[[[Tesseracts Seventeen: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast]]] edited by Colleen Anderson and Steve Vernon. EDGE, $16.95, 272pp, tp, 9781770530447. Science fiction anthology.
With nearly four million square miles of territory and a population of thirty-four million people — Canada lives and breathes storytelling.
Editors Steve Vernon and Colleen Anderson have gathered twenty-nine fresh new stories and poems of horror, science-fiction and fantasy from authors residing in each of the provinces and territories of Canada.
Experience the depravations of a monster held captive in an Alberta garden shed and the insatiable appetite of the monster Wall of BC. Find out what cold darkness lurks in the heart of a Tuktoyaktuk blizzard. Hear a long-lost legend, lingering by a lonely lighthouse, perched on the shores of Manitoulin Island. Meet a hambone ghostly actor in search of his next gig in the Ottawa Museum of Nature. Learn the colors of the graffiti that tattoo the grey tenement walls of Montreal. In the Maritimes find out how coming events can be foreseen in a few shards of pottery or solve a murder by reliving the memory of a dead man. Explore a distant future, rife with acronym or trace the delicate fancies of the calligrapher’s daughter.
Come join us on a magnificent cross-country trek through worlds familiar and unknown and enjoy twenty-nine stories and poems — fantastic and frightening; inspirational, illuminating and eerily surreal.
[Contributors: Claude Lalumiere, Eileen Kernaghan, Rhea Rose, Lisa Smedman, Timothy Reynolds, Megan Fennell, Rhonda Parrish, Holly Schofield, Edward Willett, David Jon Fuller, Mark Leslie, Alyxandra Harvey, Costi Gurgu, Ben Godby, Dave Beynon, Lisa Poh, Domink Parisien, Catherine Austen, Elise Moser, Vincent Grant Perkins, J.J. Steinfeld, Catherin MacLeod, John Bell, Rachel Cooper, William Meikle, Dwain Campbell, Jason Barrett, Dianne Homan, and Patricia Robertson.]
[[[MarsInc.: The Billionaire’s Club]]] by Ben Bova. Baen, $25.00, 357pp, hc, 9781451639346. Science fiction.
Mars or Bust
Art Thrasher is a man with a driving vision: send humans to Mars. The government has utterly failed, but Thrasher has got the plan to accomplish such a feat: form a “club” of billionaires to chip in one billion a year until the dream is accomplished. These men and women are tough cookies, addicted to a profitable bottom line, and disdainful of pie-in-the-sky dreamers who want to use their cash to make somebody else’s dreams come true.
But Thrasher is different from the other dreamers in an important regard: he’s a billionaire himself, and the president of a successful company. It’s going to take all his wiles as a captain of industry and master manipulator of business and capital to overcome setbacks and sabotage — and get a rocket full of scientists, engineers, visionaries and dreamers on their way to the Red Planet.
The man for the job has arrived. Art Thrasher is prepared to do whatever it takes to put humans on Mars — or die trying!
[[[Laddertop, Books 1-2]]] by Orson Scott Card and Emily Janice Card, with illustrations by Honoel A. Ibardolaza. Tor, $12.99, 384pp, tp, 9780765324610. YA sf graphic novel.
Twenty-five years ago, the mysterious alien race known as “The Givers” came to Earth out of deep space and bestowed upon the human race the greatest technology ever seen: the four giant towers known as Ladders. Rising thirty-six thousand miles into space, each tower culminated in a space station that harnessed the energy of the sun to power the entire planet. When the Givers vanished as inexplicably as they arrived, they left humanity with one solemn instruction: maintain and preserve the Ladders at all costs.
Without the power from the Ladders, life on Earth would be very different. But the Laddertop space stations’ unique alien construction means that only a skilled crew of children can keep the stations functioning and the power humming.
Twenty-five years after the Givers’ departure, competition is fierce to enter Earth’s prestigious Laddertop Academy. Best friends Robbi and Azure, two eleven-year-old girls, are determined to win a coveted place atop one of the towers. One is rejected, while the other takes off into space for the adventure of a lifetime. Despite their bitter parting, their destinies will soon collide, as they must work together to decipher an alien message and solve an ancient mystery that could either save the Earth from invasion… or trigger its imminent destruction!
