Author: Civilian Reader

Upcoming: A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRE UPRISING by Raymond A. Villareal (Mulholland)

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VillarealRA-APeoplesHistoryOfTheVampireUprisingUSStumbled across this on Hachette’s website the other day, and thought it sounded really interesting. A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising will be published by Mulholland Books in North America and in the UK, in June 2018. It looks like something rather unusual for Mulholland, venturing as it does into the horror/urban fantasy sandbox. Here’s the synopsis:

A virus that turns people into something somehow more than human quickly sweeps the world, upending society as we know it.

This panoramic thriller begins with one small mystery. The body of a young woman found in an Arizona border town, presumed to be an illegal immigrant, walks out of the town morgue. To the young CDC investigator called in to consult the local police, it’s a bizarre medical mystery.

More bodies, dead of a mysterious disease that solidifies their blood, are brought to the morgue, and disappear. In a futile game of catch-up, the CDC, the FBI, and the US government must come to terms with what they’re too late to stop: an epidemic of vampirism that will sweep first the United States, and then the world.

Impossibly strong, smart, poised, beautiful, and commanding, these vampires reject the term as derogatory, preferring the euphemistic “gloamings.” They quickly rise to prominence in all aspects of modern society: sports, entertainment, and business. Soon people are begging to be ‘re-created,’ willing to accept the risk of death if their bodies can’t handle the transformation. The stakes change yet again when a charismatic and wealthy businessman, recently turned, decides to do what none of his kind has done before: run for political office.

This sweeping yet deeply intimate fictional oral history — told from the perspectives of several players on all sides of the titular vampire uprising — is a genre-bending, shocking, immersive and subversive debut that is as addictive as the power it describes.

The novel has already been optioned by Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen of 21 Laps, the production company Arrival and Stranger Things.

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Interview with CATHERINE CERVENY

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CervenyC-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Catherine Cerveny?

I am a total nerd fan-girl on the inside, but seem like a straight-laced conservative on the outside. I have degrees in English and History, and a Master of Library and Information Science — a professional shusher — but currently work in logistics and transportation, where I use math and science every day. I didn’t see that one coming. I love to read and have a “To Be Read” mountain of books large enough to ski down and potentially hurt myself if I fell at the bottom. I love traveling and try to go on at least one amazing trip a year, if possible. I am also married to someone who generally tolerates and indulges my quirkiness fairly well. Continue reading →

Interview with GERALD BRANDT

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BrandtG-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Gerald Brandt?

You sure don’t start with the easy questions, do you? Chances are you’d get different answer if you asked this on a Tuesday than if you asked on a Friday. I guess I’m a dad first and foremost. I’m quite surprised at how much my kids, not necessarily define me, but make me who I am. After that I’m an author, and last on the list I’m a computer guy. Hey, it’s a living. I rock climb, I ride motorcycles, and I walk the dog every morning.

Your new novel, The Rebel, is due to be published by DAW in November. It’s the third novel in your San Angeles series, and looks rather cool. How would you introduce the series to a potential reader, and what can fans of the first two novels expect from this latest installment?

Everyone likes to say their book is “X meets Y”, like “Bladerunner meets Snow Crash.” I tend not to do that. I describe the San Angeles series as eighty percent thriller and twenty percent science fiction, with a pace that will leave you breathless (I hope). It’s got assassins that will stop at nothing to get the job done, corporations that are as huge as they are corrupt, massive sections of land taken over by cities that reach up to seven levels high. And, in the midst of it all, a motorcycle courier that has seen too much to be left alone. Continue reading →

New Books (October)

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Featuring: David Annandale, Asa Avdic, Myke Cole, Jeffrey Cranor, Tom Doyle, Karen Ellis, Spencer Ellsworth, Joseph Fink, James Alan Gardner, Kevin Hearne, Mike Lawson, Paul McAuley, Seanan McGuire, Adam O’Riordan, K.J. Parker (x3), C.L. Polk, Gareth L. Powell, Jane Robins, Paul M. Sammon, John Sandford, Christine Schutt, Jon Skovron, E.J. Swift, K.B. Wagers, Bill Willingham, Christopher J. Yates, Liz Ziemska

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Interview with CHRIS BROOKMYRE

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BrookmyreC-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Chris Brookmyre?

I am a writer from Glasgow, Scotland, author of twenty-one novels, eighteen of them crime thrillers. My novel Black Widow won the 2016 McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and in 2017 was named Theakstons Old Peculier British Crime Novel of the Year. As well as writing books, I collaborated with videogame developers RedBedlam to adapt my 2013 novel Bedlam into a first-person shooter that was released in 2015 on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

Your latest novel, Places in the Darkness, has recently been published by Orbit. It looks really interesting: How would you introduce it to a potential reader?

