Release Date: 17/03/16
Publisher: Gollancz
SYNOPSIS:
Weyland has been at war. Invaded by a technologically advanced enemy, the cities sacked, and what fragile peace remained torn apart by a civil war.
All anyone should want is a return to peace.
But Jacob Carneham still wants his revenge; and if he can lure the invaders into the mountain he can have it. He can kill them all.
If he does, there may never be peace again.
If he doesn't, Weyland will never be free of the threat of invasion.
The northern horse lords are planning an attack. A future Empress is fighting to save her daughter. Jacob's son is trying to restore peace and stability to Weyland, alongside the rightful King. And behind it all is a greater struggle, which may spell the end for them all . .
REVIEW:
If you want an author that brings you solid storylines, cracking dialogue and old fashioned type of heroism to the fore, then Stephen Hunt is an author that you’ll want to spend quite a bit of time with. Noticing Stephen way back when he won the WH Smiths writing competition I’ve loved his ability to weave believable characters into all his work. They live and breath and are people you care about.
And such is the case in this his latest title. As with his other works, it has solid prose, great sense of pace and when blended with dialogue that trips off the page as well as wonderfully working in world-building that transports you right to the centre of the story all round gives you a book that’s hard to put down. Magic.
Release Date: 15/05/14
Publisher: Gollancz
SYNOPSIS:
Jacob Carnehan has settled down. He's living a comfortable, quiet life, obeying the law and minding his own business while raising his son Carter ...on those occasions when he isn't having to bail him out of one scrape or another. His days of adventure are - thankfully - long behind him. Carter Carnehan is going out of his mind with boredom. He's bored by his humdrum life, frustrated that his father won't live a little, and longs for the bright lights and excitement of anywhere-but-here. He's longing for an opportunity to escape, and test himself against whatever the world has to offer. Carter is going to get his opportunity. He's caught up in a village fight, kidnapped by slavers and, before he knows it, is swept to another land. A lowly slave, surrounded by technology he doesn't understand, his wish has come true: it's him vs. the world. He can try to escape, he can try to lead his fellow slaves, or he can accept the inevitable and try to make the most of the short, brutal existence remaining to him...unless Jacob gets to him first and, no matter the odds, he intends to. No one kidnaps his son and gets away with it - and if it come to it, he'll force Kings to help him on his way, he'll fight, steal, blackmail and betray his friends in the name of bringing Carter home. Wars will be started. Empires will fall. And the Carnehan family will be reunited, one way or another...
REVIEW:
Stephen Hunt has been one of those authors that I’ve enjoyed since I read his original “The Dragon and the Crown” (which won him the WHSmith prize) and whilst I’m still waiting for that series to continue, I’ve really enjoyed his Steampunk cross titles as they always bring something that I can’t get enough of to the fore. Principle players that I want to spend time around.
Here within the latest outing is a story of heroism, of action and as usual nigh impossible odds for the people to not only battle against but where survival is the key. Its wonderfully inventive, has great pace and all round made me feel like a very happy reader.
When I set out to write my first novel, The Court of the Air, I thought I was embarking on writing a fantasy novel. After much sweat and labour, when I laid aside my pen, I was even fairly sure I had actually finished a fantasy novel. Ditto, the follow-ups in the Jackelian series (deep breath)… The Kingdom Beyond the Waves, The Rise of the Iron Moon, Secrets of the Fire Sea, Jack Cloudie and From the Deep of the Dark.At a push, I mused, they’re a fantasy/science fiction cocktail… in more or less the same way as Burroughs’ Barsoom novels, say, or Moorcock’s Nomad of the Time Streams. That was what I was aiming for, anyway. You know the kind of thing: pistols, sabres, high adventure, evil monsters, swashes to be buckled, ropes to be swung on. After all, my books were set many millions of years in the future, after continental drift, ice ages and various catastrophes—natural and manmade—have reset the clock and scrubbed almost all vestiges of our current civilisation from the memories of mankind and its evolutionary offshoots and genetically engineered follies. And let’s not leave out a few alien species imported during humanity’s zenith.So after the glaciers retreated, it made sense – at least to me – that the clock on my fictional world should be reset to the baseline, and that baseline would be steam at the low end. The Jackelian Kingdom is so far in the future that evolution in the laws of the physics – specifically the fine-structure constant - has rendered electrical current too variable