Release Week: The Rift Walker, The Leviathan Effect, The Clockwork Princess, and more

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Release Week: The Rift Walker, The Leviathan Effect, The Clockwork Princess, and more

Posted on 2013-03-20 at 19:37 by Sam

While it’s a busier week for young adult titles, not too much really strikes my ears in terms of concurrent new adult releases this week. Meanwhile, John Scalzi’s The Human Division chugs along with This Must Be the Place: The Human Division, Episode 10. The big eye-opening audiobook news for me this week was the announcement that Neil Gaiman Presents is set to release another title next week, Robert Sheckley’s Dimension of Miracles, read by John Hodgman. To celebrate, Audible is holding a NYC Comicon trip giveaway. Anyway, on to…

PICK OF THE WEEK:

The Rift Walker: Vampire Empire, Book 2 | [Clay Griffith, Susan Griffith]

The Rift Walker: Vampire Empire, Book 2 By Clay and Susan Griffith Narrated By James Marsters for Buzzy Multimedia Publishing

Also available in MP3-CD, The Rift Walker, book two after The Greyfriar in Clay and Susan Griffith’s Vampire Empire trilogy, is a worthy successor in story, narration and production for the Audie-nominated The Greyfriar. As in the first book, James Marsters as a cast of vampires could not be more perfect, and here the production is if anything even cleaner and more crisp. (The only nit-pick narration-wise is the, er, unfortunate pronunciation of “chasm” with a soft “ch”. It had me looking for dictionary entries which favored that pronunciation and… coming up empty.) Story wise, the Griffiths have some intricate political knots to tie and untie and some delicate plot points to navigate between the introductions and other instigations of book one, and the resolutions and other conclusions of book three, The Kingmakers (published in print and ebook last year by Pyr and, hopefully next year, to come to audio from Marsters and Buzzy Multimedia as well). [link to full review]

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Fox Forever: The Jenna Fox Chronicles, Book 3 | [Mary E. Pearson] The Clockwork Princess: Infernal Devices, Book 3 | [Cassandra Clare]

AUDIOGO: The Leviathan Effect: A Thriller By James Lilliefors

MACMILLAN AUDIO: Fox Forever: The Jenna Fox Chronicles, Book 3 By Mary E. Pearson

SIMON & SCHUSTER AUDIO: The Clockwork Princess: Infernal Devices, Book 3 By Cassandra Clare

BLACKSTONE AUDIO: The Gate Thief: Mithermages, Book 2 By Orson Scott Card, Narrated By Stefan Rudnicki and Emily Rankin

BRILLIANCE AUDIO: The Boy from Reactor 4 By Orest Stelmach, Narrated By Tanya Eby

AUDIBLE INC: Ashes: Project Eden Thriller, Book 4 By Brett Battles, Narrated By Macleod Andrews for Audible Inc.

AUDIBLE FRONTIERS: Reap the East Wind: Dread Empire, Book 6 By Glen Cook, Narrated By Stephen Hoye; Quintessence By David Walton, Narrated By John Keating; along with books by (among others) Mercedes Lackey, Carol Berg, and Fred Saberhagen

INDIE: Half Way Home By Hugh Howey

SEEN BUT NOT HEARD:

COMING SOON:

The Office of Mercy Dimension of Miracles | [Robert Sheckley]

