Wanted Dispatch June 22....

Blade Reforged by Kelly McCullough (Ace)

I knew nothing about this series and I wish I had a while back when it started. The descriptions from Kelly's website (here) put me in mind of the assassin/thief centric series like Brent Weeks' Way of Shadow and Jon Sprunk's Shadow's Son both of which are quite good reads and I heartily recommend. The series starts with the hero discredited and hunted in a place where he once was respected. Aral and his companion a ghost like being hat takes a dragon like form apparently have a buddy cop like relationship and I like the mixing of tropes of the police procedural and fantasy so this is a draw for me. Like I said I know only what I found on the website and the fact writers I like give it good electronic word of mouth...

Here is the synopsis of this volume...

After the fall of the goddess of justice, temple assassin Aral Kingslayer lost his purpose in life and turned to the bottle. That might have been the end of him if luck hadn’t given him a few people to help him get back on his feet—notably the irresistible Baroness Maylien Dan Marchon, who once sought his aid in claiming the throne that’s rightfully hers. Reluctant to resume the role of an assassin, he turned her down.

But now Aral has learned that one of the few people willing to help him in his darkest days has been imprisoned by Maylien’s uncle, King Thauvik. Aral knows he can’t let an old friend die, but the alternative is to return to the life he left years ago. It was the death of Thauvik’s half brother that earned Aral the name Kingslayer, and now he is thrust into a war that will see no end until he lives up to his name…

here is a link to the synopsis to the first book...

 

Crash by Guy Haley (Solaris Books)

Champion of Mars was a book I wanted to read and Guy Haley's first novel for Solaris its a book called Kim Stanley Robinson meets Edgar Rice Burroughs. I read about Crash here on Chuck Wendig's blog and I'm very intrigued and want to get a copy of this next week. I read mainly fantasy and steampunk but I miss good hard SF and Crash certainly would fill that need. Guy's story this time around is a colonization story one that thankfully goes arwy because that always makes for a good tale. In his interview with Chuck he talks about the bigger picture that is is a glimps of ; I love the idea of colonies separated by some catastrophe.

Here is the synopsis from Solaris..

The Market rules all, an Al that plots the rise and fall of fortunes without human intervention. Mankind, trapped by a rigid hierarchy of wealth, bends to its every whim. to function, the Market must expand without end. The earth is finite, and cannot hold it, and so a bold venture to the stars is embarked upon, offering a rare chance for freedom to a select few people.

But when the colony fleet is sabotaged, a small group finds itself marooned upon the tidally-locked world of Nychthemeron, a world where one hemisphere is bathed in perpetual daylight, the other hidden by eternal night. Isolated and beset, the stricken colony members must fight for survival on the hostile planet, while secrets about both the cause of their shipwreck and the nature of Nychthemeron itself threaten to tear their fragile society apart...

Here is the link to Chuck Wendig's blog I encourage you to go check it out....

 

Cold Steel by Kate Elliot (Orbit Books)

I have a couple of Kate's books in my to be read pile including the first in this series Cold Magic. I began reading it while I was living in Vancouver Canada and had to put it aside as we planned a move back to Oregon and got involved in reading ARC's I needed to review so have not gotten back to it. The series seemed a mix of epic fantasy, steampunk and the magical school kinda thing like oh those books about the young put upon guy named Harry something. Kate's writing style really appealed to me and I really have to go back and read through it since it was quite good as I recall. Here is a link to a sample from this volume...

Here is the synopsis from Kate's site here

When the cold mages come for her, who can she trust?

Cat Barahal was the only survivor of the flood that took her parents. Now, betrayed by her family and forced to marry a powerful cold mage, Cat will be drawn into a labyrinth of politics. There she will learn the full ruthlessness of their rule. For it is the dawn of a new age, with industry and revolution transforming the land. There’s just one problem: the cold mages don’t want things to change.

iD by Madeline Ashby

This is the sequel to the well received vN last year and a book I much want to have the time to get to. It was up for awards and got great e word of mouth from the likes of a favorite of mine Rudy Rucker which said it combined the best if cyberpunk with that of urban fantasy. I expect this to be a dark and moody book with lost of character development and awesome action given the tags I have read about it. Here is the link to the Angry Robot site page for it. There are links there to Madeline's site and to an extract from the novel.

This is the synopsis for the first volume to wet your appetite...

Amy Peterson is a von Neumann machine, a self-replicating humanoid robot.

For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother’s past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks her mother, little Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive.

Now she carries her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive, and she’s learning impossible things about her clade’s history – like the fact that the failsafe that stops all robots from harming humans has failed… Which means that everyone wants a piece of her, some to use her as a weapon, others to destroy her.

Hunted by Kevin Hearne

 

I just finished reading Kevin's short story that appears in Carniepunk later this year and am sad I have yet to encounter his Iron Druid Chronicles. The story I read had a bit of the wry wit that would be familiar to fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Though his main character is several thousand years old, and I have to know how that comes about, he drops cultural references worthy of John Creighton so Farscape. Atticus is a character that is appealing and not above making mistakes, he may be a Druid but he is human, he has a brilliant sidekick and a cool apprentice from my reading. Looking around Kevin's website there are a total of six novels and several shorter works to date... As I said above I liked the short piece that mixed folklore with Christian mythology coming out with something unique in tone. Here is the synopsis from Hunted...(looks like my to read pile will be getting just that little bit bigger....)

