A novella.
Still new to her duties as Lady Vorkosigan, Ekaterin is working together with expatriate scientist Enrique Borgos on a radical scheme to recover the lands of the Vashnoi exclusion zone, lingering radioactive legacy of the Cetagandan invasion of the planet Barrayar. When Enrique’s experimental bioengineered creatures go missing, the pair discover that the zone still conceals deadly old secrets.
This novella falls after Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance in the Vorkosigan series timeline, but may be read entirely independently. The Vorkosigan saga was the recipient of the first Hugo Award for best science fiction series in 2017.
Read more: The Flowers of Vashnoi - Lois McMaster Bujold
A review of Dream City Blues (edited by Mark Howard Jones)
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Dream City Blues (edited by Mark Howard Jones) was published by theEXAGGERATEDpress in December 2017.
Information about Mark Howard Jones:
Mark Howard Jones comes from a town in south Wales where it once rained fish. A former BBC journalist, he is editor of the anthology Cthulhu Cymraeg: Lovecraftian Tales from Wales and author of the collections Songs from Spider Street and Brightest Black. He lives in Cardiff.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about Dream City Blues:
THE CITY HAS TWO FACES
Our long-cherished dream of Utopia is always just out of reach. We are doomed to know what we want but never to reach it. Inside this book are stories of cities filled with dreams that have become nightmares.
THE CITY WEARS MANY MASKS
From shining towers to filthy back alleys; from bright sunlit parks to dingy, cramped basements; this misguided tour through our dream cities is beset with dangerous pitfalls.
Here are 11 diverse visions of cities that are unsettling, horrific, outlandish and bizarre in turn. Come and visit... but don't forget your return ticket.
Great fiction from Allen Ashley, Parker Weston, Stephen Oram, Rhys Hughes, Ken Poyner, Kirsty C Crimmond, Adam Marks, Bob Lock, Toti O'Brien, Tony Lee, Sean Gill, and poetry from Matt Merritt.
A REVIEW OF DREAM CITY BLUES (EDITED BY MARK HOWARD JONES)
Read more: A review of Dream City Blues (edited by Mark Howard Jones)
Guest post by Jennifer Brozek
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Guest Post
Risingshadow has the honour of publishing a guest post by Jennifer Brozek.
About the author:
Jennifer Brozek is a Hugo Award finalist and a multiple Bram Stoker Award finalist. Winner of the Australian Shadows Award for best edited publication, Jennifer has edited sixteen anthologies with more on the way, including the acclaimed Chicks Dig Gaming and Shattered Shields anthologies. Author of Apocalypse Girl Dreaming, Industry Talk, the Last Days of Salton Academy, and the acclaimed Melissa Allen series, she has more than seventy published short stories, and is the Creative Director of Apocalypse Ink Productions.
Jennifer is a freelance author for numerous RPG companies. Winner of the Scribe, Origins, and ENnie awards, her contributions to RPG sourcebooks include Dragonlance, Colonial Gothic, Shadowrun, Serenity, Savage Worlds, and White Wolf SAS. Jennifer is the author of the award winning YA BattleTech novel, The Nellus Academy Incident, and Shadowrun novella, Doc Wagon 19. She has also written for the AAA MMO, Aion, and the award winning videogame, Shadowrun Returns.
When she is not writing her heart out, she is gallivanting around the Pacific Northwest in its wonderfully mercurial weather. Jennifer is an active member of SFWA, HWA, and IAMTW. Read more about her at jenniferbrozek.com or follow her on Twitter at @JenniferBrozek.
About To Fight the Black Wind (Arkham Horror):
"Her malady - nightmares that left her bloody - seemed, at first, to be a common self-harm complex. Then I looked at the wounds. The mind is powerful, but I have never seen the mind create wounds like these. Little did I know her wounds were just the first of many mysteries I would face while caring for Josephine."
-Jennifer Brozek, To Fight the Black Wind
Not all patients can be cured - or want to be.
Psychologist Carolyn Fern’s newest patient suffers from nightmares that leave glyph-shaped wounds across her skin. The case is odd, even for an institution like Arkham Sanatorium, where the unusual becomes the everyday. Things become even more complicated after the young woman claims to have met Malachi - Carolyn’s former patient whose treatment was cut short when he was brutally murdered - in her dreams. What is the link between the two, and how can Carolyn help a patient who, it seems, does not wish to be cured?
