Covers - Weeks and Brett

It seems like I missed this one last week.  The Subterranean Press limited edition illustration for the cover of the  novella prequel Perfect Shadow by Brent Weeks is a beautiful piece by the always amazing artist Raymond Swanland (you know, all the new Glen Cook covers!). Way better than the cover for the original edition.

***

The second one is the Bragelonne cover art for the French paperback edition of The Warded Man (L'homme rune) by Peter V. Brett. Not a big fan of the portrayal of Arlen but the overall look is nice.

New poll - Embarrassed of reading genre?

***

First let's return to the last poll.  The questions was "Do you watch book trailers?".  The results were as follows:

- 75%  No

- 25%  Yes

There you have it, like myself (you can return here for my opinion), not many fantasy readers are actually interested in book trailers. To go even farther, when I look at the comments, it seems that its not simply a factor of indifference but a question of existence. I'm not sure that with this kind of reaction toward book trailers, the publishers ought to keep investing money in this particular type of marketing. Enough said anyway...

***

On to the next subject, in a completely light tone.  When I posted the french cover for the latest novel of David Anthony Durham (The Sacred Band), at the start of the month, someone commented that he would be embarrassed to read this novel due to the cover art (and I have to add that his reasons in his case are totally legitimate and understandable).

I'm not here to criticize and I also have a good friend who is having the same kind of feelings, though less justified this time, no harm intended Dom :). He is actually quite happy when I bring him an hardcover book with a dust jacket. Then, he can read everywhere without feeling 'guilty' or embarrassed.

That situation is worse when you pick up a novel with a cover like the infamous Gathering Storm illustration by Darrell K. Sweet. However, for me, that has never been the case.  I don't think I ever tried to hide the cover of a book I was reading or felt ashamed of reading one in public.

So, simply for the sake of curiosity, where do you stand?  Do you know of others who are like this?

"Are you embarrassed of reading fantasy publicly?"

-Yes

-No 

The Book of Transformation review

The Book of Transformation is Mark Charan Newton third novel in the Legends of the Red Sun saga. One more novel will complete the series but hopefully, the author will return to this world or start a new concept full of weirdness and originality.

A new and corrupt Emperor seeks to rebuild the ancient structures of Villjamur to give the people of the city hope in the face of great upheaval and an oppressing ice age. But when a stranger called Shalev arrives, empowering a militant underground movement, crime and terror becomes rampant. The Inquisition is always one step behind, and military resources are spread thinly across the Empire. So Emperor Urtica calls upon cultists to help construct a group to eliminate those involved with the uprising, and calm the populace. But there’s more to The Villjamur Knights than just phenomenal skills and abilities – each have a secret that, if exposed, could destroy everything they represent.

Investigator Fulcrom of the Villjamur Inquisition is given the unenviable task of managing the Knights’, but his own skills are tested when a mysterious priest, who has travelled from beyond the fringes of the Empire, seeks his help. The priest’s existence threatens the church, and his quest promises to unweave the fabric of the world. And in a distant corner of the Empire, the enigmatic cultist Dartun Súr steps back into this world, having witnessed horrors beyond his imagination. Broken, altered, he and the remnants of his cultist order are heading back to Villjamur. And all eyes turn to the Sanctuary City, for Villjamur’s ancient legends are about to be shattered…

The series started with a 'Noir Fantasy' novel set in an elegant, daunting and weird architectural amalgam of a city covered in snow that became my favorite debut of 2009. Nights of Villjamur is an atmospheric book with great characters and small plots that are even more interesting than the meta story.  Then came City of Ruin, where that larger story arc took flight and where weirdness found its home. Newton imagination flourished in the second opus and he remarkably created a unique atmosphere and setting.

In The Book of Transformation, the author is still on target where his writing is concerned, taking into account the elements that made his first two novels such a success for me. Moreover, he eliminates all the little details that could have affected his prose previously.  The ethereal feeling of his world blends smoothly and expertly with the references or parallels with our world.  In that aspect, the third novel is still a charm, a demarcation from the crowd. As such, the character of Lan's transsexual situation, the exploration of superhero lore and the moral dilemma created by the service to a power of dubious honesty and ethics are demonstration enough.

