Featuring: Madeline Ashby, Holly Baxter, Rosalind Brown, Ron Corbett, Sebastien de Castell, Melissa Fitzgerald & Mary McCormack, Gareth Hanrahan, Matthew Hart, Adelle Waldman, Craig Whitlock, Don Winslow, Josh Young & Manfred Westphal
Sebastien de Castell
Excerpt: CRUCIBLE OF CHAOS by Sebastien de Castell (Mobius/Jo Fletcher Books)
To celebrate the recent North American release of Crucible of Chaos, the publisher has allowed us to share the first chapter! The prequel novel in Sebastien de Castell‘s Court of Shadows series, it picks up the story of the Greatcoats (the subject of the author’s excellent debut series). Here’s the synopsis:
A mortally wounded magistrate faces his deadliest trial inside an ancient abbey where the monks are going mad and the gods themselves may be to blame!
Estevar Borros, one of the legendary sword-fighting magistrates known as the Greatcoats and the king’s personal investigator of the supernatural, is no stranger to tales of ghosts and demons. When the fractious monks of the abbey rumored to be the birthplace of the gods begin warring over claims of a new pantheon arising, the frantic abbot summons him to settle the dispute.
But Estevar has his own problems: a near-fatal sword wound from his last judicial duel, a sworn knight who claims he has proof the monks are consorting with demons, a diabolical inquisitor with no love for the Greatcoats, and a mysterious young woman claiming to be Estevar’s ally but who may well be his deadliest enemy.
Armed only with his famed investigative talents, his faltering skill with a blade and Imperious, his ornery mule, Estevar must root out the source of the madness lurking inside the once-sacred walls of Isola Sombra before its chaos spreads to the country he’s sworn to protect.
Blog Tour: THE MALEVOLENT SEVEN by Sebastien de Castell (Mobius)
Today’s the first day of Sebastien de Castell‘s blog tour celebrating the release of his latest novel, The Malevolent Seven. The author has put together a rather cool explanatory video for one of the kinds of magic in this new fantasy world, which you can check out over on CR’s instagram (give us a follow, if you like).
I’ve also tried to embed that video, below, (it doesn’t seem to show up in Safari, but it does in Chrome… Regardless, it serves as a handy link). Before you click through to Sebastien’s video, here’s the novel’s synopsis…
‘Seven powerful mages want to make the world a better place. We’re going to kill them first.’
Picture a wizard. Go ahead, close your eyes. There he is, see? Skinny old guy with a long straggly beard. No doubt he’s wearing iridescent silk robes that couldn’t protect his frail body from a light breeze. The hat’s a must, too, right? Big, floppy thing, covered in esoteric symbols that would instantly show every other mage where this one gets his magic? Wouldn’t want a simple steel helmet or something that might, you know, protect the part of him most needed for conjuring magical forces from being bashed in with a mace (or pretty much any household object).
Now open your eyes and let me show you what a real war mage looks like… but be warned: you’re probably not going to like it, because we’re violent, angry, dangerously broken people who sell our skills to the highest bidder and be damned to any moral or ethical considerations.
At least, until such irritating concepts as friendship and the end of the world get in the way.
My name is Cade Ombra, and though I currently make my living as a mercenary wonderist, I used to have a far more noble-sounding job title – until I discovered the people I worked for weren’t quite as noble as I’d believed. Now I’m on the run and my only friend, a homicidal thunder mage, has invited me to join him on a suicide mission against the seven deadliest mages on the continent.
Time to recruit some very bad people to help us on this job… Continue reading
New Books (February-March 2023)
Another bumper crop of books (review copies and purchased). Many of these I hadn’t heard about before receiving review copies, but others are books that I’ve been really looking forward to for a while.
Featuring: Jeff Boyd, Sebastien de Castell, Jena Friedman, Alex Finlay, Candice Fox, Jena Friedman, Nick Fuller Googins, Jenny Jackson, Rebecca F. Kuang, Ward Larsen, Josie Long, Ben McKenzie (w. Jacob Silverman), Denise Mina, Bill Peel, Matthew Quirk, Theresa Runstedtler, R. A. Sinn, Alec Worley
New Books (April-May)
Truly, my cup shelves runneth over recently. Had a bit of an uptick in new review copies and also books bought (I have an impulse problem…). I think among this bonanza is something that should appeal to pretty much any fiction fan, so take a look!
