Surely not Steven Seagal: Near-Future Sci Fi Movies Almost as Good as The Avery Cates Novels

You know, when the Telegraph called my Avery Cates novels “an action movie in print,” my immediate reaction was, of course, anger and suspicion. What kind of action movie did they mean? Jean-Claude Van Damme? Dolph Lundgren? Surely not . . . Steven Seagal?!?!? Bastards. I would have my revenge, I thought.

Then someone forced me to drink several cups of strong black coffee, put me in a warm bath, stroked my hair for a few minutes, and suggested perhaps they meant to reference good action movies. Something from the Bruce Willis oeuvre, perhaps. Or some classic Steve McQueen. I mean, if you’re trying to say that my books are like Steve McQueen jumping the fence on his motorcycle in The Great Escape, well, okay then. Tantrum regretted.

What’s interesting about living in the modern world is that we’re a bunch of people who have never lived without films, for the most part. You can no longer really write a novel without having movie conventions and styles in your head. I have no idea how people imagined things before movies. Even if you somehow avoid imagining things as movie scenes in your head as you write, your readers will no doubt do that heavy lifting for you, friend. You can’t win. All you can do is try to imagine a really good movie version of your story as you write. As opposed to, say, something by Uwe Boll. I know at least that for every line of the THE FINAL EVOLUTION I wrote, something like this was happening in my head:

The Avery Cates novels are set in an unspecified future (more…)

Discover the Map of All Things . . .

Kevin J. Anderson’s TERRA INCOGNITA fantasy series began in 2010 with the release of THE EDGE OF THE WORLD – “a classic adventure story” (Total Sci-Fi Online) – that introduced the seafaring countries of Tierra and Uraba, whose fragile truce is shattered by a tragic accident, casting the world once more into the fires of war.

THE MAP OF ALL THINGS continues this epic story of  politics, warfare and daring adventure upon storm-wracked, serpent-infested seas. For a map has been discovered that reveals the location of the Key to Creation – a weapon that could change the course of the war . . . and the fate of the world.

With the third book in the series, THE KEY TO CREATION, due for release in trade paperback next month, now is the perfect time to dive in to Kevin J. Anderson’s TERRA INCOGNITA.

Here’s what the critics have had to say about THE MAP OF ALL THINGS:

“For a book full of fantastical events, The Map of All Things is scarily true to life in its depiction of religious fanaticism and the ruthlessness and futility of war. Such attitudes ground the novel, making it all the more effective at absorbing us into a world both brutal and beautiful” – Total Sci-Fi Online (8/10 rating)

“The Map of all Things has everything you want from a fantasy epic – intrigue, land and sea battles, assassinations and assassination attempts, discoveries, magic, strange creatures – as well as sense of wonder that is usually associated more with space opera, but the author managed to transpose that in the “swords and sails” context superbly” – Fantasy Book Critic (A+ rating)

“If you like your fantasy sweeping and epic, with a smattering of giant sea monsters, this is the ideal book for you” – The Bookbag

“The prose is sharp, the descriptiveness ideal and the characters really leap off the page to make them a cast that you just can’t wait to adventure with” – Falcata Times

Jaz Parks Finale

I am always sad when a series comes to a close. Doubly so with this one, as I had worked with Jennifer since 2006, when we first acquired the Jaz Parks series, to 2010, when she passed away.  Jennifer was one of the nicest authors to work with — and with a fabulous sense of humor to boot. Her humor, her sense of adventure, and her charm all came across in the Jaz Parks novels.

And with Jaz’s final mission to hell closing out the series in DEADLIEST BITE, I’m sad to let go. But readers will now have the chance to read and enjoy the books — as I have. We also have short fiction stories set in the Jaz Parks world that are available here.

A brief description of the final book:

I have two choices. Carve Brude’s name into Hell’s bile-encrusted gates. Or lose my soul.

After an assassination attempt on Vayl, I find myself pulled into a tangled web that takes the gang to Romania. So how will I save a ghost, rescue a demon, and cheat the Great Taker out of a soul he’s slavering for while defeating my nastiest foe yet so that Vayl can, at last, cherish a few precious years with his sons? With careful planning, major violence, and one (hopefully) final trip to Hell.

BLOOD RITES by Jim Butcher: a Dresden Files reread

Mark Yon has been a reviewer and web administrator at SFFWorld, one of the world’s biggest genre forum sites, for nearly ten years. He has also been on the David Gemmell Awards organisation committee for the last two years. In this series of rereads, Mark will guide us below through the whole of Jim Butcher’s fabulous Dresden Files series as we count down to the new hardback Ghost Story at the end of July.
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‘Family. Nothing but an accident of birth. Family is meaningless. It is nothing but the drive of blood to further its own. Random combination of genes. It is utterly insignificant.’
‘Your children don’t think that,’ I said. ‘They think family is important.’
He laughed. ‘Of course they think that. I have trained them to do so. It is a simple and convenient way to control them. (The enemy confronted by Harry.)

After the events of Death Masks, things in Blood Rites get deeper and more personal. This book is largely about  family and relationships (see the snippet above) and these themes, as you might expect by this point in the series, are developed here and exciting changes occur as a result.

The other main thrust of the book is dealing with vampires, and previous readers will remember Harry’s had his problems with them in the past! Yes, we still know he’s responsible for the on-going Cold War between the wizard White Council and the vampire White, Red and Black Courts. But here Harry has his own private issues with vampires to contend with too …

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THE HEIR OF NIGHT triumphs at the Vogel awards!

