Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy, the most fun you'll ever have with a skeleton.
Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.
Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will be become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.
Of course, some things are better left dead.
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Review: The Edge by Tim Lebbon
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Tim Lebbon's The Edge was published by Titan Books in June 2019.
Information about Tim Lebbon:
Tim Lebbon is the New York Times bestselling author of Coldbrook, The Silence, the Relics trilogy and the movie novelizations of 30 Days of Night and The Cabin in the Woods. He has also written many successful movie novelizations and tie-ins for Alien and Firefly as well as critically acclaimed horror and dark fantasy novels. Tim has won three British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, a Shocker, a Tombstone and been a finalist for the International Horror Guild and World Fantasy Awards. The Silence is now a Netflix Original Movie, starring Stanley Tucci.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about The Edge:
There exists a secret and highly illegal trade in mythological creatures and their artifacts. Certain individuals pay fortunes for a sliver of a satyr’s hoof, a gryphon’s claw, a basilisk’s scale, or an angel’s wing. Embroiled in the hidden world of the Relics, creatures known as the Kin, Angela Gough is now on the run in the United States.
Forty years ago the town of Longford was the site of a deadly disease outbreak that wiped out the entire population. The infection was contained, the town isolated, and the valley in which it sits flooded and turned into a reservoir. The truth - that the outbreak was intentional, and not every resident of Longford died - disappeared beneath the waves.
Now the town is revealed again. The Kin have an interest in the ruins, and soon the fairy Grace and the Nephilim leader Mallian are also drawn to them. The infection has risen from beneath silent waters, and this forgotten town becomes the focus of the looming battle between humankind and the Kin.
REVIEW: THE EDGE BY TIM LEBBON
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The Nearest Thing to Flying by Bruce Woods
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Others
Risingshadow has the honour of publishing a new guest short story by Bruce Woods, the author of Royal Blood and Dragon Blood.
(You can find the previous story here.)
About Royal Blood:
Historical and fictional characters come together and change the future of Africa forever. Renowned actress Lady Ellen Terry, detective Sherlock Holmes, financier Cecil Rhodes, hunter/naturalist Frederick Courtney Selous, King Lobengula, and a mysterious, undead adventuress named Paulette Monot become chess pieces in the Great Game, which takes the form of Africa's First Matabele War.
About Dragon Blood:
Paulette is sent on a mission to China with the words of her mentor ringing in her ears. “A hot wind is now fanning the flames of racism in China, Paulette." Said Lady Ellen Terry. "And, like dust in a drought, it has blown up an army. They call themselves 'the boxers’ society of righteous and harmonious fists,' or some variation thereof, and practice rituals that they claim bestow invulnerability and more. They are ill-armed and poorly trained but potentially numberless.
“Recently an auxiliary movement has sprung up. Reportedly consisting of young virgin women, from the ages of 12 to 18 and accounted uncommonly beautiful. They carry the name “Red Lanterns,” and claim the powers of flight, fire-starting, and miraculous healing. It is these I wish you to investigate for any sign of Kindred activity.
“More to the point, however, and though the Boxers alone present a threat through sheer force of numbers, the Dowager is perched upon a knife edge. Two camps of courtiers vie for her attention, moderates who would have her eliminate the Boxers for fear that, with the foreigners gone, they would turn upon her throne; and conservatives who urge her to throw in her hand with them to rid the Empire off all peoples and technologies from beyond its borders.”
She is to face great danger and the very real risk that despite her remarkable powers she will not survive. It will take skill and courage to avoid the multiple perils, and risk of exposure for what she really is, that await her in an increasingly turbulent China.
The Nearest Thing to Flying by Bruce Woods
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Review: Helena and Missoula by Grace Tydings
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Grace Tydings' Helena was published in April 2019 and Missoula was published in July 2019. Both of them are independently published urban fantasy novels.
Information about Grace Tydings:
Grace Tydings lives in Maryland with her husband and pets. She loves the Urban Fantasy genre and is currently working on the next installment of the Black Paw Series (Release date 2020) and a new series which will be released by the end of the year.
Click here to visit her official website.
Information about Helena:
Sienna Harris is living on the beaches of North Carolina, avoiding the decision of what to do with her life. Trying to live in the human world when you aren’t quite human has its downside, and the urge to be near her own kind grows stronger by the day. Ten years after her mother’s mysterious death, Sienna returns to her hometown of Black Paw, Montana: a town full of secrets.
