Release Week: Jeff VanderMeer's Authority, Laline Paull's The Bees, Charlie Fletcher's The Oversight, Michael Cunningham's The Snow Queen, and Stefan Rudnicki reading Silverberg, Lansdale, and John Joseph Adams

Release Week: Jeff VanderMeer's Authority, Laline Paull's The Bees, Charlie Fletcher's The Oversight, Michael Cunningham's The Snow Queen, and Stefan Rudnicki reading Silverberg, Lansdale, and John Joseph Adams

Posted on 2014-05-12 at 17:59 by Sam

APRIL 30-MAY 6, 2014: May is here, and the first release week brings with it a massive haul of audiobooks to kick off a month just packed with highly-anticipated titles. It was hard cutting to limit my PICKS to just seven audiobooks, so do check out this week’s ALSO OUT listings which include Seanan McGuire’s Sparrow Hill Road, Clive Barker’s Sacrament, and Will Ludwigsen’s collection In Search of And Others (just nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award), along with a long list of highly-anticipated series books including Sarah Pinborough’s Murder, Brian McClellan’s The Crimson Campaign, Michael J. Martinez’ The Enceladus Crisis, and David Drake’s latest Lt. Leary space opera/adventure, The Sea Without a Shore. It’s also a fantastic week for young readers/listeners, with Tony DiTerlizzi’s The Battle for WondLa (read by Teri Hatcher) and J.A. White’s The Thickety. Meanwhile, the SEEN BUT NOT HEARD listings include Mary Rickert’s The Memory Garden, Elizabeth May’s The Falconer, Terence Hawkins’s American Neolithic, Douglas Hulick’s Sworn in Steel, and plenty more. Newly ADDED books in the listings include Lauren Beukes’ Broken Monsters and James Morrow’s The Madonna and the Starship, as well as the (now) already-released The Revolutions by Felix Gilman. In audiobook NEWS I’ve got something to pass along: The Armchair Audies has opened voting for its 1st Annual Listeners Choice Award with voting open until Tuesday, May 27th at 12pm EST. Let your voice be heard! Still, it’s the new audiobooks which have my attention this week, and here they are, starting with a full review of this week’s lead pick:

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

It should be no surprise given how much I loved Annihilation that my top pick this week is Authority by Jeff VanderMeer, continuing his The Southern Reach trilogy which began with Annihilation in February and which concludes with Acceptance in September. In Authority, VanderMeer pivots from the first-person journal of the unnamed biologist (read by Carolyn McCormick) which introduced “Area X” in Annihilation to an exploration of a different, though as uncanny and surreal, terrain: the organization which sent her into “Area X” in the first place, the Southern Reach itself. We do see the biologist often in Authority, but it is through the eyes of agent/operative John Rodriguez (aka “Control”), newly appointed acting director of the Southern Reach, interrogating her after her reappearance along with the other survivors of the expedition depicted in Annihilation. Control finds offices in decay and disarray, a shrinking staff divided into factions loyal to the previous director and “lifers” who are in it for the weird science and/or have nowhere else, really, to go. Throughout, Control reports his progress and findings — often couched — to The Voice, a shrouded, mysterious figure known only as a (digitally masked) voice on the phone. The cast of characters here each have layers and motivations — usually inscrutable — of their own: Grace, the assistant director who believes the previous director is still alive; Cheney, the head of the science department; and fellow scientist Whitby, who frequently acts as Control’s guide. I found the Southern Reach in Authority to act as both a metaphor for the many fragments of our own labyrinthine consciousnesses while also a rejection of such abstraction or disaggregation; an organization gone feral after decades of attempting to understand the incomprehensible, having stared too long into the abyss. Meanwhile Control’s expedition into its hierarchies and storage rooms and film archives plays with and against reader expectations: again we must question the reliability of our narrator, of the purpose and use of evidence and rationality in the context of such a narrative in the first place. VanderMeer creates mystery, unease, and an escalation of the compulsion behind this series: what is “Area X”? Narrated by Bronson Pinchot for Blackstone Audio, the audiobook is, again, fantastic, cementing my feeling that Pinchot is one of the best narrators in the business (from non-fiction like How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick’s Robotic Resurrection to the wide-ranging accents of Tim Powers’ On Stranger Tides and Last Call, to Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree). Pinchot’s characterizations of Grace (annoyed, Southern, mistrustful of Control), Cheney (bombastic, seemingly oblivious), Whitby (hesitant, waffling, couching), linguist Jessica Hsyu, and indeed “Ghost Bird”, the biologist from Annihilation are all spot-on. On the latter it’s really, really interesting to get a third-person perspective on the biologist, who remains a bit flat in affect but with something else waiting underneath. Pinchot also does something a bit subtle in the first chapters: he starts voicing Control’s dialogue with a soft Hispanic accent, which slowly disappears until being read with a neutral accent. Is his identity so quickly swallowed up by the Southern Reach? It’s just one more of the layers-within-layers that draws us ever deeper in. As the sense of unease, of wrongness, of looking where we should not be looking grows (to me drawing connections between the Southern Reach of Authority and the Coburn National Laboratory and Observatory in Robert Jackson Bennett’s American Elsewhere), Pinchot’s narration matches it, tension for tension, finally bursting apart like a puffball mushroom and letting the ideas aloft like spores across the terroir of the transformed landscapes, closing after a novel with a more thriller pacing of half-hour chapters with an extended last chapter three times that length which is impossible to put down. In the end, Authority like Annihilation stands alone; one can read the other without having read (or having to read) the other; reading Authority without Annihilation may if anything add to the mysteriousness at hand, though of course each offers additional layers of context for the other. Also: both novels offer by their final pages a certain closure to dramatic arcs of decision and action, while of course inviting (if not compelling!) further expeditions. Author VanderMeer’s blog post on the audiobook includes an interview and sample. Buy: [Downpour | Indiebound | Kobo | Amazon | Kindle]

The Bees: A Novel by Laline Paull (Ecco) read by Orlagh Cassidy for Harper Audio seems to really be splitting reviews into two camps: those who love it, and those who are disappointed to find that The Bees is about actual bees. I do have to confess to leaning ever so slightly towards the second camp: how cool could it be to read this as some post-apocalyptic centuries-old AI race? Or as a secondary world fantasy? But if anthropomorphized bees are what we have, Paull has done something pretty interesting with them: “The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut set in an ancient culture where only the queen may breed and deformity means death — in which a devout young worker bee finds herself in possession of a deadly secret, and becomes a hunted criminal whose decisions will mean life and death for her entire hive. Born into the lowest class of her rigid, hierarchical society, Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, an untouchable fit only to clean and remove the bodies of the dead from her orchard hive. As part of the collective, she is taught to accept, obey, serve - work and sacrifice are the highest virtues, and worship of her beloved queen the only religion. Her society is governed by the priestess class, questions are forbidden, and all thoughts belong to the hive mind. But Flora is not like other bees - a difference that holds profoundc onsequences.” Buy: [Downpour | Kobo | Indiebound | Amazon | Kindle]

The Oversight by Charlie Fletcher (Orbit) read by Simon Prebble for Hachette Audio offers a gothic take on one of my stronger interests of late, secret histories of secret societies, read by a fantastic narrator in Prebble (Declare by Tim Powers, Orwell’s 1984, Shute’s On the Beach, Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell). I’ve enjoyed The Rook, Lexicon, The Incrementalists, and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August in this vein, but they all share a modern (or at least 20th century) setting. In The Oversight, Victorian London is rife with witch-hunters, supra-naturalists, mirror-walkers, and magicians: “Once there were hundreds of members of the Oversight, the brave souls who guard the borders between the mundane and the magic. Now there are only five. When a vagabond brings a screaming girl to the Oversight’s London headquarters, she could answer their hopes for new recruit, or she could be the instrument of their downfall.” Cory Doctorow’s review for BoingBoing calls the book “dark and glinting”, adding: “The clever blendings of history and imagination in Charlie Fletcher’s new novel are satisfying enough to make resolution of its loose ends worth waiting for.” Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Cunningham’s The Snow Queen read by Claire Danes is a book that I’ve spent some time trying to wrap my head around: how much of a speculative element is “enough” for me to be interested, when the underlying novel would not quite normally win me over? But it’s certainly an audiobook of interest, with an A-list actress (and accomplished narrator after her work on The Handmaid’s Tale) and the accomplished Cunningham’s “genre in the mainstream” twist, which sets up the book in this excerpt from FSG. “Michael Cunningham’s luminous novel begins with a vision. It’s November 2004. Barrett Meeks, having lost love yet again, is walking through Central Park when he is inspired to look up at the sky; there he sees a pale, translucent light that seems to regard him in a distinctly godlike way. Barrett doesn’t believe in visions—or in God—but he can’t deny what he’s seen. At the same time, in the not-quite-gentrified Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, Tyler, Barrett’s older brother, a struggling musician, is trying—and failing—to write a wedding song for Beth, his wife-to-be, who is seriously ill. Tyler is determined to write a song that will be not merely a sentimental ballad but an enduring expression of love. Barrett, haunted by the light, turns unexpectedly to religion. Tyler grows increasingly convinced that only drugs can release his creative powers. Beth tries to face mortality with as much courage as she can summon.”

These last three picks all feature Stefan Rudnicki and Skyboat Media, starting with Nightwings by Robert Silverberg, narrated by Rudnicki. This is Silverberg’s 1969 science fiction novel expanding his Hugo Award winning 1968 novella: “For 1,000 years, mankind has lived under the threat of invasion from an alien race. After the oceans rose and the continents were reshaped, people divided into guilds - Musicians, Scribes, Merchants, Clowns, and more. The Watchers wander the Earth, scouring the skies for signs of enemies from the stars. But during one Watcher’s journey to the ancient city of Roum with his companion, a Flier named Avluela, a moment of distraction allows the invaders to advance. When the Watcher finally sounds the alarm, it’s too late: the star people are poised to conquer all.” Already out on Audible, the Downpour.com release date is May 13.

Shifting from science fiction of the deep future to “Deadwood meets Cthulhu”, also already out on Audible is Deadman’s Road by Joe R. Lansdale, also narrated by Rudnicki. The book collects Landsdale’s “Reverend Jebidiah Mercer” stories, starting with the short novel “Dead in the West” (1986) through novelettes “Deadman’s Road” (2007) and on through to the 2010 short story “The Dark Down There”. Overall: “Deadwood meets Cthulhu in this wild and profane Western romp featuring zombies, werewolves, evil spirits, and one pissed-off gunslinging preacher. The Wild West has never seen the likes of the Reverend Jebidiah Mercer, a hard man wielding a burning Bible in the battle between God and the devil, in an endless struggle he’s not sure he cares who wins. With its five stories laced with fast-paced action, nonstop humor, and spine-tingling horror, Deadman’s Road is your ride to hell…” The Downpour.com release date for Deadman’s Road is also May 13.

Last, though by no means least, Skyboat also has released the 2008 John Joseph Adams anthology Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, with a fantastic cast of narrators reading stories by (among others) Octavia E. Butler, George R.R. Martin, Stephen King, Jonathan Lethem, Gene Wolfe, Carol Emshwiller, Paolo Bacigalupi, Tobias S. Buckell, Nancy Kress, Elizabeth Bear, Cory Doctorow, Richard Kadrey, Dale Bailey, and John Langan. Narrated by Rudnicki, Susan Hanfield, J. Paul Boehmer, Gabrielle de Cuir, Harlan Ellison, Hillary Huber, Arthur Morey, and Lisa Reneé Pitts, it’s another in Skyboat’s long series of exquisitely-produced multi-narrator audiobooks. “Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon—these are our guides through the Wastelands. From the Book of Revelation to The Road Warrior, from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: the nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse. Gathering together the best postapocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today’s most renowned authors of speculative fiction, Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. Whether the end of the world comes through nuclear war, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm, these are tales of survivors, in some cases struggling to rebuild the society that was, in others, merely surviving, scrounging for food in depopulated ruins and defending themselves against monsters, mutants, and marauders. Wastelands delves into this bleak landscape, uncovering the raw human emotion and heart-pounding thrills at the genre’s core.”

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

• Oblivion By Jay Bonansinga, Narrated By Nick Santa Maria (Apr 30)
• Murder by Sarah Pinborough (Jo Fletcher Books, May 1, 2014) — follow-on to Mayhem, a US release is due Jan 6, 2015 -- Narrated By Steven Crossley for Whole Story Audio
• Home by Matthew Costello, read by Meredith Mitchell for Blackstone Audio (May 1) — available a bit early (April 9) at Audible, the story of a family’s journey home through a post-apocalyptic nightmare of “cannibals and betrayal”
• Fiction River: Hex in the City: An Original Anthology Magazine, Volume 5 By Fiction River, Kerrie L. Hughes(editor), Narrated By Jane Kennedy, Jerimy Colbert,Barton Grover Howe, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith (May 1)
• Fiction: The Confabulist: A Novel By Steven Galloway, Narrated By Jason Culp for Penguin Audio (May 1) -- of the rise and fall of Harry Houdini
• Sacrament By Clive Barker, Narrated By Chris MacDonnell for Crossroad Press (May 2)
• The Big Reap: The Collector, Book 3 By Chris F. Holme, Narrated By Brian Vander Ark (May 2)
• The Knights of the Cornerstone By James P. Blaylock, Narrated By Stephen Hoye (May 2)
• Collection: In Search Of and Others By Will Ludwigsen, Narrated By Philip Hoffman for Lethe Press (May 5)
• Leviathan: Event Group Adventure, Book 4 By David L. Golemon, Narrated By Richard Poe for Recorded Books (May 5)
• Mind's Eye By Douglas E. Richards, Narrated By Adam Verner (May 5)
• Siege of the Witches By Jacqueline Druga, Narrated By Bryan L. Anderson (May 5)
• Sparrow Hill Road: Ghost Stories, Book 1 By Seanan McGuire, Narrated By Amy Landon for Tantor Audio (DAW, May 6) — “Bestselling author McGuire tackles the “hitchhiking ghost girl” myth, and turns it into a fascinating story told from the perspective of the ghost. When a man runs over a hitchhiking girl in the 1950s, trying to sacrifice her in a deal with the devil, he creates the legend of the ghostly hitchhiker. Only she’s real, and she’s spent 50 years trying to figure out how to get out from under the evil devil worshipper’s thumb.” (via io9.com)
• The Sea Without a Shore by David Drake (May 6, 2014) — Drake's "Lt. Leary" space opera/adventure series continues with book 10, once again narrated by Victor Bevine
• The Enceladus Crisis by Michael J. Martinez (Night Shade Books, May 6) — book two of the Daedalus series -- read by Bernard Setaro Clark and Kristin Kalbli for Audible
• The Crimson Campaign (The Powder Mage Trilogy, Book 2) by Brian McClellan (Orbit, May 6, 2014) – Narrated By Christian Rodska for Hachette Audio -- along with a short, Forsworn: A Powder Mage Novella, Narrated By Julie Hoverson
• The Tower Broken: Tower and Knife Trilogy, Book 3 By Mazarkis Williams Narrated By Paul Boehmer (May 6)
• The Keys to the Realms: The Dream Stewards, Book 2 By Roberta Trahan, Narrated By Simon Vance (May 6)
• The Thousand Orcs: Legend of Drizzt: Hunter’s Blade Trilogy, Book 1, The Lone Drow: Legend of Drizzt: Hunter's Blade Trilogy, Book 2, and The Two Swords: Legend of Drizzt: Hunter's Blade Trilogy, Book 3 By R. A. Salvatore, Narrated By Victor Bevine (May 6)
• The Wrath of the Just: Apocalypse Z, Book 3 By Manel Loureiro, Pamela Carmell (translator), Narrated By Nick Podehl for Brilliance Audio (May 6)
• The Jupiter War (The Owner) by Neal Asher — US release by Night Shade Books, Apr 21, 2014, published in 2013 by Tor UK – Narrated By John Mawson and Steve West (May 6)
• Polity Agent: Agent Cormac, Book 4 By Neal Asher, Narrated By David Marantz (May 6)
• Mirror Sight: Book Five of Green Rider By Kristen Britain, Narrated By Ellen Archer (May 6)
• Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris (May 6) — “The first novel in this supernaturally nuanced trilogy has me curious to see what Charlaine Harris is immersing herself in now that Sookie has ridden off into the sunset. Not much information on Charlaine’s website, just that it’s set in a ‘mysterious Texas town.’” (via Paul Goat Allen’s “The Most Anticipated Sci-fi and Fantasy Releases of 2014″ for Barnes & Noble) -- Narrated By Susan Bennett for Recorded Books
• The Rolling Stones By Robert A. Heinlein, Narrated By Tom Weiner for Blackstone Audio (May 6) -- Downpour.com availability is May 20
• The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast by Jack Campbell (May 6) -- Narrated By Christian Rummel
• Deadly Shores: Destroyermen by Taylor Anderson (Roc, May 6) -- Narrated By William Dufris
• Zombie, Indiana By Scott Kenemore, Narrated By Fleet Cooper (May 6)
• Omega Days: Omega Days, Book 1 By John L. Campbell, Narrated By Richard Ferrone for Recorded Books (May 6)
• World of Warcraft: War Crimes By Christie Golden, Narrated By Scott Brick (May 6)
• The Homing By John Saul, Narrated By Tanya Eby for Brilliance Audio (May 6)
• Magnificent Vibration: A Novel By Rick Springfield, read by the author for Simon & Schuster Audio (May 6) -- apparently God has a cell phone and likes to mess with people; who knew?
• Starfire: A Novel By Dale Brown, Narrated By William Dufris (May 6) -- a space warfare veteran helps build an orbiting solar platform
• The Three Emperors: An Ethan Gage Adventure By William Dietrich, Narrated By William Dufris, Carrington MacDuffie (May 6)
• Teen: Red Delicious: A Siobhan Quinn Novel By Kathleen Tierney, Narrated By Amber Benson (May 6) -- a pen name for Caitlin R. Kiernan for her YA series, of which this is the second book following Blood Oranges
• Teen: After the End (After the End, #1) by Amy Plum (May 6, 2014) -- Narrated By Emily Rankin and Graham Hamilton -- a girl raised in isolation in Alaska and led to believe that the end of the world has destroyed everything else discovers that, in fact, there was never a World War 3...
• Teen: Waterfire Saga, Book One: Deep Blue (A Deep Blue Novel) by Jennifer Donnelly (May 6, 2014) -- Narrated By Bea Miller
• Teen: Fae: Fae Trilogy, Book 1 By C. J. Abedi, Narrated By Emily Durante, Mikael Naramore for Brilliance Audio (May 6)
• Young Readers: The Battle for WondLa By Tony DiTerlizzi, read by Teri Hatcher for Simon & Schuster Audio (May 6) -- "Eva Nine is at her bravest in the final book in the New York Times best-selling trilogy from the fantastical mind of Tony DiTerlizzi." (and yes, it is that Teri Hatcher from "Lois & Clark", who has provided the voice for all 3 books)
• Young Readers: The Thickety: A Path Begins By J. A. White, Narrated By Susan Duerden (May 6)
• Kids: Frozen: The Junior Novelization read by Andi Arndt for Blackstone Audio (May 6) -- a 2-hour junior novelization of the hit 2013 Disney film
• Fiction: Wonderland by D’Erasmo, Stacey (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, May 6, 2014) — “This breakout novel from a brilliant stylist—dropping us into the life a female rock star—centers on that moment when we decide whether to go all-in or give up our dreams.” -- read by Xe Sands for Blackstone Audio
• Fiction: The Painter: A novel by Heller, Peter (May 6, 2014) — from the author of The Dog Stars, in audio read by Mark Deakins
• Fiction: All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel by Doerr, Anthony (May 6, 2014) — In WW2, a blind Parisian daughter of a museum worker and a reluctant German codebreaker meet in Saint-Malo
• Non-Fiction: The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death By Colson Whitehead, read by the author for Random House Audio (May 6) -- a memoir by the author of Zone One about his foray into the world of pro poker: "'I have a good poker face because I am half dead inside.' So begins the hilarious and unexpectedly moving adventures of an amateur player who lucked into a seat at the biggest card game in town - the World Series of Poker."
• Non-Fiction: Strange Beautiful Music: a Musical Memoir by Joe Satriani and Jake Brown, read by Todd McLaren (Tantor Audio, May 6) — concurrent with the hardcover release, which includes behind the scenes photographs and an intrudction by Brian May
• Non-Fiction: Insatiable: Porn - A Love Story By Asa Akira, Narrated By Asa Akira -- via NPR's The Story
• Indie: The Flying Lion By Evan Radler, Narrated By Todd Haberkorn; A Birthright of Blood (The Dragon War, Book 2) By Daniel Arenson, Narrated By John Alexander Brancy; Spirit Bridge: A Well Spring Novel, Book 3 By James L. Rubart; and Roof By John Gregory Hancock, Narrated By James Foster
• Shorts: Audible Studios released individually a collection of short fictions from Orson Scott Card including "The Fringe" read by Stephen Hoye, "Salvage" and "Pageant Wagon" read by Stefan Rudnicki, "America" read by Hoye, Rudnicki, and Gabrielle De Cuir, and "West" read by Rudnicki, Emily Janice Card, Scott Brick, Mirron Willis, Kathe Mazur, and Richard J. Brewer

