Interview with MELISSA F. OLSON

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OlsonMF-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Melissa F. Olson?

Oh, boy, I suddenly feel like I’m in Defending Your Life! I’m going to resist the temptation to write in third person, and just say that I’m a writer, a mother, and a bewildered chinchilla owner. By that, I mean that my chinchilla bewilders me, not that the chinchilla himself is in a constant state of bewilderment.

Your new novella, Nightshades (which I enjoyed very much), will be published by Tor.com this month. How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

I hope there will be more Nightshades! One reviewer recently described it as “Criminal Minds with vampires,” and although I’ve never seen Criminal Minds, that does kind of feel right. The book is about the moments right after vampires – or shades, as they’re called in this world – are discovered to be real. The focus is on the government agents who have to deal with all shade-related crime. Continue reading →

Review: DEATHFIRE by Nick Kyme (Black Library)

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KymeN-HH32-DeathfireThe surviving Salamanders search for purpose and hope

Vulkan lies in state beneath the Fortress of Hera, and yet many of his sons still refuse to believe that he is truly dead. After a seemingly miraculous rescue by the Ultramarines, Artellus Numeon, once captain of the Pyre Guard, urges the other Salamanders on Macragge to leave Imperium Secundus and return their primarch’s body to the home world of Nocturne — there to be reborn in the flames of Mount Deathfire. But Numeon grapples endlessly with his doubts and fears for the future of the Legion, while their foes seek to carve out new destinies of their own…

It feels like a very long time since I last read a Horus Heresy novel. I used to read them as soon as they were released, but I seem to have taken a bit of a break. So, I decided to catch up, and ended up reading the last four novels in a couple of weeks. For the main, it was great to be reading back in that setting. Deathfire, the sequel to Vulkan Lives moves the Salamanders’ story forwards, eventually bringing the shattered legion some hope. It is not, however, an easy journey… Continue reading →

New Books (June-July)

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Featuring: Bradley Beaulieu, Darcey Bell, Morgan Grant Buchanan, Michael Chabon, Bill Clegg, Paul Cornell, Claudia Christian, Mason Cross, Allen Eskens, Alice Hoffman, Chris Holm, Bill James, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Antonio Garcia Martinez, Stephen Metcalfe, Liesa Mignogna, Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, Alexandra Oliva, Laurie Penny, Andy Remic, Michael J. Sullivan, Heather Skyler, Melinda Snodgrass, Gav Thorpe, Paul Vidich, Chuck Wendig, Kayla Rae Whitaker, Kai Ashanti Wilson, Tom Wolfe, Joakim Zander, Rob Ziegler

Above artwork: Roche Limit: Monadic #4 (crop), by Kyle Charles (Image Comics) Continue reading →

Review: SLEEPING GIANTS by Sylvain Neuvel (Del Rey/ Michael Joseph)

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NeuvelS-SleepingGiantsUSAn interesting start to a new series

Deadwood, USA. A girl sneaks out just before dark to ride her new bike. Suddenly, the ground disappears beneath her. Waking up at the bottom of a deep pit, she sees an emergency rescue team above her. The people looking down see something far stranger…

“We always look forward. We never look back.”

That girl grows up to be Dr. Rose Franklyn, a brilliant scientist and the leading world expert on what she discovered. An enormous, ornate hand made of an exceptionally rare metal, which predates all human civilisation on the continent. 

“But this thing … it’s different. It challenges us. It rewrites history.”

An object whose origins and purpose are perhaps the greatest mystery humanity has ever faced. Solving the secret of where it came from — and how many more parts may be out there — could change life as we know it.

“It dares us to question what we know about ourselves.”

But what if we were meant to find it? And what happens when this vast, global puzzle is complete…?

“About everything.”

I had very high hopes for Neuvel’s Sleeping Giants. It sounded really interesting and, as an epistolary novel, I was certainly intrigued to see how the author built the story. For the main, it is very well-written and interesting. That being said, the story flagged a bit towards the end, despite being the start of a new series. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Writing Games vs. Novels” by Brian Hastings

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HastingsB-AuthorPicFor some reason, back in college, I had the audacity to think I could become an author. As if that was just one of the options available in the career center. It turned out finding any job at all was a lot trickier than I expected. But I knew how to program computers, so I ended up joining a startup video game company that we would later name Insomniac Games (because of how little we slept back in those days.) And Twenty-Two years later I’m still making video games.

But for the first time in my life, I can now say that I’m an author.

Song of the Deep is both a game and a novel, and each reveals different parts of a mysterious world. But creating a novel in conjunction with a game ended up being a challenging journey in itself. Continue reading →

Quick Review: THE KILLING SEASON and THE SAMARITAN by Mason Cross (Orion/Pegasus)

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A must-read new thriller series

The first thing you should know about me is that my name is not Carter Blake. That name no more belongs to me than the hotel room I was occupying when the call came in.

When Caleb Wardell, the infamous ‘Chicago Sniper’, escapes from death row two weeks before his execution, the FBI calls on the services of Carter Blake, a man with certain specialised talents whose skills lie in finding those who don’t want to be found. A man to whom Wardell is no stranger.

Along with Elaine Banner, an ambitious special agent juggling life as a single mother with her increasingly high-flying career, Blake must track Wardell down as he cuts a swathe across America, apparently killing at random.

