The Book Plank

The Curse of the House of Foskett by MRC Kasasian, The Grower Street Detective #2 25 Gower Street, 1882:   Sidney Grice once had a reputation as London's most perspicacious personal detective. But since his last case led an innocent men to the gallows, business has been light. Listless and depressed, Grice has taken to lying in the bath for hours, emerging in the evenings for a little dry toast and a lot of tea. Usually a voracious reader, he will pick up neither book nor newspaper. He has not even gathered the strength to re-insert his glass eye. His ward, March Middleton, has been left to dine alone. Then an eccentric member of a Final Death Society has the temerity to die on his study floor. Finaly Sidney and March have an investigation to mount – an investigation that will draw them to an eerie house in Kew, and the mysterious Baroness Foskett... Last year I read MRC Kasasian’s first book in in The Gower Street Detective The Mangle Street

Deadly Curiosities by Gail Z. Martin, Deadly Curiosities #1 Cassidy Kincaide owns Trifles & Folly, an antique/curio store and high-end pawn shop in Charleston, South Carolina that is more than what it seems. Dangerous magical and supernatural items sometimes find their way into mortal hands or onto the market, and Cassidy is part of a shadowy Alliance of mortals and mages whose job it is to take those deadly curiosities out of circulation. Welcome to Trifles & Folly, an antique and curio shop with a dark secret. Proprietor Cassidy Kincaide continues a family tradition begun in 1670—acquiring and neutralizing dangerous supernatural items. It’s the perfect job for Cassidy, whose psychic gift lets her touch an object and know its history. Together with her business partner Sorren, a 500 year-old vampire and former jewel thief, Cassidy makes it her business to get infernal objects off the market. When mundane antiques suddenly become magically malicious, it’s time fo

  The Gollancz Festival 13th August 2014 Gollancz unveil multi-media festival celebrating science-fiction and fantasy Gollancz, the science-fiction and fantasy imprint of the Orion Publishing Group, and Waterstones Piccadilly are delighted to announce plans to host an interactive multi-media genre fiction festival with participation from Patrick Rothfuss, Joanne M. Harris, Joe Hill and many more bestselling genre writers. Midway between genre-fiction convention Nine Worlds GeekFest (Heathrow, 8-9 th August) and The 72 nd World Science-Fiction Convention (Loncon 3, ExCel London Docklands, 14-18 th August), Gollancz will celebrate their galaxy of remarkable authors by presenting science-fiction and fantasy fans with an unique multi-media fiction festival. On Wednesday 13th August 2014, Gollancz will host a creative programme of daytime digital author events, and from 6 – 9pm on the same evening they will also offer genre fiction readers the cha

Author Interview with Gail Z. Martin Author bio: Gail Z. Martin writes epic and urban fantasy, steampunk and short stories. She is the author of the Chronicles of the Necromancer series, the Fallen Kings Cycle series and the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga series of epic fantasy books, as well as the Deadly Curiosities urban fantasy world and coming in 2015, Iron and Blood , a Steampunk novel, co-written with Larry N. Martin. Gail is a frequently contributor to US and UK anthologies. She also writes two series of ebook short stories: The Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures and the Deadly Curiosities Adventures .   -------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Gail, welcome over at The Book Plank and for taking your time to answer these few questions. BP: First off, could you give us a short summary as to who Gail Z. Martin is? What are you hobbies, likes/dislikes? GM: Well, I grew up in northern Pennsylvania, I majored in history in college and h

Dead Man's Hand by John Joseph Adams  HOW THE WEST WAS WEIRD!        From a kill-or-be-killed gunfight with a vampire to an encounter in a steampunk bordello, the weird western is a dark, gritty tale where the protagonist might be playing poker with a sorcerous deck of cards, or facing an alien on the streets of a dusty frontier town. Here are twenty-three original tales—stories of the Old West infused with elements of the fantastic—produced specifically for this volume by many of today’s finest writers. Included are Orson Scott Card’s first “Alvin Maker” story in a decade, and an original adventure by Fred Van Lente, writer of  Cowboys & Aliens . One sub genre that isn't the mainstream when it comes down to fantasy and science fiction is the western genre. I have come across a few books that do feature some great western stories, those of Joe Abercrombie, Mike Resnick and Guy Adams. Westerns, be it steampunk influenced, classical or with a tinge of science fi