This page is updated as books are received throughout the month.
Time’s Tapestry Book Two: Conqueror by Stephen Baxter
Ace, $24.95, 302pp, hc, 9780441014965. Science fiction. On-sale date: 7 August 2007.
Conqueror is the second novel in a thrilling alternate-history series from national bestselling author Stephen Baxter.
Three centuries have passed since Rome fell, as The Prophecy foretold. Now The Prophecy’s scroll is in the hands of a young girl, the last surviving member of the family who received The Prophecy. She lives in tranquility, disguised as a boy among the monks on the isle of Lindisfarne—until the Vikings come, deliberately destroying the final copies of the scroll. But it remains in her memory, and when William of Normandy, who history will call the Conqueror, rises to power, once more the fate of fthe land rests on actions inspired by those age-old words.
But as time passes, memory of The Prophecy dims—and the veiled girl struggles to understand her heritage before all knowledge of the future will be lost to the past.
A Fine & Private Place by Peter S. Beagle
Tachyon, $14.95, 264pp, tp, 9781892391469. Fantasy.
For nineteen years, Jonathan Rebeck has hidden from the world within the confines of the Bronx’s Yorkchester Cemetery, making an abandoned mausoleum his secret home. He speaks with the newly dead as they pass from life to wherever spirits truly go, providing them with comfort, an understanding ear, and even the occcasionaly game of chess.
But Mr. Rebeck’s reclusive life is soon to be disrupted. An impossible love has blossomed between two ghosts, and Rebeck himself is drawn to a living woman. Helped along by a cynical talking raven and a mysterious cemetery guard, these four souls must learn the true difference between life and death, and make choices that really are forever.
Told with an elegiac wisdom, Peter S. Beagle’s first novel is a timeless work of fantasy, imbued with hope and wonder. This updated edition contains the author’s final revisions, and stands as the definitive version of an enduring modern classic.
The Wanderer’s Tale by David Bilsborough
(Book I of the Annals of Lindormyn), Tor, $24.95, 445pp, hc, 9780765318671. Fantasy.
Author David Bilsborough brings a fresh and talented voice to the fantasy genre in his first novel, The Wanderer’s Tale, the first in a series of tales that take place in the same vast, engaging realm.
It has been five hundred years since the Peladanes stormed the distant stronghold of Vaagenfjord. There, the dreaded rawgr Drauglir and his supernatural minions had held sway over the mortal world, in a long, terrifying reign.
And now, the peace is broken. Rumors abound, ill omens have been seen, and a priest of the One God has had a vision. The rawgr—hideous, powerful creatures of which there were but few—have reappeared and threaten to wreak vengeance on the descendants of the Peladanes who sacked their fortress centuries before.
Thus begins an epic adventure—a fabulous quest—the likes of which has never been told. David Bilsborough, a brilliant young author, has created a passionately imagined vision of Lindormyn, a world teeming with peoples, history, cultures; a world rich with fabulous landscapes and hidden terrors; a world with compelling characters—human and other—some of whom are deadly, others of whom are simply remarkable.
His writings explore a world of wonders that will surprise and captivate readers. The Wanderer’s Tale is a masterfully woven tapestry of lives entrapped by the play of Time and Chance, Good and Evil, on a grand scale. It’s a sweeping epic that will enrapture the imagination of readers everywhere.
The Golden Apples of the Sun, and Other Stories by Ray Bradbury
Subterranean, $50.00, 247pp, hc, 9781596061361. Science fiction collection. On-sale date: February 2008.
This special edition of Ray Bradbury’s seminal collection, The Golden Apples of the Sun, not only restores the original 1953 table of contents—including such classics as “The Pedestrian,” “A Sound of Thunder,” and “The Fog Horn”—it also features, for the first time anywhere, play versions of two of these extraordinary tales, printed in facsimile format, exactly as Bradbury originally wrote them.
[Contents: “The Pedestrian,” “The Wilderness,” “The April Witch,” “The Big Black and White Game,” “Embroidery,” “The Golden Apples of the Sun,” “The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind,” “The Great Fire,” “Hail and Farewell,” “Invisible Boy,” “The Murderer,” “Powerhouse,” “A Sound of Thunder,” “The Flying Machine,” “I See You Never,” “The Meadow,” “The Garbage Collector,” “The Fog Horn,” “Sun and Shadow,” “The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl,” “En La Noche,” and “The Great Wide World Over There,” plus bonus material: the plays “The Fog Horn” and “En La Noche.”]
L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume XXIII edited by Algis Budrys
Galaxy Press, $7.99, 536pp, pb, 9781592123988. Science fiction anthology. On-sale date: September 2007.
Writers of the Future has become the single most effective source for discovering new talent in the fields of science fiction, fantasy, light horror, and alternate history. Over 500 writers and illustrators have been published in the first twenty-two volumes of this series and winners have gone on to publish over 300 novels, 3,000 short stories with hundreds of illustrations.
The contest is unique in that there is no entry fee, judging is blind—all the judges ever see is an entry number, no name, age, or address—and in addition to a substantial prize for winning, being flown out to an expense-paid ultra-exclusive workshop, winners maintain the rights to their story or art after the book is published.