For a two-thousand-year-old Druid, Atticus O’Sullivan is a pretty fast runner. Good thing, because he’s being chased by not one but two goddesses of the hunt—Artemis and Diana—for messing with one of their own. Dodging their slings and arrows, Atticus, Granuaile, and his wolfhound Oberon are making a mad dash across modern-day Europe to seek help from a friend of the Tuatha Dé Danann. His usual magical option of shifting planes is blocked, so instead of playing hide-and-seek, the game plan is . . . run like hell.

Crashing the pantheon marathon is the Norse god Loki. Killing Atticus is the only loose end he needs to tie up before unleashing Ragnarok—AKA the Apocalypse. Atticus and Granuaile have to outfox the Olympians and contain the god of mischief if they want to go on living—and still have a world to live in.

Here is a link to Kevin's site where you can check his work out.... I think as a fan of urban fantasy its something fellow fans should give a look...

 

So seems a goodly haul for the coming week... A little bit of this and a little of that ....cheers, reviews to come...

 

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What would you like to see me review....

So since I'd like to get some interaction going on... I have a list of some of my recent reads that I'll be reviewing... In addition to the one I plan to do which of these would you like to seen next Saturday...

 

Lexicon by Max Barry

 

Fade to Black by Francis Knight

(First novel by Francis Knight who I posted about on Saturday)

 

American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Jackson

 

The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R Kiernan

(Winner of the Bram Stoker and Tiptree Awards)

Please comment if you have any desire to see one of these sooner then the others...

 

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Happy Blooms' Day.....

Today there are two sort of holidays to celebrate.... I always think about my grandfather Clyde on Father's Day because he was more my dad then my biological father. The holiday I would like to bring up is this ... Today is the day that James Joyce set his epic novel of a day in the life of Stephen Dadaus and Leopold Bloom in Dublin. Good Bloom's day to you.... damn should have gotten some Guinness when I was shopping.....

 

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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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The Return of the Master(s)

Mike Mignola and John Arcudi spin a great apocalyptic tale; in fact they are so good at it that BPRD Hell on Earth The Return of the Master (a title worthy of Mark Hodder) overcomes any apocalypse fatigue you may have. As a horror story fan I have to say Mike and John create a great mood of foreboding in this volume foreshadowing a horrible event on the horizon. I am an on again off again reader of BPRD and have only passing familiarity with some of the characters and I'd say this is a bad place to start but I thoroughly enjoyed this book and its got me hooked back into the story. Hell on Earth pulles storylines from the early volumes of Hellboy and talks about recent events like the horrors that affected the UK, Canada and lead to the shooting of favorite Abe Sapien and the suspension of another long term BPRD agent.

This volume in the long running story of the B.P.R.D fight against the supernatural brings back a long though defeated antagonist who has a real desire to bring hell to earth. The all too mortal agents sent to Scotland to deal with the threat have no clue of the magnitude of the danger to them. The story brings in elements of the world created by Mike and John Arcudi from as far away as the old Soviet Union and from stories dating back to the days of World War Two. Though I have read the series sparingly their handling of the history is so deft that I never really felt that lost or out of the loop.

This story has a newbie coming into the department, one who gives a different perspective on the agency. She is a percognitive and has disturbing visions of a blood soaked future. Given her fresh eyes on the story as well as the perspectives of the leader of the Russian paranormal agency, the veteran BPRD agent Johann as well as the mortal operatives I could really see just how serious the situation is. Without the essentially super powered heavy hitters of the agency things look terrifying bleak given the events in Return of the Master. It ends I warn you on a cliffhanger and I need to see the next issue now. NOW I say.

John Arcudi is a perfect artist for this story and he has been Mike's creative companion on so much of this series he really has defined the world visually. His characters are very human looking blemishes and all, this is not the supermodel/bodybuilder kind of books. The people look like people and their expression through his art give gravity to the storylines. This time out he gets to create giants and ogres and mythological things left best unnamed lest they be summoned. Some of the things in this story get decisively into the Kaiju range of things. If you are like me and enjoy seeing people trying to contend with situations far beyond their pay grade this is one you need to get. The sketchbook alone that accompanies the five issues collected in the volume is worth having as a springboard for creativity.

 

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A Plan...

Alright all you readers out there who check into this blog weekly for my wanted sections and my Sunday comics I have a plan in these there digital hills. I will be posting my schedule of reviews for the following week on Fridays long with a poll as to what you all would like to see reviewed the next week... I want some participation to be honest... So by Saturday morning before you see the Wanted Dispatch you should have a poll as to what you want next week and possibly a review of a recent read of mine...

Let me know here what your thoughts are... Mayhaps you have a better suggestion but I know what I want to write about maybe you have some other needs you want to have met....

Its a sing along kiddies...quote The Ramones....

 

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Sunday Comics

I have precious little for you...though I did buy a good load of comics this week I will be mentioning one... I love Loche and Key and picked it up but have yet to read it, same goes for Winter Soldier and Fearless Defenders I read just one that I will note ... With personal issues and a speculative fiction death and reviews pending this week I've only got a single book to spotlight...

Avengers Arena proves again with issue 10 Hopeless is I afraid to hurt readers yeat leave them with a shred of hope... This issue focuses on a Runaway favorite of mine and its hurt from beginning to end... I don't know how I'll feel is the end is a nightmare kind of Dallas kind of denial of the entire story.... I like to think a writer named Hopeless will not deny us change... Its a great book people should really be reading ... just in case it makes big changes......

 

 

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