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Reading for the End of the World

Reading for the End of the World

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The Dead Zone-small The Dead Zone-back-small

Back in 1977, near the high water mark of an earlier age of apocalyptic expectations, Elvis Costello crooned a song about “Waiting for the End of the World.” It seemed to make sense in that era of turmoil and unrest at home and abroad, but the American landscape of the last year or so makes the turbulent 70’s seem like an age of cool, good humored rationality. (It wasn’t — trust me.)

I, along with Little Orphan Annie and MacBeth, still expect the sun to come up tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, but even so, it does indeed feel as if we have arrived at the end of something, and business as usual just won’t do anymore; adjustments are called for in many aspects of our lives, including (of course!) reading. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary literary measures. Therefore… to the barricades — uh, bookstores!

In the spirit of the incipient panic, withered expectations, and rampant paranoia that seem to dominate our current national life, I offer twelve books to get you through the next four years (however long they may actually last): a reading list for the New Normal.

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Colonists, Smugglers, and Fast Attack Craft: The Virtues of War Trilogy by Bennett R. Coles

Colonists, Smugglers, and Fast Attack Craft: The Virtues of War Trilogy by Bennett R. Coles

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Virtues of War Coles-smaller Ghosts of War Coles-small March of War Coles-big

I grew up as an army brat in Canada. My dad was an engineer in the Canadian Armed Forces, and I was born on a Canadian Air Force base in Marville, France in the mid-60s. We moved all over Nova Scotia, Quebec, and eventually Ontario, as Dad led teams of engineers working on huge projects, including radar installations in Eureka, Nunavut, and the Air Combat Maneuvering range in Cold Lake, Alberta.

So I’ve been naturally curious about the work of author Bennett R. Coles, who spent 14 years as an officer in the Royal Canadian Navy, and served two tours with the United Nations in Syria and Lebanon. His debut SF novel, Virtues of War (Promontory Press, 2010), drew wide praise for both its realistic portrayal of life in uniform, and for his mastery of fast-paced military SF.

Now, I know you’ve been wanting to try some military SF, but you’ve been a little gun shy, right? Who better to ease you into the genre than a Canadian writing about far-flung Terran colonies, smugglers, rebellion, sinister terrorists, and the crew of a fast attack craft caught in the middle of it all? You know I’m right.

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Future Treasures: Among the Fallen, Book 2 of Godserfs, by NS Dolkart

Future Treasures: Among the Fallen, Book 2 of Godserfs, by NS Dolkart

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SIlent Hall NS Dolkart-small Among the Fallen NS Dolkart-small

Among the Fallen, the second volume in NS Dolkart’s epic fantasy series Godserfs, arrives early next month from Angry Robot. The first volume, Silent Hall, was released in the US last June, and James A Moore called it “Very nearly a perfect novel. I wish my first book had been anywhere near as inventive and challenging.” So let’s start with that one. Here’s the description.

Five bedraggled refugees and a sinister wizard awaken a dragon and defy the gods.

After their homeland is struck with a deadly plague, five refugees cross the continent searching for answers. Instead they find Psander, a wizard whose fortress is invisible to the gods, and who is willing to sacrifice anything – and anyone – to keep the knowledge of the wizards safe.

With Psander as their patron, the refugees cross the mountains, brave the territory of their sworn enemies, confront a hostile ocean and even traverse the world of the fairies in search of magic powerful enough to save themselves – and Psander’s library – from the wrath of the gods.

All they need to do is to rescue an imprisoned dragon and unleash a primordial monster upon the world.

How hard could it be?

Looks like things turned out okay for everybody, since they’re back for a second volume. Let’s see what’s going on in this one. Hope that sinister wizard guy shows up again.

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Space Viking by H. Beam Piper

Space Viking by H. Beam Piper

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Analog November 1962 Space Viking-smallOver the past three-and-a-half years, I’ve written thirty-eight short story roundups (covering about 200 short stories) and one-hundred book reviews for Black Gate. The vast majority of what I’ve read has been swords & sorcery. As much as I love the stuff, I’m getting a little tired and I need to take a break. Not from reviewing, mind you, but S&S. A major point of reviewing was to get myself to read more, and I want to keep that up, but I need some variety.

With the encouragement of our esteemed editor, John O’Neill, I’m going to start by focusing on the science fiction books I devoured in my younger days, as well as some classics I missed the first time around (I just started Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity). Books by C.J. Cherryh, Gordon Dickson, and Poul Anderson are among the first I’m thinking about reviewing. I hope we all have fun with this, and I’m looking forward to reading everybody’s own recollections about these works. So come along, and let’s get started with one of the foremost novels of the well-loved SF writer, H. Beam Piper: Space Viking (1963).

H. Beam Piper (1904-64) didn’t publish his first story until 1947. Until his death at his own hand, he published nearly thirty more stories and ten novels. Most were science fiction, but he also wrote several mysteries, and was a member of the Mystery Writers of America.

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Andrew Liptak on 23 Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels to Read this March

Andrew Liptak on 23 Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels to Read this March

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Over at The Verge, our man Andrew Liptak faithfully executes his duty to highlight the most intriguing books of the month. And what a fine selection he’s lined up for March! He starts with Lotus Blue by Cat Spars, published in paperback by Talos on March 7.

Star and Nene are orphans who are part of a caravan of traders in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by rogue semi-sentient machinery and other monsters. When their caravan sees a satellite crash to Earth, Star ends up on a journey that takes her far from home. Aided by Quarrel, an ancient super-soldier, she has to learn to trust her unlikely allies as a long-sleeping war machine awakens in the desert, and threatens all of humanity.

Also in the spotlight is the latest from Brian McClellan (the Powder Mage series). Sins of Empire, the opening volume in a new series, was published in hardcover by Orbit March 7, 2017.

