Quick Review: BLACKWING by Ed McDonald (Gollancz/Ace)

August 10, 2017 Civilian Reader Uncategorized Ace Books, Blackwing, Ed McDonald, Fantasy, Gollancz, Grimdark, Most Anticipated 2017, Raven's Mark Series

A promising debut grimdark fantasy

You think you know Misery? You’ve not seen anything yet…

The republic faces annihilation, despite the vigilance of Galharrow’s Blackwings. When a raven tattoo rips itself from his arm to deliver a desperate message, Galharrow and a mysterious noblewoman must investigate a long dead sorcerer’s legacy. But there is a conspiracy within the citadel: traitors, flesh-eaters and the ghosts of the wastelands seek to destroy them, but if they cannot solve the ancient wizard’s paradox, the Deep Kings will walk the earth again, and all will be lost.

The war with the Eastern Empire ended in stalemate some eighty years ago, thanks to Nall’s ‘Engine’, a wizard-crafted weapon so powerful even the Deep Kings feared it. The strike of the Engine created the Misery — a wasteland full of ghosts and corrupted magic that now forms a No Mans Land along the frontier. But when Galharrow investigates a frontier fortress, he discovers complacency bordering on treason: then the walls are stormed, and the Engine fails to launch. Galharrow only escapes because of the preternatural magical power of the noblewoman he was supposed to be protecting. Together, they race to the capital to unmask the traitors and restore the republic’s defences. Far across the Misery a vast army is on the move, as the Empire prepares to call the republic’s bluff.

Blackwing is one of the most hotly-anticipated debut fantasy novels of the year. Social media and the blogosphere have been filled with glowing reviews, squees and other evidence that suggests the hype has been entirely justified. There’s a lot in here that will certainly appeal to plenty of fantasy fans. However, I ultimately came away from this novel underwhelmed. Continue reading →

SDCC: New JUSTICE LEAGUE teaser trailer

July 22, 2017 Civilian Reader Uncategorized Aquaman, Batman, Comics, Cyborg, DC Comics, Flash, Justice League, Most Anticipated 2017, Movies, Warner Bros, Wonder Woman

Save for the superb Wonder Woman movie, DC’s cinematic output hasn’t been too well received. I’ve quite enjoyed each of the movies (though, I still haven’t seen Suicide Squad), and so I’m very much looking forward to Justice League. Warner Bros. has just unveiled a teaser trailer at San Diego ComicCon, featuring a lot of Steppenwolf, some parademons, and of course the League. Here it is:

Justice League should hit theatres in November 2017. During SDCC, a new poster was also unveiled, and I couldn’t agree more with io9, it really does look like an Alex Ross painting brought to life:

The new Justice League poster is basically an Alex Ross painting brought to life: https://t.co/3Qb7VRHl4W pic.twitter.com/8WBlpm4RmV

— io9 (@io9) July 22, 2017

Review: BORN TO RUN by Bruce Springsteen (Simon & Schuster)

June 19, 2017 Civilian Reader Uncategorized Audible, Audiobook, Biogrpahy, Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen, Memoir, Most Anticipated 2017, Music, Non-Fiction, Simon & Schuster

An interesting, if not-particularly-revelatory memoir from the Boss

In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl’s halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That’s how this extraordinary autobiography began.

Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to these pages the same honesty, humor, and originality found in his songs.

He describes growing up Catholic in Freehold, New Jersey, amid the poetry, danger, and darkness that fueled his imagination, leading up to the moment he refers to as “The Big Bang”: seeing Elvis Presley’s debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. He vividly recounts his relentless drive to become a musician, his early days as a bar band king in Asbury Park, and the rise of the E Street Band. With disarming candor, he also tells for the first time the story of the personal struggles that inspired his best work and shows us why the song “Born to Run” reveals more than we previously realized.

Born to Run will be revelatory for anyone who has ever enjoyed Bruce Springsteen, but this book is much more than a legendary rock star’s memoir. This is a book for workers and dreamers, parents and children, lovers and loners, artists, freaks, or anyone who has ever wanted to be baptized in the holy river of rock and roll.

