Author: Civilian Reader

Excerpt: JAMAICA GINGER AND OTHER CONCOCTIONS by Nalo Hopkinson (Tachyon)

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HopkinsonN-JamaicaGingerUSsmOn October 29th, Tachyon Publications are due to publish the new fiction collection by Nalo Hopkinson: Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions. To celebrate, Tachyon has provided CR with an excerpt share from one of the stories, “Propagation”! Before we get to that, here’s the synopsis for the collection:

Caribbean-Canadian author Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring, The Salt Roads, Falling in Love with Hominids) is an internationally renowned storyteller. This long-awaited new collection of her deeply imaginative short fiction offers striking journeys to far-flung futures and fantastical landscapes. Hopkinson is at the peak of her powers, moving effortlessly between art, folklore, science, and magic.

Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as having “an imagination that most of us would kill for,” Nalo Hopkinson and her Afro-Caribbean, Canadian, and American influences shine in truly unique stories that are gorgeously strange, inventively subversive, and vividly beautiful. In her first stories since 2015, a woman and her cyborg pig eke out a living in a future waterworld; two scientists contemplate the cavernous remains of an alien lifeform; and an artist creates nanotechnology that asserts Blackness where it is least welcome.

The author has also written a short introduction to the story, included below before the story itself.

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Very Quick Review: HAUNT SWEET HOME by Sarah Pinsker (TorDotCom)

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PinskerS-HauntSweetHomeUSHCA novella with an interesting twist on haunting, and an amusing satire on “reality” TV

On the set of a kitschy reality TV show, staged scares transform into unnerving reality…

“Don’t talk to day about what we do at night.”

When aimless twenty-something Mara lands a job as the night-shift production assistant on her cousin’s ghost hunting/home makeover reality TV show Haunt Sweet Home, she quickly determines her new role will require a healthy attitude toward duplicity. But as she hides fog machines in the woods and improvises scares to spook new homeowners, a series of unnerving incidents on set and a creepy new coworker force Mara to confront whether the person she’s truly been deceiving and hiding from all along — is herself.

Eerie and empathetic, Haunt Sweet Home is a multifaceted, supernatural exploration of finding your own way into adulthood, and into yourself.

What if a fake reality show about haunted properties ends up… not so fake? In Sarah Pinsker’s latest novella, a newly-hired production assistant ends up right in the middle of a haunting, while still trying to figure out who she wants to be and what kind of life she wants. It’s an engaging story that feels a little like house-hunting during an episode of Supernatural. I enjoyed this. Continue reading →

New Books (September)

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Featuring: Jonathan D. Beer, Don Bentley, DeMar Derozan, Rachel Kushner, Nick Kyme, Tova Mirvis, Travis Mulhauser, Morgan Richter, Krysten Ritter, James Rollins, Ashley Whitaker, Nussaibah Younis

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Excerpt: CLEVER GIRL by Hannah McGregor (ECW Press)

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McGregorH-CleverGirlCAHCNext month, ECW Press is due to publish the next book in their Pop Classics series, which is a range of “Short books that pack a big punch… intelligent, fun, and accessible arguments about why a particular pop phenomenon matters.” (Looking at the range, I have a feeling I’m going to be reading a few of these.) Hannah McGregor‘s Clever Girl focuses on Jurassic Park — a movie that I saw in theatres when I was only 10yrs old, and a franchise that I’ve followed pretty much ever since. To celebrate the upcoming release, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with you all. First, though, here’s the synopsis:

A smart and incisive exploration of everyone’s favorite dinosaur movie and the female dinosaurs who embody what it means to be angry, monstrous, and free

The Jurassic Park series is one of the most famous and profitable movie franchises of all time — an entire generation of people has never known life without these CGI dinosaurs. The movie spectacle broke film and merchandising records, pioneered special effects, and made Jeff Goldblum into an unlikely sex symbol, and now it has also been re-envisioned as a classic of queer feminist storytelling.

In Clever Girl, Hannah McGregor argues that the female-only dinosaurs of Jurassic Park are stand-ins for monstrous women, engineered by men to be intelligent, violent, and adaptive, and whose chaos resists the systems designed to control them. As they run wild through their prison, a profit-driven theme park, they destroy the men and structures who mistakenly believed in their own colonialist and capitalist power, showing the audience what it means to be angry, monstrous, and free. The velociraptors were not just jump scares for children but also revelatory and predatory symbols of feminist rage. Clever girls, indeed.

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Excerpt: I THINK WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE by Suzy Krause (Radiant Press)

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KrauseS-IThinkWeveBeenHereBeforeCAIn a couple of weeks, Radiant Press is due to publish the latest novel from Suzy Krause, I Think We’ve Been Here Before. To mark the occasion, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with readers. Before we get to it, though, here’s the synopsis…

Marlen and Hilda Jorgensen’s family has received two significant pieces of news: one, Marlen has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Two, a cosmic blast is set to render humanity extinct within a matter of months. It seems the coming Christmas on their Saskatchewan farm will be their last.

Preparing for the inevitable, they navigate the time they have left together. Marlen and Hilda have channeled their energy into improbably prophetic works of art. Hilda’s elderly father receives a longed-for visitor from his past, her sister refuses to believe the world is ending, and her teenaged nephew is missing. All the while, her daughter struggles to find her way home from Berlin with the help of an oddly familiar stranger. For everyone, there’s an unsettling feeling that this unprecedented reality is something they remember.

