Risingshadow: March 2019 Edition

Risingshadow has the honour of hosting an exclusive excerpt from Fleet of Knives by Gareth L. Powell. This blog post is part of The Fleet of Knives Blog Tour. Fleet of Knives was published by Titan Books in February 2019. About the author: Gareth is the author of five science-fiction novels and two short story collections. His third novel, Ack-Ack Macaque, book one in the Macaque Trilogy, was the winner of the 2013 BSFA novel award. He lives in Bristol, UK. Find him on Twitter @garethlpowell. Click here to visit his official website. AN EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT FROM FLEET OF KNIVES BY GARETH L. POWELL [read more]

Ian Kappos' Crossfaded in Narnia was published by Eibonvale Press in April 2018. Information about Ian Kappos: Ian Kappos was born and raised in Northern California but currently lives in Los Angeles where he is an MFA candidate at CalArts. His writing has appeared in numerous places and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His first chapbook collection of fiction, Crossfaded in Narnia is his first chapbook collection. In addition to writing, he co-edits Milkfist, is an editorial ... [read more]

Brendan Connell's The Rimini-Ferrara Line was published by Eibonvale Press in April 2018. Information about Brendan Connell: Brendan Connell was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1970. His works of fiction include Unpleasant Tales (Eibonvale Press, 2013), The Architect (PS Publishing, 2012), Lives of Notorious Cooks (Chômu Press, 2012), Miss Homicide Plays the Flute (Eibonvale Press, 2013), Cannibals of West Papua (Zagava, 2015), and Clark (Snuggly Books, 2016). Click here to visit his ... [read more]

Tom Johnstone's How I Learned The Truth About Krampus was published by Eibonvale Press in December 2017. Information about Tom Johnstone: Tom Johnstone writes horror stories. He is the co-editor of Horror Uncut: Tales of Social Insecurity and Economic Unease (co-edited with Joel Lane). Click here to visit his official website. Information about How I Learned The Truth About Krampus: Krampus is a horned, anthropomorphic figure of legend with a classic half-goat half-demonic ... [read more]

D. F. Lewis' The Big-Headed People and Other Stories was published by Eibonvale Press in December 2017. Information about D. F. Lewis: The Three Ages of D. F. Lewis (1948 - ) 1. 1986-2000 – Over 1000 fiction publications in magazines and anthologies, culminating in the Prime Books Weirdmonger collection. 2. 2001-2010 – Publishing Nemonymous journal of fiction. 3. 2008 to date – Gestalt real-time reviews. (Plus one novel entitled Nemonymous Night, a collection, four novellas that ... [read more]

Damian Murphy's Daughters of Apostasy was published by Snuggly Books in September 2017. Information about Damian Murphy: Damian Murphy is the author of The Academy Outside of Ingolstadt, Seduction of the Golden Pheasant, and The Exaltation of the Minotaur, among other collections and novellas. His work has been published on the Mount Abraxas, Les Éditions de L’Oubli, and L’Homme Récent imprints of Ex Occidente Press, in Bucharest, and by Zagava Books, in Dusseldorf. He was born and ... [read more]

Risingshadow has the honour of publishing a guest post by the debut author Sarah Chorn. About Sarah Chorn: Sarah has been a compulsive reader her whole life. At a young age, she found her reading niche in the fantastic genre of Speculative Fiction. She blames her active imagination for the hobbies that threaten to consume her life. She is a writer and editor, a semi-pro nature photographer, world traveler, three-time cancer survivor, and mom. In her ideal world, she’d do nothing but drink ... [read more]

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, ... [read more]

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 ... [read more]

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, ... [read more]

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 ... [read more]

(Path to Ascendancy #3)

The incessant war between the bickering city states of Quon Tali rages. So engrossed are the warring lords and princes in their own petty feuds that few notice that an upstart mage from Dal Hon has gained control of the southern seas. But some powers are alarmed And in the meantime, as Purge and Tali indulge in what seems like a their never-ending game of war, a mercenary caught up in the fight between the two states suddenly refuses to play along and causes all sorts of chaos. Simultaneously, ... [read more]

FantasyEpic FantasyHigh Fantasy

(The Witchlands #3)

Loyalties will be tested as never before. The Raider King’s plans to claim the Witchlands are underway. Now, his forces sow terror in the mountains, slaughtering innocents. After finding the slain, Aeduan and Iseult race for safety. And despite diverging goals, they’ve grown to trust one another in the fight to survive. Yet the Bloodwitch keeps a secret that could change everything... When Merik sacrifices himself to save his friends, he is captured by the Fury. However, Merik isn’t ... [read more]

FantasyYoung AdultEpic FantasyHigh Fantasy

(Embers of War #2)

From award-winning author Gareth L. Powell, the second book in the critically acclaimed Embers of War space opera series. The former warship Trouble Dog and her crew of misfits is called upon by the House of Reclamation to investigate a distress call from the human starship the Lucy's Ghost. Her crew abandon their crippled ship and seek refuge abroad an abandoned, slower-than-light generation ship launched ten thousand years before by an alien race. However, the enormous ship contains deadly ... [read more]

Science FictionSpace Opera

Locus Award nominee 2020, World Fantasy Award nominee 2020. Gods meddle in the fates of men, men play with the fates of gods, and a pretender must be cast down from the throne in this breathtaking first fantasy novel from Ann Leckie, New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. For centuries, the kingdom of Iraden has been protected by the god known as the Raven. He watches over his territory from atop a tower in the powerful port of ... [read more]

FantasyEpic FantasyHigh Fantasy

(Wicked Knights)

