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Excerpt: SPACE SHIPS! RAY GUNS! MARTIAN OCTOPODS!, edited by Richard Wolinsky (Tachyon)

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Next month, Tachyon Publications are due to publish Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods!, an Oral History of Science Fiction, comprised of a collection of interviews with authors, originally conducted for the radio. The collection was edited by Richard Wolinsky, and is sure to appeal to aficionados of the genre old and new. The publisher has provided us with the introduction, written by Wolinsky, to share with CR’s readers. Here’s the synopsis:

Today, depictions of aliens, rocket ships, and awe-inspiring, futuristic space operas are everywhere. Why is there so much science fiction, and where did it come from anyway? Radio producer and author Richard Wolinsky has found answers in the Golden Age of science fiction, between 1920 and 1960.

Wolinsky and his fellow writers and co-hosts Richard A. Lupoff and Lawrence Davidson, interviewed a veritable who’s who of famous (and infamous) science-fiction publishers, pulp magazines, editors, cover artists, and fans. The interviews themselves, which aired on the public radio, Probabilities, span over twenty years, from just before the release of Star Wars through the dawn of Y2K.

Probabilities was the home of a vivid cross-section of the early science fiction world, with radio guests offering a wide range of tales, opinions, theory, and gossip. It speaks to how, in the early days, they were free to define science fiction for themselves and push the genre to explore new ideas and new tropes in creative (and sometimes questionable) ways.

Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods! is ultimately a love letter to fandom. Science fiction wouldn’t have survived as a genre if there weren’t devoted fanatics who wrote fanzines, organized conventions, and built relationships for fandom to flourish.

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Excerpt: THE COMING FIRE by Greg Mosse (Moonflower)

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Next week (July 17th), Moonflower Books are due to publish the third book in Greg Mosse‘s Coming Darkness series: The Coming Fire. To mark the release, and give readers a taste, they have provided CR with a short excerpt to share. First, here’s the synopsis:

First came the darkness.
Then the storm.
Now Alex has no choice: it’s time to face the fire.

Following a fighter jet crash in the Haitian hinterland, special agent Alex Lamarque is taken captive by a violent, drug-addled gang, the only authority in this lawless territory.

Unknown to Alex, his lover Mariam Jordane has escaped the deadly flood of her home valley in the Pyrenees. But Mariam, along with Alex’s mother Gloria, is trapped on the wrong side of the world, facing a crescendo of dangers: the AI viruses crippling the digital state; the breakdown of law and order; and unexpected, terrifying news from a Paris observatory.

Four thousand kilometres to the south, in the remote Sahara, the consequences of the cataclysmic events at the Aswan dam continue to reverberate throughout the world.

With the woman he loves presumed dead, his mother in danger, and no hope of rescue, Alex must tackle his greatest challenge yet: break free from the gang, uncover the truth, and finally face the perpetrators of the global conspiracy that’s seemingly hellbent on destroying the world. Can he – and the people he loves – escape the coming fire?

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Excerpt: SMOKE ON THE WIND by Kelli Estes (Lake Union)

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Smoke on the Wind, the latest novel by Kelli Estes, was published recently by Lake Union Publishing. A novel that tells the story of two mothers separated by centuries in Scotland. To mark its release, CR has been given permission to share the first couple of chapters as an excerpt! Before we get to that, though, here’s the synopsis…

Struggling with the tragic end of her marriage, Keaka Denney is on a bittersweet adventure in Scotland with her son, Colin. She’s joining him on a weeklong hike along the West Highland Way before he enters university in Glasgow. Soon into the journey, Keaka’s disquieting visions begin―a woman from ages past reaching for Colin, a burning cottage, violence.

Scotland, 1801. After Sorcha Chisholm and her son are wrenched from their home in a brutal eviction, they face an arduous trek toward a new beginning. When Sorcha learns she’s wanted for a murder she didn’t commit, she and her son run for their lives. Then help arrives from the strangest woman in the most unexpected ways.

Centuries apart, Keaka and Sorcha walk the same path―devoted mothers in circumstances beyond their control who will do anything to keep their sons safe. Defying logic, they find strength in each other. But what does their connection mean? And how far will it go?

