Once companions on the greatest of adventures, Gotrek and Felix have long since gone their separate ways. Felix, married and settled, secretly craves the excitment of his youth. And when the opportunity arises, Felix embarks upon what might be his final journey. As the chaos of the End Times engulfs Kislev, Gotrek and Felix are reunited, battling the hordes of the Troll King alongside Ulrika, Snorri and Max. But when long-hidden secrets are revealed, these old friends will be torn apart, and not all of them will leave Kislev alive…
Long-time readers of CR will know that I’m a huge fan of Warhammer heroes Gotrek Gurnisson and Felix Jaegar (because I mention this fact a lot). The characters and series were created by William King, back in the late 1980s, and the series has continued pretty much uninterrupted ever since, until March of this year, when David Guymer brought it to a close with Slayer. Kinslayer is an interesting first half of a finale, tied in nicely with the Warhammer End Times storyline. It is not without its weaknesses, but it is also a must-read for fans of the series. Continue reading →
Let’s start with an introduction, for those who may not be familiar with your work: Who is Andy Remic?
Andy Remic is an alien blob entity who’s been trapped in a bubble of gelatinous goo and forced to write hardcore fast-paced thrillers, SF and fantasy, sometimes mixing up all the genres in one big whisky barrel, whilst being prodded by an electrified titanium rod. Sometimes he shape-shifts into different types of aliens and appears in movies, and occasionally he is allowed to take human form for photo opportunities and signings. Mainly though, he likes being a blob.
Your new novel, The Dragon Engine, will be published by Angry Robot in September. How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?
The Dragon Engine is a fast-paced dark fantasy novel. It’s about a group of Vagandrak heroes who get drunk and sign a contract to go on a treasure hunt in some ancient, abandoned dwarf mines. The adventurers believe there are jewels hidden there which give everlasting life. Only when they arrive, the mines are far from abandoned, and our heroes learn of three huge dragons held in captivity, enslaved by the dwarves, particularly Skalg, First Cardinal of the Church of Hate… things go downhill fast for everybody. This is the first of a two-part series – at the moment! Continue reading →
In The Iron Ghost, the second book in the Copper Cat trilogy, my very own troubled magic user Lord Aaron Frith comes face to face with one of the most famous mages’ in Ede’s history: the resurrected Joah Demonsworn. Unfortunately, although Joah is quite polite and rather pleased to find that there is at least one other mage still around, he is also murderously insane – driven beyond all sense by the pursuit of power, by his close association with a demon, and by spending a thousand years mouldering in a tomb. His plans for the Black Feather Three will prove to have disastrous consequences for everyone.
Magic is one of the foundations of fantasy, and often those who use it or are changed by it can be the most interesting characters in fiction. Here are a few of my favourites: Continue reading →
The Ill-Made Muteis the first in Cecilia Dart-Thornton‘s Bitterbynde trilogy, which has recently been republished in eBook by Open Road Media. Here’s the synopsis:
In a dark and perilous realm, an outcast without a name or a memory seeks a voice, a past, and a future in the fir1st installment of a modern classic fantasy trilogy
In all of Erith, there is perhaps no one as wretched as the nameless mute foundling confined to the lowest depths of Isse Tower. Abused by many and despised by all, the pathetic creature lives without memories in the shadows. The amnesiac longs to escape — to roam the wild landscape in search of a past, a name, a destiny — but dangers surround the tower. Only flying ships and majestic winged horses carrying important visitors can reach the castle safely, landing high above the ground on its battlements. The local servants whisper about malevolent creatures that roam the forests and bear no love for humankind. Escape seems impossible in this treacherous world of wights and monsters.
Open Road Media have also published the other two novels in the series: The Lady of Sorrows and The Battle of Evernight. For more on the series, check out CR’s interview with Cecilia Dart-Thornton on Wednesday.
Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Cecilia Dart-Thornton?
I was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia and graduated from university with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology. I became a schoolteacher after leaving university. Over the years my hobbies have included painting in oils, tapestry, clay sculpting, performing in folk music bands, and growing heritage fruit. I am a keen supporter of animal rights and wilderness conservation.