Where I think the penultimate novel felt less accomplished than City of Ruin is in some of the individual storylines of the protagonists.  The cast is grounded on solid basis but their evolution through their ordeals is not always executed as well as in the previous novel.  Investigator Fulcrom is the exception.  If I take Tane and Vuldon for example, one a spoiled rich aide wanting to make a better world and the other a fallen legend, who both get the mandate to become superheroes for the city's sake; I would have though and in fact expected that they would challenge the authority they faced, more so after their secrets are unveiled. Only Lan, the sweet ex-acrobat who wasn't born in the right body remains true to herself in that aspect.

Fulcrom may be an exception but he is not Jeryd, although he comes close, maybe too much at first. He has his own demons and after a couple of chapters he becomes intriguing and unique. Newton really has a knack for writing great detectives. I think that this protagonist ought to be one of the ideal persona for Mark. Being in his head and hearing his concerns even feels like reading about a part of ourselves thrown in a mysterious world.

The presence of Ulryk, an outcast priest of the cult of Jorsalir looking to summon a god and the come back of Dartun Sur and his cultists from Nights complement the element of weirdness witnessed in City of Ruin. For the first one, he brings to the table a good opportunity for the author to tackle religion and creation. As for Dartun, his actions are seen through the eyes of her lover which is great since too much would probably have been revealed about his agenda if he had been the PoV. However, knowing what we know from the story so far, his motivations seemed thin. A double edged sword...

The conflicts in Villjamur itself give us a glimpse at some new territory of the city that makes her even more intriguing.  The city is not a character in itself but there's something with the setting bringing her to life. In the first novel, I was already charmed even though I felt that it was a bit pushed down our throats by the protagonists.  This time it's more subtle. It felt good to be back but with the plot taking such a big leap, that particular ambiance will never be the same.

In the end, The Book of Transformation is not an improvement from the level of its predecessor but it's still a satisfying and captivating novel, just slightly lacking in creative expression versus City of Ruin.  The themes approached are explored somewhat in a black and white manner, seen from both side of the coin with to a certain degree some twisted notions of each, while the prequels felt 'greyish'. Still, I'm really eager to re-join the characters missing from this book and read about the great conflagration of worlds, ideas and people that is to come.

Technically, the Tor UK cover art starring Villjamur is looking good. Thankfully, Lan was removed from the cover (look here). The hardcover edition of the novel is 417 pages and features the map of the Western end of the Boreal Archipelago. Nice!

The Book of Transformation's review score :

Characterization............. 7.5 /10
World building............... 8.5 / 10
Magic system................. 8 / 10
Story.............................. 7.5 / 10
Writing........................... 9 / 10

Overall (not an average) 8 / 10

Enjoy!


Mark Charan Newton page
Nights of Villjamur review
City of Ruin review

Rating my reviews

Something has been nagging at me for some time. To score or not to score, that is the question (hum... not really... but how to do it)! When I first started reviewing on the blog, the rating system I decided to go with came to me naturally, without much second thoughts. After several reviews, I started to like it, probably because it was the kind of thing I looked for when reading other reviews.  Then, on some occasions, I started to have problems with the 10 points review scores, more so when putting half points.  I don't mean to say that I don't like it anymore but I'm thinking that maybe I ought to make some changes. 

First of all, let me say that I really like to put a number on a review. I won't stop scoring or rating them (I even caught myself on some hasty browsing looking down at the score before deciding to read the full review...).  However, I think that a five star (or something like that, it doesn't have to really be stars...) system could be a better fit and I would like your input on this. Judging a book by an 8.5 vs an 8 is not always a hundred percent fair. I mean, is there really a big deal between the two or is it only used for sorting them out from best to worst?

I found on some instances that a couple of months after giving a score to a review and reading many more novels, the score that I gave earlier became problematic in comparison with a score I would like to give a new review. Both books could have been 4 or 5 stars novels but since I gave the first one a 9 and the other book was not near perfection, I struggled to put an 9.5. Maybe they both deserve to be five stars and I should say that both were "Highly recommended" and the actual review will clear things out...

