Featuring: Stacey Abrams, Mike Brooks, Choi Jin-young, Mikaella Clements, Onjuli Datta, Alex de Campi, Amanda Foody, John French, Peter F. Hamilton, Gareth Hanrahan, Peter Heller, Christine Lynn Herman, Kotaro Isaka, Jadie Jang, Cassandra Khaw, Joe R. Landsdale, Richard Lange, Mike Lawson, S. Qiouyi Lu, Lee Mandelo, Elaine Murphy, Craig Nova, Megan E. O’Keefe, Gareth L. Powell, Tom Rosenstiel, Neil Sharpson, Brian Staveley, Gav Thorpe, C.L. Werner, David Wragg
Brian Staveley’s debut novel, The Emperor’s Blades, was one of the best fantasy debuts I’d read in a long while: an engaging new world, some great characters, and superb writing, I started the follow-up immediately after finishing the first (something I haven’t done very often, when it comes to fantasy series). This year, readers will finally get to read Staveley’s new novel, The Empire’s Ruin. The first in a new series, Ashes of the Unhewn Throne, it picks up the story after the end of The Last Mortal Bond. I’m really looking forward to reading this. Here’s the synopsis:
The Annurian Empire is disintegrating. The advantages it used for millennia have fallen to ruin. The ranks of the Kettral have been decimated from within, and the kenta gates, granting instantaneous travel across the vast lands of the empire, can no longer be used.
In order to save the empire, one of the surviving Kettral must voyage beyond the edge of the known world through a land that warps and poisons all living things to find the nesting ground of the giant war hawks. Meanwhile, a monk turned con-artist may hold the secret to the kenta gates.
But time is running out. Deep within the southern reaches of the empire and ancient god-like race has begun to stir.
What they discover will change them and the Annurian Empire forever. If they can survive.
Brian Staveley’s The Empire’s Ruin is due to be published by Tor Books in North America, on July 6th, 2021. (I couldn’t find any details about a UK edition, but the author’s Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne trilogy was published by Tor UK, so I assume it’ll be them again.)
Featuring: James Abbott, Nina Allan, Fredrik Backman, Bandi, Paul Beatty, Robert Jackson Bennett, Marie Brennan, Jesse Brown, M.R. Carey, Don Carpenter, Ben Coes, Jenny T. Colgan, Mason Cross, Cory Doctorow, Alan Drew, Amy Engle, Steve Erickson, Nigel Foster, David Guymer, John Gwynne, Tom Holt, Christopher Husberg, James Islington, Howard Jacobson, Stephen King, Andrew Lane, Dale Lucas, Grace O’Connell, Sam Peters, Eliza Robertson, Vivian Shaw, Michael Farris Smith, Brian Staveley, Allen Steele, Stephan Talty, Gav Thorpe, Alison Umminger, Jeff Vandermeer, Paul Vidich, Chris Wraight
Sometimes, sex feels like cheating. For a writer, I mean, a writer writing about sex.
There are some subjects that one has to really work at to snare a reader. Start a novel with the economic system of your invented city, for instance, or the heraldry of your protagonist, and you’ll lose the reader by the bottom of the first page. Almost no one, on the other hand, closes a book on a description of naked bodies doing what naked bodies do best. Even people who are offended by graphic depictions of sex, even people who will go on to write the author a very sternly worded letter after reading said descriptions — they still tend to read them. A fascination with sex is built into us at a limbic level. Continue reading
In the first of today’s posts celebrating the release of Brian Staveley‘s stand-alone Skullsworn, we have an excerpt. First, though, here’s the synopsis:
For one apprentice assassin, the clock is ticking…
Pyrre Lakatur doesn’t like the description skullsworn. It doesn’t capture the beauty of her devotion to Ananshael, God of Death. And she’s not an assassin, but a priestess. Or she will be, if she can pass her final trial. The problem isn’t killing, as Pyrre has spent her life training for this. The problem is love. To pass the trial, she will have fourteen days to kill seven people detailed in an ancient song, including one true love, ‘who will not come again’. However, Pyrre has never been in love, time is short, and if she fails she’ll be given to her god.
Pyrre’s not afraid to die, but she hates to fail. So a month before the trial begins, she returns to the violent city of her birth, where she once offered an abusive father to the god. Here Pyrre hopes to find love – and end it with the edge of her knife.
Skullsworn is set in the same world as Staveley’s excellent, best-selling and critically-acclaimed Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne trilogy. On with the excerpt!
