New Releases 6/23/15

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Hardcovers

The Long Utopia by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

The fourth novel in Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s internationally bestselling “Long Earth” series, hailed as “a brilliant science fiction collaboration . . . a love letter to all Pratchett fans, readers, and lovers of wonder everywhere” (Io9).

2045-2059. Human society continues to evolve on Datum Earth, its battered and weary origin planet, as the spread of humanity progresses throughout the many Earths beyond.

Lobsang, now an elderly and complex AI, suffers a breakdown, and disguised as a human attempts to live a “normal” life on one of the millions of Long Earth worlds. His old friend, Joshua, now in his fifties, searches for his father and discovers a heretofore unknown family history. And the super-intelligent post-humans known as “the Next” continue to adapt to life among “lesser” humans.

But an alarming new challenge looms. An alien planet has somehow become “entangled” with one of the Long Earth worlds and, as Lobsang and Joshua learn, its voracious denizens intend to capture, conquer, and colonize the new universe—the Long Earth—they have inadvertently discovered.

World-building, the intersection of universes, the coexistence of diverse species, and the cosmic meaning of the Long Earth itself are among the mind-expanding themes explored in this exciting new installment of Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's extraordinary Long Earth series.

Paperbacks

The Brass Giant: A Chroniker City Story by Brooke Johnson

Sometimes, even the most unlikely person can change the world

Seventeen-year-old Petra Wade, self-taught clockwork engineer, wants nothing more than to become a certified member of the Guild, an impossible dream for a lowly shop girl. Still, she refuses to give up and tinkers with any machine she can get her hands on, in between working and babysitting her foster siblings.

When Emmerich Goss—handsome, privileged, and newly recruited into the Guild—needs help designing a new clockwork system for a top-secret automaton, it seems Petra has finally found the opportunity she's been waiting for. But if her involvement on the project is discovered, Emmerich will be marked for treason, and a far more dire fate will await Petra.

Working together in secret, they build the clockwork giant, but as the deadline for its completion nears, Petra discovers a sinister conspiracy from within the Guild council…and their automaton is just the beginning.

E-Books

1636: The Cardinal Virtues by Eric Flint and Walter H. Hunt

Book #19 in the multiple New York Times best-selling Ring of Fire series. After carving a free state for itself in war-torn 17th century Europe, citizens of the modern town of Grantville, West Virginia must contend with France's infamous Cardinal Richilieu, who is determined to keep his grip on power no matter what history says.

France, 1636 . . . It has been twenty years since King Louis took Aña Maria Mauricia, daughter of Spain's King Philip III, as his wife, and their union has not yet produced an heir. Under the guidance of his chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, a plan is developed to remedy that situation. Once she is with child, Queen Anne goes into seclusion to guard her health and protect her from those who would prefer that the child is never born—France’s foreign enemies as well as schemers such as Monsieur Gaston d’Orleans, the King’s younger brother and heir. When the Crown’s opponents make their move, factions inside and outside France must choose sides and help determine the future and fate of the Kingdom.

To readers, 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. Check out his short fiction. 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.

Building Chroniker City

Guest post by Brooke Johnson.

When I sat down to write a steampunk novel, I knew that I wanted the setting to be unique, to differentiate itself from the settings of other steampunk novels and fill the absence that I felt was missing in steampunk fiction—an industrial techno-hub of science and engineering. Most of the other steampunk novels I had read up to this point blended steampunk elements with fantasy, or were of the adventure and exploration variety, where the characters traveled the world on an airship.

There was a painful lack of science in these novels, many of the authors seemingly ignoring all the invention and innovation of the Victorians that propelled the human race into the modern world. Where were the engineers? The mechanics? The scientists? I yearned for a story that brought the mechanical to life, that dug into the greasy guts and gears of extraordinary machines, and focused on engineers instead of posh society, but for all my searching, I could not find it. That’s when I knew that I had to be the one to write it.

Dissatisfied with the lack of gadgetry and science in the genre, I decided to create a steampunk setting that was neither paranormal fantasy or steampunk travelogue. No werewolves or vampires or fairies. No fantastic science. And no world-travelling airships. I wanted to create a steampunk setting based in reality, with real science and plausible machines that very well could have existed in a technologically advanced world, a city where society venerated engineers above all else, creativity and innovation were valued more than lineage or wealth, and mechanical inventions permeated every aspect of daily life.

