Day 14: We’re got plenty of S-Punk!

Not only do we have plenty, Abaddon Books is proud to publish Pax Britannia, the longest-running steampunk series.


Launched in 2007, Pax Britannia is a steampunk alternative history set in a late twentieth century in which Queen Victoria – now nearing the end of her sixteenth decade on the throne, and wholly dependent on steam technology for survival – rules over the vastly wealthy, powerful and decadent Empire of Magna Britannia. Airships ply the skies overhead as gentlemen of leisure admire the dinosaurs in London Zoo, while the Empire has extended to the Moon. Across the pond, the United Socialist States of America, loosely allied with the might of Magna Britannia, is home to dreamers, poets, madmen, and heroes, poised to usher in a new era.

Pax Britannia: Gods of Manhattan by Al Ewing
While his sidekick lies bleeding out in hospital, city saviour Doc Thunder and Maya, his beatiful companion, attempt to discover the identity of their friend's assailant. The clues lead to secrets altogether older and darker than they could ever have imagined.
The Blood Spider - a name that strikes fear into the hearts of criminals everywhere. But unlike Doc Thunder, this vigilante is willing to kill, and it can only be a matter of time before the two heroes collide.
Mexican masked swordsman El Sombra is visiting the Big Apple, but he's not just any tourist. El Sombra is on a mission of revenge that will take him all the way into the heart of the city's corrupt underworld.

Author, Tim Akers also creates his own steampunk universe of Veridon and the Church of the Algorithm.

Heart of Veridon by Tim Akers
Jacob Burn: pilot, criminal and disgraced son of one of the founding families of the ancient city of Veridon. When an old friend delivers to him a strange artifact, Jacob's world crashes down around him as he runs not only from the law but also from those who were once friends. But even as the array of machines and strange creatures stalk him through the streets of Veridon, something even more sinister and dangerous makes its move against him, an entity that will make Jacob question everything he thought he knew about himself and the city.

Dead of Veridon by Tim Akers

Trouble finds Jacob Burn: kicked out of his house, out of his comfortable life – out of everything that is familiar – even turned away from his circle of criminal friends and interesting enemies. Two years after he saved an ungrateful city from a mad angel, thwarting the plans of every powerful faction in Veridon, Jacob is still trying to pull his life together. And still trouble finds him. A bad job goes worse, and soon old enemies present themselves as allies, and former friends set themselves against Jacob as he tries to put the dead to rest and the living to justice. Things gets even harder when he’s appointed by the Council to investigate the rise of the cog-dead, while some hold him personally accountable, and others in the city work to use the chaos to their advantage.

Kultus by Richard Ford is a steam-powered burlesque of brutal demonic action!
Thaddeus Blaklok – mercenary, demonist, bastard and thug-for-hire – is pressed into retrieving a mysterious key for his clandestine benefactors. Little does he know that other parties seek to secure this artefact for their own nefarious ends and soon he is pursued by brutal cultists, bloodthirsty gangsters, deadly mercenaries and hell spawned monsters, all bent on stopping him by any means necessary. In a lightning-paced quest that takes him across the length and breadth of the steam-fuelled city of Manufactory, Blaklok must use his wits and his own demonic powers to keep the key from those who would use it for ill, and open the gates to Hell itself.

And today we are offering a fantastic short story, Masques and Lies by David Moore from our Pax Britannia Series. Enjoy on epub and mobi!

Day 13: Deck the Dead

Behind today’s door is the latest in Abaddon’s Tomes of Dead series, Double Dead.

Double Dead is a bloodthirsty ride through zombie-infested Route 66 that answers that age old question: what does a vampire eat during the zombie apocalypse?

Coburn has a problem – he’s just woken up from a five year sleep to find that human civilisation has fallen in the face of the zombie apocalypse. He likes blood. They like brains. So, yeah – problem.

And now he’s starving. So this vampire not only has to find human survivors but must become an unlikely shepherd with a shotgun. After all, a man has to look after his food supply...

A thrilling chase across a zombie-infested America – but with a twist – Double Dead is Chuck Wendig’s fantastically entertaining, blood-thirsty, brain-guzzling debut novel.

As a little ‘Merry Christmas’ present from Abaddon and Solaris, here’s a free preview of chapter one of Double Dead available for download! Check out the epub version, the Kindleversion or the .pdf version now.

Red-Handed: the Big Result!

Cover by Pye Parr...

