[Extract kindly provided by Del Rey, from around the middle of chapter one. See below for links to Adrian’s first book The End of the World Survivor’s club, his musical influences for it and more…]  I know I wasn’t really alone. I had a husband. I had Ed. I should have been happy when he turned up at the boat. He’d made it after all. Christ knows how and he looked like hell, but he’d actually bloody made it. He’d plumbed the depths of his spirit, broken through his barriers and by God he’d found us. Good man. Well done. But what did that change?

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	Music helps me run and write, so it was only natural that it helped me write about running.
	The End of The World Running Club is about Ed – an underachieving, overwhelmed husband and father – who finds himself separated from his family after the UK is devastated by an asteroid strike. With only weeks to get from Edinburgh to Cornwall before he loses them forever, his only option is to run.
	Ed’s struggle is chronicled against the backdrop of a ruined country. Very few people have survived, the landscape is wiped clean, the cities are razed.
	(In the words of Eddie Izzard – an inspirational runner – it’s an ‘Etch-a- Sketch’ end of the world.)

*
To help me create this devastation, I listened to a fair amount of ethereal, ambient music. The drones, sweeps and echoes gave me the sense of a landscape that had suddenly been emptied of life. But I also wanted to get across the feelings I associate with running – the pain, the frustration, the joy, the elation. And for that I raided my own arsenal of running tracks – I made a playlist of the music I listened to most while I wrote the book, which you can find on Spotify. Here are a few of the highlights…

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	Here’s a look at what Del Rey have coming for you over the period January to June 2016! We’ll be bringing you our particular recommends of all publishers together by month of publication. Note: Publication dates are liable to change and some jackets are still to come…
	*** Publisher Page – link / profile ***
	*** See Other Publishers Jan-Jun 16 ***

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	CHAPTER 1
	LOG ENTRY: SOL 6
	I’m pretty much fucked.
	That’s my considered opinion. Fucked.
	Six days into what should be the greatest two months of my life, and it’s turned into a nightmare.
	I don’t even know who’ll read this. I guess someone will find it eventually. Maybe a hundred years from now.
	For the record . . . I didn’t die on Sol 6. Certainly the rest of the crew thought I did, and I can’t blame them. Maybe there’ll be a day of national mourning for me, and my Wikipedia page will say, “Mark Watney is the only human being to have died on Mars.”

*
And it’ll be right, probably. ’Cause I’ll surely die here. Just not on Sol 6 when everyone thinks I did.

Let’s see . . . where do I begin? Read the rest of this entry »

	“You’re a drooling, bulge-eyed drug addict!”
	The  accusation,  which  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne  screeched in his characteristically high-pitched and excitable tones, caused the entire saloon bar to fall momentarily silent.
	Sir Richard Francis Burton glowered at his diminutive friend. “A little less volume, if you please.”
	“You’re hooked! An addle head! What next for you, hey? The gutters, perhaps? Bedlam lunatic asylum? A Limehouse opium den?”
	“Limehouse doesn’t exist. It burned to the ground last year, as you well know.”
	“Pah! And I’ll say it again! Pah! In fact, once more for good measure! Pah to you, sir!”

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	NOVEMBER 4 , 1995
	A.’S DIARY
	Above us lies suspended a gold-trimmed cloud the size of one of the big states (say, Arizona), threatening to plummet over Virginia. The low sun beneath casts its rays along the dirt road we travel, exalting the yellows and oranges, turning aluminum into gold and the skin on Niamh’s arm into apricot. Crop fields dash across her irises as she feasts on the continent. She’s going to be difficult not to fall in love with.
	The road goes on from Point Bless in a westward direction for miles.
	“How are we supposed to come and go when we’re on our own?” I ask.
	“Just stay on the good road,” Glew replies. “Don’t worry; in your car it’s a ten-minute ride.”
	“We have a car?”

*
“Two, actually. Your cousin’s—an Audi—and a Daewoo he bought for the butler.”

“We have a butler!”

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*

The two months following August are where publishers traditionally bring out their big guns ready for a certain festive season; that said August is a pretty heavyweight month as far as we’re concerned, with some cracking mass market paperbacks, not to mention trades and hardbacks of particular note.

And our top picks aren’t the end of the either, so check out the individual Publisher links for their July to December output: plenty more on those as well!

