Summer is gone, and the world is turning to ice.
The Rondian Empress Lyra has lost her husband, her army is defeated and the deadly Masked Cabal have seized the Holy City. Her allies have abandoned her and her empire is spiralling into chaos - and her only weapon is a forbidden magic she dare not use. She can't survive alone - but who can she still trust?
'Vibrant, memorable characters' - SciFi Now
The Eastern conqueror Sultan Rashid is victorious on the battlefield, but now he faces an enemy more deadly than Rondian knights: the winter. Unless he captures a major city to shelter his huge armies, his plans to overthrow the West face ruin in the snow. But standing between his men and safety is the remnants of a defeated army led by a general who knows all about fighting for survival.
'An epic journey of ordinary people destined to change the course of history... alluring... gripping' - BoHoMind.com
There are no easy options left. Lyra and her fellow dwymancers must master their deadly magic, whatever the cost. Even those who believe themselves to be fighting for good must grasp the reins of power with cold-hearted determination, and use even the most terrible weapon, if they are to stop the world from falling apart... for ever.
Read more: Hearts of Ice - David Hair
Review: How Many Times? by Rhys Hughes
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Rhys Hughes' How Many Times? was published by Eibonvale Press in March 2018.
Information about Rhys Hughes:
Rhys Hughes was born in 1966. Tartarus Press published his first collection, Worming the Harpy, in 1995, and since that time he has published more than thirty other books. His fiction is generally fantastical and his output mainly consists of short stories, though he has published several novels. His work is frequently compared to that of Boris Vian, Flann O'Brien and R.A. Lafferty, but he cites his major influences as Italo Calvino and Donald Barthelme. His three most recent books are the collections Bone Idle in the Charnel House (Hippocampus Press), Orpheus on the Underground (Tartarus Press) and Brutal Pantomimes (Egaeus Press). Fascinated by paradoxes, he incorporates them into his fiction as entertainingly as he can. Sangria in the Sangraal was inspired by a real visit to the town of Albarracín in the year 2007.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about How Many Times?:
Rhys Hughes has never been a stranger to experimental fiction and unusual ways of constructing stories, and this mini-collection gathers some of his most far-reaching examples, placed squarely in the world of OuLiPo writing. Short for Ouvroir de littérature potentielle or the workshop of potential literature, OuLiPo is a grouping of authors who fashion works based on constrained writing techniques - writing that follows rigorous and extremely precise rules concerning structure and layout etc. And here, we encounter works based on rigid numerical constraints, works in the form of grids that can be read in any direction, and a "logico-erotic tale in which the permutations of the sexual acts are based on the workings of logic gates."
The intricacy of construction within these carefully defined restraints is stunning but the resulting literary world is still very much the author’s own, filled with his characteristic sense of humour, the absurd and the fantastical.
This is a slim but large-format book to give space for all the complex layouts, grids, structures etc. that make up these stories.
REVIEW: HOW MANY TIMES? BY RHYS HUGHES
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Review: James Clyde and the Tomb of Salvation by Colm McElwain
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Colm McElwain's James Clyde and the Tomb of Salvation was published in November 2018.
Information about Colm McElwain:
Colm was raised and educated in Monaghan, Ireland. He is a Physical Education and Business teacher and likes reading books, watching films and playing sport. He has always loved storytelling, whether through literature or film. James Clyde and the Diamonds of Orchestra is his first novel and brings a very fulfilling creative experience spanning a number of years to an end. James Clyde and the Tomb of Salvation is his second novel.
Information about James Clyde and the Tomb of Salvation:
Picking up shortly after the events of the first adventure, James Clyde returns with his best friends Ben and Mary Forester to his grandfather’s house in search of a map that will lead them to the Tomb of Salvation – an ancient shrine, where the three diamonds of Orchestra must be returned with the promise of immortality.
James and his company of adventurers journey through treacherous lands fraught with danger and meet many obstacles along the way – dangerous assassins on board a train, the dastardly Gilbert, also known as the ‘man in black’, and even an unlikely encounter with a fabled lake monster.
If they reach the Tomb of Salvation, James knows they will then face their greatest threat, for the tomb is said to be home to a terrifying demon – an entity that has shown no mercy to anyone who has ever entered its lair.
The second novel in the James Clyde series will lead you on an action-packed adventure full of mystery, suspense, danger, hope – and, yes, salvation.
REVIEW: JAMES CLYDE AND THE TOMB OF SALVATION BY COLM MCELWAIN
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Review: Mothlight by Adam Scovell
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Adam Scovell's Mothlight will be published in February 2019 by Influx Press.
Information about Adam Scovell:
Adam Scovell is a writer and filmmaker from Merseyside now based in London. His writing has featured in The Times, BFI, Sight & Sound, Little White Lies and The Quietus. He runs the website, Celluloid Wicker Man, and his film work has been screened at a variety of festivals and events. In 2015, he worked with Robert Macfarlane on an adaptation of his Sunday Times best-seller, Holloway, and has worked on films alongside Stanley Donwood, Iain Sinclair and BAFTA-nominated director, Paul Wright. His first book, Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange, was published by Auteur in 2017 and he is currently in the final stages of completing his PhD at Goldsmiths University.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about Mothlight:
“The idea was lost but the memory was here.”
Phyllis Ewans, a prominent researcher in Lepidoptera and a keen walker, has died of old age. Thomas, a much younger fellow researcher of moths first met Phyllis when he was a child. He became her carer and companion, having rekindled her acquaintance in later life.
Increasingly possessed by thoughts that he somehow actually is Phyllis Ewans, and unable to rid himself of the feeling that she is haunting him, Thomas must discover her secrets through her many possessions and photographs, before he is lost permanently in a labyrinth of memories long past.
Steeped in dusty melancholy and analogue shadows, Mothlight is an uncanny story of grief, memory and the price of obsession.
REVIEW: MOTHLIGHT BY ADAM SCOVELL
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Review: The Forked Path by T.R. Thompson
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
T.R. Thompson's The Forked Path was published by Odyssey Books November in 2018.
Information about T.R. Thompson:
Tom is an Australian speculative fiction writer. He lives in Belgrave on the outskirts of Melbourne with his wife and two young sons.
When not writing or reading he spends too much time gaming and taking long meandering walks through the forest that always seem to end up at a tavern.
The Forked Path is his second novel. It's a sequel to The Blood Within the Stone.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about The Forked Path:
“The roots that sink the deepest
The forked path of the mind
The soul that splits is weakest
Future and past entwined”
Despite the victory over Cantor Cortis and the Nine Sisters of Redmondis, the dark power still spreads, nightmare creatures wiping out villages all along the southern edge of the Tangle, causing a stream of refugees to flow into the capital of Sontair in the hope of finding some protection.
All who helped overthrow the Nine Sisters of Redmondis have been touched by what they experienced and those they lost. Dark visions sap Petron and Daemi's strength even as they try to heal the rifts within Redmondis and forge a new path for the wielders, crafters and guards who make up its three main schools.
Wilt has entered the wild forest called the Tangle, searching out the source of the power that calls to him. Visions of the past seen through other eyes haunt his days, and he finds it harder and harder to resist the pull of his wraith form.
The Guardian is old and weak, and the Tangle is no longer secure...
REVIEW: THE FORKED PATH BY T.R. THOMPSON
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Toni Cox - The Elemental Short Stories Cover Reveal
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Others
Hi, I’m Toni Cox, author of the Elemental Trilogy and, after recently successfully re-releasing my trilogy with new covers, I have now done the same with my short stories and you are some of the first people to lay your eyes on them. Here they are:
Read more: Toni Cox - The Elemental Short Stories Cover Reveal