Waiting On Wednesday: Gollancz @gollancz #WaitingOnWednesday #Bookreviews #Anticipation #Gollancz #Authors

This is a weekly post was originally hosted by Breaking The Spine but has since moved over to Wishful Endings and transformed into Can’t Wait Wednesday. All you have to do is share releases you are looking forward to in the coming months and then link it back to Wishful Endings. Things are beginning to heat up in April and beyond, especially in the Gollancz camp. There are some serious contenders for Book Of The Year coming from the amazing authors that work with Gollancz. I can’t wait for more Joanne Harris, Tom Lloyd, Ed McDonald and many more. Enjoy the list and let me know if there are any books you are particularly excited to read yourself in 2018. P.s please excuse the gratuitous fan talk surrounding the first two books…

I Am Waiting On…

Released 17.05.18

This might have already won my heart and I don’t have a copy yet. The Gospel Of Loki left me with an unquenchable thirst for mythology and I am certain The Testament Of Loki is only going to be fuel on that fire :D. Joanne Harris has an amazing perspective on Norse Mythology (yes even better than Gaiman) that I could never get enough of. I will be talking about this for most of May so buckle up!

Book Synopsis

Ragnarok was the End of Worlds.

Asgard fell, centuries ago, and the old gods have been defeated. Some are dead, while others have been consigned to eternal torment in the netherworld – among them, the legendary trickster, Loki. A god who betrayed every side and still lost everything, who has lain forgotten as time passed and the world of humans moved on to new beliefs, new idol and new deities . . .

But now mankind dreams of the Norse Gods once again, the river Dream is but a stone’s throw from their dark prison, and Loki is the first to escape into a new reality.

The first, but not the only one to. Other, darker, things have escaped with him, who seek to destroy everything that he covets. If he is to reclaim what has been lost, Loki will need allies, a plan, and plenty of tricks…

Released 28.06.18 (Too far away…)

Oh hell yeah! Blackwing was just a fantastic read (I am sure you all agree) and if you haven’t read it then shame on you! I am serious! Go get it now! Read it? Sweet! Now I am not one to speculate (much) but I am 99.9% sure that Ravencry is going to be amazing. Ed McDonald has serious talent and the world/characters he has created are as gritty as they are addictive and engrossing. I await more magic, machines and wars of gods/kings with apocalyptic anticipation (too much…? yeah…) and I am sure you will all hear enough about it in June!

Book Synopsis

For Ryhalt Galharrow, working for Crowfoot as a Blackwing captain is about as bad as it gets – especially when his orders are garbled, or incoherent, or impossible to carry out.

The Deep Kings are hurling fire from the sky, a ghost in the light known only as the Bright Lady had begun to manifest in visions across the city, and the cult that worship her grasp for power while the city burns around them.

Galharrow may not be able to do much about the cult – or about strange orders from the Nameless – but when Crowfoot’s arcane vault is breached and an object of terrible power is stolen, he’s propelled into a race against time to recover it. Only to do that, he needs answers, and finding them means travelling into nightmare: to the very heart of the Misery.

RAVENCRY is the second book in the Raven’s Mark series, continuing the story that began with the award winning epic fantasy BLACKWING.

Released 28.06.18

Summerland sounds epic. The Afterlife. God Technology. A land where the deceased flourish. Conspiracies, espionage and government secrets. I am eager to get stuck into this later on in the year. I have been reading a lot of books with an afterlife theme within them recently and Summerland seems like the ultimate exploration of what may come after death in future society.

Book Synopsis

An awe-inspiring account of the afterlife and what happens when it spills over into the world of the living. The new novel from the most exciting new voice in the genre since Neal Stephenson.

Loss is a thing of the past. Murder is obsolete. Death is just the beginning. 

In 1938, death is no longer feared but exploited. Since the discovery of the afterlife, the British Empire has extended its reach into Summerland, a metropolis for the recently deceased.

Yet Britain isn’t the only contender for power in this life and the next. The Soviets have spies in Summerland, and the technology to build their own god.

When SIS agent Rachel White gets a lead on one of the Soviet moles, blowing the whistle puts her hard-earned career at risk. The spy has friends in high places, and she will have to go rogue to bring him in.

But how do you catch a man who’s already dead?

Released 14.06.18

The Quanderhorn Xperimentations comes across as superbly bizarre. I haven’t listened to the radio show so I am not sure what to expect (other than what the exceptional blurb states) but I am excited about it. I get to scratch that ‘absurd yet amazing’ reading itch I get from time to time. Bring on June.

Book Synopsis

The full adaptation of the Radio 4 show, with additional material and story!

England, 1952.

