This page is updated as books are received throughout the month.
Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip by Matthew Algeo
Chicago Review Press, $24.95, 262pp, hc, 9781556527777. History/Biography.
In 1953, the summer following his departure from the highest poffice in the country, ex-president Harry Truman packed up his new Chrysler and undertook a journey that millions of Americans make every year—the cross-country road trip. From his hometown of Independence, Missouri along the straight, flat highways of the Midwest and over the Alleghenies into Maryland, the former first couple traveled sans Secret Service in an ill-fated attempt at anonymity. Their trip to New York City and back again lasted just under three weeks, but it was one that Harry and Bess would recall fondly for the rest of their lives.
Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip by Matthew Algeo is an engagin account of 19 short days in Truman’s life—his encounters with adoring citizens and curious media, his morning walks, his dinners wiht Bess and his return to Washington after a much-needed hiatus. In the details of a little known piece of Americana, Algeo crafts a nostalgic history of an earlier era, when roadside motels were owned by families and travelers dressed in their Sunday best for a trip to the airport.
Following Truman’s own route across the Midwest, Algeo sleeps in the same motels, eats in the same diners and chats with the men and women who recognized Harry along the way—the ticket-takers and cab drivers, the station attendants and police officers who pulled Harry over for speeding. Their stories paint a personal picture of a man very different from the one official history remembers—a man who changed the oil in his Chrysler every thousand miles, who gleefully plotted out the stops on his road trip, who called his wife “the boss”, and blithely told the media that “Real gentlemen prefer gray hair.”
“It was a long, strange trip,” notes Algeo, “and the end of an era; never again would a former president and the first lady mingle so casually with their fellow citizens.”
Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure reveals an America at a pivotal moment in history, several years before the ex-presidency became a multi-million dollar enterprise and long before the decline of the automobile industry. This is the story of old Washington politics, the rise of McCarthyism, the disappearance of Main Street and all the restless energy of mid-century America—summed up in Harry’s own words, “The fact is, I like roads. I like to move.”
An off-beat and charming history of the country’s last citizen-president, Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure is an affectionate tribute to bygone America.
A Flash of Hex by Jes Battis
Ace, $7.99, 373pp, pb, 9780441017232. Fantasy.
Jes Battis’ A Flash of Hex is the second book in a terrific urban fantasy series that follows the adventures of Tess Corday, a CSI for paranormal and occult crimes.
Even the most hardened and experienced investigators lose sleep when they are confronted with a serial killer. And when that killer deserves the attention of the Occult Special Investigations unit, the stakes are even higher. Tess Corday, who thought she has seen the worst of all disturbing crime cases, is shaken to her core at the crime scene she encounters—a ritual killing, casually brutal and carefully staged—involving dead teens of powerful mage families. As Tess tracks down the killers, she realizes that much more is at stake than she had originally anticipated and that she must break many rules to get to the bottom of the murders. The question is… how far is she willing to go?
Isis by Douglas Clegg
Vanguard, $15.95, 128pp, hc, 9781593155407. Horror. On-sale date: October 2009.
There is something out thhere that scares you. It may not be overtly menacing and you may not even know it’s there until you feel the little hairs on your neck rise. Douglas Clegg, winner of the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and the Shocker Award, is a master at knowing what scares us. He understands that sometimes quiet is scarier than loud, and unease and fear are more powerful than an all-out assault.
This fall, Vanguard Press will publish one of the darkest, most intriguing tales of 2009, Douglas Clegg’s unforgettable novella, Isis. Already celebrated as one of the best horror writers of his generation, Douglas Clegg has also been hailed by renowned author Sherrilyn Kenyon as “a master of the genre.”
Featuring stunning illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne, illustrator of Stephen King’s Secretary of Dreams, Isis is the tale of four children who move with their mother to an old family estate in England. Isis, the youngest, is very close to her brother, Harvey, and they while away their hours playing on the coastal bluffs, whispering about the family crypt and listening to the tales the groundskeeper Old Marsh tells of dead who walk among the living… coming to claim what is theirs.
