"Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence" by Masaki Yamada.
© VIZ Media
Ghost in the Shell Continues
By: Pat FerraraDate: Monday, July 16, 2007
Ever since its explosion onto the global screen in 1995, the Ghost in the Shell series has provided viewers with a profoundly philosophical, yet innovatively stylized look into a near future world where the lines between man and machine finally blur. Through VIZ Media LLC the prequel installment to the second animated film, INNOCENCE, arrives in the US on paperback complete with an interview with one of the best filmmakers Japan has to offer: Mamoru Oshii.
Top o’ the week to all of you Maniac readers and welcome to this edition of the Buzz. While the days of July are quickly sloughing off the industry’s independent publishers have swooped in this week to milk the release schedule before Scholastic Press shatters records next Tuesday. Those indie publishers are bringing us a sampling of genre fiction from zombie anthologies to classic collections, new series openers, and even a couple D&D literary guides thrown in for good measure.
A. Gianetti kicks off his new The Goblin Wars series with The Founding, released simultaneously on paperback and hardcover through Wheatmark Books. Richard Kadrey opens up his Dominion series with Butcher Bird while Donita K. Paul continues the Dragon Keepers series with DragonFire.
For D&D fans the Wizards team has fleshed out the fifth book of their Monster Manual line to offer a fully detailed and illustrated look into their fiendish Eberron creations while Baker, Boyd, and Reid dish out the middle installment of the Shadowdale series for the Forgotten Realms roleplaying universe (both on hardcover).
Zombies and anthologies collide with genre editor Vince Sneed and Padwolf Publishing’s compendium The Dead Walk Again, released on paperback this week with 11 tales of the living dead. If single author collections are more your thing classic SF author Theodore Sturgeon unveils the 11th volume in his Complete Stories collection series with The Nail and the Oracle this Tuesday and Laird Barron pumps out some of his award-worthy fantasy and horror fare in Night Shade Book’s The Imago Sequence and Other Stories.
Speaking of SF classics, Ghost in the Shell hits book shelves tomorrow and ends the literary hiatus of Masamune Shirow’s cyberpunk sci fi series, which began when Dark Horse’s Stand Alone Complex trilogy concluded this past December. Penned by Masaki Yamada, the paperback release Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, After The Long Goodbye is a prequel installment to the 2004 INNOCENCE animated film helmed by director extraordinaire Mamoru Oshii. Also the director of the first Ghost in the Shell film and the live-action AVALON (If you haven’t seen this 2001 Cannes Official Selection, it’s definitely worth a view), Oshii provides a discussion with the book’s author on the Ghost series, cyborgs, and the heady concepts of consciousness and identity in a special bonus section of the novel. If anyone could do cinematic justice to Gibson’s Neuromancer, Oshii is definitely the right man for the job.
New in Hardcover:
The Imago Sequence and Other Stories, Laird Barron (Night Shade Books)
The title story of this collection - a devilishly ironic riff on H. P. Lovecraft's "Pickman's model" - was nominated for a World Fantasy Award, while "Probiscus" was nominated for an International Horror Guild award and reprinted in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19. In addition to his previously published work, this collection contains an original story.
The Goblin Wars: The Founding, A. Gianetti (Wheatmark Books)
This book contains the first part in the history of the Goblin Wars of the Middle Realm. The Fourth Age is ending, and Torquatus, the mage king of the goblins, is moving to bring all the nations of the Middle Realm under his evil dominion. The elves are gone, those not destroyed by the goblins having fled over the sea. Only the dwarves and men of the South now oppose the goblins. While the war rages on, a young boy mysteriously appears in the forests of the South and is found by Balbus, an old soldier. Balbus suspects that the boy, whom he names Arius, may be one of the vanished elves. He raises the boy in hiding, and he and his mage friend Tullius teach Arius the skills and the magic he will need to survive as he grows older. In his quest to discover his past, Arius travels the length and breadth of the Middle Realm, while facing dangers from magical trees, shape changers, goblins, trolls, and human raiders. Along the way he meets and befriends a dwarf named Ascilius and together they become involved in the struggle against the goblins, while Arius tries to discover the truth of his past.
Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land, Richard Baker, Eric L. Boyd, & Thomas M. Reid (Wizards of the Coast)
Elminster's tower lies in ruins, and the town of Shadowdale has been conquered by evil Sharrans and the nefarious forces of Zhentil Keep. To drive the villains out of Shadowdale, the heroes must organize and lead a desperate revolt of Dalesfolk against their conquerors, as well as thwart the sinister designs of Shar's servants and the Zhent garrison. Shadowdale is an adventure designed for characters levels 8-13 and is the second part of a three-part series set in the Forgotten Realms, although it can easily be played as a stand-alone adventure. In addition to encounters, this book contains detailed source material on the town of Shadowdale and its environs.
D&D Monster Manual V, Wizards Team (Wizards of the Coast)
Who couldn't use a few new monsters in their game? Monster Manual V is the most recent volume in the best-selling Monster Manual line. This D&D supplement presents a fully illustrated hoard of new monsters, as well as ready-to-play variations of previously existing monsters. In addition, this supplement features maps of monster lairs, sample encounters, and tactics sections to help Dungeon Masters run the more complex creatures. Additionally, many entries contain information about where monsters are likely to appear in the Forgotten Realms and Eberron campaign settings.
A Distant Magic, Mary Jo Putney (Random House)
On a visit to Marseille to attend a Guardian wedding, Jean Macrae is kidnapped by Captain Zander, a handsome stranger who claims that her family owes him a blood debt and who threatens to sell her into slavery on the Barbary Coast, and her only chance is to use her Guardian magic to make him fall in love.
The Dark River, John Twelve Hawks (Doubleday Publishing)
In The Traveler, John Twelve Hawks introduced readers to a dangerous world inspired by the modern technology that monitors our lives. Under constant surveillance of the ‘Vast Machine,’ a sophisticated computer network run by a ruthless group, society is mostly unaware of its own imprisonment. Gabriel and Michael Corrigan, brothers who were raised “off the grid,” have recently learned they are Travelers like their long-lost father— part of a centuries-old line of prophets able to journey to different realms of consciousness and enlighten the world to resist being controlled. But power affects the brothers differently. As The Travelerends, Gabriel hesitates under the weight of responsibility. Michael seizes the opportunity—and joins the enemy. The Dark River opens in New York City with a stunning piece of news. Gabriel’s father, who has been missing for nearly twenty years, may still be alive and trapped somewhere in Europe. Gabriel and his Harlequin protector, Maya, immediately mobilize to escape New York and find the long-lost Traveler. Simultaneously, Michael orders the Brethren—the ruthless group that has been hunting Gabriel—into a full-scale search. Gabriel yearns to find his father to protect him; Michael aims to destroy the man whose existence threatens his newfound power. The race moves from the underground tunnels of New York and London to ruins hidden beneath Rome and Berlin, to a remote region of Africa that is rumored toharbor one of history’s greatest treasures. And as the story moves toward its chilling conclusion, Maya must decide if she will trade everything to rescue Gabriel. A mesmerizing return to the places and people so richly portrayed in The Traveler, The Dark River is propelled by edge-of-the-seat suspense and haunted by a vision of a world where both hope and freedom are about to disappear.
The Nail and the Oracle: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon (North Atlantic Books)
This book contains ten major stories by the master of science fiction, fantasy, and horror written during the 1960s. The controversial “If All Men We’re Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?” shows the author’s technique of “ask the next question” used in a way that shatters social conventions. “When You Care, When You Love” offers a prescient vision of the marriage of deep obsessive love and genetic manipulation, written long before actual cloning techniques existed. “Runesmith” constitutes a rare example of Sturgeon collaborating with a legendary colleague, Harlan Ellison. Included also are two other rarities: two detective stories and a Western that showcase Sturgeon’s knack for characterization and action outside his usual genre. “Take Care of Joey” has been read as an allusion to the complex personal relationship between Sturgeon and Ellison, while “It Was Nothing, Really!” hilariously skewers the mores of the military-industrial complex. As always, these stories demonstrate not only Sturgeon’s brilliant wordplay but also his timeliness, with “Brown-shoes” and “The Nail and the Oracle” standing out as powerful commentaries on the use and abuse of power that might have been written yesterday. The eleventh volume in Sturgeon’s Complete Stories collection. Forward by Paul Williams.
New in Paperback:
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Masaki Yamada (VIZ Media LLC)
The hulking cyborg counterterrorist Batou doesn't have a family; his electronic brain never dreams. So why did he dream the other night - and dream that he has a son? At one time, Batou had a human love for his partner, the legendary Major, before he witnessed her transfiguration into something beyond humanity. Now he has only his job, and his beloved basset hound, Gabriel. But when Batou has a near-death experience in an arranged car "accident”; he returns home to find Gabriel has gone missing - perhaps, to go look for her owner's lost soul. Translated by Yuji Oniki.
