Black Gate

Rjurik Davidson’s Unwrapped Sky was one of the most intriguing works of weird fantasy of 2014. Scott Westerfield called it “An amazing debut… Rjurik Davidson works the sharp edges where epic fantasy, uncanny science fiction, and the New Weird collide.” One of the most fascinating things about it was the marvelously realized fantasy city of Caeli-Amur, home to men, minotaurs, and ancient magic. Hannu Rajaniemi said, “Rjurik has a brilliant, fecund imagination, and I absolutely love the setting… Caeli-Amur is one of the more memorable cities in recent fantasy.” The Stars Askew is the long-awaited sequel, on sale now from Tor Books.

With the seditionists in power, Caeli-Amur has begun a new age. Or has it? The escaped House officials no longer send food, and the city is starving. When the moderate leader Aceline is murdered, the trail leads Kata to a mysterious book that explains how to control the fabled Prism of Alerion. But when the last person to possess the book is found dead, it becomes clear that a conspiracy is afoot. At its center is former House Officiate Armand, who has hidden the Prism. Armand is vying for control of the Directorate, the highest political position in the city, until Armand is betrayed and sent to a prison camp to mine deadly bloodstone.

Meanwhile, Maximilian is sharing his mind with another being: the joker-god Aya. Aya leads Max to the realm of the Elo-Talern to seek a power source to remove Aya from Max’s brain. But when Max and Aya return, they find the vigilants destroying the last remnants of House power.

It seems the seditionists’ hopes for a new age of peace and prosperity in Caeli-Amur have come to naught, and every attempt to improve the situation makes it worse. The question now is not just whether Kata, Max, and Armand can do anything to stop the bloody battle in the city, but if they can escape with their lives.

Read an original story in the same setting, “Nighttime in Caeli-Amur,” published free at Tor.com.

The Stars Askew was published by Tor Books on July 12, 2016. It is 411 pages, priced at $25.9 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Allen Williams.

Miyuki Miyabe is a best-selling novelist in her native Japan. Her first fantasy novel Brave Story won the Batchelder Award for best children’s book in translation from the American Library Association in 2007; her second, The Book of Heroes, appeared in English translation in 2010. It was followed by Ico: Castle in the Mist (2010), inspired by the classic Playstation game Ico.

The Gate of Sorrows is  a departure from her previous work — and yet strongly linked to it. It’s an adult novel, set in the same universe as her children’s book The Book of Heroes. It goes on sale in hardcover in two weeks. Here’s the description.

A series of murders shocks Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward, but Shigenori, a retired police detective, is instead obsessed with a gargoyle that seems to move. College freshman Kotaro launches a web-based investigation of the killer, and comes to find that answers may lie within an abandoned building in the center of Japan’s busiest neighborhood, and beyond the Gate of Sorrows. In this adult sequel to Miyabe’s The Book of Heroes, you will meet monsters from other worlds and ordinary horrors that surpass even supernatural threats.

The Gate of Sorrows will be published by Haikasoru on August 16, 2016. It is 600 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital version. It is translated by Jim Hubbert. Click the images above for bigger versions.

Few writers have the kind of year that Wesley Chu had in 2015. He received a contract to continue his popular Tao series with Angry Robot, announcing that the first book in a related series, The Rise of Io, would be released in 2017. And in August he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. But the big news came in June, when Publishers Weekly revealed that Paramount Pictures had acquired the rights for a feature film franchise based on Chu’s new novel Time Salvager, with Michael Bay attached to direct and Chu set to executive produce.

Details on the film have been sparse ever since — but the praise for Time Salvager, a fast-paced time-travel adventure and the opening volume in a new series, has been plentiful. Publishers Weekly called it “Fascinating… this page-turner is a riveting, gratifying read.” And RT Book Reviews called it “Utterly captivating… to put it simply, Chu’s world-building is extraordinary.” The second volume in the series, Time Siege, was released in hardcover earlier this month by Tor.

Having been haunted by the past and enslaved by the present, James Griffin-Mars is taking control of the future.

Earth is a toxic, sparsely inhabited wasteland — the perfect hiding place for a fugitive ex-chronman to hide from the authorities.

James has allies, scientists he rescued from previous centuries: Elise Kim, who believes she can renew Earth, given time; Grace Priestly, the venerated inventor of time travel herself; Levin, James’s mentor and former pursuer, now disgraced; and the Elfreth, a population of downtrodden humans who want desperately to believe that James and his friends will heal their ailing home world.

James also has enemies. They include the full military might of benighted solar system ruled by corporate greed and a desperate fear of what James will do next. At the forefront of their efforts to stop him is Kuo, the ruthless security head, who wants James’s head on a pike and will stop at nothing to obtain it.

Time Siege was published by Tor Books on July 12, 2016. It is 431 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Richard Anderson.

I sometimes wonder why, in this age where superheroes rule all media, pulp heroes haven’t made more of a comeback in popular fiction. 

I think the answer is that I’m just not looking hard enough. Case in point: Alyc Helms’s Missy Masters novels, in which Missy takes her grandfather’s place as the pulp hero Mr. Mystic, make a fine example.

My friend Alex Bledsoe, author of The Sword-Edged Blonde and The Hum and the Shiver, sums up the first book: “A tough, witty young woman who inherited her superhero grandfather’s powers barrels through a rollicking Big Trouble in Little China-esque tale filled with magic, monsters and wisecracks. I loved it.” And Cassie Alexander, author of the Edie Spence series, says “The Dragons of Heaven combines superheroes, romance, ancient mythological China, and does it right. The world-building is stunning.”

There are two novels in the series so far, both published by Angry Robot, and both priced at $7.99 in mass market paperback, and $6.99 for the digital edition. They are:

The Dragons of Heaven (416 pages, June 30, 2015) — cover by Amazing15
The Conclave of Shadow (336 pages, July 5, 2016) — cover by Amazing15

Here’s the descriptions.

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Read More Read More

Two years ago I wrote a brief article about Premonitions, the debut novel by Jamie Schultz, and the opening volume in an intriguing urban fantasy series from Roc. Curious, I did a quick Amazon search last week, and discovered that there are two more novels in the Arcane Underworld series — including the latest, Sacrifices, released exclusively in digital format earlier this week.

The fact that there isn’t a print edition of the third novel isn’t a good sign, and it tells me Arcane Underworld will almost certainly wrap up as a trilogy. That’s a pity, as it garnered a lot of attention in its short life. Seanan McGuire called it “One half heist and one half damn good urban fantasy,” and Publishers Weekly labelled it “An outstanding urban fantasy/horror series.” But my favorite one-sentence review came from The BiblioSanctum, which said “The Arcane Underworld series has it all: Demons. Fanatical cultists. Dark magic… Schultz definitely knows how to bring it.”

All three books in the series were published by Roc, priced at $7.99 in both mass market paperback and digital editions. They are:

Premonitions (384 pages, July 1, 2014)
Splintered (352 pages, July 7, 2015)
Sacrifices (351 pages, July 19, 2016) — digital only

Anyone looking to try urban fantasy that doesn’t run into an endless series of volumes? I know you’re out there. Check out Arcane Underworld and let me know what you think.