Twilight Reign

Last year, I resolved to read at least the first book in four fantasy series. I managed to read the first of only two of them… Thankfully, these sorts of thing are not binding, but nevertheless, I’ve decided to (belatedly) come up with another four fantasy series I would like to at least try, if not finish, in 2014. I will include the two I failed to read in 2013, and hopefully keep them high on the TBR list. So, here are the 2014 Fantasy Reading Resolutions…

Margaret Atwood – MaddAddam Trilogy

Celia Friedman – The Coldfire Trilogy

Tom Lloyd – Twilight Reign (from 2013)

Brandon Sanderson – Mistborn (from 2013)

As before, and always, there are no doubt going to be tens of new fantasy, sci-fi, urban fantasy and horror novels series that I will want to read. Even need to read, in my weirdly-wired mind. They will probably get in the way of my fulfilling these reading resolutions (which makes you wonder if these types of posts have any value whatsoever, but there we go). It’s impossible to read all the novels I want to read. But I will do my best to read at least the first in the above series. It certainly helps that I have already bought them. I’ll use the weekend Upcoming posts to highlight stand-alone novels, and also hitherto unmentioned or unrevealed SFF series that catch my attention. In the meantime, though, here is some information about the above-mentioned series…

Margaret Atwood, Oryx & Crake (Virago)

Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride.

I’ve never read anything by Atwood before. It’s time to address this oversight.

MaddAddam Series: Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam

Celia Friedman – Black Sun Rising (Orbit)

Over a millennium ago, Erna, a seismically active yet beautiful world was settled by colonists from far-distant Earth. But the seemingly habitable planet was fraught with perils no one could have foretold, and the colonists found themselves caught in a desperate battle for survival against the fae, a terrifying natural force with the power to prey upon the human mind itself, drawing forth images from a person’s worst nightmare or most treasured dreams and indiscriminately giving them life.

Twelve centuries after fate first stranded the colonists on Erna, mankind has achieved an uneasy stalemate, and human sorcerers manipulate the fae for their own profit, little realising that demonic forces which feed upon such efforts are rapidly gaining in strength. Now, as the hordes of the dark fae multiply, four people – Priest, Adept, Apprentice and Sorcerer – are about to be drawn inexorably together for a mission which will force them to confront an evil beyond their imagining, in a conflict which will put not only their own lives but the very fate of humankind in jeopardy.

I’ve heard so many bloggers and friends say how much they’ve loved this series, that I really think it’s time I give it a try. Friedman’s latest novel, Dreamwalker, is also on my radar.

The Coldfire Trilogy: Black Sun Rising, When True Night Falls, Crown of Shadows

Tom Lloyd, Stormcaller (Gollancz/Pyr)

Isak is a white-eye, feared and despised in equal measure. Trapped in a life of poverty, hated and abused by his father, Isak dreams of escape, but when his chance comes, it isn’t to a place in the army as he’d expected. Instead, the Gods have marked him out as heir-elect to the brooding Lord Bahl, the Lord of the Fahlan.

Lord Bahl is also a white-eye, a genetic rarity that produces men stronger, more savage and more charismatic than their normal counterparts. Their magnetic charm and brute strength both inspires and oppresses others.

Now is the time for revenge, and the forging of empires. With mounting envy and malice the men who would themselves be kings watch Isak, chosen by Gods as flawed as the humans who serve them, as he is shaped and moulded to fulfil the prophecies that are encircling him like scavenger birds. The various factions jostle for the upper hand, and that means violence, but the Gods have been silent too long and that violence is about to spill over and paint the world the colour of spilled blood and guts and pain and anguish…

Lloyd has now completed this series, and the first novel in his new series – Moon’s Artifice – has already been published (also by Gollancz). I intend to read both Stormcaller and Moon’s Artifice this year, and hopefully more of the Twilight Reign series, too.

Twilight Reign: The Stormcaller, The Twilight Herald, The Grave Thief, The Ragged Man, The Dusk Watchman, The God Tattoo

Also on CR: Interview with Tom Lloyd

Brandon Sanderson – The Final Empire (Gollancz/Tor Books)

Once, a hero arose to save the world. A young man with a mysterious heritage courageously challenged the darkness that strangled the land.

He failed.

For a thousand years since, the world has been a wasteland of ash and mist ruled by the immortal emperor known as the Lord Ruler. Every revolt has failed miserably.

