The Qwillery

Happy Monday!

There are 4 debuts this week:

The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy 1) by S. A. Chakrabotry;

The Last Man in Europe by Dennis Glover;

Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance by Ruth Emmie Lang;

and

The Nine (Thieves of Fate 1) by Tracy Townsend




From formerly featured DAC Authors:

The Rebel (San Angeles 3) by Gerald Brandt;

Star's End by Cassandra Rose Clarke is out in Trade Paperback;

The Art of Murder (Jericho Sands 2) by Casey Doran;

The Light the Binds (Sundered World 3) by Nathan Garrison;

The Exiled King (Bone Magic 4) by Sarah Remy;

The Inside Out Man by Fred Strydom;

Beyond the Empire (The Indranan War 3) by K. B. Wagers;

and

Artemis by Andy Weir.

Debut novels are highlighted in blue. Novels, etc. by formerly featured DAC Authors are highlighted in green.

November 13, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
I, The Constable (e)	Paula M. Block Terry J. Erdmann	SF - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Night of the Hunter (e)	Susan Harris	PNR - Ever Chace Chronicles 4
Angel Slayer (e)(ri)	Michele Hauf	PNR - Of Angels and Demons Series 2

November 14, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
The Overneath	Peter S. Beagle	F - Collection
The Rebel	Gerald Brandt	SF/CyP/AP/PA - San Angeles 3
Dark Deeds	Mike Brooks	SF/SO - Keiko 3
The City of Brass (D)	S. A. Chakraborty	F/HistF - The Daevabad Trilogy 1
Star's End (h2tp)	Cassandra Rose Clarke	SF
Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams	Philip K. Dick	SF - Collection
Seventh Decimate	Stephen R. Donaldson	F/DF - The Great God's War 1
The Art of Murder	Casey Doran	H/PsyTh - Jericho Sands 2
Future Home of the Living God	Louise Erdrich	Dys
Deadhouse Landing: A Novel of the Malazan Empire	Ian C. Esslemont	F - Path to Ascendancy 2
HALO: Legacy of Onyx	Matt Forbeck	SF - HALO
The Light That Binds	Nathan Garrison	F - Sundered World Trilogy 3
The Last Man in Europe (D)	Dennis Glover	F/Bio
Into the Drowning Deep	Mira Grant	CF
The Eye of Medusa	David Guymer	SF - Iron Hands 1
The Witch War of Fiddlehead Creek	C.L. Hernandez	DF - The Complicated Life of Deegie Tibbs 2
The Eterna Solution	Leanna Renee Hieber	HistF/UF  - The Eterna Files 3
After the End of the World	Jonathan L. Howard	H/AH/GH - Carter & Lovecraft 2
The Fall of the House of Cabal (h2tp)	Jonathan L. Howard	H/SP/GH - Johannes Cabal Novels 5
Ice: 50th Anniversary Edition	Anna Kavan	Dys/PA - Penguin Classics
The Secret Life of Souls (h2tp)	Jack Ketchum Lucky McKee	PsySus
From a Buick 8 (ri)	Stephen King	SF/AC
Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance (D)	Ruth Emmie Lang	CF/MR/P
Strange Sight	Syd Moore	PM - An Essex Witch Museum Mystery 2
The Mountain of Kept Memory (h2tp)	Rachel Neumeier	F
The Throne of Amenkor	Joshua Palmatier	F/DF - Throne of Amenkor Omnibus
The Two of Swords: Volume Two	K. J. Parker	F - The Two of Swords 2
The Exiled King	Sarah Remy	F - Bone Magic 4
The Walworth Beauty	Michèle Roberts	Hist
Oathbringer	Brandon Sanderson	F - The Stormlight Archive 3
The Inside Out Man	Fred Strydom	H/Sus/PsyTh
Creatures of Will and Temper	Molly Tanzer	F/HistF
The Long and Short of It	Jodi Taylor	SF/TT - The Chronicles of St. Mary's Collection
Jain Zar: Storm of Silence	Gav Thorpe	SF - Phoenix Lords 2
The Nine (D)	Tracy Townsend	F/DF/FairyT/FolkT/LM - Thieves of Fate 1
The Faerie Handbook: An Enchanting Compendium of Literature, Lore, Art, Recipes, and Projects	Carolyn Turgeon The Editors of Faerie Magazine	FM
Beyond the Empire	K. B. Wagers	SF - The Indranan War 3
Artemis	Andy Weir	SF/Th
The Complete John Wayne Cleaver Series: (I Am Not a Serial Killer, Mr. Monster, I Don't Want to Kill You, Devil's Only Friend, Over Your Dead Body, Nothing Left to Lose) (e)	Dan Wells	SupTh/F/DF - John Cleaver
The Forsaken Throne	Jeff Wheeler	F/HistF - Kingfountain 6
Legacies (e)	F. Paul Wilson	SupTh - Repairman Jack 1
The Complete Book of the New Sun: (The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, The Citadel of the Autarch, The Urth of the New Sun) (e)	Gene Wolfe	F - New Sun
The Emerald Circus	Jane Yolen	FR/HistF/Clara at the Edge - Collection
Mandelbrot the Magnificent: A Novella	Liz Ziemska	Bio/F/HistF/MR

November 15, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Anomaly: The Rubicon	Skip Brittenham (Creator) Brian Haberlin (Creator)	SF - Anomaly
My Life for Your Life (e)	Tessa Gratton Karen Lord	HistF - Tremontaine Season 3 #6
J. G. Ballard	D. Harlan Wilson	SF/HC - Modern Masters of Science Fiction

D - Debut
e - eBook
Ed - Editor
h2mm - Hardcover to Mass Market Paperback
h2tp - Hardcover to Trade Paperback
ri - reissue or reprint
tp2mm - Trade to Mass Market Paperback
Tr - Translator