Like many people, I was very eager to get my hands on Born to Run when it came out. I have been listening to Springsteen’s music my whole life, really — Born in the USA was a regular on our family stereo, and was the first album I ever loved. (I used to stage ‘concerts’ of it, using my G.I. Joe figures as stand-ins for the band…) Due to work and other reasons, it took me some time to get around to reading Born to Run, but I eventually got the audiobook. I found it quite interesting… if slightly underwhelming. Continue reading →

Interview with JAMES HENEAGE

May 30, 2017May 30, 2017 Civilian Reader Interview, Uncategorized By Blood Divided, Historical Fiction, James Heneage, Ottakar's, Quercus, Roman Empire, Rome

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is James Heneage?

I am a fifty-nine year-old writer who’s spent his life involved in the worlds of books and history. In 1987, I set up Ottakar’s, which I built into a 150-bookshop chain before selling it to Waterstones in 2006. I’ve been a Booker Prize judge and Chaired the Costa Book Awards. I was Chair of the Cheltenham Literature Festival before founding my own festival devoted entirely to history: ‘The Chalke Valley History Festival’, which now attracts some 40,000 visitors a year. I’ve been a writer since 2010 and have written four works of fiction, all set in the 15th Century at the end of the Byzantine Empire, much of which are set in the Peloponnese. So I’ve built a house there where I now live for half of the year. Continue reading →

Interview with NATE CROWLEY

September 29, 2015September 23, 2015 Civilian Reader Uncategorized Abaddon Books, Horror, Nate Crowley, Sea Hates a Coward, Solaris, Zombies

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Nate Crowley?

He is a guy who tweets as @frogcroakley, and is probably best known for Daniel Barker’s Birthday, a prank on a friend that somehow lurched into being a 75-day serialised space opera. He lives in south London and is getting a bit uncomfortable about talking himself in the third person.

Your debut novel, The Sea Hates a Coward, will be published by Abaddon in October. How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

It’s the story of a rebellion among dissidents who have been executed, then reanimated to work as forced labour aboard a city-sized whaling ship. On an alien world. As such it’s a zombie story, but it’s also a whaling story and a sort of dying-world dystopian story too. At the moment it’s a standalone, but the setting is a corner of a much wider world I’ve got in mind, so there are potentially lots more stories to tell. Continue reading →

Interview with VAUGHN ENTWISTLE

September 1, 2015August 26, 2015 Civilian Reader Uncategorized Angel of Highgate, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dead Assassin, Faerie Vortex, Historical, Minotaur Books, Mystery, Paranormal, Paranormal Casebooks, Revenant of Thraxton Hall, Sherlock Holmes, Supernatural, Titan Books, Vaughn Entwhistle, Vaughn Entwistle

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Vaughn Entwistle?

I was born in Weston, Ontario, Canada to British parents, but I grew up in Northern England where the Entwistle tribe hails from.

Later, I lived in Seattle, Washington for close to twenty years (and loved it), but when I landed the book deal my wife and I seized the chance to move back to England. As a writer who specializes in historical fiction (much of which takes place in England) it is much easier to carry out research and actually walk the ground of the places I write about.

Currently, my and wife and I live in the ancient city of Wells in the county of Somerset. Most days I take a break from the keyboard to walk the dog on a route that takes us past the 11th century cathedral, through the market place, and along the moat that surrounds the Bishop’s palace, returning home through Vicar’s Close, the oldest street in Europe with all its medieval houses intact. Wells is a wonderful place for a writer to live. Beyond the obvious history, I find something very calming and deeply spiritual about the place.

Your new novel, The Dead Assassin will be published by Titan Books this month. It’s the second book in the series, The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. What can fans of the first book expect for this new book, and how would you introduce it to new readers?

