Black Gate

Titan Books has been doing some terrific stuff recently, especially in the realm of intriguing fantasy series. So when they sent me an advance proof of Rhonda Mason’s The Empress Game, the first installment in a promising new space fantasy coming out later this month, I promised myself I’d read it.

And I totally failed. I told myself I probably wouldn’t have liked it, anyway. And then Liz Bourke totally trashed that theory, with this stellar review over at Tor.com, calling it an “old-fashioned pulp space opera”:

Rhonda Mason’s science fiction debut — first in a projected trilogy — is unashamedly old-fashioned pulp space opera… Kayla Reunimon makes a living through brutal gladiatorial combat in an arena on a world that probably counts as a classic space opera “hive of scum and villainy.” She used to be an Ordochian princess, trained to protect her psychic twin, until an Imperial-supported coup overthrew her government and killed most of her family. She escaped with her last surviving younger brother, but without resources, they’ve been stranded, and Kayla has kept them safe and fed as best her training allows. But when a mysterious stranger approaches her with an offer she can’t refuse — an offer he won’t permit her to refuse — their precarious equilibrium is irretrievably altered. The stranger — Malkor — might offer them their best hope of survival, because their enemies are closing in…

This is a novel about fighting princesses. And family. But you pretty much had me at gladiatorial princesses. I’m not going to pretend this is particularly admirable of me, but I’m terribly afraid I like that trope far, far too much. I can forgive a novel a lot for combining angst and violence in an entertaining way, and The Empress Game does that.

Looks like I’m going to have to read it after all. The Empress Game will be published by Titan Books on July 14, 2015. It is 352 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover artist is uncredited.

Victor Milán is the co-author of Runespear, and the author of the Star Trek novel From the Depths. His latest novel has the good fortune to be released while the hottest movie of the summer, Jurassic World, makes dinosaurs a hot property again. The Dinosaur Lords is the opening volume in a sprawling new fantasy series that George R. R. Martin calls “A cross between Jurassic Park and Game of Thrones.” It will be released by Tor next month.

A world made by the Eight Creators on which to play out their games of passion and power, Paradise is a sprawling, diverse, often brutal place. Men and women live on Paradise as do dogs, cats, ferrets, goats, and horses. But dinosaurs predominate: wildlife, monsters, beasts of burden — and of war. Colossal plant-eaters like Brachiosaurus; terrifying meat-eaters like Allosaurus, and the most feared of all, Tyrannosaurus rex. Giant lizards swim warm seas. Birds (some with teeth) share the sky with flying reptiles that range in size from bat-sized insectivores to majestic and deadly Dragons.

Thus we are plunged into Victor Milán’s splendidly weird world of The Dinosaur Lords, a place that for all purposes mirrors 14th century Europe with its dynastic rivalries, religious wars, and byzantine politics… except the weapons of choice are dinosaurs. Where vast armies of dinosaur-mounted knights engage in battle. During the course of one of these epic battles, the enigmatic mercenary Dinosaur Lord Karyl Bogomirsky is defeated through betrayal and left for dead. He wakes, naked, wounded, partially amnesiac — and hunted. And embarks upon a journey that will shake his world.

The Dinosaur Lords will be published by Tor Books on July 28, 2015. It is 448 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover, and $12.99 for the digital edition.