[[[1920: America’s Great War]]] by Robert Conroy. Baen, $25.00, 354pp, hc, 9781451639315. Alternate History.
Remember the Alamo — Again
Consider another 1920: Imperial Germany has become the most powerful nation in the world. In 1914, she had crushed England, France, and Russia in a war that was short but entirely devastating.
In 1920, Kaiser Wilhelm II is looking for new lands to devour. The United States is fast becoming an economic super-power and the only nation that can conceivably threaten Germany. The US is militarily inept, however, and is led by a sick and delusional president who wants to avoid war at any price. thus, Germany is able to ship a huge army to Mexico to support a puppet government. The real goal: the invasion and permanent conquest of California and Texas.
America desperately resists the mightiest and most brutal army in the world in a battle fought on land, at sea, and in the air. Enemy armies savagely march up on California and move north towards a second Battle of the Alamo. Only the indomitable spirit of freedom can answer the Kaiser’s challenge.
[[[Working God’s Mischief]]] by Glen Cook. (book four of the Instrumentalities of Night), Tor, $27.99, 432pp, hc, 9780765334206. Fantasy. On-sale date: 11 March 2014.
Glen Cook, the author of the influential and acclaimed Black Company series, has made a welcome return to the fantasy world with Working God’s Mischief, the fourth installment in The Instrumentalities of Night, a series that began with The Tyranny of the Night, Lord of the Silent Kingdom, and Surrender to the Will of the Night.
The series follows the tradition of the best of the Black Company book, bringing a level of gritty realism to military fantasy unlike any other. Working God’s Mischief is a powerful new novel set in a Holy Land, where the troubles of a young warrior continue to deepen, where rulers have fallen, and where The Night has lost Kharoulke the Windwalker, an emperor amongst the most primal and terrible gods. The Night goes on, in dread. The world goes on, in dread. The ice builds and slides southward.
But there is something new under the sun. The oldest and fiercest of the Instrumentalities has been destroyed — by a mortal. There is no new Windwalker, nor will there ever be. The world, battered by savage change, limps toward its destiny.
[[[Phoenix Island]]] by John Dixon. Gallery, $19.99, 320pp, hc, 9781476738635. Novel. On-sale date: 21 January 2014.
The inspiration for the CBS television show Intelligence, from debut author John Dixon, former Golden Gloves boxer.
When troubled sixteen-year-old boxing champ Carl Freeman lands himself a two-year sentence at an isolated boot camp for orphans, he is determined to tough it out, earn a clean record, and get on with his life. Then kids start to die.
Realizing Phoenix Island is actually a Spartan-style mercenary organization turning “throwaway kids” into super-solider killers, Carl risks everything to save his friends and stop a madman bent on global destruction.
John Dixon’s inspiration for Phoenix Island stemmed from the real-life “Kids for Cash” case in Pennsylvania, where judges made money by convicting kids to privately run boot camps for teen offenders.
Dixon, a former Golden Gloves boxer who incorporated much of his boxing experience into the plot of Phoenix Island, is a former youth services caseworker who has spent countless hours working with teens. John Dixon has also worked as a prison tutor and a middle school teacher for twenty years. He is currently a consultant for Intelligence. John Dixon lives in a suburb of Philadelphia.
[[[Night & Demons]]] by David Drake. Baen, $7.99, 768pp, pb, 9781476736181. Fantasy/Horror.
Fear the Coming of the Night…
A collection of horrific, weird, and fantastic tales by a master storyteller and creator of best-selling military science fiction. Here are weird stories set in the present, along with alternate histories filled with gritty realism and exacting detail as well as an assortment of horrors and monsters. Most of all, here are the tough heroes who throughout time master their own fears and face the very real terrors that haunt existence. Sometimes these heroes win a partial victory. Sometimes it’s enough to go down fighting.
