All you need to know about books at www.booksmonthly.co.uk                                                     Issue 4 July 2008

Coffee table fantasy and Kelley Armstrong's latest share book of the month for June...

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THE LAST REALM: DRAGONSCARPE by Pat McNamara & Michal Dutkiewicz ~ Fiery heroics, doomed love and vengeful betrayal are the cornerstones of the visually rich and cinematically paced, Illustrated Novel series
- THE LAST REALM - an ambitious, epic-fantasy series inspired by Classic Fantasy titans; 'John Carter Warlord of Mars', 'Pern' and the tales of 'Lost Worlds'. Infused with the darkly twisting contemporary sensibilities of Modern Genre Icons; 'Star Wars', 'Babylon 5', & 'Buffy', this is a 'Lord of the Rings' for the new generation! 'DRAGONSCARPE', the first colossal 320 page coffee-table-sized hardback Volume of this groundbreaking epic features more than one hundred pages of stunning, full color art by multi-Award winning Illustrator and Master Pin-Up Artist, MICHAL DUTKIEWICZ (Batman, Wolverine & Lost in Space). Written by rising author PAT MCNAMARA (Co-Creator of The Unknown Soldier), from a story by conceptualist GARY TURNER (Venus League), it is the ‘must-have’ series for the lover of breathtaking art and fantastic storytelling. STORY: The storm of war has engulfed the Realms. Five years suffering the ravages of the hellish Rifts and their brutal spawn, the Rifters, has brought a long peace to the edge of ruin. Thrust into the heart of the turmoil is Zayd Mon Awes, Paladin of the Dragonscarpe. With a doomed love already weighing heavily upon him, Zayd is set the impossible task of training four beautiful Elementalists who could hold the key to winning the war – if they don’t kill each other first. But when betrayal sees Rifters let loose on the once unconquerable Dragonscarpe, the vengeful Outcast Velcca, architect of the turmoil, reveals the truth of the Rifts, and Zayd discovers that the only hope for survival lies in a past deliberately forgotten - beyond the barrier to the terrifying Last Realm... Well, epic fantasy doesn't get much better than this! Oversized, more like an illustrated manuscript than anything else, this is a staggeringly beautiful book with stunning illustrations, but the main thing is, it's also a brilliant story. I can't fault it, except to say that I would find it a drag taking it around to show to other people,it's just a mammoth tome. Fantastic.

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KELLEY ARMSTRONG: THE SUMMONING ~ Chloe Saunders sees dead people. Yes, like in the films. The problem is, in real life saying you see ghosts gets you a one-way ticket to the psych ward. And at 15, all Chloe wants to do is fit in at school and maybe get a boy to notice her. But when a particularly violent ghost haunts her, she gets noticed for all the wrong reasons. Her seemingly crazed behaviour earns her a trip to Lyle House, a centre for 'disturbed teens'. At first Chloe is determined to keep her head down. But then her room mate disappears after confessing she has a poltergeist, and some of the other patients also seem to be manifesting paranormal behaviour. Could that be a coincidence? Or is Lyle House not quite what it seems...? Chloe realises that if she doesn't uncover the truth, she could be destined for a lifetime in a psychiatric hospital. Or could her fate be even worse...? Can she trust her fellow students, and does she dare reveal her dark secret? Kelley Armstrong's fantastic new supernatural series - set in the same world as her bestselling 'Women of the Otherworld' series - is sure to delight fans and new readers. This is possibly the finest fantasy novel dealing with necromancy to come out in the past decade or so, in fact since the whole Buffy/Vampire/Werewolf/other world genre took off. Kelley is a terrific writer, and I shall be catching up with her in the next issue, but for the moment all you need to know is that this is a really riveting read with terrific characters and really scary scenes with skeletons and undead people reminiscent of the finest horror film ever - Poltergeist. Stupendous.

