Wanted Dispatch June 15...

Before the Fall by Francis Knight

Fade to Black was an unexpectedly cool surprise early this year. Francis Knight created a very cool urban punk fantasy noir second world story. Rojan, her private eye like hero, is a man on the fringes of society in the first novel somewhere between the haves that live in the upper reaches of the city and the have nots that struggle in the depths of this very vertical society. In Fade to Balck he learns a lot, makes some improbable friends and gets involved in something that may just shake up e status quo. I loved it and am glad that the follow up is so close. It reads like the best cyberpunk of the late eighties. Francis is a great new voice in urban style fantasy. Here is the synopsis...

Rojan Dizon just wants to keep his head down. But his worst nightmare is around the corner. With the destruction of their power source, his city is in crisis: riots are breaking out, mages are being murdered, and the city is divided. But Rojan’s hunt for the killers will make him responsible for all-out anarchy. Either that, or an all-out war. And there’s nothing Rojan hates more than being responsible.

 

Requiem by Ken Scholes

To me Ken's name goes along with the excellent Jay Lake when it comes to fiction. Ken has written some excellent short fiction including a great alternate history of Hitler that really made me think about the power of alternate history as a genre. A few years back Ken published his first novel Lamentation that was a mixture of steampunk tropes and my favorite of settings the far future of the near Dying Earth. I need to go back and read it again because I want to give it a full review and I need to read it again with a new fourth volume on the horizon. It is a setting that could well be fully science fiction or fully fantasy like The Book of the New Sun of Gene Wolfe or The Dying Earth by Jack Vance and it has more in common with sword and sorcery then is does with epic fantasy. It is a story that is highly personal no matter the viewpoint character and it is something I am very tempted to grab in hardcover.

Here is the link to the exerpt from Tor.com and he is a consummate storyteller much n need of being read.

 

 

Wisp of a Thing by Alex Bledsoe

I do nat have much to say about Alex Bledsoe, well I do but it is mainly inspired by my listening to the SF Squeecast and their love of the novel Hum and the Shiver. I recently got a copy of this modern rural fantasy he wrote a little while ago. If you have heard of Alex you might know of the noir sword and sorcery series following Eddie LaCrosse which is great alternate fantasy but with he made a great urban fantasy with Hum and the Shiver. Wisp of a Thing revisits the setting in the Appalachians and the odd secret American fae of the hills but I so want to read this.

Here is the synopsis from the Tor.com website... Alex has his own presence here

Rob Quillen comes to Cloud County, Tennessee, in search of a song that might ease his aching heart. All he knows of the mysterious and reclusive Tufa is what he has read on the internet: they are an enigmatic clan of swarthy, black-haired mountain people whose historical roots are lost in myth and controversy. Close-lipped locals guard their secrets, even as Rob gets caught up in a subtle power struggle he can’t begin to comprehend. A vacationing wife goes missing, raising suspicions of foul play, and a strange feral girl runs wild in the woods, howling in the night like a lost spirit. Change is coming to Cloud County, and only the night wind knows what part Rob will play when the last leaf falls from the Widow’s Tree, and a timeless curse must be broken at last.

 

The 'Geisters by David Nickle

Now here is a title I know little about and an author I equally know little about. Why is it on my Wanted sheet well its because of the publisher. As with Pyr ChiZine is a company hat I have total faith in the editorial staff of and heartily recommend that fans of weird fiction and horror check out. Here is the synopsis for the book. Hopefully this and the cover will hook you as much as it did me

When Ann LeSage was a little girl, she had an invisible friend, a poltergeist, that spoke to her with flying knives and howling winds. She called it the Insect. With a little professional help, she contained it. The nightmare was over, at least for a time. The nightmare never truly ended. As Ann grew from girl into young woman, the Insect grew with her. It became a thing of murder. As she embarks on a new life married to Michael Voors, a successful young lawyer, Ann believes that she finally has the Insect under control. There are others vying to take that control away from her. They are the ’Geisters. And in pursuing their own perverse dream, they risk spawning the most terrible nightmare of all.

 

Sea Change by S M Wheeler

This is another author I know little about so its all about the synopsis and the potential the book has. Seems the main character comes into contact with some intelligent sealife that gets captured later in the novel... I know it is not totally kid goes to save Cthulhu but that is how it makes me think...

Here is the link to the Tor.com exerpt... It seems so appealing I have to include it here

I have one last one for the week and I'm just goin to post e cover image.... The name alone it draw enough for me...

Look to my blog tomorrow for my poll as tomwhat you want to see me review including an author from this list....

 

 

That's all see you tomorrow...

 

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