Fantasy

An Interview with DEN PATRICK

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DenPatrick-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Den Patrick?

I’m a thirty-something novelist, originally from Dorset, born to Londoner parents. I’ve been in London for over ten years. I describe myself as all round geek; I like Fantasy, Sci-Fi, table top gaming, RPGs, CCGs and other acronyms that confuse normal folks.

Your debut novel, The Boy With the Porcelain Blade, is due to be published by Gollancz next week (March 20th). How would you introduce the novel to a new reader? Is it the first in a series?

The Boy with the Porcelain Blade is the first book of The Erebus Sequence. It is a Fantasy novel set in a pseudo-Renaissance world full of suspicion, politics and mystery. The novel takes place is the vast sprawling castle of Demesne, in the Kingdom of Landfall. The protagonist, Lucien, is exiled just after he turns eighteen which precipitates a lot of (frequently violent) repercussions. And swearing and sarcasm.

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What inspired you to write the series? And where do you draw your inspiration from in general?

The book was originally called The Boy with the Porcelain Ears. There is a point in the novel where Lucien wears fabricated ears to make up for his own, which he is lacking. It was very much about being self-conscious and different. So much of fiction is based on the outsider. My influences come from anywhere, as much from films as novels, music and television play their part, but also games. There’s also an undercurrent of Horror to Porcelain despite remaining a Fantasy novel.

You’ve also written three War Manuals for classic fantasy races (Dwarves, Elves, and Orcs). How did this project come about? How did writing these differ from writing The Boy With the Porcelain Blade?

I was chatting to Simon Spanton at the Gollancz 50th birthday party a few years back. We got talking about Tolkein, as geeks do after a certain amount of booze. One of us (I can’t remember who) joked that it would be funny if there was a guide to conducting warfare as written by orcs. We met again in a pub not long after and decided we’d try it out. They were a lot of fun to write. The War-Manuals were very much in the vein of an army book, but also provided a chance to poke fun at the pop culture stereotypes of Elves, Dwarves an Orcs. They’re really instructional books, so are very different to a novel and the pacing of a story.

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How were you introduced to reading and genre fiction?

I wasn’t so hot at school at age seven but I found these books called Tim and the Hidden People by Sheila K. McCullagh. I was reading below my age but they really grabbed by attention. They’re set in the modern world but full of ghosts and talking cats and magic. It was the early ’80s at that point, so I’d read anything to do with Star Wars, comics and annuals. Later I’d voraciously read White Dwarf or army codexes cover-to-cover. Later still came James Herbert, Terry Pratchet and David Eddings.

How do you enjoy being a writer and working within the publishing industry?

I became a full-time writer by accident, laid off from the bookstore I was working at. Irony alert! I spend a lot of time alone, so I always make the effort to get out of the house in the evenings and see people, lest I become completely unhinged. I am so grateful to be able to do the thing I love full time, but it is a job. Some days I get tired, sometimes things go wrong, sometimes I procrastinate, but not often. I know I have people I can reach out to if I get stuck or worried about anything. My agent Juliet Mushens is great, and so is my publisher.

Is being an author what you expected? Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practices?

Don’t turn on the internet before noon. Once you log into Twitter or Facebook the day just disappears. I write in 500 word bursts, taking a break to make coffee, shower or eat before trying out another 500 words. A lot of time is spent in my pjs. I scribble myself notes on the bus, which isn’t helpful as I have terrible handwriting. I do a lot of thinking while gazing out of bus windows.

When did you realize you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?

I think I was in my mid-twenties when I started writing this awful superhero future noir nonsense. I just wrote it for myself. It wasn’t until my early thirties that I became more serious. I started two other novels before I actually managed to finish one, but the less said about that the better.

What’s your opinion of the genre today, and where do you see your work fitting into it?

Genre is huge, both in terms of what has come before and what is occurring right now. I feel a bit overwhelmed trying to keep up to date with all of it. I’d much rather be writing than wrangling. There’s definitely a feeling the old guard are fighting to stay relevant. There’s a huge amount of sexist bullshit going on, but that’s really just a reflection of what is happening in society. I’d like to see genre be more inclusive and less the domain of straight, white males. We have lots of women editors and agents, so why not more authors?

As for my work – I’m not sure it’s up to me to declare or know where it fits, that’s for the readers, I guess.

