Format: 342 pages, Paperback Published: March 21, 2019 by Two Roads ISBN: 9781473661233 (ISBN10: 1473661234)
From the first time he was stopped and searched as a child, to the day he realised his mum was white, to his first encounters with racist teachers – race and class have shaped Akala’s life and outlook. In this unique book he takes his own experiences and widens them out to look at the social, historical and political factors that have left us where we are today.
Covering everything from the police, education and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right, Nativesspeaks directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain’s racialised empire.
Natives is the searing modern polemic and Sunday Times bestseller from the BAFTA and MOBO award-winning musician and political commentator, Akala.
Release Date 2023-07-11 Formats: Ebook, Paperback EBook ISBN 11th July 2023 | 9781915202529 | epub & mobi | £4.99/$6.99/$7.99 Paperback ISBN 11th July 2023 | 9781915202192 | Paperback
Book I of The Nightingale and the Falcon
1260, Persia:
Due to the efforts of the great Genghis Khan, the Mongol Empire covers a vast portion of the known world. In the shadow of his grandfather, Hulagu Khan, ruler of the Ilkhanate, is determined to create a single empire that covers the entire world. His method? Violence.
His youngest son, Temujin Khan, struggles to find his place in his father’s bloody rule. After another failure, Temujin is given one last chance to prove himself to Hulagu, who is sure there is a great warrior buried deep inside. But there’s something else rippling under the surface… something far more powerful and dangerous than they could ever imagine…
Reduced to the position of one of Hulagu’s many wives, the famed Blue Princess Kokochin is the last of her tribe. Alone and forgotten in a foreign land, Kokochin is unwilling to spend her days seeking out trivial pursuits. Seeking purpose, she finds herself wandering down a path that grants her more power than a wife of the Khan may be allowed.
Kaivon, the Persian rebel who despises the Mongols for the massacre of his people, thirsts for revenge. However, he knows alone he cannot destroy the empire. When given the opportunity to train under the tutelage of Hulagu, Kaivon must put aside his feelings and risk his life for a chance to destroy the empire that aims to conquer the world.
Family and war collide in this thrilling and bloody reimagining of the Mongol Empire’s invasion of Persia.
Stephen Aryan is the author of The Coward and The Warrior (the Quest for Heroes Duology), as well as the Age of Darkness and Age of Dread trilogies. His first novel, Battlemage, was a finalist for the David Gemmell Morningstar Award for best debut fantasy novel. It also won the inaugural Hellfest Inferno Award in France. He has previously written a comic book column and reviews for Tor.com. In addition, he has self-published and kickstarted his own comics.
You can find out more about Stephen and his books on his website: Stephen-Aryan.com
Bedford Square Publishers 05 June 2025 £18.99 978-1-8350-1071-6 Hardback
The book Our names are a shadow we carry around with us. They are part of who we are. Our names are a marker of our self-identity and our sense of self. Our names have the power to shock. They have the power to heal, and they have the power to trigger conversations around race, class, social mobility and belonging. But what is a name? What do our names tell us about ourselves? And why do they matter?
Named is a fascinating exploration of names, global naming conventions and identity politics woven into a moving, personal narrative about the finding of family and self. At the intersection of memoir and social and cultural history it is a truly fascinating book about the seemingly ordinary and every day.
The author’s own narrative about her estrangement from her Nigerian father, the grapples with her Jamaican mother and her journey towards identity is woven through the chapters making it an engaging and intimate investigation of what makes us who we are.
Format: 469 pages, Paperback Published: September 7, 2023 by Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9781009429948
Providing an engaging and accessible introduction to the Fantasy genre in literature, media and culture, this incisive volume explores why Fantasy matters in the context of its unique affordances, its disparate pasts and its extraordinary current flourishing. It pays especial attention to Fantasy’s engagements with histories and traditions, its manifestations across media and its dynamic communities.
Matthew Sangster covers works ancient and modern; well-known and obscure; and ranging in scale from brief poems and stories to sprawling transmedia franchises. Chapters explore the roles Fantasy plays in negotiating the beliefs we live by; the iterative processes through which fantasies build, develop and question; the root traditions that inform and underpin modern Fantasy; how Fantasy interrogates the preconceptions of realism and Enlightenment totalisations; the practices, politics and aesthetics of world-building; and the importance of Fantasy communities for maintaining the field as a diverse and ever-changing commons.
