#jo fletcher

A STRANGE AND BRILLIANT LIGHT by Eli Lee

My Review (5*) 4,5* rounded to 5. An interesting book that talks about topics that will be at the centre of the political discussions in the next year. AI is already here, we met AI when we use chat bot or when our preferences are analysed by algorithm. It's terrifying and fascinating at the same considering that some AI programs were already to auto correct their code. This story is about algorithms, data, technical aspects but it also about political solution and the impact on people life. Lal, Janetta and Rose are three women who share a common past. Lal and Rose were friends, Janetta is Lal's sister. They shared a lot but their ideas and life view are totally different. I didn't like Lal as she reminded a number of people I met and who were totally sold to an enterprise philosophy. I loved Rose and Janetta. Rose is full of life, Janetta is the mind that must come to term with the impacts. It's thought provoking book, disturbing at times as it talks about a dystopia that could be our future. This is a debut and I think that author will surely grow into an excel author. I think that the plot drags a bit or the tone is a bit too preachy. The last part was exciting, fast paced and I loved it. It's a thought provoking and gripping speculative fiction, highly recommended. Many thanks to Jo Fletcher Books and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Synopsis: Lal, Janetta and Rose are living in a time of flux. Technological advance has brought huge financial rewards to those with power, but large swathes of the population are losing their jobs to artificial intelligence, or auts, as they’re called. Unemployment is high, discontent is rife and rumours are swirling. Many feel robbed – not just of their livelihoods, but of their hopes for the future. Lal is languishing in her role at a coffee shop and feeling overshadowed by her quietly brilliant sister, Janetta, whose Ph.D. is focused on making auts empathetic. Even Rose, Lal’s best friend, has found a sense of purpose in charismatic up-and-coming politician Alek. When vigilantes break in to the coffee shop and destroy their new coffee-making aut, it sets in motion a chain of events that will pull the three young women in very different directions.

Change is coming – change that will launch humankind into a new era. If Rose, Lal and Janetta can find a way to combine their burgeoning talents, they might just end up setting the course of history.

Book page: https://www.jofletcherbooks.com/titles/eli-lee/a-strange-and-brilliant-light/9781529407754/

A blog post by the author: https://www.jofletcherbooks.com/jo-fletcher-articles/jf-blog/2021/05/18/the-inspiration-behind-a-strange-and-brilliant-light/

Residuum by Dominic Dulley  (The Long Game #3)

My Review (5*): This reviewer is unobservant and didn’t notice this was the third in the Long Game Series and requested it on Netgalley and accepted to be part of the blog blast too. Best practice always recommend to read the books in a series in order as you will be missing large chunks of the character background and the world building but this isn’t what I did. I read this book and had a lot of fun as it’s an action packed, fast paced and pure fun story that made me turn pages as fast I could. I loved the strong female characters, Orry and Jane the sentient ship above all, but I think that all the characters are well rounded and interesting. The plot is tightly knitted and I loved the storytelling and how to author always kept my attention alive. I think this is a sort of space opera thriller and I wanted to know who did it and why, the twists and turns of the plot kept me guessing and I rooted for the characters as they have to face very dangerous places and enemies. There’s plenty of humor and I loved it as it added to my entertainment. Even if I missed the details of the world building I found it interesting and want to know more about the The Departed, the Ruuz and the power relationship in this universe. I bought the previous two installments, Shattermoon and Morhelion, and I’m ready to read this series from the beginning and I’m sure I will enjoyed them as much as I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It’s strongly recommended. Many thanks to Jo Fletcher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Book Description: A planet-eating plague. A hustler-turned-hero. Time is running out . . .

Orry Kent just wants a quiet life – but even a little R&R on the holiday planet of Halcyon turns wild when she accidentally sparks off a revolution amongst the downtrodden native workers.

But that’s small beer compared with the news footage being broadcast across the Ascendancy, showing Orry murdering the man she saved just six months earlier and destroying the Halstaad-Mirnov Institute, the heart of research into the aeons-dead alien race called The Departed.

Buy Link: https://www.jofletcherbooks.com/titles/dominic-dulley/residuum/9781529410754/

The Author: Dominic Dulley is a software developer with a passion for SF. His short fiction has been published widely, in books, journals and magazines. Shattermoon and Morhelion, his first two novels, are the start of the fast-moving, action-packed space opera The Long Game. He lives with his wife and family in Warwick.

