I fell in love with Michael Flynn’s writing in The January Dancer and then again in Up Jim River last year. This is an epic Celtic saga slash space opera too good to miss. Got to love this cover too.

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It’s a big Spiral Arm, and the scarred man, Donavan buigh, has gone missing in it, upsetting the harper Mearana’s plans for a reconciliation between her parents. Bridget ban, a Hound of the League, is unconvinced that reconciliation is either possible or desirable; but nonetheless has dispatched agents to investigate the disappearance. After all, Donovan had once done the favor for her (in Up Jim River).

The powerful Ravn Olafsdottr, a Shadow of the Names, slips into Clanthompson Hall to tell mother and daughter of the fate of Donovan buigh. In the Long Game between the Confederation of Central Worlds and the United League of the Periphery, Hound and Shadow are mortal enemies; yet a truce descends between them so that the Shadow may tell her tale.

There is a struggle in the Lion’s Mouth, the bureau that oversees the Shadows – a clandestine civil war of sabotage and assassination between those who would overthrow Those of Name and the loyalists who support them. And Donovan, one-time Confederal agent, has been recalled to take a key part, willingly or no.

The Next Honor Harrington

A Rising Thunder (Honor Harrington/Torch/Saganami) by David Weber (Baen) - Amazon US | UK

Honor Harrington is a legend in military science fiction and we are many that looks forward to the next installment in the series. A Rising Thunderis scheduled for March 2012.

Peril and strife strike on a double front for Honor Harrington and company. After a brutal attack on the Manticoran home system, Honor Harrington and the Star Kingdom she serves battle back against a new, technologically powerful, and utterly nefarious enemy. And as if that weren’t task enough, Honor must also face down a centuries-old old nemesis in the crumbling, but still mighty, Solarian League. The war between the People’s Republic of Haven and the Star Kingdom is finally won and peace established, but grave danger looms – for there is a plan well on its way to completion designed to enslave the entire human species. Behind that plan lies the shadowy organization known as the Mesan Alignment. Task number one for Honor is to defend against another devastating Mesan strike – a strike that may well spell the doom of the Star Kingdom in one fell blow. It is time to shut down and secure the wormhole network that is the source of the Star Kingdom’s wealth and power – but also its greatest vulnerability. Yet this is an act that the ancient and corrupt Earth-based Solarian League inevitably will take as a declaration of war. The thunder of battle rolls as the Solarian League directs its massive power against the Star Kingdom. And once again, Honor Harrington is thrust into a desperate battle that she must win if she is to survive to take the fight to the real enemy of galactic freedom – the insidious puppetmasters of war who lurk behind the Mesan Alignment!

New Cover & Blurb

Orbit/Del Rey March, 2012 Amazon US | UK

This is one of my most expected books for next year. Elizabeth Moon writes characters you care for, they feel like family. The next family album cover is here and it has a dragon. I like it, what do you think?

As threats build abroad, treachery strikes at home …While King Kieri struggles to end the war that plagues his borders, his new subjects are becoming restless. His people include both humans and elves, and their uneasy accord is cracking under the demands of war. But Kieri didn’t fully appreciate the danger until someone close to him is found slain in the woods, and his beloved new wife also finds her life in danger. Kieri must seek out the corruption within his grandmother’s elvish court, or all he’s achieved will turn to nothing. Trouble also finds Dorrin Verrakai on the road, riding to command her kingdom’s defences in the war torn provinces. Her family’s dark power is rising again and it’s down to her to root out the devastating influence of their illicit blood magic. Then her investigations reveal magery in the last place anyone expected. And while mortals struggle, dragonspawn might yet set all their realms afire.

New Cover for War in Heaven

(Veteran book 2) by Gavin G. Smith (Gollancz) – Amazon UK | US

I should be dead.

The war with the aliens. Them. It’s over. Now we turn on ourselves. Human fighting human again, when we came so close to wiping ourselves out the last time and the bad guys, the true bastards like Rolleston, Cronin and the Grey Lady, hold all the cards. God may control the net, privacy is dead, but Demiurge is coming. We don’t stand a chance.

I’ve had enough. No more fighting for my life, last ditch assaults, putting my mostly machine body back together again. No more desperate chases, nearly dying in space when the integrity of the exo-armour starts to give. No more fear…

I’ve pushed my luck too far. I’m out. This isn’t my war, even if it means I’ve lost her.

Just one last piece of revenge.

But things never go as I plan.

If I could only stop thinking about Morag.

Jakob Douglas, damaged soldier and unlikely hero, returns in another desperate, adrenalin fueled adventure from Gavin Smith, author of the widely acclaimed Veteran.

A New YA Series by David Weber!

David Weber is one of the most productive authors I know, which is fortunately since I really love his military science fiction. We have to wait until December or 2012 for the next mainstream Honor Harrington novel A Rising Thunder part 1 (It has been divided into two parts) but In Fire Forged, the fifth Worlds of Honor short story collection came out in February and it might help to tide you over (only three stories there) and if that is not enough there is a new YA series A Beautiful Friendship based on the short story by the same name coming in October. It centers on Stephanie Harrington, Honor’s ancestor that was the first human to be adopted by a treecat, the telepathic felines of Honor’s home planet. That is not all, the next Safehold novel, the fifth, will be out in September this year. It is named How Firm a Foundation.

As I understand it David is penning the first novel in this new series and Jane Lindskold will write the sequels.

I like this new cover, a young girl with a big knife and a treecat crouching on a branch about to launch. They both looks pretty grim. The original short story is one of my favorites so this is a book I look forward to this year even if I am not quite in the target group.

A Beautiful Friendship (Honorverse YA)

by David Weber (Baen October 2011)

Amazon US | UK

Stephanie Harrington absolutely hates being confined inside her family’s compound on the pioneer planet of Sphinx, a frontier wilderness world populated by dangerous native animals that could easily tear a human to bits and pieces. Yet Stephanie is a young woman determined to make discoveries—and the biggest discovery of all awaits her: an intelligent alien species.

Treecats are creatures that resemble a cross between a bobcat and a lemur (but with six legs and much more deadly claws). Not only are they fully sentient, they are also telepathic, and able to bond with certain gifted humans such as the genetically-enhanced Stephanie. But Stephanie’s find, and her first-of-its-kind bond with a treecat, brings on a new torrent of danger. An assortment of highly-placed enemies with galactic-sized wealth at stake is determined to make sure that the planet of Sphinx remains entirely in human hands—even if this means the extermination of another thinking species. Stephanie and Lionheart are about to undergo the greatest test two alien species can ever face together: how to survive first contact and win a future with liberty and justice for all!

The first entry in a new teen series and the origin saga for the incredibly-popular, multiple New York Times and USA Today bestselling Honor Harrington adult science fiction adventures. Young Stephanie Harrington is none other than the founder of a pioneering family dynasty that is destined to lead the fight for humanity’s freedom in a dangerous galaxy.

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