Blackout (Newsflesh #3) by Mira Grant - Review

Only one review to link to here at the o’ Stuff but the book is one I placed very highly on my 2012 list of anticipated releases. Chances are, if you follow me on twitter (@RobHBedford) and if you don’t you should be, you’ve seen me tweeting about it - Blackout, the conclusion to Mira Grant’s Newsflesh Trilolgy:

So, structurally we’ve got our map laid out, the path Grant takes continues to be filled with conspiracy and subterfuge with a little less on the political game inasmuch as the politicians themselves don’t take to the page until the latter portions of the novel. This isn’t to say the game of politics isn’t present, because it very much is and drives the plot of the novel. Much of the politics involves the power play of control between the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and the EIS (Epidemic Intelligence Service), specifically the information about the Kellis-Amberle virus and the potential for a cure.

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So, how does Blackout hold up to the promises laid out in its predecessor volumes? From my reading perspective very well, Grant brings more Applied Phlebotinum to the table in the form of the clones and how Shaun’s immunity came to be. If Grant were a lesser writer, these elements could derail the novel, but thankfully, she’s quite brilliant at explaining these things in a plausible fashion which is balanced by the overall powerfully addictive narrative.

Tchaikovsky and Baker Reviewed @ SFFWorld

Today is the holiday Hallmark invented which, in all honesty, has no bearing on the main thrust of this post – two new book reviews at SFFWorld. The usual suspects are present – Mark and I.

In my intermittent quest to catch up with books, specifically interesting series books, that have been sitting on the to read stack for more than a year, I picked up: Adrian Tchaikovsky’s, Dragonfly Falling a couple of weeks ago. The result of this particular ‘quest’ in the form of my review can be read below:

One element in which I feel Tchaikovsky showed improvement was the panoramic, emotional sweep of the novel. Dragonfly Falling shows the true start of the war, with Collegium beginning to actively participate, the other nations getting involved and having that large-scale conflict coming into full view. Some of the battles and conflicts he imagines conjure up spectacular images, airship conflicts with characters leaping to and fro, a siege outside of a city. He shows a fairly equal balance from both sides of the conflict through the character of the Wasp Captain Thalric, who has a great deal of honor and passion for his ideals. Though Thalric is the most fleshed out of the characters in the Wasp army, his strength is that Tchaikovsky makes him a character you find yourself rooting for at times despite the fact that he’s high up in the “enemy” army.
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Dragonfly Falling is a lot of things, pulpy action, sweeping epic, mini-character studies, and all of these elements against a powerfully imagined backdrop of a milieu. While there was a great deal I enjoyed in the novel; however, I did find the pacing to be uneven at times. Some of the set pieces seemed to either take a bit to get going or lingered a bit, at times things lingered long enough that it almost counter-balanced some of the more briskly paced action set pieces of the novel.

Mark has been reading more zombie novels than he expected, and seems to be enjoying them more than he expected. The latest of which is Adam Baker’s, Juggernaut:

This is a no-nonsense, straight-forward thriller tale, admittedly with added zombies. The action scenes are thrillingly done, with enough bone-crunching, biting and beheading to satisfy most gore-fans. Adam manages to make this un-repetitive, which is impressive considering the limited number of living cast and the number of zombie encounters they have to endure.

Its style is very straight-forward, though clearly knowledgeable, and its tale told in a very matter-of fact manner. Sentences are short, yet the action fast. As a result, the characters do not spend too much time contemplating their navel, and consequently can read as typical stereotypes: the hard-nut mercenary, world-weary and emotionally detached, yet doing their difficult job as professionally as they can, the faceless evil corporation determined to keep things secret, the ancient torturer determined to atone for previous sins. This allows the focus to be on the action sequences, which it does in spades.

DEADLINE, 11/22/63, and Ciaphas Cain Reviewed at SFFWorld

We’ve got a few new reviews up at SFFWorld, three of which I’ll mention in today’s blog post.

I’ll start with my review…which is the second book in a trilogy that has fast become an addictive read that is ranking among my recent favorites. Deadline, is the second novel in Mira Grant’s Newsflesh trilogy:

It isn’t long before the conspiracy hinted at in the first volume comes to the forefront as a supposedly dead scientist, Kelly Connolly, from the CDC comes a knocking asking for Shaun’s help in unraveling the conspiracy that has killed many of the people Shaun loved and is controlling the world. In a world where the zombies are the result of the Kellis-Amberle virus, itself a combination of two virus cures – essentially a disease – the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is the most powerful organization in the world. With that in mind, Shaun and his team, including Rebecca “Becks” Atherton, Maggie Garcia, Alaric Kwong, Dave, and Mahir are logically a bit skeptical about Kelly’s claims. She was after all part of the organization, and her death was faked with the help of some of her colleagues.
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This is most assuredly not a typical Middle Book and to sum it up, partly because of the superb pace, partly because revealing the deepening plot would cushion the impact of the novel’s power. What I found to be very impressive on Grant’s part was how, despite both novels in the Newsflesh Trilogy utilizing the first person narrative, she was able to really set Shaun’s voice apart from George’s. In that respect, Grant’s ability at giving readers engaging, believable and unique characters is superb.

Stephen King needs no introduction. His most recent stuff has been hit or miss for many, but Mark had a good look at 11/22/63 his latest novel involving time travel and the JFK assassination:

In a slight change to most of his other fiction, this time around, 11.22.63 attempts the difficult task of merging real life events as an important element of King’s fictional world. It involves a topic of global significance but one, like the Vietnam War, that still cuts the American psyche most keenly. The assassination of a President is always shocking, but this one especially so when it happened so clearly in the full glare of the media. It also happened in the President’s own country, not whilst visiting somewhere else, at a time filled with optimism.

