Books of the Apocalypse: What we're expecting in 2012

[Mjolnir]

Per tor.com this afternoon, the majestic Michael Whelan will provide the cover art for the ebook edition of A Memory of Light. And there was much rejoycing.

[Joanna vander Poele]

Per tor.com this afternoon, the majestic Michael Whelan will provide the cover art for the ebook edition of A Memory of Light. And there was much rejoycing.

Just the eBook though...? :P

Are there any plans to re-do the entire series with new covers? The Sweet ones are just insidiously ubiquitous.

[Werthead]

Just the eBook though...? :P

Are there any plans to re-do the entire series with new covers? The Sweet ones are just insidiously ubiquitous.

This is the worst kept secret in SF publishing. Tor have said that Sweet gets to finish the hardcovers so there's a uniform design for long-standing buyers, and then at some point a year or two later the series gets rejacketed with new art. Given the time and expense in developing these 15 new ebook covers, it seems wasteful to then go and employ another 15 cover images from an artist or bunch of artists, so I strongly suspect they'll reuse the new art (though I hope they tweak the title font and design, which hides 1/3 of the image and doesn't look quite right).

Whelan is a good choice for the last ebook cover.

[Jussi]

Paul S. Kemp's The Hammer and the Blade: A Tale of Egil and Nix will be published in July 2012 by Angry Robot. I believe this is his first original fantasy novel.

http://angryrobotbooks.com/2011/07/meet-our-newest-signing-paul-s-kemp/

The Hammer and the Blade will introduce you to Egil and Nix, a pair of down-at-heel treasure hunters and incorrigible rogues. Egil is a priest, happy to deliver moral correction with his pair of massive hammers. Nix is a sneak-thief; there’s no lock he cannot open, no serving girl he cannot charm. Between them, they always have one eye for a chance to make money – the other eye, of course, is on the door. Only this time, the treasure they’ve thieved is an important relic of a most sinister and ancient family, who will stop at nothing to get their bloody revenge.

[Ove]

Per Angry Robot press release: vN (Von Neumann Sisters 1) by Madeline Ashby August 2012

vN

introduces us to Amy. She's been grown in a stable family environment, with her robot mother and human father. But alone of all her kind, her human-protecting failsafe has stopped working for some reason. Soon she's on the run from the law, and worse – everyone's after her, some to use her as a weapon, others to destroy her. Her sole friend is a robot boy who's programmed to only like humans. This is pure science fiction entertainment, combining a stunning extrapolation of a robot future with bravura kick-ass Manga-inspired action – think Philip K Dick meets Joss Whedon.

[Cuchulain]

Amazon UK lists a 2012 release for Paul McAuley called In the Mouth of the Whale. Looks interesting. Also, it appears Gollancz has decided to rerelease Martin's Tuf Voyaging, which is great news.

[Mjolnir]

Ooh, Tuf! Excellent news, I've been wanting to read that.

I believe that McAuley novel is a loosely-connected semisequel to The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun, set some thousand years later.

The mass market edition of Ian Tregillis' Bitter Seeds and the long-awaited sequel The Coldest War now have cover art, which you may behold at the author's website and a couple other places. Still no firm release date for TCW, unfortunately, but it definitely sounds [to me] like the Milkweed train is beginning to build up steam again.

[Mjolnir]

Here're some blurbs for early 2012 from Del Rey, yanked off amazon. My memory's somewhat fuzzy; we may already have these. If so, apologies for wasted space.

First, Naomi Novik's Crucible of Gold:

Naomi Novik’s beloved series returns, with Capt. Will Laurence and his fighting dragon Temeraire once again taking to the air against the broadsides of Napoleon’s forces and the friendly—and sometimes not-so-friendly—fire of British soldiers and politicians who continue to suspect them of divided loyalties, if not outright treason.

For Laurence and Temeraire, put out to pasture in Australia, it seems their part in the war has come to an end just when they are needed most. Newly allied with the powerful African empire of the Tswana, the French have occupied Spain and brought revolution and bloodshed to Brazil, threatening Britain’s last desperate hope to defeat Napoleon.

So the British government dispatches Arthur Hammond from China to enlist Laurence and Temeraire to negotiate a peace with the angry Tswana, who have besieged the Portuguese royal family in Rio—and as bait, Hammond bears an offer to reinstate Laurence to his former rank and seniority as a captain in the Aerial Corps. Temeraire is delighted by this sudden reversal of fortune, but Laurence is by no means sanguine, knowing from experience that personal honor and duty to one’s country do not always run on parallel tracks.

