"Resident Evil: Extinction" by Keith R. DeCandido.
© Simon & Schuster
Resident Evil Returns
By: Pat FerraraDate: Monday, July 30, 2007
Arguably a much better game series than a movie franchise, RESIDENT EVIL is back with the novelization of the third film, Resident Evil: Extinction due out in theatres this fall. G’day all you Maniac readers and welcome to the Buzz. We’ve got a bottom-heavy release schedule this week filled with lots of original SF, fantasy, and horror fare.
Jennifer Fallon continues the Wolfblade Trilogy this week (after 2006’s Wolfblade) with the second installment, Warrior, on paperback. The middle volume of the Aussie author’s intricately plotted tale of Marla Wolfblade is poignantly released in anticipation of the concluding novel, Warlord, due out in hardcover next month.
Speaking of trilogies, Julian May’s Borean Moon Tale series concludes this week on paperback with Sorcerer’s Moon while Brandon Sanderson, author of 2005’s Elantris, begins his Mistborn Trilogy with Mistborn this week, also on paperback.
For all of you Warhammer fans Games Workshop is debuting Invasion!, a short story collection, as well as Rebel Winter and Horus Heresy’s Fulgrim by Steve Parker and Graham McNeill.
The only hardcover release coming out this Tuesday is Harry Turtledove’s fourth and final Settling Accounts novel, In at the Death, which concludes the alternate timeline of World War II; where the nations of the Earth, including a divided America, must survive the growing pains of bloody secession, genocide, and the world after the atomic bomb’s conception.
Lastly the Capcom game-inspired franchise Resident Evil is back with the novel version of the fourth movie in the zombie apocalyptic saga. Penned off of the screenplay by Paul W.S. Anderson, Keith R. DeCandido takes over novelization reigns on RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION, headed to theatres this September.
Other books to check out: Undertow, Till Human Voices Wake Us, Sun of Suns, & Plague Years
New in Hardcover:
In at the Death, Harry Turtledove (Random House)
Franklin Roosevelt is the assistant secretary of defense. Thomas Dewey is running for president with a blunt-speaking Missourian named Harry Truman at his side. Britain holds onto its desperate alliance with the USA’s worst enemy, while a holocaust unfolds in Texas. In Harry Turtledove’s compelling, disturbing, and extraordinarily vivid reshaping of American history, a war of secession has triggered a generation of madness. The tipping point has come at last. The third war in sixty years, this one yet unnamed: a grinding, horrifying series of hostilities and atrocities between two nations sharing the same continent and both calling themselves Americans. At the dawn of 1944, the United States has beaten back a daredevil blitzkrieg from the Confederate States–and a terrible new genie is out of history’s bottle: a bomb that may destroy on a scale never imagined before. In Europe, the new weapon has shattered a stalemate between Germany, England, and Russia. When the trigger is pulled in America, nothing will be the same again. With visionary brilliance, Harry Turtledove brings to a climactic conclusion his monumental, acclaimed drama of a nation’s tragedy and the men and women who play their roles–with valor, fear, and folly–on history’s greatest stage. Book four of the Settling Accounts series.
New in Paperback:
Warrior, Jennifer Fallon (Tor Books)
It is eight years since Marla Wolfblade buried her second husband. In that time, she has become the power behind Hythria's throne as much from a desire to control her own destiny in any way she can, as to protect her son, young Damin. But while Marla plays the games of politics and diplomacy, the High Arrion of the Sorcerers' Collective is plotting to destroy her and the entire Wolfblade line. And while Marla's power and fortune are great, they may yet not be enough to protect herself and her family from the High Arrion's wrath and her only ally and confidant, Elezaar the Fool, is toying with the idea of betrayal. For he has discovered that the infamous Rules of Gaining and Wielding Power are not so useful when his own family is involved… Book five of the Wolfblade Trilogy.