Featuring: Lauren Acampora, Andrea Bartz, Michael Blumlein, Steph Cha (x2), Tom Chatfield, Martin Clark, Kate Davies, Lindsey Davis, Jeffery Deaver, Sebastien de Castell, Jennifer duBois, Greg Egan, Peter Fehervari, Jackson Ford, John French, Claudia Gray, Rachel Howzell Hall, Will Harris, Saad Z. Hossain, Keren Landsman, Mark Lawrence, Brian McClellan, Denise Mina, Michael Moreci, Peter Newman, Claire North, Megan O’Keefe, Suzanne Palmer, H.G. Parry, Gareth L. Powell, Tom Rosenstiel, Richard Russo, Anthony Ryan, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Tade Thompson, Jessica Yellin
New Books (September-October)
Featuring: Jeffrey Archer, Andrew Bacevich, Lou Berney, Jordanna Max Brodsky, Max Allan Collins, Roger Daltrey, DJ Daniels, Sebastien de Castell, Leif Enger, W.L. Goodwater, Greg Grandin, Thomas Christopher Greene, Guy Haley, Yuval Noah Harari, Dave Hutchinson, Eric Idle, Antony Johnston, David Kushner, Mike Lawson, Michael Lewis, Angus Macallan, Kyle Mills, David Thomas Moore, Daniel José Older, Anne Rice, A. Brad Schwartz, Adrian Selby, Harry Turtledove, Alex White, Ben Winters
New Books (August)
Featuring: Mary Adkins, Jussi Adler-Olsen, David Annandale, Jessica Barry, Flynn Berry, Miles Cameron, M.R. Carey, Victor Montgomery Cornwall, Craig Davidson, Sebastien de Castell, N.S. Dolkart, Esi Edugyan, Ben Fountain, William W. Freehling, John French, Christopher Golden, David Gordon, Charlaine Harris, D.B. Jackson, Gregory B. Jaczko, Steven James, Eyal Kless, Sam Lipsyte, Jonathan Maberry, Mindy Mejia, Sara Paretsky, Matthew Quirk, Kim Stanley Robinson, Axl Rosenberg, Tom Rosenstiel, Michael Rutger, David Small, Anna Smith Spark, Arthur St. John Trevelyan, Martha Wells, Cherise Wolas, Chris Wraight, Jane Yolen
New Books (May-June)
Featuring: Mark Adams, Tom Barbash, RJ Barker, Laird Barron, Terry Brooks, Jim Butcher, Gail Carrier, Bill Clinton, Nadia Dalbuono, Sebastien de Castell, Nicholas Eames, Joseph Fink, Lauren Groff, Nick Harkaway, Max Hastings, Jon Hollins, A.M. Homes, Phil Kelly, Harrison Scott Key, Steve Kornacki, Dale Lucas, Brian McClellan, David Mealing, Lawrence Osborne, James Patterson, Joanne Proulx, Vivian Shaw, Anna Smith Spark, Tasha Suri, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Tade Thompson, Patrick S. Tomlinson, Jennifer Wolfe
New Books (February-March)
Featuring: Aimee Agresti, E.M. Brown, Jack Carr, Sebastien de Castell, Ruthanna Emmys, Raymond E. Feist, Christopher Fowler, Jason Fry, Louisa Hall, Michael Harvey, Ken Jennings, Richard Kadrey, Barbara Kingsolver, Nancy Kress, Mark Lawrence, Roger Levy, Laura Lippman, K.M. McKinley, Sean Parnell, Charlton Pettus, Josh Reynolds, David Ricciardi, Karl Schroeder, Ricki Schultz, Julie Schumacher, J. Todd Scott, Michael Farris Smith, Wallace Stroby, Stuart Turton, Raymond A. Villareal, Martha Wells, JY Yang
Interview with SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL
So, we’ve had you on CR before, but for new readers let’s start with an introduction: Who is Sebastien de Castell?
I’m the guy who wrote that thing about the dudes with the really cool coats, and the one guy is like, “I’m the greatest swordsman who ever lived, but I don’t like to talk about it,” but the other one is like, “arrows are just as good as swords, and anyway, I’m better looking” and then there’s the narrator, who’s like, “Justice! Why can’t we have more justice!”
I think it’s called the “Great Cloaks” or “Grey Coats” or something.
Maybe it’s better to look up the bio I gave in our previous interview. Continue reading
Civilian Reader 