Gareth L. Powell interviewed

Gareth L. Powell, contributor to Solaris's Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic Science Fiction, and author of the upcoming science fiction novel The Recollection, has been interviewed over at the How To Kill Your Imaginary Friends blog for writers, which is a fantastic title for a blog for writers in our opinion!

Here's the interview.

Gareth L. Powell can be found at his website, or on twitter @garethlpowell. The Recollection will be released by Solaris Books in September 2011.

In modern-day London, failed artist Ed Emery is secretly in love with his brother's wife, Alice. When his brother disappears on a London Underground escalator, Ed and Alice have to put aside their personal feelings in order to find him. Their quest reveals to them terrifying glimpses of alien worlds and the far future... Meanwhile, 400 years in the future, Katherine Abdulov must travel to a remote planet in order to regain the trust of her influential family. The only person standing in her way is her former lover, Victor Luciano, the ruthless employee of a rival trading firm. And in the unforgiving depths of space, an ancient evil stirs... Gareth L. Powell's epic new science-fiction novel reveals a story of galaxy-spanning scope by a writer of astounding vision.

Never have so many , owed so much Reviewspam, to so few

Just some quickies.

Cathy Green over at SFRevu has written a very thoughtful review of Shine:

"Bad things happen to people and circumstances are hardly ideal, but most feature people in less than ideal situations working to make the best of less than ideal situations on both large and small scales and mostly succeeding."

Tyson and Yagiz over at the Speculative Book Review have both reviewed The King's Bastard:

"By the end of The King's Bastard I was ready for more. Even though Solaris has plans to release the trilogy in consecutive months, it is a long time to wait for what just might be one of my favorite books of the year. It is definitely one of the strongest debuts of the year."

Finally, Kerl at UN:BOUND has reviewed The Usurper:

"The Usurper makes a truly great read. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!"

So that's nice.

Reviews and acclaim!

The Barnes and Noble sci-fi and fantasy blog has written a great article on Natasha Rhodes' paranormal fiction - the Kayla Steele series. Read the article here.

Vampires, werewolves, avenging angels, a super sexy heroine, an apocalyptic storyline, nonstop action and adventure, monsters—and monster trucks!—Natasha Rhodes’s Kayla Steele saga (Dante's Girl, The Last Angel, and the recently released Circus of Sins) has absolutely everything a paranormal fantasy reader might want… so why isn’t she a household name like Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, or Charlaine Harris?


Walker of Worlds has previewed two of our covers, James Lovegrove's Age of Odin and Ian Whates's The Noise Revealed, and written a review of Ian's The Noise Within.

The sequel, The Noise Revealed, is definitely a book on my must-read list for next year. The ending here opens up so many questions and throws this series into the realm of some of the best space opera available today. I'd recommend this in a heartbeat to any fan of the genre, but also to anyone who wants to read a fast paced story written with style. It's a page turner for sure!


SFRevu have also written a great review of Jetse de Vries's Shine anthology, over here.

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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Reviewspam Creeps In This Petty Pace

Slightly laboured title? I apologise.

Anyway, we have another plethora of reviews and bumf for you today. So hold tightly to your seats...

• Eric Brown at The Guardian has written these great reviews of Age of Zeus...
  
  "This is the kind of complex, action-oriented SF Dan Brown would write if Dan Brown could write."
  
  ...and Shine.
  
  "It's a bold attempt to counter the prevailing gloom of much current SF."
  
  
• TTA Press's Interzone 228 also includes reviews of both books (not on the site; you'll have to pick up the magazine):
  
  "Lovegrove has fun with his premise, and he's not afraid to get in a few digs at the real world."
  
  "If there's a stand of optimism that links the best stories in the collection is is something to do with human imagination, inventiveness and perseverance."
  
  
• Jim Dodge Jnr. at Mass Movement Magazine offers this glowing review of Justin Gustainis' Evil Ways:
  
  "Just be ready to have a Hell of a good time!"
  
  
• Neale Monks at SF Crow's Nest posted this very warm review of Brian Lumley's The Lost Years: Harry and the Pirates...
  
  "...should appeal to both Lumley fans and those who simply enjoy well-written horror fiction."
  
  
• ...while his colleague Patrick Mahon follows up on his previous review of Eric Brown's Necropath with this review of Xenopath.
  
  "Jeff Vaughan's new-found optimism is a convincingly drawn testament to the transformative power of love and makes this a fundamentally uplifting book to read. "
  
  
• Joshua Hill at the Fantasy Book Review gives a positively gushing account of Paul Kearney's The Ten Thousand:
  
  "Kearney captures all the best parts of fantasy – the young nobodies destined for glory, the gathering of a team, mercenaries, and exotic races and places – and combines them together with grit and realism and enough blood to drown a horse."
  
  
• SFX Magazine's summer 2010 issue 197 (again, you'll have to pick it up) includes a decent review of Ian Whates' The Noise Within.
  
  "Whates has crafted a thoroughly entertaining space opera, set in a universe brimming with humans, AIs and, just maybe, something alien."

So dig 'em up and check 'em out.

Cheers,

David

Podcast #4 Promotes World Peace, Solves Energy Crisis

Hey guys,

So we're still going. We're kind of stretching the "monthly" concept here, since this is the April podcast and it's mid-May. Maybe we'll sneak a date change on you and call the next one the June podcast. I bet you won't even notice. We'll just go right ahead and do that shit.