The Virtu, Sarah Monette (Penguin Group USA)
Felix Harrowgate was a dashing and powerful wizard until his former master wrenched Felix's magic from him and used it to shatter the Virtu - the orb that is the keystone for the protections and magic of the wizards of the city. Felix has painfully clawed his way back to sanity, and his only chance to reclaim the life he once knew is to repair the seemingly irreparable - to restore the Virtu. Mildmay the Fox was an assassin and a car burglar - until a curse caught up with him and his life changed forever. Haunted by death, his leg damaged by the curse that should have killed him, he does not know what awaits him in Melusine, but for good or ill, his fate is tied to Felix's, by blood and by magic. On their journey, Felix and Mildmay will encounter friends and enemies old and new, vengeful spirits and ancient goddesses. They will uncover secrets better left buried. But nothing can prepare them for what awaits their return: Felix's former master, the cruel and decadent wizard Malker Gennadion.
Till Human Voices Wake Us, Mark Budz (Spectra Books)
In such groundbreaking novels as Crache and Idolon, Mark Budz established his reputation as one of science fiction’s most exciting and innovative writers. Now he surprises us again with an ambitious new thriller set in three realities at once, where three different lives hang in the balance… What if your world were rapidly running out of tomorrows? And what if the only way to save the future was to relive the past? But which past holds the key to survival? That’s the life-and-death question faced by three desperate people separated by the past, present, and future but who share a single terrifying reality. A tortured soul, brain-damaged in a motorcycle accident, issues a pirate broadcast out of a van in near-future California. In Depression-era San Francisco an architect with an inoperable brain tumor seeks a mystical cure. A post-human space traveler caught in a cosmic accident searches for a way to reconstruct himself and the future. In Mark Budz’s spellbinding narrative, their lives–and deaths–are drawn together by a force even more powerful than destiny.
A Separate War and Other Stories, Joe Haldeman (Penguin Group USA)
Here are fifteen stories, never before collected, spanning 36 years of Joe Haldeman's award-winning writing... tales that tread upon familiar Haldeman territory, as well as explore the outer reaches of his phenomenal imagination. From the first short story Haldeman ever sold, "Out of Phase," to "A Separate War," which revisits a character from his classic novel The Forever War, to his personal favorite, "For White Hill," based on a Shakespeare sonnet, this collection will take readers on a journey through a writer's growth from struggling artist to one of the premier voices of his generation. And notes on the stories at the end of the volume gives first-hand insight into the wit and wisdom that went into each of Haldeman's works.
The Candle of Distant Earth, Alan Dean Foster (Random House)
From science fiction legend and New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster, creator of the ever-popular Pip and Flinx series, comes the climactic final novel in The Taken Trilogy, his electrifying space epic about a man and his dog for whom the expression “out of this world” takes on a whole new meaning. Location is everything. In Chicago, Marcus Walker was a hotshot commodities broker. In the cargo hold of the alien Vilenjji spaceship, he and a laconic dog named George, who has been speech-enhanced to increase his value, are just two more primitive creatures being shipped to the civilized part of the universe, where the market for cuddly extraterrestrial “pets” is busting wide open. Though Walker and George manage to escape, man and dog are far from overjoyed, being even farther from Earth–billions of miles, in fact–and without a clue as to whether the direction home is up, down, or sideways. Possessing universe-level social skills, Walker becomes the leader of his own armada. Yet even a fleet commander is hard pressed to find a piece of space that no one’s ever heard of, much less cares to find. To make matters worse, it seems the Vilenjji are proving to be notoriously sore losers. Even if Walker does pull off the impossible and pinpoint his needle of a solar system in the universe haystack, there’s a good chance that the unrelenting Vilenjji will get to him before he ever gets to Wrigley Field. Yep, it’s a wide-open universe out there, bursting with possibilities– and Walker’s going to get hit with all of them.
A Shadow in Summer, Daniel Abraham (Tor Books)
The powerful city-state of Saraykeht is a bastion of peace and culture, a major center of commerce and trade. Its economy depends on the power of the captive spirit, Seedless, an andat bound to the poet-sorcerer Heshai for life. Enter the Galts, a juggernaut of an empire committed to laying waste to all lands with their ferocious army. Saraykeht, though, has always been too strong for the Galts to attack, but now they see an opportunity. If they can dispose of Heshai, Seedless’s bonded poet-sorcerer, Seedless will perish and the entire city will fall. With secret forces inside the city, the Galts prepare to enact their terrible plan. In the middle is Otah, a simple laborer with a complex past. Recruited to act as a bodyguard for his girlfriend's boss at a secret meeting, he inadvertently learns of the Galtish plot. Otah finds himself as the sole hope of Saraykeht, either he stops the Galts, or the whole city and everyone in it perishes forever. The opening novel of The Long Price Quartet series.