But Blake and Banner soon find themselves sidelined from the case. And as they try desperately to second guess a man who kills purely for the thrill of it, they uncover a hornets’ nest of lies and corruption. Now Blake must break the rules and go head to head with the FBI if he is to stop Wardell and expose a deadly conspiracy that will rock the country.

I read both of these novels back-to-back, and loved them both. The first two in a new series by British author Mason Cross, they are a wonderful blend of classic loner-hero thrillers and some fresh ideas. They’re difficult to review without spoiling, as is often the case with thrillers, but in a nutshell: Briskly paced, realistic, and gripping — what more could you ask for from a thriller? Continue reading →

Excerpt: VIGIL by Angela Slatter (Jo Fletcher Books)

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SlatterA-VigilAngela Slatter‘s Vigil is the first novel in the author’s Verity Fassbinder series, published by Jo Fletcher Books. To celebrate its recent release in the UK, the publisher has provided CR with the following excerpt, as part of an extensive blog tour (details of other stops at end). First, though, here’s the synopsis:

Verity Fassbinder has her feet in two worlds.

The daughter of one human and one Weyrd parent, she has very little power herself, but does claim unusual strength — and the ability to walk between us and the other — as a couple of her talents. As such a rarity, she is charged with keeping the peace between both races, and ensuring the Weyrd remain hidden from us.

But now Sirens are dying, illegal wine made from the tears of human children is for sale — and in the hands of those Weyrd who hold with the old ways — and someone has released an unknown and terrifyingly destructive force on the streets of Brisbane.

And Verity must investigate — or risk ancient forces carving our world apart.

Read on for the excerpt… Continue reading →

Upcoming: COLLAPSING EMPIRE by John Scalzi (Tor)

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There is a new stand-alone sci-fi novel coming from John Scalzi early next year: The Collapsing Empire. It sounds rather interesting, too:

Humanity moves away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our homeworld. It creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos ensures no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a safeguard against interstellar war – and a way of controlling the empire’s rulers. This future of faster-than-light travel is possible due to a huge discovery – the Flow. This is an extra-dimensional field which can transport us to other worlds. And while this field is eternal, like a river, it does change its course.

It now seems the Flow is moving, which could isolate every human world in space forever. So three individuals will make a last attempt to find a solution. A scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency will see what, if anything, can be salvaged. For an interstellar empire is on the brink of collapse.

Due to be published by Tor Books in the US and UK in March 2017.

Upcoming: FIERCE GODS by Col Buchanan (Tor)

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Earlier this week, Tor UK unveiled the cover for Col Buchanan‘s fourth Heart of the World novel, Fierce Gods. If you’ve been reading CR for a while, you may have spotted that I really enjoyed the first two novels in the series, Farlander and Stands a Shadow. I haven’t yet had the chance to catch up with the third book, The Black Dream, but I hope to do so very soon. In the meantime, here’s the synopsis for Fierce Gods:

A time of reckoning has begun.

For ten years the Free Ports held their own against the despotic empire of Mann – but the empire is now poised to destroy them. The crucial fortress city of Bar-Khos is under attack and its freedom depends on a few unsteady hands.

Betrayal could come from any side, at any moment. While chaos reigns, Nico will search for his captive mother and attempt to defend his people. And Shard the Dreamer will hunt for legendary charts, which could yet save the city.  However, a Red Guard officer with gone rogue could bring about the end, 
and a visitor from another world has a hidden agenda.

With the war entering its darkest hours, will any of them survive?

Fierce Gods is due to be published by Tor UK on February 23rd, 2017.

Also on CR: Interview with Col Buchanan (2011); Reviews of Farlander and Stands A Shadow

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Upcoming: THE BEAR AND THE SERPENT by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor)

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TchaikovskyA-Bear&TheSerpentUK

A few days ago, Adrian Tchaikovsky revealed the cover for his next fantasy novel, The Bear and the Serpent, due to be published in the UK by Tor Books, on February 9th, 2017. It’s the second novel in the author’s Echoes of the Fall series. Here’s the synopsis:

Maniye, child of Wolf and Tiger, has a new soul and a new shape. But as Champion of the Crown of the World, does she represent an opportunity for the North — or a threat? Travelling as a bodyguard to the Southern prince, with her warband of outcasts, she hopes to finally discover her true place in the world.

But if only it was that simple. Tensions rise, and new allies face up to old enemies as civil war threatens to tear the South apart. Royal twins can’t share a throne, so one must be chosen. And whoever rules the southern Sun River Nation will hold the fate of the world in their hands. As the protector of one potential heir, Maniye soon finds herself at the eye of a political storm. Yet all the while, an enemy from the most ancient of times prepares for conquest, and could destroy everything in their path…

It is the sequel to The Tiger and the Wolf, which was also published by Tor in the UK (and is out now). Tchaikovsky is also the author of the critically-acclaimed Shadows of the Apt series, Guns of the Dawn, Children of Time and the upcoming Spiderlight.

Also on CR: Interview with Adrian Tchaikovsky (2012); Guest Posts on “Nine Books, Six Years, One Stenwold Maker”, “The Art of Gunsmithing — Writing Guns of the Dawn”, “Looking for God in Melnibone Places: Fantasy & Religion” and “Eye of the Spider”; Excerpt from Guns of the Dawn; Reviews of Empire in Black & Gold and Guns of the Dawn