This page is updated as books are received throughout the month.
Armored edited by John Joseph Adams
Baen, $7.99, 579pp, pb, 9781451638172. Science fiction anthology.
Suit up. Power on. Lock & load.
Decades ago, Starship Troopers captivated readers with its vision of a future war in which power armored soldiers battled giant insects on hostile alien planets. Today, with the success of Iron Man, Halo, and Mechwarrior—and with real robotic exo-skeletons just around the corner—the idea of super-powered combat armor and giant mecha has never been more exciting and relevant.
Imagine power armored warriors battling at the bottom of the sea, or on nightmarish alien worlds, or in the darkest depths of space. Imagine armor that’s as smart as you are, armor that might keep on fighting even after you’re no longer willing… or able.
The possibilities are endless, but some facts remain constant: The soldier of the future will be fast. The soldier of the future will be deadly. The soldier of the future will be ARMORED.
[Contributors: Orson Scott Card, John Joseph Adams, Ian Douglas, Jack Campbell, David Klecha & Tobias S. Buckell, Genevieve Valentine, Dan Abnett, Jack McDevitt, Simon R. Green, David Barr Kirtley, David D. Levine, Michael A. Stackpole, Alastair Reynolds, David Sherman, Tanya Huff, Kairn Lowachee, John Jackson Miller, Christie Yant, Ethan Skarstedt & Brandon Sanderson, Carrie Vaughn, Wendy N. Wagner & Jak Wagner, Lauren Beukes, Robert Buettner, Daniel H. Wilson, and Sean Williams.]
The High Crusade: 50th Anniversary Edition by Poul Anderson
Baen, $7.99, 262pp, pb, 9781451638325. Science fiction.
The aliens had expected a simple mission of shock & awe. Too bad they ran into free Englishmen…
In the year of grace 1345, as Sir Roger Baron de Tourneville is training an army to join King Edward III in the war against France, a most astonishing event occurs: a huge silver ship descends through the sky and lands in a pasture beside the little village of Ansby in northeastern Lincolnshire. The alien Wersgorix, whose scouting ship it is, are quite expert at taking over planets, and they initiate standard world-conquering procedure. Ah, but this time they’ve launched their invasion against free Englishmen!
The High Crusade: one of the most beloved novels of a grand master of science fiction—now published for the first time with Poul Anderson’s short story set in the same universe, plus a new introduction by Astrid Anderson Bear as well as appreciations by Greg Bear, David Drake, Eric Flint, Diana L. Paxson and Robert Silverberg.
Anomalies by Gregory Benford
Lucky Bat, 225pp, tp, 9780984915446. Science fiction collection.
Taking science into inspired realms
A collection of science fiction ranging from comic to apocalyptic, the stories of Anomalies challenge concepts of time, space and science. And all the while, author Gregory Benford’s characters charm us.
There’s Claire, the hard-boiled, randy spacecraft hack—”Do I look like a people person?”—and her heroic efforts, all in the name of a fast buck in “The Worm in the Well” and its sequel, “The Worm Turns.”
Or the puzzle of “The Man Who Wasn’t There”—can we one day hope to elude detection by deflecting light around objects? Use science to escape society’s justice?
can we find a way to stretch time out past a single life-line?
“Anomalies,” the title story, asks a physics-shattering question: what happens if there is a computational error in reality? It’s the sort of question that both tickles and challenges.
Anomalies includes Afterwords and insights by Gregory Benford into his writing methods, sometimes quite idiosyncratic—and into the stories behind the stories in Anomalies.
In his short fiction, Gregory Benford takes a fresh look at how science and technology alter our world and ourselves. Sometimes irrevocably.
[Contents: “A Worm in the Well”; “The Worm Turns”; “The Semisent”; “Twenty-Two Centimeters”; “Applied Mathematical Theology”; “The Man Who Wasn’t There”; “The Final Now”; “Comes the Evolution”; “Anomalies”; “Caveat Time Traveler”; “Lazarus Rising”; “Isaac from the Outside”; “Gravity’s Whispers”; “Ol’ Gator”; “The Champagne Award”; “Mercies”; “Doing Lennon”; and Afternotes.]
Summoning the Night by Jenn Bennett
(an Arcadia Bell novel), Pocket, $7.99, 325pp, pb, 9781451620535. Urban Fantasy.
Magick, Murder, Mayhem. It’s all in a night’s work…
Summoning the Night is the second in a new urban fantasy series about a “magickian” who works at a tiki bar and is dating a demon.
After narrowly escaping her fate as a sacrificial scapegoat, Arcadia Bell is back to normal. Or at least as ordinary as life can be for a renegade magician and owner of a tiki bar that caters to Earthbound demons. She’s gearing up for the busiest day of the year—Halloween—when a vengeful kidnapper paralyzes the community. The influential head of the local Hellfire Club taps Cady to track down the fiendish bogeyman, and now that she’s dating red-hot Lon Butler, the Club’s wayward son, she can hardly say no.
Cady and Lon untangle a gruesome thirty-year trail of clues that points to danger for the club members’ children. But locating the person behind the terror will require some metaphysical help from Cady’s loyal bar patrons as well as her potent new Moonchild powers—and she’d better figure it out before the final victim disappears and her own darkest secret becomes her biggest enemy.
Deadly Descendant by Jenna Black
(a Nikki Glass novel), Pocket, $7.99, 355pp, pb, 9781451606805. Urban Fantasy.
Old gods can’t get away with murder. Not on her watch.
An ancient evil is unleashed in the modern world—unless one fearless P.I. can hunt it down.… Nikki Glass, Immortal Huntress, returns in Deadly Descendant in the acclaimed series by Jenna Black.
As a living descendant of Artemis the Huntress, private investigator Nikki Glass knows how to track someone down. But when an Oracle shows up, warning the Descendants about wild dog attacks in Washington, DC, Nikki is afraid it might be a trap. The Olympians believe the “dogs” are really jackals, controlled by a blood-crazed descendant of the Egyptian death-god Anubis. Whatever… if Nikki hopes to muzzle Dogboy, she’s got to catch him in the act. But when she stakes out a local cemetery, she ends up face-to-snout with a snarling pack of shadow-jackals whose bite is worse than their bark. These hellhounds are deadly—even for an immortal like Nikki. “Dog” spelled backward may be “god,” but that won’t stop Nikki from teaching these old gods some new tricks. Like playing dead.
Deadly Descendant is the second novel in a brand-new urban fantasy series from the acclaimed author of the Morgan Kingsley, Exorcist books.
The Dark Legacy of Shannara: Wards of Faerie by Terry Brooks
Del Rey, $28.00, 384pp, hc, 9780345523471. Fantasy. On-sale date: 21 August 2012.
Seven years after the conclusion of the High Druid of Shannara trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Terry Brooks at last revisits one of the most popular eras in the legendary epic fantasy series that has spellbound readers for more than three decades.
When the world was young, and its name was Faerie, the power of magic ruled—and the Elfstones warded the race of Elves and their lands, keeping evil at bay. But when an Elven girl fell hopelessly in love with a Darkling boy of the Void, he carried away more than her heart.
