Quick Review: MOSKVA by Jack Grimwood (Penguin/Thomas Dunne)

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GrimwoodJ-TF1-MoskvaUKPBA missing girl, and a twisted mystery that reaches back to the last days of the Second World War

‘A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma…’

January, 1986. A week after disgraced Intelligence Officer Tom Fox is stationed to Moscow the British Ambassador’s fifteen-year-old daughter goes missing. Fox is ordered to find her, and fast. But the last thing the Soviets want is a foreign agent snooping about on their turf. Not when a killer they can’t even acknowledge let alone catch is preparing to kill again…

A Cold War thriller haunted by an evil legacy from the Second World War, Moskva is a journey into the dark heart of another time and place.

Exiled to Moscow after making a mistake in Northern Ireland, Tom Fox is supposed to be writing a report on the stubborn of religion in Soviet Russia. He doesn’t want to be there, but he can speak Russian and he is an experienced researcher. Very quickly, however, he gets roped into finding the British ambassador’s missing daughter. What follows is a twisty investigation through the Russian underground and corrupt echelons of the Muscovite elite, with roots in the Second World War. This is the first novel in a gripping new series. I really enjoyed it. Continue reading →

Very Quick Review: MADE THINGS by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor.com)

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Tchaikovsky-MadeThingsAn interesting new fantasy novella from one of the most versatile, talent (and consistent) authors writing today

Making friends has never been so important.

Welcome to Fountains Parish — a cesspit of trade and crime, where ambition curls up to die and desperation grows on its cobbled streets like mold on week-old bread.

Coppelia is a street thief, a trickster, a low-level con artist. But she has something other thieves don’t… tiny puppet-like companions: some made of wood, some of metal. They don’t entirely trust her, and she doesn’t entirely understand them, but their partnership mostly works.

After a surprising discovery shakes their world to the core, Coppelia and her friends must re-examine everything they thought they knew about their world, while attempting to save their city from a seemingly impossible new threat.

I’m always eager to read any new novella (or full-length novel) by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Long-time readers of CR will know how much I enjoy his work, and that I’ve enjoyed everything of his that I’ve read. Made Things is no exception: this is an engaging, imaginative story in a new fantasy setting. Continue reading →

New Books (August)

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Featuring: Mary Adkins, David Annandale, Mike Brooks, Christopher Brown, Becky Chambers, Doug Cooper, Edward Cox, Evan Currie, Felicia Day, Rachel Harrison, Justin D Hill, Darius Hinks, Jonathan Maberry, Nathan Makaryk, Seanan McGuire, Téa Obreht, Matthew Quirk, Mo Rocca, Matt Ruff, Joseph Schneider, David Wragg

Continue reading →

Upcoming: AGENCY by William Gibson (Berkley/Viking)

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William Gibson needs no introduction. But, just in case: he is one of the father’s of Cyberpunk, and author of the acclaimed Neuromancer (among many other classics). Next year, he returns with a new novel, Agency. (Two very different covers, up there.) Here’s the synopsis:

A science fiction thriller heavily influenced by our most current events.

Verity Jane, gifted app whisperer, takes a job as the beta tester for a new product: a digital assistant, accessed through a pair of ordinary-looking glasses. “Eunice,” the disarmingly human AI in the glasses, manifests a face, a fragmentary past, and a canny grasp of combat strategy. Realizing that her cryptic new employers don’t yet know how powerful and valuable Eunice is, Verity instinctively decides that it’s best they don’t.

Meanwhile, a century ahead in London, in a different time line entirely, Wilf Netherton works amid plutocrats and plunderers, survivors of the slow and steady apocalypse known as the jackpot. His boss, the enigmatic Ainsley Lowbeer, can look into alternate pasts and nudge their ultimate directions. Verity and Eunice are her current project. Wilf can see what Verity and Eunice can’t: their own version of the jackpot, just around the corner, and the roles they both may play in it.

I’m really looking forward to this. Agency is due to be published in January 2020 by Berkley (North America) and Viking (UK).

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter

Upcoming: UPRIGHT WOMEN WANTED by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com)

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GaileyS-UprightWomenWantedI enjoyed Sarah Gailey‘s American Hippo novellas — a fun, interesting and imaginative take on the alternate history western genre. (If you haven’t tried them, yet, I’d highly recommend giving them a try.) Next February, the author returns with Upright Women Wanted, another pulpy western:

“That girl’s got more wrong notions than a barn owl’s got mean looks.”

Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself away in the Librarian’s book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her—a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda.

The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing.

Upright Women Wanted is due to be published by Tor.com in North America and in the UK, on February 4th, 2020. Gailey’s latest novel, Magic For Liars, is also out now.

Also on CR: Interview with Sarah Gailey (2017); Review of River of Teeth

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter

Upcoming: PROSPER’S DEMON by K.J. Parker (Tor.com)

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ParkerKJ-ProspersDemonJust a quite post to draw your attention to this, the latest novella by master of the form K.J. Parker: Prosper’s Demon is out in late January 2020, and is easily one of my most-anticipated books of next year. Here’s the synopsis:

In a botched demonic extraction, they say the demon feels it ten times worse than the man. But they don’t die, and we do. Equilibrium.

The unnamed and morally questionable narrator is an exorcist with great follow-through and few doubts. His methods aren’t delicate but they’re undeniably effective: he’ll get the demon out — he just doesn’t particularly care what happens to the person.

Prosper of Schanz is a man of science, determined to raise the world’s first philosopher-king, reared according to the purest principles. Too bad he’s demonically possessed.

