Upcoming

Upcoming: “Your Brother’s Blood” by David Towsey (Jo Fletcher)

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I kind of stumbled across this by accident, but it sounds pretty great. So, here’s some information about David Towsey’s debut novel, Your Brother’s Blood, coming from Jo Fletcher Books in September 2013… The publisher’s blog included the following comment, “Think The Road – but also think Warm Bodies, this book is going to stir up a storm.” This sounds right up my alley, then. Here’s the synopsis…

Thomas is thirty-two. He comes from the small town of Barkley. He has a wife there, Sarah, and a child, Mary; good solid names from the Good Book. And he is on his way home from the war, where he has been serving as a conscripted soldier. Thomas is also dead – he is one of the Walkin’. And Barkley does not suffer the wicked to live.

Book Trailer: “The Bone Season” by Samantha Shannon (Bloomsbury)

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I mentioned a few days back that a copy of The Bone Season had arrived unexpectedly. I’m looking forward to reading the novel, and may also host an interview with the author, closer to the release date. Check out the trailer (above), and the synopsis (below)…

Welcome to Scion, no safer place.

The year is 2059. Nineteen-year-old Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London, based at Seven Dials. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people’s minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a clairvoyant and, in the world of Scion, she commits treason simply by breathing. It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, kidnapped and drugged, Paige is transported to Oxford – a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite creature with dark honey skin and heavy-lidded yellow eyes. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.

The Bone Season will be published in the UK by Bloomsbury, on August 20th 2013.

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Book Trailer: “A Delicate Truth” by John le Carré (Viking)

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I’ve never actually read a le Carre novel, much to my shame. I’ve always wanted to, but with an ever-growing TBR pile of ARCs and other novels, short stories, comics, etc., they always seem to get missed. (And they’ve been re-issued a few times, so I don’t have an excuse of them not being prominent…)

I’m hoping to get to this one some time soon. It’s out now. Here’s the synopsis…

A British civil servant is dispatched to Gibraltar where a top secret counter-terror operation (codename: Wildlife) is being mounted. He has been assigned by a Minister of Her Majesty’s Foreign Office to be his eyes and ears on the ground. The mission is so delicate that not even the Minister’s private secretary, Toby Bell, is admitted to the plan. The operation goes off without a hitch. Or does it?

Three years on, Sir Christopher “Kit” Probyn, a former British diplomat, is enjoying his well-earned retirement. Brought face to face with a living ghost from his past, he desperately appeals to Toby for enlightenment. With the surreptitious help of Kit’s daughter Emily, two men a generation apart, both loyal servants of the Crown, will separately discover whether Wildlife was the triumph it was made out to be, or a tragedy ruthlessly suppressed by the Foreign Office to which they owe their allegiance.

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US / UK Covers

Upcoming: “Felix & Gotrek: City of the Damned” by David Guymer (Black Library)

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Guymer-G&F-CityOfTheDamnedI’ve been reading the Felix & Gotrek series ever since the very early Games Workshop Warhammer anthologies (the first I bought was Wolf Riders). When Black Library was formed, and William King started releasing regular novels, I was very happy. Then Nathan Long took over the series, and he maintained the quality very well, taking it to the next level. Now the series seems to be more of a team-effort, with multiple short stories by different authors, and now novels by different people – this latest one by David Guymer, and also Josh Reynold’s Road of Skulls (which I really need to read… Maybe I’ll read it this coming week).

It’ll be interesting to see how these new installments add to the expanding Gotrek & Felix canon. Especially as they seem to be diverging from the timeline set out by King and Long…

Gotrek and Felix: unsung heroes of the Empire, or nothing more than common thieves and murderers? The truth perhaps lies somewhere in between, and depends entirely upon whom you ask… Legend tells of the City of the Damned – a dark and forbidding place destroyed in a previous age by the wrath of Sigmar. Long have its fallen towers remained undisturbed by the people of Ostermark, but now an ancient evil stirs in the depths, gathering its strength once more. Gotrek and Felix are swept up in the crusade of Baron Gotz von Kiel to cleanse the city, and as the ruins are torn from the passage of time itself, the Slayer’s doom appears to be approaching more quickly than either of them would like.

City of the Damned will be published in September 2013.

