Series Fantasy – Page 114

Future Treasures: The Hanged Man by P.N. Elrod

Monday, May 11, 2015 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

P.N. Elrod is known chiefly for her series about Chicago vampire detective Jack Fleming, whose first case is to solve his own murder. The Vampire Files ran for a dozen novels between 1990 and 2009, starting with Bloodlist.

Her new series, Her Majesty’s Psychic Service, opens with The Hanged Man, a Victorian urban fantasy thriller, on sale next week.

On a freezing Christmas Eve in 1879, a forensic psychic reader is summoned from her Baker Street lodgings to the scene of a questionable death. Alexandrina Victoria Pendlebury (named after her godmother, the current Queen of England) is adamant that the death in question is a magically compromised murder and not a suicide, as the police had assumed. After the shocking revelation contained by the body in question, Alex must put her personal loss aside to uncover the deeper issues at stake, before more bodies turn up.

Turning to some choice allies — the handsome, prescient Lieutenant Brooks, the brilliant, enigmatic Lord Desmond, and her rapscallion cousin James — Alex will have to marshal all of her magical and mental acumen to save Queen and Country from a shadowy threat. Our singular heroine is caught up in this rousing gaslamp adventure of cloaked assassins, meddlesome family, and dark magic.

The Hanged Man will be published by Tor Books on May 19, 2015. It is 336 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover and $11.99 for the digital edition.

See our complete survey of the top releases in May here.

New Treasures: The Daedalus Series by Michael J Martinez

Sunday, May 10, 2015 John ONeill Comments 9 comments

I overlooked Michael J. Martinez’s The Daedalus Incident, the opening volume of The Daedalus Series, when it first appeared in 2013. That turned out to be a mistake. By the time The Enceladus Crisis arrived last May, it was clear that this was a major new science fantasy series. Tor. com called it “adventurous, original, and a blast to read,” and GeekDad summed up the second volume splendidly:

Wooden sailing ships battling it out in space, Earth astronauts discovering an ancient alien temple on one of Saturn’s moons, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, undead French soldiers, Venusian jungles, and corporate espionage… This isn’t steampunk, okay? This is something new and unique and completely entertaining.

The third volume — featuring undead soldiers, Royal Navy frigates sailing the Void between worlds, dark alchemy, alien slave trade, and extra-dimensional incursions — was published last week, bringing the story to a climax deep in the jungles of Venus. It’s hard for me to keep up with everything that crosses my desk these days, but I think I might just have to make time for this entire series. The Venusian Gambit was published by Night Shade Books on May 5, 2015. It is 320 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $10.99 for the digital version.

A World With Larger Teeth and Sharper Claws: Marie Bilodeau’s Nigh, the First Great Serialized Novel of 2015

Sunday, May 10, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Back in January I told you about Nigh, Book One, the first installment in a terrific new serialized fantasy novel from Marie Bilodeau, the author of the Heirs of a Broken Land trilogy. New chapters have arrived every month since, and there are now four full installments available. The most recent, Nigh Book Four, shot up the Amazon bestseller charts the week of its release, and has been getting some great press. Here’s the description:

With the hopes of the faerie realm turned to dust, Alva Viola Taverner and Hector Henry Featherson strike the final blow to the veil between worlds, shattering it and returning them to the human realm. But one hundred years has passed for humanity, and things have changed. The world awaiting them now bears larger teeth and sharper claws, and it hungers for much more than their lives.

Marie’s space fantasy Destiny’s Blood was nominated for the Aurora Award, and she blogs here at Black Gate every second Friday. Nigh, Book 4 was published on May 7 by S&G Publishing. It is 57 pages, priced at 99 cents. It’s available at Amazon.com, B&N.com, and other fine digital bookstores.

Future Treasures: Storm and Steel by Jon Sprunk

Friday, May 8, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Storm and Steel, the long-awaited sequel to Blood and Iron — which Sarah Avery said “takes the prize for strange worldbuilding… full of powerful imagery and a vivid sense of place,” will be released in just a few weeks. Jon Sprunk is also the author of the popular Shadow Saga (Shadow’s Son, Shadow’s Lure, Shadow’s Master), and expectations are running high for the second volume of his new trilogy, The Book of the Black Earth.

An empire at war. Three fates intertwined.

The Magician. Horace has destroyed the Temple of the Sun, but now he finds his slave chains have been replaced by bonds of honor, duty, and love. Caught between two women and two cultures, he must contend with deadly forces from the unseen world.

