Wanted Dispatch May 4

May 7 is a banner week for one of my new favorite writers Chuck Wendig.... He's appearing in a couple of this months series of weeks and a review will be coming for one of them...

Gods and Monsters: Unclean Spirits by Chuck Wendig

The only work of Chuck's I've read so far is the awesome bully comeuppance story Shotgun Gravy Novell that I absolutely recommend. Chuck has has been well praised for his UF series that started with Blackbird starring the foul mother anti-heroine -. I've also read the preview chapter (link to tor.com here) of this book and the one ill be posting about at the end of the month The Blue Blazes. Chuck is a pull no punches kind of guy on his blog Terribleminds and in his fiction. He even has a YA fantasy novel coming this month I believe.

So, about Gods and Monsters, seems that the gods have become outcast from the heavens and occupy a place here own earth. Our hero - has a bone to pick with them. The tone of this reminds me Garth Ennis's comic Preacher and Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim but with a more mythological bent to it. Read through the preview and though I think there will be a learning curve here I'm on board for the delicious looking dark ride from Abaddon Books (go check their site for more dark creepy pulp action goodness)

Here is the blurb from the publisher:

The gods and goddesses are real. A many-headed pantheon—a tangle of divine hierarchies—once kept the world at arm’s length, warring with one another for mankind’s belief and devotion. It was a grim and bloody balance, but a balance just the same. When one god triumphed, driving all other gods out of Heaven, it was back to the bad old days: cults and sycophants, and the terrible retribution the gods visit on those who spite them.

Five years ago, it all went wrong for Cason Cole. He lost his wife and son, lost everything, and was bound into service to a man who chews up human lives and spits them out. Now, as the man he both loves and hates lies dying at his feet, Cason is finally free. And no gods, demi-gods, acolyte, or monstrous abomination is going to stop him from getting back what’s his...

Wendig is a massive talent with a huge online following and Gods and Monsters is a brand new world he has created for Abaddon Books. Pat Kelleher is to continue the series with the e-title Gods and Monsters: Drag Hunt, which will launch online on the same day as Unclean Spirits.

The Fictional Man by Al Ewing

Al Ewing's name will be familiar with readers of 2000AD and fans of the neo-pulp novels from Abaddon Books (hmmmm sensing a theme developing). If you are not familiar with the very British coupling of serious storytelling with absurdist often punnish humor you are very much missing out if that sounds like your kind of thing. Al Ewing writes like Terry Pratchett if he was influenced by the cynicism of Bill Hicks or Louis CK. Now that is just my take on the experience of reading his work. He is the blurb for this book from the fine people at Solaris Books (linkey right here earthlets).

Hollywood: Divorced, alcoholic and hanging on by a thread, Niles Golan is writing a remake of a camp-classic spy movie. The studio has plans for a franchise, so rather than hiring an actor, the protagonist will be “translated” into a cloned human body. It’s common practice; Niles’ therapist is a Fictional. So is his best friend. So, maybe, is the woman in the bar he can’t stop staring at. Fictionals are a part of daily life now, especially in LA. It’s getting hard to tell who’s a Fictional and who’s not. If he does this right, the studio might bring one of Niles’ own characters to life. Somewhere beneath the movie, beneath the TV show it was inspired by, the children’s book behind that and the story behind that, is the kernel of something important. If he can just hold it together long enough.

Shield of Sky and Space by Erin Hoffman

This is the third novel in this epic fantasy series by Erin Hoffman who is known pretty week in video game circles for the games she has created and written for. Taking her love of the elements of epic fantasies and adding the tropes that fuel many of the best Japanese style role playing games The Chaos Knight is something that is a new take on fantasy storytelling and is for sure its own beast and well worth taking a stab at. This world has a setting that is reminds me of playing turn based fantasy games back. In the day without the clunky if cute graphics and without the wait to see how things turn out turn by turn. Here is the blurb from Pyr and if you ever were a video RPG player this is a definite one to check out....

