Hardcovers Long Live the Queen by Kate Locke Description from Amazon.
Xandra Vardan thought life would be simpler when she accepted the goblin crown and became their queen, but life has only become more complicated. Everyone -- vampires, werewolves and humans -- wants the goblins on their side, because whoever has the goblins -- wins.
Queen Victoria wants her head, Alpha wolf Vex wants her heart, and she still doesn't know the identity of the person who wanted her blood. What she does know is that a project from one of the 'secret' aristocrat labs has gotten free and she's the only one who can stop the perfect killing machine -- a sixteen year-old girl. With human zealots intent on ridding the world of anyone with plagued blood and supernatural politics taking Britain to the verge of civil war, Xandra's finding out that being queen isn't all it's cracked up to be, and if she doesn't do something fast, hers will be the shortest reign in history.
The fantastic conclusion to the series that started with the spectacular undead steampunk debut, God Save the Queen and The Queen is Dead.
Uncrashable Dakota by Andy Marino Description from Amazon.
In 1862, Union army infantryman Samuel Dakota changed history when he spilled a bottle of pilfered moonshine in the Virginia dirt and stumbled upon the biochemical secret of flight. Not only did the Civil War come to a much quicker close, but Dakota Aeronautics was born.
Now, in Andy Marino's Uncrashable Dakota, it is 1912, and the titanic Dakota flagship embarks on its maiden flight. But shortly after the journey begins, the airship is hijacked. Fighting to save the ship, the young heir of the Dakota empire, Hollis, along with his brilliant friend Delia and his stepbrother, Rob, are plunged into the midst of a long-simmering family feud. Maybe Samuel’s final secret wasn’t just the tinkering of a madman after all. . . .
What sinister betrayals and strange discoveries await Hollis and his friends in the gilded corridors and opulent staterooms? Who can be trusted to keep the most magnificent airship the world has ever known from falling out of the sky?
New Paperbacks
Fiddlehead by Cherie Priest Description from Amazon.
Young ex-slave Gideon Bardsley is a brilliant inventor, but the job is less glamorous than one might think, especially since the assassination attempts started. Worse yet, they're trying to destroy his greatest achievement: a calculating engine called Fiddlehead, which provides undeniable proof of something awful enough to destroy the world. Both man and machine are at risk from forces conspiring to keep the Civil War going and the money flowing.
Bardsley has no choice but to ask his patron, former president Abraham Lincoln, for help. Lincoln retired from leading the country after an attempt on his life, but is quite interested in Bardsley’s immense data-processing capacities, confident that if people have the facts, they'll see reason and urge the government to end the war. Lincoln must keep Bardsley safe until he can finish his research, so he calls on his old private security staff to protect Gideon and his data.
Maria “Belle” Boyd was a retired Confederate spy, until she got a life-changing job offer from the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Pinkerton respects her work, despite reservations about her lingering Southern loyalties. But it’s precisely those loyalties that let her go into Confederate territory to figure out who might be targeting Bardsley. Maria is a good detective, but with spies from both camps gunning for her, can even the notorious Belle Boyd hold the greedy warhawks at bay?
Another rollicking alternate history from Cherie Priest—Fiddlehead is the fifth book in the Clockwork Century steampunk series that started with Boneshaker.
The Steam Engines Of Oz Vol 1 by Erik Hendrix and Sean Patrick O'Reilly Description from Amazon.
Arcana Comics & SteamPunk Originals collects the first four chapters of an epic SteamPunk future set in the World of Oz. A century after the witch was killed, the Emerald City is ruled by a once-revered hero, and salvation comes from the unlikely wrench of young Victoria Wright. She comes to find out the smallest of actions can have much larger implications, and the most insignificant of us can change the world. Rediscover old friends and new heroes along the way, and learn how something that was once a gift... can turn into a curse.
New E-books Marshal versus the Assassins by M. Harold Page Description from Amazon.
Sir William the Marshal, legend in his own time, has promised to go on crusade, a vow made to his Young King as he lay dying. But when the Oliphant, legendary war horn of Roland, is stolen by the lethal Assassins, he’s charged with returning the relic in order to stop the very thing he’d vowed to undertake—a crusade; this one engineered by the thieves.
With his small band of trusted companions—Sir Baldwin, his tourney compatriot; Eustace, his squire; and Henrik, the giant Norseman—William sets out to take back the relic. But treachery abounds, and when William loses two of his companions, he discovers an unlikely ally—Da’ud, an Assassin himself, bent on taking the Oliphant from the heretic faction that has stolen it. The three fight their way across land, sea, and desert, only to find themselves facing an army…and the Oliphant within their grasp.