Hey chaps-slash-chapesses,

You probably remember how, a couple of months ago, we announced a thrilling new experiment in publishing. Jonathan Green's eighth Ulysses Quicksilver book, Time's Arrow, is being released in three parts, and you - yes, you - yes, actually you right now, sitting there and reading this; I can see you, you know - can download each part as a separate mini-ebook and vote on the direction of the next part.

So you read the blog post, you bought the book (in the US or UK), you read and loved it, and you voted. And I want to thank you all. We've been really pleased with the response.

And that response, overwhelmingly - by a ratio of something like four to one - has been for Option B: Ulysses goes in search of the mysterious "M. Lumière."

Outstanding.

So, there you go. Green's been given his marching writing orders, and you get to wait a couple of months as he rolls the next one out for you to vote on. This is shaping up to be pret-ty exciting.

And it's not too late to get involved! Buy Red-Handed now, catch up, and wait with bated breath like the rest of us for Black Swan to come out, and next time your vote can be counted! It's like we're playing a massive game of Fighting Fantasy! Whee!

Time's Arrow: Red Handed (US Kindle Store)

Time's Arrow: Red Handed (UK Kindle Store)

Time's Arrow: Red Handed (US iTunes Store)

Time's Arrow: Red Handed (UK iTunes Store)

 Kick ass.

David

Day 12: Guns Galore

Behind today’s calendar door is our recommendations for military SF fans. First up is a title just published this month, which should have all fans of the genre drooling with delight...

Andy Remic’s Combat K books are kick-ass, action-adventure SF extravaganzas centring around a corrupt and slightly insane combat squad.Themeplanet is a particular delight. It’s better than sex! It’s better than drugs! If you haven’t been sick yet, you soon will be... Welcome to Theme Planet, an entire alien world dedicated to insane rides, excessive hedonism and dangerous adventure. Operated by the Monolith Corporation, Theme Planet is the No. 1 destination for fun-seeking human holidaymakers Galaxy-Wide! Amba Miskalov is an Anarchy Android, an assassin/torture model fitted with a Quantell Systems v4.7 KillChip. She is beautiful, merciless and deadly, and blends perfectly with her human superiors. Sent to Theme Planet on a dangerous assassination mission, Amba stumbles upon a plot to undermine and destroy Earth’s all-powerful Oblivion Government – and its Ministers of Joy. But Amba is twisted, damaged and decadent – and this rebellion poses Amba a problem: to remain loyal to her creators and tormentors, to support the enemy – or annihilate them all.

The No Mans World series by Pat Kelleher is a great military SF series based on a World War One battalion. Black Hand Gang is the first in the series, set in 1916. Nine-hundred men of the 13th Battalion of The Pennine Fusiliers vanish without trace from the battlefield, only to find themselves stranded on an alien planet. There they must learn to survive in a frightening and hostile environment, forced to rely on dwindling supplies of ammo and rations as the natives of this strange new world begin to take an interest. However, the aliens amongst them are only the first of their worries, as a sinister and arcane threat begins to take hold from within their own ranks!

Day 11: Time’s Arrow

Have you ever wished the characters in your book would just listen to your advice? Found yourself screaming “No you Idiot! Don’t go that way!” at the page?

Well, Abaddon Books is here to grant your wish with their new interactive novel, Time’s Arrow by Jonathan Green. Time’s Arrow allows you, the reader, to decide its hero’s next step! Quick, Hop, Run though – Today is the last day to download your free copy of Part One: Red Handed and decide Ulysses Quicksilver’s fate!



Time’s Arrow is the latest book from the world’s longest continuously running Steampunk novel series, Pax Britannia. Set in a world where the Victorian age never ended, Pax Britannia is an insane world of high technology and rip-roaring adventure.

Each instalment of Time’s Arrow is published as an ebook and, at the end of each of the first two, readers will be able to vote on where THEY want the story to go. Once all three instalments have been published, they will be bound together into a print edition.

Vote Today!
In the next thrilling installment of Time's Arrow, “Black Swan,” our hero - wanted by the French Police for murder - battles his way across Paris, from the Louvre to Notre Dame, in order to prove his innocence. But where he goes next is up to the reader to decide. Voting closes today!

Day 10: Swords and Sorcery

High fantasy has it all - Epic stories arcs, magic, politics and battles. Solaris and Abaddon Books are teeming with fantasy authors, so we've picked a select few for today’s calendar:

Thief With No Shadow by Emily Gee
Emily Gee is a compelling fantasy writer and Thief With No Shadow is a rich, romantic fantasy tale set in a world where the ordinary and extraordinary co-exist, where fire-breathing salamanders live alongside men, and magic runs in the blood of mortals. Melke is a wraith, able to walk unseen. Feared by all, hunted and hated, she has lost everything - except her younger brother. Now she is forced to do the unthinkable: in exchange for her brother's freedom, she must use her magic to commit a terrible crime.




