The magic has come back to the Plains. The Warrior Priests are no more. The traditions are changing — too quickly for some.
Joden has only ever wanted to be a Singer, to know all of the songs. When the time comes for his Trials, he is challenged to take the old paths — and it ends in disaster. But his broken heart and broken body are found by Amyu... and she knows what it is to live with pain.
Amyu should have gone to the snows long ago, but instead chose to live in shame. Cast out of her tribe, she now serves Queen Xylara and the Kingdom of Xy. Her new mission is to find the key to defeating the wyverns who attack from the sky — but can a girl from the Plains control beasts who soar in the air?
She knows that Joden has been brought to her by the winds, and they do what they will. Their love is forbidden by the Plains, and their dreams pull them in different directions — but together they heal each other. If only they could heal their people, who are struggling with the ultimate goal:
Who will be WarKing?
Read more: Warsong - Elizabeth Vaughan
A review of Ian C. Esslemont's Deadhouse Landing
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Ian C. Esslemont's Deadhouse Landing will be published by Penguin Random House (Bantam Press) in the UK in November 2017.
Information about Ian C. Esslemont:
Ian C. Esslemont was born in Brandon, Manitoba, but grew up in Winnipeg. He has studied archaeology and creative writing, has traveled extensively in southeast Asia, and lived in Thailand and Japan for several years. He now lives in Alaska with his wife and children and is currently working on another novel set in the world of Malaz, a world he co-created with Steven Erikson.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about Deadhouse Landing:
Returning readers to the turbulent early history of what would become the Malazan Empire, the second chapter in Ian C. Esslemont's thrilling new epic fantasy sequence...
After the disappointments of Li Heng, Dancer and Kellanved wash up on a small insignificant island named Malaz. Immediately, of course, Kellanved plans to take it over. To do so they join forces with a small band of Napans who have fled a civil war on their own home island. The plan, however, soon goes awry as Kellanved develops a strange and dangerous fascination for a mysterious ancient structure found on the island.
The chaos in the region extends to the metaphysical planes also as a young priest of D'rek starts to question the rot at the heart of the worship of the god of decay. And back in Li Heng, Dassem, now the proclaimed Sword of Hood, finds himself being blamed for a plague which leads him to a crisis of faith - and searching for answers.
During all this, war with the neighbouring island of Nap threatens, recruited allies wonder at Kellanved’s sanity, and powerful entities take more of an interest in the little mage from Dal Hon. Dancer faces a hard choice: should he give up on his partnership? Especially when the fellow’s obsession with shadows and ancient artefacts brings the both of them alarmingly close to death and destruction.
After all, who in his right mind would actually wish to enter an Elder mystery known to everyone as the 'Deadhouse'?
A REVIEW OF IAN C. ESSLEMONT'S DEADHOUSE LANDING
Read more: A review of Ian C. Esslemont's Deadhouse Landing
A review of Tarn Richardson's The Risen
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Tarn Richardson's The Risen was published in May 2017.
Information about Tarn Richardson:
Tarn Richardson is the author of The Darkest Hand trilogy, published by Duckworth Overlook in Europe and Australia, and Overlook Press in the US and Canada.
Consisting of The Hunted (free prequel novella), The Damned (2015), The Fallen (2016) and The Risen (2017), The Darkest Hand trilogy unleashes the flawed but brilliant Inquisitor Poldek Tacit upon a Europe engulfed by the First World War. The Damned was one of the book depository's 'Books of 2015'.
Having grown up in Somerset, he now lives in Salisbury with his wife, the portraiture artist Caroline Richardson.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about The Risen:
1917. As war and revolution consume the world, the End Times have arrived. With the apocalypse imminent, the world needs a hero to push back this tide of darkness and save all from the return of the Antichrist. But where is Poldek Tacit, the only Inquisitor able to compete against such daunting odds? Old allies unite in a desperate race to unmask and stop the Antichrist before he can assume dominion over all lands and nations, while the Darkest Hand squeezes any remaining hope from those who wish to find an end to the war which has already claimed countless lives. The final chapter in The Darkest Hand trilogy serves up a fitting, fast-paced and action-packed finale to this epic work of dark fiction, where long-buried secrets within the vaults of the Vatican are unveiled and mankind's hopes of redemption from the forces of evil hang by a single, precarious thread.
A REVIEW OF TARN RICHARDSON'S THE RISEN
Read more: A review of Tarn Richardson's The Risen
A review of Nightscript: Volume III (edited by C.M. Muller)
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Nightscript: Volume III (edited by C.M. Muller) was published in September/October 2017.