To fans, authors and publishers...
Is your story going to be published in time for the next New Releases? Contact us at ahwupdate at gmail dot com. We are looking for works of alternate history, counterfactual history, steampunk, historical fantasy, time travel or anything that warps history beyond our understanding.
* * *
Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. His new short story "Road Trip" can be found in Forbidden Future: A Time Travel Anthology. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.
Editor's Note Woot! Another mention on SF Signal for my work on Amazing Stories. Okay that is enough shameless self-promotion.
Don't forget everyone, we are still accepting original fiction, essays and reviews dealing with the Balkanize Me trope of alternate history. I will be posting the next entry later this week so stay tuned. Also there is still time to send in your submissions for the steampunk writing contest in March. I look forward to reading your submissions.
New reader from the Bahamas, welcome! Why is there terrible weather in Chicago every time I have to welcome a new reader from a tropical country?
And now the news...
Star Trek & Dr. Who Fans Might Collide with a Bang! Theoretically of Course
Remember when I said I was through with the shameless self-promotion? Yeah not exactly.
Amazing Stories is pleased to announce their first piece of new fiction, and a graphic story to boot! But wait, it gets even better!
Several weeks ago David Gerrold (yes, the Tribbles guy*) announced on Facebook that he’d written a comic book script that had become orphaned through no fault of its own. Amazing Stories jumped on this potential opportunity and obtained a copy of the script for review.
Unbelievably hilarious. Totally nerdy.
From the opening panel to the very last David Gerrold has spun a tale of historic, inside jokiness and has extended that joke to encompass contemporary fare.
Arrangements were made for Amazing Stories to publish the story and, in conjunction with David’s DG Publishing imprint, produce a limited dead-tree edition. Several comic artists were approached for the honor and Troy Boyle has been given the go-ahead. Troy has already begun preliminary character sketches and page layouts.
Amazing Stories will be publishing a few teaser excerpts from the script, as well as some of Troy’s preliminary artwork here over the next few weeks.
What is it about? Let’s just say that Star Trek fans and Dr. Who fans (or should that be Dr. Who fans and Star Trek fans?) are going to have something to talk about for at least the next century. And yes, there are Tribbles in there too. Soft Tribbles. Warm Tribbles. Tribbles no one would want to Exterminate.
This Friday Amazing Stories will be releasing a few of Troy’s illustrations and a few scenes from David’s script, so mark it on your calendars and don’t miss a single reveal as we all work our way towards publication!
The script will appear here exclusively on Amazing Stories and will also be made available in a limited print edition that will be available from the Experimenter Publishing Company and DG Publishing.
So if you guys liked Assimilation, I highly recommend you check out what Amazing Stories has in stores for you this Friday. Plus you never know if another major franchise might make an appearance...
Update: The Queen is Dead by Kate Locke
The newest edition to the Immortal Empire series was released last week, but here is the description in case you missed it:
When her brother Val gets in over his head in an investigation of Half-Blood disappearances and goes missing himself, it's up to Xandra, newly crowned Goblin Queen, to get him back and bring the atrocities to light. Xandra must frequent the seediest parts of London, while also coping with what she is, the political factions vying for her favor, and the all too-close scrutiny of Queen Victoria, who wants her head. Add this to a being a suspect in a murder investigation, a werewolf boyfriend with demands of his own, and a mother hell bent on destroying the monarchy, and Xandra barely knows which way is up. One thing she does know is that she's already lost one sibling, she's not about to lose another.
Xandra Varden is the newly crowned Goblin Queen of England. But her complicated life is by no means over.
There are the political factions vying for her favor, and the all too-close scrutiny of Queen Victoria, who for some reason wants her head. Not to mention her werewolf boyfriend with demands of his own, and a mother hell bent on destroying the monarchy. Now she's the suspect in a murder investigation --- and Xandra barely knows which way is up.
What she does know is that nothing lasts forever---and immortality isn't all its cracked up to be.
Do you know who Lavie Tidhar is? Well you should. This award-winning, alternate history author has made quite a name from himself. Here is a brief bio:
Lavie Tidhar grew up on a kibbutz in Israel and has since lived in South Africa, the UK, Vanuatu and Laos. He is currently residing back in London. He won the World Fantasy Award in 2012 for Best Novel, for Osama, and the British Fantasy Award 2012 for Best Novella, for Gorel & The Pot-Bellied God. He was nominated, variously, a BSFA Award, a Sidewise Award, Israel’s Geffen Award, the Airship Award, and the Sturgeon and Campbell Awards.