Resident Evil: Extinction, Keith R. DeCandido (Simon & Schuster)
Following the events of Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the beautiful, dangerous, enigmatic Alice returns, and this time she and her fellow survivor Carlos Olivera are running with a pack of humans led by a new ally, Claire Redfield. Together they are cutting through the wastelands of the United States on a long trek to Alaska. Hunted by the minions of the scheming Dr. Isaacs, Alice has zombies hungry for her flesh and the Umbrella Corporation's monstrous lab rats hungry for her blood...while Alice herself hungers only for revenge.
The Kolumbas Affair, Samuel Blankson (Blankson Enterprises, Ltd)
On the night of his twenty-first birthday, Alfias is contacted by a mysterious voice. The voice sets him on the path to release the secret locked up in the Abyss - on the mysterious purple planet, Kolumbas Major. He unknowingly sets in motion a chain reaction of events that will threaten the existence of life in the Universe. After escaping capture, Alfias teams up with another fugitive; Jonathon, the captain of the Triton - an alien ship. Soon Alfias is entangled in a conspiracy to overthrow the ETCA; the merciless government of the earth colonies. Will he be stopped by the ETCA's killer telepaths and mercenary black ops teams, or will the ancient Elders get to him first? Both will stop at nothing to prevent him from opening the Abyss on Kolumbas Major.
Sorcerer’s Moon, Julian May (Penguin Group USA)
The conclusion of the Boreal Moon Tale. The Boreal Moon Trilogy concludes as Orion, the heir to the kingdom, prepares to fulfill his destiny before the magical realm is torn apart by war.
Set the Seas on Fire, Chris Roberson (Solaris Books)
1808. While Europe burns and the Napoleonic Wars set the world aflame, the HMS Fortitude patrols the sea lanes of the South Pacific, harrying enemies of the British Crown. The Fortitude's captain sets his sights on a Spanish galleon weighted down with a fortune in gold and spices, but Lieutenant Hieronymus Bonaventure thinks the prize not worth the risk. The ship is smashed by storms and driven far into unknown seas, the galleon and her treasure lost in the tempest. Bonaventure and the rest of the Fortitude's crew find themselves aground on an island in uncharted waters. Beneath the island's beauty lurks a darker secret: an ancient evil buried at the living heart of a volcano.
Blood of the Heroes, Steve White (Baen Books)
Jason Thanou of the Temporal Regulatory Authority had about had it with nursemaiding parties of ivory-tower academics through Earth's blood-drenched history, keeping them alive as they sought evidence for their pet theories. Of course, when one of the ivory-tower academics looked like Doctor Deirdre Sadaka-Ramirez, one last expedition didn't look like such a bad idea after all.. . . Besides, there was something to be said for witnessing the Santorini explosion of 1628 B.C.-the most cataclysmic natural disaster of human history, and the source of much of the mythology of Jason's own Greek ancestors. But once Jason and his companions were in the Aegean Bronze Age, unable to return to their own twenty-fourth-century time until a predetermined instant, they would find that there was more to those old legends of gods and heroes than anyone had imagined. For the gods were very real-horribly so. And dealing with them took very real heroes.
The Sea Change, Patricia Bay (Spectra Books)
Between a mysterious past and a treacherous future lies one lost man–and a magic that has changed the world forever… After years of exile, shattered dreams, and confusion, Josan has finally discovered he is not the simple monk he appeared to be. Nor is he the victim of a mysterious fever, as he was led to believe. Instead his soul had been magically shifted into the body of the condemned Prince Lucius, leader of a failed rebellion against the rightful monarchs of the kingdom of Ikaria. And though Josan is the dominant personality in that body, the remnants of Lucius’s mind grow stronger each day. When the Ikarian royal family is slaughtered in a bloody assassination, Josan/Lucius is not only the prime suspect but the sole remaining legitimate heir to the throne. With Ikaria in chaos, can Josan clear himself from suspicion in time to keep the wolves from the door? And can he ever integrate the two souls that now inhabit a single body?
