November Top Picks

A Plague of Giants by Kevin Hearne
Release Date:  Early Nov
Kevin Hearne is best known for his urban fantasy Iron Druid series, but this new book is not part of that series and is in fact the first in a fantasy series. The book is presented as a series of stories told by a Bard named Flintan of the invasion of the six nations of Teldwen. Bone Giants invade from the east and fire wielding enemies from the south. Each story is told from the perspective of a different participant in the conflict and between them are the conversations occurring in the here and now between Flintan and a historian who has been tasked with recording Flintan’s recollections. These help to keep the stories in context and the structure is reminiscent of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind in this regard. It’s an interesting structure, but there have been quite a few unusual style fantasy books in the last few years that have been really popular and I think that like those, readers will find this mosaic tale of a nation at war that must seek obscure and dangerous magiks to save itself a nice change to the usual linear tale. It is part one of a series though, so expect to finish the book with more questions than answers. For fans lamenting that this isn’t the next Atticus novel the good news is that book nine of the Iron Druid, Scourged is due in April next year. 

Road Tales by Mark Lawrence
Release Date:  Early Nov
The short story has always had an important place in genre fiction but interest seems to have increased in recent years with authors like Brandon Sanderson, Kevin Hearne and Joe Abercrombie all releasing collections. This month it’s Mark Lawrence‘s turn with Road Tales. Strictly speaking the stories here are not new, having been previously published online or in anthologies of mixed authors. This is the first time they’ve been compiled however and if you’re not the kind to search out every collection or site a writer appears on then there will be plenty here for you to enjoy. All of the stories are set in the Broken Empire and feature characters from the Broken Empire and Red Queen’s War trilogies. Readers get origin and formative event stories for Rike, Burlow and the Nuban among others. Other stories feature Red Kent and Sir Makin. Prince Jalan Kendeth has a tale and there’s another that shows Jorg as a child of six. This is one for fans of Mark Lawrence‘s books, and while you could read it without having read the two Broken Earth trilogies it’s better if you have. In answer to the other question that fans have: As far as I can tell the sequel to Red Sister, Grey Sister will be released around April next year. 

Gnomon by Nick Harkaway
Release Date:  Mid Nov
There are a lot of dystopian books around at the moment, some clever, some not. There’s a lot of similarity too because there are some anxieties that are becoming more common. In Gnomon, Nick Harkaway takes the fear of ever increasing surveillance and uses it to create a unique and disturbing vision of the future. A near-future Britain under the gaze of The System, described as a distributed surveillance-democracy. The System knows everything, sees everything. It can even see into your mind. This particular function is called into play when a woman suspect dies in police custody. Investigating the case is Inspector Mielikki Neath of The Witness. The Witness act as agents of The System and in that capacity Inspector Neath has the task of reviewing first The System’s records and then the dead woman’s memories. This is a big case and has attracted world-wide attention. This sort of mysterious death is just the sort of thing that The System is supposed to prevent and there is a lot of pressure on Mielikki to solve it quickly. In order to examine the dead woman’s memories Mielikki will have to experience them but as she descends into the woman’s mind she finds that nothing about this case is as it seems. This is an epic, seven hundred plus page book and in it Harkaway explores everything from identity and the nature of self to singularity, life after death, saints and madman. This is not your holiday beach book, but if you want something that you’ll think about long after you’ve finished reading it, then add this to your list.

Places in the Darkness by Christopher Brookmyre
Release Date:  Mid Nov
Christopher Brookmyre’s probably better known for his crime fiction, but he’s also written some quite good science fiction as well.  To be fair, it’s still got a crime style story but with a more science fiction setting. In his 2013 book Bedlam it was virtual reality, but with Places in the Darkness he takes it even further by setting the story in an orbital station.  Ciudad de Cielo or The City in the Sky is the orbiting home of hundreds of scientists and engineers who are building the massive colony ship intended to take humanity to the stars and new worlds. When the body of a criminal is found on the same day that a new head of security arrives from Earth.  Dr Alice Blake is supposed to be in charge, but there those who question her inexperience particularly station veteran and senior security officer Nikki Freeman.  The station and its future is something that multiple governments and corporations are heavily invested in, so a quick resolution is what everyone wants. As the tension between Alice and Nikki grows, a killer walks Ciudad de Cielo and if they can’t figure out how to work together they’re not only failing to catch a killer, they might be making themselves victims. This is crime noir with the mis-matched duo, and in space. Brookmyre is good at this sort of thing and he’s interested enough in science fiction to do that part justice while also using the fact that his protagonists are women to explore some interesting variations on noir tropes. 

