Michael Martinez is the author of the highly anticipated (in my opinion) The Daedalus Incident. I actually also already have a copy of the book, but have been dreadfully negligent about getting around to actually reading it. I will endeavour to rectify this as soon as possible. In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to interview Michael, as I’ve chatted a fair bit with him via Twitter and he seems like a great fellow. So, read on!
Geek Exchange got the exclusive for this cover reveal (this past Wednesday), but given how much I enjoyed the first two novels in the Shadow Ops series, I thought I’d share the cover for the third novel on here, too. So, without any further ado, here is the cover for Myke Cole’s BREACH ZONE…
Personally, I think this is my favourite of the three US covers, now. I also really like the way the fella up front’s eyebrow is raised in an “I don’t think so…” manner. A nice touch. I like the green hue, too. Can’t wait to see what the UK cover looks like.
Breach Zone will be published in the US by Ace Books (Penguin) in late January 2014; and Headline in the UK, in mid-February 2014.
Also on CR: Interview with Myke Cole, Guest Post, reviews of Control Point and Fortress Frontier.
I’ve been trying to remember how I first came across the name Django Wexler. It was probably via Twitter or a publisher’s catalogue. Since finding out about his next novel, The Thousand Names, I’ve had the chance to chat with Mr Wexler a good deal about fiction and more on the Twitters. With just a couple of months to go before the novel hits shelves (one of my most-anticipated novels of 2013), I thought it would be a perfect time to shoot him some questions. He agreed, so here are his responses…
Today the US cover for the fifth Sandman Slim novel was released:
I’ve now read the first two novels in the series, and am very eager to get caught up before Kill City Blues is released. Expect a lot more of Kadrey’s work to feature on CR in the near future. A slightly-edited-to-avoid-spoilers synopsis is as follows:
James Stark, aka Sandman Slim has settled back into life in LA. But he’s not out of trouble yet. Somewhere along the way he misplaced the Qomrama Om Ya, a weapon from the banished older gods who are also searching for their lost power.
The hunt leads Stark to an abandoned shopping mall — a multi-story copy of LA — infested with Lurkers and wretched bottomfeeding Sub Rosa families, squatters who have formed tight tribes to guard their tiny patches of this fake LA. Somewhere in the kill zone of the former mall is a dead man with the answers Stark needs. All Stark has to do is find the dead man, get back out alive, and outrun some angry old gods — and a few killers — on his tail.
Kill City Blues will be published in 2013: July in the US and October in the UK (although, as with the fourth book, it appears that the eBook edition will be available in the UK in July as well, according to Amazon.co.uk).
Shamelessly pinched from the great A Dribble of Ink, I thought I’d share what is, at least, nearing-completion cover art for Neil Gaiman’s next novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I think it’s a pretty amazing image:
Now, I have a confession to make: I haven’t read a lot of Gaiman’s work. I’ve read and enjoyed Good Omens (written with Terry Pratchett) and American Gods, which I thought was amazing. However, I’ve just never got around to reading any of his other novels or graphic novels – and I really want to read Sandman…
Anyway, here’s the publisher’s synopsis for the novel, which I shamelessly pinched from Gaiman’s LiveJournal (which is a reliably interesting read, too, by the way):
The Ocean At The End of the Lane is a novel about memory and magic and survival, about the power of stories and the darkness inside each of us.
It began for our narrator forty years ago when he was seven: the lodger stole the family's car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and a menace unleashed -- within his family, and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it.
His only defense is three women, on a ramshackle farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is an ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a fable that reshapes modern fantasy: moving, terrifying and elegiac -- as pure as a dream, as delicate as a butterfly's wing, as dangerous as a knife in the dark.
Which sounds suitably strange and cool. I’ll hopefully get this read and reviewed for the site, but I’m going to stop making promises like that because a) I’m finding myself with less time for reading, and b) I seem to be stuck in a never-ending cycle of book-funk that rarely lets me settle on a book that I’ve been eagerly waiting for… Maybe I’m just going nuts…?
Just a quick run-down of my ten most-anticipated novels of August 2012. Given the lack of stability, frequent travel and relocation of the past few weeks, I’ve not been able to keep on top of my reviewing as well as I would have liked. Therefore, these books may not be reviewed in a particularly timely fashion (some because I don’t have them, others because I don’t have them with me at the moment). Nevertheless! Each of these is near the top of my to-read list, and I fully intend to feature more of them in the near future. Of course, the best laid plans…
Featured: Madeline Ashby, vN; Charles Cumming, A Foreign Country; James Enge, A Guile of Dragons; Jim C. Hines, Libriomancer; Darius Hinks, Orion: The Vaults of Winter; Mark Lawrence, King of Thorns; Tim Lebbon, The Heretic Land; T.C. McCarthy, Chimera; James Rollins, Bloodline; James Swallow, Fear To Tread
It’s been a while since I wrote a post highlighting a given month’s most-anticipated releases. But, given that this year is shaping up to be a real monster for new fiction, and because it’s just impossible to read everything, I thought it would be a good idea to give a hat-tip to those books I’m most looking forward to reading. I’ve stuck with UK release schedules for the most part, but a couple are US releases or books already available across the pond.
I’ve been lucky enough to get a fair few of these titles already (and have managed to read three in advance of their releases), so I have included links to my reviews where relevant, rather than exhaustive comments on those titles.
So, without further ado, here are my picks for July 2012…