AC - Alien Contact
AH - Alternate History
AP - Apocalyptic
Bio - Biography
CF - Contemporary Fantasy
CoA - Coming of Age
CyP - CyberPunk
DF - Dark Fantasy
Dys - Dystopian
F - Fantasy
FairyT - Fairy Tales
Fict - Fiction
FM - Folklore and Mythology
FolkT - Folk Tales
FR - Fantasy Romance
GenEng - Genetic Engineering
GH - Ghost(s)
Gothic - Gothic
H - Horror
HC - History and Criticism
Hist - Historical
HistF - Historical Fantasy
HU - Humor
LC - Literary Criticism
LF - Literary Fiction
LM - Legends and Mythology
M - Mystery
MR - Magical Realism
MTI - Media Tie-In
MU - MashUp
Noir - Noir
Occ - Occult
P - Paranormal
PA - Post Apocalyptic
PCM - Paranormal Cozy Mystery
PHR- Paramormal Historical Romance
PM - Paranormal Mystery
PNR - Paranormal Romance
Psy - Psychological
PsySus - Psychological Suspense
PsyTh - Psychological Thriller
R - Romance
Ref - Reference
RP - Role Playing
Sc - Science
SH -Superheroes
SF - Science Fiction
SFR - Science Fiction Romance
SO - Space Opera
SP - SteamPunk
SpecFic - Speculative Fiction
Sup - Supernatural
SupM - Supernatural Mystery
SupTh - Supernatural Thriller
Th - Thriller
TT - Time Travel
UF - Urban Fantasy

Note: Not all genres and formats are found in the books, etc. listed above.

Ezekiel Boone (2016)

Skitter
The Hatching Series 2
Atria/Emily Bestler Books, November 7, 2017
Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Hardcover and eBook, May 9, 2017

"A globe-hopping, seriously creepy read." —Publishers Weekly

First, there was the black swarm that swallowed a man whole, the suspicious seismic irregularities in India that confounded scientists, the nuclear bomb China dropped on its own territory without any explanation. Then, scientist Melanie Guyer's lab received a package containing a mysterious egg sac; little did Dr. Guyer know that, almost overnight, Earth would be consumed by previously dormant spiders that suddenly wanted out.

Now, tens of millions of people around the world are dead. Half of China is a nuclear wasteland. Mysterious flesh-eating spiders are marching through Los Angeles, Oslo, Delhi, Rio de Janeiro, and countless other cities. According to Dr. Guyer, the crisis may soon be over.

But in Japan, a giant, glowing egg sac gives a shocking preview of what is to come, even as survivors in Los Angeles panic and break the quarantine zone. Out in the desert, survivalists Gordo and Shotgun are trying to invent a weapon to fight back, but it may be too late, because President Stephanie Pilgrim has been forced to enact the plan of last resort.

America, you are on your own.

Zero Day
The Hatching Series 3
Ezekiel Boone
Atria/Emily Bestler Books, February 27, 2018
Hardcover and eBook, 336 pages

In the thrilling, nerve-wracking finale of Ezekiel Boone’s “hair-raising” (Parade) Hatching series, the United States goes to war against the queen spiders that threaten to overtake the human race forever.

The world is on the brink of apocalypse. Zero Day has come.

The only thing more terrifying than millions of spiders is the realization that those spiders work as one. But among the government, there is dissent: do we try to kill all of the spiders, or do we gamble on Professor Guyer’s theory that we need to kill only the queens?

For President Stephanie Pilgrim, it’s an easy answer. She’s gone as far as she can—more than two dozen American cities hit with tactical nukes, the country torn asunder—and the only answer is to believe in Professor Guyer. Unfortunately, Ben Broussard and the military men who follow him don’t agree, and Pilgrim, Guyer, and the loyal members of the government have to flee, leaving the question: what’s more dangerous, the spiders or ourselves?

Casey Doran (2017)

The Art of Murder
Jericho Sands 2
Polis Books, November 14, 2017
Trade Paperback and eBook, 288 pages

Jericho Sands has spent the past nine months in Mexico getting in bar fights with shark poachers, drinking tequila and listening to wolves howl outside the walls of the beachfront shack he’s been calling home. He’s living completely ‘off the grid’; no power, no phone, nothing but nagging questions about who he is and how far he allowed himself to fall for a woman who proved to be a serial killer hell-bent on revenge. He’s struggled with his decision to let Alyssa Jagger live. Was it because he realized that revenge does not equal justice? Or did he spare her life because deep down, in a dark place he doesn’t want to explore, he allowed himself to fall for her and could not bring himself to be her executioner.

Jericho’s self-imposed exile is ended when he learns about the murder of his best friend and father figure, Gus Tanner. Gunshots fired in a dark alley force Jericho back to the city he left behind and he soon discovers that a new killer is making himself known, a daring young painter who uses the blood of his victims as the medium for his works of art. The butcher who the media dubs ‘The DaVinci of Death’, leaves his handiwork on the front door of a new art gallery and demands that it be displayed, or else more macabre works will follow. Katrina Masters, the owner of the gallery and Jericho’s old flame, refuses to be blackmailed, enraging the killer who is determined to make the town appreciate his talents. Even if it kills them all.

While facing the fallout from everything he left behind, Jericho must also deal with a new police chief with a personal vendetta, detectives who prove incapable of stopping the killer, his resurrected feelings for Katrina Masters and his conflicted feelings for Alyssa Jagger. To find the killer, Jericho must continue going down roads he does not want travel. He must commit to choices that will forever determine who he truly is. And this time, there will be going back.

Fred Strydom (2016)

The Inside Out Man
Talos, November 14, 2017
Trade Paperback and eBook, 296 pages

A young musician receives an unusual offer from a wealthy stranger in this haunting story of psychological horror.

Bent is a jazz pianist living gig-to-gig in a dark city of dead-ends. With no family, and no friends, he has resigned himself to a life of quiet desolation. That is, until the night he meets the enigmatic Leonard Fry.

After accepting an invitation to his countryside mansion, where Leonard resides on his own, Bent is offered a deal of Faustian proportions.

“There is a room in this house. There’s only one way in and one way out . . . There’s one lock on the door, and only one key to that lock. Now, what I’m going to ask may seem strange to you. I don’t necessarily need you to understand, but what I do need is for you to agree to help me.”