Book link:
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/2/23/to-fight-the-black-wind/
GUEST POST by Jennifer Brozek
Read more: Guest post by Jennifer Brozek
A review of James Brogden's The Hollow Tree
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
James Brogden's The Hollow Tree was published by Titan Books in March 2018.
Information about James Brogden:
James Brogden is the author of The Narrows, Tourmaline and The Realt. His horror and fantasy stories have appeared in anthologies and periodicals ranging from The Big Issue to the British Fantasy Society Award-winning Alchemy Press. He spent many years living in Australia, but now lives in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire with his wife and two daughters.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about The Hollow Tree:
WHO DANCED WITH MARY BEFORE SHE DIED?
After her hand is amputated following a tragic accident, Rachel Cooper suffers vivid nightmares of a woman imprisoned in the trunk of a hollow tree, screaming for help. When she begins to experience phantom sensations of leaves and earth with her lost hand, Rachel is terrified she is going mad... but then another hand takes hers, and the trapped woman is pulled into our world. She has no idea who she is, but Rachel can’t help but think of the mystery of Oak Mary, a female corpse found in a hollow tree, and who was never identified. Three urban legends have grown up around the case; was Mary a Nazi spy, a prostitute or a gypsy witch? Rachel is desperate to learn the truth, but darker forces are at work. For a rule has been broken, and Mary is in a world where she doesn’t belong...
A REVIEW OF JAMES BROGDEN'S THE HOLLOW TREE
Read more: A review of James Brogden's The Hollow Tree
An interview with Jamex Maxwell
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Interviews
Risingshadow has had the honour of interviewing the fantasy author James Maxwell.
This interview is part of the Iron Will Blog Tour.
About the author:
James Maxwell is the bestselling author of The Evermen Saga and The Shifting Tides series, and has previously ranked in the top 5 bestselling authors on Amazon worldwide. The final book in The Shifting Tides series, Iron Will, is out now in paperback with 47North, Amazon Publishing. Find out more about James and his books here.
About Iron Will:
The epic conclusion to James Maxwell’s gripping fantasy series.
The world is facing a war to end all wars, a confrontation that will destroy everything Dion and Chloe hold dear. With Palemon’s dragon army growing in number, time is running out...
Dion is doing everything in his power to prepare his kingdom, but he knows it will not be enough. Although he needs Chloe’s help, recent tragedy makes him terrified for her safety. Magic is dangerous. Only Palemon is too arrogant to see it.
As chaos engulfs the land and Palemon risks civilization itself, Dion and Chloe must unite people of all nations to have any chance of survival.
AN INTERVIEW WITH JAMES MAXWELL
Read more: An interview with Jamex Maxwell
GUEST POST: You Spilled Your Weird Stuff In My Spy Stuff: Speculative Espionage Writing by S. L. Lahna
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Guest Post
Risingshadow has the honour of publishing a guest post by S. L. Lahna.
About S. L. Lahna:
S. L. Lahna goes by they pronouns and knows way too much about Weird Things and Cold War history. Will tell you all of the reasons why James Bond is Wrong. They are hard at work on various novels for teens and adults. Some are about asexual magicians and their demonic mentors, some are about mentally-ill monster hunters, some are about pansexual teenage boys trying to survive a horror movie. Their day job is tearing apart books for money as a freelance editor at Word Vagabond. The Bulletproof Spy series is their debut novella.
About The Bulletproof Spy #1: The Silver Bullet Affair:
The year is 1965, and Alan Gable is the best spy America doesn’t know they have. Operating off books and outside the law, Alan has been tasked to do the impossible - get inside a laboratory in Moscow, get the Russian’s lead nuclear scientist, and get out, all without the KGB ever knowing he was there. No human could do it.
But Alan isn’t human.
Yulian’s life is perfect. A top counter-intelligence agent for the KGB, favored by the head of Section 1. His best friend is happily awaiting his first child. His indiscretions have remained discreet.
Until Dr. Tamm and his entire lab goes missing, and Yulian’s life starts to unravel.
The only way to survive long enough to get the bottom of the mystery is for Alan and Yulian to work together. If they can survive each other that is.
A madcap mashup of Hellboy and The Man From Uncle, the Silver Bullet Affair is a winning combination of espionage and the supernatural, an action-packed novella from start to finish lead by LGBT characters. Fans of the genre who’ve grown weary of the same old James Bond song and dance will find a new series to love with the Bulletproof Spy.
Links:
GUEST POST: You Spilled Your Weird Stuff In My Spy Stuff: Speculative Espionage Writing by S. L. Lahna