Happy Publication Day 20th April 2017!

It’s publication day! We’ve got an exciting new science fiction thriller featuring alien contact and a murder mystery, a classic new addition to the Masterworks list from Douglas Adams, and all the new paperbacks you can want from Joanne M. Harris, Jon Wallace and Tom Lloyd.

 

From Darkest Skies by Sam Peters

FROM DARKEST SKIES is a high-concept science fiction thriller wrapped around a love story, a man’s search for the truth about his dead wife, and his relationship with the artificial intelligence he has built to replace her. Set in a future where the aliens came, waged war, and then vanished again, this is a striking new voice in science fiction.

After a five year sabbatical following the tragic death of his wife and fellow agent Alysha, Keon Rause returns to the distant colony world of Magenta to resume service with the Magentan Intelligence Service. With him he brings an artificial recreation of his wife’s personality, a simulacrum built from every digital trace she left behind. She has been constructed with one purpose – to discover the truth behind her own death – but Keon’s relationship with her has grown into something more, something frighteningly dependent, something that verges on love.

Cashing in old favours, Keon uses his return to the Service to take on a series of cases that allow him and the artificial Alysha to piece together his wife’s last days. His investigations lead him inexorably along the same paths Alysha followed five years earlier, to a sinister and deadly group with an unhealthy fascination for the unknowable alien Masters; but as the wider world of Magenta is threatened with an imminent crisis, Keon finds himself in a dilemma: do his duty and stand with his team to expose a villainous crime, or sacrifice them all for the truth about his wife?

From Darkest skies is available now in hardcover, ebook and audio download.

 

Life, The Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams

The comic science fiction classic with a new introduction by John Lloyd.

Only five individuals stand between the killer robots of Krikkit and their goal of the total annihilation of the universe.

They are Arthur Dent, homeless Englishman currently marooned in the deep past; his friend Ford Prefect, temporarily insane to see if he likes it, also marooned; Slartibartfast, once of the planet builders of Magrathea; Zaphod Beeblebrox, ex-confidence trickster and part-time galactic president; and Trillian, the sexy space cadet who is torn between a persistent Thunder God and a very depressed Beeblebrox.

In other words: we’re doomed.

‘Indispensable reading for mental hitchhikers who want to thumb a lift out of the ruts of orthodox thought’ Daily Mail

It is funny and funny in every way’ Daily Telegraph

Life, The Universe and Everything is available in hardback

 

Runemarks by Joanne M. Harris

A gripping tale of magic, adventure and Norse mythology from the SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author of CHOCOLAT and THE GOSPEL OF LOKI.

It’s been five hundred years since the end of the world and society has rebuilt itself anew. The old Norse gods are no longer revered. Their tales have been banned. Magic is outlawed, and a new religion – the Order – has taken its place.

In a remote valley in the north, fourteen-year-old Maddy Smith is shunned for the ruinmark on her hand – a sign associated with the Bad Old Days. But what the villagers don’t know is that Maddy has skills. According to One-Eye, the secretive Outlander who is Maddy’s only real friend, her ruinmark – or  runemark, as he calls it – is a sign of Chaos blood, magical powers and gods know what else…

Now, as the Order moves further north, threatening all the Worlds with conquest and Cleansing, Maddy must finally learn the truth to some unanswered questions about herself, her parentage, and her powers.

From the bestselling author of CHOCOLAT and THE GOSPEL OF LOKI comes a fantastical tale of magic, adventure and Norse mythology.

‘Especially enjoyable are Harris’ aphorisms, her satire of joyless piety and the comically irreverant vernacular spoken by a dissolute goblin and the trickster god Loki’ The Sunday Times

‘Harris creates a glorious and complex world replete with rune-based magical spells, bickering gods, exciting adventures and difficult moral issues’ Publishers Weekly

‘Her dramatic story rollocks along . . . with magical transformations, nets of blue fire and a spunky heroine’ The Times

Runemarks is available now in paperback, ebook and audio download

 

Rig by Jon Wallace

An explosive SF dystopia; a genetically engineered soldier fights his way across a ruined world to confront his creator.

A fast-moving, filmic and violent SF thriller, perfect for fans of Jack Campbell. A meeting of The Road and Rogue Trooper.

Barricade introduced artificial lifeform, Kenstibec. Steeple saw him reduced to the level of humanity. Now Kenstibec must fight his way to the home of the man who created him and the other Ficials. The man who tipped the world into war and sealed humanity’s fate. Can Kenstibec win a future back for man?

Jon Wallace has written a series of short, high-action yet thoughtful SF thrillers. Controversial yet full of dark humour these are rewarding SF thrillers that echo the pleasures of noir and bring a sharp new perspective to British SF.

‘Disturbing, illuminating and highly entertaining’ The Sun

‘If this is going to be the final book in the series, then Wallace has gone out on a high’ Pile By The Bed

Rig is available now in paperback and ebook

 

Stranger of Tempest by Tom Lloyd

 It’s not easy being an honest man in a lawless world. Brand new heroic fantasy from the bestselling author of the TWILIGHT REIGN series

 Lynx is a mercenary with a sense of honour; a dying breed in the Riven Kingdom. Failed by the nation he served and weary of the skirmishes that plague the continent’s principalities, he walks the land in search of purpose. He wants for little so bodyguard work keeps his belly full and his mage-gun loaded. It might never bring a man fame or wealth, but he’s not forced to rely on others or kill without cause.

Little could compel Lynx to join a mercenary company, but he won’t turn his back on a kidnapped girl. At least the job seems simple enough; the mercenaries less stupid and vicious than most he’s met over the years.

So long as there are no surprises or hidden agendas along the way, it should work out fine.

 ‘From the very first page, this first book in Tom Lloyd’s new The God Fragments hurls you head-first into the action . . . the world that Lloyd wraps you in is just as gripping as his storytelling’ SFX

 ‘Tom Lloyd’s Stranger of Tempest is a fantasy adventure in the modern style, comfortably mixing gritty realism with swords and sorcery. Imagine Steven Erikson’s Malazan marines teaming up with Lara Croft for a mad dash across Joe Abercrombie’s Red Country with an unplanned detour through the forgotten deeps of Moria and you’ll be most of the way there’ Forbidden Planet International

 ‘A fun and fast paced romp in which a mercenary company’s latest job goes horrendously wrong and they have to evade pursuit. A great cast and some very good action set pieces’ Aliette de Bodard, author of The House of Shattered Wings

 Stranger of Tempest is available now in paperback, ebook and audio download