Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.
Fever Chart by Bill Cotter
Promo copy:
Having spent most of his life medicated, electroshocked, and institutionalized, Jerome Coe finds himself homeless on the coldest night of the century − and so, with nowhere else to go, he accepts a ride out of New England from an old love’s ex-girlfriend. It doesn’t quite work out, but he makes it to New Orleans, and a new life − complete with a bandaged hand, world-champion grilled-cheese sandwiches, and only the occasional psychotic break. Things get better, and then, of course, they get worse.
From a writer who’s worked as a debt collector, book restorer, toilet scrubber, and door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesman, and filled with a cast of Crescent City denizens that makes for one of the most vivid ensembles since Toole’s Confederacy, Bill Cotter’s debut novel Fever Chart is, we think, funnier and more exciting and just generally better written than any other book or movie or theatrical production you’ll see this year.
Over the next couple of months, you’ll be hearing more from me about this Austinite’s intriguing debut novel.
The Silver Skull (Swords of Albion) by Mark Chadbourn
Promo copy:
A devilish plot to assassinate the queen, a cold war enemy hell-bent on destroying the nation, incredible gadgets, a race against time around the world to stop the ultimate doomsday device… and Elizabethan England’s greatest spy!
Meet Will Swyfte—adventurer, swordsman, rake, swashbuckler, wit, scholar and the greatest of Walsingham’s new band of spies. His exploits against the forces of Philip of Spain have made him a national hero, lauded from Carlisle to Kent. Yet his associates can barely disguise their incredulity—what is the point of a spy whose face and name is known across Europe?
But Swyfte’s public image is a carefully-crafted façade to give the people of England something to believe in, and to allow them to sleep peacefully at night. It deflects attention from his real work—and the true reason why Walsingham’s spy network was established.
A Cold War seethes, and England remains under a state of threat. The forces of Faerie have preyed on humanity for millennia. Responsible for our myths and legends, of gods and fairies, dragons, griffins, devils, imps and every other supernatural menace that has haunted our dreams, this power in the darkness has seen humans as playthings to be tormented, hunted or eradicated. But now England is fighting back!
Magical defences have been put in place by the Queen’s sorcerer Dr. John Dee, who is also a senior member of Walsingham’s secret service and provides many of the bizarre gadgets utilised by the spies. Finally there is a balance of power. But the Cold War is threatening to turn hot at any moment…
Will now plays a constant game of deceit and death, holding back the Enemy’s repeated incursions, dealing in a shadowy world of plots and counter-plots, deceptions, secrets, murder, where no one… and no thing… is quite what it seems.
Diving into the Wreck by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Promo copy:
Boss loves to dive historical ships, derelict spacecraft found adrift in the blackness between the stars. Sometimes she salvages for money, but mostly she’s an active historian. She wants to know about the past—to experience it firsthand. Once she’s dived the ship, she’ll either leave it for others to find or file a claim so that she can bring tourists to dive it as well. It’s a good life for a tough loner, with more interest in artifacts than people.
Then one day, Boss finds the claim of a lifetime: an enormous spacecraft, incredibly old, and apparently Earth-made. It’s impossible for something so old, built in the days before Faster Than Light travel, to have journeyed this far from Earth. It shouldn’t be here. It can’t be here. And yet, it is. Boss’s curiosity is up, and she’s determined to investigate. She hires a group of divers to explore the wreck with her, the best team she can assemble. But some secrets are best kept hidden, and the past won’t give up its treasures without exacting a price in blood.
What Boss finds could rewrite history, cost lives, and start an intergalactic war.