The Qwillery

Happy Monday!

There are 3 debuts this week:

The Afterlives by Thomas Pierce;

Happiness for Humans by P.Z. Reizin;

and

Sinless by (Eye of the Beholder 1) by Sarah Tarkoff.




From formerly featured DAC Authors:

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin;

The Lost Plot (The Invisible Library 4) by Genevieve Cogman

Stranger Magics by Ash Fitzsimmons is out in Mass Market Paperback;

Storm Crossed (Grim 4) by Dani Harper;

Steadfast (Birth of Saints 3) by Michelle Hauck is out in Mass Market Paperback;

Points of Impact (Frontlines 6) by Marko Kloos;

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan is out in Trade Paperback;

The Chronicles of the Exile: (When the Heavens Fall, Dragon Hunters, Red Tide) by Marc Turner is out in a digital bundle;

and

The Questionable Behavior of Dahlia Moss (A Dahlia Moss Mystery 3) by Max Wirestone.

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

January 7, 2018

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Psience Fiction: The Paranormal in Science Fiction Literature	Damien Broderick	HC
A Green and Pagan Land: Myth, Magic and Landscape in British Film and Television	David Huckvale	HC

January 8, 2018

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
The Revolution (e)	Alicia Michaels	SF/GenEng/Dys - Bionics Novels 3

January 9, 2018

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Infinity Engine	Neal Asher	SF/SO - Transformation 3
The Immortalists	Chloe Benjamin	LF
The Lost Plot	Genevieve Cogman	SF/TT - The Invisible Library  4
Sheltered	Jen Colly	PNR - The Cities Below
The Hostess With the Ghostess	E. J. Copperman	PCM - A Haunted Guesthouse Mystery
Stranger Magics	Ash Fitzsimmons	UF
Dark Screams: Volume Nine	Brian James Freeman (Ed) Richard Chizmar (Ed)	H - Anthology
Shroud of Eternity: Sister of Darkness	Terry Goodkind	F - The Nicci Chronicles 2
A Sword of Truth Set: The Chainfire Trilogy (Chainfire, Phantom, Confessor) (e)	Terry Goodkind	F - Sword of Truth Series
Gnomon	Nick Harkaway	Dys
Storm Crossed	Dani Harper	GothicR - Grim 4
Steadfast	Michelle Hauck	HistF - Birth of Saints 3
Through a Dark Glass	Barb Hendee	F/P
Imprinted (Ke)	Jim C. Hines	P - Magic ex Libris
The House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious Places	William Hope Hodgson	F - Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson 2
Farsight: Crisis of Faith	Phil Kelly	SF - Farsight 1
The Eyes of the Dragon (ri)	Stephen King	F
Points of Impact	Marko Kloos	SF - Frontlines 6
Beneath the Sugar Sky	Seanan McGuire	CF - Wayward Children 3
Only the Devil is Here	Stephen Michell	H
Robots vs. Fairies	Dominik Parisien (Ed) Navah Wolfe (Ed)	SF/F - Anthology
Prophecy's Daughter	Richard Phillips	F - The Endarian Prophecy 2
The Afterlives (D)	Thomas Pierce	FL/GH/LF
Happiness for Humans (D)	P.Z. Reizin	CW/HU/SF
Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix	Josh Reynolds	SF - The Horus Heresy: Primarchs 6
A Meddle of Wizards	Alexandra Rushe	F
Mistborn: The Wax and Wayne Series: (Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, The Bands of Mourning) (e)	Brandon Sanderson	F - Mistborn Series
Vampire Wars	Steven Savile	F - Warhammer Chronicles 3
If You Are There (h2tp)	Susan Sherman	LF
Dark State: A Novel of the Merchant Princes Multiverse	Charles Stross	SF/TT - Empire Games 2
Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore (h2tp)	Matthew Sullivan	Psy
Sinless (D)	Sarah Tarkoff	Dys - Eye of the Beholder 1
The Chronicles of the Exile: (When the Heavens Fall, Dragon Hunters, Red Tide) (e)	Marc Turner	F - Chronicles of the Exile
Blood Fury	J.R. Ward	PNR - Black Dagger Legacy 3
The Infernal Battalion	Django Wexler	F - The Shadow Campaigns 5
The Poisoner's Enemy (Ke)	Jeff Wheeler	F - Kingfountain Prequel
The Job of the Wasp	Colin Winnette	LF/M/Gothic
The Questionable Behavior of Dahlia Moss	Max Wirestone	M - A Dahlia Moss Mystery 3

January 10, 2018

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
The Bones of Sanctuary (e)	Amy Rose Capetta	SFTh - ReMade Season 2 #8
A City's Favor (e)	Racheline Maltese Ian Derfner Tessa Gratton Karen Lord	HistF - Tremontaine Season 3 #13

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



AC - Alien Contact
AH - Alternate History
AP - Apocalyptic
CF - Contemporary Fantasy
CW - Contemporary Women
CyP - CyberPunk
DF - Dark Fantasy
Dys - Dystopian
F - Fantasy
FiaryT - Fairy Tales
Fict - Fiction
FL - Family Life
FolkT - Folk Tales
GB - Genre Bender
GenEng - Genetic Engineering
GH - Ghost(s)
Gothic - Gothic
GothicR - Gothic Romance
H - Horror
HC - History and Criticism
Hist - Historical
HistF - Historical Fantasy
HistM - Historical Mystery
HU - Humor
LF - Literary Fiction
LM -  Legend and Mythology
M - Mystery
Meta - Metaphysical
MR - Magical Realism
MTI - Media Tie-In
Myth - Mythology
Occ - Occult
P - Paranormal
PA - Post Apocalyptic
PCM - Paranormal Cozy Mystery
PNR - Paranormal Romance
PopCul - Popular Culture
Psy - Psychological
PsyTh - Psychological Thriller
Ref - Reference
SH -Superheroes
SF - Science Fiction
SFTh - Science Fiction Thriller
SFR - Science Fiction Romance
SO - Space Opera
SocSci - Social Science
SP - SteamPunk
SpecFic - Speculative Fiction
Sup - Supernatural
SupTh - Supernatural Thriller
Th - Thriller
TT - Time Travel
UF - Urban Fantasy
UFR - Urban Fantasy Romance

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

Tom Toner (2015)

The Promise of the Child
Volume One of the Amaranthine Spectrum
Night Shade Books, October 11, 2016
Trade Paperback, 484 pages
Hardcover and eBook, September 22, 2015

It is the 147th century.

In the radically advanced post-human worlds of the Amaranthine Firmament, there is a contender to the Immortal throne: Aaron the Long-Life, the Pretender, a man who is not quite a man.

In the barbarous hominid kingdoms of the Prism Investiture, where life is short, cheap, and dangerous, an invention is born that will become the Firmament’s most closely kept secret.

Lycaste, a lovesick recluse outcast for an unspeakable crime, must journey through the Provinces, braving the grotesques of an ancient, decadent world to find his salvation.

Sotiris, grieving the loss of his sister and awaiting the madness of old age, must relive his twelve thousand years of life to stop the man determined to become Emperor.

Ghaldezuel, knight of the stars, must plunder the rarest treasure in the Firmament—the object the Pretender will stop at nothing to obtain.

