Most Anticipated 2016

Guest Post: “Eye of the Spider” by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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TchaikovskyA-AuthorPicWe humans encounter the world through a very limited set of senses, compared to much of the animal kingdom. Our visual acuity is good but our ability to see colours is crippled by nocturnal ancestors. Birds, reptiles and many grounds of invertebrates see far more bands in the rainbow (if there was a mantis shrimp pride march their flags would be incredible). Our hearing and smell are the shame of Mammalia. What to us is a satisfactory baseline would make dogs cringe with embarassment.

This is my first go-to when approaching a non-human character: the window on the world that the senses give. Obviously there’s more than that, but neuroscience and cultural tropes and the like are all going to be strongly influenced by the tools an entity has to perceive its surroundings. Continue reading →

Quick Review: BEFORE THE FALL by Noah Hawley (Grand Central)

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HawleyN-BeforeTheFallUSAn excellent, gripping mystery

On a foggy summer night, eleven people — ten privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter — depart Martha’s Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are Scott Burroughs, the painter, and a four-year-old boy, who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul’s family.

With chapters weaving between the aftermath of the crash and the backstories of the passengers and crew members — including a Wall Street titan and his wife, a Texan-born party boy just in from London, a young woman questioning her path in life, and a career pilot — the mystery surrounding the tragedy heightens. As the passengers’ intrigues unravel, odd coincidences point to a conspiracy. Was it merely by dumb chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something far more sinister at work? Events soon threaten to spiral out of control in an escalating storm of media outrage and accusations. And while Scott struggles to cope with fame that borders on notoriety, the authorities scramble to salvage the truth from the wreckage.

This is a fantastic novel. I have very high hopes before reading Before the Fall, and I’m very happy to report that it exceeded my expectations. The story is told from a number of perspectives, each a passenger on the fateful flight. This is an excellent read, and certainly in my top five of the year (so far). Continue reading →

Upcoming: GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT by Lily Brooks-Dalton (Random House)

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BrooksDaltonL-GoodMorningMidnightUSOnly recently discovered this novel. Sounds like it might be interesting. Lily Brooks-Dalton‘s Good Morning, Midnight is due to be published in August 2016, by Random House in the US and W&N in the UK.

The unforgettable story of two outsiders — a lonely scientist in the Arctic and an astronaut trying to return to Earth — as they grapple with love, regret, and survival in a world transformed.

Augustine, a brilliant, aging astronomer, is consumed by the stars. For years he has lived in remote outposts, studying the sky for evidence of how the universe began. At his latest posting, in a research center in the Arctic, news of a catastrophic event arrives. The scientists are forced to evacuate, but Augustine stubbornly refuses to abandon his work. Shortly after the others have gone, Augustine discovers a mysterious child, Iris, and realizes that the airwaves have gone silent. They are alone.

At the same time, Mission Specialist Sullivan is aboard the Aether on its return flight from Jupiter. The astronauts are the first human beings to delve this deep into space, and Sully has made peace with the sacrifices required of her: a daughter left behind, a marriage ended. So far the journey has been a success. But when Mission Control falls inexplicably silent, Sully and her crewmates are forced to wonder if they will ever get home.

As Augustine and Sully each face an uncertain future against forbidding yet beautiful landscapes, their stories gradually intertwine in a profound and unexpected conclusion. In crystalline prose, Good Morning, Midnight poses the most important questions: What endures at the end of the world? How do we make sense of our lives? Lily Brooks-Dalton’s captivating debut is a meditation on the power of love and the bravery of the human heart.

Lily Brooks-Dalton is also the author of Motorcycles I’ve Loved (also published by Random House).

Interview with MATTHEW BLAKSTAD

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BlakstadM-AuthorPic2Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Matthew Blakstad?

Former child actor, then a director of fringe theatre, more recently a specialist on digital communications – and now, novelist. I’ve lived in South London most of my life. I’m married, no kids. No cats (allergic spouse). As you’ll guess if you’ve read my book I’m very much into tech culture but perversely I also love the natural world and wild places.

Your new novel, Sockpuppet, will be published by Hodder. It looks rather interesting: How would you introduce it to a potential reader?