Yet somehow, hope survives. Hope that dares to dream of ending the empire and even the Lord Ruler himself. A new kind of uprising is being planned, one built around the ultimate caper, one that depends on the cunning of a brilliant criminal mastermind and the determination of an unlikely heroine, a street urchin who must learn to master Allomancy, the power of a Mistborn.

While I failed to read The Final Empire in 2013, I did manage to read my first Sanderson novel – Steelheart. Obviously very different to this one, but I’m glad I have at least read one of his novels, now. I know this series has been hugely popular and successful on both sides of the Atlantic (and elsewhere, I assume), and I really think I need to give it a read. Sanderson continues to have a weird distinction with me: I won all of his novels, but have barely read any of them…

The Mistborn Series: The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, The Allow of Law [there are more to come, too…]

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I thought I’d take this opportunity to mention some new series starting in 2014 that have also caught my attention. As it’s still early days, I’ll present the synopses and cover art, and keep my comments brief…

Karen Miller, The Path to Power (Orbit)

NOBODY IS INNOCENT. EVERY CROWN IS TARNISHED

A royal child, believed dead, sets his eyes on regaining his father’s stolen throne.

A bastard lord, uprising against his tyrant cousin, sheds more blood than he bargained for.

A duke’s widow, defending her daughter, defies the ambitious lord who’d control them both.

And two brothers, divided by ambition, will learn the true meaning of treachery.

All of this will come to pass, and the only certainty is that nothing will remain as it once was. As royal houses rise and fall, empires are reborn and friends become enemies, it becomes clear that much will be demanded of those who follow the path to power.

The first in Miller’s new Tarnished Crown series. I haven’t read any of Miller’s previous novels, and I think this one sounds like the book to rectify this oversight.

N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season (Orbit)

The Fifth Season is set in a world which has suffered frequent, repeated Extinction Level Events for millions of years, and all life (and magic) in this world has adapted to it. Hundreds of years might pass between these events — easy, plentiful years in which great cities rise, and people have the leisure for art and science and rapid advancement — but then, again and again, the cities fall. The world is littered with the detritus of these times of plenty, and this cover hints at them: past ages of decadence, now decaying; stone that endures beneath flaking gilt.

The above synopsis is from Goodreads, who found it on the author’s website. (I do wonder when there will be an official description.) I really enjoyed Jemisin’s first fantasy series (Inheritance), and also the first novel in the Dreamblood duology that followed (not sure why I didn’t get around to finishing it, though…). This is the first in the author’s new The Broken Earth series, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

What series have I missed? What new series are you looking forward to this year, or ‘old’ series are you hoping to finally try out?

Tom Lloyd is the author of the Twilight Reign epic fantasy series, which was completed earlier this year. Today, Gollancz publish the first in his new series, Moon’s Artifice. To mark the occasion, I caught up with Tom to get an update since my first interview with the author…

Your first fantasy series, The Twilight Reign, came to an end this year. How does it feel to have it finished?

Weird – damn good, but still weird. I started on the project when I was 18, so it’s been the major constant of 12-14 years of my life! Even when I was signed up by Gollancz I don’t think I appreciated just how much of my life was going to be devoted to one set of characters, one plot. It was just always there, so to suddenly realise you’ve written the last words puts you into mourning.

Of course, the very last words of Dusk Watchman are the inscription on a memorial stone – I can’t remember if I’d finished all the stories of God Tattoo by then, but most of them. Certainly in my mind, that final part of the epilogue was what really brought it home to me. When I wrote the last words and typed the inscription, I think I might have needed a few moments to myself… And again when I did the second draft of it and finally got the tone of those last couple pages as I really wanted it.

So yeah, years of my life and the voices in my head that had become my friends, all gone. I think that’s one reason why I didn’t want to go straight into an epic again. I didn’t want to have a project that I’d compare so directly with Twilight Reign. Plus I was knackered and the idea of planning a series-spanning plot was exhausting. I wanted a stand-alone book and handily had the bones of one already sketched out. I have an epic (or maybe two) idea at the back of my mind, but there’s the Empire of a Hundred Houses series and then another both ahead of them in the queue.

Anything you might have done differently?

No book is ever finished, you know that! But at the same time, I’m really happy with it. I know it’s not a simply plot and not a book you can idly flick through – while no-one describes me as a grimdark writer (because of less of an emphasis on cynicism by characters I believe), it’s pretty dark. The tone is grim for large chunks of it, a lot of people die and a lot of people get screwed up by all that happens to them. If you’re writing about war and nations-spanning conflicts, you have to acknowledge the casualties of that – the people who get crushed under the wheels of it all.

