SFFWorld & SF Signal Round-up: Moon, Edwards, and McCarthy plus Links!

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had some new content posted; two reviews to SFFWorld and my regular (as it turns out twice-per-month) Completist column at SF Signal. I’ll start with the oldest (if a week ago can be considered “oldest”) first and my review of Elizabeth Moon’s Echoes of Betrayal. I returned to her fiction earlier this year after not having read anything from her in a few years, for reasons I can’t fully explain and I feel somewhat bad for that because I’ve connected with everything I’ve read from here. This third installment of her Paladin’s Legacy series is no exception

Moon begins the tale with the thief Arvid Semminson a jail cell. That setting doesn’t last long as he and his gnome companion Dattur escape. Arvid was the enforcer of the Thieves Guild, but was betrayed by them which led to his incarceration. As much as the novel focuses on Kieri and Dorrin, perhaps Arvid undergoes the greatest change and character development over the course of the novel. Soon after Arvid escapes, he assumes the identity of a merchant, all the while searching for a lost necklace from Dorrin’s crown and jewel set. Dattur is his constant companion, a result of the gnome thinking he owes Arvid a life debt. Arvid begins hearing a voice in his head that he comes to realize is Saint Gird. Arvid does not consider himself a good person or a religious person, after all he spent much of his life as a thief and an enforcer for thieves, so much of his narrative journey in Echoes of Betrayal is an examination of his past and the struggle to redeem himself, even if such a word or change is never fully admitted or quantified. Moon captures the internal struggle Arvid is going through at this juncture in his life, he’s fighting against himself, who he was and who he wishes to become.

…

I’ve had this book for a couple of years and just never got around to reading it, as such, the last time I ventured into the series was with the second book, Kings of the North, nearly three years ago. Because of this, the longer I waited to read Echoes of Betrayal, the more trepidation I felt picking it up. I wasn’t sure how much I would remember from the previous installment or how easily I would slip into the world and narrative. I shouldn’t have worried nearly as much. The names began ringing bells as did their plight and Moon’s narrative connects with me so well that I was soon right beside Arvid, Kieri and the other characters during their plights/journeys.

Earlier this week, I posted my review of a book that took me by surprise. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected (and the premise looked enjoyable). The mystery couched in a historical/mythic setting Talus and the Frozen King by Graham Edwards: 

Edwards works with a very straight-forward mystery structure, murder, investigation, solution, but what happens between those pillars of the structure make for a very entertaining read. The island of Creyak through the absolute rule of Hashath, has all but cut itself off from the world, shrouding itself in privacy and superstition. Now that the king is dead, his eldest son is in line for the throne. Of course, things are not that easy. Tharn, the king-to-be, is at first very untrusting of Talus and Bran considering their arrival coincided with the king’s death.

...

Part of what makes a good mystery enjoyable are the characters because frankly, going in, the reader pretty much knows the mystery will be solved when the book is finished. In the case of Talus and the Frozen King, I thought Talus and Bran were both engaging characters who had a deep past that was hinted at from the start, but in the case of Talus, becomes only minimally clear by novel’s end. The people of Creyak felt genuine and the king-to-be Tharn stood out as a man torn between duty to his people’s traditions and how he wants the village to live on in the future.

Yesterday, my Completist column featured a superb, recently completed Military SF trilogy, The Subterrene War by T.C. McCarthy:

While I haven’t read every Military SF novel out on the shelves, I’ve read my fair share and nothing I’ve read in the subgenre feels so filthy, dirty and uncomfortable as do these books by McCarthy. McCarthy is, after all, telling a story of war and nothing is spared – the death, the blood, the sickness, even the pure discomfort of having what is essentially power armor which includes a system to get rid of personal waste – there’s the rawness, and that is merely one fraction of it. Some people may consider disjointed a negative comment, but here, the disjointed feeling of the narrative is, I gather, completely intentional on McCarthy’s part.

...

McCarthy’s claustrophobic feel extends to personal freedoms. When ‘out’ of the theater of war, at home, or in civilian life, Stan, like all citizens, is constantly monitored. He is unable to have any private discussion with his estranged wife and only when he is in the deepest, least civilized sections of the jungles does Stan come close to feeling unsurveilled. This ratchets-up the paranoia level and lack of privacy that pervades the narrative.

Also at SF Signal:

• Two Military SF podcasts over the past few weeks 
• A podcast interview with Joe Haldeman
• A new Three Hoarsemen podcast!
• Paul Weimer's Mind Meld featuring characthers with whom you'd like to share drink
• Kristen Centorcelli (MyBookishWays) review of Tim Lebbon's Coldbrook

SFFWorld Author Roundtable featuring James K. Decker, Hugh Howey, and T.C. McCarthy

The SFFWorld Author Roundtable discussion has returned!  The latest version of this series of forum threads is our first one to feature Science Fiction authors. (All the past Roundtables have featured Fantasy authors).

