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Thanks again to everyone who contributed to last week's celebration of Lev Grossman's The Magician King!  We were really excited to be able to feature a novel this way, and we hope that you all have had a chance to pick up a copy of Grossman's novel for yourselves.  And if you haven't already, take a look at what Grossman himself had to say about how he wrote the novel--it's a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at his writing process, and it also provides a list of fantastic texts that went into the novel that will themselves keep you entertained for weeks.

Happy Magicians' Week!  We're celebrating the release of Lev Grossman's novel The Magician King this week, and to do so, we have all sorts of exciting magicians-related content to share with you.

As many of you might know, The Magician King is the sequel to The Magicians, Grossman's 2009 novel about a boy named Quentin Coldwater, his love of a children's series of fantasy novels, and a school for magic in upstate New York.  It's a wonderful novel, and one that we highly recommend, so needless to say, we're excited about the sequel!

We got things started early last Friday with this post about the world outside of The Magicians--a world that blurs the line between our reality and the reality of the novel in clever, creative, and fun ways.  And we'll continue the fun this week in many ways--including a guest post from Lev Grossman himself!

Happy August!  We hope everyone is enjoying summer, staying cool, and finding a few moments of relaxation now and then.

We'd like to start the week off by congratulating the nominees for the World Fantasy Awards--the complete list of nominees can be found here.  In particular, we would like to congratulate Peter S. Beagle and Angélica Gorodischer on their World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Awards!

If you are anything like I was for most of my reading life, you might have been a bit surprised this week to discover that you could vote for the Hugo awards. Surprise again - you can vote for the Locus awards, too. If you already know that, and know how to vote, then this isn't the post for you. 

But for everyone else, please keep reading. Voting on these awards is important - it means something, not only to the people who are nominated, and who win, but to the shape of the field in general. And it's a very easy thing to do.

Every year, the Hugo Awards are given in various categories for the best science fiction and fantasy of the year before.  They are awarded at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), which will be held this year in August in Reno, Nevada.

The Hugo Awards cover a wide range of material--from Best Short Story to Best Editor (both short and long form) to Best Professional Artist to Best Fanzine.  While we'd love to be able to highlight all of these categories, here at Fantasy Matters we are going to focus on one category in particular--Best Novel.

After we published our "fantastic fun" last Friday, we found two more links that we really wish we had included in our Harry Potter-themed list:

• Amazingly wonderful-looking drinks inspired by many of the Harry Potter characters.  I'm particularly impressed by the reasoning that went into the creation of the "Severus Snape."  Also, I realize that linking to alcoholic drinks first thing on a Monday morning might not be the most appropriate thing in the world, but I figure that these descriptions are so detailed and thoughtful, that they qualify as literature in and of themselves.  Right? (The Backyard Bartender)
• Also, an imagined conversation between J.K. Rowling and George R. R. Martin (one that probably also included a discussion of the best use of initials in an author's name). (Imgur)

This second link provides a nice transition to two reviews of Martin's latest book--A Dance With Dragons--that we found noteworthy.  The first, written by Lev Grossman, was published in Time magazine; the second, written by Dana Jennings, was published in The New York Times.  What we found interesting was how both of these reviews compared Martin to Tolkien in a very favorable way.  Grossman calls Martin "the American Tolkien," and Jennings takes it a step further, ending her review with, "Tolkien is dead. And long live George Martin."

Can you feel it?  The excitement?  The anticipation?  The sense of thousands, if not millions, of fantasy fans holding their breath, waiting for the next installment in their favorite series?

The release of the final Harry Potter movie would be enough in and of itself to cause quite a stir, but this week also marks the release of the long-awaited next installment in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series--A Dance with Dragons.  Needless to say, it's going to be quite a week!