Most Anticipated 2016

Upcoming: A CLOSED AND COMMON ORBIT by Becky Chambers (Hodder)

Civilian Reader Upcoming , , , , , ,

ChambersB-W2-AClosedAndCommonOrbitUKA Closed and Common Orbit is the stand-alone sequel to The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (which I have, but still need to read — hopefully soon). The series has been very well received by reviewers, and is often described as a perfect read for fans of Firefly, Joss Whedon’s various projects, and Star Wars. I think both novels sound great. Here’s the synopsis:

Lovelace was once merely a ship’s artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who’s determined to help her learn and grow.

Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people can fill it together.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet introduced readers to the incredible world of Rosemary Harper, a young woman with a restless soul and secrets to keep. When she joined the crew of the Wayfarer, an intergalactic ship, she got more than she bargained for — and learned to live with, and love, her rag-tag collection of crewmates.

Becky Chambers‘s A Closed and Common Orbit is due to be published by Hodder in the UK, on October 20th, 2016. Voyager is due to publish The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in May 2016, and A Closed and Common Orbit in October 2016, in the US.

For more on Becky Chambers’s writing and novels, be sure to check out the author’s website, and also follow her on Twitter and Goodreads.

Upcoming: POISON CITY by Paul Crilley (Hodder)

Civilian Reader Upcoming , , , , , , ,

CrilleyP-1-PoisonCityUKThis novel sounds like it could be quite fun. I still don’t read very much urban fantasy, which is strange to me — I love it as a genre of TV show and movie. This has been billed as “Rivers of London meets Zoo City… perfect for grown-up fans of Harry Potter” — that’s a pretty confident boast. If it’s true, though, this novel could be huge. Here’s the synopsis:

The name’s Gideon Tau, but everyone just calls me London. I work for the Delphic Division, the occult investigative unit of the South African Police Service. My life revolves around two things — finding out who killed my daughter and imagining what I’m going to do to the bastard when I catch him.

I have two friends. The first is my boss, Armitage, a fifty-something DCI from Yorkshire who looks more like someone’s mother than a cop. Don’t let that fool you. The second is the dog, my magical spirit guide. He talks, he watches TV all day, and he’s a mean drunk.

Life is pretty routine — I solve crimes, I search for my daughter’s killer. Wash, rinse, repeat. Until the day I’m called out to the murder of a ramanga — a low-key vampire — basically, the tabloid journalist of the vampire world. It looks like an open and shut case. There’s even CCTV footage of the killer.

Except… the face on the CCTV footage? It’s the face of the man who killed my daughter. I’m about to face a tough choice. Catch her killer or save the world? I can’t do both.

It’s not looking good for the world.

Paul Crilley‘s Poison City is due to be published by Hodder in the UK, on August 11th, 2016. For more on Paul’s writing and novels, be sure to check out the author’s website, and follow him on Twitter and Goodreads.

Upcoming: SOCKPUPPET by Matthew Blakstad (Hodder)

Civilian Reader Upcoming , , , , , , , , ,

BlakstadM-SockpuppetUKThis sounds really good. Society is becoming increasingly dominated by social media. And, with an online society often run amok (see, for example, US political “discussion”, endless misogynist internet trolls, and countless other examples), not to mention ever-more reports of cyber-crimes, maybe Sockpuppet is the novel we need? Here’s the synopsis:

You shared your life online. Now how will you get it back?

Twitter. Facebook. Whatsapp. Google Maps. Every day you share everything about yourself – where you go, what you eat, what you buy, what you think – online. Sometimes you do it on purpose. Usually you do it without even realizing it. At the end of the day, everything from your shoe-size to your credit limit is out there. Your greatest joys, your darkest moments. Your deepest secrets.

If someone wants to know everything about you, all they have to do is look.

But what happens when someone starts spilling state secrets? For politician Bethany Leherer and programmer Danielle Farr, that’s not just an interesting thought-experiment. An online celebrity called sic_girl has started telling the world too much about Bethany and Dani, from their jobs and lives to their most intimate secrets. There’s just one problem: sic_girl doesn’t exist. She’s an construct, a program used to test code. Now Dani and Bethany must race against the clock to find out who’s controlling sic_girl and why… before she destroys the privacy of everyone in the UK.

Matthew Blakstad’s Sockpuppet is published in the UK by Hodder, on May 19th, 2016. For more on the author’s writing and novels, be sure to check out his website, and follow him on Twitter and Goodreads. Check back on May 4th for an interview with the author.

[This is the first of four Hodder Upcoming posts, today.]

Upcoming: THE WOLF IN THE ATTIC by Paul Kearney (Solaris)

Civilian Reader Covers, Upcoming , , , , ,

KearneyP-WolfInTheAtticPaul Kearney is an author whose work I’ve always been familiar with, but not as familiar as I’d like. His novels always sound fantastic. His next book, The Wolf in the Attic, is no different. Here’s the synopsis:

1920s Oxford: home to C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien… and Anna Francis, a young Greek refugee looking to escape the grim reality of her new life. The night they cross paths, none suspect the fantastic world at work around them.

Anna Francis lives in a tall old house with her father and her doll Penelope. She is a refugee, a piece of flotsam washed up in England by the tides of the Great War and the chaos that trailed in its wake. Once upon a time, she had a mother and a brother, and they all lived together in the most beautiful city in the world, by the shores of Homer’s wine-dark sea.

But that is all gone now, and only to her doll does she ever speak of it, because her father cannot bear to hear. She sits in the shadows of the tall house and watches the rain on the windows, creating worlds for herself to fill out the loneliness. The house becomes her own little kingdom, an island full of dreams and half-forgotten memories. And then one winter day, she finds an interloper in the topmost, dustiest attic of the house. A boy named Luca with yellow eyes, who is as alone in the world as she is.

That day, she’ll lose everything in her life, and find the only real friend she may ever know.

The Wolf in the Attic is due to be published by Solaris in May 2016.

Upcoming: INFERNAL by Mark de Jager (Del Rey)

Civilian Reader Covers, Upcoming , , , ,

deJagerM-InfernalI’m really interested in reading Infernal. Mark de Jager has been a Twitter-acquaintance for quite some time, and this is his debut fantasy novel. I don’t remember exactly when I first heard that it had been acquired by Del Rey UK, but I remember reading the synopsis and thinking, “That sounds pretty great.”

While I’m not wholly keen on the cover (I do like the flame-y sleeve, though), check out the synopsis to see what I mean:

Stratus wakes in an unfamiliar place, with nothing but the knowledge that he is not human, with no memories of his past but possessing great strength, a powerful sorcery and the burning instinct to survive at any cost.

Embarking on a journey of self-discovery, he sets out across a landscape torn apart by the ten year war between the Kingdoms of Krandin and Penullin, now reaching new levels of savagery as a dark magic drives the world to the brink of destruction. 

As his personality grows with each step he slowly uncovers the truth of what he has become and the unquenchable thirst for vengeance that has led him there.

Infernal is due to be published in the UK by Del Rey, on August 11th, 2016. Looking forward to it.

Upcoming: DISSIDENCE by Ken MacLeod (Orbit)

Civilian Reader Covers, Upcoming , , , , , , , ,

MacLeodK-CW1-DissidenceI first heard of Ken MacLeod‘s Dissidence when browsing Orbit’s catalogue a while back, and it caught my attention because it sounded superb. Today, the publisher unveiled the cover (right), and my interest is piqued even more — yes, I know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, etc., but it’s a really nice one.

The novel has been described as “a robot’s eye view of a robot revolt”. Here’s the full synopsis:

They’ve died for the companies more times than they can remember. Now they must fight to live for themselves.

Sentient machines work, fight and die in interstellar exploration and conflict for the benefit of their owners – the competing mining corporations of Earth. But sent over hundreds of light-years, commands are late to arrive and often hard to enforce. The machines must make their own decisions, and make them stick.

With this newfound autonomy come new questions about their masters. The robots want answers. The companies would rather see them dead.

Dissidence is the first in the Corporation Wars trilogy, and will be published on May 12th in the UK and Australia & New Zealand; it will be published in the US in September 2016. The novel is followed by Insurgence (end of 2016) and Emergence (2017).

Upcoming: DUSKFALL by Christopher Husberg (Titan)

Civilian Reader Covers, Upcoming , , , , ,

HusbergC-CQ1-DuskfallUKTitan Books unveiled this cover only a couple hours ago, and it’s quite nice. Duskfall is the first novel in Christopher Husberg’s Chaos Queen Quintet series (nice alliteration). I quite like the simplicity of the cover, with nary a Hooded Man in sight… Here’s what it’s about:

Stuck with arrows and close to death, a man is pulled from the icy waters of the Gulf of Nahl. As he is nursed back to health by a local fisherman, two things become very clear: he has no idea who he is, and he can kill a man with terrifying ease.

The fisherman is a tiellan, a race which has long been oppressed and grown wary of humans. His daughter, Winter, is a seemingly quiet young woman, but behind her placid mask she has her demons. She is addicted to frostfire — a substance that both threatens to destroy her and simultaneously gives her phenomenal power.

A young priestess, Cinzia, hears the troubling news of an uprising in her native city of Navone. Absconding from the cloistered life that she has kept for the last seven years, she knows she must make the long journey home. The flames of rebellion threatening her church and all that she believes in are bad enough, but far worse is the knowledge that the heretic who sparked the fire is her own sister.

These three characters may have set out on different paths, but fate will bring them together on one thrilling and perilous adventure.

I think this sounds quite interesting. Dusk fall is due to be published by Titan Books in the UK and US, in June 2016.

Upcoming: CENTRAL STATION by Lavie Tidhar (Tachyon)

Civilian Reader Upcoming , , , ,

Tidhar-CentralStation2Ok, I already have this, and featured it in a Books Received post a couple months back. But, today Tachyon unveiled that superb new cover, above, for Lavie Tidhar’s highly-anticipated new book, Central Station. It’s comprised of a series of novellas/short stories, stitched together to create a larger story. It sounds fantastic and, while the previous cover was also really nice, now it also looks magnificent. Here’s the synopsis:

A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is literally a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap, and data is cheaper.

When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris’s ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik — a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts. His father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return.

Rising above them is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv; a powerful virtual arena, and the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the ravages of poverty and war. Everything is connected by the Others, powerful alien entities who, through the Conversation — a shifting, flowing stream of consciousness — are just the beginning of irrevocable change.

At Central Station, humans and machines continue to adapt, thrive… and even evolve.

Central Station is due out in May 2016. Tachyon have also shared a pair of travel posters for Central Station, which are rather fantastic:

Tidhar-CentralStation-Posters

Review: ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY by Charlie Jane Anders (Titan/Tor)

Civilian Reader Review , , , , , , , ,

AndersCJ-AllTheBirdsInTheSkyUKOne of the most anticipated novels of the year… fizzles

Patricia is a witch who can communicate with birds. Laurence is a mad scientist and inventor of the two-second time machine. As teenagers they gravitate towards one another, sharing in the horrors of growing up weird.

When they later reconnect as adults, Laurence is an engineering genius living in near-future San Francisco, trying to stop the planet failing apart through technological intervention. Meanwhile, Patricia is a graduate of Eltisley Maze, the hidden academy for the magically gifted, and works with her fellow magicians to secretly repair the earth’s ever growing ailments.

As they each take sides in a cataclysmic war between science and magic, All the Birds in the Sky sees Laurence and Patricia try to make sense of life, sex and adulthood on the brink of the apocalypse.

This novel is perhaps one of the most anticipated of the year — with glowing reviews proliferating around the internet, and praise coming in from such luminaries as Michael Chabon, expectations have been high pretty much since it was announced. Anders writes quite beautifully, at times, and there’s little doubt that she is an author of talent. I know a lot of people who have loved this novel. Unfortunately, however, All the Birds in the Sky failed to ever take off for me. Continue reading →