The cover art is by Stephan Martiniere, our most recent illustrator contest judge. The professional essays in this year’s volume were written by L. Ron Hubbard and contest judges Kevin J. Anderson and Judith Miller.
[Contributors: Algis Budrys, Douglas Texter, Randall Ensley, Andrea Kail, Yuliya Kostyuk, Jeff Carlson, Bogdan Stetsenko, L. Ron Hubbard, Tony Pi, Lars Edwards, Aliette de Bodard, Marcus Collins, Kim Zimring, Artem Mirolevich, Kevin J. Anderson, Damon Kaswell, Amelia Mammoliti, Stephen Kotowych, Stephen Gaskell, Karl Bunker, Peter Town, Judith Miller, Edward Sevcik, Geir Lanesskog, Corey Brown, Bryan Beus, John Burridge, and Lorraine Shleter.]
Plague Year by Jeff Carlson
Ace, $7.99, 293pp, pb, 9780441015146. Science fiction.
This book is reviewed in this article.
The nanotechnology was designed to fight cancer. Instead, it evolved into the machine plague, killing nearly five billion people and changing life on Earth forever.
The nanotech has one weakness: It self-destructs at altitudes above ten thousand feet. Those few who’ve managed to escape the plague struggle to stay alive on the highest mountains, but time is running out. There is famine and war, and the environment is crashing worldwide. Humanity’s last hope lies with a top nanotech researcher aboard the International Space Station—and with a small group of survivors in California who risk a daring journey below the death line…
The Land of Elyon: Into the Mist by Patrick Carman
Scholastic, $11.99, 304pp, hc, 9780439899529. Children’s fantasy. On-sale date: September 2007.
Patrick Carman, author of the national bestselling The Land of Elyon trilogy, returns with a prequel. The Land of Elyon: Into the Mist introduces new readers to the adventures and mysteries from the Land of Elyon, while giving fans a glimpse into the storied past of two beloved characters.
Before the walls went up… there were other adventures. Follow young Thomas Warvold and his brother Roland as they journey through Elyon, discovering new mysteries, new challenges, and magical creatures that will change the course of their fate and the fate of their land. From a humble and enexplained childhood in a horrible orphanage to a series of fearless escapes, Thomas and Roland find that their identity—and the mysterious tattoos on their knees—are linked to a much greater history than they ever would have guessed. Before the brothers can find their destinies, they must journey into the mist and find the truth about both their past and their future.
Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 1: The Nixie’s Song by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
Simon & Schuster, $10.99, 192pp, hc, 9780689871313. Children’s fantasy. On-sale date: 18 September 2007.
As the millions of fans of the #1 New York Times bestselling series, The Spiderwick Chronicles, eagerly await its February 2008 release as a major motion picture from Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies, its co-creators, Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, are back with a brand new book cycle! Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles: The Nixie’s Song will be published 18 September 2007 with a first printing of 350,000 copies.
In The Nixie’s Song, Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black leave the old world charm of New England behind and head south for some fiendish faerie fun in the hot Florida sun. Eleven year-old NIcholas Vargas thinks his life has been turned upside down. Not only does his developer father remarry and move his new wife and her daughter into their soon-to-be completed Mangrove Hollow home, but his father actually wants Nick to spend time with his stepsister Laurie! But when an expedition to a nearby lake turns up a little nixie with a giant problem—the huge, lumbering, fire-breathing variety—it’s up to Nick and Laurie (plus a familiar fave from the original Spiderwick Chronicles series) to figure out the best way to stop the rampaging beast before all of Mangrove Hollow—and possibly the state of Florida—goes up in smoke.
Shatterday by Harlan Ellison
Tachyon, $14.95, 336pp, tp, 9781892391483. Science fiction collection. On-sale date: 15 October 2007.
Shatterday is a revolutionary classic short-story collection from Harlan Ellison, science fiction’s most controversial author. These sixteen visionary stories remain as scathing and influential today as when it was initially published in 1980. These brilliant tales combine ironic humor, sardonic social criticism, and intense self-revelation, from the tragedy of an innocent child wrenched out of an idylliv past, to humanity’s encounter with dangerously seductive aliens, culminating in the dark allegory of an identity-stealing doppelganger and his overmatched twin. Back in print for the first time since its stunning debut, this incendiary collection reestablishes its legendary author at the cutting edge of the short story form.
[Contents: “Jeffty is Five,” “Flop Sweat,” “Woud You Do It for a Penny?” “The Man Who Was Heavily Into Revenge,” Shoppe Keeper,” “All the Lies that Are My Life,” “Django,” “Count the Clock that Tells the Time,” “In the Fourth Year of the War,” “Alive and Well and On a Friendless Voyage,” “All the Birds Come Home to Roost,” “Opium,” “The Other Eye of Polyphemus,” “The Executioner of the Malformed Children,” and “Shatterday.”]
The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman
Ace, $23.95, 278pp, hc, 9780441014996. Science fiction. On-sale date: 7 August 2007.
