Pub date: 5 March 2020 ISBN: 978-1-913193-19-5 EPUB: 978-1-913193-20-1 Price: £8.99 Dunedin’s favourite young police officer Sam Shephard is drawn into a perplexing investigation when a series of shipping containers wash up on a sleepy New Zealand beach, and a spate of unexplained deaths ensues… Chaos reigns in the sleepy village of Aramoana on the New Zealand coast, when a series of shipping containers wash up on the beach and looting begins. Detective Constable Sam Shephard experiences the desperation of the scavengers first-hand, and ends up in an ambulance, nursing her wounds and puzzling over an assault that left her assailant for dead. What appears to be a clear-cut case of a cargo ship running aground soon takes a more sinister turn when a skull is found in the sand, and the body of a diver is pulled from the sea … a diver who didn’t die of drowning… As first officer at the scene, Sam is handed the case, much to the displeasure of her superiors, and she must put together an increasingly confusing series of clues to get to the bottom of a mystery that may still have more victims…Continue reading “Review: Containment, by Vanda Symon”
Dr Helene Vermalle is shaping the conscience of a goddess-level AI.
As a leading civilian expert in Emergent AI Socialisation, she has been invited to assist in a secret military project.
Her role? Helping ViraUHX, the most advanced AI in the universe, to pass through four theoretical development stages. But it’s not easy training a mind that surpasses her in raw intellect. And the developing AI is capable of killing her with a single tantrum.
On top of this, she must prove her loyalty to the oppressive government hovering over her shoulder. They want a weapon. She wants to instil an overriding sense of morality.
Can she teach the AI right and wrong without being categorised as disloyal?
Lost Tales of Solace are short side-stories set in the Lost Solace universe.
Harpi the eagle discovers her inner voice that guides her to Sully, a boy with a glow. Sully is unaware of his glow until he discovers he has the capacity to help someone in need. After he meets Harpi, together they meet more friends who each in turn have their own issues that heal and transform through their encounters with one another. Eventually with their combined energy, they transform the world they live in. Sad Sully becomes Smiling Sully, Hopeless Harp becomes Hopeful Harpi, Perfect Parrot becomes Pitch Perfect Parrot, Greedy Giraffe becomes Grateful Giraffe and Cranky Croc turns into Courageous Croc.
Paperback Published: 7th July 2019 I.S.B.N.: 978-1-911278-14-6
E-book Published: 15th April 2019 I.S.B.N.: 978-1-911278-13-9
The legendary Lost Ships exist, and they harbour nightmarish horrors. Opal knows. She barely survived her first encounter with one.
Despite escaping, she failed to find what she was looking for: her lost sister. Now Opal must board a second derelict Lost Ship to seek answers, and it’s even more monstrous, a sickening place of death and decay. To make things worse, the military government wants her, dead or alive. Considering their reputation, dead may be better.
To find her sister, Opal will risk everything: her life, her blood, her sanity. There’s always a price to pay. Armed with her wits, an experimental armoured suit, and an amazing AI companion, she might just stand a chance.
CHASING SOLACE by Karl Drinkwater, is now available. Sequel to the sci-fi horror Lost Solace, where a lone woman explores a strange and terrifying spaceship recently returned from somewhere else. Hints of Aliens, Event Horizon, and Pandorum add to the suspense.
Blurb It is 1761. Prussia is at war with Russia and Austria. As the Russian army occupies East Prussia, King Frederick the Great and his men fight hard to win back their homeland.
In Ludwigshain, a Junker estate in East Prussia, Countess Marion von Adler celebrates an exceptional harvest. But this is soon requisitioned by Russian troops. When Marion tries to stop them, a Russian Captain strikes her. His Lieutenant, Ian Fermor, defends Marion’s honour, but is stabbed for his insubordination. Abandoned by the Russians, Fermor becomes a divisive figure on the estate.
Close to death, Fermor dreams of the Adler, a numinous eagle entity, whose territory extends across the lands of Northern Europe and which is mysteriously connected to the Enlightenment. What happens next will change the course of human history…
THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY meets 1984. In the near-future, all decision-making is automated, until one man makes a brazen choice of his own, with global consequences.
Welcome to QualityLand, the best country on Earth. Here, a universal ranking system determines the social advantages and career opportunities of every member of society. An automated matchmaking service knows the best partners for everyone and helps with the break up when your ideal match (frequently) changes. And the foolproof algorithms of the biggest, most successful company in the world, TheShop, know what you want before you do and conveniently deliver to your doorstep before you even order it.
In QualityCity, Peter Jobless is a machine scrapper who can’t quite bring himself to destroy the imperfect machines sent his way, and has become the unwitting leader of a band of robotic misfits hidden in his home and workplace. One day, Peter receives a product from TheShop he absolutely, positively knows he does not want, and which he decides, at great personal cost, to return. The only problem: doing so means proving the perfect algorithm of TheShop wrong, calling into question the very foundations of QualityLand itself.
Hardcover, 352 pages
Published January 7th 2020 by Grand Central Publishing (first published September 22nd 2017)
ISBN:1538732963 (ISBN13: 9781538732960)
My Review
I recieved a copy of this novel from Orion in return for an honest review.
In a world where everything is controlled by algorithms, and a few massive corporations control everything and know everything about you, Peter Jobless is a Level 9 Useless who runs his grandad’s second hand shop. Except repairing anything is illegal and he just has a building full of damaged goods. He keeps getting sent pink dolphin dildoes and doesn’t want them. When a beautiful stranger hi-jacks his car his solution presents itself. Helped by Kiki, the beautiful stranger, and a collection of slightly faulty AI controlled devices including a drone afraid of heights, a sexdroid that can’t get it up and a battle robot that can’t follow orders, he seeks justice. Meanwhile, there’s an election campaign taking place, between a rabidly right-wing ideologue and an android with progressive ideas. Eventually Peter and the new president meet, with explosive results.