What other projects are you working on, and what do you have currently in the pipeline?

I’m working on edits for book two of The Erebus Sequence, then I’ll be straight on to re-drafting book three, which I finished before Christmas. I may take a break from Landfall at that point to write something else (top secret, sorry). I do have two more Landfall stand alones plotted, and I’d love to write them if there is an audience.

WilliamsJ-CopperPromiseWhat are you reading at the moment (fiction, non-fiction)?

I’m reading Jen Williams’ The Copper Promise. We did an event together at Blackwell’s on 10th March.

What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?

I attended a performing arts school instead of going to sixth form or University. It was pretty much like the kids from Fame. I only danced professionally for a year, then stopped. These days I enjoy lindy hop, which is a style of 1940s swing dancing.

What are you most looking forward to in the next twelve months?

I should probably say the release of my first novel, but have you seen the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer? Also finishing book two of The Erebus Sequence.

Guest Post: “Tower of Babel” by Aidan Harte

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AidanHarte-AuthorPicMasons, like writers, learn the hard way to choose their foundation carefully. The strength of that first stone defines the structure, sets the tone. Accordingly, Chapter One of Spira Mirabilis begins with blasphemy. The Last Apprentice of Concord whips up a Children’s Crusade and instead of sending them to fight the approaching coalition led by Contessa Scaligeri, he sets them to construct a new cathedral. This is a recreation of the Tower of Babel, that structure torn down by an outraged God who then “confounded the language of all the Earth,” for good measure.

Finishing The Wave Trilogy, I found myself toiling in Babel’s shadow. This influence can be partly ascribed to the setting – cathedral building was medieval society’s engine, the focus of mathematics, engineering, art and devotion – but what troubled me was what Nimrod’s Tower says about creation. It condemns all creation as a blasphemous encroachment. What more damning indictment of the hubris of storytelling than a tower reaching to heaven, swatted aside by the greatest creator of all? The Middle East’s attitude to idolaters has always swayed between hostility and ambivalence. No accident then that Scheherazade, like Babel, springs from the fertile soil between the Euphrates and the Tigres. The lovely slave girl forever spinning yarns to keep her head from tumbling is, I like to think, the patron saint of storytelling. Her story reveals the secret of all stories: once you get in the habit of it, it’s easier to keep going than to stop.

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There’s always a new twist, a cliff-hanger to escape, a long lost uncle to appear, a reconciliation or – better yet – a quarrel to be had. The deeper one is immersed, the more improbabilities one will accept. Watch the end of any Hitchcock film; it will seem overwrought, even silly, but only because you haven’t earned the heightened emotions the last act demands. Plenty of wonderful stories, like political careers, simply capsize before the finish line. The final season of The Wire is a catastrophe, but it seems churlish to say so. Instead we echo the builders of Babel: ‘Shame how it ended, but wasn’t she splendid?’

It’s a bittersweet thing to leave a place you’ve lived in for years but I’m finally saying addio to Etruria. No matter how much we rehearse farewells, they are almost always anticlimactic. Only a committed Austinian can recall the last lines of Pride and Prejudice:

“With the Gardiners, they were always on the most intimate terms. Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them.”

I know – yawnsville, right? Dear Jane is simply putting the chairs away and turning out the lights, but we’ve enjoyed the evening’s entertainment so much that we can’t complain if it ends in diminuendo. First impressions matter. Endings? Not so much. That last Parthian shot won’t mar a wonderful story or salvage a dull one. The battle’s won or lost long before then. Famous farewells, then, are necessarily a rare species. There’s Gatsby with his green light and boat going nowhere and Sydney Carton doing that far, far better thing. My favourite comes from Tracy Chevalier’s The Girl with the Pearl Earring. ‘A maid comes free’ is the final bittersweet flourish which makes this poignant tale linger.

Parting pickings are slim because it is a truth universally concealed that most writers are too preoccupied leaving the stage with dignity to craft something beautiful. But endings should be fashioned as carefully as the keystone that completes the arch, and not afterthoughts. Readers are well used to preposterous final acts when the air suddenly escapes. The sound of that rushing air is usually a Calvary horn. When it toots, it’s time to get your coat. The technical term is Deus Ex Machina, or God from the Machine. The phrase, as every eager Lit Grad know, originates in Greek theater when Zeus or one of his progeny would drop down and resolve things with a thunderbolt.