A five stars rating system could come out with a better expression of my feelings.  But then, you could argue for the contrary... All of this may not be of much importance but if you could give me your insight on the subject, it would be appreciated. So, is a scoring system on 5 more interesting with "Amazingly brilliant", Highly recommended", "Nice read", "Put it at the bottom of the pile", "My god what was that" or "Touch this novel only at your greatest peril" (ok... that would not be the real labels I would use but I'm sure you grasp the meaning).

Another question would be the 5 categories of rating I usually put up (Characterization, World building, Magic system, Story and Writing)... still of interest? Maybe it would be more meaningful to "score" these aspects when they are more significant in both ways...

Here's some examples of what it would mean for a couple of my reviews :

5 "stars"
The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie (9.5/10)
The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (9.5/10)
The Crippled God by Steven Erikson (9/10)
City of Ruin by Mark Charan Newton (9/10)

4 "stars"
The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan (8/10)
The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks (8/10)
The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (7.5/10)
The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett (7.5/10)

3 "stars"
The Unremembered by Peter Orullian (7.5/10)
The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sarnderson (7/10)
The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams (7/10)

2 "stars"
A Darkness Forged in Fire by Chris Evans (6.5/10)
Imager by L.E. Modesitt Jr. (6.5/10)
Midwinter by Matthew Sturges (6.5/10)

1  "star"
Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson - (4/10)

0  "stars"
Confessor by Terry Goodkind (2.5/10)

Thanks!

Mark Lawrence's King of Thorns cover

It was posted by Mark himself earlier today. Still by Jason Chan I think.  The continuity from the cover art for the first book is nice and it looks good but the color choice for the lettering... not sure. What do you think?

Prince of Thorns review

Anthony Huso's Black Bottle cover art

I'm not sure if it's official/final but Anthony Huso posted this pic on Twitter on September 21. It didn't make much noise but it's the cover for his second novel, the book following the amazing (at least to my taste, my review here) The Last Page, a nice mix of steampunk and fantasy. The novel is titled Black Bottle and should be out in Spring 2012. That cover is really different in style over the previous book.  There's still no synopsis I could find... the only hint being in this interview by Mad Hatter :

MH: Zeppelins are most definitely a helluva a lot of fun. After the amazing events of The Last Page what can we expect out of Black Bottle? Will we get to see more of the south? And is there a confirmed release date? 

HUSO: In fact, a huge chunk of Black Bottle does, in fact, take place in the south. As for what you can expect, it's really just the other half of the story. You could lump both books together in a significantly fatter volume and have one novel. At least, that's the idea.

The Wise Man's Fear review

The Wise Man's Fear is... a novel. Sorry easy joke. This book is the follow-up in the Kingkiller Chronicles series to The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, one of the most talked about fantasy debut in the last few years and interestingly, it's among the few fantasy novels that know no boundary from the genre. This title has been waited upon for four year and it's been delivered, wonderfully so!

Day Two of The Kingkiller Chronicle, an escalating rivalry with a powerful member of the nobility forces Kvothe to leave the University and seek his fortune abroad. Adrift, penniless, and alone, he travels to Vintas, where he quickly becomes entangled in the politics of courtly society. While attempting to curry favor with a powerful noble, Kvothe uncovers an assassination attempt, comes into conflict with a rival arcanist, and leads a group of mercenaries into the wild, in an attempt to solve the mystery of who (or what) is waylaying travelers on the King's road. 

All the while, Kvothe searches for answers, attempting to uncover the truth about the mysterious Amyr, the Chandrian, and the death of his parents. Along the way, Kvothe is put on trial by the legendary Adem mercenaries, is forced to reclaim the honor of the Edema Ruh, and travels into the Fae realm. There he meets Felurian, the faerie woman no man can resist, and who no man has ever survived...until Kvothe. 

In The Wise Man's Fear, Kvothe takes his first steps on the path of the hero and learns how difficult life can be when a man becomes a legend in his own time.

