Epic extract in Krash (Australia)

Krash is a boys general interest magazine that is published monthly and distributed in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia. Recently they featured Epic in a four page extract.

Competition in Chill magazine (Australia)

Chill is the children's section of Adelaide's newspaper, The Advertiser. Recently they held a competition to win a copy of Epic:

EPIC, by Conor Kostick is described as a blend of Lord of the Rings fantasy and the virtual reality world of the Matrix. A boy named Erik is living on New Earth where Epic, a sword and sorcery virtual reality game, determines what happens to you. Erik subverts the rules of the game, and he and his friends are drawn into a world of power-hungry, dangerous players.

Epic poster in Disney Adventures (Australia)

This monthly magazine is targetted at boys and girls aged 9 to 13 published by Australian Consolidated Press in Australia and New Zealand. The dragon is from the Australian cover of Epic. Pity the poster doesn't have Conor's name...

Review of Saga in the (Irish) Sunday Independent.

The review, which isn't online, is by Celia Keenan, who is the Director of the MA Programme in Children’s Literature and Lecturer in English at Saint Patrick’s College, Drumcondra (Dublin City University) and the president of The Irish Society for the Study of Children's Literature.

Contemporary and futuristic fantasy can provide a powerful critique of dehumanisation and help explore ideas about identity. […] Conor Kostick’s Saga falls into this category. Saga, the sequel to Epic is suited to a slightly older readership (15-16 yrs) because of the challenge of the narrative form, the shifting point of view and the sophisticated structure based on virtual reality games.

Recent mentions of Conor Kostick in the blogosphere

In the world of blogs Jamie at Here Be Subtlety picks Epic as her children's book of the year. The oft-mentioned Lady Schrapnell starts and finishes Saga. And sammywol recommends Saga as well.

Review of Saga in the Village

Tony Hickey who wrote an early review of Epic has reviewed Saga in Village (30 November 2006 edition). Unfortunately Village has made some of their content available only to subscribers so the review is only partially available online, which is a pity as it is a good summary:

Conor Kostick's first novel, Epic, set all kinds of records in terms of monies and awards - $50,000 from Penguin USA for the American rights; a trip to China to accept the International Board on Books for Young People 2006 award and translations into all the major languages. Saga, his second book, confirms the style and narrative skill of the debut novel, and will surely receive the same critical and financial success. The story is set in the future where The Black Queen, who is a RAL (Reprogrammed Autonomous Lifeform), has, by a murderous coup worthy of The Sopranos, gained control of New Earth. Her horizons are soon clouded by the mysterious Cindella and Ghost, a 15-year-old skateboarding punk girl, who has no identity record and lives on her wits as part of a shop-lifting, graffiti-carving teenage gang.It is a rock 'n' roll, helter-skelter time, a journey not for the faint-hearted but bound to enthral wired-up skateboarders, the mathematically literatre and those who just enjoy a well-written narrative. This is what happens when Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey meets A Clockwork Orange. Thugs have developed a political conscience and the main protagonists are female. Let's hear it for the girls!

Conor Kostick to appear at P-Con IV

The Phoenix Convention, or P-CON for short, is an Irish science fiction, fantasy, and horror convention, with an emphasis on the more literary end of the genre. This will be the fourth running of the event which takes place over the weekend of the 10th and 11th of March 2007 at Wynn's Hotel in Dublin. Conor Kostick is an official guest and there is a short biography at the conference site. This includes some interesting news:

His next book, provisionally entitled Move (O'Brien Press, 2007), attempts to synthesize quantum mechanical theories of alternate universes with Buddhism.