In Spira Mirabilis I throw a spanner in the divine machinery, asking what if God wants to help, but is powerless. I posit that God was not merely offended by Nimrod’s Tower, He was threatened. The Apprentice’s Tower is a knife to sever earth and heaven, and Contessa Scaligeri is the only one who can stop him. High stakes then. Does it come off, or does it come crashing down, leaving me with the poor hod-carriers at Babel, unpaid and gibbering nonsense?

Let’s see when the dust settles.

***

Aidan Harte is the author of The Wave Trilogy – Irenicon, The Warring States and Spira Mirabilis – published in the UK by Jo Fletcher Books. Spira Mirabilis will be published on March 27th (eBook) and April 3rd (hardcover).

Also on CR: Interview with Aidan Harte, Guest Post (Yesterday That Never Was), Excerpt of Irenicon

An Interview with ANNA KASHINA

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AnnaKashina-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Anna Kashina?

I am a biomedical scientist and a writer, not necessarily in that order. My day job is being a professor at a major US university. Writing is reserved for the rest of my time. More recently, I am also a mother of two, which taps seriously into all the other occupations.

Your novel, Blades of the Old Empire, is due to be published in February by Angry Robot Books. How would you introduce the novel to a new reader? Is it part of a series?

I hope readers would see it as an adventure fantasy in the best traditions of the genre, which also includes some elements of romance. It does not push the boundaries or create new concepts, it is intended as a fun, fast-paced read. It is book one of the Majat Code series, with book two, Guild of Assassins, coming out this August. I do have plans for other books in the series and hope to see them forthcoming later on.

KashinaA-MC1-BladesOfTheOldEmpire

What inspired you to write the novel? And where do you draw your inspiration from in general?

As it turns out, these are two separate questions. Generally, my inspiration for writing comes from a desire to get some unresolved emotions out on paper. I can only do it in the form of fantasy, ideally set in a world that does not exist in real life. But a lot of ideas for these stories also come from my dreams. In a big sense, it almost seems as if these worlds do exist somewhere and find their way out into my books.

With Blades of the Old Empire, it was somewhat different. I wanted to write a traditional fantasy. And then, as I sat down to write it, the story just emerged. Once it got going, all I had to do was write it down. So, in this sense, I had an even stronger feeling that not only the world, but this particular story existed somewhere, and just found its way out through me. The feeling was very special, one I still miss.

How were you introduced to reading and genre fiction?

Tolkien-LOTR-1-TheFellowshipOfTheRingI grew up in the former Soviet Union. Back then, reading was pretty much the only form of entertainment available (we had no TV, and people did not go out much). I was reading ever since I can remember; everything I could lay my hands on, but my favorites were always fairy tales and myths, and this probably started my early interest in fantasy. The first true fantasy I read was The Lord of the Rings, and after that I was hooked on the genre.

How do you enjoy being a writer and working within the publishing industry? Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practices?

Now that I have a publisher, I love it. It means I can focus only on my writing and somebody else will do the rest. Of course, I used to see it differently before I found a publisher and an agent.

I write for enjoyment, and I do have a demanding day job; so, unlike many authors, I don’t have a routine in which I must sit down and write something every day. If I need to write something, I just sit down and write it, whenever I can. But the most rewarding times are when I feel inspired, and then keeping from writing becomes a torture and I literally use every available moment to write. This yields some of my best work.

I usually do research as I write, on an “as-needed” basis. If I feel very inspired, I leave blanks for the parts that need researching, sometimes with a note of what needs to be in there, and then fill these blanks later.

When did you realize you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?

My first was a self-illustrated “novel” written when I was six years old, which ended with the words “and they sailed to the east, where the sun sets.” When my father politely pointed out to me that the sun actually sets in the west, I was so ashamed that I destroyed that “book”. I am sure it was for the best.

AnnaKashina&VladimirKeilisBorok-NovelMy first novel that I look back fondly on was written when I was in high school, co-authored with my grandfather, Vladimir Keilis-Borok. It is a historical novel about the pirates and Queen Elizabeth of England, written in Russian under pen names. I still think it is very good (probably for young adults) and maybe some day I will translate it into English.

What’s your opinion of the genre today, and where do you see your work fitting into it?

