Elite: Wanted by Stephen Deas and Gavin Smith

The 34th Century. A routine bit of piracy goes badly wrong, leaving the crew of the Song of Stone wanted by both the authorities and the most lethal criminal gang in inhabited space. When a bounty hunter famed for being relentless and efficient gets on their tail, events rapidly spiral out of control.

The Elite video game series has always had a good relationship with its tie-in fiction. The original game, released in 1984, had very simple graphics so relied on the manual and flavour text to fit in a lot of the background. Key to this was The Dark Wheel, a novella written by Robert Holdstock (who won the World Fantasy Award the same year for his seminal Mythago Wood) which brought the setting to life with memorable characters and a focused storyline about revenge and family.

For the release of Elite: Dangerous, the fourth game in the series, a whole line of new books are being released from several different publishers. First out of the gate is Wanted, a collaboration between Stephen Deas (best-known for the Memory of Flames fantasy sequence) and Gavin Smith (Veteran, War in Heaven, Age of Scorpio). This novel focuses on pirates, bounty-hunters and the dividing line between the law and lawlessness, key features of the Elite games which can also be used to generate good stories.

Wanted has a simple but extremely effective structure: chapters alternate between Captain Ravindra of the Song of Stone and Ziva, pilot of the Dragon Queen and one of the most renowned bounty hunters around. The characterisation of these two leading figures is strong, with the authors setting up each captain's motivations (Ravindra's wayward son and Ziva's relationship problems) and using them to drive the story forward. For a tie-in novel the risk is always that the iconic setting will overwhelm the story and characters, but there Deas and Smith avoid that, putting the central characters front-and-centre.

That said, they do handle the setting pretty well. There's always been a conflict between the Elite universe being set so far in the future and the relative low technology of it all, with no artificial gravity and ship-to-ship combat being carried out at close range rather than with drones from thousands of miles away. The two authors do a good job of staying true to the game setting whilst throwing their own innovations and extrapolations of technology into the mix.

On the weaker side of things, some of the secondary cast could do with being fleshed out more. The motivations of the villains is also under-developed, especially as the maguffin the plot revolves around is never really explained. On one meta-level it's irrelevant, as it's simply the excuse for the story to happen, but on another it means that the stakes are never properly defined.

Still, Smith and Deas deliver more than what was expected here: a punchy, rip-roaring space opera with some clever bits of science, some nicely-handled character relationships and a book that leaves the reader intrigued to try both the game and the other books in the setting. Elite: Wanted (****) is out now in the UK and USA.

Gollancz confirm details of three ELITE novels

Gollancz have confirmed the details of the three novels they are publishing to tie-in with the launch of the new space trading/combat game Elite: Dangerous.

Elite: Dangerous is the fourth game in the Elite series, which launched in September 1984 with the eponymous original game. The original Elite was accompanied by The Dark Wheel, a novella written by fantasy author Robert Holdstock (author of the mighty Mythago Wood sequence). Gollancz, Holdstock's publisher when he sadly (and prematurely) passed away in 2009, snapped up the rights to three Elite novels by contributing more than £13,000 to the game's funding campaign on Kickstarter.

The game - and the novels - are set at the dawn of the 34th Century. Humanity has expanded across dozens of worlds and star systems in a radius of several hundred light-years from Earth. There are three primary power groups in explored space: the Federation, centred on Earth; the Empire, centred on Achernar; and the Independent Alliance, a banding-together of small powers to resist the strength of the greater ones. Alien life is almost completely unknown, save for a mysterious insectoid species known as the Thargoids. Brutal enemies in Elite, completely missing in Frontier and pacified in First Encounters, it is rumoured that the Thargoids will return in force during the events of Elite: Dangerous.

Elite: Wanted is a collaboration between Gavin Smith (author of the splendid Veteran and War in Heaven) and Stephen Deas (author of the Memory of Flames fantasy sequence) featuring a duel between two starship crews. The Song of Stone has a bounty-hunter vessel on their trail, the feared Dragon Queen. The story flips between the two crews as they fight a battle of wits to keep ahead of the enemy.

Elite: Nemorensis, by Simon Spurrier (a writer for X-Men comics and the Warhammer franchise), is Bonny and Clyde in space, featuring two lovers who steal a spaceship, go on the run and end up becoming celebrities through the chaos they cause across known space.

