CR20: The Interviews

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For a long time, I only posted reviews on Civilian Reader. For some reason, I resisted branching out into other types of content. Partly, it was an issue of how much time I had (postgraduate degrees take up a lot of time), and how much I wanted to commit to the website. As I started to become more interesting in publishing and writing in general, though, the website took up more of my attention and energy, and I started to think about other types of content I could publish.

In December 2010, while taking a train back to university in the UK, my partner convinced me to try some interviews. I’ve always loved the long, feature-length interviews in magazines like Rolling Stone, but I didn’t feel like I had the journalistic chops to pull off anything remotely as in-depth or interesting. (I’m also not entirely sure that there are many authors who offer the chance for this type of interview; rock and movie stars just live the kind of lives that do.)

I’d just read, and very much enjoyed, Ari Marmell’s The Conqueror’s Shadow, so decided to reach out to him, and he agreed to answer some questions. I published that Q&A on December 31st, and it began a long run of interviews on CR — at the time of writing, there are 390 published interviews on the site. (I only did the math today.) The interview is recreated, below, entirely as it was published on the original, Blogspot version of CR, except for some typos. (I’ve also added the now-normal “Follow the Author” stuff, and updated some links to mentioned titles.)

After the interview, I’ve included a few general thoughts on interviewing, and why they became less-common on Civilian Reader.

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Civilian Reader is… 20yrs Old. WTF? Anyway, Here’s the First Review I Wrote…

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Twenty years ago today, I posted my first fiction review on Civilian Reader. That is… pretty wild.

Before creating CR, I’d been reviewing music for my own fanzine that I’d been running for about four years. I first put that together using Microsoft Publisher, and printed, stapled, and mailed it out to the handful of subscribers I had. After I discovered this thing called “blogging”, while studying journalism, I shifted everything online. (It’s just so much easier, quicker, and cheaper — no more multipacks of printer ink!)

I wanted to do something to mark the occasion, and more than just the one post marking the milestone, and have been mulling this ever since I noticed we were coming up to the 20th anniversary. I’m still not entirely sure what I want to do, so I’ll have to keep thinking about (hopefully) interesting and related things to do. I am currently toying with revisiting early books I read and reviewed for the website, and taking a look at “Before Civilian Reader” books that I love and think deserve a little more attention. (Basically, it’ll be an excuse to re-read some older favourites.) I’m hesitant to make any concrete plans, though, as I invariably don’t follow through on “reading plans” or “reading goals” for a variety of reasons.

The first book review I ever wrote was for Richard Morgan’s Market Forces, for my university paper. It was a good book, and I thought I wrote a pretty good (albeit too-long-for-print) review, which was then butchered for publication. What went to press stripped out the discussion of what actually made the novel interesting and worth reading. So, I decided to create my own space to review books. Continue reading →

Interview with JONATHAN D. BEER

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Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Jonathan D. Beer?

There’s an existential question and a half…

Hello, to you and your readers. I’m Jonathan D. Beer. I’m a freelance writer for Black Library, and more generally a writer of science fiction and fantasy stories. I live in Edinburgh, Scotland, with one tiny cat and another that is part-fox, part-sentient rug.

I read War Studies at university, which was less about studying maps with arrows on it than I had been led to believe. I started writing for Black Library in 2020, just after the Covid-19 lockdown, and I still can’t believe I actually get to do this.

You’ve had two recent novels published by Black Library: Tomb World and Dominion Genesis. How would introduce them to potential readers?

Dominion Genesis is an exploration of how the Adeptus Mechanicus deals with trauma and loss, through the eyes (or, rather, the ocular implants) of Explorator Superior Talin Sherax.

Tomb World is the journey of a Necron praetorian, a guardian of the necrontyr’s codes of law and honour, after she is stripped of that honour by a betrayal. Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE BREAKUP by Kurt Andersen (Random House)

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This August, Random House are due to publish the new novel from Kurt Andersen: The Breakup. It’s been quite a while since Andersen’s previous novel, True Believers (2013), but readers may also be familiar with his non-fiction — which includes the excellent Fantasyland and Evil Geniuses. In addition to his excellent non-fiction, the author on occasion turns to fiction to explore contemporary life and issues — he did this in the aforementioned True Believers, and also in Turn of the Century (2000). This latest book is about a marriage that is cracking apart during a near-future United States that is undergoing dramatic changes following a second civil war and its own break-up.