• Anthology: Neverland's Library: Fantasy Anthology by Mark Lawrence, Marie Brennan, Jeff Salyards and Miles Cameron (Apr 20, 2014) -- "DRAGONS, MAGIC, PRINCESSES OF MIGHTY KINGDOMS ... elements of fantasy that have carried on throughout the many ages, and yet, may one day be forgotten. Enter and delve into the roots of fantasy, rediscovering the fantastic, and exploring lost worlds. NEVERLAND'S LIBRARY is storytelling at its finest. This collection of original works will take readers back to that moment when they first fell in love with the genre. Featuring an introduction by TAD WILLIAMS and stories from writers across the spectrum such as Mark Lawrence, Marie Brennan, R.S. Belcher, Miles Cameron, Teresa Frohock, Don Webb, Joseph R. Lallo, and more. This is a collection worthy of one's library."
• Haunted by Reggie Lutz (Apr 23, 2014) -- "Gwendolyn McTutcheon can’t move on even though she’s been dead for a year. Having left behind a grieving husband, Evan; and three sisters, Trudy, Bethany, and Sarah; she knows there is work yet to do. Sarah, Gwen’s youngest sister, is back in town to help her two remaining sisters confront a depressed Evan about settling Gwen's will. Still grieving—and raw from wrongful accusations made by Trudy and Bethany that he’d murdered his wife—Evan must set to the task of putting the past, and Gwen, to rest. But not all of the past stays in the past when Sarah offers her help and a romance between her and Evan begins. After all, it was that inappropriate kiss years ago that sparked the notion he might have harmed his wife in the first place. As Gwen watches, unable to intervene, Trudy and Bethany keep secrets of their own, secrets that level the field and make Sarah consider coming home to stay again. But when an arsonist sets his sights on Evan’s bar, Duard’s, and Sarah’s life is threatened, Gwen knows she must find a way intervene, for her family and for her own peace. "
• The 13 Secret Cities: A Novel in Four Parts by Cesar Torres (Solar Six Books, Apr 25) -- the first installment of a contemporary Mexican-American fantasy: "Clara Montes has a single goal in life: to achieve social justice. Within days of starting her freshman year in college, Clara Montes joins the Occupy Liberation front, a controversial political group that has planned a gathering of thousands in Chicago’s Millennium Park on a chilly Friday afternoon. Nothing will stop her from attending. When the protest turns into a riot, Clara is swept into a horror that will change the course of American history forever. As a result, Clara’s parents forbid her to return to the OLF. They warn Clara that she has developed a thirst for chaos and violence that goes against every tradition her family brought with them from Mexico. Clara will need to atone for her transgressions by traveling to the mythical city of Mictlán, the realm of dead spirits. During the journey, she will face the Lords of the Dead, two ancient gods who will show no mercy, and who thrive on the taste of human blood."
• With My Dog Eyes: A Novel by Hilda Hilst and translated by Adam Morris (Melville House, Apr 29, 2014) -- "Hilda Hilst (1930–2004) was one of the greatest Brazilian writers of the twentieth century, but her books have languished untranslated, in part because of their formally radical nature. This translation of With My Dog-Eyes brings a crucial work from her oeuvre into English for the first time. "
• Jack in the Green by Charles de Lint and Charles Vess (Subterranean, Apr 30, 2014) -- "Maria Martinez is a young maid, cleaning houses to get by, living in a neighborhood of Santo del Vado Viejo plagued by gang violence and drug cartels. When Maria witnesses her best friend from her teenage years breaking into a house in a gated community where she's working, she has no problem pretending to the police she didn't see a thing. But as Luz Chaidez comes back into Maria's life, Maria can't help remembering the magic Luz left to look for all those years ago"
• Pathfinder Tales: The Redemption Engine by James L. Sutter (Paizo, Apr 30, 2014) -- in-depth review and interview by Ed Grabianowski for io9
• Anthology: The Book of Silverberg: Stories in Honor of Robert Silverberg by William Schafer, Gardner Dozois and Bob Eggleton (Subterranean Press, Apr 30, 2014) –”In The Book of Silverberg, editors Gardner Dozois and William Schafer have assembled a tribute anthology fully worthy of the Master himself. The book begins with a pair of affectionate appreciations from Greg Bear and Barry Malzberg, and continues with a series of wonderfully original stories that inhabit and extend some of Silverberg’s most memorable creations. In ‘In Old Pidruid,’ the late Kage Baker turns to the world of Majipoor in a humorous and moving tale of rivalry and reconciliation. Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s ‘Voyeuristic Tendencies’ shows us the world of the 1972 novel Dying Inside from a wholly different perspective. Nancy Kress’s ‘Eaters’ provides a bleak and harrowing conclusion to the classic short story ‘Sundance.’ In ‘Silverberg, Satan, and Me or Where I Got the Idea for My Silverberg Story for This Anthology,’ the incomparable Connie Willis offers what might be the only plausible explanation for the whole Silverberg phenomenon. And elsewhere in the anthology, some of today’s most notable writers–Mike Resnick, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Elizabeth Bear, James Patrick Kelly, and Tobias S. Buckell–ring equally brilliant changes on a number of Silverberg’s signature fictions.”
• Anthology: Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds edited by Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois (Subterranean Press, Apr 30, 2014) -- "a rousing, all-original anthology that stands both as a significant achievement in its own right and a heartfelt tribute to a remarkable writer"
• Song of the Sword: Shards of Excalibur 1 by Edward Willett (Coteau Books, May 1, 2014)
• Non-Fiction Collection: Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth by John C. Wright (May 3, 2014)
• The Memory Garden by Mary Rickert (Sourcebooks, May 6) -- I only just heard about this book at all, but straight away it leaps near the top of my interest list this month: "World Fantasy Award winning short story author Rickert has just published her first novel, and we're looking forward to it. From the jacket copy: 'Sixteen-year-old Bay Singer doesn't believe the rumors that her eccentric mother, Nan, is a witch. It's just the gossip of their small town, Bay thinks, until two eccentric friends from Nan's past unexpectedly appear one afternoon. The curious reunion summons haunting memories: of an oath the three women took years ago, when they were girls themselves, and the devastating secret they promised to protect. What they unearth has already claimed one life, leaving Bay wondering who the real witches are, and who is truly wicked.'" (via io9.com; there's also an excerpt at Tor.com). Audio: No audio news. Buy: [Kobo | Indiebound | Amazon | Kindle]
• American Neolithic by Terence Hawkins (C&R Press, May 2014) -- "America is a Police State Lite. Drones patrol the skies. The Patriot Amendments have gutted civil liberties. The Homeland Police and Patriot Tribunal have exclusive jurisdiction over all legal actions implicating national security. Enter Blingbling, the last literate member of the sole surviving band of Neanderthals, sent into the world to earn money for his people, who live in hiding on Manhattan’s Lower East Side."
• The Falconer by Elizabeth May (Chronicle Books, May 6, 2014) -- First US release for a 19th-century Edinburgh-set debut fantasy which garnered a lot of buzz upon its UK release last year and has been on my radar since Damien G. Walter's inclusion of May in his The Guardian article on the best young sf novelists in Britain about a year ago. "Edinburgh, 1844. Beautiful Aileana Kameron only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. In fact, she's spent the year since her mother died developing her ability to sense the presence of Sithichean, a faery race bent on slaughtering humans. She has a secret mission: to destroy the faery who murdered her mother. But when she learns she's a Falconer, the last in a line of female warriors and the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity, her quest for revenge gets a whole lot more complicated. The first volume of a trilogy from an exciting new voice in young adult fantasy, this electrifying thriller blends romance and action with steampunk technology and Scottish lore in a deliciously addictive read." Audio: No audio news. Buy: [Kobo | Indiebound | Amazon | Kindle]
• Sworn in Steel: A Tale of the Kin by Douglas Hulick (May 6, 2014) -- follow-on to Among Thieves -- "It’s been three months since Drothe killed a legend, burned down a portion of the imperial capital, and found himself unexpectedly elevated into the ranks of the criminal elite. As the newest Gray Prince in the underworld, he’s not only gained friends, but also rivals—and some of them aren’t bothered by his newfound title. A prince’s blood, as the saying goes, flows just as red as a beggar’s."
• The Silk Map: A Gaunt and Bone Novel by Willrich, Chris (Pyr, May 6, 2014) -- "Fantasy novel, second in a series following The Scroll of Years (2013), about Persimmon Gaunt and Imago Bone, a poet and a thief, fleeing assassins. The characters have been subjects of the author’s short stories since 2000." (description via Locus Online)
• A Girl Called Fearless: A Novel by Catherine Linka (St. Martin's Griffin, May 6, 2014) -- from io9's The New Science Fiction and Fantasy Books That You Can't Afford To Miss described as "It's a genderpocalypse, but not the same asY: The Last Man. This time around, a synthetic hormone in food killed 50 million women of childbearing age, leaving only young girls and old women (and men) alive. Now, Avie grows up without a mom, in a world where men are determined to "protect" her — including telling her who to marry and what to do without her life."
• American Craftsmen by Tom Doyle (Tor, May 6, 2014) — debut novel -- "In modern America, two soldiers will fight their way through the magical legacies of Poe and Hawthorne to destroy an undying evil—if they don’t kill each other first. US Army Captain Dale Morton is a magician soldier—a “craftsman.” After a black-ops mission gone wrong, Dale is cursed by a Persian sorcerer and haunted by his good and evil ancestors. Major Michael Endicott, a Puritan craftsman, finds gruesome evidence that the evil Mortons, formerly led by the twins Roderick and Madeline, have returned, and that Dale might be one of them."
• Alien Collective by Gini Koch (DAW, May 6, 2014) -- "SF novel, ninth a series following Touched by an Alien(April 2010), Alien Tango (Dec 2010), Alien in the Family(April 2011), Alien Proliferation (2011), Alien Diplomacy(Apr 2012), Alien vs. Alien (Nov. 2012), Alien in the House (May 2013), and Alien Research (Dec. 2013), about alien invaders from Alpha Centauri turning humans into monsters." (via Locus Online)
• Fire Kin: A Novel of the Half-Light City by M.J. Scott (Roc, May 6, 2014) -- "Urban fantasy novel, fourth in a series following Shadow Kin(2011), Blood Kin (2012), and Iron Kin (2013), set on a world where Blood Lords and the Beast Kind rule on one side, Fae and humans on the other." (via Locus Online)
• Dragon Princess by S. Andrew Swann (DAW, May 6, 2014) -- "Frank Blackthorne's most recent heist did not end optimally. The sacrificial virgin survived, but the whole incident left Frank, a respectable career thief, on the run from a kingdom full of evil cultists eager to replace their sacrifice. So, when the Court Wizard of Lendowyn, Elhared the Unwise, comes to him intending to hire someone to save Lendowyn’s princess from an evil dragon in return for riches, glory, and help with the bloodthirsty cultists problem, Frank is rightfully suspicious. Frank is also not in a position to refuse."
• Treasure Planet (Man-Kzin Wars) by Hal Colebatch and Jessica Q Fox (Baen, May 6, 2014) -- "A stand-alone  novel in the best-selling Man-Kzin War anthology series created by multiple New York Times best seller Larry Niven. A young man and his Kzin friend seek technological bounty on a forbidden planet while in a race with Kzin space pirates willing to kidnap and kill to make the treasure their own."
• Gemsigns by Stephanie Saulter (Jo Fletcher Books, May 6) -- US release for a book which was out in the UK in March 2013; find out more in her Big Idea piece for Scalzi's Whatever blog
• Teen: The Wizard's Promise (Strange Chemistry) by Cassandra Rose Clarke (May 6, 2014) -- "Fantasy novel, third in a series following The Assassin’s Curse (2012) and The Pirate’s Wish (2013), about a young woman who fled an arranged marriage and became a pirate." (via Locus Online)
• Anthology: Bad-Ass Faeries: It's Elemental edited by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, L. Jagi Lamplighter, and Jeffrey Lyman (Dark Quest)
• Graphic novel: All You Need Is Kill: The Graphic Novel by Nick Mamatas, Lee Ferguson, Fajar Buana, and Zack Turner, based on the novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka (VIZ Media/Haikasoru, May 6, 2014)
• Related Non-Fiction: Klingon Art of War by Keith R. A. DeCandido
  (May 6, Pocket Books/Star Trek) -- "Passed down from the time of Kahless, ten precepts have shaped Klingon culture andindoctrinated Klingons in the Way of the Warrior. With this new translation, people from all walks of life—and all worlds—can harness the ancient Klingon wisdom and learn to embody courage, discipline, and honor."
• Non-Fiction: When I First Held You: 22 Critically Acclaimed Writers Talk About the Triumphs, Challenges, and Transformative Experience of Fatherhood edited by Brian Gresko (May 6, 2014) — includes (among others) Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians — interview with Gresko at The Good Men Project