From medieval Prague to a lonely Mediterranean cove, and eventually far into the strange vastness of distant worlds, The Promise of the Child is a debut novel of gripping action and astounding ambition unfolding over hundreds of thousands of years, marking the arrival of a brilliant new talent in science fiction.

The Weight of the World
Volume Two of the Amaranthine Spectrum
Night Shade Books, January 3, 2017
Hardcover and eBook, 432 pages

The sequel to the critically acclaimed and ambitious literary space opera debut, The Promise of the Child.

It is the 147th century; the turning of the Amaranthine new year.

In the provinces of the Old World, the giant Elatine’s war of liberation has come to an impasse, leaving the wicked monarchy of the First in possession of the throne.

In the Vaulted Lands of the Firmament, acolytes have risen up to execute their immortal masters. The opportunistic races of the Prism, intoxicated with greed, have arrived inside every Solar Satrapy to scavenge what’s left.

In the wild Investiture, on a forgotten water moon, a crew of shipwrecked Privateers come face to face with their greatest terror, and with it the most valuable treasure in all the galaxy.

Jatropha, legendary Immortal, must escort his precious charge through the exotic Westerly Provinces, knowing all the world would steal her if they could.

Sotiris, his mind fading fast, must set out to find his dear, drowned sister in a land previously unglimpsed by anyone but the dead.

Lycaste, now far from home, must journey in strange company to the edge of a tempestuous sea, to the lair of someone so dangerous that even the legendary Amaranthine fear his name.

Steve Toutonghi (2016)

Join
Soho Press, March 21, 2017
Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Hardcover and eBook, April 19, 2016

What if you could live multiple lives simultaneously, have constant, perfect companionship, and never die? That’s the promise of Join, a revolutionary technology that allows small groups of minds to unite, forming a single consciousness that experiences the world through multiple bodies. But as two best friends discover, the light of that miracle may be blinding the world to its horrors.

Chance and Leap are jolted out of their professional routines by a terrifying stranger—a remorseless killer who freely manipulates the networks that regulate life in the post-Join world. Their quest for answers—and survival—brings them from the networks and spire communities they’ve known to the scarred heart of an environmentally ravaged North American continent and an underground community of the “ferals” left behind by the rush of technology.

In the storytelling tradition of classic speculative fiction from writers like David Mitchell and Michael Chabon, Join offers a pulse-pounding story that poses the largest possible questions: How long can human life be sustained on our planet in the face of environmental catastrophe? What does it mean to be human, and what happens when humanity takes the next step in its evolution? If the individual mind becomes obsolete, what have we lost and gained, and what is still worth fighting for?

Roberta Trahan (2012)

Aftershock
Idyllwynd Publications, March 31, 2016
eBook, 25 pages

Deidre Morneau can't remember the last time she didn't have a headache. Chronic migraines have crippled her life and destroyed her dreams, and years of failed therapies have brought her to the brink of despair. But then, the effects of a last-ditch experimental treatment begin to take hold, and Deidre's symptoms get even worse.

Beyond desperate, Deidre agrees to see the research scientist at Extragen Labs who developed the medication she has been taking. But when she arrives at the cold, creepy clinic, Deidre has second thoughts. Just as she decides to opt out, the biggest migraine of her life overwhelms her and Deidre passes out on the waiting room floor.

Deidre suddenly awakens to a bizarre and terrifying new reality. Somehow, she has become the subject of a secret research project, and her body is undergoing a radical change. She is also isolated, restrained, and at the mercy of madmen. Whatever is happening, whatever Deidre is becoming, she isn't waiting around to find out.

James R. Tuck (2012)

The Two Torcs
Robin Hood: Demon Bane 2
  by Debbie Viguie, James R. Tuck
Titan Books, August 2, 2016
Trade Paperback and eBook, 368 pages

Evil is everywhere. Through terror and dark sorcery, Prince John wields the power of the throne. Lord and peasant alike meet violent ends as the Sheriff’s arcane beasts spread fear and death.

A small group of rebels oppose John, striking from Sherwood Forest...the one place his creatures cannot pursue them. Though their numbers grow, so do the forces of darkness. Unless Robin and Marian fulfill the ancient prophecy of the Two Torcs, the forest will be overrun, and England will fall.

Sovereign's War
Robin Hood: Demon Bane 3
  by Debbie Viguie, James R. Tuck
Titan Books, August 1, 2017
Trade Paperback and eBook, 368 pages

THE THIRD BOOK IN THE ROBIN HOOD: BLACK ARROW SERIES! A dramatically different telling of the Robin Hood legend, with dark magic, fantasy, and horror woven into the story.

Mama Tried
  Edited by James R. Tuck
Crime Fiction Inspired By Outlaw Country Music
Down & Out Books, August 15, 2016
Trade Paperback and eBook, 285 pages

Outlaws.

It’s what makes the best of country music and crime fiction. Sometimes it’s hardened criminals: murders, thieves, and convicts, sometimes it’s just a poor fool driven to the edge by hard times, hard drinking, or a hard lover.

In this collection you will find stories from the best voices in crime fiction inspired by the best voices in outlaw country music. Stories with:

•An off-books mercenary trying to save a trucker’s delivery from a beautiful thief
•An ex-con dealing with small town prejudice...and armed robbery
•Outlaw newlyweds running from a Tri-county druglord
•A young girl seeking solace in the company of dogs bred to fight that she never found in family
•A wife discovering the other woman is not what she thought
•A writer finding out what prison is really like

Stories by J.L. Abramo, Trey R. Barker, Eric Beetner, Levi Black, Michael Bunker, Delilah Dawson, Les Edgerton, Christa Faust, Tommy Hancock, Grant Jerkins, Ken Lizzi, Riley Miller, James A. Moore, Bobby Nash, Mel Odom, Eryk Pruitt, Jay Requard, Charles R. Rutledge and Ryan Sayles.

Marc Turner (2015)

Red Tide
The Chronicles of the Exile 3
Tor Books, September 20, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 544 pages

Red Tide, the third volume in Marc Turner's The Chronicles of the Exile, following When the Heavens Fall and Dragon Hunters

The Augerans are coming. And their ships are sailing in on a red tide.

The Rubyholt Isles are a shattered nation of pirate-infested islands and treacherous waterways shielding the seaboards of Erin Elal and the Sabian League, a region even dragons fear to trespass.

The Augerans beseech the Warlord of the Isles, seeking passage for their invasion fleet through Rubyholt territory. But they are sailing into troubled waters. Their enemies have sent agents to sabotage the negotiations, and to destroy the Augeran fleet by any means necessary.

The emperor of Erin Elal seeks to forge an alliance with the Storm Lords, hoping to repulse the Augerans with a united front. But the battle lines for the struggle are not as clearly drawn as it first appears, for the Emira of the Storm Isles mistrusts the Erin Elalese as much as she does their common enemy. And the Augerans might just be planning a little sabotage of their own.

But nothing in the realm of mortals escapes the notice of their meddling gods; every step they take is shadowed, and every choice they make ensnared in a web so subtle and vast, its true shape may be fathomed only when it is far, far too late.

A new epic adventure in the fantastic world of When the Heavens Fall and Dragon Hunters!

TQ:  Welcome back to The Qwillery. Your new novel, Dragon Hunters (The Chronicles of the Exile 2), was published on February 9th. Has your writing process changed (or not) from when you wrote When the Heavens Fall to Dragon Hunters?

Marc:  Thank you for having me back.

