Sci-Fi

Upcoming: BEAR HEAD and ONE DAY ALL THIS WILL BE YOURS by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Ad Astra/Solaris)

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TchaikovskyA-DoW2-BearHeadUKIt’s always great news when you learn about a new book from Adrian Tchaikovsky. But in 2021, we’re going to get (at least) two new books! Long-time readers of CR will know how much I enjoy Tchaikovsky’s work, so let’s get straight to the details!

First up, there’s Bear Head, which is the second novel in the author’s Dogs of War series. Due to be published by Ad Astra/Head of Zeus on January 7th, 2021, here’s the synopsis:

Mars. The red planet. A new frontier for humanity, a civilization where humans can live in peace, lord and master of all they survey.

But this isn’t Space City from those old science-fiction books. We live in Hell City, built into and from a huge subcontinent-sized crater. There’s a big silk canopy over it, feeding out atmosphere as we generate it, little by little, until we can breathe the air.

It’s a perfect place to live, if you actually want to live on Mars. I guess at some point I had actually wanted to live on Mars, because here I am. The money was supposed to be good, and how else was a working Joe like me supposed to get off-planet exactly? But I remember the videos they showed us – guys, not even in suits, watching robots and bees and Bioforms doing all the work – and they didn’t quite get it right…

Tchaikovsky-OneDayAllThisWillBeYoursThen, in early March, Solaris are due to publish a new novella: One Day All This Will Be Yours. It looks quite different to Bear Head, but that’s something we should expect from Tchaikovsky by this point (he dabbles in seemingly every SFF sub-genre):

A smart, funny tale of time-travel and paradox

Welcome to the end of time. It’s a perfect day.

Nobody remembers how the Causality War started. Really, there’s no-one to remember, and nothing for them to remember if there were; that’s sort of the point. We were time warriors, and we broke time.

I was the one who ended it. Ended the fighting, tidied up the damage as much as I could.

Then I came here, to the end of it all, and gave myself a mission: to never let it happen again.

I’m really looking forward to both of these books. If you can’t wait, and need something else by the author to tide you over for a little while, then be sure to check out The Doors of Eden, which is out now in the UK (Tor) and due to be published in North America next month (Orbit — although, the eBook is available already).

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Quick Review: REMOTE CONTROL by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com)

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OkoraforN-RemoteControlAn intriguing novella about belonging, community, and what drives us

An alien artifact turns a young girl into Death’s adopted daughter…

“She’s the adopted daughter of the Angel of Death. Beware of her. Mind her. Death guards her like one of its own.”

The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa — a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past.

Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks — alone, except for her fox companion — searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers.

But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?

I’ve been a fan of Nnedi Okorafor’s work since Lagoon. Since then, I’ve always kept my eyes open for new fiction by the author. I’m happy to report that Remote Control is an excellent sci-fi novella, and I really enjoyed reading it. Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE LAST WATCH by J.S. Dewes (Tor Books)

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DewesJS-D1-LastWatchUSFirst spotted this when the cover was revealed earlier this week. Then I did some digging, and think The Last Watch by J.S. Dewes sounds rather interesting. The first novel in the Divide series, it’s pitched as a space adventure that is like “The Expanse meets Game of Thrones“, I’m looking forward to giving it a try:

The Divide.

It’s the edge of the universe.

Now it’s collapsing — and taking everyone and everything with it.

The only ones who can stop it are the Sentinels — the recruits, exiles, and court-martialed dregs of the military.

At the Divide, Adequin Rake, commanding the Argus, has no resources, no comms — nothing, except for the soldiers that no one wanted.

They’re humanity’s last chance.

J.S. Dewes’s The Last Watch is due to be published by Tor Books in North America and in the UK, on April 20th, 2021.

