On sale today: Greg Van Eekhout's Pacific Fire, the sequel to California Bones
On sale today in hardcover and e-book. Excerpt here. Author website here. West Coast tour schedule here.(Making Light post about the previous book, California Bones, here.)
My flap copy:
I'm Sam. I'm just this guy.
Okay, yeah, I'm a golem created from the substance of his own magic by the late Hierarch of Southern California. With a lot of practice, I might be able to wield magic myself. I kind of doubt it, though. Not like Daniel Blackland can.
Daniel's the reason the Hierarch's gone and I'm still alive. He's also the reason I've lived my entire life on the run. Ten years of never going anywhere near Los Angeles. Daniel's determined to protect me. To teach me.
But always hiding, always traveling gets old. I've got nobody but Daniel. I'll never do anything normal. Like attend school. Or date a girl.
Things are happening back in LA. Very bad people are building a Pacific firedrake, a kind of ultimate weapon of magical destruction. Daniel thought only he could stop them, but now he's hurt. I managed to get us to the place run by the Emmas. (Yeah. Lots of women. All named Emma. It's a long story.) They seem to be healing him, but he isn't going anyplace soon.
Do I even have a reason for existing, if it isn't to prevent this firedrake from happening? I'm good at escaping from things. Now I've escaped from Daniel and the Emmas, and I'm on my way to LA.
This may be the worst idea I ever had.
Some reviews and quotes:
"Half crime caper, half heroic quest, Greg van Eekhout's Pacific Fire pulls the reader into an inventive, compelling, fully-textured urban fantasy world, mixing SoCal culture with magic so ingenious and convincing you can practically smell it, and feel it crunch between your teeth. A real treasure, not to be missed."
--Kurt Busiek, author of Astro City
"Tense action and great worldbuilding."
--Library Journal
"Van Eekhout switches his POV from Daniel to Sam in a generational kind of move, and the tactic pays off. Instead of simply recapitulating the same sensibility and attitudes, the author delivers a fresh perspective on both the actors in the game and the social structures that support them. [...] Van Eekhout's scrupulously crafted language continues to flaunt that Zelazny-esque balance of demotic and poetic. I am also reminded of Steve Gould's voice in the Jumper books. [...Pacific Fire] comes to a highly satisfactory and resonant conclusion, while still keeping its face turned toward an open horizon of further adventures."
--Paul Di Filippo, Locus Online
"L.A. noir as dark as La Brea tar meets magic drawn from ancient bones."
--Steven Gould on California Bones
"It's got subterranean halls with pillars of bones, a magic sword, magical duels and some of the coolest bone magic ever, but that's all interwoven with the taste of an LA burrito, the concrete waterways of Los Angeles, and the neon glow of the Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier. Van Eekhout has written a 21st century alchemy."
--Maureen F. McHugh on California Bones