Upcoming

Upcoming: BITE by Nick Louth (Sphere)

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LouthN-BiteOriginally self-published, Nick Louth‘s BITE will be published in paperback by Sphere in the UK next year (it is available now in eBook).

Tomorrow should be the greatest day of Erica Stroud-Jones’s life. In just 24 hours this brilliant young scientist will present her secret work to a conference in Amsterdam – research that promises to revolutionise the battle against a deadly tropical disease. Millions of lives could be saved; a Nobel Prize beckons.

Arriving to watch her are sceptics and rivals, admirers and enemies. Erica’s own eyes will be on sculptor Max Carver, her American new love to whom she will dedicate her achievement.

Tomorrow never comes.

Erica vanishes during the night. Max, desperate, terrified, sets out to find her, descending into an underworld full of malice and cunning. But even he is shocked by the dark terror he finds in the heart of the woman he loves.

This sounds intriguing. The synopsis doesn’t give much away at all, but that could be a good thing.

Upcoming: TOUCH by Claire North (Orbit)

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NorthC-TouchIf you caught my review a couple weeks ago for The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, you’ll have noticed that I am a big fan of Claire North‘s work. It was on the strength of that novel that I picked up Kate Griffin’s six novels (Claire North and Kate Griffin are both pseudonyms for Catherine Webb). I have also been very much looking forward to North’s next novel, Touch, for which today Orbit released the cover (right). Here’s the synopsis:

Your violent death usually triggers the first switch.

Just before your life ebbs away, your skin happens to touch another human being – and in an instant, your consciousness transfers completely to the person you touched.

From that moment on, you can leap from body to body with a touch of the skin. You can remain for a minute, an hour, a lifetime, and after you leave, the host has no memory of the time you were there.

My name is Kepler. I could be you.

For me, the carefree life of jumping between bodies has become a terrifying nightmare. I am being hunted. I don’t know who. I don’t know why. If you’ve read this far, our lives have already touched. Now you are part of the conspiracy too.

Get ready to run.

Touch is due to arrive in February 2015, and is published by Orbit in the UK, US and ANZ. In the meantime, do yourself a favour and read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (if you’ve already read it, check out Griffin’s novels and, maybe, re-read Harry August?). You can follow North on Twitter for more news, etc.

Upcoming: CROOKED by Austin Grossman (Mulholland)

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GrossmanA-CrookedI only recently read (and loved) Austin Grossman‘s You, but ever since I have been keeping my eyes open for news on his next novel. As it happens, today SF Signal shared the cover and synopsis for CROOKED, which is due out in July 2015. (Gargh! That’s so far way!) Here’s the synopsis:

This is the story of Richard Nixon, America’s last defense against a supernatural Cold War.

Richard Nixon’s life is a compellingly human story: historically epic, richly strange. His career spans World War II, the Cold War intrigue, the Mad Men sixties, and the turbulent seventies. He went from political phenomenon to master schemer to a joke, sobbing in the Oval Office.

But what if Nixon was actually a man who had stumbled on a terrible supernatural secret? A leader who did what he had to do to protect humanity, at the cost of disgracing the entire nation?

What if our worst president was really a pivotal figure in the secret history of the twentieth century, caught in a desperate struggle between ordinary life and horrors from another reality?

He’s not a crook. He’s a hero. So cut Nixon some slack. He saw the devil walk.

I still need to read Soon I Will Be Invincible. I’m sure I’ll manage that before Crooked hits shelves.

Trailer: EMPERORS ONCE MORE by Duncan Jepson (Quercus)

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Duncan Jepson wrote a guest post for CR before Emperors Once More was originally released last year. Tomorrow, the paperback is published, and to mark the occasion he has made a new trailer for the book:

JepsonD-EmperorsOnceMoreHere’s the synopsis:

Hong Kong, August 2017.

On the eve of a crisis summit for world economic leaders, two Chinese Methodist ministers are killed in an apparently motiveless execution in Hong Kong’s financial district. Luck makes Detective Alex Soong one of the first officers at the scene.