Laurence and Temeraire—joined by the egotistical fire-breather Iskierka and the still-growing Kulingile, who has already surpassed Temeraire in size—embark for Brazil, only to meet with a string of unmitigated disasters that leave the dragons and their human friends forced to make an unexpected landing in the hostile territory of the Inca empire, where they face new unanticipated dangers.

Now with the success of the mission balanced on a razor’s edge, and failure looking more likely by the minute, the unexpected arrival of an old enemy will tip the scales toward ruin. Yet even in the midst of disaster, opportunity may lurk—for one bold enough to grasp it.

For Ted Kosmatka's debut novel, the near-future genetics thriller The Games:

This stunning first novel from Nebula Award and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award finalist Ted Kosmatka is a riveting tale of science cut loose from ethics. Set in an amoral future where genetically engineered monstrosities fight each other to the death in an Olympic event, The Games envisions a harrowing world that may arrive sooner than you think.

Silas Williams is the brilliant geneticist in charge of preparing the U.S. entry into the Olympic Gladiator competition, an internationally sanctioned bloodsport with only one rule: no human DNA is permitted in the design of the entrants. Silas lives and breathes genetics; his designs have led the United States to the gold in every previous event. But the other countries are catching up. Now, desperate for an edge in the upcoming Games, Silas’s boss engages an experimental supercomputer to design the genetic code for a gladiator that cannot be beaten.

The result is a highly specialized killing machine, its genome never before seen on earth. Not even Silas, with all his genius and experience, can understand the horror he had a hand in making. And no one, he fears, can anticipate the consequences of entrusting the act of creation to a computer’s cold logic.

Now Silas races to understand what the computer has wrought, aided by a beautiful xenobiologist, Vidonia Joao. Yet as the fast-growing gladiator demonstrates preternatural strength, speed, and—most disquietingly—intelligence, Silas and Vidonia find their scientific curiosity giving way to a most unexpected emotion: sheer terror.

And finally, for Stover's Caine's Law [check out how hardcore this blurb is trying to be. It's like, the blurb is trying so hard to convince you it's hardcore it wants you to feel more hardcore just for picking it up and reading the back cover in the shop. It wants you to be all: "I am going to buy this fucking book. Because somebody's fucking got to fucking do that.: And then it wants you to walk over to the store clerk and get all: "Hey, motherfucker, I'm buying this fucking book", and gaze down upon him or her with the cold, merciless eyes of a killer with nothing left to lose until she or he cracks beneath the strain of your soulless -- but incredibly deep -- gaze, pisses him or herself, and bows her or his head in shame, knowing that they will never be as hardcore as you. And then sells you that fucking book.]:

SOME LAWS YOU BREAK. SOME BREAK YOU.

AND THEN THERE’S CAINE’S LAW.

From the moment Caine first appeared in the pages of Heroes Die, two things were clear. First, that Matthew Stover was one of the most gifted fantasy writers of his generation. And second, that Caine was a hero whose peers go by such names as Conan and Elric. Like them, Caine was something new: a civilized man who embraced savagery, an actor whose life was a lie, a force of destruction so potent that even gods thought twice about crossing him. Now Stover brings back his greatest creation for his most stunning performance yet.

Caine is washed up and hung out to dry, a crippled husk kept isolated and restrained by the studio that exploited him. Now they have dragged him back for one last deal. But Caine has other plans. Those plans take him back to Overworld, the alternate reality where gods are real and magic is the ultimate weapon. There, in a violent odyssey through time and space, Caine will face the demons of his past, find true love, and just possibly destroy the universe.

Hey, it’s a crappy job, but somebody’s got to do it.

[Jussi]

Plot synopsis for Robin Hobb's City of Dragons:

The dragon keepers and fledgling dragons have discovered a route to the lost city of Kelsingra but there is one problem: they need to be able to fly to cross the treacherous waters and enter the fabled city. At first, only a few dragons are willing to try – the others are either too ashamed of their deformed wings and feeble muscles or too proud to risk failure and humiliation.

But the rewards waiting at Kelsingra for those brave enough to take to the air are worth more than they could possibly imagine. This was a city built for dragons and their keepers. Alise Finbok is overwhelmed by the treasures she finds there, and spends hours carefully uncovering wonder after wonder, recording her findings for posterity. She knows the knowledge will change everything the world thought about dragons and the Elderlings.

Yet rumours of the city’s discovery have floated down the Rain Wild River and reached envious ears in Bingtown and beyond. Adventurers, pirates and fortune hunters are coming in droves to pillage what they can from the city. Will the dragons, only just finding their strength, and their keepers, who are changing in their own mysterious ways, be able to fend them off?

