The Book Plank

Blackguards: Tales of Assassins, Mercenaries, and Rogues by J.M. Martin (ed) ROGUES. ASSASSINS. MERCENARIES. Coin is their master, and their trade, more often than not, is blood. These are  BLACKGUARDS . Whether by coin or by blood...YOU WILL PAY. Swift from the shadows, comes an 'edgy' anthology, edited by J.M. MARTIN, featuring sundry tales of roguish types—assassins, mercenaries, thieves—many of whom are already established in well-known fantasy series.  Fantasy is a very broad genre and when I truly think about it, my heart has always had that special place reserved for those EPic Fantasy stories featuring well rogues, assassins and the like. It's with these characatures or elements whatever you want to call them that you can write such a good story. They feature well in funny, humorous stories as well as those that have a much darker and grimmer undertone, or what is often seen is the combination of both. I am of the opinion that this latter option is the best path...

Media Alert: Sharp Ends, the upcoming short story collection of Joe Abercrombie Gollancz and Orbit to publish Sharp Ends , a collection of gritty short stories by Joe Abercrombie Gollancz  and Orbit US are thrilled to announce that they will be publishing a stunning hardback collection of superb short stores featuring best-loved characters from the world of The First Law, by Sunday Times bestselling fantasy author Joe Abercrombie. Gollancz will publish the collection in the United Kingdom and Orbit in the United States. The short stories will be a mix of original and reissued short stories collected together for the first time, including the Locus Award-winning “Tough Times All Over.” The brand-new shorts will feature some of the most popular characters from the First Law world, including Glokta, Jezal, Logen Ninefingers, Bethod and Monza Murcatto. Joe Abercrombie said: “I’m very pleased that some widely scattered shorts are going to be brought together in one vo...

Three Moments of an Explosion by China Mieville London awakes one morning to find itself besieged by a sky full of floating icebergs. Destroyed oil rigs, mysteriously reborn, clamber from the sea and onto the land, driven by an obscure but violent purpose. An anatomy student cuts open a cadaver to discover impossibly intricate designs carved into a corpse's bones—designs clearly present from birth, bearing mute testimony to . . . what? Of such concepts and unforgettable images are made the twenty-eight stories in this collection—many published here for the first time. By turns speculative, satirical, and heart-wrenching, fresh in form and language, and featuring a cast of damaged yet hopeful seekers who come face-to-face with the deep weirdness of the world—and at times the deeper weirdness of themselves— Three Moments of an Explosion is a fitting showcase for one of our most original voices.   I am a long time fan of China Mieville's book every since reading ...

How the World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth (An Extract)  by Rachel Swirsky Part One—The Apocalypse of Trees During the first million years of its existence, mankind survived five apocalypses without succumbing to extinction. It endured the Apocalypse of Steel, the Apocalypse of Hydrogen, the Apocalypse of Serotonin, and both Apocalypses of Water, the second of which occurred despite certain contracts to the contrary. Mankind also survived the Apocalypse of Grease, which wasn’t a true apocalypse, although it wiped out nearly half of humanity by clogging the gears that ran the densely-packed underwater cities of Lor, but that’s a tale for another time. Humans laid the foundation for the sixth apocalypse in much the same way they’d triggered the previous ones. Having recovered their ambition after the Apocalypse of Serotonin and rebuilt their populations after the Apocalypse of Grease, they once again embarked on their species’ long term goal to wreak as muc...

 Dangerous Games by Jonathan Oliver (ed.) In a world ruled by chance, one rash decision could bring down the house, one roll of the dice could bring untold wealth, or the end of everything.   The players have gathered around the table, each to tell their story—often dark, always compelling. Within you will find tales of the players and the played, lives governed by games deadly, weird, or downright bizarre.  In this anthology of the weird and the macabre, multi-award-winning editor Jonathan Oliver brings together a diverse collection of voices from some of today’s finest writers, to create an original and fresh collection that’s unlike anything you’ve read before.  1.     Big Man, Chuck Wendig    2.     The Yellow Door , Silvia Moreno-Garcia   3.     Die , Lavie Tidhar 4.     Chrysalises , Benjanun Sriduangkaew 5.     South Mounta...