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Very Quick Review: SCIONS OF THE EMPEROR (Black Library)

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HHP-ScionsOfTheEmperorA short collection of stories to add colour to some of the Primarchs

From their shadowed origins to the desperate battles that ensued when half of them rebelled against their father, the Sons of the Emperor – the vaunted primarchs – were among the greatest of humanity’s champions. They were warriors without peer and heroes whose deeds became legend. From a tale of Ferrus Manus in his earliest days to mysterious murders that lead Rogal Dorn into peril on the eve of the Siege of Terra, the eight tales in this volume lay bare key moments in the lives of these mighty heroes.

CONTENTS
Canticle by David Guymer
The Verdict of the Scythe by David Annandale
A Game of Opposites by Guy Haley
Better Angels by Ian St Martin
The Conqueror’s Truth by Gav Thorpe
The Sinew of War by Darius Hinks
The Chamber at the End of Memory by James Swallow
First Legion by Chris Wraight

Each of these stories adds a bit of colour and depth to what we know about the Primarchs. There are eight stories, so they don’t cover all of the Emperor’s sons, but a good range is featured. I enjoyed these. Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE FUTURE IS YOURS by Dan Frey (Del Rey)

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FreyD-TheFutureIsYoursUSTechnology, prediction and friendship collide in Dan Frey‘s upcoming The Future is Yours. I spotted this today on Edelweiss, and think it has a really intriguing premise. The author has described it as “like The Social Network with a time-travel twist, told as a digital epistolary.” Here’s the official synopsis:

Two best friends create a computer that can see one year into the future. But what they can’t predict is how it will tear their friendship — and society — apart.

Ben Boyce and Teddy Chaudry are outsiders struggling to find their place in Silicon Valley. But when Ben reads Teddy’s graduate dissertation about an obscure application for quantum computing, he has a vision of a revolutionary new technology: a computer that can see forward through time by communicating with its future self.

The two friends quit their jobs and team up to form a business, building a company that will deliver their groundbreaking device to consumers around the world. Rival tech giants try to steal their innovation, while government agencies attempt to bury it — but Ben and Teddy are helped by their own cutting-edge technology, staying a step ahead of the competition and responding to challenges before they arise.

As the tension mounts, Ben and Teddy’s friendship begins to fracture under the weight of ambition, jealousy, and greed. Most frightening of all, they discover the dark side of the machine they’ve created — the ways in which viewing the future sets them on a path toward unavoidable disaster of epic, apocalyptic proportions. Unless they can disrupt the technological system they’ve created, there won’t be any future at all.

Told through emails, texts, transcripts, and blog posts, this bleeding-edge tech thriller chronicles the social costs of innovation and asks how far you’d be willing to go to protect the ones you love — even from themselves.

Dan Frey’s The Future is Yours is due to be published by Del Rey in North America and in the UK, in February 2021.

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Upcoming: PROJECT HAIL MARY by Andy Weir (Del Rey)

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WeirA-ProjectHailMaryUSThe Martian was hugely successful when it was released and the movie adaptation announced. The movie is one of my favourites from the past few years, but for some reason I have not, yet, read any of Andy Weir‘s novels (despite owning The Martian and Artemis). I did enjoy the author’s short story Randomize, though. Anyway, that’s a bit of a long-winded way to get to the point: Weir’s next novel, Project Hail Mary, has been announced! With that snazzy cover to the right, I think it sounds quite good — and sure to appeal to fans of The Martian. Here’s the synopsis:

A lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this incredible new science-based thriller…

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission — and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that’s been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it’s up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance.

Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian — while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

Really looking forward to this. Project Hail Mary is due to be published by Del Rey in North America and in the UK, in May 2021.

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Review: SATURNINE by Dan Abnett (Black Library)

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AbnettD-HHSoT4-SaturnineA superb novel: action-packed, revelatory, both grand and intimate in scale.

As the traitors tighten their grip on Terra, Rogal Dorn must marshal the Imperial hosts to weather the storm. But not all of the defenders will survive the onslaught…

The Traitor Host of Horus Lupercal tightens its iron grip on the Palace of Terra, and one by one the walls and bastions begin to crumple and collapse. Rogal Dorn, Praetorian of Terra, redoubles his efforts to keep the relentless enemy at bay, but his forces are vastly outnumbered and hopelessly outgunned. Dorn simply cannot defend everything. Any chance of survival now requires sacrifice, but what battles dare he lose so that others can be won? Is there one tactical stroke, one crucial combat, that could turn the tide forever and win the war outright?