The year’s flood of interesting new and upcoming releases continues! Most of these are high on my must-read (mental) list. Some of these are also not out for a very long time, so reviews won’t appear for a few months. Nevertheless, worth mentioning to whet others’ appetites for the year ahead’s biblio-offerings…
Featuring: Jami Attenberg, Paul Auster, David Bishop, JoAnn Chaney, Andy Clark, John Connolly, Liv Constantine, Ben Counter, Paul Crilley, Rene Denfeld, Alice Feeney, Neil Gaiman, Max Gladstone, L.J. Goulding, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Anthony Horowitz, Danya Kukafka, Victor LaValle, Mark Lawrence, Norman Ohler, B.A. Paris, Sarah Pinborough, Alastair Reynolds, Michael Rubens, Kieran Shea, Jon Skovron, Brian Staveley, James Swallow, Martha Wells
The highly-anticipated conclusion to the Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne trilogy
DEATH IS NEAR, ARMIES ARE GATHERED, AND THE FUTURE RESTS ON A KNIFE-EDGE
The Annurian Empire is losing a war on two fronts — and it’s unclear who’s in command. Adare is stationed in the thick of battle, calling herself Emperor. However, she can’t hold back the nomadic Urghul forces forever. She needs her brilliant general, Ran il Tornja, but will he betray her again?
Adare’s brother Kaden is the true heir, yet he’ll accept a republic to save his divided people. And he faces something more terrible than war. He’s unmasked Ran il Tornja as a remnant of an ancient race, one that attempted to destroy mankind. The general now plans to finish what they started. Kaden has also discovered that capricious gods walk the earth in human guise — and their agendas may seal the fates of all.
In early 2014, I finally got around to reading Brian Staveley’s first two novels, The Emperor’s Blades and The Providence of Fire. I was blown away — I read them back-to-back, which is something I haven’t done with a fantasy series since Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies, and Peter V. Brett’s The Desert Spear and The Daylight War. Staveley’s writing, his characters, and the fantastically composed and paced narrative just pulled me through. I was hooked. I still think the two novels are a fantastic example of what modern fantasy can be. (Seriously, go read them.) I had a rather different reaction to The Last Mortal Bond… Continue reading
Just a couple of handfuls of upcoming novels from Tor Books (there are many that look interesting, these stood out).
Featuring: Cory Doctorow, Thoraiya Dyer, A.J. Hartley, Michael Johnston, Nancy Kress, Laura Lam, Ian McDonald, John Scalzi, Brian Staveley, Allen Steele
Just stumbled across this in Tor’s new catalogue: a stand-alone novel set in Brian Staveley‘s Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne universe! Skullsworn is due to be published in the US by Tor Books, in April 2017 (so far away…). Here’s the synopsis:
Pyrre Lakatur doesn’t like the word skullsworn. It fails to capture the faith and grace, the peace and beauty of her devotion to the God of Death. She is not, to her mind, an assassin, not a murderer — she is a priestess. At least, she will be a priestess if she manages to pass her final trial.
The problem isn’t the killing. Pyrre has been killing and training to kill, studying with some of the most deadly men and women in the world, since she was eight. The problem, strangely, is love. To pass her Trial, Pyrre has ten days to kill the ten people enumerated in an ancient song, including “the one you love / who will not come again.”
Pyrre is not sure she’s ever been in love. If she were a member of a different religious order, a less devoted, disciplined order, she might cheat. The Priests of Ananshael, however, don’t look kindly on cheaters. If Pyrre fails to find someone to love, or fails to kill that someone, they will give her to the god.
Pyrre’s not afraid to die, but she hates to quit, hates to fail, and so, with a month before her trial begins, she returns to the city of her birth, the place where she long ago offered an abusive father to the god and abandoned a battered brother — in the hope of finding love… and ending it on the edge of her sword.
Really looking forward to this. Will have to finish the first trilogy first, of course. Skullsworn is also due to be published in the UK by Tor Books (they also published the author’s debut trilogy) — not cover, yet.
Featuring: Andrew Bannister, Stephanie Burgis, Lee Child, Myke Cole, Sebastien de Castell, A.A. Dhand, N.S. Dolkart, Steven Erikson, Christie Golden, Stephen Graham Jones, Jessica Grose, Guy Haley, Peter Hanington, Samantha Hayes, Kaui Hart Hemmings, D.L. Hughley, Kij Johnson, Emma Kavanagh, Laura Lam, Owen Laukkanen, Ken MacLeod, Laurence MacNaughton, Jay McInerney, Barney Norris, Daniel O’Malley, Ann Patchett, Ben Peek, Leif G.W. Perrson, Gae Polisner, Adam Rakunas, Chris Roberson, J. Todd Scott, Helen Sedgwick, J.P. Smythe, Brian Staveley, James Swallow, Michael Swanwick, David Swinson, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Matt Wallace, Robin Yocum
Above Picture: Crop of Injection #7, by Declan Shalvey & Jordie Bellaire (Image)
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