I am absolutely delighted to report that Helen Lowe won New Zealand’s premier genre award for Best Novel over the  weekend, with her wonderful epic fantasy adventure The Heir of Night. The award was actually shared this year, as Lyn McConchie’s  The Questing Road also took the top spot, showing the strength of the shortlist. The Sir Julius Vogel awards were announced at the ConText convention and  Helen talks more about the award on her blog — and we couldn’t be more excited for her.

Robin Hobb called this wonderful epic fantasy adventure ‘a richly told tale of strange magic, dark treachery and conflicting loyalties, set in a well realized world’. I can’t recommend it highly enough myself and suggest that you get right out and discover all the dark treachery-ness of it for yourselves! Happy reading.

Wallpapers: CHASING THE MOON by A. Lee Martinez

Here’s another great wallpaper for all your fancy devices, this time for A. Lee Martinez’s CHASING THE MOON, out now in Hardcover.

Will Staehle has been doing fantastic covers for the A. Lee Martinez books. They’re not a series, and the designs all strongly stand alone, but Will’s quirky sensibility sets a tone across all the books that really works for Martinez’s voice. If you haven’t read any yet, you can jump in anywhere…but I think Divine Misfortune is my personal fave. (And it’s a great cover.)

Here’s all the wallpaper download links…if anyone needs a specific dimension made, let me know!

1024 x 768 | 1280 x 800 | 1440 x 900 | 1680 x 1050 | 1920 x 1200 | iPhone | iPad

Cover Launch: Kristen Painter’s HOUSE OF COMARRÉ

I am so excited to finally be launching the first three books of Kristen Painter’s House of Comarré series. You saw Blood Rights back in April, and I gave you a sneak peak of the covers for Flesh and Blood and Bad Blood, but we’ve been fine-tuning them for a while, and here they finally are, in all their gothic glory!

As you may know from old posts, I love tattoos, have quite a few, and have a soft spot for tattoos that are creatively worked into fantasy stories (props to Jacqueline Carey and the Kushiel books, of course), and I don’t want to give too much away, but let’s just say the gold ornament on our cover heroine is not just a pretty design…Kristen Painter  has really created a very inventive world with the kind of interesting visual details that get a designer like me very happy. I hope that shows in the covers!

Nekro, the illustrator of these gorgeous covers, has really outdone himself here. These covers are amazing and I can’t wait to hear what you guys think…after the jump, you can see them full-size and get some teasers for the House of Comarré series…

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Why London is the perfect setting for post-apocalyptic fiction

Welcome to the Metrozone. To give it its full name, the London Metrozone. Twenty-five million people, set behind a wall of concrete and wire a hundred miles long, reinforced by automatic guns and watchtowers. It has the economy of a prosperous industrialised nation, its citizens come from every corner of the planet and it’s the last city in England.

Things look the same, but different: the Houses of Parliament – disused but safe from flooding behind a massive dam. Marylebone station lies dormant: no more trains to the Midlands, because the Midlands are an irradiated wasteland. Buckingham Palace is still at the end of the Mall, but it’s flagless. Regent’s Park is now home to thousands of refugees in their converted shipping-container houses. England, as a country, has ceased to exist. The only part of it remaining is the Metrozone.

What happened? Armageddon. But the brief, world-changing years of nuclear terrorism are a fading memory. The city remains.

So why pick on London? I mean, what’s it ever done to me? Do I take perverse delight in trashing my capital city, threatening it with flood, fire, war and disease, wrecking the national monuments and destroying millennia of history?

Yes. But that’s not reason enough. Okay, setting a series of novels in a post-apocalyptic London is an obvious choice, simply because it’s the biggest and most well known city on these islands. It has iconic buildings and internationally recognisable landmarks, in a way that Coventry, Aberystwyth or Motherwell don’t. St. Paul’s, the Gherkin, Battersea power station, Trafalgar Square, Tower Bridge: all are instantly recognisable from thousands of books and hundreds of films by people who live half a world away and will never see London for real. (more…)

New (Eyebending) Wallpaper for Simon Morden’s Trilogy

I know it’s been a little while since we’ve done a fun wallpaper in the house (It was a great wallpaper too – Leviathan Wakes, if you didn’t download it you totally should!). So, I have written before about how much I love how the covers for the Simon Morden books came out, and have taken the opportunity to do a poster, a video, and now…wallpapers! Just in time for the third book to hit shelves. So make sure you go pick up Equations of Life, Theories of Flight, and Degrees of Freedom…

Available for screens of all sizes, now you can carry a mind-warping piece of the Metrozone with you everywhere! I even finally figured out how to make the ipad version work with the vertical/horizontal twist. As usual, if I missed a specific screen size you’d like, leave a comment and I’ll format it for you!

1024 x 768 | 1280 x 800 | 1440 x 900 | 1680 x 1050 | 1920 x 1200 | iPhone | iPad | Netbook (1024×600)

DEATH MASKS by Jim Butcher: A Dresden Files reread

Mark Yon has been a reviewer and web administrator at SFFWorld, one of the world’s biggest genre forum sites, for nearly ten years. He has also been on the David Gemmell Awards organisation committee for the last two years. In this series of rereads, Mark will guide us below through the whole of Jim Butcher’s fabulous Dresden Files series as we count down to the new hardback Ghost Story at the end of July.
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Book Five of the series and things are still getting darker.

A little more Harry Dresden-focused after the events of Summer Knight, Death Masks is, in some respects, a smaller scale book – there is little reference to the NeverNever, more happenings around Chicago.

The war between the wizard’s White Council and the vampire’s Red Court is continued, but here the attention is clearly on Harry’s role in it all. Harry, in an attempt to settle the war, is challenged to a duel by Paolo Ortega, a reputed member of the vampire Red Court royalty. In the organised fashion that seems to be the way in the world of magic and demons, seconds are called for and the duel is arranged – at Wrigley Stadium in Chicago.

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