I don’t think the way I write has changed too much in that time. All of my books have multiple threads in them, and I write the storyline of each point-of-view character in turn – so, the whole of character one, then the whole of character two, and so forth – before weaving their threads together. It requires a lot of planning, and it can drive me to distraction at times. But I find this helps me to maintain a consistent and distinctive character voice.



TQ:  What do you wish that you knew about book publishing when When the Heavens Fall came out that you know now?

Marc:  You’re assuming I know something about book publishing now! To be honest, the industry is as much a mystery to me today as it was a year ago. I’m just sitting back and enjoying the ride.



TQ:  What is your method of keeping track of facts, characters' eye colors, etc. throughout The Chronicles of the Exile series?

Marc:  I do a lot of work on this before I start writing, so I have detailed notes on everything from the characters’ backgrounds to the history of the civilisations that feature in the book. Only a fraction of that information makes its way into the story, but my notes give me something to refer to when necessary. And if something new occurs to me while I am writing, I simply update the notes.

The hardest thing to get “right”, I find, is the timeline, and specifically the order in which certain events happen. It’s difficult to give examples that aren’t spoilers, but for instance I might state that event A takes place before event B, only to realise later that (for whatever reason) they need to occur in the opposite order. In Dragon Hunters, I initially had a character’s life running on fast forward – so he was leaving home, taking his priest’s vows and becoming high priest in the span of just three years, while the world around him had advanced twice that.

Fortunately, though, I’ve yet to find a continuity mistake in the published books (he said, handing fate a stick to beat him with).



TQ:  Which character in the The Chronicles of the Exile series (so far) surprised you the most? Who has been the hardest character to write and why?

Marc:  The character that most surprised me appears in a short story I wrote called There’s A Devil Watching Over You. She’s a bandit called Safiya, and she was supposed to feature only in that story. I liked her so much, though, that I decided to find a place for her in the main series. I also think she deserves a chance to get even with another character, Luker, for what he puts her through in the story! Anyone interested in reading There’s A Devil Watching Over You can find it at Tor.com here, or listen to an audio version narrated by Emma Newman here.

The hardest character to write in Dragon Hunters was probably the Chameleon priestess, Karmel. Karmel is brash but also vulnerable, and I found that a difficult mix to get right. Without giving too much away, her storyline is a tragic one, so it was obviously important to maintain the reader’s sympathy. I wanted people to care about what happens to her, not cheer along at her setbacks! She’s a flawed character due to her upbringing, but her heart is in the right place, and she’s probably my favourite character in the book.



TQ:  Tell us something about Dragon Hunters that is not found in the book description.

Marc:  Dragon Hunters is the second book in the series, but it features new characters and new locations, so it can be read and enjoyed even if you haven’t read When the Heavens Fall. It’s also the finest fantasy book you will read this year – I’m almost certain of it.*

* Terms and conditions apply. Other fantasy books exist.



TQ:  Please give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery lines from Dragon Hunters.

Marc:

“We’re lucky,” Farrell said as the dragon glided past. “The creature’s little more than a baby. Any bigger, and it wouldn’t have been able to keep to the shallow waters near the cliff.”

Agenta grunted. Oddly, she didn’t feel too lucky just now.



TQ:  What's next?

Marc:  Next, I’ll be finishing the edits of book three in the series, Red Tide, which comes out in September this year. I’m also writing book four (there will be six in total), and working on a short story to feature in Fantasy Faction’s Guns and Dragons anthology.



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Marc:  The pleasure was all mine. And no, you don’t have to agree with that.

Dragon Hunters
The Chronicle of the Exile, Book Two
Tor Books, February 9, 2016
Hardcover and eBook, 496 pages

Dragon Hunters, the sequel to Marc Turner's When the Heavens Fall features gritty characters, deadly magic, and meddlesome gods

Once a year on Dragon Day the fabled Dragon Gate is raised to let a sea dragon pass from the Southern Wastes into the Sabian Sea. There, it will be hunted by the Storm Lords, a fellowship of powerful water-mages who rule an empire called the Storm Isles. Alas, this year someone forgot to tell the dragon which is the hunter and which the hunted.

Emira Imerle Polivar is coming to the end of her tenure as leader of the Storm Lords. She has no intention of standing down graciously. She instructs an order of priests called the Chameleons to infiltrate a citadel housing the mechanism that controls the Dragon Gate to prevent the gate from being lowered after it has been raised on Dragon Day. Imerle hopes the dozens of dragons thus unleashed on the Sabian Sea will eliminate her rivals while she launches an attack on the Storm Lord capital, Olaire, to secure her grip on power.

But Imerle is not the only one intent on destroying the Storm Lord dynasty. As the Storm Lords assemble in Olaire in answer to a mysterious summons, they become the targets of assassins working for an unknown enemy. When Imerle initiates her coup, that enemy makes use of the chaos created to show its hand.

Marc Turner (2015)

When the Heavens Fall
The Chronicles of the Exile, Book One
Tor Fantasy, February 2, 2016
Mass Market Paperback, 736 pages
Hardcover and eBook, May 19, 2015

Marc Turner's When the Heavens Fall is an emerging new voice in epic fantasy, now in mass market

If you pick a fight with Shroud, Lord of the Dead, you had better ensure your victory, else death will mark only the beginning of your suffering.

A book giving its wielder power over the dead has been stolen from a fellowship of mages that has kept the powerful relic dormant for centuries. The thief, a crafty, power-hungry necromancer, intends to use the Book of Lost Souls to resurrect an ancient race and challenge Shroud for dominion of the underworld. Shroud counters by sending his most formidable servants to seize the artifact at all cost.

However, the god is not the only one interested in the Book, and a host of other forces converge, drawn by the powerful magic that has been unleashed. Among them is a reluctant Guardian who is commissioned by the Emperor to find the stolen Book, a troubled prince who battles enemies both personal and political, and a young girl of great power, whose past uniquely prepares her for an encounter with Shroud. The greatest threat to each of their quests lies not in the horror of an undead army but in the risk of betrayal from those closest to them. Each of their decisions comes at a personal cost and will not only affect them, but also determine the fate of their entire empire.

About Marc

MARC TURNER was born in Toronto, Canada, but grew up in England. He graduated from Lincoln College, Oxford University, in 1996 with a BA (Hons) in Law, and subsequently worked at a top-ten law firm in London. After more than ten years in the legal profession he gave in to his lifelong writing addiction and now works full time as a writer. Dragon Hunters is his newest novel.






Website

Twitter @MarcJTurner

Ferrett Steinmetz (2015)

The Flux
'Mancer 2
Angry Robot, October 6, 2015
     (North America Print and eBook)
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 400 pages
Angry Robot, October 1, 2015 (UK Print)
Cover art: Steven Meyer-Rassow

Love something enough, and your obsession will punch holes through the laws of physics. That devotion creates unique magics: videogamemancers. Origamimancers. Culinomancers.

But when ‘mancers battle, cities tremble…

ALIYAH TSABO-DAWSON: The world’s most dangerous eight-year-old girl. Burned by a terrorist’s magic, gifted strange powers beyond measure. She’s furious that she has to hide her abilities from her friends, her teachers, even her mother – and her temper tantrums can kill.