Yet Soong begins to suspect his involvement to be more than incidental, and the crime itself more than a senseless assassination: an instinct that is proven correct when Soong is contacted by a mysterious figure, and more massacres follow.

With the eyes of the world’s media fixed on Hong Kong, Soong must race to intercept his tormentor, and thwart a conspiracy born from one of the bloodiest confrontations of China’s past, which now threatens to destroy a fragile world order.

Upcoming: THE GREAT ZOO OF CHINA by Matthew Reilly

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Reilly-GreatZooOfChina

I’m a fan of Matthew Reilly‘s novels, but for some reason I’ve allowed his most recent books to fall by the way-side. I thoroughly enjoyed his Jack West Trilogy and also the first few Scarecrow novels. I have, but have not yet read, Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves and The Tournament. His next title sounds pretty interesting, too:

It is a secret the Chinese government has been keeping for forty years.

They have found a species of animal no one believed even existed. It will amaze the world.

Now the Chinese are ready to unveil their astonishing discovery within the greatest zoo ever constructed.

A small group of VIPs and journalists has been brought to the zoo deep within China to see its fabulous creatures for the first time. Among them is Dr Cassandra Jane ‘CJ’ Cameron,  a writer for National Geographic and an expert on reptiles.

The visitors are assured by their Chinese hosts that they will be struck with wonder at these beasts, that they are perfectly safe, and that nothing can go wrong…

Matthew Reilly‘s The Great Zoo of China is due to be published on November 10th 2014 by Macmillan in Australia, January 2015 by Gallery Books in the US, and February 2015 by Orion in the UK. (Cover above are in that order.) With any luck, I’ll be able to catch up before this novel is released.

Here’s a video of Reilly talking about the book:

Also on CR: Reviews of Six Sacred Stones and Five Greatest Warriors

Upcoming: A CROWN FOR COLD SILVER by Alex Marshall (Orbit)

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MarshallA-CrownForColdSilverI saw this novel mentioned on the Orbit Books website, but with scant information regarding the story. So, naturally, I did a little digging and went straight to the easily-accessible catalogue for Spring 2015.

Action-packed epic fantasy from a bold new voice in the genre – a retired warrior returns to battle to seek revenge for a terrible blow, old friends and old enemies will pay the price.

Cold Cobalt, the Banshee with a Blade, First Among Villains … Queen Zosia.

When there were no more titles to win and no more worlds to conquer, the warrior queen Zosia faked her demise and gave up her legend to history. But when violence finds its way to her door years later, she must round up her adventuring companions — each surprised to see her alive — and set out for revenge.

Time has not been kind to her old comrades, and some have only their own goals in mind. Not only that, but there’s a young, beautiful and skilled general out there, gathering soldiers to her banner for a war against the deadliest of enemies. The girl is using a legend she did not earn, and calling herself by a name that was never hers — that of Zosia herself.

Sounds pretty cool. Alex Marshall‘s A CROWN FOR COLD SILVER is due to be published in April 2015, by Orbit Books in the UK, North America and AUS/NZ.

CITY OF STAIRS Competition from Jo Fletcher Books!

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BennettRJ-CityOfStairsUKRobert Jackson Bennett’s CITY OF STAIRS is absolutely one of my Most Anticipated novels of 2014. I have a copy of the book, now, so it will mostly likely be my next or next-but-one read. To celebrate the upcoming release in the UK, Jo Fletcher Books have five copies of the book to give away, plus one lucky winner will receive a £100 Red Letter Day experience. Here are the instructions:

All people have to do for a chance to win is let us know on our blog, Facebook page or Twitter – with #CityOfStairs – what tangible miraculous object they would create if you were a god of Bulikov.  A door which takes you to the past and a knotted cord that brings rain when untied are just some of the miracles the gods brought to Bulikov, but we want to know what other people would add to them. The competition is open until October 30th for your chance to win.

