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Tales from the Edge: Escalation now on Amazon featuring Alastair Reynolds and Aliette de Bodard!  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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Made in gb
[DCM]
Producers of Maelstrom's Edge





London and Los Angeles

We promised during our Kickstarter that we would bring you a collection of short stories set in the Maelstrom's Edge universe featuring a host of bestselling and award-winning authors, including Alastair Reynolds, Aliette de Bodard and Jeff Carlson.



Today Tales from the Edge: Escalation is available on the Kindle store! Inside you'll join ship captains taking clients to doomed worlds, Remnant Fleet Champions on impossible missions and Karist Enclave priests learning to control the mighty Angels, all told by some of the best voices in science fiction today. It's also free to read if you belong to the Kindle Unlimited scheme.

As well as Alastair, Aliette and Jeff, we have great contributions from incredible writers like Jaine Fenn, Liz Williams, Jon Cooper, Karin Lowachee and Rob Ziegler, as well as a story each from the lead writers on the Maelstrom's Edge project, Stephen Gaskell and Tomas L. Martin.

In appreciation for the launch of Tales from the Edge: Escalation, the first novel in the Battles of Zycanthus sequence, Faith, will be free on Amazon from Thursday 13th July to Monday 17th July. Just as a reminder you can also find on Amazon the second book in the Battles for Zycanthus, Sacrifice, as well as our first short story collection, Tales from the Edge: Emergence.

If you would prefer a hard copy of our books, all four of them are available to purchase from the Maelstrom's Edge store. In celebration of our professional anthology, we've made the audiobook 'Fracture' available for free to all VIP members of the webstore for the next month - go download it if you haven't already!

As a final note, if you've enjoyed any of our fiction, please do leave a review on Amazon - it boosts our work a great deal and helps us to bring in more great authors to our collections in the future!

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/07/12 19:21:19


 
   
Made in us
[DCM]
Sentient OverBear






Clearwater, FL

Oh, sweet! I've been waiting for this!



DQ:70S++G+++M+B++I+Pw40k94+ID+++A++/sWD178R+++T(I)DM+++

Trust me, no matter what damage they have the potential to do, single-shot weapons always flatter to deceive in 40k.                                                                                                       Rule #1
- BBAP

 
   
Made in us
Damsel of the Lady





drinking tea in the snow

Neat! i've read some stuff by Bodard at least and i like her work so i might just give this one a try!

realism is a lie
 
   
Made in no
Nervous Karist Novitiate





Very impressive!
Alistair Reynolds is one of my favorite writers.
   
Made in us
[DCM]
Dankhold Troggoth






Shadeglass Maze

Totally downloaded this, looking forward to reading . I really love short story anthologies and the lineup here looks excellent!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/07/14 16:04:58


 
   
Made in ca
Regular Dakkanaut




Fracture isn't showing up for free yet in the store.
Nice to see you guys accepting Paypal on the store too!
   
Made in gb
[ADMIN]
Decrepit Dakkanaut






London, UK

angryboy2k wrote:
Fracture isn't showing up for free yet in the store.
Nice to see you guys accepting Paypal on the store too!


If you have VIP access, just login and click on the 'Welcome ...' message in the top right and then Fracture should be downloadable from your 'My Files' section. There was one minor hiccup which might have affected automatic loading for some people but it is sorted now provided your VIP access is still live and valid.

Check out our new, fully plastic tabletop wargame - Maelstrom's Edge, made by Dakka!
 
   
Made in ca
Regular Dakkanaut




Nice, it's there now - thanks!
Looking forward to reading/listening to these.
   
Made in gb
[DCM]
Producers of Maelstrom's Edge





London and Los Angeles

For those who did not see it over at the comm guild blog, here are some designer's notes about the book:

In the summer of 2014 several members of the team had the opportunity to attend WorldCon in London and give a sneak-peek of Maelstrom's Edge to some of the world's best science-fiction authors. The aim? To showcase our universe and convince them to lend their awesome storytelling talents to our project. Presenting the backdrop, artwork, and prototype models, many of the authors we pitched to came away impressed with both our vision and our commitment to building a long-lasting IP. We came away from the London Excel centre having signed up a great mix of highly-acclaimed established voices and up-and-coming superstars to contribute to our project.







Tales from the Edge: Escalation is the result of that fruitful few days at science fiction’s biggest convention. The anthology brings together a wealth of talent contributing short fiction work to the Maelstrom's Edge universe:



Alastair Reynolds

With over a decade of experience as a professional astrophysicist to back up his writing chops, Alastair Reynolds is deservedly called the "reigning master of the intergalactic space opera", and brings a compelling edge of hard-SF to his unique brand of galaxy-spanning science fiction. Author of the Inhibitor trilogy that kicked off with the seismic Revelation Space and ended with the chilling Absolution Gap, Alastair's star has only risen over the last twenty years, and has been nominated for the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award three times.

http://www.alastairreynolds.com/


Here's what Alastair said about getting to play in the Maelstrom's Edge universe:



"Maelstrom's Edge is something different: an SF game universe put together with real originality and incorporating some genuinely clever and inventive thinking. There are enough worlds and stories waiting to be explored to last a lifetime..."