But when a terrible accident leaves Isis clinging for her life from a high window, it is Harvey who pays the ultimate price, sacrificing himself to cushion Isis’s fall. Isis feels the grief of Harvey’s death like a searing pain at the center of her soul—and a deep rage is born.
Missing her brother too much to allow the tragedy of his death to be washed away by forgiveness, Isis becomes convinced that the world is backward, that the good are dead while the evil live—and that the only way to right that wrong is to try to bring Harvey back from the dead. But as she learned from Old Marsh, death has a price, and all who bargain with the dead must pay it.
Eve of Darkness by S.J. Day
(a Marked novel), Tor, $6.99, 353pp, pb, 9780765360410. Urban fantasy.
Beloved author S.J. Day starts her urban fantasy career off with a bang with Eve of Darkness. In this modern, twisted take on a classic tale, one woman must choose between the two men who just happen to have gotten her caught up in the eternal battle between good and evil.
For Evangeline Hollis, fling with a bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks just became a disaster of biblical proportions. Her teenage indiscretion with a leather-clad man of mystery has led to a divine punishment: the Mark of Cain.
Thrust into a world where sinners are drafted into service to kill demons, Eve knows here learning curve must be short. The longtime agnostic begrudgingly maneuvers through a celestial bureaucracy where she is a valuable but ill-treated pawn. She’s also become the latest point of contention in the oldest cast of sibling rivalry in history…
But she’ll worry about all that later. Right now she’s more concerned with learning to kill while staying alive. And saving the soul she’d never believed she had.
A Grey Moon Over China by Thomas A. Day
Tor, $24.95, 413pp, hc, 9780765321428. Science fiction.
Originally published by Black Heron Press in 2006, Grey Moon Over China received rave reviews from Entertainment Weekly (who gave it an “A” grade) to Kirkus Reviews, who named it one of the Top 10 SF Books of the Year. Tor is proud to present a wide release of this dark apocalyptic SF tale about energy wars and a dying earth—and how humans bring their problems with them wherever they go.
Educated in the sciences, technology, and business, Thomas A. Day was born in Bremen, Germany, and raised on diplomatic posts around the world, including Berlin, Chile, and the Middle East. He has worked in the aerospace industry and the artificial intelligence field and currently works as a forensic software and intellectual property analyst, serving as an expert witness in high-stakes technology litigation.
Army engineer Eduardo Torres is caught up in the world’s raging oil wars when he stumbles onto the plans for a quantum-energy battery. This remarkable device could slow civilization’s inevitable descent into environmental disaster, but Torres has other plans. Forming a private army, he uses the device to revive an abandoned space colonization effort in an ambitious campaign to lead humanity to a new life in a distant solar system.
The massive endeavor faces many challenges before the fleet finally embarks for the Holzstein System many light-years away. But even as the feuding colonists struggle to carve out homes on alien worlds, they discover that they havenot left their old conflicts and inner demons behind.
Nor are they alone on this new frontier. Awaiting them are inhuman beings who strike without warning or explanation—and who may spell the end of humanity’s last hope.
A dark searing futuristic novel eerily prescient in light of today’s environmental and energy issues, Thomas A. Day’s A Grey Moon Over China is a fresh new voice in SF that is not to be missed.
The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
(Part One in an epic trilogy of Man vs. Vampire), William Morrow, $26.99, 401pp, hc, 9780061558238. Dark fantasy.
With Oscar-winning Pan’s Labyrinth, director Guillermo del Toro established himself as one of the most exciting and innovative directors working today. This June, in partnership with award-winning author Chuck Hogan, he turns his fierce imagination from the screen to the page with The Strain, a relentlessly frightening tale of vampirism’s viral spread through humanity. Co-written with Hogan, The Strain is the first part of a bold and haunting trilogy that traces the vampiric legend from ancient times to the modern day.
The story begins when a transatlantic flight arriving at JFK airport goes dead on the tarmac: all power and communication are lost and emergency crew are unable to get inside the sealed plane for hours… until a mysterious sliver of black appears—and a crack in the door slowly opens to a macabre scene: the passengers and crew stiff in their seats, inexplicably dead.