And now, on with the excerpt…

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Excerpt: THE UNKILLABLE FRANK LIGHTNING by Josh Rountree (Tachyon)

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Today, we have an excerpt from the next novel by Josh Rountree: The Unkillable Frank Lightning, “a Frankenstein-inspired tale unlike any other”.

The novel is due to be published in a couple of weeks by Tachyon Publications. To mark the occasion, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with our readers. Here’s the synopsis:

Catherine Coldbridge is a complicated woman: a doctor, an occultist, and briefly, a widow. In 1879, her husband, Private Frank Humble, was killed in a Sioux attack. Consumed by grief, Catherine used her formidable skills to resurrect her husband. But after the reanimation, Frank lost his soul, becoming a vicious undead monster. Unable to face her failure or its murderous consequences, Catherine fled to grieve her failure.

Twenty-five years later, Catherine has decided she must make things right. She travels back to Texas with a pair of hired killers ready to destroy Frank. But Frank is no longer a monster; he is once again the kind man she knew. He has remade himself as the Unkillable Frank Lightning, traveling with the Wild West Show, and even taking on a mysterious young ward.

Now Catherine must face a series of moral dilemmas that cannot be resolved without considerable bloodshed.

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Excerpt: SEVENTHBLADE by Tonia Laird (ECW Press)

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Tomorrow, ECW Press is due to publish Seventhblade by Tonia Laird, “a fast-paced, anti-colonial action-adventure fantasy”. Pitched as perfect for fans of N. K. Jemisin and Rebecca Roanhorse, I think it should appeal to a number of CR readers. To mark the publication, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share (Chapter 1). Here’s the synopsis:

After the murder of T’Rayles’s adopted son, the infamous warrior and daughter of the Indigenous Ibinnas returns to the colonized city of Seventhblade ready to tear the streets asunder in search of her son’s killer. T’Rayles must lean into the dangerous power of her inherited sword and ally herself with questionable forces, including the Broken Fangs, an alliance her mother founded, now fallen into greed and corruption, and the immortal Elraiche, a powerful and manipulative deity exiled from a faraway land. Navigating the power shifts in a colonized city on the edge and contending with a deadly new power emerging from within, T’Rayles risks everything to find the answers, and the justice, she so desperately desires.

Loaded with complex characters and intricately staged action, and set in a fragmented, fascinating world of dangerous magics and cryptic gods, Seventhbladeis a masterful new fantasy adventure from a bright emerging Indigenous voice.

And now, on with the excerpt…

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Excerpt: IF WISHES WERE RETAIL by Auston Habershaw (Tachyon)

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If Wishes Were Retail is the debut novel by Auston Habershaw, due to be published in a couple of weeks by Tachyon Publications. It is the story of “an enterprising young woman and a clueless genie just try to make a living”, offering an interesting spin on the genie story. To introduce readers to the characters, we have been provided with an excerpt to share with CR readers. Here’s the synopsis:

A pop-up at the local mall meets Aladdin in this cozy, chaotic, and deeply funny debut novel where an enterprising young woman and a clueless genie just try to make a living.

Alex Delmore needs a miracle. She wants out of her dead-end suburban town, but her parents are broke and NYU seems like a distant dream.

Good thing there’s a genie in town ― and he’s hiring at the Wellspring Mall.

It’d help if the Jinn-formerly-of-the-Ring-of-Khorad knew even one thing about 21st-century America. It’d help if he weren’t at least as stubborn as Alex. It’d really help if her brother didn’t sell her out to her conspiracy theory-loving, gnome-hating dad.

When Alex and the genie set up their wishing kiosk, they face seemingly-endless setbacks. The mall is failing and management will not stop interfering on behalf of their big-box tenants.

But when the wishing biz might start working, the biggest problem of all remains: People are really terrible at wishing.

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Excerpt: GOING HOME IN THE DARK by Dean Koontz (Thomas & Mercer)

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Today we have an excerpt from the latest thriller by best-selling author Dean Koontz: Going Home in the Dark. Due to be published in May, the publisher has let CR share the first chapter. First, though, here’s the synopsis:

When hometown horrors come back to haunt, friendship is salvation in a novel about childhood fears and buried secrets…

As kids, outcasts Rebecca, Bobby, Spencer, and Ernie were inseparable friends in the idyllic town of Maple Grove. Three left to pursue lofty dreams―and achieved them. Only Ernie never left. When he falls into a coma, his three amigos feel an urgent need to return home. Don’t they remember people lapsing into comas back then? And those people always awoke… didn’t they?

