The Book Plank

Best Debut of 2015 Debuts. Authors often only get one real chance of making a name for themselves. It's basically an all or nothing game. First one of the biggest challenges an author faces is getting published. After that you are basically in with the sharks.. uhm critics... My favorite debuts of 2015 were: Genevieve Cogman's The Invisible Library. The idea of librarians and books jumping has already been done before. However not in the precise way that Genevieve Cogman does it. Every bibliophile will enjoy the wild idea that Genevieve came up with. The Vagrant  by Peter Newman had some very bold idea's when it came down to the story. The world was amazingly rich, a unique blend of a pre and post apocalyptic vision. Crashing Heaven is one of the hardest SF books that I read so far in my reading career. A dark and grim story, Jack Forster's relation with Hugo Fist the AI, is just brilliant. Finn Fancy Necromancy was also nominated with Best First in Series. It's a...

The Vagrant by Peter Newman The Vagrant is his name. He has no other. Friendless and alone he walks across a desolate, war-torn landscape, carrying nothing but a kit-bag, a legendary sword and a baby. His purpose is to reach the Shining City, last bastion of the human race, and deliver the sword, the only weapon that may make a difference in the ongoing war. But the Shining City is far away and the world is a very dangerous place. The Vagrant received a lot of media attention being a massive debut for Peter Newman. Of course this book hadn't escaped my attention and the good folk over at Harper Voyager kindly send me a copy to review.  What first got me fired up for The Vagrant was the very brief synopsis with a lot of promise, I encountered something similar a few years back with Jay Posey's Three . Also an post-apocalytic story with a less is more synopsis. Secondaly the cover allured so much to me, a guy with a sword and a baby... What is going on? Does Peter New...

(p)review Forecast May part one Which books will you be reading the coming weeks? Cheers - Jasper 1. The Book of the Phoenix by Nnedo Okorafor, Hodder and Stougthon They call her many things - a research project, a test-subject, a specimen. An abomination. But she calls herself Phoenix, an 'accelerated woman' - a genetic experiment grown and raised in Manhattan's famous Tower 7, the only home she has ever known. Although she's only two years old, Phoenix has the body and mind of an adult - and powers beyond imagining. Phoenix is an innocent, happy to live quietly in Tower 7, reading voraciously and basking in the love of Saeed, another biologically altered human. Until the night that Saeed witnesses something so terrible that he takes his own life. Devastated, Phoenix begins to search for answers - only to discover that everything that she has ever known is a lie. Tower 7 isn't a haven. It's a prison. And it's time for Phoenix to spread he...