Signed Limited Edition of ALTERED CARBON by Richard K. Morgan(2008).
© Subterranean Press
Altered Carbon
By: Pat FerraraDate: Monday, March 03, 2008
When Brit author Richard K. Morgan first released Altered Carbon, his debut novel of hardboiled SF genius, the body-swapping detective tale met with little criticism. Winning the Philip K. Dick Award for Best Novel in 2003, the impressive sci-fi work goes above and beyond its roots in cyberpunk and Bogart-inspired paradigms to portray the moral and technological dilemmas of a highly digitized 25th Century.
Now, exactly five years after its initial US release, Altered Carbon has received the highest honors our consumer-driven culture can bestow upon a novel: Limited edition reduxes and movie adaptation deals.
Top o’ the week Maniac readers and welcome to the opening Book Buzz of March. As is customary with the first Tuesday of every month, we’ve got an enormous load of papyrus hitting the shelves this week that covers everything from new Torchwood novels to popular fiction satire.
Dave Duncan rounds out his fantasy Dodec series with the paperback releases of both The Alchemist’s Code and Mother of Lies, Kevin R. Grazier takes a look into the science of Michael Crichton’s sci-fi with the paperback The Science of Michael Crichton, and Robert Rankin puts a comic spin on Dan Brown’s work with The Da Da De Da Da Code.
Noted genre authors Eric Flint and Mike Resnic pair up to edit The Dragon Done It, a star-studded collection of fantasy detective stories, released this week on hardback. But the biggest cross-genre detective story of the schedule challenges the traditional mold like no other. Illustrated by Vincent Chong, Subterranean Press’s signed edition of Altered Carbon is limited to 500 copies and will run you a little under $50 on Amazon ($250 will snag you one of 26 lettered editions).
For those not familiar with the story, Carbon tells the tale of a future world where humans are implanted with cortical stacks into their spines. This additional hardware allows all memories, emotions, personality traits, and well, sentience, to be digitized and recorded into these stacks. The rich can afford to live indefinitely by downloading their stacks into new bodies, a process called resleeving, while the poor and criminal classes don’t fair nearly so well.
Under the umbrella jurisdiction of the UN Protectorate, the human race has expanded beyond the solar system, but the only means of FTL travel is accomplished by sending out stack data to a new sleeve at a desired location. Takeshi Kovacs used to be an Envoy, a neurochemically enhanced soldier specifically trained to handle the psychological stress of jumping through many different bodies. After being locked up in data storage for a brutal heist (as is the case with all criminals), Kovacs is downloaded into the body of a former Bay-area policeman to solve a tricky case.
Laurens Bancroft is one of those individuals wealthy enough to keep a regularly updated stack file on reserve at all times. But when he apparently commits suicide, and his out-of-date stack is downloaded into a new sleeve, he suspects murder and fronts the bill for Kovacs’ investigative talents. These events start a case that’s as insightful and action-packed as it is emotive and mind-expanding.
As we noted two weeks ago the future of most print entertainment is undeniably the screen, and Morgan’s Altered Carbon is apparently already on its way there. Though the Writer’s Strike, and possibly the SAG Strike, has more than likely delayed the project, it has been announced that V FOR VENDETTA director James McTeigue has been attached to the big screen adaptation. IMDB has the film listed at a 2009 release.
The week’s top picks: John C. Wright’s Titans of Chaos, Kevin R. Grazier’s The Science of Michael Crichton, Robert Rankin’s The Da Da De Da Da Code, Peter Watts’ Blindsight, & Mike Brotherton’s Spider Star
New in Hardcover:
Altered Carbon, Richard K. Morgan (Subterranean Press)
Altered Carbon is the novel that put Richard K. Morgan on the map, a fusion of Blade Runner noir and far future hard science tied together with a skull slamming narrative. It's really that good.
The Subterranean Press edition includes a cover and four full color interior illustrations by Vincent Chong -- including that scene in the hotel lobby, done as a foldout. Signed and limited to 500 numbered hardcover copies. Illustrated by Vincent Chong.
