Upcoming: “Wolfhound Century” by Peter Higgins (Orbit/Gollancz)

In the first of this week’s Upcoming news posts, I give you Peter Higgins’s Wolfhound Century. It appears to be a Russian-set Urban Fantasy, which will be a nice alternative to London- and/or US-based UFs. It’s another title I heard about a while ago (when the artwork was first revealed earlier in the year), and I think it sounds really interesting:

Inspector Vissarion Lom has been summoned to the capital in order to catch a terrorist — and ordered to report directly to the head of the secret police. A totalitarian state, worn down by an endless war, must be seen to crush home-grown terrorism with an iron fist. But Lom discovers Mirgorod to be more corrupted than he imagined: a murky world of secret police and revolutionaries, cabaret clubs and doomed artists. Lom has been chosen because he is an outsider, not involved in the struggle for power within the party. And because of the sliver of angel stone implanted in his head.

On Orbit’s blog, back in March, their article about the book was entitled “Golems, Gulags, and Sentient Rain”… How can that not grab your attention?

Lauren Panepinto designed the excellent cover art.

Wolfhound Century will be published by Orbit US in March 2013.

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Update: Just noticed that Wolfhound Century will be published in the UK by Gollancz, also in March 2013.

Peter V. Brett’s “The Daylight War” covered in the UK… (Voyager)

It’s been a good week for cover-reveals. Yesterday, there was Chris F. Holm’s excellent The Big Reap (Angry Robot), and today it was Peter V. Brett’s highly anticipated The Daylight War. The third book in the Demon Cycle, its US cover was revealed a short while ago,and I really liked that cover – it was bold, with striking colouring and an excellent composition.

Now, revealed first on the great Fantasy Faction, we have the UK cover art (to be published by Voyager also in February 2013), done by the great Larry Rostant:

Do I prefer it to the US edition…? Well, maybe. I think it will match the first two novels better on the shelf, but I think they are both very good. Hopefully I’ll catch up with the series (I loved The Painted Man and the two novellas – The Great Bazaar & Brayan’s Gold), so I can read this third novel relatively close to its release.

Upcoming: “The Big Reap” by Chris F. Holm (Angry Robot)

The Founding Fields got the exclusive scoop of this cover (alongside an interview), but I thought I’d share it on here as well, as an excuse to tell everyone about this great author. The Big Reap is the third book in Holm’s The Collector series, and the cover’s superb:

I really like the ‘vintage’ feel they’ve given all three books in the series (see below), and can’t wait to actually read them – sadly, they have been one of the series to have slipped by the wayside. I’ll be sure to make a better effort at getting caught up. In the meantime, here’s the synopsis for book three:

Sam Thornton has had many run-ins with his celestial masters, but he’s always been sure of his own actions.

However, when he’s tasked with dispatching the mythical Brethren – a group of former Collectors who have cast off their ties to Hell – is he still working on the side of right?

The Big Reap will be published in July (US) and August (UK) 2013.

Also on CR: Interview with Chris F. Holm

“Huntress: Crossbow at the Crossroads” (DC)

Writer: Paul Levitz | Artist: Marcus To | Inks: John Dell w. Richard Zajac | Colours: Andrew Dalhouse & Allan Passalaqua

In this adventure set in Italy, Huntress sets out to destroy a deadly human-trafficking and gun-smuggling operation

Collecting the complete six-issue miniseries, the story leads into WORLDS’ FINEST!

I first became aware of this series when I was on my late-2011/early-2012 DC binge, but decided to wait for the collected book (after all, it’s only six issues). Did it live up to expectations? Certainly – this is a fun, espionage-filled and action-packed tale of vigilante justice.

The Unwritten, Vol.2 – “Inside Man” (Vertigo)

Writer: Mike Carey | Artist: Peter Gross

Tom arrives at Donostia prison in southern France and falls into the orbit of another story: The Song of Roland. Unfortunately for Tom, it’s an epic that ends with a massacre…

This series is going to be a real pain in the ass to review. There’s almost no way to write about it without throwing out spoilers left right and centre. Therefore, I shall keep my reviews of this and subsequent books as succinct as possible. Needless to say, this second collection continues the excellent story of Tom Taylor’s surprise, literary-fantasy quest. This is fast becoming a firm favourite of mine.

