The Qwillery

Belt Three
Harper Voyager UK, June 18, 2015
eBook, 400 pages
Trade Paperback, December 2, 2015

Worldbreakers do not think, do not feel and cannot be stopped.

Captain Gabriel Reinhardt’s latest mining mission has been brought to a halt by the arrival of a Worldbreaker, one of the vast alien machines that destroyed Earth and its solar system long ago. As he and his crew flee they are kidnapped by a pirate to be mind-wiped and sold into slavery, a fate worse than death in this shattered universe.

But Captain Reinhardt is hiding a secret. The real Gabriel Reinhardt died six years ago, and in his place is Jonas, one of the millions of clones produced for menial labour by the last descendants of Earth.

Forced to aid the pirate Keldra’s obsessive campaign against the Worldbreakers in exchange for his life, Jonas discovers that humanity’s last hope might just be found in the very machines that have destroyed it.

About John

Photo by David Riley

I honed my writing skills while working in the computer games industry, and still sometimes call my protagonist the ‘player character’ by mistake. I enjoy interesting character drama against a backdrop of hard science fiction, and that’s what I aim to write. Outside of writing, my interests include computer games, tabletop roleplaying games, and going to the opera. I currently live in Vancouver, Canada.

Website  ~  Twitter @johnayliff  ~  Facebook

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

John:  Thanks, it's good to be here! I've been writing most of my life and I can't remember the point at which I started. Let's just say that my first SF stories were about a spaceship called simply the Falcon, because I didn't know what "millennium" meant or how to spell it! I've been writing with the serious goal of getting published for about fifteen years. The first story I submitted to a magazine (British SF magazine Interzone) received a personal, hand-written rejection slip, which I found enormously encouraging.



TQ:  What is the most challenging thing for you about writing? Are you a plotter or a pantser?

John:  As I've developed as a writer I've become more and more of a plotter. I can't start something without knowing at least roughly where it's going to go--although I'm very likely to rewrite my plan entirely before each new draft. I think the most challenging thing for me is overcoming the fabled "inner editor" in order to write the bad first draft that needs to happen before the decent second or fourth or eighth draft.



TQ:  You've worked in the computer games industry. How does this affect (or not) your prose writing?

John:  The writing I did in the games industry was for a game in which the main character is heavily customisable by the player, which meant I wrote them as a blank slate onto which the player could project their own personality. When I wrote Belt Three, I found this habit hard to break: for the whole first draft, my point-of-view character was kind of flat, less interesting than the characters around him. It took until part way through my second draft before I really worked out who my main character was and re-wrote the novel around that.

The games industry taught me some useful habits as well. When I'm writing I like to think in terms of game mechanics: what interesting abilities do the characters have, and how can they solve problems by using those abilities in clever ways? So, for example, the main character (as I eventually developed him) is very good at reading people and finding the best things to say to manipulate them. The other major character isn't good with people but is a genius engineer, so she'll approach the same problems using a different set of skills.



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

John:  My first favourite author, the one who got me interested in science fiction, was Isaac Asimov; his style influenced me greatly, including in ways that I've later tried to un-learn as I developed my own style. A couple of favourite authors from more recent years are Alastair Reynolds and Stephen Baxter. I try to read widely within my genre and don't really have a list of favourites, though.



TQ:  Describe Belt Three in 140 characters or less.

John:  A grieving identity thief is kidnapped by a space pirate, who makes him join her futile crusade against the robots that destroyed Earth.



TQ:  Tell us something about Belt Three that is not in the book description.

John:  Although it doesn't look like a typical one, Belt Three is really a post-apocalyptic novel. The Earth has been destroyed by alien 'Worldbreakers'; they have already won, and all people can hope for is to survive in the wreckage. The Worldbreakers are more like a natural disaster than an invading force: they're dumb and predictable but have destroyed Earth due to sheer power and numbers. This means that rather than being a story of humanity versus the Worldbreakers, it's a story about how humanity is surviving in the wreckage and the kind of society they've built there. For most of the novel the conflict is between human characters and the Worldbreakers are part of the backdrop.