Killing the Rabbit, Alison Goodman (Random House)
Murder is the main attraction in this dark and wickedly comic new thriller that follows a young indie filmmaker on her way to fame, fortune, and a shoot-out to the death. Hannie Reynard landed every aspiring filmmaker’s dream: a hefty grant to make her documentary Freaks or Frauds. But the groundbreaking film that was supposed to launch Hannie’s career may kill her first. Blowing the grant money on a lost weekend in Paris was bad enough, but now the “stars” of her film–women who share a unique genetic trait–have stopped talking…and started disappearing. Coupled with a burned-out ex-classmate hitching his own hopes for a comeback to her project, Hannie finds herself the unlikely co-star of a movie that will never be made if a very powerful someone has anything to say about it. For Hannie is already in the crosshairs of his chief “cameraman”–a ruthlessly unconventional hit man who never misses a lethal shot.
Sun of Suns, Karl Schroeder (Tor Books)
It is the distant future. The world known as Virga is a fullerene balloon three thousand kilometers in diameter, filled with air, water, and aimlessly floating chunks of rock. The humans who live in this vast environment must build their own fusion suns and “towns” that are in the shape of enormous wood and rope wheels that are spun for gravity. Young, fit, bitter, and friendless, Hayden Griffin is a very dangerous man. He’s come to the city of Rush in the nation of Slipstream with one thing in mind: to take murderous revenge for the deaths of his parents six years ago. His target is Admiral Chaison Fanning, head of the fleet of Slipstream, which conquered Hayden’s nation of Aerie years ago. And the fact that Hayden’s spent his adolescence living with pirates doesn’t bode well for Fanning’s chances.
Rebel Winter, Steve Parker (Games Workshop)
On the brutal battlefields of the 41st Millennium, the life of an Imperial Guardsman is harsh and short. On the snowy wastes of Danik's World, a regiment of Vostroyans is ordered to hold their ground to protect the retreat of other Imperial forces. When their own orders come to move back, they discover they have been stranded behind enemy lines. Cold, hungry and running out of supplies, trapped between rebel forces and hordes of orks, can the Guardsmen ever fight their way back to safety? A Warhammer 40k novel.
Mistborn, Brandon Sanderson (Tor Books)
Brandon Sanderson, fantasy’s newest master tale spinner, author of the acclaimed debut Elantris, dares to turn a genre on its head by asking a simple question: What if the hero of prophecy fails? What kind of world results when the Dark Lord is in charge? The answer will be found in the Mistborn Trilogy, a saga of surprises and magical martial-arts action that begins in Mistborn. For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the “Sliver of Infinity,” reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler’s most hellish prison. Kelsier “snapped” and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark. Kelsier recruited the underworld’s elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Only then does he reveal his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot. But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel’s plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she’s a half-Skaa orphan, but she’s lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets, and gotten it. She will have to learn to trust, if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.
Invasion!, Ed. by Marc Gascoigne & Christian Dunn (Games Workshop)
An exciting collection of Warhammer short stories that explores the theme of invasion, both literally and metaphorically. From the shores of Naggaroth, the Land of Chill, to the dark forests that lie at the heart of the Empire, these tales will thrill and entertain. Some authors in the collection Mike Lee, Nathan Long, & Steven Savile.
Plague Years, Jeff Carlson (Penguin Group USA)
The nanotechnology was designed to fight cancer. Instead, it evolved into the Machine Plague, killing nearly five billion people and changing life on Earth forever. The nanotech has one weakness: it self-destructs at altitudes above ten thousand feet. Those few who've managed to escape the plague struggle to stay alive on the highest mountains, but time is running out-there is famine and war, and the environment is crashing worldwide. Humanity's last hope lies with a top nanotech researcher aboard the International Space Station, and with a small group of survivors in California who risk a daring journey below the death line...