As Dr. Ephraim “Eph” Goodweather, head of the Centers for Disease Control’s team in New York, begins to remove bodies for transport to the morgue, he finds four victims miraculously alive and relatively unscathed—apart from complaints of disorientation and a strange soreness in their necks.
At the same time, Eldrich Palmer, director of the global Stoneheart Group, monitors the JFK scene on TV from his sickbed in Virginia. The richest man on earth, he’s pleased as he watches his plan for everlasting life begin to unfold.
Meanwhile at a pawn shop in New York’s Spanish Harlem, a former professor named Abraham Setrakian takes in the news of the doomed flight. A Holocaust survivor, he knows first-hand the horrors of man and the evil that lurks in the shadows. Setrakian alone knows that the tragedy of Flight 753 is only the beginning of the end of mankind.
Del Toro and Hogan take readers through an escalating battle of epic proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected the four survivors begins to ravage New York.
Filled with scenes of action and great tension, and featuring the wild feats of imagination that have earned del Toro millions of fans around the globe, The Strain is a tour de force filled with arresting images and many haunting and macabre touches. Del Toro and Hogan have crafted a singular and unforgettable addition to the vampire canon that leaves readers riveted until the end… and this is just the beginning.
Amazon Ink by Lori Devoti
Pocket/Juno, $7.99, 372pp, pb, 9781439154274. Fantasy.
It’s been ten years since Melanippe Saka left the Amazon tribe in order to create a normal life for her daughter, Harmony. True, running a tattoo parlor in Madison, Wisconsin, while living with your Amazon warrior mother and priestess grandmother is not everyone’s idea of normal, but Mel thinks she’s succeeded at blending in as human.
Turns out she’s wrong. Someone knows all about her, someone who’s targeting young Amazon girls, and no way is Mel going to let Harmony become tangled in this deadly web. With her mother love in overdrive, Ms. Melanippe Saka is quite a force… even when she’s facing a barrage of distractions—including a persistent detective whose interest in Mel goes beyond professional, a sexy tattoo artist with secrets of his own, and a seriously angry Amazon queen who views Mel as a prime suspect. To find answers, Mel will have to do the one thing she swore she’d never do: embrace her powers and admit that you can take the girl out of the tribe… but you can’t take the tribe out of the girl.
Semper Human by Ian Douglas
(Book Three of The Inheritance Trilogy), Eos, $7.99, 382pp, pb, 9780061238642. Science fiction.
The explosive conclusion to the Inheritance trilogy, from popular military science fiction writer Ian Douglas. After 850 years of voluntary cyber-hibernation, General Garroway and his marines have been called back into action, to once again battle their ancient, deadly foe, the Xul. But after hundreds of centuries, there have been significant changes in technology, society, and human culture, so much so that the rules of engagement that the Marines have lived and died by for thousands of years are now obsolete.
Garroway doesn’t have time for politics and silly games though. The Xul have been quietly seeking out the ultimate human weakness that will forever render them useless against the Xul forcecs: Emotion. The Xul are slowly but surely rewriting history to demoralize the Marines and humans throughout the galaxy.
In the final explosive chapter of the Inheritance Trilogy, it’s a race against the clock as Garroway must stop the Xul once and for all to keep them from destroying all trace of human existence.
Night’s Rose by Annaliese Evans
Tor, $6.99, 368pp, pb, 9780765361660. Historical paranormal romance.
Beloved author Annaliese Evans has a way with romance. Under a different pen name, she has set the world ablaze with steamy novels of every stripe. Now she enters a world of fractured fairy tales with Night’s Rose. In this alternate eighteenth century, a world-hardened Sleeping Beauty must fight for her right to happiness.
For nearly one hundred years, Rosemarie Edenberg has worked tirelessly to wipe the ogre tribe from the earth. Now the tribe has gathered in London to work a spell that will destroy the scourge of their kind, the woman they call Briar Rose.
Two magnetic men will unite to aid Rose—her fey advisor, Ambrose, and the vampire, Lord Shenley, an earl of scandalous reputation and even more scandalous appetites. One will save her, one will betray her, and both will challenge her to face the past that haunts her.
