Most Anticipated 2017

Interview with COL BUCHANAN

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BuchananC-AuthorPicWelcome back to CR! For the benefit of new readers, let’s start with an introduction: Who is Col Buchanan?

Thanks Stefan. A full author bio, including details of my Fantasy series, Farlander/The Heart of The World, can be found at my author site.

Think Irish rebel; a lover of trailblazers, truth-seekers and controversy.

Your next novel, Fierce Gods, will be published by Tor. It’s the fourth novel in your excellent Heart of the World series. How would you introduce the series to a potential reader? What can fans expect from the fourth book?

In the first book of the series, Farlander, the adventure starts with an ageing assassin and failed revolutionary, Ash, having to take on a young apprentice before he dies — just as he sets off on his most dangerous mission of all…

In books two and three, Stands a Shadow and The Black Dream, we follow this dynamic through an adventure of shocks and revelations.

With book four, Fierce Gods, we reach the climax of the series, along with the climax of the ten-year-long siege that has been happening throughout the previous books. It’s where everything and everyone finally collide. Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE HOUSE OF BINDING THORNS by Aliette de Bodard

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Tor.com unveiled the US cover for Aliette de Bodard‘s next novel, today: The House of Binding Thorns, the sequel to The House of Shattered Wings. I think it’s a pretty striking cover. Here’s the synopsis:

The multi-award winning author of The House of Shattered Wings continues her Dominion of the Fallen saga as Paris endures the aftermath of a devastating arcane war…

As the city rebuilds from the onslaught of sorcery that nearly destroyed it, the Great Houses of Paris, ruled by fallen angels, still contest one another for control over the capital.

House Silverspires was once the most powerful, but just as it sought to rise again, an ancient evil brought it low. Philippe, an immortal who escaped the carnage, has a singular goal — to resurrect someone he lost. But the cost of such magic may be more than he can bear.

In House Hawthorn, Madeleine the alchemist has had her addiction to angel essence savagely broken. Struggling to live on, she is forced on a perilous diplomatic mission to the underwater Dragon Kingdom — and finds herself in the midst of intrigues that have already caused one previous emissary to mysteriously disappear…

As the Houses seek a peace more devastating than war, those caught between new fears and old hatreds must find strength — or fall prey to a magic that seeks to bind all to its will.

The House of Shattered Wings is published in April 2017, in North America by Roc Books, and in the UK by Gollancz. The UK cover is below. I’m quite looking forward to it.

Also on CR: Guest Post & Excerpt The House of Shattered Wings; Review of The House of Shattered Wings

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Upcoming: COLLAPSING EMPIRE by John Scalzi (Tor)

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There is a new stand-alone sci-fi novel coming from John Scalzi early next year: The Collapsing Empire. It sounds rather interesting, too:

Humanity moves away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our homeworld. It creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos ensures no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a safeguard against interstellar war – and a way of controlling the empire’s rulers. This future of faster-than-light travel is possible due to a huge discovery – the Flow. This is an extra-dimensional field which can transport us to other worlds. And while this field is eternal, like a river, it does change its course.

It now seems the Flow is moving, which could isolate every human world in space forever. So three individuals will make a last attempt to find a solution. A scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency will see what, if anything, can be salvaged. For an interstellar empire is on the brink of collapse.

Due to be published by Tor Books in the US and UK in March 2017.

Upcoming: FIERCE GODS by Col Buchanan (Tor)

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Earlier this week, Tor UK unveiled the cover for Col Buchanan‘s fourth Heart of the World novel, Fierce Gods. If you’ve been reading CR for a while, you may have spotted that I really enjoyed the first two novels in the series, Farlander and Stands a Shadow. I haven’t yet had the chance to catch up with the third book, The Black Dream, but I hope to do so very soon. In the meantime, here’s the synopsis for Fierce Gods:

A time of reckoning has begun.

For ten years the Free Ports held their own against the despotic empire of Mann – but the empire is now poised to destroy them. The crucial fortress city of Bar-Khos is under attack and its freedom depends on a few unsteady hands.

Betrayal could come from any side, at any moment. While chaos reigns, Nico will search for his captive mother and attempt to defend his people. And Shard the Dreamer will hunt for legendary charts, which could yet save the city.  However, a Red Guard officer with gone rogue could bring about the end, 
and a visitor from another world has a hidden agenda.

With the war entering its darkest hours, will any of them survive?

Fierce Gods is due to be published by Tor UK on February 23rd, 2017.