As the title of this blog post implies, this Roundtable features James K. Decker (The Burn Zone and The Revivors Trilogy including State of Decay under the name James Knapp, my interview with him), Hugh Howey (Wool, Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue), and T.C. McCarthy (The Subterrene War Trilogy - Germline, Exogene, and Chimera)


Go chat it up with these three fine Science Fiction authors:
http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?40967-Authors-of-the-Roundtable-Hugh-Howey-T-C-McCarthy-James-K-Decker-Knapp

SFFWorld Review Round up - Stephen King, T.C. McCarthy, and Seth Patrick

We've got some new reviews over at the SFFWorld Blog!  Two from Mark, one from me. I'll do this alphabetically by author last name, which leads us to Mark's review of Joyland by the great Stephen King:

By using evocative language and vivid imagery on the cover (shocked red-headed girl in a green outfit), Stephen’s made sure that readers are aware that it’s a pastiche. It’s meant to have the tone and physical properties of a cheap pulp novel from the 1950’s, although as it’s from Stephen, the style and intelligence of the plot elevate it a little from those potboilers of yesteryear.

With such elements in mind, the plot’s pretty simple. It’s a coming of age tale, a story of a young man (Devin Jones), with a broken heart, who takes on a summer vacation job in Heaven’s Bay at a rather seedy and run-down amusement park called Joyland. There’s an old tale of murder (for what old Amusement Park doesn’t have a tale of murder in its shadows?), and Devin has to deal with some hard and deep life-truths along the way. There’s also a touch of psychic prediction - “There’s a shadow over you”, the fortune teller Madame Fortuna tells Devin – which is reminiscent of other King tales, although much of the beginning of the book is Devin working through the summer, learning the carny ‘Talk’, nursing his destroyed ego and making new friends before deciding that he likes the carny life. He decides to stop on instead of going to college, which means that he stays at Joyland after the main summer season, as the park begins to wind down to season closure and refurbishment.

Yesterday, I reviewed Chimera, the concluding installment of T.C. McCarthy's superb Military Science Fiction series, The Subterrene War:

Bleak, dirty, confined, stressful, uncomfortable… these words only begin to hint at the type of story McCarthy tells in Chimera, the concluding volume of the trilogy. Keeping these rather unpleasant themes together was the compelling power of McCarthy’s narrative. In Chimera, Stan is our first person narrator and the angst he feels throughout the novel is palpable. He resents his wife, he initially blames himself for his old partner’s death, and he hates the germline soldiers (genetically engineered super soldiers) most of all. Stan immediately dislikes his new partner whom who Stan gives a racially derogatory nickname/callsign of Chong. About the only characters with which he gets along are his wife’s son (who is the result of an affair with a nameless man from the factory where the genetically engineered soldiers are created) and the artificial intelligence housed in his body armor, Kristen.

When ‘out’ of the theater of war, at home, or in civilian life, Stan, like all citizens, is constantly monitored. He is unable to have any private discussion with his estranged wife and only when he is in the deepest, least civilized sections of the jungles does Stan come close to feeling unsurveilled. This ratchets up the paranoia level and the theme of no privacy is something the great Philip K. Dick returned to often in his fiction.

Over the weekend, Mark posted his review of Seth Patrick's debut, Reviver, one of the best debuts he's read in a while:

Wow. I wasn’t expecting this one to be that good. But it draws you in from the rather visceral and very chilling first chapter. Reading like a TV series script (and admittedly, it would make a great TV series), the reader is soon getting to know Jonah, his soon-to-be-retiring boss, Sam Deering, Jonah’s reviver colleagues and his friends as he tries to uncover the big conspiracy. They develop into characters the reader is interested in and then concerned about, using the idea of ‘What-if?’ and applying it to the logical consequences within a contemporary time-frame. It’s fast, surprisingly accessible and easy to read, and was a difficult-to-put-down novel in the first thirty pages. Whilst the ideas aren’t that new, the way they’re written is engaging and exciting. Most of all, the majority of the decisions the characters make and the actions they take are sensible and logical, although it does go a little ‘action-hero’ at the end.

This one really worked for me. The set-up’s great, the characters are likeable and easily differentiated. Though we do drag in the odd cliché along the way, there’s enough new revelation as well to make the story work.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2012-08-04)

A mixed bag of novels this week, with a good handful of Del Rey’s August 2012 releases arriving this week.