Hurricane Moon, Alexis Glynn Latner (Pyr Books)
In the late twenty-first century, earth is wracked by political and ecological crises, and the Aeon Foundation launches a starship to find a new world and found a new civilization, with all the advances of science and without the mistakes made on earth. Catharin Gault is the idealistic astronaut-physician in Aeon's primary crew. Along with the rest of the crew and passenger-colonists, she goes into stasis--cold suspended animation--for the long journey across the stars, their collective fate surrendered to the ship's artificial intelligence. Things go amiss even before the new world's beginning. Programmed to search for a planet with a large moon (the only way to guarantee stable seasons, tides, and an earthlike ecosystem after terraforming), the ship takes far too long, then finds a destination better than Catharin ever dared hope for: two earth-sized planets locked in orbit around each other. The one dubbed "Planet Green" has abundant plant life and a paucity of large animals. "Planet Blue" is an oceanic world covered with hurricanes. Several things about Blue baffle Aeon's planetary scientists. To everyone else, it's simply a big, blue moon. Revived from stasis more than a thousand years after the starship left earth, Catharin makes a horrible discovery. The long stasis damaged the complex organic molecules in human bodies. Unless the human genome can be repaired, there will be no future on idyllic Planet Green. Aeon has tremendous biomedical resources, but Catharin needs more. She needs a genetic miracle-worker--and she has one. She revives Joseph Devreze: a uniquely talented molecular biologist and maddeningly irresponsible genius. A crown prince of the science of his century, Devreze made a terrible mistake, followed a seductive line of research too far, and made one powerful enemy too many. In a trap of his own unwitting making, he saw only one way out: escape to the other side of the stars. Now, Catharin must rely on this untrustworthy maverick to help her save humanity on Green. Their mutual attraction ratchets up as their conflict with each other escalates. Together Catharin and Joe must decide how they can face, and embrace, a future utterly at odds with the Foundation's plans and their own expectations. And all the while the mystery of the Hurricane Moon looms over them.
The Words of Their Roaring, Matthew Smith (Abaddon Books)
London is now a city overrun by the zombie hordes. Most of the human survivors live from day to day, scraping together an existence among the ruins, avoiding the shambling, flesh-hungry undead that still stalk the streets. But for others this gruesome situation is an opportunity, a chance to establish a power base within the capital, now that authority has collapsed. For gang lord Harry Flowers, the plague is his chance to finally rule the city unopposed. Operating out of his well-protected mansion on London's outskirts, Flowers sees a chance to use the zombies and the havoc they wreak for his own ends. The way he sees it, the ghouls aren't going to be around forever, and when he re-establishes a functioning society, it's going to be on his own terms. All he needs is a way to control the dead. But Flowers is not the only one with designs on the city... A Tombs of the Dead novel.
The Dead Walk Again, Ed. by Vince Sneed (Padwolf Publishing, Inc.)
You can’t keep a dead man down! They’re dead, but they keep on coming! Even if their eyeballs have turned to a syrupy goo, or if their arms and legs have come off, it just doesn't matter! They'll sniff you out and drag themselves inch after painful inch to get a taste of what you've got! In "Of Cabbages & Kings," the dead won't stop until they've destroyed her hometown, forcing Nate Southard's lone heroine to explore the zombie-infested world outside; John French's "Fast Eddie's Big Night Out," two cops prove themselves as relentless as the dead in extracting a deathbed confession; D.J. Kirkbride's "Married Alive" examines a cooling relationship, and what it takes to bring it back from the dead; and in "The Dead In Their Masses," James Chambers suggests that the walking dead are merely a symptom of a greater, looming terror. From some of the most talented and unique imaginations writing today comes twelve tales of inescapable horror that not only proves that you can't keep a dead man down, but that in the annals of modern zombie literature, it is impossible to go too far! praise for the dead walk! "Evokes the sense of terror that has kept zombie lore a staple of the horror industy for years." -Vampirella Magazine "Induces more emotional reactions than virgin on prom night." -Horror-Web.com More Weird tales of zombies, revenants, and the living dead by C.J. Henderson, John L. French, Nate Southard, Steven A. Roman, D.J. Kirkbride, Adam P. Knave, Bruce Gehweiler, Laszlo Xalieri, Patrick Thomas, and the irrepressible Jack Dolphin!? Plus: "The Dead in Their Masses" a brand-new novella by James Chambers is included.