Elite: Docking is Difficult by Gideon Defoe (the writer of the Oscar-nominated film The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists) is a humorous take on life in the 34th Century, in particular the dream of a young man to become 'Elite', the best of the best. Unfortunately, he has to cope with being broke and young first.

All three books will be available a e-editions on 15 May. Hardcover editions will be accompany the release of the game later this year.

No release date for Elite: Dangerous itself has been set. However, the game is currently being tested online by hundreds of players and it seems well on course for release before the end of this year.

Upcoming cover art

First up, the US cover art for The Orders of the Scales, due in Spring 2012:


Also, the Larry Rostant cover of The Middle Kingdom, the third of the Chung Kuo reissues. Originally, this was the title of the first book when the original eight-volume version of the series was released in the 1990s, but has been pushed back to third place by the issuing of two new, original prequel novels, Son of Heaven (out now) and Daylight on Iron Mountain (due in November). Oddly, The Middle Kingdom won't be out until August 2012. Considering that all twenty books in the series are supposed to be out by June 2015, they're going to start having to pick up the pace.

The Order of the Scales by Stephen Deas

The dragon realms have fallen into open warfare. As armies of dragon-riders do battle in the skies over the nine kingdoms, different factions maneuver and jockey for position during the chaos. The Taiytakei scheme to gain control of dragons themselves, whilst the alchemists fret over their dwindling supplies of the potions that control the dragons. If the supply runs out, a cull must take place. In the middle of it all, Jehal, the Speaker of the Realms, furthers his own ambitions and Snow, a dragon freed from the control of humans, continues her plans to liberate all dragons from the yoke of humanity, forever.


The Order of the Scales brings to a conclusion the Memory of Flames trilogy, following on from The Adamantine Palace and The King of the Crags. The first two novels left the world of the dragon-riders in a precarious state, and The Order of the Flames pushes it over the edge into full-blown warfare. Those who enjoy the idea of vast armies of hundreds of dragons engaging in battle will be well-catered for here. However, Deas maintains the focus on the characters, most notably Jehal and Kemir, and shows their plots and lives unravelling in the face of the chaos they have both set in motion.

As with the first two books, this is a relatively short volume by epic fantasy standards (340 pages in tradeback) and Deas packs a huge amount in. There are moments when a pause for breath might be appreciated, or subtler moments of characterisation might be expanded upon, but the ferocious pace of the series is one of its hallmarks, and Deas packs in enough side-detail to give the world the feeling of depth without resorting to filler. As a result it's a relentless read, though I'd recommend re-reading or at least skimming the first two books to reacquaint yourself with the storyline and characters, as Deas takes no prisoners with characters picking up exactly where The King of the Crags left them and carrying on without a pause for breath.

As the conclusion of the series, the book is extremely ruthless, with a startling number of major character deaths. It's also a somewhat messy finale, with numerous plot strands left dangling for future books. And yes, there will be more books in the same world, with another volume, The Black Mausoleum, already on the way to follow up on the ending of this trilogy. There is enough closure to make this book mostly satisfying, though those looking for happy, neat ending are directed elsewhere.

The Order of the Scales (****) is a fast-paced and violent conclusion to an interesting series, epic in scope but low in bloat and marked out by memorably vicious characters (scaled and unscaled). The novel is available now in the UK and will be published on 9 February 2012 in the USA.

The Thief-Taker's Apprentice by Stephen Deas

The city of Deephaven is still recovering from a civil war that wracked it and the surrounding Empire several decades ago. The war left behind many orphans and unwanted children, some of whom have grown up with thievery the only option for survival. After unwisely making a thief-taker his mark, one of these boys, Berren finds his life transformed as he is recruited as the thief-taker's apprentice.


The Thief-Taker's Apprentice is the start of a new trilogy by Stephen Deas, author of the Memory of Flames Trilogy (The Adamantine Palace, The King of the Crags and the forthcoming The Order of Scales). It is set in the same world, apparently on a continent on the far side of the Taiytakei homelands, but a couple of mentions of the Taiytakei aside, there are no links between the two series (yet, anyway). It is also nominally a 'Young Adult' title, but Deas actually pulls few punches in the book to accommodate these younger readers. Particularly amusing (and actually effective) is the use of corrupted Cockney rhyming slang to get around restrictions on swearing, whilst the violence is not particularly sanitised (although not gratuitous, either).