I became a full-time writer in 2000 after my work was discovered on the Internet and published by Time Warner (New York). My books are published around the world and have been translated into several languages.
Your Bitterbynde Trilogy will be published by Open Road Media this month. It looks rather interesting: How would you introduce it to a potential reader?
The Bitterbynde is a fantasy trilogy that comprises The Ill-Made Mute, The Lady of the Sorrows, and The Battle of Evernight. The story opens with readers seeing through the eyes of a deformed mute with no memory. This foundling resolves to seek a cure for the deformities and the amnesia. Meanwhile a strange world unfolds on every side. The world is populated with — nay, teeming with — ‘eldritch wights’. These are supernatural creatures whose nature ranges from friendly (‘seelie’) to mischievous (‘tricksy’) to downright dangerous (‘unseelie’). They come in all shapes and sizes and may be monstrously ugly or spellbindingly beautiful. Their looks have no correlation with their inclinations. Continue reading →
War and madness cast shadows over the lands dragons once ruled.
Geder Palliako’s star is rising. He is a hero of Antea, protector to the crown prince, and darling of the court. But storms from his past are gathering, and with them, a war that will change everything.
Cithrin bel Sarcour founded a powerful bank on stolen wealth, forged papers, and ready blades. Now every move she makes is observed, recorded, and controlled. Unless Cithrin can free herself from her gilded cage, the life she made will be for naught; war may provide just the opportunity she needs.
An apostate priest sees the hidden hand behind all: a long-buried secret of the dragon empire threatens everything humanity has built. An age of madness and death approaches, with only a few doomed heroes to stand in its way.
Reviewed by Ryan Frye
I read The King’s Blood hot on the heels of finishing The Dragon’s Path. The previous volume had felt like a tasty appetizer hinting at further tasteful courses, and I was hungry for more. I’m happy to report that this second volume provided me with pretty much everything I’d hoped for in a follow-up novel. Continue reading →
The Great Houses war is a central part of the book, though by necessity it’s always seen in flashbacks, as it took place sixty years before the events of the novel. It’s left marks on everyone, and of course it has also devastated Paris and given rise to the city in the book, a dystopic place where people cling to the Great Houses as their only source of safety. This scene is one of the strongest reminiscences from Philippe, who actually fought in it.
It also contains what is possibly my favourite lines in the book: the “magicians turned into soldiers… our best men turned into corpses”, which was one of those gifts from the muse: it came straight into the first draft and hasn’t really moved since.
The war. Philippe thought of the clamor of explosions; of huddling in the doorways of ruined buildings, peering at the sky to judge the best moment to rush out; of his lieutenant in House colors, urging them to lay down their lives for the good of the city; of his squad mates buried in nameless graves, on the edge of Place de la République. Ai Linh, who had had a laughter like a donkey, and always shared her biscuits with everyone else; Hoang, who liked to gamble too much; Phuong, who told hair-raising stories in the barracks after all lights had been turned off. “I don’t know what the war was like, inside the Houses,” he said, and it was almost the truth.Continue reading →
Marcus’ hero days are behind him. He knows too well that even the smallest war still means somebody’s death. When his men are impressed into a doomed army, staying out of a battle he wants no part of requires some unorthodox steps.
Cithrin is an orphan, ward of a banking house. Her job is to smuggle a nation’s wealth across a war zone, hiding the gold from both sides. She knows the secret life of commerce like a second language, but the strategies of trade will not defend her from swords.
Geder, sole scion of a noble house, has more interest in philosophy than in swordplay. A poor excuse for a soldier, he is a pawn in these games. No one can predict what he will become.
Falling pebbles can start a landslide. A spat between the Free Cities and the Severed Throne is spiraling out of control. A new player rises from the depths of history, fanning the flames that will sweep the entire region onto The Dragon’s Path-the path to war.
