The Book Plank

The Builders by Daniel Polansky A missing eye. A broken wing. A stolen country. The last job didn't end well. Years go by, and scars fade, but memories only fester. For the animals of the Captain's company, survival has meant keeping a low profile, building a new life, and trying to forget the war they lost. But now the Captain's whiskers are twitching at the idea of evening the score. The information given in the synopsis is not a lot to go on. The same counts from the reviews on goodreads, the thing they have in common is the mention of Redwall. This book is unfamilair with me but now I know that it is a book about animals. Now with the cover art things do start to fall into place. Welcome to Daniel Polansky's newest hit. The Builders  an Dark Epic Fantasy story featuring animals, they are furry but far from the cuddly kind.  So The Builders.  Meet the Captain, a mouse. He was defeated a long time ago and since then, his old company was disbanded and the...

Last First Snow by Max Gladstone, Craft Sequence #4 Forty years after the God Wars, Dresediel Lex bears the scars of liberation—especially in the Skittersill, a poor district still bound by the fallen gods' decaying edicts. As long as the gods' wards last, they strangle development; when they fail, demons will be loosed upon the city. The King in Red hires Elayne Kevarian of the Craft firm Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao to fix the wards, but the Skittersill's people have their own ideas. A protest rises against Elayne's work, led by Temoc, a warrior-priest turned community organizer who wants to build a peaceful future for his city, his wife, and his young son. As Elayne drags Temoc and the King in Red to the bargaining table, old wounds reopen, old gods stir in their graves, civil blood breaks to new mutiny, and profiteers circle in the desert sky. Elayne and Temoc must fight conspiracy, dark magic, and their own demons to save the peace—or failing that, to save as m...

Media Alert: A NEW OPEN DOOR PERIOD AT ANGRY ROBOT   The tides of publishing are changing rapidly and Angry Robot remains right at the forefront, surfing through the storms on an insulated circuit board. Another wave is coming down the pipe, this time of our own creation. That’s right, it’s time for another Open Door period! (Brief pause for cannons, confetti, random cheap fireworks…)   As you may have noticed, we normally only accept submissions for new Angry Robot books from literary agents or people known to us. But for a couple of months every year we are delighted to open our doors wide and encourage proposals from one and all. In fact, several of our most notable novels over the years have come to us through our Open Door periods. If you know Angry Robot, you surely know Wesley Chu’s award-winning Tao series – The Lives of Tao, The Deaths of Tao, The Rebirths of Tao . Wesley’s debut came to us as an Open Door discovery, as did Philip K Dick Award-nominated...

Night Music: Nocturnes Volume 2 by John Connolly, Nocturnes 2 A decade after Nocturnes first terrified and delighted readers, John Connolly, bestselling author of thirteen acclaimed thrillers featuring private investigator Charlie Parker, gives us a second volume of tales of the supernatural. From stories of the monstrous for dark winter nights to fables of fantastic libraries and haunted books, from a tender account of love after death to a frank, personal, and revealing account of the author's affection for myths of ghosts and demons, this is a collection that will surprise, delight—and terrify. John Connolly is best know for his Charlie Parker series a supernatural thriller series. A few years ago he released his first short story collection Nocturnes, this October he will add a the sequel, Night Music to the series. I have heard a lot of good new about John Connolly by several other bloggers. I have had his books on my to read list for a long time, but I have to ad...

Media Alert: Gollancz Festival 2015 Tickets to a Gollancz Festival 2015 day for aspiring writers go on sale Gollancz is delighted to share two substantial updates regarding The Gollancz Festival. Firstly, the full schedule of events, including the topics for discussion and selection of panellists, at the events in Manchester, 16 October, and London, 17 October, is now available at gollanczfestival.com. Secondly, Gollancz is launching an additional Waterstones Piccadilly-based event for at aspiring writers on Sunday 18 October, from 12 until 3pm!     The Gollancz Festival for New Writers Tickets to The Gollancz Festival 2015 at London Piccadilly sold out in an astonishing three weeks. Subsequently Gollancz received a number of messages and tweets from disappointed genre fiction fans who missed out on purchasing tickets. Many of them are part of writing groups or identified themselves as aspiring authors. Inspired by their messages, Gollancz have decided t...