• Magic City: Recent Spells edited by Paula Gauran (Prime, May 7)
• Unlocked by John Scalzi (Tor, May 7) — a prequel novella to Scalzi’s forthcoming Lock In (Tor, Aug 26) written as an “oral history”; via Scalzi an audiobook is forthcoming: "For audiophiles, Audible also has plans for a version of “Unlocked” — more details on that later."
• Broken River Books Sampler edited by J David Osborne (Broken River Books, May 8) -- "A sampler of all 11 Broken River titles, adorned with a badass Revert e-cover, to be disseminated for free as far and wide as you can get it."
• Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge (Macmillan Children's Books, May 8, 2014) -- looks like a fairly creepy book for young readers along the lines of Neil Gaiman's Coraline but for an audience closer to young teens -- "When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows that something is very wrong. She is insatiably hungry; her sister seems scared of her and her parents whisper behind closed doors. She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out."
• Related non-fiction: The Secret History of Star Wars By Michael Kaminski (2008), Narrated By Josh Robert Thompson for Audiobooks.com (May 8) -- "The tale of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and the fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker has become modern myth, an epic tragedy of the corruption of a young man in love into darkness, the rise of evil, and the power of good triumphing in the end. But it didn't start out that way. In this thorough account of one of cinema's most lasting works, Michael Kaminski presents the true history of how Star Wars was written, from its beginnings as a science fiction fairy tale to its development over three decades into the epic we now know, chronicling the methods, techniques, thought processes, and struggles of its creator."
• The Revolutions By Felix Gilman, Narrated By Ralph Lister for Audible (May 9) -- a new standalone novel by the author of the brilliant The Half-Made World published in print/ebook earlier this year; very excited to see this come to audio
• Anthology: Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History edited by Rose Fox and Daniel Jose Older (Crossed Genres, May 9) — a Kickstarter-funded anthology under two fantastic editors — “These gripping stories have been passed down through the generations, hidden between the lines of journal entries and love letters. Now 27 of today’s finest authors – including Tananarive Due, Sofia Samatar, Ken Liu, Victor LaValle, Nnedi Okorafor, and Sabrina Vourvoulias – reveal the people whose lives have been pushed to the margins of history.”
• Queen of the Dark Things: A Novel by C. Robert Cargill (Harper Voyager, May 13, 2014) — follow-on to Dreams and Shadows
• ADDED: Hot Lead, Cold Iron by Ari Marmell (Titan Books, May 13) -- "Hot Lead, Cold Iron is the first novel in a brand-new fantasy detective series that will appeal to fans ofRivers of London and The Dresden Files. Chicago, 1932. Mick Oberon may look like just another private detective, but beneath the fedora and the overcoat, he's got pointy ears and he's packing a wand."
• ADDED: Collection: Deep Breath Hold Tight: Stories about the End of Everything by Jason Gurley (self-published, May 13) -- "Jason Gurley will be a household name one day." – Hugh Howey, New York Times bestselling author of Wool
• Collection: The Very Best of Tad Williams by Tad Williams (Tachyon, May 13, 2014)
• Dead but Not Forgotten By Charlaine Harris (editor), Toni L. P. Kelner (editor) with stories by MaryJanice Davidson, Seanan McGuire, and more (Audible Frontiers, May 13, 2014) — “Charlaine Harris’ smash-hit Sookie Stackhouse series may have reached its conclusion, but the world of Bon Temps, Louisiana, lives on in this all-new collection of 15 stories.”
• ADDED: Bird Box: A Novel By Josh Malerman, Narrated By Cassandra Campbell for Harper Audio (Ecco, May 13)
• ADDED: The Kraken Project (Wyman Ford Series) by Douglas Preston (May 13, 2014)
• House of the Rising Sun (Crescent City) by Kristen Painter (May 13, 2014)
• Renegade (MILA 2.0, #2) by Debra Drizza (May 13, 2014)
• ADDED: The Kill Switch: A Tucker Wayne Novel (Sigma Force Novels) by Rollins, James (May 15, 2014)
• Teen: Rebel: 2 (Reboot) by Amy Tintera (May 13, 2014)
• Thriller: The Hydra Protocol: A Jim Chapel Mission (Jim Chapel Missions) by Wellington, David (May 13, 2014)
• Fiction: The Last Illusion: A Novel by Porochista Khakpour (Bloomsbury USA, May 13, 2014)
• Fiction: To Rise Again at a Decent Hour: A Novel by Ferris, Joshua (May 13, 2014)
• Motherless Child by Glen Hirshberg (Tor, May 13) — first post-limited release (Earthling, 2012/2013)– “Bram Stoker Award–nominee Glen Hirshberg, author of the International Horror Guild Award–winning American Morons, exposes the fallacy of the Twilight-style romantic vampire while capturing the heart of every reader.”
• Anthology: Dead Man’s Hand by John Joseph Adams (May 13, 2014) — “A fearsomely impressive lineup of contributors surmounts an occasional over-reliance on Old West tropes in this vigorously imagined blend of cheroot-smoking cowboys, aliens, demons, werewolves, androids, and even dinosaurs.” (Publishers Weekly) – Narrated By Phil Gigante, Natalie Ross
• Journal: Shadows & Tall Trees: 6 by Kelly, Michael (Undertow, May 13, 2014) — a paperback release is also set for June, from ChiZine
• Non-Fiction: Along Those Lines: The Boundaries that Create Our World by Peter Cashwell (Paul Dry Books, May 13, 2014) — “After years of crossing borders to see new birds and new landscapes, Peter Cashwell’s exploration of lines between states, between time zones, and between species led him to consider the lines that divide genders, seasons, musical genres, and just about every other aspect of human life. His conclusion: most had something in common—they were largely imaginary.”
• Thief’s Magic (Millennium’s Rule) by Trudi Canavan (Orbit, May 15, 2014)
• Jade Sky by Patrick Freivald (JournalStone, May 16) — via K.H. Vaughan on a SF Signal Mind Meld of “books we can’t wait to read in 2014″ — “Matt Rowley hasn’t been human for years. A commando for the International Council on Augmented Phenomena, he hunts down superhuman monsters the military can’t handle. But his abilities come with a price: bloodthirsty whispers that urge him to acts of terrible violence. An encounter with a giant, angelic being with wings of smoke and shadow casts him into a world of inhuman brutality, demonic possession, and madness, where he must choose between his family and his soul.”
• Collection: The Law & the Heart by Kenneth Schneyer (Stillpoint Digital, May 16)
• The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne (Random House/Crown, May 20, 2014) — “traces the harrowing twin journeys of two women forced to flee their homes in different times in the near future. The first, Meena, is a Brahmin-caste student whose odyssey takes her from the coastal city of Mumbai toward Djibouti across a futuristic but treacherous bridge that spans the Arabian Sea. The second, Mariama, escapes from slavery as a small child in Mauritania, joining a caravan heading across Saharan Africa toward Ethiopia.” A big-name blurb is in from none less than Kim Stanley Robinson: “The Girl in the Road is a brilliant novel–vivid, intense, and fearless with a kind of savage joy. These journeys–Meena’s across the Arabian Sea and Mariama’s across Africa–are utterly unforgettable.” — Kirkus Reviews says: “Byrne’s debut novel may be the most inventive tale to come along in years.“ — Crown has posted the first chapter online – Narrated By Dioni Collins, Nazneen Contractor
• My Real Children by Jo Walton (Tor, May 20, 2014) — “story about one woman and the two lives that she might lead”
• The Boost By Stephen Baker Narrated By David Doersch (May 20)
• The Pillars of Sand: Echoes of Empire, Book 3 By Mark T. Barnes, Narrated By Nick Podehl for Brilliance Audio (47North, May 20)