Fans of the first novel, The Revenant of Thraxton Hall, will find themselves on familiar territory. But as many reviewers have noted, it’s not necessary to have read the first book. I constructed the opening of second novel in such a way that new readers are brought up to speed in just a few paragraphs. That said, anyone expecting a straightforward mystery might be knocked a bit off balance. Both novels feature elements of the paranormal and are written to be funny and scary and slightly over the top. (Reviewers often describe them as “a romp.”) Wilde is there to provide wit and a bon vivant’s skewed outlook on the proceedings, while Conan Doyle’s Holmesian mind keeps the plot anchored in reality. Continue reading →

Upcoming: Tor Books (US)

July 28, 2015July 29, 2015 Civilian Reader Uncategorized Brian Staveley, Charlie Jane Anders, Fantasy, Ian McDonald, Madeline Ashby, Marc Turner, Most Anticipated 2015, Most Anticipated 2016, RS Belcher, Sci-Fi, Seth Dickinson, Tor Books, Urban Fantasy, VE Schwab, Veronica Rossi

Today, a quick look at upcoming titles from Tor Books (US) that have caught my eye — some of these aren’t due out until early 2016, but I thought they looked interesting enough to feature now.

Charlie Jane Anders, ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY (January 26th, 2016)

Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn’t expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during middle school. After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one’s peers and families.

But now they’re both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them. Laurence is an engineering genius who’s working with a group that aims to avert catastrophic breakdown through technological intervention. Patricia is a graduate of Eltisley Maze, the hidden academy for the world’s magically gifted, and works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world’s every-growing ailments. Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them, something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together — to either save the world, or plunge it into a new dark ages.

A deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love, and the apocalypse.

Publisher’s Page

Madeline Ashby, COMPANY TOWN (April 5th, 2016)

A dazzling novel of humanity, noir heroines, and the Singularity

They call it Company Towna citysized oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd.

Hwa is of the few people in her community (which constitutes the whole rig) to forgo bioengineered enhancements. As such, she’s the last truly organic person left on the rigmaking her doubly an outsider, as well as a neglected daughter and bodyguard extraordinaire. Still, her expertise in the arts of selfdefense and her record as a fighter mean that her services are yet in high demand. When the youngest Lynch needs training and protection, the family turns to Hwa. But can even she protect against increasingly intense death threats seemingly coming from another timeline?

Meanwhile, a series of interconnected murders threatens the city’s stability and heightens the unease of a rig turning over. All signs point to a nearly invisible serial killer, but all of the murders seem to lead right back to Hwa’s front door. Company Town has never been the safest place to bebut now, the danger is personal.

A brilliant, twisted mystery, as one woman must evaluate saving the people of a town that can’t be saved, or saving herself.

I think the first time I heard about Company Town was via Angry Robot Books, who published Ashby’s The Machine Dynasty series. However, I can’t find anything about Company Town on their website (this might be because of the recent purchase of the publisher and subsequent changes).

Also on CR: Interview with Madeline Ashby; Guest Post on “How Do You Make Non-Humans Seem Human“

Publisher’s Page

R.S. Belcher, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WHEEL (March 1st, 2016)

A unique new urban fantasy exploring the haunted byways and truck stops of the U.S. Interstate Highway System

In 1119 A.D., a group of nine crusaders became known as the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomona militant monastic order charged with protecting pilgrims and caravans traveling on the roads to and from the Holy Land. In time, the Knights Templar would grow in power and, ultimately, be laid low. But a small offshoot of the Templars endure and have returned to the order’s original mission: to defend the roads of the world and guard those who travel on them.

Theirs is a secret line of knights: truckers, bikers, taxi hacks, state troopers, bus drivers, RV gypsiesany of the folks who live and work on the asphalt arteries of America. They call themselves the Brotherhood of the Wheel.

Jimmy Aussapile is one such knight. He’s driving a big rig down South when a promise to a ghostly hitchhiker sets him on a quest to find out the terrible truth behind a string of children gone missing all across the country. The road leads him to Lovina Hewitt, a skeptical Louisiana State Police investigator working the same case and, eventually, to a forgotten town that’s not on any mapand to the secret behind the eerie BlackEyed Kids said to prowl the highways.

Publisher’s Page

Seth Dickinson, THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT (September 15th)

A young woman from a conquered people tries to transform an empire in this richly imagined geopolitical fantasy.

Baru Cormorant believes any price is worth paying to liberate her people-even her soul.

When the Empire of Masks conquers her island home, overwrites her culture, criminalizes her customs, and murders one of her fathers, Baru vows to swallow her hate, join the Empire’s civil service, and claw her way high enough to set her people free.