TQ:  What inspired you to write Belt Three? What appealed to you about writing SF? Is Belt Three Hard SF?

John:  Belt Three started out because I saw a prompt to write a story about a female pirate, whom I decided to make a space pirate who was obsessively hunting alien robots. When I showed it my writing group, some of them said it read more like the start of a novel than like a short story, so I kept writing.

SF is the genre I most love to read, so it's where I have most of my ideas and it's the only genre in which I think I'm experienced enough to write. I love hard SF, and I tried to give Belt Three a hard-SF sensibility, not because I think hard SF is always better but because I thought it was what was appropriate for the story I wanted to tell. I wanted the Belt Three setting, in which people are hanging on to existence on asteroid colonies after the planets have been destroyed, to feel like a difficult and unnatural place for people to live, so I avoided soft-SF comforts such as artificial gravity and faster-than-light drives. Want gravity? You'll have to spin up your ship or habitat--which ended up having interesting implications for culture, because I realised that gravity close to Earth's would be healthier and therefore a marker of higher social class. Want to get somewhere? You'll be doing so slowly, according to real orbital mechanics. With the Worldbreakers I took more liberties, since they're meant to be products of a technology far in advance of our own, but even then I tried to make sure nothing they did was impossible: they can't create something from nothing and they can't travel faster than light. Belt Three isn't the sort of hard-SF novel that makes scientific details at the focus, though. The hard-SF setting is a backdrop for a character-driven story.



TQ:  What sort of research did you do for Belt Three?

John:  As much as I like the mental image of a writer buried deep in a public library, most of my research was online. Being a writer in the age of the internet makes simple research questions so much quicker to answer. Can you use a solar sail to move closer to the sun? Yes, hence the references in the book to "tacking against orbit". Can a conventional gun fire while in a vacuum? Contrary to that Firefly episode, probably yes, hence one character keeps firing after falling out of an airlock.



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

John:  The book has two main characters, Jonas and Keldra, and I think they were the hardest and easiest characters to write. Jonas was the one who was initially a bit flat, and the little personality he had was so unsympathetic as to put off my beta-readers. Half way through my second draft I stopped and invented a new backstory and personality for him and rewrote the book with that in mind. This new backstory also included scenes that I found quite difficult to write, but I decided I had to go where my story logic was taking me so I stuck with it. Keldra, on the other hand, seemed to spring from the page fully-formed in my first draft--I fleshed her out, but I didn't change her central concept--and writing her was both easy and fun.



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

John:  Wow, this is a good question. I can't think of anything major I want to reveal, so I will go for something more whimsical:

Q: Do you use any special techniques to visualise your characters?

A: I have been known to spend ages at the character-creation stage of a computer RPG, trying to recreate a character's appearance...then play through the whole game roleplaying as that character. Not that I count this as time spent writing!



TQ:  Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery lines from Belt Three.

John:  I'm quite proud of this one-sentence character description:

"Her facial tattoos were neon-blue today."


And here's something a little more lyrical:

"Here at the heart of the solar system Keldra had found the last real clouds, and they were clouds of fire."



TQ:  What's next?

John:  Belt Three is a standalone novel, but I don't intend it to be my only novel. I think you'll see more novels and short stories from me in the future.



TQ:  Thank you for joining us at The Qwillery.

John:  Thank you for having me!

Belt Three
Harper Voyager UK, June 18, 2015
eBook, 400 pages
Trade Paperback, December 2, 2015

Worldbreakers do not think, do not feel and cannot be stopped.

Captain Gabriel Reinhardt’s latest mining mission has been brought to a halt by the arrival of a Worldbreaker, one of the vast alien machines that destroyed Earth and its solar system long ago. As he and his crew flee they are kidnapped by a pirate to be mind-wiped and sold into slavery, a fate worse than death in this shattered universe.

But Captain Reinhardt is hiding a secret. The real Gabriel Reinhardt died six years ago, and in his place is Jonas, one of the millions of clones produced for menial labour by the last descendants of Earth.

Forced to aid the pirate Keldra’s obsessive campaign against the Worldbreakers in exchange for his life, Jonas discovers that humanity’s last hope might just be found in the very machines that have destroyed it.

