Author: Civilian Reader

Excerpt: CULT OF THE OBSIDIAN MOON by James Lovegrove (Titan Books)

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A little while ago, we shared an excerpt from the first new Conan the Barbarian novel published by Titan Books — City of the Dead by John C. Hocking. Today, we’re sharing another Conan excerpt, this time from the Cimmerian’s next, action-packed adventure: James Lovegrove‘s Cult of the Obsidian Moon. Before we get to the excerpt, here’s the synopsis:

Still mourning Bêlit, Conan attempts to drink away his sorrows. In his tavern-hopping journey he meets and befriends married couple Hunwulf and Gudrun and their son, Bjørn. A decade ago, Hunwulf eloped with Gudrun after killing her betrothed, they live on the run from her tribe, who are desperate for revenge.

Bjørn has the makings of a shaman, while Hunwulf is prone to having strange fits which bring him visions of past and future lives. When a descendant warns Hunwulf of imminent danger, he and his wife ride out to ambush the tribe, leaving Bjørn with Conan, who vows to protect the boy with his life.

Unfortunately, Conan is betrayed by a former accomplice, and Bjørn is kidnapped by the tribe. Conan and Bjørn’s vengeful parents search for the lad. They catch up to the tribe, only to find Bjørn has been taken by murderous bat-winged figures, who fought with talon and sword. The boy, and other “gifted” children have been taken to the Rotlands, a place plagued by a contaminating supernatural force that warps all who go there. To save Bjørn, the trio must go to the heart of the Rotlands, where strange, horrifying fates await at every turn.

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Very Quick Review: 2 DUMB DINOS by Eric Filipkowski & Nathan Hamill (Titan Comics)

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An amusing, odd comics collection

THEY’RE DUMB. THEY’RE DINOS. THERE’S TWO OF THEM!

Welcome to the irreverently silly world of two Dinos with their hooves and claws on the pulse of all things pop-cultury. Referencing everything from BK Joes, to Chinese spy balloons, to missing Top Secret White House documents to the latest Hollywood blockbuster! This collection of the cult digital comic strips, available for the first time ever in book form, is a celebration of the glorious tradition of the American newspaper Funnies immortalized by the likes of Peanuts, The Far Side, Pearls Before Swine and Wizard of Id but skewered by the humor of South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants and Drunk History.

It’s an affectionate and downright silly slice of American pie with a side order of Dino guano thrown in for free!

I’ve become a big fan of many online comic strips — the medium (especially Instagram) seems to really suit the panel structure. Favourites include Lucas Turnbloom’s How to Cat and Poorly Drawn Lines. I had seen a few of Filipkowski & Hamill’s 2 Dumb Dinos, but hadn’t really dug into the strip in any depth. Then the publisher offered this for review, and I happily dove in. Continue reading →

Excerpt: WHEN WE CHASED THE LIGHT by Emily Meeker (Lake Union)

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Tomorrow, Lake Union is due to publish the latest novel by Emily Beeker: When We Chased the Light. A new novel set in Golden Age Hollywood, here’s the synopsis:

A Hollywood legend. A legacy of secrets. An epic and emotional novel about forgiveness, fame, family, and truly unconditional love by the bestselling author of When We Were Enemies.

Christie’s auction house, Beverly Hills. The effects of Hollywood icon Vivian Snow are up for bid. In the collection is a set of hand-drawn postcards spanning six decades. The sender is Antonio Trombello, a soldier, POW, priest, and Vivian’s confidant. Each postcard sheds new light on a deeply private woman the public only thinks it knows.

It’s World War II. Vivian is a USO showgirl traveling the world when her husband goes AWOL, disappears, and is presumed dead. Facing increasing suspicion, she leans on her dear friend Father Trombello for support. He’s her confessor, her savior, the elusive love of her life, and when it comes to her husband’s death, the keeper of Vivian’s secrets.

As Vivian rises from canteen dream girl to starlet to bona fide legend, she navigates the highs and lows of Hollywood, new romances, and tumultuous family relationships ― all in the shadow of her past and the guilt, unmet longing, and buried truths that could still upend the lives of everyone she loves.