Sent as an Imperial agent to distant Aurdwynn, another conquered country, Baru discovers it’s on the brink of rebellion. Drawn by the intriguing duchess Tain Hu into a circle of seditious dukes, Baru may be able to use her position to help. As she pursues a precarious balance between the rebels and a shadowy cabal within the Empire, she orchestrates a do-or-die gambit with freedom as the prize.

But the cost of winning the long game of saving her people may be far greater than Baru imagines.

Dickinson’s debut is published in the UK by Tor Books, as The Traitor.

Publisher’s Page

Ian McDonald, LUNA: NEW MOON (September 22nd)

The Moon wants to kill you. Whether it’s being unable to pay your per diem for your allotted food, water, and air, or you just get caught up in a fight between the Moon’s ruling corporations, the Five Dragons. You must fight for every inch you want to gain in the Moon’s near feudal society. And that is just what Adriana Corta did.

As the leader of the Moon’s newest “dragon,” Adriana has wrested control of the Moon’s Helium-3 industry from the Mackenzie Metal corporation and fought to earn her family’s new status. Now, at the twilight of her life, Adriana finds her corporation, Corta Helio, surrounded by the many enemies she made during her meteoric rise. If the Corta family is to survive, Adriana’s five children must defend their mother’s empire from her many enemies… and each other.

This is published in the UK by Gollancz, on September 17th, 2015.

Publisher’s Page

Veronica Rossi, RIDERS (February 16th, 2016)

For eighteen-year-old Gideon Blake, nothing but death can keep him from achieving his goal of becoming a U.S. Army Ranger. As it turns out, it does.

Recovering from the accident that most definitely killed him, Gideon finds himself with strange new powers and a bizarre cuff he can’t remove. His death has brought to life his real destiny. He has become War, one of the legendary four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Over the coming weeks, he and the other horsemenConquest, Famine, and Deathare brought together by a beautiful but frustratingly secretive girl to help save humanity from an ancient evil on the emergence.

They fail.

Nowbound, bloodied, and druggedGideon is interrogated by the authorities about his role in a battle that has become an international incident. If he stands any chance of saving his friends and the girl he’s fallen fornot to mention all of humankindhe needs to convince the skeptical government officials the world is in imminent danger.

But will anyone believe him?

Publisher’s Page

V.E. Schwab, A GATHERING OF SHADOWS (February 23rd, 2016)

Four months have passed since the shadow stone fell into Kell’s possession. Four months since his path crossed with Delilah Bard. Four months since Rhy was wounded and the Dane twins fell, and the stone was cast with Holland’s dying body through the rift, and into Black London.

In many ways, things have almost returned to normal, though Rhy is more sober, and Kell is now plagued by his guilt. Restless, and having given up smuggling, Kell is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila, who disappeared from the docks like she always meant to do. As Red London finalizes preparations for the Element Games-an extravagent international competition of magic, meant to entertain and keep healthy the ties between neighboring countries — a certain pirate ship draws closer, carrying old friends back into port.

But while Red London is caught up in the pageantry and thrills of the Games, another London is coming back to life, and those who were thought to be forever gone have returned. After all, a shadow that was gone in the night reappears in the morning, and so it seems Black London has risen again — and so to keep magic’s balance, another London must fall.

The sequel to A Darker Shade of Magic (which is published in the UK by Titan Books).

Also on CR: Review of Vicious

Publisher’s Page

Brian Staveley, THE LAST MORTAL BOND (March 15th, 2016)

War engulfs the Annurian Empire.

The ancient csestriim are back to finish their purge of humanity; armies march against the capital; leaches, solitary beings who draw power from the natural world to fuel their extraordinary abilities, maneuver on all sides to affect the outcome of the war; and capricious gods walk the earth in human guise with agendas of their own.

But the three imperial siblings at the heart of it all Valyn, Adare, and Kaden come to understand that even if they survive the holocaust unleashed on their world, there may be no reconciling their conflicting visions of the future.

The first two books in Staveley’s Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne are also published in the US by Tor Books: The Emperor’s Blades and Providence of Fire. The series is published in the UK by Tor (UK). I loved the first two books, can’t wait to read this!