Once upon a time, this Briar Rose was ensnared in the mists of enchantment, cursed to sleep one hundred years. But this beauty has not awakened with a kiss, and she has never known a world of happily-ever-after.
With the help of her allies, though Rose may yet find it.
Romance fans looking for a hearty helping of heat and a dask of enthralling atmosphere need look no further. Night’s Rose is an intoxicating blend of fantasy, historical drama, and thrilling adventure. A fresh, vital take on the Sleeping Beauty mythology, Night’s Rose will linger in your dreams.
Grantville Gazette V: Sequels to 1632 edited and created by Eric Flint
Baen, $24.00, 464pp, hc, 9781439132791. Science ficition anthology. On-sale date: August 2009.
The most popular alternate history series of all continues. When an inexplicable cosmic disturbance hurls your town from twentieth century West Virginia back to seventeenth century Europe—and into the middle of the Thirty Years War—you’d better be adaptable to survive. And the natives of that time period, faced with American technology and politics, need to be equally adaptable. Here’s a generous helping of more stories of Grantville, the American town lost in time, and its impact on the people and societies of a tumultuous age.
* Cardinal Richelieu, France’s insidious master plotter and power behind the throne, learns of his prominent role in Dumas’ not-yet-written novel The Three Musketeers (not to mention the several movie versions), and starts a search for the “real” D’Artagnan.
* Grantville is selling crystal radio sets so that Europeans can tune in to the Voice of America broadcasts, but the technicians from the future are at wit’s end, trying to reproduce “primitive” early twentieth century broadcasting equipment by trial and error—until a trained library researcher shows up in town.
* Wilhelm Krieger, one of Germany’s greatest philosophers, comes to Grantville to learn the philosophy of the future—and meets a contrarian cracker-barrel philosopher.
* The Dalai Lama of the seventeenth century receives a strange gift: an image of the Buddha which glows by a strange mystical force called “electricity”.
And much more, including stories by the New York Times best-selling writers Eric Flint and Virginia DeMarce, in the latest installment of this best-selling alternate history series.
[Contributors: Eric Flint, Douglas W. Jones, Philip Schillawski & John Rigby, Anette Pederson, Barry Swift, Victor Klimov, Rick Boatright, Terry Howard, Iver P. Cooper, John Zeek, Chris Racciato, Jose J. Clavell, Kim Mackey, Richard Evans, Kerryn Offord, David Carrico, Brad Sinor, Aamund Breivik, Karen Bergstralh, Russ Rittgers, Peter Hobson, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett, Jay Robison, Virginia DeMarce, and Mark Huston.]
Faery Moon by P.R. Frost
(a Tess Concoiré Adventure), DAW, $24.95, 400pp, hc, 9780756405564. Fantasy.
Tess Noncoiré, successful fantasy writer and Celestial Blade Warrior, has sgone to a writers’ conference in Las Vegas taking along her mother who is depressed over the death of her demon husband.
Taking in one of Vegas’ Big Acts, Tess is amazed to see winged dancers flying about the stage, seemingly unsupported by any wires. Then she discovers the dancers are actually faeries, held captive in the casino against their will. .And if Tess and her sidekick demon Scrap don’t help the faeries return to their own dimension, they—and their realm—will die.
The Spy Who Haunted Me by Simon R. Green
(Secret Histories, book three), Roc, $24.95, 390pp, hc, 9780451462726. Fantasy.
The Spy Who Haunted Me is the third book in an urban noir fantasy trilogy by New York Times best-selling author Simon R. Green.
Alexander King, the legendary Independent Agent, was the greatest spy in the world. Now that he’s dying, he says that he’ll bequeath all of his secrets to his successor. But who will that be?
Shaman Bond, also-known-as Eddie Drood, hopes he’s the lucky candidate. Does he have what it takes to prove himself worthy? Eddie, along with the five other contestants selected for this potential honor, try to prove their worth by uncovering the truth behind the greatest mysteries of the world. From the Lockness monster to the Philadelphia Experiment, the six of them will battle to find the truth… while trying to stay alive.
The Princess and the Bear by Mette Ivie Harrison
(sequel to The Princess and the Hound), HarperTeen, $17.99, 329pp, hc, 9780061553141. Fantasy.
