The Qwillery

The judges of the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award and the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, along with the Philip K. Dick Trust, have announced the six nominated works that comprise the final ballot for the award:

• Failed State by Christopher Brown (Harper Voyager)
• The Book of Koli by M. R. Carey (Orbit)
• Dance on Saturday by Elwin Cotman (Small Beer Press)
• Bone Silence by Alastair Reynolds (Orbit)
• Road Out of Winter by Alison Stine (Mira)
• The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit)

First prize and any special citations will be announced on Friday, April 2, 2021 at Norwescon 43 which is being held virtually this year. 

The link to the ceremony will be posted at https://www.norwescon.org when it is available.

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States during the previous calendar year. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the Northwest Science Fiction Society.

The 2021 judges are Thomas A. Easton, Karen Heuler, Mur Lafferty, Patricia MacEwen (chair), and James Sallis.

Failed State
Dystopian Lawyer
Harper Voyager, August 11, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 384 pages

"The novel is as tense and thrilling as any of Brown's work, and as full of rage and hope. It's a novel that truly reckons with the enormity of both our climate emergency and the system that produced it - a tale of human imperfection and redemption." -- Cory Doctorow, bestselling author of Walkaway

In this second dystopian legal thriller from the author of the acclaimed Rule of Capture and Tropic of Kansas, lawyer Donny Kimoe juggles two intertwined cases whose outcomes will determine the course of America’s future—and his own.

In the aftermath of a second American revolution, peace rests on a fragile truce. The old regime has been deposed, but the ex-president has vanished, escaping justice for his crimes. Some believe he is dead. Others fear he is in hiding, gathering forces. As the factions in Washington work to restore order, Donny Kimoe is in court to settle old scores—and pay his own debts come due.

Meanwhile, the rebels Donny once defended are exacting their own kind of justice. In the ruins of New Orleans, they are building a green utopia—and kidnapping their defeated adversaries to pay for it. The newest hostage is the young heiress to a fortune made from plundering the country—and the daughter of one of Donny’s oldest friends. In a desperate gambit to save his own skin, Donny switches sides to defend her before the show trial. If he fails, so will the truce, dragging the country back into violence. But by taking the case, he risks his last chance to expose the atrocities of the dictatorship—and being tried for his own crimes against the revolution.

To save the future, Donny has to gamble his own. The only way out is to find the evidence that will get both sides back to the table, and secure a more lasting peace. To do that, Donny must betray his clients’ secrets. Including one explosive secret hidden in the ruins, the discovery of which could extinguish the last hope for a better tomorrow—or, if Donny plays it right, keep it burning.

The Book of Koli
The Rampart Trilogy 1
Orbit, April 14, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 416 pages

"This is a beautiful book. Gripping, engaging, and absolutely worth the time it takes to burrow yourself into its reality. I can't recommend it highly enough." —Seanan McGuire

The first in a masterful new trilogy from acclaimed author M. R. Carey, The Book of Koli begins the story of a young boy on a journey through a strange and deadly world of our making.

Everything that lives hates us…

Beyond the walls of the small village of Mythen Rood lies an unrecognizable landscape. A place where overgrown forests are filled with choker trees and deadly seeds that will kill you where you stand. And if they don't get you, one of the dangerous shunned men will.

Koli has lived in Mythen Rood his entire life. He believes the first rule of survival is that you don't venture too far beyond the walls.

He's wrong.

"A captivating start to what promises to be an epic post-apocalyptic fable." —Kirkus

"Enthralling…Koli embarks upon a journey as perilous as it is enlightening." —Guardian

"The best thing I've read in a long time. I loved it." —Joanne Harris

"Carey hefts astonishing storytelling power with plainspoken language, heartbreaking choices, and sincerity like an arrow to the heart." —Locus

Look out for the next novels in the trilogy: The Trials of Koli and The Fall of Koli

Dance on Saturday
Small Beer Press, September 15, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 304 pages

Planted deeply in the dark, musical fantastic heart of American storytelling, Cotman’s half dozen tales are ripe for the picking.

In the title novella, Cotman imagines a group of near-immortals living in Pittsburgh in an uneasy truce with Lord Decay. Their truce is threatened when one of them takes pity on a young woman who knows their secret. In “Among the Zoologists,” a game writer on their way to a convention falls in with a group of rogue Darwinists whose baggage contains a great mystery. A volleyball tournament devolves into nightmare and chaos in “Mine.” In Cotman’s hands, the conventions of genres from fairytales to Victorian literature to epic fantasy and horror give shape to marvelously new stories.