The Sentinel Mage by Emily Gee
The Sentinel Mage is Emily’s latest book with Solaris. In a distant corner of the Seven Kingdoms, an ancient curse festers and grows, consuming everything in its path. Only one man can break it: Harkeld of Osgaard, a prince with mage's blood in his veins. But Prince Harkeld has a bounty on his head and assassins at his heels.

The Chronicles of King Rolen’s Kin is a brilliant trilogy that begins with The King's Bastard. In the Kingdom of Rolencia, by royal decree, all those afflicted with Affinity must serve the Abbey or face death. Sent to the Abbey because of his innate Affinity, the king’s youngest son, Fyn, trains to become a warrior monk. Unfortunately, he’s a gentle dreamer and the other acolytes bully him. The only way he can escape them is to serve the Abbey Mystic, but his Affinity is weak.

Fiercely loyal, thirteen year-old Piro is horrified to discover she is also cursed with unwanted Affinity. It broke their mother’s heart to send Fyn away, so she hides her affliction. But when Fyn confesses his troubles, Piro risks exposure to help him.

Even though Byren Kingson is only seven minutes younger than his twin, Lence, who is the king's heir, Byren has never hungered for the Rolencian throne. When a Seer predicts that he will kill Lence, he laughs. But Lence Kingsheir sees Byren’s growing popularity and resents it. Enduring loyalty could be Byren’s greatest failing.

The sequels, The Uncrowned King and The Usurper, are also available from the new Rebellion Store.

Chronicles of the Necromancer by Gail Z. Martin
This is the pick for fans of Robin Hobb, Lois McMaster Bujold and Terry Goodkind. The Summoner is the first in the series. The world of Prince Martris Drayke is thrown into sudden chaos and disorder when his brother murders their father and seizes the throne.

Cast out, Martris and a small band of trusted friends are forced to flee to a neighbouring kingdom where he believes they can regroup and plot their retaliation. With only a handful of loyal colleagues to support him, he must seek retribution and restore his father's honour.
But if the living are arrayed against him, Martris must call on a different set of allies: the ranks of the dead.

Day 9: Gifts of Gore - Tomes of the Dead

Everyone loves a zombie. The perfect stocking filler for every gore guzzler, Abaddon’s Tomes of the Dead series, has been running since our inception and is full of fresh stories in this evergreen genre:

Double Dead – Chuck Wendig
Coburn’s been dead now for close to a century, but seeing as how he’s a vampire and all, it doesn’t much bother him. Or at least it didn’t, not until he awoke from a forced five-year slumber to discover that most of human civilization was now dead – the walking dead. Suddenly the vampire not only has to find human survivors but now he has to make the transition from predator to protector—after all, a man has to look after his food supply.






Viking Dead – Toby Venables
Northern Europe, 976 AD. A viking crew find themselves in a bleak land of pestilence. The dead don’t lie down, but become draugr – the undead – returning to feed on the flesh of their kin. Bjólf, our brave viking, is stranded, his men cursed by the contagion of walking death and his only choice is to fight his way through a forest teeming with zombies, invade the castle and find the secret of the horrific condition – or submit to an eternity of shambling, soulless undeath!





Stronghold – Paul Finch
Stronghold is a zombie novel with a difference, set in the dark world of medieval Wales. Ranulf, a young English knight, sent to recapture Grogen Castle from Welsh rebels, comes into conflict with his leaders over their brutal methods. Unbeknownst to any of them, the native druids are using an ancient artefact to summon a horrifying army. As Grogen Castle is besieged by countless, tireless soldiers forged from bone and raddled flesh, Ranulf must defy his masters and rescue the daughter of his enemy... if the castle stronghold lasts!

Empire of Salt – Weston Osche
The Olivers have a chance to make a new home at Salton Sea. Looking forward to California fun, sun and adventure they are unprepared for the ecological devastation they find. The sea is rotting, the town of Bombay Beach is dying and the citizens are like bait, waiting to be plucked from their homes by what comes from the sea. Beware the coming of the green, they say. Beware the coming of the night.

I, Zombie – Al Ewing
"My name is John Doe. I’ve been dead for ten years." John Doe is a zombie, though he can’t explain how so he sells his dead flesh to the highest bidder. Kill for you, steal for you, or save your life for you - there's no mystery he can't be hired to solve… until now. This is murder mystery with a deadly secret, the kind of secret that could end life on this planet.