And so Chroniker City was born.

Chroniker City sits twenty miles off the southern coast of Wales, built onto a small island of rock eight miles west of Grassholm. In our world, a remote lighthouse stands there, built in the late 1850s by the Trinity House after they bought out the previous leaseholders in the 1830s. However, in my alternate timeline, that was not the case. Instead, a wealthy German engineer by the name of Gumarich Chroniker purchased rights to build on that land and employed  engineers from all over Europe to help him construct his most ambitious engineering project—a mechanical, self-sustaining city that would become the foundation for the technological center of modern Victorian science.

It was from this point onward in my alternate history that the world diverged from our timeline. The construction of Chroniker City—and the addition of its prestigious polytechnical University—ushered in a swift advancement of scientific progress. The machines are made primarily of clockwork and steam, yes, but also include electricity and wireless technology, combustion enginery, and even electromagnetic designs.

The city proper sits atop a sprawling mechanical subcity, which houses the turbines, steam boilers, water reserves, and mechanical drives that deliver power to the city above. Above ground, the city itself hosts a number of innovative technologies unique to the setting—a trolley-lift for transporting passengers from the second-quadrant streets to the upper reaches of its illustrious shops and restaurants, automatic ventilation systems to remove smog from the air, a theater renowned for its mechanically operated stage and orchestra of musical automatons—as well as more ordinary inventions such as cranes, elevator lifts, wired power tools, and electric lights. Of course, the depths of the subcity hold their own secrets as well…

By creating my own city instead of taking over an existing one, I granted myself the freedom to establish my own rules, to explore avenues of the story and the setting that would have been next to impossible in a steampunk London or Paris. I was able to build a city that served the story, instead of the other way around. Had I chosen to set the story in a real-world location, I would have needed to restrict myself to a certain layout or history—or else transform the city into something unrecognizable to achieve the same fictional effect. Instead, I saved myself a lot of research and unnecessary complication while still managing to maintain a lot of the Victorian sociopolitical atmosphere of the world at that time.

With Chroniker City, I wanted to create the quintessential steampunk setting, an alternate history with the pinnacle of Victorian science at its core, and it’s my hope that as readers delve into the pages of The Brass Giant, they experience same fascination with the science and machinery of the city that I had while building it.

* * * 

Brooke Johnson is the author of The Brass Giant, the first novel in the Chroniker City steampunk series for young adults. She is a stay-at-home mom and tea-loving writer, and as the jack-of-all-trades bard of the family, she journeys through life with her husband, daughter, and dog. She currently resides in Northwest Arkansas but hopes to one day live somewhere more mountainous. Follow her on Twitter @brookenomicon.

New Releases 5/5/15

You can support The Update by clicking the banner to your right or the links below if you are purchasing through Amazon!

Hardcovers

1882: Custer in Chains by Robert Conroy

NATIONALLY BEST-SELLING AUTHOR. A world where Custer survives Little Bighorn and becomes president goes seriously awry.

Following his unlikely but decisive (and immensely popular) 1876 victory over Sitting Bull and the Sioux at the Little Big Horn, George Armstrong Custer is propelled into the White House in 1880.

Two years later, he finds himself bored and seeks new worlds to conquer. He and his wife Libbie fixate on Spain’s decaying empire as his source for immortality. What President Custer doesn’t quite comprehend is that the U.S. military isn’t up to such a venture. When a group of Americans on a ship headed for Cuba is massacred, war becomes inevitable—and unless calmer, patriotic citizens and soldiers can find a way to avoid debacle, this war may be America's last stand!

Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes

"What would happen if Adolf Hitler woke up in modern-day Berlin? In a bestselling satirical novel, he'd end up a TV comedy star . . . [Look Who's Back] has unsurprisingly sparked debate in a country that has grappled for decades with Hitler's unconscionable legacy."
-Time

Timur Vermes' record-breaking bestseller Look Who's Back is a satirical novel that imagines what would happen if Hilter were reborn in present-day Germany. The book was a massive success in Germany, selling more than 1.5 million copies. It was subsequently published for the first time in English by Quercus in the UK to strong sales and even stronger media attention.