With his gritty blend of dark sci-fi, speculative science, and galaxy-spanning drama he is a perfect match for the Maelstrom's Edge universe and we're delighted to have him on board with our opening story, ‘Remainers’, in which a ship’s captain accepts a client’s dangerous request to return to a world doomed by the Maelstrom.




Rob Ziegler

Author of the spectacular Seed, which Paolo Bacigalupi described as "A hungry beast of a book, rippling with slaughter and sex, powerhouse action, surreal post-human horrors and bigger-than-life heroes", Rob's work combines kinetic action, bleak landscapes, and characters drawn from the grimy underbelly of society. As such we think he is perfect to help us flesh out some of the stories happening at the margins of the Maelstrom's Edge universe, particularly those involving the Broken, our very own faction of survivalists who mix the high-tech and the squalid together with
the violent and the tender. ‘Little Bots’, Rob’s story in ‘Escalation’, is a terrific tale of a group of orphans, sneaking and tricking their way to survival.


http://zieglerstories.com/



Jaine Fenn

Described by SFX Magazine as "A major new talent" on the release of her debut novel, Consorts of Heaven, Jaine Fenn has proceeded to flesh out her Hidden Empire series, charting seven-thousand years of future history as humankind adventures among the stars. Known for writing tense and fast-paced stories set in vivid locales, we felt Jaine would create the kind of gripping fiction perfectly suited to the universe of Maelstrom's Edge. For her first story in our universe, Jaine set her sights on two of our future factions – telling the story of a noble Champion of the Artarian Remnant Fleet, amongst the ragtag flotilla of a Broken fleet, in the cracking short story ‘Over You’.

http://www.jainefenn.com/



Jeff Carlson

In the Plague Year trilogy Jeff Carlson unleashed a nanoplague on humanity that killed all warm-blooded life below 10,000 feet. In his Frozen Sky novels humankind discovered a deadly species in the icy waters of Jupiter's ice moon, Europa. Who better than this Philip K. Dick Award Finalist to help bring the Maelstrom's Edge universe to gripping life? When we told him about the Maelstrom's Edge universe and invited him to spread his fictional wings he had the following to say:


"These days I write sci fi and tech thrillers that, I hope, are chock full of monsters and chills and cutting edge science. When I heard about Maelstrom’s Edge, I begged its designers to let me play in their sandbox. An unstoppable wave of hellish energy. Civilizations destroyed. Terraforming corporations, mech, refugees, cults, strange planets. Man, that’s what I do!!!!"



Jeff’s story ‘The Spaces Between Us’ is something both beautiful and brutal, telling a tangled family tragedy on a world with something truly worth saving.

http://www.jverse.com/books/



Aliette de Bodard

Nominated for multiple Hugo, Nebula, and BSFA awards, and winner of the Nebula and Locus awards, Aliette de Bodard is a highly-acclaimed author who will bring brilliant prose allied to poignant characters to the Maelstrom's Edge universe. Subverting the usual tropes for original twists, and substituting by-the-numbers heroes for vivid individuals deeply entwined with familial and cultural shackles, we were really excited to see what Aliette did with the apocalyptic backdrop of Maelstrom's Edge, and her story, ‘Losses We Bear’ is a superb demonstration of her skills.

http://aliettedebodard.com



Tomas L. Martin


Well, that’s me! Together with Stephen Gaskell, I’m one of the lead writers who helped develop the background to the Maelstrom’s Edge universe, as well as together writing the short stories that made up our first collection, ‘Tales from the Edge: Emergence’, and the two Maelstrom’s Edge novels, ‘Faith’ and ‘Sacrifice’. When not writing for Maelstrom’s Edge, I’m a lecturer in materials physics at the University of Bristol, as well as occasionally dabbling in other fiction endeavours! My story, ‘Fleet Champion’ is a little introduction to the tangled politics and heated contests of the Remnant Fleet and the power-suited Champions that compete for the honour and reputation of their noble houses.


http://www.tomaslmartin.com



Jonathan Cooper

Coming via Wolverhampton, Dublin and London, Jonathan Cooper is a novelist and occasional journalist now living in Amsterdam. He has written on film, TV and pop culture for the Mirror and the Independent and has short fiction published in the New London Review and Scrivener Creative Review. He is also the author of Lethbridge Stewart: The Showstoppers, a new novel featuring Doctor Who's very own Brigadier. In this anthology Jonathan gives us ‘The Daughter of Arin’, where a Comm Guild courier delivers a strange package that leads to an increasingly chaotic conspiracy.




