Farewell Kurt
Although he retired from writing fiction back in 1997, the literary world felt the blow of Kurt Vonnegut rsquo;s passing last Wednesday. Heralded as the Mark Twain of our generation, Vonnegut was an invaluable genre writer and continued his sharp political critiques for the progressive In These Times publication long after his last fiction novel, Timequake, was released. It rsquo;s almost impossible to speak about the author without bringing up his most prominent novel, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), but aside from penning some of the most definitive anti-war and satirical work of the century Kurt Vonnegut was also a powerful and well-informed voice in our culture.
He shared the Honorary President position of the American Humanist Association with longtime friend Isaac Asimov and for that and all of his unique insights into the human condition I rsquo;d like to say farewell: rest in peace Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Good Tuesday to all of you Maniac readers and welcome to another edition of the Buzz. I hate to start out the column with such somber news but credit rsquo;s due where credit rsquo;s due.
We rsquo;ve got quite a top-heavy release schedule this week with a slew of hardback releases including a brand-spankin rsquo; new work from another genre giant.
Spanning nearly nine decades since its first conception, the road to publishing The Children of H u rin has been an arduous one for both J.R.
R. and Christopher Tolkien. Compiling notes dating back to 1918, J.
R.R. rsquo;s son Christopher has edited his father rsquo;s notes into a seamless volume.
Being released in regular and deluxe hardback editions, this new tale set in the realm of Middle Earth is accompanied by the universe rsquo;s best illustrator: Alan Lee (although Ted Nasmith is also a personal favorite of mine).
Coinciding with J.R.
R. rsquo;s most recent (although I rsquo;m sure not the last) posthumous release is Inside Languages: Tolkien scholar Ross Smith rsquo;s in-depth look into the linguistic and aesthetic theory of the famed philologist rsquo;s work.
Steven Erikson unleashes Midnight Tides, the fifth installment in what Publisher rsquo;s Weekly calls a ldquo;massive high fantasy epic.
rdquo; Having garnered wide praise for the last four volumes, this new episode of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series details the tenuous calm before cataclysmic confrontation.
Concluding this week are John C. Wright and co-authors Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz.
Wright finishes off The Chronicles of Chaos trilogy with Titans of Chaos, a series following a group of power-imbued orphans in their search for answers to their origin. Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz also conclude their own Star Trek: Vulcan rsquo;s Soul trilogy with the much anticipated Epiphany. Both are released on hardcover through Tor and Star Trek Books respectively.
Lastly authors Stephen Cole, Jacqueline Rayner, and Martin Day each take their own handle on Doctor Who to create three new titles of BBC Books rsquo; most popular series. Fresh from Britain The Sting of the Zygons, The Last Dodo, and The Wooden Heart all make their hardcover debut later on this week.
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Children of H u rin, J.
R.R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin Company)
The first complete book by J.
R.R. Tolkien in three decades since the publication of The Silmarillion in 1977.
The Children of H u rin reunites fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, dragons and Dwarves, Eagles and Orcs. Presented for the first time as a complete, standalone story, this stirring narrative will appeal to casual fans and expert readers alike, returning them to the rich landscape and characters unique to Tolkien. Edited by Christopher Tolkien and illustrated by Alan Lee.
The Children of H u rin Deluxe Edition, J.R.R.
Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin Company)
The Children of H u rin, begun in 1918, was one of three 'Great Tales' J.R.R.
Tolkien worked on throughout his life, though he never realized his ambition to see it published. Though familiar to many fans from extracts and references within other Tolkien books, it has long been assumed that the story would forever remain an 'unfinished tale'. Now reconstructed by Christopher Tolkien, painstakingly editing together the complete work from his father's many drafts, this book is the culmination of a tireless thirty-year endeavor by him to bring J.
R.R. Tolkien's vast body of unpublished work to a wide audience.
Having drawn the distinctive maps for the original The Lord of the Rings more than 50 years ago, Christopher has also created a detailed new map for this book. In addition, it will include a jacket and color paintings by Alan Lee, illustrator of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Centenary Edition and Academy Award-winning designer of the film trilogy.
After decades of internecine warfare, the tribes of the Tiste Edur have at last united under the Warlock King of the Hiroth.
There is peace mdash;but it has been exacted at a terrible price: a pact made with a hidden power whose motives are at best suspect, at worst, deadly. To the south, the expansionist kingdom of Lether, eager to fulfill its long-prophesized renaissance as an Empire reborn, has enslaved all its less-civilized neighbors with rapacious hunger. All, that is, save one mdash;the Tiste Edur.
And it must be only a matter of time before they too fall mdash;either beneath the suffocating weight of gold, or by slaughter at the edge of a sword. Or so destiny has decreed. Yet as the two sides gather for a pivotal treaty neither truly wants, ancient forces are awakening.
For the impending struggle between these two peoples is but a pale reflection of a far more profound, primal battle mdash;a confrontation with the still-raw wound of an old betrayal and the craving for revenge at its seething heart. The fifth installment in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.
