Audio Excerpt: Gardens of the Moon – Steven Erikson

Hey guys and girls and all lovers and fans of Steven Erikson’s monumental bad-ass epic, The Malazan Book of the Fallen – the audio excerpt is ready! 🙂 Just check the right-hand column, right at the end. It’s the blue box with the file, final_edit_prologue. 🙂

But before I get to the background of it, lets get the legal stuff out of the way first. 🙂

Steven Erikson holds the copyright to Gardens of the Moon, and the publishers, Transworld Books, hold the rights to the book. Under no circumstances may the book be copied, sold, or used in any way without permission from the publishers.
To purchase the book, follow these two links: rBooks and Amazon!

Okay, now that that’s done, let me fill you in about what happened that led to this excerpt being recorded. I had the idea wayyy back, but only started doing something about it a few months ago when I saw a post at Malazanempire.com. They guys and girls there were talking about an audio book of Steven Erikson’s series, how it should be done, etc. and I thought that I would go ahead and start recording – being a fan of the work, and not getting any payment for it, I thought it wouldn’t be a problem.

So I started and recorded the prologue and just about all of the first chapter; only later was I told in no uncertain terms that I should get permission for it first before going ahead (and mentioning it anywhere that might cause trouble for the folks who owned the website where I spoke about it).

So I checked out Random House’s website, saw that I would need to write (or fax) and letter through asking for permission and I thought, Bugger that! I then contacted a very cool lady by the name of Emily van Hest at Random House’s South African offices and asked her if she could help me with getting permission for it in any way. A few days and emails later I had the permission, and I promptly set about getting the recording done, fine-tuned, edited (to fit the ten-minute limit) and ready to post. 🙂

So, thanks to Steven Erikson, first, for writing such a brilliant book, for writing all the books that followed, for creating a world that we all love and for telling a story we all want to hear with characters that we care about. You, Sir, are a god among the gods of fantasy. 🙂

Second thank you goes to Emily; thanks for putting up with a blogger from SA, supplying books to review, and everything else! 🙂

And thirdly, thanks to Zoe and Transworld! 🙂 This wouldn’t have been possible without your permission! 🙂

Last, but not least, thanks for all the people who have encouraged and supported me in this. 🙂

Okay, last thing, I promise:

I’m not a proffesional audio book reader. I don’t have a studio or a thousand-dollar microphone. I’m just a fan who took a chance, got permission, and did a recording of a book (damn, the whole series) that needs to be done as an unabridged audio book. 🙂 So please keep that in mind when you want to critisize me. 🙂

Be Fantastic!

P.S. I’ve moved the Blue Box up, it’s no longer right at the bottom of the right-hand blog-column, so it’s easier to see. 🙂

P.P.S. Once you’ve listened to it, wont you please click this link and vote whether you would like to hear another Audio Excerpt from me? Thanks. 🙂