About John

Photo by David Riley

I honed my writing skills while working in the computer games industry, and still sometimes call my protagonist the ‘player character’ by mistake. I enjoy interesting character drama against a backdrop of hard science fiction, and that’s what I aim to write. Outside of writing, my interests include computer games, tabletop roleplaying games, and going to the opera. I currently live in Vancouver, Canada.

Website  ~  Twitter @johnayliff  ~  Facebook

Cover by John Coulthart

Cover by Amazing15

Happy Monday! Hope everyone had time to do some reading or at least have fun this past weekend.

It's a light release week, but there are 3 debuts: two Contemporary Fantasies and a Science Fiction novel.

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins;

The War Against the Assholes by Sam Munson;

and

Belt Three by John Ayliff.


From formerly featured Debut Author Challenge authors:

Forged: A Cold Iron eBook Set (Cold Iron 1 - 3) by D.L. McDermott;

and

Pure Blooded (Jessica McClain 5) by Amanda Carlson.

June 15, 2015

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Bliss House (h2tp)	Laura Benedict	Gh
Winchester: Over (print)	Dave Lund	H - Winchester Undead 1
Forged: A Cold Iron eBook Set (e)	D.L. McDermott	PNR - Cold Iron 1 - 3
The Reincarnationist (e)	M. J. Rose	Th - Reincarnationist 1
Twilight Phantasies (e)	Maggie Shayne	PNR - Wings in the Night 1

June 16, 2015

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Yarrick: Imperial Creed	David Annandale	SF - Warhammer 40,000: Commissar Yarrick 2
Broken Monsters (h2tp)	Lauren Beukes	M
Pure Blooded	Amanda Carlson	CF - Jessica McClain 5
Hunters in the Dark	Peter David	SF - Halo 15
Beyond Redemption	Michael R. Fletcher	F
Gene Mapper	Taiyo Fujii	SF
Soul Scorched: Part 2 (e)	Donna Grant	PNR - Dark Kings
Duncan's Descent: A Demon's Desire (e)	Marie Harte	PNR - Ethereal Foes 2
The Library at Mount Char (D)	Scott Hawkins	CF
The Liminal War	Ayize Jama-Everett	SF
Poor Man's Fight	Elliott Kay	SF - Poor Man's Fight 1
The War Against the Assholes (D)	Sam Munson	CF
The Two of Swords: Part Five	K. J. Parker	HistF - Two of Swords
The End of All Things #2: This Hollow Union: The End of All Things	John Scalzi	SF - Old Man's War
Echopraxia (h2tp)	Peter Watts	SF - Blindsight 2
The Devil's Only Friend (h2tp)	Dan Wells	M - John Cleaver 4

June 17, 2015

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Fabulous Beasts: A Tor.Com Short Story (e)	Priya Sharma	H

June 18, 2015

TITLE	AUTHOR	SERIES
Belt Three (D)(e)	John Ayliff	SF
Otherworldly Politics: The International Relations of Star Trek, Game of Thrones, and Battlestar Galactica	Stephen Benedict Dyson	PolSci
Singer of Death (e)	Shona Husk	PNR - Court of Annwyn 5

D - Debut
e - eBook
h2tp - Hardcover to Trade Paperback


CF - Contemporary Fantasy
Gh - Ghosts
H - Horror
HistF - Historical Fantasy
M - Mystery
PolSci - Political Science
PNR - Paranormal Romance
SF - Science Fiction

John Ayliff

Belt Three
Harper Voyager (UK), June 18, 2015
eBook, 400 pages
Trade Paperback, December 2, 2015

Worldbreakers do not think, do not feel and cannot be stopped.

Captain Gabriel Reinhardt’s latest mining mission has been brought to a halt by the arrival of a Worldbreaker, one of the vast alien machines that destroyed Earth and its solar system long ago. As he and his crew flee they are kidnapped by a pirate to be mind-wiped and sold into slavery, a fate worse than death in this shattered universe.

But Captain Reinhardt is hiding a secret. The real Gabriel Reinhardt died six years ago, and in his place is Jonas, one of the millions of clones produced for menial labour by the last descendants of Earth.