Also on CR: Reviews of The Emperor’s Blades and Providence of Fire; Excerpt from The Emperor’s Blades

Publisher’s Page

Marc Turner, DRAGON HUNTERS (February 9th, 2016)

Once a year on Dragon Day the fabled Dragon Gate is raised to let a sea dragon pass into the Sabian Sea. There, it will be hunted by the Storm Lords, a fellowship of powerful water-mages who rule an empire called the Storm Isles.

Emira Imerle Polivar is coming to the end of her tenure as leader of the Storm Lords, but she has no intention of standing down graciously. As part of her plot to hold onto power, she instructs an order of priests known as the Chameleons to sabotage the Dragon Gate. There’s just one problem: that will require them to infiltrate an impregnable citadel that houses the gate’s mechanism — a feat that has never been accomplished before.

But Imerle is not the only one intent on destroying the Storm Lord dynasty. As the Storm Lords assemble in answer to a mysterious summons, they become the targets of assassins working for an unknown enemy. And when Imerle sets her scheme in motion, that enemy uses the ensuing chaos to play its hand.

Turner’s debut, When Heavens Fall, is also published by Tor Books in the US, and in the UK by Titan Books. I assume they’ll be publishing book two as well.

Also on CR: Review of When the Heavens Fall; Interview with Marc Turner

Publisher’s Page

Fran Wilde, UPDRAFT (September 1st)

Welcome to a world of wind and bone, songs and silence, betrayal and courage.

Kirit Densira cannot wait to pass her wingtest and begin flying as a trader by her mother’s side, being in service to her beloved home tower and exploring the skies beyond. When Kirit inadvertently breaks Tower Law, the city’s secretive governing body, the Singers, demand that she become one of them instead. In an attempt to save her family from greater censure, Kirit must give up her dreams to throw herself into the dangerous training at the Spire, the tallest, most forbidding tower, deep at the heart of the City.

As she grows in knowledge and power, she starts to uncover the depths of Spire secrets. Kirit begins to doubt her world and its unassailable Laws, setting in motion a chain of events that will lead to a haunting choice, and may well change the city forever — if it isn’t destroyed outright.

Publisher’s Page

Upcoming from Little, Brown UK

July 23, 2015July 24, 2015 Civilian Reader Uncategorized Barry Lyga, Blackfriars, Catherynne M Valente, Constable, Corsair, Jim Butcher, Jonathan Aycliffe, Julia Knight, Kate Elliott, Kelley Armstrong, Kim Harrison, Little Brown, Monica Byrne, Orbit, Peter Facinelli, Robert DeFranco, Robert Galbraith, Sphere, Stephen Aryan

Here’s a selection of upcoming titles from Little, Brown UK that have caught my eye. (It’s a bit more of a mix than usual.)

Kelley Armstrong, DECEPTIONS (August 18th, Sphere)

TRUST NO ONE

Olivia Jones is desperate for the truth. The daughter of convicted serial killers, she has begun to suspect that her parents are innocent of their crimes. But who can she trust, in a world where betrayal and deception hide in every shadow?

RISK EVERYTHING

Liv does have one secret weapon: a mysterious sixth sense that helps her to anticipate danger. The trouble is, this rare power comes with its own risks. There are dark forces that want to exploit Liv’s talents – and will stop at nothing to win her to their side.

FACE THE TRUTH

Now Liv must decide, before it’s too late. Who does she love? Who is really on her side? And can she save herself without burning down everything that matters most?

Book three in Armstrong’s Cainsville series — following Omens and Visions. All published in the US by Dutton.

Publisher Page

Stephen Aryan, BATTLEMAGE (September 24th, Orbit)

An action-packed and magic-fuelled fantasy novel from a British debut author, Stephen Aryan’s Battlemage features mages fighting an empire-spanning war for a homeland that fears and despises them

‘I can command storms, summon fire and unmake stone,’ Balfruss growled. ‘It’s dangerous to meddle with things you don’t understand.’

BALFRUSS is a battlemage, sworn to fight and die for a country that fears his kind.

VARGUS is a common soldier – while mages shoot lightning from the walls of his city, he is down on the front line getting blood on his blade.