Disillusioned with his life of excess, Leonard has decided to explore the final frontier of his existence, the margins of his mind, by locking himself in a small room in his mansion for a year. In exchange for Bent’s assistance, everything Leonard owns will be Bent’s for the duration of his self-imposed imprisonment.

But there are two sides to every locked door. As the days go by, and Leonard’s true intentions become clear, Bent will find himself venturing beyond the one terrifying boundary from which he can’t be sure he’ll ever return . . . the boundary of his own sanity.

Happy Monday!

There are 3 debuts this week:

You Were Here by Gian Sardar;

The Empire's Ghost by Isabelle Steiger;

and

The Scribe of Siena by Melodie Winawer.




From formerly featured DAC Authors:

The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles (Warlock Holmes 2) by G.S. Denning;

Low Elf Esteem (Pax Arcana) by Elliott James;

Breath of Passion (Muse Chronicles 3) by Lisa Kessler;

Eagle and Empire (The Clash of Eagles Trilogy 3) by Alan Smale;

and

The Raft by Fred Strydom is out in Trade Paperback.

Debut novels are highlighted in blue. Novels, etc. by formerly featured DAC Authors are highlighted in green.


May 15, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Breath of Passion (e)	Lisa Kessler	PNR - Muse Chronicles 3

May 16, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
The X-Files and Philosophy: The Truth Is in Here	Robert Arp (Ed)	Philosophy/ SF/F/P - Popular Culture and Philosophy 108
Behind the Moon	Madison Smartt Bell	LF/Psy/Occ/Sup/MetaVis
Seeing People Off	Jana Benová	LF/CW/R/Absurdist
The End of Magic	Amber Benson	F/CF/UF - An Echo Park Coven Novel 3
Vanguard	Jack Campbell	SF - Genesis Fleet 1
Full Wolf Moon	Lincoln Child	Sus/SupTh
Light Radiance Splendor	Leah Chyten	Hist/VisMeta
The City of Mirrors (h2tp)	Justin Cronin	Sus/Th/SF/AP/PA/LF - Passage Trilogy 3
Nebula Awards Showcase 2017	Julie E. Czerneda (Ed)	SF/F - Anthology
Zero K (h2tp)	Don DeLillo	LF
The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles	G.S. Denning	F/P/HistM - Warlock Holmes 2
Sleepers: Book One, Book Two, Book Three	Jacqueline Druga	SF/AP/PA - Sleepers
Dark Cities	Christopher Golden (Ed)	H - Anthology
Blaze: Volume 2: A Dragon Romance (e)	Donna Grant	PNR - Dark Kings
Firestorm (e)(ri)	Nancy Holzner	UF - Deadtown 6
Low Elf Esteem (e)	Elliott James	CF - Pax Arcana
The Queen's Dance	Nicole Elizabeth Kelleher	FR/HistF - The Aurelian Guard 2
Hunger	Eve Langlais Kate Douglas A.C. Arthur	PNR - Anthology
Catch a Tiger by the Tail (e)	Eve Langlais	PNR
LARP	Boris Leist (Photographer)	Photography/ PopCul/Role Playing/F
A Guide for the Perplexed (ri)	Jonathan Levi	MR
Septimania (h2tp)	Jonathan Levi	MR
Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall	Suzette Mayr	Satire/LF/F
Martial Law	Deborah D. Moore	PA/Sus - Journal 6
Gravity Changes	Zach Powers	Absurdist/MR/F/CF - American Readers Series
Behind the Mask: A Superhero Anthology	Tricia Reeks (Ed) Kyle Richardson (Ed)	F/SF - Anthology
Substrate Phantoms	Jessica Reisman	SF/AC
You Were Here (D)	Gian Sardar	Psy/Gothic/CW
Eagle and Empire	Alan Smale	HistF/AH - The Clash of Eagles Trilogy 3
The Empire's Ghost (D)	Isabelle Steiger	F
The Raft (h2tp)	Fred Strydom	SF/AP/PA/Dys
The Curious Affair of the Somnambulist & the Psychic Thief (e)	Lisa Tuttle	Sup/GH/F - From the Casebooks of Jesperson & Lane 1
Greedy Pigs	Matt Wallace	UF - A Sin du Jour Affair 5
The Scribe of Siena (D)	Melodie Winawer	Hist/TT
Barren Cove (h2tp)	Ariel S. Winter	LF
Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country: and Other Stories	Chavisa Woods	LF/MR - Short Stories

May 17, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Alien Innkeeper	Roxanne Barbour	SFR - Out Of This World Series 1
The Ant Men (ri)	Eric North	SF
Sanctuary: A Tor.com Original (e)	Allen Steele	SF
We All Fall Down (e)	Ian Tregillis	HistF - Witch Who Came In From The Cold Season 2 #13

May 18, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
The Never King	James Abbott	F
Strangers of the Night: Touched by Passion / Passion in Disguise / Unexpected Passion	Megan Hart	PNR - Collection
Exodus (e)	Alex Lamb	SF
The Erebus Sequence (e)	Den Patrick	DF - The Complete Trilogy

May 20, 2017

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Body of Sin (e)(ri)	Eve Silver	PNR - Sins 5

D - Debut
e - eBook
Ed - Editor
h2mm - Hardcover to Mass Market Paperback
h2tp - Hardcover to Trade Paperback
ri - reissue or reprint
tp2mm - Trade to Mass Market Paperback
Tr - Translator



AC - Alien Contact
AH - Alternate History
AP - Apocalyptic
CB - Coloring Book
CF - Contemporary Fantasy
CM - Cozy Mystery
CulH - Cultural Heritage
CyP - Cyberpunk
CW - Contemporary Women
DF - Dark Fantasy
Dys - Dystopian
F - Fantasy
FairyT - Fairy Tales
FolkT - Folk Tales
FR - Fantasy Romance
GenEng - Genetic Engineering
H - Horror
HC - History and Criticism
HistF - Historical Fantasy
HistM - Historical Mystery
HistTh - Historical Thriller
LC - Literary Criticism
LF - Literary Fiction
LM - Legends and Mythology
M - Mystery
MR - Magical Realism
Occ - Occult
P - Paranormal
PA - Post Apocalyptic
PCM - Paranormal Cozy Mystery
PNR - Paranormal Romance
PopCul - Popular Culture
Psy - Psychological
SF - Science Fiction
SFR - Science Fiction Romance
SP - Steampunk
Sup - Supernatural
SupTh - Supernatural Thriller
Sus - Suspense
TechTh - Technological Thriller
Th - Thriller
TT - Time Travel
UF - Urban Fantasy
VisMeta - Visionary and Metaphysical

Note: Not all genres and formats are found in the books, etc. listed above.