Butcher Bird: A Novel of the Dominion, Richard Kadrey (Night Shade Books)
Spyder Lee is a happy man who lives in San Francisco and owns a tattoo shop. One night an angry demon tries to bite his head off before he's saved by a stranger. The demon infected Spyder with something awful - the truth. He can suddenly see the world as it really is: full of angels and demons and monsters and monster-hunters. A world full of black magic and mysteries. These are the Dominions, parallel worlds full of wonder, beauty and horror. The Black Clerks, infinitely old and infinitely powerful beings whose job it is to keep the Dominions in balance, seem to have new interests and a whole new agenda. Dropped into the middle of a conflict between the Black Clerks and other forces he doesn't fully understand, Spyder finds himself looking for a magic book with the blind swordswoman who saved him. Their journey will take them from deserts to lush palaces, to underground caverns, to the heart of Hell itself.
DragonFire, Donita K. Paul (Waterbrook Press)
Three years of strife have passed since Kale and Bardon freed Paladin’s knights. Now, fiery dragons scorch their beautiful countryside as an evil husband-and-wife wizard duo battle one another for supremacy. The people of Amara just want to be left alone, hoping the conflict will disappear. But Paladin is dying, and Bardon and Kale–now married–must accept fateful assignments if their land is to survive. Will their efforts turn the tide against their adversaries? They face a deadly threat–and a challenging choice. Kale’s responsibility is to find, hatch, and train an army of dragons, and she tackles the daunting task–until she is shocked by a betrayal. As the Amaran countrymen seek escape, she must search for her husband, family, and friends while organizing an underground movement to weaken the enemy. But when the end draws near, Kale must choose between two dismal destinies. Prepare to experience breathtaking adventure and mind-blowing fantasy as never before in this stunning addition to Donita K. Paul’s popular Dragon Keepers series.
Shadow Worlds, Darrell Bain & Barbara M. Hodges (Twilight Times Books)
Genetic duplicates of people start dropping out of thin air right beside the originals. The duplicates are complete except for one little detail: they're dead. Frank Winston begins an investigation that widens to include the mystery of a vanished airliner that had his parents on board, as well as those of the first person who found a dead twin on her doorstep, Linda Vesprie. Together, they discover that quantum physics is even stranger than scientists had believed, and that their world and an infinite series of alternate earths are in dire peril.
Exposure: A Novel, Kurt Wenzel (Little, Brown, & Co.)
Los Angeles, a few years from now. Technology has changed the rules of the movie business with old, long-dead stars brought digitally back to life. Billboards cover every available surface of the city, beaming out a constant flood of commercials starring the likes of John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, and--the great exception, the last "real" movie star--Colt Reston. But something is going wrong: A group of anti-tech rebels are attacking the billboards, inspired by a mysterious manifesto known as "The Black Book." A burnt out screenwriter addicted to the latest hot drug finds his world wobbling. Colt takes ill with an unexplained disease-- perhaps literally dying of overexposure. A guru who might know why has vanished. And then Montgomery Clift suddenly walks off his virtual set and goes AWOL.... A blistering mash-up of William Gibson, The Ring, and Chuck Palahniuk, Exposure is a great step forward for Kurt Wenzel. Convulsive and thrilling, it’s a devastating tour de force by one of the best novelists working today.
New in Audiobook:
Beguilement, Lois McMaster Bujold (Blackstone Audio Unabridged)
Young, pregnant Fawn Bluefield has just fled her family's farm to the city of Glassforge, where she encounters a patrol of the enigmatic soldier-sorcerers known as Lakewalkers. Fawn has heard stories about the Lakewalkers, wandering necromancers with no permanent homes and no possessions but the clothes they wear and the mysterious knives they carry. What she does not know is that the Lakewalkers are engaged in a perilous campaign against inhuman and immortal magical entities known as "malices". When Fawn is kidnapped by one of these creatures, it is up to Dag, an older Lakewalker heavy with sorrows and responsibilities, to rescue her. But in the ensuing struggle, it is not Dag but Fawn who kills the creature, at dire cost, and an uncanny accident befalls Dag's sharing knife, which unexpectedly binds their two fates together. The first volume in The Sharing Knife series. Narrated by Bernadette Dunne.
Alright that’ll do it for this week’s edition of the Buzz, be sure to check back next Tuesday for all the latest on new sci fi, fantasy, and horror book releases. Questions or comments? Hit me up at PFerrara.mania@gmail.com.
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