Vidarian Rulorat, called the Tesseract, a powerful magic-user whose abilities spread across multiple elements, finds himself at war with the Alorean Import Company, a powerful cabal of merchants wealthy enough to buy nations. By opening the gate between worlds, Vidarian released the Starhunter, goddess of chaos. With her coming, wild magic returned to the world of Andovar, bringing with it shape-changers and strange awakened elemental technologies, including many-sailed ships powered by air magic, and mechanical automata lit from within by earth and fire. Now, Vidarian discovers that the Alorean Import Company is determined to eliminate two-thirds of this new life on Andovar in the hopes of hoarding more magic for themselves in a new, worldwide plutocracy. Along with his human, gryphon, and shapechanger allies, he must stop the Company if he is to safeguard any future for the diverse life of Andovar, including his and Ariadel's newborn daughter. With the existence of whole species hanging in the balance, Vidarian is locked in a race for the future of the world

Now the next two books have been among my wanted since I read about them months ago... One by an author I love, Neal Asher, and the other by a newcomer, Michael j Martinez, and I sure hope to see them on the shelves... you see these are two of the books yet to come from Night Shade Books and may get stalled by the troubles they find themselves in right now.

 

Zero Point by Neal Asher is well known for his post scarcity singularity-punk stories with the Spatterjay and The Cormac series of novels and this one is not one of those. He is trying something new and its been out in Europe for a while so long that this is the second book in The Owner series. Since Night Shade has already published the first we can only hope this does not get stuck in legal limbo....

The second book in The Owner trilogy from space opera legend Neal Asher

Earth’s Zero Asset citizens no longer face extermination from orbit. Thanks to Alan Saul, the Committee’s network of control is a smoking ruin and its robotic enforcers lie dormant. But power abhors a vacuum and, scrambling from the wreckage, comes the ruthless Serene Galahad. She must act while the last vestiges of Committee infrastructure remain intact – and she has the means to ensure command is hers. On Mars, Var Delex fights for the survival of Antares Base, while the Argus Space Station hurls towards the red planet. And she knows whomever, or whatever, trashed Earth is still aboard. Var must save the base, while also dealing with the first signs of rebellion. And aboard Argus Station, Alan Saul’s mind has expanded into the local computer network. In the process, he uncovers the ghastly experiments of the Humanoid Unit Development, the possibility of eternal life, and a madman who may hold the keys to interstellar flight. But Earth’s agents are closer than Saul thinks, and the killing will soon begin.

 

The Daedalus Incident by Michael J Martinez

I'm just going to let the text from Night Shades Site to hook you..

Mars is supposed to be dead…

Bizarre quakes are rumbling over the long-dormant tectonic plates of the planet, disrupting its trillion-dollar mining operations and driving scientists past the edges of theory and reason. However, when rocks shake off their ancient dust and begin to roll—seemingly of their own volition—carving canals as they converge to form a towering structure amid the ruddy terrain, Lt. Jain and her JSC team realize that their routine geological survey of a Martian cave system is anything but. The only clues they have stem from the emissions of a mysterious blue radiation, and a 300-year-old journal that is writing itself.

Lt. Thomas Weatherby of His Majesty’s Royal Navy is an honest 18th-century man of modest beginnings, doing his part for King and Country aboard the HMS Daedalus, a frigate sailing the high seas between continents…and the immense Void between the Known Worlds. Across the Solar System and among its colonies—rife with plunder and alien slave trade—through dire battles fraught with strange alchemy, nothing much can shake his resolve. But events are transpiring to change all that.

With the aid of his fierce captain, a drug-addled alchemist, and a servant girl with a remarkable past, Weatherby must track a great and powerful mystic, who has embarked upon a sinister quest to upset the balance of the planets—the consequences of which may reach far beyond the Solar System, threatening the very fabric of space itself.

Set sail among the stars with this uncanny tale, where adventure awaits, and dimensions collide!

So May 7th brings us a little bit for everyone.... Till next week... Take care...

 

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