Wards of Faerie (The Dark Legacy of Shannara) by Terry Brooks (Del Rey Hardcover 8/21/2012) – I’ll repeat my little mantra about Brooks from previous times I’ve received his books: I find him a frustrating writer in that I like the concepts of what he wants to do, but my reading sensibilities don't always agree with his execution of those concepts. I really enjoyed The Scions of Shannara when I read it and think Brooks is one of the most important fantasy writers of the last 25-30 years. Every handful of novels I give Mr. Brooks another try and I think this will be the one.

Seven years after the conclusion of the High Druid of Shannara trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Terry Brooks at last revisits one of the most popular eras in the legendary epic fantasy series that has spellbound readers for more than three decades.

When the world was young, and its name was Faerie, the power of magic ruled—and the Elfstones warded the race of Elves and their lands, keeping evil at bay. But when an Elven girl fell hopelessly in love with a Darkling boy of the Void, he carried away more than her heart.

Thousands of years later, tumultuous times are upon the world now known as the Four Lands. Users of magic are in conflict with proponents of science. Elves have distanced their society from the other races. The dwindling Druid order and its teachings are threatened with extinction. A sinister politician has used treachery and murder to rise as prime minister of the mighty Federation. Meanwhile, poring through a long-forgotten diary, the young Druid Aphenglow Elessedil has stumbled upon the secret account of an Elven girl’s heartbreak and the shocking truth about the vanished Elfstones. But never has a little knowledge been so very dangerous—as Aphenglow quickly learns when she’s set upon by assassins.

Yet there can be no turning back from the road to which fate has steered her. For whoever captures the Elfstones and their untold powers will surely hold the advantage in the devastating clash to come. But Aphenglow and her allies—Druids, Elves, and humans alike—remember the monstrous history of the Demon War, and they know that the Four Lands will never survive another reign of darkness. But whether they themselves can survive the attempt to stem that tide is another question entirely.


Fable: Edge of the World by Christie Golden (Del Rey, Trade Paperback 08/21/2012) – Golden has been penning tie-in/franchise novels for years with good results. The Fable franchise switches to Del Rey (from Penguin) with this novel.

The official prequel novel to the Xbox 360 videogame, Fable:™ The Journey

It’s been almost a decade since the events of Fable 3, when the Hero vanquished the threat across the sea and claimed his throne. As king he led Albion to an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity. But on the night of his wedding to his new queen, ominous word arrives: The darkness has returned.

Beyond a harrowing mountain pass, the exotic desert country Samarkand has been overrun by shadowy forces. Within the walls of its capital city, a mysterious usurper known only as the Empress has seized control. To protect his realm, the king must lead his most trusted allies into a strange land unknown to outsiders. As they forge ahead along Samarkand’s ancient Great Road, populated by undead terrors and fantastic creatures once believed to be the stuff of legend, the king is drawn ever closer to his greatest challenge yet.



Chimera (The Subterrene War #3) by T. C. McCarthy (Orbit, Mass Market Paperback 07/31/2012) – McCarthy’s debut and the first in this series, Germline was excellent which was followed up in impressive fashion with Exogene so I’m really looking forward to reading how he finishes off the trilogy.  These Military SF novels are perhaps the the most realistic in their depiction of a near future war..


Escaped Germline soldiers need to be cleaned up, and Stan Resnick is the best man for the job. A job that takes him to every dark spot and every rat hole he can find.
Operatives from China and Unified Korea are gathering escaped or stolen Russian and American genetics, and there are reports of new biological nightmares: half-human things, bred to live their entire lives encased in powered armor suits.

Stan fights to keep himself alive and out of prison while he attempts to capture a genetic, one who will be able to tell them everything they need to know about this new threat, the one called "Project Sunshine."

Chimera is the third and final volume of The Subterrene War Trilogy which tells the story of a single war from the perspective of three different combatants. The first two volumes GERMLINE and EXOGENE are available now.



Fate of Worlds by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner (Tor, Hardcover 08/22/2012) – I really enjoyed Fleet of Worlds, the first of this Ringworld prequel series, but was very disappointed by the second book Juggler of Worlds and three books later, I haven’t continued with the series. This book; however, looks to tie up EVERYTHING in the Ringworld saga.


For decades, the spacefaring species of Known Space have battled over the largest artifact—and grandest prize—in the galaxy: the all-but-limitless resources and technology of the Ringworld. But without warning the Ringworld has vanished, leaving behind three rival war fleets.

Something must justify the blood and treasure that have been spent. If the fallen civilization of the Ringworld can no longer be despoiled of its secrets, the Puppeteers will be forced to surrender theirs. Everyone knows that the Puppeteers are cowards.