Anyway, that's the rather oblique way of announcing the Fourth Abaddon & Solaris Books Pocast, winging it's way to your iTunes folder as we speak! Point your iTunes to this link, or search "Abaddon" (or "Solaris") in the "Search Store" box at the top-right corner of iTunes, to check it out. As ever, if you're a subscriber, iTunes should upload it automatically; it's probably already done so, cheeky little scamp that it is.

David, Jenni and Jon at Abaddon Books and Solaris Books drill directly in through your ears to your cerebrel cortex, monkey up your medulla oblongata and play hell with your limbic system in "what consistently remains the Coco Pops™ of the Podcast world."*

The Abaddon & Solaris Books Podcast #4: Shiny, Happy Gods is introduced by Editor-in-Chief Jon Oliver, who decided to have a rest and let his minions do all the interviewing today. Desk Editor David Moore gushes uncontrollably over interviews James Lovegrove, author of Solaris's Age of Ra and Age of Zeus, and talks about gods, inspiration, writing, research, and frogs and rabbits. Junior Editor Jenni Hill, meanwhile, catches up with Jetse de Vries and Gareth L. Powell - respectively the anthologist of and one of the contributors to the upcoming Shine anthology - at EasterCon, and talks about the anthology and the convention. A good time was had by all.

Special Note: We promise in the blog that James will remember the name of the book of essays he discusses and we'll blog it. And we always keeps our promises. James briefly discusses D'Aulaire's Book of Norse Myths and the introduction by Michael Chabon, but can't remember the name of Chabon's collection of essays, Maps & Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands. He urges you to look both books up.

Now, as promised, I have managed to rein this one in to the tune of ten minutes, so it's about an hour and five. We'll try and make the next one even shorter, but we just have loads of cool stuff to offer you.

As always, give us your tasty, tasy feedback. We love it. We made completely different mistakes this time, so we want to know what mistakes to make next time.

Cheers,

David



*I think this one was Jenni's mum, but don't quote me.

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• Not on iTunes, and have sworn to end your life rather than download a single Apple application? Here to help! Just point your RSS client here to download the feed without putting a penny in Steve Jobs' pocket. Keep an eye on the blog for updates, in case we change the host or something crazy like that.
  
• Bewildered by the term "RSS" and unsure what all this means? No problem, ignorant Luddite! Just follow the exact same link, click on the link to the mp3 of the episode you wish to hear, and you can listen right on your browser! Everyone's a winner!

Reviewspam! (Redux)

Okay lads,

Some reviews for you.

• Catherine at Reading Whilst Writing has written this very nice review of Jetse de Vries' Shine anthology.
  
  "And that, I think, is what I like most about 'Shine'. So much food for thought."
  
  
• John Klima at The Library Journal has included Tim Akers' Heart of Veridon in a list of 20 Steampunk titles everyone should have.
  
  "The action keeps the pages turning, and readers will want more novels set in this world."*
  
  
• Issue 114 of Hub Magazine includes a measured but mostly pretty complimentary review of James Lovegrove's Age of Zeus by Martin Willoughby.
  
  "What kept me reading was the characters. I cared what happened to them."
  
  
• On that subject, Den Patrick of Total Sci Fi Online has written this review about Zeus.
  
  "This mix of mythology and science fiction isn’t a natural one at first glance, but Lovegrove pulls it off with aplomb."

And that's all the news that's printed to fit.

Cheers,

David

*Your wish is our command, John. Dead of Veridon is coming out early next year.

Shine Reviews

Wotcher all,

Loads of reviewers have been hassling Jetse de Vries for copies of his upcoming Shine anthology (here's that beautiful Vincent Chong cover again), and the first few reviews are coming in now...

• Charles A. Tan (Twitter @charlesatan) the Bibliophile Stalker, has written this very measured review.
  Charles writes "what I want to highlight are the stories that grabbed me by the balls, so to speak. Originally, I didn't think this anthology would contain much of them, but by the time I read the closed the book, the number of memorable stories was surprising."
  
  
• Genre webzine Sci Fi Wire (Twitter @scifiwire) has posted "Sick of the Apocalypse? Check out 16 futures worth living in!", another very reasoned look at the book.
  "Shine isn't all rainbows and flowers," the Wire explains, "but luckily it isn't all policy wonks riding their ideological hobbyhorses either. Have I mentioned the thrash-metal dinosaurs?"

You go ahead and mention the thrash-metal dinosaurs, dude. They really can't be mentioned often enough.

There should be many more reviews on the way. Keep a weather eye out here...

David

Praise and Previews

The ladies at The Book Smugglers have posted an introduction the the steampunk genre to kick off their 'Steampunk Week' event. They've also highlighted a few books which define the genre, including, we're pleased to hear, Tim Akers' Hearts of Veridon.

"'Hearts of Veridon' by Tim Akers is a new book to the Steampunk consortium, published late last year – but it is already referred to as a classic work by many afficionados. Thea will be reviewing this bad boy in our second Steampunk Week, next month."


Also, Niall at The Speculative Scotsman has previewed the Shine anthology over here.

"I love me a good short story collection, and Shine looks it could be just what the doctor ordered..."

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