Author: Civilian Reader

Excerpt: MOON OVER BRENDLE by Jeff Noon (Angry Robot Books)

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A couple of weeks ago, Angry Robot Books published the latest magical contemporary fantasy novel from Jeff Noon: Moon Over Brendle. Already very well-received, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with our readers (in case you need any more convincing to give it a read). Before we get to that, though, here’s the synopsis:

The Dust tells the story…

1968, Lancashire: It is Joe Sutter’s last summer before going to secondary school. His world is like ours but beyond and beside what we know is Greot; a vast swirling rainbow of many-coloured dust. It settles on the dead, it swathes cities and fields. Joe is one of the few who have the gift of always being able to see it. But no one knows what Greot is. Is it the trillion-eyed god? The history of everything told grain-by-grain? Prophecy? The magic of creativity?

Joe can’t know; all he wants to do is draw comics and listen to music. Then one day, after climbing up to the ancient tower on Brendle hill, he meets an old writer of pulp SF books who is determined to pass on the power and joy of telling stories. And everything changes.

Decades later Joe is a successful SF novelist, and the time has come to tell his story, not only of how he became a writer but also how the secrets of the dust were revealed to him, one grain at a time.

And now, on with the excerpt…

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Upcoming: THE PORCELAIN SISTERS by Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)

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I’ve been a fan of Daryl Gregory‘s books for quite some time, now. I believe the first novel by him that I read was Afterparty, which was partially set in the first neighbourhood in Toronto I got to know. Ever since, I’ve been a keen reader of his new novels and short stories — each has been engaging, original, and offers imaginative twists on new and classic SFF ideas and tropes. In October, Tachyon Publications are due to publish his latest speculative mystery: The Porcelain Sisters. Check out the synopsis:

A shy young woman and her deeply unpleasant—and literally porcelain—sister fight for their inheritance, taking on an impossible array of enemies, including a chain-smoking demon crow, an unkillable assassin, and a secret clan of French sorceresses.

Ruth Winslow is trying to save up enough money to finish college while looking after her sister, Isabel―who happens to be a haunted doll. When an accident severely damages Isabel’s porcelain body, the sisters have to find the only woman who can fix her, the fearsome witch known as La Fabricante: the Dollmaker.

The sisters head to Marseille, where they take on Le Clan: Chiffon, a red-headed, unkillable assassin; a collection of angry, haunted dolls; plus a pair of demons―one a cigarette-smoking crow, the other a black cat―and their human familiars.

Along the way, the sisters learn that they’ve been lied to their entire lives. Their mother wasn’t just a homemaker who died in a car accident, she was a legendary enforcer in the Le Clan des Sorcières.

While Ruth has to come out of her shell and deal with her own latent powers, Isabel has to grow up in a body that can’t grow. Together they’ll have to outwit and outfight everyone to claim their birthright.

I’m really looking forward to this!

Daryl Gregory’s The Porcelain Sisters is due to be published by Tachyon Publications, on October 26th.

Also on CR: Interview with Daryl Gregory (2017); Review of The Album of Dr. Moreau

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

Excerpt: THE REDEMPTION CENTER IS CLOSED ON SUNDAYS by Andrea Hairston (Tor Books)

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Today, we have an excerpt from Andrea Hairston‘s upcoming new novel, The Redemption Center is Closed on Sundays. An interesting take on the mystery genre, featuring a canine detective, sci-fi elements, and more; here’s the synopsis:

In the Heart of Mystery Lies Redemption…

Every Sunday, Oona the St. Berdoodle and her current owner, Zsuzsu, make their way through the winding paths of the State Park to the enigmatic Redemption Center—a place often mistaken for a haunted mansion.

When a local celebrity is found murdered, the unexpected brings Oona together with a rag-tag group of local misfits. Together they venture into the depths of the Center’s mystery to untangle the threads of murder and deception.

But Oona holds two secrets: she’s a citizen of the multiverse, able to travel between dimensions at will, and more importantly, she knows the killer’s identity. Unfortunately, the killer knows she knows, and he’s determined to find her and silence her for good.

