The BoSS for 12/12/10

This past week or so - ever since the tree went up, really - whenever the postie's had a parcel for me, it's felt a bit like Christmas.


And I like Christmas.

You know, I'll bitch and moan about it with the rest of you, but I do, if I'm honest. I really do. It's a nice time of year. Family and friends and gift-giving, all that. I know it's senseless and commercial, expensive, exhausting and utterly divorced from anything it might have used to stand for, but when some sweetheart buys a neat new sci-fi novel for me, just because they care... I can get a little sappy.


Anyway. Lookee here at all my early presents! :D

***

Hawkwood and the Kings
by Paul Kearney

Release Details:

Published in the UK on
05/08/10 by Solaris

Review Priority:

4 (Very High)

Plot Synopsis: "The Western world is burning. For Richard Hawkwood and his crew, a desperate venture to carry refugees to the uncharted land across the Great Western Ocean offers the only chance of escape from the Inceptines' pyres. In the East, Lofantyr, Abeleyn and Mark three of the five Ramusian Kings have defied the cruel pontiff's purge and must fight to hold their thrones through excommunication, intrigue and civil war. In the quiet monastery city of Charibon, two humble monks make a discovery that will change the whole world. Aekir, the Holy City, has fallen and all now seems lost, but even on the eve of destruction the Faithful still war amongst themselves..."

Commentary: Oh, score!

Couple of months ago, you might recall, volume two of this omnibus of The Monarchies of God cycle came through, and I publicly lamented my lack of volume one. Well, evidently someone out there's reading these round-ups: here we have it, Hawkwood and the Kings, the start of what Malazan mastermind Steven Erikson describes as "simply the best fantasy series I've read in years and years."

I'm going to presume he hadn't read The Long Price quartet yet and get busy looking forward to a couple of quiet weeks during which I can immerse myself head to toe in Kearney's world for the first time. Chuffed to bits about this one's arrival! :)

The Bone Palace

by Amanda Downum

Release Details:

Published in the UK on
02/12/10 by Orbit

Review Priority:

2 (Fair)

Plot Synopsis: "Death is no stranger in the city of Erisin, but some deaths attract more attention than others. When a prostitute dies carrying a royal signet, Isyllt Iskaldur, necromancer and agent of the Crown, is called to investigate. Her search leads to desecrated tombs below the palace, and the lightless vaults of the vampiric vrykoloi. But worse things than vampires are plotting in Erisin - a long-dead sorceress is making a bid not only for renewed life but for the throne as well, and Isyllt's former lover is caught in her schemes. As a sorcerous plague sweeps the city, Isyllt must decide who she's prepared to betray - the man she still loves, or the royal family she's sworn to defend."

Commentary: Well, alas. The Bone Palace is the successor to The Drowning City, which I do believe someone just picked as one of their year's best books - and The Necromancer Chronicles do sound interesting - but sadly I've seen neither hide nor hair of book the first, so...

Satori

by Don Winslow

Release Details:

Published in the UK on
28/04/11 by Headline

Review Priority:

3 (Moderate)

Plot Synopsis: "A gripping thriller that follows assassin Nicholai Hel across Asia as he fights to regain his freedom.

"Sugamo Prison, Japan, October 1951. Nicholai Hel has spent the last three years in solitary confinement for the murder of his mentor. A formidable assassin as well as a master of hoda korosu or ‘naked kill’, he has developed a supreme awareness of the presence of danger. Suddenly offered the chance of freedom, he feels it now as never before...

"Overseen by Haverford, his American spymaster he must go to Beijing and kill the Soviet Union’s commissioner to China. In a landscape primed for war this is a suicide mission he has no choice but to accept.

"Can Hel succeed in winning his freedom and if so, at what cost? And can he ever achieve his ultimate goal of satori – the possibility of true understanding and harmony with the world?"

Commentary: Now this one confused the heck out of me. Seems to be a big deal - just the fact of that this proof exists so far out, and that I'm getting one, speaks to Headline's high hopes for Satori. Apparently, it's the sequel to a classic thriller from the 70s called Shibumi. Which I've never heard of.

Then again, I didn't happen along onto this fine Earth for fifteen years after Shibumi's publication, so perhaps my ignorance is to be expected. Nonetheless, I'm intrigued; consider my curiosity piqued... though I do wonder what kind of footing I'd be on, were I to read Satori without any knowledge at all of its predecessor. I suppose we'll just have to see, won't we?

The Windup Girl

by Paolo Bacigalupi

Release Details:

Published in the UK on

02/12/10 by Orbit

Review Priority:

5 (Immediate)

Plot Synopsis: "Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's calorie representative in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, he combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs long thought to be extinct. There he meets the windup girl - the beautiful and enigmatic Emiko - now abandoned to the slums. She is one of the New People, bred to suit the whims of the rich. Engineered as slaves, soldiers and toys, they are the new underclass in a chilling near future where oil has run out, calorie companies dominate nations and bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe. And as Lake becomes increasingly obsessed with Emiko, conspiracies breed in the heat and political tensions threaten to spiral out of control. Businessmen and ministry officials, wealthy foreigners and landless refugees all have their own agendas. But no one anticipates the devastating influence of the Windup Girl."