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	Herein, via links to individual pages, lies the more-or-less complete output of UK SFF and major worldwide Graphic Novel publishers for July to December 2015!
	We’ve applied selection criteria with the assumption that readers with a penchant for paranormal romance and titles more for the American market will have no problem finding those elsewhere; reissues and classic reprints are included sparingly.

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	Here’s a look at what Del Rey have coming for you over the period January to June 2015! We’ll be bringing you our particular recommends of all publishers together by month of publication. Note: Publication dates are liable to change and some jackets are still to come…
	*** Publisher Page – link / profile ***
	*** See Other Publishers Jul-Dec 15 ***

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*

Having just worked through the next 6 months of fantastical output we’re finding it as hard as ever to restrain our top picks; just so much great stuff! But there really is something about July this year where we’ve straightforwardly had to say ‘whatever – all this must go in’… And these aren’t even the end of the story – check out the individual Publisher articles for their July to December output as they come: plenty more on those as well!

It’s just a great month of books.

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	www.lieselschwarz.com
	@liesel_s
	‘The High Priestess of Steampunk’ – The Independent

About (from the author’s website):

Liesel Schwarz writes fiction. A life-long fan of 19th Century Gothic literature, she is a hopeless romantic and loves Victorians, steampunk, fairies, fantasy monsters, the Fin de Siècle, and the correct way to drink absinthe. Read the rest of this entry »

*

May brings another great package of debuts, latest-in-series, hardbacks and new in paperbacks of the science fictional and fantastical – here’s our top recommends of the month!

Generally if we have to limit our picks (and we do!) we’ll err on the side of new titles and those now in mass market paperbacks. But there’s a bunch of fabulous reissues in May, no less than four, that we just couldn’t not include – one being a top personal favourite: Michael Marshall Smith’s Only Forward. If you haven’t already bought and read you really have to do yourself and favour and do so now! Similarly, and having endeavored to limit ourselves to a single ‘Top Recommend’ over the last months, we just had to go for two in May.

Both have actually been out in a different form before. One has been a YA wattpad phenomenon, now deservedly in print; the other was released by the author in a limited print edition a few years back and now has its mainstream debut.

And if you don’t know what these might be then read on and find out – but don’t go too fast and miss the rest of the awesome publishing in May!

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	2/26/42
	REF: POTUS A-DIST 422602-1/H
	CONFIDENTIAL – FOR DISTRIBUTION LIST ‘A’
	PERSONNEL ONLY
	RE: Los Angeles Incident 24 February 1942
	The President has asked me to inform you that while we still have no tangible evidence of an airborne incursion it seems likely that the incident the press have called “The Battle of Los Angeles” was triggered by an unidentified aircraft.
	The airplane was probably Japanese and may be connected to the submarine that shelled the Ellwood fuel facility, north of Santa Barbara, on 23 Feb. Reports that the plane manoeuvred and departed at extremely high speed and was of an unusual design cannot yet be discounted. Following that initial alert, RADAR later detected a trace 120 miles west of LA at 02:15 on night of 24/25 and tracked it in to the coast, where it was lost as it headed inland.

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	Chapter One
	Khartoum, 29 October 1905
	Eleanor tightened her cotton keffiyeh round her face and squinted through the shimmering haze of the afternoon. Before her, the mud-baked flats of the North Sudan spread out as far as the eye could see. They shimmered in the heat, shades of cinnamon, flint and ochre.
	Her camel grunted and stepped sideways, instantly disrupting the caravan of beasts as it wound its way along the dusty track.
	‘Whoa,’ Elle said. She leaned forward and, using her long riding cane, patted his sand-coloured neck to reassure him. In response, he turned his head and tried to bite her foot, leaving a trail of foul greenish snot over the leather of her polished boots.

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	Ah Steampunk – and the singular allure of Victoriana with added steam, cogs and fantastical contrivances. What’s that sir / madam? You’d like a 6 month overview of the literary diversions of the very same and associated anachronistic, retro-futuristic fiction? Well you’ve come to the right place!
	We have many fine articles for your perusal here after, but it seems you’ve landed on the very one you’re looking for: read on!

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	Herein, via links to individual pages, lies the more-or-less complete output of UK SFF publishers and the major worldwide Graphic Novel publishers for January to June 2015!
	We’ve applied selection criteria with the assumption that readers with a penchant for paranormal romance and titles more for the American market will have no problem finding their next read elsewhere; reissues and back-in-print classic titles are included sparingly.

Read the rest of this entry »