The universe is filled with secrets and lies. Who can be trusted?
Thayen, Astra, and their fellow Shadians are still trapped in the alternate Shade where, aided by an uneasy alliance with Brandon and Myst, they continue their treacherous search for the rest of their missing friends and the truth behind HQ’s sinister plot.
Back home in the real Shade, Sofia and Derek work with the rest of the team to search for any possible clues related to Isabelle’s clone. What they find opens up a whole new world of questions and raises the stakes even higher for getting Thayen’s group home safely.
Meanwhile, Unending is still reeling from Anunit’s latest revelation and struggling with a deep anger that comes both from within herself and from a mysterious outside source. She and Tristan must work together to face their greatest challenge yet – uncovering Death’s oldest lie and exposing her darkest secrets in the process. But if completing this final task could put others at risk, they may be forced to choose between their own dreams and the greater good.
When light shines in the darkness, all will be revealed.
Read more: A Ruler of Clones - Bella Forrest
An interview with Weiqi Wang
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Interviews
Risingshadow has had an opportunity to interview Weiqi Wang.
About the author:
While people may think 'magic fantasy authors' are the opposite of 'scientists', Weiqi Wang preserves his own opinions. As a D. Phil (Doctor of Philosophy, but it actually means a scientific doctor) on bioengineering graduated from Oxford University, Weiqi loves to be both. After all, philosophy is to explain the world; some choose to use scientific languages, some put it also in fantasy.
His latest novel is Legends of Azure and the Masked Planet.
Click here to visit his official website.
About Legends of Azure and the Masked Planet:
Due to a shocking discovery, Soarame now has to undertake a new dangerous journey with his friends. He must cross the largest, most deadly ocean in the world. Battling more powerful, evil wizards, he was forced to escape underwater, and stay in the bottom of the ocean for weeks. But how could a teenage boy survive underwater, especially that there were lethal creatures down there? And what further perils are waiting for him, if he really survives?
AN INTERVIEW WITH WEIQI WANG
Read more: An interview with Weiqi Wang
Review: Wonderland (edited by Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane)
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Wonderland: An Anthology of Works Inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (edited by Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane) was published by Titan Books in September 2019.
About the editors:
Marie O’Regan is a British Fantasy Award-nominated writer and editor of horror and dark fantasy fiction. Her anthologies include Mirror Mere, Hellbound Hearts, The Mammoth Book of Body Horror, Carnivale: Dark Tales From the Fairground and The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women. She is Co-Chair of the UK chapter of the Horror Writers’ Association and lives in Derbyshire, UK.
Click here to visit her official website.
Paul Kane is the award-winning author of over 70 books, including Alone (In the Dark), Touching the Flame, FunnyBones, Signs of Life, The Lazarus Condition, Peripheral Visions, The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy, RED, Of Darkness and Light, The Gemini Factor and the bestselling Arrowhead trilogy of novels (Arrowhead, Broken Arrow and Arrowland). He is a respected anthologist, editing collections such as Beyond Rue Morgue, Hell-Bound Hearts and Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell.
Click here to visit his official website.
About Wonderland:
Join Alice as she is thrown into the whirlwind of Wonderland
Within these pages you’ll find myriad approaches to Alice, from horror to historical, taking us from the nightmarish reaches of the imagination to tales that will shock, surprise and tug on the heart-strings. So, it’s time now to go down the rabbit hole, or through the looking-glass or... But no, wait. By picking up this book and starting to read it you’re already there, can’t you see?
Brand-new works from the best in fantastical fiction
M.R. CAREY
MARK CHADBOURN
GENEVIEVE COGMAN
JONATHAN GREEN
ALISON LITTLEWOOD
JAMES LOVEGROVE
L.L. McKINNEY
GEORGE MANN
JULIET MARILLIER
LAURA MAURO
CAT RAMBO
LILITH SAINTCROW
CAVAN SCOTT
ROBERT SHEARMAN
ANGELA SLATTER
CATRIONA WARD
JANE YOLEN
RIO YOUERS
REVIEW: WONDERLAND: AN ANTHOLOGY OF WORKS INSPIRED BY ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND (EDITED BY MARIE O'REGAN AND PAUL KANE)
Read more: Review: Wonderland (edited by Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane)
Review: Dragon Blood by Bruce Woods
- Written by Seregil of Rhiminee
- Category: Reviews
Bruce Woods' Dragon Blood was published by Penmore Press in July 2019.
Information about Bruce Woods:
History with a Bite - Bruce Woods is a professional writer/editor with more than 30 years in magazine publishing, having worked as editor of Mother Earth News and Alaska Magazine, among others, and has published both nonfiction and poetry books. Prairie Schooner magazine featured his work in its “Writing from Alaska” issue. His Birdhouse Book, brought out by Sterling/Lark, is still in print and has sold more than 100,000 copies.
After leaving the editor’s position at Alaska Magazine in late 1998, Woods began a second career in External Affairs for the Alaska Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Eventually serving as the de facto writer/editor for the agency’s largest region, as well as providing information and an initial contact point for state, national, and international media on topics affecting Alaska’s often controversial wildlife and land management issues, Woods retired in the spring of 2013 in order to focus on fiction writing.
In addition to the Birdhouse Book referenced above, Woods has published three nonfiction volumes and several books of poetry with small presses. During his magazine editing career he also served as editor/contributor to numerous nonfiction volumes. Several of his essays have been anthologized, as well.
Woods currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska with his wife Mary and his two cats, Lucy Fur and Boswell. Gardening and bicycling (the latter usually upon a single-speed road bike named “Yellow Snow” that he built from an old track frame bought online) are chief among his many interests outside of reading and writing. He has two children, Ethan, who studied music composition at Bennington College and now resides in Asheville, N.C., and his daughter Alice, who recently graduated from Minneapolis College of Art and Design and currently lives in Minneapolis.
Click here to visit the author's Facebook page.
Guest short stories by the author:
A Personal Bestiary
The Wearing of the Green
Swan Song
Spirited Away
Paulette and the Elephant
Without Sparkles
The Nearest Thing to Flying
Information 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.
REVIEW: DRAGON BLOOD BY BRUCE WOODS
Read more: Review: Dragon Blood by Bruce Woods
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
Read more: Review: The Edge by Tim Lebbon
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
Read more: The Nearest Thing to Flying by Bruce Woods