A novella. Erie isn’t having a great week. Her time of freedom is up, and the Templar Knight who comes to claim her is an overgrown, broody, alpha a-hole who kisses like sin, and is determined to have her. What’s a girl to do other than teach him that she cannot be owned by him or his kind? Callaghan will stop at nothing to save his race. Bound by the Templar Code, he has stood as protector of humanity; a witness to the countless wars that forged the world. Too much depends on his ... [read more]

FantasyRomanceParanormal Romance

(The Dark Star Trilogy #1)

Locus Award 2020. The epic novel from Marlon James, the Man Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings: an African Game of Thrones. In the stunning first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child. Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years ... [read more]

FantasyEpic FantasyHigh FantasyLocus Award

“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 ... [read more]

HorrorWeird Fiction

(The Roots of Chaos #1)

From the bestselling author of The Bone Season, an epic high fantasy about a world on the brink of war with dragons — and the secret society tasked with stopping it. A world divided.A queendom without an heir.An ancient enemy awakens. The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to ensure the continuation of her bloodline. But as she clings to her independence, assassins are getting closer to her door. Ead ... [read more]

FantasyEpic FantasyHigh Fantasy

Award-winning author Sylvain Neuvel explores an immigration dystopia in The Test Britain, the not-too-distant future.Idir is sitting the British Citizenship Test.He wants his family to belong. Twenty-five questions to determine their fate. Twenty-five chances to impress.When the test takes an unexpected and tragic turn, Idir is handed the power of life and death.How do you value a life when all you have is multiple choice? [read more]

Science FictionDystopia

Locus Award 2020. *The Verge's Science Fiction and Fantasy Book We're Looking Forward to in 2019*AV Club's 15 Most Anticipated Books of 2019*Book Riot's Most Anticipated Books of 2019*Kirkus' 30 Speculative Fiction Books You Should Read in February 2019*Bookish's Winter's Must-Read Sci-fi & Fantasy*Bookbub's Best Science Fiction Books Coming Out in 2019*YA Books Central's Buzzworty Books of 2019 “This generation’s Le Guin.” — Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author ... [read more]

Science FictionLocus Award

A novella. Fix the past. Save the present. Stop the future. Master of science fiction Alastair Reynolds unfolds a time-traveling climate fiction adventure in Permafrost. 2080: at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers and physicians gather to gamble humanity's future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the ... [read more]

Science FictionNovellaTime Travel

(The Expanse #8)

The eighth novel in James S. A. Corey's New York Times bestselling Expanse series - now a major television series. Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper. In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed, ... [read more]

Science FictionSpace Opera

(Noobtown #1)

It could be worse. You could be stuck with a literal shoulder demon. After dying and being reborn into a world that's built like a video game, Jim has found himself stuck in a very old world style new player zone for low level adventurers. Unfortunately, the zone fell out of use centuries ago, and no one told the monsters they were supposed to take it easy on the Noobs. Even worse, the only new player around is Jim. Jim has been given an opportunity, and he'll do his best to take advantage of it. [read more]

FantasyLitRPGHumor

(The Keepers #1)

When magic returns to the world, one man must lay aside his words of peace and take up the sword to defend humanity in the first book of this bold new trilogy by USA Todaybestselling author David Dalglish. Devin Eveson is a Soulkeeper, traveling through remote villages as a preacher and healer. But when a mysterious black water washes over the world, the veil is torn, flooding the land with ancient magic and forgotten races: fire that dances as if alive, corpses that walk, and creatures that ... [read more]

FantasyEpic FantasyHigh Fantasy

Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award Gritty and unflinching, yet also tender, fantastical, and funny, a trans woman’s tale about finding a community on the margins. In Sarmiento Park, the green heart of Córdoba, a group of trans sex workers make their nightly rounds. When a cry comes from the dark, their leader, the 178-year-old Auntie Encarna, wades into the brambles to investigate and discovers a baby half dead from the cold. She quickly rallies the pack to save him, and they adopt ... [read more]

TranslationMagical RealismSurrealism

(White Space #1)

A space salvager and her partner make the discovery of a lifetime that just might change the universe in this wild, big-ideas space opera from multi award-winning author Elizabeth Bear. Halmey Dz and her partner Connla Kurucz are salvage operators, living just on the inside of the law... usually. Theirs is the perilous and marginal existence — with barely enough chance of striking it fantastically big — just once — to keep them coming back for more. They pilot their tiny ship into the ... [read more]

Science FictionSpace Opera

(The Sunsurge Quartet #3)

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 ... [read more]

FantasyEpic FantasyHigh Fantasy

(The Harbinger Series #4)

Friendship is strained to its breaking point in Wall Street Journal bestselling author Jeff Wheeler’s fourth Harbinger novel. When the emperor is assassinated, Sera Fitzempress is the noble most eligible to inherit the empire. Her upcoming marriage to the prince would cement her position. And as a champion for peace, Sera is the only promise of hope for staving off war between the worlds of Kingfountain and Muirwood. But standing between her and her enemies is just one devastating ... [read more]

FantasyEpic FantasyHigh Fantasy

(World of the Others #2)

In this powerful and exciting fantasy set in the world of the New York Times bestselling Others series, humans and the shape-shifting Others will see whether they can live side by side... without destroying one another. There are ghost towns in the world — places where the humans were annihilated in retaliation for the slaughter of the shape-shifting Others. One of those places is Bennett, a town at the northern end of the Elder Hills — a town surrounded by the wild country. Now ... [read more]

FantasyUrban Fantasy

Is it better to live a lie of perfection when the truth is too ugly to survive? Meg wants a normal life. Her new artistic style, born in the depression of her mother’s death, is poised to take the art world by storm, if she could just overcome the debilitating anxiety caused by the car accident that scarred her boyfriend, Austin. Encouraged by her therapist, Meg pushes outside her comfort zone to befriend Haley, a guest instructor at the university where Meg teaches. Haley is everything Meg ... [read more]

ThrillerHorror