August releases

Big month in term of releases. Although I'm not up to date on much of the books part of a series, I can at least pick up starting novels. The dates are a mix of Canadian an UK releases (whichever comes first) as my sources are Amazon.ca and bookdepository.co.uk.

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The Way of Kings
Brandon Sanderson
August 31th

No need for much press on this title, the hype machine is at full speed. On this day I have only 200 pages left to read. I hope to put up the review as soon as I can. Meanwhile, here's the blurb again :

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.

Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar’s niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan’s motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.

The result of over ten years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.

Speak again the ancient oaths,

Life before death.
Strength before weakness.
Journey before Destination.

and return to men the Shards they once bore.

The Knights Radiant must stand again.

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The Black Prism
Brent Weeks
August 25th

I have only read the first novel of The Night Angel trilogy, The Way of Shadows, but I intend to pick up the two remaining books soon. However, I'll probably give Weeks new series (The Lightbringer) a shot before that. This author show great promise. The first three chapters are available on Brent site here.

Gavin Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace. But Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live: Five years to achieve five impossible goals.

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The Ragged Man
Tom Lloyd
August 19th

The Fourth book of the Twilight Reign series. Man I have too much series to return to. I have read the first novel, The Stormcaller and I liked it enough to continue but I admit that it's not in the top of my pile. Here's what this is about :

The Lord Isak is dead, his armies and entire tribe in disarray. It falls to King Emin to continue the war alone, and the Menin are only too happy to meet his challenge. In Byora, Ruhen is developing his 'Saviour' persona. The Harlequins start preaching in his name and many of the pilgrims who flock to him are recruited to be 'Children', disciples who spread Ruhen's message. All over the Land people are starting to see Ruhen as the answer to their troubles. A showdown is coming: battle lines are finally drawn and the atrocities quickly mount. The spectre of the Great War looms, but in this age the Gods cannot and will not come to King Emin's aid. With the peoples of the Land turning against Emin and his few remaining allies, their only chance for survival lies in the hands of a dead man.

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Century of the Soldier
Paul Kearney
August 31th

This is the second omnibus of Monarchies of the God series (Hawkwood and the Kings was released last month). The first omnibus is in the mail. It's a shame I haven't read anything by Kearney...

By the mid sixth century of Ramusian reckoning the great struggle is approaching its climax. For the victor there will be supremacy; for the vanquished, cultural annihilation. Fighting that war, Corfe of Torunna will find that court intrigue can be as murderous as any martial foe. The monks Albrec and Avila will explode a bombshell of secret knowledge which will change the continent irrevocably. And Richard Hawkwood will return with the discovery of a New World. The sixth century is the crucible of history. The century of the soldier.

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The Scarab Path
Adrian Tchaikovsky
August 6th

Another promising series waiting in my library. My friend who I can sometime call a "test reader" and has much the same tastes as me recommended it. Here's what the fifth book in the Shadows of the Apt series is about :

The war with the Wasp Empire has ended in a bitter stalemate, and Collegium has nothing to show for it but wounded veterans. Cheerwell Maker finds herself crippled in ways no doctor can mend, haunted by ghosts of the past that she cannot appease, seeking for meaning in a city that no longer seems like home. The Empress Seda is regaining control over those imperial cities who refused to bow the knee to her, but she draws her power from something more sinister than mere armies and war machines. Only her consort, the former spymaster Thalric, knows the truth, and now the assassins are coming and he finds his life and his loyalties under threat yet again. Out past the desert of the Nem the ancient city of Khanaphes awaits them both, with a terrible secret entombed beneath its stones...

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And finally some noteworthy titles :

	Bearers of the Black Staff: Legends of Shannara Terry Brooks August 24th
	The Thief-take's Apprentice Stephen Deas August 26th