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New Treasures: They Don’t Come Home Anymore by T.E. Grau

New Treasures: They Don’t Come Home Anymore by T.E. Grau

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They Don't Come Home Anymore-small They Don't Come Home Anymore-back-small

T.E. Grau’s short horror fiction has appeared in The Children of Old Leech, The Dark Rites of Cthulhu, Dark Fusions – Where Monsters Lurk!, World War Cthulhu, and other fine anthologies and magazines. His other books include Triptych: Three Cosmic Tales, The Lost Aklo Stories, and The Nameless Dark, which was nominated for a 2015 Shirley Jackson Award for Single-Author Collection. His novella I Am The River will be published later this year by Lethe Press.

I’ve been wanting to sample his fiction for a while, and his brand new novella They Don’t Come Home Anymore seems like the way to do it. On his blog, Grau describes it this way.

They Don’t Come Home Anymore [is] a story that might, at first blush, seem like a slight departure from my previous work, as it centers on a teenage girl, and is very much a tale of obsession, loneliness, and a search for meaning, acceptance, and love in a world (and sub world) that waits, cruel and threatening, just behind the facade. It’s also about vampires, but not the garden variety sort you’d expect in a mass market/network television teenage vamp story, but something that cleaves closer to the natural world, and how our planet once was, and might still be in certain darkened corners. I can’t really say more, other than to invite you to pick up the book when it’s available, and tell me what you think it’s about, underneath, beyond that first impression.

They Don’t Come Home Anymore was published by This Is Horror on November 28, 2016. It is 104 pages, priced at $10.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Candice Tripp.

A Tale of Two Covers: Richard Adams’ Watership Down

A Tale of Two Covers: Richard Adams’ Watership Down

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Watership-Down-Poster by Raid71-small Watership-Down-Poster by Raid71 blue-small

Richard Adams’ Watership Down is perhaps my favorite fantasy novel. It’s been reprinted countless times since it was first published in 1972, on the way to selling over 50 million copies worldwide. I’ve collected multiple editions over the years, since I’m a sucker for a good cover.

But I’ve never seen anything like the poster series for the novel created by Raid71, which I fell in love with immediately. These aren’t covers for the novel, but full size wall posters suitable — very suitable, in my opinion — for framing. Click the images above for bigger versions.

I learned about the posters from John Freeman’s British comics blog Down the Tubes last year. Here’s what he said at the time.

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Interstellar Empires, Alien Warrior-Priests, and a Rebel Runner: R.M. Meluch’s Jerusalem Fire

Interstellar Empires, Alien Warrior-Priests, and a Rebel Runner: R.M. Meluch’s Jerusalem Fire

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Jerusalem Fire-small Jerusalem Fire-back-small

I’ve been trying to pay attention to mass market paperbacks lately (since it’s easy for new releases to slip past you if you’re not paying attention.) In my last trip to the bookstore I found R.M. Meluch’s Jerusalem Fire tucked between Jack McDevitt and China Miéville on the shelves, and it had me at “A planet out of myth.” Religion, space empires, and rebel captains — always a good mix in my book.

Meluch is the author of the ongoing Tour of the Merrimack military space opera series, and this seemed like a promising new direction for her. Except it’s not a new direction at all… turns out Jerusalem Fire is her second novel, originally published in paperback by Signet in 1985. It’s been reprinted several times since.

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Ave Atque Vale: Celebrating the Life and Work of Michael Shea

Ave Atque Vale: Celebrating the Life and Work of Michael Shea

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And Death Shall Have No Dominion A Tribute to Michael Shea-small And Death Shall Have No Dominion A Tribute to Michael Shea-back-small

Michael Shea was one of the most distinguished and loved figures in the field of speculative fiction. He twice won The World Fantasy Award, and his work also received nominations for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, August Derleth and International Horror Guild awards. Ranging from wildly baroque dark fantasy to cosmic horror and grimly humorous parodies of contemporary “reality” culture, his writing conveys the sense of wonder and awe that imaginative readers crave and appreciate, and one can develop an insatiable appetite for his work.

But since Shea’s unexpected passing in 2014, many of us have been unable to slake that. That is, until the recent release of And Death Shall Have No Dominion: A Tribute to Michael Shea, which among many other things, contains three previously unpublished works of his fiction.

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Invasions, Space Combat, and a Human Bomb: Margaret Fortune’s Spectre War

Invasions, Space Combat, and a Human Bomb: Margaret Fortune’s Spectre War

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Nova Spectre War Margaret Fortune Archangel Spectre War Margaret Fortune-small

Margaret Fortune’s Spectre War looks like my kind of YA series — the kind with space combat. The first volume, Nova, was published in hardcover in 2015 by DAW, and Booklist called it “A super start to what looks like a fine series.” Here’s the description.

Lia Johansen was created for only one purpose: to slip onto the strategically placed New Sol Space Station and explode.

But her mission goes to hell when her clock malfunctions, freezing her countdown with just two minutes to go. With no Plan B, no memories of her past, and no identity besides a name stolen from a dead POW, Lia has no idea what to do next. Her life gets even more complicated when she meets Michael Sorenson, the real Lia’s childhood best friend.

Drawn to Michael and his family against her better judgment, Lia starts learning what it means to live and love, and to be human. It is only when her countdown clock begins sporadically losing time that she realizes even duds can still blow up.

If she wants any chance at a future, she must find a way to unlock the secrets of her past and stop her clock. But as Lia digs into her origins, she begins to suspect there’s far more to her mission and to this war, than meets the eye. With the fate of not just a space station but an entire empire hanging in the balance, Lia races to find the truth before her time — literally — runs out.

The second installment, Archangel, arrived in hardcover last week. Nova is now available in paperback — and the digital version is just $1.99!

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