Orbit confirm Daniel Abraham's new fantasy novel for early 2022 release

Orbit Books have confirmed that Daniel Abraham's new fantasy novel, Age of Ash, will be published in February 2022.

The new novel is the first in a trilogy, with the entire trilogy spanning a year in the life of one city. The cover blurb as as follows:

Kithamar is a center of trade and wealth, an ancient city with a long, bloody history where countless thousands live and their stories unfold.

This is Alys’s.

Alys is simply a petty thief from the slums of Longhill, but when her brother is murdered, she sets out to discover who killed him and why. But the more she discovers about him, the more she learns about herself, and the truths she finds are more dangerous than knives.

Swept up in an intrigue as deep as the roots of Kithamar, where the secrets of the lowest born can sometimes topple thrones, the story Alys chooses will have the power to change everything.

Abraham is the author of the excellent Long Price Quartet and Dagger and the Coin series, as the co-author (with Ty Franck, both writing as James S.A. Corey) of The Expanse, the final volume of which will be published this autumn.

Modipihius reveal FALLOUT tabletop RPG cover art and release window

Modiphius Entertainment has confirmed a release window for their long-gestating Fallout tabletop roleplaying game, based on the video game series from Interplay, Black Isle and Bethesda. The game will launch in Q2 2021 (April-June).

The tabletop game will use Modiphius' 2d20 game engine (used in other games such as their Star Trek and Dishonored RPGs) and will launch with a core book, dice set, GM toolkit and a collector's edition.

Modiphius are already publishing a Fallout tabletop wargame, Wasteland Warfare, which has a roleplaying-focused supplement. I imagine it will also be possible to use the Wasteland Warfare miniatures with the 2d20 roleplaying game.

Modiphius are readying to ship their Dune: Adventures in the Imperium RPG, which should hit shops by April. Later in 2021 they hope to release a Homeworld-based RPG as well, with rumours circulating that they are also working on an Elder Scrolls tabletop roleplaying game to accompany their Call to Arms miniatures line for that setting.

Modiphius tease new DUNE RPG and artwork for early 2021 release

Modiphius have been teasing their new Dune tabletop roleplaying game with a reveal of some of the artwork and confirming that they will start taking pre-orders next month.

Dune: Adventures in the Imperium utilises the 2d20 rule system that Modiphius have used for their Age of Conan, Dishonored and Star Trek RPGs, among others. The base setting is some years before the events of Dune, with the players and Gamesmaster working together to create a new noble House of the Landsraad, which the players can guide through political intrigue as well as representing its interests through agents who have to go on clandestine missions to distant worlds, including Arrakis.

The core Adventures in the Imperium rulebook will be available as a standard game and also a choice of one of three deluxe editions, with a special cover reflecting the sigil of House Atreides, House Corrino or House Harkonnen. There will be two dice sets available for the game, as well as a Gamemaster Screen and a Player's Journal to record adventure notes in. Further expansions to the game are in the planning stages.

Dune: Adventures in the Imperium is anticipated to be released in early 2021. Modiphius are also currently working on Fallout and Homeworld RPGs using the 2d20 system (the former separate to their Fallout: Wasteland Warfare miniatures range). There are also rumours that Modiphius are planning an Elder Scrolls roleplaying game to accompany their Call to Arms miniatures range.

Cover art for new Joe Abercrombie book revealed

The UK cover art for Joe Abercrombie's new novel has been unveiled.

The Trouble with Peace is the follow-up to last year's A Little Hatred and is them middle volume of the Age of Madness trilogy, itself a sequel to his earlier First Law series.

The cover summary:

Savine dan Glokta, once Adua’s most powerful investor, finds her judgement, fortune and reputation in tatters. But she still has all her ambitions, and no scruple will be permitted to stand in her way.

For heroes like Leo dan Brock and Stour Nightfall, only happy with swords drawn, peace is an ordeal to end as soon as possible. But grievances must be nursed, power seized and allies gathered first, while Rikke must master the power of the Long Eye . . . before it kills her.