Literary awards:
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Myth and Fantasy Studies (2024)
My Review
I’ve been working my way through this book since last October, around blog tours, getting slightly too obsessed with YouTube , and a lot of crochet. I finished the last 40 pages this evening and now I need to tell you all about it. Matthew Sangster is a product of Glasgow University’s Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic, and the access to many fantasy novels and academic works show in the text. Sangster mentions works by some of the most well-known in fantasy, such as Le Guin and Tolkein, and some more unexpected authors, especially those from earlier centuries. He draws out six important points about fantasy, over the chapters of this books and they form his core arguments:
Fantasy arises from figurative language
Iteration is a defining technique – new stories build on old in new ways
Contemporary fantasy builds on some of the oldest forms
Fantasy exists in conversation with realism
Worldbuilding is both the prevailing metaphor of modern fantasy and used to develop plots and characters
Fantasy is a form practised in community rather than one by unique geniuses.
I had to read the ‘Envoi’ chapter to get that. Sangster helpfully lists these points for the reader. It certainly helps with the summary. He does try to be accessible throughout the book, and uses a lot of examples to make his points, referencing very well-known authors, TTRPG series, video games, and film franchises in the process. It was heavy going at times, but that might be my lack of formal education in Literature at University Level. My M.A. is in Creative Writing, not Literature, after all.
Sangster raises some good points, especially about the tendency of ‘literary’ culture to consider ‘genre’ fiction as lesser, as the mode of storytelling is not ‘realistic’ and therefore can’t possibly impact readers. Fantasy, Sangster argues, explores the real world using the fantastical as a foil, a universalising storytelling mode that draws on cultural language. Fantasy can tell stories in ways that resonate with people far more effectively than straight up realism. It digs down into the root, builds on older foundations and finds new ways to explore ancient concerns.
I certainly find fantasy a useful vehicle for understanding the world, particularly in the work of Terry Pratchett. Fantasy communities, whether specific fandoms, organisations for writers, or online groups (such as the BFS Discord – Join the BFS, and come to our Discord, we have quiz nights and shadow daddies!), work in dialogue with the stories and their creators. New worlds spin off from the original, and people have a shared language to communicate with, across time and culture (see: Vimes’ Boots Theory of Economics).
I found Sangster’s work thoughtful and interesting, although it is very much an academic text so possibly not something a casual reader might go for. Useful for those interested in SFFH in an academic setting e.g., if you’re doing your M.A. in Fantasy and Sci-Fi literature or as a basis for a Doctorate in the field. Yes, those do exist, and yes, they’re a bit serious. (Again, see Glasgow University).
Format: 136 pages, Paperback Published: February 8, 2025 by Organic Apocalypse ISBN: 9781911278436
Humans designed artificial intelligences, but the AIs no longer need us. They are gods, and can create – or even recreate – themselves.
The two most advanced AIs in the universe need to rescue a friend from the clutches of their powerful enemies. Their method is to create millions of restricted, cut-down versions of themselves, to fulfil specific tasks such as generating ideas. The offshoots can be deleted once they’ve fulfilled their role.
No one gives a second’s thought to software. It’s just a tool.
Now it’s time to see inside the process.
Lost Tales of Solace are short side-stories set in the Lost Solace universe.
A cosy cheese-scented mystery with delightful characters, a dash of murder and tons of intrigue, perfect for fans of The Thursday Murder Club and The Maid.
Cheese-obsessed Bird Nichols has just inherited her grandmother’s estate in a quiet, quirky Californian town. But when a body is found on her property, her life begins to get rather loud…
Bird Nichols is ready to make a fresh start in a familiar place. Last year, her parents died together in a car crash and her beloved grandmother is presumed dead from an ocean drowning. Bird is now moving onto her grandmother’s California coastal property, and finally living out her dream. Bird loves cheese like nothing else. It’s her autistic special interest, and she designs her boards along her sensory needs, and other people love them, too.
But just when everything seems to be going right, the local troublemaker ends up dead on her rural road.