Thousands of years later, tumultuous times are upon the world now known as the Four Lands. Users of magic are in conflict with proponents of science. Elves have distanced their society from the other races. The dwindling Druid order and its teachings are threatened with extinction. A sinister politician has used treachery and murder to rise as prime minister of the mighty Federation. Meanwhile, poring through a long-forgotten diary, the young Druid Aphenglow Elessedil has stumbled upon the secret account of an Elven girl’s heartbreak and the shocking truth about the vanished Elfstones. But never has a little knowledge been so very dangerous—as Aphenglow quickly learns when she’s set upon by assassins.
Yet there can be no turning back from the road to which fate has steered her. For whoever captures the Elfstones and their untold powers will surely hold the advantage in the devastating clash to come. But Aphenglow and her allies—Druids, Elves, and humans alike—remember the monstrous history of the Demon War, and they know that the Four Lands will never survive another reign of darkness. But whether they themselves can survive the attempt to stem that tide is another question entirely.
The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible by Jack Campbell
Ace, $26.95, 390pp, hc, 9781937007454. Science fiction.
The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible is the second book in a new saga that continues the tale of the legendary Captain John “Black Jack” Geary from Jack Campbell’s bestselling The Lost Fleet series that were originally released in paperback.
Ace published the first book in Campbell’s Lost Fleet series, Dauntless, in the summer of 2006 and the series has continued to grow in popularity with the release of each new book. The most recent title, and the first to be published in hardcover, Dreadnaught debuted at #15 on the New York Times bestseller list in May 2011. Critics and readers alike have praised the series, saying it is “military science fiction at its best” with the “most believable space battles… ever seen anywhere.”
Now in The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible, Admiral John “Black Jack” Geary is in command of the First Fleet and tasked with exploring the frontier beyond Syndic space, a mission he fears deliberately puts the fleet—and himself—in harm’s way. An encounter with the alien enigmas confirms Geary’s fears. Attacked without warning, he orders the fleet to jump star systems only to enter the crosshairs of another hostile alien armada. Geary must now navigate a growing number of enemies if he hopes to accomplish his mission and bring his fellow soldiers back to Alliance space without massive casualties.
Containment by Christian Cantrell
47North, $14.95, 304pp, tp, 9781612183626. Science fiction. On-sale date: 7 August 2012.
In the tradition of Orson Scott Card, Christian Cantrell takes readers to an off-Earth colony where its greatest scientist risks everything in the name of truth, freedom, and love.
Arik is the most celebrated member of Gen V—the first generation of humans born on Venus—and his life’s work is to discover a way for his colony’s population to grow beyond its limited resources. But his research turns up shocking truths about the colony and its founders—and begins a journey that will push Arik to the limits of his intelligence, physical endurance, and very humanity.
Containment is science fiction of the highest order: a near-future alternate history that touches on everything from biology and computer science to sociology and philosophy. The result is a gripping story at once intellectually ambitious and emotionally astute.
Green Thumb by Tom Cardamone
Lethe, $13.00, 142pp, tp, 9781590213674. Queer speculative fiction. On-sale date: 1 August 2012.
Mutability blooms in the Florida Keys after the Red War. The genie boxes created King Pelicans with single human hands to rule the ruins of half-drowned Miami… and other, stranger persons. Slavers roam the deep waters offshore, taking captives to feed the voracious Kudzu Army and the human aqueduct bearing fresh water from Lake Okeechobee. On the last stretch of the Overseas Highway still standing, an albino seeress prophesies: “You will reach for the sun while staying rooted to the ground. But I fear your shadow will be much too long.”
Misunderstanding time, Leaf has lived for decades alone in a collapsing Victorian house on a desolate sandy key, feeding on sunlight and dew. When at last he meets a boy like—but so unlike!—himself, Leaf’s startling journey begins.
A post-apocalyptic, psychoactive pastorale, Green Thumb will pollinate your mind and wind its way into your heart like kudzu.
Ride the Star Winds: The John Grimes Saga IV by A. Bertram Chandler
Baen, $12.00, 869pp, tp, 9781451638127. Science fiction collection.
Situation normal: Grimes up to his neck in trouble
The legendary John Grimes returns with further adventures out on the mysterious rim of the galaxy, where inexplicable aliens lurk, gateways to other dimensions can suddenly open, and many other strange things can happen to an unwary traveler. Gathered together for the first time in one volume are four novels:
* The Anarch Lords: John Grimes’ short career as a somewhat benevolent space pirate is over, but now he has sunk even lower, becoming a politician. He’s now the governor of a planet of anarchists, where term limits are unnecessary, what with all the assassinations taking place.
* The Last Amazon: Back on Sparta, the formerly all-male planet, Grimes is waiting for his own ship to arrive when he’s caught up in yet another revolution—and you can’t tell the good guys (or gals) from the villains without a program. Not that Grimes has a program…
* The Wild Ones: Back on Earth was the last place that Grimes expected to be. Another thing he hadn’t expected was accusations of witchcraft being taken seriously.
* Catch the Star Winds: An experimental sailing ship of space was intended to exceed the speed of light. Then strange things happened involving time itself, and the crew wasn’t sure they would ever see home, or their home time, again.
Continuing the award-winning exploits of the indefatigable John Grimes, in a large volume of space adventure with a dash of humor, and a likeable hero who always manages to gamely muddle through.
To the Galactic Rim: The John Grimes Saga I by A. Bertram Chandler
Baen, $7.99, 713pp, pb, 9781451638233. Science fiction collection.
A Hero in the Making…
John Grimes will one day command his own starship, and change the course of Galactic history, but right now he’s a wet-behind-the-ears junior officer who finds that he keeps running into problems which were never covered in his courses at the Academy.
Three novels and a collection of seven short stories chart the beginning of John Grimes’ career. In The Road to the Rim, you’ll meet Lieutenant Grimes of the Federation Survey Service, fresh out of the Academy—and as green as they come. In To Prime the Pump, El Dorado is a planet where the men are infertile and the women want Grimes to Do Something (but not in person, mind)! Seven of Grimes’ adventures out at the rim of the Galaxy are chronicled in The Hard Way Up. And in The Broken Cycle, Grimes thought getting marooned in space with a gorgeous policewoman who is Not Interested was bad enough, until he ran into an entity with godlike powers who has a garden of Eden ready and waiting for his new pet humans.
Moriarty: The Lazarus Tree written by Daniel Corey, art by Anthony Diecidue and Mike Vosburg
Image Comics, $14.99, 136pp, tp, 9781607064901. Mystery/Adventure graphic novel.
In the wake of The Dark Chamber, Professor Moriarty finds himself afflicted with unsettling visions. He sets sail for Burma in search of an old ally, but finds himself caught up in a city on the brink of revolt, a troublesome Imperial Policeman, and a secret that holds the key to his destiny.
Collects Moriarty #5-9.
Hard Magic by Larry Correia
(Book I of the Grimnoir Chronicles), Baen, $7.99, 612pp, pb, 9781451638240. Fantasy.
