Our friends at Buzzy Multimedia, publishers of the first four Dresden audiobooks, are hosting a contest with some great prizes! Check it out at their website!

Talk about the contest on the forum here.

Big news! Not only does the second issue of the Storm Front graphic novel come out today, but we can now announce the title for the sixth and final book in the Codex Alera! Many of the fans have guessed correctly already--well done.

Look for
First Lord's Fury
in December 2009!

Fred and the Evil Hat team have finished their renovation of http://www.dresdenfilesrpg.com/ -- it now has a new blog that should be tons easier to update (and for you to follow). They're also tying it together with Twitter for those who want an easy way to keep up-to-date: http://twitter.com/dresdenfiles

They're also planning a bi-weekly series of "sneak peeks" from the game, extending into June. The first is the "Pure Mortal" Character Template. Read more here!

Discuss this news on the forum here.

Website Fantasy Book Critic is giving away three sets of Simon R. Green's latest pair of books, Just Another Judgment Day (book 9 of his popular Nightside series) and the short story anthology Mean Streets. Mean Streets contains the Jim Butcher story "The Warrior," which deals with some of the fallout of Small Favor.

Enter the giveaway at the Fantasy Book Critic blog. Open to U.S. residents only.

The second issue of the Storm Front graphic novel comes out December 17th, but we have a preview for you today! Use Diamond's Comic Shop Locator tool to find the store nearest you!

Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files: Storm Front #2

Story by Jim Butcher
Script by Mark Powers
Art by Adrian Syaf
Inks by Rick Ketcham
Colors by Mohan
Cover by Dave Dorman

Harry Dresden is haunted by dark secrets of his past and stalked by a dangerous gangland king as he confronts the powerful vampiress Bianca and continues his investigation into the bizarre disappearance of businessman Victor Sells. Overseen by creator Jim Butcher, The Dresden Files: Storm Front brings the first of his bestselling Harry Dresden novels to life. Storm Front is guaranteed to grab readers with its gripping blend of mystery and fantastic adventure!

Click the thumbnail to view the full size image:

Discuss this on the forum here!

Congratulations to Jim! Princeps' Fury, fifth book in the Codex Alera, rocked the bestseller charts this week!

It ranked:

#10 on the Boston Globe's Hardcover Fiction list
#13 on the New York Times' Hardcover Fiction list
#13 in Publishers Weekly, and
#56 on the USA Today List (which merges all books--fiction and non, hardcover and paperback)

The paperback of Captain's Fury is #22 on the New York Times' Paperback Fiction list.

To celebrate, we now have desktop wallpapers featuring Steve Stone's Princeps' Fury cover art!

Download them here in about every desktop size imaginable:

800x600
1024x768
1280x800
1280x1024
1400x900
1600x1200
1920x1200

Tina Smith of Dog-Eared Books, host of the Princeps' Fury Virtual Signing, wishes fans to know that they have twelve autographed copies of Princeps' Fury still in stock. The books are $25.95 plus shipping, same as the virtual signing prices. If you're interested, e-mail her (dogearedbooks (at) yahoo.com) and she'll send you a link where you can pay. Act now! Those twelve copies will go fast!

As always, you can purchase Jim's books from a number of online retailers in a number of different formats from the Jim-Butcher.com Store!

Discuss this post here.

Princeps' Fury, fifth book in the Codex Alera, hits stores TOMORROW!

-- Read about it (and whet your palate with sample chapters) here!
-- Pre-order a personally signed copy from Dog-Eared Books' Virtual Signing
-- Buy a copy from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, or local indie bookstores through the Jim-Butcher.com store
-- Enjoy one last day of speculation on the Forum!

Dog-Eared Books is delighted to announce another Virtual Signing for the release of Princeps' Fury! Jim will be signing copies of Princeps' Fury and the new paperback edition of Captain's Fury. This is a great opportunity for fans to get a hold of personally signed copies of Jim's books, either for themselves or for friends. The holiday season is coming up soon, after all!

Read more about the event at the Dog-Eared Books website.

Also, don't forget that the Princeps' Fury audio book will be released November 25th, and the audio books of Furies of Calderon, Academ's Fury, and Cursor's Fury all hit stores November 26th! As always, Jim's books are available in a variety of formats from an assortment of online retailers through the Jim-Butcher.com store.

Discuss this event on the forum here.

The first issue of the Dabel Brothers' adaptation of Storm Front hits stores today! Check out a five-page preview here, then find a comics store near you with Diamond's Comic Store Locator tool.

Discuss this on the forums here.

