This week I’m indulging myself with three new releases that I pre-ordered so that I could read them as soon as they became available. Two of them are thrillers and one is science fiction. All three of them are continuations of series that I’ve enjoyed.
The Edge is the second book in a series that I started last month and was pleasantly surprised by.
System Collapse is the latest book in the Murderbot series that I’ve been following eagerly since 2017.
Play Of Shadows is the third book in a quirky series that I’ve been following since 2021.
I’m hoping for a week of pure entertainment.
‘The Edge‘ by David Baldacci (2023)
Last month, I had fun reading The 6:20 Man which introduced Travis Devine, an ex-Army Ranger whose self-imposed penance is to work as a financial analyst for an investment bank in Manhattan, who finds himself co-opted by a covert government agency to investigate the firm he’s working for. (Let me digress for a moment.
Does the name Travis Devine strike you as odd? How does someone with an Irish surname end up with a first name that’s a bastardised version of an old Norman French role? It’s not like it happened because of a family tradition. Baldacci chose this combination. Why did he do that? What am I missing? Anyway, digression over. Let’s get back to the book.)
I was surprised to see that The 6:20 Man was the first book in a series. I couldn’t see what use Devine would be once his mission in Manhattan was over. Yet, here he is, being put into play in a small town in Maine (where, I assume, he’ll stick out like a sore thumb). Anyway, colour me intrigued, I looking forward to seeing what hoops Devine has to jump through this time.
David Baldacci is an American writer, based in Virginia . He practiced law in Washington DC.
He published his first novel, Absolute Power, in 1996. In total,he has published forty-eight novels for adults including the Sean King and Michelle Maxwell series (six books) The Camel Club series (five Books), the John Puller series (four books) the Will Robbie series (five books) and the Amos Decker series (seven books).
‘System Collapse’ by Martha Wells (2023)
I’ve been a Murderbot since I read All Systems Red, the first novella in the Murderbot Diaries in 2017. It’s about is about a part robot, part human construct designed as a Security Unit, that manages to override its governor module so it can watch more soap operas and then finds its viewing being interrupted by inconventient relationships with humans that it feels it ought to try to keep alive. The novella was original and fun and left me hungry for more.
I consumed the next three novellas Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy which shared a story arc, as soon as the came out. I was delighted when Network Effect, the first novel-length Murderbot, was released in 2020. Since then, I’ve read the novella Fugitive Telemetry, which is set in a time between Exit Strategy and Network Effect and the short stories The Future Of Work: Compulsory, which takes place before All Systems Red and Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory, set between Exit Strategy and Fugitive Telemetry.
You can see why I pre-ordered System Collapse. It follows on from the events in Network Effect and I’m keen to see what happens.
Martha Wells has been an SF/F writer since her first fantasy novel was published in 1993, and her work includes The Books of the Raksura series, the Ile-Rien series, The Murderbot Diaries series, and other fantasy novels, most recently Witch King (Tordotcom, 2023). She has also written media tie-in fiction for Star Wars, Stargate: Atlantis, and Magic: the Gathering, as well as short fiction, YA novels, and non-fiction.
She has won Nebula Awards, Hugo Awards, Locus Awards, and a Dragon Award, and her work has appeared on the Philip K. Dick Award ballot, the BSFA Award ballot, the USA Today Bestseller List, the Sunday Times Bestseller List, and the New York Times Bestseller List. She is a member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and her books have been published in twenty-five languages.
‘Play Of Shadows’ by Barbara Nickless (2023)
When I met Dr. Evan Wilding back in 2021 in At First Light he was a professor of semiotics consulting with homicide detective Addie Bisset of the Chicago Police Department to decipher strange markings left by a killer. Wilding is a (very) small person who is larger than life. A Brit academic in America, who likes to fly hawks and research obscure symbols At First Light was a dramatic and original book that felt like a dark graphic novel.
In the second book, Dark Of Night, Wilding and Addie work together to solve the murder of an archeolgist friend and colleague of Wildings. The book still had that graphic novel feel to it but this time it was using thriller tropes: a shady foreigner trading in antiquities, a Christian billionaire ready to spend whatever was needed to ‘prove’ that his version of the bible is historically accurate, a tale of looted treasure going all the way back to Lawrence of Arabia, an enigmatic Israeli who may or may not be working for Mossad, a trail of dead bodies, killed in bizarre ways and a growing threat against Wilding’s life.
By the end of the book, a lot had changed for Professor Wilding. Now I’m keen to see what happens next.
Barbara Nickless is an American writer, who describes herself as ‘…made in Japan, born in Guam, and traveled through numerous ports of call to land in Colorado.‘
Before taking up writing in 2016, she worked as a raptor rehabilitator, an astronomy teacher, a piano teacher, an instructional designer and a sword fighter.
Between 2016 and 2020, she published the four books in the Sydney Rose Parnell series of murder mysteries, featuring a strong but guilt-ridden ex-army Railroad Cop and her service dog.
In 2021, she launched her Dr. Evan Wilding series with, At First Light. Dark Of Night followed in November 2022 and Play of Shadows in November 2023.
Mike Finn's Fiction 