Day 8: Warrior Races, Feuding Monarchies and Self Righteous Churches - Paul Kearney

Today our door reveals Paul Kearney, British Fantasy Award short list nominee who has produced the critically-acclaimed series The Monarchies of God and The Macht Trilogy. Paul’s battle-orientated work will suit the more traditional fantasy lover.

The Monarchies of God series begins with Hawkwood and the Kings.

The world is in turmoil. In the east the savage Merduks, followers of the Prophet Ahrimuz, have captured the holy city of Aekir. The western kingdoms are too distracted by internecine bickering to intervene and the Church seems more obsessed with rooting out heresy. It is an age where men go to the stake for the taint of magic in their blood, where gunpowder and cannon co-exit with werewolves and sorcerers. It is the turning point when two great religions will fight to the death and the common folk will struggle to merely survive.

In The Monarchies of God sequel, The Century of the Soldier, it is the mid sixth-century of Ramusian reckoning and the great struggle is approaching its climax. For the victor there will be supremacy; for the vanquished, cultural annihilation. Fighting that war, Corfe of Torunna will find that court intrigue can be as murderous as any martial foe. The monks Albrec and Avila will explode a bombshell of secret knowledge which will change the continent irrevocably. And Richard Hawkwood will return with the discovery of a New World. The sixth century is the crucible of history. The century of the soldier.






Kearney’s The Macht Trilogy follows a warrior race of mercenaries whose skills are the stuff of legends:

In The Ten Thousand on the world of Kuf, the Macht are little more than rumour, after centuries of solitude in the Harukush Mountains. But now the Great King's brother means to take the throne of the Asurian empire by force, and in order to do so he has sought out the legend. He hires ten thousand mercenary warriors of the Macht, and leads them into the heart of the Empire.

Corvus is the second novel in the series, set twenty-three years since a Macht army fought its way home from the heart of the Asurian Empire. The man who came to lead that army, Rictus, is now a hard-bitten mercenary captain, middle-aged and tired. He wants nothing more than to lay down his spear and become the farmer that his father was. But fate has different ideas. A young war-leader has risen to challenge the order of things in the very heartlands of the Macht. A solider of genius, he takes city after city, and reigns over them as king. What is more, he has heard of the legendary leader of The Ten Thousand. His name is Corvus, and the rumours say that he is not even fully human. He means to make himself absolute ruler of all the Macht. And he wants Rictus to help him.

Kings of Morning is the thrilling conclusion to Paul Kearney's Macht trilogy, due out in March 2012. For the first time in recorded history, the ferocious city-states of the Macht now acknowledge a single man as their overlord. Corvus, the strange and brilliant boy-general, is now High King, having united his people in a fearsome, bloody series of battles and sieges. He is not yet thirty years old. A generation ago, ten thousand of the Macht marched into the heart of the ancient Asurian Empire, and fought their way back out again, passing into legend. Corvus’s father was one of those who undertook that march, and his most trusted general, Rictus, was leader of those ten thousand. But he intends to do more. The preparations will take years, but when they are complete, Corvus will lead an invasion the like of which the world of Kuf has never seen. Under him, the Macht will undertake nothing less than the overthrow of the entire Asurian Empire.

Day 7: Christmas is not a date but a State of Mind

The urban fantasy genre is becoming increasingly popular, and Abaddon and Solaris have everything you could want when delving behind the shop fronts and into the dark alleyways of our modern urban nightmares…

British Fantasy Award winner Nicholas Royle creates a nightmarish hidden city in Regicide. Carl, who runs a London record store, meets the mysterious Annie Risk and falls for her - hard. Carl stumbles across part of a map to an unknown town. He becomes convinced it represents the city of his dreams, where ice skaters turn quintuple loops and trumpeters hit impossibly high notes.... where Annie Risk will agree to see him again. But if he ever finds himself in the streets on his map, will they turn out to be the land of his dreams or the world of his worst nightmares?

What really walks the city streets? In Desdaemona, Ben Macallan’s debut novel in Urban Fantasy, you will definitely wish you hadn't asked. Jordan is a not so regular teenager who helps kids on the run find their way back home. Desdaemona is desperately searching for her lost sister Fay, who did a Very Bad Thing involving an immortal. She enlists Jordan’s help but is it a mistake for them both? Too many people are interested now, and some of them are not people at all...