• Haxan by Kenneth Mark Hoover (ChiZine, May 20) — “Thermopylae. Masada. Agincourt. And now, Haxan, New Mexico Territory, circa 1874. Through a sea of time and dust, in places that might never be, or can’t become until something is set right, there are people destined to travel. Forever. Marshal John T. Marwood is one of these men. Taken from a place he called home, he is sent to fight an eternal war. It never ends, because the storm itself, this unending conflict, makes the world we know a reality. Along with all the other worlds waiting to be born. Or were born, but died like a guttering candle in eternal night . . . Haxan is the first in a series of novels. “Lonesome Dove meets The Punisher . . . real, gritty, violent, and blatantly uncompromising.””
• The Three: A Novel by Sarah Lotz (Little, Brown and Company, May 20, 2014) — “Four simultaneous plane crashes. Three child survivors. A religious fanatic who insists the three are harbingers of the apocalypse. What if he’s right?” — Lotz is South African novelist I first heard about either from Lauren Beukes (and later forgot) and most recently from Nnedi Okorafor’s fine essay African Science Fiction is Still Alien
• The Severed Streets by Cornell, Paul (May 20, 2014)
• The Man with the Compound Eyes: A Novel by Ming-Yi, Wu (May 20, 2014) — published last year in a more limited release by Harvill Secker, a Taiwanese eco-dystopia: “We haven’t read anything like this novel. Ever. South America gave us magical realism – what is Taiwan giving us? A new way of telling our new reality, beautiful, entertaining, frightening, preposterous, true. Completely unsentimental but never brutal, Wu Ming-Yi treats human vulnerability and the world’s vulnerability with fearless tenderness” — Ursula Le Guin
• A Dance of Shadows (Shadowdance) by David Dalglish (May 20, 2014)
• Cyador’s Heirs (Saga of Recluce) by L. E. Modesitt (May 20, 2014)
• She, Sniper by Hunter, Stephen (May 20, 2014) — a thriller which gets on my list by dint of being narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal
• Dangerous Creatures By Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, Narrated By Khristine Hvam – Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins – Scheduled Release Date: 05-20-14
• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Novel By A. J. Hartley and David Hewson, Narrated By Richard Armitage for Audible Inc. – Scheduled Release Date: 05-20-14. “It is a tale of ghosts, of madness, of revenge – of old alliances giving way to new intrigues. Denmark is changing, shaking off its medieval past. War with Norway is on the horizon. And Hamlet – son of the old king, nephew of the new – becomes increasingly entangled in a web of deception – and murder. Beautifully performed by actor Richard Armitage (“Thorin Oakenshield” in the Hobbit films), Hamlet, Prince of Denmark takes Shakespeare’s original into unexpected realms, reinventing a story we thought we knew.”
• Related Non-Fiction: The Art of Neil Gaiman by Hayley Campbell
  (May 20, HarperCollins) -- collecting sketches and snippets, photographs and more
• Tigerman by Nick Harkaway (William Heinemann, 22 May 2014) — US release set for July 29 — “Lester Ferris, sergeant of the British Army, is a good man in need of a rest. He’s spent a lot of his life being shot at, and Afghanistan was the last stop on his road to exhaustion. He has no family, he’s nearly forty and burned out and about to be retired. The island of Mancreu is the ideal place for Lester to serve out his time. It’s a former British colony in legal limbo, soon to be destroyed because of its very special version of toxic pollution – a down-at-heel, mildly larcenous backwater. Of course, that also makes Mancreu perfect for shady business, hence the Black Fleet of illicit ships lurking in the bay: listening stations, offshore hospitals, money laundering operations, drug factories and deniable torture centres. None of which should be a problem, because Lester’s brief is to sit tight and turn a blind eye.” -- an extract is available at Pornokitsch
• Defenders by McIntosh, Will (May 27, 2014)
• Artemis Awakening by Jane Lindskold (Tor, May 27, 2014)
• The Immortal Circus: Final Act: Cirque des Immortels, Book 3 By A. R. Kahler, Narrated By Amy McFadden for Brilliance Audio (May 27)
• ADDED: Strange Country by Deborah Coates (Tor Books, May 27)
• ADDED: Anthology: Fearful Symmetries edited by Ellen Datlow (ChiZine, May 27, 2014) — “In addition to sixteen stories specifically solicited for the anthology, Ellen Datlow chose four stories submitted during the month-long open reading period, adding some excellent new writers to the mix. So in addition to award-winning and/or bestselling writers such as Brian Evenson, Jeffrey Ford, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Pat Cadigan, and Michael Marshall Smith, there are a few names with whom readers might not yet be familiar—yet. Writers such as Siobhan Carroll, Catherine MacLeod, and Carole Johnstone. Each writer in this book has a unique voice, and this multitude of voices has created a symphony that will continue to be appreciated for many years to come.”
• ADDED: Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion) by Elizabeth Moon(May 27, 2014)
• Night Terrors by Tim Waggoner (Angry Robot, May 27)
• Skin Game (The Dresden Files #15) by Jim Butcher (Roc, May 27, 2014) — read by James Marsters
• ADDED: The Lost by Durst, Sarah Beth (Harlequin Mira, May 27, 2014)
• Thief’s Magic (Millennium’s Rule) by Trudi Canavan (May 27, 2014)
• City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6) by Cassandra Clare (May 27, 2014)
• Dark Matter: Star Carrier: Book Five by Ian Douglas (Harper Voyager, May 27)
• Anthology: Reach for Infinity edited by Jonathan Strahan (Solaris, May 27)
• Fiction: The Vacationers: A Novel by Emma Straub (Riverhead, May 29) — “An irresistible, deftly observed novel about the secrets, joys, and jealousies that rise to the surface over the course of an American family’s two-week stay in Mallorca.”
• The Milkman: A Freeworld Novel by Michael J. Martineck (EDGE, May 30, 2014)
• The River of Souls by Robert McCammon (Subterranean Press, May 31, 2014) — via Nathan Ballingrud, the latest installment in the Matthew Corbett series of historical thrillers: “The year is 1703. The place: the Carolina settlement of Charles Town. . Matthew Corbett, professional “problem solver,” has accepted a lucrative, if unusual, commission: escorting a beautiful woman to a fancy dress ball. What should be a pleasant assignment takes a darker turn when Matthew becomes involved in a murder investigation. A sixteen-year-old girl has been stabbed to death on the grounds of a local plantation. The suspected killer is a slave who has escaped, with two family members, into the dubious protection of a nearby swamp. Troubled by certain discrepancies and determined to see some sort of justice done, Matthew joins the hunt for the runaway slaves. He embarks on a treacherous journey up the Solstice River, also known as the River of Souls.  He discovers that something born of the swamp has joined the hunt… and is stalking the hunters with more than murder in mind. What follows is a shattering ordeal encompassing snakes, alligators, exiled savages, mythical beasts, and ordinary human treachery. The journey up the River of Souls will test the limits of Matthew’s endurance, and lead him through a nightmarish passage to a confrontation with his past, and a moment that will alter his life forever. Gripping, unsettling, and richly atmospheric, The River of Souls is a masterful historical adventure featuring the continuing exploits of a young hero the USA Character Approved Blog has called ‘the Early American James Bond.’”
• The Last Horror Novel in the History of the World by Brian Allen Carr (Lazy Fascist, May 2014) — from the author of Motherfucking Sharks
• Black Gum Godless Heathen by J David Osborne (Broken River Books, May 2014) — sequel to Low Down Death Right Easy