TALANDRA is a princess and spymaster, but the war will force her to risk everything, and make the greatest sacrifice of all.

Magic and mayhem collide in this explosive epic fantasy from a major new talent.

Publisher Page

Jonathan Aycliffe, THE LOST (October 1st, Constable)

When a man is lost, who but his ghosts will find him?

British born Michael Feraru, scion of a long line of Romanian aristocrats, leaves his country of birth and his love, to reclaim his heritage — a Draculian castle deep in the heart of Transylvania. He plans to turn his inheritance into an orphanage in the new post-Ceausescu, post-communist country. There he enlists the help of a young local lawyer, Liliana Popescu, to search for the missing Feraru millions, and battle through the complex maze of old bureaucracy in the scam-rich, newly-born state.

Feraru describes his journey into the heart of the Romanian countryside, wasted by years of neglect and caught in a time-warp, as though the twentieth century had never reached it. When he eventually arrives at his inheritance, he finds the castle of the Ferarus, in a sunless valley in the Carpathian Mountains, is home to much more than memories…

Publisher Page

Jim Butcher, THE AERONAUT’S WINDLASS (September 29th, Orbit)

A new series set in a fantastic world of noble families, steam-powered technology, and magic-wielding warriors…

Since time immemorial, the Spires have sheltered humanity, towering for miles over the mist-shrouded surface of the world. Within their halls, aristocratic houses have ruled for generations, developing scientific marvels, fostering trade alliances, and building fleets of airships to keep the peace.

Captain Grimm commands the merchant ship, Predator. Fiercely loyal to Spire Albion, he has taken their side in the cold war with Spire Aurora, disrupting the enemy’s shipping lines by attacking their cargo vessels. But when the Predator is severely damaged in combat, leaving captain and crew grounded, Grimm is offered a proposition from the Spirearch of Albion-to join a team of agents on a vital mission in exchange for fully restoring Predator to its fighting glory.

And even as Grimm undertakes this dangerous task, he will learn that the conflict between the Spires is merely a premonition of things to come. Humanity’s ancient enemy, silent for more than ten thousand years, has begun to stir once more. And death will follow in its wake.

Published by Orbit in both the UK and US. This is the first in a new series, The Cinder Spires.

Publisher Page

Monica Byrne, THE GIRL ON THE ROAD (September 3rd, PB, Blackfriars)

In a world where global power has shifted east and revolution is brewing, a young woman sets out from her home in India on a desperate, profound journey of escape and discovery.

A young woman called Meena wakes up one morning covered in blood. There are mysterious snakebites across her chest. She knows she’s in danger but something has happened to her memory. All she can do is run — but why? And from whom?

As Meena plots her escape she hears of the Trail – an extraordinary, forbidden bridge that spans the Arabian sea, connecting India to Africa like a silver ribbon. Its purpose is to harness the power of the ocean — Blue Energy — but it also offers a subculture of travellers a chance for sanctuary and adventure.

Convinced the Trail is her salvation, Meena gathers supplies — GPS, a scroll reader, a sealable waterproof pod. And so begins her extraordinary journey — both physical and spiritual – from India to Ethiopia, the home of her birth. But as she runs away from the threat of violence she is also running towards a shocking revelation about her past and her family.

Still haven’t had the chance to read this, unfortunately. New paperback edition.

Publisher Page

Kate Elliott, COURT OF FIVES (August 27th, LB Young Readers)

In this imaginative escape into an enthralling new world, World Fantasy Award finalist Kate Elliott begins a new trilogy with her debut young adult novel, weaving an epic story of a girl struggling to do what she loves in a society suffocated by rules of class and privilege

Jessamy’s life is a balance between acting like an upper class Patron and dreaming of the freedom of the Commoners. But at night she can be whomever she wants when she sneaks out to train for The Fives, an intricate, multi-level athletic competition that offers a chance for glory to the kingdom’s best competitors. Then Jes meets Kalliarkos, and an unlikely friendship between a girl of mixed race and a Patron boy causes heads to turn. When a scheming lord tears Jes’s family apart, she’ll have to test Kal’s loyalty and risk the vengeance of a powerful clan to save her mother and sisters from certain death.