In this sequel to The Princess and the Hound, readers’ attention is turned to the animals in Harrison’s magical tale. The hound that was once a princess has returned to the forest, hoping to have left human society behind forever. She and the bear that was once a man are wary companions, unable to trust each other fully, until an evil force threatens life for both animals and mankind. Hound and Bear must set off on a journey that takes them back to their human forms and to a time when magic in the world was horribly abused.
Rich with lore and depth, Harrison’s novel asks whether we can be truly ourselves when we loves. The Princess and the Bear is a beautifully crafted romance fantasy in a world alive with magic.
Year’s Best SF 14 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
Eos, $7.99, 498pp, pb, 9780061721748. Science fiction anthology.
The best short form science fiction of 2008, selected by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, two of the most respected editors in the field. The short story is one of the most vibrant and exciting areasa in science fiction today. It is where the hot new authors emerge and where the beloved giants of the field continue to publish.
Now, building on the success of the first thirteen volumes, Eos will once again present a collection of the best stories of 2008 in mass market. Included are stories with visions of tomorrow and yesterday, of the strange and the familiar, of the unknown and the unknowable.
With stories from an all-star team of science fiction authors, including Cory Doctorow and Neil Gaiman, The Year’s Best SF 14 is an indispensable guide for every science fiction fan.
[Contributors: Carolyn Ives Gilman, Neil Gaiman, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Paolo Bacigalupi, Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, Ted Chiang, M. Rickert, Cory Doctorow, Vandana Singh, Robert Reed, Michael Swanwick, Ted Kosmatka, Alastair Reynolds, Ann Halam, Jason Sanford, Mary Rosenblum, Daryl Gregory, Jeff VanderMeer, Rudy Rucker, Karl Schroeder & Tobias S. Buckell, and Sue Burke.]
Nowhere-Land by A.W. Hill
(a Stephan Raszer Investigation), Counterpoint, $25.00, 480pp, hc, 9781582434988. Mystery/suspense/thriller/fantasy. On-sale date: 16 June 2009.
After a young member of the Jehovah’s Witness Church is abducted in conjunction with a ritualistic triple homicide in the mountains outside of Los Angeles, the church engages cult specialist Stephan Raszer to find her perilous trail. Based on evidence that the girl may have been trafficked into a sex and terrorism ring with a Middle Eastern nexus, Raszer soon unveils an inside-out reality that begins on the Internet and ends in a fabled fortress on the borderlands of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, where a powerful figure known only as the Old Man is said to hold the strings.
With the dubious aid of the abductee’s wayward sister, along with a renegade CIA agent and a fraternity of sojourning gamesters, Raszer journeys far from the rational world and deep into a dangerous and erotically charged netherland. Piece by piece, he gathers evidence of a world-altering criminal conspiracy linked to an ancient Persian sect that uses an Internet role-playing game to recruit its foot soldiers. To solve the puzzle and find the girl, Stephan Raszer must play the game and try to hold on to his soul and his sanity in a world turned on its head.
The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff
DAW, $24.95, 384pp, hc, 9780756405557. Fantasy.
Alysha Gale is a member of a family capable of changing the world with the charms they cast. Then she receives word that she’s inherited her grandmother’s junk shop in Calgary, only to discover upon arriving that she’ll be serving the fey community. And when Alysha learns just how much trouble is brewing in Calgary, even calling in the family to help may not be enough to save the day.
Open Your Eyes by Paul Jessup
Apex, $13.95, 148pp, tp, 9780982159606. Science fiction.
Her lover was a supernova who took worlds with him when he died, and as a new world grows within Ekhi, savage lives rage and love on a small ship in the outer reaches of space. A ship with an agenda of its own.
Critically acclaimed author of weird fiction Paul Jessup sends puppets to speak and fight for their masters while a linguistic virus eats through the minds of a group of scavengers in Open Your Eyes, a surrealist space opera of haunting beauty and infinite darkness.
Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey
William Morrow, $22.99, 384pp, hc, 9780061714306. Fiction. On-sale date: August 2009.
