In his new crime novel The Third Squad (paperback, digital), writer V Sanjay Kumar introduces us to Karan, an autistic man who’s a member of an elite hit squad. But while this might make you think Kumar’s been reading a lot of comic books and James Bond novels lately, in talking to him about this novel, he reveals that this noir crime novel was actually inspired by real life events.
One of the common traits among noir crime novels is that they’re quick reads. You can usually tear through one in a weekend, especially if The Simpsons are a rerun. But in talking to writer Bradley Spinelli about his noir crime novel The Painted Gun (paperback, digital), it seems that it sometimes takes a lot longer than a Simpsons-free weekend to write one of these page-turners.
Like jazz, noir crime novels are a uniquely American art form, one that has not only found fans around the world, but has also inspired people in other cultures to engage in it as well. One of the best examples of this is The Killer, a series of graphic novels penned by French writer Matz and drawn by his countryman Luc Jacamon. With The Killer Volume 5 Fight Or Flight available now in hardcover and digitally — Volume 1 and 2 were collected in The Killer Omnibus Volume 1, while Volume 2 and 4were collected in The Killer Omnibus Volume 2 — I queried Matz about how this noir series came about, and where it’s going in this new collection.
While human cloning hasn’t been perfected, yet, it’s still a controversial topic that’s inspired moral, ethical, and spiritual debates. But all of these discussions have been about whether human cloning should or should not be allowed, not what happens when it does. It’s those latter kinds of questions that inspired aspects of Mur Laffery’s new sci-fi murder mystery novel Six Wakes (paperback, digital, audiobook), as you’ll see in the following interview.
Funko have announced that they’ll release a series of POP! toys for characters from the anime and manga series Seraph Of The End this March.
When it comes to promoting new books, publishers will often get quotes from other writers working in the same genre. But in promoting Jason Rekulak’s geeky new novel The Impossible Fortress (hardcover, digital, audiobook), the good people at Simon & Schuster instead sent me a quote from programmer Dona Bailey, the co-creator of the arcade game Centipede, who said, “I absolutely love this charming and optimistic coming of age tale about making video games for love, not money.” Though if that’s not enough to spark your interest in The Impossible Fortress, maybe the following interview with Rekulak will.
In her previous novel, Brother, writer Ania Ahlborn was inspired by her, “…weird fascination with serial killers [and] extreme rural life,” while her book before that, Within These Walls, came out of her being, “…intrigued by cults.” But for her newest novel, The Devil Crept In (paperback, digital), Ahlborn has not only again looked into her own dark heart but, as she admits in the following interview, she also watched some TV.
We sometimes forget that fantasy didn’t start with J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings. Before Frodo and friends set off on their epic hike, there were the fantastic stories of The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, and others who wrote fables about fairies and other fantastic beasts. It is in that tradition that we find Oak & Mistletoe (paperback, digital), a new fantasy novel by writer JZN McCauley.
While the most recent Star Trek movies kind of, sort of, but not really rebooted the saga, the Trek novels have continued the timeline of the original series, the other shows, and the previous movies. Which is how we get to Dayton Ward’s Star Trek The Next Generation Headlong Flight (paperback, digital), a new adventure for Captain Picard and crew. Though in talking to Ward about the novel, it turns out we also get there by going through a certain Canadian rock band…