“Unholy Ghosts” by Stacia Kane (Voyager/Del Rey)

The Departed have arrived

The world is not the way it was. The dead have risen, and the living are under attack. The powerful Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased.

Consequently, there are many false claims of hauntings from those hoping to profit. Enter Chess Putnam, a fully-tattooed witch, freewheeling Debunker, and ghost hunter. She’s got a real talent for nailing human liars and banishing the wicked dead. But she’s keeping a dark secret from the Church: a little drug problem that’s landed her in hot and dangerous water.

Chess owes a lot of money to a murderous drug lord named Bump. And Bump wants immediate payback. All Chess has to do is dispatch a very nasty species of undead from an old airport. But the job involves black magic, human sacrifice, a nefarious demonic creature, and crossing swords with enough wicked energy to wipe out a city of souls. Toss in lust for a rival gang leader and a dangerous attraction to Bump’s ruthless enforcer, and Chess begins to wonder if the rush is really worth it.

Hell, yeah.

I tried this on the recommendation of someone I know has exceptional taste (she works in publishing), and I am very glad I took the chance with the series. It’s original, engaging, well-written, and has a great, well-rounded and interesting heroine. I’ll definitely be reading the rest of the series.

“Grim Leaper” (Image)

Writer: Kurtis J. Wiebe | Artist: Aluisio C. Santos

In death, he finally found something to live for. Lou Collins is caught in a cyclical curse of violent, gruesome deaths and new beginnings in the bodies of strangers. With no clue why, Lou desperately searches for a way to break the curse and cross over peacefully to the other side. Then equally doomed Ella comes along. It’s a love story to die for.

This is a really weird comic… It’s a little tricky to review, too. For one thing, it’s not very long, so I’ll keep this review short in order to avoid telling you everything about it. It’s worth a look, though, if you have a short window of free time and you’d like to read something a little twisted, and quite original.

Green Lantern – “Agent Orange” (DC)

Writer: Geoff Johns | Artist: Philip Tan, w. Eddy Barrows (#3-4), Ivan Reis (Origins & Omens), Rafael Albuquerque (Tales of Orange Lanterns: Weed Killer) | Inks: Jonathan Glapion, w. Ruy José (#3-4), Julio Ferreira (#3), Oclair Albert (Origins & Omens)

It’s the prelude to Blackest Night as the War of Light continues to intensify! Mongul attempts to establish his hold on the Sinestro Corps by enslaving the planet Daxam and making it the home world of his Corps. What does Sinestro’s right hand man, Arkillo, think of all this? And will Sodam Yat, the Green Lantern known as Ion, fight to save his homeworld, which he’s vowed to never return to?

Collects: Green Lantern #39-42

So. Very little of what’s mentioned in the synopsis bears any resemblance to what’s actually in this book. Mongul and Arkillo, certainly, don’t feature at all. Regardless, Sodam Yat’s return to his homeworld is a feature, and has major repercussions for what the Green Lantern Corps is about to experience. This is another great book. The prelude to Blackest Night (which I’ve already read), this book collects the final issues of the pre-New 52 Green Lantern series. And they’re damned good.

Upcoming: “Elves: Beyond the Mists of Katura” by James Barclay (Gollancz)

Continuing the slight James Barclay-theme to the blog this week, here’s some information about the epic conclusion to the author’s Elves trilogy. Set before the two Raven series, it is (of course) about the Elves in Barclay’s world, and follows Once Walked With Gods and Rise of the TaiGethen:

Can centuries of war be overcome, or will hatred ultimately be allowed to win...?

Thousands of years ago the elves were enslaved by the Wytch Lords. Murdered in their thousands, worked to death in slave gangs and divided against themselves, the wounds inflicted by man run deep – and elves have very long memories. Two of them – Auum and Takaar – led the rise against their enslavers, and united their people against men in order to free their nation. Now Calaius is at peace... but that doesn’t mean their nation is safe.

Men need their help.

The Wytch Lords have rallied, men’s magic has grown more powerful, and their politics have become altogether more dangerous. Especially now: one of the mages has created a spell, called Dawnthief, which has the potential to destroy all living things on the planet. All four magical colleges are fighting to seize it and, in the background, the Wytch Lords have schemes of their own. Schemes which involve crushing the elven nation for good. Whoever seizes the spell, it places the elves in tremendous danger. But can Auum and Takaar overcome their differences and work together to save Calaius? And even if they can, is it not already too late...?

Beyond the Mists of Katura will be published in the UK by Gollancz, in May 2013. A review of Dawnthief, the first novel in the Chronicles of the Raven series, will go up on Monday. The Elves series leads directly on to the Chronicles of the Raven, which is in turn followed by Legends of the Raven.