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The story, in its bare outline, is pretty self-explanatory. Told in the first person, it is the story of Jake Epping is a High School teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine (where else?), who is asked to meet a friend, the local greasy-spoon owner Al Templeton, who wants a favour. Jake goes to the cafe to find that, overnight, Al has aged. What we find out is that this is an older Al, who tells Jake that he’s just spent years in the past, though only two minutes (‘it’s always two minutes’) have gone now. In his larder Al has a portal that links to Lisbon Falls 1958. Jake now has the chance to go back and change history: to stop President Kennedy being shot in 1963. Jake goes back to small-town America of the 1950’s, first as a trial then for real, revelling in the relative simplicity of life there – the look, the sounds, the peacefulness, the politeness – and falls in love with colleague Sadie Dunhill, whilst all the time preparing to alter history.

Last, but not least, Kathryn (aka Loerwyn) dove into Sandy Mitchell’s first omnibus Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium, and had some good things to say:

In this collection, Cain meets a variety of the Emperor's enemies – The Tau, the Chaos, the Tyranids, the Orks and the Necrons – but he also becomes involved with the most dreaded and destructive of all things, politics. With support from his malodorous aide Jurgen, the Inquisition, a Lord General of the Imperial Guard as well as the Valhallan 597th to which he attached himself, Ciaphas manages to escape a premature death countless times. Despite his self-depreciative attitude, he proves to be more than capable as a Commissar, inspiring those around him and ensuring victory in the name of the Emperor.

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Mitchell is quite clear in his writing style, and it fits the book perfectly. I rarely found myself puzzled over the events or the dialogue. The combat scenes, of which there are many, were largely clear and seemed believable in both their length and their brutality, but the descriptions of the violence never went beyond what was necessary. The same applies to the descriptions of characters, in that we weren't told everything about them, just some basics. This meant confusing the different characters' identities wasn't particularly an issue, especially as the core cast was largely the same through the three novels. I can't say I found it perfect, however. Due to the novels being interconnected yet standalone, there's a lot of repetition of basic facts. We are frequently reminded in each novel that Jurgen has a distinctive smell, for example, sometimes to the point of it being reiterated a number of times per archive.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2011-10-08)

Most of the early November releases from the Penguin imprints (Ace/Roc and DAW) along with a big box from Nightshade Books and a couple of books from Tor arrived this week.

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In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood Knopf Hardcover 11/11/2011) – Atwood is a literary, if not giant, very tall person. I loved The Handmaid’s Tale, but that’s all I’ve read by her. I find this book surprising because Atwood for so long eschewed (to be polite) the SF label put upon many of her books, now she’s publishing a book about the genre. Many of the works she discusses are over a quarter century old so it doesn’t seem as if this book will give a reflection of what’s going on in the genre right now.

In Other Worlds: Science Fiction and the Human Imagination is Margaret Atwood’s account of her rela¬tionship with the literary form we have come to know as science fiction. This relationship has been lifelong, stretch¬ing from her days as a child reader in the 1940s through her time as a graduate student at Harvard, where she explored the Victorian ancestors of the form, and continuing with her work as a writer and reviewer. This book brings together her three heretofore unpublished Ellmann Lectures of 2010—“Flying Rabbits,” which begins with Atwood’s early rabbit superhero creations and goes on to speculate about masks, capes, weakling alter egos, and Things with Wings; “Burning Bushes,” which follows her into Victorian other-lands and beyond; and “Dire Cartographies,” which investi¬gates utopias and dystopias. In Other Worlds also includes some of Atwood’s key reviews and musings about the form, including her elucidation of the differences (as she sees them) between “science fiction” proper and “speculative fiction,” as well as “sword and sorcery/fantasy” and “slip¬stream fiction.” For all readers who have loved The Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood—not to mention Atwood’s 100,000-plus Twitter fol-lowers— In Other Worlds is a must.

Stone Spring (Book One of The Northland Trilogy) by Stephen Baxter (Roc Hardcover 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...

Reap the East Wind (Volume One in The Last Chronicle of the Dread Empire) by Glen Cook (Night Shade Books Trade Paperback 10/11/2011) – I read the first two omnibus editions Night Shade published A Cruel Wind and A Fortress in Shadow a couple of years ago so it is very nice to see Night Shade continuing to publish the series, especially this new one.

Vol 1 in the Last Chronicle of the Dread Empire
It has ended. It begins again. In Kavelin: Lady Nepanthe's new life with the wizard Varthlokkur is disturbed by visions of her lost son, while King Bragi Ragnarson and Michael Trebilcock scheme to help the exiled Princess Mist re-usurp her throne - under their thumb. In Shinsan: a pig-farmer's son takes command of Eastern Army, while Lord Kuo faces plots in his council and a suicide attack of two million Matayangans on his border.

But in the desert beyond the Dread Empire: a young victim of the Great War becomes the Deliverer of an eons-forgotten god, chosen to lead the legions of the dead. And the power of his vengeance will make a world's schemes as petty as dust, blown wild in the horror that rides the east wind.

Thomas World by Richard Cox (NightShade BooksTrade Paperback 09/06/2011) – I’m continued to be impressed with the interesting sounding debut novels Night Shade has been publishing this year. The cover on this one looks VERY much like the Vintage trade paperback re-issues of Philip K. Dick’s backlist. Not surprising since the book is compared to PKD.

Thomas Phillips knows he''s losing his mind. He''s been losing it for as long as he can remember. And yet, when a strange old man asks him to consider that he, out of everyone in the world, knows the real truth, Thomas'' life begins to spiral out of control. He loses interest in his job and is fired. He refuses his wife''s suggestion of psychiatric care, and she leaves him. In the end, Thomas is alone. Except he''s not, because someone seems to be following him. What if you were Thomas? Where would you go? What would you do? What if you realized every person in your life had been scripted to be there? What if you were haunted by the idea that you''d lived all these encounters before, hundreds or even thousands of times before? And what if the person watching all this time was you?

Thomas World explores what happens when the borders of reality start seeming a bit pores... when things start bleeding through the edges, challenging ones perceptions of the universe. The grand tradition of Dickian, New Wave SF is explored by Richard Cox in this 21st century thriller!

Necropolis by Michael Dempsey (NightShade BooksTrade Paperback 09/06/2011) – Zombies and noir mix in Dempsey’s debut novel, which to me has a similar premise to James Knapp’s State of Decay


Paul Donner is a NYPD detective struggling with a drinking problem and a marriage on the rocks. Then he and his wife get dead--shot to death in a "random" crime. Fifty years later, Donner is back--revived courtesy of the Shift, a process whereby inanimate DNA is re-activated.

This new "reborn" underclass is not only alive again, they're growing younger, destined for a second childhood. The freakish side-effect of a retroviral attack on New York, the Shift has turned the world upside down. Beneath the protective geodesic Blister, clocks run backwards, technology is hidden behind a noir facade, and you can see Bogart and DiCaprio in The Maltese Falcon III. In this unfamiliar retro-futurist world of flying Studebakers and plasma tommy guns, Donner must search for those responsible for the destruction of his life. His quest for retribution, aided by Maggie, his holographic Girl Friday, leads him to the heart of the mystery surrounding the Shift's origin and up against those who would use it to control a terrified nation.


A Fighting Chance(A Novel of the Legion of the Damned) #9 by William C. Dietz (Ace, Hardcover 11/01/2011) – Dietz brings his popular Military SF saga to a close with this volume. I haven’t read any of them myself, but with a ninth volume publishing, one can imply Mr. Dietz had done some things very well in this series

The all-new, thrilling conclusion to the Legion of the Damned series from the national bestselling author of When Duty Calls.

Earth has fallen. And the men, women, and cyborgs of the Confederacy must dig deep within their warrior hearts to make one final stand against an alien aggressor...

On a rim world, Captain Antonio Santana is reunited with diplomat Christine Vanderveen to protect the severely wounded Ramanthian Queen, who has fled there to avoid assassination. And they'll risk everything to save the Confederacy, billions of lives-and their future together.

Twilight of Lake Woebegotten by Harrison Geillor (Nightshade Books Trade Paperback 10/04/2011) – This seems to be a sequel to Geillor’s Zombie novel set in Woebegotten with a humorous twist on a certain northwest group of vampires:

A small town... a plucky heroin, a shiny vampire, and a hunkey Native American rival with a secret. But all is not as it seems in Lake Woebegotten. Let Harrison Geillor reveal what lies beneath the seemingly placid surface. You’ll laugh. We promise.

When Bonnie Grayduck relocates from sunny Santa Cruz California to the small town of Lake Woebegotten, Minnesota, to live with her estranged father, chief of the local two-man police department, she thinks she’s leaving her troubles behind. But she soon becomes fascinated by another student - the brooding, beautiful Edwin Scullen, whose reclusive family hides a terrible secret. (Psst: they're actually vampires. But they're the kind who don't eat people, so it's okay.) Once Bonnie realizes what her new lover really is, she isn't afraid. Instead, she sees potential. Because while Bonnie seems to her friends and family to be an ordinary, slightly clumsy, easily-distracted girl, she’s really manipulative, calculating, power hungry, and not above committing murder to get her way - or even just to amuse herself. This is a love story about monsters... but the vampire isn't the monster.


Courts of the Fey by Martin H. Greenberg and Russell Davis and (DAW Mass Market Paperback 6/07/2011) – The monthly themed anthology from DAW for November 2011 focuses on the realm of the Faerie.

Fantasy, whether classic or contemporary, has always been based on the conflict between the forces of Light and Darkness. Now some of the genre's most inventive authors bring readers into the Seelie Court, where all serve the Queen of Air and Light, and the Unseelie Court, where the forces of Darkness hold sway.



The Wild Ways by Tanya Huff (DAW Hardcover 11/01/2011) – Huff is incredibly prolific, bouncing between fantasy, urban fantasy and military science fiction: This book is the sequel to The Enchantment Emporium.

"The Gales are an amazing family, the aunts will strike fear into your heart, and the characters Allie meets are both charming and terrifying." -#1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris

Alysha Gale's cousin Charlotte is a Wild Power, who allies herself with a family of Selkies in a fight against offshore oil drilling. The oil company has hired another of the Gale family's Wild Powers, the fearsome Auntie Catherine, to steal the Selkies' sealskins. To defeat her, Charlotte will have to learn what born to be Wild really means in the Gale family...


Infidel by Kameron Hurley (Trade Paperback 10/11/2011 Night Shade Books) – Second novel in the “Bugpunk” trilogy which began with God’s War.


The only thing worse than war is revolution. Especially when you're already losing the war...

Nyx used to be a bel dame, a government-funded assassin with a talent for cutting off heads for cash. Her country's war rages on, but her assassin days are long over. Now she's babysitting diplomats to make ends meet and longing for the days when killing people was a lot more honorable.

When Nyx's former bel dame "sisters" lead a coup against the government that threatens to plunge the country into civil war, Nyx volunteers to stop them. The hunt takes Nyx and her inglorious team of mercenaries to one of the richest, most peaceful, and most contaminated countries on the planet -- a country wholly unprepared to host a battle waged by the world's deadliest assassins.

In a rotten country of sweet-tongued politicians, giant bugs, and renegade shape shifters, Nyx will forge unlikely allies and rekindle old acquaintances. And the bodies she leaves scattered across the continent this time... may include her own.

Because no matter where you go or how far you run in this world, one thing is certain: the bloody bel dames will find you.

Fire Works in the Hamptons by Celia Jerome (Paperback 11/1/2011 DAW) –Third novel in Jerome’s series which began with Trolls in the Hamptons

Graphic novelist Willow Tate has a paranormal talent for "drawing" beings from the realm of Faerie into our world. So why did she foolishly make the hero of her next book a fire wizard? Now she has to contend with a rash of "fire" flies, a gorgeous firefighter, and an arsonist who seems determined to set East Hampton ablaze...



Stan Lee's How to Write Comics by Stan Lee (Watson-Guptill Hardcover 10/11/2011) – Stan “The Man” Lee shares his insight about comic scripting in this attractive coffee-table book. Seems more appropriate than the book he penned on how to Draw comics, since Stan was the writer-creator responsible for the X-Men, Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, and The Fantastic Four.

Comics icon Stan Lee, creator of the Mighty Marvel Universe, has set about to teach everything he knows about writing and creating comic book characters. In these pages, aspiring comics writers will learn everything they need to know about how to write their own comic book stories, complete with easy to understand instruction, tips of the trade, and invaluable advice even for more advance writers. From the secrets to creating concepts, plots, to writing the script, the man with no peer — Stan Lee—is your guide to the world of writing and creating comics.



Z: Zombie Stories edited by J.M Lassen (Nightshade Books Trade Paperback 10/04/2011) – J.M. Lassen is the man behind the scenes at Nighsthade and this themed anthology focuses on zombies (of course) but aimed at young adults.

When the zombie apocalypse comes, it's not just those crusty old folks who will struggle against the undead, it's the young people. What happens when you come of age during the zombie apocalypse? Z: Zombie Stories has the answer to that question.

Z: Zombie Stories gathers together some of the hottest zombie fiction of the last two decades, from
authors including Kelly Link, Jonathan Maberry, and Catherynne M. Valente. These stories focus on those who will inherit a world overrun with the living dead: a young man who takes up the family business of dealing with the undead, a girl struggling with her abusive father... who has become a zombie, a poet who digs up the wrong grave, and a Viking maiden
imprisoned with the living dead...

The Book of Cthulhu edited by Ross E. Lockhart (Nightshade Books Trade Paperback 10/04/2011) – Ross has been in the Night Shade fold for quite a while and this is his first full anthology with them. Who doesn’t love some Cthulhu craziness? Only crazy folks and this looks to be another in an impressive line of themed anthologies from the NSB folks.

The Cthulhu Mythos is one of the 20th century''s most singularly recognizable literary creations. Initially created by H. P. Lovecraft and a group of his amorphous contemporaries (the so-called "Lovecraft Circle"), The Cthulhu Mythos story cycle has taken on a convoluted, cyclopean life of its own. Some of the most prodigious writers of the 20th century, and some of the most astounding writers of the 21st century have planted their seeds in this fertile soil. The Book of Cthulhu harvests the weirdest and most corpulent crop of these modern mythos tales. From weird fiction masters to enigmatic rising stars, The Book of Cthulhu demonstrates how Mythos fiction has been a major cultural meme throughout the 20th century, and how this type of story is still salient, and terribly powerful today.

Table of Contents:

Caitlin R. Kiernan - Andromeda among the Stones Ramsey Campbell - The Tugging Charles Stross - A Colder War Bruce Sterling - The Unthinkable Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Flash Frame W. H. Pugmire - Some Buried Memory Molly Tanzer - The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins Michael Shea - Fat Face Elizabeth Bear - Shoggoths in Bloom T. E. D. Klien - Black Man With A Horn David Drake - Than Curse the Darkness Charles Saunders - Jeroboam Henley''s Debt Thomas Ligotti - Nethescurial Kage Baker - Calamari Curls Edward Morris - Jihad over Innsmouth Cherie Priest - Bad Sushi John Hornor Jacobs - The Dream of the Fisherman''s Wife Brian McNaughton - The Doom that Came to Innsmouth Ann K. Schwader - Lost Stars Steve Duffy - The Oram County Whoosit Joe R. Lansdale - The Crawling Sky Brian Lumley - The Fairground Horror Tim Pratt - Cinderlands Gene Wolfe - Lord of the Land Joseph Pulver, Sr. - To Live and Die in Arkham John Langan - The Shallows Laird Barron - The Men from Porlock

The Ninth Circle (A Novel of the U.S.S. Merrimack) by R.M. Meluch (DAW Hardcover 11/01/2011) – I’ve been wanting to read more Military SF as of late and this book, fifth in the series, continues the saga of the conflict between an Earth-based military and a colony which is a reborn Roman empire, with alien life mixed into it. The first book in the series sounds interesting and maybe this one can stand on its own.

Fifth in the hard-hitting military science-fiction series.


On the distant world of Zoe, an expedition finds DNA-based life. When alien invaders are also discovered, Glenn Hamilton calls on the U.S.S. Merrimack for help. But the Ninth Circle and the Palatine Empire have also found Zoe. Soon everyone will be on a collision course to determine the fate of this planet.


Eyes to See (Book One of The Jeremiah Hunt Chronicles) by Joseph Nassise (Tor Hardcover 10/11/2011) – This urban fantasy seems to add a thicker layer of horror than many of the UF novels to arrive at the o’ Stuff. Nassie is a veteran writer, this is his first book with Tor.

In an urban fantasy that charts daring new territory in the field, Jeremiah Hunt has been broken by a malevolent force that has taken his young daughter and everything else of value in his life: his marriage, his career, his reputation. Desperate to reclaim what he has lost, Hunt finally turns to the supernatural for justice.

Abandoning all hope for a normal life, he enters the world of ghosts and even more dangerous entities from beyond the grave. Sacrificing his normal sight so that he can see the souls of the dead and the powers that stalk his worst nightmares, Hunt embarks upon a strange new career—a pariah among the living; a scourge among the dead; doomed to walk between the light of day and the deepest darkness beyond night.

His love for his departed daughter sustains him when all is most hopeless, but Hunt is cursed by something more evil than he can possibly imagine. As he descends into the maelstrom of his terrifying quest, he discovers that even his deepest fears are but prelude to yet darker deeds by a powerful entity from beyond the grave…that will not let him go until it has used him for its own nefarious purposes.


I, Robot: To Protect by Mickey Zucker Reichert (Roc Hardcover 11/01/2011) – I’ve only read one novel by Reichert (The Last of the Renshai) and that was years ago. Most of her fiction has been danced around themes of myth, particularly Norse myth so this could be seen as a bit of a departure from what she typically writes. This book is authorized by the Asimov estate.

First in an all-new trilogy inspired by Isaac Asimov's legendary science fiction collection I, Robot.

2035: Susan Calvin is beginning her residency at a Manhattan teaching hospital, where a select group of patients is receiving the latest in diagnostic advancements: tiny nanobots, injected into the spinal fluid, that can unlock and map the human mind.

Soon, Susan begins to notice an ominous chain of events surrounding the patients. When she tries to alert her superiors, she is ignored by those who want to keep the project far from any scrutiny for the sake of their own agenda. But what no one knows is that the very technology to which they have given life is now under the control of those who seek to spread only death...

The Panama Laugh by Thomas Roche (Night Shade Books Trade Paperback 10/11/2011) – Debut novel about the Zombie apocalypse from Roche, who has published short stories and seen work as an editor.

Ex-mercenary, pirate, and gun-runner Dante Bogart knows he's screwed the pooch after he hands one of his shady employers a biological weapon that made the dead rise from their graves, laugh like hyenas, and feast upon the living. Dante tried to blow the whistle via a tell-all video that went viral -- but that was before the black ops boys deep-sixed him at a secret interrogation site on the Panama-Colombia border.

When Dante wakes up in the jungle with the five intervening years missing from his memory, he knows he's got to do something about the laughing sickness that has caused a world-wide slaughter. The resulting journey leads him across the nightmare that was the Panama Canal, around Cape Horn in a hijacked nuclear warship, to San Francisco's mission district, where a crew of survivalist hackers have holed up in the pseudo-Moorish-castle turned porn-studio known as The Armory.

This mixed band of anti-social rejects has taken Dante's whistle blowing video as an underground gospel, leading the fight against the laughing corpses and the corporate stooges who've tried to profit from the slaughter. Can Dante find redemption and save civilization?

Tribulations by Ken Shufeldt (Tor Mass Market Paperback 01/03/20132) – Religious overtones and the apocalypse! Fun for all. This seems to be Shufeldt’s second novel and it isn’t clear whether the two books are related as Shufeldt doesn’t seem to have an internet presence.

The world has ended…. The war is only beginning.

An asteroid storm has obliterated the Earth. Billy and Linda West have built enough space-going arks to save a small number of people who now roam the void in search of a new home.

Desperate to find a safe haven, Billy makes a dangerous attempt to exceed the speed of light. When his plans go terribly wrong, the Wests’ severely-damaged ship is separated from the fleet and left drifting near a mysterious planet.

This world’s conditions are hospitable—but its inhabitants are not. Suddenly the Wests and their fellow survivors are caught in the middle of an ancient war between two brutal nations. Faced with horrific dangers, they are forced to choose a side just to survive.


Shadowrise (Volume Three of Shadowmarch) by Tad Williams (DAW Mass Market Paperback 11/01/2011) – I read this on hardcover about a year ago and think the series, as a whole, is excellent and seemed to fly under the radar more than it deserved, from the review: For all the mythic action and world building, Williams never skimps on his characters. The whole cast is relatable, engendered a sense of empathy, and general concern-for-what-happens-to-them in me. With each chapter that brought a close to that particular episode in the characters story arc, I was frustrated it ended, but conversely comforted by the movement of the story to another character about whom I cared.

A year ago, the March Kingdoms were at peace, the Eddon family held the throne, and all was right in Southmarch Castle. Now the family has been shattered. King Olin Eddon is a prisoner and his heir is slain. The royal twins Barrick and Briony have done their best to hold the kingdom together, but now Barrick has been captured and Briony has been forced to flee the castle. Old magics are stirring beneath the ancient castle and behind the Shadowline, and the machinations of gods, fairies, and mortals threaten to spread devastation across the entire world.

Shadowheart (Volume Four of Shadowmarch) by Tad Williams (DAW Trade Paperback 11/01/2011) – This was as very good conclusion to the four book trilogy, as I said in my review: This entire saga started out with great promise, albeit a bit slowly as is often the case with Tad Williams’s epics. What that does is provide for a solid foundation for which Tad can throw his story and play with the gods he creates, give the true Epic sense to his character’s journeys they richly deserve, and allow a true sense of world changing events to be felt within his narrative. Each character gets an emotional spotlight, through either the scenes in which they appear, or through the reflections of other characters.

"When it comes to inventing new worlds, he's as skilled as J.R.R. Tolkien and Frank Herbert." -Christopher Paolini, bestselling author of Eragon.

Southmarch Castle is about to be caught between two implacable enemies, the ancient, immortal Qar and the insane god-king, the Autarch of Xis. Meanwhile, its two young defenders, Princess Briony and Prince Barrick, are both trapped far away from home and fighting for their lives.

And now, something is awakening underneath Southmarch Castle, something powerful and terrible that the world has not seen for thousands of years. Can Barrick and Briony, along with a tiny handful of allies, ordinary and extraordinary, find a way to save their world and prevent the rise of a terrible new age-an age of unending darkness?

Zombies, Thieves, and Circuses - Oh My!

I’ve got one review over the past week, Mark has two. Normally with that ratio, I’d go Mark’s review-Rob’s review-Mark’s review. I’m changing it up, linking to my review first, since the book I reviewed is a nominee for this past year’s Hugo Award. Mark reviewed a classic of the fantastic and a debut that received a fair amount of acclaim when it hit shelves earlier in the year.

Sometimes a book comes along, you overlook it initially then when you read it you want to go back, slap yourself for initially passing on it because the book is That Damned Good. Case in point, Mira Grant’s FEED, the first of her Newsflesh trilogy:

Georgia Mason and her brother Shaun run a popular blog newsite, After the End of Times in the year 2039, about 25 years after the Rising – the first time the dead rose in 2014. Georgia is a Newsie, who reports straightforward news; Shaun is an Irwin (so named after Steve Irwin), since he goes out and pokes & prods the zombies for the cameras, which draws in viewers to their blog; while their third primary leader, Buffy, is a Fictional, who writes stories and poems. Their blog grows in popularity, especially when Senator Peter Ryman invites Georgia and crew to join his campaign trail, becoming the first bloggers allowed access to such a presidential campaign. This, of course, increases their popularity/ratings, but with the legitimacy afforded by such an invite, consequences and fallout are naturally expected. The consequences in Feed, being a science fiction/horror hybrid (with political thriller elements thrown into the mix), are more than anything for which Georgia, Shaun, and Buffy bargained.

…

Grant goes into great detail about the scientific nature of the cause of zombies, and she does it an informal conversational way through Georgia that it is both gripping, provides a breather from some of the more intense narrative scenes, and pushes the story forward. While the narrative is told mainly in Georgia’s first person voice, it is interspersed with passages from the blogs of Georgia, Shaun, and Buffy. In both the ‘breaks from action’ and well handled scientific rationale, I was reminded a great deal of Scott Westerfeld’s brilliant vampire novels Peeps and The Last Days.

The debut Mark reviewed has been released in both the US and the UK this year and features a rogue-ish protagonist Among Thieves, which serves as both Douglas Hulick’s debut and the first of the Tales of the Kin saga:

This is a lively and very competent debut. Rising above what could’ve been a difficult sell – a man whose life revolves around deception and murder is not often a character to like – but Douglas manages this difficult balancing act pretty well. For Drothe is an honourable thief, a murderer with scruples.

...

This one rattled along nicely from revelation to revelation. We find that items are discovered that may have consequences for all of those involved. Drothe and Degan engage in a pact that will have implications for them both, and may indeed be connected to a plot to kill the Emperor. Unrest in the Kin-run areas of town lead Drothe and his compatriots being involved in a series of street fights, setting and avoiding traps for the unwary and trying to avoid being both betrayed and the betrayers of all they hold dear.

The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles Finney is a classic of early 20th Century fantastic literature, which was filmed in the 1960s starring Tony Randall. I read the book a few years ago, liked it a lot, and Mark recently reviewed it:

The book begins in what we would now see as a small-town USA / Stephen King kind of way, as the town’s inhabitants read of the circus through an advertisement placed mysteriously in the town’s newspaper. The book shows us the effects of the circus on various members of the Abalone community, amongst them the newspaper printer and copy editor, a local schoolteacher, the children of the town and a down-and-out (this was the time of the Great Depression) recently discharged from the Army, amongst others.
...
Some of the language is Bradbury-poetic, lyrical and obscure. It’s not every day that you read the word ‘pulchritude’, even less so on the first page of the novel. It is also deliberately ambiguous in its plot, a book that doesn’t explain everything and doesn’t finish with an ending that ties everything up, though it is apt. It even poses some questions at the end not answered in the book!

Books in the Mail (W/E 2011-07-23)

A nice mix of books from the Penguin imprints in this week’s batch of books.

Omnitopia: Dawn by Diane Duane (DAW Paperback 08/02/2011) – Mass Market Paperback re-issue of the SF Near Future Thriller with a hint of fantasy from Duane, which is a bit of a departure from her recent Young Adult fantasy series and a return to the Adult SF side of things which is where Ms. Duane first hit the NY Times Bestseller list. This is the first of a series of books. I skipped it when I received the hardcover last year, but may remedy that decision with the paperback.

A near-future techno-thriller from New York Times bestselling author Diane Duane.

It's the first quarter of the twenty-first century, and "massively multiplayer" on-line games have been around for a couple of decades. In an increasingly wired and computer-friendly world they've become a form of entertainment so popular they're giving television and films a run for the money. And the most popular gaming universe of all is Omnitopia, created by genius programmer Dev Logan.

For millions of people around the world, Omnitopia is an obsession, a passionate pastime, almost a way of life. Omnitopia is a virtual place where dreams come true-players can create their own universes within the game's structure, and participate in the profits if their piece of the universe is a hit. Ten million players routinely play in Omnitopia, and at any given time, nearly a million of them are on-line, living in a world more real to them then their own.

Worldwide, Omnitopia is now as much a culture as a game. Participants can become involved in it in a hundred different ways. Some game as if their lives depended on it, spending thousands of hours, or thousands of dollars, or both, on quests in search of "game glory" among their fellow players. Some game only to acquire sufficient in-game "value" to become entitled to become subcreators themselves, able to build new levels and start raking in the so-called "one percent of infinity" which is the leveler's share of the profits. But there are also people who don't game at all, preferring to use the massive platform simply to explore its worlds, or to interact with other participants. Some people do nothing but design on-line weapons and other items for Omnitopia gamers, and sell them-or act as brokers, buying and selling game artifacts to order. Some subcreators do the same kind of design and creation, but for tailored Microcosms or slices of them: these are the "unreal estate" dealers. Some players speculate in game "gold" on the success or popularity of Microcosms, rather than actually playing in them. And of course there are thieves and swindlers, cheaters who live to find the loophole in the game that will outside it in the real world.

Now Dev and his people are preparing to rollout a major new expansion to the Omnitopia system. And even as players, staff, the media, and the heavy hitters on the world financial scene wait eagerly for this fast-approaching and momentous event, there are others preparing to play a very different game-one that is meant to strike at the heart of Omnitopia and bring the entire system crashing down....

Ascencion: (Fate of the Jedi Book Eight) by Christe Golden (Hardcover 8/16/2011 Del Rey). Eight and penultimate book in the latest series involving that pesky Skywalker clan.

How long can the Jedi remain in power? How far will the Sith go to rule supreme? What chance do both stand against Abeloth?

As Luke and Ben Skywalker pursue the formidable dark-side being Abeloth, the Lost Tribe of the Sith is about to be sundered by an even greater power—which will thrust one Dark Lord into mortal conflict with his own flesh-and-blood.

On Coruscant, a political vacuum has left tensions at the boiling point, with factions racing to claim control of the Galactic Alliance. Suddenly surrounded by hidden agendas, treacherous conspiracies, and covert Sith agents, the Jedi Order must struggle to keep the GA government from collapsing into anarchy.

The Jedi are committed to maintaining peace and ensuring just rule, but even they are not prepared to take on the combined threats of Sith power, a deposed dictator bent on galaxywide vengeance, and an entity of pure cunning and profound evil hungry to become a god.

Dearly Departed by Lia Habel (Del Rey Hardcover 10/18/2011) – Debut novelist Lia Habel gives readers a cool-sounding mash up of future SF, steampunk, romance and the ever-popular zombies.

Love can never die.

Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune, and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

In Dearly, Departed, steampunk meets romance meets walking-dead thriller, spawning a madly imaginative novel of rip-roaring adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and macabre comedy that forever redefines the concept of undying love.

A Soldier's Duty: (Book One of Theirs Not to Reason Why) by Jean Johnson (Ace Mass Market Paperback 09/26/2010) – Johnson is a popular and accomplished romance novelist who decided to try her hand at Military SF, the story sounds interesting enough.


Ia is a precog, tormented by visions of the future where her home galaxy has been devastated. To prevent this vision from coming true, Ia enlists in the Terran United Planets military with a plan to become a soldier who will inspire generations for the next three hundred years-a soldier history will call Bloody Mary.


Water to Burn (Nola O’Grady Book 2) by Katherine Kerr (DAW Mass Market Paperback 08/02/2011) – The second book in the urban fantasy/paranormal romance series Kerr launched this past January. Two books in the same series in one year is a nice thing for fans of a series and Kerr knows how to draw in readers.

Secret agent Nola O'Grady is back and ready to save San Francisco from all evildoers, alien and otherwise. With the aid of her bodyguard and lover Ari Nathan, Nola's new mission is to track down and apprehend the mysterious "Brother Belial," head of the now-dispersed Chaos cult-and a possible invader from another dimension.



Path of the Sun (Dhulyn and Parno #4) by Violette Malan (DAW Paperback 08/02/2011) – This is the fourth book in a series about a couple of rogues…

Mercenary partners Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane think they're escorting the Princess of Arderon to her wedding with the new Tarkin of Menoin, but the Mercenary Brotherhood has a secret mission for them: find out what happened to the two Brothers who were sent on assignment to Menoin a year ago-and vanished.

Once in Menoin, they discover that the Brothers' disappearance is linked to a series of killings. And when the Princess of Arderon's corpse is found mutilated in the same way as the others, Dhulyn and Parno track the killer into the Path of the Sun, an ancient labyrinth from which people sometimes never return...

Zombies - Is it the End of the World?

Waking today presented no problem. Unfortunately, the remainder of the day wouldn’t be so easy. The following days would not begin so harmlessly, I’m sure. My wife had already left for work by the time I was fully conscious, I vaguely recall her peck on the cheek before she descended the stairs. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

By the time I got in my car and made the turn onto the highway, I knew the day would be a problem. Cars were at a dead halt on the road, many of them crashed into each other. Since it was late spring, I was driving with my windows down, which allowed the stench of death to waft into my car. Once you smell death, you know it when you smell it again. There was nothing I could do to get on the road, even the shoulder was jammed. My only hope was to turnaround and try driving the back roads.

As I was doing that, I needed to make a phone call. I dialed my wife’s speed-number on my cell phone and waited what seemed an eternity for her to answer. “You aren’t going to believe this,” she said before I could say anything.

“I might, I’ve just seen the highway at a complete dead stop.”

“Well, I know why. There is a Zombie Uprising.”

“Shit, I just knew life was going too well. They say one happens every hundred years or so, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, at least that’s what my Dad says. His Dad supposedly lived through the last uprising,” she responded. I remembered hearing the tales from her father on a couple of occasions, mostly after a random Zombie or two shambled in from the woods. Random Zombie sightings, while not exactly common, weren’t entirely rare, either.

“Try and get home, keep you cell phone turned on,” I said, hearing some strange grunting in the background. “I’m going home to get some helpers.”

She knew what I meant, the old baseball bat, the axe, sledgehammer and pickaxe. They worked well enough on the lone zombies that shambled around on occasion. “I’ll do what I can, but the Zombies are starting to flood everything. I’m only halfway to work. I love you.” She said.

“I love you, too.” We both ended the call. I felt so goddamned helpless knowing she might be stuck in a death trap with her brains enticing the Zombies.

Zombies have been a semi-regular occurrence for a few hundred years and for some reason, they rise in droves once a century. Not too dissimilar to the loud buzzing cicadas, except the Zombies flock in greater number, eat brains, and smell a lot worse. In all the Zombie movies, comics and cartoons one thing that can never be conveyed is their utter stench. After all, a Zombie is a corpse that eats people, so the smell is bound to be offensive.

The Zombie Uprising that followed the Revolutionary War nearly destroyed the world. Only through the assistance of the various Native American tribes were the early Americans able to fend of the Uprising. I would hate for it to be the end of the world, but these Zombies might just be smarter.

Getting back onto my street wasn’t the refuge I hoped; Zombies were marching down my street. Marching is a strong word, but they did seem to share an unheard tune as they walked in cadence. I shouldn’t have been too surprised; I lived on the same street as a large elementary school, so there were plenty of potential new Zombies ready for the making should the Uprisers make their way to the school. I drove my car head into a bunch of them and turned into my driveway.

If the fiction couldn’t capture the smell of Zombies, they certainly captured the speed, or lack thereof. I was able to grab my makeshift weapons, drop a few in the trunk and throw one on the passenger seat. It was then I noticed my neighbors had been Zombified. I really liked Janet and Kyle, but they were no longer themselves. I hacked at them and was about to turn back out of the driveway. Much as I hate to admit this, I would expect them to do the same if our situations were reversed.

For whatever reason, the Zombies I didn’t run over continued to trundle down my street, almost as if I wasn’t there. I wasn’t complaining, which brings me to this point. I don’t know who will be reading this, but I have to blog this like it is the end of the world. The Zombies are rising; grab anything you can– a shovel, a pickaxe, or a baseball bat and swing for the fences.

Wish me luck as I try to fend of the Undead and get to my wife so we can live through this Zombie Uprising. Let’s hope I can post back here tomorrow with some good news.

-Rob

zombies

Newest "New" Fantasy Author on the Block: D.A. Durham

My latest review, David Anthony Durham’s Acacia Book I: War with the Mein, is now up at SFFWorld.com. Like last year, this seems to be a strong year for opening novels for multi-volume sequences. Last year Scott Lynch, David Louis Edelman, and Sean Williams* all launched impressive sequences. This year has already seen Patrick Rotfhuss and now David Anthony Durham’s sequence launch. Both authors have been making the rounds with interviews on SF Web sites and blogs.

Patrick Rothfuss interviewed by me and Pat (of the Fantasy Hot List)
A Dribble of Ink interview with Patrick Rothfuss (Part 2)
A Dribble of Ink interview with David Anthony Durham
Fantasy Book Critic interview with David Anthony Durham
Fantasy Book Critic interview with Patrick Rothfuss
FantasyBookSpot.com interviews Patrick Rothfuss
FantasyBookSpot.com / Jay Tomio interviews David Anthony Durham
WOTMANIA’s OFBlog interview with Patrick Rothfuss

*Technically Sean Williams saga launched a couple of years ago, but 2006 was when it was published in the States.

Also, I know Joe Abercrombie was highly-touted last year, so I'm looking forward to reading The Blade Itself when Pyr publishes it later this year.

I've been hearing a lot of grumbling at night lately, and it has been getting louder over the past couple of days. I could swear I'm hearing the word brains, but I can't imagine why.

David's Darkness

I posted my review of Peter David's Darkness of the Light, the first book in his Hidden Earth saga. I've been a fan of Peter's for a while, so I was looking forward to reading this book. Set in a far-future earth, the book has a feel not too dissimilar to Jack Vance's Dying Earth. If not in style, than in setting and some of the humor.

Only one week remains in SFFWorld's contest to win an advance copy of the book.

On the Malzan front, I'm still making my way through Deadhouse Gates and still enjoying it. I don't want to rush through these books, since the series is both unfished and the US versions haven't caught up with the UK. But goddamn does Erikson make it tough to close the book.

Nine days remain until the Uprising. I am mentally preparing.

Bring on the Zombies!

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