Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.
Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
Promo copy:
Springtime in Styria. And that means war.
There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled the land white. Armies march, heads roll and cities burn, while behind the scenes bankers, priests and older, darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king.
War may be hell but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso’s employ, it’s a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular – a shade too popular for her employer’s taste. Betrayed and left for dead, Murcatto’s reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die.
Her allies include Styria’s least reliable drunkard, Styria’s most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a Northman who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And that’s all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started…
Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.
BEST SERVED COLD is the new standalone novel set in the world of Joe Abercrombie’s First Law Trilogy.
Rasl #4 by Jeff Smith
Picks up right where the first collection left off! Earlier this year, I wrote this about the first book:
| Quote: |
| The long awaited new series by the creator of the popular all-ages Bone chronicles, the mature audiences science fiction tale Rasl centers around the eponymous dimension-hopping thief. Drawn in Smith’s trademark clean, cartoony style, Rasl Volume 1: The Drift entertains and thrills while introducing a complex, interesting tale. Sadly, the volume is all too short, leaving the reader unsatisfied and yearning for more of what promises to be an excellent adventure tale. |
The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron
Promo copy:
To the long tradition of eldritch horror pioneered and refined by writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub, and Thomas Ligotti, comes Laird Barron, an author whose literary voice invokes the grotesque, the devilish, and the perverse with rare intensity and astonishing craftsmanship. Collected here for the first time are nine terrifying tales of cosmic horror, including the World Fantasy Award-nominated novella "The Imago Sequence," the International Horror Guild Award-nominated "Proboscis," and the never-before published "Procession of the Black Sloth." Together, these stories, each a masterstroke of craft and imaginative irony, form a shocking cycle of distorted evolution, encroaching chaos, and ravenous insectoid hive-minds hidden just beneath the seemingly benign surface of the Earth.
More in Part Three.