Adam Sternbergh (2014)

The Blinds
Ecco, August 1, 2017
Hardcover and eBook, 304 pages

[Description not yet available. See the Author's announcement of The Blinds here.]

Jillian Stone (2012)

Eat Slay Lutz
Jillian Stone, October 28, 2016
eBook, 200 pages

Survival tip #1: When you’re caught in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, get a badass partner.

The zombie apocalypse is on, and Lizzy Davis is determined to survive any way she can. As a surgeon, she’s used to saving lives; not cutting into the basal ganglia to make sure the patient stays dead. When the refugee camp is overrun by zombie hordes, Lizzy manages to escape only to run into Black Hawk pilot Chris Oakley in the middle of the Syrian Desert.

Lizzy and Chris fight off zombie attacks as they make their way toward a joint military air base northeast of Kirkuk. Just one problem, they’ll have to pass through the drone-patrolled DMZ— Dead Meat Zone. To get there, they form uneasy alliances with French-Arab commandos and a CIA black ops interrogator who is slowly rotting before their eyes.

Along the way, Lizzy and Chris manage to find time for each other—the sizzling red-hot lovemaking kind of time. And who knows? They might have a chance at love if they live long enough.

Warning: Features red hot to erotic love scenes

Fred Strydom (2016)

The Raft
Talos, May 2, 2017
Trade Paperback, 432 pages
Hardcover and eBook, May 4, 2016

“The day every person on earth lost his and her memory was not a day at all. In people's minds there was no actual event. . . and thus it could be followed by no period of shock or mourning. There could be no catharsis. Everyone was simply reset to zero.”

On Day Zero, the collapse of civilization was as instantaneous as it was inevitable. A mysterious and oppressive movement rose to power in the aftermath, forcing people into isolated communes run like regimes. Kayle Jenner finds himself trapped on a remote beach, and all that remains of his life before is the vague and haunting vision of his son. . .

Kayle finally escapes, only to find a broken world being put back together in strange ways. As more memories from his past life begin returning, the people he meets wandering the face of a scorched earth—some reluctant allies, others dangerous enemies—begin to paint a terrifying picture. In his relentless search for his son, Kayle will discover more than just his lost past. He will discover the truth behind Day Zero—a truth that makes both fools and gods of men.

Patrick Swenson (2013)

The Ultra Big Sleep
A Union of Worlds 2
Fairwood Press, August 9, 2016
Hardcover, Trade Paperback and eBook, 316 pages

Dave Crowell is a hero of the eight worlds of the Union, but he doesn’t want fame or fortune. These days he just wants to run his private detective business with his partner and forget about the Ultras, the insidious aliens that attacked the Union, then vanished. But a client turns up dead under mysterious circumstances, and Crowell knows the Ultras have not gone away. With the help of a beautiful alien, he uncovers fragments of memory that might lead to his missing father. When it becomes clear that Crowell’s past also contains the information he needs to save the Union, he is caught up in a conspiracy beyond his understanding and pulled into an underworld drug war on a hostile planet. With the crisis deepening, Crowell must learn the answer to the biggest question of all: Where are the Ultras?

Slightly Ruby
A Union of Worlds Story
Fairwood Press, August 9, 2016
Trade Paperback and eBook, 96 pages

A man is found murdered and brutally impaled near the Seattle waterfront, and during the investigation, private detectives Dave Crowell and Alan Brindos come face to face with an alien drug known as RuBy. It's a dangerous prototype that's bound to cause problems for the eight worlds of the Union. The murder case itself would be easy enough to solve-that is, if the suspects weren't already dead, and the Seattle Authority cop sharing the case wasn't Crowell's disgruntled ex-partner.

A prequel to The Ultra Thin Man, "Slightly Ruby" features Crowell and Brindos before their Network Intelligence Organization contract, scraping out a living in a city-and on a world-the Union is quickly forgetting.

TQ:  Welcome to The Qwillery. When and why did you start writing?

Fred:  Firstly, thanks so much for having me. I suppose I began writing just around the time I began reading. As has always been the case, I only write the stories I wish I could read. Whilst pouring through book after book at my local library, I’d usually come back home and get started on some story I wished I’d been able to find on a shelf. Looking back, I did spend a lot of my youth emulating other authors, working out their various tricks, repackaging the bits ‘n pieces that gripped me most, before finally being able to find my own voice in the later years.



TQ:  Are you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid?

Fred:  A hybrid, I’d say. I go in with a certain idea of how I’d like the book to feel, rather than how I’d like the plot to play out, and give myself a lot of room. I also believe if you don’t surprise yourself as a writer, you’re less likely to surprise anyone else.



TQ:  What is the most challenging thing for you about writing?

Fred:  I’d say the toughest thing is maintaining a consistent voice throughout a project that can last as long as three years to pull together. When you’re young, you’re constantly going through the process of trying to define and redefine your own identity. The things that interested you three years ago aren’t necessarily the same things that interest you today, so it’s all about figuring out how stay on track from an intellectual and emotional standpoint. A reader reads a book in only a few days, so a story that potentially took three years to put together needs to be coherent in terms of theme, tone and approach. The older I get, however, and the more certain I become of who I am, the easier that becomes.



TQ:  What has influenced / influences your writing? How has working as a television writer affected or not your novel writing?