The Breakers still lurk in the shadows, plotting to free the common man from his shackles, while noblemen bicker for their own advantage. Orso struggles to find a safe path through the maze of knives that is politics, only for his enemies, and his debts, to multiply.

The old ways are swept aside, and the old leaders with them, but those who would seize the reins of power will find no alliance, no friendship, and no peace, lasts forever.

The Trouble with Peace will be published on 15 September this year. It will be followed by The Beautiful Machine (although Joe is mulling a title change to The Wisdom of Crowds at the moment).in September 2021.

UK cover art for Brandon Sanderson's RHYTHM OF WAR revealed

Brandon Sanderson has revealed the UK cover art for Rhythm of War, the fourth volume in The Stormlight Archive.

The art is by Sam Green, who also created the artwork for the preceding volumes in the series.

Rhythm of War will be published on 17 November this year.

Another new Paul Kearney novel for 2019: THE WINDSCALE INCIDENT

Having previously confirmed that Paul Kearney would be releasing The Burning Horse, a sequel to The Wolf in the Attic, in late 2019, it now appears we'll be getting a double helping of his work next year. Another novel, The Windscale Incident, will be published in May 2019 from Simon & Schuster.

The Windscale Incident is set in 1950s Britain, in an alternate timeline resulting from the Windscale Incident, a real event which took place on 10 October 1957. The UK's worst nuclear accident, the incident involved a fire breaking out at the Windscale nuclear facility and spreading nuclear radiation over the vicinity, resulting in an estimate 250+ cases of cancer. The UK's nuclear decommissioning plant Sellafield was later built on the same site.

Kearney's novel sounds like it will be using the incident as a divergence point for a new timeline. The blurb is as follows:

A blistering 1950’s Alternate-History Apocalypse that marks the beginning of a major new trans-media franchise.

Great Britain, mid-1950s.

Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. The simultaneous meltdown at the Windscale Nuclear Reactor and the Calder Hall site in the North of England killed thousands, but what came next was worst. The radioactive cloud, dispersed by heavy winds, effectively cut Great Britain in half and created the Exclusion Zone.

Hysterical accounts of strange creatures, wolf-like packs and bands of human survivors abound, but no really knows since the last expedition was lost fifteen months ago.
But there are mysteries that must be illuminated, and for Doctors Brian Mortlake and Constance Garraway, aided by a crack team of British soldiers, it’s time to enter the Zone.

More news on the book and the "trans-media franchise" as we get it.

New Guy Gavriel Kay novel announced

Guy Gavriel Kay has announced his new novel: A Brightness Long Ago.

From the blurb:

In a chamber overlooking the nighttime waterways of a maritime city, a man looks back on his youth and the people who shaped his life. Danio Cerra's intelligence won him entry to a renowned school even though he was only the son of a tailor. He took service at the court of a ruling count--and soon learned why that man was known as the Beast.
Danio's fate changed the moment he saw and recognized Adria Ripoli as she entered the count's chambers one autumn night--intending to kill. Born to power, Adria had chosen, instead of a life of comfort, one of danger--and freedom. Which is how she encounters Danio in a perilous time and place.

Vivid figures share the unfolding story. Among them: a healer determined to defy her expected lot; a charming, frivolous son of immense wealth; a powerful religious leader more decadent than devout; and, affecting all these lives and many more, two larger-than-life mercenary commanders, lifelong adversaries, whose rivalry puts a world in the balance.

A Brightness Long Ago offers both compelling drama and deeply moving reflections on the nature of memory, the choices we make in life, and the role played by the turning of Fortune's wheel.

A Brightness Long Ago will be published on 14 May 2019.

New Paul Kearney novel announced

Or rather re-announced with a new title and new cover art. In an (I believe) exclusive scoop, I can reveal that the sequel to the excellent The Wolf in the Attic (2016), formerly known as The Other Side of Things, is now called The Burning Horse. It will be released in autumn 2019 from Solaris Books.

Excellent news for fans of Paul's work.