Reviewed by Ryan Frye
This is not my first time reading The Dragon’s Path, nor is it the first time I’ve reviewed it. I first read (and reviewed) The Dragon’s Path a little over three years ago. When I first read and review the novel, I had mixed feelings. This time around, some things that bothered me the first time had little-to-no-effect on me, while other issues that I had with the narrative persisted during both reads. Continue reading →
Today, a quick look at upcoming titles from Tor Books (US) that have caught my eye — some of these aren’t due out until early 2016, but I thought they looked interesting enough to feature now.
Charlie Jane Anders, ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY (January 26th, 2016)
Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn’t expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during middle school. After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one’s peers and families.
But now they’re both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them. Laurence is an engineering genius who’s working with a group that aims to avert catastrophic breakdown through technological intervention. Patricia is a graduate of Eltisley Maze, the hidden academy for the world’s magically gifted, and works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world’s every-growing ailments. Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them, something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together — to either save the world, or plunge it into a new dark ages.
A deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love, and the apocalypse.
A dazzling novel of humanity, noir heroines, and the Singularity
They call it Company Towna citysized oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd.
Hwa is of the few people in her community (which constitutes the whole rig) to forgo bioengineered enhancements. As such, she’s the last truly organic person left on the rigmaking her doubly an outsider, as well as a neglected daughter and bodyguard extraordinaire. Still, her expertise in the arts of selfdefense and her record as a fighter mean that her services are yet in high demand. When the youngest Lynch needs training and protection, the family turns to Hwa. But can even she protect against increasingly intense death threats seemingly coming from another timeline?
Meanwhile, a series of interconnected murders threatens the city’s stability and heightens the unease of a rig turning over. All signs point to a nearly invisible serial killer, but all of the murders seem to lead right back to Hwa’s front door. Company Town has never been the safest place to bebut now, the danger is personal.
A brilliant, twisted mystery, as one woman must evaluate saving the people of a town that can’t be saved, or saving herself.
I think the first time I heard about Company Town was via Angry Robot Books, who published Ashby’s The Machine Dynastyseries. However, I can’t find anything about Company Town on their website (this might be because of the recent purchase of the publisher and subsequent changes).
R.S. Belcher, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WHEEL (March 1st, 2016)
A unique new urban fantasy exploring the haunted byways and truck stops of the U.S. Interstate Highway System
In 1119 A.D., a group of nine crusaders became known as the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomona militant monastic order charged with protecting pilgrims and caravans traveling on the roads to and from the Holy Land. In time, the Knights Templar would grow in power and, ultimately, be laid low. But a small offshoot of the Templars endure and have returned to the order’s original mission: to defend the roads of the world and guard those who travel on them.
Theirs is a secret line of knights: truckers, bikers, taxi hacks, state troopers, bus drivers, RV gypsiesany of the folks who live and work on the asphalt arteries of America. They call themselves the Brotherhood of the Wheel.
Jimmy Aussapile is one such knight. He’s driving a big rig down South when a promise to a ghostly hitchhiker sets him on a quest to find out the terrible truth behind a string of children gone missing all across the country. The road leads him to Lovina Hewitt, a skeptical Louisiana State Police investigator working the same case and, eventually, to a forgotten town that’s not on any mapand to the secret behind the eerie BlackEyed Kids said to prowl the highways.
Seth Dickinson, THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT (September 15th)
A young woman from a conquered people tries to transform an empire in this richly imagined geopolitical fantasy.
Baru Cormorant believes any price is worth paying to liberate her people-even her soul.
When the Empire of Masks conquers her island home, overwrites her culture, criminalizes her customs, and murders one of her fathers, Baru vows to swallow her hate, join the Empire’s civil service, and claw her way high enough to set her people free.
Sent as an Imperial agent to distant Aurdwynn, another conquered country, Baru discovers it’s on the brink of rebellion. Drawn by the intriguing duchess Tain Hu into a circle of seditious dukes, Baru may be able to use her position to help. As she pursues a precarious balance between the rebels and a shadowy cabal within the Empire, she orchestrates a do-or-die gambit with freedom as the prize.
But the cost of winning the long game of saving her people may be far greater than Baru imagines.
Dickinson’s debut is published in the UK by Tor Books, as The Traitor.