A hard-boiled private eye—caught in a secret war of magic
Jake Sullivan is a war hero, a private eye—and an ex-con. He’s free because he has a magical talent and the Feds need his help in apprehending criminals with their own magical abilities. But the last operation Jake was sent on went completely wrong, and Delilah Jones, an old friend in happier times, had too much magical muscle with her for the Feds to handle, even with Jake’s help.
It got worse. Jake found out that not only have the Feds been lying to him, but there was a secret war being waged by opposing forces of magic-users. Worse still, he had attracted the attention of one side’s ruthless leaders—who were of the opinion that Jake was far too dangerous to be permitted to live…
Battleship by Peter David
Del Rey, $7.99, 304pp, pb, 9780345535375. Movie tie-in.
You sank the wrong battleship
During a routine naval drill at Pearl Harbor, American forces detect a ship of unknown origins that’s crashed in the Pacific Ocean. Lieutenant Alex Hopper, an officer aboard the USS John Paul Jones, is ordered to investigate the ominous-looking vessel—which turns out to be part of an armada of ships that are stronger and faster than any on Earth. And that’s when the Navy’s radar goes down. Ambushed by a ravenous enemy they cannot see, a small US fleet makes their last stand on the open ocean, armed with little more than their instincts, to defend their lives—and the world as we know it.
The Road of Danger by David Drake
Baen, $25.00, 350pp, hc, 9781451638158. Science fiction.
Leary and Mundy are back where they belong—in the middle of a war!
Captain Daniel Leary with his friend—and spy—Officer Adele Mundy have been sent to a quiet sector to carry out an easy task: helping the local admiral put down a coup before it takes place. When the jealous admiral gets rid of them by sending them off on a wild goose chase, their task should be even easier—
Except that when they catch the goose, they learn it’s a dragon instead!
Together and separately, Leary and Mundy face conflicts ranging from bureaucratic infighting to space battles, on planets—
* Where commerce is king and business is carried out by extortion or gunfights.
* Where rebellion is sinking into anarchy and devouring all but the most brutally vicious.
* And deadliest of all, where a rogue intelligence officer plots the war that will destroy civilization, with the help of a brute whom even torturers couldn’t stomach.
Politics and war, described with the vivid realism and color for which David Drake is renowned, are the signposts here on The Road of Danger.
The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan
Vintage, $14.95, 356pp, tp, 9780307742179. Fiction.
Glen Duncan delivers a powerful, sexy new version of the werewolf legend, a riveting and monstrous thriller—with a profoundly human heart.
Jake Marlowe is the last werewolf. Now just over 200 yeas old, Jake has an insatiable appetite for good scotch, books, and the pleasures of the flesh, with a voracious libido and a hunger for meat that drives him crazy each full moon. Although he is physically healthy, Jake has slipped into a deep existential crisis, considering taking his own life and ending a legend that has lived for thousands of years. But there are two dangerous groups—one new, one ancient—with reasons of their own for wanting Jake kept very much alive.
The America Challenge: Preserving the Greatness of America in the 21st Century: What Every American Should Know About Their Country by Robert C. Etheredge
MiraVista, $14.95, 404pp, tp, 9780966580440. History/United States Political Science.
The Future of America is at Risk
Thirty-eight percent of Americans given a Newsweek Citizenship Test failed, most being unable to define the Bill of Rights. More than half failed an Intercollegiate Studies Institute civics test. Most couldn’t even name all three branches of government. Elected officials taking the test did even worse—their average score was only 44 percent. Failures were evenly split among Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. This is a wake-up call for all Americans.
Explore the Common Heritage of an Uncommon Nation
* Concise, easy-to-read American history timeline.
* Presidential profiles and election results.
* Influential speeches that helped shape our nation.
* History and care of the American flag.
* Our important documents—Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights; and famous songs and poems.
* Americana—arts, music, literature, sports, heroes, holidays.
* Our government—three branches, electoral college, federal budget, the history of voting… are we really a democracy?
* Maps depicting statehood and the expansion of our country.
* Rates, ranks and insignia of all military branches.
1636: The Saxon Uprising by Eric Flint
Baen, $7.99, 594pp, pb, 9781451638219. Science fiction.
When generals collide…
The West Virginia town of Grantville, torn from the twentieth century and hurled back into seventeenth century Europe, has allied with Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, in the United States of Europe. So, when Gustavus invades Poland, the time-lost Americans have to worry about getting dragged into the fight along with the Swedish forces.
But Mike Stearns, leader of the West Virginians, has another problem. Gustavus’ terrible injuries in the Polish war have sidelined him and created a political vacuum. The new USE prime minister, Wilhelm Wettin, and the Swedish Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna are taking advantage of the situation to force their reactionary policies on the USE. Unrest is spreading everywhere and it comes to an explosion in the newly liberated province of Saxony. In response, the ruthless Swedish general Johan Baner is moving his army to seize Dresden and drown the rebellion in blood.
So, Mike Stearns is faced with a cold, hard choice. Does he continue to compromise with Swedish officials and German aristocrats in the hope of avoiding bloodshed? Or does he throw his army in support of the Saxon uprising—and risk being branded a traitor?
The Sum of Her Parts by Alan Dean Foster
Del Rey, $15.00, 304pp, hc, 97803455120224. Science fiction. On-sale date: 27 November 2012.
In this thrilling science fiction adventure—the triumphant conclusion to the Tipping Point trilogy—New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster returns to a near future in which genetic manipulation and extreme body modification have changed profoundly what it means to be human.
Dr. Ingrid Seastrom was once a respected American physician. Whispr, whose body has been transformed to preternatural thinness, was once a streetwise thief. Now, in a world on the edge of catastrophe from centuries of environmental exploitation, they are allies—thrust together by fate to unravel an impossible mystery—even as they are stalked by a relentless killer.
Ingrid and Whispr are hunted fugitives bound together by a thread: a data-storage thread made of a material that cannot exist, yet somehow does. Their quest to learn its secrets—and, in Whispr’s case, sell them to the highest bidder—has brought them to South Africa’s treacherous Namib desert. Beyond its dangers waits a heavily guarded research facility that promises answers, if they can survive long enough to get there. But that won’t be easy, not with Napun Molé on their trail. They’ve already escaped the assassin twice, and as far as Molé is concerned, finishing them off isn’t just a job anymore… it’s personal.
Heroes of Olympus by Philip Freeman, adapted by Laurie Calkhoven, illustrations by Drew Willis
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, $16.99, 342pp, hc, 9781442417298. YA Fantasy.
For thousands of years ancient mythology has been the basis for plays, operas, paintings and movies. Specially tailored to a younger audience Heroes of Olympus is a lively and contemporary retelling of ancient Greek and Roman myths and their irresistible stories of philandering gods, flawed heroes, and tragic lovers.
Alongside extensive interior illustrations, acclaimed writer and scholar Philip Freeman is a modern day bard who gives new life to ancient history as these classical stories are filled with entertaining drama and valuable insights. The book includes phonetic pronunciations for all the proper names, and a kid-friendly index.