Bone Silence
The Revenger Trilogy 3
Orbit, April 14, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook 640 pages

The thrilling finale to the Revenger Trilogy tells a desperate tale of greed, piracy, shadow governments, and ancient secrets that could unravel all of civilization

The Ness sisters ran away from home to become the most fearsome pirates in the twenty thousand worlds of the Congregation. They’ve plundered treasures untold, taken command of their own ship, and made plenty of enemies. But now they’re being hunted for crimes they didn’t commit by a fleet whose crimes are worse than their own. To stay one step ahead of their pursuers and answer the questions that have plagued them, they’ll have to employ every dirty, piratical trick in the book….

Read more by Alastair Reynolds!

The Revenger Trilogy:
Revenger
Shadow Captain
Bone Silence

Road Out of Winter
MIRA, September 1, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 320 pages

2021 Philip K. Dick Award Finalist
A 2020 The Rumpus Book Club Selection

“Blends a rural thriller and speculative realism into what could be called dystopian noir…. Profoundly moving.”—Library Journal, starred review

In an endless winter, she carries seeds of hope

Wylodine comes from a world of paranoia and poverty—her family grows marijuana illegally, and life has always been a battle. Now she’s been left behind to tend the crop alone. Then spring doesn’t return for the second year in a row, bringing unprecedented, extreme winter.

With grow lights stashed in her truck and a pouch of precious seeds, she begins a journey, determined to start over away from Appalachian Ohio. But the icy roads and strangers hidden in the hills are treacherous. After a harrowing encounter with a violent cult, Wil and her small group of exiles become a target for the cult’s volatile leader. Because she has the most valuable skill in the climate chaos: she can make things grow.

Urgent and poignant, Road Out of Winter is a glimpse of an all-too-possible near future, with a chosen family forged in the face of dystopian collapse. With the gripping suspense of The Road and the lyricism of Station Eleven, Stine’s vision is of a changing world where an unexpected hero searches for where hope might take root.

“Richly imagined, deeply moving and unthinkably offers hope in a world that uncannily resembles ours currently in the thick of COVID-19…. Gloriously well-written.” —Ms. Magazine

The Doors of Eden
Orbit, Sebtember 22, 2020
Trade Paperback and eBook, 640 pages

From the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Doors of Eden is an extraordinary feat of the imagination and a page-turning adventure about parallel universes and the monsters that they hide.

They thought we were safe. They were wrong.

Four years ago, two girls went looking for monsters on Bodmin Moor. Only one came back.

Lee thought she’d lost Mal, but now she’s miraculously returned. But what happened that day on the moors? And where has she been all this time? Mal’s reappearance hasn’t gone unnoticed by MI5 officers either, and Lee isn’t the only one with questions.

Julian Sabreur is investigating an attack on top physicist Kay Amal Khan. This leads Julian to clash with agents of an unknown power – and they may or may not be human. His only clue is grainy footage, showing a woman who supposedly died on Bodmin Moor.

Dr Khan’s research was theoretical; then she found cracks between our world and parallel Earths. Now these cracks are widening, revealing extraordinary creatures. And as the doors crash open, anything could come through.

“Tchaikovsky weaves a masterful tale… a suspenseful joyride through the multiverse.” (Booklist)

The shortlist of the 34th Arthur C. Clarke Award has been announced:

• The City in the Middle of the Night  by Charlie Jane Anders
• The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
• A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
• The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell
• Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• The Last Astronaut  by  David Wellington

Bye bye May! I can't believe that May has come and gone. I hope that May brought you some blooming great books (get it...May flowers....blooming???...tee hee).  Well excuse my poor sense of humour. I have jetlag after a rather long journey back from the east coast of Canada. The holiday did provide me with the opportunity to read some good books though. So what did I read?


One of my sisters is an ardent fan of Patricia Briggs (she introduced me to the author) and had the most recent Mercy Thompson book - Storm Cursed. I had forgotten that this book had been released so I grabbed her Kindle and piled in. This book is set a mere few months after the events of book 10 when Mercy was kidnapped and held in Europe. Rather than referencing the events of the last book Storm Cursed carries on the plot arc from books 8 and 9. Just when Mercy has a little bit of stability in her life a deadly coven of witches threaten the peace talks between the humans, fae and werewolves. Mercy and the pack promised to protect the Tri Cities and they are determined regardless how many zombie goats they have to kill in the process.