After two decades, not a lot has changed in Maple Grove, especially Ernie’s obnoxious, scary mother. But Rebecca, Bobby, and Spencer begin to remember a hulking, murderous figure and weirdness piled on mystery that they were made to forget. As Ernie sinks deeper into darkness, something strange awaits any friend who tries to save him.

For Rebecca, Bobby, and Spencer, time is running out to remember the terrors of the past in a perfect town where nothing is what it seems. For Maple Grove, it’s a chance to have the “four amigos,” as they once called themselves, back in its grasp.

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Excerpt: THE EXCLUSION ZONE by Alexis von Konigslow (Wolsak & Wynn)

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Today we have an excerpt from The Exclusion Zone by Alexis von Konigslow. Due to be published by Wolsak & Wynn, on May 6th. It is a novel that takes a look at the impact of politics on science, and women in science in particular. It has been described as “part ghost story, part literary thriller”, and I am looking forward to giving it a try. Here’s the synopsis:

She would harness fear. And this terrifying place would help her do it.

Renya, a scientist who studies how people react to fear, flees a troubled marriage to conduct research on the scientists working in the “exclusion zone” around Chernobyl. In the eerily silent forests surrounding the research station, she finds more is haunting her than the dangers of radiation exposure. As she gathers data from her colleagues and probes historical records of the Chernobyl disaster, unsettling questions rise to the surface. Who is funding her research? Why are all the scientists’ findings off? And what do those who stalk the ruins of the abandoned city nearby want?

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Excerpt: THE ADVENTURES OF MARY DARLING by Pat Murphy (Tachyon)

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Next month, Tachyon Publications are due to publish The Adventures of Mary Darling by Pat Murphy, a “subversive take on both Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes”. I don’t think I’ve seen anything that attempts to merge those two stories, so this sounds like it could be quite interesting. To introduce readers to the characters, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with our readers. First, here’s the synopsis:

Mary Darling is a pretty wife whose boring husband is befuddled by her independent ways. But one fateful night, Mary becomes the distraught mother whose three children have gone missing from their beds.

After her well-meaning uncle John Watson contacts the greatest detective of his era (but perhaps not that great), Mary is Sherlock Holmes’s prime suspect in her children’s disappearance. To save her family, Mary must escape London — and an attempt to have her locked away as mad — to travel halfway around the world.

Despite the interference of Holmes, Mary gathers allies in her quest: Sam, a Solomon Islander whose village was destroyed by contact with Western civilization; Ruby, a Malagasy woman on an island that everyone thinks is run by pirates (though it’s actually run by women); Captain Hook and the crew of the Jolly Roger; and of course, Nana, the faithful dog and nursemaid.

In a witty and adventurous romp, The Adventures of Mary Darling draws on the histories of women and people indigenous to lands that Britain claimed, telling the stories of those who were ignored or misrepresented along the way.

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Excerpt: ONE LEVEL DOWN by Mary G. Thompson (Tachyon)

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One Level Down is Mary G. Thompson‘s debut novella for adults, which examines identity and autonomy through the lens of technology and more. It due to be published at the beginning of next month, by Tachyon Publications. Today, we have an excerpt for our readers! First, here’s the synopsis:

Trapped in a child’s body, a resourceful woman risks death by deletion from a simulated world…

Ella is the oldest five-year-old in the universe. For fifty-eight years, the founder of a simulated colony-planet has forced her to pretend to be his daughter. Her “Daddy” has absolute power over all elements of reality, which keeps the colonists in line even when their needs are not met. But his failing experiments and despotic need for absolute control are increasingly dangerous.

Ella’s very life depends on her performance as a child. She has watched Daddy delete her stepmother and the loved ones of anyone who helps her.

But every sixty years, a Technician comes from the world above. Ella has been watching and working and biding her time. Because if she cannot make the technician help her, the only solution is a desperate measure that could lead to consequences for the entire universe.

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