JUNE 2014:

• Sword of the North (The Grim Company, Book 2) by Luke Scull (Roc Hardcover, June 1) — “In The Grim Company, Luke Scull introduced a formidable and forbidding band of anti-heroes battling against ruthless Magelords and monstrous terrors. The adventure continues as the company—now broken—face new dangers on personal quests….”
• Veil of the Deserters (Bloodsounder’s Arc #2) by Jeff Salyards (Night Shade Books, June 3, 2014)
• Ruin and Rising (The Grisha, #3) by Leigh Bardugo (Jun 3, 2014)
• Prince of Fools (The Red Queen’s War, #1) by Mark Lawrence (Ace, June 3, 2014)
• Mr. Mercedes: A Novel by King, Stephen (Scribner, Jun 3, 2014)
• Blood Red (Elemental Masters) by Lackey, Mercedes (Jun 3, 2014)
• The Dark Between the Stars: The Saga of Shadows, Book One By Kevin J. Anderson, Narrated By Mark Boyett (Jun 3)
• The Merchant Emperor (The Symphony of Ages) by Elizabeth Haydon (Jun 3, 2014)
• On Her Watch (Don’t Tell) by Rie Warren (Jun 3, 2014) — “The year is 2070 and all hell has broken lose. The rebellion has started and the government is trying desperately to regain control of the territories formerly known as the United States.”
• Non-Fiction: Wild Connection: What Animal Courtship and Mating Tells Us about Human Relationships by Jennifer L. Verdolin (Prometheus Books, Jun 3) — “A specialist in animal behavior compares the courtship rituals and mating behaviors of animals to their human equivalents, revealing the many and often surprising ways we are both similar to and different from other species.”
• Cibola Burn (The Expanse) by Corey, James S. A. (Jun 5, 2014)
• Blood Will Follow by Snorri Kristjansson (Jo Fletcher Books, Jun 5) — follow-on to Swords of Good Men
• The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord (Jo Fletcher Books, June 5, 2014) — a follow-on to 2013′s The Best of All Possible Worlds: “For years, Rafi Delarua saw his family suffer under his father’s unethical use of psionic power. Now the government has Rafi under close watch, but, hating their crude attempts to analyse his brain, he escapes to the planet Punartam, where his abilities are the norm, not the exception. Punartam is also the centre for his favourite sport, wallrunning – and thanks to his best friend, he has found a way to train with the elite. But Rafi soon realises he’s playing quite a different game, for the galaxy is changing; unrest is spreading and the Zhinuvian cartels are plotting, making the stars a far more dangerous place to aim. There may yet be one solution – involving interstellar travel, galactic power and the love of a beautiful game.” — to be released January 2015 in the US
• The Truth of Valour: A Confederation Novel by Tanya Huff (Titan, June 6)
• California Bones by Greg van Eekhout (Tor, Jun 10, 2014)
• Koko Takes a Holiday by Shea, Kieran (Jun 10, 2014) –narrated By Hillary Huber
• The Leopard by K.V. Johansen (Pyr, June 10, 2014) — “Part one of a two-book epic fantasy, set in a world as richly drawn as J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, but with Mideastern and Eastern flavors.” (via The BiblioSanctum)
• Memory of Water: A Novel by Emmi Itäranta (Harper Voyager, Jun 10, 2014) — “An amazing, award-winning speculative fiction debut novel by a major new talent, in the vein of Ursula K. Le Guin. Global warming has changed the world’s geography and its politics. Wars are waged over water, and China rules Europe, including the Scandinavian Union, which is occupied by the power state of New Qian. In this far north place, seventeen-year-old Noria Kaitio is learning to become a tea master like her father, a position that holds great responsibility and great secrets. Tea masters alone know the location of hidden water sources, including the natural spring that Noria’s father tends, which once provided water for her whole village.”
• The Girl with All the Gifts by M.J. Carey (Orbit, June 10, 2014) — “Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her ‘our little genius’. Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.” — link to cover
• Written in My Own Heart’s Blood: A Novel (Outlander) by Gabaldon, Diana (June 10, 2014)
• ADDED: The Madonna and the Starship by James Morrow (Tachyon, June 10) — “In this satirical novel set in the 1950s, a group of skeptical alien crustaceans invade NBC studios, threatening to vaporize millions of “irrational” fans of a religious TV show. It’s up to the Bill Nye-esque science TV personality “Uncle Wonder” to write a script that’s so rationally absurd that the aliens will be deterred in their deadly mission.” (via io9.com)
• Earth Awakens: The First Formic War, Book 3 By Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston, Narrated By Stefan Rudnicki for Macmillan Audio (June 10)
• On the Steel Breeze: Poseidon’s Children, Book 2 By Alastair Reynolds, Narrated By Adjoa Andoh for Recorded Books (June 12)
• We Leave Together (Dogsland #3) by J.M. McDermott (Word Horde, June 15, 2014) — the eagerly-awaited conclusion to McDermott’s dark fantasy Dogsland trilogy (Never Knew Another and When We Were Executioners)
• Head Full of Mountains by Brent Hayward (ChiZine, Jun 15, 2014) — “When Crospinal’s ailing father dies, he is left utterly alone in the pen, surrounded by encroaching darkness. The machines that tended to him as a child have long ago vanished, and the apparitions that kept Crospinal company are now silenced. Struggling with his congenital issues, outfitted in a threadbare uniform, he has little choice but to leave what was once his home, soon discovering that nothing in the outside world is how he had been told it would be. In his quest for meaning and understanding, and the contact of another, Crospinal learns truths about himself, about his father, and about the last bastion of humanity, trapped with him at the end of time.”
• Shattered: The Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne (Jun 17, 2014)
• Half-Off Ragnarok: InCryptid, Book 3 By Seanan McGuire, Narrated By Ray Porter, Emily Bauer (Jun 17)
• Teen: Dark Metropolis by Jaclyn Dolamore (Disney Hyperion, Jun 17, 2014)
• The Long Mars: A Novel (Long Earth) by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter (Jun 17, 2014) — had been called “The Long Childhood” but new title looks confirmed
• The Quick: A Novel by Lauren Owen (Random House, Jun 17, 2014) — “An astonishing debut, a novel of epic scope and suspense that conjures up all the magic and menace of Victorian London”
• A Better World (The Brilliance Saga) by Sakey, Marcus (Jun 17, 2014)
• Spell or High Water (Magic 2.0, Book 2) by Scott Meyer, read by Luke Daniels for Brilliance Audio (Jun 17, 2014) — sequel to the fantastically funny Off to Be the Wizard
• Chasers of the Wind by Alexey Pehov (Tor, June 17)
• Child of a Hidden Sea by A.M. Dellamonica (Tor, June 24) — “One minute, twenty-four-year-old Sophie Hansa is in a San Francisco alley trying to save the life of the aunt she has never known. The next, she finds herself flung into the warm and salty waters of an unfamiliar world. Glowing moths fall to the waves around her, and the sleek bodies of unseen fish glide against her submerged ankles. The world is Stormwrack, a series of island nations with a variety of cultures and economies—and a language different from any Sophie has heard.”
• Unexpected Stories by Octavia E. Butler (Open Road Media, June 24) – “Two never-before-published stories from the archives of one of science fiction’s all-time masters. The novella “A Necessary Being” showcases Octavia E. Butler’s ability to create alien yet fully believable “others.” Tahneh’s father was a Hao, one of a dwindling race whose leadership abilities render them so valuable that their members are captured and forced to govern. When her father dies, Tahneh steps into his place, both chief and prisoner, and for twenty years has ruled without ever meeting another of her kind. She bears her loneliness privately until the day that a Hao youth is spotted wandering into her territory. As her warriors sharpen their weapons, Tahneh must choose between imprisoning the newcomer—and living the rest of her life alone. The second story in this volume, “Childminder,” was commissioned by Harlan Ellison for his legendary (and never-published) anthology The Last Dangerous VisionsTM. A disaffected telepath connects with a young girl in a desperate attempt to help her harness her growing powers. But in the richly evocative fiction of Octavia E. Butler, mentorship is a rocky path, and every lesson comes at a price.”
• Baptism of Fire (The Witcher) by Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit, June 24)
• Vicky Peterwald: Target by Mike Shepherd (Ace, June 24)
• Deadly Curiosities by Gail Z. Martin (Solaris, June 24, 2014) — “It’s official! I’ll be writing a new urban fantasy novel for Solaris Books called “Deadly Curiosities” (from my short story universe of the same name) that will come out in summer, 2014!”
• The Blasted Lands (Seven Forges, Book 2) by James A. Moore (Osprey, June 24, 2014) — “The Empire of Fellein is in mourning. The Emperor is dead, and the armies of the empire have grown soft. Merros Dulver, their newly-appointed – and somewhat reluctant – commander, has been tasked with preparing them to fight the most savage enemy the world has yet seen. Meanwhile, a perpetual storm ravages the Blasted Lands, and a new threat is about to arise – the Broken are coming, and with them only Death.”
• The Silkworm by J.K. Rowling, writing as Robert Galbraith (June 24) — “The Cuckoo’s Calling is finally getting a sequel! According to the publisher, Robert Galbraith (the pseudonym used by J.K. Rowling) will be releasing the next novel in the Cormoran Strike mystery series on June 24th. The description released by the publisher gives a summary of the newest mystery.”
• Thorn Jack: A Night and Nothing Novel (Night and Nothing Novels) by Harbour, Katherine (Jun 24, 2014) — read by Kate Rudd for Brilliance Audio
• In the End (In the After) by Demitria Lunetta (Jun 24, 2014)
• Target: Vicky Peterwald, Book 1 By Mike Shepherd, Narrated By Dina Pearlman (Jun 24)
• Reckoning, Happily Never After, and Devil to Pay By Jeaniene Frost, Narrated By Tavia Gilbert (Jun 24)
• Unbound (A Veiled Worlds Novel) by Jo Anderton (FableCroft, June 2014) — via aninterview with Lawrence M. Schoen for his “Eating Authors” series: “the first two volumes, Debris and Suited are out there waiting for you to scoop them up.”
• Anthology: Searchers After Horror edited by S.T. Joshi (Fedogan and Bremer, June 2014) — “21 “New Tales of the Weird and Fantastic” selected by noted authority S.T. Joshi, nearly all to be published here for the very first time … Fine weird stories by Caitlin Kiernan, Donald Tyson, Ramsey Campbell, W.H. Pugmire, …”

JULY 2014:

• All Those Vanished Engines by Paul Park (Tor, Jul 1, 2014)
• The Rhesus Chart (A Laundry Files Novel) by Charles Stross (Jul 1, 2014)
• Tower Lord (A Raven’s Shadow Novel) by Anthony Ryan (Jul 1, 2014)
• The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns by Django Wexler (Jul 1, 2014)
• Shattering the Ley by Palmatier, Joshua (DAW Hardcover, Jul 1, 2014)
• Unwept: Book One of The Nightbirds by Tracy Hickman and Laura Hickman (Jul 1, 2014)
• Hurricane Fever by Tobias S. Buckell (Tor, July 1) — “Prudence “Roo” Jones never thought he’d have a family to look after—until suddenly he found himself taking care of his orphaned teenage nephew. Roo, a former Caribbean Intelligence operative, spends his downtime on his catamaran dodging the punishing hurricanes that are the new norm in the Caribbean. Roo enjoys the simple calm of his new life—until an unexpected package from a murdered fellow spy shows up. Suddenly Roo is thrown into the center of the biggest storm of all.”
• How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky by Lydia Netzer, read by Joshilynn Jackson (St. Martin’s Press / Macmillan Audio, July 1) — Netzer’s follow-on to her brilliant 2012 novel Shine Shine Shine, reunited with the same fine narrator
• The City By Dean Koontz, Narrated By Korey Jackson for Recorded Books (July 1)
• Traitor’s Blade by Sebastien de Castell (Jo Fletcher Books, July 1) — “In the first of a new fantasy series by Sebastien de Castell, a disgraced swordsman struggles to redeem himself by protecting a young girl caught in the web of a royal conspiracy. Falcio is the first Cantor of the Greatcoats. Trained in the fighting arts and the laws of Tristia, the Greatcoats are travelling Magisters upholding King’s Law. They are heroes. Or at least they were, until they stood aside while the Dukes took the kingdom, and impaled their king’s head on a spike” — UK release was March 6th
• The String Diaries by Stephen Lloyd Jones (Mulholland Books, July 1) — “A family is hunted by a centuries-old monster: a man with a relentless obsession who can take on any identity. The String Diaries opens with Hannah frantically driving through the night–her daughter asleep in the back, her husband bleeding out in the seat beside her. In the trunk of the car rests a cache of diaries dating back 200 years, tied and retied with strings through generations. The diaries carry the rules for survival that have been handed down from mother to daughter since the 19th century. But how can Hannah escape an enemy with the ability to look and sound like the people she loves?”
• William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return By Ian Doescher, Narrated By Marc Thompson, Jonathan Davis, Daniel Davis, Jeff Gurner, January Lavoy, and Ian Doescher (Jul 1)
• How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back By Diana Rowland, Narrated By Allison McLemore (Jul 1)
• The Child Eater by Rachel Pollack (Jo Fletcher Books, July 3) — “On Earth, the Wisdom family has always striven to be more normal than normal. But Simon Wisdom, the youngest child, is far from normal: he can see the souls of the dead. And now the ghosts of children are begging him to help them, as they face something worse than death. The only problem is, he doesn’t know how. In a far-away land of magic and legends, Matyas has dragged himself up from the gutter and inveigled his way into the Wizards’ college. In time, he will become more powerful than all of them – but will his quest blind him to the needs of others? For Matyas can also hear the children crying. But neither can save the children alone, for the child eater is preying on two worlds…”
• Half a King by Joe Abercrombie (Del Rey, July 8, 2014) — “A classic coming-of-age tale, set in a brilliantly imagined alternative historical world reminiscent of the Dark Ages with Viking overtones, the book tells the story of Yarvi, youngest son of a warlike king. Born with a crippled hand, he can never live up to his father’s expectations of what a real man should be and his destiny is not the throne but the Ministry, not the sword and shield but the book and the soft word spoken.”
• ADDED: The Queen of the Tearling: A Novel By Erika Johansen, Narrated By Katherine Kellgren for Harper Audio (Harper, July 8) — “Magic, adventure, mystery, and romance combine in this epic debut in which a young princess must reclaim her dead mother’s throne, learn to be a ruler – and defeat the Red Queen, a powerful and malevolent sorceress determined to destroy her. On her 19th birthday, Princess Kelsea Raleigh Glynn, raised in exile, sets out on a perilous journey back to the castle of her birth to ascend her rightful throne. Plain and serious, a girl who loves books and learning, Kelsea bears little resemblance to her mother, the vain and frivolous Queen Elyssa.”
• The Door in the Mountain by Caitlin Sweet (July 8, ChiZine) -- US release, out in Canada in May -- "The Greece of The Door in the Mountain (Book 1 of a two-part series) is a place where children are marked by gods and goddesses; a place where a manipulative, bitter princess named Ariadne devises a mountain prison for her hated half-brother, where a boy named Icarus tries, and fails, to fly, and a slave girl changes the paths of all their lives forever."
• Floating Boy and the Girl Who Couldn’t Fly by Stephen Graham Jones and Paul Tremblay (ChiZine, July 8, 2014) -- US release, out in Canada in May -- "Mary's life is going fine. Except for being a freshman in high school. And having anxiety attacks. And her dad having no job. So, introduce one boy who can fly, kidnap the little brother she's supposed to be babysitting, and drop a military quarantine on her town and that should make her anxiety completely disappear, right? Wrong!"
• The High Druid’s Blade: The Defenders of Shannara by Terry Brooks, narrated by Simon Vance (Del Rey, July 8) – postponed from its original March release date; the second book, The Darkling Child, will publish in August 2015
• Resistance by Samit Basu (Titan, Jul 8, 2014) — follow-on to Turbulence
• A Plunder of Souls (The Thieftaker Chronicles) by D. B. Jackson (Jul 8, 2014)
• The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure) by Mark Hodder (Jul 8, 2014)
• The Path to Power (The Tarnished Crown Series) by Miller, Karen (Jul 8, 2014)
• California: A Novel by Edan Lepucki (Little, Brown and Company, Jul 8, 2014) — “The world Cal and Frida have always known is gone, and they’ve left the crumbling city of Los Angeles far behind them. They now live in a shack in the wilderness, working side-by-side to make their days tolerable despite the isolation and hardships they face. Consumed by fear of the future and mourning for a past they can’t reclaim, they seek comfort and solace in one other. But the tentative existence they’ve built for themselves is thrown into doubt when Frida finds out she’s pregnant.”
• Alias Hook by Lisa Jensen (Thomas Dunne Books, July 8) – ”Every child knows how the story ends. The wicked pirate captain is flung overboard, caught in the jaws of the monster crocodile who drags him down to a watery grave. But it was not yet my time to die. It’s my fate to be trapped here forever, in a nightmare of childhood fancy, with that infernal, eternal boy.”
• Pathfinder Tales: Skinwalkers by Wendy W. Wager (Paizo, July 8) — a Pathfinder Tales novel from one of the “Inkpunks” — “As a young woman, Jendara left the cold northern isles of the Ironbound Archipelago to find her fortune. Now, many years later, she’s forsaken her buccaneer ways and returned home in search of a simpler life, where she can raise her young son, Kran, in peace. When a strange clan of shapeshifting raiders pillages her home, however, there’s no choice for Jendara but to take up her axes once again to help the islanders defend all that they hold dear.”
• Echo Lake: A Novel by Letitia Trent (Dark House Press, July 8) — the first book from Dark House Press (edited by Richard Thomas): “Thirty-something Emily Collins inherits her recently murdered aunt’s house, deciding to move to Heartshorne, Oklahoma, to claim it and confront her family’s dark past after her dead mother begins speaking to her in dreams, propelling this gothic, neo-noir thriller toward terrifying revelations of murderous small-town justice when a horrible community secret is revealed through the supernatural pull of Echo Lake.“
• Uncaged (The Singular Menace, 1) by John Sandford and Michele Cook (Jul 8, 2014)
• Short: The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains By Neil Gaiman, Narrated By Neil Gaiman (Jul 8) — Gaiman’s long short story from the Stories anthology gets a new standalone edition
• Land of Love and Drowning: A Novel by Tiphanie Yanique (Riverhead, July 10) — “In the early 1900s, the Virgin Islands are transferred from Danish to American rule, and an important ship sinks into the Caribbean Sea. Orphaned by the shipwreck are two sisters and their half brother, now faced with an uncertain identity and future. Each of them is unusually beautiful, and each is in possession of a particular magic that will either sink or save them.”
• Robogenesis: A Novel by Daniel H. Wilson (Doubleday and Random House Audio, July 10) — “The stunningly creative, epic sequel to Wilson’s blockbuster thriller and New York Timesbestseller Robopocalypse. ‘The machine is still out there. Still alive.’”
• Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Sweterlitsch, Thomas (Jul 10, 2014) — “A decade has passed since the city of Pittsburgh was reduced to ash. While the rest of the world has moved on, losing itself in the noise of a media-glutted future, survivor John Dominic Blaxton remains obsessed with the past. Grieving for his wife and unborn child who perished in the blast, Dominic relives his lost life by immersing in the Archive—a fully interactive digital reconstruction of Pittsburgh, accessible to anyone who wants to visit the places they remember and the people they loved. Dominic investigates deaths recorded in the Archive to help close cases long since grown cold, but when he discovers glitches in the code surrounding a crime scene—the body of a beautiful woman abandoned in a muddy park that he’s convinced someone tried to delete from the Archive—his cycle of grief is shattered.”
• World of Trouble: The Last Policeman, Book 3 by Ben H. Winters (Quirk Books, July 15, 2014) — the third and concluding book in Winters’ Edgar Award winning and Philip K. Dick Award nominated Last Policeman trilogy
• The Causal Angel by Hannu Rajaniemi (Tor, Jul 15, 2014) — Follow-on to The Quantum Thief and The Fractal Prince: “With his infectious love of storytelling in all its forms, his rich characterization and his unrivaled grasp of thrillingly bizarre cutting-edge science, Hannu Rajaniemi swiftly set a new benchmark for SF in the 21st century. Now, with his third novel, he completes the tale of the many lives, and minds, of gentleman rogue Jean de Flambeur.”
• Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone (Tor, Jul 15, 2014) -- the third in Gladstone's fantastic secondary world fantasy The Craft Sequence series after Three Parts Dead and Two Serpents Rise; a sample is available at Tor.com
• ADDED: Anthology: Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters By Larry Correia, Peter Clines, Timothy W Long, Howard Andrew Jones, Peter Rawlik, James Swallow, C. L. Werner, James Maxey, and more, Narrated By To Be Announced (Jul 15)
• The Hunter from the Woods and The Wolf’s Hour By Robert McCammon, Narrated By Simon Prebble (Jul 15)
• The Book of Life (All Souls Trilogy, #3) by Deborah Harkness (July 15, 2014)
• The Outsorcerer’s Apprentice by Holt, Tom (Jul 15, 2014)
• The Scorched Earth by Drew Karpyshyn (Del Rey, July 15, 2014) — sequel to 2013 novel Children of Fire
• Graphic Novel: The Shadow Hero by Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew (Jul 15, 2014)
• Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch (Gollancz, 17 Jul 2014) — the fifth book in the Peter Grant series, with a sixth on the way next year, and contracted for books 7 and 8 — US release is from DAW on Oct 7
• The Seventh Miss Hatfield by Anna Caltabiano (Gollancz, July 21) — debut novel from 17-year-old author Caltabiano which ”follows Rebecca, a young American unhappy with her life.  When her mysterious neighbour Miss Hatfield invites her in, Rebecca isn’t entirely sure why she says yes. A short while later, Rebecca becomes immersed in her neighbour’s peculiar world – not only does she discover that Miss Hatfield is immortal, but that she has century-spanning plans, which will soon involve Rebecca.”
• Extraction by Stephanie Diaz (Jul 22, 2014)
• Kids: The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher by Dana Alison Levy (Jul 22, 2014)
• The Buried Life by Patel, Carrie (Angry Robot, Jul 29, 2014)
• Magic Breaks (Kate Daniels) by Ilona Andrews (Jul 29, 2014)
• Teen: The Young World by Weitz, Chris (Jul 29, 2014)
• Hardship (Theirs Not to Reason Why) by Jean Johnson (Ace, July 29)
• Cast in Flame by Michelle Sagara (Harlequin MIRA, July 29)
• Bound (Alex Caine, Book 1) by Alan Baxter (HarperVoyager Australia, July 2014) — first in a trilogy of “modern grim dark fantasy thrillers”

