Book News, In Brief

Via MTV.com: What's beef? His Dark Materials author Philip Pullman disses fellow fantasy geeks C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. I was going to make a very punny joke about Pullman's masturbatory self-praise and the dirty deed that is his last name, but in the spirit of fair play, I'm going to wait until he's been dead over thirty years to do so.

Via Japanese Review: Kodansha Limited, the largest publishing company in Japan and owner of several of the nation’s most popular manga magazines, will release exclusive manga content viewable on the internet for free starting Wednesday. But have no fear, countless bootleg manga websites featuring entire series scanned and uploaded for free and illegal online perusal. You're still needed. Kodansha's only giving away eight measly titles.

Via AFP: J.K. Rowling has completed her first book since the Potter finale -- and it's another Potter book! The up side: It's not another Scooby Doo-esque mystery whose villain is inevitably the new dark arts teacher ('And I would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling wizards!'), but a collection of stories that "comes from that world." (Editor's note: The vagaries are all Rowling's.) The down side: There are only seven copies being made; six going to folks involved with the original Potter books, and the seventh to be auctioned off for more than anyone with the free time to read this blog will ever be able to afford. Oh, and Rowling provides all of the illustrations herself, but like I said, you're too poor to concern yourself with it anyways. (Editor's note: How much do you wanna bet that this thing gets published before 2010?)