Upcoming: “The Warmaster” by Dan Abnett (Black Library)

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Abnett-WarmasterDan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts is one of the best sci-fi series, in my opinion. Not only has it been running for so long, but it has (with but one wobble) maintained a very high quality. Each novel has built on the last, the characters develop naturally. A good number of them have died. I just love it.

Alongside the Horus Heresy and the Gotrek & Felix series, Abnett’s was one of the only Black Library series I rushed out to buy on day one (or read ASAP, if I got a review copy).

Anyway, it’s been a couple of years since Abnett’s last Ghosts-related fiction (the novel Salvation’s Reach and a short-story), so I am very much looking forward to getting reacquainted with the characters.

Here’s the synopsis for the 14th book in the series, The Warmaster…

After the success of their desperate mission to Salvation’s Reach, Colonel-Commisar Gaunt and the Tanith First race to the strategically vital forge world of Urdesh, besieged by the brutal armies of Anarch Sek. However, there may be more at stake than just a planet. The Imperial forces have made an attempt to divide and conquer their enemy, but with Warmaster Macaroth himself commanding the Urdesh campaign, it is possible that the Archenemy assault has a different purpose – to decapitate the Imperial command structure with a single blow. Has the Warmaster allowed himself to become an unwitting target? And can Gaunt’s Ghosts possibly defend him against the assembled killers and war machines of Chaos?

The Warmaster will be published by Black Library in December 2013.

HOODS! MOAR HOODS! (Upcoming Books)

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Ok, keeping with the Angry Robot theme, here are two more covers for upcoming books, both of which share a feature with each other and so many other fantasy and sci-fi books of late: the Hooded Man on the cover. Personally, I find the conformity rather amusing, and some of the covers are pretty great. These two are two of the better examples of Hooded Men Covers. Here are the synopses and details for the novels…

Jay Posey’s THREE, book one in the Legends of the Duskwalker, published in August 2013 (cover by Steven Meyer-Rassow):

The world has collapsed, and there are no heroes any more.

But when a lone gunman reluctantly accepts the mantle of protector to a young boy and his dying mother against the forces that pursue them, a hero may yet arise.

File Under: Science Fiction [ Three For All | Apocalyptic Wasteland | A Journey Home | Fear the Weir ]

I like the rain-effects on this one.

James A. Moore’s SEVEN FORGES, published in October 2013 (cover by Alejandro Colucci):

The people of Fellein have lived with legends for many centuries. To their far north, the Blasted Lands, a legacy of an ancient time of cataclysm, are vast, desolate and impassable, but that doesn’t stop the occasional expedition into their fringes in search of any trace of the ancients who once lived there… and oft-rumoured riches.

Captain Merros Dulver is the first in many lifetimes to find a path beyond the great mountains known as the Seven Forges and encounter, at last, the half‐forgotten race who live there. And it would appear that they were expecting him.

As he returns home, bringing an entourage of the strangers with him, he starts to wonder whether his discovery has been such a good thing. For the gods of this lost race are the gods of war, and their memories of that far-off cataclysm have not faded.

File Under: Fantasy [Savage Lands | Vengeful Gods | An Expected Journey | Battalions at War]

A brighter cover, less brooding. There’s something about it that reminds me of the cover for Gail Z. Martin’s Ice Forged. Maybe it’s just a connection made by the cold climate and snowy mountains in the background portrayed… Colucci also did the cover for The Red Knight by Miles Cameron (Orbit US).

Upcoming: “The Prince of Lies” by Anne Lyle (Angry Robot)

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This was unveiled earlier today on Fantasy Faction (curses for beating me to the scoop! Curses, I say!!). But, as a fan of Anne Lyle’s writing, I wanted to share it here again. The new, very green cover for the author’s third Night’s Masque novel…

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I have been remiss, to be honest, as I have not yet read the second novel in the series, The Merchant of Venice. BUT I WILL! (Oh, those fateful words of mine…) Here’s the synopsis for book three, to be published in October (US) and November (UK) 2013…

Elizabethan spy Mal Catlyn has everything he ever wanted – his twin brother Sandy restored to health, his family estate reclaimed and a son to inherit it – but his work is far from over. The renegade skraylings, the guisers, are still plotting – their leader, Jathekkil, has reincarnated as the young Prince Henry Tudor. But while he is still young, Mal has a slim chance of eliminating his enemies whilst they are at their weakest.