And what has happened to Tintaglia, the dragon-mother who started it all? Has she really abandoned her offspring forever? Or will she too return to seek the riches of Kelsingra…

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/Titles/40214/city-of-dragons-robin-hobb-9780007273805

Hobb has finished the fourth book in the Rain Wild Chronicles.

Tonight I finally sent of the rewrites of what has become volume four of The Rain Wild Chronicles. It was a massive rewrite and I actually feel very gratefulfor the opportunity to greatly improve the book. It is planned that volumes 3 and 4 of the Chronicles will both come out in 2012 in the US, UK, Australia and the Netherlands.

So. What’s next? Well, jump right onto the next writing project, of course!

[Calibandar]

I want to see the ice dragon from Tawny Man again. I hope she will include him somehow.

[Garlan the Gallant]

I want to see the ice dragon from Tawny Man again. I hope she will include him somehow.

Yea, it would be odd if she brings one back without the other. Though if I remember correctly, weren't Hobb's dragons similar to birds in that they did not stay long with each other after mating? I could be making that up....

[Herr Fick]

Apparently they're going to be slightly shorter than the main series novels (20 chapters rather than 24, which means still around 750-800 pages in hardcover) but will come out at 18 month intervals (so I'd expect the first one in late 2012).

Great! Erikson will finally be able to read his own books after the first draft in order to write a second one that is actually decent...

[Mjolnir]

Cover and release date are posted over in the art thread, but I figured we should have this here too: Glen Cook's Dread Empire series is finally to be completed, after the manuscript for the last novel The Wrath of Kings was stolen ... Wiki, oh Wiki, ... round 1989 or so. The book has a new title, in Cook's incredibly bad-ass titling style, going by A Path to the Coldness of Heart. Night Shade Books will publish the book in January 2012, per their website [i believe Night Shade's novels have been known to drift by a month or two in terms of when they actually ship, though that may have been when they were a smaller outfit and might no longer be the case]. The two novels to which Path is a direct sequel will be republished in late 2011. Dread Empire fans will have waited some 23 years for this book. I've never really gotten in to Cook's novels very much myself, I admit, but this does the heart good to see. Here is the blurb:

From Night Shade's website:

At long last, the conclusion to Glen Cook's Dread Empire saga has arrived! King Bragi Ragnarson is a prisoner, shamed, nameless, and held captive by Lord Shih-kaa and the Empress Mist at the heart of the Dread Empire.

Far away in Kavelin, Bragia's queen and what remains of his army seek to find and free their king, hampered by the loss or desertion of their best and brightest warriors. Kavelina's spymaster, Michael Trebilcock, is missing in action, as is loyal soldier Aral Dantice. Meanwhile, Dane, Duke of Greyfells, seeks to seize the rule of Kavelin and place the kingdom in his pocket, beginning a new line of succession through Bragia's queen, Dane's cousin Inger. And in the highest peaks of the Dragona's Teeth, in the ancient castle Fangdred, the sorcerer called Varthlokkur uses his arts to spy on the world at large, observing the puppet strings that control kings and empires alike, waiting... For the time of the wrath of kings is almost at hand, and vengeance lies along a path to coldness of heart.

[Serious Callers Only]

It's great that the fantasy genre is so healthy.

[Jussi]

Amazon is now listing China Miéville's Railsea.

http://www.amazon.com/Railsea-China-Mieville/dp/0345524527/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313666202&sr=1-1

[Jussi]

Two new blurbs from Gollancz:

Jack Glass by Adam Roberts

Jack Glass is the murderer. We know this from the start. Yet as this extraordinary novel tells the story of three murders committed by Glass the reader will be surprised to find out that it was Glass who was the killer and how he did it. And by the end of the book our sympathies for the killer are fully engaged.

Riffing on the tropes of crime fiction (the country house murder, the locked room mystery) and imbued with the feel of golden age SF JACK GLASS is another bravura performance from Roberts. Whatever games he plays with the genre, whatever questions he asks of the reader Roberts never loses sight of the need to entertain and JACK GLASS has some wonderfully gruesome moments, is built around three gripping HowDunnits and comes with liberal doses of sly humour.

Roberts invites us to have fun and tricks us into thinking about both crime and SF via a beautifully structured novel set in a society whose depiction challanges notions of crime, punishment, power and freedom. It is an extraordinary novel.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jack-Glass-Adam-Roberts/dp/0575127627/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313782355&sr=1-1

Empire of the Saviours by Adam Dalton

In the Empire of the Saviours, the People are forced to live in fortified towns. Their walls are guarded by an army of Heroes, whose task is to keep marauding pagans out as much as it is to keep the People inside. Several times a year, living Saints visit the towns to exact the Saviours' tithe from all those coming of age - a tithe often paid in blood.

