Stacking the Shelves over at Tynga’s Reviews is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, whether it be physically or virtually. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

Navigators of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

Genre: Science Fiction – Space Opera

Series: Schools of Dune #3

Publisher: Tor (September 13, 2016)

Authors Information: Website | Twitter Herbert
 Website | Twitter Anderson

Length: 416 pages

Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s Navigators of Dune is the climactic finale of the Great Schools of Dune trilogy, set 10,000 years before Frank Herbert’s classic Dune.

The story line tells the origins of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood and its breeding program, the human-computer Mentats, and the Navigators (the Spacing Guild), as well as a crucial battle for the future of the human race, in which reason faces off against fanaticism. These events have far-reaching consequences that will set the stage for Dune, millennia later.

Purchase the book at Amazon.

The Family Plot by Cherie Priest 

Genre: Horror – Suspense

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Tor (September 20, 2016)

Author Information: Website | Twitter 

Length: 368 pages

Chuck Dutton built Music City Salvage with patience and expertise, stripping historic properties and reselling their bones. Inventory is running low, so he’s thrilled when Augusta Withrow appears in his office offering salvage rights to her entire property. This could be a gold mine, so he assigns his daughter Dahlia to personally oversee the project.

The crew finds a handful of surprises right away. Firstly, the place is in unexpectedly good shape. And then there’s the cemetery, about thirty fallen and overgrown graves dating to the early 1900s, Augusta insists that the cemetery is just a fake, a Halloween prank, so the city gives the go-ahead, the bulldozer revs up, and it turns up human remains. Augusta says she doesn’t know whose body it is or how many others might be present and refuses to answer any more questions. Then she stops answering the phone.

But Dahlia’s concerns about the corpse and Augusta’s disappearance are overshadowed when she begins to realize that she and her crew are not alone, and they’re not welcome at the Withrow estate. They have no idea how much danger they’re in, but they’re starting to get an idea. On the crew’s third night in the house, a storm shuts down the only road to the property. The power goes out. Cell signals are iffy. There’s nowhere to go and no one Dahlia can call for help, even if anyone would believe that she and her crew are being stalked by a murderous phantom. Something at the Withrow mansion is angry and lost, and this is its last chance to raise hell before the house is gone forever. And it seems to be seeking permanent company.

The Family Plot is a haunted house story for the ages-atmospheric, scary, and strange, with a modern gothic sensibility to keep it fresh and interesting-from Cherie Priest, a modern master of supernatural fiction.

Purchase the book at Amazon.

Heroes or Thieves by J.J. Sherwood

Genre: Fantasy – Epic

Series: The Kings #2

Publisher: Silver Helm (June 14, 2016)

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Length: 488 pages

“War is the action taken to determine who has strength enough to live, and who has strength enough to die. Death can be the gateway to victory, but not all men are brave enough to face this truth.”

A dark and ancient magic has resurfaced upon Aersadore, and it serves the new lords of the elven nation. Disgraced and on a land far from home, Jikun yet finds himself in the midst of Sevrigel’s inner turmoil. When he accepts the siren call to rectify his past mistakes, he soon determines that to walk the path of the hero, he must first become the thief.

As Sevrigel’s new rulers exact genocide upon all who oppose them, the shadow of their reign takes shape. Their necromancer, whose name is spoken only in whispers, is rising in power, striking down all upon Ryekarayn who might dare to offer the elven nation aid. If Jikun wishes to secure his country’s future, he must first defeat the man who Ryekarayn has named Death itself.

Purchase the book at Amazon.

I’m so very honored to welcome Robert Brockway to Bookwraiths today.  Hopefully, most of you have already tried out his amazing punk rock fantasy series, Vicious Circuit.  If you haven’t you really should go ahead and take the plunge, as books one and two are sitting on shelves everywhere.  And don’t trick yourself into thinking this is just another urban fantasy, because it isn’t.  It is punk rock with some damn devilish “angels” thrown in for good measure.  But enough from me.  Let’s hear all about it from the author himself!

Hey Robert! Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions!

Thank you in advance for not asking me about “the thing.”

For readers who aren’t familiar with you, could you tell us a little about yourself?

I’m an editor and (mostly former) columnist for CRACKED.COM, as well as the author of one non-fiction book about the apocalypse, EVERYTHING IS GOING TO KILL EVERYBODY, one self-published cyberpunk serial novel, now collected as RX: A TALE OF ELECTRONEGATIVITY, and two for-realties books: THE UNNOTICEABLES and now, THE EMPTY ONES. Those are both part of the VICIOUS CIRCUIT trilogy, with the third book already finished and releasing summer of next year.