Covering SWAMP THING

I didn’t love the first six issues of Scott Snyder’s Swamp Thing as much as many other comics reviewers and fans. It was just a little too weird for me at the time, I think. I’ve jotted down some thoughts for a review, which I’ll post sometime in the near future. In the meantime, I wanted to share the artwork for issue #15, which was published today:

The piece is by Yanick Paquette, who has also provided internal artwork for some issues in the series. I just thought it was really striking – gothic, moody, and a little odd with the Big Green in an urban environment like Gotham. Here’s the synopsis for the issue:

Batman’s fate in the Rotworld is revealed!

Guest-starring the inmates of Arkham Asylum who have been dramatically affected by battling the Green, the Red and the Rot!

An Interview with TOM LLOYD

With the release of The Dusk Watchman, Tom Lloyd’s Twilight Reign is now complete. Which seems like a perfect time to catch up with him for an interview, see how he feels about finishing his first series, what plans he has for the future, and the danger of working as an author with a puppy in the house…

Battle of Helms Deep. In LEGO! With Cameos! And a bit of Silliness…

From what I have just discovered are the brilliant minds at Brotherhood Workshop.

Legolas tries to find a box. It’s very important to him.

“The Blade Itself” by Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz/Pyr)

The First Law, book one

Inquisitor Glokta, a crippled and increasingly bitter relic of the last war, former fencing champion turned torturer extraordinaire, is trapped in a twisted and broken body – not that he allows it to distract him from his daily routine of torturing smugglers.

Nobleman, dashing officer and would-be fencing champion Captain Jezal dan Luthar is living a life of ease by cheating his friends at cards. Vain, shallow, selfish and self-obsessed, the biggest blot on his horizon is having to get out of bed in the morning to train with obsessive and boring old men.

And Logen Ninefingers, an infamous warrior with a bloody past, is about to wake up in a hole in the snow with plans to settle a blood feud with Bethod, the new King of the Northmen, once and for all – ideally by running away from it. But as he’s discovering, old habits die really, really hard indeed…

Especially when Bayaz gets involved. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he's about to make the lives of Glotka, Jezal and Logen a whole lot more difficult…

Finally! Despite owning each of Joe Abercrombie’s novels, and having purchased each of them in its first week of release, I have only just managed to get around to actually reading one of them. My immediate thoughts? I’m very glad I did, and it’s not difficult to see why The First Law series has taken the fantasy community by storm. It does not display the genius a lot of my fellow bloggers sometimes ascribe to Mr. Abercrombie, and I had some issues with it, but it is nevertheless a very strong debut.

“Let us trespass at once. Literature is no one’s private ground.”

Something rather different from CR’s usual fare. But I was inspired today, by the review I refer to below. Hope people find it interesting.

I’ve been reading the latest issue of The Atlantic, which is probably my favorite magazine: the mix of politics, history and arts features is excellent, and the quality of the articles usually of the highest quality. I came across an article about Virginia Woolf that stood out for me. “The Education of Virginia Woolf”, by Benjamin Schwartz, is a review of The Essays of Virginia Woolf, Volume 6: 1933-1941, the final collection (edited by Stuart N. Clarke) of the author’s writing leading up to her suicide in 1941. Strangely, I can’t seem to find any evidence of the collection being published – recently or in the near future – in the United States, but it is available in the UK, published by Random House.

I have never read anything by Woolf (much to my detriment, it seems). I do, however, seem to be surrounded these days by Virginia Woolf scholars and aficionados (Alyssa is both, for example), and frequently coming into contact with articles about or that reference the author. Schwartz’s review is well-written – if a bit thin, but I suppose there’s not a whole lot one can do with a volume of collected papers, unless it’s ground-breaking or scandalous). The piece does, however, contain a couple of nuggets of information about Woolf’s thoughts on reading, as well as the story behind a couple of the articles in Essays...Vol.6.