In a world where the human population has been decimated, self-reliance is the order of the day.  Of necessity, the few remaining people must adapt residual technology as far as possible, with knowledge gleaned from books that were rescued and have been treasured for generations.  After a childhood of such training, each person is abandoned by their parents when they reach adulthood, to pursue an essentially solitary existence.  For most, the only human contact is their counsel, a mentor who guides them to find 'the one', their life mate as decreed by Fate.  Lack of society brings with it a lack of taboo, ensuring that the Fate envisioned by a counsel is enacted unquestioningly.  The only threats to this stable, if sparse, existence are the 'lost men', mindless murderers who are also self-sufficient but with no regard for the well-being of others, living outside the confines of counsel and Fate. Is Fate a real force, or is it totally imagined, an arbitrary convention, a product of mankind's self-destructive tendency? Is it our responsibility to rebuke inherited 'wisdom' for the sake of envisioning and manifesting our own will? In this allegory, David Colon uses an alternate near-future to explore boundaries of the human condition and the extent to which we are prepared to surrender our capacity for self-determination in the face of apparently benevolent authoritarianism.

The Lost Men

Literature & Fiction

Colón, David A.

Literary

Elsewhen Press

Entanglement

Thompson, Douglas

Genre Fiction

It&#x2FFF;s 1830, in an alternate Britain where the &#x2FFF;scientific&#x2FFF; 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&#x2FFF;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 a talent for all the powers since an early age, but has been neither trained nor officially acknowledged. A perfect candidate to be Master Thomas&#x2FFF; apprentice in all ways but one: the Royal College of Sorcerers has never admitted a girl before. But even before Lady Gwendolyn Chrichton 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 &#x2FFF;what-ifs&#x2FFF; delivered by rewriting our past, it delights with an Empire empowered by magic &#x2FFF; all the better for being one we can recognise. The plotting and intrigue of Jack and his rebels, roof-top chases and battles of magic all add to the thrills; but it is by no means just a cosy romp, with many of the rebels drawn from the seedy and grimy underworld of London while their establishment targets prey on the weak and defenceless. Here, just as in our world, social imbalance and sexual inequality underpin society.

The Royal Sorceress: Book I of the Royal Sorceress series

Nuttall, Christopher G.

Humor & Satire

This hilarious science-fiction comedy novel follows the first case for Noomi Rapier, rookie investigator with The Transdimensional Authority - the organisation that regulates travel between dimensions. When a dead body is found slumped over a modified transdimensional machine, Noomi and her more experienced partner, Crash Chumley, must find the dead man's accomplices and discover what they were doing with the technology. Their investigation leads them to a variety of realities where Noomi comes face-to-face with four very different incarnations of herself, forcing her to consider how the choices she makes and the circumstances into which she is born determine who she is. Ira Nayman's new novel is both an hilarious romp through multiple dimensions in a variety of alternate realities, and a gentle satire on fate, ambition and expectation. Welcome to the Multiverse (Sorry for the Inconvenience) will appeal to comedy fans who have been bereft of much good science-fiction fare these last eleven years. Ira's style is at times surreal, even off-the-wall, with the humour flying at you from unexpected angles; he describes it as fractal humour. Anyone who has read his Alternate Reality News Service stories will know how funny Ira is. The characters we meet from around the multiverse deserve to become firm favourites with all fans of science fiction comedy.

Welcome to the Multiverse: Sorry for the Inconvenience

Nayman, Ira

Elaine is an inexperienced witch in the Golden City. Her life is turned upside down when she triggers a magical trap and ends up with all the knowledge in the Great Library stuffed inside her head. This unwanted gift doesn't give her greater power, but it does allow her to accomplish far more with her weaker powers than she previously could. If the senior wizards find out what has happened to her, they will almost certainly have her killed. Elaine is forced to struggle with the terrors and temptations of her newfound knowledge while trying to stay out of the Inquisition.