Dog and Dragon by Dave Freer
Baen, $14.00, 286pp, tp, 9781451638110. Fantasy.
There’s never a dragon around when you need one…
Lyonesse: a world formed by magic, where a dark power struggle is underway between an ancient sorceress with her shadow army and the human subjects of Lyonesse’s power-mad wizard. The only spark of hope is a prophecy that tells of a Defender who will one day come and set things to right.
Young Meb, flung from her dragon-ruled homeland in another place of existence into Lyonesse, doesn’t think she’s obligated to be a Defender, but she’s caught in the struggle anyway. She also happens to be an adept at the universe-folding skill of Planomancy, trained by a world-walking troubleshooter of the multiverse, the great Dragon Fionn himself—a dragon who is desperately searching the universes for Meb, whom he’s come to love.
As the legions of Shadow Hall gather, Meb must decide whether to use her ability to become the Defender everyone hopes for—if only to avoid becoming the plaything of tyrants. With the Dragon Fionn on the way, magical battle is joined, and the destiny of universes hangs upon the courage in one young woman’s heart.
Star Wars: Scourge by Jeff Grubb
Del Rey, $7.99, 320pp, pb, 9780345511225. Science fiction.
In the heart of crime-ridden Hutt Space, a Jedi Scholar searches for injustice.
While trying to obtain the coordinates of a secret, peril-packed, but potentially beneficial trade route, a novice Jedi is killed—and the motive for his murder remains shrouded in mystery. Now his former Master, Jedi archivist Mander Zuma, wants answers, even as he fights to erase doubts about his own abilities as a Jedi. What Mander gets is immersion into the perilous underworld of the Hutts as he struggles to stay one step ahead in a game of smugglers, killers, and crime lords bent on total control.
Tricked by Kevin Hearne
(the fourth book in The Iron Druid Chronicles series), Del Rey, $7.99, 368pp, pb, 9780345533623. Fantasy.
Druid Atticus O’Sullivan hasn’t stayed alive for more than two millennia without a fair bit of Celtic cunning. So when vengeful thunder gods come Norse by Southwest looking for payback, Atticus, with a little help from the Navajo trickster god Coyote, lets them think that they’ve chopped up his body in the Arizona desert.
But the mischievous Coyote is not above a little sleight of paw, and Atticus soon finds that he’s been duped into battling bloodthirsty desert shapeshifters called skinwalkers. Just when the Druid thinks he’s got a handle on all the duplicity, betrayal comes from an unlikely source. If Atticus survives this time, he vows he won’t be fooled again. Famous last words.
Lance of Earth and Sky by Erin Hoffman
(The Chaos Knight, Book Two), Pyr, $17.95, 318pp, tp, 9781616146153. Fantasy.
In the sequel to Sword of Fire and Sea, Vidarian Rulorat, a captain without a ship, faces the consequences of opening the gate between worlds. Elemental magic is awakening across the planet after centuries of dormancy, bringing with it magically powered wonders including flying ships and ancient automata. After decades of peace, empires leap into war over long-disputed territory as their technologies shift—and on top of it all, Ariadel, Vidarian’s one great love, isn’t speaking to him. Called into service by the desperate young emperor of Alorea, Vidarian must lead sky-ships in a war against the neighboring southern empire, train the demoralized imperial Sky Knights to ride beasts that now shapeshift, master his own amplified elemental magic, and win back Ariadel—all without losing his mind.
Compounding his task is a political minefield laid by the Alorean Import Company, which may or may not be fomenting war across the world, and a shapeshifter that bonds to Vidarian during his early attempts to subdue the rogue bird-like seridi. And as always, ,the Starhunter, goddess of chaos, is never far from Vidarian’s heels, inexorably guiding him toward her own concern: the lance of earth and sky.
Blood on the Bayou by Stacey Jay
Pocket, $7.99, 417pp, pb, 9781439189870. Urban fantasy.
Fans eagerly anticipating the next Annabelle Lee novel by Stacey Jay will be thrilled with Blood on the Bayou.
First came a terrorist attack. Then the mutations—and Fey who had lived in harmony with humans turned deadly. Now most people hide behind iron gates. But those who are immune—and those with enough courage—can venture out into the Louisiana Delta… and a nightmare world of magic.
Annabelle Lee, a Fairy Containment and Control agent with immunity to fairy venom, is once again called upon to help solve a murder deep in the bayou. But this one’s off the books. her ex-lover, Hitch, needs her help searching for a secret chemical weapons lab and an FBI mole providing it with human lab rats.
Helping Hitch means certain interpersonal disaster with her estranged boyfriend, but Annabelle knows what it feels like to be a lab rat. Her new fairy-attack-induced paranormal abilities seem to have few negative side effects, but would that change if she stopped injecting herself with the mystery drug delivered to her by the even more mysterious—not to mention ridiculously attractive—Tucker? A man who can turn invisible at will, and who makes no bones about how dead she’ll be if she reveals his secrets? As the murder investigation progresses, Annabelle quickly learns Tucker isn’t the only one with secrets, and that the only things that cut deeper than a friend’s deception are the lies we tell ourselves. Readers will be unable to put down Stacey Jay’s Blood on the Bayou as they follow along closely with Annabelle Lee from start to finish.
Life Guards in the Hamptons by Celia Jerome
DAW, $7.99, 308pp, pb, 9780756407254. Fantasy.
Awash in trouble—
Graphic novelist Willow Tate is a Visualizer, able to draw images of beings from the realm of Faerie and possibly to “draw” them from their world to ours in the process. Maybe she shouldn’t have decided to make her latest book about the god from Faerie whom she’d “rescued” when the fire bugs came to her for help. Or maybe she just shouldn’t have given him a part fish/part fowl sidekick. Had the creature shown up in Paumanok Harbor because she’d drawn it, or had she drawn it because it was calling out to her for assistance?
Either way, more weird things were happening in the Hamptons: robberies, embezzlement, rare bird sighting, rogue waves, and dolphins keeping the surfers out of the water. And though Willow swore she had nothing to do with any of it, none of the locals really believed her. She’d protested to anyone who’d listen that she wasn’t even in Paumanok Harbor when it all started. Except, of course, the hero of her latest book—patterned after the new man in her life, a handsome Harbor veterinarian—happens to be a sea god.…
Thunder in the Void by Henry Kuttner, edited by Stephen Haffner, introduction by Mike Resnick
Haffner, $40.00, 624pp, hc, 9781893887534. Science fiction collection.
With “Raider of the Spaceways” (Weird Tales, July 1937), Henry Kuttner added Space Opera, to his repertoire. In the pages of Marvel Science Stories, Kuttner melded his penchant for “spicy” or sexed-up stories with the dusty tropes of mad scientists, time travel, and alien invaders. The resulting works (“Avengers of Space” and “The Time Trap” included here) may have been one of the reasons why Kuttner adopted so many pseudonyms; his reputation slightly tarnished by such rakish tales.
While he continued to sell stories to Weird Tales and Thrilling Mystery, Kuttner also published straight-out “ray-gun fiction” with tales such as “We Guard the Black Planet” and “Soldiers of Space” for the lower-tier pulp magazines Super Science Stories and Astonishing Stories.
