Friday, December 31, 2010

Happy New Year!


May your favourite incomplete series be completed!
May your starts be action packed!
May your endings be the most surprising!
May your protagonists stay with your for years to come!
May your books be remembered forever!

I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Book Review: The Ten Thousand by Paul Kearney

Title: The Ten Thousand
Author: Paul Kearney
Paperback: Paperback; 480 pages
Publisher: Solaris; 26 August 2008
ISBN 10: 1844165736
ISBN 13: 978-1844165735
Series: Book 1 of The Macht Trilogy

"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 they have remained within the remote fastnesses of the Harukush Mountains. In the world beyond, the teeming races and peoples of Kuf have been united within the bounds of the Asurian Empire, which rules the known world, and is invincible. The Great King of Asuria can call up whole nations to the battlefield. His word is law.

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."


Please find the rest of the review on Speculative Book Review...

Friday, December 17, 2010

Free Reading: The Blue Portal by Eric Brown

Here is an excellent Christmas gift from Solaris Books:
Free e-book of Eric Brown's The Blue Portal. You can download this short e-book from Solaris's blog site: When Gravity Fails or from Apple's iBookstore.

The Blue Portal is an extract from the beginning of Eric Brown's upcoming novel The Kings of Eternity (published on 1 Apr 2011).

1999, on the threshold of a new millennium, the novelist Daniel Langham lives a reclusive life on an idyllic Greek island, hiding away from humanity and the events of the past. All that changes, however, when he meets artist Caroline Platt and finds himself falling in love. But what is his secret, and what are the horrors that haunt him?

1935. Writers Jonathon Langham and Edward Vaughan are summoned from London by their editor friend Jasper Carnegie to help investigate strange goings on in Hopton Wood. What they discover there - no less than a strange creature from another world - will change their lives forever. What they become, and their link to the novelist of the future, is the subject of Eric Brown’s most ambitious novel to date. Almost ten years in the writing, The Kings of Eternity is a novel of vast scope and depth, full of the staple tropes of the genre and yet imbued with humanity and characters you’ll come to love.

Solaris Books has been publishing some other excellent science-fiction books of Eric Brown's. Here are the two that they've published in 2010:

Engineman (14 Oct 2010)

Once they pushed bigships through the cobalt glory of the Nada-Continuum. But faster than light isn’t fast enough anymore. The interfaces of the Keilor-Vincicoff Organisation bring planets light years distant a simple step away. Then a man with half a face offers ex-engineman Ralph Mirren the chance to escape his ruined life and push a ship to an undisclosed destination. The Nada-Continuum holds the key to Ralph's future. What he cannot anticipate is its universal importance – nor the mystery awaiting him on the distant colony world. Engineman is a thrilling action adventure by the author of Helix and Kethani. Also in this volume are nine stories set in the Engineman universe, including the Interzone award winning 'The Time-Lapsed Man.'

Guardians of the Phoenix (16 Dec 2010)

Global warming has taken its terrible toll. The seas have dried up and deserts cover much of the Earth’s surface. Humankind has been annihilated by drought and the nuclear and biological conflicts following the Great Breakdown. Desperate bands of humans still survive. Some live far underground, away from the searing temperatures and ongoing conflicts on the surface; others scrape a living in the remains of shattered cities above ground. In Paris, Pierre lives like an animal among the sand-drifted ruins of the once great city. Near death, he faces a choice: join the strangers heading south in search of water, or remain in the city and perish. Guardians of the Phoenix tells the story of the last survivors on planet Earth, their desperate fight for survival and their last hope to save the world.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Book Review: Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton

Title: Pandora's Star
Author: Peter F. Hamilton
Paperback: 1152 pages
Publisher: Pan - 4 Mar 2005
ISBN 10: 0330493310
ISBN 13: 978-0330493314
Series: Book 1 of Commonwealth Saga

In AD 2329, humanity has colonised over four hundred planets, all of them interlinked by wormholes. With Earth at its centre, the Intersolar Commonwealth now occupies a sphere of space approximately four hundred light years across. When an astronomer on the outermost world of Gralmond, observes a star 2000 light years distant - and then a neighbouring one - vanish, it is time for the Commonwealth to discover what happened to them. For what if their disappearance indicates some kind of galactic conflict? Since a conventional wormhole cannot be used to reach these vanished stars, for the first time humans need to build a faster-than-light starship, the Second Chance. But it arrives to find each 'vanished' star encased in a giant force field -- and within one of them resides a massive alien civilisation.

Please find the rest of the review on Speculative Book Review...

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Official Release: Zoolin Vale and the Chalice of Ringtar by Craig Smith

Craig Smith's new book Zoolin Vale and the Chalice of Ringtar is officially released. You can read a short excerpt on the author's blog and order your copy on StoneGarden.net.

Paperback: 270 pages
ISBN: 1-60076-190-9

Blurb
A thief in the night. A missing sacred artifact. An evil warlord from ancient history. A mysterious black hawk. These are only a few of the problems facing Tennen, the newly appointed Lord Protector of Melin. Thrown into a desperate race against time, Tennen must take up the pursuit wherever it takes him. Meanwhile, searching for his lost family in a war torn land, Devlin finds a little more than he bargained for, something that will change his life forever.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Two New Books? How Does Brandon Sanderson Do It?

I'm not a writer so I won't pretend that I know anything about the time it takes to write a book. However I'm impressed how productive Brandon Sanderson is. Not only he can write fast but he writes great books too.

Tor just announced the acquisition of two of his novels: Mistborn: The Alloy of Law and The Rithmatist. I remember having read about the first one but I hadn't heard about the second one previously.

From the press release:

Tor Books is proud to announce the acquisition of two new novels by acclaimed fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, whose recent book Towers of Midnight, Book Thirteen in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time®, recently debuted at #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and ABA National Indiebound bestseller lists. Sanderson is also the author of New York Times bestselling novels The Way of Kings, The Gathering Storm, The Mistborn Trilogy, Warbreaker, Elantris, and the middle grade “Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians” series. He is currently working on A Memory of Light, the 14th and final volume in The Wheel of Time, and planning a sequel to The Way of Kings.

Sanderson’s first new project will be an original, standalone short novel set in the universe of his Mistborn trilogy (Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages). Sanderson previously announced plans for a sequel trilogy set in the far future of that world, and the new novel, entitled Mistborn: The Alloy of Law, is set during a frontier era where “allomancy” meets gunplay. The Alloy of Law will be published in late 2011.

Sanderson’s second project, titled The Rithmatist, was first drafted in 2007 and perfected this year. Set in an alternate-history America where magic users (called “Rithmatists”) battle wild chalk creatures, The Rithmatist introduces Joel, a student at the Rithmatist academy with great interest in but no ability to use the magic. But when students start vanishing, it’s up to him to expose the sinister figure behind the disappearances. The Rithmatist will be published in 2012 after the publication of A Memory of Light.

This year and next will also see major publications in the Wheel of Time franchise, including the graphic novel adaptations of New Spring (January 2011) and The Eye of the World: Volume 1 (September 2011) before the landmark publication of A Memory of Light, the final volume in the series. The third annual JordanCon will take place April 15–17 2011 in Atlanta, GA. Pre-registration is currently ongoing at www.ageoflegends.net.

Fore more information visit www.brandonsanderson.com.