PATRICIA BRIGGS: BLOOD BOUND ~ Like most people who own their own business, I work long hours that start early in the morning. So when someone calls me in the middle of the night, they'd better be dying ...Mechanic Mercy Thompson is woken at 3am by a vampire calling in a favour. He has to deliver a message to a fellow undead and needs a witness that won't be noticed - and Mercy's shapeshifting abilities make her the perfect candidate. But the assignment turns into a bloodbath and Mercy attracts the attention of not just a powerful vampire, but the even more powerful demon possessing him. She can count on the supernatural community for protection - and alpha werewolf Adam would like her to rely on him in other ways too - but when it comes to being proactive, she's on her own. Mercy's back in her second outing, and it's just as entertaining as the first. Brilliant. Demons, vampires, werewolves abound, but there's still plenty of scope for Patricia's unique sense of fun. Outstanding.

NAOMI NOVIK: VICTORY OF EAGLES ~ Naomi Novik’s triumphant debut, His Majesty’s Dragon, introduced a dynamic new pair of heroes to the annals of fantasy fiction: the noble fighting dragon Temeraire and his master and commander, Capt. Will Laurence, who serves Britain’s peerless Aerial Corps in the thick of the raging Napoleonic Wars. Now, in the latest novel of this dazzling series, they soar to new heights of breathtaking action and brilliant imagination. It is a grim time for the dragon Temeraire. On the heels of his mission to Africa, seeking the cure for a deadly contagion, he has been removed from military service–and his captain, Will Laurence, has been condemned to death for treason. For Britain, conditions are grimmer still: Napoleon’s resurgent forces have breached the Channel and successfully invaded English soil. Napoleon’s prime objective: the occupation of London. Separated by their own government and threatened at every turn by Napoleon’s forces, Laurence and Temeraire must struggle to find each other amid the turmoil of war and to aid the resistance against the invasion before Napoleon’s foothold on England’s shores can become a stranglehold. If only they can be reunited, master and dragon might rally Britain’s scattered forces and take the fight to the enemy as never before–for king and country, and for their own liberty. But can the French aggressors be well and truly routed, or will a treacherous alliance deliver Britain into the hands of her would-be conquerors? Not sure if this one's out yet in the UK - my contact at Harper Collins hasn't contacted me lately - it's not listed in their schedules, anyway. You either like this or you don't. I know Peter Jackson is interested in it, and may well already be filming the first book - it just doesn't do it for me, I'm afraid.

STEVEN ERIKSON: TOLL THE HOUNDS ~ In Darujhistan, the saying goes that Love and Death shall arrive together, dancing...It is summer and the heat is oppressive, yet the discomfiture of the small rotund man in the faded red waistcoat is not entirely due to the sun. Dire portents plague his nights and haunt the city's streets like fiends of shadow. Assassins skulk in alleyways but it seems the hunters have become the hunted. Hidden hands pluck the strings of tyranny like a fell chorus. Strangers have arrived, and while the bards sing their tragic tales, somewhere in the distance can be heard the baying of hounds. All is palpably not well. And in Black Coral too, ruled over by Anomander Rake Son of Darkness, something is afoot - memories of ancient crimes surface, clamouring for revenge, so it would seem that Love and Death are indeed about to make their entrance...This is epic fantasy at its most imaginative, storytelling at its most exciting. This is more like it. Erikson has created a totally believable and fascinating world in which his characters play out their dramas. The dialogue is taut and natural, the epic scenery and players are first rate. It's a book to curl up with on a rainy (or sunny) day, and just get immersed in. Fantastic.

DAVID R GEORGE III & HEATHER JARMAN: THESE HAUNTED SEAS ~ Following immediately on from the events of the 2007 Deep Space Nine omnibus Twist of Faith, These Haunted Seas continues the post-TV-series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine saga with two major novels first published in the Mission Gamma DS9 mini-series. Twilight: With the Dominion War behind them, the crew of the USS Defiant journeys through the wormhole as Commander Elias Vaughn blazes new trails into the unexplored reaches of the Gamma Quadrant. Elsewhere, political forces throughout the Alpha Quadrant gather to determine the future of Bajor. And as a father and daughter confront their past, a mother and son are battling for the future. This Gray Spirit: The war-weary Cardassians send a familiar ambassador to station Deep Space 9 on a mission of hope, opening up old wounds and conjuring old ghosts. As tensions on all sides rise, Colonel Kira Nerys discovers that the line dividing friend from foe is narrower than she ever imagined. Meanwhile, the crew of the damaged starship Defiant forges an uneasy alliance with a mysterious alien species, one whose unusual biological makeup is the key to power in that region of the galaxy.As the crew becomes ensnared in a web of deceit, they must also struggle to stave off a genocidal war. Deep Space Nine was always my favourite Star Trek after the original series, and the books don't disappoint. Nerys comes into her own in this enormous epic, originally published as two separate novels. Star Trek doesn't get much better than this.