It’s a thriller, set in the very near future. An online celebrity starts dishing dirt on a politician, but this online voice is nothing but a chatbot – an artificial persona created by software. So how is a fake personality causing mayhem in the real world? Two very different women – a middle-aged politician called Bethany Lehrer, and a young software developer called Dani Farr – need to find out fast who’s behind this malicious campaign before it takes their lives to pieces.

Along the way, the book asks questions about how our online life is changing us – at the erosion of our privacy, the trolling of women, and the shift of power away from governments and towards the big technology companies. Continue reading →

Interview with THOMAS OLDE HEUVELT

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HeuveltTO-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Thomas Olde Heuvelt?

I’m a Dutch guy who writes pretty scary novels. I started out pretty young, and even now, after five novels, I look younger than I am. So much that at signings, people always thought I was the minion helping with the book sale instead of the author. Two years ago — I was 30 then — I was having dinner with Peter Straub and Jeff VanderMeer and a bunch of other writers in Washington, and I was asked for ID when the waiters poured the wine. They thought I was their adopted child or something.

Oh, right, serious biography stuff. I also won a Hugo. And I have a novel out internationally in 2016 called HEX.

Your latest novel, Hex, will be published by Hodder in the UK. It looks rather fabulous: How would you introduce it to a potential reader?

Thanks — I’m totally in love with the cover. It’s so creepy! HEX is a creepy book about a modern day town, haunted day and night by a 17th century witch whose eyes are sewn shut. The town is virtually quarantined by its elders to prevent her curse from exploding. Frustrated with being kept in lock down, the town’s teenagers decide to break their strict regulations and go viral with the haunting, but in doing so, send the town spiraling into… well, into very dark times, to frame it nicely. Also, I’d say that with HEX, I set off to write the scariest book I could imagine. I took elements from classical horror and tried to turn them around in a modern, twisted way. The witch’s haunting is very rock ‘n’ roll. She’s always there. She walks the streets day and night. She enters your home. She stands next to your bed for nights in a row. The town is bugged with cameras and there’s this control centre that tries to hide her from sight all the time. But besides the supernatural power, it’s a book mostly about human evil. Continue reading →

Upcoming: BEHIND THE THRONE by K.B. Wagers (Orbit)

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WagersKB-1-BehindTheThroneAnother great cover from Orbit’s Lauren Panepinto! This time, for K. B. Wagers‘s upcoming Behind the Throne. It sounds like it could be quite fun:

Meet Hail: Captain. Gunrunner. Fugitive.

Quick, sarcastic, and lethal, Hailimi Bristol doesn’t suffer fools gladly. She has made a name for herself in the galaxy for everything except what she was born to do: rule the Indranan empire. That is, until two Trackers drag her back to her home planet to take her rightful place as the only remaining heir.

But trading her ship for a palace has more dangers than Hail could have anticipated. Caught in a web of plots and assassination attempts, Hail can’t do the one thing she did twenty years ago — run away. She’ll have to figure out how her mother became so ill and who murdered her sisters if she wants to survive.

Behind the Throne is due to be published by Orbit in the US and UK, in August 2016.

Upcoming: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO STAR WARS by Cass R. Sunstein (Dey Street)

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SunsteinCR-WorldAccordingToStarWarsUKJust spotted this on Harper Collins UK’s website, and thought it looked interesting. Cass R. Sunstein is a law professor at Harvard, and also worked for the Obama administration during the first term. I’m familiar with some of Sunstein’s scholarly work, and I think it’ll be interesting to see what he has to say about Star Wars. Here’s the synopsis:

An original celebration of George Lucas’s masterpiece as it relates to history, presidential politics, law, economics, fatherhood, and culture by a Harvard legal scholar and former White House advisor

There’s Santa Claus, Shakespeare, Mickey Mouse, The Bible, and then there’s Star Wars. Nothing quite compares to sitting with down with a young child and hearing the sound of John Williams’ score as those beloved golden letters fill the screen. In this fun, erudite and often moving book, Cass R. Sunstein explores the lessons of Star Wars as they relate to childhood, fathers, the Dark Side, rebellion, and redemption. As it turns out, Star Wars also has a lot to teach us about constitutional law, economics, and political uprisings.

In rich detail, Sunstein tells story of the films’ wildly unanticipated success and what it has to say about why some things succeed while others fail. Ultimately, Sunstein argues, Star Wars is about the freedom of choice and our never-ending ability to make the right decision when the chips are down. Written with buoyant prose and considerable heart, The World According to Star Wars shines new light on the most beloved story of our time.

The World According to Star Wars is due to be published on May 31st in the US and Canada, and June 2nd in the UK. I’m looking forward to reading this book.

Upcoming: THE WATCHER OF DEAD TIME by Edward Cox (Gollancz)

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Today, Gollancz unveiled the rather stunning cover for Edward Cox‘s third Relic Guild novel, The Watcher of Dead Time. I’ve fallen a little behind on the series, but I really enjoyed the first book in the series. Here’s the synopsis:

Labrys Town, home to a million humans cut off from the rest of the universe, has been invaded. Those who protected it have been deposed.

The Relic Guild are scattered across the worlds of the Aelfir. Many of them are dead or dying. The Genii control everything. The war is almost over.

Clara, a young woman barely able to control her werewolf side, has seen her friends and mentors killed in front of her. She is the last hope for Labrys Town.

But someone else is watching…

The Watcher of Dead Time is due to be published by Gollancz in the UK, on August 18th, 2016. The first two novels, The Relic Guild and The Cathedral of Known Things are also published by Gollancz — paperback of the latter out on May 12th.

Also on CR: Interview with Edward Cox; Catch-Up Interview; Guest Post on “Writes and Wrongs”; Review of The Relic Guild

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Upcoming: LUNA: WOLF MOON by Ian McDonald (Gollancz/Tor)

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McDonald-Luna2-WolfMoonUKHCA little while ago, I shared the US cover for Ian McDonald‘s highly-anticipated second Luna novel, Wolf Moon. Today, the author’s UK publisher Gollancz unveiled the UK artwork — and as you can see, it’s another striking cover. Here’s the synopsis:

The moon is waiting…

Corta Helio, one of the five family corporations that rule the Moon, has fallen. Its riches are divided up among its many enemies, its survivors scattered. Eighteen months have passed.

The remaining Helio children, Lucasinho and Luna, are under the protection of the powerful Asamoahs, while Robson, still reeling from witnessing his parent’s violent deaths, is now a ward – virtually a hostage – of Mackenzie Metals. And the last appointed heir, Lucas, has vanished from the surface of the moon.

Only Lady Sun, dowager of Taiyang, suspects that Lucas Corta is not dead, and – more to the point – that he is still a major player in the game. After all, Lucas always was a schemer, and even in death, he would go to any lengths to take back everything and build a new Corta Helio, more powerful than before. But Corta Helio needs allies, and to find them, the fleeing son undertakes an audacious, impossible journey – to Earth.

In an unstable lunar environment, the shifting loyalties and political machinations of each family reach the zenith of their most fertile plots as outright war between the families erupts.

Luna: Wolf Moon is due to be published in the UK by Gollancz, on September 29th, 2016; and in the US by Tor Books, around the same time. Gollancz and Tor Books also publish the first novel in the series, Luna: New Moon.

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Upcoming: AGE OF MYTH by Michael J. Sullivan (Del Rey)

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SullivanMJ-LoFE1-AgeOfMythUSI thoroughly enjoyed Michael J. Sullivan‘s Riyria Chronicles novels. I’ve fallen a bit behind on his latest work, unfortunately. Nevertheless, I’m really looking forward to Age of Myth, which is the first in a new five-book fantasy series. Here’s the synopsis:

Since time immemorial, humans have worshipped the gods they call Fhrey, truly a race apart: invincible in battle, masters of magic, and seemingly immortal. But when a god falls to a human blade, the balance of power between humans and those they thought were gods changes forever.

Now only a few stand between humankind and annihilation: Raithe, reluctant to embrace his destiny as the God Killer; Suri, a young seer burdened by signs of impending doom; and Persephone, who must overcome personal tragedy to lead her people. The Age of Myth is over. The time of rebellion has begun.

Age of Myth is due out on June 28th in the US, published by Del Rey. I’m not sure about any plans for UK publication.

Also on CR: Reviews of Theft of Swords, Rise of Empire and Heir of Novron; Interview with Michael J. Sullivan (2011); Guest Posts on “On Gritty vs. Heroic Fantasy” and “History & Riyria”