Fred:  I’ve had so many influences over the years. As a kid, it was all about The Hardy Boys and Roald Dahl. As a teen, it was the hi-tech thrillers popularised by authors like Robin Cook and Michael Crichton. As an adult, I’ve dabbled in far more science and anthropological non-fiction, but for escapist fiction, I’ve certainly learned a thing or two from, amongst many others, Haruki Murakami, David Mitchell, Jonathan Carroll, Thomas Ligotti and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. As for writing for television, it’s taught me to be concise with my prose. In television, there are time limits and deadlines, and you need to pack your punches in only a few lines. It’s also taught me to hop from character to character and tone to tone at the drop of a dime, which has been very useful.



TQ:  Describe The Raft in 140 characters or less.

Fred:  A man searches for his son across a world in which every person on earth has lost their memory.



TQ:  Tell us something about The Raft that is not found in the book description.

Fred:  The Raft, a story about people attempting the reconstruct their own identities from scratch, deliberately repackages a number of familiar fairy-tale tropes (Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel in the tower, Pinocchio) as a means of juxtaposing futuristic concepts and elements (related to where we’re potentially heading) with archetypal campfire folklore and mythologies (related to where we’ve come from).



TQ:  What inspired you to write The Raft? What appeals to you about writing dystopian science fiction?

Fred:  The Raft began as nothing more than a single image, that of a man strapped to a raft and drifting aimlessly across the ocean. That was it. All I knew at the time was that this stubborn image wasn’t your run-of-the-mill plane crash survival story; there was something profoundly Sisyphean about him being out there, at the whim of the elements and powerless to control his own fate. I also don’t believe in ideas as a succession of light bulbs. An idea has tentacles, grappling for any surface it can find to pull itself up. As for the label of dystopian, the truth is that I have no specific interest in it as a genre. I didn’t really set out to write a “dystopian” novel at all. In this case, it just so happened to work for the type of story I wanted to tell. More importantly, I’m not entirely convinced it is an entirely dystopian novel. In some ways, depending on where you are in the world, we already live in a sort of dystopia. Therefore, the question about whether or not the loss of our memories (and thus abolishing our constructs of self and society) is dystopian or utopian, remains an open-ended one.



TQ:  What sort of research did you do for The Raft?

Fred:  I get bogged down by research. I am in awe of the kinds of research that goes into historical fiction and hi-tech fiction, but I don’t think I’m built for all of that. That said, I did do a bit of research for the ten percent of tech elements in the novel, as well as browsed through internet texts related to various current and archaic philosophies and religious movements.



TQ:  Who was the easiest character to write and why? The hardest and why?

Fred:  My main character, Kayle, was possible the easiest, which was possibly why I selected him as the primary perspective. Kayle is well-intentioned and just a little lost, and his journey from non-identity to full identity was also one that allowed me to create him gradually and organically from scratch. He’s not a complete, fully-fleshed out character from page one, so I didn’t need to know who he was before I sat down to write him. The hardest was probably Anubis, only because I needed to evoke a sense sympathy for a snarky, self-important character that often reminded me of the worst aspects of myself.



TQ:  Why have you chosen to include or not chosen to include social issues in The Raft?

Fred:  I didn’t really set out to right a “message” story. However, since our relationships to the often overbearing social issues of our reality are such a key part of who we each turn out to be, I think I’d find it difficult to create convincing characters and plot hurdles without somehow addressing my own latent and not-so-latent hopes and concerns for the world as it is. The fact that many have said my novel addresses numerous social issues is more of a reflection of myself and my world than of the (hopefully) entertaining yarn I set out to write.



TQ:  Which question about The Raft do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

Fred:

“How has being a South African influenced the way in which you’ve told this globe-hopping, science fiction story?”

There is a nowhere on earth quite like South Africa. It’s a country of contrasts, a hodge-podge of extreme highs and extreme lows. It is also a country in transition. A place that is still finding out how (as a country with eleven official languages and with a very dark and only recently abolished Apartheid past) it’s supposed to go forward and forge a single, national identity. In many ways, even though I did not set out to write a political story, the themes of segregation and identity reconstruction have certainly served as a strong backbone to the text. The book also doesn’t purport to have any solutions to our ongoing struggle for a collective identity, but rather re-enforces the capacity and the right each of us has to constantly question ourselves and our roles in the world. The Raft suggests that by maintaining a probing nature, by accepting nothing at face value, we may receive the answers to questions we haven’t thought, or even yet dared ourselves, to ask. Also, The Raft is a story about the importance of storytelling itself, which I believe to be the key to creating empathy between different people with different backgrounds.



TQ:  Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery quotes from The Raft.

Fred:

“Memories are their own strange creatures, flitting between the tall trees of our experiences, inviting us to enter the dark and uncharted woods of our lives, promising nothing.”



TQ:  What's next?

Fred:  I’ve just completed my second novel, a twisty homage to Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch entitled “The Inside Out Man”. No sci-fi dystopia in sight! It’s just been picked up and you’ll be hearing all about it sometime next year.



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Fred:  And much thanks to you for some really great questions. Cheers.

The Raft
Talos, May 3, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 432 pages

“The day every person on earth lost his and her memory was not a day at all. In people's minds there was no actual event. . . and thus it could be followed by no period of shock or mourning. There could be no catharsis. Everyone was simply reset to zero.”

On Day Zero, the collapse of civilization was as instantaneous as it was inevitable. A mysterious and oppressive movement rose to power in the aftermath, forcing people into isolated communes run like regimes. Kayle Jenner finds himself trapped on a remote beach, and all that remains of his life before is the vague and haunting vision of his son. . .

Kayle finally escapes, only to find a broken world being put back together in strange ways. As more memories from his past life begin returning, the people he meets wandering the face of a scorched earth—some reluctant allies, others dangerous enemies—begin to paint a terrifying picture. In his relentless search for his son, Kayle will discover more than just his lost past. He will discover the truth behind Day Zero—a truth that makes both fools and gods of men.

About Fred

Fred Strydom studied film and media at the University of Cape Town. He has taught English in South Korea and has published a number of short stories. He currently works as a television writer and producer in Johannesburg, where he lives with his wife, three dogs, cat, and horse. The Raft is his first novel.