The Moon wants to kill you. Whether it’s being unable to pay your per diem for your allotted food, water, and air, or you just get caught up in a fight between the Moon’s ruling corporations, the Five Dragons. You must fight for every inch you want to gain in the Moon’s near feudal society. And that is just what Adriana Corta did.
As the leader of the Moon’s newest “dragon,” Adriana has wrested control of the Moon’s Helium-3 industry from the Mackenzie Metal corporation and fought to earn her family’s new status. Now, at the twilight of her life, Adriana finds her corporation, Corta Helio, surrounded by the many enemies she made during her meteoric rise. If the Corta family is to survive, Adriana’s five children must defend their mother’s empire from her many enemies… and each other.
This is published in the UK by Gollancz, on September 17th, 2015.
For eighteen-year-old Gideon Blake, nothing but death can keep him from achieving his goal of becoming a U.S. Army Ranger. As it turns out, it does.
Recovering from the accident that most definitely killed him, Gideon finds himself with strange new powers and a bizarre cuff he can’t remove. His death has brought to life his real destiny. He has become War, one of the legendary four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Over the coming weeks, he and the other horsemenConquest, Famine, and Deathare brought together by a beautiful but frustratingly secretive girl to help save humanity from an ancient evil on the emergence.
They fail.
Nowbound, bloodied, and druggedGideon is interrogated by the authorities about his role in a battle that has become an international incident. If he stands any chance of saving his friends and the girl he’s fallen fornot to mention all of humankindhe needs to convince the skeptical government officials the world is in imminent danger.
V.E. Schwab, A GATHERING OF SHADOWS (February 23rd, 2016)
Four months have passed since the shadow stone fell into Kell’s possession. Four months since his path crossed with Delilah Bard. Four months since Rhy was wounded and the Dane twins fell, and the stone was cast with Holland’s dying body through the rift, and into Black London.
In many ways, things have almost returned to normal, though Rhy is more sober, and Kell is now plagued by his guilt. Restless, and having given up smuggling, Kell is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila, who disappeared from the docks like she always meant to do. As Red London finalizes preparations for the Element Games-an extravagent international competition of magic, meant to entertain and keep healthy the ties between neighboring countries — a certain pirate ship draws closer, carrying old friends back into port.
But while Red London is caught up in the pageantry and thrills of the Games, another London is coming back to life, and those who were thought to be forever gone have returned. After all, a shadow that was gone in the night reappears in the morning, and so it seems Black London has risen again — and so to keep magic’s balance, another London must fall.
Brian Staveley, THE LAST MORTAL BOND (March 15th, 2016)
War engulfs the Annurian Empire.
The ancient csestriim are back to finish their purge of humanity; armies march against the capital; leaches, solitary beings who draw power from the natural world to fuel their extraordinary abilities, maneuver on all sides to affect the outcome of the war; and capricious gods walk the earth in human guise with agendas of their own.
But the three imperial siblings at the heart of it all Valyn, Adare, and Kaden come to understand that even if they survive the holocaust unleashed on their world, there may be no reconciling their conflicting visions of the future.
The first two books in Staveley’s Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne are also published in the US by Tor Books: The Emperor’s Blades and Providence of Fire. The series is published in the UK by Tor (UK). I loved the first two books, can’t wait to read this!
Once a year on Dragon Day the fabled Dragon Gate is raised to let a sea dragon pass into the Sabian Sea. There, it will be hunted by the Storm Lords, a fellowship of powerful water-mages who rule an empire called the Storm Isles.
Emira Imerle Polivar is coming to the end of her tenure as leader of the Storm Lords, but she has no intention of standing down graciously. As part of her plot to hold onto power, she instructs an order of priests known as the Chameleons to sabotage the Dragon Gate. There’s just one problem: that will require them to infiltrate an impregnable citadel that houses the gate’s mechanism — a feat that has never been accomplished before.
But Imerle is not the only one intent on destroying the Storm Lord dynasty. As the Storm Lords assemble in answer to a mysterious summons, they become the targets of assassins working for an unknown enemy. And when Imerle sets her scheme in motion, that enemy uses the ensuing chaos to play its hand.