The Rebel. Jirom has thrown in his lot with the slave uprising, but his road to freedom becomes ever more dangerous as the rebels expand their campaign against the empire. Even worse, he feels his connection with Emanon slipping away with every blow they strike in the name of freedom. The Spy. Alyra has severed her ties to the underground network that brought her to Akeshia, but she continues the mission on her own. Yet, with Horace’s connection to the queen and the rebellion’s escalation of violence, she finds herself treading a knife’s edge between love and duty.

Dark conspiracies bubble to the surface as war and zealotry spread across the empire. Old alliances are shattered, new vendettas are born, and all peoples — citizen and slave alike — must endure the ravages of storm and steel.

Storm and Steel will be published by Pyr on June 2, 2015. It is 479 pages, priced at $18 in trade paperback and $11.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Jason Chan. Learn more at Pyr Books or read our exclusive excerpt of the first novel here.

The Future of Fantasy: May New Releases

Wednesday, May 6, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

May, why do you do this to me? There are so many dynamite new fantasy books hitting the stands, I scarcely know where to look. And I have absolutely no idea where I’ll find the have time to read any of them.

Well, I’ll worry about that later. The task at hand is to introduce you to the 30 most intriguing fantasy titles released this month. And trust me, I had a heck of a time whittling it down to 30. Time’s a wasting, so let’s get started.

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Rich Horton on The Breaker Queen by C.S.E. Cooney

Tuesday, May 5, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Not so very long ago, I finished all my tasks for the evening and kicked back in my big green chair with the latest issue of Locus, the news magazine of the SF & fantasy field. In Rich Horton’s short fiction column I found a pair of reviews of The Breaker Queen and The Two Paupers, the first two novellas in a new romantic fantasy series from our very own C.S.E. Cooney. Here’s what he said about the first one:

I’m a big fan of of C.S.E. Cooney’s work, so I’m very happy to point to two new, related, stories, available in electronic form from Fairchild Books. The Breaker Queen concerns Eliot Howell, a talented young painter, who has been invited to a party at Breaker House. He feels immediately out of place — the family is very rich and very privileged — and the friend who invited him is being unpleasant, but then he meets one of the maids and is instantly enchanted. For Breaker House exists in three worlds: the world of humans, the world of goblins, and Valwode, where Elliot’s maid Nyx is Queen. Elliot, even when made aware of the price one pays to visit Valwode, follows Nyx into her land, while she, simply desiring a dalliance with a mortal, finds that she may pay a price herself. It’s lovely and romantic, dark and sweet, erotic and thrilling.

The Breaker Queen is Book One of Dark Breakers. The second, The Two Paupers, was published on January 22, 2015. The pub date for the third has not yet been announced — but when it is, we’ll let you know all the details.

C.S.E. Cooney is a podcast reader for Uncanny Magazine; Mark Rigney interviewed her for us in late October. The two C.S.E. Cooney short stories we presented here, “Godmother Lizard” and “Life on the Sun,” consistently rank among the most popular pieces we’ve ever published. She is a past website editor of Black Gate, and the author of How to Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes and Jack o’ the Hills. Her newest collection, Bone Swans, is due out this summer.

The Breaker Queen was published by Fairchild Books on October 13, 2014. It is 80 pages, priced at $2.99 for the digital edition. No word on a print edition yet.

Vintage Treasures: The Last T’En Trilogy by Cory Daniells

Monday, May 4, 2015 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Two months ago, in my March New Releases article, I said a few words about a handsome omnibus volume from best selling author Rowena Cory Daniells, The Fall of Fair Isle, published in paperback by Solaris on March 10. A complete trilogy on one volume, it collects Broken Vows, Dark Dreams, and Desperate Alliances, all originally published over a decade ago and recently republished with new cover art. Together, they form a sequel to her epic fantasy saga The Outcast Chronicles.

After that, I kinda forgot about it. Until last week, when I was sorting through some old review copies that I received in the late 90s, while I was editor of SF Site. I found the original paperback editions from Bantam Books (above, top row) and, to be blunt, it took a few days before it dawned on me that they were the same series. Where the Bantam editions were packaged as high fantasy/medieval romances, the new Solaris versions are marketed as dark fantasy — with starkly different cover design, and under a different name. It’s one of the more interesting examples of a publishing make-over I’ve seen in a while.