When the Tide Rises, David Drake (Baen)
When the Republic of Cinnabar doesn't have enough battleships to deal with all the crises in its war with the Alliance, it sends the next best thing: Commander Daniel Leary and his friend, the spy Adele Mundy. This time they're off to help the Bagarian cluster in its rebellion against the Alliance, but they'll quickly find that the worst threats to the rebels are the treacherous politicians leading them. Leary and Mundy use electronic espionage, sub-machine guns, and ship-killing missiles to outwit political rivals, put down mutiny, and capture an Alliance fortress. When all else fails, they'll strike for the heart of the Alliance--and then throw their tiny corvette into a major fleet action. A cascade of non-stop action as vivid as only David Drake can write it!
The Last Realm: Dragonscarpe, Pat Mcnamara (Angel Phoenix Publishing)
Fiery heroics, a doomed love and vengeful betrayal are the cornerstones of the first volume in this visually rich and cinematically paced, Illustrated Novel Series - THE LAST REALM. The storm of war has engulfed the Realms. Thrust into the heart of the turmoil is Zayd, Paladin of the Dragonscarpe. Zayd takes the first step to discovering that the only hope for survival lies in a past deliberately forgotten - beyond the barrier to the terrifying Last Realm.
Spider Star, Mike Brotherton (Tor)
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an alien race, a race gone for hundreds of thousands of years. But then an archeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon: a weapon that will destroy the entire colony, and its star, if they cannot deactivate it. Evidence at the site suggests that the weapon was created for the ancient Argonauts by another race, a race of traders. And within that evidence are a map of their interstellar trading empire, and the coordinates of their main trading station. Although the information is a hundred thousand years out of date, the only hope for Argo is to send a ship and crew into the unknown, to try to negotiate for a way to shut down the weapon.
Space Vultures, Gary K. Wolf & John J. Myers (Tor)
After a lifetime of friendship, two small-town boys who grew to have very different lives and careers have teamed up to travel back in time and conquer the universe. Determined to recapture the science fiction of their youth—not as it was, but as it should have been—Gary K. Wolf, the creator of Roger Rabbit, and his best friend, John J. Myers, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, now transport readers to the far reaches of the galaxy. There, the mere mention of the pirate known as Space Vulture strikes fear into every heart. A hardworking colonist’s only hope is that the dauntless lawman, Marshal Victor Corsaire, will rocket to the rescue. Come along for the ride and discover all the adventure, suspense, wonder, and fun that Wolf and Myers first found in science fiction fifty years ago, and now share with everyone in this rollicking tale of the spaceways.
Rolling Thunder, John Varley (Ace)
Lieutenant Patricia Kelly Elizabeth Strickland-otherwise known as Podkayne-is a third-generation Martian. Her grandfather, Manny, was one of the first men to set foot on Mars. So Poddy has some planet-sized shoes to fill. That's why she's joined the Music, Arts, and Drama Division of the Martian Navy. Though some may say her voice is a weapon in itself, Poddy passed the audition. And now she's going to Europa, one of Jupiter's many moons, to be an entertainer. But she's about to learn that there's plenty of danger to go around in the Martian Navy, even if you've just signed on to sing.
Elom, William H. Drinkard (Tor)
Fire from the Goddess and the meat and furs of the mammoth are all that the People need to live. It is a harsh life but a good one and it is one that all cherish. Young Geerna knows that the time has come for her to become a woman and take up the tasks to keep her people safe. She waits in the Awakening Place, fearful and hopeful as her ordeals come to an end. Then, on the eve of her Womanhood, a shining light descends upon her and her world is torn asunder. And she embarks on a journey that none of her people could ever envision... Eons have passed. Cycle upon cycle the Way of the People have remain unchanged: women are artists, men are hunters. Geerna’s Law is the covenant by which humans live in harmony and peace. But all is about to change. A call has come for The People to choose their champions, and a summons to meet the mysterious creatures who selected Geerna so long ago. All is unknown. As the brave souls who are chosen venture forth, they will come to discover just how much that pact that Geerna made so long ago has cost them. And they will have to confront the choices that might help them to finally know true freedom.