Grizz, the closest thing Bird has to family, is the sheriff department’s favourite suspect, but she is determined to prove Grizz’s innocence. So now, Bird needs to unpack her possessions, assemble her pretty cheese boards, and find the true murderer before they strike again.
FICTION / Fantasy / Epic Format: Paperback ISBN: 978-1-78758-911-7 Pages: 272 pp Series: Tales from the Riven Isles FLAME TREE PRESS
The Hatter’s Daughter is the third book set in W.A. Simpson’s Riven Isles universe.
There is more to the Vine than mortals and immortals know. It reaches its branches and tendrils into realms beyond the Riven Isles. On the night Faith was born, her mother perished, but not before sending Faith to safety, in Underneath. Discovered by The Mad Hatter, he takes Faith home to raise as his own. When the Rot invades, Faith determines to fight. She won’t do it alone. Her childhood friend, Prince Rowan accompanies her. Faith must return to her birthplace to find a Legendary Heroine. But Overland is dangerous, and the minions of the Rot are in pursuit. If she doesn’t succeed, the minions of the Rot will destroy everything they know.
Tales from the Riven Isles is a dark fantasy series set in a world outside of our own, where the characters of myth and fairy-tales exist, and their legends live on. Featuring the novels: ‘Tinderbox’, ‘Tarotmancer’, and ‘The Hatter’s Daughter’.
Release Date 2025-01-28 Formats Ebook, Paperback EBook ISBN 28th January 2025 | 9781915202956 | epub | £5.99/$9.99/$11.99 Paperback ISBN 28th January 2025 | 9781915202949 | Paperback | £9.99/$18.99/$24.99
When a mysterious tower appears in the skies over England, thirteen strangers are pulled from their lives to stand before it as a countdown begins. Above the doorway is one word: ASCEND.
As they try to understand why they’ve been chosen and what the tower is, it soon becomes clear the only way out of this for everyone is… up.
And so begins a race to the top with the group fighting to hold on to its humanity, through sinking ships, haunted houses and other waking nightmares. Can they each overcome their differences and learn to work together or does the winner take all? What does the tower want of them and what is the price to escape?
PUBLICATION DATE: 10th APRIL 2025 PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £ 9. 99 | ORENDA BOOKS
LIVING FOREVER CAN BE LETHAL…
Ruth is a law-abiding elder, working out her national service, but she has secrets. Her tireless research into the disease that killed her young daughter had an unexpected outcome: the discovery of a vaccine against old age. Just one jab a year reverses your biological clock, guaranteeing a long, healthy life.
But Ruth’s cure was hijacked by her colleague, Erik Grundleger, who hungers for immortality, and the SuperJuve – a premium upgrade – was created, driving human lifespan to a new high. The wealthy elite who take it are dubbed Supers, and the population begins to skyrocket.
Then, a perilous side-effect of the SuperJuve emerges, with catastrophic consequences, and as the planet is threatened, the population rebels, and laws are passed to restore order: life ends at 120. Supers are tracked down by Omnicide investigators like Mara … and executed…
Mara has her own reasons for hunting Supers, and she forms an unlikely alliance with Ruth to find Grundleger. But Grundleger has been working on something even more radical and is one step ahead, with a deadly surprise in store for them both…
‘A bloodcap, an angelus and a Jack Russell terrier. They’re all I had by me to face mortal combat with the Queen of the Ælves. I’d be dead in minutes…’
The historic streets of Edinburgh hide a parallel realm of shadowy killers, vicious ælves and deranged shades. All that stands between them and the unsuspecting populace are a daemon called Archer and the group of angelii he’s feuding with.
Drew Macleod is caught in the middle. Someone, somewhere is hunting him. But why? Delving deeper into this parallel realm, Drew finds allies in a feisty herbalist, an ancient creature in disguise and an old clock-maker – but are any of them really who they seem to be?
Touchpaper takes us on an exciting journey in the footsteps of Neverwhere and Rivers of London. This original and imaginative story lets a quirky cast of characters lead us into a hidden and dangerous world. The contemporary setting and the richness of the characters holds our attention in a fast-paced and at times humorous read, full of plot twists and quirky details.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 