PAUL TSABO: Bureaucromancer. Magical drug-dealer. Desperate father. He’s gone toe-to-toe with the government’s conscription squads of brain-burned Unimancers, and he’ll lie to anyone to keep Aliyah out of their hands – whether Aliyah likes it or not.

THE KING OF NEW YORK: The mysterious power player hell-bent on capturing the two of them. A man packing a private army of illegal ‘mancers.

Paul’s family is the key to keep the King’s crumbling empire afloat. But offering them paradise is the catalyst that inflames Aliyah’s deadly rebellious streak…

File Under: Urban Fantasy

Paul Tassi (2015)

The Exiled Earthborn
The Earthborn Trilogy Book 2
Talos Press, November 17, 2015
Trade Paperback and eBook, 420 pages

In this thrilling second book of the Earthborn trilogy, Lucas and Asha have survived the decimation of Earth at the hands of the invading Xalans and seek safe haven with their enemy’s true foes, the Sorans. They find a lush planet inhabited by a civilization far more advanced than their own, waging a seemingly endless war against a constantly evolving enemy.

The Sorans call the pair of them the “Earthborn” and they’re welcomed as heroes, almost as gods. To an audience of billions, they swear an oath to avenge their fallen planet by aiding the Sorans in their war against Xala. But soon Lucas and Asha find Sora just as dangerous as apocalyptic Earth when they’re targeted by the Fourth Order, a rebel collective who decries them as false prophets and harbingers of further bloodshed.

Their friend and turncoat Xalan scientist Alpha believes he’s located someone who can help them turn the tide of the war for good, stranded on a conquered colony planet. But landing on the new world, Lucas and Asha find themselves hunted by a violent, mysterious beast, known only as the Desecrator, let loose by the Xalans.

Escaping Earth was only the beginning. As Lucas and Asha quickly learn, the universe has worlds and creatures far more dangerous than anything their home planet could have offered, and their continued survival hinges on gaining new allies they never could have imagined.

Patrick S. Tomlinson (2015)

Trident's Forge
Children of a Dead Earth Book Two
Angry Robot, April 5, 2016
Mass Market Paperback and eBook
Cover Art: Larry Rostant, Artist Partners

They’ve made it this far. If only that increased humanity’s chances on this new planet…

Against all odds, the Ark and her thirty-thousand survivors have reached Tau Ceti G to begin the long, arduous task of rebuilding human civilization. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Tau Ceti G’s natives, the G’tel, are coming to grips with the sudden appearance of what many believe are their long-lost Gods.

But first contact between humans and g’tel goes catastrophically wrong, visiting death on both sides. Rumors swirl that the massacre was no accident. The Ark’s greatest hero, Bryan Benson, takes on the mystery.

Partnered with native ‘truth-digger’ Kexx, against both of their better judgment, Benson is thrust into the heart of an alien culture with no idea how to tell who wants to worship him from who wants him dead.

Together, Benson and Kexx will have to find enough common ground and trust to uncover a plot that threatens to plunge both of their peoples into an apocalyptic war that neither side can afford to fight.

File Under: Science Fiction

Tom Toner (2015)

The Promise of the Child
Volume One of the Amaranthine Spectrum
Night Shade Books, July 5, 2016, Ship Date: June 14, 2016
Trade Paperback, 464 pages
Hardcover and eBook, September 22, 2015

It is the 147th century.

In the radically advanced post-human worlds of the Amaranthine Firmament, there is a contender to the Immortal throne: Aaron the Long-Life, the Pretender, a man who is not quite a man.

In the barbarous hominid kingdoms of the Prism Investiture, where life is short, cheap, and dangerous, an invention is born that will become the Firmament’s most closely kept secret.

Lycaste, a lovesick recluse outcast for an unspeakable crime, must journey through the Provinces, braving the grotesques of an ancient, decadent world to find his salvation.

Sotiris, grieving the loss of his sister and awaiting the madness of old age, must relive his twelve thousand years of life to stop the man determined to become Emperor.

Ghaldezuel, knight of the stars, must plunder the rarest treasure in the Firmament—the object the Pretender will stop at nothing to obtain.

From medieval Prague to a lonely Mediterranean cove, and eventually far into the strange vastness of distant worlds, The Promise of the Child is a debut novel of gripping action and astounding ambition unfolding over hundreds of thousands of years, marking the arrival of a brilliant new talent in science fiction.

Marc Turner (2015)

When the Heavens Fall
The Chronicles of the Exile, Book One
Tor Fantasy, February 2, 2016
Mass Market Paperback, 736 pages
Hardcover and eBook, May 19, 2015

Marc Turner's When the Heavens Fall is an emerging new voice in epic fantasy, now in mass market

If you pick a fight with Shroud, Lord of the Dead, you had better ensure your victory, else death will mark only the beginning of your suffering.

A book giving its wielder power over the dead has been stolen from a fellowship of mages that has kept the powerful relic dormant for centuries. The thief, a crafty, power-hungry necromancer, intends to use the Book of Lost Souls to resurrect an ancient race and challenge Shroud for dominion of the underworld. Shroud counters by sending his most formidable servants to seize the artifact at all cost.

However, the god is not the only one interested in the Book, and a host of other forces converge, drawn by the powerful magic that has been unleashed. Among them is a reluctant Guardian who is commissioned by the Emperor to find the stolen Book, a troubled prince who battles enemies both personal and political, and a young girl of great power, whose past uniquely prepares her for an encounter with Shroud. The greatest threat to each of their quests lies not in the horror of an undead army but in the risk of betrayal from those closest to them. Each of their decisions comes at a personal cost and will not only affect them, but also determine the fate of their entire empire.

Red Tide (The Chronicles of the Exile, Book Three) is slated for publication in September 2016. (Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound)

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

Marc:  Thanks for inviting me.

I can’t honestly recall the moment I started writing. I’ve been doing it on and off for as long as I can remember, though I began taking it more seriously about six years ago. I sent the first two chapters of When the Heavens Fall to a “book-doctoring” organization. They employ published authors to read and comment on your work, and the feedback I got was very positive.

As for the why of writing, I’ve learned from bitter experience that I cannot not write. Plus it’s the only work I know where daydreaming isn't frowned upon.



TQ:  Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Marc:  Very much a plotter. If I started writing without doing any planning, I’d quickly write myself off the edge of a cliff. I write big, multi-threaded novels, and I write the story of each viewpoint character separately because it helps me maintain a consistent character voice. So I’ll write the whole of the first character’s story, then the whole of the second character’s story, and so on. It’s only when all of the threads have been written that I start weaving them together. And it’s a difficult enough task without trying to do it on the fly. Maybe with a single viewpoint character . . . no, what am I saying, it would still be a disaster.



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

Marc:  The hardest thing about writing a book for me is the first section. It’s not just the fact that you’re faced with a blank page. It’s also the number of things you’re trying to do in that first section. You’ve got to dive straight into the story, obviously, and hook your reader with a plot point that makes them want to read on. But you’ve also got to get them interested in a character, and tell them what that character is doing, and why it’s important. And all without info dumps, or stopping the flow of the story. I’d say writing and editing a first section takes me five times longer than any other section in the book.



TQ:  Who are some of your literary influences? Favorite authors?

Marc:  They are one and the same. I’d say Steven Erikson is the author whose work has most influenced me. Gardens of the Moon really opened my eyes. It’s a book that divides opinion, but I loved the characters, the world building, the sheer scale of the story. I also loved the way he brought so many story-threads together at the end for an epic confrontation. That’s something I’ve tried to capture in When the Heavens Fall.