But the crises converging upon the trillion Puppeteers of the Fleet of Worlds go far beyond even the onrushing armadas:

Adventurer Louis Wu and the exiled Puppeteer known only as Hindmost, marooned together for more than a decade, escaped from the Ringworld before it disappeared. And throughout those years, as he studied Ringworld technology, Hindmost has plotted to reclaim his power …

Ol’t’ro, the Gw’oth ensemble mind—and the Fleet of World’s unsuspected puppet master for a century—is deviously brilliant. And, increasingly unbalanced …

Proteus, the artificial intelligence on which—in desperation—the Puppeteers rely to manage their defenses, is outgrowing its programming. And the supposed constraints on its initiative …

Sigmund Ausfaller, paranoid and disgraced hero of the lost human colony of New Terra, knows that something threatens his adopted home world. And that it must be stopped …

Achilles, the megalomaniac Puppeteer, twice banished—and twice rehabilitated—sees the Fleet of World’s existential crisis as a new opportunity to reclaim supreme power. Whatever the risks …

One way or another, the fabled race of Puppeteers may have come to the end of their days in this final installment to Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner's Fleet of Worlds series.

Trucker Ghost Stories edited by Annie Wilder (Tor Trade Paperback 08/07/2012) – Something I learned this week – there’s a market for a book about ghost stories involving truckers. .

In a uniquely entertaining book by a rising star, here are uncanny true tales of haunted highways, weird encounters, and legends of the road.

It may have happened to you; it’s happened to almost everyone who’s ever driven down a highway at night, or in the fog, or snow. Something suddenly appears: a flash of movement, a shadow...what was it? It could be, as the true stories in this book attest, a ghost.

These are true stories from the highways and byways of America. These firsthand accounts are as varied as the storytellers themselves—some are detailed and filled with the terror and suspense that made people feel they had to share what happened to them with others; others are brief and straightforward retellings of truly chilling events.

Here is a chupacabra attack on the desert highway between L.A. and Las Vegas; ghost trains and soldiers; UFOs; the prom girl ghost of Alabama; a demon in Texas, and other accounts of the creepy, scary things that truckers and other drivers and passengers told to editor Annie Wilder.

With so many different stories, Trucker Ghost Stories moves beyond the usual haunted house to offer stories to entice any ghost story reader...and anyone who’s ever wondered....

McCarthy & Wilson Reviewed at SFFWorld

Just because today might be like a Friday here in the US with tomorrow being Independence Day, doesn’t mean the weekly reviews from Rob and Mark are skipped.

Mark takes a look at an SF novel marketed to the mainstream to much buzz in 2011 which just received its UK release. I review the sequel to an award winning debut novel that ranked very highly for me last year. The topic of my book review is Exogene, the second novel in T.C. McCarthy’s Subterrene Ware Military SF sequence

Germline introduced readers to T.C. McCarthy’s bleak future through the first person narrator Oscar Wendel war correspondent on the frontlines of the Subterrene War. Exogene is a return to that world and first person narration, but McCarthy shows us the war from a soldier on the frontline, Catherine. As the novel begins, Catherine is beginning to spoil, though McCarthy flashes back in many scenes to her life before she goes on the battle-lines. This is an effective way to parallel where her character is going with how she came to be who she is.

…

McCarthy storytelling takes a leap in Exogene, on a thematic level. Here, through the characters a greater examination of what makes a soldier on the front line comes to light – the morals, the stress, the anguish all from the point of view of a soldier. Bringing religion and faith is nothing new to war, as many a historian have said more men/women/soldiers were killed in the name of god than anything else, so it would seem a logical thing for artificially created soldiers to be molded by faith in God with their ultimate purpose is to fight and die for that God.…

More excitingly, this edition includes Living Night, a two page poem, and more than a dozen other rarer story fragments, including James’s only novel, The Five Jars (1920) a tale written possibly for, but felt to be too scary for, children in 1920. Some of the other extras here – Speaker Lenthall’s Tomb, Merfield House for example - are the only remaining fragments of the writing, a tantalising glimpse of some of James’ unfinished material. To be frank, the additions are interesting but not essential and Five Jars is a slim novel, but they are worth a read and do give the reader a better idea of James’ canon.

Are Robots the new zombies? Maybe, maybe not. Last year (2011), Daniel H. Wilson made a splash with his debut Robopocalypse , when the book that was sold to Hollywood before it was published, gets a UK release and a review from Mark:

 

Whilst borrowing heavily from SF tropes - the near-future zeitgeist of Michael Crichton, Cameron’s The Terminator franchise, or perhaps even D.F. Jones’ Colossus - this story of how humans created robots, were deemed unworthy by robot intelligence and eventually fought against their robot creations, is a fast-paced tale of endurance and survival.

…

Written by a robot programmer, it is as you might expect - enthusiastic, and efficient, yet in the end surprisingly unemotional and even rather clinical. Whilst the variety of the different points of view in each chapter is potentially interesting and the ideas in the novel are often great, there’s actually not a lot of depth behind the action, and the dialogue and narrative in particular generally leaves a lot to be desired in its banality and predictability, especially in the last sections where the book concentrates around the viewpoint of Wallace. I suspect many readers will balk at this aspect of the novel.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2012-02-18)

You all know the drill by now...this is my Sunday post which contains the list of books I received for review the previous week.