We need more fantasy novels with guns, drinking binges, car thieves, suicidal depression, uncontrollable rage, contempt for the celestrial forces that control the universe, kung fu movies and magic that hurts. That is to say, more books like Sandman Slim.
This is the story of Stark, the best natural magician alive, which isn’t as much fun as it sounds. It got him snatched to Hell, trapped there for eleven years, serving as a hitman to the general of Lucifer’s army. But when his girlfriend is brutally murdered on the physical plane, the assassin from Hell stages his own coup and escapes back “upstairs” to Los Angeles.
There he uses gnus and magic equally to get his revenge and, against his better judgment, save the world from the great secret force of the universe, the Kissi. Related to the angels of both Heaven and Hell, the Kissi are enemies of both, strange creatures from the dawn of the universe: anti-angels.
To save himself and get vengeance for the girl he lost, Stark will have to contend with the forces of both Heaven and Hell, the Kissi, murderous magicians and, worst of all, U.S. Homeland Security.
Salt and Silver by Anna Katherine
Tor, $6.99, 357pp, pb, 9780765363046. Paranormal romance.
Newcomer Anna Katherine bursts onto the paranormal scene with Salt and Silver. In this hip new tale, one woman trying desperately to find her place in the world may discover that her fate lies with an enigmatic demon-hunter.
Allie can’t seem to get it together. Ever since her mom ran away to Rio with her tennis instructor Rio and Allie’s trust fund, Allie has been floundering, marking time working in and living above Sally’s Diner.
One night, she and her friends chant a ridiculous spell… and open a door to Hell in the basement. When the Door opens, the mysterious Ryan appears out of nowhere to save their lives. A Stetson-wearing demon hunter dressed in leather, he’s assigned to the Door and spends most of his time hanging out at the diner as a result.
But something strange is happening in Brooklyn. Something bigger than Allie, Ryan, and even the Door in the diner’s basement. And when a meeting of demon hunters gives birth to a dangerous idea, Allie and Ryan are left wondering if the fragile feelings growing between them can survive a trip to Hell… or if they themselves will survive the journey at all.
Swordplay edited by Denise Little
DAW, $7.99, 311pp, pb, 9780756405595. Fantasy anthology.
Swords—at one time they were the quintessential weapons, and even today there are true sword masters practicing their craft around the world. Certainly, swords are essential tools of the trade in fantasy novels. Magical or legendary blades, workaday weapons, deadly daggers, rapiers, cutlasses, broadswords, and samurai swords all can be found carried by the heroes and villains, soldiers and assassins who people the seventeen original tales to be found in Swordplay
From a dwarf-crafted blade meant to slay a dragon to a cursed sword that once belonged to D’Artagnan, from Arthur’s legendary Excalibur to the Sword of Solomon, from a sword bespelled to crave blood to cold steel that magicks its wielder into a video game, here are imaginative stories that cut right to the heart of fantasy adventure.
[Contributors: Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Mike Moscoe, Allan Rousselle, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Phaedra M. Weldon, Peter Orullian, David H. Hendrickson, Gail Selinger, Terry Hayman, Dan C. Duval, Laura Resnick, Loren L. Coleman, John Alvin Pitts, Janna Silverstein, Annie Reed, J. Steven York, and Jean Rabe.]
Divisions by Ken MacLeod
(The Second Half of The Fall Revolution), Orb, $19.95, 496pp, tp, 9780765321190. Science fiction.
The future is filled with dizzying possibilities in Divisions, a volume comprising Ken MacLeod’s The Cassini Division and The Sky Road, the final two books in his Fall Revolution series.
In The Cassini Division it is the 24th century and post-humans, god-like descendents of humans who transformed themselves with high technology, have warped the very fabric of the solar system for unknowable reasons. It’s up to Ellen May Ngewthu to help stop them—but she must first travel the universe to convince others of the threat the post-humans face!
The Sky Road presents an alternate future to the events in the earlier books of the Fall Revolution series. Centuries have passed since the catastrophic Deliverance, and people are again exploring space. A young scholar looks into the archives of the past—notably, the decision of Myra Goodwin at the end of the first Space Age. It is through these flirtations with the past that he will be able to extrapolate his era’s own future…
These two tales, now available in one trade paperback volume from Orb branch into two very different directions from the first two novels in the sequence—forming an intellectually ambitious undertaking that explores this masterfully envisioned universe.