Appropriately, Kuttner also sold stories to the only pulp that specialized in Space Opera: Planet Stories, including “The Eyes of Thar” and “Crypt-City of the Deathless Ones.”
With an introduction by award-winning author Mike Resnick—and a never-before-published story, “The Interplanetary Limited”—Thunder in the Void is sure to please the legion of readers who are rediscovering Henry Kuttner.
The Marcella Fragment by Anna LaForge
Newcal, $14.99, 374pp, tp, 9780985016814. Science fiction & fantasy. On-sale date: 8 June 2012.
On an empty planet, a city called Pelion is built by former dwellers of Old Earth. Centuries later, the Council of Pelion—influenced by the prophetic Marcella Fragment—asks citizens to begin construction of a maze that will be inhabited by ernami (lost souls) brought from the corners of the known world to walk the Path of Preparation.
Two ernani who walk that Path are Tyre of Lapith and Kara of Pelion, a chieftain’s son and an apprentice musician. This pair, as unknown to themselves as they are to each other, face trials that test their physical, emotional and moral courage.
In the tradition of fine visionary novels, The Marcella Fragment takes the reader into a world both familiar and strange, peopled by warriors, artisans, healers and slaves, incorporating science fiction, fantasy, myth, and romance.
Energized by Edward M. Lerner
Tor, $27.99, 336pp, hc, 9780765328496. Science fiction. On-sale date: July 2012.
No one expected the oil to last forever. How right they were…
A geopolitical miscalculation tainted the world’s major oil fields with radioactivity and plunged the Middle East into chaos. The few countries still able to export oil and natural gas—Russia chief among them—have a stranglehold on the world economy. And then, from the darkness of space, came Phoebe. Rather than divert the onrushing asteroid, America captured it in Earth’s orbit.
Solar power satellites—cheaply mass-produced in orbit with resources mined from the new moon to beam vast amounts of power to the ground—offer America its last, best hope of avoiding servitude and economic ruin. But the remaining petro powers are prepared to do anything to protect their newfound dominance of world affairs.
NASA engineer Marcus Judson is determined to make the powersat demonstration project a success. And he will—even though nothing in his job description mentions combating an international cabal, or going into space to do it.
Acclaimed science fiction author Edward M. Lerner has created a stunning near-future thriller about energy politics brimming with innovative ideas. Energized is as thought provoking as it is entertaining.
Pathfinder Tales: Song of the Serpent by Hugh Matthews
Paizo, $9.99, 336pp, pb, 9781601253880. Fantasy.
A reluctant hero
To an experienced rogue like Krunzle the Quick, the merchant nation of Druma is full of treasures just waiting to be liberated. Yet when the fast-talking scoundrel gets caught stealing from one of the powerful prophets of Kalistrade, hisonly option is to undertake a dangerous mission to recover the merchant lord’s runaway daughter—and the magical artifact she took with her. Armed with an arsenal of decidedly unhelpful magical items and chaperoned by an intelligent snake necklace happy to choke him into submission, Krunzle must venture far from the cities of the merchant utopia and into a series of adventures that will make him a rich man—or a corpse.
From veteran author Hugh Matthews comes a rollicking tale of captive trolls, dwarven revolutionaries, and serpentine magic, set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
Sky Dragons by Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey
Del Rey, $26.00, 368pp, hc, 978034550915. Science fiction. On-sale date: 26 June 2012.
From the New York Times bestselling mother-and-son team of Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey comes the final installment in the riveting Pern saga that began with Todd’s solo novel, Dragonsblood. Now, with all of Pern imperiled by the aftereffects of a plague that killed scores of dragons and left the planet helpless against the fall of deadly Thread, the only hope for the future lies in the past.
There, on an unexplored island, a group of dragonriders led by Xhinna, a brave young woman who rides the blue dragon Tazith, must battle lethal Merows and voracious tunnel-snakes to build a safe home for themselves and the dragons, whose offspring will one day—if they survive—replenish Pern’s decimated dragon population. But as the first female rider of a blue dragon, and the first female Weyrleader in the history of Pern, Xhinna faces an uphill battle in winning the respect and loyalty of her peers… especially after an unforeseen tragedy leaves the struggling colony reeling from a shattering loss.
Amid the grieving, one girl, Jirana, blessed—or cursed—with the ability to foresee potential futures, will help Xhinna find a way forward. The answer lies in time… or, rather, in timing it: the awesome ability of the dragons to travel through time itself. But that power comes with risks, and by venturing further into the past, Xhinna may be jeopardizing the very future she has sworn to save.
The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod
Pyr, $17.95, 263pp, tp, 9781616146139. Fantasy.
A bishop is dead. As Detective Inspector Adam Ferguson picks through the rubble of the tiny church, he discovers that it was deliberately bombed. That it’s a terrorist act is soon beyond doubt.
It’s been a long time since anyone saw anything like this. Terrorism is history. After the Middle East wars and the rising sea levels—after Armageddon and the Flood—came the Great Rejection. The first Enlightenment separated church from state. The Second Enlightenment has separated religion from politics. In this enlightened age there’s no persecution, but the millions who still believe and worship are a marginal and mistrusted minority. Now someone is killing them.
At first, suspicion falls on atheists more militant than the secular authorities. But when the target list expands to include the godless, it becomes evident that something very old has risen from the ashes. Old and very, very dangerous.
Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin
Bantam, $7.99, 461pp, pb, 9780553577938. Fantasy/Paranormal.
A thrilling reinvention of the vampire novel by the master of modern fantasy.
Abner Marsh, a struggling riverboat captain, suspects that something’s amiss when he is approached by a wealthy aristocrat with a lucrative offer. The hauntingly pale, steely-eyed Joshua York doesn’t care that the icy winter of 1857 has wiped out all but one of Marsh’s dilapidated fleet; nor does he care that he won’t earn back his investment in a decade. York’s reasons for traversing the powerful Mississippi are to be none of Marsh’s concern—no matter how bizarre, arbitrary, or capricious York’s actions may prove. Not until the maiden voyage of Fevre Dream does Marsh realize that he has joined a mission both more sinister, and perhaps more noble, than his most fantastic nightmare—and humankind’s most impossible dream.
9 Lives: A Story of Horror by George M. Moser
iUniverse, $20.95, 350pp, tp, 9781469753119. Horror.
Michael Merlino lives a charmed life with a successful career, beautiful wife, and beloved son—until his dear father passes away; then things turn strange. Michael can’t seem to shake this weird feeling, but maybe he just misses his dad, his mentor. He ignores the feeling that something is wrong.
One day, he accidentally kills a stray cat—a sad but everyday sort of accident; he doesn’t give it much thought. When another cat appears in Michael’s life, however, it makes him wonder whether the stray cat really died, and whether cats actually do have nine lives, as the saying goes. But this isn’t your normal stray kitty. This cat is out for revenge. Its spirit wants something from Michael, but what?
