Cover Reveal: A New Look for The Spatterjay Series

Neal Asher's Spatterjay series is getting a makeover with some brand new covers by artist Steve Stone. The new editions are scheduled for release on 29 November.

Pre-Order a copy of The Skinner

Pre-Order a copy of The Voyage of the Sable Keech

Pre-Order a copy of Orbus

While I'll always prefer the truly amazing covers Jon Sullivan did for the series, these look pretty darn good. I'm not a huge fan of the taglines on the covers though (even if they do earn bonus points for sneaking in a Game of Thrones riff on the cover of The Voyage of the Sable Keech).

What do you guys think?

Reading slumps, a plague and losing the spark

It's been a while ages since I last posted. Over the last two months it just seems that I've completely lost the spark. My brain just couldn't focus on reading, at most I managed to read a couple of pages and just lost interest. Trying to blog was also an effort in futility. I sat for hours staring at a blinking cursor while it taunted me with its smug superiority and the words just wouldn't come...

I guess the changing seasons and increasing workload just sapped all of my energy. Like Opportunity stuck in a Mars dust storm I just couldn't muster up the drive to do anything productive. I'm not sure if it's the lack of sunlight, the cold (I'm not much of a Winter person) or work stress that has left me so drained. The best I could manage was to crawl into bed and fall asleep as soon as I got back from work.

In the middle of June I had a week of vacation leave scheduled . A glorious week which would've been the perfect opportunity for me to recharge my batteries and get back into the swing of things. Alas, it was not to be. On my very first day off I developed a dose of flu which could give the plague a run for it's money. My week was spent in bed, feverish and just too weak to even pick up a book and before I knew it the break was over and not a single page was read. My only memento is a persistent cough that still refuses to go away. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm still here. I'm struggling to rekindle that lost spark, but I can see a faint glow of life in the embers. I might not have lost it after all.

There are some glorious books waiting to be read and I will get to them... it might just take me a little longer than normal.

Happy reading!

Reading Wrap-up: March 2018

The month of March brought with it two blissful weeks of vacation leave. I had been looking forward to it for ages and I had the perfect staycation planned - a comfy bed, loads of snacks and enough time to read ALL the things. My plan was to put a dent into my considerable review copy backlog, but alas my brain had other ideas...

Things started out great, I read and reviewed Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds. And that's when I lost myself in a decidedly Reynolds-shaped black hole of mesmerising fiction. I couldn't get Reynolds' work out of my head which sparked a frantic re-read of  the first two Revelation Space novels, Revelation Space and Redemption Ark. Both of these were as good, if not better, than I remembered. I loved the complexity, and absolutely gigantic scope of both the universe and concepts Reynolds brings to vibrant life on the page. The female characters in his novels are powerful, captivating and memorable. They aren't just token female characters; they shape the world and have critical roles to play - just as it should be. His work will set your brain abuzz in the best possible way!

After spending so much time in outer space I needed a change of pace and Robert McCammon's Boy's Life was just the thing to bring me back to Earth. Boy's Life is a wonderful, magical look into childhood. It follows a year in the life of a young boy, Cory, as he deals with the loss of childhood innocence. It's beautifully written, funny, sad, and profound, with keen observations about what it means to grow up. There's a touch of the supernatural thrown in, but it just adds an extra bit of magic to a coming of age story that will have you yearning for your own lost childhood. If you can get past the slower pacing this is an absolutely fantastic read! I definitely need to explore more of McCammon's work.

In the end I managed to read 4 books with a total of 2276 pages (an average of 576 pages). Since most of these were tomes I'm really happy with the amount of reading I got done. Overall it was a pretty great month even if things took a detour.