The Scar by Sergey Dyachenko and Marina Dyachenko (Tor Hardcover 02/28/2012) – In a seeming trend, another popular and acclaimed Russian fantasy novel is translated and published here in the US.

Reaching far beyond sword and sorcery, The Scar is a story of two people torn by disaster, their descent into despair, and their reemergence through love and courage. Sergey and Marina Dyachenko mix dramatic scenes with romance, action and wit, in a style both direct and lyrical. Written with a sure artistic hand, The Scar is the story of a man driven by his own feverish demons to find redemption and the woman who just might save him.

Egert is a brash, confident member of the elite guards and an egotistical philanderer. But after he kills an innocent student in a duel, a mysterious man known as “The Wanderer” challenges Egert and slashes his face with his sword, leaving Egert with a scar that comes to symbolize his cowardice. Unable to end his suffering by his own hand, Egert embarks on an odyssey to undo the curse and the horrible damage he has caused, which can only be repaired by a painful journey down a long and harrowing path.

Plotted with the sureness of Robin Hobb and colored with the haunting and ominous imagination of Michael Moorcock, The Scar tells a story that cannot be forgotten.


Stark’s War (Stark’s War #1) by John G. Hemry (Ace Hardcover 07/26/2011) – This is the first in a trilogy Hemry wrote before he exploded with the Jack Campbell pen name. Short Military SF Thrillers (it seems) that look like fun and star Dominic Monaghan as the hero. With the success and popularity of Hemry/Campbell’s Lost Fleet series, Ace is smartly reissuing these books. Mark from SFFWorld liked the first one when it hit UK bookshelves last year.

The United States of America reigns over Earth as the last surviving superpower. To build a society free of American influence, foreign countries have inhabited the moon, taking advantage of the natural resources to earn their own riches. Now the U.S. military has been ordered to wrest control of Earth's satellite from their rivals. Sergeant Ethan Stark must train his squadron to fight in an airless atmosphere at one-sixth normal gravity against a desperate enemy. Ensuring his team's survival means choosing between which orders to obey—and which to ignore.


Stark’s Command (Stark’s War #2) by John G. Hemry (Ace Hardcover 11/26/2011) – This is the second in a trilogy Hemry wrote before he exploded with the Jack Campbell pen name. Short Military SF Thrillers (it seems) that look like fun and star Dominic Monaghan as the hero. With the success and popularity of Hemry/Campbell’s Lost Fleet series, Ace is smartly reissuing these books. Mark from SFFWorld liked the first one when it hit UK bookshelves last year.

The United States military forces on the moon have overthrown their high-ranking officers and placed Sergeant Ethan Stark in command. Instead of just issuing orders, Stark confides in his fellow sergeants in hopes of forging an army based on mutual respect. Now, in addition to fighting a merciless enemy on the moon's surface, Stark must contend with the U.S. government's reaction to his mutiny . . . .

The moon's American civilian colony has offered to assist the military with food and supplies on one condition: that Stark's troops back the colony's plea for independence. In order to survive, civilian and soldier must learn to trust each other as one man's cause becomes a crusade . . .


Stark’s Crusade (Stark’s War #2) by John G. Hemry (Ace Hardcover 11/26/2011) – This is the third and final in a trilogy Hemry wrote before he exploded with the Jack Campbell pen name. Short Military SF Thrillers (it seems) that look like fun and star Dominic Monaghan as the hero. With the success and popularity of Hemry/Campbell’s Lost Fleet series, Ace is smartly reissuing these books. Mark from SFFWorld liked the first one when it hit UK bookshelves last year.


When the American Lunar colony was threatened, he served his country in battle. But when high ranking officers betrayed him and his soldiers, he had only one choice—rebellion. Now Sergeant Ethan Stark is in charge of a rebel organization he never intended to create, and the United States has just joined forces with its former enemy to insure his destruction.

Stark has no intention of compromising his honor, even in the face of impossible odds. He and his soldiers have no desire to fight American forces, but they are willing to pay any price to defend the rights of the colonists they were sent to protect. Now Stark and his soldiers must fend off deadly aggression from their own country without igniting a full scale civil war.


Exogene (The Subterrene War #2) by T. C. McCarthy (Orbit, Mass Market Paperback 03/01/2012) – McCarthy’s debut and the first in this series, Germline was very impressive, and one of the best debuts I read last year.


Exogene (n.): factor or agent (as a disease-producing organism) from outside the organism or system. Also: classified Russian program to merge proto-humanoids with powered armor systems (slang).

Catherine is a soldier. Fast, strong, lethal, she is the ultimate in military technology. She's a monster in the body of an eighteen year old girl. Bred by scientists, grown in vats, indoctrinated by the government, she and her sisters will win this war, no matter the cost.

And the costs are high. Their life span is short; as they age they become unstable and they undergo a process called the spoiling. On their eighteenth birthday they are discharged. Lined up and shot like cattle.

But the truth is, Catherine and her sisters may not be strictly human, but they're not animals. They can twist their genomes and indoctrinate them to follow the principles of Faith and Death, but they can't shut off the part of them that wants more than war. Catherine may have only known death, but she dreams of life and she will get it at any cost.

Crucible of Gold (Temeraire #8) by Naomi Novik (Del Rey, Hardcover 03/06/2012) – This is the seventh book of in Novik’s popular Dragons-in-Napoleonic-War series. I read the first three when they first hit shelves a few years ago (His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War) and enjoyed them and Novik’s been trucking along swimmingly since.

Naomi Novik’s beloved series returns, with Capt. Will Laurence and his fighting dragon Temeraire once again taking to the air against the broadsides of Napoleon’s forces and the friendly—and sometimes not-so-friendly—fire of British soldiers and politicians who continue to suspect them of divided loyalties, if not outright treason.

For Laurence and Temeraire, put out to pasture in Australia, it seems their part in the war has come to an end just when they are needed most. Newly allied with the powerful African empire of the Tswana, the French have occupied Spain and brought revolution and bloodshed to Brazil, threatening Britain’s last desperate hope to defeat Napoleon.

So the British government dispatches Arthur Hammond from China to enlist Laurence and Temeraire to negotiate a peace with the angry Tswana, who have besieged the Portuguese royal family in Rio—and as bait, Hammond bears an offer to reinstate Laurence to his former rank and seniority as a captain in the Aerial Corps. Temeraire is delighted by this sudden reversal of fortune, but Laurence is by no means sanguine, knowing from experience that personal honor and duty to one’s country do not always run on parallel tracks.

Laurence and Temeraire—joined by the egotistical fire-breather Iskierka and the still-growing Kulingile, who has already surpassed Temeraire in size—embark for Brazil, only to meet with a string of unmitigated disasters that leave the dragons and their human friends forced to make an unexpected landing in the hostile territory of the Inca empire, where they face new unanticipated dangers.

Now with the success of the mission balanced on a razor’s edge, and failure looking more likely by the minute, the unexpected arrival of an old enemy will tip the scales toward ruin. Yet even in the midst of disaster, opportunity may lurk—for one bold enough to grasp it.


Touchstone (Glass Thorns #1) by Melanie Rawn (Tor Hardcover 02/28/2012) – Rawn gained a pretty strong following in the late 1980s and early 1990s with her Dragon Prince and Dragon Star sagas. This is the first of a new trilogy, so could be good place for (somebody like me) who hasn’t read her work before.

Cayden Silversun is part Elven, part Fae, part human Wizard—and all rebel. His aristocratic mother would have him follow his father to the Royal Court, to make a high society living off the scraps of kings. But Cade lives and breathes for the theater, and he’s good—very, very good. With his company, he’ll enter the highest reaches of society and power, as an honored artist—or die trying. Cade combines the talents of Merlin, Shakespeare, and John Lennon: a wholly charming character in a remarkably original fantasy world created by a mistress of the art.

Although Touchstone can stand alone, it is the first book of a brilliant, utterly engaging new fantasy series from the author of the bestselling Dragon Prince series.


POD by Stephen Wallenfels (Ace Mass Market Paperback 04/24/2012) – This is an alien invasion story, and quite frankly, we haven’t had quite as many of them lately. From the little I gathered on the intarwebs, it looks like Mr. Wallenfels published an earlier version of this novel with a small press. .

Surviving a massive alien siege is one thing-­surviving humanity is another.

I'm all cried out. I'm still alone. The sky is full of giant spinning black balls that kill anyone stupid enough to go outside. I've only been out of the car twice-once to pee and once to look at the sky. That one look was enough for me. Now I sit alone in the car, staring out the window like a rat in a cage. But I don't have anyone to look at. The parking garage is empty, except for twisted-up cars, broken glass, and the smell of leaking gasoline.

POD is the story of a global cataclysmic event, told from the viewpoints of Megs, a twelve-year-old streetwise girl trapped in a hotel parking garage in Los Angeles; and sixteen-year-old Josh, who is stuck in a house in Prosser, Washington, with his increasingly obsessive-compulsive father. Food and water and time are running out. Will Megs survive long enough to find her mother? Will Josh and his father survive each other?