Publisher Page

Joseph Fink & Jeffery Cranor, WELCOME TO THE NIGHT VALE (October 20th, Orbit)

From the creators of the wildly popular Welcome to Night Vale podcast comes an imaginative mystery of appearances and disappearances that is also a poignant look at the ways in which we all struggle to find ourselves… no matter where we live. The Telegraph calls Night Vale a ‘cultural phenomenon’ and Time Out says it’s ‘as hilarious as it is macabre’. For fans of Stephen King, Serial, Twin Peaks and of course the number one iTunes podcast itself.

Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.

Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked ‘KING CITY’ by a mysterious man in a tan jacket. She can’t seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City before she herself unravels.

Diane Crayton’s son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane’s started to see her son’s father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it.

Diane’s search to reconnect with her son and Jackie’s search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: ‘KING CITY’. It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures . . . if they can ever find it.

Publisher Page

Robert Galbraith, CAREER OF EVIL (October 22nd, Sphere)

When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman’s severed leg.

Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed. There are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible – and Strike knows that any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality.

With the police focusing on the one suspect Strike is increasingly sure is not the perpetrator, he and Robin take matters into their own hands, and delve into the dark and twisted worlds of the other three men. But as more horrendous acts occur, time is running out for the two of them…

A fiendishly clever mystery with unexpected twists around every corner, Career of Evil is also a gripping story of a man and a woman at a crossroads in their personal and professional lives. You will not be able to put this book down.

I loved the first two novels in Galbraith’s series — The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm. Very much looking forward to Career of Evil. Oh, if you were somehow unaware of the fact, “Robert Galbraith” is a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling.

Publisher Page

Kim Harrison, THE DRAFTER (September 1st, Piatkus)

LIVE. DIE. REPEAT.

Detroit 2030: Double-crossed by the person she loved and betrayed by the covert government organization that trained her to use her body as a weapon, Peri Reed is a renegade on the run. Don’t forgive and never forget has always been Peri’s creed. But her day job makes it difficult: she is a drafter, possessed of a rare, invaluable skill for altering time, yet destined to forget both the history she changed and the history she rewrote.

When Peri discovers her name is on a list of corrupt operatives, she realizes that her own life has been manipulated by the agency. Her memory of the previous three years erased, she joins forces with a mysterious rogue soldier in a deadly race to piece together the truth about her fateful final task. With only her intuition to guide her, she’s on a vengeful mission to decide-who must she kill and who, including herself, can she trust?

Publisher Page

Julia Knight, SWORDS AND SCOUNDRELS (October 8th, Orbit)

The first book in the Duellist’s trilogy — a fast-paced adventure from one of the most exciting new British talents in fantasy

Gold is for fools, and dying is for amateurs…

Vocho and Kacha are champion duellists: a brother and sister known for the finest swordplay in the city of Reyes. Or at least they used to be — until they were thrown out of the Duellist’s Guild.

Now all that’s left to them is to become reluctant highwaymen. Well — it’s a living, and for Vocho it’s a way to win back some form of notoriety. But when they pick the wrong carriage to rob, their simple plans to win back fame and fortune go south fast.

After facing down three armed men and barely besting a powerful magician, Vocho and Kacha make off with an immense locked chest. Vocho is convinced it must be worth a fortune, perhaps enough to buy him and his sister back the lives he lost for them when he inadvertently killed a priest.

But the contents of the chest will bring them much more than they’ve bargained for — when they soon find themselves embroiled in a dangerous plot to return an angry king to power…

Julia Knight is also known as Francis Knight, the author of the Rojan Dizon trilogy (which is very good). Details of the second book in the Duellists trilogy, Legends and Liars (November 5th), are here. The covers for all three novels in the series can be seen in all their glory here.

Publisher Page

Barry Lyga, Peter Facinelli & Robert DeFranco, AFTER THE RED RAIN (August 27th, LB Young Readers)

A post-apocalyptic novel with a cinematic twist from New York Times bestseller Barry Lyga, actor Peter Facinelli, and producer Robert DeFranco.

