Edda in Penguin catalog for 2012

Edda is featured in the new Penguin Young Readers Group, Summer 2012 catalog. Plus one of Tony Sahara's images for Edda is used as the title page for the Firebird section.

Edda on end of year recommended lists

Both the Irish Times (in a supplement on Children's Books for Christmas) and the Sunday Independent have recommended Edda for Christmas reading. The Independent says (after I corrected their spelling):

Conor Kostick's Edda (O'Brien Press, €9.99) is the third fantasy in Kostick's series based on gaming and virtual worlds. In spite of the science fiction/futuristic challenges, at its heart are good-hearted clever teenagers confronting danger and oppression in an exciting series of adventures. Continuity is created with the earlier novels in the series, in the form of characters who we know and like, while at the same time there is inventiveness, especially in the figure of Penelope who is physically on a life-support system but whose avatar is free to roam worlds. Kostick challenges the young reader intellectually, but the heart is always in the right place too. This book would work equally well for younger and older teenagers.

Conor Kostick nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2012

Conor says:

I've made the longlist for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for 2012. In Pippi Longstocking Astrid Lindgren created one of the most delightfully irreverent and independent characters in children's literature; this creative act was connected to the fact that Astrid Lindgren herself was a radical humanist and opponent of violence. I'm proud to be associated with her legacy.

Polish cover for Epic

A new cover for the Polish translation of Epic.

Great interview with Conor Kostick

There is an interview with Conor by Elizabeth Rose Murray at writing.ie. You should go over there and read it all as this is one of the best interviews with Conor that I have seen. I will extract just one exciting quote about Conor's possible next book:

I am enjoying a certain sense of freedom about my next novel. Mind you, I’m not going to be writing anything in a hurry as we’ve a baby due soon. When I do begin writing fiction again, it will be to develop a couple of characters I have been sketching out. I was thinking of writing something about a boy who is being trained for the priesthood in a Neolithic moon-worshipping society. The interest there being the clash between his own good nature and the darker more oppressive values that he is expected to project on to his people. I’m also having fun making notes on a hedonistic community of electronic intelligences.

Conor Kostick meets Thomas Kinsella

Conor writes:

One of my favourite books is The Táin, Thomas Kinsella's version of the Irish epic Táin Bó Cúailnge, with illustrations by Louis le Brocquy (Dolmen, 1969; Oxford University Press, 1970). So it was with great pleasure that I learned that Thomas Kinsella was visiting Farmleigh Library, which is where I am working at the moment: unravelling the mysteries of the Gerald of Wales manuscript I came across last year. Neither of us are particularly gregarious upon meeting someone for the first time, so I have no lively anecdotes from the day, other than this. Ed Mulhall (of RTE news) was showing Thomas Kinsella an ipad and by way of illustration of its use, called up an app to do with James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Kinsella leaned over and began to read the page aloud. We were in the cafe at the time and in our corner of the room a hush developed as we leaned in to hear him. He has a great reading voice and what's more, it all made sense. It makes me think that someone - now that the Joyce copyright has nearly expired - should produce an audio book of Kinsella reading Finnegans Wake and I'm sure all of us who have struggled to get through it would then appreciate it so much more.

Conor Kostick talks about Edda

In conversation with Oisin McGann, award-winning author Conor Kostick talks about his new novel Edda which completes The Avatar Chronicles.