Review: HOPE & RED by Jon Skovron (Orbit)

June 20, 2016 Civilian Reader Review Debut 2016, Empire of Storms, Fantasy, Hope & Red, Jon Skovron, Most Anticipated 2016, Must Read 2016, Orbit Books

An entertaining new fantasy series

In a fracturing empire spread across savage seas, two people will find a common cause.

Hope, the lone survivor when her village is massacred by the emperor’s forces is secretly trained by a master Vinchen warrior as an instrument of vengeance.

Red, an orphan adopted by a notorious matriarch of the criminal underworld, learns to be an expert thief and con artist.

TOGETHER THEY WILL TAKE DOWN AN EMPIRE.

There’s a lot to like in Hope & Red: the characters are interesting, often fun and they get caught up in a lot of action. The world is well-crafted and appropriately fleshed-out, but also leaves plenty still to be explored. While there were a couple of flaws, Hope & Red is entertaining, fast-paced and quite gripping. I enjoyed it. Continue reading →

Review: THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE by Claire North (Orbit)

June 10, 2016June 9, 2016 Civilian Reader Review Claire North, Mystery, Orbit Books, Psychological, Redhook, Sci-Fi, Sudden Appearance of Hope, Thriller

An intriguing novel about identity and isolation, thieves and scary tech…

My name is Hope Arden, and you won’t know who I am. But we’ve met before — a thousand times.

It started when I was sixteen years old.

A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger.

No matter what I do, the words I say, the crimes I commit, you will never remember who I am.

That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous.

Long-time readers will know that Claire North is one of my favourite authors. With each new novel (and novella, because we have to include the linked Gamehouse trilogy), North takes reading on a riveting journey of unexpected and thought-provoking directions. The Sudden Appearance of Hope is no exception, with one of the most intriguing characters I’ve read in a while. Well, maybe since North’s previous novel… I enjoyed this a lot. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “How I Write, and How It’s Changed” by Ian Irvine

June 7, 2016June 7, 2016 Civilian Reader Guest Post A Shadow on the Glass, Fantasy, Gates of Good and Evil, Human Rites, Ian Irvine, Orbit Books, Summon Stone, Three Worlds, View from the Mirror

I’m not sure when I had the idea of writing a fantasy novel, though I first acted on it in 1977 after reading Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara. My inspiration came from the sketchy map in the book and I decided to create my own realistic fantasy world, though worldbuilding soon became an obsession. I was supposed to be writing my doctoral thesis in marine science but I redrew my fantasy maps in greater and greater detail until they were the size of house doors. I had created the Three Worlds.

In 1979, on a train above the Arctic Circle in Finland, I wrote the first snatches of a story, including a scene that I later used – Faelamor’s dramatic defeat of Mendark in the abandoned city of Havissard. Then it stopped for nearly a decade. What with finishing my thesis, taking a demanding job that involved a lot of travel, children, and renovating a decrepit Victorian house in Sydney, there wasn’t time for writing.

But I had to write, and in September 1987 I began A Shadow on the Glass with a dramatic event – Karan, compelled by Maigraith, breaking into Yggur’s fortress of Fiz Gorgo to steal the Mirror of Aachan, a corrupt magical artifact that contained a deadly secret. I wrote three pages a day I’d have a first draft done by Christmas. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Coming Back — On Alien Races and Space Adventures” by Jamie Sawyer

June 1, 2016May 20, 2016 Civilian Reader Guest Post Artefact, Jamie Sawyer, Lazarus War, Legion, Military Sci-Fi, Orbit Books, Origins, Redemption, Sci-Fi

My debut novel, Artefact, was released in February 2016. It is book one of The Lazarus War, and the story continues with Legion, released in the UK and US on 26th May 2016.

