I'm pleased to introduce our latest guest blog post. Jonathan Evison is fast becoming recognized as one of America's great young authors. His first book, All About Lulu, won the Washington State Book Award, and his latest novel West of Here has already received heaps of praise in the US.

Jonathan Evison writes: I'm a camper. It's what I do. Between late February and mid-October, I'm usually camping. Sometimes that means hiking twelve miles and three-thousand vertical feet with forty pounds strapped to my back, and sometimes that means my ass falling asleep in a lawn chair, as I scribble mad notes in front of a campfire with a case of cold beer within arms reach. Usually, though, it means parking my '76 Dodge motor home on a bluff at Kalaloch in a nasty squall, and watching the waves pound the shoreline, while the moho rocks like Jericho. These camping trips are my lifeline as a writer, and as a person. Without these trips, the wilderness of my spirit might have been tamed years ago. And probably I wouldn't be much of a writer. Most certainly, I'd be hell to live with.

www.IwishIwasabook.com has been a bit quiet of late, and I would like to apologise for this. Lots going on with work and life and the rest has meant that writing and even reading have had to take a back seat.

Do not fear though! I have written a few reviews over the last month or two, but they have been for another website, the fantastic We Love This Book from The Bookseller magazine:

www.WeLoveThisBook.com/

One of the most common search phrases that lands people on IwishIwasabook.com is along the lines of "Terry Pratchett <insert latest Pratchett novel> special edition", such as last year's I Shall Wear Midnight, or Unseen Academicals from the year before.

Well, I'm pleased to put all of you Pratchett fans out of your misery... the Snuff Limited, Numbered Slipcase Edition is now available! Jolly good.

UPDATE: The Boy & His Bee has now been launched and is available from the author's shop here. Buy it. Really, do. It is fantastic and kids, parents and bee keepers will all adore it.

This weekend, the 19th & 20th November 2011, sees the launch of a fantastic new children's book – The Boy & His Bee by Jen Smith.

Launching at the Thought Bubble festival in Leeds, The Boy & His Bee is the story of a young boy desperate for a pet bee, but he soon learns there is more to friendship than freezers and flowers...

Florence & Giles by John Harding is a tale of isolation, fear, madness and risen spirits. It is simultaneously a classic ghost story and a modern psychological thriller, with a truly unique narrator. What at first seems to be a fairly standard story of a lonely child living a secluded life in a haunted house soon turns into an intriguing, compelling, spine-tingling and original story that is impossible to put down.

Moon Over Soho, book two in the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch, is an urban fantasy crime novel that is fast-paced, funny, dark and wholly British. A winning combination that makes Moon Over Soho an instant classic.

Kobo Books have today announced a brand new eReader – the Kobo Vox!

The Vox is a full colour tablet style ereader running on Android and has been dubbed by Kobo as “The World's First Social eReader”, thanks to its social network integration.

Read on for more details...

Justin Gustainis is without doubt one of the most exciting authors currently writing in the "urban fantasy" genre. His two latest books, Hard Spell and Sympathy For The Devil, have caused quite a stir in the fantasy fiction community and it's easy to see why, Justin's dark sense of humour and darker worlds are engrossing and fantastic fun.

We are happy to present a glimpse into the authors mind, where witchfinders hunt and vampires run riot...

With the launch of the Kindle Fire and Kindle Touch dominating headlines both in the UK and US, another launch seems to have gone unnoticed, but is much more important to us Brits right now -

The Kobo Touch is now available in the UK!

The second book in the Lorien Legacies series, The Power of Six, is a step in the right direction for the series. This step is away from the eponymous character of the first book (I Am Number Four), who is angsty, lovestruck and irritating. Instead we are introduced to several new characters including Marina, or Number 7, and the plot expands and evolves.

Welcome to the new look IwishIwasabook.com!

Hope you like it, it is quite different from the old look. Almost the opposite, actually...

I'm having trouble writing a review of The Concrete Grove by Gary McMahon.

It is, as I see it, a novel of two parts. The first is a gritty, real life drama about a mother trying to protect her daughter in a harsh world of gangs and loan sharks. Into this grey life steps a small ray of light, a kind man who might well be the salvation they desperately need – but this would-be saviour has his own dark secrets.

The second is just as dark as the first, but instead of being grounded in the real it is a strange and intriguing supernatural horror, with monsters and demons haunting the Concrete Grove. These demons are worshipped by crime-lords and have a sinister plan for certain young girl.

I don't read much science fiction. I think it is because of the same reason I don't read much hardcore fantasy – I like my fiction as grounded as possible in the norm. I struggle to visualise worlds that I don't know, whether they be a distant planet orbited by 7 moons where the inhabitants worship mechanoids created millennia ago, or middle-earth-esque lands where hordes of orcs battle the elegant, a-sexual elves, it matters not. I also tend to get confused by technical talk, especially if that technical talk is nonsense.

So I'll admit now that Reality 36 by Guy Haley – with its plethora of futuristic techno-babble and host of fantastical worlds populated by computer generated Paladins and talking lions – was never high up on my reading list...

Oh, how I curse my narrow-mindedness!

I'm very pleased to present the very first of (hopefully) many guest blog posts! This one comes from Guy Haley, the rather friendly author of the rather excellent sci-fi detective novel Reality 36.

Guy writes: Hi there, my name’s Guy Haley, and I’m here to talk to you about my novel, Richards & Klein: Reality 36.

That classic shopping channel intro should tell you something about me (like, I can’t help but be flippant, like my character Richards) but it tells you precious little about my book, or why I wrote it, or what the hell it’s about. So let’s do that next.

Reality 36 is the first of what I intend to be a series of books out from Angry Robot. I am writing number two, Omega Point, right now (obviously not right now, although can the process of writing ever really cease? I’m probably thinking about it on some level even now, so actually yeah, right now). Reality 36 is an exciting, fast-paced adventure set in the near-ish future. It has super-intelligent AI, robots, and cyborgs in it. There is lots of action, and there are twists.

Cool, eh?

I'm a little bit ashamed to say that Angry Robot only came to my attention because Zoo City - a grimy, gritty sci-fi set in a South Africa plagued by spirit animals – won the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke award. I picked up a copy before a jaunt away and loved it. That got me intrigued, and since then I've read 4 Angry Robot books, and am looking forward to more.

Angry Robot seem to be an imprint with a difference, they really don't feel the need to do things by the book (excuse the pun), and as such they come up with some truly innovative ideas.