The book is pretty traditional. Whilst Memory of Flames has the politics of the dragon realms and the use of dragons as horrendous weapons of war going for it, The Thief-Taker's Apprentice is much happier employing standard tropes. We have a young main character (albeit one whose morality is a bit greyer than the standard young boy cliche), an older mentor (a disgraced nobleman from a distant land), the romantic interest, the nemesis and so on. Those looking for something surprising and new might be disappointed here. However, Deas takes the standard material and infuses it with great pace and some impressive depth, given the modest page count. The city of Deephaven, with its myriad districts, street gangs, commercial interests, sense of traumatic history and politics (seen here only at a far remove), is depicted very well, whilst there's some good character moments, particularly with Syannis the conflicted thief-taker and some minor characters like Kasmin. Berren himself and romantic interest Lilissa are less surprising, but likable enough as antagonists.

Where the book falters is that it hints at some more interesting developments to come, but then ends just as the story gets going. Given the book's slight length, it feels like it could have been longer and pursued certain storylines further.

The Thief-Taker's Apprentice (***½) is a likable, enjoyable story but one that whets the appetite rather than fully satisfies. The sequel, The Warlock's Shadow, is due next year. The book is available now in the UK and on import in the USA.

New covers and book info

From Gollancz's new catalogue, some interesting news about next year's releases.

In February and March 2011 Gollancz are reissuing the first two novels in Sophia McDougall's alt-history Romanitas Trilogy, Romanitas and Rome Burning. Previously released by Gollancz's parent company, Orion, these books have now moved to the SFF imprint and have some new cover art. In May 2011 they are also being joined by the final volume in the trilogy, The Savage City:


In March and June 2011 Gollancz are releasing the British editions of Connie Willis's duology of Blackout and All Clear:


In May, Stephen Deas's Order of Scales is released, the conclusion to his opening Memory of Flames trilogy:


An interesting new novel, out in February, is Rivers of London, the start of a new urban fantasy series called The Last Apprentice Wizard. This book intrigues as it is written by Ben Aaronovitch, who started out writing scripts for Doctor Who towards the end of its original run. He was responsible for the well-received Season 25 serial Remembrance of the Daleks (and its spectacularly good novel adaptation, a fine novel in its own right) and the, erm, somewhat less-well-received (but lots of cheesy fun) Battlefield of a year later.


In June Brandon Sanderson's Elantris gets its first UK release as well. No sign of cover art yet, but I imagine it will be in a similar vein to the minimalist white covers for the Mistborn trilogy and The Way of Kings.

American cover art for Stephen Deas's THE KING OF THE CRAGS

Here's the American cover art for The King of the Crags by Stephen Deas.

The book will be published by Roc in February 2011. I have to say this is a pretty good cover, fairly straightforward and to the point: dragons!

Again, courtesy of Jussi on Westeros.org, whose ability to spot great new cover art the second it appears online is second to none!

The King of the Crags by Stephen Deas

The dragon realms are moving towards war. Speaker Shezira has been deposed and is held prisoner in the Adamantine Palace, whilst her daughters summon their armies and dragons to free her. A religious fanatic is intent on seizing control of the rebel dragon army known as the Red Riders and unleashing fire and blood on those who do not accept the word of the Flames. And, amidst the towering peaks of the Worldspine, a dragon has freed itself from bondage and plots to free all of dragonkind from humanity's yoke once and for all.


The King of the Crags is the follow-up to last year's Adamantine Palace. In my review of the first book, I cited the author's furious pace as being a major plus, but it might have come at the expense of the more detailed worldbuilding required to make an epic fantasy novel really shine (although there are plenty of other fantasy books where such worldbuilding takes over and bogs down the narrative, so it's a difficult balancing act). Also, with 70 chapters in 350 pages, the pace was a little too fast and furious at times.