Cover art for George R.R. Martin's FIRE AND BLOOD revealed

Bantam and HarperCollins Voyager have revealed their cover art for the US and UK editions of George R.R. Martin's Fire and Blood (although the UK cover is apparently not finalised yet and there may be some changes prior to publication).

The American cover art for Fire and Blood

Fire and Blood is the first part of a lengthy history of the Targaryen rule of Westeros, covering the period from the Doom up to the regency of King Aegon III, the Dragonbane. The book covers the Targaryen Conquest, the misrule of Maegor the Cruel, the Faith Militant Uprising, the long rule of Jaehaerys the Conciliator and the chaos and blood of the civil war known as the Dance of Dragons.

The book was originally written across three or four months back in 2012 as part of The World of Ice and Fire, but Martin ended up producing way too much material for that book, leaving his co-authors Linda Antonsson and Elio Garcia, Jr. to summarise this material. This is the full, unexpurgated text and incorporates the sections previously published separately as The Sons of the Dragon, The Rogue Prince and The Princess and the Queen.

Martin's plan originally had been to hold back the entire history (including the as-yet-unwritten second half, covering Aegon III's reign through Blackfyre Rebellion, the War of the Ninepenny Kings and the Mad King's downfall in the War of the Usurper, aka Robert's Rebellion) until after A Song of Ice and Fire was completed. However, the material he'd already completed for the first half runs almost as long as A Game of Thrones itself, 989 manuscript pages and roughly 270,000-odd words (compared to AGoT's 1,088 manuscript pages and 298,000 words), so the work would have been published in two volumes anyway. Martin has no plans to write the second book as yet since it would by definition include major spoilers for the Dunk & Egg stories and also for A Song of Ice and Fire itself.

The (working) UK cover art for Fire and Blood.

Martin also confirms that work remains ongoing on The Winds of Winter, but seemingly confirmed in the same blog post that the book will not be published in 2018.

Fire and Blood will be published on 20 November this year and will feature 75 black-and-white illustrations by Doug Wheately.

Cover art for Steven Erikson's REJOICE, A KNIFE TO THE HEART

On 18 October, Gollancz in the UK will be releasing Steven Erikson's first non-comedic science fiction novel. Entitled Rejoice, a Knife to the Heart, it's a story about first contact and survival. The cover art is below.

Erikson has previously written twelve novels and seven short stories in the epic fantasy Malazan Book of the Fallen setting, and is working on a new novel in that setting, The God is Not Willing, which will open a new trilogy, Witness, about the popular character of Karsa Orlong. He has also written an SF novella, The Devil Delivered, and a mainstream novel, This River Awakes, as well as three short comedic SF novels, the Wilful Child trilogy.

Thanks to Jussi of Rising Shadow for spotting this on Westeros.org.

Cover art for the third BOOK OF BABEL released

Orbit Books have released the cover art for the third and penultimate novel in The Books of Babel, Josiah Bancroft's fantasy series which has taken the genre by storm.

The first two books in the series, Senlin Ascends and Arm of the Sphinx, had previously been self-published by Bancroft and Orbit have used slight alterations of the original artwork for their editions. The Hod King is the first book in the series which will be released exclusively by Orbit, with publication currently slated for December 2018.

Cover art for Glen Cook's new BLACK COMPANY book

Tor Books have released the cover art for Port of Shadows, the new Black Company novel from Glen Cook.

Set between the first two novels in the series, The Black Company and Shadows Linger, the story takes us back to the early days of the story when the Black Company was fighting on the "wrong" side of a massive war.

The cover art is by Raymond Swanland, who has also produced the cover art for Cook's Black Company omnibuses as well as his Instrumentalities of the Night series.

Port of Shadows, the first Black Company novel for more than eighteen years, will be published on 11 September 2018.

New BOOKS OF BABEL cover art

Orbit Books have unveiled the cover art for their big-label editions of Josiah Bancroft's Books of Babel fantasy series.

The new edition uses the same cover art (by Ian Leino) for Senlin Ascends as on the self-published edition, with a new typeface and a cover blurb from Mark Lawrence (who has been championing Bancroft for the last couple of years).