On the ruined planet Earth, where 50 billion people are confined to mega-cities, and resources are scarce, Deedra has been handed a bleak and mundane existence by the Magistrate she works so hard for. But one day, she comes across a beautiful boy struggling to cross the river. A boy with a secretive past and special abilities, who is somehow able to find comfort and life from their dying planet. A boy with an unusual name… Rose.

But just as the two form a bond, it is quickly torn apart by the murder of the Magistrate’s son, and Rose becomes the prime suspect. Little do they know how much their relationship will affect the fate of everyone who lives on the planet.

Publisher Page

Catherine M. Valente, RADIANT (October 20th, Corsair)

Severin Unck is the headstrong young daughter of a world famous film director. She has inherited her father’s love of the big screen but not his exuberant gothic style of filmmaking. Instead, Severin makes documentaries, artful and passionate and even rather brave – for she is a realist in a fantastic alternate universe, in which Hollywood occupies the moon, Mars is rife with lawless saloons, and the solar system contains all manner of creatures, cults and colonies.

For Severin’s latest project she leads her crew to the watery planet of Venus to investigate the disappearance of a diving colony there. But something goes wrong during the course of their investigations; and her crew limp home without her.

All that remains of Severin are fragments. Can these snippets of scenes and shots, voices and memories, pages and recordings be collected and pieced together to tell the story of her life – and shed light on the mystery of her vanishing?

Clever, dreamy, strange and beautifully written – Radiance is a novel about how stories give form to worlds.

Publisher Page

New Books (July)

July 12, 2015July 12, 2015 Civilian Reader Uncategorized Ace Books, Arrow, Benedict Jacka, Black Library, Chris Wraight, Christie Golden, Django Wexler, Ecco, Gollancz, Grove Atlantic, Harper Collins, Henry Holt, James Luceno, Jamie Schultz, John Gwynne, Libba Bray, Louisa Hall, Maggie Mitchell, Mason Cross, Max Gladstone, Michelle Miller, Mike Lawson, Orbit, Orion, Roc Books, Tor, Victor Pelevin

Featuring: Libba Bray, Mason Cross, Max Gladstone, Christie Golden, John Gwynne, Louisa Hall, Benedict Jacka, Mike Lawson, James Luceno, Maggie Mitchell, Jamie Schultz, Django Wexler, Chris Wraight Continue reading →

Review: CROOKED by Austin Grossman (Mulholland)

July 9, 2015July 9, 2015 Civilian Reader Uncategorized Alternate History, Austin Grossman, Crooked, Hodder, Magic, Most Anticipated 2015, Mulholland, Must Read 2015, Politics, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Secret History, Supernatural

An excellent secret history

Richard Milhous Nixon lived one of the most improbable lives of the twentieth century. Our 37th President’s political career spanned the buttoned-down fifties, the Mad Men sixties and the turbulent seventies. He faced down the Russians, the Chinese, and ultimately his own government. The man went from political mastermind to a national joke, sobbing in the Oval Office, leaving us with one burning question: how could he have lost it all?

Here for the first time is the true story told in his own words: the terrifying supernatural secret he stumbled on as a young man; the truth behind the Cold War; the truth behind the Watergate coverup. What if our nation’s worst president was really a pivotal figure caught in a desperate struggle between ordinary life and horrors from another reality? What if the man we call our worst president was, in truth, our greatest?

In Crooked, Nixon finally reveals the secret history of modern American politics as only Austin Grossman could reimagine it. Combining Lovecraftian suspense, international intrigue, Russian honey traps and a Presidential marriage whose secrets and battles of attrition were their own heroic saga, Grossman’s novel is a master work of alternative history, equal parts mesmerizing character study and nail-biting Faustian thriller.

I was a relative latecomer to Austin Grossman’s novels — I only read You in 2014, and have yet to read Soon I Will Be Invincible (which I do own). When I first read the synopsis for Crooked, though, I knew I wouldn’t wait to read this one: I am a US politics and history nut, with a particular interest in the presidency. So, given that Grossman’s a great author, and that he was mixing two of my favourite things (politics and SFF), Crooked has been one of my most-anticipated novels of the year. I’m very happy to say, I was not disappointed. This is an excellent novel. Continue reading →