Graduate school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling around as a lowly research assistant at M.I.T. While working in the lab for Professor Marsh, Matt witnesses a disappearing then reappearing calibrator. When no one believes him, he takes the calibrator home and calculates the amount of time between each disappearing act. After a few experiments, Matt realizes he has a time machine on his hands. How far can this time machine take him and will he be able to stop?
Year’s Best Fantasy 7 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
Tachyon, $14.95, 384pp, tp, 9781892391506. Fantasy anthology.
Award-winning editors David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer have done it again. The most experienced editing team in the genre returns, presenting the finest fantasy stories of 2006. With its distinctive blend of bestselling authors and exciting newcomers, this classic series, in its seventh volume, remains the essential guide to fantasy.
[Contents: “Build-A-Bear” by Gene Wolfe; “Pimpf” by Charles Stross; “Four Fables” by Peter S. Beagle; “The Potter’s Daughter” by Martha Wells; “Thin, On the Ground” by Howard Waldrop; “Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)” by Geoff Ryman; “The Osteomancer’s Son” by Greg van Eekhout; “Yours, Etc.” by Gavin Grant; “Sea Air” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman; “I’ll Give You My Word” by Diana Wynne Jones; “Bea and Her Bird Brother” by Gene Wolfe; “The Bonny Boy” by Ian R. MacLeod; “Ghost Mission” by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.; “The Christmas Witch” by M. Rickert; “The Roaming Forest” by Michael Moorcock; “Show Me Yours” by Robert Reed; “The Lepidopterist” by Lucius Shepard; “The Double-Edged Sword” by Sharon Shinn; “Hallucigenia” by Laird Barron; and “An Episode of Stardust” by Michael Swanwick.]
King’s Property by Morgan Howell
(Queen of the Orcs, Book 1), Del Rey, $6.99, 315pp, pb, 9780345496508. Fantasy. On-sale date: 31 July 2007.
Morgan Howell delivers Queen of the Orcs, an exciting new fantasy trilogy beginning with King’s Property. The series will continue in August 2007 with the publication of Clan Daughter and in September 2007 with the publication of Royal Destiny.
Born into hardship, Dar learns to rely on herself alone. When her family betrays her, Dar is conscripted into King Kregant’s army and its brutal campaign to conquer a neighboring country. Now she is bound as a slave to a dreaded regiment of orcs, creatures legendary for their savagery and deadly skill in combat.
Rather than cower, Dar rises to the challenge. She learns the unique culture and language of the orcs, survives treachery from both allies and enemies, and struggles to understand a mystical gift that brings her dark, prophetic visions. As the war escalates—amid nightmarish combat and shattering loss—Dar must seize a single chance at freedom.
As bestselling and Nebula Award-winning author Elizabeth Moon says, “Howell’s depiction of orc culture is fascinating—these orcs are as big, strong, and dangerous as any in fantasy, but they also have moral and ethical issues of importance. This is… a book to think about.”
Portable Childhoods by Ellen Klages
(Introduction by Neil Gaiman), Tachyon, $14.95, 210pp, tp, 9781892391452. Fantasy collection.
Portable Childhoods offers a tantalizing glimpse of what lies hidden just beyond the ordinary. Described by reviewers as “timeless,” “delightful,” “chilling,” and “beautiful,” this is short fiction at its best, emerging from a distinctive, powerful voice.
“Basement Magic,” which appears in this volume, won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 2005. Ellen Klages’s breakout first novel, The Green Glass Sea, won the 2007 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. She lives in San Francisco.
[Contents: “Basement Magic,” “Intelligent Design,” “The Green Glass Sea,” “Clip Art,” “Triangle,” “The Feed Bag,” “Flying Over Water,” “Möbius, Stripped of a Muse,” “Time Gypsy,” “Be Prepared,” “Travel Agency,” “A Taste of Summer,” “Ringing Up Baby,” “Guys Day Out,” “Portable Childhoods,” and “In the House of the Seven Librarians.”]
The Vanishing by Bentley Little
Signet, $7.99, 387pp, pb, 9780451221858. Horror. On-sale date: 7 August 2007.
In Beverly Hills, a business-man slaughters his entire family and leaves behind a video of the massacre and a cryptic message: “this is where it all begins.” Sure enough, it is only the beginning. Miles away, an alarmed mother receives an unsettling letter stained with bloody fingerprints. And all across California, children are falling victim to a monstrous change—and their parents, to a mounting fear.
Social worker Carrie Daniels and reporter Brian Howells are determined to find a link between these baffling events. But they shouldn’t look too deeply into the lives of the victims. It’s quite dark there. And, God help them, they won’t like what they find.
The Way Some People Die by Ross Macdonald
(a Lew Archer novel), Vintage, $12.95, 245pp, tp, 9780307278982. Mystery.
They don’t write mysteries like they used to, and that’s why Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer P.I. stories remain “the finest series of detective novels ever written by an American,” (The New York Times). Now, back in print after ten years, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard will publish two of Macdonald’s bloodiest&38212;and most thrilling—novels: The Ivory Grin (1955) and The Way Some People Die (1951).
