Malasz

Philadelphia. Elzi on every corner, cops just itching to crack a skull, and the Gaespora lordin' it up in their high towers while the rest of the filth dribbled down the sewer. Saru had a way out. All she had to do was find the girl, one skinny stray with blue, blue eyes—bluer than anyone had ever seen—and ten million fat bucks were hers. Except someone was killing blue-eyed girls, and they were A-list, major-league, cold-sweat effective. And something about the end of all existence if she failed. Don't let the doe-eyed woman on the cover fool you. That's Saru. She'll use that cattle prod on you if you mess with her. While not evident from the cover, she's enhanced with all the doodads that cyberpunk fans would expect of a near future sci-fi heroine. She's connected to the Net 24/7; has a pistol named "Betty" up her sleeve ready to go when adrenaline, pulse rate, and subconscious thought reach a critical threshold; and everything's subdermal. But j...

Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Rob Steiner , the author of The Last Key , Aspect of Pale Night , Zervakan , and the Codex Antonius trilogy. His short stories have appeared in Bastion and Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show . As has been posted here previously, Steiner has just concluded the Codex Antonius trilogy with the publication of Muses of the Republic. Now, he's here to talk to us about...everything. New Podler: Thanks for being here with us today, Rob! Rob Steiner: I appreciate you having me. NP: Anyone familiar with your recent work, both in novel and short story form, will notice a certain Roman element to it. Is it safe to say you're a Romanophile? RS: Am I that obvious, lol? Yes, I’m huge Romanophile. I mean, the Western civilization we know today came right out of Rome, from its languages to its religious customs (the Christian/pagan mashups), to its roads (still used throughout Europe), and even its lawyers (Romans sued the beje...

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.

Today we have the pleasure of interviewing Michael John Grist , the author of Mr. Ruins and the Ruins War trilogy. He's also the author of the Ignifer Cycle, two anthologies, and Into the Ruins, an account of his travels through the modern ruins of Japan. His latest work is The Last, the story of a comic book artist in the zombie apocalypse. New Podler: Thanks for being here with us today, Michael! Michael John Grist: Happy to be here, thanks for having me! NP: I found out about you by accident. I was searching for something, and I was directed to the ruins exploration portion of your website. While there are some photos collected from around the internet, the photos from Japan are all yours. Can you tell us how that came about? MJG: Sure, and it’s sort of by accident too. First off though, I was always into ruins. As a kid I’d explored some of the big abandoned factories near Manchester where I grew up—they were probably cotton mills—as well as taking adventures into w...

Rob Steiner has revealed the third cover in the Codex Antonius series , Muses of the Republic . In case you haven't been following it (and why the hell not!), it's a sci-fi/alt history series about a Roman Empire that didn't fall. Instead it thrived, conquered the world, and spawned an interstellar civilization. Rob hired Tom Edwards to create the cover. Edwards also created the covers for M. Terry Green's Chronicles of White World . The ebook is out now . The paperback is scheduled to be released later this month. There's a compendium containing all three ebooks. You can get that here .

Sometimes, for whatever reason, the vision an author has for their book cover fails to connect with the targeted audience. Michael John Grist takes us through the process of the cover creation process for Mr. Ruins. Much like what he did to his protagonist, Grist had to tear down his idea for the book cover and rebuild it. Mr. Ruins originally had a cover I poured all my ideas into, but people thought it looked like a bunch of worms sitting on an eyeball. :(. It wasn’t meant to be that. So now I’m talking about the glorious misadventures I had on the path to make it, what it became, why it didn’t work, and the new design that has replaced it. To read more and see the previous incarnations of the cover, please visit his website .

The story takes place in 1979 South America in an unspecified country, where a successful rebellion against a Communist regime has proven to be the same, if not worse, than the last government. Father Lupe, a village priest, and his brother Dr. Aramos, decide to take matters into their own hands to save their people. Rather than lead a rebellion that would result in thousands of lost lives and dubious victory, the brothers turn to a rabbi, Avenidas, with a solid knowledge of Kabbalah mysticism to create a golem. However, the golem is not made from dirt and clay, but instead from Dr. Aramos himself because he has been rendered emotionally hollow from a great tragedy and loss from a few years ago. According to Rabbi Avenidas, the reasoning is that a human golem can make judgments based on how humans think instead of blindly finishing the task with a great deal of collateral damage. If the golem goes rogue, the rabbi can end its life; if the golem kills the rabbi who created it, the golem...