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New Books (September-October)

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Featuring: Joe Abercrombie, Jonathan Ames, Steve Cavanaugh, Marc Collins, Pip Drysdale, Kate Fagan, Snorri Kristjánsson, J. Robert Lennon, Arkady Martine, Ray Nayler, James Rickards, Olivia Waite

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Quick Review: MURDER BY MEMORY by Olivia Whaite (TorDotCom)

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An intriguing, cozy mystery… in space!

A mind is a terrible thing to erase…

Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty’s most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.

Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers — just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.

Dorothy suspects her misfortune is partly the fault of her feckless nephew Ruthie who, despite his brilliance as a programmer, leaves chaos in his cheerful wake. Or perhaps the sultry yarn store proprietor — and ex-girlfriend of the body Dorothy is currently inhabiting — knows more than she’s letting on. Whatever it is, Dorothy intends to solve this case. Because someone has done the impossible and found a way to make murder on the Fairweather a very permanent state indeed. A mastermind may be at work — and if so, they’ve had three hundred years to perfect their schemes…

Murder by Memory is an interesting, quirky mystery set on a luxurious interstellar passenger liner. After a slightly strange start, I quickly found myself drawn into the story, and rather enjoyed it. Continue reading →

Quick Review: THE SAVAGE, NOBLE DEATH OF BABS DIONNE by Ron Currie (G. P. Putnam’s Sons)

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A fantastic tale of identity, crime, and the long tail of violence

Your ancestors breathe through you. Sometimes, they call for vengeance.

Babs Dionne, proud Franco-American, doting grandmother, and vicious crime matriarch, rules her small town of Waterville, Maine, with an iron fist. She controls the flow of drugs into Little Canada with the help of her loyal lieutenants, girlfriends since they were teenagers, and her eldest daughter, Lori, a Marine vet struggling with addiction.

When a drug kingpin discovers that his numbers are down in the upper northeast, he sends a malevolent force, known only as The Man, to investigate. At the same time, Babs’s youngest daughter, Sis, has gone missing, which doesn’t seem at all like a coincidence. In twenty-four hours, Sis will be found dead, and the whole town will seek shelter from Babs’s wrath.

This is the first novel by Ron Currie that I’ve read. It is at once the story of the Dionne family, and simultaneously an examination of the long tail of violence that can change individuals and communities. Currie’s prose quickly hooked me, and the story kept me reading well into the night. This is a really, really good novel. Continue reading →

Quick Review: THE SUMMER GUESTS by Tess Gerritsen (Thomas & Mercer/Penguin)

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GerritsenT-MC2-SummerGuestsUSHCThe excellent second novel in the Martini Club series

When former spy Maggie Bird retired to the seaside hamlet of Purity, Maine, she settled in for a quiet life with breathtaking views. But enemies from her past soon threatened to destroy everything.

Maggie survived, thanks to her wits and the collective intelligence of the Martini Club, the circle of ex-CIA friends in her cocktail-sipping book club. Their handiwork, however, caught the attention of young police chief Jo Thibodeau. Now Jo and her neighborhood ex-spies have an uneasy alliance.

After a teenager vanishes ― and Maggie’s neighbor becomes the prime suspect ― she joins the investigation, determined to prove her friend’s innocence. But the girl’s wealthy family pushes for an arrest. And when authorities discover a long-dead corpse in a nearby pond, the case becomes doubly complicated, with unthinkable ties to long-buried secrets.

As Jo grapples with two unexplained mysteries, the Martini Club races to uncover the truth behind shadowy secrets… before more lives are lost.