The Infernal Games series is thriller meets urban fantasy and Cold Warriors by Rebecca Levene merges cold war intrigue and occultist plots. The Hermetic Division of the British secret services was formed at the height of the Cold War, an agency charged with using supernatural means to defend the nation. It has only one mission: to find the mysterious Ragnarok artefacts, said to have the power to end the world. Now, two of the division's most powerful agents are sent on the trail of a corrupt Russian oligarch who may possess the artefacts. Their perilous journey will take them across Europe and into the darkest reaches of the occult!

Day 6: Go big this Christmas - Space Opera

Larger than life, breathtaking, grandiose – the biggest gift a SF fan could hope for this Christmas is a space opera. Behind today’s door we are looking at some of biggest in Solaris’s collection.


Released earliest this year, The Recollection is Gareth L. Powell's epic new science-fiction novel that delivers galaxy-spanning scope. When his brother disappears into a bizarre gateway on a London Underground escalator, failed artist Ed Rico and his brother's wife Alice have to put aside their feelings for each other to go and find him. Their quest through the 'arches' will send them hurtling through time, to new and terrifying alien worlds. Meanwhile, four hundred years in the future, Katherine Abdulov must travel to a remote planet in order to regain the trust of her influential family. The only person standing in her way is her former lover, Victor Luciano, the ruthless employee of a rival trading firm.

Highly acclaimed Helix is a story of exploration, alien contact and desperation. It follows the plight of a group of humans who crash land on a desolate alien planet, one of thousands arranged in a vast spiral wound around a central sun. The group set off to discover a more habitable Earth-like world, encountering bizarre alien races on the way. But they must also find a means to stay alive.






More from Brown and proving that good things come in threes, The Bengal Station Trilogy is some of Brown’s most acclaimed work. Set on a exotic spaceport that dominates the ocean between India and Burma and following Jaded telepath, Jeff Vaughan. In the first novel, Necropath, Vaughan discovers a sinister cult that worships a mysterious alien god. The Church of the Adoration of the Chosen One uses drugs to commune with the Ultimate, and will murder to silence those who oppose their beliefs. The story follows Vaughan as his mistrust of his fellow humans is overturned by his love for the Thai street-girl Sukura, while he attempts to solve the murders and save himself from the psychopath out to kill him.

Xenopath - Happily married to Sukura with a child on the way, Vaughan now works for a telepathic detective agency and is investigating a series of murders linked to the colony world of Mallory, and the slaughter of innocent aliens there by the Scheering-Lassiter colonial organisation. But not only does the investigation put his own life in danger, but back on Bengal Station Sukura’s life is threatened too.

Finally in Cosmopath, Jeff Vaughan comes out of retirement when he is hired by a ruthless businessman to find out what happened to a lost crew. When he arrives on Canopus VII, the investigation takes a strange turn as they are captured by a group of humans inhabiting the planet. They take him to an underground city, where the true reason for the investigation becomes clear.

Day 5: 2 for 1 Offer: Two Series , One Great Author - Juliet E McKenna

Classics scholar and Oxford graduate Juliet E McKenna is a well-loved and much respected fantasy writer who always delivers rich characters and high adventure. The fifth door on our advent calendar reveals her two series with Solaris Books.

We recommend Juliet’s work not just to fantasy fans but anyone who’s looking for strong, interesting characters. Look below for a free short story of her work!

The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution series is a high fantasy adventure set in a land laid to waste by its rival dukes who fight for the High King’s crown. A mismatched band of exiles and rebels agree that the time has come for change. Can a small group, however determined, put an end to generations of intractable misery?

The Hadrumal Crisis Series is Juliet E McKenna’s brand new trilogy and kicks off with Dangerous Waters.

In a world where magic is banned, what protection is there for the innocent against murderous roving corsairs? And who will be the first to unveil the secret of a widow’s mysterious guardian? The Caladhrian Coast is a rich new world filled with pirates and politics, rogue wizards and adventure. This is the perfect point to join a new fantasy series from an increasingly dominant voice in the genre.




For a sneak peek at The Hadrumal Crisis, Solaris is happy to offer this short story prequel,The Wizard’s Coming free to download as an ePub, PDF and Kindle

Day 4: Stocking Sized Stories - Anthologie

Here’s your chance to read all your favourite authors in one book. Anthologies are the perfect gift for Christmas. Today we are recommending our favourite Solaris anthologies that include some of the brightest names in science fiction.