Churchill is Prime Minister for the last time. Rationing is still in force. All music sounds like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. People like living in 1952: it’s familiar and reassuring, and Britain knows its place in the world.
Few have noticed it’s been 1952 for the past 65 years.

Meet Professor Quanderhorn; a brilliant, maverick scientific genius who has absolutely no moral compass. With his Dangerous Giant Space Laser, High Rise Farm, Invisible Robot and Fleet of Monkey-driven Lorries, he’s not afraid to push the boundaries of science to their very limit.

Even when it’s clearly insane to keep pushing.

Despite the fact he’s saved the world from several Martian invasions, the attacks of the Mole People, the Troglodyte Shape-shifters and the Beatniks from Under the Sea, plus countless other sinister phenomena which threatened to rend the very fabric of reality, the Government would like to close him down. Why? Because they’re terrified of him. Of his reality-warping experiments, of the mysterious button on his desk which he’s constantly threatening to press. Of the unearthly secret locked in his cellar. And yet they’re even more terrified it might stop being 1952 and they’ll be out of power.

Released 26.07.18

Tom Toner is one to watch in the SFF genre and The Tropic of Eternity (Amaranthine Spectrum #3) looks fantastic. I do appreciate a good series that you can sink into and this series is deep enough to get lost in for ages. Looking forward to getting into TTOE in July 2018!

Book Synopsis

It is the 147th century. The mighty era of Homo Sapiens is at an end.

In the Westerly Provinces of the Old World, the hunt is on for the young queen Arabis, and the beast that holds her captive. In the brutal hominid Investiture, revolution has come. The warlord Cunctus, having seized the Vulgar worlds, invites every Prism to pick a side. In the Firmament, once the kingdom of the Immortal Amaranthine, all ships converge on the foundry of Gliese. The grandest battle in the history of mammalian kind has begun.

Perception, ancient machine spirit, must take back its mortal remains in a contest for the Firmament itself. Ghaldezuel, now the Grand Marshal of Cunctus’ new empire, must travel to the deepest lagoon in the Investiture, a place where monsters dwell. Captain Maril, lost amongst the Hedron Stars, finds himself caught between colossal powers the likes of which he’d never dreamt.

And for Aaron the Long-Life, he who has waited so very, very long for his revenge, things are only getting started…

Released 05.07.18

Lud-in-the-Mist sounded so intriguing that I had to add it to this list! An adult fairy tale that makes the reader consider the dark side of their minds. This could be intense! It seems so far from the kind of novel I would usually pick up that I am drawn to it. The synopsis is still rather cryptic even after several reads so I await answers to my questions in July.

Book Synopsis

Lud-in-the-Mist – a prosperous country town situated where two rivers meet: the Dawl and the Dapple. The latter, which has its source in the land of Faerie, is a great trial to Lud, which had long rejected anything ‘other’, preferring to believe only in what is known, what is solid.

Nathaniel Chanticleer is a somewhat dreamy, slightly melancholy man, not one for making waves, who is deliberately ignoring a vital part of his own past; a secret he refuses even to acknowledge. But with the disappearance of his own daughter, and a long-overdue desire to protect his young son, he realises that something is changing in Lud – and something must be done.

Lud-in-the-Mist is a true classic, an adult fairy tale exploring the need to embrace what we fear and to come to terms with ‘the shadows’ – those sweet and dark impulses that our public selves ignore or repress.

Released 06.09.18

I have never read a book or watched a TV show/movie that featured the events of 9/11. I was very young when it happened and I have always associated it with pure tragedy and suffering. I saw An American Story and felt it was time to delve into that subject. I am not entirely sure what Christopher Priest is trying to achieve with this novel but I am going to to find out in September 2018.

Book Synopsis

Ben Matson lost someone he loved in the 9/11 attacks. Or thinks he did – no body has been recovered, and she shouldn’t have been on that particular plane on that day. But he knows she was.

The world has moved on from that terrible day. Nearly 20 years later, it has faded into a dull memory for most people. But a chance encounter rekindles Ben’s interest in the event, and the inconsistencies that always bugged him. Then the announcement of the recovery of an unidentified plane crash sets off a chain of events that will lead Ben to question everything he thought he knew.
Thoughtful, impeccably researched and dazzling in its writing, this is Ben’s story, the story of what happened to his fiancé, and the story of all that happened on 9/11.

Thanks for stopping by to check out some of my most anticipated reads coming from Gollancz this year. Things got a bit intense to begin with for which I apologise but they are seriously good authors with some great upcoming releases so it was always going to happen. I am really enjoying sharing all these reads with you and if by chance I have encouraged you to pick one up then I would love to know. Come back again for plenty more current and expected reads in the future. Cheers!

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