As the Earthsoul weakens, the Veil separating life from death thins, allowing the demon God Maeon to press his realm ever closer to the world of men.
With war sweeping across the nations, Jase Fairimor, heir of an ancient birthright, must locate a Blood Orb of Elsa and use it to rejuvenate the Earthsoul before she fails completely. There is just one problem: Jase fears he may be as dangerous as the enemy. Book one in The Earthsoul Prophecies.
Following their bestsellers Vulcan's Forge (1997) and Vulcan's Heart (1999), Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz conclude their new trilogy chronicling the latter-day adventures of one of Star Trek's most beloved characters, shedding new light on his world's shocking history. The distant past: The great ships have left war-torn Vulcan behind and, after a most arduous journey, have arrived at their destination. Two worlds become the new home of the exiles: Romulus is a verdant paradise, one much different from their desert home, while Remus is a barren wasteland, albeit one that is laden with natural resources.
When Karatek and his family find themselves trapped on Remus with no hope of joining their brothers and sisters on Romulus, it sparks a conflict that leads the exiles into vicious civil war. One year after the Dominion War: The Watraii are determined to destroy the Romulan Star Empire. Ambassador Spock is equally determined to learn their secret.
With the aid of his wife Captain Saavik and the U.S.S.
Alliance, his old comrades Scotty, Uhura, and Chekov, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the U.S.S.
Enterprise, Spock executes a daring plan to bring about peace before the Alpha Quadrant is once again plunged into war...
The stunning conclusion to the trilogy that changes everything you thought you knew about the Vulcans and the Romulans! The third and final novel in the Star Trek: Vulcan rsquo;s Soul Trilogy.
Titans of Chaos, John C.
Wright (Tor Books)
Titans of Chaos completes John Wrights The Chronicles of Chaos. Launched in Orphans of Chaos, a Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel in 2006 and a Locus Years Best Novel pick for 2005, and continued in Fugitives of Chaos, the trilogy is about five orphans raised in a strict British boarding school who discovered that they are not human. The five have made incredible discoveries about themselves.
Amelia is apparently a fourth-dimensional being; Victor is a synthetic man who can control the molecular arrangement of matter; Vanity can find secret passageways through solid walls; Colin is a psychic; Quentin is a warlock. Each power comes from a different paradigm or view of the universe. They have learned to control their strange abilities and have escaped into our world; now their true battle for survival begins.
The Chronicles of Chaos is situated in the literary territory of J. K. Rowling rsquo;s Harry Potter books and Neil Gaimans American Gods, with some of the flash and dazzle of superhero comics.
Lieutenant Jodenny Scott is a hero. She has the medals and the scars to prove it. She's cooling her heels on Kookaburra, recovering from injuries sustained during the fiery loss of her last ship, the Yangtze, and she's bored mdash;so bored, in fact, that she takes a berth on the next ship out.
That's a mistake. The Aral Sea isn't anyone's idea of a get-well tour. Jodenny's handed a division full of misfits, incompetents, and criminals.
She's a squared-away officer. She thinks she can handle it all. She's wrong.
Aral Sea isn't a happy ship snd it's about to get a lot unhappier. As Aral Sea enters the Alcheringa mdash;the alien-constructed space warp that allows giant settler-ships to travel between worlds, away from all help or hope mdash;Jodenny comes face to face with something powerful enough to dwarf even the unknown force that destroyed her last ship and left her with missing memories and bloody nightmares. Lieutenant Jodenny Scott is about to be introduced to love.
Author Sandra McDonald brings her personal knowledge of the military and of the subtle interplay between men and women on deployment, to a stirring tale that mixes ancient Australian folklore with the colonization of the stars.
Kay Kenyon, noted for her science fiction world-building, has in this new series created her most vivid and compelling society, the Universe Entire. In a land-locked galaxy that tunnels through our own, the Entire is a bizarre and seductive mix of long-lived quasi-human and alien beings gathered under a sky of fire, called the bright.
A land of wonders, the Entire is sustained by monumental storm walls and an exotic, never-ending river. Over all, the elegant and cruel Tarig rule supreme. Into this rich milieu is thrust Titus Quinn, former star pilot, bereft of his beloved wife and daughter who are assumed dead by everyone on earth except Quinn.
Believing them trapped in a parallel universe, one where he himself may have been imprisoned, he returns to the Entire without resources, language, or his memories of that former life. He is assisted by Anzi, a woman of the Chalin people, a Chinese culture copied from our own universe and transformed by the kingdom of the bright. Learning of his daughter's dreadful slavery, Quinn swears to free her.
To do so, he must cross the unimaginable distances of the Entire in disguise, for the Tarig are lying in wait for him. As Quinn's memories return, he discovers why. Quinn's goal is to penetrate the exotic culture of the Entire, to the heart of Tarig power, the fabulous city of the Ascendancy, to steal the key to his family's redemption.