It is a thriller in the tradition of the great Shane Black movies like Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, about two mismatched investigators forced to work together, but with two major differences. One is that the buddy cop duo are both women, and the second is that the whole thing takes place aboard the Ciudad de Cielo (City in the Sky), a space station where 300,000 people live and work developing what would be the Earth’s first interstellar craft. It is a place where ambitious scientists and engineers go to work on cutting edge technology, but also where many people go to escape the things that went wrong in their lives back on Earth. The city’s private police force boasts that there has never been a murder aboard (though they do have a liberal interpretation of what constitutes an accidental death), but that changes when a dismembered body is found floating in zero-gravity. Continue reading →

Interview with JAMES ALAN GARDNER

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GardnerJA-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is James Alan Gardner?

I’m a Canadian writer and editor who’s written nine novels and numerous short stories. I’ve won the Asimov’s Readers Choice award (twice) and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, as well as being a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula. I have two degrees in Math, half a degree in Geology, and a second-degree black sash in kung fu.

Your new novel, the fantastically-titled All those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault, will be published by Tor Books. It looks rather fun: How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

It’s Book 1 of a series that takes place in modern times on an alternate version of Earth. In this world, vampires, were-beasts and demons came out of the closet in 1982; they offered to make anyone a Darkling like themselves in exchange for 10 million dollars. Within a few decades, most of the world’s rich and powerful had become Darklings.

Then superheroes showed up. They’re everyday people, members of the 99% who serve as a counterbalance to the supernatural power of the affluent 1%. The action of the book follows four university students who gain superpowers in a laboratory accident and find themselves entangled in Darkling shenanigans. Continue reading →

Interview with DAVID DALGLISH

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DalglishD-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is David Dalglish?

I’m a somewhat nerdy guy who grew up playing way too many video games, writing custom D&D campaigns, and re-reading Salvatore’s Dark Elf Trilogy an unhealthy number of times. Now I’m a dad of three, still just as nerdy, and still playing way too many games.

Orbit Books has recently published the final book in your Seraphim trilogy, Shadowborn. How would you introduce the series to a potential new reader, and what can fans of the first two books expect from the finale?

The apocalypse happened, and hundreds of years later, the tiny remnant of humanity lives on floating islands above an endless ocean, while above, the sky burns nightly with fire. Using prisms possessing magical powers, the elite of these islands fly about in fanciful gold and silver wings throwing fireballs and blasts of lightning at one another, until the prisms run out and they close in for mid-air sword fights. Continue reading →

Excerpt: ONE THOUSAND MONSTERS by Kim Newman (Titan)

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NewmanK-AD-OneThousandMonstersToday, we have an excerpt from Kim Newman‘s fifth Anno Dracula novel, One Thousand Monsters. Published by Titan Books, here’s the synopsis:

From London to Tokyo…

In 1899 Geneviève Dieudonné travels to Japan with a group of vampires exiled from Great Britain by Prince Dracula. They are allowed to settle in Yōkai Town, the district of Tokyo set aside for Japan’s own vampires, an altogether strange and less human breed than the nosferatu of Europe. Yet it is not the sanctuary they had hoped for, as a vicious murderer sets vampire against vampire, and Yōkai Town is revealed to be more a prison than a refuge. Geneviève and her undead comrades will be forced to face new enemies and the horrors hidden within the Temple of One Thousand Monsters…

Now, read on for the extract!

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Excerpt: THE DYING GAME by Åsa Avdic (Windmill/Penguin)

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AvdicA-DyingGameUKToday, we have an excerpt from a novel I’m really looking forward to reading: Åsa Avdic‘s The Dying Game. Published in the UK by Windmill Books, here’s the synopsis:

‘Oh, it’s really quite simple. I want you to play dead.’

On the remote island of Isola, seven people have been selected to compete in a 48-hour test for a top-secret intelligence position. One of them is Anna Francis, a workaholic with a nine-year-old daughter she rarely sees, and a secret that haunts her. Her assignment is to stage her own death and then observe, from her hiding place inside the walls of the house, how the other candidates react to the news that a murderer is among them. Who will take control? Who will crack under pressure?

But as soon as Anna steps on to the island she realises something isn’t quite right. And then a storm rolls in, the power goes out, and the real game begins…

The Dying Game is out now, published in the UK by Windmill Books, and in North America by Penguin. Now, on with the excerpt!

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