An extra-dimensional murder mystery with conundrums, alien tricksters, and a dog detective who just doesn’t know the meaning of “stay”.

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Upcoming: THE SENSUALIST by Gary Shteyngart (Random House)

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I’ve been reading Gary Shteyngart‘s journalism for quite some time. This has not, strangely, translated into me reading much of his fiction… Weird. In 2024, The Atlantic published the author’s amusing feature “Crying Myself to Sleep on the icon of the Seas”, which went a little bit viral — it’s a well-written, amusing piece. It looks like this article, and others, will be collected in Shteyngart’s first essay collection, The Sensualist, which is due to be published by Random House in November. Here’s the synopsis:

In The Sensualist, Gary chases capybaras, the world’s largest (and cutest) rodent. He joins 7500 fellow passengers on the earth’s biggest cruise ship. He schleps around New York City in search of the best martini. He visits wool merchants and tailors in pursuit of the perfect blue suit.

To Gary, a sensualist believes the details of one’s life are always worth savoring and happiness can be found from looking around. A sensualist isn’t a glutton or an aesthete (and certainly not a snob), but someone who embraces the sublime—and the absurd. In The Sensualist Gary takes us across town and across the world, showing us how to appreciate.

Gary Shteyngart’s The Sensualist is due to be published by Random House in North America and in the UK, on November 10th.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

Upcoming: LIFE OF M by Rachel Cusk (FSG / Faber)

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Yesterday, I spotted Life of M on NetGalley. It’s the next novel by Rachel Cusk, the acclaimed, best-selling author of the Outline Trilogy and many others. I haven’t actually read anything by Cusk (not actually sure why), but the synopsis for this next book caught my attention. I’ve popped it on my anticipated list, and I’m really looking forward to reading it. Here’s the synopsis:

M is a famous actor. She has been famous since she was a child. With such fame, her life has the appearance of freedom: people are instantly obliging, spaces are altered to accommodate her, time can be rearranged. Over time she has grown so accustomed to being recognized that not to be recognized comes as a rare surprise.

This might be why she agrees to let a stranger write her biography, a stranger who knows nothing of M and yet resembles her uncannily. The project they embark upon together sprawls and expands, to the olive groves and holiday beaches where M spends her days, across hotel rooms and bourgeois facades and film sets, through the endless modern cities whose beauty requires great suffering, whose ugliness holds great beauty.

Out of the bewildering torrent of the present, Rachel Cusk has fashioned a new kind of literature. What begins with a collision between two people — M, and the ordinary stranger who begins to tell her story — evolves into a chronicle of modern life, a choral investigation into how we might find what is significant within the wreck of the ordinary. This is a novel stripped of artifice, that takes our emptiness and fills it with grace. It is a shocking achievement.

Rachel Cusk’s Life of M is due to be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in North America (August 25th) and Faber & Faber in the UK (August 28th).

Follow the Author: Goodreads

Upcoming: 138 MAIN STREET by Gavin Bell (Gallery/Scout, Simon & Schuster)

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Next month, Gallery/Scout Press is due to publish 138 Main Street by Gavin Bell. I just found out today that Gavin Bell is the real name of the author Mason Cross, whose Carter Blake series is one of my favourites. He has also written two novels as Alex Knight (although, I inexplicably haven’t had a chance to read those, yet, despite owning them).

I was particularly drawn to the intriguing, original premise; so, combined with how much I’ve enjoyed the author’s previous books, this naturally became one of my (suddenly) most-anticipated novels of the year. Here’s the synopsis…

AN ADDRESS TO DIE FOR…

There’s a killer on the loose. And he’s targeting one specific address—138 Main Street. The problem? There are over 7,000 Main Streets in the USA. And the police and FBI have no clue which one will be next.

For FBI Special Agent Ben Walker and his rookie colleague, Officer Zoe Hill, the pressure to solve the case is unimaginable. There aren’t enough police officers to cover every house, and vigilante residents are attacking anyone who rings their doorbell. Main Street might be one of America’s most popular addresses, but for those living at number 138, it comes down to fight or flight.

