasmania.
Paperback, printed and bound in Australia. No hardcovers yet.

The e-book/Kindle/Nook/what-have-you is available for purchase and download just about all over the civilized world.

UK has hardcover copies now.

The only people in the USA with ink-and-paper copies of "Destiny's Conflict" have been getting them shipped from the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Oct 17 - 04:43 PM

maybe we'll get our copies before New Year's . . .

Subject: RE: BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Oct 17 - 11:28 AM

Harper Collins, the publisher, is not making it easy, but there is access and information on this hot-off-the-presses title.

At the publisher's website, you can order directly:
--Electronic book text (Kindle and so on)
--Hardback copy

IF you click on "Electronic book text" in the FORMAT choice,
a link/blue-button comes up that says "Read a Sample"
and the sample is a generous portion of the opening pages
of "Destiny's Conflict."

click on "Electronic book text" at FORMAT

Subject: RE: BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Oct 17 - 02:11 PM

A glimpse into Destiny's Conflict is now available
on this, the release date from publisher Harper Collins;
it's the Look Inside feature at Amazon's website.

click on "Look Inside"

Subject: RE: BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict
From: keberoxu
Date: 03 Oct 17 - 11:31 AM

Two of the faithful readers in the UK,
who post to the chat area of Janny Wurts's website,
report that they have the book now.
They don't specify, in their haste to finish their chat posts
and get back to reading the book,
if what they have is ink-and-paper book or a Kindle version;
but they have the book.

The rest of us have to keep from going crazy here.

Subject: RE: BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict
From: keberoxu
Date: 02 Oct 17 - 07:38 PM

Readers in the United Kingdom who pre-ordered this book in hardcover
ought to have it in their hands in a week's time, possibly less.

In the United States --   and probably in Canada --
we had better not hold our breath.
The books are being freighted from the UK across the ocean.
Vendors like Amazon dot com are hedging:
they accept pre-orders happily,
but they refuse to give a delivery date!

Subject: RE: BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Sep 17 - 12:59 PM

A recent interview with the author.

How the Peter Watkins documentary, "The Battle of Culloden," inspired "The Wars of Light and Shadow"

Subject: RE: BS: book: release of Destiny's Conflict
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Sep 17 - 03:17 PM

This image, if I can link to it, is artwork by Janny Wurts.
It depicts a human holding a "lyranthe"
if you want to know what the musical instrument looks like.

A Lyranthe, in the hands of the Masterbard's apprentice

Subject: series: Wars of Light and Shadow
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Sep 17 - 05:43 PM

The fantasy genre is about to receive "Destiny's Conflict," a book in an ongoing series by Janny Wurts.

Destiny's Conflict

Those of us acquainted with this fantasy series, who have pre-ordered the new title, are now in the countdown stage.

The publisher, HarperCollins, prints these books in the UK. Readers in the US, like me, have to wait for:
a container ship sailing between England and New York City
with all the copies intended for North American pre-orders.

We the acquainted are on pins and needles, watching the changing publication dates online.
One source says that in the UK the hardcover copies will be released October 1st, and the Kindle version on October 5th.

The author, at her website, reports what she was told by her publisher.
Direct quote:
"They said: [the staff in New York City is small.] if they [the shipment of books] slide in at the wrong timing ... it could be, the arrival will jam into their Christmas / Big Fall releases,
and if that happens, triage:
they won't be able to unpact them straightaway.
They have said that this 'delay' could extend to January 5.
Let's hope that this scenario doesn't unfold
/that they have incentive to get the books out faster..."

'Destiny's Conflict' isn't even the conclusion of the series,
with the series title "The Wars of Light and Shadow"
-- the book AFTER IT is the conclusion.

What's in there?
Centaurs. Dragons. Extremely little faery lightpeople. An occasional unicorn. Wyverns. Venomous serpents. Ravens. Horses. Eagles.

Far-seeing desert tribes. Highlander clans who are custodians of sacred forests. Enchantresses. Fishermen. Shipwrights. Pirates. Crofters. Grasslanders. Townspeople who want to raze the forests. Adepts of meditative attunement with the Creator. Necromancers. Mercenary soldiers. Religious fanatics. Sorcerors. Bards. The warden of arcane archives.

Swords forged from meteorites. Fiend-banes, and the mischievous air-spirits repelled by them. Ancient ruins haunted for thousands of years. A mountain chain that rings like a bell under vibrational stress. Gate portals to other worlds. Horns made from the spines that grow from a dragon's back. Crown jewels of rubies, emeralds, sapphires. Crystals bound to human spirits. Hallucinatory herbs. A keep that only sorcerors may enter. A well whose waters curse the drinker with five additional centuries of life. The lyranthe, a mythical instrument like a cross between a lute and a sitar, played by Masterbards ... and by those elusive tiny faeries. The blasted wastelands where dragons killed dragons in combat ... haunted by the dragon's unquiet spirit which is capable of unravelling the tapestry of reality. Conquerors whose ships are propelled by galley slaves at the oars. Focus circles through which people and things may be transferred almost instantly by vibrational shifts. An underground magical maze in which one born-and-bred royal went mad, and died, unable to face his own shame and guilt. A dimension in which a human sorcerer lies in a deep trance, so far removed from the material plane that the other sorcerers in his fellowship are powerless, having lost trace of him, to find him again.

And enough prophecies for Robert Jordan or George R. R. Martin.