Parker’s novellas are among some of my favourite reads of the past few years. The Devil You Know, in particular, cemented his place among the ranks of my favourite authors.

Prosper’s Demon is due to be published by Tor.com in North America and in the UK, on January 28th, 2020.

Also on CR: Reviews of The Devil You Know, The Last Witness, and Downfall of the Gods

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads

Interview with REESE HOGAN

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Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Reese Hogan?

I’m a sci fi writer who loves to write books with a blend of high action and broken relationships. I’m also the father of two very cool children. I love working out, and I’m obsessed with music, especially alt and punk rock.

Your latest novel, Shrouded Loyalties, is published this month by Angry Robot Books. It looks really interesting: How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

It’s a dieselpunk spy fi about a submarine that can travel vast distances across the planet through an alternate realm inhabited by monsters. When Chief Sea Officer Blackwood receives strange powers during a mission through this realm, she is put in the hands of ruthless scientists to be studied, along with her partner, Holland. But she doesn’t know that Holland is an enemy spy… or that Holland’s partner has seduced her teenage brother Andrew and drawn him into enemy collaboration. Continue reading →

Quick Review: TO BE TAUGHT, IF FORTUNATE by Becky Chambers (Voyager/Hodder)

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ChambersB-ToBeTaughtIfFortunateUSA stand-alone novella from the award-winning author of the Wayfarers series

At the turn of the twenty-second century, scientists make a breakthrough in human spaceflight. Through a revolutionary method known as somaforming, astronauts can survive in hostile environments off Earth using synthetic biological supplementations. They can produce antifreeze in subzero temperatures, absorb radiation and convert it for food, and conveniently adjust to the pull of different gravitational forces. With the fragility of the body no longer a limiting factor, human beings are at last able to journey to neighboring exoplanets long known to harbor life.

A team of these explorers, Ariadne O’Neill and her three crewmates, are hard at work in a planetary system fifteen light-years from Sol, on a mission to ecologically survey four habitable worlds. But as Ariadne shifts through both form and time, the culture back on Earth has also been transformed. Faced with the possibility of returning to a planet that has forgotten those who have left, Ariadne begins to chronicle the story of the wonders and dangers of her mission, in the hope that someone back home might still be listening.

I’ve been looking forward to reading this novella ever since I read the synopsis. I was not disappointed: this is an engaging, very well-written novella about exploration and the decisions and ethics that surround it. Continue reading →

Upcoming: SIXTEENTH WATCH by Myke Cole (Angry Robot)

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ColeM-SixteenthWatchMyke Cole, the acclaimed author of the Shadow Ops and Sacred Throne series, is back with new novel next year: Sixteenth Watch! Here’s the synopsis:

A lifelong Search-and-Rescuewoman, Coast Guard Captain Jane Oliver is ready for a peaceful retirement. But when tragedy strikes, Oliver loses her husband and her plans for the future, and finds herself thrust into a role she’s not prepared for. Suddenly at the helm of the Coast Guard’s elite SAR-1 lunar unit, Oliver is the only woman who can prevent the first lunar war in history, a conflict that will surely consume not only the moon, but earth as well.

Sixteenth Watch is due to be published by Angry Robot Books in North America and in the UK, in March 2020. It’s unclear if this is the first in a planned series, or a stand-alone. Myke is also the author of the acclaimed Legion Versus Phalanx history book, which I would also highly recommend.

Seems like March 2020 is going to be “Coast Guard… in Space!” month. (See also: K.B. Wagers’s A Pale Light in the Black.)

Also on CR: Interview with Myke Cole (2011); Guest Post on “Influences & Inspirations”; Review of Control Point, Fortress Frontier, Breach Zone, and The Armored Saint

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter

Upcoming: A PALE LIGHT IN THE BLACK by K.B. Wagers (Voyager)

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WagersKB-NeoG1-APaleLightInTheBlackUSK.B. Wagers is the author of the acclaimed Indranan War and Farian War series, published by Orbit (the latter is still ongoing). Next year, the author launches a new series — NeoG — which will be published by Voyager. A Pale Light in the Black is a “rollicking” first entry in the NeoG series, that introduces readers to the Near-Earth Orbital Guard: a military force patrolling and protecting space inspired by the real-life mission of the U.S. Coast Guard. Here’s the synopsis for the upcoming novel:

For the past year, their close loss in the annual Boarding Games has haunted Interceptor Team: Zuma’s Ghost. With this year’s competition looming, they’re looking forward to some payback — until an unexpected personnel change leaves them reeling. Their best swordsman has been transferred, and a new lieutenant has been assigned in his place.

Maxine Carmichael is trying to carve a place in the world on her own — away from the pressure and influence of her powerful family. The last thing she wants is to cause trouble at her command on Jupiter Station. With her new team in turmoil, Max must overcome her self-doubt and win their trust if she’s going to succeed. Failing is not an option — and would only prove her parents right.

But Max and the team must learn to work together quickly. A routine mission to retrieve a missing ship has suddenly turned dangerous, and now their lives are on the line. Someone is targeting members of Zuma’s Ghost, a mysterious opponent willing to kill to safeguard a secret that could shake society to its core… a secret that could lead to their deaths and kill thousands more unless Max and her new team stop them.

Rescue those in danger, find the bad guys, win the Games. It’s all in a day’s work at the NeoG.

There seems to be a trend in sci-fi at the moment: plucky bands of adventurers venturing out into space and getting up to shenanigans. Personally, I am very much on board for this trend.

A Pale Light in the Black is due to be published by Voyager in North America and in the UK, in March 2020.

Also on CR: Interview with K.B. Wagers (2016)

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter