On the horizon...recommendation for 2008

This one caught my eye recently. Empire in Black and Gold is the debut novel from Adrian Tchaikovsky, due to be released by Tor on 4 July 2008. 

Here's the blurb:

Seventeen years ago Stenwold witnessed the Wasp Empire storming the city of Myna in a brutal war of conquest. Since then he has preached vainly against this threat in his home city of Collegium, but now the Empire is on the march, with its spies and its armies everywhere, and the Lowlands lie directly in its path. 

All the while, Stenwold has been training youthful agents to fight the Wasp advance, and the latest recruits include his niece, Che, and his mysterious ward, Tynisa. When his home is violently attacked, he is forced to send them ahead of him and, hotly pursued, they fly by airship to Helleron, the first city in line for the latest Wasp invasion.Stenwold and Che are Beetle-kinden, one of many human races that take their powers and inspiration each from a totem insect, but he also has allies of many breeds: Mantis, Spider, Ant, with their own particular skills. Foremost is the deadly Mantis-kinden warrior, Tisamon, but other very unlikely allies also join the cause.

As things go from bad to worse amid escalating dangers, Stenwold learns that the Wasps intend to use the newly completed railroad between Helleron and Collegium to launch a lightning strike into the heart of the Lowlands. Then he gathers all of his agents to force a final showdown in the engine yard...

It's not the best-written blurb in the world, and the cover is pretty crap. The world sounds interesting though, with the insect aspect and the steampunk trappings. Not your standard, run-of-the-mill fantasy. For that reason alone, it's probably worth keeping an eye on. 

Adrian Tchaikovsky runs an entertaining livejournal, which you can find here.

On the horizon...recommendation for 2008

Paul Kearney is something of a genre stalwart, his first novel The Way to Babylon having been published back in 1992. Given that he's the author of ten novels, I was rather surprised that I'd never heard of him until earlier this year. 

His five-book Monarchies of God sequence has been praised by the likes of Steven Erikson, while his most recent series The Sea Beggars has received some very positive reviews. Yet I've not seen Kearney's name mentioned as much as perhaps it should be. I do therefore get the impression that Kearney is one of the many genre authors that doesn't get the recognition their work deserves.

It's possible that this will change with the release of his new novel, The Ten Thousand, due from Solaris in September 2008. Here's the  blurb: 

On the world of Kuf, the Macht are a mystery, a seldom-seen people of extraordinary ferocity and discipline whose prowess on the battlefield is the stuff of legend. For centuries now, they have remained within the fastnesses of the Harukush Mountains. They have become little more than a rumour.

In the vast world beyond, the teeming races and peoples of Kuf have been united within the bounds of the Asurian Empire, a continent-spanning colossus. The Empire rules the known world, and is invincible. The Great King of Asuria can call up whole nations to the battlefield. His word is law across the face of the earth.

But now the Great King’s brother means to take the throne by force, and in order to do so he has sought out the legend. He hires ten thousand mercenary warriors of the Macht, and leads them into the heart of the Empire.

This is their story.

Straight away I find myself drawn to this novel (and not just because of the stunning artwork, which I've come to expect from Solaris releases). I'm a bit of a sucker for ancient history, and the world Kearney has created in this novel sounds like it has been strongly influenced by the classical world rather than the medieval. There are definitely not enough fantasy works featuring such worlds, so it'll be a nice change to read a novel with different influences. The title is reminiscent of the movie 300, and from what I understand the story itself bears a number of similarities. Think blood, sweat and plenty of grit. Think battles. Think heroism. It all adds up to a very potent mix indeed, one which I'm very much looking forward to sampling. 

In fact, you can all sample it right now! Well, one chapter anyway. The eternally generous gentlemen at Solaris have posted a sample on their website for your perusal! I like what I've read very much, Kearney's style reminds me somewhat of David Gemmell which is definitely a good thing. Only time will tell if The Ten Thousand will bring Kearney the exposure some would no doubt argue he deserves, but from this sample I think the novel is going to be very good indeed. 

You can check out the free sample chapter HERE.

On the horizon...recommendation for 2008

The Inferior by Peadar Ó Guilín was actually published in 2007, but there's been a bit of a buzz building up around it recently.

Here's the blurb:

There is but one law: eat or be eaten. Stopmouth and his family know of no other life than the daily battle to survive. To live they must hunt rival species, or negotiate flesh-trade with those who crave meat of the freshest human kind. It is a savage, desperate existence. And for Stopmouth, considered slow-witted hunt-fodder by his tribe, the future looks especially bleak. But then, on the day he is callously betrayed by his brother, a strange and beautiful woman falls from the sky. It is a moment that will change his destiny, and that of all humanity, forever.

Love that first line: "eat or be eaten." That's a brilliant hook. From what I've read, The Inferior takes place in a world far removed from the usual fantasy trappings, where a tribe of humans - living amid the ruins of some long-forgotten city - fight a daily struggle against all manner of nasty critters. There is also a vague sci-fi element as well, with the strange globes that travel in the skies, just to mix things up a little.

Quite a lot has been made of the book's 'young adult' tag, which some reviewers have found surprising given the cannibalistic, survival themes that pervade the story. Still, that's marketing folk for you.

From what I've heard so far, I'm definitely going to be checking out The Inferior as soon as possible. A review will of course be up as and when. In the meantime, feel free to check out some of the reviews already posted throughout the blogosphere by my fellow bloggers:

Review at Realms of Speculative Fiction

Review at The Wertzone

Review at Graeme's Fantasy Book Review

On the horizon....recommendation for 2008

I know that J. V. Jones' A Sword From Red Ice was published in hardback last year, but the paperback is not to be released until later this year and so it can still count as a recommendation for 2008.

Readers often moan about the length of time it takes an author to deliver the latest volume in a series, which in most cases is two years or sometimes more.

It took five years for A Sword From Red Ice to materialise. That's a heck of a long wait. Fortunately, I only started reading the series about two years ago so I've not had to wait as long, but that's still a pretty big delay. Apparently it's not all Jones' fault either, as there was some sort of problem at the publisher's end as well.

While it was finally released in hardback in October 2007, the mass-market edition is not due for release (in the UK) until November 2008. I have to say, this is extremely annoying. The book took far too long to come out as it was, so why the publishers insist on leaving a further year to put out the paperback edition is beyond me. Perhaps they hope desperate fans will cave in and, not wanting to face the prospect of another year in the cold, snap up a hardback copy. Whatever the reason, it's annoying in the extreme. I'm not a fan of hardback books (too hard to carry around and read on the train) and so I'm waiting for November.

Anyway, back to the book. Here's the blurb:

The Long Night has begun. The Endlords and their dark army of Unmade prepare to unleash untold destruction upon the world. Every Sull warrior must step forward and fight, or risk the North falling into eternal darkness. Key to mankind's survival is the sacred warrior Ash March. But for Ash to realise her true potential as a Reach, and become the Sull's greatest weapon, she must keep herself safe as the perils that surround her multiply. Raif Sevrance has an equally perilous task. The exile must travel to the barren wastes of the Red Glaciers and recover the legendary sword named Loss. For Sull legend decrees that he who wields the Sword from Red Ice will bring terror to their enemies. But fulfilment of these goals may yet come too late. In the remote reaches of the Bitter Hills, the Endlords' minions have made a cataclysmic discovery: a crack in the Blindwall, an ancient and unguarded passage leading directly into the realms of men.

I don't think the blurb really does the series justice; if you've not read the two previous books, this one probably just sounds like another quest novel. Obviously having not read it, I can't claim this viewpoint is false, however the story so far is a much more complex beast than that and I expect this book to continue this trend. Yes, there are several standard tropes, but Jones' has really excelled in creating a harsh, believable world that is both dangerous and absorbing at the same time. I read the first novel of her debut trilogy, The Baker's Boy, and thought it was a bog-standard fantasy with few redeeming qualities. Worse, despite some darker moments, it came across as a bit young-adult at times.

Something happened after Jones finished that trilogy, because The Sword of Shadows series is much more mature, with a host of interesting characters and a multi-layered story. On the one hand you've got the Endlords and their desire to break free from their dimensional prison to wreak havoc on the world, but you've also got the war between the human clans, the emergence of the Sull race, the politics of the city of Spire Vanis, and other threads. It's gripping story that, so far, has been wonderfully told. In fact, I would rate it as one of the best epic fantasies around at the moment.

My opinion my change after reading A Sword From Red Ice. Firstly, the novel has received rather mixed reviews. Secondly, it has been revealed that the series will now run to five books, as opposed to the original trilogy. Whenever you hear this, it does make you worry. One of the main criticisms of the new book is that there are portions where precious little happens, so I hope Jones has not fallen into the 'endless series' syndrome. That would be a massive shame.

A Sword From Red Ice is due to be released in the UK by Orbit in paperback on 6 November 2008.

On the horizon...recommendation for 2008

As I said in my last related post, there are plenty of genre novels due for release this year that are worth keeping tabs on. A Dance With Dragons is just one of them. Another that I have my beady eye on is...

The Steel Remains
By Richard Morgan
(Gollancz, 21 August 2008)

Now, I've never read any of Morgan's work (which appears to be largely sci-fi) but what I've heard about this novel has got me intrigued.

Here's the blurb:

Ringil, the hero of the bloody slaughter at Gallows Gap is a legend to all who don't know him and a twisted degenerate to those that do. A veteren of the wars against the lizards he makes a living from telling credulous travellers of his exploits. Until one day he is pulled away from his life and into the depths of the Empire's slave trade. Where he will discover a secret infinitely more frightening than the trade in lives.

Archeth - pragmatist, cynic and engineer, the last of her race - is called from her work at the whim of the most powerful man in the Empire and sent to its farthest reaches to investigate a demonic incursion against the Empire's borders. Egar Dragonbane, steppe-nomad, one-time fighter for the Empire finds himself entangled in a small-town battle between common sense and religious fervour. But out in the wider world there is something on the move far more alien than any of his tribe's petty gods. Anti-social, anti-heroic, and decidedly irritated, all three of them are about to be sent unwillingly forth into a vicious, vigorous and thoroughly unsuspecting fantasy world. Called upon by an Empire that owes them everything and gave them nothing.

Richard Morgan brings his trademark visceral writing style, turbo-driven plotting and thought provoking characterisation to the fantasy genre and produces a landmark work with his first foray.

The blurb, while interesting, is not what grabbed me. Instead, it was Joe Abercrombie's words that managed that. Morgan's world, Joe says, is:

full of the strange and unexplained...constantly in the shadow of old and terrible wars with lashings of religious bigotry, sexual oppression, messy executions, and slavery.

Now, that sounds a little more interesting. I do tend to favour more gritty, realistic storytelling, so this sounds promising. However, this novel doesn't just sound gritty, but positively barbaric. In Joe's words again:

What else can I compare it to? It has the explosive violence of, well, Richard Morgan (only about twice as explosive), the moral ambiguity of vintage Moorcock (but about three times as dark), with the explicit sexual content of Martin (only about ten times more explicit, and I'm not kidding), the harsh language of Scott Lynch (times about 1,000,000). If those things put you off, really, don't bother. The first couple of pages will probably give you a bit of mouth sick. The lyricism of Patrick Rothfuss? Not so much. The languid descriptions of Robert Jordan? No. The charming rural laughs of Eddings? No. No. No.

That's the paragraph that really grabbed my interest. Let's be honest, how could you read that and not feel intrigued to see exactly what The Steel Remains is like? It sounds totally brutal, to the extent that Joe admitted that:

sometimes I'd wipe the latest explosion of gore, shit, or spunk from my face and just think, "must we? Must we, again?"

Joe's books contain a healthy amount of sex, swearing and violence, so for him to think the above indicates that The Steel Remains is very violent and oppressive indeed.

Subsequently, I'm looking forward to this book to see exactly how 'brutalist' it is. Not only will it be interesting to see how well Morgan writes in the fantasy genre, but I also want to see whether it's all just mindless violence, intended to shock, or whether there is actually more depth to the story than that.

The Steel Remains is released on 21 August 2008. Check out Joe's full article here: http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2008/03/steel-remains.html

On the horizon...recommendations for 2008

First Patrick Rothfuss declared that the sequel to The Name of the Wind will not see the light of day for some time, then comes the news that Scott Lynch has missed his deadline for The Republic of Thieves. Subsequently, neither book is going to materialise until 2009. This appears to have caused some readers in online forums to agitatedly squeal "what books coming out this year can I read instead?"

Plenty, as it happens. Even without Rothfuss and Lynch, there's plenty to look forward to. I thought I'd do a series of features on novels due to be published this year that are worth stockpiling your shiny little pennies for. So without further ado, here's the first:

A Dance with Dragons

George R. R. Martin

The big one, and not just for me. I think it's fair to say this is the most anticipated release of the year. That's not to say that it will be released this year of course. The mooted publication date - in the UK - is 3 November 2008, but past experience however suggests that this may be a shot in the dark. We can but hope.

Here's the blurb:

In the aftermath of a colossal battle, the future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance once again-beset by newly emerging threats from every direction. In the east, Daenerys Targaryen, the last scion of House Targaryen, rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But Daenerys has three times three thousand enemies, and many have set out to find her. Yet, as they gather, one young man embarks upon his own quest for the queen, with an entirely different goal in mind.

To the north lies the mammoth wall of ice and stone-a structure only as strong as those guarding it. There, Jon Snow, 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, will face his greatest challenge yet. For he has powerful foes, not only within the Watch, but also beyond, in the land of the creatures of ice. And from all corners, bitter conflicts soon re-ignite, intimate betrayals are perpetrated, and a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves, will face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Some will fail, others will grow in the strength of darkness. But in a time of rising restlessness, the tides of destiny and politics will lead inevitably to the greatest dance of all…

I don't feel this novel really needs much introduction, other than it will be the latest instalment in what I would argue is the best epic fantasy series ever. Taking up the stories of the characters that were absent in the slightly disappointing A Feast For Crows (regrettably absent, I would say) it will continue the epic saga of the battle for the Iron Throne in the seven lands of Westeros. If you've read Martin before, then you'll know what to expect. If you haven't, there's plenty of time to rectify that grave error before this novel is released. The last novel drew some of the first serious criticism the series has thus far received, with detractors suggesting that Martin was in danger of succumbing to the longevity issues that afflicted The Wheel of Time. Expect Martin to come out all guns blazing in response.

It's been a bit of a wait, but A Dance With Dragons should be more than worth it.