That's right — a new Avatar: The Last Airbender movie! It will be a reboot, not a sequel to the last live-action attempt, and the reports tell us this one won't be whitewashed. Queue interest.

The announcement also confirmed the animated series' original creators will be helming the production, which gives me hope this will be better than the last film adaptation. Could we finally be getting the live-action adaptation we deserve?

Note: the feature image from this post is concept art by John Staub sourced from the linked tweet.

Article source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbwvpy/a-non-whitewashed-reboot-of-the-last-airbender-is-coming-to-netflix-vgtrn

Netflix has greenlit a new series based on the "Grishaverse" novels by Leigh Bardugo. The series will initially be eight episodes and cover content from both Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows, which exist in the same universe.

In a world cleaved in two by a massive barrier of perpetual darkness, where unnatural creatures feast on human flesh, a young soldier uncovers a power that might finally unite her country. But as she struggles to hone her power, dangerous forces plot against her. Thugs, thieves, assassins and saints are at war now, and it will take more than magic to survive.

Eric Heisserer (Bird Box, ARRIVAL) will adapt and serve as showrunner for the series. Read more on the Netflix site here.

I'm giving away some great dystopian books to celebrate the start of 2019!

I'm giving away:

• The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin.
• Lifelike, by Jay Kristoff.
• Sync City, by Peter Ryan.
• The Seclusion, by Jacqui Castle.

Entry is free. By entering you agree to join my mailing list (if you're already on my mailing list, you can still enter).

Entries are open until 16 January 2019 (Australian Eastern Daylight Time).

2018 was a good year for reading. As they do every year, Goodreads have started generating member’s “year in books” reports, and it’s always fun to dive in and remind yourself what you read (you can view mine here).

The Stats

This year, I finished 65 books, which is way up for me, but is also deceptive, as that includes children’s books I read with my son. If I remove those 31 short stories, that means I completed 34 novels in 2018.

In total, I read approximately 13,000 pages, with the shortest book being only 16 pages (Stephen Biesty’s Trains) and the longest book coming in at 768 pages (The Fireman by Joe Hill).

Have you ever wanted to see Lord of the Rings, but with Mice? Of course, you have! Some talented peeps have now made it for us and it's glorious.

Sourced from YouTube here.

Over on The Writing Bloc, where I am a contributor, we have big plans, starting with an Anthology we are releasing in the New Year. On 1 January 2019 we are publishing Escape! An Anthology featuring twenty diverse stories by a great cohort of writers.

"As readers, we open books ready to be swept out of our seats and deposited in a world entirely new and exciting. Reading is an escape from our normal lives and thoughts," says Michael Haase, founder of Writing Bloc.

Inside the book, you can expect contemporary fiction, westerns, science fiction, fantasy, paranormal fiction, as well as genre-bending tales. We have stories by published authors such as Tahani Nelson, author of The Last Faoii, Jason Pomerance, author of Women Like Us, and Patrick Edwards, author of Space Tripping. We also have stories from a number of talented emerging writers who you'll want to get to know. You can read the full press release here.

Today, I'm excited to reveal our cover! 

ARC Giveaway

Would you like to receive one of 100 free advanced reader copies we're giving away? You can sign up on this form here.