Fearsome Journeys edited by Jonathan Strahan

A new fantasy anthology is now available from Solaris (£7.99). Fearsome Journeys, edited by Jonathan Strahan, is set to be part of a new series of anthologies from the publisher. And any new anthology is to be gratefully received. I haven’t yet read this book, but personally speaking, I welcome the chance to prove that fantasy is equally at home in the short story format – in the tradition of Jack Vance, CL Moore, Fritz Leiber, and Robert E Howard.

“From dragons to quests, from battles to magic:

An array of some of the most popular and exciting names in epic fantasy are set to appear in the first in a brand new series of anthologies from the master anthologist Jonathan Strahan ... featuring original fiction from authors including Trudi Canavan, Daniel Abraham, Saladin Ahmed, Elizabeth Bear, Glen Cook, and Scott Lynch – and many more.”

River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

New from World Fantasy Award-winner Guy Gavriel Kay: River of Stars is due from Harper Collins on 25 July (£18.99):

“Ren Daiyan was still just a boy when he took the lives of seven men while guarding an imperial magistrate of Kitai. That moment on a lonely road changed his life — in entirely unexpected ways, sending him into the forests of Kitai among the outlaws. From there he emerges years later — and his life changes again, dramatically, as he circles towards the court and emperor, while war approaches from the north.

Lin Shan is the daughter of a scholar, his beloved only child. Educated by him in ways young women never are, gifted as a songwriter and calligrapher, she finds herself living a life suspended between two worlds. Her intelligence captivates an emperor — and alienates women at the court. But when her father’s life is endangered by the savage politics of the day, Shan must act in ways no woman ever has.

In an empire divided by bitter factions circling an exquisitely cultured emperor who loves his gardens and his art far more than the burdens of governing, dramatic events on the northern steppe alter the balance of power in the world, leading to events no one could have foretold, under the river of stars.”

The Adjacent by Christopher Priest

“Tibor Tarent, a freelance photographer, is recalled to Britain from Anatolia where his wife Melanie has been killed by insurgent militia. IRGB is a nation living in the aftermath of a bizarre and terrifying terrorist atrocity – hundreds of thousands were wiped out when a vast triangle of west London was instantly annihilated. The authorities think the terrorist attack and the death of Tarent's wife are somehow connected.

A century earlier, a stage magician is sent to the Western Front on a secret mission to render British reconnaissance aircraft invisible to the enemy. On his journey to the trenches he meets the visionary who believes that this will be the war to end all wars.

In 1943, a woman pilot from Poland tells a young RAF technician of her escape from the Nazis, and her desperate need to return home.

In the present day, a theoretical physicist stands in his English garden and creates the first adjacency.”

All this can be found in the new novel from Christopher Priest. The Adjacent is out later this month from Gollancz (and £12.99 for 400-page hardback can’t be bad).

The Ballad of Halo Jones

A new edition of The Ballad of Halo Jones by Alan Moore and Ian Gibson is now out from 2000AD (£13.99). Lauren Beukes provides an introduction, in which she says that Halo Jones was a major influence on her (Beukes’) childhood.

“When Halo Jones grows bored with her life in The Hoop — a futuristic world where jobs are scarce and excitement is non-existent — she sets out to see the galaxy any way she can. But can she survive the highs and lows that lie in her path, including an extended period of ship-board servitude and a tour of duty in a terrifying war that defies the physics of space and time?”

Pulp Heroes volume 2

Editor Mike Chinn has announced the contents for the forthcoming The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes 2:

Pandora’s Box – Chico Kidd
The Flier – Bryn Fortey
Griffon’s Gamble – Arch Whitehouse
Night Hunter – Pauline E Dungate
Meeting at the Silver Dollar – Marion Pitman
The Monster of Gorgon – Ian Hunter
Dragon’s Breath – Anne Nicholls
The Law of Mars – Robert William Iveniuk
The Penge Terror – William Meikle
Ula and the Black Book of Leng – Andrew Coulthard
The Sons of Crystal City – Martin Gately
Kiss the Day Goodbye – Adrian Cole
Do Not Go Gently – Stuart Young
The Incarceration of Captain Nebula – Mike Resnik

The cover artwork is by Les Edwards. The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes 2 is scheduled for publication at this year's World Fantasy Convention.

The String Diaries by Stephen Lloyd Jones

"A jumble of entries, written in different hands, different languages, and different times. They tell of a rumour. A shadow. A killer. The only interest that Oxford Professor Charles Meredith has in the diaries is as a record of Hungarian folklore ... until he comes face to face with a myth.

