Next year, Black Library are going to kick off their range of horror fiction, and I for one can’t wait! It looks like the series is going to include re-issues of Kim Newman’s Genevieve novels, as well as some brand new works. First up is The Wicked and the Damned by David Annandale, Phil Kelly and Josh Reynolds. A portmanteau novel, here’s the synopsis:
Drawn together by mysterious circumstances, three strangers meet in the mists of a desolate cemetery world. As they relate their stories, the threads of fate are drawn around them, and destiny awaits…
On a misty cemetery world, three strangers are drawn together through mysterious circumstances. Each of them has a tale to tell of a narrow escape from death. Amid the toll of funerary bells and the creep and click of mortuary-servitors, the truth is confessed. But whose story can be trusted? Whose recollection is warped, even unto themselves? For these are strange stories of the uncanny, the irrational and the spine-chillingly frightening, where horrors abound and the dark depths of the human psyche is unearthed.
The Wicked and the Damned will be available to pre-order from Black Library on March 23rd, 2019, and will arrive in stores on April 4th.
Follow the Author (Annandale): Website, Goodreads, Twitter
Follow the Author (Kelly): Website, Goodreads
Follow the Author (Reynolds): Website, Goodreads, Twitter
I must confess that the cover is really what attracted me to this book. Of course, reading the synopsis added to my interest, but I’m pretty sure I first learned of this novel when the cover was unveiled. Nevertheless, I think Dan Moren‘s The Bayern Agenda looks really interesting, and like a rather intriguing mixture of spy and sci-fi fiction (“Traitor, Pilot, Banker, Spy”):
That just might be the most dazzling cover I’ve seen in a while: it’s bright, attention-grabbing and just a little bit blinding… While I haven’t read as much of Kameron Hurley‘s work as I would like, I have enjoyed everything that’s crossed my path so far (I would especially recommend the Bel Dame series). I think The Light Brigade is a stand-alone novel, and it sounds pretty cool:
Well, that cover is rather fantastic. I’d spotted the synopsis for this novel a short while before the cover was unveiled, and my interest has only grown with that gorgeous cover. I know, “don’t judge a book by its cover” — I’m not, really, as I’m already a big fan of Richard Kadrey‘s novels, and have routinely recommended and cheered each and every new novel he’s written and had published. (Shamefully, that hasn’t stopped me from falling behind…) The Grand Dark is “a lush, dark, stand-alone fantasy… a subversive tale that immerses us in a world where the extremes of bleakness and beauty exist together in dangerous harmony in a city on the edge of civility and chaos.” That sounds pretty intriguing! It has also been described as akin to the work of China Miéville and M. John Harrison. Here’s the full synopsis:
Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Jacey Bedford?
A superb parable of an all-too-believable future American dystopia…
The brutal, engrossing, twisty finale to the Wounded Kingdom trilogy
Civilian Reader 