Military SF Reviews at SFFWorld (McCarthy, Turtledove, Weber)

Another Tuesday brings links to three SFFWorld reviews to today’s blog post – one from Mark, one from Kathryn (aka Loerwyn aka Cheerwell in the forums) and one from me.

I’ll start with mine, for the rather unscientific and random reason that my review is of a debut novel. T.C. McCarthy’s Germline is not only a debut, but the first book in The Subterrene War Trilogy. I was very impressed with his ability to convey war, bleakness and his overall narrative power. Here’s the standard snippet/cover/linkage::

Did I mention this is a bleak novel? Raw might also be appropriate, disjointed as well. McCarthy is after all telling a story of war and nothing is spared – the death, the blood, the sickness, even the pure discomfort of having what is essentially power armor which includes a system to get rid of personal waste – there’s the rawness, and that is merely one fraction of it. Some people may consider disjointed a negative comment, but here, the disjointed feeling of the narrative is, I gather, completely intentional on McCarthy’s part. Again, this is a novel depicting war on the front lines from a protagonist with serious addiction issues and mental instability. There’s almost a dream, rather nightmare, sense as Oscar bounces from platoon to platoon over the course of the novel thanks to the many battles and near battles in which his squads get involved.

…

McCarthy is juggling a number of themes in Germline, and what shows his skill to an even greater degree is how these themes integrate into a sum of a novel that is greater than their parts. It should be noted that McCarthy has a governmental background so a good deal of the elements in the plot feel genuine.

Kathryn/Loerwyn takes a look at a new book (also the first of a series and the author’s first aimed at a young adult audience) from a writer both she and I have been coming to read a lot more of recently, David Weber. The book is A Beautiful Friendship and is the first of the Stephanie Harrington series spun out of the Honorverse. I liked the story as a short story when I read it the big Weber anthology and hope to get to the novel soon:

As a read, it's enjoyable. There are moments where I found myself laughing at something a character (usually Stephanie) said, and moments where I was concerned that something terrible would happen to one of the characters. Stephanie and Climbs Quickly are good protagonists and drive the book well, and they interact with other characters in a fairly natural and organic manner. The main plot itself is also interesting and is arguably relevant to what is happening with our own planet and the harm we may be causing to the creatures with which we share the world.
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Despite the fun I had with this book, I feel as if it's confused as to what it wants to be. On the one hand, the prose is written in a fitting style and it's centred around a twelve-to-fourteen year old girl. On the other, Weber spends considerable time explaining things to readers, such as scientific principles and legal rights, which seem unnecessarily over-complex for a young-adult novel. At one point there was a discussion relating to planetary land rights, the details of which seemed largely unnecessary to the plot whereas a more simplistic explanation would have sufficed. Weber also leaves a lot of the terminology unexplained, although a glossary at the back attempts to explain details such as the dates, but I felt it did so poorly and left me with no greater understanding.

Mark’s catching up with one of the dozen or so, and most recent, of Harry Turtledove’s alternate history sagas, Hitler’s War: The War That Came Early

Hitler’s War, the first in an ongoing series, is one whereby the origins of World War Two are altered. In this scenario, there are two major changes. The first is that José Sanjurjo, a general in exile in Portugal returns to lead Spain’s Nationalist fascists in 1936 (during their Civil War) surviving a plane crash. The second is when, during the Munich Conference in 1938, Konrad Henlein, a political leader of Sudetenland Germans is assassinated by a Czech.
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Against these global backdrops, Harry tells the tale through a broad range of people, from a variety of different backgrounds. The range is broad, the characterisation shallow, though there’s a nice variety of viewpoints from characters as diverse as Czech soldier Vaclav Jezek, Russian bomber pilot Sergei Yaroslavsky, German Panzer Sergeant Ludwig Rothe, stranded American civilian Peggy Druce, Japanese soldier in Mongolia Hideki Fujita, and American mercenary soldier in China Corporal Pete McGill. The list is lengthy! Some survive all manner of awful events, whilst others don’t make it. Part of the fun of these broad sweeps is working out who lives and who doesn’t, as well as realising the difficulties and hardships the author puts the characters through.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2011-08-28)

A decent mix this week just before Hurricane Irene hit New Jersey, including some nice looking books from Orbit and a debut from Solaris and the latest from a genre heavyweight from Roc.


Stone Spring (Book One of The Northland Trilogy) by Stephen Baxter (Roc) Trade Paperback 11/01/2011 – Baxter is a leading Hard SF writer, though here, he turns his pen to the distant past, something he’s done in previous books. This could be an interesting set of books.

Alternate history at its most mindblowing-from the national bestselling author of Flood and Ark.

Ten thousand years ago, a vast and fertile plain exists linking the British Isles to Europe. Home to a tribe of simple hunter-gatherers, Northland teems with nature's bounty, but is also subject to its whims.