Forced to aid the pirate Keldra’s obsessive campaign against the Worldbreakers in exchange for his life, Jonas discovers that humanity’s last hope might just be found in the very machines that have destroyed it.

Ishbelle Bee

The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath
From the Peculiar Adventures of John Loveheart, Esq., Volume 1
Angry Robot Books, June 30, 2015 (North America and eBook)
     June 4, 2015 (UK Print)
Trade Paperback and eBook

1888. A little girl called Mirror and her extraordinary shape-shifting guardian Goliath Honeyflower are washed up on the shores of Victorian England. Something has been wrong with Mirror since the day her grandfather locked her inside a mysterious clock that was painted all over with ladybirds. Mirror does not know what she is, but she knows she is no longer human.

John Loveheart, meanwhile, was not born wicked. But after the sinister death of his parents, he was taken by Mr Fingers, the demon lord of the underworld. Some say he is mad. John would be inclined to agree.

Now Mr Fingers is determined to find the little girl called Mirror, whose flesh he intends to eat, and whose soul is the key to his eternal reign. And John Loveheart has been called by his otherworldly father to help him track Mirror down…

An extraordinary dark fairytale for adults, for fans of Catherine Valente and Neil Gaiman.

File Under: Fantasy

Tamara Dietrich

The Hummingbird's Cage
NAL, June 2, 2015
Trade Paperback and eBook, 352 pages

A dazzling debut novel about taking chances, finding hope, and learning to stand up for your dreams…

Everyone in Wheeler, New Mexico, thinks Joanna leads the perfect life: the quiet, contented housewife of a dashing deputy sheriff, raising a beautiful young daughter, Laurel. But Joanna’s reality is nothing like her facade. Behind closed doors, she lives in constant fear of her husband. She’s been trapped for so long, escape seems impossible—until a stranger offers her the help she needs to flee….

On the run, Joanna and Laurel stumble upon the small town of Morro, a charming and magical village that seems to exist out of time and place. There a farmer and his wife offer her sanctuary, and soon, between the comfort of her new home and blossoming friendships, Joanna’s soul begins to heal, easing the wounds of a decade of abuse.

But her past—and her husband—aren’t so easy to escape. Unwilling to live in fear any longer, Joanna must summon a strength she never knew she had to fight back and forge a new life for her daughter and herself….

S. K. Dunstall

Linesman
Linesman 1
Ace, June 30, 2015
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 384 pages

First in a brand new thought-provoking science fiction series.

The lines. No ship can traverse the void without them. Only linesmen can work with them. But only Ean Lambert hears their song. And everyone thinks he’s crazy…

Most slum kids never go far, certainly not becoming a level-ten linesman like Ean. Even if he’s part of a small, and unethical, cartel, and the other linesmen disdain his self-taught methods, he’s certified and working.

Then a mysterious alien ship is discovered at the edges of the galaxy. Each of the major galactic powers is desperate to be the first to uncover the ship’s secrets, but all they’ve learned is that it has the familiar lines of energy—and a defense system that, once triggered, annihilates everything in a 200 kilometer radius.

The vessel threatens any linesman who dares to approach it, except Ean. His unique talents may be the key to understanding this alarming new force—and reconfiguring the relationship between humans and the ships that serve them, forever.

Judith Fertig

The Cake Therapist
Berkley, June 2, 2015
Trade Paperback and eBook, 304 pages
(Fiction Debut)

A fiction debut that will leave you wanting seconds, from an award-winning cookbook author.

Claire “Neely” O’Neil is a pastry chef of extraordinary talent. Every great chef can taste shimmering, elusive flavors that most of us miss, but Neely can “taste” feelings—cinnamon makes you remember; plum is pleased with itself; orange is a wake-up call. When flavor and feeling give Neely a glimpse of someone’s inner self, she can customize her creations to help that person celebrate love, overcome fear, even mourn a devastating loss.

Maybe that’s why she feels the need to go home to Millcreek Valley at a time when her life seems about to fall apart. The bakery she opens in her hometown is perfect, intimate, just what she’s always dreamed of—and yet, as she meets her new customers, Neely has a sense of secrets, some dark, some perhaps with tempting possibilities. A recurring flavor of alarming intensity signals to her perfect palate a long-ago story that must be told.