Crosstime, Andre Norton (Baen)
An orphan, Blake Walker has never really known who he is, and his strange flashes of intuition have always set him apart from those who raised him and everyone else he has known. Acting on one of those flashes, he prevented a murder. But neither the assailant nor his intended victim were from the world Walker had always known, and he had stumbled onto the greatest secret of the ages. Our Earth is only one of an infinite number of Earths, each with a slightly different history from the others, each separated from the others in a crosstime dimension. Walker was drafted into a frantic search for a madman from an advanced Earth who desires to be an absolute ruler of men. The would-be tyrant has chosen our Earth as the place where his reign will begin. And, if the powerful technology he controls does not give him complete control of the planet, he will not hesitate to destroy it utterly…
Torchwood: Trace Memory, David Llewellyn (Random House UK)
Tiger Bay, Cardiff, 1950: A mysterious crate is brought into the docks on a Scandinavian cargo ship, the Kungssangen. Its destination: The Torchwood Institute. As the crate is offloaded by a group of local dockers it explodes, killing all but one; a young Butetown lad called Michael Bellini. Fifty-eight years later a radioactive source somewhere inside Torchwood leads the team to discover the same Michael Bellini, still young and dressed in his 1950s clothes, cowering in the vaults. As they question the intruder, it becomes apparent that each of them has met him in the past. All of them remember him talking incoherently about terrifying "Men In Bowler Hats" and little more, but it's Jack who remembers him best of all...
Torchwood: The Twilight Streets, Gary Russell (Random House UK)
It's the start of a Cardiff autumn - the days are getting shorter, the dark evenings settling in. There's a part of Cardiff that no one goes to much. No crime, no murders, just... they stay away. A collection of old rundown houses and gloomy streets. Something's not quite right there, something is off-kilter. Except now, the Council are renovating the area. And a new company have been employed to do this. And look: they're going to organize street parties to show off the gentrified area. Clown and face-painters for the kids, street magicians for the adults. None of this is Torchwood's problem. Except that Tosh recognizes the man sponsoring the street parties when she's passing one day: Bills Manger!
Torchwood: Something in the Water, Trevor Baxendale (Random House UK)
Dr. Bob Strong's GP surgery has being seeing a lot of coughs and colds recently - far more than is normal for the time of year. Bob contacts Owen Harper, an old student friend, who reluctantly agrees to look into it. Meanwhile, Toshiko and Gwen are investigating ghostly apparitions in the marshy areas of South Wales. It's been a dull month and they're just about to pack up when they discover a dead body. The Team find that there's been a massive spike in respiratory infections right across the UK. Captain Jack agrees that it's worth investigating, but at the moment his priority is Tosh and Gwen's work: they've brought the corpse back for examination. It's old, in an advanced state of decay...and still able to talk!
Tangled Webs: A Black Jewels Novel, Anne Bishop (Roc)
The invitation is signed "Jaenelle Angelline," and it summons her family to an entertainment she had specially prepared. Surreal SaDiablo, former courtesan and assassin, arrives first. But when she enters the house, Surreal finds herself trapped in a living nightmare created by the tangled webs of Black Widow witches...and if she uses Craft to defend herself, she risks being sealed in the house forever. But Jaenelle did not send the invitation. And now Jaenelle and her family must rescue Surreal and the others inside without becoming trapped themselves-and then discover who has created such a place, and why...
Steward of Song, Adam Stemple (Tor)
Murder and its consequences haunt the human and faery worlds in this sequel to the widely-praised Singer of Souls.
Legend of Drizzt: Sea of Swords, R.A. Salvatore (Wizards of the Coast)
The legend is complete! This deluxe hardcover edition of the New York Times best-seller brings The Legend of Drizzt series to a close, and leads directly into the extraordinarily popular Hunter's Blades Trilogy. Sea of Swords may be the last Drizzt book to get a new look, but it's hardly the end of this classic tale of good and evil in a world of magic and mystery.
