The Mountains of Instead

Championing fiction as an escape from pandemics, politics and bad TV.

State of the Union - April

Earlier this month, The Mountains of Instead turned three. Which is as surprising to me as it is to anyone else as, quite frankly, I fully expected to have given up by now!  But here we are, and as such I'm introducing a new monthly feature in the form of The State of the Union.

Basically, towards the end of each month a round up post will appear which will include links to everything I've reviewed that month and also links to bits and bobs that I've encountered around the web that we think might be of interest. Additionally, there will be a small section that talks about things we're looking forward to in particular.  There are lots of posts around the place that do similar things and I enjoy them all but have been particularly inspired by Forever Young Adult's Procrastination Pro-Tips on which I waste hours every time it's posted.  

So, without further do...

We've been surprisingly productive (for us) this April, and actually managed to review a couple of titles per week (you can find links to all posts in the right side bar):

Wild BoyClockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)Requiem (Delirium, #3)The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart
Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles, #2)Sixty-One NailsThe 5th Wave (The Fifth Wave, #1)

Of these, The 5th Wave probably edges out in front (but only just, these were all excellent) with Wild Boy standing out as an exciting and original debut.

Around and about on the internets, there has been much talk about Amazon and the Death of Books.  UK author Barry Hutchison blogged about the difficulty of selling books traditionally from an authors point of view while Neil Gaiman spoke at length about change versus stagnation in the book industry.  Both are fascinating and should provide much food for thought.

Other internetty things to check out include The Taichung Bookworm, belonging to our very own Cannonball Jones who, due to his voracious reading habit, has had to start a site of his VERY OWN in order to reviews he keeps writing.  It goes without saying that it's all rather excellent. Also excellent is the new Walker Books blog InkSlingers, which is not only lovely to look at but full of interesting bits and pieces. Also, check out YAckers YAck of the month, Tigerlily.

The world of YA film adaptations continues apace with the City of Bones, Catching Fire and Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters trailer emerging this month:

 


They all look pretty bloody good (although I'm just not buying Jonathon Rhys Meyers as Valentine) and, quite frankly, should be released SOONER.

Over the month of May, we'll be featuring (hopefully among other things) the following:

The Crane WifeDead Silence (The Body Finder, #4)The HumansThe Madman's Daughter (The Madman's Daughter, #1)

And YAckers will be YAcking If You Find me by Emily Murdoch which looks pretty darn good and our April YAck on Girl of Fire and Thorns will be up shortly.  It is, er, a full and frank discussion of a title that divided the group.

Finally, April has bombarded us with many pretty, pretty upcoming book covers.  Firstly, the tour de force that is the Chaos Walking has been repackaged rather gorgeously, the new look reflecting the classic status that this trilogy continues to garner:



Additionally, Walker Books have released the cover for Ness's upcoming YA title More Than This, while Bloombury have revealed the follow up to Sarah Maas's Throne of Glass, Crown of Midnight.  Two very different,  but equally striking covers:

More Than ThisCrown of Midnight (Throne of Glass, #2)

And that's all for now, folks.  I hope that you enjoy this new monthly feature as much as I enjoy putting it together and, as always, I'd love any feedback/ideas/thoughts to appear in the comments.

Until May, au revoir!

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