Here’s the synopsis:

Natalie and Asher’s marriage has long been marked by fault lines, quiet rifts in how they view their fellow Americans and navigate AI-suffused life in 2045. After twenty-three years together, and after surviving the two years of civil war in the 2030s, Natalie in rural Tennessee (part of the new Free American Republic) and Asher in San Francisco (in the now smaller United States).Natalie and Asher’s relationship mirrors America’s own unraveling — confused, messy, painful, ambivalent, and impossibly intimate.

When Natalie and Asher are brought back into proximity while touring far-flung colleges with their seventeen-year-old, they find themselves on a road trip through a strange, uncertain new American landscape, transformed by both the terrorist uprising and technology, all while dealing with the flux — and resilience — within their own family. They face the questions the nation has reckoned with for a generation: what differences are irreconcilable, and when is something broken worth saving?

Razor-sharp, ambitious, ranging from tragic to comic and brimming with imagination, The Breakup is a sweeping story where the personal and sociopolitical intersect in ways bracingly plausible, keenly insightful, and surprisingly hopeful.

I’m really looking forward to this. (And have also been reminded that I need to catch up on Andersen’s other novels…)

Kurt Andersen’s The Breakup is due to be published by Random House in North America, on August 18th.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

Excerpt: TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE by Mark Stevens (Thomas & Mercer)

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Next month, Thomas & Mercer are due to publish Two Truths and a Lie by Mark Stevens, the second novel in the author’s Flynn Martin series of thrillers. To mark the occasion, and give readers a short taste of the new book, we have an excerpt to share with our readers. Here’s the synopsis:

Reporter Flynn Martin gets ensnared in a copycat killer’s game where winning means solving a crime—and losing could cost her everything.

Lambasted for a tragedy caught live on camera, then lauded for her help capturing the elusive PDQ, a serial killer, Flynn Martin’s career has reached new heights. But now, the TV journalist and mother has much further to fall. And someone wants to push her over the edge.

PDQ is behind bars, for life and then some, but someone on the outside has picked up the killer’s mantle. Flynn is neck-deep in an investigation when the copycat emerges, targeting her sources and delivering cryptic messages. It’s clear that Flynn’s stories are getting deadlier. This one proves no exception.

A family of four has gone missing, leaving behind ties to New Hope Church more tangled than they appear. The dangerous web rivals the threat in Flynn’s personal life. And it’s up to her to unravel each knot.

Scandal. Conspiracy. Murder. Flynn hardly knows where to begin—and if her stalker has their way, she might not live to see the end.

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Upcoming: MILK TEETH by Caitlin Starling (St. Martin’s Press)

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In October, St. Martin’s Press are due to publish the next novel from acclaimed author Caitlin Starling. I haven’t read as much of the author’s work as I would like — the last thing, I believe, was the author’s very good contribution to the Vampire: The Masquerade anthology, Walk Among Us. After reading the synopsis for Milk Teeth, I have a feeling that might change (I have also gone back and re-read the synopses for the author’s other books, and I don’t really understand why I missed them).

This new novel is a “genre-bending supernatural horror about a vampire broodmother fighting against her own monstrous descent,” and looks like it’ll offer an interesting twist on the vampire mythology. Here’s the synopsis:

Beatrice is a broodmother: a vampire responsible for nursing newly made fledglings through the first years of their unlife. She nests in an abandoned, isolated warren of office space beneath her patron’s skyscraper, raising two fractious fledglings: Gorgeous — once a heartthrob, now to all appearances a living corpse — who longs for the return of the lover who made him immortal with all the fervor of a rebellious teen, and Fortunata, the scion of Beatrice’s mistress, alien and ambitious in her desires.

But when Beatrice decides to take on a third fledgling, the product of an attempted siring gone wrong, teetering between vampiric purity and ghoulish depravity, Beatrice finds herself strained to breaking between the societal and physical demands of her position, her own ravenous hunger, and an obsessive need to discover what’s happening to her — because her body is changing too, transforming her into something even more monstrous. She begins to crave the taste of flesh, something anathema to all vampires, and to swing between desperate hunger and vicious power.