That bio is from Every Read Thing where you can also check out their interview with Lavie where they discuss his series The Bookman Histories and winning the World Fantasy Award for Osama. You can also check out his interview on SF Signal where Lavie is promoting the World SF Travel Fund.
Paradox News
Got a whole heaping helping of news for grand strategy gamers. Let's start with the unstoppable pagan armies!
Paradox Interactive and Paradox Development Studio, announced the new expansion to the world of Crusader Kings II titled Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods. The new expansion will add a number of widely requested features to the game, including the ability to play as a Pagan or Zoroastrian ruler, expanding empires through war, pillaging, and ruthless brutality. Players will also be able to begin their in-game reign as far back as the year 867 AD, making The Old Gods officially the Paradox title that spans the longest period in history.
Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods lets players step into the boots of a pagan chieftain, approaching the brutal backstabbing world of Crusader Kings through invasion, adventure, and holy war. Other features include rebels being led by defined characters with specific agendas, adventurers, heathens, prepared invasion and a new AI.
Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods is scheduled to release in Q2 2013. Watch the announcement teaser trailer below:
Next we have Heart of Darkness, the second expansion for Paradox Development Studios’ Victoria II, a detailed political/economic simulation of the Victorian Age, an era of rapid transformation of technology, politics and business.
Heart of Darkness, as its name suggests, focuses on the Scramble for Africa, the late 19th century rush for newly discovered wealth and land in a continent whose interior had been mostly free from European domination.
The upcoming expansion also introduces a new diplomatic event, International Crises, where the colliding desires of rival empires get settled by Great Power mediation and where smaller powers can manipulate their friends to support their own local ambitions. Other features include a new naval system with greater detail in battles, including gun ranges and positioning, and more types of ships to bridge the gap between ironclads and dreadnoughts. There will also be a newspaper system will allow you to track all the most important events in your world instead of relying on the game log.
Victoria II: Heart of Darkness is scheduled for release in March 2013. Finally we end this segment with a host of new trailers starting with March of Eagles:
And Europa Universalis IV:
Try to get some sunlight guys.
Submissions Wanted
Need more opportunities to get published?
First, I have two publishers looking for flash fiction submissions. Fan of our favorite cephalopod should check out Whispers From the Abyss, a Lovecraftian flash fiction anthology open for submission until May 30. Stories should not be longer than 2500 words.
Next we have the Teleport Us writing contest over at Lit Reactor. They are looking for stories between 1500-4000 words with a dystopic/utopian setting and featuring plausible technology and non-human characters. You will have to hurry, however, as the submission period ends at the end of February.
Those with longer works should check out Farther Books. This SF publisher is looking for completed manuscripts. Full guidelines can be found here.
As always, good luck.
Things to do
Remind me when I get the time to sit down and make a calender for all of these events I mention. In the meantime, here are some more alternate history inspired things to do:
March 4: CON NOOGA, Chattanooga's first and only Multi-Fandom (Multiple Genre) Convention.
March 8-10: FOGcon, a literary-themed SF/F con in the San Francisco Bay Area.
August 23: NecronomiCon. the Lovecraft convention, in Providence, RI. Tickets are now on sale.
If you need more idea check out the SF Signal Podcast where Patrick Hester talks about upcoming SF conventions with a panel of prominent female SF authors.
Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a volunteer editor for Alt Hist magazine. His fiction can be found at Echelon Press, Jake's Monthly andThe Were-Traveler. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.
Hardcover Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger Description from Amazon.
It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.
Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners--and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.
But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine's, young ladies learn to finish...everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but the also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage--in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year's education.
Set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate, this YA series debut is filled with all the saucy adventure and droll humor Gail's legions of fans have come to adore.
The Queen Is Dead by Kate Locke Description from Amazon.
When her brother Val gets in over his head in an investigation of Half-Blood disappearances and goes missing himself, it's up to Xandra, newly crowned Goblin Queen, to get him back and bring the atrocities to light. Xandra must frequent the seediest parts of London, while also coping with what she is, the political factions vying for her favor, and the all too-close scrutiny of Queen Victoria, who wants her head. Add this to a being a suspect in a murder investigation, a werewolf boyfriend with demands of his own, and a mother hell bent on destroying the monarchy, and Xandra barely knows which way is up. One thing she does know is that she's already lost one sibling, she's not about to lose another.
Xandra Varden is the newly crowned Goblin Queen of England. But her complicated life is by no means over.