What type of story can readers expect to experience with The Vicious Circuit series?

It’s a sort of punk rock fantasy book. A high-stakes epic about monsters and killers, the universe, faith, and the meaning of life… but told from the small scale, by people who really wish they weren’t involved.

People seem to be struggling to put this series in a convenient sub-genre like urban fantasy, horror, or something else. How would you categorize it? Or do you even think it is fair to demand that the story be one category or another?

I am definitely one of those people. I’ve settled on the previous term ‘punk rock fantasy’ for now, because it gets the message across without isolating the book to a genre it doesn’t fully represent. You might be disappointed in the series if you come in expecting straight horror, or hard sci-fi, or conventional urban fantasy – which, going by the best-sellers list, is mostly about the troubles sexy werewolves have with operating human shirts.

Any strong influences for The Unnoticeables or The Empty Ones which readers might notice?

There are so many I don’t know where to start, and even thinking about trying makes me tired, so I’ll just limit myself to a few: There’s definitely some early Stephen King in there, and elements of Lovecraft – not so much in style or storytelling approach; more of an abstract, atmospheric way. Maybe a bit of Hunter S. Thompson, and certainly a little of The Young Ones.

When did you get the idea for this series, and how long did it percolate in your mind before you began writing it? Any dramatic changes once you began writing?

I don’t remember exactly when I first had the idea, but it percolated for a long time. I started with just the very basic concept of ‘math as universal language,’ and everything slowly developed from there. I even explored bits of the mythos as one-off jokes in columns I wrote over the years. There were certainly dramatic changes: Originally this was a time travel story. It is very much not a time travel story now.

The story in both The Unnoticeables and The Empty Ones is told through different POV characters in different time periods. Was it difficult to switch back and forth between them? Did you struggle to get back into one after having spent time on the other?

Definitely. I found I couldn’t switch between POVS on the same day. If I wrapped up a Carey chapter one day, I wouldn’t start on a Kaitlyn chapter until the next. Trying to do both in the same writing session just ended with Carey showing improper concern for his fellow man, and Kaitlyn hucking beer cans at her mother.

Any favorite characters/themes in the series you just prefer to write about?

I didn’t actually know this about myself until just recently, but apparently I’m very concerned with alternate dimensions and what their existence means in regards to our lives. Both my last fiction book, RX: A TALE OF ELECTRONEGATIVITY, and the VICIOUS CIRCUIT series explore those themes – though they’re very, very different books. I blame re-runs of SLIDERS, I guess.

What do you hope readers will be saying once they finish these books?

“I don’t know what the hell that was, but I need new pants.”

Any favorite quote(s) from The Empty Ones that you can share with us without ruining the story?

I like the first line a lot: “I messed up this poor girl’s code, and now she’s got teeth where her eyes should be.”

I hear you might have an opinion about the terms novella and bookshots. Please do explain the controversy and share your take on it.

A novella is a piece of fiction too long to be considered a short story, but short enough that some readers might bitch about it if you called it a novel. It is a pre-existing term with sharp definitions: A short story is under 7500 words, a novelette is 7500 to 17500 words, a novella is 17500 to 40000 words, and a novel is anything above. We have those words. They mean things. James Patterson came along and said “novella? Sounds like a French whore,” and tried to rename them “BookShots.” I don’t badmouth other authors. I’ve got nothing against the man’s work. But this is some Idiocracy crap and it will not stand.

Any sage advice to struggling writers out there?

Quit. Writing is full. There’s no more room. I need to eat, and you’re probably better than me. Go away.

What can fans expect from you next?

Book 3 of the VICIOUS CIRCUIT trilogy, tentatively titled KILL ALL ANGELS, comes out summer 2017. That’s actually done and turned in, though. I’m currently working under a pen name, on a series of connected shorts – think World War Z more than ‘short story anthology’ – that lands somewhere between cosmic horror zombie flick and King’s THE STAND or McCammon’s SWAN SONG.

Where can readers find out more about you?

I am omnipresent. I’ve got a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, and five years worth of articles and columns of wildly varying quality in the Cracked archives. I think I might even have an Instagram account. God only knows anymore.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

ROBERT BROCKWAY is the author of The Unnoticeables and The Empty Ones (books 1 and 2 of the Vicious Circuit) and is a Senior Editor and columnist for Cracked.com. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife Meagan and their two dogs, Detectives Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh. He has been known, on occasion, to have a beard. Visit him online at robertbrockway.net.

Purchase Robert’s books at Amazon.