Our newest anthology, the critically-acclaimed Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction edited by Ian Whates, is the first in an exciting new series that is set to reaffirm Solaris’s proud reputation for producing high quality science-fiction, featuring some of the biggest names in the genre, including Ken Macleod, Tricia Sullivan, Stephen Baxter, Adam Roberts, Mike Resnick, Steve Rasnic Tem, Ian Watson, Keith Brooke and Eric Brown, Alastair Reynolds, Peter F. Hamilton.

Shine makes a great gift this Christmas as it is a collection of optimistic (and shiny) stories set in the near future. The genre’s brightest talents write about the opportunity and chances for a better tomorrow and make a refreshing alternative to dire dystopian warnings. Jetse de Vries collects 16 stories from the likes of Eric Gregory, Jacques Barcia, Jason Stoddard, Holly Phillips, Paula R. Stiles, Gareth L. Powell & Aliette de Bodard, Lavie Tidhar, Mari Ness Silvia, Moreno-Garcia, and Alastair Reynolds.

The universe shifts and changes: suddenly you understand, you get it, and are filled with a sense of wonder... Engineering Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan, is an innovative anthology that centres on that moment of universal understanding that drives some of the greatest science-fiction stories. This exciting anthology collects together stories by some of the biggest names in the field, including Stephen Baxter, Charles Stross and Greg Bear.
 
 

Day 3: Winter Chills - Horror

To accompany the chilly weather, we have gathered together our best collection of horror titles to give you the Winter Thrills! We recommend reading them with a blanket, some mulled wine and the lights turned down – If you dare....

House of Fear: An Anthology of Haunted House Stories, edited by Jonathan Oliver brings horror home with with 19 short stories from some of the finest writers working in the genre, including Joe R. Lansdale, Sarah Pinborough, Lisa Tuttle, Christopher Priest, Adam L. G. Nevill, Christopher Fowler, Eric Brown, Tim Lebbon, Nina Allan, Stephen Volk, Paul Meloy and more.

On the cutting edge of horror, Concrete Grove by Gary McMahon is the start of a chilling horror trilogy showing us a modern Britain many of us will recognise, while whispering of the terrible and arcane presences clawing against the boundaries of our reality.

Any of one of our Tomes of Dead series is a gore-rific horror fest but today we are recommending Viking Dead by Toby Venables. Bjólf and his viking crew find themselves in a bleak land of pestilence. The dead don’t lie down, but become draugr – the undead – returning to feed on the flesh of their kin. Stranded, his men cursed by the contagion of walking death, Bjólf has one choice: fight his way through a forest teeming with zombies, invade the castle and find the secret of the horrific condition – or submit to an eternity of shambling, soulless undeath!

Finally, The End of The Line. edited by Jonathan Oliver. collects some of the very best in new horror writing in a themed anthology of stories set on, and around, the Underground, the Metro and other places deep below.

The Lure is one of the short stories from The End of The Line collection. It’s is an erotically-charged tale of voyeurism and dread sparked by Nicholas Royle and is available as a free download this Christmas!




http://solarisbooks.com/downloads/End_of_Line_-_The_Lure.pdf
Both it and The End of the Line anthology were nominated last month for the prestigiou British Fantasy award. So please enjoy and check back tomorrow to see what our next calendar recommendation has in store!

Advent Calendar Day 2: ‘It’ll be over by Christmas!’

For all you historical boffins, today for the Abaddon and Solaris Advent Calendar we’ve selected a new series that launched this year and combines World War One with a hearty dose of science-fiction.

Pat Kelleher’s No Man’s World series is a truly unique blend of trench warfare and survival on an alien world. Guarding the British lines at The Somme in 1916, the 13th Battalion of the Pennine Fusiliers think facing the Germans is bad enough – until they suddenly find themselves wrenched from the mud of Flanders and displaced to an inhospitable alien world. Great characters, lots of action and a real attention to historical detail make this a series you don’t want to miss:

Black Hand Gang by Pat Kelleher
On November 1st 1916, 900 men of the 13th Battalion of the Pennine Fusiliers vanish without trace from the battlefield only to find themselves on an alien planet. There they must learn to survive in a hostile environment, while facing a sinister threat from within their own ranks and a confrontation with an inscrutable alien race!





The Ironclad Prophecy by Pat Kelleher
It has been three months since the 13th Battalion of the Pennine Fusiliers vanished from the Somme and found themselves stranded on an alien world, and their trenches have become the target for vengeful Khungarrii attacks. While the encampment faces an alien threat, a search party discover an ancient edifice, hiding a secret that will tear the Battalion apart... As the Pennines fight for their lives against the mounting horrors of No Man’s World, their only hope for survival – and a way home – lie in the psychotropic fuel-addicted crew of the Ivanhoe... and it’s increasingly insane commander!