Also on CR: Interview with Col Buchanan (2011); Reviews of Farlander and Stands A Shadow

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Upcoming: THE BEAR AND THE SERPENT by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor)

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A few days ago, Adrian Tchaikovsky revealed the cover for his next fantasy novel, The Bear and the Serpent, due to be published in the UK by Tor Books, on February 9th, 2017. It’s the second novel in the author’s Echoes of the Fall series. Here’s the synopsis:

Maniye, child of Wolf and Tiger, has a new soul and a new shape. But as Champion of the Crown of the World, does she represent an opportunity for the North — or a threat? Travelling as a bodyguard to the Southern prince, with her warband of outcasts, she hopes to finally discover her true place in the world.

But if only it was that simple. Tensions rise, and new allies face up to old enemies as civil war threatens to tear the South apart. Royal twins can’t share a throne, so one must be chosen. And whoever rules the southern Sun River Nation will hold the fate of the world in their hands. As the protector of one potential heir, Maniye soon finds herself at the eye of a political storm. Yet all the while, an enemy from the most ancient of times prepares for conquest, and could destroy everything in their path…

It is the sequel to The Tiger and the Wolf, which was also published by Tor in the UK (and is out now). Tchaikovsky is also the author of the critically-acclaimed Shadows of the Apt series, Guns of the Dawn, Children of Time and the upcoming Spiderlight.

Also on CR: Interview with Adrian Tchaikovsky (2012); Guest Posts on “Nine Books, Six Years, One Stenwold Maker”, “The Art of Gunsmithing — Writing Guns of the Dawn”, “Looking for God in Melnibone Places: Fantasy & Religion” and “Eye of the Spider”; Excerpt from Guns of the Dawn; Reviews of Empire in Black & Gold and Guns of the Dawn

Upcoming: SKULLSWORN by Brian Staveley (Tor)

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StaveleyB-SkullswornUSJust stumbled across this in Tor’s new catalogue: a stand-alone novel set in Brian Staveley‘s Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne universe! Skullsworn is due to be published in the US by Tor Books, in April 2017 (so far away…). Here’s the synopsis:

Pyrre Lakatur doesn’t like the word skullsworn. It fails to capture the faith and grace, the peace and beauty of her devotion to the God of Death. She is not, to her mind, an assassin, not a murderer — she is a priestess. At least, she will be a priestess if she manages to pass her final trial. 

The problem isn’t the killing. Pyrre has been killing and training to kill, studying with some of the most deadly men and women in the world, since she was eight. The problem, strangely, is love. To pass her Trial, Pyrre has ten days to kill the ten people enumerated in an ancient song, including “the one you love / who will not come again.”

Pyrre is not sure she’s ever been in love. If she were a member of a different religious order, a less devoted, disciplined order, she might cheat. The Priests of Ananshael, however, don’t look kindly on cheaters. If Pyrre fails to find someone to love, or fails to kill that someone, they will give her to the god.

Pyrre’s not afraid to die, but she hates to quit, hates to fail, and so, with a month before her trial begins, she returns to the city of her birth, the place where she long ago offered an abusive father to the god and abandoned a battered brother — in the hope of finding love… and ending it on the edge of her sword.

Really looking forward to this. Will have to finish the first trilogy first, of course. Skullsworn is also due to be published in the UK by Tor Books (they also published the author’s debut trilogy) — not cover, yet.

Upcoming: CITY OF MIRACLES by Robert Jackson Bennett

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Spotted this a few minutes ago, and shared it on Twitter, but I wanted to pop this cover on the site, too: the third novel in Robert Jackson Bennett‘s Divine Cities series, CITY OF MIRACLES! Easily one of my most-anticipated novels of 2017 (it’s out in January), it’ll be published in the UK by Jo Fletcher Books (and Crown in the US). Here’s the synopsis (possible spoilers):

Sigrud je Harkvaldsson is back, and this time he’s out for vengeance.

Shara Komayd, once Prime Minister of Saypur, has been assassinated. News travels fast and far, even to a remote logging town somewhere northwest of Bulikov, where the silent, shaven-headed Dreyling worker ‘Bjorn’ picks up the newspaper and walks out. He is shocked and grieved and furious; he’s been waiting thirteen years for Shara, his closest friend, to reach out to him — to tell him to come home. He’s always believed she was running a long operation, that there would be a role for him at the right time. Now he has no one else in his life, and nothing to live for — except to find the people who did this.

Sigrud wasn’t there for the death of his daughter Signe, and he wasn’t there when his old comrade Shara was murdered. Now Bjorn is dead and Sigrud is back. And he will find answers, for Shara, and for himself. He’s made a promise…

Jo Fletcher Books have also published the first two books in the series: City of Stairs and City of Blades.

Also on CR: Interview with Robert Jackson Bennett; Guest Post on “City of Stairs & the Super Tropey Fantasy Checklist”; Excerpt from City of Stairs; Reviews of The Company Man and City of Stairs

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