  • The Fortress of Glass: The Crown of the Isles, Book 1 By David Drake, Narrated By Michael Page for Audible Frontiers -- Length: 15 hrs and 4 mins -- Scheduled Release Date: 03-22-13
  • The Martian By Andy Weir, Narrated By R. C. Bray for Podium Publishing — Length: 11 hrs — Scheduled Release Date: 03-22-13 — this is a well-received self-published and bestselling 2012 $0.99 Amazon Kindle original hard sf of an astronaut stranded on Mars, a; based on a sampling of Podium-published TextAppeal for Guys!: The Ultimate Texting Guide the narration and production will be worth checking out
  • The Office of Mercy: A Novel by Ariel Djanikian, narrated by Emily Woo Zeller (Tantor, March 25) — “Weaving philosophy and science together into a riveting, dystopian story of love and adventure, The Office of Mercy illuminates an all-too-real future imagined by a phenomenal new voice in fiction. Twenty-four-year-old Natasha Wiley lives in America-Five—a high-tech, underground, utopian settlement where hunger and money do not exist, everyone has a job, and all basic needs are met. But when her mentor and colleague, Jeffrey, selects her to join a special team to venture Outside for the first time, Natasha’s allegiances to home, society, and above all to Jeffrey are tested. She is forced to make a choice that may put the people she loves most in grave danger and change the world as she knows it.” — great blurbs from (among others) Charles Yu
  • Dimension of Miracles By Robert Sheckley, Narrated By John Hodgman for Neil Gaiman Presents -- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins -- Scheduled Release Date: 03-26-13
  • What Makes You Die by Tom Piccirilli (Apex, March 26) -- "Tommy Pic’s hallucinations come and go and leave sticky notes for him during his bipolar swings. Coming out of a blackout in an unfamiliar psychiatric ward, Tommy Pic awakes to his missing childhood love, his dead brother, his alive family, and a message from his agent that his latest screenplay may yet be his ticket back to Hollywood fame and fortune. If only he could remember writing it."
  • Shadow on the Sun (Black Hole Sun #3) by David Macinnis Gill (Greenwillow, March 26)
  • Red Planet Blues by Robert J. Sawyer (Ace Hardcover, Mar 26, 2013)
  • The Marching Dead by Lee Battersby (Angry Robot: 26 March)
  • Black Feathers by Joseph D’Lacey (Angry Robot: 26 March)
  • The Age Atomic by Adam Christopher (Angry Robot: 26 March)
  • The Good the Bad and the Infernal by Guy Adams (Solaris, Mar 26, 2013)
  • Extinction Machine: A Joe Ledger Novel by Jonathan Maberry (St. Martin’s Griffin and Macmillan Audio, Mar 26, 2013)
  • Wolfhound Century by Peter Higgins (Orbit, Mar 26)
  • Hellhole Awakening (Hell Hole Trilogy) by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (Mar 26, 2013) -- audiobook coming with a Scheduled Release Date: 04-02-13
  • Kitty Rocks the House (Kitty Norville) by Carrie Vaughn (Mar 26, 2013)
  • Dead Earth: Sanctuary By David Wilbanks and Mark Justice, Narrated By James Snyder for Audible Frontiers — Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins — Scheduled Release Date: 03-26-13
  • Solaris Rising 2: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction by Whates Ian (Solaris, Mar 26, 2013)
  • Fire Caste by Peter Fehervari (Games Workshop/Warhammer, Mar 26, 2013)
  • Young readers: Wild Boy: The Real Life of the Savage of Aveyron by Mary Losure and Timothy Basil Ering (Candlewick on Brilliance Audio, Mar 26, 2013) — narrative nonfiction of a late 18th story
  • The Salt God’s Daughter By Ilie Ruby, Narrated By Jane Jacobs for Audible Inc. — Scheduled Release Date: 03-29-13
  • The Best of Joe Haldeman by Joe Haldeman and Jonathan Strahan (Subterranean, Mar 31, 2013)
  • Necroscope: The Mobius Murders by Brian Lumley and Bob Eggleton (Subterranean, Mar 31, 2013)
  • Anthology: Hauntings edited by Ellen Datlow (Tachyon, March 2013) — “This spine-tingling anthology—complied by the horror genre’s most acclaimed editor—collects a chilling array of ghost stories from the past twenty-five years.”
  • Channel Zilch by Doug Sharp (Panverse, March/April 2013) — “Mick Oolfson trashed his astronaut career by stunt-flying a shuttle during re-entry. He’s miserable as a groundling, so when testosterone-surfing geek goddess Heloise Chin offers him an astronaut gig on Channel Zilch, a pirate orbiting reality show, Mick jumps at the chance to return to space, though it means denting his Boy Scout scruples by stealing space shuttle Enterprise from the Smithsonian. CHANNEL ZILCH is a near-future hard science fiction caper with heart and purpose, the first book of The Geek Rapture Project. Book 2, HEL’S BET, will be published by Panverse later in 2013.”
APRIL:

Life After Life A Stranger in Olondria

MAY:

The Kings and Queens of Roam: A Novel The Shambling Guide to New York City

JUNE and LATER:

The Shining GirlsNorth American Lake Monsters: Stories

  • The Shining Girls by (Mulholland Books, 6/04/2013) — “A time-traveling serial killer is impossible to trace–until one of his victims survives. In Depression-era Chicago, Harper Curtis finds a key to a house that opens on to other times. But it comes at a cost. He has to kill the shining girls: bright young women, burning with potential.” No audio news.
  • Abaddon’s Gate (The Expanse) by James S.A. Corey (Orbit, Jun 4, 2013)
  • In Thunder Forged: Iron Kingdoms Chronicles (The Fall of Llael Book One) by Ari Marmell (Jun 4, 2013)
  • Gameboard of the Gods (Age of X) by Richelle Mead (Penguin Audio, Jun 4, 2013)
  • Fiction: The Blood of Heaven by Kent Wascom (Grove Atlantic, Jun 4, 2013) — “an epic novel about the American frontier in the early days of the nineteenth century”
  • Siege and Storm (Grisha Trilogy (Shadow and Bone)) by Leigh Bardugo (Henry Holt, Jun 4, 2013)
  • After the End: Recent Apocalypses by Paolo Bacigalupi, Cory Doctorow, Margo Lanagan and Nnedi Okorafor (Jun 5, 2013)
  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel by Neil Gaiman (William Morrow and Harper Audio, Jun 18, 2013)
  • The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (Harper, Jun 18, 2013) — sequel to The Long Earth
  • Wisp of a Thing by Alex Bledsoe (Tor, Jun 18) -- coming to audio read by Stefan Rudnicki, this is book 2 after 2011's The Hum and the Shiver
  • The Shuddering by Ania Ahlborn (47North and Brilliance Audio, Jun 18, 2013)
  • The Adjacent by Christopher Priest (Orion UK, Jun 20, 2013) — no US release news
  • Divinity and the Python by Bonnie Randall (Panverse, June 21)
  • Cold Steel (The Spiritwalker Trilogy) by Kate Elliott (Orbit, Jun 25, 2013)
  • Anthology: Aliens: Recent Encounters by Alex Macfarlane (Prime, Jun 25, 2013)
  • Thieves’ Quarry by D.B. Jackson (Tor, July 2) — sequel to Thieftaker
  • Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross (Ace, Jul 2, 2013) — “The year is AD 7000. The human species is extinct—for the fourth time—due to its fragile nature. Krina Alizond-114 is metahuman, descended from the robots that once served humanity. She’s on a journey to the water-world of Shin-Tethys to find her sister Ana. But her trip is interrupted when pirates capture her ship. Their leader, the enigmatic Count Rudi, suspects that there’s more to Krina’s search than meets the eye.”
  • A Discourse in Steel by Paul S. Kemp (Angry Robot: 2 Jul 2013)
  • Woken Gods by Gwenda Bond (Jul 2, 2013)
  • The Thousand Names: Book One of The Shadow Campaigns by Django Wexler (Roc Hardcover, Jul 2, 2013) — “Enter an epic fantasy world that echoes with the thunder of muskets and the clang of steel—but where the real battle is against a subtle and sinister magic.”
  • Anthology: Wastelands II: More Stories of the Apocalypse by John Joseph Adams (Night Shade Books, Jul 2, 2013)
  • North American Lake Monsters: Stories by Nathan Ballingrud (Small Beer Press, July 16)
  • Beacons edited by Gregory Norminton (Oneworld Publications, Jul 16, 2013) — “Beacons throws down the gauntlet, challenging best-selling and award-winning authors to imagine where we, and out planet, might be headed and, in imagining, help us transform the way we look at our world and change things for the better. From Joanne Harris’ powerful vision of a near future where ‘outside’ has become a thing of history to Nick Hayes’ beautifully illustrated tale of the bond between man and nature, Beacons sees the coming together of dystopian satire, speculative and historical fiction, metaphorical flights of fancy, quiet tragedy, and farcical comedy in stories that are as various as our possible futures. Provocative, encouraging, and deeply moving, Beacons represents the best of short story writing — and collectively illuminates the immediacy of the ecological problems at hand. All author royalties will go to the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, one of the largest groups of people dedicated to action on climate change and limiting its impact on the world’s poorest people.”