to be reliably utilised as anything other than a spectacular weapon of war. Thus, I was left with nano-mechanical systems & genetic engineering at the high end. Hence my self-evolving robot race of the Steammen, and the slavocracy of Cassarabia in the far south of my imagined lands (built on some very nasty genetic engineering).And if you’re doing steam, and the period of history you’re most familiar with is Victorian, you might as well stick in airships and u-boats and clockwork driven pistols and poorhouses and orphans, right? It would be damn rude not to. After the first book’s launch, however, strange things began to happen. When the Berlinale, Europe’s largest film festival, selected The Court of the Air as the best book that should be made into a movie, their elevator pitch was “Bladerunner meets Charles Dickens.” WTF! Finally, the truth began to dawn, even on me, when the Jackelian series garnered a Wiki mention as one of the driving forces behind the new wave of steampunk.I always thought to be steampunk, you had to fix your world in real historical Victoriana, and have walk-on parts for Captain Nemo and Abraham Lincoln and Sherlock Holmes…. Had I unwittingly committed steampunk? What, even with the alien races and robots and stuff?The only reason I had gone off-piste in the first place was that I had wanted to avoid Swordpunk. You know, faux-medieval, furry pants, anywhere from Bronze Age to late Renaissance. The rest of the genre is doing that. J.R.R. Tolkien isn’t, of course—he’s dead. No more Swordpunk from him. But lots of others are still at it like rabbits. Terry Pratchett: Comedy Swordpunk. Joe Abercrombie: Hard-edged brutally realistic sardonic Swordpunk. George R.R. Martin: Non-formulaic multi-layered dynastic Swordpunk. Brandon Sanderson: Epic Swordpunk.All that effort avoiding Swordpunk, and I end up as accidentally committing steampunk. How could I be such a fool? No science fiction association would ever invite me to speak at a convention again, not unless I was sitting next to somebody with a stovepipe hat and a mechanical prosthetic. And no respectable fantasy convention would want me anywhere near their dwarf-loving readers in case I corrupted them.
I’m trying to rehabilitate myself, dear reader, really I am. Here’s my simple 4-step plan.- Admitting that one cannot control one's steampunk or Victorian-influenced technologies.- Recognising a higher power that can give you strength: the BSFA in the UK, or the SFWA in America.- Examining past errors with the help of another author: I’m meeting George RR Martin soon… George?- Helping others who suffer from the same addictions or compulsions: definitely got to fix Alan Moore before he writes another League of Extraordinary Gentlemen sequel.You can help me by offering directed support at SF Crowsnest Twitter and Sci-Fi Fantasy Facebook – but whatever you do, please don’t encourage my addiction at Steampunkish.If interested in Stephen's latest book: From the Deep of the Dark we reviewed it here.
Release Date: 16/02/12
SYNOPSIS:
The sixth marvellous tale of high adventure and derring-do from the master of steampunk literature, set in the world of The Court of the Air. A daring underwater chase ends in a battle for the Kingdom itself! The streets of Middlesteel are under attack by an unseen enemy, leaving bloodless corpses in its trail. The newssheets scream vampire, but the truth is even more deadly than anyone knows. Charlotte Shades, Mistress of Mesmerism, is a thief -- and a darned good one at that. When two mysterious men ask her to steal King Jude's sceptre from the Parliament vaults, the challenge (and reward) is too great to pass up. After all, Charlotte's natural charm and the magic of the gem she wears -- the mysterious Eye of Fate -- have never failed her before. Only consulting detective Jethro Daunt and his steamman companion Boxiron know there's more to these two men than meets the eye. Yet even as they rescue Charlotte from a fate worse than death, they are thrown into a plot thicker than even they realize. They escape beneath the waves in an ancient submarine led by Commodore Jethro Black, where they encounter stiff resistance from the strange people who inhabit the vast underwater kingdoms. But man, woman, seanore and gill-neck alike must band together if they are to defeat a danger that might not even be from this world!
REVIEW:
If you love the hiss of steam, the turning of cogs and the worlds of imagination that stemmed from the likes of Verne, then you really have to read Stephen Hunt’s tales that take you from the land to the sea and beneath. Full of quirky twists, dark deeds and political machinations, this tale is one of high adventure and explored dangers as ancient worlds collide with modern threats as threads previously lost to history are revealed.
All in a story that captures the reader firmly in its steam-powered hand, keeping you glued to the last page as history is made, throw into the mix the wonderful inventiveness of Stephen Hunt that first came to light in the Crown and the Dragon and all in, a great time is had by all.