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Future Treasures: The Hollow Queen by Elizabeth Haydon, Book 8 of The Symphony of Ages

Wednesday, April 29, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The first volume in Elizabeth Haydon’s long-running fantasy series The Symphony of Ages, Rhapsody, was published by Tor Books way back in September, 1999. It was an immediate hit; Publishers Weekly called it “One of the finest high fantasy debuts in years,” and the series quickly became a bestseller.

Over the next 15 years she’s published seven more in the series, mostly recently The Merchant Emperor last June. On May 5th The Merchant Emperor will be reprinted in paperback, and next month Tor releases the eighth installment, The Hollow Queen.

Beset on all sides by the forces of the merchant emperor Talquist, the Cymrian Alliance finds itself in desperate straits. Rhapsody herself has joined the battle, wielding the Daystar Clarion, leaving her True Name in hiding with her infant son. Ashe tries to enlist the aid of the Sea Mages. Within their Citadel of Scholarship lies the White Ivory tower, a spire that could hold the key to unraveling the full extent of Talquist’s machinations. Achmed journeys to the reportedly unassailable palace of Jierna Tal, to kill emperor Talquist–all the while knowing that even if he succeeds, it may not be enough to stop the momentum of the war.

As they struggle to untangle the web of Talquist’s treachery, the leaders of the Cymrian alliance are met with obstacles at every turn. Rhapsody soon realizes that the end of this war will come at an unimaginable price: the lives of those she holds dearest.

The Hollow Queen will be published by Tor Books on June 30, 2015. It is 415 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition.

Vintage Treasures: The Silken Magic Books by Elizabeth Gilligan

Tuesday, April 28, 2015 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I published Elizabeth Gilligan’s short story “Iron Joan” in Black Gate 3 (read the complete story here), and it was an immediate hit. The tale of an indomitable woman — the daughter of the High Chief of Glen Cluain, shamed by her father’s house but gifted in her mother’s secret arts — who mysteriously leaves home at seventeen to settle in a tiny village, was a powerful story that SF Reader called “A deep, well-written tale. Highly recommended.”

Elizabeth Gilligan seemed to me like a writer destined for great things, and it wasn’t long before I was proven right. He debut novel, Magic’s Silken Snare, the first volume in Silken Magic, was published by DAW in April 2003, and was widely acclaimed. Locus called it an “Opulent tale and court intrigue and dark magics… [An] excellent first novel,” and Romantic Times said “An alternate Sicily is splendidly revealed… [with] robust characterizations, multiple storylines, and clever delivery.” It was followed by the second volume, The Silken Shroud, in April 2004, and it seemed obvious that this was the beginning of a stellar career.

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Future Treasures: When the Heavens Fall by Marc Turner

Sunday, April 26, 2015 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

There are times when you want something light and quick to read… and then there are times when you want to sink your teeth into an epic packed with heroes, meddling gods, necromancers, empires, and darkest intrigue. If the latter appeals to you, Marc Turner’s debut fantasy When the Heavens Fall, which goes on sale in three weeks, might be just what you’re looking for.

If you pick a fight with Shroud, Lord of the Dead, you had better ensure your victory, else death will mark only the beginning of your suffering.

A book giving its wielder power over the dead has been stolen from a fellowship of mages that has kept the powerful relic dormant for centuries. The thief, a crafty, power-hungry necromancer, intends to use the Book of Lost Souls to resurrect an ancient race and challenge Shroud for dominion of the underworld. Shroud counters by sending his most formidable servants to seize the artifact at all cost.

However, the god is not the only one interested in the Book, and a host of other forces converge, drawn by the powerful magic that has been unleashed. Among them is a reluctant Guardian who is commissioned by the Emperor to find the stolen Book, a troubled prince who battles enemies both personal and political, and a young girl of great power, whose past uniquely prepares her for an encounter with Shroud. The greatest threat to each of their quests lies not in the horror of an undead army but in the risk of betrayal from those closest to them. Each of their decisions comes at a personal cost and will not only affect them, but also determine the fate of their entire empire.

The first of an epic swords & sorcery fantasy series, Marc Turner’s When the Heavens Fall features gritty characters, deadly magic, and meddlesome gods.

When the Heavens Fall is Book One of The Chronicles of the Exile, and will be published by Tor Books on May 19, 2015. It is 544 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover, and $14.99 for the digital edition. No word on the cover artist.

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