Book 2, Arm of the Sphinx, has a new cover design. The arm and fist of the original cover design has been combined with the Tower of Babel from the first book.

The mass-market editions of Senlin Ascends (UK, USA) and Arm of the Sphinx (UK, USA) will be published in January and April 2018 respectively. The third novel, The Hod King, should (hopefully) get it's first release in late 2018, followed by the fourth and concluding volume in the series some time later.

Cover art for Jeff Noon's A MAN OF SHADOWS

Angry Robot have revealed the striking cover art for the upcoming new novel by SF novelist and playwright Jeff Noon, A Man of Shadows.

Noon is best-known for his debut novel, Vurt (1993), and its successors Pollen (1995) and Nymphomation (1997), as well as the stand-alone novels Automated Alice (1996), Needle in the Groove (1999), Falling Out of Cars (2002) and Channel Sk1n (2012). He's also published two collections, Pixel Juice (1998) and Cobralingus (2001), and a collaborative multi-author project called 217 Babel Street (2008).

His new novel - his first stand-alone SF novel in over half a decade - is picking up attention, with strong pre-release previews by the likes of Warren Ellis, Kieron Gillen and Adrian Tchaikovsky. The blurb is as follows:

Below the neon skies of Dayzone – where the lights never go out, and night has been banished – lowly private eye John Nyquist takes on a teenage runaway case. His quest takes him from Dayzone into the permanent dark of Nocturna. 

 
As the vicious, seemingly invisible serial killer known only as Quicksilver haunts the streets, Nyquist starts to suspect that the runaway girl holds within her the key to the city’s fate. In the end, there’s only one place left to search: the shadow-choked zone known as Dusk.

A Man of Shadows will be published on 1 August.

The Czech covers for China Mieville's novels are awesome

Behold below the Czech cover art for the novels (and one short story collection) of China Mieville:

On the top row, from left, that's King Rat, Perdido Street Station, The Scar, Iron Council and Looking for Jake. On the bottom row, from left, there's Un Lun Dun, The City and The City, Kraken, Embassytown and Railsea.

You may recognise the cover art for Perdido Street Station and The Scar from the original UK editions from Pan Macmillan. The artwork is all by Edward Miller (a pseudonym for artist Les Edwards), also known for his work for PS Publishing (including on the Malazan limited editions and on Scott Lynch's books). After The Scar came out the UK publishers decided to switch to a more generic and standard art style before switching again for the dark, moody covers they are still using today. Although these are okay, the surreal and bizarre imagery from Miller was very appropriate for Mieville's work and it was a shame to see him go.

The Czech publishers clearly agreed, as they retained Miller to keep working on the cover art for their editions of the novels. I couldn't find any information on a Czech edition of Three Moments of an Explosion, This Census-Taker or The Last Days of New Paris, so it's unknown if they will continue to use Miller for their works.

Thanks to Outthere Books for spotting this intriguing development.

Chris Wooding announces major new fantasy trilogy

Chris Wooding, the author of the Tales of the Ketty Jay and Braided Path series (amongst many others, like the superb The Fade), has confirmed that his new fantasy trilogy will be published by Gollancz. The series starts with The Ember Blade, which will be published in February 2018.

Wooding has been working on this novel for over two years and seeks to meld the complexity and nuance of modern fantasy with the adventure of the classic late 20th Century genre. The blurb is as follows:

A land under occupation. A legendary sword. A young man’s journey to find his destiny.Aren has lived by the rules all his life. He’s never questioned it; that’s just the way things are. But then his father is executed for treason, and he and his best friend Cade are thrown into a prison mine, doomed to work until they drop. Unless they can somehow break free . . . 

But what lies beyond the prison walls is more terrifying still. Rescued by a man who hates him yet is oath-bound to protect him, pursued by inhuman forces, Aren slowly accepts that everything he knew about his world was a lie. The rules are not there to protect him, or his people, but to enslave them. A revolution is brewing, and Aren is being drawn into it, whether he likes it or not. 