In my review of The Name of the Wind, I mentioned that I expected The Wise Man's Fear to be quite different in tone.  This idea came to me since most of the first novel is concentrated around Kvothe learning years at the University and that if he is going to become a "Kingkiller", he ought to grow out of this young boy life before the end of the first trilogy.  After about a third of this second book, I was starting to fear that the novel would be set around the same period of his life with costly admissions coming again and again and the usual trouble the young red-hair is so skilled in getting into with his teachers. Even though I should have guessed differently since the first novel isn't only about his life when he tries to join the arcanum...

Hopefully, Kvothe finally gets out of the University for a ride through the country. He's chasing the wind as Elodin's put it (always a pleasure to read about this delirious character). At this point, the story really starts to shine.  I enjoyed his adventures at school, but there's only so much originality and marvel that can happen there for the guy to become the legend he ought to be. However, I can't just swipe that part away without mentioning some really great moments, the plum bob poisoning (rendering him morally blank) being at the top of the list. The whole tale is full of imaginative happenings.

One of the things I like about Patrick's writing is the ease with which he is able to wove mundane moments into his story and makes them feel cherished. For instance, when he is at the University, coming back from a drinking night with his buddies Sim and Wilem, they eventually take a break near a way stone and Kvothe tells them a somewhat banal story about the Edemah Ruh.  The whole scene is a masterpiece of storytelling for such a sensitive episode. Rothfuss found his voice more strongly than in The Name of the Wind's case and it shows in every little detail, from these conversations to the more-complex-than-it-seems world building.

That world is taking expansion but Rothfuss is not revealing its inner workings in whole. He keeps his options open. With a future so grandiose hinted at for his protagonist, that's a wise choice. Nevertheless, the 'meta' story of his life, the search for the Chandrian is still popping up from times to times and it feels more and more connected with the Four Corners of Civilization. I'm still not sure how much the author has already in mind for Kvothe, but everything feels at the place.

There are funny moments, sad moments, a couple of dragging moments, but all in all, the prose of the author has momentum while remaining slow going. That suits the tale fine, rushing it wouldn't fit with Kvothe style of recounting his life. Then again, the bard is still a dumbass recurrently.  In several occasions, you would think that the 'young seemingly grown-up' arcanist will finally do and say the right thing with Denna, Ambrose, in the Maer's presence or in the company of the Ademre mercenaries, but he stays true to his nature and reacts with heartfelt conviction but sometimes too powerfully. I found myself mentally saying "No.. no.. no don't do that!!!" in a couple of occasions...

This time again, he's not alone in all this.  The scenes with Denna tend to be repetitive (quite so...) but the addition of the Maer, Puppet, Tempi and Vashet in Ademre, Felurian in the Fae world and many more creates for him a varied surrounding cast with a lot of novelty. Even Bast opens up; god but I think he's gonna turn out interesting. The interludes with him are refreshing breaks from Kvothe first person narrative.

Furthermore, there's a scene which I included in my kick ass moments.  Go check it out, even if you haven't read the book, it won't spoil it.

Taking all this into consideration, something came to my mind in trying to resume why I like this novel so much.  I think that it's mostly because it shows through the author's writing that he had fun writing it.  And so did I, reading it. This novel was polished and the time to write it was worth it. What is best about what is still to come?  Simply read Kvothe's blurb and it seems were in for more goodness, if the man speaks true :

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. You may have hear of me.

Technically, the Daw cover art is nice enough (first one) and the UK cover art looks stylish.  The hardcover edition of the novel is 994 pages and features the same map of the Four Corners of Civilization as for the first book.  The audiobook edition is 42 hours and 59 minutes long and is narrated masterfully by Nick Podehl.

The Wise Man Fear's review score :

Characterization............. 9 /10
World building............... 8.5 / 10
Magic system................. 8 / 10
Story.............................. 9.5 / 10
Writing........................... 9.5 / 10

Overall (not an average) 9.5 / 10

Enjoy!