I really rather enjoyed this book. It was funny, insightful and the characters were sympathetic, even the despicable ones. The author tackles questions of AI development, consumer and business ethics, nationalism and how we make the world a fairer place with humour and no preaching. It does really seem that logical explanations can’t beat emotions in politics, but John of Us tries.
Continuing the unique, explosive Six Stories series, based around six podcasts comes a compulsive, taut and terrifying thriller, and a bleak and distressing look at modern society’s desperation for attention. Beast will unveil a darkness from which you may never return…
In the wake of the ‘Beast from the East ’ cold snap that ravaged the UK in 2018, a grisly discovery was made in a ruin on the Northumbrian coast. Twenty-four-year-old vlogger, Elizabeth Barton, had been barricaded inside what locals refer to as ‘The Vampire Tower’, where she was later found frozen to death. Three young men, part of an alleged cult, were convicted of this terrible crime, which they described as a ‘prank gone wrong’.
However, in the small town of Ergarth, questions have been raised about the nature of Elizabeth Barton’s death and whether the three convicted youths were even responsible. Elusive online journalist Scott King speaks to six witnesses people who knew both the victim and the three killers – to peer beneath the surface of the case.
He uncovers whispers of a shocking online craze that held the young of Ergarth in its thrall and drove them to escalate a series of pranks in the name of internet fame. He hears of an abattoir on the edge of town, which held more than simple slaughter behind its walls, and the tragic and chilling legend of the Ergarth Vampire…
PUBLICATION DATE: 6 FEBRUARY 2020 | PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £8.99 | ORENDA BOOKS
Oliver Doliver (who is really just Oliver but he does like having both names) will be mostly Oliver in this story. Oliver is six years (and one month) old and has a friend who is a Dinosaur called Aya Buddn.
The ultimate book-lover’s fantasy, featuring a young scholar with the power to bring literary characters into the world, for fans of The Magicians, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, and The Invisible Library.
For his entire life, Charley Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can’t quite control: he can bring characters from books into the real world. His older brother, Rob — a young lawyer with a normal house, a normal fiancee, and an utterly normal life — hopes that this strange family secret will disappear with disuse, and he will be discharged from his life’s duty of protecting Charley and the real world from each other. But then, literary characters start causing trouble in their city, making threats about destroying the world… and for once, it isn’t Charley’s doing.
There’s someone else who shares his powers. It’s up to Charley and a reluctant Rob to stop them, before these characters tear apart the fabric of reality.
Paperback, 480 pages Published January 23rd 2020 by Orbit (first published July 23rd 2019)
ISBN:0356513777 ISBN13: 9780356513775
My Review
Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review, and to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for organising the blog tour. And finally, to the author, for this great read.
Got to be entirely honest, I haven’t finished reading this book yet, because I’ve been terribly ill with a cold. My energy levels have been used on my various support appointments, so I’ve only been reading in short spurts because I can’t focus enough to read for longer. That being said, what I have read, so far, has been very impressive. I will finish it soon, but for now I will review based on my experience so far. I’m halfway through, after some concerted reading this evening (Friday 7th February).
The characters of Rob and Charley Sutherland are brilliantly well-written, they are funny and so realistic in their frustrations with each other and life. Their conversations flow naturally. Millie is an absolute riot, very ‘Enid Blyton-ish’ with her ‘jolly good’s and brisk bossiness getting Heathcliff to behave.
The descriptions are very clear, almost poetic at times. I especially enjoyed the description of Charley’s house and the mysterious lane. I could see them, one a place I’d love to live, with books stacked everywhere, and the other like something from a Dickens tragedy, all cobbles and fog.
I love the idea of ‘reading characters out of the book’, and Charley’s need to experiment potentially getting him into trouble. I was intrigued by the idea that there’s a secret group of characters hiding behind the real world, having escaped from their books. And the mystery of who is reading out villains to attack Charley and Rob really got me. Who is the Summoner? Why does he have David Copperfield in a basement? What has Charlie’s first book of literary criticism got to do with everything? I need to know what happens next, who everyone is and why they’re doing what they are. I’m also scared for Charley and Rob. I also think Rob needs to tell Lydia everything, because that Eric is a scoundrel.
The way the characters change depending on who reads them, the description of the magic of ordinary reading, it all feels so good to read. That doesn’t make sense, sorry. I just utterly love Parry’s writing, it’s so richly descriptive. You don’t need to have read the books she draws on to understand the plot (or not so far at least) because Charley can’t help educating people.
I feel that, if I were well, I’d have curled up with this book and read it in a day or two. It’s not a small book, about 400 pages; even I would have needed a couple of days at my peak. In my current state, it’ll be a bit longer.
So, based on what I’ve read so far, I heartily recommend this book.
Oslo, 2018. Former long-distance runner Sonja Nordstrøm never shows at the launch of her controversial autobiography, Always Number One. When celebrity blogger Emma Ramm visits Nordstrøm’s home later that day, she finds the door unlocked and signs of a struggle inside. A bib with the number ‘one’ has been pinned to the TV. Police officer Alexander Blix is appointed to head up the missingpersons investigation, but he still bears the emotional scars of a hostage situation nineteen years earlier, when he killed the father of a five-year-old girl. Traces of Nordstrøm soon show up at different locations, but the appearance of the clues appear to be carefully calculated … evidence of a bigger picture that he’s just not seeing… Blix and Ramm soon join forces, determined to find and stop a merciless killer with a flair for the dramatic, and thirst for attention. Trouble is, he’s just got his first taste of it…
Everything Is Better With Dragons 