In the novel, Adolf Hitler wakes up in 2011 from a 66-year sleep in his subterranean Berlin bunker to find the Germany he knew entirely changed: Internet-driven media spreads ideas in minutes and fumes celebrity obsession; immigration has produced multicultural neighborhoods bringing together people of varying race, ethnicity, and religion; and the most powerful person in government is a woman. Hitler is immediately recognized . . . as an impersonator of uncommon skill. The public assumes the fulminating leader of the Nazi party is a performer who is always in character, and soon his inevitable viral appeal begets YouTube Stardom, begets television celebrity on a Turkish-born comedian's show. His bigoted rants are mistaken for a theatrical satire-exposing prejudice and misrepresentation-and his media success emboldens Hitler to start his own political party, and set the country he finds a shambles back to rights.

With daring and dark humor, Look Who's Back skewers the absurdity and depravity of the cult of personality in modern media culture.

A Long Time Until Now by Michael Z Williamson

Book 1 in a new series from the creator of the best-selling Freehold Universe series.  A military unit is thrust back into Paleolithic times with only their guns and portable hardware.

Ten soldiers on convoy in Afghanistan suddenly find themselves lost in time. Somehow, they arrived in Earth's Paleolithic Asia. With no idea how they arrived or how to get back, the shock of the event is severe. They discover groups of the similarly displaced: Imperial Romans, Neolithic Europeans, and a small cadre of East Indian peasants. Despite their technological advantage, the soldiers only have ten people, and know no way home. Then two more time travelers arrive from a future far beyond the present. These time travelers may have the means to get back, but they aren't giving it up. In fact, they may have a treacherous agenda of their own, one that may very well lead to the death of the displaced in a harsh and dangerous era.

Straits of Hell: Destroyermen by Taylor Anderson

New York Times bestselling author Taylor Anderson’s phenomenal alternate history Destroyermen series continues as a game-changing conspiracy throws the hope of honor, trust, and survival into chaos....

Matt Reddy’s old Asiatic Fleet destroyer USS Walker has been mysteriously transported to an alternate version of earth. Here WWII is no longer raging, and Reddy and his crew have been trying to find a new place for themselves in this strange new world.

Now, along with the felinoid Lemurians and Imperial allies, they fight to keep the reptilian Grik, a race growing in supremacy, from reconquering the Lemurians’ ancestral home on Madagascar. Reddy and his crew are exhausted, far from reinforcements, and wildly outnumbered, so the odds seem greater than ever before. As for the fate of the Americas, Don Hernan and the evil Dominion have gathered to annihilate the forces behind the walls of Fort Defiance as a shadowy power with an agenda all its own rises with chilling resolve.

As the war teeters on a knife-edge, a tipping point may have been reached at last—and cold steel and hot-blooded valor will remain the ultimate weapons.

Paperbacks

Aurelia by Alison Morton

Late 1960s Roma Nova, the last Roman colony that has survived into the 20th century Aurelia Mitela is alone - her partner gone, her child sickly and her mother dead - and forced to give up her beloved career as a Praetorian officer. But her country needs her unique skills. Somebody is smuggling silver - Roma Nova's lifeblood - on an industrial scale. Sent to Berlin to investigate, she encounters the mysterious and attractive Miklós who knows too much and Caius Tellus, a Roma Novan she has despised and feared since childhood. Barely escaping a trap set by a gang boss intent on terminating her, she discovers that her old enemy is at the heart of all her troubles and pursues him back home to Roma Nova...

The Death of Napoleon by Simon Leys

As he bore a vague resemblance to the Emperor, the  sailors on board the Hermann-Augustus Stoeffer had nicknamed him Napoleon. And so, for convenience, that is what we shall call him.

Besides, he was Napoleon. . . .

Napoleon has escaped from St. Helena, leaving a double behind him. Now disguised as the cabin hand Eugène Lenormand and enduring the mockery of the crew (Na­po­leon, they laughingly nickname the pudgy, hopelessly clumsy little man), he is on his way back to Europe, ready to make contact with the huge secret organization that will return him to power. But then the ship on which he sails is rerouted from Bordeaux to Antwerp. When Napoleon disembarks, he is on his own.