Patrick Rothfuss page

The Name of the Wind review

A round of covers

Once more, this past week, many covers for Fantasy novels surfaced.  The main source this time is Orbit books spring and summer 2012 early looks. Here's the link for the full list but I put a couple of them in this post.  Aside from Orbit, HarperCollins decided to release new editions of the mass-market edition of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, the 'final' cover with the title for Stephen Deas' Black Mausoleum was added to Risingshadow and the same can be said for Tom Lloyd's The Dusk Watchman.  For this lastest, I also discovered on Todd Lockwood's page that the US art is also done.  Here you go :

***

Daniel Abraham

The King's Blood

The Dagger and the Coin Book 2

War casts its shadow over the lands that the dragons once ruled. Only the courage of a young woman with the mind of a gambler and loyalty to no one stands between hope and universal darkness.

 

The high and powerful will fall, the despised and broken shall rise up, and everything will be remade. And quietly, almost beneath the notice of anyone, an old, broken-hearted warrior and an apostate priest will begin a terrible journey with an impossible goal: destroy a Goddess before she eats the world.

***

N.K. Jemisin

New series - The Dreamblood

The Killing Moon

In the city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Along its ancient stone streets, where time is marked by the river’s floods, there is no crime or violence. Within the city’s colored shadows, priests of the dream-goddess harvest the wild power of the sleeping mind as magic, using it to heal, soothe… and kill.

 

But when corruption blooms at the heart of Gujaareh’s great temple, Ehiru — most famous of the city’s Gatherers — cannot defeat it alone. With the aid of his cold-eyed apprentice and a beautiful foreign spy, he must thwart a conspiracy whose roots lie in his own past. And to prevent the unleashing of deadly forbidden magic, he must somehow defeat a Gatherer’s most terrifying nemesis: the Reaper

The Shadowed Sun

***

Stephen Deas

The Black Mausoleum

The Memory of Flames book 4

Two years have passed since the events of the Order of the Scales. Across the realms, dragons are still hatching. Hatching, and hatching free. Skorl is an Ember, a soldier trained from birth to fight dragons. He is a living weapon, one-shot only, saturated with enough dragon-poison to bring down a monster all on his own. Misanthrope, violent and a drunk, to fulfil his purpose and slay a dragon, means to be eaten. Now Skorl has a choice: he can hang for his crimes, or he can go with the last of the Adamantine Men, fighting against an enemy he was born to face. Rat is an Outsider. He's on the run and he's stumbled onto something that's going to make him rich beyond all his dreams. It's just a shame that the end of the world has started without him. Kataros is an alchemist, one of the order responsible for keeping the dragons in check. One of the order that has just failed, and disastrously so. Two men, one woman. One chance to save the world from a storm of dragons ...

***

Tom Lloyd

The Dusk Watchman

The Twilight Reign book 5

UK

US

***

K.J. Parker

Sharps

***

George R.R. Martin

A Song of Ice and Fire

First four books

Winner - Giveaway - A Thief in the Night

The winner of the giveaway for A Thief in the Night by David Chandler is :

Sabrina Osborn from Shoreline, Washington

Reminder - Giveaway - A Thief in the Night

The giveaway for David Chandler's A Thief in the Night, book 2 of the Ancient Blades trilogy will be over soon. Don't miss the chance!

You only have to send me a mail (contact on the right) with your name and address and "Chandler" as the subject.  The giveaway is open only for the US. I'll pick up the winner on October 7th.

Here's the link to the previous post...

Brandon Sanderson's Infinity Blade novella

You have an iPod/iPhone/iPad?  Then you probably know the graphically amazing game Infinity Blade.  If so, and even more if you've played it, you know that the story is quite simple.  You have to slay the God King. However, at first you'll not be powerful enough so you'll die and your son will try to avenge you by trying to slay the God King, 20 years later.  The same happens to him and so on....