The results are in for the (First Annual?) Dabel Brothers' Dresden Files Halloween Costume Contest! Check out the winners here. Thanks to all who participated!

Discuss this story here.

This just in from the folks at Subterranean Press:

You can let everyone know the Backup reprint is done and will ship next week. At this point, we have orders for 2500 more copies than are in the reprint, so some wholesalers, etc. are going to be shorted. We're also pulling the book from our site, so folks' best bets might be Amazon at this point.

Best,
Bill

Note that Subterranean Press is NOT planning a third hardcover printing. If you want a copy, get your order in now!

Happy Halloween, and Happy Birthday to Harry!

Don't forget, the Dabel Brothers' Halloween Costume Contest ends TOMORROW! You have until midnight tomorrow to submit your costumes! Get all the rules here. Discuss the contest here.

Whoops! Turns out the date Amazon listed for the audiobook releases of Proven Guilty, White Night, and Turn Coat is inaccurate. They will be released on April 7th, the same day as the Turn Coat hardcover.

Happy Birthday to our beloved author, Jim Butcher! Hope you have a good one.

To celebrate, here's some great news! From the Dabel Brothers' website:

Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle hardcover graphic novel produced by Dabel Brothers and published by Del Rey hit stores everywhere on Oct 14th and it has taken off running!

The book has cracked USA TODAY'S TOP 100 best selling books list at #90, and in fact, it would be on the New York Times' Bestselling List, but they do not currently include graphic novels in their count.

The book also managed to hit #1 on Amazon.com for the most popular items in pop culture, which measures the best sellers in comics and graphic novels, and is updated on an hourly basis.

Reviews of the book are up everywhere, and have been overwhelmingly positive. Here are a few:

• USA Today's Top 100
  
• Publishers Weekly
  
• SFFWorld.com
  
• ICV2.com
  
• Fantasy Book Critic
  
• ComixMix
  
• ComicPants

The graphic novel will soon be going into a second printing to satisfy demand. If you haven't already, go pick this book up! A warm thank you to to all our fans for their support on this book!

And a reminder: there's only ONE WEEK LEFT to submit entries to the Dabel Brothers' Halloween Costume Contest! Get all the rules here. There are some very exciting prizes involved, so don't let the NOVEMBER 1ST DEADLINE pass you by!

Share your birthday wishes here! Discuss WttJ's success here, and the Halloween Costume Contest here.

We now have an update for the audio book releases of Proven Guilty, White Night, and Turn Coat! Rather than being released on April 7th, along with the hardcover of Turn Coat, they will be released on April 2nd, nearly a week earlier!

Pre-order them through the Jim-Butcher.com store:

• Proven Guilty
  
• White Night
  
• Turn Coat

As we stated earlier, the audiobook of Death Masks will be released simultaneous with our hardcover reissue in November 2009, and the audios of Blood Rites and Dead Beat will be released simultaneous with our hardcover reissue of Blood Rites in July 2010.

Discuss this on the forum here!

The Dabel Brothers have released a five-page preview of the graphic novel adaptation of Storm Front! Check it out here, and look for issue #1 at a comic book store near you November 12th.

Discuss this on the forum here!

The trade edition of Welcome to the Jungle is here! Find it at your favourite bookstore or comics shop today!

The trade compile all four issues of the Storm Front prequel, written by Jim Butcher and pencilled by Ardian Syaf. It's available in two editions: The first (above, left), released through Del Rey, will be available at your local bookstores and comics stores, as well as online retailers like Amazon. The second (above, right), released through Diamond, will only be available in comics shops. It's the Dabels' gesture of thanks to comics shops for helping to make the series such a rousing success!

Check out a review from Fantasy Book Critic, then enter his WttJ Giveaway!

Purchase your copy from the Jim-Butcher.com store, or find comics shops near you with Diamond's Comic Store Locator tool. Discuss this news post on the forum here!




In other news, an important announcement from Subterranean Press:

We've now received enough orders that the first printing of Backup is sold out. If you want to be assured a copy, you need to order one before we finish shipping wholesale and online bookstore orders. We don't know yet if a second printing will be authorized.

Order from the Jim-Butcher.com store via Amazon or directly from Subterranean Press.

Subterranean Press gives us a shipping update:

"Our shippers are making great progress and should have all individual orders for the limited edition of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files novelette, Backup, in the mails by the weekend, or Monday at the latest. Then they'll turn their attention to shipping individual orders of the trade hardcover edition, before moving on to our backlog of lettered editions. Keep your eyes on this page for more updates!" -- Subterranean Press

Discuss this topic on the forum.