For Hannah Wilde, the diaries are a survival guide that taught her the three rules she lives by: verify everyone, trust no one, and if in any doubt, run. But Hannah knows that if her daughter is ever going to be safe, she will have to stop running and face the terror that has hunted her family for five generations.

And nothing in the diaries can prepare her for that."

The String Diaries is out early July from Headline. The book has already been selected for the Simon Mayo Book Club on Radio 2. And you can watch the video here.

A-Z Cities of Death edited by Dean M. Drinkel

A-Z Cities of Death, edited by Dean M. Drinkel, is now available from StaticMovement

“Travel the world from Adelaide to Zebulan. Twenty-six stories of death and danger in twenty-six cities from twenty-six talented writers!”

Here are the stories:

A is for Adelaide by Steven Gepp
B is for Baltimore by Ron Koppelberger
C is for Calais by Emile-Louis Tomas Jouvet
D is for Darktowne by Ran Cartwright
E is for Erum by Robert Tangiers
F is for Fortune by Paul Woodward
G is for Gotham by John X. Grey
H is for Harbin by G.R. Yeates
I is for Intrepid by City George Wilhite
J is for Johannesburg by Suzanne van Rooyen
K is for Kathmandu by Dave Fragments
L is for Lobo by Sandra Norval
M is for Miami by Rachel Chipp
N is for Necropolis by Richard Salter
O is for Ottawa by Carrie Orr
P is for Paris by Dean M. Drinkel
Q is for Quito by Sean Monaghan
R is for Ripon by Philip Meeks
S is for Stoke-On-Trent by Jan Edwards
T is for The Greatest City In America by S. Wayne Roberts
U is for Ur by Jonathan Green
V is for Venice by Edward McKeown
W is for Waddington by Jason Brawn
X is for Xanadu by Steven Gepp
Y is for York by R.S. Pyne
Z is for Zebulan by Justin Miles

In the Broken Birdcage of Kathleen Fair

Now out from The Alchemy Press

In the Broken Birdcage of Kathleen Fair

By Cate Gardner

When the mirror released Kathleen into the unknown, for the briefest of moments she giggled and realised that she’d never laughed before. She had been a blank canvas, sitting and waiting in a room and occasionally bouncing from wall to wall desperate for freedom - and now she was out. White walls no longer surrounded her. In this new place, a thousand mirrors spun reflecting worlds.

The first in The Alchemy Novella Series

Available in Kindle format via Amazon. Only £1.35

For the ePub version contact The Alchemy Press

alchemypress [at] gmail.com

New and forthcoming books

Patricia Bracewell – Shadow on the Crown – Harper £14.99 (6 June)

Gary Gibson – Angel Stations – Tor £8.99 (6 June)

Gary Gibson – Against Gravity – Tor £8.99 (6 June)

Gary Gibson – Empire of Light – Tor £8.99

Gary Gibson – Nova War – Tor £8.99

Gary Gibson – Stealing Light – Tor £8.99

Joe Hill – NOS-4R2 – Gollancz £14.99 (30 May)

Richard Kadrey – Kill the Dead – Harper £7.99 (20 June)

Richard Kadrey – Sandman Slim – Harper £7.99 (20 June)

Jasper Kent – The People’s Will – Bantam £12.99

Jay Kristoff – Stormdancer – Tor £7.99 (6 June)

David Logan – Half-Sick of Shadows – Corgi £7.99

Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter – The Long War – Doubleday £18.99 (20 June)

Alastair Reynolds – Doctor Who: Harvest of Time – BBC £16.99 (6 June)

Jack Skillingstead – Life on the Preservation – Solaris £7.99 (6 June)

Noble Smith – The Wisdom of the Shire – Hodder £8.99 (6 June)

Jon Steele – Angel City – Bantam £18.99 (12 September)

Charles Stross – The Revolution Trade – Tor £9.99 (6 June)

The Burning Circus edited by Johnny Mains

The Burning Circus edited by Johnny Mains and published by The British Fantasy Society

Coming soon for members of the BFS: this anthology will not be sold outside the society, so it should be a collectors’ edition. Here's what you'll find in the book:

• Cover art – by David Whitlam
• Foreword – Johnny Mains
• Introduction – Ramsey Campbell
• Doll Hands – Adam Nevill
• Death Walks En Pointe – Thana Niveau
• The Burning Circus – Angela Slatter
• Where is Uncle Phillip? – Alex Hamilton
• The Queen in the Yellow Wallpaper – Lynda E. Rucker
• The Peter Lorre Fan Club – Stephen Volk
• The Garscube Creative Writing Group – Muriel Gray
• The Sixteenth Step – Robert Shearman