Author Archives: Michael

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: CL Farley Talks The Invisible Girl

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words author interview, where today I’m welcoming CL Farley to the site to talk about her upcoming novella The Invisible Girl, which is due out in February 2024 as part of Luna Press Publishing’s Luna Novella series. I’m really pleased to be able to interview the three authors from the 2024 series, and I’m looking forward to each of the novellas! If you like the sound of a story set in South Africa and populated with unreliable narrators and uncertain realities, then The Invisible Girl might just be the book for you – read on to find out more about it.

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At the Intersection of Sci-fi and Horror – Alan Lastufka (Shortwave Publishing) Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post, where today I’m really excited to welcome Alan Lastufka to the site! Alan pulls double duty in the world of publishing, as both an author and a publisher, running the independent small press Shortwave Publishing. I’ve read (and loved) two Shortwave books this year, and have been eyeing up more, so I was delighted when Alan agreed to write something for the site. I’m particularly interested in the way Shortwave is able to explore both horror and science fiction in its catalogue, and the way the two genres are increasingly intermingling – and that’s the subject that Alan has tackled in this post! So read on to find out more about Alan, his writing, and the intriguing Shortwave catalogue…

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The End Is Nigh – Shauna Lawless Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post, in which I’m thrilled to welcome back the fantastic Shauna Lawless, author of The Children of Gods and Fighting Men (2022) and The Words of Kings and Prophets (2023), two phenomenal historical fantasy novels that are out now from Head of Zeus (and are amongst my personal highlights of the year). In December 2022 Shauna wrote a brilliant post about historical fantasy as a genre, and now she’s back to talk about something slightly different – the tricky subject of endings in fiction, which seems appropriate given that the third book in her Gael Song trilogy is due out in 2024. But is that the end of the series? Read on, and find out…

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12 Debuts To Look Forward To In 2024 – Genoveva Dimova Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post from Genoveva Dimova – author of the upcoming Slavic folklore-inspired Foul Days, out in June from Tor Books. I’ve been looking forward to reading Foul Days for a while now, so I was delighted when Genoveva agreed to contribute this guest post, in which she’s looking ahead to 2024 and picking out a dozen upcoming fantasy debuts for us all to look forward to! I had a few of these on my radar already (and I’ve actually read one, and can confirm that it’s brilliant), but lots more are new to me, and sound fantastic – so if, like me, you’re always on the lookout for new books to add to your TBR, this is exactly the right place to be! And it’s just the icing on the cake that they’re all debuts, too.

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Knicky L. Abbott Talks Tanglewood

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words author interview, where today I’m joined by Knicky L. Abbott to talk about her intriguing debut novella Tanglewood, coming in February 2024 as part of the next Luna Novella series from Luna Press Publishing! I love a good novella, and I’ve been eyeing up Luna’s range for a while, so when the opportunity arose to interview the authors of the 2024 novellas I jumped at the chance! In terms of Tanglewood, I was intrigued by the thought of exploring Barbadian folklore, so read on to find out more about this story, its characters, its folklore roots, its exploration of isolation and unbelonging, and much more.

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Best SFF Books of 2023

It’s December 2023, which means it’s time for me to take a look back at all the SFF books I’ve read this year and pick out a few of my favourites. I’m sticking with the same format as I went with for last year’s Best SFF post, so I’ve chosen ten fantastic SFF books that I’ve loved this year and listed them in the order I read them (so don’t think of this as a ‘top 10’). As always with these articles I’ve selected only books that were published this year, so some of my absolute favourites didn’t make the list – but even so, it was tough narrowing things down to just 10 books! What’s interesting this year is that quite a lot of these books are relatively low-key and not-very-fantastical – which I love, as it just goes to show the breadth of SFF as a whole!

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Behind The Scene: Exclusive Excerpt From Sons of Darkness by Gourav Mohanty

Hello and welcome to this Behind the Scene post, in which I’m delighted to present an exclusive excerpt from Sons of Darkness by Gourav Mohanty – out now in the UK, and due out in the US on the 9th January 2024, both from Head of Zeus. If you like the idea of dark (dare I say grimdark) fantasy inspired by the Mahabharata, then this is probably going to be the book for you, and to give you a sense of just what to expect Gourav has very kindly contributed some additional comments to go alongside this excerpt!

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Exploring New Worlds – Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this guest post here on Track of Words, where today I’m thrilled to welcome Esmie Jikiemi-Person, winner of the inaugural Future Worlds Prize and author of the upcoming The Principle of Moments (out on the 18th January from Gollancz)! Esmie has very kindly put together a fantastic post about the value of looking for new authors to read and new worlds to explore, featuring a trio of up and coming SFF writers whose novels she recommends checking out. So if you’re on the lookout for new reads (and let’s face it, who isn’t?) then this is for you – and if you’re keen to know more about The Principle of Moments too, keep reading!

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Gundog by Gary Whitta – Jude Reid Guest Review

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words Guest Review, in which the excellent Jude Reid (author of, among other things, the recent Black Library novel Creed: Ashes of Cadia) takes a look at Gundog by Gary Whitta – out now from Inkshares and also available in podcast form. I hadn’t come across this before, but I’m intrigued by the idea of a novel released as both a serialised podcast and a regular book – and it sounds fantastic! I’m delighted to feature Jude on the site, and hope you enjoy this guest review as much as I did.

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Frances White Talks Voyage of the Damned

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words author interview; today I’m absolutely delighted to be joined by author Frances White to talk about her debut novel Voyage of the Damned, which is out on the 18th January 2024 from Penguin Michael Joseph. I’m lucky enough to have read an advance copy of Voyage of the Damned, and I can confirm that it’s a joy to read – I loved everything about it! I’m really excited to talk about this book, so I couldn’t be happier to welcome Frances to the site to give us the lowdown and explore some of the characters, ideas and themes waiting within its pages. So read on, and I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed the book!

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