  • Anthology: Carniepunk (Pocket Books, July 30)
  • Anthology: Impossible Monsters edited by Kasey Lansdale (Subterranean Press, July 2013) — “The Lansdale name is legendary in the horror field. Now acclaimed musician and actress Kasey Lansdale follows in her father’s footsteps, making her editing debut with this anthology of monstrously innovative stories. The twelve creatures that stalk the pages of Impossible Monsters spring from the twisted imaginations of a dozen of today’s most noted authors.” This anthology includes Neil Gaiman’s “Click-Clack the Rattlebag” among other tales.
  • Hollow World by Michael J. Sullivan (Kickstarter, July 2013) — “Ellis Rogers is an ordinary guy who has always done the right things and played by the rules. But like many, his life didn’t turn out as he had planned. Facing a terminal disease, he’s willing to gamble that a cure could exist in the future, and although it is insanely dangerous to try, he really has nothing to lose. There are many books that explore what life might be like many years from now, and they cover the spectrum from the idealized world of the original Star Trek, with its progressive stance on equality and civil rights, to Huxley’s dystopian Brave New World. For years I’ve been fascinated by the observation that perception can make people see the same thing in very different ways. So I created a future, which if I’ve done my job properly, will be seen by some as a utopia and by others as exactly the opposite.”
  • Darwen Arkwright and the School of Shadows (Darwen Arkwright #3) by AJ Hartley (Razorbill, August 1)
  • The Crown Tower (The Riyria Chronicles #1) by Michael J. Sullivan (Orbit, August 3)
  • The Emergence of the Digital Humanities by Steven E. Jones (Routledge, Aug 3, 2013)
  • Wrath-bearing Tree (A Tournament of Shadows Book Two) by James Enge (Pyr, Aug 6, 2013)
  • Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire) by Mark Lawrence (Ace, Aug 6, 2013)
  • Kindred and Wings (A Shifted World Novel) by Philippa Ballantine (Pyr, Aug 6, 2013)
  • Blood of Tyrants by Naomi Novik (Del Rey, Aug 13, 2013)
  • The Time of Contempt (The Witcher) by Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit, Aug 27, 2013)
  • Billy Moon: A transcendent Novel Reimagining the Life of Christopher Robin Milne by Douglas Lain (Tor, Aug 27, 2013)
  • The Swords of Good Men by Snorri Kristjansson (Jo Fletcher Books, August 2013) — a “Viking fantasy novel” by a new Icelandic author
  • Super Stories of Heroes and Villains edited by Claude Lalumiere (Tachyon, August 2013) — Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola, Jonathan Lethem, Cory Doctorow, Kelly Link’s “Origin Story”, Carol Emshwiller, Gene Wolfe, GRRM, …
SEPTEMBER and LATER:
  • Shaman: A novel of the Ice Age by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit, 3 Sep 2013) — UK release date, US date not confirmed for this historical fiction “novel set in the ice age, about the people who made the paintings in the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave in southern France, about 32,000 years ago”
  • Constellations: A Play by Nick Payne (Faber and Faber Plays, Sep 3, 2013) — already available in Kindle and in the UK — via an interesting review on Tor.com
  • Monsters of the Earth (Books of the Elements #3) by David Drake (Tor, September 2013)
  • Three (Duskwalker Cycle #1) by Jay Posey (Angry Robot, Autumn 2013)
  • Fiddlehead by Cherie Priest (Tor, Autumn 2013)
  • Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (Scribner and Simon & Schuster Audio, September 24) — King returns to The Shining
  • Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson (Delacorte Books for Young Readers, Sep 24, 2013)
  • Dead Run, The by Adam Mansbach (HarperCollins, Sep 24, 2013)
  • Hero by Alethea Kontis (Harcourt Children’s Books, October 1)
  • Pandemic by Scott Sigler (Crown, Oct 1, 2013)