Commentary: Well it's about god-damned time, isn't it?

Quite what took publishers here in the UK so long to secure the rights to what must be the most critically acclaimed book of last year... well, it'll probably be a question steeped in intrigue till the end of time. Thankfully, Orbit have taken the bull by the horns, and readers hereabouts unwilling to order The Windup Girl in from across the Atlantic will finally be able to pull the trigger on a novel burdened now with the very highest of expectations.

I'm telling you now: Bacigalupi doesn't disappoint. Full review in the imminent.

Riverworld

by Philip Jose Farmer

Release Details:

Published in the US on
30/03/010 by Tor / Forge

Review Priority:

3 (Moderate)

Plot Synopsis: "Imagine that every human who ever lived, from the earliest Neanderthals to the present, is resurrected after death on the banks of an astonishing and seemingly endless river on an unknown world. They are miraculously provided with food, but with not a clue to the possible meaning of this strange afterlife. And so billions of people from history, and before, must start living again.

"Some set sail on the great river questing for the meaning of their resurrection, and to find and confront their mysterious benefactors. On this long journey, we meet Sir Richard Francis Burton, Mark Twain, Odysseus, Cyrano de Bergerac, and many others, most of whom embark upon searches of their own in this huge afterlife."

Commentary: What's that? A classic of the genre I've never gotten around to reading? Really, you don't say!

Well, alongside this omnibus edition of To Your Scattered Bodies Go and The Fabulous Riverboat, Tor were also kind enough to send along copies of The Dark Design and The Magic Labyrinth (with Gods of Riverworld still to come), so I've got a whole saga set out before me now, and a serious urge to burger.

No, wait. I mean --- uh, an urge to... to what? To read the books, damn it! Maybes you can all join in, even.

But Christmas comes first. Christmas, New Year's, the very same resolution to write my novel I've been making for the last decade, and then Philip Jose Farmer. In that order. :P

The Greyfriar

by Susan Griffith & Clay Griffith

Release Details:

Published in the US on
18/11/10 by Pyr

Review Priority:

3 (Moderate)

Plot Synopsis: "In the year 1870, a horrible plague of vampires swept over the northern regions of the world. Millions of humans were killed outright. Millions more died of disease and famine due to the havoc that followed. Within two years, once great cities were shrouded by the grey empire of the vampire clans. Human refugees fled south to the tropics because vampires could not tolerate the constant heat there. They brought technology and a feverish drive to reestablish their shattered societies of steam and iron amid the mosques of Alexandria, the torrid quietude of Panama, or the green temples of Malaya.

"It is now 2020 and a bloody reckoning is coming.

"Princess Adele is heir to the Empire of Equatoria, a remnant of the old tropical British Empire. She is quick with her wit as well as with a sword or gun. She is eager for an adventure before she settles into a life of duty and political marriage to man she does not know. But her quest turns black when she becomes the target of a merciless vampire clan. Her only protector is The Greyfriar, a mysterious hero who fights the vampires from deep within their territory. Their dangerous relationship plays out against an approaching war to the death between humankind and the vampire clans."

Commentary: You know, the bloggers really dig this one. The listing on Amazon.com speaks to that. So vampires, meet steampunk.

Sounds like it could be a lark - and the community's support certainly sways me in favour of giving The Greyfriar the old once-over... however, a choice quote from one such review, advising me to "Think Zorro with vampires" just about moves me to gouge my own eyes out, and Publishers Weekly are quick to dampen any remaining enthusiam I might have been feeling for this one, saying "this melodramatic tale is fast-paced and entirely unchallenging."

Still and all. I'm all for a bit of mindless fun from time to time. You never know...

The Winter Ghosts

by Kate Mosse

Release Details:

Published in the UK on
28/10/10 by Orion

Review Priority:

4 (Very High)

Plot Synopsis: "The Great War took much more than lives. It robbed a generation of friends, lovers and futures. In Freddie Watson's case, it took his beloved brother and, at times, his peace of mind. Unable to cope with his grief, Freddie has spent much of the time since in a sanatorium. In the winter of 1928, still seeking resolution, Freddie is travelling through the French Pyrenees - another region that has seen too much bloodshed over the years. During a snowstorm, his car spins off the mountain road. Shaken, he stumbles into the woods, emerging by a tiny village. There he meets Fabrissa, a beautiful local woman, also mourning a lost generation. Over the course of one night, Fabrissa and Freddie share their stories of remembrance and loss. By the time dawn breaks, he will have stumbled across a tragic mystery that goes back through the centuries. By turns thrilling, poignant and haunting, this is a story of two lives touched by war and transformed by courage."

Commentary: No, not Kate Moss - Kate Mosse! Her what wrote Labyrinth and Sepulchre, one or the other of which I admit to owning, if not having read as yet. Now The Winter Ghosts hasn't exactly been a favourite with the critics, from what I've read of their oh-so academic faffing, but I've an open mind and a startling (some might say) aptitude for ghost stories, so... well, I should think we can all put two and two together by now.