I wrote the Steelhaven trilogy between 2012 and 2015. During that period there was a slew of other writers releasing fantasy novels, riding on the popularity of the Game Of Thrones TV show, which were labelled as “Grimdark”. Naturally, Steelhaven was clumped in with those, and having a cast at least partially consisting of amoral,
Book Club
Jenn Lyons’ The Ruin Of Kings is an epic fantasy filled with intrigue, magic, gods, demons and yes, dragons. Here, the author writes about her favourite winged fire-breathers… I love dragons. When I was a little girl, I belonged to an after-school club that hosted a yearly themed party for our parents. And one year,
Coming from Orbit Books this October, we have the cover reveal for Tade Thompson’s The Rosewater Redemption, designed by Charlotte Stroomer. “In this powerful finale to the award-winning Wormwood trilogy, life in the newly independent city state of Rosewater isn’t everything its citizens were expecting… Life in the newly independent city state of Rosewater isn’t everything
We’ve got the cover for Dan Moren’s spy-fi The Bayern Agenda and the author’s reasons why James Bond is a terrible spy By Jonathan Hatfull 23-11-18 441 Thanks to the folks at Angry Robot, we have the cover reveal for Dan Moren’s galactic cold war novel The Bayern Agenda, designed by Amazing15! The spy-fi tale hits
Charlie Jane Anders’ debut novel All The Birds In The Sky was one of the best SF stories in recent memory, so we’re very excited to host the cover reveal for her follow-up The City In The Middle Of The Night, thanks to Titan Books. Coming in February next year, the book is described as “a
My Dogs I love dogs. It feels like I’ve been around them all of my life. I grew up in a family with dogs around, and so did my wife, Caroline, so it’s the most natural thing in the world for us to have them as part of our family. Family has played a large
Everyone loves a good hypothetical. Would you do a truly awful thing if it meant saving someone’s life? In The Cabin At The End Of The World, A Head Full Of Ghosts and Disappearance At Devil’s Rock author Paul Tremblay twists a classic home invasion opening into a nightmarish and much broader scenario, all within
COULD A LOST DINOSAUR CIVILIZATION EVER HAVE EXISTED? It’s a bit of a silly idea, I know. And obviously the answer, before I’ve even started waffling, is very, very probably not. But why not? And how would we ever really know for sure? In my 147th century space opera series The Amaranthine Spectrum (getting the
As an author, when you attempt to write a genre crossover, you do so with some degree of trepidation. Are you about to create the literary equivalent of the Chindian takeaway, a monstrosity that dilutes two separate culinary delights? For which audience are you primarily writing, fans of genre A or genre B? Why does
I love my truck. It’s a 2002 Ford Explorer Sport Trac that I got new and immediately dubbed Mister Joe Fixit after my favorite incarnation of the Incredible Hulk (because it’s ill-tempered, slightly underpowered, but mean looking and always gets the job done). I know I won’t be able to keep him on the road
Shapeshifters are a big thing with me – in keeping with my general fascination for looking out from other shapes and faces is the idea of being transformed, willingly or not, from human to Other and back. Here are some of my absolute favourites from the canon and, in keeping with my general malleability, most
The Tangled Lands is a collaborative fantasy from Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S Buckell, set in the world of Khaim. It is a world ruined by magic, which has been relied upon too much and turned against its wielders. A deadly thorn called bramble crawls across the land wherever magic is used, forcing an empire
James Brogden has followed Hekla’s Children with another tale of long-buried horrors unearthed, but the author’s interest in British history and folklore is combined with an ambition and narrative slipperiness that makes this a compelling chiller in its own right. The story begins with a fantastically rendered moment of horror in the form of an
Tucked away down a side street in Edwardian London is the most wonderful toy shop imaginable. Papa Jack’s Emporium sells patchwork dogs that are as loyal as the real thing, paper trees that really put down roots, and intricately painted toy soldiers who march off to war with one another. But when a real war
Autonomous arrives bearing the endorsement of William Gibson, Lauren Beukes and Neal Stephenson, and io9 co-founder Annalee Newitz’s debut lives up to the hype. It’s a cyberpunk thriller but the author is much more interested in big questions than big futuristic fight sequences. The story is divided between Jack, a pirate who reverse-engineers patented drugs