Legend of Drizzt Collector’s Edition, R.A. Salvatore (Wizards of the Coast)
Celebrate Twenty Years of Drizzt! Drizzt Do'Urden has done the impossible--for a dark elf. He's made a home on the World Above, and surrounded himself with a circle of friends who will fight to the death for him. And when an ancient artifact of inescapable evil burns its way through Iewind Dale, they just may have to. Contains the novels The Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver, and The Halfling's Gem.
The Hidden City, Michelle West (DAW)
The incredible story that fans of The Sun Sword series have been waiting to read-the battle for control of House Terafin-from a writer of "talent and depth." Orphaned and left to fend for herself in the slums of Averalaan, Jewel Markess- Jay to her friends-meets an unlikely savior in Rath, a man who prowls the ruins of the undercity. Nursing Jay back to health is an unusual act for a man who renounced his own family long ago, and the situation becomes stranger still when Jay begins to form a den of other rescued children in Rath's home. But worse perils lurk beneath the slums: the demons that once nearly destroyed the Essalieyan Empire are stirring again, and soon Rath and Jay will find themselves targets of these unstoppable beings.
The Dragon Done It, Ed. by Eric Flint & Mike Resnick (Baen)
Pity the poor private eye (or official investigator, for that matter), who has to solve a case which may involve death by black magic, evidence that may have been altered or planted by an itinerant sorcerer, and supernatural entities ranging from ghosts to vampires to dragons. Even when the detective is a master of sorcery himself, the dragon may have an unbreakable alibi. Best-selling authors Eric Flint and Mike Resnick present a generous selection of stories from the intersection of mystery and magic by popular writers Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolf, David Drake, Harry Turtledove, Esther M. Friesner, and more, including Flint and Resnick themselves. The Dragon Done It is an exciting cross-genre volume that both mystery fans and fantasy fans will enjoy. And so will dragons.
New in Paperback:
The Science of Michael Crichton, Kevin R. Grazier (BenBella Books)
As each new Michael Crichton book grazes the cutting edge of scientific technology, this innovative guide serves to expose the plausibility behind the inventions of Crichton’s thrilling fiction. This fascinating analysis puts Crichton’s novels to the test, examining shocking developments—regarding dinosaur cloning, global warming, nanotechnology, time travel, animal behavior, and human genetics—and revealing the validity of the science behind them (or lack thereof). Exposing the truth behind the miracles and nightmares Crichton describes in his work, this tell-all resource dissects the science at the heart of each of his bestselling novels.
The Elysium Commission, L.E. Modesitt (Tor)
L.E. Modesitt returns to SF with a whole new future world on the brink of destruction. A brilliant scientist on the planet Devanta has created a small universe contiguous to ours --and a utopian city on one of the planets. The question becomes, though, an utopia for whom? And why is a shady entertainment mogul subsidizing the scientist? More critical than that, does this new universe require the destruction of a portion --or all -- of our universe in order to grow and stabilize? Blaine Donne is a retired military special operative now devoted to problem-solving for hire. He investigates a series of seemingly unrelated mysteries that arise with the arrival of a woman with unlimited resources who has neither a present nor a past. The more he investigates, the more questions arise, including the role of the two heiresses who are more -- and less -- than they seem, and the more Donne is pushed inexorably toward an explosive solution and a regional interstellar war.
The Man on the Ceiling, Steve Rasnic & Melanie Tem (Wizards of the Coast Discoveries)
Two interwoven memoirs of love, loss, and family with a haunted, frightening edge. In 2000, American Fantasy Press published an unassuming chapbook titled The Man on the Ceiling. Inside was a dark, surreal, discomfiting story of the horrors that can befall a family. It was so powerful that it won the Bram Stoker Award, International Horror Guild Award, and World Fantasy Award--the only work ever to win all three. Now, Melanie Tem and Steve Rasnic Tem have re-imagined the story, expanding on the ideas to create a compelling work that examines how people find a family, how they hold a family together despite incomprehensible tragedy, and how, in the end, they find love. Loosely autobiographical, The Man on the Ceiling has the feel of a family portrait painted by Salvador Dali, where story and reality blend to find the one thing that neither can offer alone: truth.