I enjoyed Mercy's 11th adventure more than I thought I would. This instalment links more closely to the overall plot arc (or what I believe is the plot arc) then the previous instalment Silence Fallen (book 10). A number of my favourite characters are back including Zee, Uncle Mike and Larry the Goblin King. The book also emphasizes how Mercy is a bit of an outsider and if it wasn't for being Adam's mate she wouldn't have the support from all of the pack. I felt the book was a bit more like the early books with the dynamic between Mercy, Zee, Tad and the vampire Stefan. Zombie goats aside there are some rather violent sections in this book although much of the violence is recounted rather than experienced by one of the characters. Mercy does get beaten up but not as badly as in previous books. I know this isn't popular with some readers of my posts but I really wish Briggs would wrap up this series. I like Mercy but I think she needs to have her HEA.


I decided to switch it up and read some science fiction after a glut of fantasy and urban fantasy. I turned to the short story Walking to Aldebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The story is told by astronaut Gary Rendell. Gary has gone on a mission across the stars to investigate an alien structure. Disaster strikes not long after landing and Gary is alone and lost inside the structure with something or somethings lurking around every corner.

I enjoyed this short story mainly for the witty way in which Tchaikovsky tells the story through Gary's POV. The story switches between the present and the past as Gary recounts how he has ended up in his unique predicament while he wanders through the endless dark tunnels trying to survive. The story is rather light hearted because of Gary's witty story telling until the very end when it gets rather much darker. If you are a science fiction fan and want something that doesn't take ages to read then give Walking to Aldebaran a go.


In case you missed it one of my other reads in May was the final instalment of Lindsay J. Pryor's Blackthorn series - Blood Broken. In honour of this being the final book of the series I wrote a full review which you can read here.


For all you Ilona Andrews fans you are going to be totally jealous that I got an advance copy of Sapphire Flames which is the soon to be released latest book in the Hidden Legacy series. I have to wait a bit before I am able to review it. It is out in August so look for my review sometime in July.


That's all I have for you for this month. I am going to be a bit more dedicated to the blog and get some full reviews posted so wish me luck. Until June happy reading!

Storm Cursed
Mercy Thompson 11
Ace, May 7, 2019
Hardcover and eBook, 368 pages

In this powerful entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, Mercy Thompson must face a deadly enemy to defend all she loves…

My name is Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman, and I am a car mechanic.
And a coyote shapeshifter.
And the mate of the Alpha of the Columbia Basin werewolf pack.

Even so, none of that would have gotten me into trouble if, a few months ago, I hadn’t stood upon a bridge and taken responsibility for the safety of the citizens who lived in our territory. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. It should have only involved hunting down killer goblins, zombie goats, and an occasional troll. Instead, our home was viewed as neutral ground, a place where humans would feel safe to come and treat with the fae.

The reality is that nothing and no one is safe.  As generals and politicians face off with the Gray Lords of the fae, a storm is coming and her name is Death.

But we are pack, and we have given our word.

We will die to keep it.

Walking to Aldebaran
Solaris, May 28, 2019
Hardcover and eBook, 140 pages

Chilling story of a lost astronaut on an alien artefact from Arthur C. Clarke award-winning Adrian Tchaikovsky

My name is Gary Rendell. I’m an astronaut. When they asked me as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said, “astronaut, please!” I dreamed astronaut, I worked astronaut, I studied astronaut.

I got lucky; when a probe sent out to explore the Oort Cloud found a strange alien rock and an international team of scientists was put together to go and look at it, I made the draw.

I got even luckier. When disaster hit and our team was split up, scattered through the endless cold tunnels, I somehow survived.

Now I’m lost, and alone, and scared, and there’s something horrible in here.

Lucky me.

Lucky, lucky, lucky.

Well, I am back in the UK again after almost 2 week in Canada. If you read my post last week you would know I was hoping to see some lovely fall colours. I was quite disappointed as the leaves were very dull this year.  It was like someone took a brown wash and painted over top what should have been bright reds, deep oranges and sunny yellows. This was probably the best display of colours I saw the whole week I was there. I took this photo at Lion's Head lake in Ontario, near Georgian bay.  The water was soo blue but not what I would exactly say is warm even though the weather was fantastic. If you live in Ontario or ever travel there I highly recommend going up to that area or around Tobermory. It is a beautiful part of the country.

Although as much as I am sure you are fascinated about my holiday I am certain you are more interested in what I read while on hols.


The first book I am going to tell you about is Starborn by Lucy Hounsom. This is the first in the Worldmaker series and I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley. I have to admit I actually started reading this book a few months ago, stopped to read something else then forgot I had it. Oops!