Among my other favourite authors I’d include Joe Abercrombie, Guy Gavriel Kay, Mark Lawrence and David Gemmell. The extent to which any or all of those have influenced my writing, I’ll leave for others to judge.



TQ:  Describe When the Heavens Fall in 140 characters or less.

Marc:  Lord of the Rings meets World War Z.



TQ:  Tell us something about When the Heavens Fall that is not in the book description.

Marc:  It’s part of a series of books, but it’s also a self-contained story. I’m not a big fan of first books that stop (seemingly in mid-sentence) without even a hint of a resolution in sight – particularly since you might have to wait another year or longer (or much longer!) to find out what happens next. When the Heavens Fall will leave you guessing as to where the story goes next, but most of its threads are tied up by the end.



TQ:  What inspired you to write When the Heavens Fall? What appealed to you about writing Sword & Sorcery Epic Fantasy?

Marc:  “Sword & sorcery epic fantasy.” I think we’ve just created a new sub-genre! I think When the Heavens Fall has elements of both “swords and sorcery” and “epic” fantasy. So it has the grand scale and sweeping battles of epic fantasy, but it also has the high action and morally ambiguous characters I normally associate with swords and sorcery. As for the main appeal of writing it, I wrote the type of book I like to read (mostly).



TQ:  What sort of research did you do for When the Heavens Fall?

Marc:  None that I remember. That’s one of the great things about writing fantasy: you can pretty much make everything up.



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

Marc:  The easiest was probably the high priestess, Romany. Romany is a mix of ruthlessness and entitled haughtiness, so I suppose I should be alarmed at how readily her voice came to me …

The hardest? Probably Luker, because his character changed the most during editing. A while after the book was “finished”, I wrote a short story in which Luker features. In the story, I wrote Luker the way I’d remembered him from When the Heavens Fall. But when I went back to look at the book afterwards, I found he was different in a number of respects. So I had to do another edit of the manuscript to make him how I wanted him to be.

Incidentally, if anyone would like to read that short story, it has been published at Tor.com here. Or, if you prefer, you can listen to a free audio version narrated by Emma Newman of Tea and Jeopardy fame here.



TQ:  Which question about When the Heavens Fall do you wish someone would ask? Ask it and answer it!

Marc:  Will you accept this staggeringly large amount of money for the rights to adapt the book and its sequels into a multi-part TV dramatization along the lines of Game of Thrones?

And my answer would have to be yes.



TQ:  Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery lines from When the Heavens Fall.

Marc:  Non-spoilery? Here’s a snippet of conversation featuring one of the four viewpoint characters, Parolla, and a friendly spirit she encounters called Tumbal.

     “Tell me of yourself,” [Parolla said]. “You are a warrior?”
     “No, my Lady. I am a scholar—an engineer by trade.”
     “What did you build?”
     “Cities. Well, dwellings, if truth be told. And only for a time, at that.” Tumbal looked at his feet. “Few of my constructions stood the test of time. When demand for my services diminished, I decided to become an inventor.”
     “And what did you discover, sirrah?”
     “Only that I was less than accomplished in that calling also.”

TQ:  What's next?

Marc:  When the Heavens Fall is the first in a series of six books, and I’m writing book four next. Before someone helpfully points out that book four doesn’t come after book one, I should note that books two and three are already written. Book two, Dragon Hunters, is scheduled to come out in February 2016, and book three, Red Tide, in October 2016. That’s right, three books in seventeen months. I’m spoiling you, I know.



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

Marc:  The pleasure was mine.

When the Heavens Fall
The Chronicles of the Exile 1
Tor Books, May 19, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 544 pages

If you pick a fight with Shroud, Lord of the Dead, you had better ensure your victory, else death will mark only the beginning of your suffering.

A book giving its wielder power over the dead has been stolen from a fellowship of mages that has kept the powerful relic dormant for centuries. The thief, a crafty, power-hungry necromancer, intends to use the Book of Lost Souls to resurrect an ancient race and challenge Shroud for dominion of the underworld. Shroud counters by sending his most formidable servants to seize the artifact at all cost.

However, the god is not the only one interested in the Book, and a host of other forces converge, drawn by the powerful magic that has been unleashed. Among them is a reluctant Guardian who is commissioned by the Emperor to find the stolen Book, a troubled prince who battles enemies both personal and political, and a young girl of great power, whose past uniquely prepares her for an encounter with Shroud. The greatest threat to each of their quests lies not in the horror of an undead army but in the risk of betrayal from those closest to them. Each of their decisions comes at a personal cost and will not only affect them, but also determine the fate of their entire empire.

The first of an epic swords & sorcery fantasy series, Marc Turner's When the Heavens Fall features gritty characters, deadly magic, and meddlesome gods.

About Marc

Marc Turner was born in Toronto, Canada, but grew up in England. He graduated from Lincoln College, Oxford University, in 1996 with a BA (Hons) in law, and subsequently joined a top ten law firm in the City of London. After realising that working there did not mix well with simple pleasures such as having a life, he fled north first to Leeds and then to Durham in search of a better work-life balance. Unfortunately it proved elusive, and so in 2007, rather than take the next step and move to Scotland, he began working part time so he could devote more time to his writing. Following the sale of his debut epic fantasy novel, When the Heavens Fall, he started writing full time. He lives in Durham, England, with his wife and son.

Website

Twitter @MarcJTurner

Happy Monday! There are 5 debuts this week:

The Well by Catherine Chanter;

The Choosing (Seer 1) by Rachelle Dekker;

Disclaimer by Renée Knight;

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan;

and

When the Heavens Fall (The Chronicles of the Exile 1) by Marc Turner.



And from formerly featured Debut Author Challenge authors:

Two Tales of the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne;

Radiant State (The Wolfhound Century 3) by Peter Higgins;

Talking Dirty (Pax Arcana) by Elliott James;

and

Eighth Grave After Dark (Charley Davidson 8) by Darynda Jones.






May 18, 2015

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Phantom Quartz (Ke)	Barbra Annino	PM - Stacy Justice Witch Mystery 6
Krewe of Hunters Series Volume 3: The Night Is Watching\The Night Is Alive\The Night Is Forever (e)	Heather Graham	PNR - Krewe of Hunters
Two Tales of the Iron Druid Chronicles (Ke)	Kevin Hearne	UF - Iron Druid