This is difficult to tell. Personally, I really enjoy traditional fantasy that explores the familiar concepts well. I believe there are not enough such books out there – partly because the professionals in the industry, who have literally seen it all, tend to be attracted to new things they have not seen before. As a reader, I still like the old, and I hope we get more books published in the “good old” style. I hope my book would appeal to readers like myself, those who like to have fun with a book and don’t care about anything else.

My books also tend to have lots of romance (which is even more true about the upcoming Guild of Assassins), and I don’t think there are enough books out there that blend fantasy with elements of romance (usually these two genres are somewhat separate). I hope my books will appeal to the readers who are not straight romance fans, but enjoy good romance elements in their adventure story.

What other projects are you working on, and what do you have currently in the pipeline?

The Guild of Assassins is the next in the pipeline. It is a sequel to Blades of the Old Empire, even though each of these books can be read as a stand-alone. I am working on book three in the series.

RabyA-H&T1-AssassinsGambitWhat are you reading at the moment (fiction, non-fiction)?

At the moment I am reading Amy Raby’s Hearts and Thrones series: a great example of traditional adventure fantasy with elements of romance. I am enjoying it very much. I mostly read non-fiction at work, so even though I do have several historical reference books on my shelf, they are on hold for the moment.

What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?

I hope, that English is not my first language…? (Unless, of course, my name already gave it away.)

I grew up in Russia and came to America as an adult, so for the first few years I was really conscious about my limitations in the English language. At that time, I felt that if I could make one wish, it would be to know English as well as I know Russian. I feel that in the past decade I have achieved that state, and possibly switched to English as the dominant one.

What are you most looking forward to in the next twelve months?

Well, I am both anticipating and dreading the release of my books. I hope readers will like them, and sitting around and waiting is just so unnerving. I am sure many authors can relate to this feeling, of pouring out your soul, defeating impossible odds, putting your work out there, and waiting for the reaction it would cause… All in all, fingers crossed!

***

Blades of the Old Empire is published by Angry Robot Books in the UK on March 6th and in the US and eBook format today.

Princeless Vol.1 – “Save Yourself” (Action Lab)

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Princeless-Vol.1Writer: Jeremy Whitley | Art: M. Goodwin

Princeless is the story of Princess Adrienne, one princess who’s tired of waiting to be rescued. Join Adrienne, her guardian dragon, Sparky, and their plucky friend Bedelia as they begin their own quest in this one of a kind, action packed, all-ages adventure!

Collects: Princeless Vol.1 #1-4

This was a very pleasant surprise. It’s a progressive, all-ages comic book that should have massive appeal across age groups. The story is witty, well-written, and the artwork is filled with amusing and eye-catching details. I really enjoyed this, and think a lot of others will, too.

The story and ‘message’ (not wanting to get too academic about this) is also very good. It’s a story about a princess rebelling against the Fantasy/Fairy Tale Archetypes. It begins with her shrewdly pointing out the idiocy of sticking princesses in towers in the middle of nowhere guarded by hungry dragons. It’s the only time the financial flaw in such a plan has been pointed out… The rest of the book picks up on a number of fantasy tropes, not to mention the archaic conventions related to women (young, old, noble, and peasant). There were so many scenes that made me laugh or smile. Not only the moment when our heroine discovered the sword under her bed (“Oooh. Shiny.”); but also the excellent scene in which she acquires her own, proper armour.

Princeless-Vol.1-Interior5

I won’t go into any more detail than that, as I think it would ruin many of the other jokes. You’ll find a great protagonist in Adrienne, you’ll grow attached to her new (almost Chewbacca-meets-dog) dragon companion, her zany new ally, and her brother is pretty great, too. I urge everyone to read this. If it found its way into the hands of young readers everywhere, as well as adults’, then it could do a lot for breaking down gender barriers in storytelling and genre fiction/media (in the long and short term).

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Princeless is a must-read for anyone looking for a progressive, fun comic book. Also perfect for anyone who enjoyed Frozen and other similar movies. I really can’t wait to read volume two. Very highly recommended.