That being said, the follow-up, Infinity Blade 2, is a work-in-progress and to bridge the storyline between the two games, Brandon Sanderson wrote a novella.  The ebook is available now and is named Infinity Blade : Awakening. I may have made it sound a bit frivolous but I'm still interested in a novella written by Sanderson, even if the initial thread is thin. Brandon's announcement is available on his blog. Here's the cover of the ebook and the blurb :

 

Trained from birth in swordplay and combat, a young knight named Siris has journeyed to the Dark Citadel with a single purpose: fight through the army of Titans to face the tyrannical God King in one-on-one combat. This was his father’s sacred mission, and his father’s before him, going back countless generations in an effort to free their people from enslavement. But when Siris somehow succeeds where all those from his bloodline previously have failed, he finds himself cast into a much larger world, filled with warriors and thieves, ancient feuds and shifting alliances, Deathless immortals and would-be kings. His quest for freedom will take him on an epic journey in search of the mythical figure known as the Worker of Secrets – the one being in the world who can unravel the secrets of the Infinity Blade.

Durham's The Sacred Band french cover

David Anthony Durham posted the cover art for the French edition of his latest novel, The Sacred Band, L'alliance sacré in french. The illustration is by Didier Graffet.  I think I would choose that cover over the US one (posted below).  There's too much stuff printed on the US edition and I have to say that Elya (and the other black beast of the same race) looks great!

New map - Shadows of the Apt

Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of the seven novels of the Shadows of the Apt series (with more to come), posted the combined map of his world. I added the map to the index.  Nice work.  Here's what he had to say about it :

Now, to far more important business. As previously promised, Roderick Easton, occasional poster here, has taken Hemesh Alles' maps and put them together for a complete picture of the world of the Insect-kinden (or at least those parts of it we've seen in the series), which, with great thanks to Mr Easton, I hereby present:

October releases

October 2011 is a busy month in a busy year in Fantasy.  The Acacia trilogy is ending (sadly, I totally forgot to review the second book, The Other Lands, a book that I really enjoyed but listened to in audiobook too long ago to write a deserving review...), I will be seven book late in reading Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt series (with Sephiroth on the cover), Nightshade books is releasing a another Dread Empire novel from Glen Cook with a splendid cover art by Raymond Swanland, Chris Evans finishes the Iron Elves trilogy and N.K. Jemisin is doing the same with her Inheritance series.  However, my number one pick this month is without hesitation The Cold Commands by Richard Morgan. Can't wait!

***

The Sacred Band

David Anthony Durham

October 4th

With the first two books in the Acacia Trilogy, Acacia and The Other Lands, David Anthony Durham has created a vast and engrossing canvas of a world in turmoil, where the surviving children of a royal dynasty are on a quest to realize their fates—and perhaps right ancient wrongs once and for all. As The Sacred Band begins, one of them, Queen Corinn, bestrides the world as a result of her mastery of spells found in the ancient Book of Elenet. Her younger brother, Dariel, has been sent on a perilous mission to the Other Lands, while her sister, Mena, travels to the far north to confront an invasion of the feared race of the Auldek. Their separate trajectories will converge in a series of world-shaping, earth-shattering battles, all rendered with vividly imagined detail and in heroic scale.

***

Heirs of the Blade

Adrian Tchaikovsky

October 7th

She remembered how it felt to lose Salma, first to the wiles of the Butterfly-kinden girl, then to hear the news of his death, abandoned and alone in the midst of the enemy. 

She remembered how it felt to see her father hacked to death before her eyes. 

But of her murder of Achaeos, of the bite of her blade into his unsuspecting flesh, the wound that had sapped him and ruined him until he died, she remembered nothing, felt nothing. In such a vacuum, how could she possibly atone? 

Tynisa is running, but she cannot escape the demons of her own mind. Amidst the fragmenting provinces of the Dragonfly Commonweal her past will at last catch up with her. Her father’s ghost is hunting her down. 

At the same time, the Wasp Empress, Seda, is on the move, her eyes on the city of Khanaphes, the fallen jewel of the ancient world. Whilst her soldiers seek only conquest, she sees herself as the heir to all the old powers of history, and has her eyes on a far greater prize.