Release Date: 07/07/11
SYNOPSIS:
A tale of high adventure and derring-do set in the same Victorian-style world as the acclaimed The Court of the Air and The Secrets of the Fire Sea. Thanks to his father's gambling debts, young Jack Keats finds himself on the streets and trying to survive as a pickpocket, desperate to graft enough coins to keep him and his two younger brothers fed. Following a daring bank robbery gone badly awry, Jack narrowly escapes the scaffold, only to be pressed into Royal Aerostatical Navy. Assigned to the most useless airship in the fleet, serving under a captain who is most probably mad, Jack seems to be bound for almost certain death in the far-away deserts of Cassarabia. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Omar ibn Barir, the slave of a rich merchant lord finds his life turned upside down when his master's religious sect is banned. Unexpectedly freed, he survives the destruction of his home to enter into the service of the Caliph's military forces -- just as war is brewing. Two very similar young men prepare to face each other across a senseless field of war. But is Omar the enemy, or is Jack's true nemesis the sickness at the heart of the Caliph's court? A cult that hides the deadly secret to the origins of the gas being used to float Cassarabia's new aerial navy. If Jack and his shipmates can discover what Cassarabia's aggressive new regime is trying to conceal, he might survive the most horrific of wars and clear his family's name. If not!
REVIEW:
I love a great bit of Steampunk and striking out in a world of his own choosing Stephen returns with a brand new cast, a cracking lead and an overall arc that really is mind boggling. Add to this Stephen’s own writing style that those who remember The Crown and the Dragon fell in love with, great prose alongside an I can do it attitude and it’s a tale that really keeps on giving that sets the tone for future adventures.
All in this title was a hell of a lot of fun and with an extremely intelligent as well as gifted antihero in the lead it was one that takes the reader on a journey that few others would tread as the character could just as likely have ended up being detestable. For god, for the Sovereign and for Country provided that self-interest is looked after first. Cracking fun.
BOOK BLURB:
A tale of high adventure and derring-do set in the same Victorian-style world as the acclaimed The Court of the Air and The Rise of the Iron Moon. The isolated island of Jago is the only place Hannah Conquest has ever known as home. Encircled by the magma ocean of the Fire Sea, it was once the last bastion of freedom when the world struggled under the tyranny of the Chimecan Empire during the age-long winter of the cold-time. But now this once-shining jewel of civilization faces an uncertain future as its inhabitants emigrate to greener climes, leaving the basalt plains and raging steam storms far behind them. For Hannah and her few friends, the streets of the island's last occupied underground city form a vast, near-deserted playground. But Hannah's carefree existence comes to an abrupt halt when her guardian, Archbishop Alice Gray, is brutally murdered in her own cathedral. Someone desperately wants to suppress a secret kept by the archbishop, and if the attempts on Hannah's own life are any indication, the killer believes that Alice passed the knowledge of it onto her ward before her saintly head was separated from her neck. But it soon becomes clear that there is more at stake than the life of one orphan. A deadly power struggle is brewing on Jago, involving rival factions in the senate and the island's most powerful trading partner. And it's beginning to look as if the deaths of Hannah's archaeologist parents shortly after her birth were very far from accidental. Soon the race is on for Hannah and her friends to unravel a chain of hidden riddles and follow them back to their source to save not just her own life, but her island home itself.
REVIEW:
As a fan of Stephens writing since he won his WH Smiths competition, its always been a pleasure to see what he comes up with next. Here in the fourth instalment of the Jackelian series you get a book unparalleled by anything that’s gone before. The characterisation is unbelievable, the authors prose beautiful and above all the story arc just will blow the reader away as Stephen distracts with slight of hand wordplay. A cracking title and one that will make a good number of readers sit up and pay attention.
BOOK BLURB:
How can a plucky young orphan girl save the world from ultimate destruction?
Born into captivity as a product of the Royal Breeding House, lonely orphan Purity Drake suddenly finds herself on the run with a foreign vagrant after accidentally killing one of her guards.
Her mysterious rescuer claims to have escaped from terrible forces who mean to enslave the Kingdom of the Jackals as they conquered his own nation. Purity doubts his story, until reports begin to filter through from Jackals' neighbours of the murderous Army of Shadows, marching across the continent and sweeping all before them.
But there's more to Purity Drake than meets the eye. And as Jackals girds itself for war against an army of near-indestructible beasts serving an ancient evil with a terrible secret, it soon becomes clear that the Kingdom's only hope is a strange little orphan girl and the last, desperate plan of an escaped slave from a land far, far away...
REVIEW:
The third novel in Stephen’s long awaited trilogy and one that continues to add greater depth to the world created by the WH Smiths New Talent award. It’s well written, it’s cleverly crafted but above all a novel that continues to build upon the success of its predecessors which adds to a more epic feel for the reader, yet it also means that you cannot dive into this if you haven’t read the other novels without ruining a lot of the magic. If your looking for something special and a little different then make this trilogy your new adventure for the year.