Twitter @FredSaidWrite

Cover Art by John Harris

Cover illustration by Sylvain Sarrailh
Cover design by Rain Saukas

Designed in-house

Cover artwork © 2016 by Erik Mohr

Cover and interior design © 2016 by Samantha Beiko

Jacket Art by Todd Lockwood

Jacket Design by Todd Lockwood and G- Force Design

Cover Art by Victor Mosquera

Cover Art by Emily B. Martin

Basma Abdel Aziz

The Queue
Melville House, May 24, 2016
Trade Paperback and eBook,
Translator: Elisabeth Jaquette

Set against the backdrop of a failed political uprising, The Queue is a chilling debut that evokes Orwellian dystopia, Kafkaesque surrealism, and a very real vision of life after the Arab Spring.

In an unnamed Middle Eastern city, a centralized authority known as the Gate has risen to power in the aftermath of the “Disgraceful Events,” a failed popular uprising. Citizens are required to obtain permission from the Gate for even the most basic of their daily affairs, yet the building never opens, and the queue in front of it grows longer and longer.

Citizens from all walks of life wait in the sun: a revolutionary journalist, a sheikh, the brother of a security officer killed in the clashes with protestors, and a man with injuries The Gate would prefer to keep quiet.

Written with dark, subtle intelligence, The Queue describes the sinister nature of authoritarianism, and illuminates the way that absolute authority manipulates information, mobilizes others in service to it, and fails to uphold the rights of even those faithful to it.

Kurt Anderson

Devour
Pinnacle, May 31, 2016
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 400 pages

It Lurks

Deep beneath the ice of the Arctic Circle, something has awakened. A primordial creature frozen in time, it is the oldest, largest, most efficient predator that nature has ever produced. And it is ravenously hungry…

It Hunts

Thirty-five miles off the Massachussetts coast, a small research ship is attacked. All but one of its crew is killed by the massive serpentine horror that rises from the sea. The creature likes this human prey. The chewy outer hide. The tender saltiness within. And it wants more…

It Feeds

Responding to a distress signal, fishing-boat captain Brian Hawkins arrives in time to save the ship’s last survivor. But the nightmare is just beginning. A casino cruise ship carrying high-stakes passengers—and a top-secret cargo—becomes the creature’s bloodsoaked hunting ground. Desperate but determined, Hawkins goes after the biggest catch of the century.

Mike Brooks

Dark Run
Keiko 1
Saga Press, May 24, 2016
Hardcover (352 pp.), Trade Paperback (368 pp.) and eBook (368 pp.)

In this debut space epic, a crew of thieves and con artists take on a job that could pay off a lot of debts in a corrupt galaxy where life is cheap and criminals are the best people in it.

The Keiko is a ship of smugglers, soldiers of fortune, and adventurers travelling Earth’s colony planets searching for the next job. And they never talk about their past—until now.

Captain Ichabod Drift is being blackmailed. He has to deliver a special cargo to Earth, and no one can know they’re there. It’s what they call a dark run…And it may be their last.

Sean Danker

Admiral
An Evagardian Novel 1
Roc, May 3, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 320 pages

FIRST IN A NEW MILITARY SCIENCE FICTION SERIES

“I was on a dead ship on an unknown planet with three trainees freshly graduated into the Imperial Service. I tried to look on the bright side.”

He is the last to wake. The label on his sleeper pad identifies him as an admiral of the Evagardian Empire—a surprise as much to him as to the three recent recruits now under his command. He wears no uniform, and he is ignorant of military protocol, but the ship’s records confirm he is their superior officer.

Whether he is an Evagardian admiral or a spy will be of little consequence if the crew members all end up dead. They are marooned on a strange world, their ship’s systems are failing one by one—and they are not alone.

G.S. Denning

Warlock Holmes - A Study in Brimstone
Titan Books, May 17, 2016
Trade Paperback and eBook, 368 pages

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius. Warlock Holmes is an idiot. A font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart companion. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety… and save him from a gruesome death every now and again.

Antonia Hayes

Relativity
Gallery Books, May 3, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 368 pages

A “beautifully written, heartbreaking” (S. J. Watson) debut novel about a gifted boy who discovers the truth about his past, his overprotective single mother who tries desperately to shield him from it, and the father he has never met who has unexpectedly returned.

Twelve-year-old Ethan Forsythe, an exceptionally talented boy obsessed with physics and astronomy, has been raised alone by his mother in Sydney, Australia. Claire, a former professional ballerina, has been a wonderful parent to Ethan, but he’s becoming increasingly curious about his father’s absence in his life. Claire is fiercely protective of her talented, vulnerable son—and of her own feelings. But when Ethan falls ill, tied to a tragic event that occurred during his infancy, her tightly-held world is split open.

Thousands of miles away on the western coast of Australia, Mark is trying to forget about the events that tore his family apart, but an unexpected call forces him to confront his past and return home. When Ethan secretly intercepts a letter from Mark to Claire, he unleashes long-suppressed forces that—like gravity—pull the three together again, testing the limits of love and forgiveness.

Told from the alternating points of view of Ethan and each of his parents, Relativity is a poetic and soul-searing exploration of unbreakable bonds, irreversible acts, the limits of science, and the magnitude of love.

Patrick Hemstreet

The God Wave
The God Wave Trilogy 1
Harper Voyager, May 17, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 400 pages

A team of neuroscientists uncover amazing new capabilities in the brain that may steer human evolution toward miraculous and deadly frontiers in this spectacular debut work of speculative science fiction—Limitless meets James Rollins—that combines spirituality and science in an inventive, mind-blowing fashion.

For decades, scientists have speculated about the untapped potential of the human brain. Now, neuroscientist Chuck Brenton has made an astonishing breakthrough. He has discovered the key—the crucial combination of practice and conditioning—to access the incredible power dormant in ninety percent of our brains. Applying his methods to test subjects, he has stimulated abilities that elevate brain function to seemingly “godlike” levels.