Zombie Apocalypse: Acapulcalypse Now by Allison Littlewood The Hotel Baktun is an exclusive vacation complex that is about to open on the coast of Acapulco, Mexico. Owned by a mysterious multi-millionaire businessman, it is shaped like an ancient Mayan pyramid and its halls are lined with rare and expensive artefacts. For Stacy Keenan, the hotel's new Head of Security, things are already chaotic as the locals continue to put the finishing touches to the festivities while VIPs begin to arrive for the grand opening. When a Russian cruise ship turns along the shore and disgorges its cargo of flesh-eating zombies, the guests and staff soon fragment into various factions as they struggle to withstand the spread of HRV (Human Reanimation Virus). As the armies of the dead conquer all that stand before them, and the human survivors prepare for a final battle against an unstoppable enemy, a horror even more ancient and terrible is revealed when 'The Death' comes to ...

Fair Weather by Margaret Dunlap, Bookburners #3 The Team saves on flight costs as the newest mystery happens around the corner. A tip from a local antiquarian doesn’t make it to the Team in time and they are left with a once-bookstore-now-rubble-pile, a missing magical tome, and very few clues beyond a helpful tour guide (one might even say too helpful…). Tracking the missing book to a luxury yacht, the Team gets less of the high-end boating experience and more of the demon-on-the-loose nightmare. All aboard the Fair Weather; but no smooth sailing ahead. After two very strong episodes we have come to the third episode of Bookburners where Brian Francis Slattery has given the reigns to Margaret Dunlap introducing her first addition to the Bookburners series. As with the stories of Max Gladstone, which introduced the concept of the Bookburners and that of Brian Francis Slattery, which greatly build on the story of Max Gladstone. The first story showed demonic posession and the seco...

Please Undo This Hurt by Seth Dickinson Ever feel like you care too much? After a breakup, after the funeral...it feels like the way to win at life is to care the least. That's not an option for Dominga, an EMT who cares too much, or her drinking buddy Nico, who just lost his poor cat. Life hurts. They drink. They talk. Nico's tired of hurting people. He wants out. Not suicide, not that - he'd just hurt everyone who loves him. But what if he could erase his whole life? Undo the fact of his birth? Wouldn't Dominga be having a better night, right now, if she didn't have to take care of him? And when Dominga finds a way to do just that, when she is gifted or armed with a terrible cosmic mercy, she still cares enough to say: I am not letting him have this. I am not letting Nico go without a fight. Now this is a powerful story. My interest was drawn actually by Seth Dickinson's name. I know his The Traitor has gotten a lot of praise, I also have the copy await...

Author interview with Christopher Fowler. Author bio:  Christopher Fowler is an English novelist living in London, his books contain elements of black comedy, anxiety and social satire. As well as novels, he writes short stories, scripts, press articles and reviews. He lives in King's Cross, on the Battlebridge Basin, and chooses London as the backdrop of many of his stories because any one of the events in its two thousand year history can provide inspiration In 1998 he was the recipient of the BFS Best Short Story Of The Year, for 'Wageslaves'. Then, in 2004, 'The Water Room' was nominated for the CWA People's Choice Award, 'Full Dark House' won the BFS August Derleth Novel of The Year Award 2004 and 'American Waitress' won the BFS Best Short Story Of The Year 2004. The novella 'Breathe' won BFS Best Novella 2005. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Christopher, welcome over to The Bo...

The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley, Worldbreaker Saga #1 On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event known to extinguish nations and reshape continents, a troubled orphan evades death and slavery to uncover her own bloody past… while a world goes to war with itself. In the frozen kingdom of Saiduan, invaders from another realm are decimating whole cities, leaving behind nothing but ash and ruin. As the dark star of the cataclysm rises, an illegitimate ruler is tasked with holding together a country fractured by civil war, a precocious young fighter is asked to betray his family and a half-Dhai general must choose between the eradication of her father’s people or loyalty to her alien Empress. Through tense alliances and devastating betrayal, the Dhai and their allies attempt to hold against a seemingly unstoppable force as enemy nations prepare for a coming together of worlds as old as the universe itself. In the end, one world will rise – and many will perish. Kameron Hurley is b...