Short Story Reviews: FORSWORN and THE FACE IN THE WINDOW by Brian McClellan

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A pair of short stories set in the world of McClellan’s Powder Mage fantasy series. McClellan continues to impress and these two stories (which follow previous short stories The Girl of Hrusch Avenue and Hope’s End) do a wonderful job of adding more to the world he’s creating. And heightening my anticipation for The Crimson Campaign…

McClellanB-PM-ForswornFORSWORN

Erika ja Leora is a powder mage in northern Kez, a place where that particular sorcery is punishable by death. She is only protected by her family name and her position as heir to a duchy.

When she decides to help a young commoner — a powder mage marked for death, fugitive from the law — she puts her life and family reputation at risk and sets off to deliver her new ward to the safety of Adro while playing cat and mouse with the king’s own mage hunters and their captain, Duke Nikslaus.

Occurs 35 years before the events in Promise of Blood.

This is a great novella. This time, we’re in Kez, and we learn about their strict censure of powder mages – lowborn mages are executed, but highborn mages can forswear their gifts and live (branded). It is set a long while before the novel, as is mentioned above, and it’s only at the end that McClellan connects it with Tamas and his revolution. I really liked the way he wrote all of the characters. The story is very well-paced, and the fight scenes are expertly done. The author continues to impress, the more of his work I read.

Very highly recommended.

*

McClellanB-PM-FaceInTheWindow(BCS140)THE FACE IN THE WINDOW

Taking place two years before the events in Promise of Blood, “The Face in the Window” relates the story of Taniel’s trip to Fatrasta and his first meeting with a mysterious girl named Ka-poel.

Published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies issue #140.

The author announced this rather suddenly on his website and via Twitter, just as I was finishing Forsworn. Naturally, I went straight to Amazon and bought it… It’s a great story, too, one that has a slow build to a sudden, appropriate ending. It was great to read of Taniel’s first meeting with Ka-poel (my favourite character from Promise of Blood, probably). It’s set in the muggy, oppressive, dragon-infested swamps, and Taniel attaches himself to a regiment who end up devastated by their enemies. With Ka-poel’s help, he seeks revenge on the Privileged who murdered his company.

Much shorter than Forsworn, McClellan nevertheless offers a satisfying story. You don’t have to have read Promise of Blood, but you will probably get a bit more out of “The Face in the Window” if you have.

*

Brian McClellan’s Promise of Blood is published in the UK and US by Orbit Books. The next novel in the series, The Crimson Campaign is due to be published in May 2014. I can’t wait!

Review: TRAITOR’S BLADE by Sebastien de Castell (Jo Fletcher Books)

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deCastellS-GC1-TraitorsBladeAn all-round brilliant fantasy debut, and one of the best I’ve read in a decade.

Falcio is the first Cantor of the Greatcoats. Trained in the fighting arts and the laws of Tristia, the Greatcoats are travelling Magisters upholding King’s Law. They are heroes. Or at least they were, until they stood aside while the Dukes took the kingdom, and impaled their King’s head on a spike.

Now Tristia is on the verge of collapse and the barbarians are sniffing at the borders. The Dukes bring chaos to the land, while the Greatcoats are scattered far and wide, reviled as traitors, their legendary coats in tatters.

All they have left are the promises they made to King Paelis, to carry out one final mission. But if they have any hope of fulfilling the King’s dream, the divided Greatcoats must reunite, or they will also have to stand aside as they watch their world burn…

Every so often, a debut novel comes along that knocks your expectations out of the park. Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamorra is one of those novels. Peter V. Brett’s The Painted Man is another. Sebastien de Castell’s Traitor’s Blade needs to be added to that list. I loved this. Continue reading →

An Interview with SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

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deCastell-AuthorPicBack in November, I stumbled across some information about Sebastien de Castell’s Traitor’s Blade on Jo Fletcher Books’ website. Naturally, I was very intrigued. Then, in January, an ARC of the book appeared, and I dove right in. To put it bluntly, I loved it: a perfect blend of action, intrigue, humour, and all-round great storytelling. This novel is going to cause a splash, as well it damn well should. Read on for an interview with de Castell…

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Sebastien de Castell?

I guess you could say that I’m a professional wanderer. I love to take on challenges in new fields and learn everything I can. These days I write fantasy and mystery novels but in the past I’ve been a full-time musician, an interaction designer, teacher, project manager, fight choreographer, actor, and, well, lots of other things. (At least one of which I’m keeping secret until my deathbed!)