Bookworm

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Fantasy

War has started, South East England has been invaded, and Gwen and the Royal Sorcerers Corps are helping the army to fight off French magicians and drive the invaders back into the Channel. When an inexperienced major disobeys orders, sending two hundred hussars to their deaths, Gwen compels him to sit down and shut up but, in doing so, permanently damages his mind. After the battle, Lord Mycroft suggests that she needs to be less prominent until rumours of what she did to the major have been dispelled. He assigns her a mission to go to New York - the colonies are also under attack from the French and all but one of the sorcerers stationed in America have been poisoned by a rebel slave. The few locals with any known magical talent are untrained and certainly not ready for combat. Gwen must train them quickly. She sets off on HMS Duke of India, along with Irene Adler and Irene's new apprentice, Raechel Slater-Standish, accompanying a naval squadron and a regiment being sent to reinforce colonial defences. But even before they reach New York they meet armed opposition.In 'Sons of Liberty', Gwen is sent from the relative safety of London to the colonies, where an undercurrent of revolution still abounds and intrigue and espionage are essential to keep the enemy at bay. But who exactly is the enemy? In the latest book in this exciting alternate history series, Christopher G. Nuttall expands Gwen's horizons beyond Europe into the New World.

The Great Game: Book II of the Royal Sorceress series

In the wake of the disastrous attack on the Golden City, Lady Light Spinner has become Grand Sorceress and Elaine, the Bookwork, has been settling into her positions as Head Librarian and Privy Councillor. But any hope of vanishing into her books is negated when a new magician of staggering power appears, one whose abilities seem to defy the known laws of magic.

Bookworm II: The Very Ugly Duckling

The Rhymer, an Heredyssey by Douglas Thompson defies classification in any one literary genre. A satire on contemporary society, particularly the art world, it is also a comic-poetic meditation on the nature of life, death and morality. A mysterious tramp wanders from town to town, taking a new name and identity from whoever he encounters first. Apparently amnesiac or even brain-damaged, Nadith Learmot nonetheless has other means to access the past and perhaps even the future: upon his chest a dial, down his sleeves wires that he can connect to the walls of old buildings from which he believes he can read their ghosts like imprints on tape. Haunting him constantly is the resemblance he apparently bears to his supposed brother, a successful artist called Zenir. Setting out to pursue Zenir and denounce or blackmail him out of spite, in his travels around the satellite towns and suburbs surrounding a city called Urbis, Nadith finds he is always two steps behind a figure as enigmatic and polyfaceted as himself. But through second hand snippets of news he increasingly learns of how his brother's fortunes are waning, while his own, to his surprise, are on the rise. Along the way, he encounters unexpected clues to his own true identity, how he came to lose his memory and acquire his strange 'contraption'. When Nadith finally catches up with Zenir, what will they make of each other? Told entirely in the first person in a rhythmic stream of lyricism, Nadith's story reads like Shakespeare on acid, leaving the reader to guess at what truth lies behind his madness. Is Nadith a mental health patient or a conman? - or as he himself comes to believe, the reincarnation of the thirteenth century Scottish seer True Thomas The Rhymer, a man who never lied nor died but disappeared one day to return to the realm of the faeries who had first given him his clairvoyant gifts?

The Rhymer: an Heredyssey

In 1795 a convict ship leaves England for New South Wales in Australia. Nearing its destination, it encounters a savage storm but, miraculously, their battered ship stays afloat and limps into Sydney Harbour. Here, the convicts rebel, overpower the crew and make their escape, destroying the ship in the process. Fleeing the sinking vessel with only the clothes on their backs, the survivors struggle ashore. Among the escaped convicts, seething resentments fuel an appetite for brutal revenge against their former captors while, for their part, the crew attempts to track down and kill or recapture the escapees. However, it soon becomes apparent that both convicts and crew have more to concern them than shipwreck and a ruthless fight for survival; they have arrived in Sydney in 2017. TimeStorm is a thrilling epic adventure story of revenge, survival and honour set in a strange new world of unfamiliar technology and equally unfathomable social norms. In the literary footsteps of Hornblower, comes Lieutenant Christopher 'Kit' Blaney, an old-fashioned hero, a man of honour, duty and principle, dragged into the 21st century - literally. A great fan of the grand seafaring adventure fiction of CS Forester, Patrick O'Brien and Alexander Kent, and modern action thriller writers such as Lee Child, Steve Harrison combines several genres in his debut novel. The book was inspired by a replica 18th century sailing ship on Sydney Harbour and a question from Steve's brother, Tony: "What if that was a real convict ship?" TimeStorm explores that question in a fast-paced story as a group of desperate men from the 1700s clash in 21st century Sydney.

TimeStorm

Romance

Harrison, Steve

Time Travel

An Android Awakes

Mike French

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