[Contents: “The Red Leer”; “A Land of Romance”; “Smokie Joe”; “Awakening”; “Denkirch”; “Dragon, the Book”; “The False Prophet”; “Black Iron”; “The Shortest Way”; “Lord of the Depths”; “The Land Toward Sunset”; “Children of the Forest”; “The Barrow Troll”; “Than Curse the Darkness”; “The Song of the Bone”; “The Master of Demons”; “The Dancer in the Flames”; “Codex”; “Firefight”; “Best of Luck”; “Arclight”; “Something Had to be Done”; “The Waiting Bullet”; “The Elf House”; “The Hunting Ground”; “The Automatic Rifleman”; “Blood Debt”; “Men Like Us”; and “A Working Bibliography of David Drake’s Writing”.]
[[[Thomas Harris and William Blake: Allusions in the Hannibal Lecter Novels]]] by Michelle Leigh Gompf. McFarland, $40.00, 184pp, tp, 9780786471010. Nonfiction.
This work examines the allusions to Blake throughout Harris’s four Hannibal Lecter novels and provides a Blakean reading of the works as a whole, particularly in regard to the character of Lecter and the nature of evil in the world — and to what extent humanity should accept evil. The novels and their film versions reveal that Harris uses Blake to suggest that good and evil are intertwined and coexist, and that it is foolish to try to see them simply as opposing binaries. Refusing to recognize their intertwined relationship leads to imbalance and a negative outcome, as revealed in the fate of Graham in Red Dragon.
[[[The Undead Pool]]] by Kim Harrison. Harper Voyager, $27.99, 432pp, hc, 9780061957932. Fantasy. On-sale date: 25 February 2014.
Supernatural superhero Rachel Morgan must counter a strange magic that could spell civil war for the Hollows in this sexy and bewitching urban fantasy adventure, part of author Kim Harrison’s acclaimed Hollows series.
Witch and day-walking demon Rachel Morgan has managed to save the demonic ever-after from shrinking, but at a high cost. Now, strange magic is attacking Cincinnati and the Hollows, causing spells to backfire or go horribly wrong, and the truce between the Inderlander and human races is shattering. Rachel must stop this dark necromancy before the undead vampire masters, who keep the rest of the undead under control, are lost and an all-out supernatural war breaks out.
Rachel knows of only one weapon to ensure the peace: ancient elven wild magic, which carries its own perils. And no one knows better than Rachel that no good deed goes unpunished…
[[[Twenty-First Century Science Fiction]]] edited by David G. Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden. Tor, $34.99, 576pp, hc, 9780765326003. Science fiction anthology.
Twenty-First Century Science Fiction is an enormous anthology — close to 250,000 words — edited by two of the most prestigious and award-winning editors in the SF field and featuring recent stories from some of science fiction’s greatest up-and-coming authors.
David hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden have long been recognized as two of the most skilled and trusted arbiters of the field, but Twenty-First Century Science Fiction presents fans’ first opportunities to see what their considerable talents come up with together, and also to get a unique perspective on what’s coming next in the science fiction field.
The anthology includes authors ranging from bestselling and established favorites to incandescent new talents.
[Contributors: Vandana Singh, Charles Stross, Paolo Bacigalupi, Neal Asher, Rachel Swirsky, John Scalzi, M. Rickert, Tony Ballantyne, David D. Levine, Genevieve Valentine, Ian Creasey, Marissa Lingen, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, David Moles, Mary Robinette Kowal, Madeline Ashby, Tobias S. Buckell, Ken Liu, Oliver Morton, Karl Schroeder, Brenda Cooper, Liz Williams, Ted Kosmatka, Catherynne M. Valente, Daryl Gregory, Alaya Dawn Johnson, James L. Cambias, Yoon Ha Lee, Hannu Rajaniemi, Kage Baker, Peter Watts, Jo Walton, and Cory Doctorow.]
[[[The Trillionist]]] by Sagan Jeffries. EDGE, $14.95, 243pp, tp, 9781894063982. Science fiction.
Secrets are often best kept… secret.
In The Trillionist Sage Rojan, genius inventor and futurist, stands before ‘Judge and Jury,’ not to defend past deeds, but to plead for the lives of the millions of people he’s placed in mortal jeopardy by his own ill-considered actions.
‘These are the actions of a madman,’ one says. ‘Perhaps the result of a life filled with genius,’ whispers another.
Sage Rojan knows the truth, and it’s up to him to make things right. But before he can save the world, he must first save himself.