When a man has everything to lose, however, it’s much easier to make it happen—especially when that man is up against what appears to be a supernatural economy. As Michael begins to face his own demons via a demon cat that won’t die, his work begins to slide. His life at home gets more difficult, even with his wife there to support him. Then, there was that note his father left that told Michael to “drive it.” What did the note mean? Could is possibly have been a warning? The mystery must be solved, as the reincarnated cat keeps getting bigger and meaner, threatening not just Michael’s life, but his soul in the bargain.
By the Blood of Heroes: The Great Undead War: Book I by Joseph Nassise
Harper Voyager, $14.99, 346pp, tp, 9780062048752. Fiction.
With the critical and box office success of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, the rise in the popularity of Steampunk fiction and fashion, and the influx of zombie-themed TV shows (Walking Dead), books (World War Z), and movies (Zombieland), By the Blood of Heroes taps into some of today’s coolest alternative trends. International bestseller Joseph Nassise takes readers on an “adrenaline-fueled” and “audacious” (Publishers Weekly) ride through a zombie-filled World War I, complete with some of its most celebrated and most notorious figures.
The Great War progressed as wars normally do—armies fight, soldiers die, battles are won, ground is lost, and nowhere is an end in sight—until 1917, when the Germans discover T-leiche, or “corpse gas” and everything goes to Hell for the good guys. The Germans employ corpse gas on the fallen, ally and enemy alike, to raise them from the dead and turn them into “shamblers,” mindless, flesh-eating machines under their direct control. The Allied forces can now do no more than hold their ground and pray their scientists, including the legendary Nicola Tesla, find a way to combat this seemingly unbeatable weapon.
When Major Jack Freeman, the American Ace, and poster-boy for the American War effort over in France, is downed over enemy lines and taken captive, a man from his past, veteran Captain Michael “Madman” Burke , is the only man brave and foolish enough to accept the mission to recover Freeman. Burke assembles a team of disparate members, from Sergeant Moore, his right-hand man during the war, Clayton Manning, to big game hunter turned soldier eager to conquer this new, dangerous beast, to professor Dan Richards, one of Tesla’s top men and the resident authority on all things supernatural.
Using an experimental drilling vehicle to infiltrate enemy territory, the team faces incredible danger as they struggle to reach the prison camp. From ruthless smugglers who betray them to the Germans, to marauding bands of the undead, to the ultimate enemy Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron, they find risk and peril at every turn. It is only when they arrive at the prison camp that the true importance of their mission is unveiled. While in captivity, Freeman has discovered the enemy’s deepest secret—how they control the ravenous army of the undead!
Man-Kzin Wars XIII created by Larry Niven
Baen, $14.00, 366pp, tp, 9781451638165. Science fiction.
If at first you don’t succeed, scream and leap…
After one brilliant conquest after another, the heroes of the felinesque kzin were not amused when they ran into those bizarre monkey descendants called “humans” who stopped the kzin war machine in its tracks. But they were certain that sooner or later they would find the fatal flaw in the leaf-eaters’ makeup and the kzin’s manifest destiny would be back on schedule. Of course, someone needs to tell the humans that.
Seven new dispatches from the most popular war in science fiction, including:
* Misunderstanding by Hal Colebatch & Jessica Q. Fox: The kzin ship was heading for a promising-looking planet when they received a communication from two bizarre creatures, who didn’t even seem to be of the same species. The two stated that if the kzin landed, the planet’s inhabitants would escape by going back in time. Were they bluffing? Or did they have another plan, even more unexpected?
* Two Types of Teeth by Jane Lindskold: The brilliant biologist was an expert in alien psychology, a field which had been entirely theoretical until the kzin had arrived. She was excited to be assigned to study a kzin captive, but hadn’t expected that she would have more in common with the prisoner than with the human ARM agent who was her superior.
* Pick of the Litter by Charles E. Gannon: A desperate mission to capture kzin cubs was successful, and now they would be raised among humans, becoming loyal to Earth and able to act as envoys to the attacking kzin. That was the plan, but which would prove stronger—nurture or nature?
* At the Gates by Alex Hernandez: On a lost colony of Earth, humans and kzin have managed to live together in an uneasy truce. If the kzin discovered this “unnatural” state of affairs, their fleet would reduce the planet to a glowing cinder. And then a kzin ship was detected entering the colony’s space…
* Zeno’s Roulette by David Bartell: The crack team was secretly dropped on a kzin planet to abduct a Very Important Kzin. They were expecting that it might be a suicide mission, but they weren’t expecting the kzin secret they would uncover.
Plus two more stories of the ongoing clash between the kzin warcats and the clawless but deadly humans in the popular series created by New York Times best-selling author Larry Niven.
Troubletwisters Book #2: The Monster by Garth Nix and Sean Williams
Scholastic, $16.99, 304pp, hc, 9780545258982. Middle-grades Fantasy. On-sale date: June 2012.
Jaide and Jack Shield are back for another edge-of-your-seat adventure in Troubletwisters Book #2: The Monster, from New York Times bestselling authors Garth Nix and Sean Williams. In Troubletwisters thirteen-year-old twins Jaide and Jack discovered an incredible secret—they are troubletwisters and they must use their newfound powers to defend the world from an incredible dark force. In a harrowing showdown, they defeated the Evil and closed the portal that let it into our world. In Troubletwisters Book #2: The Monster, the Evil has found a new way in and it’s taking a brand new form.
Jaide and Jack Shield have a secret. When they’re unexpectedly sent to live with their mysterious Grandma X, they’re thrust into a world where cats talk and strange weather comes out of nowhere. There they learn that they’re troubletwisters, with powers they must use to stop the Evil from taking over our world.
Before, they’d defeated the Evil through luck and intuition. Now though, Jaide and Jack will have to learn how to use their powers, and how to keep on their toes when evil forces return.
Chicory Up by Irene Radford
DAW, $7.99, 298pp, pb, 9780756407247. Fantasy.
The war in the woods—
The leader of her tribe had exiled Thistle Down from Pixie. Trapped in a human body and deprived of almost all her Pixie magic, Thistle had made a life for herself with the help of her human friends—Desdemona “Dusty” Carrick and her brother Dick. But trouble was brewing among all the Pixie tribes, fueled by Haywood Wheatland, a half-Pixie/half-Faery, who was determined to seize control of The Ten Acre Wood for the Faeries.
Thistle, Dick, Dusty, and her fiance, Police Sergeant Chase Norton, thought the threat to the town of Skene Falls and The Ten Acre Wood had ended with Haywood’s arrest and imprisonment, but they were wrong. For even as they turned their attention to romance and weddings, the Pixie tribes were preparing for war. Only a young, inexperienced Pixie named Chicory was taking a stand against the growing Pixie army in The Ten Acre Wood. And even if he could convince Thistle and her new human family to help him, it might already be too late to avert the destruction of all Pixies.…
The Hot Gate by John Ringo
Baen, $7.99, 552pp, pb, 9781451638183. Science Fiction.