May 19, 2015

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Hothouse (e)(ri)	Brian W. Aldiss	SF
Enemies of the System (e)(ri)	Brian W. Aldiss	SF
An Island Called Moreau (e)(ri)	Brian W. Aldiss	SF
Report on Probability A (e)(ri)	Brian W. Aldiss	SF
Dracula Unbound (e)(ri)	Brian W. Aldiss	SF
The Malacia Tapestry (e)(ri)	Brian W. Aldiss	SF
The Saliva Tree and Other Strange Growths (e)(ri)	Brian W. Aldiss	SF - Collection
Super-State: A Novel of a Future Europe (e)(ri)	Brian W. Aldiss	SF
White Mars; or, The Mind Set Free: A 21st-Century Utopia (e)(ri)	Brian W. Aldiss Roger Penrose	SF
Frankenstein Unbound (e)(ri)	Brian W. Aldiss	SF
Unbearable Desire (e)	Vivi Andrews	PNR - Lone Pine Pride 4
The Scarlet Gospels	Clive Barker	H
Sly Mongoose (ri)	Tobias S. Buckell	SF/SO
The King in Yellow	Robert W. Chambers	GN/SF
The Well (D)	Catherine Chanter	Sus/Ap
Against a Darkening Sky	Lauren B. Davis	HistF
The Choosing (D)	Rachelle Dekker	Dys/PA - Seer 1
The Hanged Man	P. N. Elrod	SP/M - On Her Majesty's Psychic Service 1
Radiant State	Peter Higgins	F - The Wolfhound Century 3
Talking Dirty (e)	Elliott James	CF - Pax Arcana
Eighth Grave After Dark	Darynda Jones	PM - Charley Davidson 8
Witches Be Burned (e)	Stacey Kennedy	PNR - Magic & Mayhem 1
Disclaimer (D)	Renée Knight	PsyTh
Devil in the Wires (e)	Tim Lees	CF - Field Ops 2
The Gracekeepers (D)	Kirsty Logan	LF/Myth/FL
Odin: The Viking Allfather	Steven Long	F - Myths and Legends 14
Revive	Tracey Martin	PNR - RedZone 1
Uprooted	Naomi Novik	F
The Coldest Sea (e)	Marian Perera	PNR - Eden 5
Dead Shift	Richard Phillips	SF - The Rho Agenda Inception 3
Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction	Hannu Rajaniemi	SF/Ap/PA - Collection
The Geeky Chef Cookbook: Real-Life Recipes for Your Favorite Fantasy Foods - Unofficial Recipes from Doctor Who, Games of Thrones, Harry Potter, and more	Cassandra Reeder	F - Cookbook
Protective Instinct (e)	Katie Reus	PNR - Moon Shifter 5.5
Crossfades: A Dystopian Novella (e)	William Todd Rose	Dys/H
Snatched	David Saperstein	SF/Ad
Sword of Destiny (e)	Andrzej Sapkowski	F - Tales of the Witcher Collection
Behind the Eyes of Dreamers: and Other Short Novels (e)(ri)	Pamela Sargent	SF - Collection
Eye of Flame: Fantasies (e)(ri)	Pamela Sargent	SF - Collection
The Golden Space (e)(ri)	Pamela Sargent	SF
The Mountain Cage: and Other Stories (e)(ri)	Pamela Sargent	SF - Collection
Ever Night (e)	Gena Showalter	PNR - Novella
Wings of Flame (e)(ri)	Nancy Springer	F
The Hex Witch of Seldom (e)(ri)	Nancy Springer	F
Apocalypse (e)(ri)	Nancy Springer	F
Chains of Gold (e)(ri)	Nancy Springer	F
Chance: and Other Gestures of the Hand of Fate (e)(ri)	Nancy Springer	F - Collection
Fair Peril (e)(ri)	Nancy Springer	F
Plumage (e)(ri)	Nancy Springer	F
Oceanspace (e)(ri)	Allen Steele	SF
Clarke County, Space (e)(ri)	Allen Steele	SF - Near-Space 2
Lunar Descent (e)(ri)	Allen Steele	SF - Near-Space 3
Time Loves a Hero (e)(ri)	Allen Steele	SF
Seveneves	Neal Stephenson	SF/Ap/PA
If You Could See Me Now	Peter Straub	H
When the Heavens Fall (D)	Marc Turner	F - The Chronicles of the Exile 1
My Real Children (h2tp)	Jo Walton	SF
The Shadow of Elysium (e)	Django Wexler	F - Shadow Campaigns Novella
Use Once, Then Destroy: Stories	Conrad Williams	H - Collection
In the Distance, and Ahead in Time (e)(ri)	George Zebrowski	SF - Collection

May 20, 2015

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Metropolis (ri)	Thea von Harbou	SF
Ginga: A Tor.Com Original (e)	Daniel José Older	UF - Bone Street Rumba

D - Debut
e - eBook
ed - Editor
h2tp - Hardcover to Trade Paperback
Ke - Kindle eBook only
ri - reissue or reprint


Ap - Apocalyptic
CF - Contemporary Fantasy
Dys - Dystopian
F - Fantasy
FL - Folk Lore
GN - Graphic Novel
H - Horror
HistF - Historical Fantasy
LF - Literary Fiction
PA - Post Apocalyptic
PM - Paranormal Mystery
PNR - Paranormal Romance
PsyTh - Psychological Thriller
SF - Science Fiction
SO - Space Opera
SP - Steampunk
UF - Urban Fantasy

Catherine Chanter

The Well
Atria Books, May 19, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 400 pages

From the winner of the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, a brilliantly haunting and suspenseful debut set in modern-day Britain where water is running out everywhere except at The Well—the farm of one seemingly ordinary family whose mysterious good fortune leads to suspicion, chaos, and ultimately a shocking act of violence.

Ruth Ardingly has just been released from prison to serve out a sentence of house arrest for arson and suspected murder at her farm, The Well. Beyond its borders, some people whisper she is a witch; others a messiah. For as soon as Ruth returns to The Well, rain begins to fall on the farm. And it has not rained anywhere else in the country in over three years.

Ruth and her husband Mark had moved years before from London to this ancient idyll in the hopes of starting their lives over. But then the drought began, and as the surrounding land dried up and died, and The Well grew lush and full of life, they came to see their fortune would come at a price. From the envy of their neighbors to the mandates of the government, from the fanaticism of a religious order called the Sisters of the Rose to the everyday difficulties of staying close as husband and wife, mother and child—all these forces led to a horrifying crime: the death of their seven-year-old grandson, drowned with cruel irony in one of the few ponds left in the countryside.

Now back at The Well, Ruth must piece together the tragedy that shattered her marriage, her family, and her dream. For she believes her grandson’s death was no accident, and that the murderer is among the people she trusted most. Alone except for her guards on a tiny green jewel in a world rapidly turning to dust, Ruth begins to confront her worst fears and learns what really happened in the dark heart of The Well.

A tour de force about ordinary people caught in the tide of an extraordinary situation, Catherine Chanter’s The Well is a haunting, beautifully written, and utterly believable novel that probes the fragility of our personal relationships and the mystical connection between people and the places they call home.

Rachelle Dekker

The Choosing
Seer 1
Tyndale House, May 19, 2015
Trade Paperback, 448 pages

Like all citizens since the Ruining, Carrington Hale knows the importance of this day. But she never expected the moment she’d spent a lifetime preparing for—her Choosing ceremony—to end in disaster. Ripped from her family, she’ll spend her days serving as a Lint, the lowest level of society. She knows it’s her duty to follow the true way of the Authority.

But as Carrington begins this nightmare, rumors of rebellion rattle her beliefs. Though the whispers contradict everything she’s been told, they resonate deep within.

Then Carrington is offered an unprecedented chance at the life she’s always dreamed of, yet she can’t shake the feeling that it may be an illusion. With a killer targeting Lints and corruption threatening the highest levels of the Authority, Carrington must uncover the truth before it destroys her.

Bridget Foley

Hugo & Rose
St. Martin's Press, May 5, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 352 pages

Rose is disappointed with her life, though she has no reason to be - she has a beautiful family and a perfectly nice house in the suburbs. But to Rose, this ordinary life feels overshadowed by her other life - the one she leads every night in her dreams.

