A mildly surprising day for the slushpile, as well have an modest influx of backlist books by new-ish people, and a decent amount of established author offerings.
Today's slushpile feature is something I've never read by an author I've never heard of, but also something I would have liked to have read once upon a time, as the late Tudor period of England is still one of my favourites, which makes this sound kind of awesome because it's the sort of thing I'd have seriously loved reading when I was 10.
Christopher Uptake by Susan Price is a probably-YA adventure tale involving moral dilemmas and intrigue, set during Elizabethan England. This was originally published by Faber & Faber in 1981, and Price has many other listings for children's books out from Scholastic and Usborne and others.
The author has put a note in the front of the book saying that she has fully revised it.
Free with DRM for who knows how long @ Amazon
main UK DE ES FR IT
Description
‘Merry England’, during the reign of Good Queen Bess, was a police state. It was a crime to miss attendance at the state church on Sunday, and a crime to hear a Catholic mass. It was a crime to be ‘a free thinker’.
Christopher Uptake, a young playwright, is an atheist. Living and writing in the crowded city, he thinks it has escaped notice that he never attends church – until the red-haired man appears at his door and gives him a choice: spy on your friends or be tortured and executed.
From then on, Chris plays a desperate game, trying to spare his friends yet save his own life…
Other stuff found amidst the slush:
The following Morrigan Books anthology has stories by horror heavyweights Ramsey Campbell, Gary McMahon, and others, originally out from them in 2009:
Dead Souls
UK TV writer Jan Needle (
IMDB entry) offers several assorted titles, including a Falkland Islands military action thriller that was apparently originally written for BAFTA-nominated ITV serial (A Game of Soldiers) and published by HarperCollins in 1993. He also says that a couple of his other offerings were published, but they're not linked to paper copies and I'll just take his word for it:
Linkage for the lot
Award-winning expat South African playwright Ian Fraser returns with another short story:
Heart of Flowers
Previously title-featured award-nominated sf writer William Barton returns with the self-explanatory:
Changes (Short Story)
Philip K. Dick Award-finalist Jeff Carlson (
ISFDB entry) offers a collection of his sf shorts, including some which appeared in Asimov's SF magazine:
Long Eyes and Other Stories
Scottish Dundee-prize-nominated BBC Radio writer Catherine Czerkawska returns with an historical literary fiction drama/"epic love story" set in 19th-century Poland:
The Amber Heart She also has a repeat of one of her earlier works.
Previously-included Ann Evans offers a 2000-Hippo/Scholastic-published children's mystery/adventure:
Stealing the Show (Little Tyke Murder Mysteries)
St. Martin's Griffin-published L.A. Banks contributes to this paranormal romance anthology:
Vegas Bites
Well, I suppose this is one way to resurrect a long-sunken ship, and I admit I kind of like the blurb, so:
Titanic with ZOMBIES
(ETA: And while I'm including Titanic-themed probably-self-pubs, here's an historical adventure version sans zombies but with reading group guide:
Touched By Angels)
Backlist repeats from Lee Killough, Angela Hunt, Joan Marie Verba. Established author repeats/small press stuff from James Roy Daley, Alex Irvine, Chester Burton Brown, Imajin Books, Steel Magnolia Press/Dare to Dream Press.
Happy reading, if indeed you manage to spot something you think you might like, or your inner 10 year old late Tudor aficionado is clapping its hands like a seal in glee.