Also on CR: An Interview with James Barclay

Upcoming Paperback: “The Black Prism” by Brent Weeks (Orbit)

This isn’t an entirely new release, of course (I reviewed The Black Prism back in September 2010), but with the paperback release, Orbit have commissioned an excellent new cover for the first novel in the Lightbringer series. The new artwork matches the style of The Blinding Knife, the sequel. Here’s the synopsis, in case you missed the book’s release the first time around:

Gavin Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace.

But Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live: Five years to achieve five impossible goals. But when Guile discovers he has a son, born in a far kingdom after the war that put him in power, he must decide how much he’s willing to pay protect a secret that could tear his world apart.

The Blinding Knife is out now in hardcover, also from Orbit (both US and UK). The trade paperback edition of The Black Prism will be released July 23, 2013.

The Blinding Knife is inching up my TBR mountain quite rapidly, so expect it to feature on here sometime in the (hopefully) near future.

“Devil in the Dollhouse” by Richard Kadrey (Voyager)

A Sandman Slim Short Story

James Stark, a.k.a. Sandman Slim, has a new job, but being the new Lucifer in town gives fresh meaning to the word “Hell”. Especially when he hears of hideous massacres near a haunted fortress out on Hell’s frontier. As far as Stark’s concerned, the more dead Hellions, the better, but he still has to prove that no one screws with Sandman Slim. And facing creatures so terrible even Hell does not want them is no cakewalk, even for Lucifer.

It should be no surprise by this point that I’m a fan of Kadrey’s Sandman Slim novels, having reviewed the first three novels of the series in quick succession. Devil in the Dollhouse is a stop-gap short story that was released before the now-published fourth novel, Devil Said Bang. Unsurprisingly, this is a short, sharp taste of Kadrey’s take on the eternal battle between Heaven, Hell and the humans caught in the middle. Superb.

[Warning: Minor spoilers for the first three Sandman Slim series follow, but I have kept them to an absolute minimum and referencing bigger-picture things, rather than specifics.]

Superman – “Red Son” (DC)

Writer: Mark Millar | Artist: Dave Johnson (#1,2), Kilian Plunkett (#2,3) | Inks: Andrew Robinson (#1,2), Walden Wong (#2,3) | Colors: Paul Mounts

Strange visitor from another world who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands... and who, as the champion of the common worker, fights a never-ending battle for Stalin, Socialism, and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact.

In this Elseworlds tale, a familiar rocketship crash-lands on Earth carrying an infant who will one day become the most powerful being on the planet. But his ship doesn't land in America. He is not raised in Smallville, Kansas. Instead, he makes his new home on a collective in the Soviet Union!

A friend of mine at university had a copy of this, but I never got around to borrowing it. I thought it had a pretty interesting premise (despite my general aversion to alternate reality/multiple dimension comics). Another series that was included in the “Superman 101” sale on ComiXology a little while back (three issues, 99ȼ each), I’m glad I finally got around to it. I’ve managed to read some more of Millar’s work, which I quite liked, and decided it was time to give Red Son a try. I am left with mixed feelings about this mini-series, as it is part great, part run-of-the-mill, and part underwhelming.

[Be warned: There is a particular SPOILER in this review that may annoy people. Just so you know… It irritated me so much, I couldn’t leave it out of the review.]

“Final Crisis” & “Kingdom Come” (DC)

My continued education in the “classic” DC storylines and Events continues. This time, with the Grant Morrison-written Final Crisis and Mark Waid-penned Kingdom Come. As I should have expected, the former contains moments of actual originality and genuine interest and skill, but also a lackluster execution and a fair number of things I really didn’t like. The latter was more of a surprise, as I found it to be a rather intriguing premise, executed in a fashion that left me rather bored. It was a struggle to finish, in fact.

Interview with JAMES BARCLAY

James Barclay has been mentioned a couple of times on the site since it started, but as an author whose work I keep missing. Therefore, I have made a resolution to read at least the first in his Chronicles of the Raven series this year (I hope to get to it next month or in March). In the meantime, I got in touch with James and asked if he’d be interested in an interview. He said yes. So here it is. Read on for James’s take on the genre, his series, the wonderful people he’s met in publishing, and what it means to be an author.

“The Smallest Detail” by Sandy Mitchell (Black Library)

The busy, dangerous life of a Commissar’s aide…

The ‘simple’ task Jurgen is sent on by Ciaphas Cain proves to be nothing of the kind… Just how much with the aide tell his master about what really happened?

It’s been a fair while since I last read anything in Mitchell’s Ciaphas Cain series. I also have to admit that I wasn’t hugely impressed by the previous one that I did read. As a result, I may have missed one or two. Nevertheless, I do enjoy the characters, and thought this short story sounded quite fun, centering as it does on Jurgen, Cain’s much-put-upon and odorous personal aide.