These extraordinary abilities can transform the world, replacing fear and suffering with tranquility and stability. But in an age of increasing militarization, corporate exploitation, and explosive technological discovery, a group of influential power brokers are determined to control Brenton’s new superbeings for their own manipulative ends—and their motives may be far from peaceful.

Kat Howard

Rose and Rot
Saga Press, May 17, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 320 pages

Publishers Weekly Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror Novel of Summer 2016

Imogen and her sister Marin escape their cruel mother to attend a prestigious artists’ retreat, but soon learn that living in a fairy tale requires sacrifices, whether it be art or love in this haunting debut novel from “a remarkable young writer” (Neil Gaiman).

What would you sacrifice for everything you ever dreamed of?

Imogen has grown up reading fairy tales about mothers who die and make way for cruel stepmothers. As a child, she used to lie in bed wishing that her life would become one of these tragic fairy tales because she couldn’t imagine how a stepmother could be worse than her mother now. As adults, Imogen and her sister Marin are accepted to an elite post-grad arts program—Imogen as a writer and Marin as a dancer. Soon enough, though, they realize that there’s more to the school than meets the eye. Imogen might be living in the fairy tale she’s dreamed about as a child, but it’s one that will pit her against Marin if she decides to escape her past to find her heart’s desire.

Andrew Michael Hurley

The Loney
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, May 10, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 304 pages

The eerie, suspenseful debut novel — hailed as “an amazing piece of fiction” by Stephen King — that is taking the world by storm.

When the remains of a young child are discovered during a winter storm on a stretch of the bleak Lancashire coastline known as the Loney, a man named Smith is forced to confront the terrifying and mysterious events that occurred forty years earlier when he visited the place as a boy. At that time, his devoutly Catholic mother was determined to find healing for Hanny, his disabled older brother. And so the family, along with members of their parish, embarked on an Easter pilgrimage to an ancient shrine.

But not all of the locals were pleased to see visitors in the area. And when the two brothers found their lives entangling with a glamorous couple staying at a nearby house, they became involved in more troubling rites. Smith feels he is the only one to know the truth, and he must bear the burden of his knowledge, no matter what the cost. Proclaimed a “modern classic” by the Sunday Telegraph (UK), The Loney marks the arrival of an important new voice in fiction.

Todd Lockwood

The Summer Dragon
First Book of the Evertide
DAW, May 3, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 512 pages

The debut novel from the acclaimed illustrator–a high fantasy adventure featuring dragons and deadly politics.

Maia and her family raise dragons for the political war machine. As she comes of age, she hopes for a dragon of her own to add to the stable of breeding parents. But the war goes badly, and the needs of the Dragonry dash her hopes. Her peaceful life is shattered when the Summer Dragon—one of the rare and mythical High Dragons—makes an appearance in her quiet valley. The Summer Dragon is an omen of change, but no one knows for certain what kind of change he augurs. Political factions vie to control the implied message, each to further their own agendas.

And so Maia is swept into an adventure that pits her against the deathless Horrors—thralls of the enemy—and a faceless creature drawn from her fears. In her fight to preserve everything she knows and loves, she uncovers secrets that challenge her understanding of her world and of herself.

Emily B. Martin

Woodwalker
Harper Voyager Impulse, May 17, 2016
     eBook, 336 pages
Harper Voyager Impulse, June 14 , 2016
     Mass Market Paperback, 336 pages

“What on earth would I gain from that?” I asked him. “Risk my own neck by violating my banishment just to leave you? The sentence placed on me if I return is execution. If I’m entering the mountains again, I’d damn well better get something out of it.”

Exiled from the Silverwood and the people she loves, Mae has few illusions about ever returning to her home. But when she comes across three out-of-place strangers in her wanderings, she finds herself contemplating the unthinkable: risking death to help a deposed queen regain her throne.

And if anyone can help Mona Alastaire of Lumen Lake, it is a former Woodwalker—a ranger whose very being is intimately tied to the woods they are sworn to protect. Mae was once one of the best, and despite the potential of every tree limb to become the gibbet she’s hung from, she not only feels a duty to aide Mona and her brothers, but also to walk beneath her beloved trees once more.

A grand quest in the tradition of great epic fantasies, filled with adventure and the sharp wit—and tongue—of a unique hero, Woodwalker is the perfect novel to start your own journey into the realm of magical fiction.

Ada Palmer

Too Like the Lightning
Terra Ignota 1
Tor Books, May 10, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 432 pages

Mycroft Canner is a convict. For his crimes he is required, as is the custom of the 25th century, to wander the world being as useful as he can to all he meets. Carlyle Foster is a sensayer--a spiritual counselor in a world that has outlawed the public practice of religion, but which also knows that the inner lives of humans cannot be wished away.

The world into which Mycroft and Carlyle have been born is as strange to our 21st-century eyes as ours would be to a native of the 1500s. It is a hard-won utopia built on technologically-generated abundance, and also on complex and mandatory systems of labelling all public writing and speech. What seem to us normal gender distinctions are now distinctly taboo in most social situations. And most of the world's population is affiliated with globe-girdling clans of the like-minded, whose endless economic and cultural competion is carefully managed by central planners of inestimable subtlety. To us it seems like a mad combination of heaven and hell. To them, it seems like normal life.

And in this world, Mycroft and Carlyle have stumbled on the wild card that may destablize the system: the boy Bridger, who can effortlessly make his wishes come true. Who can, it would seem, bring inanimate objects to life...

Martin Seay

The Mirror Thief
Melville House, May 10, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 592 pages

A globetrotting, time-bending, wildly entertaining literary tour de force in the tradition of Cloud Atlas.

The Mirror Thief is a dazzling combination of a genre-hopping adventure, a fast-paced mystery, and literary verve. Set in three cities in three eras, The Mirror Thief calls to mind David Mitchell and Umberto Eco in its serendipitous mix of entertainment and literary mastery.