Radio Life by Derek B. Miller

My Review (5*): This is the first book I read by this author and requested it because I was fascinated by the plot. I had no expectations and even if I had them they were surely exceeded because it’s a highly entertaining and thought provoking story that I couldn’t put down. There’s plenty of humor but there’s also plenty of philosophical consideration about knowledge, our relationship with technology and the world we live. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic world where knowledge can define your way of living and it defines the two opposed factions: the Commonwealth and the Keepers. They have a different way of living but both are living in the aftermath of a catastrophe that destroyed the previous civilization. Being a knowledge worker I was fascinated by how the two factions approached technology and how they differ in the approach to the world around them. It could seem a very serious book, speculative fiction, but there’s a lot of humor and action making it gripping and enjoyable. The world building is excellent and I loved how the author described the environment and the way of living. There’s a lot of great women characters: they are strong willed, fleshed out and fascinating. The character development is excellent and all the characters are vivid and well written. Mr Miller is a talented storyteller and once you start reading you are hooked. I read somewhere this is the first in a series and I can’t wait to read the next installment. I loved this story and it’s strongly recommended. Many thanks to Jo Fletcher Books and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Book Description: When Lilly was first Chief Engineer at The Commonwealth, nearly fifty years ago, the Central Archive wasn’t yet the greatest repository of knowledge in the known world, protected by scribes copying every piece of found material – books, maps, even scraps of paper – and disseminating them by Archive Runners to hidden off-site locations for safe keeping. Back then, there was no Order of Silence to create and maintain secret routes deep into the sand-covered towers of the Gone World or into the northern forests beyond Sea Glass Lake. Back then, the world was still quiet, because Lilly hadn’t yet found the Harrington Box. But times change. Recently, the Keepers have started gathering to the east of Yellow Ridge – thousands upon thousands of them – and every one of them determined to burn the Central Archives to the ground, no matter the cost, possessed by an irrational fear that bringing back the ancient knowledge will destroy the world all over again. To prevent that, they will do anything. Fourteen days ago the Keepers chased sixteen-year-old Archive Runner Elimisha into a forbidden Gone World Tower and brought the entire thing down on her. Instead of being killed, though, she slipped into an ancient unmapped bomb shelter where she has discovered a cache of food and fresh water, a two-way radio like the one Lilly’s been working on for years . . . and something else. Something that calls itself ‘the internet’ . . .

Buy Link: https://www.jofletcherbooks.com/titles/derek-b-miller/radio-life/9781529408584/

The Author: Derek Miller was born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in New England. He did his Master’s in National Security at Washington DC’s Georgetown University, then studied at The Hebrew University in Israel and St Catherine’s, Oxford before completing his Ph.D. in International Relations at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. Before becoming a full-time novelist, he worked all over the world for a variety of organisations, including the United Nations. His first novel, Norwegian by Night, won the CWA John Creasey Dagger and was an Economist best novel of the year; subsequent crime novels The Girl in Green and American by Day were both shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger. Twilight Crimes, an American mid-century epic, is due out in 2021. Radio Life, his first science fiction novel, inspired by his love for the classic A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller (no relation!), shares a grand if troubled vision about the role of knowledge and wisdom at the heart of any of our possible futures. He lives in Oslo, Norway, with his wife and children.

Map's Edge by David Hair - (The Tethered Citadel, #1)

My review (4*): A good fantasy according to my heart: it’s action packed, fast paced, full of twists and turns and gripping. I think there’s a lot of potential and it could become one of my favorite fantasy series.

I liked this story since the first pages and was fascinated by the very complex world building and the plot that kept me hooked.

It’s a classic epic fantasy, well written, full of drama and secret. You want to turn pages as fast as you can because you don’t what’s going to happen.

The world building is amazing and very complex. I want to learn more about the ancient civilizations and I was fascinating by the magic system and the belief system.

Some of the characters are a bit flat and need some more character development. I loved the female characters as they are strong willed, complex and well written.

As the book end with a cliff hanger I can’t wait to read the next instalment.

This one was highly entertaining and I recommend it.

Many thanks to Jo Fletcher Books and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Book description: Dashryn Cowl has run out of places to hide. The erstwhile sorcerer of the Imperial College fled the Bolgravian Empire when his high-flying family fell from grace, but the tyrannical empire is still hunting for him.

