Book Blitz: Bookburners by Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, Mur Lafferty and Brian Francis Slattery
The critically acclaimed urban fantasy about a secret team of agents that hunts down dangerous books containing deadly magic—previously released serially online by Serial Box, now available in print for the first time!
Magic is real, and hungry. It’s trapped in ancient texts and artifacts, and only a few who discover it survive to fight back. Detective Sal Brooks is a survivor. She joins a Vatican-backed black-ops anti-magic squad—Team Three of the Societas Librorum Occultorum—and together they stand between humanity and the magical apocalypse. Some call them the Bookburners. They don’t like the label.Supernatural meets The Da Vinci Code in a fast-paced, kickass character driven novel chock-full of magic, mystery, and mayhem, written collaboratively by a team of some of the best writers working in fantasy.
Candle
Sal hadn’t noticed before how the leather was discolored: most of it matched
Perry’s skin, but a crimson bloom spread beneath his fingers. She heard a sound
she couldn’t name: a footfall, maybe, or a whisper, very soft. Goose bumps
chased goose bumps up her arms.
think someone’s following you?”
and checked through the blinds. Street still bare. Red Toyota pickup. Honda
Civic. Garbage. E-Z Carpet Cleaner van.
on the way. They did not. Ergo, I wasn’t followed.”
phone off the living room table. “Who is that?”
the door was unquestionably not Aiden—too old, too sure, too calm. An accent
Sal couldn’t place twined through his words. “Mister Brooks, we’re not here to
hurt you. We want to talk.”
with her gun. “Who are you?”
he’s in there.”
you.”
armed. Please step away from the door.”
was standing now, holding the book, fingers clenched around the cover like
she’d seen men at bay clutch the handles of knives. “Sir, please leave. I’m
calling 9-1-1 now.” She pressed the autodial. The line clicked.
man said. “Please. If he means anything to you, stop him.”
she rattled off her badge number and address. “I have a man outside my
apartment who is refusing to leave—”
Doorjamb timbers splintered. Sally stumbled back, dropped the phone, both hands
on the pistol. She took aim.
struck the wall. A human wind blew through.
stinging blow to her wrist, her gun knocked back against the wall. A woman’s
face—Chinese, she thought. Bob haircut. Her knee slammed into Sal’s solar
plexus and she fell, gasping, to the splinter-strewn carpet. The woman turned,
in slow-motion almost, to the living room where Perry stood.
smile bared sharp teeth.
her mind. She heard the woman roar, and glass break. Then darkness closed
around her like a mouth.
permission from Saga Press
MAX GLADSTONE has been thrown from a horse in Mongolia, drank almond milk with monks on Wudang Shan, and wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat. Max is also the author of the Craft Sequence of books about undead gods and skeletal law wizards—Full Fathom Five, Three Parts Dead, Two Serpents Rise, and Last First Snow. Max fools everyone by actually writing novels in the coffee shops of Davis Square in Somerville, MA. His dreams are much nicer than you’d expect. He tweets as @maxgladstone.
Before joining the Bookburners, MARGARET DUNLAP wrote for ABC Family’s cult-hit The Middleman in addition to working on SyFy’s Eureka. Most recently, she was a writer and co-executive producer of the Emmy-winning transmedia series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and co-created its sequel Welcome to Sanditon. Her short fiction has previously appeared in Shimmer Magazine. Margaret lives in Los Angeles where she taunts the rest of the team with local weather reports and waits for the earthquake that will finally turn Burbank into oceanfront property. She tweets as @spyscribe.
MUR LAFFERTY is the author of The Shambling Guides series from Orbit, including the Netfix-optioned The Shambling Guide to New York City and Ghost Train to New Orleans. She has been a podcaster for over 10 years, running award-winning shows such as I Should Be Writing and novellas published via podcast. She has written for RPGs, video games, and short animation. She lives in Durham, NC where she attends Durham Bulls baseball games and regularly pets two dogs. Her family regrets her Dragon Age addiction and wishes for her to get help. She tweets as @mightymur.
BRIAN FRANCIS SLATTERY is the author of Spaceman Blues, Liberation, Lost Everything, and The Family Hightower. Lost Everything won the Philip K. Dick Award in 2012. He’s the arts and culture editor for the New Haven Independent, an editor for the New Haven Review, and a freelance editor for a few not-so-secret public policy think tanks. He also plays music constantly with a few different groups in a bunch of different genres. He has settled with his family just outside of New Haven and admits that elevation above sea level was one of the factors he took into account. For one week out of every year, he enjoys living completely without electricity.