SFF screen adaptations that need to happen immediately …and a few that are already on their way. Like many avid readers, I’ve always been wary of screen adaptations, particularly when it comes to books I loved. I still haven’t got over the treatment meted out to Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising, adapted for the
Princesses have it rough. Sure, Disney makes it look like fun, with all the balls, dresses, money and perfect skin. Sometimes they even get to be feisty and make their own decisions, just so long as they’re still wasp-waisted and doe-eyed. But no one takes a princess seriously. It took 20 years for Princess Peach
Writing historical fantasy should be easy. After all, if you’re going to put gods, monsters, devils, demons, witches or even the odd unicorn into, say, the US invasion of Grenada in 1983, then getting the exact deployment of the enemy communist forces (I always struggle to remember if it was two fishing boats and a
Everyone loves a good monster mash, so we’re very excited to reveal the beautiful cover for SA Sidor’s upcoming novel Fury From The Tomb thanks to Angry Robot! This excellent cover was created by Daniel Strange, who said “The real buzz line given to me as a means to get the imagination flowing was Indiana
On publication of Before I Let Go (Sourcebooks), bestseller Marieke Nijkamp talks exclusively to SciFiNow about a central character often sidelined: winter. Lost Creek, the setting in my new novel, is an eerie, strange community, that’s cut off from the rest of the world. A place where truth matters little and secrets are the preferred
Cultivate a thick skin Politics is ubiquitous, and what seems personal to us may be political to other people. It’s almost impossible to write fiction without it embodying your own outlook on life: and when we use fiction to make political points — to advocate for some aspect of our outlook — it’s bound to
2018 is upon us, and so we are preparing to clear our shelves and sink our teeth into all the amazing books that the next 12 months are sure to offer us. However, we can’t set out into the New Year without acknowledging just how brilliant 2017 was for genre fiction. Rather than attempt a
Heather Child’s debut novel Everything About You hits bookshelves (and the virtual bookshelves you find on the internet) on 26 April and we have the cover reveal for you thanks to the folks at Orbit Books! Here’s what you need to know: “Freya has a new virtual assistant. It knows what she likes, knows what
After concluding his barnstorming Age Of Darkness trilogy, author Stephen Aryan is back with Mageborn, the first in a new epic fantasy saga set in the same world that also serves as an excellent jumping on point for newcomers. We talked to Aryan about his new saga, the response to the Age Of Darkness books, his
It’s all happening for Tade Thompson’s novel Rosewater, which has just won Best Novel at the very first Nommo Awards, the first awards for African speculative fiction, and has been picked up for worldwide publishing by Orbit Books. Originally published by indie press Apex, Rosewater is the first in a trilogy and we have the
With Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape Of Water earning rave reviews around the world, it’s the perfect time to revisit one of the filmmaker’s early masterpieces: Spanish Civil War-set ghost story The Devil’s Backbone. Helpfully, there’s a beautiful new making of and art book from authors Matt Zoller Seitz and Simon Abrams, and we have
We’re very excited to reveal the cover for King Of Assassins, from author RJ Barker and Orbit Books! “The epic conclusion to this debut fantasy trilogy featuring a cast of assassins, knights and fools to delight any fan of Brent Weeks or Robin Hobbs. THE KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KING . . .
One of the latest novels to address the possibility of a world transformed by the effects of global warming, Paul McCauley’s Austral is set a number of years into the future. Antarctica has been colonised, the retreating ice revealing the landscape underneath, and humanity are building a new world there. The eponymous central figure is a
Powered armour goes by many names in science fiction – including exosuit, assisted armour, jacket and exoskeleton. As readers we might quibble about the terminology, but we can all agree on one thing: it’s damned cool. Armoured suits are an element of SF that frequently catches the public’s imagination. Join me on a tour de
The cover for Ian Doescher’s William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: The Force Doth Awaken has been revealed, showing BB-8 rocking an Elizabeth costume like he was born to do it. It’s the latest chapter in the author’s acclaimed Bard-infused take on the Star Wars saga, and it’s coming to the UK from Quirk Books on 3 October. Here’s