Sci-Fi

Guest Review: UPDRAFT by Fran Wilde (Tor)

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WildeF-B1-UpdraftUSPBWelcome to a world of wind and bone, songs and silence, betrayal and courage.

Kirit Densira cannot wait to pass her wingtest and begin flying as a trader by her mother’s side, being in service to her beloved home tower and exploring the skies beyond. When Kirit inadvertently breaks Tower Law, the city’s secretive governing body, the Singers, demand that she become one of them instead. In an attempt to save her family from greater censure, Kirit must give up her dreams to throw herself into the dangerous training at the Spire, the tallest, most forbidding tower, deep at the heart of the City.

As she grows in knowledge and power, she starts to uncover the depths of Spire secrets. Kirit begins to doubt her world and its unassailable Laws, setting in motion a chain of events that will lead to a haunting choice, and may well change the city forever-if it isn’t destroyed outright.

Reviewed by Ryan Frye

Upon its release, Updraft enjoyed a fair amount of positive buzz from SF/F critics and reviewers that I respect, and when it popped up on numerous “Best Books of 2015” lists, I knew I had to give it a read. When a book receives such widespread hype, my anticipation tends to ratchet up. First and foremost, I was very intrigued by the idea of a city made out of living bones, where humans live far above the ground and get around by flying. This set my imagination running, and I was excited to find out what exactly brought the situation into being. Furthermore, I tend to prefer books written in first person perspective, so this seemed like it would be a perfect read. Continue reading →

Interview with HELEN LOWE

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LoweH-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction, for new readers: Who is Helen Lowe?

Thank you, for hosting me on Civilian Reader, Stefan. In terms of “who I am”: I’m a novelist, poet, and occasional interviewer. So far, the only idea I’ve ever had for a novel has come to me in speculative fiction mode, i.e. as fantasy, science fiction, or legendary history, but I write short fiction in a wider range of genres. Outside of writing, I live in “Middle Earth”, aka New Zealand, and I am interested in a range of “stuff”, from astronomy and history, through martial arts, to wine – especially NZ wines – and making and consuming food, the latter in the company of friends whenever possible.

Your latest novel, Daughter of Blood, was published earlier this year by Orbit (UK) and Voyager (US). It’s the third in your fantasy series, but how would you introduce the series to a potential reader?

Well, the Twitter-length synopsis for the series is that it’s a story about a people who believe themselves to be champions of good but are divided by prejudice, suspicion, and fear. (Not to mention xenophobic, socially rigid, and prone to fratricidal blood feuds.) They are also alien to the world they inhabit (Haarth), so there’s an SF-nal element there. The Wall of Night series is a single story told in four distinct parts, but it centres on a young woman, Malian of Night (think ‘princess’, not ‘farm girl’), who must attempt to reunite her fractured people (the Derai) and restore their abandoned magic, as well as building alliances with the other cultures of Haarth, in order to prevent the world being destroyed by (another) alien invader. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Regeneration Transatlantic” by Stephanie Saulter

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SaulterS-AuthorPicRegeneration, the third and final book of the ®Evolution sequence, is about to drop in North America. Given that it’s been out in the UK for the past eight months, I’ve already done a lot of public meditating on what it’s ‘like’ to have completed the trilogy (short answer: I don’t really know what it’s like. To what can you compare it?). Now I’m thinking about the internationalist dimension. One of the things that I’ve found fascinating, and often surprising, over the past few years is the different ways in which the books have been received and understood in different countries and communities. Continue reading →

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

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WagersKB-1-BehindTheThroneAnother 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.

Interview with GAV THORPE

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ThorpeG-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Gav Thorpe?

Hi, I’m a middle aged white guy that’s been fortunate enough to write about orcs and space marines and other made-up stuff since I was nineteen. I spent fourteen years as a games develop for Games Workshop, and in 2007 I left to become a full-time freelance writer, developer and creative consultant.

I live between Nottingham and Derby in the UK, with by partner Kez and our son, Sammy.

You work on a number of series for Black Library. Your next Horus Heresy novel, Angels of Caliban, will be published soon(ish). How would you introduce it to a potential reader?

Angels of Caliban is a story about loyalty and honour, but more importantly how those things can be measured differently. And how those measures may change depending on circumstance. It is the culmination and continuance of several storylines that have been playing out through the Horus Heresy series, including the Imperium Secundus arc, the growing rebellion on Caliban and the ongoing homicidal feud between The Lion and Konrad Curze. But there’s also a ton of stuff about the history and organisation of the Dark Angels legion, an examination on the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate on the Primarchs and all the sort of lore you would expect from a Horus Heresy novel. Oh, and an ending that will drop a few jaws and have some folks just wondering what the hell is going to happen next. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “On Writing and Completing a Trilogy” by Gerrard Cowan

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CowanG-AuthorPic2I’ve started writing the third book in my fantasy trilogy, and it is a very strange experience.

Book One was obviously a difficult process. It took years – four, to be precise, from the germination of the idea to the day I cried ‘enough is enough’ and began sending it to agents. In fairness, I was only properly working at it for the final two of those four years, as it took me a while to get into the rhythm. Still, it was with me for quite a long time.