Showdown—with a vast alien empire
When the orbital gates first materialized in the outer Solar System, all seemed well, but a devastating invasion ensued. Now humans have battled back from conquest by a tyrannical alien species to become a force to reckon with in the galaxy. On a crash-building course, humanity, under the leadership of Tyler Vernon, has created a near-impregnable battlestation of Deathstar proportions to prove it. But the enemy is remorseless and to survive humans must take the fight to the heart of their empire and prevail—a feat no previous species has ever accomplished. Instead, the bones and burnt hulks of those who have tried litter the star-ways.
But these galactic imperialists have never contended with humans, a foe who is their match in sheer ferocity and desire to win.
The third novel in the Troy Rising space adventure series.
Further: Beyond the Threshold by Chris Roberson
47North, $14.95, 345pp, tp, 9781612182438. Fiction. On-sale date: 15 May 2012.
Welcome to the thirty-fourth century.
Captain RJ Stone just awoke from a cryogenic suspension after disappearing twelve thousand years ago on Earth’s first unified interstellar space mission. He finds himself in a place known as the Human Entelechy, a myriad of worlds and habitats spread across three thousand light years that is linked by a network of wormholes with Earth at its center. Quickly caught in the middle of politics and intrigue he knows little about, Stone becomes the captain of the FTL Further, the first spacecraft to travel faster than the speed of light. The crew’s first mission: investigate a distant pulsar for the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence.
Once at the planet, the landing party is quickly captured by the Iron Mass, a deadly religious sect banished from the Entelechy millennia before. Two from the landing crew escape capture, however, and find a network of stone towers that may be proof of extraterrestrial intelligence. But with Stone and his crew in a desperate fight to escape and the Further being targeted by the Iron Mass flagship, emerging with their lives may be all they can hope for.
Reamde by Neal Stephenson
William Morrow, $18.99, 1056pp, tp, 9780062191496. Science fiction.
A high-intensity, high-stakes, action-packed global adventure thriller in which a tech entrepreneur gets cuaght in the very real crossfire of his own online war game.
Reamde is the latest adventure from Neal Stephenson, the critically acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem and Cryptonomicon. In this return to the terrain of his other groundbreaking books, Stephenson delivers his most accessible novel to date— a high-intensity, high-stakes, action-packed global adventure thriller in which a tech entrepreneur gets caught in the very real crossfire of his own online war game.
Four decades ago Richard Forthrast, the black sheep of his Iowa-based family, fled to a wild and mountainous corner of British Columbia to avoid the draft. Quickly realizing that he could make a lot of fast cash carrying backpack loads of high-grade marijuana across the border into Northern Idaho, he began to amass an enormous and illegal fortune. Living an affluent but lonely and monotonous life in Canada, Richard became addicted to online fantasy games. Years later, when amnesty from the government allowed Richard to return to the U.S., he used his fortune and his skills to become the head of his own major computer gaming group called Corporation 9592 with its own super-successful online fantasy game, T’Rain. But now Forthrast is caught in the center of a global thriller and a virtual war for dominance that begins when international hackers develop a virus called Reamde that unwittingly makes some very evil villains extremely angry.
Set in the present-day modern world, Reamde has the global intrigue and suspense of a James Bond movie on steroids. There are Russian mobsters, Chinese spies, Islamic jihadists, hired assassins, computer hackers, online gaming, and enough fear and adrenaline for several Stephenson novels. And Richard’s beloved, beautiful, and brilliant niece Zula is in grave danger and caught in the middle of an international nightmare. Now Richard Forthrast, the loner-millionaire-genius, has to figure out how to set things right—without getting himself killed.
The Mongoliad: Book One by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, E.D. deBirmingham, Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey, and Cooper Moo
47North, $14.95, 458pp, tp, 9781612182360. Fantasy.
This May, from the minds of Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear comes The Mogoliad Trilogy, the first installment in the Foreworld Saga, a collaborative series unlike any other that will enthrall fans of fantasy, martial arts, and historical fiction.
The Foreworld medieval adventure saga was actually born out of swordfighting. Stephenson and the other authors are avid practitioners of Western martial arts and they are part of an enthusiastic study group in Seattle. io9.com reports that Stephenson realized that the descriptions of swordfighting in his novels would have been much better with contributions from people with fighting expertise. Thus the idea for a saga about the complex, bloody history of Western martial arts was born, featuring Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, E.D. deBirmingham, Joseph Brassey, Erik Bear, and Cooper Moo.
The first novel to be released in the saga, The Mongoliad: Book One, is an epic-within-an-epic, taking place in 13th century. In it, a small band of warriors and mystics raise their swords to save Europe from a bloodthirsty Mongol invasion. Inspired by their leader (an elder of an order of warrior monks), they embark on a perilous journey and uncover the history of hidden knowledge and conflict among powerful secret societies that had been shaping world events for millennia.
But the saga is truly epic in time span for it comes to the modern world via a circuitous route. In the late 19th century, Sir Richard F. Burton, an expert on exotic languages and historical swordsmanship, is approached by a mysterious group of English martial arts aficionados about translating a collection of long-lost manuscripts. Burton dies before his work is finished, and his efforts were thought lost until recently rediscovered by a team of amateur archaeologists in the ruins of a mansion in Trieste, Italy. From this collection of arcana, the incredible tale of The Mongoliad was recreated.
More than just a story, The Mongoliad is an epic firmly rooted in history and takes us back to a time when Europeans thought that the Mongol Horde was about to destroy their world—and it was up to the exploits of one small band of mystics and warriors to turn the tide of history.
Full of high adventure, unforgettable characters, and unflinching battle scenes, The Mongoliad ignites a dangerous quest where willpower and blades are tested and the scope of world-building is redefined.
Gears of War: Coalition’s End by Karen Traviss
Pocket, $9.99, 592pp, pb, 9781439184042. Media tie-in.
Understand what a world had to do to survive.
Gears of War: Coalition’s End by Karen Traviss is the eagerly anticipated bridge novel for the Gears of War trilogy—continuing the harrowing story of Delta Squad and their struggle to save the remnants of humanity in a world overrun by a brutal enemy, the Locust Horde.
When the Locust Horde burst from the ground fifteen years ago to slaughter the human population of Sera, mankind began a desperate war against extinction. Now after a decade and a half of bloody fighting, and with billions dead, the survivors—the Gears of the Coalition of Ordered Governments, along with a small band of civilians—have been forced to destroy their own cities and sacrifice their entire civilization to half the Locust advance.
The last-ditch measures have succeeded, but at an enormous cost: the survivors have been reduced to a handful of refugees.
Escaping to a haven on the remote island of Vectes, they begin the heartbreaking task of rebuilding their devastated world. For a while, there’s hope… making peace with old enemies, and once again planning for the future.
But the short respite is shattered when Vectes comes under siege from an even deadlier force than the Locust—the Lambent, a hideous and constantly mutating life-form that destroys everything in its path. As the Lambent’s relentless assault spreads from the mainland to the island, the refugees finally understand what drove the Locust from the underground warrens and sparked the global war.