Iron Mosaic, Michael Cobley (Immanion Press)
Short stories are a bit like refugees, or at least the disparate and contrary members of a contrary family, sent forth alone into the world. Short stories are tours of duty through personal badlands, hikes across the hinterlands. Short stories are like puzzle pieces carved from glass or wood or diamond or clay or whatever's close to hand. So when the refugee brothers and sisters and cousins return to their roots, when the tours of duty are documented and the hinterlands charted, and when the puzzle pieces are found to fit only into the mind of the carver, what are you left with? The voices of a freeform choir? An enigmatic Escheresque atlas? Or seventeen stories from the pen of Michael Cobley; memos from places both dark and light. Discover a ghost's point of view of the living. Pursue monsters through a land of ice and snow. Take a waltz through space and time. Strut your stuff at the Panddomainium. Embark on a mystic journey to the Great Barrier Reef Range. Know the feeling of technology beneath the skin. Seventeen stories from a persistently thoughtful and entertaining writer. Seventeen tickets to strange worlds and strange thoughts. Enjoy the ride.
Titans of Chaos, John C. Wright (Tor)
Titans of Chaos completes John Wright's The Chronicles of Chaos. Launched in Orphans of Chaos--a Nebula Award Nominee for best novel in 2006, and a Locus Year’s Best Novel pick for 2005--and continued in Fugitives of Chaos, the trilogy is about five orphans raised in a strict British boarding school who discovered that they are not human. The students have been kidnapped, robbed of their powers, and raised in ignorance by super-beings. The five have made incredible discoveries about themselves. Amelia is apparently a fourth-dimensional being; Victor is a synthetic man who can control the molecular arrangement of matter; Vanity can find secret passageways through solid walls; Colin is a psychic; Quentin is a warlock. Each power comes from a different paradigm or view of the universe. They have learned to control their strange abilities and have escaped into our world: now their true battle for survival begins. The Chronicles of Chaos is situated in the literary territory of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, and Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, with some of the flash and dazzle of superhero comics.
Mad Kestrel, Misty Massey (Tor)
A rip-roaring pirate romance and mystery In a world where infants with magical powers are torn from their parents to be raised by the mysterious and powerful Danisoba, who have a monopoly on magic, Kestrel has managed to keep her abilities concealed—and herself free. First hiding in back alleys as a street urchin, she hid when they killed her parents, and then served as a young tavern maid before escaping to sea, where magic is cancelled by water. Now an adult, as the quartermaster of a pirate ship, Kestrel loves the freedom of living on the seas. But her way of life could end if anyone on board learns her closely guarded secret—that she has magical control over the wind. One day a black ship appears, and her life changes. Its captain is a handsome rogue of whom Kestrel is strangely, constantly aware. When Kestrel’s captain is led into a trap and is arrested, she gathers her crew and sets sail in relentless pursuit…
Inquisitives: The Darkwood Mask, Jeff Lasala (Wizards of the Coast)
The Inquisitives are the "private eyes" of the Eberron world, solving murders with magic and steel. A diplomat has been murdered and an innocent man has been accused. An up-and-coming young Inquisitive is brought in to solve this high-profile case, but corruption, money, and power stand in her way.
Blindsight, Peter Watts (Tor)
Two months since the stars fell... Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown. Two months of silence, while a world holds its breath. Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever's out there isn't talking to us. It's talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route. So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn't want to meet? You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed, and the fainter one she'll do any good if she is. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the BleedingEdge. You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find. But you'd give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them...