There are the political factions vying for her favor, and the all too-close scrutiny of Queen Victoria, who for some reason wants her head. Not to mention her werewolf boyfriend with demands of his own, and a mother hell bent on destroying the monarchy. Now she's the suspect in a murder investigation --- and Xandra barely knows which way is up.
What she does know is that nothing lasts forever---and immortality isn't all its cracked up to be.
Paperback The Damnation Affair by Lilith Saintcrow Description from Amazon.
The West is a wild place, where the poison wind blows and the dead walk. But there is gold, and whiskey, and enough room for a man to forget what he once was--until he no longer can.
Jack Gabriel's been the sheriff in Damnation almost since the town grew out of the dust and the mud. He keeps the peace--sort of--and rides the circuit every dawn and dusk with the chartermage, making sure the wilderness doesn't seep into their fragile attempt at civilization. Away from the cities clinging to the New World's eastern rim, he doesn't remember what he was. At least, not much.
But Damnation is growing, and along comes a schoolmarm. Catherine Barrowe is a right proper Boston miss, and it's a mystery why she would choose this town where everything scandalous and dangerous is probably too much for a quality lady like her. Sometimes the sheriff wonders why she came out West--because everyone who does is running from something. He doesn't realize Cat may be prickly, delicate, and proper, but she is also determined. She's in Damnation to find her wayward older brother Robbie, whose letters were full of dark hints about gold, trouble...and something about a claim.
In a West where charm and charter live alongside clockwork and cold steel, where hot lead kills your enemy but it takes a blessing to make his corpse stay down, Cat will keep digging until she finds her brother. If Jack knew what she was after, he could solve the mystery--because he was the one who killed Robbie.
The thing is, Cat's brother just won't stay dead, and the undead are rising with him...
It's 1830, in an alternate Britain where the 'scientific' principles of magic were discovered sixty years previously, allowing the British to win the American War of Independence. Although Britain is now supreme among the Great Powers, the gulf between rich and poor in the Empire has widened and unrest is growing every day. Master Thomas, the King's Royal Sorcerer, is ageing and must find a successor to lead the Royal Sorcerers Corps. Most magicians can possess only one of the panoply of known magical powers, but Thomas needs to find a new Master of all the powers. There is only one candidate, one person who has displayed such a talent from an early age, but has been neither trained nor officially acknowledged. A perfect candidate to be Master Thomas' apprentice in all ways but one: the Royal College of Sorcerers has never admitted a girl before. But even before Lady Gwendolyn Crichton can begin her training, London is plunged into chaos by a campaign of terrorist attacks co-ordinated by Jack, a powerful and rebellious magician. The Royal Sorceress will certainly appeal to all fans of steampunk, alternate history, and fantasy. As well as the fun of the 'what-ifs' delivered by the rewriting of our past, it delights with an Empire empowered by magic - all the better for being one we can recognise. The scheming and intrigue of Jack and his rebels, the roof-top chases and the thrilling battles of magic are played out against the dark and unforgiving backdrop of life in the sordid slums and dangerous factories of London. Many of the rebels are drawn from a seedy and grimy underworld, while their Establishment targets prey on the weak and defenceless. The price for destroying the social imbalance and sexual inequality that underpin society may be more than anyone can imagine.
E-books Stalemate - The Biographies by Colin Gee Description from Amazon.
This is not a stand-alone book, but a support volume to the book itself. It should not be purchased by itself.
The third in the 'Red Gambit' series, Stalemate deals with the events of the Third World War, up to 25th October 1945. Relating the experiences from both sides of the divide, and from all levels. 'Stalemate' deals with the man in the trench, through the pilot in his fighter, through to the Generals who direct the war from their command centres. 'Stalemate' brings the first stages of WW3 to a climax on the Alsatian plain, a sleepy town in Holland, and an insignificant town in Germany, whose name is now synonymous with death on a grand scale.
[The ‘Red Gambit Series’ novels are works of fiction, and deal with fictional events. Most of the characters therein are a figment of the author’s imagination. Without exception, those characters that are historical figures of fact or based upon historical figures of fact are used fictitiously, and their actions, demeanour, conversations, and characters are similarly all figments of the author’s imagination.]
To fans, authors and publishers...
Do you want to see your work given a shout out on our New Releases segment? Contact Mitro at ahwupdate at gmail dot com. We are looking for works of alternate history, counterfactual history, steampunk, historical fantasy, time travel or anything that warps history beyond our understanding.
* * *
Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a volunteer editor for Alt Hist magazine. His fiction can be found at Echelon Press, Jake's Monthly andThe Were-Traveler. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.