The sequel is a stronger work. 50 chapters in 370 pages means events are given more weight, characters have more time to develop and the world is able to come through a lot more. The addition of a map helps the reader place the various locations and work out the significance of one realm's power and allegiances over another, whilst characters are more fully fleshed-out and developed. Deas even has time for some metatextual commentary on how dragons are treated in other fantasy novels (the line about the docile dragons being ponies with wings was quite amusing, and a common criticism of other fantasy novels), which works better when we get to see the wild dragons, who are considerably more alien in thought and deed, in action.

Some of the criticism of the booking being too fast and furious remains, such as the fact that Princess Jaslyn still has very little page-time for an apparently major character and elements like the Taiytakei still feel somewhat under-developed (although that's probably deliberate in their case). But other characters like Jehal and Kemir shine, the world feels more solid and interesting, the battles are well-described and the various plots twists are more ruthless and startling than anything else this side of Paul Kearney and George RR Martin, and the wait for the third book feels a lot more onerous this time around.

The King of the Crags (****) is a strong, well-written epic fantasy novel and marks some major improvements in the author's style. The novel is available now in the UK from Gollancz and will be published by Roc in the USA in February 2011. A third book in the series is due in a year, whilst Deas has a not-entirely-unrelated YA fantasy novel, The Thief-Taker's Apprentice, due in the autumn.

The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas

The Adamantine Palace is the debut novel by British writer Stephen Deas, and the latest in a number of high-profile debuts from Gollancz, following on from Scott Lynch, Joe Abercrombie and Patrick Rothfuss.

The nine realms are unified under the authority of the Adamantine Palace, from where the Speaker keeps the peace. The power of the realms are based on their mastery of dragons. More than seventeen hundred of these fearsome beasts exist, kept under control by discipline, training and the mysterious liquids created by the alchemists. Intrigue seethes in the nations, as the current Speaker, old and wasting away from illness, prepares to pass the mantle onto his successor, Queen Shezira of the North. However, Prince Jehal from one of the southern realms is playing his own, long-term game. When Shezira's daughter is promised to Jehal in marriage, a chain of events is set in motion that will plunge the realms into chaos, and amidst the politicking a dragon goes missing and an ancient secret is unveiled.

The Adamantine Palace reads like a gritty remix of Naomi Novik's Temeraire novels. The dragons here aren't fluffy or cuddly, but dangerous beasts whose very training usually costs human lives. They are hazardous animals to be respected rather than talking flying ponies, and when we get a look into a dragon's mind later in the book it is revealed as a rather alien and unfeeling place indeed. The story is interesting and many of the characters are well-defined, particularly Prince Jehal, one of the more interesting recent examples of the 'magnificent bastard' archetype.

You can almost sense the large 'but' coming, can't you? The Adamantine Palace is a fast, breathless read, but that's also it's biggest problem. The book is only 350 pages long (in ARC form, anyway) but contains a massive seventy chapters, few of which are more than four or five pages long. This is fine to start off with, but by the time the book is halfway done, ideas, characters and storylines are not so much flying past but feel like they've been blasted out from a minigun like the one Blaine had in Predator. Frequent changes in POV, location and the political situation can leave the reader feeling somewhat overwhelmed, and a number of characters (particular the sell-sword Kemir and Princess Jaslyn) don't quite feel as developed as they could have been due to this. Some major events towards the end of the book are as huge to this world as say Ned's execution is in A Song of Ice and Fire, but because they've been built up to so fast and then happen so quickly, they don't feel tremendously significant. At times, and this may sound unduly harsh, The Adamantine Palace feels like an incredibly detailed synopsis for a fantastic fantasy novel, rather than a book in itself. Ironically, as I normally like it when a writer delivers a short, concise epic fantasy novel, this book really does feel like it should have been twice as long to really give the events it covers much greater resonance and weight.

As it stands, The Adamantine Palace is a fast, furious and entertaining book that grabs hold of the reader and whisks them off like a rollercoaster. The dragons, as promised, indeed kick ass and the book's ending is enticing enough to make the year-long-wait for the second volume feel irritating. However, the feeling of a lack of weight to elements of the narrative also makes it feel like a somewhat slighter book than perhaps it deserves.

The Adamantine Palace (***½) will be released in hardcover in the UK by Gollancz on 19 March 2009 and in early 2010 by Roc in the USA. The author has a website here.