***

The Cold Commands
Richard Morgan
October 11th

Ringil Eskiath, scarred wielder of the kiriath-forged broadsword Ravensfriend, is a man on the run - from his past and the family who have disowned him, from the slave trade magnates of Trelayne who want him dead, and apparently from the dark gods themselves, who are taking an interest but making no more sense than they ever have. Outlawed and exiled from his ancestral home in the north, Ringil has only one place left to turn - Yhelteth, city heart of the southern Empire, where perhaps he can seek asylum with the kiriath half-breed Archeth Indamaninarmal, former war comrade and now high-up advisor to the Emperor Jhiral Khimran II. But Archeth Indamaninarmal has problems of her own to contend with, as does her house guest, bodyguard and one time steppe nomad Egar the Dragonbane. And far from gaining the respite he is seeks, Ringil will instead find himself implicated in fresh schemes and doubtful allegiances no safer than those he has left behind. Old enemies are stirring, the old order is rotted through and crumbling, and though no-one yet knows it, the city of Yhelteth is about to explode ...

***

Reap the East Wind
Glen Cook
October 11th

It has ended. It begins again. In Kavelin, Lady Nepanthe''s new life with the wizard Varthlokkur is disturbed by visions of her lost son, while King Bragi Ragnarson and Michael Trebilcock scheme to help the exiled Princess Mist re-usurp her throne - under their thumb. In Shinsan, a pig-farmer''s son takes command of Eastern Army, while Lord Kuo faces plots in his council and a suicide attack of two million Matayangans on his border. But in the desert beyond the Dread Empire, a young victim of the Great War becomes the Deliverer of an eons-forgotten god, chosen to lead the legions of the dead. And the power of his vengeance will make a world''s schemes as petty as dust, blown wild in the horror that rides the east wind.

***

Ashes of a Black Frost
Chris Evans
October 18th

Amidst a scene of carnage on a desert battlefield blanketed in metallic snow, Major Konowa Swift Dragon sees his future, and it is one drenched in shadow and blood. Never mind that he has won a grand victory for the Calahrian Empire. He came here in search of his lost regiment of elves, while the Imperial Prince came looking for the treasures of a mystical library, and both ventures have failed. But Konowa knows, as do the Iron Elves—both living and dead—that another, far more important battle now looms before them. The campaign in the desert was only the latest obstacle on the twisted, darkening path leading inexorably to the Hyntaland, and the final confrontation with the dreaded Shadow Monarch. 

In this third novel of musket and magic in Chris Evans’s Iron Elves saga, Konowa’s ultimate journey is fraught with escalating danger. A vast, black forest finds a new source of dark power, spawning creatures even more monstrous than the blood trees from which they evolve. The maniacally unstable former emissary of the Shadow Monarch hungers for revenge, leading an army of ravenous beasts bent on utterly destroying the Iron Elves. A reluctant hero, Private Alwyn Renwar, struggles to maintain his connection to this world and that of the loyalty of the shades of the dead. And in a maze of underground tunnels, Visyna Tekoy, whom Konowa counts among those he has loved and lost, fights for her life against the very elves he so desperately wants to find. 

And so Konowa sets off from this Canyon of Bones, pursuing his freedom from a curse that has cast his life in darkness. For though his long, violent trek may indeed lead him to his destiny, he is ill prepared for the discovery he will make . . . with the fate of the Iron Elves, and the world, hinging on the courage of one wrathful elf.

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The Kingdom of Gods
N.K. Jemisin
October 27th

For two thousand years the Arameri family has ruled the world by enslaving the very gods that created mortalkind. Now the gods are free, and the Arameri’s ruthless grip is slipping. Yet they are all that stands between peace and world-spanning, unending war. 

Shahar, last scion of the family, must choose her loyalties. She yearns to trust Sieh, the godling she loves. Yet her duty as Arameri heir is to uphold the family’s interests, even if that means using and destroying everyone she cares for. 

As long-suppressed rage and terrible new magics consume the world, the Maelstrom — which even gods fear — is summoned forth. Shahar and Sieh: mortal and god, lovers and enemies. Can they stand together against the chaos that threatens the Kingdom of the Gods?