The Spy Coast, Gerritsen’s first novel featuring the Martini Club, was the first of the author’s novels that I read and it quickly hooked me, and ever since finishing it I’ve been eagerly anticipating the sequel. While it isn’t published until March 2025, I was lucky to receive a DRC of The Summer Guests, which I started right away, and blitzed through — I’m very happy to report that it’s an excellent continuation of the series! Continue reading →

Excerpt: SHADOW OF THE ENDLESS by Stephen Gaskell (Titan)

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In a couple of weeks, Titan Books is due to publish the latest novel by Stephen Gaskell — a brand new novel tying into the acclaimed Endless franchise: Shadow of the Endless. The novel is pitched as “Perfect for fans of the Endless series as well as readers of space opera and YA science fiction.” Here’s the synopsis:

While her starring people are being hunted by an implacable enemy, a young caver discovers a traitor in their ranks and must undertake a transformative journey across the galaxy to save everything she has ever known.

Persecuted for their worship of the Endless ― an ancient, galactic-spanning race of god-like power, who disappeared long ago ― the Pilgrims escaped the world of Raia almost a century ago, fleeing the despotic rule of the United Empire in a dozen space-faring fleets. The Pilgrims of the Horizon of Light fleet have spent two long years being hunted by an especially determined Empire foe. Now though, it appears they’ve finally caught a break, laying low on a non-descript comet that’s hurtling into deep space.

Young Pilgrim Sewa Eze wants to become a caver―and head into the depths on deserted moons, asteroids, and worlds to secure whatever the fleet needs: precious resources, Endless relics, even Dust. However, a strange device is discovered deep in the ice of the comet they shelter on ― suggesting dark forces are afoot ― and Sewa is instead selected for a leadership role at the Ceremony of Duties and must reassess her life, beginning with finding the traitor in their ranks who threatens her entire fleet’s existence.

The course of Sewa’s life changes forever as she is forced to confront treachery, discover the secrets of the ancient past and travel to the very heart of the tyrannical United Empire.

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Excerpt: TINY TIME MACHINE by John E. Stith

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Today, we have an excerpt from John E. Stith’s Tiny Time Machine, which collects the author’s trilogy of the same name. It’s a sci-fi adventure for younger readers. To mark the occasion, we have an excerpt from the book. First, though, here’s the synopsis:

When Meg’s mother died in a hospital mishap, her scientist father set out on an obsessed journey to develop a tiny time machine to save her. He became so angry that he and Meg have rarely spoken since the death of her mother.

Now a loner preoccupied with combating polluters, Meg meets Josh at a break-in at a paint company in efforts to expose their practices when they suddenly find themselves on the run from the cops. Meg heads for the one man who should always take her in — her father.  But when they reach him, they find him dying before he can perfect his device.

It’s all up to Meg and Josh to fix a disaster set to render the Earth uninhabitable, dive back into the past to rescue Mom and Dad, and overcome an adversary who wants the Tiny Time Machine for his own purposes. Can they succeed?

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Excerpt: WE OUGHTA KNOW by Andrea Warner (ECW Press)

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WarnerA-WeOughtaKnowCAHCOn October 15th, ECW Press is due to publish We Oughta Know by Andrea Warner. The book is an essay collection that examines “How Céline, Shania, Alanis, and Sarah Ruled the ’90s and Changed Music”. To mark the book’s publication, the publisher has allowed CR to share the Introduction. Before we get to the excerpt, though, here is the synopsis:

A lively collection of essays that re-examines the extraordinary legacies of the four Canadian women who dominated ’90s music and changed the industry forever

Fully revised and updated, with a foreword by Vivek Shraya

In this of-the-moment essay collection, celebrated music journalist Andrea Warner explores the ways in which Céline Dion, Shania Twain, Alanis Morissette, and Sarah McLachlan became legit global superstars and revolutionized ’90s music. In an era when male-fronted musical acts were given magazine covers, Grammys and Junos, and serious critical consideration, these four women were reduced, mocked, and disparaged by the media and became pop culture jokes even as their recordings were demolishing sales records. The world is now reconsidering the treatment and reputations of key women in ’90s entertainment, and We Oughta Know is a crucial part of that conversation.

With empathy, humor, and reflections on her own teenaged perceptions of Céline, Shania, Alanis, and Sarah, Warner offers us a new perspective on the music and legacies of the four Canadian women who dominated the ’90s airwaves and influenced an entire generation of current-day popstars with their voices, fashion, and advocacy.

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