Antagonist, Gordon R. Dickson & David Wixon (Tor)
Gordon R. Dickson's Childe Cycle of novels depicting the future of the human race has been one of the grand epics of science fiction. At the time of his death in 2001, Dickson was writing Antagonist, the tale of Bleys Ahrens' turn toward darkness. Now Dickson's assistant David W. Wixon has brilliantly finished the long-awaited book, working from Dickson's copious notes. Antagonist is a fitting capstone to one of the most ambitious series in SF history. The Childe Cycle is the story of a new human evolution: the development of a real, hardwired sense of "responsibility" shared by all human beings. Donal Graeme was a Dorsai, a mercenary soldier, and also a mutant gifted with insight into the path forward for the human race. Through his gifts Donal would come to bend time and live three lifetimes--and, in the process, run into problems he had not expected: first, his own flaws, and second, the existence of another mutant, Bleys Ahrens. Following Young Bleys and Other, Antagonist advances the story of the formidably powerful Bleys Ahrens. Bleys is a man with a clear vision of the struggle in which he's involved--but an increasingly deficient sense of human values. He and his organization, the Others, are tracking down an elusive interplanetary opposition. Meanwhile, Bleys' own intricate conspiracies and devisings, and his quest for power, which began with the best of motives, have become something darker and fiercer. He's committed to his plans. They may bring about the advent of Homo superior. And they may destroy the human race.
Shadowplay, Tad Williams (DAW)
With their father and brother taken from them, the royal Eddon twins Barrick and Briony have done their best to hold the kingdom together. But now Barrick has been captured in a failed war against the immortal Twilight People, and Briony has been forced to flee the castle. Everywhere in the north the fierce Twilight People, led by the ageless warrior-witch Yasammez, hold sway. 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.
Night Life, Caitlin Kittredge (St. Martin’s)
The first book a thrilling, addictive new series by a talented new voice in dark fantasy. Welcome to Nocturne City, where werewolves, black magicians, and witches prowl the streets at night… Among them is Luna Wilder, a tough-as-nails police officer whose job is to keep the peace. As an Insoli werewolf, Luna travels without a pack and must rely on instinct alone. And she's just been assigned to find the ruthless killer behind a string of ritualistic murders-a killer with ties to an escaped demon found only in legend...until now. But when she investigates prime suspect Dmitri Sandovsky, she can't resist his wolfish charms. Pack leader of a dangerous clan of Redbacks, Dimitri sends her animal instincts into overdrive and threatens her fiercely-guarded independence. But Luna and Dimiri will need to rely on each other as they're plunged into an ancient demon underworld and pitted against an expert black magician with the power to enslave them for eternity... Book one of the Nocturne City series.
Mother of Lies, Dave Duncan (Tor)
Mother of Lies completes the Dodec story. The children taken hostage so long ago are grown up and reunited. Armed with the power of their chosen gods, they are free to head homeward in search of their destiny. But only one of them can succeed their dying father as ruler of Celebre, and they have had no practice in sibling cooperation--how long will their unity last? Furthermore, the Florengian freedom fighters are driving Bloodlord Stralg and his evil horde back towards the city. If he makes his last stand at Celebre, there may be no city left to inherit by the time the children arrive. And if Stralg's fiendish sister Saltaja has any say, they will not even get close.
The Alchemist’s Code, Dave Duncan (Ace Trade)
The legendary Maestro Nostradamus may be able to glimpse the ever-changing future, but even he cannot see the danger that is about to envelop him and his daring apprentice Alfeo when Nostradamus is hired to find a foreign spy by Venice's ruling Council of Ten. The only clues they can offer him are the spy's intercepted messages, encoded in a seemingly unbreakable cipher. But Nostradamus soon detects evil influences working against him, and realizes the spy can only be caught by occult means. He turns to his able apprentice, the young swordsman Alfeo Zeno, whose unique talents may prove essential to unraveling the truth.
The Da Da De Da Da Code, Robert Rankin (Gollancz)
The world's Master of Far-Fetched Fiction takes us into the heart of the Da Da De Da Da Code, wherein lies the music of the angels—and the music of the devil. Aliens, flying saucers from hell, the Multiverse, the Illuminati—every wacky, way-out conspiracy theory ever heard are all here, wrapped into a plot that will leave Dan Brown fans breathless, Michael Shea readers stupefied, and Raymond Khoury lovers incredulous. Robert Rankin's previous books include The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse and The Witches of Chiswick.
