Thursday 20 September 2012

Do Astrosaurs or Dinosaurs Rule?!

It’s been a summer of dinosaurs following the publication of two new books by Steve Cole.

The Castle of Frankensaur is the twenty-third title in Steve Cole’s ever-popular Astrosaurs series for readers aged 7+.  Set in the Jurassic Quadrant, our heroes Captain Teggs Stegosaur and his faithful crew on the DSS Sauropod fight the dastardly deeds of the meat-eaters.  The Castle of Frankensaur is classic Cole, plundering the horror genre to write a humorous adventure, whilst leaving just enough clues for his readers to work out the mystery before revealing all.

Z.Apocalypse is the third and final book in Steve Cole’s Z.Rex trilogy.  It is this release I was most anticipating.  The story began in Z.Rex with Adam’s first encounter with a living, breathing T-Rex with the capability to disarm a bomb.  Together they team up to rescue Adam’s Dad held captive by Geneflow.  In the second book, Z.Raptor, Adam is marooned on a pacific island and part of a Geneflow game: hyper-evolved dinosaurs with the minds of killers versus Adam and a handful of survivors.  In Z.Apocalypse nuclear war threatens and once again Adam with the help of Zed needs to stop Geneflow for once and for all.

On a philosophical level the Z.Rex series pits human spirit against soulless science.  It is Adam’s humanity and something of Adam’s spirit that has been passed onto the augmented dinosaurs who yearn for freedom and friendship that must defeat Geneflow’s desire for control and command.  Who can you trust?  When you have successfully achieved the ultimate scientific experiment creating the perfect killing machine immune to all conventional modern weaponry, do scientists, soldiers and politicians really want to destroy this technology or do they want to exclusively own this knowledge?

It has been a strange summer of dinosaurs from the hilarious capers of another Astrosaurs adventure to the action-packed, international conspiracy of Geneflow, demonstrating the incredible story-telling skills of Steve Cole and his continuing fascination with those large lizards.


Friday 7 September 2012

The Sacrifice book trailer - Charlie Higson


Charlie Higson is not even half way through his zombie trilogy, in fact he has only just reached his planned Book 2 and yet this is the published Book 4!  The Sacrifice has taken on a life of its own, far from being a linear journey from one book to the next it jumps backwards and forwards bringing its characters into new, dangerous situations as it does.

Charlie Higson is not the shy and retiring type, he relishes the horror and action in his books and is not afraid to say so.  However he is also a big fan of mythology and Tolkein, citing his favourite line in literature as being Tolkein's "the tale grew in the telling..."  This has been such an inspiration that Charlie Higson has taken it quite literally and grown his tale in the telling!  The cross fertilization of mythology has been another big inspiration and all this has led to The Sacrifice.  

The popularity of Zombie stories and of this series is immense and the power of the zombie os growing so watch out!  For the stars of this trailer Higson used the force of Twitter and a London secondary school where, as you will see, plentyy of Zombies and children under the age of 14 are to be found!

So if you have not yet had the pleasure of Charlie Higson's amazing trilogy of four books and counting here is a little taster of what to expect

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VY-rNt-zzw&feature=youtu.be

Enjoy and remember to spread the word as well as finding yourself a copy of the book!  Oh and keep a close eye on any grown-ups...

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Charlie Higson: The Sacrifice

Armadillo Magazine is back from a long summer holiday of dissertation writing and exciting events with a packed season of exciting book launches and more to report on.

I have a queue of Blog entries waiting to be added but first of all I can reveal that tonight, thanks to Puffin Books, I will be one of the lucky people allowed to see a preview of the new Charlie Higson book trailer.  At 2 minutes long there is not much time to reveal anything about the book so I am intrigued and I am afraid that I can't reveal anything more until Friday but if you watch this space then on Friday morning at 9am you can see it too..

In the meantime enjoy this picture as compensation!