CITY OF STAIRS is published in the UK on Thursday (October 2nd). It is published in the US by Crown Publishing. Here’s the synopsis:

You’ve got to be careful when you’re chasing a murderer through Bulikov, for the world is not as it should be in that city. When the gods were destroyed and all worship of them banned by the Polis, reality folded; now stairs lead to nowhere, alleyways have become portals to the past, and criminals disappear into thin air.

The murder of Dr. Efrem Pangyui, the Polis diplomat researching the Continent’s past, has begun something and now whispers of an uprising flutter out from invisible corners. Only one woman may be willing to pursue the truth – but it is likely to cost her everything.

Upcoming: THE ABYSS BEYOND DREAMS by Peter F. Hamilton (Del Rey/Tor)

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HamiltonPF-C1-AbyssBeyondDreams

I haven’t read anything by Peter F. Hamilton, but I know a lot of people who love his work. This novel, as the start of a new series (the Commonwealth) looks really interesting, so I hope it will be the first of Hamilton’s books that I read. Here’s the synopsis:

When images of a lost civilisation are “dreamed” by a self-proclaimed prophet of the age, Nigel Sheldon, inventor of wormhole technology and creator of the Commonwealth society is suspicious. Especially as the dreams seem to be coming from the Void – an area of living space monitored and controlled because of its hugely destructive capabilities. With it being the greatest threat to the known universe, Nigel is determined to find out if human life really does exist beyond its boundaries and if so, what the hell they’re doing there.

But when he crash lands on a planet beyond the Void he didn’t even know existed he finds so much more than he imagined. Bienvenido, a world populated from the survivors of Commonwealth colony ships which disappeared over three thousand years ago. Since then they’ve been fighting an ever-increasingly desperate battle against a space-born predator invading their landscape. The Fallers looks innocuous to begin with and their lure is enticing to any that stray within their path – but they are by far the greatest threat to the continuance of humanity on this planet.

But Nigel soon realises that the Fallers also hold the key to something he’d never hoped to find – the destruction of the Void itself. If only he can survive long enough to work out how to use it…

Above are the US and UK covers. Not sure which I prefer, but the UK cover (left) certainly has a space operatic movie-poster feel to it. Which do you prefer?

Peter F. Hamilton’s The Abyss Beyond Dreams is published by Del Rey in the US and Tor/Macmillan in the UK. If you’re a reviewer with a NetGalley account, both publishers have it posted (US/UK). The novel is due to be published in October 2014.

Update: I’ve recently been informed that this does follow on from some of Hamilton’s other novels, and if you haven’t read those then The Abyss Beyond Dreams may not be as good.

Upcoming: THE DEAD LANDS by Benjamin Percy (Grand Central)

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PercyB-TheDeadLandsI thoroughly enjoyed Benjamin Percy’s previous novel, Red Moon, and have been eagerly awaiting his next book ever since. Now (via SF Signal), here are the details of that novel, a re-imagining of the Lewis & Clark saga in a post-apocalyptic setting:

A super flu and nuclear fallout have made a husk of the world we know. A few humans carry on, living in outposts such as the Sanctuary – the remains of St. Louis – a shielded community that owes its survival to its militant defense and fear-mongering leaders.

Then a rider comes from the wasteland beyond its walls. She reports on the outside world: west of the Cascades, rain falls, crops grow, civilization thrives. But there is danger too: the rising power of an army that pillages and enslaves every community they happen upon.

Against the wishes of the Sanctuary, a small group sets out in secrecy. Led by Lewis Meriwether and Mina Clark, they hope to expand their infant nation, and to reunite the States. But the Sanctuary will not allow them to escape without a fight.

Benjamin Percy’s The Dead Lands is due to be published in the US by Grand Central Publishing, in April 2015. Red Moon was published in the UK by Hodder, and they will be publishing The Deadlands as well, in May 2015.

Also on CR: Interview with Benjamin Percy