When a young boy, Jillan, unleashes pagan magicks in an accident, his whole town turns against him. He goes on the run, but what hope can there be when the Saviours and the entire Empire decide he must be caught?

Jillan is initially hunted by just the soldiers of the Saint of his region, but others soon begin to hear of his increasing power and seek to use him for their own ends. Some want Jillan to join the fight against the Empire, others wish to steal his power for themselves and others still want Jillan to lead them to the Geas, the source of all life and power in the world.

There are very few Jillan can trust, except for a ragtag group of outcasts. His parents threatened, his life in tatters, his beliefs shaken to the core, Jillan must decide what side he is on, and whether to fight or run...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Empire-Saviours-Adam-Dalton/dp/0575123125/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313782434&sr=1-1

[Mjolnir]

Avast, maties. [be that how ye spell matie? 'Tis nay important.] Margo Lanagan's second young adult fantasy novel is to be released next year, it seems. It's about selkies and witchery and the sea and it sounds fecking awesome. Based on the author's blog the book is undergoing copyedit and final changes now. Amazon UK has two listings for it [the 'Zon in America has none; if NA gets the book late I shall be pissed, and shake my fists most impotently]. One is for "The Brides of Rollrock Island", coming out next September. The second has the book titled "Sea Hearts" -- a somewhat less awesome title in my personal opinion -- coming out in February. Which of these is the one true listing remains unclear, though it's the Sea Hearts one that's got the blurb. Here is said blurb from amazon [had to retype the first bit]:

On remote Rollrock Island, men go to sea to make their livings -- and to catch their wives.

The witch Misskaella knows the way of drawing a girl from the heart of a seal, of luring the beauty out of the beast. And, for a price, any man might buy himself a sea-wife. He may have and hold and keep her. And he will tell himself that he is her master. But from his first look into those wide, questioning, liquid eyes, he will be just as transformed as she. He will be equally ensnared. And the witch will have her true payment.

Margo Lanagan weaves an extraordinary tale of desire, despair and transformation. With devastatingly beautiful prose, she reveals characters capable of unspeakable cruelty, but also unspoken love.

Sounds most intriguing. Blurb's the type of marketing burbble that doesn't actually tell you much about the outline of the plot or conflicts when you stop to think, but does bring the atmosphere. Though frankly based on being a massive fan of Tender Morsels I'd probably buy a novel about just about anything if Margo Lanagan wrote it.

Orbit US now has their official publication schedule for September through March on their website, and I note a change or two. Unfortunately, it seems Kim Stanley Robinson's big new sf book, 2312, is not coming out in February as originally listed. It is MIA for now. Also, Amanda Downum's third Necromancer Chronicles novel [didn't bother with the first one because the sample was meh; second one rocked] Kingdoms of Dust, has been bumped back to March.

Those two new Gollancz blurbs sound interesting. I should really try to get into Roberts' fiction. The few samples I've read have felt very accomplished and absorbing enough, but I'm put off by the feeling that he's hovering a bit above it all, looking down with this sardonic smile that says "this is all a bit silly really".

[Werthead]

Those two new Gollancz blurbs sound interesting. I should really try to get into Roberts' fiction. The few samples I've read have felt very accomplished and absorbing enough, but I'm put off by the feeling that he's hovering a bit above it all, looking down with this sardonic smile that says "this is all a bit silly really".

That's interesting. I've never gotten that vibe off him at all, and the three books of his I've read (Swiftly, Yellow Blue Tibia and New Model Army) show him taking things very seriously indeed (though YBT does have a deliberately absurdist tone to its portrayal of Soviet Russia, but that's a reasonably valid line to take).

He's a very strong writer, with the caveat that in the three books I've read, none really has an ending as such. They just kind of fizzle out and have a rather vague and surreal final chapter that he seems to hope will wrap things up. Doing that once in a while is okay, but three books in a row gets a little old (though NMA did have the best and strongest ending of the three, so he's definitely getting better). I should get to his new book, By Light Alone, in a few weeks.

[Lightsnake]

I admit, I anticipate the new Witcher book if anyone has any idea when it'll actually bloody come out?

[polishgenius]

I admit, I anticipate the new Witcher book if anyone has any idea when it'll actually bloody come out?

I should ring my mum and get her to bring me back all of them in Polish from her visit just to spite you. :P

I don't know why the translations are taking so long, but I guess it's better that they take their time and don't ruin it. I had a quick look in Polish to see if that tells me anything but I don't see much. You won't be the only one waiting though. Apparently this year Obama got the books as a gift from President Tusk so you're in good company...