Love and the Maiden by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1877)
If these two people don’t get together, I will die.
Romance has always been a part of science fiction and fantasy. Sometimes it’s a love story for the ages. Sometimes it’s the hero and a sexy lamp. I’ll admit that one of my stronger memories of getting into classic SF is developing the ability to spot a possible romance scene within the first three sentences so I could skip the subsequent pages and get on with the story I didn’t care about the lady with no personality who was the hero’s reward for saving the day, and I definitely didn’t see myself in her.
Before the holidays, fans of Megan Whalen Turner’s The Queen’s Thief series got an early present: News that Disney would be developing her 1996 novel
The Thief for its Disney+ streaming service. It’s unclear whether it will be a movie or (hopefully) a TV series, only that screenwriter Brian Duffield (
Love and Monsters,
A Wrinkle in Time,
Pete’s Dragon) is attached.
But, as with gifts from the gods in Turner’s beloved fantasy series, this news inspires some critical thought regarding how to handle the first book’s incredible feat of narration-as-withholding, and the series’ increasingly darker tone and content. We’re not refusing this gift from the entertainment powers that be, but we do have some follow-up questions.
59 books by Cleveland authors released in 2020
Updated Dec 18, 2020;
Posted Dec 18, 2020
Plenty of new books arrived in 2020 by local authors and writers with ties to Northeast Ohio. Check out some of the new releases in this guide.
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CLEVELAND, Ohio Looking to pick up a few more books in the new year, or hoping to get to know Northeast Ohio’s busy literary scene? There are plenty of great reads written by authors with connections to Greater Cleveland.
We put together a selection of some great books that arrived this year from prominent Northeast Ohio authors, poets and artists, split up into different sections. Whether you’re looking for a new cookbook, a thrilling mystery, a children’s story or a graphic novel, we’ve got you covered.
Disney is planning on adapting
Megan Whalen Turner‘s YA fantasy novel
The Thief for Disney+. It’s not entirely clear if this is going to be a film or a TV show, but in either case, Disney’s live-action team is working on the adaptation, with a script from screenwriter
Brian Duffield (
The Divergent Series: Insurgent,
Love and Monsters). The book is the first in a series, and tells the story of a thief sprung from prison to search for a “legendary object.”
THR has the scoop that
The Thief is being adapted for Disney+, but they don’t confirm if it’s a TV show or a film. If I had to guess – and I guess I do, since I’m the one writing this – I’d say it’s probably a movie, since the writer they brought in, Brian Duffield, seems to mostly write scripts for films. In any case, since
The Thief is the first book in Turner’s
The Queen’s Thief book series and tells the story of a charismatic boy named Gen, aka Eugenides the thief. When Gen is released from prison by a king’s magus, who then coerces him into a quest for a legendary object, the ensuing adventure thrusts him into the center of political machinations, deception, and danger.