JO GRAHAM: BLACK SHIPS ~ The World is ending. One by one the mighty cities are falling: to earthquakes, to flood and to raiders - on both land and sea. In a time of war and doubt, Gull is an oracle, a mouthpiece of the gods. Daughter of a slave plundered from fallen Troy, she was chosen as a child to serve the Lady of the Dead, and it is her fate to counsel kings. When nine black ships appear as foretold in her dreams, captained by an exiled Trojan prince, Gull must make her choice. She must decide between her sacred calling and the most perilous adventure - joining her mother's people in their desperate flight from slavery. From the doomed bastions of the City of Pirates to the temples of Byblos, from the intrigues of the Egyptian court to the haunted caves beneath Mount Vesuvius, only Gull can guide Prince Aeneas on his quest. And only she can dare the gates of the Underworld itself to lead him to his destiny. In the last shadowed days of the Age of Bronze, one woman dreams of the world beginning anew. This is her story.

PATRICIA ROSEMOOR & MARC PAOLETTI: THE LAST VAMPIRE ~ Spawned of alchemy and blood, he was the last of a brutal, ancient line. Now he has just been reborn. Deep in a Texas cave, the military unearths a five-hundred-year-old corpse, its desiccated flesh teeming with mysterious DNA that can transform mortals into beings of unimaginable power.  Captain Scott Boulder, leader of a Black Ops unit that has been endowed with these superhuman abilities, is among the first to benefit from the find. But when, with the help of a voodoo priestess, the creature is conjured to life, unleashing an ancient evil bent on reinstating its poisonous kind on earth, Scott knows he must return the monster to the grave. But this is no ordinary vampire. Once a brutal torturer in the Spanish Inquisition, it can bend the laws of science and magic in horrifying new ways. Powerless to fight this evil alone, Scott grudgingly seeks the aid of reclusive anthropologist Leah Maguire, an expert in the mystical rituals of the past. To keep humanity from entering a new Dark Age, Scott and Leah will battle unspeakable horrors and will sacrifice everything they hold dear–perhaps even their own humanity–to destroy the last vampire.

THOMAS NEVINS: THE AGE OF THE CONGLOMERATES ~ Now that they are in power, there are no more checks and balances. The Conglomerates, and their mysterious party chairman, have taken over everything and everyone. There is no one left to stop them.

Forty years in the future, in a world where Big Brother runs amok, a powerful political party known as the Conglomerates has emerged, vowing to enforce economic martial law at any cost. Dr. Christine Salter, director of genetic development at a New York medical center, is in charge of “genetic contouring,” the much-in-demand science of producing the ideal child. But Christine is increasingly troubled by odd events, including the strange disappearance of Gabriel Cruz, a co-worker for whom she has a developing affection, and the fact that her latest assignment–making the Conglomerate chairman more youthful through genetic engineering–is an especially dangerous task.

As mandated by the Family Relief Act, Christine’s grandparents are relocated to a government-designed community in the American Southwest, along with other Coots (the official term given to the elderly), who are considered an economic and social burden to family and society. But even in this cold, cruel age, the Conglomerates can only control so much.

In his enthralling debut, Thomas Nevins thrillingly chronicles a brave new world where one family struggles to survive by keeping alive feelings of mercy, loyalty, and love.

CHARLES STROSS: SATURN'S CHILDREN ~ Freya Nakamachi-47 has some major existential issues. She's the perfect concubine, designed to please her human masters ? hardwired to become aroused at the sight mere of a human male. There's just one problem: she came off the production line a year after the human species went extinct. Whatever else she may be, Freya Nakamachi-47 is gloriously obsolete. But the rigid social hierarchy that has risen in the 200 years since the last human died, places beings such as Freya very near the bottom. So when she has a run-in on Venus with a murderous aristocrat, she needs passage off-world in a hurry ? and can't be too fussy about how she pays her way. If Venus was a frying pan, Mercury is the fire - and soon she's going to be running for her life. Because the job she's taken as a courier has drawn her to the attention of powerful and dangerous people, and they don't just want the package she's carrying. They want her soul ...