Guin Saga: Battle of Nospherus, Kaoru Kurimoto (Vertical Books)
The Guin Saga is epic heroic fantasy in the smae vein as Robert E. Howard's Conan, the Barbarian. More than a hundred books strong and growing, the saga has sold more than twenty-five million copies in Japan. Vertical will publish the first five installments that comprise "The Marches Episode" arc. Each paperback edition will feature artwork taken from the original Japanese editions. Guin is a mighty warrior, who cannot remember his past. His only clue is a leopard mask mystically attached to his head. Joined by the royal twins of Parros, Remus and Rinda; Suni, the simian-girl; and Istavan, the mercernary; our hero must cross the treacherous River Kes and journey into the badlands of Nospherus, where unthinkable dangers lurk. In hot pursuit is a Mongauli army of 15,000, led by the beautiful and dangerous General Amnelis.
Grudgelore: The Ultimate Book of Dwarfs, Nick Kyme & Gavin Thorpe (Games Workshop)
This background book, tells fans everything they ever wanted to know about the popular Warhammer race the dwarfs, including their battles, culture, holds, enemies and history.
Demons are a Ghoul’s Best Friend, Victoria Laurie (Signet)
Victoria Laurie's ghoulishly great follow-up to What's a Ghoul to Do? in her new Ghost Hunter Mystery series. Northelm Boarding School on Lake Placid has the worst bully of all-a demon by the name of Hatchet Jack. M.J. Holliday, along with her partners Gilley and the handsome Dr. Steven Sable, are ready to send him back to the portal from whence he came. The school's summer construction, an uncooperative dean, and the very tempting Dr. Delicious are all trying to distract M.J. from her ghost hunting. But with a demonic disturbance as great as Hatchet Jack, she must focus and show no mercyto send him to detention for an eternity-in hell.
Ephemera: Belladonna, Anne Bishop (Roc)
The thrilling follow-up to Sebastian. The Eater of the World continues to spread its dark influence across the realm of Ephemera, corrupting people's souls with doubts and fears. Only Glorianna Belladonna possesses the ability to thwart the Eater's plans. But she has been branded a rogue, and must stand alone against the encroaching entity. But she is not alone. In dreams, a call has traveled throughout Ephemera-"Heart's hope lies within Belladonna"-and reached Michael, a man with mysterious powers of his own. It awakens a fierce hunger within him to find the dark-haired sorceress he's dreamt of-a beautiful woman named Belladonna. Together, they may be Ephemera's only hope.
New in Audiobook:
Hellstrom’s Hive, Frank Herbert (Tantor Media Unabridged)
America is a police state, and it is about to be threatened by the most hellish enemy in the world: insects. First published in Galaxy magazine in 1973 as Project 40, Frank Herberts vivid imagination and brilliant view of nature and ecology have never been more evident than in this classic of science fiction. Narrated by Scott Brick.
The Ancient, R.A. Salvatore (Macmillan Audio Unabridged)
Searching for his long-lost father, Bransen Garibond is tricked into journeying across the Gulf of Corona to the wild lands of Vanguard, where he is pressed into service in a desperate war against the brutal Samhaist, Ancient Badden. On an Alpinadoran lake, just below Ancient Badden's magical ice castle, several societies, caught in the web of their own conflicts, are oblivious to Ancient Badden's devastating plans to destroy them. Bransen becomes the link between the wars, and if he fails, all who live on the lake will perish, and all of northern Honce will fall under the shadow of the merciless and vengeful Samhaists. The Ancient is part of the Saga of the First King, a four-book series that chronicles the early days of Corona, the same world as Salvatore's bestselling DemonWars saga. Narrated by Erik Singer.
Okay that’ll do it for this week’s Buzz. Check back next Monday for all the latest info on current sci fi, fantasy, and horror book releases. Questions or comments? Hit me up at Pferrara.mania@gmail.com.
Richard Morgan is also a really nice guy. He was at ComicCon a couple of years ago and did a reading and Q&A.