Then a manuscript is sent to the New York Times, purporting to be the manifesto of the “Main Street Killer” and demanding radical social change. As the effect of the terror campaign takes hold across the nation, Walker and Hill find themselves in a race against time to stop the killer. But with their target always several steps ahead, and almost 3,800,000 square miles of ground to cover, they’ll have to find him first…

Gavin Bell’s 138 Main Street is due to be published by Gallery/Scout Press in North America, on June 2nd. UK readers, however, are in luck: it was published today, by Simon & Schuster.

Also on CR: Reviews of The Killing Season, The Samaritan, The Time to Kill/Winterlong, and Don’t Look For Me

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, BlueSky

Excerpt: GREEN CITY WARS by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor Books)

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This summer, Tor Books will publish Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky. A fantastical spin on the noir detective genre — “Philip Marlowe meets Redwall” — this has been on my must-read list ever since I read the synopsis. Luckily, I do have a review copy, which I’ll be reading very soon. In the meantime, the publisher has allowed CR to share a substantial excerpt!

Here’s the synopsis:

In the solar cities of the future, the humans relax in the sun and the animals work in the shadows. Genetically engineered Little Helpers, serving humanity—unseen, unheard.

Meet Skotch. Raccoon, PI—yours for a few buttons as long as the job isn’t too illegal, whatever that means.

A mouse has gone missing. Normally this wouldn’t raise any hackles, nor any alarms, but this mouse has something that everyone seems to want, though nobody appears particularly eager to say what that something is.

The fee is good—perhaps too good. Certainly not something Skotch can easily turn down.

If only Skotch can work out where the mouse is hiding, what he’s hiding, and why his secrets are upsetting a lot of animals caught up in the Green City wars.

And now, on with the excerpt!

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New Books (April)

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A nice mix of non-fiction and fiction.

Featuring: Christopher Buehlman, D.K. Furutani, Luke Goebel, Gareth Hanrahan, Jordan Harper, Patrick Radden Keefe, Barbara J. Keys, John Lanchester, Jill Lepore, Roshan Sethi, Walter Stahr, David Thomson

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Very Quick Review: DARK WIRE by Joseph Cox (PublicAffairs)

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The engaging, fascinating story about the largest sting operation in history

In 2018, a powerful app for secure communications called Anom took root among organized criminals. They believed Anom allowed them to conduct business in the shadows. Except for one thing: It was secretly run by the FBI.

Backdoor access to Anom and a series of related investigations granted American, Australian, and European authorities a front-row seat to the underworld. Tens of thousands of criminals worldwide appeared in full view of the same agents they were trying to evade. International smugglers, money launderers, hitmen: a sprawling illicit global economy as efficient and interconnected as the legal one. Officers watched drug shipments and murder plots unfold, making arrests without blowing their cover.

Featuring a new epilogue with crucial updates to the case, Dark Wire reveals the true scale and stakes of this unprecedented operation through the agents and criminals who were there. This is a fly-on-the-wall thriller for the modern world, where no one can be sure who is watching.

I first learned about this book via the Wicked Words podcast: my partner sent me the link to the episode with “I think you’ll find this really interesting.” She was right, and I went out and bought the book. I’m happy to say that the book definitely lived up to my expectations. This is a must-read for anyone interested in true crime and politics. Continue reading →

Excerpt: NOT ALL DRAGONS by David Ly (Poplar Press)

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On May 19th, Poplar Press are due to publish Not All Dragons by David Ly. It’s a debut fantasy novel that offers a new take on the myth of dragons, and the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with our readers. First, though, here’s the synopsis:

What is it that you are, Rhys?

In a land of magic and myth, Rhys awakens on the shore of Lanilia with mysterious wounds on his back and no memory of his life before. Disoriented, he stumbles on the Mernese estuary protected by the mermaid Delia, who is quickly intrigued by this male who doesn’t smell like any Lanilian she’s ever met and who is unable to answer questions about himself.

Determined to figure out his past, Rhys convinces Delia to help, and begins a dangerous journey to discover who he is, or was, and who he might become as they hunt for the truth beneath story and prophecy.

And now, on to the excerpt, which is the Prologue.

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