Your debut novel, Traitor’s Blade, is due to be published in March by Jo Fletcher Books. How would you introduce the novel to a new reader?

The Three Musketeers meets A Game of Thrones. It’s a swashbuckling mystery set in a country that is being torn apart by corruption and intrigue. Continue reading →

“The Copper Promise” by Jen Williams (Headline)

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WilliamsJ-CopperPromiseA fun fantasy adventure

There are some far-fetched rumours about the caverns beneath the Citadel…

Some say the mages left their most dangerous secrets hidden there; others, that great riches are hidden there; even that gods have been imprisoned in its darkest depths.

For Lord Frith, the caverns hold the key to his vengeance. Against all the odds, he has survived torture and lived to see his home and his family taken from him … and now someone is going to pay. For Wydrin of Crosshaven and her faithful companion, Sir Sebastian Caverson, a quest to the Citadel looks like just another job. There’s the promise of gold and adventure. Who knows, they might even have a decent tale or two once they’re done.

But sometimes there is truth in rumour.

Soon this reckless trio will be the last line of defence against a hungry, restless terror that wants to tear the world apart. And they’re not even getting paid.

Lots of people have discussed the rise of grimdark, the loss of fun and adventure in fantasy of late. Personally, I’m rather fond of grimdark. I’m also rather fond of more fun-loving, adventure- and quest-focused fantasies of the ‘classic’ mould. The Copper Promise manages to straddle both of these camps rather skillfully. A lot of people are going to like this.

And, indeed, there’s a lot to like: some good protagonists to guide us through the world, plenty of action to be survived and enjoyed (as a spectator), dragons to fight and be killed by, dungeons to explore, treasure to be found, magic to be wielded, and pirates to fend off. The world is well-drawn and well-developed, and feels fully-formed very quickly. Readers will be drawn to the Band of Adventurers-style story that we’re thrown in to pretty much right off the bat. It was great to see the story unfold, and the heroes’ struggle against what they unleash from beneath the Citadel is epic and varied.

And yet. The Copper Promise didn’t excite me as much as I had expected. Yes, it was fun. Yes, I kept reading and Williams can certainly write both more serious and also wittier sections. But. It took me a while to really get hooked into the story. There were moments of exposition that verged on info-dumping (especially near the beginning). While well-written, the characters didn’t seem too inspired at first blush, and seemed to come right out of Fantasy Central Casting: a mischievous, reckless thief; a taciturn, moralistic and conflicted former knight. They were, however, pretty well-written characters, and Williams fleshed them out well over the course of the novel.

I felt that Wydrin’s quips and/or snark near the beginning of the novel sometimes verged too close to Lorelai Gilmore-like frequencies – it was like we were really meant to know that the character was sarcastic and feisty, and maybe it was a bit overdone. True, it fits her cavalier, act-first-think-later attitude to adventuring (and looting), and it did balance out later. But it irked me at the beginning (perhaps a result of my mood at the time I read it, perhaps not). Lord Frith, Wydrin and Sebastian’s benefactor, is a less grimdark version of Abercrombie’s Inquisitor Glokta, only high-born and less misanthropic, but equally driven and focused on his cause. Perhaps that’s a rather lazy comparison (Frith was also crippled by torture), but the connection popped into my head immediately after reading the prologue and then again after we are reunited with him and he hires Wydrin and Sebastian. Speaking of the three of them, they worked pretty well as a group, and I enjoyed reading about their exploits.

The issues I had with the novel were minor, but they were also clear. Along with the aforementioned niggles with regards to the characters, there were also occasional pacing issues – when the narrative felt a little uneven. And at other times, the characters’ speech patterns shifted from more ‘natural’ to forced or affected, which felt a little jarring as they were predominantly written in a very natural, engaging way – there were even a few moments of what felt like Renaissance Fair-esque weirdness near the beginning. I also think it could have done with being just a bit shorter – tightening up may have helped with the pacing issues.

A lot of people will like this novel. For me, this is a good novel, and one that looks back at what used to make fantasy so much fun and addictive and contemporizes it rather well. The sense of adventure, the quirky characters… a big, fuck-off dragon. That kind of thing. But, after finishing, I was not left with the sense that this had been a spectacular read. It will certainly be interesting to see what the author comes up with next. Williams can definitely write, and has obvious talent and love for the genre (there are so many lovingly adopted tropes and genre conventions that are gleefully included and tweaked).*

A cautious recommendation, therefore. If you are looking for a fantasy novel that has a classic sense of fun coupled with a more contemporary style, then The Copper Promise should suit your needs. I look forward to reading Williams’s second novel.