  • The Republic of Thieves (Gentleman Bastard, #3) by Scott Lynch (Spectra, October 8)
  • Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer and Jeremy Zerfoss (Abrams Image, Oct 15, 2013) — an audiobook for this doesn’t make sense and so there isn’t one and won’t be one, but definitely a project I’m looking forward to
  • Copperhead by Tina Connolly (Tor, October 15, 2013) — follow-on to Ironskin – cover revealed
  • Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone (Tor Books, October 29) -- book one is in audio from Blackstone
  • The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar (Hodder UK, October 2013) — just announced — “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy meets Watchmen in Tidhar’s The Violent Century, the thoughtful and intensely atmospheric novel about the mystery, and the love story, that determined the course of history itself. The Violent Century is the sweeping drama of a time we know too well; a century of fear and war and hatred and death.  In a world where everyday heroes may become übermenschen, men and women with extraordinary powers, what does it mean to be a hero? To be a human? Would the last hundred years have been that much better if Superman were real? Would they even have been all that different?”
  • Collection: Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor (Prime, October 2013)
  • Parasite by Mira Grant (Orbit, November 1) — I know nothing about his other than the quite interesting cover…
  • Twenty-First Century Science Fiction by David G. Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor, Nov 5, 2013)
  • Maze by J.M. McDermott (Apex, January 2014)
  • The Crimson Campaign (The Powder Mage Trilogy, Book 2) by Brian McClellan (Orbit, February 2014)
  • The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman (Viking, Early 2014) — book three after The Magicians and The Magician King
  • Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2014) — the first of three “Southern Reach” novels being published in 2014 — “For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious, remote, and concealed by the government as an environmental disaster zone even though it is to all appearances pristine wilderness. For thirty years, too, the secret agency known as the Southern Reach has monitored Area X and sent in expeditions to try to discover the truth. Some expeditions have suffered terrible consequences. Others have reported nothing out of the ordinary. Now, as Area X seems to be changing and perhaps expanding, the next expedition will attempt to succeed where all others have failed. What is happening in Area X? What is the true nature of the invisible border that surrounds it?”
  • City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett (Crown/Broadway and Recorded Books, April 1, 2014) — “a second-world story of spies, subterfuge, and statesmanship set in a nation of dead gods.”
  • The Moon King by Neil Williamson (Newcon, April 2014) — Debut novel: “The story of The Moon King grew out of its setting, the sea-locked city of Glassholm, which is a thinly veneered version of Glasgow, Scotland where I live. Glasgow is a city of mood swings, brilliant with sun and warm sandstone one minute and dour with overcast and rain soaked tarmac the next. Summer days are long and filled with light. The winter months pass mostly in darkness. Living here, your spirit is tied to the city’s mood. As soon as I hooked that almost bipolar sense to the idea of natural cycles, the story blossomed. In Glassholm, the moon never sets and everything, from entropy to the moods of the populace, is affected by its phasing from Full to Dark and back to Full again. I wanted to know what would life be like there, what quirks nature might throw into the mix. And what would happen if it was discovered that the cyclic euphorias and depressions were not natural after all.”
  • Anthology: Dangerous Women edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (May 2014) — table of contents includes Joe Abercrombie, Lev Grossman, and Pat Cadigan, among others
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