He revisits the battlefield of Waterloo, now a tourist destination. He makes his way to Paris. Mistakes, misunderstandings, and mishaps conduct our puzzled hero deeper and deeper into the mystery of Napoleon.

Deadly Shores: Destroyermen by Taylor Anderson

The Destroyermen series continues from the New York Times bestselling author of Straits of Hell.

The ambitious, long-planned raid on the Grik Empire has grown dangerously ill defined. Only Matthew Reddy, commander of the old destroyer USS Walker, seems focused on the original intent.

While many Lemurians see an opportunity to reconquer their stolen homeland, others—Lemurian and human—have their own agendas, which could compromise the Alliance. Complicating matters further is Reddy’s suspicion that his task force is being stalked by some unknown power bent on aiding the Grik for reasons of its own.

As the raid begins and chaos reigns, Reddy has no choice but to risk everything in a desperate act that results in a sprawling, nightmare battle on the beaches of “Grik City,” on the very decks of Walker, and in the labyrinthine passageways of the Celestial Palace itself. The final cost could be more than Matt Reddy—or the Alliance—can bear.

Unseemly Science: The Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire, Book 2 by Rod Duncan

In the divided land of England, Elizabeth Barnabus has been living a double life - as both herself and as her brother, the private detective. Witnessing the hanging of Alice Carter, the false duchess, Elizabeth resolves to throw the Bullet Catcher's Handbook into the fire, and forget her past. If only it were that easy!

There is a new charitable organisation in town, run by some highly respectable women. But something doesn't feel right to Elizabeth. Perhaps it is time for her fictional brother to come out of retirement for one last case...? Her unstoppable curiosity leads her to a dark world of body-snatching, unseemly experimentation, politics and scandal. Never was it harder for a woman in a man's world...

The Venusian Gambit: Book Three of the Daedalus Series by Michael J Martinez

[Editor's Note: Check out my review over at Amazing Stories.]

The last chapter of the dimension-spanning Daedalus series brings the 19th and 22nd centuries together for an explosive finale in the jungles of Venus!

In the year 2135, dangerous alien life forms freed in the destruction of Saturn's moon Enceladus are making their way towards Earth. A task force spearheaded by Lt. Cmdr. Shaila Jain is scrambling to beat them there while simultaneously trying to save crewmember Stephane Durand, who was infected during the mission to Saturn and is now controlled by a form of life intent on reopening a transdimensional rift and destroying the human race. But Jain doesn’t realize that the possessed Stephane has bigger plans, beaming critical data to other conspirators suspiciously heading not for Earth, but for Venus…

In 1809—a Napoleonic era far different from our own—the French have occupied England with their Corps Eternélle, undead soldiers risen through the darkest Alchemy. Only the actions of Lord Admiral Thomas Weatherby and the Royal Navy have kept the French contained to Earth. But the machinations of old enemies point to a bold and daring gambit: an ancient weapon, presumed lost in the jungles of Venus.

Now, Weatherby must choose whether to stay and fight to retake his homeland or pursue the French to the green planet. And Shaila must decide if it’s possible to save the man she loves, or if he must be sacrificed for the good of two dimensions. In the dark, alien jungles of Venus, humanity's fate in both dimensions hangs in the balance—forcing past and present to once again join forces against an ancient terror.

E-books

The Brass Giant: A Chroniker City Story by Brooke Johnson

Sometimes, even the most unlikely person can change the world

Seventeen-year-old Petra Wade, self-taught clockwork engineer, wants nothing more than to become a certified member of the Guild, an impossible dream for a lowly shop girl. Still, she refuses to give up, tinkering with any machine she can get her hands on, in between working and babysitting her foster siblings.

When Emmerich Goss--handsome, privileged, and newly recruited into the Guild--needs help designing a new clockwork system for a top-secret automaton, it seems Petra has finally found the opportunity she's been waiting for. But if her involvement on the project is discovered, Emmerich will be marked for treason, and a far more dire fate would await Petra.

Working together in secret, they build the clockwork giant, but as the deadline for its completion nears, Petra discovers a sinister conspiracy from within the Guild council ... and their automaton is just the beginning.

To readers, 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. Check out his short fiction. 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.