Fulgrim, Graham McNeill (Games Workshop)
It is the 31st millennium, and humanity is at the peak of its powers. As the Great Crusade, led by Warmaster Horus, continues to conquer the galaxy, Fulgrim, Primarch of the Emperor's Children, leads his warriors into battle against a vile alien foe. From the blood of this campaign are sown the seeds that will lead this proud Legion to treachery, taking them down the darkest of paths of corruption. Leading up to the carnage of the Dropsite Massacre on Isstvan V, this is the tale of Fulgrim's tragic fall from grace.
Infinity Plus, Keith Brooke & Nick Gevers (Solaris Books)
Infinity Plus collects together stories from some of the leading names in speculative fiction. In 1997 the Infinity Plus website was launched at www.infinityplus.co.uk to showcase some of the best in SF, fantasy and horror fiction. Infinity Plus features the work of some of the site's major contributors such as Michael Moorcock, Kim Stanley Robinson, Jeff Vandermeer and others. These stories have been chosen by the writers themselves - stories dear to their hearts and deserving renewed attention.
Fiends of the Rising Sun, David Bishop (Black Flame)
This volume reveals the involvement of Japanese vampyr in the Pacific war, from the build-up to the devastating attack upon Pearl Harbour to American troops landing at Guadalcanal eight months later. The story is seen through the eyes of US Marines, sailors and pilots as they battle against an enemy that would rather die than admit defeat. But in this war, death is where the hell truly begins… Edited by Christian Dunn.
Embraced by Darkness, Keri Arthur (Dell Publishing)
She's hunting a killer and shattering every boundary she's ever known… Part vamp, part werewolf, Riley Jenson plays by her own rules, whether it’s her stormy love life or her job as a guardian. But when her family’s alpha male demands that she solve the mystery of a vanished girl, Riley can feel a trap closing in around her. Because the job comes with a catch: if Riley fails, her own mother will die. Now the stakes are raised, the hunt is on... and when more women vanish, Riley is caught between a lover who demands that she give up her work, a serial killer who knows no boundaries, and a club where humans and supernaturals mix—at their own peril. Thrust into a realm of seduction and violence unlike any she could have imagined, Riley has to battle to save everything she holds dear. But the ultimate hunt has only just begun.... The fifth volume of the Riley Jenson Guardian series.
Undertow, Elizabeth Bear (Spectra Books)
A frontier world on the back end of nowhere is the sort of place people go to get lost. And some of those people have secrets worth hiding, secrets that can change the future–assuming there is one… André Deschênes is a hired assassin, but he wants to be so much more. If only he can find a teacher who will forgive his murderous past–and train him to manipulate odds and control probability. It’s called the art of conjuring, and it’s André’s only route to freedom. For the world he lives on is run by the ruthless Charter Trade Company, and his floating city, Novo Haven, is little more than a company town where humans and aliens alike either work for one tyrannical family–or are destroyed by it. But beneath Novo Haven’s murky waters, within its tangled bayous, reedy banks, and back alleys, revolution is stirring. And one more death may be all it takes to shift the balance…
In Fury Born, David Weber (Baen Books)
Imperial Intelligence couldn't find them, the Imperial Fleet couldn't catch them, and local defenses couldn't stop them. It seemed the planet-wrecking pirates were invincible. But they made a big mistake when they raided ex-commando leader Alicia DeVries' quiet home work, tortured and murdered her family, and then left her for dead. Alicia decided to turn “pirate” herself, and stole a cutting-edge AI ship from the Empire to start her vendetta. Her fellow veterans think she's gone crazy, the Imperial Fleet has shoot-on-sight orders. And of course the pirates want her dead, too. But Alicia DeVries has two allies nobody knows about, allies as implacable as she is: a self-aware computer, and a creature from the mists of Old Earth's most ancient legends. And this trio of furies won't rest until vengeance is served.
Immortal Remains: 30 Days of Night, Steve Niles & Jeff Mariotte (Simon & Schuster)
Existing in shadow, thriving in night, a terrifying serial killer stalks the residential streets of Savannah, Georgia - one whose brutal signature is now drawing the attention of other denizens of darkness, for better or worse. But there is more than meets the eye here, and the horrifying truth behind these savage killings is about to be revealed - a truth that has dire implications for
the very future of the mortal world...