The core story is set in Venice in the sixteenth century, when the famed makers of Venetian glass were perfecting one of the old world’s most wondrous inventions: the mirror. An object of glittering yet fearful fascination — was it reflecting simple reality, or something more spiritually revealing? — the Venetian mirrors were state of the art technology, and subject to industrial espionage by desirous sultans and royals world-wide. But for any of the development team to leave the island was a crime punishable by death. One man, however — a world-weary war hero with nothing to lose — has a scheme he thinks will allow him to outwit the city’s terrifying enforcers of the edict, the ominous Council of Ten …

Meanwhile, in two other iterations of Venice — Venice Beach, California, circa 1958, and the Venice casino in Las Vegas, circa today — two other schemers launch similarly dangerous plans to get away with a secret …
.
All three stories will weave together into a spell-binding tour-de-force that is impossible to put down — an old-fashioned, stay-up-all-night novel that, in the end, returns the reader to a stunning conclusion in the original Venice … and the bedazzled sense of having read a truly original and thrilling work of literary art.

Anna Smaill

The Chimes
Quercus, May 3, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 304 pages

After the end of a brutal civil war, London is divided, with slums standing next to a walled city of elites. Monk-like masters are selected for special schooling and shut away for decades, learning to write beautiful compositions for the chimes, played citywide morning and night, to mute memory and keep the citizens trapped in ignorance.

A young orphan named Simon arrives in London with nothing but the vague sense of a half-forgotten promise, to locate someone. What he finds is a new family--a gang of scavengers that patrols the underbelly of the city looking for valuable metal to sell. Drawn in by an enigmatic and charismatic leader, a blind young man named Lucien with a gift for song, Simon forgets entirely what originally brought him to the place he has now made his home.

In this alternate London, the past is a mystery, each new day feels the same as the last, and before is considered "blasphony." But Simon has a unique gift--the gift of retaining memories--that will lead him to discover a great injustice and take him far beyond the meager life as a member of Lucien's gang. Before long he will be engaged in an epic struggle for justice, love, and freedom.

The Chimes is an impressive work of speculative fiction, an imaginative adventure elegantly told. The Chimes reveals the human capacity to create both beauty and terror, in art and in life.

Fred Strydom

The Raft
Talos, May 3, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 432 pages

“The day every person on earth lost his and her memory was not a day at all. In people's minds there was no actual event. . . and thus it could be followed by no period of shock or mourning. There could be no catharsis. Everyone was simply reset to zero.”

On Day Zero, the collapse of civilization was as instantaneous as it was inevitable. A mysterious and oppressive movement rose to power in the aftermath, forcing people into isolated communes run like regimes. Kayle Jenner finds himself trapped on a remote beach, and all that remains of his life before is the vague and haunting vision of his son. . .

Kayle finally escapes, only to find a broken world being put back together in strange ways. As more memories from his past life begin returning, the people he meets wandering the face of a scorched earth—some reluctant allies, others dangerous enemies—begin to paint a terrifying picture. In his relentless search for his son, Kayle will discover more than just his lost past. He will discover the truth behind Day Zero—a truth that makes both fools and gods of men.

Adrian Van Young

Shadows in Summerland
ChiZine Publications, May 17, 2016
Trade Paperback and eBook, 350 pages

Boston, 1859. A nation on the brink of war.

Confidence men prowl the streets for fresh marks. Mediums swindle the newly bereaved. Into this world of illusion and intrigue comes William Mumler, a manipulating mastermind and criminal jeweler. Mumler hopes to make his fortune by photographing spirits for Boston’s elite. The key to his venture: a shy girl named Hannah who sees and manifests the dead and washes up on Boston’s harbor along with her strange, intense mother, Claudette.

As Mumler and Hannah’s fame grows throughout Boston, everybody wants a piece: Bill Christian, a brothel tough; Algernon Child, a drunken rival; Fanny A. Conant, a sly suffragette; and William Guay, a religious fanatic. These rogues among a host of others, including the great spirit rapper Kate Fox, form powerful bonds with the spirit photographers, one of which will end in murder. Mumler’s first and last mistake: the dead cannot be made to heel.

Roughly based on the real-life story of William H. Mumler, spirit photographer and his clairvoyant wife, Hannah Mumler, Shadows in Summerland immerses the reader in a shifting world of light and shade where nothing is quite what it seems at first glance. A soaring and resplendently Gothic novel spanning three decades, it is as much an homage to the Golden Age ghost stories of Edith Wharton and Henry James as it is a companion to the revisionist historical epics of Peter Carey and Sarah Waters, with a little steampunk all its own.

Ruth Vincent

Elixir
A Changeling P.I. Novel 1
Harper Voyager Impulse, May 3, 2016
eBook, 384 pages

Mabily "Mab" Jones is just a twenty-something, over-educated, under-employed New Yorker trying to survive as a private eye's unpaid intern . . . or is she? Once a powerful fairy, but tricked by the Fairy Queen into human form, Mab is forced to face her changeling past when investigating a missing person case at a modern speakeasy.

Obadiah Savage bootlegs fairy Elixir to human customers thirsting for a magical fix. But when Mab and Obadiah become joint suspects in a crime they didn't commit, the only way to prove their innocence is to travel back to the fairy realm. And when Mab confronts the Fairy Queen and learns the depth of her betrayal, she must decide if the fate of the fey world is worth destroying the lives of the humans she's come to love.

Fred Strydom

The Raft
Talos, May 3, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 432 pages

“The day every person on earth lost his and her memory was not a day at all. In people's minds there was no actual event. . . and thus it could be followed by no period of shock or mourning. There could be no catharsis. Everyone was simply reset to zero.”

On Day Zero, the collapse of civilization was as instantaneous as it was inevitable. A mysterious and oppressive movement rose to power in the aftermath, forcing people into isolated communes run like regimes. Kayle Jenner finds himself trapped on a remote beach, and all that remains of his life before is the vague and haunting vision of his son. . .

Kayle finally escapes, only to find a broken world being put back together in strange ways. As more memories from his past life begin returning, the people he meets wandering the face of a scorched earth—some reluctant allies, others dangerous enemies—begin to paint a terrifying picture. In his relentless search for his son, Kayle will discover more than just his lost past. He will discover the truth behind Day Zero—a truth that makes both fools and gods of men.