At long last, we have the details for the remaining Dresden Files audio books!

Fans of the previous audio books will be thrilled to learn James Marsters has been signed to read the audios of

DEATH MASKS
BLOOD RITES
DEAD BEAT
PROVEN GUILTY
WHITE NIGHT
and
TURN COAT

Although our release dates are tentative/subject to change, the plan is to release the audios of PROVEN GUILTY, WHITE NIGHT, and TURN COAT simultaneous with the hardcover of TURN COAT in April 2009.

The audio of DEATH MASKS would be released simultaneous with our hardcover reissue in November 2009, while the audios of BLOOD RITES and DEAD BEAT would be released simultaneous with our hardcover reissue of BLOOD RITES in July 2010.

We'll keep you updated on the release schedule if anything changes. We'll also post links to the Jim-Butcher.com store as soon as they are available for preorder.

Discuss this news on the forum here!

The previous entry about Backup prompted a flurry of questions from fans! I spoke with Bill Schafer of Subterranean Press, and here is his response.

I asked:

Many fans are curious about "Backup" orders placed through Amazon and other online retailers. The other stores still list the release date as 10/31 or 11/1, whereas it looks like fans that ordered directly from you might receive their copies a week or more before then. Do you know if Amazon plans to ship out their orders as soon as they receive the books, or if they intend to wait until the set release date?

Also, your website mentioned that you guys spaced on creating a new design for the Limited Edition's dust jacket, and we've gotten a bunch of questions as to what that entails! They're curious about if there will be a dust jacket at all, or if you've considered having one designed after the fact and sending it separately to the fans that ordered the Limited Edition. They're also curious as to whether the Lettered edition will have a separate cover design.

He replied:

Here's how shipping is planned. We'll be sending out all of the copies of BACKUP, trade and limited edition, ordered through us. After that, we have to ship out the five lettered editions sitting in our warehouses, because folks have been waiting so long for those. Following the lettered edition shipping, we'll then ship the large online retailer and wholesaler orders for BACKUP -- so indeed, those who ordered direct will receive their copies a bit before bookstores. I can't speak for certain, but it's likely Amazon, etc. will ship their copies as soon as they receive and process them, and not hold the books until the announced release date. They've not held books before, so I see no reason they'll do so this time.

I haven't considered having new dust jackets done for the limited edition of BACKUP. We'll turn our thoughts to a way to make it up to fans after all the shipping is done. The lettered edition will indeed have a dustjacket on it, the same one as the rest of the copies.

While you're reminding folks of stuff, you might want to mention that we will NOT be filling large online retailer or wholesaler orders for STORM FRONT. Oh, and on the plus side, we're already working on FOOL MOON and GRAVE PERIL. We have fully designed versions of those and are sending them out to be proofed, and talking to Vincent Chong about when he can fit illustrating them into his schedule.

Discuss this on the forum here!

Subterranean Press has a very exciting announcement! Backup, the Thomas-centric novelette illustrated by Mike Mignola, is in stock and shipping!

From the SubPress website:

Please note: Including the Limited Edition copies, we have nearly 10,000 copies of Jim Butcher's new Dresden Files novelette, Backup, to ship. It's going to take us a few weeks to get everything out the door, at least. We'd appreciate if everyone would refrain from emailing about their order status until the end of October, so we can focus on packing and getting books out the door. One further note, and an apology. We completely flaked and did not have a separate dust jacket designed for the limited edition. Our apologies to everyone.

For those unfamiliar with the project, here's Backup's blurb:

Let's get something clear right up front.

I'm not Harry Dresden.

Harry's a wizard. A genuine, honest-to-goodness wizard. He's Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull, with a big leather coat and a .44 revolver in his pocket. He'll spit in the eye of gods and demons alike if he thinks it needs to be done, and to hell with the consequences-and yet somehow my little brother manages to remain a decent human being.

I'll be damned if I know how.

But then, I'll be damned regardless.

My name is Thomas Raith, and I'm a monster.

So begins Backup, a twelve thousand word novelette set in Jim Butcher's ultra-popular Dresden Files series. This time Harry's in trouble he knows nothing about, and it's up to his big brother Thomas to track him down and solve those little life-threatening difficulties without his little brother even noticing.

Backup will be available via Subterranean Press in three editions:

Lettered: 26 signed lettered copies, specially bound, housed in a custom traycase (Sold Out)

Limited: 500 signed numbered copies, bound in leather (Sold Out)

Trade: full cloth bound hardcover copies: $20 (Buy it from the Jim-Butcher.com store!)

Discuss this on the forum here!