MythOS by Kelly McCullough
Ace, $7.99, 291pp, pb, 9780441017249. Fantasy.
MythOS is the fourth installment of Kelly McCullough’s Ravrin series, which follows the adventures of Ravirn, a talented sorcerer and computer hacker extraordinaire.
In Ravrin’s world, even magic has gone digital. The world is run by magic, computer technology, and the Greek gods. While repairing Necessity, the sentient computer that runs the multiverse, Ravirn is thrown into a parallel world where the gods of Olympus are only myths. This strange world is ruled by the Norse pantheon and their magic uses a completely different operating system… one that Ravirn will have to hack if he ever wants to find his way home again!
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
Ace, $26.95, 473pp, hc, 9780441017171. Science fiction.
House of Suns is a dazzling, dizzying space opera with a hard science-fiction heart, set in an entirely new universe, by the acknowledged master of the sub-genre, Alastair Reynolds.
Six million years ago, at the very dawn of the star-faring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones. She called them shatterlings, and launched them into the galaxy. Their purpose was to observe and document the rise and fall of countless human empires. Since then, every two hundred thousand years, they have gathered together to exchange experiences and memories of their travels.
When two of the shatterlings, Campion and Purslane, fall in love and share experiences in a way forbidden to shatterlings, they run into trouble. On the way to the thirty-second reunion, to which they are bringing along an amnesiac golden robot as a guest, the two shatterlings discover that someone is eliminating the Gentian line. Warned ahead of time, Campion and Purslane join forces with the few remaining shatterlings to determine exactly who or what their enemy is, before they are wiped out of existence.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: No Prisoners by Karen Traviss
Del Rey/Lucasbooks, $16.00, 259pp, tp, 9780345508997. Science fiction/tie-in.
Exploring the galactic intrigue established in the mega-hit animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars: No Prisoners follows insurgent Separatists as they fight furiously to wrest control of the galaxy from the Republic, while Ashoka, Captain Rex and six untested clone troopers are led into events which force them to question the very foundations of their beliefs.
Captain Rex agrees to relieve Anakin Skywalker of his insatiably curious Padawan Ashoka for a few days, giving the Jedi Knight a welcome rest. Rex brings Ashoka along on a routine shakedown cruise aboard Captain Gilad Pellaeon’s newly refitted assault ship, but the training mission turns into a dangerous rescue when Republic undercover agent Hallena Devis goes missing.
When Hallena finds herself surrounded by angry freedom fighters, she begins to question the Republic’s methods and motives when faced with political opposition. Summoned to rescue the missing operative—who is also his secret love—Pallaeon finds himself torn between duty and desire. And Ashoka—accompanied by Rex and six fresh clones—encounters a Jedi philosophy which undermines the very core of her training and upbringing. As the danger and intrigue grows in intensity, the loyalties of Ashoka, Rex, Hallena, and Pellaeon will all be tested.
Inspired by Lucasfilm Animation’s exciting weekly TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, No Prisoners is a thrilling adventure filled with provocative insights into the characters of Ashoka, Captain Rex and many other favorites.
Phantasm by Phaedra Weldon
(a Zoë Martinique Investigation), Ace, $14.00, 360pp, tp, 9780441017164. Fantasy.
Phantasm is the third title in Phaedra Wheldon’s exciting contemporary fantasy series starring Zoe Martinique; the smart, sassy, sexy, and single heroine that can leave her body behind and travel in the realm of the ghostly at will.
In Phantasm, Zoe finds herself more alone than ever. Her abilities as a Wraith have inexplicably disappeared, neither of the men in her life are returning her phone calls, her best friend Rhonda has turned out to be not-so-much a friend, and her mother’s ‘soul is still lost on the Abysmal plane. In order to reunite her mom’s soul with her body, Zoe must work her nemesis, The Archer. He’ll help her only if she helps him to ward off the attacks of the ultra-scary Phantasm. But to do this, Zoe needs to go Wraith. Will she be able to figure out how to again?