Karin Lowachee

Winner of a boatload of awards including Warner Aspect First Novel, Prix Aurora Award 2006, and Spectrum Award 2006, not to mention twice being shortlisted for the Philip K. Dick Award, Karin Lowachee's Warchild Universe explores the experience of fictionalised child soldiers learning to survive in a war-torn galaxy. When we asked her to expand on what drew her to Maelstrom's Edge universe she had the following to say:



"In a genre that can literally explore anything the imagination envisions, the opportunity to sink my teeth into a doomsday event of galactic proportions was too good to pass. Everything about Maelstrom's Edge speaks to my creative inclinations: high stakes, complex characters, an expansive setting, and a sense of wonder. The possibilities for exploration both external and internal are endless, and my fascination with the human condition—our frailties as well as our strengths—is something I will explore. A psychological close-up of what a random band of survivors on a frontier planet are willing and able to do to reach their destination—and presumably their saving grace to get off-world ahead of the Maelstrom—will take an unflinching look at the nature of selfishness, exploitation, compassion and love."




Karin's tale ‘The Flesh of the World’ explores a lawless, frontier-type world that has been abandoned by the corporations, leaving the population alone to face the coming Maelstrom.

http://www.karinlowachee.com



Stephen Gaskell


The other half of the Maelstrom’s Edge lead writing team, Stephen is a prolific and talented writer both of fiction and for games. When not writing for Maelstrom’s Edge, Stephen works as a Senior Writer for Amplitude Studios, where he recently completed work on the popular 4X strategy title, Endless Space 2. His fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Interzone, Years Best Military SF, and elsewhere, and he is currently seeking representation for his debut novel, The Unborn World, a dystopian eco-thriller set in Lagos, Nigeria. An alumnus of University College, Oxford, he holds degrees in physics and artificial intelligence. Stephen’s contribution to the anthology is the fantastic ‘A Keeper’s Duty’, which explores the moral dilemma of a convert to the Karist Faith, growing up to become one of the Keepers who looks after the otherworldly alien creatures known as Angels.


http://www.stephengaskell.com



Liz Williams

With degrees in philosophy and artificial intelligence, a mother who was a gothic novelist, and a father who was a part-time conjurer, it is no exaggeration to say that Liz William's is one of the most original voices working in science fiction today. Short-listed for the Philip K. Dick Award for her novels no less than four times, Liz is also a master of the short form with her work appearing in many Year's Best anthologies. Writing dark and strange yet utterly compelling fiction, Liz's piece for our Maelstrom's Edge anthology is titled "’Moon Desert’ and is a fantastic read.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Liz-Williams/e/B001HCXOL2



Maelstrom's Edge has a comprehensive long term fiction plan which we give as much attention as the game itself. From day one we've been trying to develop a universe which will grab the interest of anybody who has even a passing interest in Science Fiction, and with some of the best sci-fi authors in the world committing stories into the anthology ‘Tales From The Edge: Escalation’, Maelstrom's Edge is going from strength to strength, with plenty more to come from us in future.

   
Made in ca
Regular Dakkanaut




Escalation is an excellent book. I'm really enjoying the stories you guys have gathered together, and it's filling me with enthusiasm for the game again. Nice work!
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

I've only got a couple stories left to finish. So far, while not every story has been to my taste none have been bad. The collection has a more "literary sci fi" feel than most tie in books or even milSF. I will be checking out some of these writers' other works for sure.

The collection practically begs for an RPG. Comm Guild vs Artarian Champion in a crumbling city on a dying planet? Who doesn't want to play that out?

   
Made in gb
Hulking Hunter-class Warmech





Bristol, England

Thanks for the positive thoughts guys, we're really glad people are enjoying the collection.

If you have enjoyed reading any of our books, can I be cheeky and ask you to leave a positive review on Amazon and/or Goodreads? Having more reviews on these sites makes it much easier for us to promote our books, and also to attract more quality writers to contribute to our collections in the future.

Read the first two novels in the Maelstrom's Edge Universe now:

Maelstrom's Edge: Faith - read a sample here!

and

Maelstrom's Edge: Sacrifice 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

Done. Should be up soon.

   
Made in us
[DCM]
Dankhold Troggoth






Shadeglass Maze

I also agree on the RPG thoughts - the setting really lends itself to this, imo, and I've felt really immersed in the world with the stories I've read so far!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/08/06 18:52:02


 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

I have the paper edition and noticed a fairly prominent editing mistake on pages 139 and 140. Are you able to make corrections to the Kindle edition?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/08/07 04:21:11


   
Made in gb
[ADMIN]
Decrepit Dakkanaut






London, UK

Yes, what is the issue?

Check out our new, fully plastic tabletop wargame - Maelstrom's Edge, made by Dakka!
 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

 legoburner wrote:
Yes, what is the issue?


Spoilers for anyone who hasn't read it.



...


...




...




Spoiler:
On page 139 , in the story Desert Moon, the protagonist says he has never seen a minnow, but knew someone who did. Over the course of the page the text seems to waffle about whether it was the protagonist or his acquaintance, and then on page 140 he clearly states that the angel is much bigger than the minnow he saw. Has some material from an earlier draft seeped into the text and confused the narrative?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/08/13 21:03:42


   
Made in gb
[ADMIN]
Decrepit Dakkanaut






London, UK

Ah thanks Bob, that is not a mistake, there are some 'confusing' aspects of narrative surrounding the angels, their appearances and their communicative capacities which are linked to a bigger picture that was not yet revealed.

Check out our new, fully plastic tabletop wargame - Maelstrom's Edge, made by Dakka!
 
   
 
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