“There are no inconsequentials,” Rojan pleads to Judge and Jury, “Even a single atom, though small, can affect the world around it. Every being, large, small, brilliant, or foolish, depends on the contribution of the others; just like every atom must have its orbiting electrons. Where is the wisdom if intelligence is not used in the service of compassion?”
Author Sagan Jeffries reveals the life of Sage Rojan: boy genius, turned madman, turned savior.
[[[Dragon’s Teeth]]] by Mercedes Lackey. Baen, $15.00, 563pp, tp, 9781451639438. Science fiction.
The Many Worlds of Mercedes Lackey
Two popular collections of a master storyteller’s short works in one volume, plus five more previously uncollected stories.
Fiddler Fair: Running the gamut from her beloved bardic fantasies to urban fantasy set in the modern world, from science fiction adventure to chilling horror, this is Mercedes Lackey at her best. Animal rights activists try to “liberate” genetically reconstructed dinosaurs. Lawrence of Arabia meets a power beyond human comprehension. King Arthur is reborn into the present day when he again gains possession of the enchanted sword Excalibur. And more…
Werehunter: A young woman who has been given the power to transform herself into a leopard now finds herself pursued by a hunter who is more than human. Skitty, ship’s cat extraordinaire and telepathic problem-solver, rescues her adopted starship from danger. The author’s celebrated occult detective, Diana Tregarde, attends a gathering of romance writers and encounters a visitor whose passionate desire is for fresh, warm blood. A tale set in the world of Lacker’s best-selling Heralds of Valdemar series. And much more.
Both collections, together in one volume for the first time, plus additional stories never before in a Mercedes Lackey collection, add up to a gourmet feast for the multitudes of her avid readers.
[Contents: “How I Spent My Summer Vacation”; “Aliens Ate My Pickup”; “Small Print”; “Last Rights”; “Dumb Feast”; “Dance Track”; “Jihad”; “Balance”; “Dragon’s Teeth”; “The Cup and the Cauldron”; “Once and Future”; “Fiddler Fair”; “The Enemy of My Enemy”; “Werehunter”; “SKitty”; “A Tail of Two SKitties”; “SCat”; “A Better Mousetrap”; “The Last of the Season”; “Satanic, Versus”; “Nioghtside”; “Wet Wings”; “Stolen Silver”; “Roadkill”; “Operation Desert Fox”; “Grey”; “Grey’s Ghost”; “For Those About to Rock”; “Haunt You”; “Valse Triste”; “White Bird”; and “Sgian Dubh”.]
[[[Apparition]]] by Trish J. MacGregor. (sequel to Ghost Key), Tor, $26.99, 336pp, hc, 9780765326041. Dark fantasy.
Trish MacGregor returns with Apparition, the latest heart-pounding book in the series that begins with Esperanza (2010). Esperanza is a mythic, magical city, populated by the spiritual guardians called Light Chasers, as well as humans and ageless shape-shifters — and the chilling brujos, hungry ghosts that seek to regain the sensation of living by possessing human bodies.
Years have passed since FBI agent Tess Livingston faced down the body-snatching brujos which threated to invade earth from the beyond. Tess and Ian have made a life together with their families in Esperanza. They thought they could rest, that they had defeated the brujo threat to our plane of existence. But they were wrong.
Another tribe of brujos emerges, far outnumbering the Light Chasers and their allies. Esperanza has long served as a bridge between the worlds of the physical and the spiritual, and the hungry dead are prepared to start a full-scale invasion through it — until they face a whole new threat. A mysterious black apparition begins absorbing bits of the city, erasing people, buildings, earth, and everything in its path. As rules and alliances break down, the city begins to waken to a whole new power — and danger — that will leave nothing the same.
Dark, suspenseful, and exhilarating, Apparition is transcendent fantasy that will have you glued to the page.
[[[Watcher of the Dark]]] by Joseph Nassise. Tor, $25.99, 302pp, hc, 9780765327208. Fantasy thriller.
Joseph Nassise returns with Watcher of the dark — the third and final volume in the Jeremiah Hunt Chronicles. Nassise brings a certain boldness to the fantasy and thriller genres that allows new readers and returning fans to immerse themselves in a tense, thrilling adventure filled with supernatural horror.