After a childhood accident, Rose's dreams take her to a wondrous island fraught with adventure. On this island, she has never been alone: she shares it with Hugo, a brave boy who's grown up with her into a hero of a man.

But when Rose stumbles across Hugo in real life, both her real and dream worlds are changed forever. Here is the man who has shared all of her incredible adventures in impossible places, who grew up with her, even if they aren't what either one imagined. Their chance encounter begins a cascade of questions, lies, and a dangerous obsession that threatens to topple everything she knows. Is she willing to let go of everything she holds dear to understand their extraordinary connection? And will it lead her to discover who she truly wants to be?

Nathan Garrison

Veiled Empire
Harper Voyager Impulse, May 26, 2015
eBook

The Empire is Shrouded, not only by the barrier that covers the land, but by the lies and oppression of the mierothi regime. Magic is the privilege of the elite, and the people of this shadowed country have forgotten what it means to hope under their rule.

But there are some who would resist, with plans put into motion millennia before. For returned to the Empire is a valynkar, servant of the god of light, and with him come the strength and cunning that could tip the scales to end the Emperor's reign. He has gathered a group of heroes ready to ignite the flame of rebellion and fight against the dark power that has ruled for nearly two thousand years. A power that has champions of its own.

Nathan Garrison's Veiled Empire throws a mythical land into chaos, with races long thought forgotten, and magics only just discovered. Steel and sorcery clash as brave souls vie for freedom and control in this astonishing debut novel.

Sophie Jaff

Love is Red
The Night Song Trilogy 1
Harper, May 12, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 384 pages

Redefining the thriller's tale of the hunter and the hunted, This electrifying, hypnotically beautiful debut spins dark suspense and literary fantasy into a mesmerizing story of survival.

Katherine Emerson was born to fulfill a dark prophecy centuries in the making, but she doesn't know it yet. However, one man does: a killer stalking the women of New York City, a monster the media dubs the "Sickle Man" because of the weapon he uses to turn his victims' bodies into canvases for his twisted art. People think he's the next Son of Sam, but we know how he thinks and how he feels . . . and discover that he is driven by darker, much more dangerous desires than we can bear to imagine. He takes more than just his victims' lives, and each death brings him closer to the one woman he must possess at any cost.

Amid the city's escalating hysteria, Katherine is trying to unknot her tangled heart. Two very different men have entered her previously uneventful world—handsome and personable David, alluring yet aloof Sael—and turned it upside down. She finds herself involved in a complicated triangle . . . but how well does she really know either of them?

Told from the alternating viewpoints of Katherine and the Sickle Man, Sophie Jaff's intoxicating narrative will pull you in and hold you close. As the body count rises, Katherine is haunted by harrowing visions that force her to question her sanity. All she wants is to find love. He just wants to find her.

Ablaze with fear, mystery, and possibility, Love Is Red is the first book in the Night Song trilogy. With this unforgettable novel—one that combines the literary and the supernatural, fantasy and horror, the past and the present—Katherine's moment of awakening is here. And her story is only just beginning.

Brooke Johnson

The Brass Giant
A Chroniker City Story
Harper Voyager Impulse, May 5, 2015
eBook

Sometimes, even the most unlikely person can change the world

Seventeen-year-old Petra Wade, self-taught clockwork engineer, wants nothing more than to become a certified member of the Guild, an impossible dream for a lowly shop girl. Still, she refuses to give up and tinkers with any machine she can get her hands on, in between working and babysitting her foster siblings.

When Emmerich Goss—handsome, privileged, and newly recruited into the Guild—needs help designing a new clockwork system for a top-secret automaton, it seems Petra has finally found the opportunity she's been waiting for. But if her involvement on the project is discovered, Emmerich will be marked for treason, and a far more dire fate will await Petra.

Working together in secret, they build the clockwork giant, but as the deadline for its completion nears, Petra discovers a sinister conspiracy from within the Guild council…and their automaton is just the beginning.

Aer-ki Jyr

Apex
Harper Voyager Impulse, May 12, 2015
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 448 pages

A new dawn is coming.

It's been eons since Humans controlled the universe, after their defeat by a mysterious enemy. With their downfall came a virtual dark age in which culture and technology stagnated. But now trade is once again flourishing as Human artifacts resurface throughout the galaxy, resurrecting long-forgotten advancements.

And one such discovery may very well alter the course of the future forever.

An epic space adventure, Aer-ki Jyr's Apex is a breathless race to the ultimate prize, with the very fate of the stars hanging in the balance.

Renée Knight

Disclaimer
Harper, May 19, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 352 pages

A brilliantly conceived, deeply unsettling psychological thriller— already an international sensation—about a woman haunted by secrets, the consuming desire for revenge, and the terrible price we pay when we try to hide the truth.

Finding a mysterious novel at her bedside plunges documentary filmmaker Catherine Ravenscroft into a living nightmare. Though ostensibly fiction, The Perfect Stranger recreates in vivid, unmistakable detail the terrible day she became hostage to a dark secret, a secret that only one other person knew—and that person is dead.

Now that the past is catching up with her, Catherine’s world is falling apart. Her only hope is to confront what really happened on that awful day . . . even if the shocking truth might destroy her.

Jason LaPier

Unexpected Rain
Harper Voyager (UK), May 7, 2015
eBook, 400 pages

In a domed city on a planet orbiting Barnard's Star, a recently hired maintenance man named Kane has just committed murder.

Minutes later, the airlocks on the neighbourhood block are opened and the murderer is asphyxiated along with thirty-one innocent residents.

Jax, the lowly dome operator on duty at the time, is accused of mass homicide and faced with a mound of impossible evidence against him.

His only ally is Runstom, the rogue police officer charged with transporting him to a secure off-world facility. The pair must risk everything to prove Jax didn’t commit the atrocity and uncover the truth before they both wind up dead.

Kirsty Logan

The Gracekeepers
Crown, May 19, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 320 pages

For readers of The Night Circus and Station Eleven, a lyrical and absorbing debut set in a world covered by water

As a Gracekeeper, Callanish administers shoreside burials, laying the dead to their final resting place deep in the depths of the ocean. Alone on her island, she has exiled herself to a life of tending watery graves as penance for a long-ago mistake that still haunts her. Meanwhile, North works as a circus performer with the Excalibur, a floating troupe of acrobats, clowns, dancers, and trainers who sail from one archipelago to the next, entertaining in exchange for sustenance.

In a world divided between those inhabiting the mainland ("landlockers") and those who float on the sea ("damplings"), loneliness has become a way of life for North and Callanish, until a sudden storm offshore brings change to both their lives--offering them a new understanding of the world they live in and the consequences of the past, while restoring hope in an unexpected future.

Inspired in part by Scottish myths and fairytales, The Gracekeepers tells a modern story of an irreparably changed world: one that harbors the same isolation and sadness, but also joys and marvels of our own age.

K.M. McKinley

The Iron Ship
The Gates of the World 1
Solaris, May 26, 2015
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 672 pages

An incredible epic fantasy begins!

The order of the world is in turmoil. An age of industry is beginning, an age of machines fuelled by magic. Sprawling cities rise, strange devices stalk the land. New money brings new power. The balance between the Hundred Kingdoms is upset. For the first time in generations the threat of war looms.

