Year: 2016

Upcoming: HEART OF GRANITE by James Barclay (Gollancz)

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BarclayJ-HeartOfGraniteUKI’ve only read one of James Barclay’s novels, Dawnthief, the first in his Raven series. I rather enjoyed it — the characters were good, the story interesting. Not really sure why I never continued with the series… His next novel, Heart of Granite, is due to be published by Gollancz on August 18th, 2016. It has a pretty interesting cover (above). I’m not entirely sure what I think of it, though — the image is very nice, but it makes me think of an artistic cover for a science book, rather than a military fantasy novel. This is probably a sign that years of book jacket design conditioning has had an impact…

Here’s the synopsis:

One man, one brief conversation… a whole world of trouble…

The world has become a battleground in a war which no side is winning. But for those determined to retain power, the prolonged stalemate cannot be tolerated so desperate measures must be taken.

Max Halloran has no idea. He’s living the brief and glorious life of a hunter-killer pilot. He’s an ace in the air, on his way up through the ranks, in love, and with his family’s every need provided for in thanks for his service, Max has everything…

I couldn’t tell if this was a standalone or the first in a new series. Regardless, t’m quite looking forward to giving this one a try. (Kindle users: it’s only £3.99 on pre-order.)

Upcoming: THE WAKING FIRE by Anthony Ryan (Orbit)

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RyanA-TheWakingFireAbove is the cover for Anthony Ryan’s next novel, the first in a new epic fantasy series — Draconis Memoria (that’s a very fantasy/heavy metal series title…). I quite like it — there’s a similarity to the recently-unveiled cover for Tom Lloyd’s next novel, but only in general positioning of Big Beastie and Puny Human…

I still haven’t read Anthony Ryan’s debut fantasy trilogy, The Raven’s Shadow, for some reason. Maybe I should get on that? Anyway, here’s the synopsis for The Waking Fire:

For decades the lands of the Ironship Syndicate have been defended by the ‘blood blessed’ – men and women able to channel the powers contained in the potent blood of wild drakes. Elite spies and assassins, their loyalty has established the Syndicate’s position as the greatest power in the known world.

Yet now a crisis looms. The drake bloodlines are weakening, and war with the Corvantine Empire seems inevitable. The Syndicate’s only hope of survival lies with the myth of a legendary drake, whose powerful blood might just turn the tide of the war – if it even exists.

The task of hunting down this fabled creature falls to Claydon Torcreek, a petty thief and unregistered blood blessed. He’s handled many valuable things in his time (most of them illegal) but nothing as priceless as his nation’s future.

The Waking Fire is due to be published by Orbit Books in July 2016.

Quick Review: FIFTEEN DOGS by André Alexis (Coach House)

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A marvellous, thought-provoking, and moving novel

— I wonder, said Hermes, what it would be like if animals had human intelligence.

— I’ll wager a year’s servitude, answered Apollo, that animals – any animal you like – would be even more unhappy than humans are, if they were given human intelligence.

And so it begins: a bet between the gods Hermes and Apollo leads them to grant human consciousness and language to a group of dogs overnighting at a Toronto vet­erinary clinic. Suddenly capable of more complex thought, the pack is torn between those who resist the new ways of thinking, preferring the old ‘dog’ ways, and those who embrace the change. The gods watch from above as the dogs venture into their newly unfamiliar world, as they become divided among themselves, as each struggles with new thoughts and feelings. Wily Benjy moves from home to home, Prince becomes a poet, and Majnoun forges a relationship with a kind couple that stops even the Fates in their tracks.

When I first started reading Fifteen Dogs, I was worried I wasn’t going to like it. It took me longer than it should have to realize what Alexis was doing — namely, the fact that the canines in the title, while gifted with human intelligence, were not also gifted with human knowledge. It may seem like a common sense thing, but it’s not something I’ve seen in other novels in which animals are or become anthropomorphized. As a result, the first fifty pages or so were pretty blunt, and the writing didn’t exhibit the lyricism or depth that I’d been led to expect. But after that point… it really started to shine. Continue reading →

Review: ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY by Charlie Jane Anders (Titan/Tor)

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AndersCJ-AllTheBirdsInTheSkyUKOne of the most anticipated novels of the year… fizzles

Patricia is a witch who can communicate with birds. Laurence is a mad scientist and inventor of the two-second time machine. As teenagers they gravitate towards one another, sharing in the horrors of growing up weird.

When they later reconnect as adults, Laurence is an engineering genius living in near-future San Francisco, trying to stop the planet failing apart through technological intervention. Meanwhile, Patricia is a graduate of Eltisley Maze, the hidden academy for the magically gifted, and works with her fellow magicians to secretly repair the earth’s ever growing ailments.

As they each take sides in a cataclysmic war between science and magic, All the Birds in the Sky sees Laurence and Patricia try to make sense of life, sex and adulthood on the brink of the apocalypse.

This novel is perhaps one of the most anticipated of the year — with glowing reviews proliferating around the internet, and praise coming in from such luminaries as Michael Chabon, expectations have been high pretty much since it was announced. Anders writes quite beautifully, at times, and there’s little doubt that she is an author of talent. I know a lot of people who have loved this novel. Unfortunately, however, All the Birds in the Sky failed to ever take off for me. Continue reading →

Mini-Review: KILLCHAIN by Adam Baker (Infected Books)

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BakerA-KillchainWould you complete a mission if the world was collapsing around you?