Turner’s debut, When Heavens Fall, is also published by Tor Books in the US, and in the UK by Titan Books. I assume they’ll be publishing book two as well.
Welcome to a world of wind and bone, songs and silence, betrayal and courage.
Kirit Densira cannot wait to pass her wingtest and begin flying as a trader by her mother’s side, being in service to her beloved home tower and exploring the skies beyond. When Kirit inadvertently breaks Tower Law, the city’s secretive governing body, the Singers, demand that she become one of them instead. In an attempt to save her family from greater censure, Kirit must give up her dreams to throw herself into the dangerous training at the Spire, the tallest, most forbidding tower, deep at the heart of the City.
As she grows in knowledge and power, she starts to uncover the depths of Spire secrets. Kirit begins to doubt her world and its unassailable Laws, setting in motion a chain of events that will lead to a haunting choice, and may well change the city forever — if it isn’t destroyed outright.
A handful of titles forthcoming from Tor Books UK that I’m really interested in (and one published by Picador).
Zen Cho, SORCEROR TO THE CROWN (September 10th)
THE FATE OF ENGLISH MAGIC LIES IN THEIR HANDS…
In Regency London, Zacharias Wythe is England’s first African Sorcerer Royal. He leads the eminent Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers, but a malicious faction seeks to remove him by fair means or foul. Meanwhile, the Society is failing its vital duty — to keep stable the levels of magic within His Majesty’s lands. The Fairy Court is blocking its supply, straining England’s dangerously declining magical stores. And now the government is demanding to use this scarce resource in its war with France.
Ambitious orphan Prunella Gentleman is desperate to escape the school where she’s drudged all her life, and a visit by the beleaguered Sorcerer Royal seems the perfect opportunity. For Prunella has just stumbled upon English magic’s greatest discovery in centuries — and she intends to make the most of it. At his wits’ end, the last thing Zachariah needs is a female magical prodigy! But together, they might just change the nature of sorcery, in Britain and beyond.
To be published in the US by Ace Books on September 1st, 2015.
Baru Cormorant believes any price is worth paying to liberate her people — even her soul. When the Empire of Masks conquers her island home, criminalizes her customs, and murders one of her fathers, Baru vows to mask her hate, join the Empire’s civil service, and claw her way high enough up the rungs of power to put a stop to the Emperor’s influence and set her people free –whatever the price. A natural savant she is sent as an Imperial agent to distant Aurdwynn — a post she worries will never get her the position and power she craves.
But Baru soon discovers Aurdwynn is a complex and secretive country, seemingly on the brink of rebellion. All it would need is a match to the tinder… Drawn by the intriguing duchess Tain Hu into a circle of seditious dukes, Baru may be able to use her position to help create a revolution that will threaten the Empire’s hold on the country; an outcome, which if successful, could threaten to bring the Empire to its knees.
As she pursues a precarious balance between the rebels and a shadowy cabal within the Empire, she orchestrates a do-or-die gambit with freedom as the prize. But winning the long game of saving her people may be far more costly than Baru imagines.
Published in the US by Tor Books, as The Traitor Baru Cormorant.
Able to wake the recently dead for testimony that is accepted in courts worldwide, the use of revivers has long been a routine part of police investigation. But now those who consider it blasphemy are in resurgence — well-funded and gaining ground, they threaten the work of Jonah and his colleagues in the Forensic Revival Service. Jonah is still recovering from the injuries received after unearthing the existence of a creature bent on terrible destruction, a creature defeated at the cost of many lives.
Then the discovery of a bizarrely mutilated corpse makes Jonah suspect that the victory was not as complete as it seemed, and that not all the evil was destroyed. For in the darkness, shadows are waiting. And they are hungry…
Hanya Yanagihara, A LITTLE LIFE (August 13th, Picador)
A masterful depiction of heartbreak, and a dark and haunting examination of the tyranny of experience and memory.
An epic about love and friendship in the twenty-first century that goes into some of the darkest places fiction has ever travelled and yet somehow improbably breaks through into the light.
When four graduates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they’re broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome — but that will define his life forever.
The Doom of Gotrek Gurnisson begins…
