Malasz

Anne Charnock announced the title of her next book and how it came about. Mike Reeves-McMillan announced that a story of his has been selected for the Terry Pratchett In Memory anthology. Proceeds go to benefit research into finding a cure for Alzheimer's. Rob Steiner has been busy lately. Two of his stories have recently appeared in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show : " The Oath Breaker's Daemon " and " The Cloaca Maxima ". He also published the third story in his Codex Antonius series, Muses of the Republic . Michael J. Sullivan started a Kickstarter campaign to fund a third Riyria Chronicles novel entitled The Death of Dulgath . The campaign was successfully funded in just under 48 hours . I find it interesting that after signing a major book deal , he still feels the need to self-publish.

Each year, the reviewers here at the New Podler Review of Books pick the book (or books) which we feel are the very best independently published (or small press) works. The only other requirement we have is that it was reviewed here on the blog. Here are the winners for 2013: The Bookworm: I'm going to go with Realmgolds by Mike Reeves McMillian. It's everything that a reader could want in a steampunk novel. It combines politics, innovation, social unrest and the fight for basic freedoms in a compelling story. And the books in the series are even better. Rob: Black Book: Volume 1 by Dylan Jones, is my pick for the best of 2013. It had a cool blending of genres (Western, sci-fi, and fantasy) that you don't often see in traditionally published books. However, be aware that it's a serial novel made up of three "episodes." You'll need to buy future volumes to learn the characters' ultimate fates. DED: It should come as no surprise that my selection...

The 2013 Philip K. Dick Award nominees were announced on Friday . Have a look at the first book on the list. Go ahead, I'll wait. Nah, I can't wait. Readers of this blog will recall that A Calculated Life by Anne Charnock was reviewed here last year. Several weeks later, it was picked up by 47North , Amazon's publishing imprint. And now, it's been nominated for the prestigious Philip K. Dick Award. Congratulations, Anne! Anne's success is yet more proof that indie authors should not be shunned merely because they lack the backing of a traditional publisher. I don't deny that indie publishing is a veritable haystack full of poorly edited manuscripts and lousy covers, but there are needles, make that diamonds, that can be found. \_/ DED

Anne Charnock's first novel, A Calculated Life , offers a glimpse into late 21st Century England. It isn't glamorous, nor is it horrific. It's a dystopia where government and corporations control a pacified populace. The population has been divided into augmented professionals, who live in wonderful neighborhoods with all the trappings of upper middle class life we see today, and organics , who are crowded together in enclaves outside the city. The enclaves aren't filthy hellholes, but rather subsidized housing where their residents make use of everything to scrape up extra money to take the edge off of their spartan existence. The story is told from the POV of a young woman named Jayna. She works for a successful analytical firm that studies global trends; seeking signals in the noise of everyday life, like whether or not wind direction affects reports of violence. We realize at the outset that Jayna is different, even from the augmented managers she works for. As the ...