Elize arrives in Mogadishu with instructions to assassinate a Russian embassy official. She has tactical command of a US kill-team, CIA operatives, rookies and veterans of a dozen war zones. It should be a straightforward hit but her luck is about to run out. She will soon find herself trapped in a city gone to hell, struggling to complete her mission in the face of betrayal, a spreading pandemic and a population hungry for flesh…

Killchain is a short story that takes place in Adam Baker’s post-zombie apocalypse setting, as featured in his superb series that began with Outpost. The world is being overrun by an interstellar virus that turns victims into strange, metallic-mineral-based zombies.

This short story is set in Mogadishu, and focuses on a CIA operation that is unfolding as the outbreak is occurring. It’s a tense, fast-paced tale. Despite the minimal length, though, Baker does a fantastic job of writing three-dimensional, realistic characters — whether the operatives or their coerced local recruits. They are determined to complete their mission, despite the likely irrelevance of the outcome — as they guide an operative to a planned assassination, the neighbourhood in which they’re hiding out is overrun by ravenous zombies…

This is a great, short and tense story. If you’re a fan of Baker’s series, then I would certainly recommend you give this a read. It should hold you over until the next in the series (hopefully) comes out.

*

Killchain is published by Infected Books, as part of their Year of the Zombie initiative.

Baker’s series includes: Outpost, Juggernaut, Terminus, and Impact — all published by Hodder in the UK.

Also on CR: Interview with Adam Baker (2012); Guest Post on “Trauma”; Reviews of Terminus and Impact

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Guest Post: “Looking for God in Melnibone Places : Fantasy and Religion” by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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TchaikovskyA-AuthorPicI ran a workshop at a convention last year on world building. It would be accurate to say that it was a section of a world building workshop I’ve been running for several years, because whenever I set out a bunch of topics, I generally manage about a third of them before we get hung up on something, and the rest never gets touched.

This time round, I dived into social conventions: governments, class systems, and then we hit the brick wall of religion and that is where the discussion firmly stayed.

This recurred to me while editing The Tiger and the Wolf because one of the main ways this series differs from Shadows of the Apt is the spiritual dimension. The insect-kinden of Shadows are aware of the concept of gods but have no truck with the idea. Their attitude to the numinous (those who can even conceive of it) is as something to master and control, not appease or worship. For Tiger I wanted to explore a culture that lived in constant dialogue with the spiritual. The various tribes’ ability to shapeshift is the cornerstone of a religion that, though it finds different expressions in different tribes, links them all together with a common cosmology. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “How to Build a Dragon” by Marc Turner

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TurnerM-AuthorPicIf I asked you to picture a dragon in your mind, what would it look like? It would probably have wings and breathe fire. It might also have scales and a long barbed tail. As for the rest of its body, though, it would just look… well, dragon-y, right?

If a winged and armoured reptile is the basic template for a dragon, its other physical characteristics can vary hugely. When I was younger I did some roleplaying, and my game-world of choice was that of the Dragonlance novels. In those books, you find a real menagerie of dragons. Different breeds come in different colours, and breathe out different things. So, you get the quintessential red fire-breathing dragon, but you also get white frost-breathing dragons and blue lightning-breathing dragons. Those different breeds vary in size and power, and live in different habitats. Continue reading →

Interview with JACEY BEDFORD

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BedfordJ-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Jacey Bedford?

I’m a British writer who qualified as a librarian and then spent twenty years as a full-time folk singer touring the world with vocal trio Artisan. Since the band retired from the road I’ve become a booking agent, fixing music tours for other performers. I work from home and split my time between my music business and my writing. I’ve sold short stories to anthologies and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic. My first two novels for DAW, Empire of Dust and Crossways, both science fiction, came out in 2014 and 2015 respectively and Winterwood, my first historical fantasy, comes out in February 2016. Continue reading →

Interview with CLIFFORD BEAL

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BealC-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Clifford Beal?

I’m a former defence journalist turned PR professional who started writing books on weekends in what was left of my spare time. My first published book, back in 2007, was actually non-fiction 18th century maritime history.

Your next novel, The Guns of Ivrea, will be published by Solaris in February. It looks pretty awesome: How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

It’s an old-school epic fantasy set in a Mediterranean-like world very similar to our own 15th century, but inhabited by not just men and women but also merfolk and a bestiary of mythological creatures. The plot revolves around some interesting characters: A pirate turned admiral, a jaded mercenary, a monk on the run, and an inquisitive mermaid who all find an unlikely common cause as their kingdom slowly drifts towards war. It is the first in a series I’m calling “Tales of Valdur”. Continue reading →

Review: Recent HORUS HERESY Short Fiction

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HorusHeresy-2016eBooks

It’s been a while since I read anything set in Black Library’s ongoing Horus Heresy series — even longer when you just consider novels (I’m now two behind). I’m also having a rather long, frustrating bout of reader’s block. Over the past week or so, BL released a handful of new eBooks, and I thought the familiarity of the series and the slim length of the stories might help knock me back into a reading rhythm. Some of these stories were published before in other formats (as audio-dramas, for example).

Featuring: John French, Graham McNeill, James Swallow, Gav Thorpe, Chris Wraight Continue reading →