Neely has always been able to help everyone else. Getting to the end of this story may be just what she needs to help herself.

Margaret Fortune

Nova
DAW, June 2, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 320 Pages

*36:00:00*

The clock activates so suddenly in my mind, my head involuntarily jerks a bit to the side. The fog vanishes, dissipated in an instant as though it never was. Memories come slotting into place, their edges sharp enough to leave furrows, and suddenly I know. I know exactly who I am.

My name is Lia Johansen, and I was named for a prisoner of war. She lived in the Tiersten Internment Colony for two years, and when they negotiated the return of the prisoners, I was given her memories and sent back in her place.

And I am a genetically engineered human bomb.

Lia Johansen was created for only one purpose: to slip onto the strategically placed New Sol Space Station and explode. But her mission goes to hell when her clock malfunctions, freezing her countdown with just two minutes to go. With no Plan B, no memories of her past, and no identity besides a name stolen from a dead POW, Lia has no idea what to do next. Her life gets even more complicated when she meets Michael Sorenson, the real Lia’s childhood best friend.

Drawn to Michael and his family against her better judgment, Lia starts learning what it means to live and love, and to be human. It is only when her countdown clock begins sporadically losing time that she realizes even duds can still blow up. If she wants any chance at a future, she must find a way to unlock the secrets of her past and stop her clock. But as Lia digs into her origins, she begins to suspect there’s far more to her mission and to this war, than meets the eye. With the fate of not just a space station but an entire empire hanging in the balance, Lia races to find the truth before her time—literally—runs out.

Scott Hawkins

The Library at Mount Char
Crown, June 16, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 400 pages

A missing God.
A library with the secrets to the universe.
A woman too busy to notice her heart slipping away.

Carolyn's not so different from the other people around her. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. Clothes are a bit tricky, but everyone says nice things about her outfit with the Christmas sweater over the gold bicycle shorts.

After all, she was a normal American herself once.

That was a long time ago, of course. Before her parents died. Before she and the others were taken in by the man they called Father.

In the years since then, Carolyn hasn't had a chance to get out much. Instead, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father's ancient customs. They've studied the books in his Library and learned some of the secrets of his power. And sometimes, they've wondered if their cruel tutor might secretly be God.

Now, Father is missing—perhaps even dead—and the Library that holds his secrets stands unguarded. And with it, control over all of creation.

As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her, all of them with powers that far exceed her own.

But Carolyn has accounted for this.

And Carolyn has a plan.

The only trouble is that in the war to make a new God, she's forgotten to protect the things that make her human.

Populated by an unforgettable cast of characters and propelled by a plot that will shock you again and again, The Library at Mount Char is at once horrifying and hilarious, mind-blowingly alien and heartbreakingly human, sweepingly visionary and nail-bitingly thrilling—and signals the arrival of a major new voice in fantasy.

Alyc Helms

The Dragons of Heaven
Dragons of Heaven 1
Angry Robot Books, June 30, 2015
     (North America Print and eBook)
   June 4, 2015 (UK Print)
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 512 pages
Cover by Amazing15

Would you deal with the devil to save the world?

Street magician Missy Masters inherited more than the usual genetic cocktail from her estranged grandfather – she also got his preternatural control of shadow and his legacy as the vigilante hero, Mr Mystic. Problem is, being a pulp hero takes more than a good fedora and a knack for witty banter, and Missy lacks the one thing Mr. Mystic had: experience. Determined to live up to her birthright, Missy journeys to China to seek the aid of Lung Huang, the ancient master who once guided her grandfather.

Lung Huang isn’t quite as ancient as Missy expected, and she finds herself embroiled in the politics of Lung Huang and his siblings, the nine dragon-guardians of creation. When Lung Di, Lung Huang’s brother and mortal enemy, raises a magical barrier that cuts off China from the rest of the world, it falls to the new Mr Mystic to prove herself by taking down the barrier. But is it too great a task for a lone adventure hero?