With Sandy’s help, Mal learns to harness his own magic in the fight against the guisers, but it may be too late to save England. Schemes set in motion decades ago are at last coming to fruition, and the barrier between the dreamlands and the waking world is wearing thin…

File Under: Fantasy [ Princes in the Tower | Revenger’s Tragedy | Much Ado | Boys Will Be Boys ]

Upcoming: “The Detainee” by Peter Liney (Jo Fletcher)

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MOAR upcoming Jo Fletcher Books titles?! Why yes. And it looks like a doozy. (No, I do not work for them, I just really like what they publish.) This time, it’s a sci-fi debut I only learned about today – not sure how it slipped by, actually, as it sounds really interesting – Peter Liney’s The Detainee. Here’s the synopsis…

When the fog comes down and the drums start to beat, the inhabitants of the island tremble: for the punishment satellites – which keep the tyrannical Wastelords at bay – are blind in the darkness, and the islanders become prey.

The inhabitants are the old, the sick, the poor: the detritus of Society, dumped on the island with the rest of Society’s waste. There is no point trying to escape, for the satellites – the invisible eyes of the law – mete out instant judgement from the sky.

The island is the end of all hope – until ‘Big Guy’ Clancy finds a blind woman living in a secret underground warren, and discovers a reason to fight.

Colour me intrigued. The Detainee will be published on July 4th 2013 in the UK by Jo Fletcher Books. Expect more about The Detainee and Peter Liney on the blog in the near future…

Upcoming: “The Tower Broken” by Mazarkis Williams (Jo Fletcher)

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I just caught this over on BookSworn, and thought I’d share it on here as well. I’ve only read the first novel in Williams’ series, The Emperor’s Knife, and do intend to get to the second, Knife Sworn, as soon as time permits.

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Is it just me, or does the fellow on the cover have a bit of a cheeky smile on his face…?

The only synopsis I could find of the novel was this single-sentence from Rising Shadow:

“Cerana faces down its historical enemy while a greater threat creeps through the desert towards the capitol city of Nooria.”

And over at the above-linked BookSworn page, Mazarkis Williams had this to say about the plot:

“Govnan gets a point of view in this final book, and the Tower is the focus of the story. When faced with the prospect of its utter ruin and the destruction of Nooria, Govnan must make some tough choices.”

I’ll keep my eyes open for a proper synopsis, and update this post as-and-when something more concrete becomes available.

UPDATE! [May 10] Here is the publisher’s synopsis for the book:

Nooria is at breaking point. The nothing bleeds out the very essence of all, of stone, silk – and souls. Sarmin thought he had stopped it, but it is spreading towards Cerana – and he is powerless to halt the destruction.

Even as Cerana fills with refugees, the Yrkmen armies arrive, offering to spare Sarmin’s people if they will convert to the Mogyrk faith.

Time is running out for Sarmin and Mesema: the Mage’s Tower is cracked; the last mage, sent to find a mysterious pattern-worker in the desert, has vanished; and Sarmin believes his kidnapped brother Daveed still has a part to play.

The walls are crumbling around them…

The Tower Broken will be available in “Late 2013”, published by Jo Fletcher books in the UK on November 7th 2013. (US details still pending confirmation.)

Upcoming: “Swords of Good Men” by Snorri Kristjansson (Jo Fletcher)

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Another book that turned up without any foreknowledge, Snorri Kristjansson’s Swords of Good Men sounds pretty awesome:

To Ulfar Thormodsson, the Viking town of Stenvik is the penultimate stop on a long journey in his riveting adventure of clashing Viking powers. Tasked with looking after his cousin after disgracing his father, he has traveled the world and now only wants to go home.

Stenvik is different: it contains the beautiful and tragic Lilja, who immediately captures Ulfar’s heart – but Stenvik is also home to some very deadly men, who could break Ulfar in an instant.

King Olav is marching on Stenvik from the East, determined to bring the White Christ to the masses at the point of his sword, and a host of bloodthirsty raiders led by a mysterious woman are sailing from the north.

But Ulfar is about to learn that his enemies are not all outside the walls.

I’ve been bad about keeping up-to-date with Jo Fletcher Books releases (Bad Stef!). I’m hoping to get to this ASAP. Swords of Good Men will be published in the UK and the US(?) in August 2013.