While Marcus Fenix and the Gears struggle to hold back the invasion, the Coalition faces a stark choice—fight this new enemy to the last human, or flee to the wastelands to take their chances and live like the human pariahs known as the Stranded… even as Coalition chairman Richard Prescott still guards one last, terrible secret about the Locust, the Lambent, and the future of mankind.…
Gears of War: The Slab by Karen Traviss
Pocket, $27.00, 448pp, hc, 9781439184073. Media tie-in.
Gears of War: The Slab by Karen Traviss is an original novel based on the groundbreaking and award-winning military sci-fi action video game series Gears of War.
Ten years after Emergence Day, as the Locust Horde advances on humanity’s last defended area—Ephyra—in a bloody war that has seen billions die, Marcus Fenix does the unthinkable: he defies orders and abandons his post during a critical battle in a bid to rescue his father, weapons scientist Adam Fenix.
But Adam is buried in the rubble during a ferocious assault on the Fenix mansion, and Ephyra falls to the enemy. Marcus, grieving for a father everyone believes is dead, is court-martialed for dereliction of duty and sentenced to forty years in the Coalition of Ordered Government’s brutal maximum security prison, known simply as the Slab.
But Adam is very much alive, snatched from the destruction by the elite Onyx Guard on Chairman Richard Prescott’s orders. He’s now a long way from home and in a prison of his own—a COG doomsday bunker on the tropical island of Azura, a place hidden from the rest of Sera since the Pendulum Wars. His own guilty secret has been exposed: Adam knew the Locust existed deep below the surface of Sera long before Emergence Day, and were being driven from their tunnels by a lethal parasite known as the Lambent. Now he has to find a way to destroy the Lambent while the dwindling COG forces fight to hold back a growing Locust army that’s threatening to overrun the city.
As Adam struggles to find redemption in his comfortable island jail, Marcus seeks his own atonement in the squalid, closed world within the Slab’s granite walls. While Dom Santiago and Anya Stroud fight to get him released, ready to make any sacrifice to free him, Marcus gradually finds unexpected kinship among Sera’s most dangerous criminals—and a way to carry on his personal war against the Locust.
The Weird edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, foreweird by Michael Moorcock, afterweird by China Mieville
Tor, $29.99, 1152pp, tp, 9780765333629. Weird fiction anthology.
Award-winning editors Ann and Jeff VanderMeer turn their cultivated editorial eye to fiction’s stranger shores in The Weird—a monumental compendium of stories from around the globe that chronicles this literary movement from its beginnings to the present day. Previously published by Corvus, The Weird was met with resounding acclaim in the United Kingdom.
Included are 110 macabre musings from past practitioners such as Algernon Blackwood, H.P. Lovecraft and Franz Kafka to modern visionaries such as Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, China Mieville—and everyone in between. Exotic and esoteric, The Weird plunges readers into the ominous domain of dreams, bringing them face-to-face with surreal and seductive monstrosities.
Readers of all genres will find something to enjoy in this tome of dark delights—which is sure to become the definitive collection of weird fiction.
Pod by Stephen Wallefels
Ace, $7.99, 294pp, pb, 9781937007430. Science fiction.
Pod is an intense science-fiction story from debut author Stephen Wallenfels. Originally released as an e-book, Ace is proud to offer this critically acclaimed novel for the first time in print format.
When the alien spheres arrive they announce themselves with a deafening shriek. Their black ships fill the skies, and anyone caught beneath them vanishes in a flash of blue-white light. The survivors remain indoors, severed from all telecommunication, unaware if what is happening in their neighborhoods is also happening around the world.
Josh is trapped at home with his father, whose sanity is starting to erode from the endless confinement. Megs struggles to survive in a hotel parking garage, where she sees human nature at its worst. For both of them food, water, and time are running out. And hovering patiently above them is an extraterrestrial enemy that has inexplicably declared war against humanity…
Numbers #3: Infinity by Rachel Ward
Chicken House/Scholastic, $17.99, 272pp, hc, 9780545350921. YA Science Fiction.
In February 2010 novelist Rachel Ward introduced American readers to Jem and her uncommon gift. Anyone she meets, she knows the exact date they will die, just by looking into their eyes. Numbers followed Jem and fellow outsider Spider through their adventures in London. In the fast-paced, heart-stopping sequel, Numbers #2: The Chaos, the curse of the numbers was passed down to Jem’s son Adam, and he and his love raced against time to stop a catastrophe from claiming the lives of thousands. Now Ward returns with Numbers #3: Infinity, the mind-blowing conclusion to the Numbers trilogy that will have readers on the edge of their seats until the last page.
It’s been two years since The Chaos, 2029. In the aftermath of the global earthquake, Adam and Sarah are struggling to get by. Adam always envisioned that he and Sarah would be together, “til death do us part.” But will a child come between them? The child she loves. The child he saved. Mia was supposed to die that New Year’s Day. The numbers don’t lie. But somehow she swapped her date for another—for Val’s, Adam’s beloved great-grandmother, who perished in the fire that destroyed Sarah’s family home. And Adam just can’t get past that. Mia’s only a baby, oblivious to her special power. But ruthless people are hunting her down, desperate to steal her secret. Because everyone wants to live forever.
The Dragon Brigade: Shadow Raiders by Margaret Weis and Robert Krammes
DAW, $8.99, 692pp, pb, 9780756407223. Fantasy.
Lord Captain Stephano de Guichen, formerly of the Dragon Brigade, and his friends—known as the Cadre of the Lost—are hired by the powerful Countess de Marjolaine, to find a Royal Armory journeyman who has vanished, along with an invention that could revolutionize warfare. Always in need of money, Stephano and the Cadre undertake what they think is an easy job, only to discover they are being dogged by spies and targeted by assassins.
Meanwhile, Father Jacob Northrop, a priest of the feared Arcanum, and his Knight Protector, Sir Ander Martel, are dispatched to investigate the massacre of a hundred nuns at the Abbey of Saint Agnes.
Stephano and his friends take to the skies in their airship, the Cloud Hopper, on the trail of the journeyman. Their route takes them near the Abbey of Saint Agnes. As they draw close, the Cloud Hopper comes under attack by what appear to be demons riding giant bats. Stephano teams with Father Jacob, Sir Ander, and a dragon from his old brigade to fight the hellish forces. After the battle, Stephano and Father Jacob continue on their separate missions. But two questions are on everyone’s mind: Are these truly demons sent by the Evil One? Is this the Apocalypse?
Schemes and tricks, lies and intrigues culminate in an exciting chase through the skies that comes to a shocking end, when friends and foes alike are caught up in the unexpected and terrifying conclusion.
Extremis by Steve White & Charles E. Gannon
Baen, $7.99, 872pp, pb, 9781451638141. Science fiction.
The Grand Alliance is running out of time…
An implacable foe with telepathic cohesion in battle, near-immortality, and eons-advanced engineering skills threaten to wipe humanity from the galaxy. They’ve overcome their one weakness—no faster-than-light travel—and have followed humanity through our star gates.
But humans are masters of adaptation, and have got a counterpunch of devastating proportions in reserve. Now a hard-bitten and brilliant admiral must face down renewed alien attack and somehow communicate to the enemy that if he is forced to use his ultimate military option, galactic civilization itself may come to a fiery end.