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
Release Date:  Mid Nov
Unfortunately I had no luck getting a preview copy of this one, though I understand there are some tease chapters online. This is the third book in the Stormlight Archive series and as such it’s only really going to be of interest to folks who’ve read the first two. The reason it’s here in the body of the newsletter rather than the covers only section at the bottom is twofold. Firstly it’s a pretty big deal, and putting it here guarantees that it’ll be seen. I’d also like to recommend the series, and while you’ll have to start at the beginning, if you like epic fantasy this is one you should put on your to-read list. In other news, The Stormlight Archive has apparently been confirmed for ten volumes. To be honest I’m not sure how I feel about that. I like a big series, and Brandon Sanderson is a prolific and fast writer, but ten volumes are still going to take a long time. But back to Oathbringer. Normally I avoid just posting blurbs, but as I said I haven’t seen a copy yet so all I can give you is what they gave me.

From the Publishers “ The Alethi armies commanded by Dalinar Kholin won a fleeting victory at a terrible cost: The enemy Parshendi summoned the violent Everstorm, and now its destruction sweeps the world and its passing awakens the once peaceful and subservient parshmen to the true horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans. While on a desperate flight to warn his family of the threat, Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that their newly kindled anger may be wholly justified.  Nestled in the mountains high above the storms, in the tower city of Urithiru, Shallan Davar investigates the wonders of the ancient stronghold of the Knights Radiant and unearths the dark secrets lurking in its depths. And gradually realizes that his holy mission to unite his homeland of Alethkar was too narrow in scope. Unless all the nations of Roshar can put Dalinar’s blood-soaked past aside and stand together – and unless Dalinar himself can confront that past – even the restoration of the Knights Radiant will not avert the end of civilisation” 

Strange Weather by Joe Hill
Release Date:  Early Nov
It’s been a big couple of months for the King household it seems. There is of course the phenomenon of the new movie version of Stephen King‘s It as well as the adaptation of his Dark Tower books. On the book front, last month saw the release of Sleeping Beauties, a collaboration between Stephen King and his son Owen. This month his other son who writes as Joe Hill also has a book out. Strange Weather is a collection of four novellas with a mix of early and recent works. Snapshot is a story about memory and how our recollections shape how we see ourselves and the world. It’s also about how taking away those memories can change us and the terrible sense of loss that can cause. Rain is an apocalyptic tale of a world-wide rain storm where the rain falls not as droplets, but small razor-sharp spikes. Loaded is one of the most confronting stories in the book and does so without any supernatural elements. It’s the story of a Mall-cop who has always had aspirations to be a policeman but has been rejected for what transpires as very good reasons. When a shooting event happens at the Mall, his chance to be a hero arrives and he ends up nationally famous. When an investigator examines the incident however it soon becomes clear that the truth may be less noble and much darker. Aloft is a quirky tale of what could be called alien abduction, but under circumstances unlike I’ve ever read about and ends up being about what the aliens can do for someone rather than to them. This collection is more peculiar than scary, though it does have a few horror-like moments. If you’re in the mood for a good fright, I’d recommend his earlier books Horns or Nos4r2, but if you’d like a well written and slightly disturbing read that touches on some important issues then this is definitely for yo

Artemis by Andy Weir
Release Date:  Mid Nov
I imagine that just about everyone will be familiar with Andy Weir given the success of his debut novel The Martian and the subsequent movie adaptation starring Matt Damon. In his new book Artemis, Weir once again takes us into space only a little closer this time setting the novel on the moon. Weir has shown that he is able to write quite tense scenes, but this is basically a crime/ conspiracy thriller so I’m interested to see how well his style translates. It’s set at a time in the near future when there is a colony on the moon, sufficiently established that people have been born and grown up there. As with all human societies there are elites at the top the poor at the bottom, and various stages between them. Small time criminal Jazz is definitely closer to the bottom, a porter who subsidises her meagre income with a bit of smuggling. When she’s offered a job that could make her rich she jumps at the chance, but planning an executing a crime this complex on the moon is no easy matter and what Jazz doesn’t know is that there are others schemes and plans in play and soon she’ll be more concerned with staying alive than getting rich.

Paperbacks From Hell by Grady Hendrix
Release Date:  Late Nov
Grady Hendrix is responsible for a few strange books on my shelves, and you’ve possibly seen them without attaching his name to them. One of favourites is Horrostor, which is a horror story set in an Ikea-like store after close and is presented in a format that looks like an Ikea catalogue. He also had a new book recently called My Best Friend’s Exorcism which is a weird eighties growing-up and friendship tale, but with demonic possession (and scrunchies). This new book is yet another oddity in that it’s non-fiction. As it happens Grady Hendrix is not just a writer of quirky horror, he’s also a massive collector of all sorts of horror novels. Here he shares the best of the worst of his paperbacks from the seventies and eighties. Author bio’s, plot summaries and of course the gloriously awful covers. All of this information is delivered with the wit and sharp turn of phrase we’ve come to expect from him. This is a wonderful exploration and celebration of modern pulp-horror, the memorable and the embarrassing written by someone who understands that you can laugh at something and still love it.