When you write the first part of a trilogy you have a certain amount of scope. It’s liberating, really. Of course, you need to plan out the overall story, and know how you’re going to get to where you’re going. But you can allow certain threads to dangle.  Continue reading →

Interview with TREVOR HOYLE

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HoyleT-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Trevor Hoyle?

I was born in Lancashire, where I still live. Early on I worked as an actor in television and theatre, and for a while I wrote and presented an arts and entertainment digest programme for Granada Television.

Since the mid-seventies, I’ve published more than 20 novels — mainstream, thrillers, science fiction — as well as many short stories (and even won the Transatlantic Review prize). I’ve also written for BBC Radio, winning the Radio Times Drama Award. Writing Randle’s Scandals, a radio play about rude Wigan comedian Frank Randle, was a real labour of love – for which Keith Clifford, the actor in the title role, won the Sony Award.

Your new novel, The Last Gasp, will be published by Jo Fletcher Books in April. It looks rather interesting: How would you introduce it to a potential reader?

The novel is a 21st-century prophesy of a world running out of oxygen. This isn’t as far-fetched as it might seem. The way we’re mistreating the environment, pouring millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we’re creating our own disaster scenario which is threatening us all. The main character is a British marine biologist, Gavin Chase, and the story takes us from the present day to thirty years into the future, and depicts the very real possibility that we could be literally gasping for breath – hence the title. Continue reading →

Upcoming: LUNA: WOLF MOON by Ian McDonald (Gollancz/Tor)

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McDonald-Luna2-WolfMoonUKHCA little while ago, I shared the US cover for Ian McDonald‘s highly-anticipated second Luna novel, Wolf Moon. Today, the author’s UK publisher Gollancz unveiled the UK artwork — and as you can see, it’s another striking cover. Here’s the synopsis:

The moon is waiting…

Corta Helio, one of the five family corporations that rule the Moon, has fallen. Its riches are divided up among its many enemies, its survivors scattered. Eighteen months have passed.

The remaining Helio children, Lucasinho and Luna, are under the protection of the powerful Asamoahs, while Robson, still reeling from witnessing his parent’s violent deaths, is now a ward – virtually a hostage – of Mackenzie Metals. And the last appointed heir, Lucas, has vanished from the surface of the moon.

Only Lady Sun, dowager of Taiyang, suspects that Lucas Corta is not dead, and – more to the point – that he is still a major player in the game. After all, Lucas always was a schemer, and even in death, he would go to any lengths to take back everything and build a new Corta Helio, more powerful than before. But Corta Helio needs allies, and to find them, the fleeing son undertakes an audacious, impossible journey – to Earth.

In an unstable lunar environment, the shifting loyalties and political machinations of each family reach the zenith of their most fertile plots as outright war between the families erupts.

Luna: Wolf Moon is due to be published in the UK by Gollancz, on September 29th, 2016; and in the US by Tor Books, around the same time. Gollancz and Tor Books also publish the first novel in the series, Luna: New Moon.

McDonald-Luna2-WolfMoonUS

Turn Back 10: HORUS RISING by Dan Abnett (Black Library)

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TurnBackTimeClockIn the third instalment of “Turn Back 10”, we take a look at the third review I posted on CR.

Dan Abnett’s Horus Rising is the first novel in Black Library’s long-running, at-one-time New York Times-bestselling Horus Heresy series, chronicling the beginning of what would become the Warhammer 40,000 game and fiction universe. If you’ve been following CR for even a short while, you’ll have seen that I have been an avid, loyal reader of this series — I’ve posted many reviews of the novels, short stories, novellas and audio-dramas. I haven’t reviewed all the books, though, but probably a majority have featured in some way.

The series has experienced some ups-and-downs. The first three novels — Horus Rising, Graham McNeill’s False Gods and Ben Counter’s Galaxy In Flames — form a fantastic opening story-arc that sets the scene brilliantly, and introduces us to some of sci-fi’s most interesting characters. Sadly, the novels afterwards were of varying quality, but the series picked up again with McNeill’s A Thousand Sons, and maintained a very strong run until everything screeched to a halt with the events on Calth…

Anyway, here’s the review…

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HORUS RISING by Dan Abnett (Black Library)

Abnett-HH1-HorusRisingThe seeds of heresy are sown

At the dawn of the 31st millennium, the Imperium of Man has reasserted its dominance over the galaxy. It is a golden age of rediscovery and conquest, and the Emperor’s Great Crusade has placed his superhuman primarch sons at the head of the mighty Space Marine Legions – the most powerful military force ever assembled. Newly promoted to serve as the Emperor’s Warmaster, the idealistic Horus now stands above his brothers, even as the Crusade enters what must surely be its final stages and dark, cosmic truths begin to reveal themselves. Far beyond the alien threat of malignant xenos breeds or rogue human civilisations, a war now looms that could threaten the final extinction of mankind… The first novel in the epic series, detailing the fall of mankind at the peak of the Great Crusade. Warmaster Horus leads his Legion in the name of the Emperor… but for how long?

Horus Rising is the first book in a trilogy from Black Library that chronicles the events of the Horus Heresy, a time when humanity was ripped apart in an intergalactic civil war, under the leadership of Warmaster Horus, one of the Emperor’s Primarchs and formerly the Emperor’s favourite. Continue reading →