So yeah, some people will always have criticisms of any book and I’ve seen reviews that didn’t like how I’d done certain things, but it’s the story I wanted to tell – grim and dark as it may be. I’d happily to do a quick brush-up job on Stormcaller as reading it back I think I over-complicated some passages and interrupted the flow, but aside from making bits easier and quicker to read I wouldn’t want to change it. The plot’s hardwired into my brain for a start, unpicking it would probably cause an aneurism.

Now. Moon’s Artifice. The first in a new series. What’s it about?

Dragons! No, not really… But I hear those sell so… ;0)

Ahem, well it’s a secondary world fantasy, but not an epic. It’s being described as swords and sorcery, but that conjures images of bearded wizards and over-muscled barbarian warriors in my mind so I’m trying to coin the term “hood and dagger” to describe an urban-set fantasy action/thriller, albeit to minimal effect!

Anyway – we have a policeman who, at the same time as he finds out his married high-born lover is pregnant, stumbles over a mystery. With no idea what he’s involved in, he’s tasked by an interfering god to find out what’s going on – his only clues being an unconscious thug dressed like an assassin and the accidental poisoning of a little girl. Quickly matters blossom into a conspiracy that threatens to overturn the rigid rules of the Empire and lead to the deaths of thousands at best – and it quickly starts to look like Narin and his new friends need to step up and stop them. Everything is set in the capital city of a fractured Empire – the meeting place of the great nations-hegemonies who have ensured the Emperor’s position is more spiritual than temporal – and takes place in something close to one week.

What was it like starting a new series from scratch again?

Strange – partly because it wasn’t from scratch. When I was looking for an agent for Stormcaller, I realised I might have to just write it off as the book I learned to write with. So I started a new one with very little idea about what I wanted from it. I knew it had to be a different sort of book as I was still learning this writing thing, and it was going to indulge the samurai obsession I had back then. Plus I had a title – Moon’s Artifice – even if I didn’t know how or why that poison fitted in the plot exactly. I knew it did in some nebulous way and just had to wait until the voices whispered exactly how.

You’ll be shocked to hear those chapters weren’t very good, but eight-odd years later, I had a much better idea of what I wanted! All those ghostly half-formed ideas at the back of my mind had had a chance to mulch around and create the bones of a plot. From there, you actually get a chance to pick what you want to do, which was quite fun. I don’t write with a specific message or agenda in mind, I just want to tell the story in my head in a way people will enjoy.

What lessons did you learn from writing Twilight Reign, and how did your experiences with that series translate into your approach to Moon’s Artifice?

I learned to write while doing the Twilight Reign and because I was doing a shorter, less complicated and faster-paced book, I had to actively consider how to adapt for that. A lot of it was simply deciding what was appropriate to the sort of book I was writing. With the experience of a classical European medieval epic fantasy, I had a number of things I didn’t want to do – not that I was rejecting them, I just wanted to do something new and different. Fortunately the Empire setting was halfway there already and just needed some tweaking plus internal consistency which ironed out the creases. Some of which, I must admit, was added by my agent who took me out for drinks and brutalised the setting and idea until he was satisfied with it. Given he’s only making money on how good my books are, that’s the mark of a good agent even if it wasn’t a fun hour or two. However successful you get, you always need to be challenged or you’ll end up phoning novels in.

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Moon’s Artifice is out TODAY! Go on. Go buy it. Here’s the synopsis

In a quiet corner of the Imperial City, Investigator Narin discovers the result of his first potentially lethal mistake. Minutes later he makes a second.

After an unremarkable career Narin finally has the chance of promotion to the hallowed ranks of the Lawbringers – guardians of the Emperor’s laws and bastions for justice in a world of brutal expediency. Joining that honoured body would be the culmination of a lifelong dream, but it couldn’t possibly have come at a worse time. A chance encounter drags Narin into a plot of gods and monsters, spies and assassins, accompanied by a grief-stricken young woman, an old man haunted by the ghosts of his past and an assassin with no past.

On the cusp of an industrial age that threatens the warrior caste’s rule, the Empire of a Hundred Houses awaits civil war between noble factions. Centuries of conquest has made the empire a brittle and bloated monster; constrained by tradition and crying out for change. To save his own life and those of untold thousands Narin must understand the key to it all – Moon’s Artifice, the poison that could destroy an empire.

Also, while you’re at it, The Twilight Reign novels are all now available, published by Gollancz in the UK, and Pyr in the US.

Civilian Reader

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2014: New Year’s (Reading) Resolutions…

Catching up with TOM LLOYD