Black Paw Sheriff, Jack Ross, is monitoring a string of murdered human women in nearby Helena, Montana, becoming distracted when a distant memory returns to town. Nothing like the young girl he remembers standing over her mother’s grave, Sienna Harris is now a breathtaking woman who has consumed his thoughts. As murder lands on Black Paw’s doorstep, can Sienna and Jack find the missing link between past and present before it’s too late?
Information about Missoula:
Julia Cox thought she was in love with her boyfriend, Ron Silas, but discovers she is under a powerful spell. Beginning to build a resistance to the spell, Julia plots her escape from her lover turned captor. Having no family to turn to, she hopes to seek shelter in the place that can offer her the most safety: Black Paw, Montana.
Jesse Ross defended his country overseas with multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, he serves his hometown of Black Paw as the Deputy Sheriff. When a Wolfen woman leaves Black Paw to live with her Werewolf boyfriend in Missoula, the controversy spreads through the town like wildfire and Jesse needs Julia’s help to solve the mystery. Along the way, Julia struggles with letting go of her past captivity and embracing her new found freedom.
Can Jesse help Julia break her captor’s binding spell for good?
REVIEW: HELENA AND MISSOULA BY GRACE TYDINGS
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Review: The Undead King of New York City by Caractacus Plume
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Caractacus Plume's The Undead King of New York City was published by Silvatici Publishing in December 2018.
Information about Caractacus Plume:
Caractacus Plume is the official biographer of Lyons & Hound Paranormal Investigation Agency (est. 1895). Because of the highly sensitive nature of the Agency's work, some of the names in the upcoming manuscripts have been changed to protect the identities of certain individuals (the author's included).
Click here to visit the author's official website.
Information about The Undead King of New York City:
Beneath the thin veil of “normality”, The Unseen League wages a bitter war to protect the British Empire from the maleficent forces of the supernatural.
When a mysterious American visitor is brutally murdered, The League turns to their former agent, Mr Percival Percy - now a celebrated private paranormal investigator and self-styled guardian against the sinister legions of the night - to help solve the case.
As Mr Percy and his faithful assistant, the redoubtable Madame Wu, close in on the killers, it soon becomes abhorrently apparent that it is they who are the hunted and not the hunters.
REVIEW: THE UNDEAD KING OF NEW YORK CITY BY CARACTACUS PLUME
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Review: Wastelands: The New Apocalypse (edited by John Joseph Adams)
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Wastelands: The New Apocalypse (edited by John Joseph Adams) was published by Titan Books in June 2019.
Information about John Joseph Adams:
Editor John Joseph Adams - called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble - is the bestselling editor of many anthologies such as Epic: Legends of Fantasy, Wastelands, and The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. He the editor of Fantasy Magazine and Lightspeed Magazine, which published two Nebula Award finalists and a Hugo Award finalist in its first year.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about Wastelands: The New Apocalypse:
The new post-apocalyptic collection by master anthologist John Joseph Adams, featuring never-before-published stories and curated reprints by some of the genre’s most popular and critically-acclaimed authors.
In WASTELANDS: THE NEW APOCALYPSE, veteran anthology editor John Joseph Adams is once again our guide through the wastelands using his genre and editorial expertise to curate his finest collection of post-apocalyptic short fiction yet. Whether the end comes via nuclear war, pandemic, climate change, or cosmological disaster, these stories explore the extraordinary trials and tribulations of those who survive.
Featuring never-before-published tales by: Veronica Roth, Hugh Howey, Jonathan Maberry, Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, Richard Kadrey, Scott Sigler, Elizabeth Bear, Tobias S. Buckell, Meg Elison, Greg van Eekhout, Wendy N. Wagner, Jeremiah Tolbert, and Violet Allen - plus, recent reprints by: Carmen Maria Machado, Carrie Vaughn, Ken Liu, Paolo Bacigalupi, Kami Garcia, Charlie Jane Anders, Catherynne M. Valente, Jack Skillingstead, Sofia Samatar, Maureen F. McHugh, Nisi Shawl, Adam-Troy Castro, Dale Bailey, Susan Jane Bigelow, Corinne Duyvis, Shaenon K. Garrity, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Darcie Little Badger, Timothy Mudie, and Emma Osborne.
Continuing in the tradition of WASTELANDS: STORIES OF THE APOCALYPSE, these 34 stories ask: What would life be like after the end of the world as we know it?
REVIEW: WASTELANDS: THE NEW APOCALYPSE (EDITED BY JOHN JOSEPH ADAMS)
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