First published in the Rogues anthology and now available as a pocket-sized little book in its own right, How The Marquis Got His Coat Back sees Neil Gaiman finally return to the London Below of his classic TV series and novel Neverwhere. Here we see the Marquis de Carabas talking his way in and out of trouble in search of his famed coat, along the way visiting the Floating Market and the notorious Shepherd’s Bush, and encountering all manner of dark and dangerous people.
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If ever there was a book which deserved a prequel it’s Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, and Robin Sloan has kindly obliged with the delightful novella Ajax Penumbra, 1969. There was so much implied backstory in the original novel that it would have been a crime not to have explored it further, so here we get to take a look at a young Mr Penumbra, just starting out on the path that would lead to 1960s San Francisco, a 24-hour bookstore, a sunken ship and two men who would come to shape his life.
The kind of book that you’ll find shelved under Fiction simply for the sake of ease, Robin Sloan’s Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore confidently straddles modern fantasy and mystery with a dash of nostalgic epic fantasy and even a little social commentary thrown in. That might sound like a strange mixture, but this is a story – of Clay, a young man who finds himself working the night shift in a mysterious bookshop full of coded tomes studied by eccentric, nocturnal scholars hunting for an ancient secret – that gleefully mashes its influences up into a delightful whole that just works.
Judged purely on its title and cover, Alex Lamb’s Roboteer could very well be mistaken for the sort of third-rate pulp fiction that many people still associate with sci-fi as a genre. In fact, upon closer inspection it turns out to be a gripping, characterful epic set to a grim future backdrop of religion, morality, and mankind’s inherent flaws. It features Will, a young man genetically engineered to be capable of programming and controlling thousands of semi-aware robots, who is thrust into a new crew aboard a high-stakes mission that might affect the very future of his race.
I Shall Wear Midnight marks Tiffany Aching’s fourth appearance in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, and the thirty-eighth book in the series overall. After her previous adventures in The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith, here we see fifteen year-old Tiffany back on home turf, caring for her steading on the Chalk as only a witch can. Things seem settled at first, but soon she finds the mood of the people turning against her, as a strange influence is in the air.
Two years and three books after A Hat Full of Sky came Wintersmith, the thirty-fifth Discworld novel and the third in the Tiffany Aching storyline. Once again jumping forward in time it picks up the story with thirteen year-old Tiffany sharing the cottage of one hundred and thirteen year-old Miss Treason, who on the face of things appears to be the very picture of the typical witch – old, creepy and surrounded by tall tales. When Tiffany accidentally draws the attention of the spirit of Winter onto herself, her already busy life becomes a whole lot more interesting.
The thirty-second novel in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, A Hat Full of Sky is the second to feature the young witch Tiffany Aching after the delight that was The Wee Free Men. Set eighteen months further on, it sees Tiffany leaving the Chalk for the first time and setting off on a sort of witches’ equivalent of an apprenticeship. Away from home for the first time she has to adjust to becoming part of the wider community of witches, all the while being pursued by something with no body or mind, just a great fear and hunger.
After nine novels in the successful Skullduggery Pleasant series, Derek Landy’s latest book – Demon Road – sees the start of a brand new series. Swapping wizards and talking skeletons for demons, vampires and a surprising amount of gore, it sees Landy retain much of his usual style while adding in an extra edge that will appeal to slightly older readers than his original series. We follow sixteen year-old Amber, an average American teenager (well, at first anyway) whose life turns upside down when her parents start trying to kill her. With demons on her trail she’s forced to accept help from unexpected quarters, and finds herself on the run through the dark roads of America.
In the world of Rob Boffard’s Tracer, mankind has long since abandoned the Earth, leaving behind a ruined planet and taking up residence in an orbiting space station called Outer Earth. Set 100 years into its lifespan we find Outer Earth overcrowded, rusting and faded, its government barely in control and many of its population only just scraping a living. The book follows Riley Hale, a young woman working as a tracer – a sort of courier/gang member – who finds herself and her friends in very real danger after a tricky delivery sees her on the wrong side of some very dangerous people as a crisis erupts which threatens the entire station.
While best known for ‘literary fiction’, Joanne Harris has written across a range of genres, and The Gospel of Loki is her third book to heavily feature Norse mythology. Previous novels Runemarks and Runelight are straight-up fantasy with a Norse flavour, while here she sets out to retell the sagas of the Norse gods from the perspective of Loki, the trickster, offering a reversal of the usual viewpoint. Covering the whole story, from the Nine Worlds’ creation through to Ragnarok, Loki tells his own version of events, showing Odin and the rest of the gods in a totally different light.