The Loyalists have their backs against the wall. Resources are fast depleting, and nobody knows the status of potential reinforcements. The Traitors are throwing everything they have — corporeal and never born — at breaking open the Imperial Palace’s walls. Primarchs Dorn and Perturabo are locked in a deadly game, trying to find chinks in the other master tactician’s plans. When one appears, both sides rush to exploit it. This is a superb novel: it packs quite a punch, drops revelations all over the place, advances the overall meta-story, and is utterly gripping. Continue reading →

Annotated Excerpt: DRIFTWOOD by Marie Brennan (Tachyon)

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BrennanM-DriftwoodDriftwood might be the oddest novel I’ve written, and I say that as somebody whose previous novel is composed of diary entries, letters, newspaper clippings, and the footnoted translation of an ancient mythological epic.

Part of the reason for that oddness is the setting, which is composed of the still-decaying fragments of mostly-destroyed worlds. But part is that it didn’t start life as a novel: it’s what’s known as a “fix-up,” composed of short stories joined together to make a larger whole. (If you find yourself thinking, “huh, so the form of the book reflects the form of the setting,” give yourself a cookie: that’s why I decided to create a fix-up rather than writing a more conventional novel.) For this excerpt, I’ve decided to give you the opening two scenes of the first story in the book, which is also the first one I wrote.

Continue reading →

Quick Review: MANFLAYER by Josh Reynolds (Black Library)

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ReynoldsJ-FB3-ManflayerThe conclusion to the Fabius Bile trilogy

As his Homo Novus project comes to fruition, Fabius Bile faces a new threat – the dreaded haemonculi of the Thirteen Scars. Can he marshal his forces to protect his creations, or are the New Men doomed to death?

In the centuries since his return from Commorragh, Fabius Bile has distanced himself from the affairs of friend and foe, content only to oversee the cruel evolution of his New Men. But when his creations are threatened by the monstrous haemonculi of the Thirteen Scars, the Manflayer is forced to seek out new allies and old enemies alike in an effort to preserve all that he has built. Homo Novus must survive… even if Fabius Bile must die to ensure it.

Josh Reynolds brings his Fabius Bile trilogy to a dramatic close. Bile is one of the most intriguing WH40k characters, one of multiple contradictions and eccentricities. The author once again brings him to life on the page, displaying in full his narcissism, mania, and insatiable thirst for knowledge. I really enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE MANY LIVES OF HELOISE STARCHILD by John Ironmonger (W&N)

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IronmongerJ-ManyLivesOfHeloiseStarchildUKI only just heard about John Ironmonger‘s upcoming novel, The Many Lives of Heloise Starchild, but it immediately caught my attention: not only does it have a striking cover, but the premise (see below) sounds great. It’s a little strange that I hadn’t heard about the novel sooner, actually, not sure how I missed it… Anyway, due to be published in the UK on August 6th, by W&N, here’s the synopsis:

REMEMBER ME WHEN THE COMET COMES…

On the day the comet came, a girl named Heloise was born. She would live a fine life, and inherit a fortune, but would meet a cruel, untimely death.

Years later, strange dreams plague Katya Nemcová, a teenager burdened with a rare and curious gift. Memories come to Katya in her dreams – images and stories from a past that isn’t her own. Are these ghosts real? And what of the memory she seems to have of Heloise’s treasures, two centuries old?

A novel that spans the history of Europe – from revolutionary France to the world wars, the Prague Spring, post Brexit Britain, and beyond – this is the irresistible, adventurous and affectionate story of a quite extraordinary woman, her exceptionally talented ancestors and the curious memories they share.

Looking forward to reading this. At the time of writing, I wasn’t able to find any information about a North American publisher, but this might change (the W&N edition is listed on Amazon US, though).

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