Kyndra has just come of age and looking forward to participating in the ancient naming ceremony that will allow her to find her true path. Unfortunately, for Kyndra the vessel used in the ceremony breaks when she is about to find out her true name and she is blamed for disrupting the ceremony and all the tragic events that follow. Its not long before she finds herself on the run with two sorcerers who take her to the secret citadel of Naris. There she is plagued with visions from the past, through the eyes of man thought to be long dead. Caught in the middle of the rebels and the fanatics within the hidden chambers of the citadel Kyndra is cruelly tested in a bid to unlock her magic.  All the while the visions show her a past no one knew existed. Kyndra doesn't have much time to find out who she truly is, save her new friends in the citadel and the family she was forced to leave behind.

Starborn is rather standard fantasy aimed at a younger reader although not too young as there is a rather dark theme, mainly towards one of the female characters, that might not be suitable for anyone under the age of 18. I thought that Kyndra was realistically portrayed for her age - neither too brave or too cowardly. Several chapters in the later half of the book were told from the POV of two of Kyndra's companions which was a bit jarring as this wasn't the format of the story throughout and I wish it had been as it really worked. I think that Hounsom could have done a bit more to build the world in which the characters were set. There was fairly little description of the landscape, society or different races throughout Kyndra's travels. Within Naris it was more descriptive but I thought that was more to set the scene rather than to create a realistic world for the characters to interact with.  Overall, it was an OK read but I am not completely sure I wan to invest more time with Kyndra. I used to really enjoy young fantasy but think I have a bit of burn out from reading too much of it that wasn't that exceptional in the last few years.


The second book I would like to tell you about is the novella Ironclads by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I was mainly drawn to this book by the cover (yes, I am a cover snob!) and the fact that this book was a limited edition (not sure why that impressed me but it did!).

The world is at war and the scions are always the winners. The sons of the great corporate families always survive all thanks to their 'ironclads' which is power armour that can protect them against almost any attack. When one goes missing, which is almost unheard of, Sergeant Ted Reagan is sent to Europe to bring to find his ironclad and bring them both home. Reagan and a selection of the more disenfranchised soldiers are sent behind enemy lines, out manned and out gunned to find out what happened and bring back the suit....if they survive that is.

If you are a fan of science fiction and / or military based fiction then this is a must read. I am not a fan of the latter and like some, but not all, science fiction however, I really enjoyed Tchaikovsky's tale. Reagan and his men are believable and combined with the backstory of the war, the scions and the ironclads gives this story depth. Given the fact that this is a novella there is quite a bit of detail and it seemed much longer because of this. I never knew what was going to happen next and there seems to be a suggestion at the end that there could be future books, which I would happily read.


That is it for me this week. I hope to have a few more books to tell you about next week if jetlag doesn't prevail so until then Happy Reading.

Starborn
The Worldmaker Trilogy 1
Pan Macmillan, January 1, 2018
     Trade Paperback, 512 pages
Pan Macmillan, April 23, 2015
     eBook, 513 pages

Death and destruction will bar her way. . .

Kyndra's fate holds betrayal and salvation, but the journey starts in her small village. On the day she comes of age, she accidentally disrupts an ancient ceremony, ending centuries of tradition. So when an unnatural storm targets her superstitious community, Kyndra is blamed. She fears for her life until two strangers save her, by wielding powers not seen for an age - powers fuelled by the sun and the moon.

Together, they flee to the hidden citadel of Naris. And here, Kyndra experiences disturbing visions of the past, showing war and one man's terrifying response. She'll learn more in the city's subterranean chambers, amongst fanatics and rebels. But first Kyndra will be brutally tested in a bid to unlock her own magic.

If she survives the ordeal, she'll discover a force greater than she could ever have imagined. But could it create as well as destroy? And can she control it, to right an ancient wrong?

Ironclads
Solaris, November 7, 2017
Limited Edition Hardcover and eBook, 200 pages

Special limited edition science fiction hardcover novella by the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author. Only 1000 copies.

Scions have no limits. Scions do not die. And Scions do not disappear.

Sergeant Ted Regan has a problem. A son of one of the great corporate families, a Scion, has gone missing at the front. He should have been protected by his Ironclad – the lethal battle suits that make the Scions masters of war – but something has gone catastrophically wrong.

Now Regan and his men, ill equipped and demoralised, must go behind enemy lines, find the missing Scion, and uncover how his suit failed. Is there a new Ironclad-killer out there? And how are common soldiers lacking the protection afforded the rich supposed to survive the battlefield of tomorrow?