But will his daughter and wife welcome rescue? Ten years of brutality have forced compromises on everyone. What Quinn will learn to his dismay is what his own choices were, long ago, in the Universe Entire.
He will also discover why a fearful multiverse destiny is converging on him and what he must sacrifice to oppose the coming storm. This is high-concept SF written on the scale of Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld, Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles, and Dan Dimmons's Hyperion. The first novel in the Entire and the Rose series.
The Castor, a vast starship, seemingly deserted and spinning slowly in the void of deep space. Martha and the Doctor explore the drifting tomb, and discover that they may not be alone after all..
. Who survived the disaster that overcame the rest of the crew? What continues to power the vessel?
And why has a stretch of wooded countryside suddenly appeared in the middle of the craft? As the Doctor and Martha journey through the forest, they find a mysterious, fogbound village - a village traumatised by missing children and tales of its own destruction..
.
After a trip to the zoo, the Doctor and Martha go in search of a real live dodo and are transported by the TARDIS to the mysterious Museum of the Last Ones. There, in the Earth section, they discover every extinct creature up to the present day - billions of them, from the tiniest insect to the biggest dinosaur, all still alive and in suspended animation.
Preservation is the Museum's only job - collecting the last of every endangered species from all over the universe. And for millennia the Museum has been trying to trace one elusive specimen: the last of the Time Lords..
.
The TARDIS lands the Doctor and Martha in the Lake District in 1909, where a small village has been terrorised by a giant, scaly monster. The search is on for the elusive ''Beast of Westmorland,'' and explorers, naturalists and hunters from across the country are descending on the fells.
King Edward VII himself is on his way to join the search, with a knighthood for whoever finds the Beast. But there is a more sinister presence at work in the Lakes than a mere monster on the rampage, and the Doctor is soon embroiled in the plans of an old and terrifying enemy. And as the hunters become the hunted, a desperate battle of wits begins - with the future of the entire world at stake.
..
It is 1849.
Across Europe, the high tide of revolution has crested, leaving recrimination and betrayal in its wake. From the high councils of Prussia to the corridors of Parliament, the powers-that-be breathe sighs of relief. But the powers-that-be are hardly unified among themselves.
Far from it...
On the south coast of England, London man-about-town James Cobham comes to himself in a country inn, with no idea how he got there. Corresponding with his cousin, he discovers himself to have been presumed drowned in a boating accident. Together they decide that he should stay put for the moment, while they investigate what may have transpired.
For James Cobham is a man wanted by conspiring factions of the government and the Chartists alike, and also the target of a magical conspiracy inside his own family. And so the adventure begins..
. leading the reader through every corner of mid-nineteenth-century Britain, from the parlors of the elite to the dens of the underclass. Not since Wilkie Collins or Conan Doyle has there been such a profusion of guns, swordfights, family intrigues, women disguised as men, occult societies, philosophical discussions, and, of course, passionate romance.
Nor could any writing team but Steven Brust and Emma Bull make it quite so much fun...
Wait a second, a profusion of lsquo;women disguised as men rsquo;? Hrmm
Tolkien's views on language, though never published as a formalised theory, were in some aspects rather 'heretic' (to use Tom Shippey's term) and seemed to fly into the face of 'established' linguistic theory - most notably his conception of 'native (hereditary) language' and, related to it, the idea of 'linguistic aesthetic' and 'phonetic fitness'. Unfortunately, this aspect of Tolkien's linguistic work has, as yet, not received the attention it deserves and Ross Smith is one of the first Tolkien scholars to investigate the question of Tolkien's position on language vis-a-vis the then (and even now) dominant tenet(s) in some depth.
Cassandra Kresnov is a highly advanced hunter-killer android. She has escaped the League and fled to Callay, a member of the Federation. Because of her fighting skills she was able to save the president's life and is now a trusted member of the security forces.
However, not all Tanushans are happy to have her on their turf and Cassandra has to tread carefully. As Callay moves towards a vote on whether to break away from the Federation, confusion reigns and terrorist groups plot their own agendas. Cassandra becomes involved with two young troubleshooters for the secret service and finds out more than she ever wanted to know about the Tanushan underground and those on the fringes.
Furthermore, there is a delegation from the League in Tanusha, and Cassandra is not sure that they won't try to take her back. Breakaway is a great story with a cracking plot and strong characters. At its heart is the enigma of Cassandra: Is she more human than human, or is she totally untrustworthy?
Follows 2006 rsquo;s Crossover in the Cassandra Kresnov novels.
Okay that just about wraps things up for this week rsquo;s edition of the Buzz. Be sure to check back next Tuesday for all the latest news on current sci fi, fantasy, and horror book releases.
Questions or Comments? Hit me up at .
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Keywords: h u, Star Trek, Christopher Tolkien, Josepha Sherman, Kurt Vonnegut, Houghton Mifflin, Aral Sea, Alan Lee, Susan Shwartz, James Cobham
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