So when he gets his hands on a map showing a place outside the known lands rich in istariol, the mineral that fuels sorcery, he sees a way back to power. There's only one problem: it means masquerading as an Imperial Cartomancer (an instant death sentence) and finding some dupes to help him mine the istariol in secret, no questions asked.

But somehow, amid the dangers of the road (floods and avalanches, beasts, barbarians and monsters), a strange thing begins to happen: Dashryn starts to care about his ragtag followers and their strange odyssey into the ruins of an ancient forgotten civilisation.

But his past won't let him be: the implacable Imperial Bloodhound Toran Zorne has caught his scent, and Zorne has never yet failed to bring his quarry to ground.

At the edge of the map, there's no going forward and no going back . . .

The Author: David Hair, an award-winning writer of fantasy, has been inspired by his travels around the globe. He was born in New Zealand, spent time in Britain, Europe and India (which inspired The Moontide and Sunsurge Quartets and the Ravana series). After some years in Bangkok, Thailand, he and his wife returned to New Zealand, where they are now settled (for the time being). His epic fantasy sagas The Moontide Quartet and The Sunsurge Quartet and the YA saga The Return of Ravana, his retelling of the Indian epic The Ramayana, are all published by Jo Fletcher Books.

For more information please contact Milly Reid, Publicity Manager

NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS...

I’ve always referred to The Relic Guild Trilogy as a single story chopped up into three books. Mostly because it’s true. It is the tale of a secret band of magickers protecting a million humans in a city hidden at the centre of a giant labyrinth; a city that barely manages to survive, trapped behind walls a hundred foot tall, abandoned by the rest of the universe. It’s a tale split into two timeframes, separated by forty years, one set during a great war, the other in the aftermath. The Relic Guild Trilogy is a fantasy, a mystery, an adventure with magic, monsters and mayhem, about people doing the right thing even when they’ve given every reason not to.

However, there are more than three parts to this story.    

What began in The Relic Guild and continued in The Cathedral of Known Things now ends with The Watcher of Dead Time, and I can’t wait for readers to discover how the story concludes. All questions will be answered, all mysteries will be solved. But there are two extra short stories that fit into the tale. They were written as promotional pieces and recorded by the ever wonderful Imogen Church as audiobooks. And the best part is, after they were recorded, generous Gollancz gave them away for free. FREE, I tells you! Such glorious madness!

The first short is Hemlock. It’s set during the hours before chapter one of The Relic Guild – a prelude, if you will. It’s a behind the scenes look at the opening gambit that kick starts the entire story. It features characters who only have bit parts in the main book – especially the titular Charlie Hemlock, a scoundrel and petty crook. Charlie is working for a new boss, and this time he has bitten off more than he can chew. He sparks off a chain of events that carry dire consequences for the secret magickers of the Relic Guild, and ensures that nothing will ever be the same again.

The second short tale is Champion of Dead Time, and this one is an origin story, set between books one and two. In The Cathedral of Known Things readers are introduced to a particularly nasty monster called the Woodsman. It’s a demon from a hellish place called the Retrospective, and is regarded as more intelligent than the average demon. Champion of Dead Time is the story of why the Woodsman is intelligent, where it really came from, the reason for its existence, and how it came to play a part in the bigger story.

So, maybe I should start thinking of The Relic Guild as a trilogy chopped up into five parts. Or is that too Douglas Adams? Either way, the story is more than the three novels waiting for you in bookshops. I loved writing the short stories, loved giving them away for nothing. Like little thank yous to readers. The free downloads proved to be very popular, so, with the release of The Watcher of Dead Time, it seems like a good idea to dust them off and bring them out again as part of what I consider . . . The Author’s Suggested Sequence of Reading! 

1.  HEMLOCK (Download the FREE audiobook from Audible by clicking HERE! Or for SoundCloud click HERE! If the printed word is more your thing, read it over on the Gollancz blog by clicking HERE!)

2.  THE RELIC GUILD (Find all the details on Book 1 by clicking HERE!)

3.  CHAMPION OF DEAD TIME (Download the FREE audiobook from Audible by clicking HERE! Or for SoundCloud click HERE! If the printed word is again your thing, read it over on the Jo Fletcher blog by clicking HERE!)

4.  THE CATHEDRAL OF KNOWN THINGS (Find all the details on Book 2 by clicking HERE!)

5.  THE WATCHER OF DEAD TIME (Find all the details on Book 3 by clicking HERE!)