Macdonald, former president of the Mystery Writers of America, knew how to entangle his hardened P.I., Lew Archer, in suspenseful webs of treachery, dangerous double-crossing, and big-city corruption. The Ivory Grin and The Way Some People Die uphold this tradition as Archer doggedly tracks crime through the seedy underbelly of urban California. Whether on the trail of a beautiful, wayward nurse or standing up to gun-toting gangsters, Archer epitomizes the hard-boiled detective who manages to keep his grit and his grace among some of the sleaziest and most vicious criminals out there.
With Macdonald’s 1959 hit, The Galton Case, being developed into a 2009 motion picture by Brokeback Mountain producer, James Schamus, and Focus Features/Random House Films, contemporary audiences are already rediscovering the heady days of Macdonald’s classic crime novels. Don’t let the gritty, glamorous covers of the new Vintage Crime editions fool you—The Ivory Grin and The Way Some People Die dish out the same world of snarling crooks, leggy blondes, and tough crime-fighting that fans have come to love.
The Sleeping God by Violette Malan
(a novel of Dhulyn and Parno), DAW, $15.00, 439pp, tp, 9780756404468. Fantasy. On-sale date: August 2007.
In The Mirror Prince, Violette Malan introduced the fantastic world of Dhulyn and Parno, now The Sleeping God takes that world a step further!
Masters of weapons and martial arts, Mercenaries Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane have just saved one of the Marked, those gifted with special powers, from a mob that appears to be under the influence of a priest of the Sleeping God. Learning that this is not an isolated incident and realizing that Dhulyn’s own unique gift will make them a target, the two take a ship to safer climes. Once ashore, the partners take on the seemingly simple mission of escorting a young woman to distant relatives. But not even Dhulyn’s talent can warn them of the threat that awaits at the far end of their journey.
The Execution Channel by Ken Macleod
Tor, $24.95, 285pp, hc, 9780765313324. Science fiction.
It’s after 9/11. After the bombing. After the Iraq war. After 7/7. After the Iran war. After the nukes. After the flu. After the Straits. After Rosyth. It’s the day when the world changes all the way down to its fundamental assumptions.
In a world just down the road from our own, on-line bloggers vie with old-line political operatives and new-style police to determine just where reality lies. And on every cable system, the mysterious Execution Channel broadcasts deaths from around the world, around the clock.
James Travis is a British patriot and a French spy. On the day the Big One hits, Travis and his daughter must strive to make sense of the nuclear bombing of Scotland and the political repercussions of a series of terrorist attacks. With the information war in full swing, the only truth they have is what they’re able to see with their own eyes. They know that everything else is—or may be—a lie.
For in this near future—our near future—day-to-day life becomes much like real intelligence work today: a world in which everything has meaning, and the meanings change as lies build on likes, until someone who intends to lie is finally telling the truth.
Acorna’s Children: Third Watch by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Eos, $24.95, 271pp, hc, 9780060525415.
Readers who have enjoyed the Acorna series—detailing the adventures of the Unicorn Girl, and of her children—have also enjoyed the Acorna’s Children series by bestselling authors Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. In Third Watch, the series wraps up with an exciting finale.
Khorii, rebellious daughter of the near-mythic Acorna and her lifemate, Aari, must contend with an overwhelming legacy to forge a path of her own through a universe filled with new adversaries and adventure. She’s faced hardship and danger, discovered a sister she never knew, and journeyed to the stars. But now she risks everything, for the enigmatic, mysterious enemy that has devastated the universe with plague and sedition has now attacked directly. And there are other enemies even closer to home, waiting to strike at Khorii’s family.
The Mirador by Sarah Monette
Ace, $24.95, 426pp, hc, 9780441015009. Fantasy. On-sale date: 7 August 2007.
Felix Harrowgate is a Cabaline wizard who can’t escape his dark past. When returning to the palace at the heart of Melusine, The Mirador, he encounters some old friends and enemies. Felix discovers there is someone who wants nothing else but to destroy the Mirador. Will Felix be able to stop him?
The SFWA European Hall of Fame edited by James Morrow and Kathryn Morrow
Tor, $26.95, 336pp, hc, 9780765315366. Science fiction anthology.
The SFWA European Hall of Fame is the best book of its kind in at least two decades. It is a literate, intelligent collection of powerful SF stories from across Europe.
These takes are representative of the best writers and stories in the last twenty years, written in most of the major contemporary European languages.
The SFWA European Hall of Fame includes some of the biggest SF names in Europe, including Joanna Sinisalo, Andreas Eschbach, Elena Arseneva, and Jean-Claude Dinah. The appeal of this anthology rests first upon the venerable SFWA Hall of Fame imprimatur, and secondly on the sterling reputation of co-editor/writer James Morrow.
Morrow and his wife Kathryn spent six years arranging for translations of the best in European SF and working with translators to achieve sharp, polished, entertaining English versions of the stories.
James Morrow has written a thought-provoking introductory essay, as well as informative story notes throughout the collection. This anthology joinis the canonical SFWA Hall of Fame books that have sold hundreds of thousands of copies over four decades of sale, and belongs in every SF library, personal or public.