***

The Copper Promise was received from both Headline and also as part of the Hodderscape Review Project.

* I am, of course, purely speculating about any levels of authorial glee.

Upcoming from Hodder Books (UK): “The Forever Watch” and “Lagoon”…

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It’s Saturday night, and I’m stuck at home. So, naturally, I’m reading publishers’ catalogues. Currently, I’m reading Hodder Books’ Spring 2014 catalogue, which means I’ve got more information on a number of books that I’m excited to read this year.

PrintFirst up, we have David Ramirez’s THE FOREVER WATCH:

The Truth is only the beginning.

The Noah: a city-sized ship, half-way through an eight hundred year voyage to another planet. In a world where deeds, and even thoughts, cannot be kept secret, a man is murdered; his body so ruined that his identity must be established from DNA evidence. Within hours, all trace of the crime is swept away, hidden as though it never happened. Hana Dempsey, a mid-level bureaucrat genetically modified to use the Noah’s telepathic internet, begins to investigate. Her search for the truth will uncover the impossible: a serial killer who has been operating on board for a lifetime… if not longer.

And behind the killer lies a conspiracy centuries in the making.

The Forever Watch is due to be published on March 20th 2014 in the UK by Hodder, and April 22nd 2014 in the US by Thomas Dunne.

Update: Just been informed by Hodder that The Forever Watch has been pushed back to a May 1st publication.

OkoraforN-LagoonNext, we have Nnedi Okorafor’s LAGOON:

A star falls from the sky. A woman rises from the sea. The world will never be the same.

Three strangers, each isolated by his or her own problems: Adaora, the marine biologist. Anthony, the rapper, famous throughout Africa. Agu, the troubled soldier. Each wandering Bar Beach in Lagos, they’re more alone than they’ve ever been before.

But when a meteorite plunges into the ocean and a tidal wave overcomes them, these three people will find themselves bound together in ways they could never have imagined. Together with Ayodele, a visitor from beyond the stars, they must race through Lagos and against time itself in order to save the city, the world, and themselves.

Love that Joey Hi-Fi cover… Lagoon is due to be published by Hodder in the UK and US in April 2014.

For more on Hodder Books’ science fiction, fantasy and horror publishing, be sure to check out the Hodderscape website.

Upcoming: “Tower Lord” by Anthony Ryan (Orbit)

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RyanA-RS2-TowerLordAnthony Ryan’s Blood Song was published to much fanfare in the middle of last year. For some reason I didn’t actually get around to reading it. I think this was a combination of everyone else talking/writing about it, and because I can be difficult, this made me want to delay reading it. Also, I think I got it during a protracted SFF reading funk that I was going through at the time.

Anyway, with the second novel in the series now announced (not to mention that it’s due to be published rather soon), I really will have to get caught up in time for Tower Lord. Here’s the synopsis [caution – spoilers for book one]…

THE REALM BURNS.

Vaelin Al Sorna is tired of war. He’s fought countless battles in service to the Realm and Faith. His reward was the loss of his love, the death of his friends and a betrayal by his king. After five years in an Alpiran dungeon, he just wants to go home.

Reva intends to welcome Vaelin back with a knife between the ribs. He destroyed her family and ruined her life. Nothing will stop her from exacting bloody vengeance – not even the threat of invasion from the greatest enemy the Realm has ever faced.

Yet as the fires of war spread, foes become friends and truths turn to lies. To save the Realm, Reva must embrace a future she does not want – and Vaelin must revisit a past he’d rather leave buried.

TOWER LORD will be published on July 3rd 2014 in hardback, trade format and eBook, in both the UK and US. Anthony Ryan can also be found online at his website and on Twitter.

On a somewhat related note – I’m actually way behind on reading Orbit titles. I love Orbit’s roster of authors, and have been reading them voraciously ever since I got my mitts on Brent Weeks’s Night Angel trilogy, back in 2008 – a series that I absolutely loved. I must get caught up! Expect more to feature in the coming months.