New Orleans was nearly the death of Jeremiah Hunt, between a too-close brush with the FBI and a chilling, soul-searing journey through the realm of the dead that culminated with a do-or-die confrontation with Death himself.
Hunt survived, but found no peace. When he performs an arcane ritual to reclaim the soul of the magically gifted, beautiful women who once saved him, he must flee the law once again, to the temporary sanctuary of Los Angeles, city of angels.
In L.A., Hunt must contend with Carlos Fuentes, who sees in the blind exorcist a means to obtain the mystical key that opens the gates of Hell. Fuentes knows Hunt’s weakness is his loyalty — to the woman he loves and to another supernaturally gifted friend — and threatens to torture them in order to get Hunt help complete his dreadful quest.
Hunt has learned a lot since his life was irrevocably hijacked by faith months ago. But when enigmatic Preacher calls in his marker for helping Hunt in New Orleans, Hunt knows that all his newfound experience and ability will go for naught unless he can keep both the Preacher and Fuentes at bay long enough to somehow find a way to free his friends from mortal peril.
In Watcher of the Dark, take a trip to the dark underbelly of the City of Angels to experience an engrossing mix of fantasy, thriller, and horror. This book is sure to leave you sleeping with the lights on.
[[[Man-Kzin Wars XIV]]] created by Larry Niven; written by Hal Colebatch, Jessica Q. Fox, Matthew Joseph Harrington, and Alex Hernandez. Baen, $15.00, 218pp, tp, 9781451639384. Science fiction.
If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em…
…is definitely not a phrase found in the kzin warrior’s handbook. But the traditional kzin practice of screaming and leaping has so far not led to victory over those pesky humans, who keep raining on the kzin’s victory parade with weird tactics, ingenious weapons, and odd strategies that have led to one kzin defeat after another. It’s enough to make the mighty kzin wonder if there’s any future in being a warrior race.
Granted, some kzin seem to have joined the human side, but the warcats seem to be learning from their human opponents that a devious approach can pay off, so the humans had better watch their backs. And other kzin still haven’t thrown in the towel and are planning yet another attack on those contemptible leaf-eating clawless humans, figuring that the monkey-boys’ luck has to run out sometime.
In war and uneasy peace, the kzin and humans continue their adventures throughout the galaxy’s known space, as created by multiple New York Times best-selling and Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Larry Niven, and expanded upon by talented contributors, including Hal Colebatch, Matthew Joseph Harrington, Alex Hernandez, and Jessica Q. Fox.
[[[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 4]]]. Paizo, $39.99, 320pp, hc, 9781601255754. Fantasy game.
Something wicked this way comes from Paizo Publishing, publisher of the world’s best-selling Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, and leading publisher of fantasy RPG accessories, board games, and novels. Just in time for haunting Halloween gaming, Bestiary 4 is out now.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 4 introduces more than 300 new monsters for use in the Pathfinder RPG, including creatures from classic horror literature and monster films, such as blood-drinking nosferatu, gargantuan kaiju, mythical demon lords, and even the Great Old One, Cthulhu! Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary 4 also includes:
* New player-friendly races like changelings, kitsune, and nagaji
* New creatures to construct, like clockworks and juggernauts
* New familiars, animal companions, and other allies
* New templates to get more life out of classic monsters
* Appendices to find the right monster, including lists by Challenge Rating, monster type, and habitat
* Expanded universal monster rules to simplify combat
* Challenges for every adventure and every level of play
Bestiary 4 is the fourth volume of monsters for use with the Pathfinder RPG and serves as a companion to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook.
[[[The Science of Discworld]]] by Terry Pratchett, with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. Anchor, $15.95, 416pp, tp, 9780804168946. Fiction/Fantasy. On-sale date: 3 June 2014.
It’s fiction and science like you’ve never seen them before: Terry Pratchett’s The Science of Discworld is now available in the US for the first time.
A unique combination of fiction and science sure to appeal both to dedicated fans of Pratchett’s Discworld universe and to anyone interested in an unusual way of looking at science. The wizards of Unseen University accidentally create a new universe, in which there is a planet called Roundworld. This is, of course, Earth: A place where neither magic nor common sense seems to stand a chance against logic. Interspersed with the Discworld story is the history of our own universe, from the singularity of the Big Bang to the evolution of life on Earth and beyond, and an exploration of topics from physics, the theory of relativity, and astronomy, to ice ages, Schroedinger’s Cat, whales, witches, and much, much more.