The Fate of Mice by Susan Palwick
(Introduction by Paul di Filippo), Tachyon, $14.95, 218pp, tp, 9781892391421. Collection.
Gathering together the most outstanding short stsories of Susan Palwick’s twenty-year literary career, The Fate of Mice is a powerful collection from an extraordinary fantasist. These unflinching tales, including three original pieces, consider a woman born with her heart exposed and the heartless killer who protects her; a wolf who is willingly ensnared by a devious academic; a businessman resurrected to play at politics; and an ingenious mouse dreaming beyond the laboratory.
With the perceptivity of Joyce Carol Oates, the inventiveness of Ray Bradbury, and the emotional resonance of Alice Sebold, The Fate of Mice is a meditation on the very art of storytelling; mythic, beautiful, and often brutal, yet filled with authentic compassion.
[Contents: “The Fate of Mice,” “Gestella,” “The Old World,” “Jo’s Hair,” “Going After Bobo,” “Beautiful Stuff,” “Elephant,” “Ever After,” “Stormdusk,” “Sorrel’s Heart,” and “GI Jesus.”]
Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Ravens of Avalon by Diana L. Paxson
Viking, $25.95, 400pp, hc, 9780670038701. Fantasy. On-sale date: 6 August 2007.
In The Forest House, Diana L. Paxson’s first collaboration with Marion Zimmer Bradley, readers were introduced to the Society of Ravens—the children of priestesses raped by the Romans when they conquered the Druids. Now, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Ravens of Avalon tells the story of the events leading up to the tragedy, and the commanding women who persevered to keep the spirit of Avalon alive.
Ravens of Avalon is the story of two women: Boudica, a Celtic princess, and Lhiannon, her Druid priestess mentor. Though Boudica begins life in training to become a Druid priestess herself, she ultimately marries the king of the Iceni, who has accepted the rule of the Romans to keep his people safe. After the death of her husband, Queen Boudica and her daughters are betrayed by the Romans, who rape and terrorize them. Seething with rage, Boudica raises an army of the remaining British tribes against Rome—and nearly succeeds in driving them off. Meanwhile, Lhiannon has taken refuge in Ireland and ultimately it is she who must find a way to preserve the heritage of Avalon and safeguard Druid traditions in Roman Britannia by becoming high priestess of the Forest House.
Compulsively readable and with an epic sweep of heroic characters, Ravens of Avalon is another spectacular novel that is sure to please Bradley’s legions of fans, and anyone who loves wonderfully told tales that blend history, myth, and fantasy.
Making Money by Terry Pratchett
(a DiscWorld novel), HarperCollins, $25.95, 393pp, hc, 9780061161643. Fantasy. On-sale date: 18 September 2007.
When Terry Pratchett’s last novel, Thud! entered the New York Times best-seller list in 2005 at #4, his American readers knew that their countryfolk now realized what his readers worldwide—be they eight, or be they eighty, have known for years: that he is not only one of the funniest, but one of the sharpest and most observant contemporary authors at work in any language.
Destined to be his biggest seller yet, his next novel, Making Money once again delivers the trademark insight, keen social commentary, hilarity, and wit his readers have come to expect from today’s most significant English language satirist. The latest addition to the internationally acclaimed Discworld canon, Making Money picks up the tale of Moist von Lipwig, condemned prisoner turned postal worker extraordinaire from where it left off in 2004’s Going Postal. He did such a fine job managing to make the mail flow freely throughout Ankh-Morpork that those in command have put him in charge of overseeing the printing of the first paper currency.
And needless to say, this is a position that carries considerable responsibility—not to mention temptation, when it comes to former master swindlers such as, well, Moist von Lipwig. But nothing is ever as it first appears to be in Ankh-Morpork—until you look closer, and realize it’s a lot more familiar than you might have let yourself believe.
Sorrell: In the Shadow of the Bear by David Randall
(Book three of the In the Shadow of the Bear series), McElderry, $16.95, 290pp, hc, 9780689878725. Young adult fantasy. On-sale date: 23 October 2007.
Shapeshifting heroine Clovermead Wickward returns in the third installment of the In the Shadow of the Bear series. The fight against the evil Lord Ursus continues, and the fate of the battle lies in the hands of fifteen-year-old Clovermead. Chandlefort’s army is in need of reinforcements, and Clovermead is charged by her mother, Lady Cindertallow, to seek allies among the nomadic Hordes of the Tansy Steppes. At the same time, Lord Ursus has dispatched Clovermead’s old enemy Lucifer Snuff to contest her.
Clovermead must choose between her mission to the Hordes and the pleas of her best friend, Sorrel. But the most painful choice of all awaits Clovermead in a face-to-face confrontation with Lucifer Snuff.
Randall follows Clovermead and Chandlefort with an epic adventure of honor, love, and redemption, where the fate of nations and human souls hangs in the balance.
The Other Teddy Roosevelts by Mike Resnick
Subterranean, $35.00, 208pp, hc, 9781596061378. Science fiction collection. On-sale date: February 2008.
Theodore Roosevelt: president, naturalist, explorer, author, cowboy, police commissioner, deputy marshal, soldier, taxidermist, ornithologist, and boxer. Everyone knows about that.