In these turbulent days, fortunes can be won. Magic runs strong in the Kressind family. Six siblings strive – one to triumph in a world of men, one to survive murderous intrigue, one to master forbidden sorcery, one to wash away his sins, one to contain the terrible energies of his soul.

And one will do the impossible, by marrying the might of magic and iron in the heart of a great ship, to cross an ocean that cannot be crossed.

Susan Murray

The Waterborne Blade
Waterborne 1
Angry Robot Books, May 5, 2015
       (North America Print and eBook)
Mass Market Paperback and eBook,
Cover: Paul Young at Artist Partners

The citadel has long been the stronghold of Highkell. All that is about to change because the traitor, Vasic, is marching on the capital. Against her better judgement, Queen Alwenna allows herself to be spirited away by one of the Crown’s most trusted servants, safe from the clutches of the throne’s would-be usurper.

Fleeing across country, she quickly comes to learn that her pampered existence has ill-equipped her for survival away from the comforts of the court. Alwenna must toughen up, and fast, if she is even to make it to a place of safety. But she has an even loftier aim – for after dreaming of her husband’s impending death, Alwenna knows she must turn around and head back to Highkell to save the land she loves, and the husband who adores her, or die in the attempt.

But Vasic the traitor is waiting. And this was all just as he planned.

File Under: Fantasy

Andrea Phillips

Revision
Fireside Fiction Company, May 5, 2015
Trade Paperback and eBook, 230 pages

Mira is a trust fund baby playing at making it on her own as a Brooklyn barista. When Benji, her tech startup boyfriend, dumps her out of the blue, she decides a little revenge vandalism is in order. Mira updates his entry on Verity, Benji’s Wikipedia-style news aggregator, to say the two have become engaged. Hours later, he shows up at her place with an engagement ring. Chalk it up to coincidence, right?

Soon after, Benji’s long-vanished co-founder Chandra shows up asking for Mira’s help. She claims Verity can nudge unlikely events into really happening — even change someone’s mind. And Chandra insists that Verity — and Mira’s newly minted fiance — can’t be trusted.

Marguerite Reed

Archangel
Archangel 1Arche Press, May 12, 2015
Trade Paperback and eBook, 298 pages

Earth is dying, and we have begun the search for a new home. Our hopes are pinned on Ubastis, an untamed paradise at the edge of colonized space. But such an influx of people threatens the planet’s unstudied ecosystem–before these settlers arrive, a tenuous research colony must complete its essential and desperate analysis, lest humanity abandon one planet only to die on another.

The Ubasti colonists barely get by on their own. To acquire the tools and supplies they truly need, the colonists are relegated to selling whatever they can to outside investors. For xenobiologist Vashti Loren, this means bringing Offworlders on safari to hunt the specimens she and her fellow biologists so desperately need to study.

Haunted by the violent death of her husband, the heroic and celebrated Lasse Undset, Vashti must balance the needs of Ubastis against the swelling crush of would-be settlers. As she negotiates her grief, Vashti struggles in her role as one of the few colonists licensed to carry deadly weapons, just as she struggles with her history of using them. And when she discovers a genetically engineered soldier smuggled onto the surface, Vashti must face the nightmare of her husband’s murder all over again. Vashti must protect herself, her daughter, and all of Ubastis as she is forced to draw alliances with old enemies, re-evaluate old friends, and take planet-wide action against those who threaten her world. Vashti stands at the threshold of humanity’s greatest hope, and she alone understands the darkness of guarding paradise.

Marc Turner

When the Heavens Fall
The Chronicles of the Exile 1
Tor Books, May 19, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 544 pages

If you pick a fight with Shroud, Lord of the Dead, you had better ensure your victory, else death will mark only the beginning of your suffering.

A book giving its wielder power over the dead has been stolen from a fellowship of mages that has kept the powerful relic dormant for centuries. The thief, a crafty, power-hungry necromancer, intends to use the Book of Lost Souls to resurrect an ancient race and challenge Shroud for dominion of the underworld. Shroud counters by sending his most formidable servants to seize the artifact at all cost.

However, the god is not the only one interested in the Book, and a host of other forces converge, drawn by the powerful magic that has been unleashed. Among them is a reluctant Guardian who is commissioned by the Emperor to find the stolen Book, a troubled prince who battles enemies both personal and political, and a young girl of great power, whose past uniquely prepares her for an encounter with Shroud. The greatest threat to each of their quests lies not in the horror of an undead army but in the risk of betrayal from those closest to them. Each of their decisions comes at a personal cost and will not only affect them, but also determine the fate of their entire empire.

The first of an epic swords & sorcery fantasy series, Marc Turner's When the Heavens Fall features gritty characters, deadly magic, and meddlesome gods.

Eli K. P. William

Cash Crash Jubilee
Jubilee Cycle 1
Talos Press, May 5, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 392 pages

A cyber-dystopian world unlike any other

In a near future Tokyo, every action from blinking to sexual intercourse is intellectual property owned by corporations that charge licensing fees. A BodyBank computer system implanted in each citizen records their movements from moment to moment, and connects them to the audio-visual overlay of the ImmaNet, so that every inch of the metropolis crawls with information and shifting cinematic promotainment.

Amon Kenzaki works as a Liquidator for the Global Action Transaction Authority. His job is to capture bankrupt citizens, remove their BodyBank, and banish them to BankDeath Camps where they are forever cut off from the action-transaction economy. Amon always plays by the rules and is steadily climbing the Liquidation Ministry ladder.

With his savings accumulating and another promotion just around the corner, everything seems to be going well, until he is asked to cash crash a charismatic politician and model citizen, and soon after is charged for an incredibly expensive action called "jubilee" that he is sure he never performed. To restore balance to his account, Amon must unravel the secret of jubilee, but quickly finds himself asking dangerous questions about the system to which he's devoted his life, and the costly investigation only drags him closer and closer to the pit of bankruptcy.

In book one of the Jubilee Cycle, Cash Crash Jubilee, debut novelist Eli K. P. William wields the incisive power of speculative fiction to show how, in a world of corporate finance run amok, one man will do everything for the sake of truth and justice.

Marc Turner

When the Heavens Fall
The Chronicles of the Exile 1
Tor Books, May 19, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 544 pages

If you pick a fight with Shroud, Lord of the Dead, you had better ensure your victory, else death will mark only the beginning of your suffering.

A book giving its wielder power over the dead has been stolen from a fellowship of mages that has kept the powerful relic dormant for centuries. The thief, a crafty, power-hungry necromancer, intends to use the Book of Lost Souls to resurrect an ancient race and challenge Shroud for dominion of the underworld. Shroud counters by sending his most formidable servants to seize the artifact at all cost.

However, the god is not the only one interested in the Book, and a host of other forces converge, drawn by the powerful magic that has been unleashed. Among them is a reluctant Guardian who is commissioned by the Emperor to find the stolen Book, a troubled prince who battles enemies both personal and political, and a young girl of great power, whose past uniquely prepares her for an encounter with Shroud. The greatest threat to each of their quests lies not in the horror of an undead army but in the risk of betrayal from those closest to them. Each of their decisions comes at a personal cost and will not only affect them, but also determine the fate of their entire empire.

The first of an epic swords & sorcery fantasy series, Marc Turner's When the Heavens Fall features gritty characters, deadly magic, and meddlesome gods.