[[[Fiddlehead]]] by Cherie Priest. Tor, $14.99, 366pp, tp, 9780765334077. Alternative history.
Award-winning author Cherie Priest returns with Fiddlehead — the fifth and final thrilling volume in the series that began with Boneshaker. Alternative history storytelling at its best, Paul Goat Allen calls it “the steampunk equivalent of Tolkien’s Middle-earth.” New readers and returning fans can immerse themselves in a very different 19th century America where the Civil War still drags on, featuring prominent historical figures — like Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant — as characters.
Ex-slave Gideon Bardsley is a brilliant inventor, but it’s a less glamorous job than you’d think, especially since someone tried to kill him for it. Worse yet, they tried to destroy his greatest achievement: a calculating engine called the Fiddlehead, which offers undeniable proof of a threat so dire it may destroy the world if the United States doesn’t bring the Civil War to an end immediately.
Bardsley has no choice but to ask his patron, Abraham Lincoln, for help. Lincoln left the presidency after a near-catastrophic assassination attempt, but he’s quite interested in the Fiddlehead’s immense data-processing capabilities, and confident that if people have the facts, they’ll see reason. In adesperate bid to keep bardsley and his invention safe, he calls on his private security staff.
Maria “Belle” Boyd is a retired Confederate spy, working for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago. Allan Pinkerton respects her work, despite his reservations about her lingering Southern loyalties, but it’s precisely those loyalties that let her slip into Southern territory to figure out who might be undermining Bardsley’s work… and why.
With killers from both camps gunning for her, can the notorious Belle Boyd hold the greedy warhawks at bay?
In Fiddlehead, you’re invited to travel back in time for a rousing adventure, ending in a nail-biting finale you can’t miss.
[[[The Doctor and the Dinosaurs: a Weird West Tale]]] by Mike Resnick. Pyr, $18.00, 303pp, tp, 9781616148614. Weird western.
The time is April 1885. Doc Holliday lies in bed in a sanitarium in Leadville, Colorado, expecting never to leave his room ever again. But the great Apache medicine man Geronimo needs him for one last adventure. Renegade Comanche medicine men object to the newly signed treaty with Theodore Roosevelt, and they are venting their displeasure on two white men who are desecrating tribal territory in Wyoming. Geronimo must find a way to protect the two men or renege on his agreement with Roosevelt. He offers Doc one year of restored health in exchange for taking on this mission.
Doc leaves the sanitarium and enters the world of American paleontology, a field that is being spearheaded by the brilliant Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, two men whose genius is exceeded only by their hatred for each other. It is said that the third most important position on any dig sponsored by either of these independently wealthy giants is chief paleontologist. The second most important is the man who rides shotgun and holds the Indians at bay. And the most important is chief saboteur.
Now, with the aid of Theodore Roosevelt, Cole Younger, and Buffalo Bill Cody, Doc Holliday must save Cope and Marsh not only from the Comanches and living, breathing dinosaurs but also from each other… which won’t be easy.
[[[Tiger by the Tail]]] by John Ringo and Ryan Sear. Baen, $7.99, 486pp, pb, 9781476736150. Military adventure.
The bad guys don’t have a ghost of a chance
After saving America from Middle Eastern terrorists, even Mike Harmon and the Keldara could use a vacation. Of course, the Kildar’s idea of relaxation includes taking down pirates in the Singapore Straits for fun and profit. but when he finds highly classified materials in the pirate booty, Harmon has a new mission thrust upon him — discover how bottom-feeding thieves got their hands on top secret technology.
From glittering Hong Kong to the slums of Thailand, to the backwoods of Myanmar, Harmon and his Keldara follow a trail of death and deceit across the treacherous underbelly of Southeast Asia.
And as their path winds through dark jungle and a slave labor camp to the heart of a newborn democracy, Harmon must devise a way to prevent the overthrow of a nation’s capital by totalitarian tyrants. but if there’s one thing Mike and the Keldara specialize in, it’s doing whatever it takes to give freedom a chance.