Fourteen-year-old Ana calls Northland home, but her world is changing. The air is warming, the ice is melting, and the seas are rising. Then Ana meets a traveler from a far-distant city called Jericho-a city that is protected by a wall. And she starts to imagine the impossible...


Feed (Newsflesh Trilogy #1) by Mira Grant (Orbit Trade Paperback 05/01/2010) – I’ve seen pretty good things about this book in the year since it first published, and the book received a Hugo nomination for best novel and the second novel just published recently. Not too shabby for a writer who also writes Urban Fantasy under the name of Seanan McGuirre.

The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.

NOW, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives-the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.


Germline (The Subterrene War #1) by T. C. McCarthy (Orbit , Trade Paperback 08/02/2011) – This is an interesting sounding military science fiction debut from an author whose background is quite impressive. I saw the Big Idea piece McCarthy did on John Scalzi’s Whatever, and I became even more interested in the book than I already was.:


Germline (n.) the genetic material contained in a cellular lineage which can be passed to the next generation. Also: secret military program to develop genetically engineered super-soldiers (slang).

War is Oscar Wendell's ticket to greatness. A reporter for The Stars and Stripes, he has the only one way pass to the front lines of a brutal war over natural resources buried underneath the icy, mineral rich mountains of Kazakhstan.

But war is nothing like he expected. Heavily armored soldiers battle genetically engineered troops hundreds of meters below the surface. The genetics-the germline soldiers-are the key to winning this war, but some inventions can't be un-done. Some technologies can't be put back in the box.

Kaz will change everything, not least Oscar himself. Hooked on a dangerous cocktail of adrenaline and drugs, Oscar doesn't find the war, the war finds him.

Hell Ship by Philip Palmer (Orbit Books, Trade Paperback 07/01/2011) – I’ve been wanting to get to Palmer’s SF for a while, from what I’ve gathered he’s a solid writer and storyteller. This one looks like a lot of fun with a great SF concept that for some reason reminds me of the old zoo exhibit in Superman’s Fortress of Solitude in classic the Silver Age stories.

The Hell Ship hurtles through space. Inside the ship are thousands of slaves, each the last of their race.

The Hell Ship and its infernal crew destroyed their homes, slaughtered their families and imprisoned them forever.

One man refuses to accept his fate. Sharrock, reduced from hero to slave in one blow, has sworn a mighty vengeance.

But help is closer than he knows. Jak has been following the Ship for years. Battle after battle has left Jak scarred and broken, a mind in a starship's body, bent on destroying the Ship for its crimes. Working together, can they end this interstellar nightmare?

The Recollection by Gareth L. Powell (Solaris Mass Market Paperback 08/23/2011) – Space Opera debut from an author who’s been plying his trade in short stories for quite some time.

When his brother disappears into a bizarre gateway on a London Underground escalator, failed artist Ed Rico and his brother's wife Alice have to put aside their feelings for each other to go and find him. Their quest through the 'arches' will send them hurtling through time, to new and terrifying alien worlds.

Four hundred years in the future, Katherine Abdulov must travel to a remote planet in order to regain the trust of her influential family. The only person standing in her way is her former lover, Victor Luciano, the ruthless employee of a rival trading firm.

Hard choices lie ahead as lives and centuries clash and, in the unforgiving depths of space, an ancient evil stirs...

Gareth L. Powell's epic new science-fiction novel delivers a story of galaxy-spanning scope by a writer of astounding vision.


Theft of Swords (Riyria Revelations Omnibus #1) by Michael J. Sullivan (Orbit, Trade Paperback 11/23/2011) – Sullivan’s series has been making great waves since he published it under his and his wife’s imprint last year – terrific reviews and supremely impressive sales. Mr. Sullivan signed on with Orbit to publish the six books of the series in three 2-in-1 Omnibus volumes publishing in November, December, and January. I’m really looking forward to reading these books.

Royce Melborn, a skilled thief, and his mercenary partner, Hadrian Blackwater, make a profitable living carrying out dangerous assignments for conspiring nobles-until they are hired to pilfer a famed sword. What appears to be just a simple job finds them framed for the murder of the king and trapped in a conspiracy that uncovers a plot far greater than the mere overthrow of a tiny kingdom.

Can a self-serving thief and an idealistic swordsman survive long enough to unravel the first part of an ancient mystery that has toppled kings and destroyed empires in order to keep a secret too terrible for the world to know?

And so begins the first tale of treachery and adventure, sword fighting and magic, myth and legend.

When author Michael J. Sullivan self-published the first books of his Riyria Revelations, they rapidly became ebook bestsellers. Now, Orbit is pleased to present the complete series for the first time in bookstores everywhere. Theft of Swords was originally published as: The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha.