This does look fun. I didn’t love the first one when I saw it at the cinema, but on second watching it grew on me. I’m looking forward to this sequel.
Upcoming
Cover Reveal: THE REMNANT by Charlie Fletcher (Orbit)
Above is the rather good cover for Charlie Fletcher‘s third Oversight novel, The Remnant. Due to be published in March 2017 by Orbit Books in the UK and North America, the cover fits very nicely with the first two (below). Unfortunately, I haven’t yet had the chance to read The Oversight and The Paradox, but I fully intend to do so. In the meantime, here’s the synopsis:
“The Oversight is most dangerous when most reduced. There are many dead and gone who did not remember that.”
The Oversight of London has been sworn for millennia to prevent the natural and the supernatural worlds from preying on each other.
Now, at its lowest ebb, with its headquarters destroyed and its last members scattered far and wide, this secret society will battle for survival and face the harshest foe it has ever met: itself.
I’m looking forward to reading all three of these. Hopefully soon.
Some More Upcoming Movies… (Trailers)
Wonder Woman
(Cello music at the end sounds like Apocalyptica…)
Justice League
Some Upcoming Movies… (Trailers)
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2
I really enjoyed the first movie. So, of course I’ll be checking this one out.
SLEEPLESS
Crooked cops, kidnapping, Las Vegas.
RESIDENT EVIL: THE FINAL CHAPTER
UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS
Another fun, long-running series.
Upcoming: THE BOOK OF MIRRORS by E.O. Chirovici (Century/Atria)
I am really looking forward to this novel. Already sold in 38 territories, UK-based Romanian author E.O. Chirovici‘s first novel in English, The Book of Mirrors, sounds great. You can read a short piece about it from the Guardian here. Here’s the synopsis:
When big-shot literary agent Peter Katz receives an unfinished manuscript entitled The Book of Mirrors, he is intrigued.
The author, Richard Flynn is writing a memoir about his time at Princeton in the late 80s, documenting his relationship with the famous Professor Joseph Wieder.
One night in 1987, Wieder was brutally murdered in his home and the case was never solved.
Peter Katz is hell-bent on getting to the bottom of what happened that night twenty-five years ago and is convinced the full manuscript will reveal who committed the violent crime.
But other people’s recollections are dangerous weapons to play with, and this might be one memory that is best kept buried.
Unfortunately, we have quite some time to wait before we’ll be able to get our mitts on the book: The Book of Mirrors is due to be published on January 26th, 2017 in the UK by Century; and in February 2017 in North America, by Atria Books. Well, given that it’s September already, I suppose it’s not that far away. It just feels like it…
Upcoming: WHO’S AFRAID TOO? by Maria Lewis (Piatkus)
Today, we have the cover for Maria Lewis‘s second novel, Who’s Afraid Too? I rather like the cover-style for these novels (the first is at the end of the piece). The next novel in the author’s well-received Tommi Grayson urban fantasy series, here’s the synopsis:
Book Two in the bestselling Tommi Grayson series is a gutsy, fur-flying, feminist read for fans of urban fantasy. If you love Patricia Briggs, Darynda Jones, Keri Arthur, Kelley Armstrong or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, don’t miss Maria Lewis!
Tommi Grayson: all bark, all bite… and now she’s BACK!
After the sh*t show that was her family reunion, Tommi needed to get gone. She’s spent the last few weeks trying to understand her heritage — the one that comes with a side order of fur as well as her Maori history and how she can connect to it.
But she can only escape for so long — when an unspeakable evil, thought long destroyed, returns, Tommi needs every bit of the skills she’s learned. With the help of allies both old and new, she’s going to take the fight to the enemy…
Maria Lewis’s Who’s Afraid Too? is published in the UK by Piatkus, on January 10th, 2017. Who’s Afraid? is out now.
For more on Lewis’s writing and novels, be sure to check out the author’s website, and follow her on Twitter and Goodreads.
Upcoming: ALL OUR WRONG TODAYS by Elan Mastai (Dutton)
Having just finished Blake Crouch’s excellent Dark Matter, the synopsis for Elan Mastai‘s tale of altered reality/history caught my attention (apparently, I’m in the mood for this type of novel, now). After doing some further digging, I also learned that Mastai wrote the movie The F Word, which I very much enjoyed (starring Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan and Adam Driver, it was both endearing and funny).
All Our Wrong Today’s sounds really interesting:
You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we’d have? Well, it happened. In Tom Barren’s 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed… because it wasn’t necessary.
Except Tom just can’t seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that’s before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland.
But when he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and — maybe, just maybe — his soul mate, Tom has a decision to make. Does he fix the flow of history, bringing his utopian universe back into existence, or does he try to forge a new life in our messy, unpredictable reality? Tom’s search for the answer takes him across countries, continents, and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future — our future — is supposed to be.
All Our Wrong Todays is about the versions of ourselves that we shed and grow into over time. It is a story of friendship and family, of unexpected journeys and alternate paths, and of love in its multitude of forms. Filled with humor and heart, and saturated with insight and intelligence and a mind-bending talent for invention, this novel signals the arrival of a major talent.
All Our Wrong Todays is published by Dutton, on February 7th, 2017. I’m really looking forward to this one.
Upcoming: DEFENDER by G.X. Todd (Headline)
This is one I’m really looking forward to: G.X. Todd‘s upcoming debut, Defender, has been described as including “nods back to Stephen King’s The Stand“, and also influenced by Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman. That’s a pretty impressive SFFH pedigree to which it’s being tied. The first in the four-part Voices series, in which “your inner voice might kill you”. Defender is due to be published in the UK by Headline in January 2017. Here’s the synopsis:
The primal battle between Good and Evil plays out in a new arena…
‘On the cusp of sleep, have we not all heard a voice call out our name?’
In a world where long drinks are in short supply, a stranger listens to the voice in his head telling him to buy a lemonade from the girl sitting on a dusty road.
The moment locks them together.
Here and now it’s dangerous to listen to your inner voice. Those who do, keep it quiet.
These voices have purpose.
And when Pilgrim meets Lacey, there is a reason. He just doesn’t know it yet.
Defender pulls you on a wild ride to a place where the voices in your head will save or slaughter you.
For more news about Todd’s writing and novels, be sure to check out the author’s website, and follow her on Twitter and Goodreads.
Upcoming: CARAVAL by Stephanie Garber (Hodder)
Caraval, Stephanie Garber’s debut novel is due to be published by Hodder in the UK. The animated cover was unveiled earlier today, and I thought the synopsis sounded quite interesting. (Also, that cover-GIF is pretty mesmerizing if you spend a little time watching it…) Here’s what it’s about:
Welcome to Caraval, where nothing is quite what it seems.
Scarlett has never left the tiny isle of Trisda, pining from afar for the wonder of Caraval, a once-a-year week-long performance where the audience participates in the show.
Caraval is Magic. Mystery. Adventure. And for Scarlett and her beloved sister Tella it represents freedom and an escape from their ruthless, abusive father.
When the sisters’ long-awaited invitations to Caraval finally arrive, it seems their dreams have come true. But no sooner have they arrived than Tella vanishes, kidnapped by the show’s mastermind organiser, Legend.
Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. But nonetheless she quickly becomes enmeshed in a dangerous game of love, magic and heartbreak. And real or not, she must find Tella before the game is over, and her sister disappears forever.
Looking forward to this. Caraval is due out January 31st, 2017. For new and updates, be sure to check out Garber’s website, and follow her on Twitter.
Upcoming: M.R. Carey Returning to the World of THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS!
M.R. Carey’s next novel will be The Boy on the Bridge — a prequel of sorts to the story in his best-selling and critically-acclaimed The Girl With All the Gifts (which was also a CR favourite in 2013).
Here’s what the author has to say about the new novel:
“Returning to the world of The Girl With All the Gifts felt like coming home in a weird way. And every time I visit I find something I didn’t know was there. The Boy on the Bridge is very much its own thing, not a continuation of Melanie’s story but a new journey with a new cast of characters. But it answers a lot of questions that The Girl With All the Gifts implicitly asked.”
Carey’s The Girl With All the Gifts is published by Orbit Books in the UK and US. His latest novel, Fellside, is also published by Orbit Books in both the UK and US. I highly recommend them both. Carey is also the writer of the original, superb Lucifer comic series, which spun out of Neil Gaiman’s groundbreaking Sandman series.
You can watch a video of Mike discussing the new book on his Facebook page, here.
Also on CR: Review of The Girl With All the Gifts
Civilian Reader 