The Lazarus War is a series focusing on a far-future space war. The Alliance – the nominal “good guys” of the series – are locked in an apparently endless conflict with the Krell – a bio-mechanical alien race. But in the universe of The Lazarus War, soldiers never really die: they remotely-operate clone bodies (called “simulants”). That means that if a veteran soldier dies, he retains his experience and knowledge, and can simply “reset” to a new body. Pretty handy, given the situations many of these soldiers find themselves in… Continue reading →

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

April 21, 2016 Civilian Reader Upcoming Behind the Throne, KB Wagers, Most Anticipated 2016, Orbit Books, Sci-Fi

WagersKB-1-BehindTheThrone Another 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.

Guest Review: THE TYRANT’S LAW by Daniel Abraham (Orbit)

January 4, 2016 Civilian Reader Guest Post, Review Dagger and the Coin, Daniel Abraham, Epic, Fantasy, Orbit Books, Ryan Frye, Tyrant's Law

The Dagger and the Coin, book three

The great war cannot be stopped.

The tyrant Geder Palliako begins a conquest aimed at bringing peace to the world, though his resources are stretched too thin. When things go poorly, he finds a convenient target among the thirteen races and sparks a genocide.

Clara Kalliam, freed by having fallen from grace, remakes herself as a ‘loyal traitor’ and starts building an underground resistance movement that seeks to undermine Geder through those closest to him.

Cithrin bel Sarcour is apprenticing in a city that’s taken over by Antea, and uses her status as Geder’s one-time lover to cover up an underground railroad smuggling refugees to safety.

And Marcus Wester and Master Kit race against time and Geder Palliako’s men in an attempt to awaken a force that could change the fate of the world.

Reviewed by Ryan Frye

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become a much more discerning reader. I have to work a lot harder to carve out reading time these days, so I’m much more picky about what I read. My pickiness reaches even greater heights when it comes to book series. Let’s face it, if it is hard to commit time to one book, it is even harder to commit to three, four, five, or – if it is a Sanderson or Erikson series – ten or more books. But, here’s the catch: I love epic fantasy. So, I’ve adopted a stance where the author has to keep me interested in the series book after book after book. It’s no longer a case of, “Well I liked the first book in the series, so I gotta read ‘em all.” If a series isn’t up to snuff, I’m done. I’ll move on. Harsh, maybe, but there’s so many books out there that sound amazing! Anyway, Daniel Abraham has been doing his part of keeping me interested in his Dagger and Coin series, so I gotta do my part and keep reading.

I guess, since people don’t like spoilers, I should note here that there will be spoilers for books one and two in this review… Obviously. Continue reading →

Upcoming: FELLSIDE by M.R. Carey (Orbit)

November 16, 2015November 16, 2015 Civilian Reader Covers, Upcoming Fellside, Fiction, Gemma Arterton, Girl With All the Gifts, Glenn Close, Most Anticipated 2016, MR Carey, Orbit Books, Sennia Nanua, She Who Brings Gifts, Suspense

Last week, Orbit (quietly) unveiled the cover for M.R. Carey’s upcoming novel, Fellside. Another standalone, it sounds rather excellent:

Fellside is a maximum security prison on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. It’s not the kind of place you’d want to end up. But it’s where Jess Moulson could be spending the rest of her life.

It’s a place where even the walls whisper.

And one voice belongs to a little boy with a message for Jess.

Will she listen?

Fellside is due to be published by Orbit Books in the US and UK, in April 2016.

Carey’s previous novel, The Girl With All the Gifts was fantastic, and easily one of my favourite novels of 2014 — it’s published in the US and UK by Orbit Books. You can read my review here. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, then I strongly urge you to do so — it’s magnificent. It is also being made into a movie, SheWho Brings Gifts. Here’s an early still from the filming, from The Telegraph, featuring Gemma Arterton (as “Helen Justineau”), Glenn Close (“Dr. Caroline Caldwell”) and Sennia Nanua (“Melanie”):

New Books (October-November)