But how about vampire hunter?
Or African king?
Or Jack the Ripper’s nemesis?
Or World War I doughboy?
Mike Resnick (the most awarded short story writer in science fiction history, according to Locus) has been the biographer of these other Teddy Roosevelts for almost two decades. Here you will find a familiar Roosevelt, but in unfamiliar surroundings—stalking a vampire through the streets of New York, or a crazed killer down the back alleys of Whitechapel, coming face-to-face with the devastation of 20th Century warfare, waging an early battle for women’s suffrage, applying all his skills to bring American democracy to the untamed African wilderness, or coming face-to-facae with one of H.G. Wells’ Martian invaders in the swamps of Cuba.
And, as Winston Churchill said of the Arthurian legends, if these stories aren’t true, then they should have been.
[Contents: “Introduction,” “Redchapel,” “Two Hunters in Manhattan,” “The Roosevelt Dispatches,” “Bully!” “The Bull Moose at Bay,” “Over There,” The Light that Blinds, the Claws that Catch,” and “Appendix: The Unsinkable Teddy Roosevelt.”]
Poltergeist by Kat Richardson
(a Greywalker novel), Roc, $14.00, 342pp, tp, 9780451461506. Fantasy. On-sale date: 7 August 2007.
Greywalker began the saga of Seattle-based private investigator Harper Blaine, a woman dancing the thin line between the real world and the paranormal realm. Her brief death left her with the ability to live “in the grey,” where creatures that are the makings of nightmares are very real.
Now, Poltergeist returns to Harper’s consuming story during one of the most ominous times of the year—the days preceding Halloween. The leader of an elite university research group approaches Harper for her expertise. The group has been attempting to create an artificial poltergeist and the leader suspects a researcher is faking the phenomena. Yet, Harper’s investigation proves that the group has actually, frighteningly, succeeded.
When a member of the research group is found grotesquely murdered, Harper has to find out whether the culprit is of this world or is the ghastly creature they have created.
Anne McCaffrey: A Life with Dragons by Robin Roberts
University Press of Mississippi, $28.00, 240pp, hc, 9781578069989. Biography. On-sale date: September 2007.
Anne McCaffrey: A Life with Dragons is the life story of a writer who vividly depicted alien creatures and new worlds. McCaffrey (b. 1926), the author of the popular Dragonriders of Pern saeries, is one of the most significant writers of science fiction and fantasy. She is the first woman to win the Hugo and Nebula awards, and her 1978 novel The White Dragon was the first science-fiction novel to appear on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list.
This biography reveals a fascinating and complex figure, one who creates and recreates her fiction by drawing on life experiences. At various stages, McCaffrey has been a beautiful young girl who refused to fit into traditional gender roles in high school, a restless young mother who wanted to write, an American expatriate who became an Irish citizen, an animal lover who dreamed of fantasy worlds with perfect relationships between humans and beasts, and a wife trapped in an unhappy marriage just as the women’s movement took hold.
Author Robin Roberts conducted interviews with McCaffrey, her children, friends, and colleagues, and used archival correspondence and contemporary reviews and criticism. The biography examines how McCaffrey’s early interests in theater, Slavonic languages and literature, and British history, mythology, and culture all shaped her science fiction. The book is a nuanced portrait of a writer whose appeal extends well beyond readers of her chosen genre.
Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
HarperCollins, $20.00, 231pp, hc, 9780061240416. On-sale date: 24 July 2007.
Locked up on a murder charge in the Las Vegas county jail, a woman named Jane Charlotte matter-of-factly admits to being an operative for a secret organization that takes out evil people, dangerous criminals dubbed bad monkeys. Are these simply the lunatic ramblings of a damaged brain? Or could vigilantes really be out there, hiding in plain sight and dispensing a unique brand of justice?
Welcome to the labyrinthine universe of Bad Monkeys, a futuristic psychological literary thriller by Matt Ruff where nothing is as it appears, everyone has secrets and the truth is up for grabs. Relentlessly paced and cunningly plotted, this nonstop adrenaline rush throbs with moral ambiguities and existential what ifs, taking a feverish, hallucinatory trip through a literary funhouse that obliterates all conventional notions of right and wrong.
Transferred to the psych ward of the prison, Jane has a sit-down with Dr. Richard Vale. Is she a headcase or stone-cold sane? To answer that question, he needs to hear more. So Jane begins her account of this all-knowing organization and her role as a ruthless agent of good. She explains that her division is actually called “The Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons,” “Bad Monkeys” for short, and part of a much larger group with eyes and ears everywhere—literally.
Twisting and turning to its ultimate outcome, Bad Monkeys challenges every assumption, upends every certainty and defies every expectation in a way that only a boldly originaly, wildly imaginative storyteller like Matt Ruff can pull off.
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson
Scholastic, $16.99, 312pp, hc, 9780439925501. Children’s fantasy. On-sale date: October 2007.
A hero with an incredible talent for breaking things. A life-or-death mission to rescue a bag of sand. A fearsome threat from a powerful secret network of evil Librarians. Thus begins the adventure of Alcatraz Smedry.
As Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians begins, Alcatraz doesn’t seem destined for anything but disaster. On his 13th birthday, he receives a bag of sand, which is quickly stolen by a cult of evil Librarians plotting to take over the world. The sand will give the Librarians the edge they need to achieve world domination. Alcatraz must stop them by infiltrating the local library, armed with nothing but eyeglasses and a talent for klutziness.
Brandon Sanderson is the author of the Mistborn trilogy and Elantris, which Orson Scott Card called “the finest novel of fantasy to be written in many years.” Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians is Brandon’s first book for young readers. He has had his library card revoked on seventeen different occasions.
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
Simon & Schuster, $16.99, 352pp, hc, 9781416912040. Young adult science fiction. On-sale date: November 2007.
Fast forward to the future. The Second World War, also called “The Heartland War” is over. According to new laws, meant to appease both tthe Pro-Choice, and the Pro-Life, armies, human life is inviolable until the age of thirteen. Between thirteen and eighteen a parent can choose to have their child “unwound,” by a process where the child’s organs are transplanted into different donors. So their life never really ends.
Connor has gone AWOL to avoid his unwinding when an accident on the highway introduces him to Risa (a fellow unwind) and Lev, a “tithe” (a tenth child born for the express purpose of being unwound). Connor and Risa run for their lives, taking Lev with them, and find themselves caught in an underground network designed to save unwinds. What they find next they never expected…
In this futuristic thriller, Neal Shusterman creates a world that blurs the line between life and death while challenging ideas about what it means to be alive.
A Calculated Demise by Robert Spiller
Medallion Press, $7.95, 320pp, pb, 9781933836156. Mystery. On-sale date: September 2007.
Bonnie Pinkwater, a veteran teacher with a knack for finding trouble, is at it again.
This time sadistic wrestling coach Luther Devereaux is found murdered, and her mentally challenged aide, Matt, is found with blood on his hands. She enlists the help of Greg Hansen, student-council president, to pursue her investigation and exonerate Matt… and then Greg’s marijuana-dealing brother and father are killed as well. And it looks like Matt’s dwarfish brother Simon is the culprit. That is, until Simon is shot and killed by an amorous millionaire rancher pursuing Bonnie. Can it get any worse?
Oh yes. The rancher’s son is now the prime suspect. And Superintendent Xavier Divine, AKA The Divine Pain in the Ass, demands Bonnie cease her investigation or lose her job.
Maybe Bonnie should have listened to him. Because things are about to get a whole lot worse. The murderer has now kidnapped Bonnie’s beloved dog, and unless she wants to see him alive again, well…
The Dog Said Bow-Wow by Michael Swanwick
(Introduction by Terry Bisson), Tachyon, $14.95, 314pp, tp, 9781892391520. Science fiction/fantasy collection. On-sale date: September 2007.
The classics have never been like this before. Science fiction and fantasy’s master of short fiction defies convention in a brand new collection that features an apocalyptic horde of time-traveling dinosaurs, a locked-room murder mystery set in Faerie, the eccentric clientele of an uncanny bordello, and the theft of language from the Tower of Babel. The Dog Said Bow-Wow contains all of the adventures to date of those strangely likeable Post-Utopian scoundrels and con men, Darger and Surplus, along with three Hugo Award-winning stories, and on original novelette of swashbuckling adventure, “The Skysailor’s Tale.”
Irresistibly innovative, The Dog Said Bow-Wow merges science with literature and fantasy with art, offering stories that are as amusing and enlightening as only Michael Swanwick can be.
[Contents: “‘Hello,’ Said the Stick,” “The Dog Said Bow-Wow,” “Slow Life,” “Triceratops Summer,” “Tin Marsh,” “An Episode of Stardust,” “The Skysailor’s Tale,” “Legions in Time,” “The Little Cat Laughed to See Such Sport,” “The Bordello in Faerie,” “The Last Geek,” “Girls and Boys Come Out to Play,” “A Great Day for Brontosaurs,” “Dirty Little War,” “A Small Room in Koboldtown,” and “Urdumheim.”]
A Lost Touch of Innocence by Amy Tolnitch
Medallion Press, $7.95, 350pp, pb, 9781933836096. Paranormal romance. On-sale date: September 2007.
I am a part of you now.
The words haunt Piers Veuxfort, and he has only his own recklessness to blame. By touching a magic crystal, he freed the essence of a decidely wicked Fin Man, who now resides within Piers. If that isn’t bad enough, a surprise for Piers arrives at Falcon’s Craig Castle. A bride. A bride, moreover, who was raised to be a nun, and views him as something just short of the devil. What can he do but send her back?
You are a wicked abomination.
With that condemnation of her “sight,” Giselle St. Germain’s future is irrevocably altered. Her life in the secluded nunnery is over, and she is thrown into the world, a world that includes betrothal to a man who is unrepentantly devoted to his pleasures, and who increasingly displays a dark, troubling side. What’s a girl to do but cling more tightly to what she knows?
The rules have changed. For both of them. And Piers and Giselle are about to discover that sometimes fate delivers a destiny beyond your imaginings. That destiny is theirs to win. Or lose. It will take all the courage that lies within their deepest hearts to seize it, and to find…
A Lost Touch of Innocence.