Also set in the maelstrom of World War, Sniper Elite: Spear of Destinyis Abaddon Book’s accompaniment to Rebellion’s successful 2005 Sniper Elite video game - a high-octane shoot 'em up set against an alternate historical backdrop, shot through with political intrigue.

Sniper Elite: Spear of Destiny by Jasper Bark
Berlin, 1945. Karl Fairburne is a member of an elite sniper corps, working for the American secret service deep behind enemy lines. Stalin's troops have overrun the city looking to revenge the battle of Stalingrad and seize control of the Nazi's nuclear secrets before their British and American allies. SS General Helmstadt, head of the Nazi nuclear programme, is defecting to Russia, but first he plans the ultimate act of vengeance, to make the US pay for the defeat of the Third Reich. If he succeeds Russia will win the Cold War before it has even begun. Karl has one chance to stop him. A single sniper's bullet will change the course of history.

The Christmas Count Down Begins!

The Christmas Count Down Begins!

Finally the time is here to deck the halls and jingle some bells but more importantly... To open the first door of our Advent Calendar!

Here at Solaris and Abaddon Books we have decided to create our own Advent Calendar for readers, old and new. And this is the perfect opportunity for all those who get a new e-reader in their stocking from Father Christmas to find out about all our best books from fantasy to horror - sorcery to aliens!

Check our blog every day as we open a new door on our calendar and post a new feature full of fantasy filler and seasonal SF for all our readers this winter. Every day we will have our recommendations for the best buys for Christmas, some free downloads and your chance to win copies of our best selling books.

Day One: The Gift of Gods

So what does the first day of Christmas bring? Not a partridge in a pear tree. Instead we are kicking off our Abaddon and Solaris Advent Calendar with The Pantheon Series by James Lovegrove.

What if the Gods of Mythology were not only real but played a direct role in mankind’s lives?

This series of military SF, including New York Times bestseller The Age of Odin, sets itself in alternative histories that can be read as standalone novels or enjoyed as a collective. Deities of old are rewritten and revitalized by Lovegrove, a talented writer who creates some truly gripping adventures:

The Age of Ra

The Ancient Egyptian gods have defeated all the other pantheons and claimed dominion over the Earth, dividing it into warring factions, each under the aegis of a different deity.
Lt. David Westwynter, a British soldier, stumbles into Freegypt, the only place to have re

mained independent of the gods' influence. There, he encounters the followers of a humanist leader known as the Lightbringer, who has vowed to rid mankind of the shackles of divine oppression. As the world heads towards an apocalyptic battle, there is a far more to this freedom fighter than it seems...

The Age of Zeus
The Olympians appeared a decade ago, living incarnations of the Ancient Greek g

ods on a mission to bring permanent order and stability to the world. 
Resistance has proved futile, and now humankind is under the jackboot of divine oppression. Until former London police officer Sam Akehurst receives an invitation too tempting to turn down: the chance to join a small band of guerrilla rebels armed with high-tech weapons and battlesuits. Calling themselves the Titans, they square off against the Olympians and their ferocious mythological monsters in a war of attrition which some will not survive.

The Age of Odin
Gideon Coxall was a good soldier but bad at everything else. Now the British Army doesn't want him anymore. So when he hears about the Valhalla Project it seems like a dream come true. They're recruiting former service personnel for excellent pay, no questions asked, to take part in unspecified combat operations. The last thing Gideon expects is finding himself fighting alongside the gods of the ancient Norse pantheon. The world is in the grip of one of the worst winters it has ever known, and Ragnarok - the fabled final conflict of the Sagas - is looming.

On the high seas, if you don’t live large… you just sink

The Afterblight Chronicles:
Blood Ocean
by Weston Ochse

Released on 16th February in the UK and 14th February in US & Canada

£7.99 (UK) ISBN 978-1-907992-87-2
$9.99 (US & CAN) ISBN 978-1-907992-87-2

Will also be available as an ebook

In a world reduced to ruin by all-consuming plague, one young boy embarks on a mission of revenge after one of his friends is found dead … harvested for his blood!

Kavika Kamalani is a Pali Boy on Nomi No Toshi, the floating city. The post-plague heir to an ancient Hawai’ian warrior tradition that believes in overcoming death by embracing one’s fears and living large, Kavika’s life is turned upside down when one of his friends dies – and he sets out to find the killer.