Desperate to master herself once more, Beatrice courts a mortal OBGYN who might be able to unravel the secrets of her unnatural anatomy. But soon their connection threatens the secrecy of her vampiric coven as well as the safety and development of her dependent nurslings… and the humans they stand to slaughter if left to their own devices.

Really looking forward to reading this. Caitlin Starling’s Milk Teeth is due to be published by St. Martin’s Press in North America on October 20th.

Also on CR: Review of Walk Among US

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

Upcoming: WICKHILLS by Premee Mohamed (Tor Books)

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This September, Tor Books are due to publish the latest novel by Premee Mohamed: Wickhills. It looks like it could be described as a spy thriller set in a fantasy world, which makes it of great interest to this reader. As a long-time fan of the author’s work, I’m really looking forward to this — and hopefully soon (I was lucky enough to get a DRC via NetGalley). Here’s the synopsis:

In the dangerous magical city of Wickhills, a streetwise secret agent is tasked with protecting a foreign defector from his pursuers… even at the threat of war.

Looking after a defecting scientist should have been Ferec’s easiest mission. But now he’s on the run from the intelligence agency he works for, dodging a handler who might have gone rogue and relying on a secret patchwork of illicit resources and dodgy contacts. Turns out his defector might be carrying an apocalypse-level magical weapon — and protecting it requires Ferec and his team to go underground, literally. Down here, the rules are very different… and the tense peace between every city in the world will shatter unless Ferec can drag their darkest secrets into the light.

Premee Mohamed’s Wickhills is due to be published by Tor Books in North America and in the UK, on September 8th.

Also on CR: Guest Post on “Influences & Inspirations”; Annotated Excerpt from The Annual Migration of Birds; Excerpt from We Speak Through the Mountain

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

Excerpt: BOY, WITH ACCIDENTAL DINOSAUR by Ian McDonald (TorDotCom)

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Today, we have an excerpt from the recently-published new novella by Ian McDonald: Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur. The book has a pretty intriguing pitch, which, having read the book, is rather accurate: “How to Train Your Dragon meets Mad Max”. Huge thanks to the publisher for letting CR share this short excerpt from the start of the book. First, though, here’s the synopsis:

The story of an orphan in a fractured Southwest who just wants to ride a dinosaur under the lights.

Come one, come all to the dinosaur rodeo!

Tif Tamim wants nothing more than to be a dinosaur buckaroo. An orphan in search of a place to rest his head and a job to weigh down his pockets, Tif has bounced from circus to circus, yearning for a chance to ride a prehistoric beauty under the sparkling lights of a big-top.

To become a buckaroo, Tif needs to learn the tools of the trade, yet few dino maestros want to take a scrawny nobody from nowhere under their wing. But when Tif frees a dino from an abusive owner and braves the roving gangs of the formerly-American west to bring the dino to safety, he catches someone’s eye. And boy, how those eyes dazzle Tif from the back of a bucking carnotaur.

Fans of McDonald’s other novellas and novels will find plenty to like in this latest book. Recommended.

And now, on with the excerpt…

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Upcoming: THE LAST SHOT by Vaseem Khan (Hodder & Stoughton)

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Early next year, Hodder & Stoughton are due to publish the seventh novel in Vaseem Khan‘s excellent Malabar House series, The Last Shot. I’m currently reading (and very much enjoying) the fifth novel in the series, City of Destruction, and should easily be caught up before this latest novel releases. Really looking forward to it. Here’s the synopsis:

Bombay, 1952. When once legendary British film producer, Richard Boorman, working in India’s film capital, Bombay, is found murdered, shot dead, his body stuffed into the trunk of his car, Persis, India’s first female police detective, is tasked to find his killer.

Working with Archie Blackfinch, a forensic scientist from the Metropolitan Police service in London, she delves into the case, and soon discovers that Boorman’s activities in India may not have been confined to the silver screen.

As the investigation progresses, Persis finds herself drawn into a web of danger and deceit, and to a meeting with a man of such unmitigated evil that his very existence has been stricken from history.

In India’s city of dreams, it is sometimes nightmares that prevail…

Vaseem Khan’s The Last Shot is due to be published by Hodder & Stoughton, on January 7th, 2027.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky