Ooh, tingles… Really looking forward to this! Out in October 2017.
Most Anticipated 2017
Interview with CHRIS SHARP
Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Chris Sharp?
A middle-aged dreamer with a propensity for long-winded storytelling, a fierce resistance to adulthood, and an optimist’s belief in magic — within the hardened shell of a pragmatic pessimist.
Your new novel, Cold Counsel, will be published by Tor.com in February. It looks rather awesome: How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?
Looks are not deceiving; it is rather awesome. It’s a reimagining of Norse mythology in a post-Ragnarok world from the vantage of the angry losers of the ancient Vanir/Aesir war. It’s also a ferocious coming-of-age/revenge yarn about a boy, his aunt, and his ax against the backdrop of a dying dreamland. There are no humans or easy heroes to hold to, but you’ll find yourself rooting for a loveable band of bloodthirsty killers, and wishing for more at the story’s close. Continue reading
Interview with JOE M. McDERMOTT
Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Joe M. McDermott?
That’s who I am when I write fantasy novels. I’m going by Joe M. McDermott, these days, in part because I am tired of people I have known for years calling me “Jim.”
Your new novella, The Fortress at the End of Time, will be published by Tor.com in January 2017. It looks really interesting: How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?
Larry Nolen, of OF Blog of the Fallen, recommended a book to me, that I loved, and which led me to another book, which I also loved. The first book was The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati, an old Italian Surrealist anti-war book. On the Amazon recommended page, there was also a fascinating book called The Opposing Shore by Julian Gracq, a French classic of SF. I loved them both, and thought about how they were better military fiction than the military fiction I was reading, because it was more about dealing with the idea of the military, the way the bureaucracy and culture press down on the soul and psyche, than about any great acts of violence. In fact, what little violence occurs is often absurd, abrupt, and misinterpreted by everyone in power. I thought about taking some of those ideas into deep space, not just imaginary cities. The isolation of space, and the way a deep space colony would push down on everyone’s mind, would be, I thought, an interesting update to the ideas presented by these old European classics of the early and mid twentieth century. Continue reading
Review: THE FUTURES by Anna Pitoniak (Lee Boudreaux Books/Michael Joseph)
An interesting, engaging novel about a young couple whose hopes and dreams must confronting cold reality in New York…
Julia and Evan fall in love as undergraduates at Yale. For Evan, a scholarship student from a rural Canadian town, Yale is a whole new world, and Julia — blond, beautiful, and rich — fits perfectly into the future he’s envisioned for himself. After graduation, and on the eve of the great financial meltdown of 2008, they move together to New York City, where Evan lands a job at a hedge fund. But Julia, whose privileged upbringing grants her an easy but wholly unsatisfying job with a nonprofit, feels increasingly shut out of Evan’s secretive world.
With the market crashing and banks failing, Evan becomes involved in a high-stakes deal at work — a deal that, despite the assurances of his Machiavellian boss, begins to seem more than slightly suspicious. Meanwhile, Julia reconnects with someone from her past who offers a glimpse of a different kind of live. As the economy craters, and as Evan and Julia spin into their separate orbits, they each find that they are capable of much more — good and bad — than they’d ever imagined.
This novel has received an incredible amount of early buzz — I’ve seen it mentioned and praised since early 2016. Naturally, this made me curious, and I was lucky enough to get an eARC a little while ago. Overall, this is an enjoyable, well-written novel set in New York. Continue reading
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol.2 Trailer
This does look fun. I didn’t love the first one when I saw it at the cinema, but on second watching it grew on me. I’m looking forward to this sequel.
Cover Reveal: THE REMNANT by Charlie Fletcher (Orbit)
Above is the rather good cover for Charlie Fletcher‘s third Oversight novel, The Remnant. Due to be published in March 2017 by Orbit Books in the UK and North America, the cover fits very nicely with the first two (below). Unfortunately, I haven’t yet had the chance to read The Oversight and The Paradox, but I fully intend to do so. In the meantime, here’s the synopsis:
“The Oversight is most dangerous when most reduced. There are many dead and gone who did not remember that.”
The Oversight of London has been sworn for millennia to prevent the natural and the supernatural worlds from preying on each other.
Now, at its lowest ebb, with its headquarters destroyed and its last members scattered far and wide, this secret society will battle for survival and face the harshest foe it has ever met: itself.
I’m looking forward to reading all three of these. Hopefully soon.
Upcoming: THE BOOK OF MIRRORS by E.O. Chirovici (Century/Atria)
I am really looking forward to this novel. Already sold in 38 territories, UK-based Romanian author E.O. Chirovici‘s first novel in English, The Book of Mirrors, sounds great. You can read a short piece about it from the Guardian here. Here’s the synopsis:
When big-shot literary agent Peter Katz receives an unfinished manuscript entitled The Book of Mirrors, he is intrigued.
The author, Richard Flynn is writing a memoir about his time at Princeton in the late 80s, documenting his relationship with the famous Professor Joseph Wieder.
One night in 1987, Wieder was brutally murdered in his home and the case was never solved.
Peter Katz is hell-bent on getting to the bottom of what happened that night twenty-five years ago and is convinced the full manuscript will reveal who committed the violent crime.
But other people’s recollections are dangerous weapons to play with, and this might be one memory that is best kept buried.
Unfortunately, we have quite some time to wait before we’ll be able to get our mitts on the book: The Book of Mirrors is due to be published on January 26th, 2017 in the UK by Century; and in February 2017 in North America, by Atria Books. Well, given that it’s September already, I suppose it’s not that far away. It just feels like it…
Upcoming: ALL OUR WRONG TODAYS by Elan Mastai (Dutton)
Having just finished Blake Crouch’s excellent Dark Matter, the synopsis for Elan Mastai‘s tale of altered reality/history caught my attention (apparently, I’m in the mood for this type of novel, now). After doing some further digging, I also learned that Mastai wrote the movie The F Word, which I very much enjoyed (starring Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan and Adam Driver, it was both endearing and funny).
All Our Wrong Today’s sounds really interesting:
You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we’d have? Well, it happened. In Tom Barren’s 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed… because it wasn’t necessary.
Except Tom just can’t seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that’s before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland.
But when he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and — maybe, just maybe — his soul mate, Tom has a decision to make. Does he fix the flow of history, bringing his utopian universe back into existence, or does he try to forge a new life in our messy, unpredictable reality? Tom’s search for the answer takes him across countries, continents, and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future — our future — is supposed to be.
All Our Wrong Todays is about the versions of ourselves that we shed and grow into over time. It is a story of friendship and family, of unexpected journeys and alternate paths, and of love in its multitude of forms. Filled with humor and heart, and saturated with insight and intelligence and a mind-bending talent for invention, this novel signals the arrival of a major talent.
All Our Wrong Todays is published by Dutton, on February 7th, 2017. I’m really looking forward to this one.
Upcoming: DEFENDER by G.X. Todd (Headline)
This is one I’m really looking forward to: G.X. Todd‘s upcoming debut, Defender, has been described as including “nods back to Stephen King’s The Stand“, and also influenced by Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman. That’s a pretty impressive SFFH pedigree to which it’s being tied. The first in the four-part Voices series, in which “your inner voice might kill you”. Defender is due to be published in the UK by Headline in January 2017. Here’s the synopsis:
The primal battle between Good and Evil plays out in a new arena…
‘On the cusp of sleep, have we not all heard a voice call out our name?’
In a world where long drinks are in short supply, a stranger listens to the voice in his head telling him to buy a lemonade from the girl sitting on a dusty road.
The moment locks them together.
Here and now it’s dangerous to listen to your inner voice. Those who do, keep it quiet.
These voices have purpose.
And when Pilgrim meets Lacey, there is a reason. He just doesn’t know it yet.
Defender pulls you on a wild ride to a place where the voices in your head will save or slaughter you.
For more news about Todd’s writing and novels, be sure to check out the author’s website, and follow her on Twitter and Goodreads.
Upcoming: M.R. Carey Returning to the World of THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS!
M.R. Carey’s next novel will be The Boy on the Bridge — a prequel of sorts to the story in his best-selling and critically-acclaimed The Girl With All the Gifts (which was also a CR favourite in 2013).
Here’s what the author has to say about the new novel:
“Returning to the world of The Girl With All the Gifts felt like coming home in a weird way. And every time I visit I find something I didn’t know was there. The Boy on the Bridge is very much its own thing, not a continuation of Melanie’s story but a new journey with a new cast of characters. But it answers a lot of questions that The Girl With All the Gifts implicitly asked.”
Carey’s The Girl With All the Gifts is published by Orbit Books in the UK and US. His latest novel, Fellside, is also published by Orbit Books in both the UK and US. I highly recommend them both. Carey is also the writer of the original, superb Lucifer comic series, which spun out of Neil Gaiman’s groundbreaking Sandman series.
You can watch a video of Mike discussing the new book on his Facebook page, here.
Also on CR: Review of The Girl With All the Gifts
Civilian Reader 