When he is kidnapped and subjected to a terrifying transformation, Kavika must embrace the ultimate fear – death itself. It is the only way if he, his loved ones, and the Pali Boys are to survive.

This stand-alone title is the latest pulse-pounding story of post-apocalyptic survival in The Afterblight Chronicles series from Weston Ochse – a writer who pulls no punches.

“Weston Ochse is an artist whose craft, stories and voice are so distinct and mesmerising that you can’t help but be enthralled.” – Dani Kollin, Prometheus Award-winning author of The Unincorporated Man

About the Series
The Afterblight Chronicles is a post-apocalyptic series in which a devastating epidemic has ravaged the world. In the Afterblight, pockets of humans attempt to continue civilization amidst the mounting chaos of the collapsed infrastructure . Mobs run rampant while cults and warlords fight for authority over the survivors of the global plague.

One of the three series with which Abaddon Books launched in 2006, The Afterblight Chronicles is a collection of stand-alone novels that has showcased the talents of a number of brilliant, up-and-coming authors, including Scott Andrews, Paul Kane, Jasper Bark and Rebecca Levene. Blood Ocean is the eleventh Afterblight Chronicles title.

About the Author
Weston Ochse is the Bram Stoker award-winning author of various short stories and novels, including the critically-acclaimed Scarecrow Gods and Tomes of the Dead novel, Empire of Salt.

He is much in demand as a speaker at genre conventions and has been chosen as guest of honour on numerous occasions. Weston lives in Southern Arizona with his wife Yvonne and their menagerie of animals.

Out Now! in November

Hello all!

On the shelves this month is just one title, but it's a proper doozy. You may have heard of Chuck from his long career writing for roleplaying games - especially for the World of Darkness - or you may have encountered his many screenwriting projects, or been spattered with bile and whisky on his hate-filled writing-advice-and-general-thought-vomit site, Terrible Minds. Either way, you've either fallen in love with his peculiar mix of insight, sarcasm and spite, or taken out a restraining order.

Well, Chuck has strode (stridden? strode? stroden? let's say "strode"), mighty-thewed, into the world of the novellist, with self-published novella, short-story collection, and several "writing" "advice" "books" available at all good ebook retailers, and two full-length novels in the works over at Angry Robot, but we're extremely proud to be able to present his first full-length, original novel, the vampire/zombie/apocalypse epic Double Dead.

Tomes of the Dead: Double Dead, by Chuck Wendig

Coburn’s been dead now for close to a century, but seeing as how he’s a vampire and all, it doesn’t much bother him. Or at least it didn’t, not until he awoke from a forced five-year slumber to discover that most of human civilization was now dead— but not dead like him, oh no. See, Coburn likes blood. The rest of the walking dead, they like brains. He’s smart. Them, not so much. But they outnumber him by about a million to one. And the clotted blood of the walking dead cannot sustain him. Now he’s starving. And nocturnal. And more pissed-off than a bee-stung rattlesnake. The vampire not only has to find human survivors (with their sweet, sweet blood), but now he has to transition from predator to protector—after all, a man has to look after his food supply.

David Says: A hectic road movie of a book, complete with guns, arbitrary deaths, religious fanatics, drug-crazed juggalo cultists and a big final showdown with explosions and shattering glass. Coburn's a proper lovable rogue - well, a despicable rogue, but acerbic and awesome; you want him to win even though you kind of hate him - and the story barrels along. I was left sweat-drenched and gasping for air.

Which is about all you needed to know. It's available in hard copy at all good bookstores (literally; if it's not at your local bookstore, it's a rubbish bookstore), and in ebook at all good electronic stores, including at Rebellionstore.com.

Go now! Buy it! Hurry!

David

Rebellionstore.com Now Trading!

So this is our Very Exciting New Development For Twenty-First Century Ladies And Gentlement Of Discretion And Taste.

At long last, Rebellion Publishing has opened its own book store!

I'm assuming you're a fan of electronic books, of course...*

Well, we got loads! And we're selling them online!

The new Rebellion Publishing Ebook Store, Rebellionstore.com, is the last word in Abaddon and Solaris ebooks. Almost our entire list of electronic is up there already, and they should all be up there very shortly.

And we have the best prices around for our ebooks. Including two very exciting offers! Right now, for a limited time, All Tomes of the Dead books and all Infernal Games books are available for a mere £2!

Which is value by anyone's standard, and I stand ready to call out anyone who says otherwise...

*You are, aren't you? They're the way of the future. They're why electricity was invented. Hell, right now, you're using electricity to read about how important it is to be able to read using electricity! That must be worth something.