Settling Accounts 4: In at the Death by Harry Turtledove
Del Rey, $26.95, 611pp, hc, 9780345492470. Alternate history. On-sale date: 31 July 2007.
Franklin Roosevelt is the assistant secretary of defense. Thomas Dewey is running for president with a blunt-speaking Missourian named Harry Truman at his side. Britain holds onto its desperate alliance with the USA’s worst enemy, while a holocaust unfolds in Texas. In Harry Turtledove’s compelling, disturbing, and extraordinarily vivid reshaping of American history, a war of secession has triggered a generation of madness. The tipping point has come at last in Settling Accounts: In at the Death.
The third war in sixty years, this one yet unnamed: a grinding, horrifying series of hostilities and atrocities between two nations sharing the same continent and both calling themselves Americans. At the dawn of 1944, the United States has beaten back a daredevil blitzkrieg from the Confederate States—and a terrible new genie is out of history’s bottle: a bomb that may destroy on a scale never imagined before. In Europe, the new weapon has shattered a stalemate between Germany, England, and Russia. When the trigger is pulled in America, nothing will be the same again.
With visionary brilliance, Harry Turtledove brings to a climactic conclusion his monumental, acclaimed drama of a nation’s tragedy and the men and women who play their roles—with valor, fear, and folly—on history’s greatest stage.
Ulysses Moore #1: The Door to Time
Scholastic, $5.99, 222pp, tp, 9780439776745. Children’s fantasy. On-sale date: September 2007.
In a mansion on the coast of England, there is a door that hides unimaginable mysteries and surprises. When eleven-year-old twins Jason and Julia move into the old house, the door is a secret—locked and hidden behind an old wardrobe. But Jason, Julia, and their friend Rick are about to discover what lies behind it…
And thus begin the adventures of Jason and Julia, twins who know how to get out of trouble, unravel mysteries, and keep everyone guessing. This action-packed series is one that will stay with readers long after they put their books down.
Ulysses Moore #2: The Long-Lost Map
Scholastic, $5.99, 261pp, tp, 9780439776738. Children’s fantasy. On-sale date: September 2007.
Jason, Julia, and Rick have crossed through the Door to Time into ancient Egypt. They are determined to follow the clues left by the enigmatic Ulysses Moore. The mysterious time traveler has concealed a map of Kilmore Cove somewhere in the past, and it’s up to the kids to discover its location.
But Jason, Rick, and Julia soon realize that they are not the only visitors from the present in search of the mysterious map. Will they be the first to find it?
Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine: 30th Anniversary Anthology edited by Sheila Williams
Tachyon, $14.95, 349pp, tp, 9781892391476. Science fiction anthology.
As one of science fiction’s most influential authors, Isaac Asimov left an enduring legacy beyond his writing, both for himself and for the future of genre fiction. When Asimov decided to create an exciting new science fiction magazine, he envisioned it as a showcase for the work of young writers right alongside stories by the all-time greats. Founded in 1977, Asimov’s Science Fiction has always been the home for visionary science fiction, and continues to jumpstart the careers of the genre’s most talented authors.
Asimov’s Science Fiction‘s editors, including George Scithers, Shawna McCarthy, and Gardner Dozois, have won an unprecedented 18 Hugo Awards. Stories initially published in Asimov’s have received 44 Hugo and 25 Nebula Awards. In celebration of thirty years of groundbreaking science fiction, the seventeen extraordinary stories collected here represent some of the finest work published in Asimov’s, recapturing Isaac Asimov’s vision of the genre.
[Contents: “Air Raid,” by John Varley (writing as Herb Boehm); “The Time of the Burning” by Robert Silverberg; “Speech Sounds” by Octavia Butler; “Dinner in Audoghast” by Bruce Sterling; “Robot Dreams” by Isaac Asimov; “Glacier” by Kim Stanley Robinson; “Cibola” by Connie Willis; “The Happy Man” by Jonathan Lethem; “Over There” by Mike Resnick; “Ether, OR” by Ursula K. Le Guin; “Flying Lessons” by Kelly Link; “Itsy Bitsy Spider” by James Patrick Kelly; “Ancient Engines” by Michael Swanwick; “Lobsters” by Charles Stross; “Only Partly Here” by Lucius Shepard; “The Children of Time” by Stephen Baxter; and “Eight Episodes” by Robert Reed.]
Lord of the Fading Lands by C.L. Wilson
Dorchester, $7.99, 386pp, pb, 9780843959772. Fantasy. On-sale date: 2 October 2007.
Once he had scorched the world. Once he had driven back overwhelming darkness. Once he had loved with such passion, his name was legend…
Tairen Soul
Now a thousand years later, a new threat calls him from the Fading Lands, back into the world that had cost him so dearly. Now an ancient, familiar evil is regaining strength, and a new voice beckons him—more compelling, more seductive, more maddening than any before.
As the power of his most bitter enemy grows and ancient alliances crumble, the wildness in his blood will not be denied. The tairen must claim his truemate and embrace the destiny woven for him in the mists of time.