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Excerpt: THE DARK KING SWALLOWS THE WORLD by Robert G. Penner (Radiant Press)

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PennerRG-DarkKingSwallowsTheWorldIn October, Radiant Press are due to publish The Dark King Swallows the World, the latest novel by Robert G. Penner, a coming-of-age, historical fiction, and fantasy novel. Today, we have an excerpt to share with our readers. Here’s the synopsis:

While isolated and friendless in World War II Cornwall, Nora, a precocious American adolescent, loses her younger half-brother in a car crash. Overwhelmed by grief, Nora’s mother becomes involved with Olaf Winter, the self-professed necromancer Nora believes is responsible for the accident. Desperate to win back her mother’s love from the nefarious Mr. Winter, Nora embarks on an epic journey and is plunged into a world of faeries, giants, and homunculi. Eventually she reaches the land of the dead where she confronts the dark king who rules that realm, attempts to retrieve her half-brother, and heal her mother’s broken heart.

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New Books (August-September)

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Featuring: Rachel Aaron, Tess Gerritsen, Daryl Gregory, Peter Heller, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Matthew Reilly, James Rollins, Brian Slagel & Mark Eglinton, Catherine Steadman, Duane Swierczynski, Bill Zehme & Mike Thomas

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Excerpt: DARKSIDE by Michael Mammay (Harper Voyager)

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MammayM-P4-DarksideUSHCIn a couple of weeks (September 24th), Harper Voyager is due to publish the fourth action-packed installment in the Planetside by Michael Mammay: in Darkside, retired Colonel Carl Butler gears up for another investigation, full of danger, corporate intrigue, and technology that people would kill for. To mark the imminent release, we have an excerpt to share! Here’s the synopsis:

Colonel Butler has paid his dues and just wants to enjoy his retirement on a remote planet. But the galaxy has had other plans.  He has been roped into searching for a politician’s missing son and an industry magnate’s missing daughter. He has been kidnapped, violated numerous laws, and caused the destruction of colonial facilities. He’s famous — or infamous, depending on who you ask — praised and reviled in equal measure across the galaxy for his exploits.

And he is determined to never let the government drag him into another investigation.

But when a runaway twelve-year-old girl whose father has gone missing asks him for help, well… it’s a lot harder to say no.

The girl’s father, Jorge Ramiro, was supposed to have been on Taug, a moon orbiting the gas giant Ridia 5, working on a dig with a famous archaeologist. But now there’s no sign of him and no record of him being there. Mining operations on the moon are run by two different consortiums, Caliber and Omicron — both of which have tried to kill Butler in the past. Butler doesn’t believe in coincidence.

Landing on Taug with his right-hand man Mac, computer genius Ganos, and an elite security squad, Butler soon finds that they’ve charged back into the crosshairs — because Ramiro is not the only who has disappeared, and the perpetual darkside of this moon is hiding more than the truth about a missing archeologist…

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Excerpt: JEKYLL & HYDE: CONSULTING DETECTIVES by Tim Major (Titan Books)

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MajorT-JekyllHyde1-ConsultingDetectivesIn a couple of weeks (September 3rd), Titan Books will publish the latest novel from Tim Major, Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives. With an intriguing premise, this should appeal to fans of classic fiction mash-ups and mystery novels alike. To introduce the character(s) to readers, the publisher has provided us with the first chapter to share with you. First, though, here’s the synopsis:

When Muriel Carew attends a lavish society party, the last person she expects to bump into is her ex-fiancée Henry Jekyll, a man she’s not seen for many years. When Jekyll turns out to be investigating a series of missing persons in London, Muriel is intrigued. But Jekyll is not working alone, and if Muriel wants to aid in the investigation, she must work with both Henry and his partner, the monstrous and uncouth Mr Hyde.

As their search takes a dark turn and a missing persons case becomes a murder investigation, Muriel finds herself deep in a mystery involving a nefarious group exploring their own hidden alter-egos within the beating heart of London’s high society.

To solve the case and bring those responsible to justice, Muriel must find a way to place her trust in Mr Hyde, which might mean uncovering secrets about her own life she never dreamed of discovering.

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Excerpt: TO REIGN IN HELL by Steven Brust (Tor Books)

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BrustS-ToReignInHellUSPB2024Next month, Tor Books is due to release a new Tor Essentials edition of To Reign in Hell by Steven Brust. First published in 1984, the novel is a retelling of Satan’s revolt against Heaven. This new edition, due out on October 15th, features an introduction from Roger Zelazny. The publisher has allowed CR to share the first chapter with our readers. First, here’s the synopsis:

The time is the Beginning. The place is Heaven. The story is the Revolt of the Angels—a war of magic, corruption and intrigue that could destroy the universe.

Heaven is threatened by the reemergence of a cataclysmic event, a wave of energy that can destroy life and result in the loss of many angels. In preparation for this Fourth Wave, the angel Yaweh consults the angel Satan. A plan to build Earth, a new and larger Heaven that would be equipped to withstand the disaster, is constructed. Satan questions the plan because doing so will sacrifice the lives of other angels, much like the Fourth Wave itself threatens to do. Charged with convincing their fellow angels to lay down their lives, Satan has reservations about their right to ask for such a sacrifice. This doubt, and the questioning of ethics, opens the door for a devious figure to manipulate Satan, developing a heavenly war.

This re-examination of Paradise Lost that calls morality and villainy into question through the lens of epic fantasy is a prescient early classic with an enduring legacy and a formative text of the genre.

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