The key to the revolution is the Ember Blade. The sword of kings, the Excalibur of his people. Only with the Ember Blade in hand can their people be inspired to rise up . . . but it’s locked in an impenetrable vault in the most heavily guarded fortress in the land. All they have to do now is steal it. . .

On a Reddit AMA a couple of months back, he described it thusly:

The new book is my first attempt at doing, er, I suppose you'd call it 'traditional' fantasy. I grew up on Shannara, LOTR, Dragonlance and that kind of thing; they were the books that got me into fantasy. And I realised in almost 20 years of writing I'd never actually tried a fantasy story in that kind of world: the kind of pseudo-European environment that most readers identify as fantasy. My big series were always set in weird environments: in Broken Sky everyone had a 'superpower' through their spirit-stones; The Braided Path was Oriental flintlock fantasy shading into science fiction; Ketty Jay was dieselpunk fantasy. This new one, I'm not throwing out all the tropes at the start as I usually do. I want this one to feel like a fantasy, like the books I loved when I was a kid. And then I'm going to tell a story working within that format, and try to make it all fresh and new, using all the ensemble casting and characterisation skillz I honed during the Ketty Jay books. It's not going to be like the fantasy of the 80s and 90s, with its black and white morality and clear-cut heroes and villains; nor is it going to be grimdark. It's a pretty lo-magic setting. Beyond that, all I can tell you is that I'm having a total blast writing it. There's a certain freedom in being able to employ the assumptions and traditions of fantasy fiction and concentrate on story and character, instead of starting everything from scratch.

Wooding is currently working on the sequel. Given the very high quality of Wooding's previous novels, this immediately joins my "most wanted" queue.

Cover artwork for next MALAZAN novel revealed

The cover artwork for the next Malazan novel has been revealed.

Deadhouse Landing is the second novel in the Path to Ascendancy prequel series by Ian C. Esslemont. Taking place a century or so before the events of Gardens of the Moon and the Malazan Book of the Fallen by Esslemont's colleague, Steven Erikson, this series chronicles the founding of the Malazan Empire.

The book will be released on 10 August this year.

Cover art for THE WITCHWOOD CROWN unveiled

Tad Williams has revealed the American cover art for The Witchwood Crown, the upcoming first volume in his Memory, Sorrow and Thorn sequel series, The Last King of Osten Ard.

As with the original trilogy, The Witchwood Crown's cover art is by genre star Michael Whelan. It depicts Hjeldin's Tower in the Hayholt, the great castle around so much of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn revolved.

The new book picks up thirty years after the events of To Green Angel Tower and the recent bridging novel, The Heart of What Was Lost. The novel will be released on 27 June.

THE UNHOLY CONSULT cover art revealed

Overlook Press have revealed the cover art for The Unholy Consult, the fourth and concluding volume in R. Scott Bakker's The Aspect-Emperor quartet, the second part of The Second Apocalypse mega-series.

The Unholy Consult brings this particular part of the saga to a close, but Bakker plans to write another series - either a duology or trilogy - to wrap up the saga of Kellhus and the Second Apocalypse for good. Apparently the name of this final series would be a spoiler, so will not be revealed until after The Unholy Consult is released.

The Unholy Consult will be released in the United States on 4 July 2017. It will be accompanied by an extensive "Encyclopediac Glossary" (similar to the one in The Thousandfold Thought) revealing a lot more about the history of Earwa.

Cover art for NEW YORK 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson

Orbit Books have released the cover art for Kim Stanley Robinson's next novel, New York 2140: A Novel.

The new book will be set in New York in 2140 and will depict how the city is adapting to being partially submerged. The cover art is by Stephan Martiniere. The cover blurb:

The waters rose, submerging New York City.
 

But the residents adapted and it remained the bustling, vibrant metropolis it had always been. Though changed forever.

Every street became a canal. Every skyscraper an island.

Through the eyes of the varied inhabitants of one building Kim Stanley Robinson shows us how one of our great cities will change with the rising tides.

And how we too will change.

 The novel will be published on 21 March 2017 in the UK and USA from Orbit.