HARRY TURTLEDOVE: THE MAN WITH THE IRON HEART ~ What if V-E Day didn’t end World War II in Europe? What if, instead, the Allies had to face a potent, even fanatical, postwar Nazi resistance? Such a movement, based in the fabled Alpine Redoubt, was in fact a real threat, ultimately neutralized by Germany’s flagging resources and squabbling officials. But had SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, the notorious Man with the Iron Heart, not been assassinated in 1942, fate might have taken a different turn. We might likely have seen a German guerrilla war launched against the conquerors, presaging by more than half a century the protracted conflict with an unrelenting enemy that now engulfs the United States and its allies in Iraq. How might today’s clash of troops versus terrorists have played out in 1945?

In this imagined world, Nazi forces resort to unconventional warfare, using the quick and dirty tactics of terrorism–booby traps, time bombs, mortar and rocket strikes in the night, assassinations, even kamikaze-style suicide attacks–to overturn what seemed to be a decisive Allied victory. In November 1945, a truck bomb blows up the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, where high-ranking Nazi officials are about to stand trial for war crimes. None of the accused are there when the bomb goes off, but their judges, all of them present and accounted for, are annihilated. Worse acts of terrorism follow all over Europe.

Suddenly the Allies–especially the United States–must battle an invisible enemy and sacrifice countless lives in a long, seemingly pointless, unwinnable conflict. On the home front, patriotism corrodes, political fortunes are made and lost in the face of an antiwar backlash, and a once-proud country wonders how the righteous fight for freedom overseas has collapsed into a hopeless quagmire. At once a novel of thrilling military suspense, intriguing alternate history, and profound insight into contemporary affairs, The Man with the Iron Heart is a tour de force by a storyteller of exceptional imaginative power.

TERRY BROOKS: THE ELVES OF CINTRA ~ Fifty years from now, our world looks very different. Governments have fallen. Thousands live in fortified strongholds; others roam the landscape as either predator or prey. Standing against the forces that have tipped the balance from good to evil are a very few heroes, men and women imbued with powerful magic and sworn to a high destiny. Logan Tom is one of those heroes. He's on a desperate quest to deliver the street kids he rescued in Seattle to safety. So, too, is Angel Perez, who is leading a second group in the Oregon wilderness where she encounters the long-hidden Elves of Cintra. And Hawk - just learning his magic - has an encounter with the mystical King of the Silver River, who promises safety for both humans and elves - if only they can reach him...

JENNIFER FALLON: WOLFBLADE ~ Marla Wolfblade of Hythria is determined to restore her family's great name, but conspirators surround her: the Sorcerers' Collective, the Patriots - even members of her own family. She must make sure her son Damin lives to be old enough to restore the Wolfblade name to its former glory. Elezaar the Dwarf is a small man with big secrets - but that doesn't matter to Marla Wolfblade. Her brother is the High Prince of Hythria, and, in this fiercely patriarchal society, her fate will be decided on his whim. She needs someone politically astute to guide her through the maze of court politics - and Elezaar knows more than he is willing to admit. As Elezaar teaches Marla the Rules of Gaining and Wielding Power, Marla starts on the road to becoming a tactician and a wily diplomat - but will that be enough to keep her son alive?

MICHAEL FORD: BIRTH OF A WARRIOR ~ Lysander had to leave his roots as a Helot slave far behind him, when he discovered his true identity as the descendant of a Spartan warrior. The training is ruthless and now he faces his toughest challenge. Sent to the mountains with nothing but a goatskin flask, he and two other boys must prove their ability to survive before they can return. Facing starvation, wild animals and the elements, Lysander discovers that his real enemy is in fact one of the other boys, sent to sabotage his trial. From his vantage point in the mountains, Lysander can see another threat on the horizon - the Persians are invading. He must prove his worth as a Spartan and return to the village as soon as possible in order to warn of the attack. But who is Lysander fighting for - to save Spartan honour, or to protect the Helot slaves, whom he used to live among?

