Release Date: 11/09/14
Publisher: Tor
SYNOPSIS:
When your life is based on lies, how do you hunt down the truth? Jerry Beche should be dead. Instead, he's rescued from a desolate Earth where he was the last man alive. He's then trained for the toughest conditions imaginable and placed with a crack team of specialists on an isolated island. Every one of them is a survivor, as each withstood the violent ending of their own alternate Earth. And their new specialism? To retrieve weapons and data in missions to other apocalyptic versions of our world. But what is 'the Authority', the shadowy organization that rescued Beche and his fellow survivors? How does it access timelines to find other Earths? And why does it need these instruments of death? As Jerry struggles to obey his new masters, he begins to distrust his new companions. A strange bunch, their motivations are less than clear, and accidents start plaguing their missions. Jerry suspects the Authority is feeding them lies, and team members are spying on him. As a dangerous situation spirals into catastrophe, is there anybody he can trust? A riveting, action-packed post-apocalyptic survival story from master of SF, Gary Gibson.
REVIEW:
Gary has been an author I’ve followed since his first book was released, I like the way he takes novel idea’s, brings them to the fore and presents them to the reader in such a way that you really can’t let them go until you see how the tale develops.
Its definitely something different to a lot of the Sci-Fi out there and for me, this book has idea’s and concepts that I couldn’t wait to see how the tale played out as survivors of multiple earths are gathered together to raid the civilisations on behalf of the mysterious Authority.
All round the book is a tale that works wonderfully well, the idea’s explored something that will make readers think and when you add Gary’s identifiable writing style with cracking prose and wonderful pace to the fore, you know that you’re in for a treat. Great stuff.
Release Date: 05/08/11
SYNOPSIS:
But this new mode of transportation comes at a price and there are risks. Saul Dumont knows this better than anyone. He's still trying to cope with the loss of the wormhole link to the Galileo system, which has stranded him on Earth far from his wife and child for the past several years. Only weeks away from the link with Galileo finally being re-established, he stumbles across a conspiracy to suppress the discovery of a second, alien network of wormholes which lead billions of years in the future. A covert expedition is sent to what is named Site 17 to investigate, but when an accident occurs and one of the expedition, Mitchell Stone, disappears they realise that they are dealing with something far beyond their understanding. When a second expedition travels via the wormholes to Earth in the near future of 2245 they discover a devastated, lifeless solar system - all except for one man, Mitchell Stone, recovered from an experimental cryogenics facility in the ruins of a lunar city. Stone may be the only surviving witness to the coming destruction of the Earth. But why is he the only survivor - and once he's brought back to the present, is there any way he and Saul can prevent the destruction that's coming?
REVIEW:
Gary is an author that is full of surprises. After all you never quite know what you’re going to get from one of his books, other than its something unique and completely different to a number of other titles out there. As usual it’s cleverly written, the characters wonderfully rounded and for me the overall arc is one that I couldn’t let go of from start to finish.
Add to this some great prose and an energy within that kept me going long into the night which left me sated by the tales end. Thought provoking, enticing and above all else a story that demonstrates the authors development through successive stories to become someone that is a sheer joy to read. Great stuff.
Release Date: 02/07/10
BOOK BLURB:
The nova war has begun to spread as the Emissaries wage a fierce and reckless campaign, encroaching on the area of space occupied by humanity and forcing the Shoal into a desperate retreat. While Dakota goes in search of the entity responsible for creating the Maker caches, Corso, left in charge of a fleet of human-piloted Magi ships, finds his authority crumbling in the face of assassination attempts and politically-motivated sabotage. If any hope exists at all, it lies in an abandoned asteroid a thousand light-years beyond the Consortium's borders, and with Ty Whitecloud, the only man alive with the skill to decipher the messages left behind by an ancient race of star travellers. Unfortunately Whitecloud is locked in a prison cell aboard a dying coreship adrift in space, awaiting execution for war crimes against Corso's own people. But if humanity has any hope of survival, Corso is going to have to find some way to keep him alive - and that's only if Dakota doesn't kill him first...
REVIEW:
Gary, for me, has always been an author who has taken new directions and provides the reader with the unexpected. Here, within the third part of the Nova War series, is a title that takes the reader not only into the unknown but does it with bags of talent. Beautifully written with a great story arc, colourful characters and a talent to tie threads together in a minimalist way that just screams of the sheer talent within alongside an overall sensational round up to help give the series a rounded feel. Finally back all that up with great pace, some memorable villains but perhaps most of all with a scope that is nearly as big within the pages as the universe itself and you know that you’ve had a really satisfactory read. Great stuff.
BOOK BLURB:
In Stealing Light, Dakota discovered the Shoal's dark and dangerous secret, now she works towards stopping not only the spread of this knowledge, but also the onset of the Nova war. Found adrift near a Bandati colony world far away from Consortium space, Dakota and Corso find themselves prisoners of the Bandati. It becomes rapidly clear to them, that the humanity's limited knowledge of the rest of the galaxy - filtered through the Shoal - is direly inaccurate. The Shoal have been fighting a frontier war with a rival species, the Emissaries, with their own FTL technology for over fifteen thousand years. Realising that the Shoal may be the Galaxy's one chance at sustained peace, Dakota is forced to work with Trader to prevent the spread of deadly knowledge carried on board the Magi ships. But it seems that the Nova War is inevitable.
REVIEW:
The second novel in Gary’s Shaol series and one that has had fans clamouring for more since the original release of Stealing Light. Expanding on the themes as well as concepts introduced in the previous novel its definitely one that will more than please the Sci-Fi Geek within as it brings everything you’d want to the table. Strange and unusual races, characters that face insurmountable odds, choices that weigh heavily on the few for the many and topped off with a pretty high speed pace that can leave you gasping for breath. Gary continues to do what he does best and makes him a firm favourite on my own shelf. Great stuff.
