Black Gate

I’m a fan of dark fantasy and horror, and I especially like to keep an eye on exciting new authors. There’s been some recent buzz about Adam Nevill and his fourth novel Last Days, and I decided to check it out.

Nevill is the author of three other novels of supernatural horror: Banquet for the Damned, Apartment 16, and The Ritual. His new book Last Days is a Blair Witch style creep-fest, in which a documentary film-maker investigates an apocalyptic cult — and discovers some nasty secrets.

When guerrilla documentary maker, Kyle Freeman, is asked to shoot a film on the notorious cult known as the Temple of the Last Days, it appears his prayers have been answered. The cult became a worldwide phenomenon in 1975 when there was a massacre including the death of its infamous leader, Sister Katherine. Kyle’s brief is to explore the paranormal myths surrounding an organization that became a testament to paranoia, murderous rage, and occult rituals. The shoot’s locations take him to the cult’s first temple in London, an abandoned farm in France, and a derelict copper mine in the Arizonan desert where The Temple of the Last Days met its bloody end. But when he interviews those involved in the case, those who haven’t broken silence in decades, a series of uncanny events plague the shoots. Troubling out-of-body experiences, nocturnal visitations, the sudden demise of their interviewees and the discovery of ghastly artifacts in their room make Kyle question what exactly it is the cult managed to awaken – and what is its interest in him?

The Publishers Weekly review was particularly intriguing: “Fans of films about haunted places, otherworldy beings, and rituals gone terribly wrong will find this homage deliciously chilling.” Doesn’t that include, I mean, everyone? Who’s not a fan of films about “rituals gone terribly wrong?” Uh-huh. Nobody.

Last Days was published in trade paperback by St. Martin’s Press on February 26, 2013. It is a satisfyingly-hefty 531 pages, and priced at $15.99 ($9.99 for the digital edition).

I live in a house with three young adults, all fairly active readers. When one discovers an intriguing new fantasy series, it gets passed around excitedly. That happened with Christopher Paolini’s Eragon books, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, Suzanne Collins’s Gregor The Overlander and The Hunger Games, and John Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice books.

The latest book to get discussed and passed around is Ari Berk’s Death Watch, the first installment in The Undertaken Trilogy. It’s too early to determine if this will captivate all three the way previous books have, but early indications are good.

They say the dead should rest in peace. Not all the dead agree.

When Silas Umber’s father, Amos, doesn’t come home from work one night, Silas discovers that his father was no mere mortician, but an Undertaker who worked to bring The Peace to lost and wandering souls. With Amos gone, Silas and his mother move back to Lichport, the crumbling seaside town where he was born, and Silas seizes the opportunity to investigate his father’s disappearance.

When his search leads him to his father’s old office, he comes across a powerful artifact: the Death Watch, a tool that allows the owner to see the dead. Death Watch in hand, Silas begins to unearth Lichport’s secret history — and discovers that he has taken on his father’s mantle as Lichport’s Undertaker. Now, Silas must embark on a dangerous path into the Shadowlands to embrace his destiny and discover the truth about his father — even if it kills him.

Death Watch was published November 27, 2012 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. It is 560 pages in trade paperback, priced at $9.99 ($8.89 for the digital edition). The second volume of The Undertaken Trilogy, Mistle Child, was published Feb 12.

I heard a surprising amount of advance praise for Peter V. Brett’s first novel, The Warded Man. Contributors to Black Gate — and trust me, there’s no more discerning or harder-working readers out there — were abuzz about it long before it arrived in the US in 2009.

His second novel, The Desert Spear (March 2010), became an international bestseller — a feat George R.R. Martin accomplished only with his seventh. Anticipation for Peter’s third novel has been extremely high, and it finally arrives in bookstores tomorrow.

On the night of the new moon, the demons rise in force, seeking the deaths of two men, both of whom have the potential to become the fabled Deliverer, the man prophesied to reunite the scattered remnants of humanity in a final push to destroy the demon corelings once and for all.

Arlen Bales was once an ordinary man, but now he has become something more — the Warded Man, tattooed with eldritch wards so powerful they make him a match for any demon… Ahmann Jardir has forged the warlike desert tribes of Krasia into a demon-killing army and proclaimed himself Shar’Dama Ka, the Deliverer.

Once Arlen and Jardir were as close as brothers. Now they are the bitterest of rivals. As humanity’s enemies rise, the only two men capable of defeating them are divided against each other by the most deadly demons of all — those lurking in the human heart.

I brought home an early copy on Saturday, and it’s already been read once in the last 24 hours. When you have a family of fantasy fans, the most popular titles tend to vanish. I need to get the details down while I can still lay hands on it.

The Daylight War, Book Three of The Demon Cycle, will be released by Del Rey on February 12, 2013. It is 641 pages in hardcover, priced at $28 ($12.99 for the digital edition). Two more novels remain in the five-book series: The Skull Throne and The Core.