Information about C.M. Muller:
C.M. Muller lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with his wife and two sons - and, of course, all those quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore. He is related to the Norwegian writer Jonas Lie and draws much inspiration from that scrivener of old. His tales have appeared in Shadows & Tall Trees, Supernatural Tales, and Weirdbook.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about Nightscript: Volume III:
An annual anthology of strange and darksome tales by twenty-three of the finest contemporary scribes. Simon Strantzas, Rowley Amato, Malcolm Devlin, M.K. Anderson, Charles Wilkinson, Daniel Braum, Christi Nogle, David Peak, Clint Smith, Amar Benchikha, Cory Cone, Inna Effress, Christian Riley, Adam Golaski, Jessica Phelps, Stephen J. Clark, Armel Dagorn, James Everington, Rebecca J. Allred, John Howard, David Surface, Julia Rust, M.R. Cosby.
A REVIEW OF NIGHTSCRIPT: VOLUME III (EDITED BY C.M. MULLER)
Read more: A review of Nightscript: Volume III (edited by C.M. Muller)
GUEST POST: What's Your Process? by Christopher Charman
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Guest Post
Risingshadow has the honour of publishing a guest post by Christopher Charman.
About Christopher Charman:
When he isn’t selling houses as a real estate broker or playing jazz, Christopher Charman is writing. His undergraduate degree in Egyptian Archeology from UC Berkeley led inevitably to a 20+ year career in technical support and information technology, but Chris returned to a state of grace and sanity by completing his MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University in 2013. He has black belts in two Japanese martial arts and is a founding practitioner of Nanatokan Aikijujutsu. Chris lives in Santa Cruz with his partner, two sons and dog, who is extremely expressive but unfortunately does not use words. Alex and Dog Go Hunting is his first published novel.
Website: http://www.ChristopherCharman.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realChristopherCharman/
About Alex & Dog Go Hunting:
Alex doesn't have much to her name despite her knack for thieving and her passionate love of Veronica. When Alex is arrested and her relationship with Veronica shattered, she has only one way to clear her name and avoid life in prison.
Years later, and now an asset of the US government, Alex has been transformed into a Special Ops assassin, and she has the engineered genes to prove it. Fighting her way through every blacklisted mission possible, and loving every minute of it, it isn't until she's de-listed and on the streets that she meets David, a genetic whiz, who suspects there's a flaw hidden in her new and improved DNA - a flaw that may prove fatal.
Forging an uncanny relationship with Dog, a canine with incredible abilities, Alex learns that there are more dark rooms filled with government conspiracies than even she knew existed. As they dodge a desperate military, Alex realizes she'll have to face one of her worst battles yet: one of the heart.
Alex and Dog Go Hunting joins the ranks of such female-kicking-butt offerings as La Femme Nikita, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Wanted and adds a bit of Alias and Aeon Flux. It's Christopher Charman's debut novel.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Alex-Dog-Hunting-Christopher-Charman/dp/1945528036/
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/alex-and-dog-go-hunting-christopher-charman/1124895374?ean=9781945528033
GUEST POST: What's Your Process? by Christopher Charman
Read more: GUEST POST: What's Your Process? by Christopher Charman
A review of Simon Avery's The Teardrop Method
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Simon Avery's The Teardrop Method was published by TTA Press in September 2017.
Information about Simon Avery:
Born in 1971, Simon Avery lives and works in Birmingham.
Over the last twenty-two years he has been published in a variety of magazines and anthologies including Black Static, Crimewave, The Best British Mysteries IV, Beneath the Ground, Birmingham Noir, Terror Tales of Yorkshire and Something Remains.
He has been nominated for the Crime Writers Association Dagger award and the British Fantasy Award.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about The Teardrop Method:
Krisztina heard the song and she followed it across the city...
Winter in Budapest. In the midst of a terrible personal tragedy, singer/songwriter Krisztina Ligetti discovers she can hear songs of mortality. She spends her days following these songs until they lead her to people at the precipice of death. From the fading bars of their final breath, Krisztina takes the story of their lives and turns them into music.
When Krisztina is reunited with her father, a reclusive 60s pop star, she believes that she has finally found a way out of the darkness, but then she begins to receive news clippings detailing each of the deaths she has been witness to. A man in a porcelain mask who seems to be everywhere she looks and a faded writer who shares Krisztina's gift seem to know her, know that the past has a hold on them all, and that it won't stop until someone has paid the price.
A REVIEW OF SIMON AVERY'S THE TEARDROP METHOD
Read more: A review of Simon Avery's The Teardrop Method