MARY HOFFMAN: STRAVAGANZE CITY OF SECRETS ~ Matt is dyslexic and extremely intelligent. When he is unexpectedly transported to the Scriptorium of Padavia (real-life Padua) University, he discovers he is a Stravagante who can travel through time using his talisman, a leather-bound book. Together with Luciano, now studying at the University, and Arianna, in disguise as a boy, he must fight the dangerous di Chimici clan who are on the verge of making a terrifying breakthrough into our world. This is a breathtaking and thrilling novel that will delight all Stravaganza fans.

S D PERRY & BRITTA DENNISON: NIGHT OF THE WOLVES ~ In Book Two, Night of the Wolves, the Cardassians have built an orbital fortress above the planet Bajor in order to consolidate their power -- the station which will one day become Deep Space 9. Now it is Terok Nor, the seat of the occupation; a place of slave labour, harsh justice, underground resistance and organised terrorist violence. One side is fighting for domination; the other for freedom ...and both are fighting for survival. Swept up in the struggle is Kira Nerys, a fiery young Bajoran rebel, who lives for the day her people will throw off the yoke of their Cardassian oppressors...

S D PERRY & BRITTA DENNISON: NIGHT OF THE EAGLES ~ Twenty years after their conquest of Bajor, the Cardassians have tightened their grip on the captive planet; but they have not succeeded in crushing the relentless Bajoran resistance, which is steadily chipping away at the occupiers' hold. As violence escalates across Bajor, the Cardassian military launches one last desperate surge to crush the insurgency once and for all. For Bajoran and Cardassian alike in this seething world of suspicion and retribution, nothing less than survival is at stake. And then one ambivalent key player in the decades-long struggle finally chooses sides, irrevocably altering the destinies of two worlds...

BARBARA ERSKINE: WARRIOR'S PRINCESS ~ The powerful new timeslip novel from the worldwide bestselling author of Lady in Hay, in which the fate of a young woman becomes entwined with the extraordinary history of a Celtic princess. Jess, a young teacher in London, is attacked by someone she fears knows her well. Fleeing to her sister's house in the Welsh borders to recuperate, she is disturbed by the cries of a mysterious child. Two thousand years before, the same valley is the site of a great battle between Caratacus, king of the mighty Catuvellauni tribe, and the invading Romans. The proud king is captured and taken as a prisoner to Rome with his wife and daughter, the princess Eigon. Jess is inexorably drawn to investigate Eigon's story, and as the Welsh cottage is no longer a peaceful sanctuary she determines to visit Rome. There lie the connections that will reveal Eigon's astonishing life - and which threaten to reawaken Jess's own tormentor. Barbara Erskine's ability to weave together the past and the present, shedding light on a real but little-known figure, makes this a tremendous novel of Roman and Celtic history, passion and intrigue.

DEAN KOONTZ: ODD HOURS ~ The latest Odd Thomas thriller from the master storyteller. A mystery in Magic Beach, California has lured Odd to the small town by the ocean -- but is it the call of the deep or the cry of the desperate? Odd Thomas knows more about the mysteries of the universe than the rest of us. He can see the lingering dead. He has learned that there are no coincidences. Even in chaos, there is order, purpose, and strange meaning. Intuition has brought Odd Thomas to the quaint town of Magic Beach on the California coast. In his desert home, Odd once found an ocean filled with love, and lost it. Now, scarred and alone, the only magic he finds by the vast, indifferent Pacific is in the name of the town where he has come to rest. As he waits to learn why he has been drawn to Magic Beach, he has found work as cook and assistant to a once-famous film actor who, at eighty, has become an eccentric with as long a list of fears as he has stories about Hollywood's golden days. Odd is having dreams of a red tide, vague but worrisome. But nothing prepares him for the hard truth of what he will discover.For in Magic Beach, he will come face to face with a form of evil that will test him as never before. Odd Hours is a brilliantly observed chronicle of good and evil in our time, of illusion and everlasting truth. Pick up a Dean Koontz thriller and you can't put it down: try one