November 7, 2015August 23, 2018 Civilian Reader New Books Alexander Freed, Angry Robot Books, Century, Christopher Fowler, Claire North, Clay Griffith, Crown Publishing, David Dalglish, Del Rey UK, Drew Karpyshyn, Dystopia, Fiona Barton, Ian Tregillis, Jane Smiley, Jo Fletcher Books, Jordanna Max Brodsky, Julia Knight, Kate Elliott, Lee Bermejo, Mark Hodder, Matthew Dunn, Megan O'Keefe, Mike Brooks, Nate Crowley, Nick Cole, Orbit, Orbit Books, Paul Starkey, Peter Liney, Peter McLean, Robert Jackson Bennett, Sci-Fi, Star Wars, Steve Coogan, Susan Griffith, Teresa Frohock, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Tom Toner, Tor.com, Vertigo, Victor LaValle

Featuring: Fiona Barton, Robert Jackson Bennett, Lee Bermejo, Mike Brooks, Nick Cole, Steve Coogan, Nate Crowley, David Dalglish, Matthew Dunn, Kate Elliott, Christopher Fowler, Alexander Freed, Teresa Frohock, Christopher Golden, Charlaine Harris, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Mark Hodder, Drew Karpyshyn, Julia Knight, Victor Lavalle, Peter Liney, Peter McLean, Claire North, Megan O’Keefe, Steven Rowley, Jane Smiley, Paul Starkey, Tom Toner, Ian Tregillis

* Continue reading →

New Books (September-October)

October 17, 2015August 23, 2018 Civilian Reader New Books Adrian J Walker, Alison Littlewood, Allen Eskens, Amie Kaufman, Ann Leckie, Apocalyptic, Audible UK, David Ellis, David Mitchell, David Tallerman, David Wong, Deborah Biancotti, Delacorte Press, Emily Foster, Emma Kavanagh, Fantasy, Gillian Anderson, Hodder, James Patterson, Jay Kristoff, Jeff Rovin, Jim Butcher, Johanna Basford, John Seabrook, Knopf, Linda Nagata, Louise Hall, Margo Lanagan, Neil Gaiman, Nick Frost, Orbit Books, Paul Murray, Richard Ford, Robinson, Roc Books, Salman Rushdie, Sam Munson, Sci-Fi, Scott Westerfeld, Susan Dennard, Thriller, Urban Fantasy, Will McIntosh

Featuring: Gillian Anderson, Johanna Basford, Jim Butcher, Susan Dennard, David Ellis, Allen Eskens, Richard Ford, Emily Foster, Nick Frost, Neil Gaiman, Louise Hall, Amie Kaufman, Emma Kavanagh, Jay Kristoff, Ann Leckie, Alison Littlewood, Will McIntosh, David Mitchell, Sam Munson, Paul Murray, Linda Nagata, James Patterson, Jeff Rovin, Salman Rushdie, John Seabrook, David Tallerman, Adrian J. Walker, Scott Westerfeld, David Wong

[Yes, those GIFs have nothing to do with books. So?] Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE IMMORTALS by Jordanna Max Brodsky (Orbit)

June 11, 2015June 11, 2015 Civilian Reader Covers, Upcoming Artemis, Crime, Gods, Immortals, Jordanna Max Brodsky, Kirk Benshoff, Most Anticipated 2016, Mythology, New York, Orbit Books, Thriller, Urban Fantasy

I spotted the synopsis for Jordanna Max Brodsky‘s upcoming novel, The Immortals, a little while back in an Orbit catalogue. Today, though, Orbit has unveiled the rather splendid cover for the novel (right), by Kirk Benshoff. I think that’s a pretty great cover.

Here’s the synopsis:

The Restless Ones, the Bearer of the Bow, the Untamed…

… those are only a few of the names Selene DiSilva’s answered to over the years. But these days she’s content to work in secret, defending the women of Manhattan from the evils of men. She’s reclusive, stubborn, and deeply unfriendly to everyone but her dog. But when a woman’s mutilated body washes up in Riverside Park wearing a laurel wreath, Selene finds that she can no longer hide in the shadows.

As more women are threatened, Selene is forced to embrace the one name she’s tried hardest to forget — Artemis. For who better to follow the killer’s tangled trail than the Goddess of the Hunt herself?

The Immortals is due to be published by Orbit in February 2016 (which seems very far away…). I can’t wait to read it. For more, be sure to follow the author on Twitter.