Black Gate

Covers by Stephen Youll

I’ve come to rely on Goodreads more and more often for unbiased book reviews. It started two years ago, while I was religiously checking the great feedback on my just-released The Robots of Gotham. Goodreads is filled with amateur reviewers, but I discovered many of them had spot-on critiques of my first novel. Always a pleasure to see those 4- and 5-star reviews of course, but in the end I found those readers able to articulate problems were far more valuable.

Yes, you’ll always find the occasional 1-star, 1-word review (“Unreadable’ was my favorite), but I was able to get something useful out of pretty much every other negative review, and quite a bit more than that from many. In fact, one of the best insights on my book came from a negative review by Goodreads member Jrubino, who wrote:

The complexity and depth of this novel is wonderful, yet its impact is greatly diminished by a video-game pacing… this formula is tiresome. That’s too bad as the world-building is unique and interesting.

I think that’s right on point, and it’s exactly the kind of thing I need to hear as I plunge into writing the second book. I’m fond of the way I set up The Robots of Gotham, with all my main characters trapped in a Chicago hotel in the middle of an unfolding robot apocalypse, but — as several readers have helpfully now pointed out — chapter after chapter, that constant “action and return” becomes repetitive, especially in a longer book. If I can fix that in The Ghosts of Navy Pier — and I’m pretty sure I can — I think it’ll be a much better book.

Goodreads has become enormously useful as a broad measure of public opinion, which is a darn useful thing for a writer trying hard to get better. And surprise, surprise… it’s also pretty useful when you’re looking for a good series to read, like Timothy Zahn’s Sibyl’s War trilogy, which wrapped up this month with the release of Queen.

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Covers by Chris McGrath

Dan Stout’s novel Titanshade was one of the breakout hits of 2019. W. Michael Gear called it “A masterpiece of a first novel,” John DeNardo picked it as one of the Best Books of March, and Black Gate columnist Brandon Crilly selected it as one of his Top Five of the year, saying:

Titanshade is the story Bright should have been. Stout provides this fascinating, pseudo-dieselpunk world populated by unique creatures instead of orcs and elves. It has everything I loved about Lethal Weapon and Bad Boys without the problematic bits, centered on truly engaging and dynamic characters. And I just found out we’ll be getting a sequel in April 2020!

Brandon was right about the sequel. Titan’s Day arrives in hardcover next week, returning us to the gritty town of Titanshade, where danger lurks around every corner. Here’s the publisher’s description.

The city of Titanshade pulses with nervous energy. The discovery of new riches beneath its snowfields has given residents hope for prosperity, but it also means the arrival of federal troops, along with assurances that they are only there to “stabilize the situation.”

Newcomers flood the streets, dreaming of finding their fortunes, while in the backrooms and beer halls of the city, a populist resistance gains support, its leaders’ true motives hidden behind nativist slogans. And in an alley, a gruesome discovery: the mutilated body of a young woman, a recent immigrant so little-regarded that not even her lovers bothered to learn her name. But in death, she’s found a champion.

Detective Carter single-mindedly pursues the killer as he navigates political pressures and resists becoming a pawn in the struggles tipping the city toward anarchy. But when more innocent lives are lost and time runs short, he’s forced to decide if justice is worth sparking all-out war in the streets during the biggest celebration of the year: Titan’s Day.

Titan’s Day will be published by DAW on April 7, 2020. It is 432 pages, priced at $26 in hardcover and $13.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Chris McGrath. Read an excerpt from the first novel Titanshade here, and get all the details on the series at Dan Stout’s website here. See all our recent cover of the best new fantasy series here.