 ROBIN HOBB: RENEGADE'S MAGIC ~ The final book in the Soldier Son from the author of the Tawny Man and Farseer trilogies, following on from the bestselling Shaman's Crossing and Forest Mage. The people of Getty's town remember the death of their cemetery soldier vividly. They remember believing him guilty of unspeakable crimes, condemning him, and then watching as other men of his unit beat him until he no longer drew breath. But Nevare Burvelle didn't die that day, though everyone believes they saw it happen. He was cornered by a power far more intractable than an angry mob. When he was a boy, the magic of the Specks -- the dapple-skinned tribes of the frontier forests -- claimed Nevare as a saviour; severing his soul in two, naming his stolen half Soldier's Boy and shaping him into a weapon to halt the Gernian expansion into their lands and save their beloved ancestor trees. Until now Nevare has defied the magic, unable to accept his traitorous fate. But the magic has won: it has extinguished his once golden future, devastated his family and has now turned his own people against him. Faced with endangering the only loved-ones he has left, Nevare has no choice but to surrender to its will and enter the forest.But surrendering to his Speck destiny is only the beginning of his trials. Before he submits completely, Nevare makes one desperate last attempt to deter the Gernians from the Barrier Mountains without causing them harm. But the magic accepts no compromise. Exhausted, Nevare can no longer suppress his traitorous Speck self, Soldiers Boy. Losing control, he becomes a prisoner in his own body; able only to watch helplessly as his other half takes Soldier's Boy is determined to stop the Gernian expansion at all cost, and unlike Nevare, he has no love, nor sympathy for his spirit-twin's world.

PHILIP K DICK: THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE ~ It is 1962 and the Second World War has been over for seventeen years: people have now had a chance to adjust to the new order. But its not been easy. The Mediterranean has been drained to make farmland, the population of Africa has virtually been wiped out and America has been divided between the Nazis and the Japanese. In the neutral buffer zone that divides the two superpowers lives the man in the high castle, the author of an underground bestseller, a work of fiction that offers an alternative theory of world history in which the Axis powers didnt win the war. The novel is a rallying cry for all those who dream of overthrowing the occupiers. But could it be more than that? Subtle, complex and beautifully characterized, The Man in the High Castle remains the finest alternative world novel ever written, and a work of profundity and significance.

STEPHEN BAXTER: WEAVER ~ The Weaver of Time's Tapestry has finally suceeded in twisting the threads of history into a new shape; the Luftwaffe have pushed the RAF to the brink, and the invasion barges have reached the beaches of Sussex and Kent. Britain wakes up to the nightmare of the Wermacht unleashed in Southern England. As the desperate battle to hold up the invasion rages it is left to a few indivuals caught up in the panic and chaos to piece together what has really happened - is this the culmination of a plan that has taken centuries to play out, a plot from the future to change the past forever? Stephen Baxter's historical thriller series crashes into the 20th century with a terrfying vision of mechanised war and political atrocity unleashed on English soil. This is the climax of one of the most thoughful and involving series of novels that have brought history alive like no other.

MARYJANICE DAVIDSON: UNDEAD AND UNWORTHY ~ Having recently lost her dad and step-mother, Betsy Sinclair (nee Taylor) is adjusting to rather more than just married life. Their untimely deaths have left her and Sinclair as sole guardians of her little brother, Jon. Two vampire parents - albeit vampire royalty - for a decidedly human baby. But then the ghost of Betsy's step-mother turns up at their house. And as stubborn and insufferable as she was in life, she's even more annoying in death …

Reviews

• ‘Delightful, wicked fun’ Christine Feehan
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• ‘Chick lit meets vampire action in this creative, sophisticated, sexy, and wonderfully witty book’ Catherine Spangler
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• ‘A delightful mix of chick lit and horror … great fun!’ Jayne Ann Krentz
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• ‘Entertaining, wicked and delightful’ Romance Reviews Today

In this issue: interviews with ELIZABETH GEORGE and AMANDA GREENSLADE plus fe

Books Monthly (formerly Gateway Monthly) is published by Paul Edmund Norman on the first day of each month. You can contact me via e-mail at: editor@booksmonthly.co.uk. If you'd like to get a story published in Books Monthly just e-mail it to me and I'll consider it - no payment though, I'm afraid!