File Under: Fantasy [ Sins of the Grandfather / Missy and Master / Geek Fu / Little Trouble in Big China ]

P J Manney

(R)EVOLUTION
Phoenix Horizon 1
47North, June 1, 2015
Trade Paperback and Kindle eBook, 544 pages

Scientist Peter Bernhardt has dedicated his life to nanotechnology, the science of manipulating matter on the atomic scale. As the founder of Biogineers, he is on the cusp of revolutionizing brain therapies with microscopic nanorobots that will make certain degenerative diseases become a thing of the past. But after his research is stolen by an unknown enemy, seventy thousand people die in Las Vegas in one abominable moment. No one is more horrified than Peter, as this catastrophe sets in motion events that will forever change not only his life but also the course of human evolution.

Peter’s company is torn from his grasp as the public clamors for his blood. Desperate, he turns to an old friend, who introduces him to the Phoenix Club, a cabal of the most powerful people in the world. To make himself more valuable to his new colleagues, Peter infuses his brain with experimental technology, exponentially upgrading his mental prowess and transforming him irrevocably.

As he’s exposed to unimaginable wealth and influence, Peter’s sense of reality begins to unravel. Do the club members want to help him, or do they just want to claim his technology? What will they do to him once they have their prize? And while he’s already evolved beyond mere humanity, is he advanced enough to take on such formidable enemies and win?

Sam Munson

The War Against the Assholes
Saga Press, June 16, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 352 pages
(Debut Fantasy)

Contemporary fantasy meets true crime when schools of ancient sorcery go up against the art of the long con in this stunningly entertaining debut fantasy novel.

Mike Wood is satisfied just being a guy with broad shoulders at a decidedly unprestigious Catholic school in Manhattan. But on the dirty streets of New York City he’s an everyman with a moral code who is unafraid of violence. And when Mike is unwittingly recruited into a secret cell of magicians by a fellow student, Mike’s role as a steadfast soldier begins. These magicians don’t use ritualized rote to work their magic, they use willpower in their clandestine war with the establishment: The Assholes.

Erika Swyler

The Book of Speculation
St. Martin's Press, June 23, 2015
Hardcover and eBook, 352 pages
(Includes 13 illustrations throughout)

"Dazzling...[a] quirky, raucous, and bewitching family saga." --Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants

Simon Watson, a young librarian, lives alone in a house that is slowly crumbling toward the Long Island Sound. His parents are long dead. His mother, a circus mermaid who made her living by holding her breath, drowned in the very water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, ran off six years ago and now reads tarot cards for a traveling carnival.

One June day, an old book arrives on Simon's doorstep, sent by an antiquarian bookseller who purchased it on speculation. Fragile and water damaged, the book is a log from the owner of a traveling carnival in the 1700s, who reports strange and magical things, including the drowning death of a circus mermaid. Since then, generations of "mermaids" in Simon's family have drowned--always on July 24, which is only weeks away.

As his friend Alice looks on with alarm, Simon becomes increasingly worried about his sister. Could there be a curse on Simon's family? What does it have to do with the book, and can he get to the heart of the mystery in time to save Enola?

In the tradition of Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, and Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, The Book of Speculation--with two-color illustrations by the author--is Erika Swyler's moving debut novel about the power of books, family, and magic.

John Ayliff

Belt Three
Harper Voyager (UK), June 18, 2015
eBook, 400 pages
Trade Paperback, December 2, 2015

Worldbreakers do not think, do not feel and cannot be stopped.

Captain Gabriel Reinhardt’s latest mining mission has been brought to a halt by the arrival of a Worldbreaker, one of the vast alien machines that destroyed Earth and its solar system long ago. As he and his crew flee they are kidnapped by a pirate to be mind-wiped and sold into slavery, a fate worse than death in this shattered universe.

But Captain Reinhardt is hiding a secret. The real Gabriel Reinhardt died six years ago, and in his place is Jonas, one of the millions of clones produced for menial labour by the last descendants of Earth.

Forced to aid the pirate Keldra’s obsessive campaign against the Worldbreakers in exchange for his life, Jonas discovers that humanity’s last hope might just be found in the very machines that have destroyed it.