AUGUST 2014:

• The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman (Viking Adult, August 5, 2014) — book three after The Magicians and The Magician King – “The stunning conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy. Quentin Coldwater has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can’t hide from his past, and it’s not long before it comes looking for him. Along with Plum, a brilliant young undergraduate with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. But all roads lead back to Fillory, and his new life takes him to old haunts, like Antarctica, and to buried secrets and old friends he thought were lost forever. He uncovers the key to a sorcery masterwork, a spell that could create magical utopia, a new Fillory—but casting it will set in motion a chain of events that will bring Earth and Fillory crashing together. To save them he will have to risk sacrificing everything. The Magician’s Land is an intricate thriller, a fantastical epic, and an epic of love and redemption that brings the Magicians trilogy to a magnificent conclusion, confirming it as one of the great achievements in modern fantasy. It’s the story of a boy becoming a man, an apprentice becoming a master, and a broken land finally becoming whole.”
• The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit by Joyce, Graham (Aug 5, 2014)
• Broken Souls by Stephen Blackmoore (DAW, Aug 5)
• Assail: A Novel of the Malazan Empire by Ian C. Esslemont (Aug 5, 2014)
• Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by David Shafer (Mulholland Books, August 5) — “William Gibson meets Chuck Palahniuk in an ambitious novel of international techno conspiracy and dark comedy. The Committee, an international cabal of techno-industrialists and media barons, is on the verge of privatizing all information. Dear Diary, an idealistic online Underground, stands in the way of that takeover, using radical politics, classic spycraft, and technology that makes Big Data look like dial-up. Into this pitched and secret battle tumbles an unlikely trio: Leila Majnoun, a disenchanted non-profiteer; Leo Crane, a bipolar trustafarian; and Mark Devreaux, a wracked and fraudulent self-betterment guru.”
• Revenant by Kat Richardson (August 5) — “The ninth installment of Richardson’s Greywalker saga, featuring private investigator Harper Blaine, should be a blockbuster of a novel. I absolutely loved this series, which blends hardboiled mystery with supernatural fiction and is comparable to the work of classic writers including Raymond Chandler and Algernon Blackwood. With the conclusion of this series looming, I’m curious to see where Richardson takes her iconic protagonist.” (via Paul Goat Allen’s “The Most Anticipated Sci-fi and Fantasy Releases of 2014″ for Barnes & Noble)
• The Widow’s House (The Dagger and the Coin) by Abraham, Daniel (Aug 5, 2014)
• The House of the Four Winds (Dragon Prophecy) by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory (Aug 5, 2014)
• The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy: A Novel by Jacopo della Quercia (St. Martin’s Griffin, Aug 5, 2014)
• Dark Lightning by John Varley (Ace, Aug 5) — “On a voyage to New Earth, the starship Rolling Thunder is powered by an energy no one understands, except for its eccentric inventor Jubal Broussard. Like many of the ship’s inhabitants, Jubal rests in a state of suspended animation for years at a time, asleep yet never aging.”
• Fish Tails: A Novel by Sheri S. Tepper (Harper Voyager, Aug 5, 2014)
• Lair of Dreams: A Diviners Novel by Bray, Libba (Aug 5, 2014)
• Kids: Frostborn (Thrones & Bones #1) by Lou Anders (Random House Children’s Books, August 5, 2014) — longtime Pyr editor Anders’ debut novel, a young reader book which “introduces Karn, who would rather be playing the board game Thrones and Bones, and Thianna, half-frost giant, half-human, who team up when they are chased by wyverns, a dead Viking sea captain, and a 1200-year-old dragon.” — narrated by Fabio Tassone for Listening Library — a prologue plus two chaptersampler are online
• Teen: Opposition (A Lux Novel) by Jennifer L. Armentrout (Aug 5, 2014)
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage: A novel by Haruki Murakami and translated by Philip Gabriel (Knopf, Aug 12, 2014) — Published in Japan last year: “Tsukuru Tazaki’s life was irreparably changed when his relationships with his high school best friends became severed during Tsukuru’s college days. Now at 35, Tsukuru’s girlfriend Sara suggested to Tsukuru to go and talk to these high school friends in person to mend the relationships, and to discover the real reason behind the friends’ decision to reject Tsukuru. Tsukuru visited his friends in Nagoya and Finland one by one, and uncovers the real reason as to why their relations were broken off.”
• Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente (Tor, Aug 12, 2014)
• The Ultra Thin Man by Patrick Swenson (Tor, Aug 12) — “In the twenty-second century, a future in which mortaline wire controls the weather on the settled planets and entire refugee camps drowse in drug-induced slumber, no one—alive or dead, human or alien—is quite what they seem. When terrorists manage to crash Coral, the moon, into its home planet of Ribon, forcing evacuation, it’s up to Dave Crowell and Alan Brindos, contract detectives for the Network Intelligence Organization, to solve a case of interplanetary consequences. Crowell’ and Brindos’s investigation plunges them neck-deep into a conspiracy much more dangerous than anything they could have imagined.”
• Fool’s Assassin by Robin Hobb (Aug 12, 2014)
• Your Face in Mine: A Novel by Jess Row (Riverhead, Aug 14) — “An award-winning writer delivers a poignant and provocative novel of identity, race and the search for belonging in the age of globalization.”
• We Will All Go Down Together by Gemma Files (Aug 15) — “A mosaic novel whose characters are gifted and semi-monstrous people linked by shared blood and a violent common history, a Five-Family Coven whose 500-year-long vendetta with each other is finally coming to a head. It’s Alice Munro meets Clive Barker, with a cast that includes body-stealing witches, time-travelling changelings, monster-killing nuns and evil angels.”
• Echopraxia by Peter Watts (August 16, 2014) — “We are going to the Sun, rs and Ks. Whereas the last time out we froze in the infinite Lovecraftian darkness of the Oort, now we are diving into the very heart of the solar system— and man, there’s gonna be a hot time in the ol’ town tonight.”
• The Godless by Ben Peek (Thomas Dunne, August 19, 2014) is “set fifteen thousand years after the War of the Gods. The bodies of the gods now lie across the world, slowly dying as men and women awake with strange powers that are derived from their bodies. Ayae, a young cartographer’s apprentice, is attacked and discovers she cannot be harmed by fire. Her new power makes her a target for an army that is marching on her home. With the help of the immortal Zaifyr, she is taught the awful history of ‘cursed’ men and women, coming to grips with her new powers and the enemies they make. The saboteur Bueralan infiltrates the army that is approaching her home to learn its terrible secret. Split between the three points of view, Immolation‘s narrative reaches its conclusion during an epic siege, where Ayae, Zaifyr and Bueralan are forced not just into conflict with those invading, but with those inside the city who wish to do them harm.”
• Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volume 1 edited by Laird Barron (ChiZine, Aug 19, 2014) — inaugural edition of a new, rotating-editor year’s best anthology for Weird fiction, with authors (among others) including Jeff VanderMeer, Jeffrey Ford, Sofia Samatar, Joseph S. Pulver Sr, John Langan, Richard Gavin, and W. H. Pugmir.
• Visions: A Cainsville Novel by Armstrong, Kelley (Aug 19, 2014)
• The Broken Eye (Lightbringer #3) by Brent Weeks (Orbit, August 26, 2014)
• Lock In by John Scalzi (Tor, Aug 26, 2014) — “Fifteen years from now, a new virus sweeps the globe. 95% of those afflicted experience nothing worse than fever and headaches. Four percent suffer acute meningitis, creating the largest medical crisis in history. And one percent find themselves “locked in”—fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. One per cent doesn’t seem like a lot. But in the United States, that’s 1.7 million people “locked in”…including the President’s wife and daughter.”
• The Getaway God (Sandman Slim) by Richard Kadrey (Aug 26, 2014) – Narrated By MacLeod Andrews
• Voices from Beyond (A Ghost Finders Novel) by Simon R. Green (Ace, August 26) — “In a quiet London suburb, four university students participating in an experiment inside a reputed haunted house hold a séance that goes terribly wrong. What—or who—ever they summoned has taken their minds away, leaving them empty shells. Enter the Ghost Finders, ready to confront an enraged poltergeist for the students’ very souls.”
• Greenglass House by Milford, Kate and Zollars, Jaime (Aug 26, 2014)
• Teen: The Rule of Thoughts (Mortality Doctrine, Book Two) (The Mortality Doctrine) by James Dashner (Aug 26, 2014)
• Kids: Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor: 1 by Jon Scieszka and Brian Biggs (Aug 26, 2014
• Kids: Gabriel Finley and the Raven’s Riddle by George Hagen and Scott Bakal (Aug 26, 2014)
• The Fire Prince (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy) by Emily Gee (Solaris, Aug 27) — “The long awaited and much anticipated sequel to 2011′s The Sentinel Mage. The Fire Prince continues the saga of Prince Harkeld, Innis the shapeshifter and the imperiled Seven Kingdoms.”
• All That Outer Space Allows (The Apollo Quartet, Book 4) by Ian Sales (Whippleshield, August 2014) — “I plan to have copies available for Loncon 3 in August, but we’ll see how the research and writing goes. I suspect it may be the hardest of the four to write – and Then Will The Great Ocean Wash Deep Above was no picnic… Meanwhile, I have a bunch of other projects on the go.”
• Anthology: Burnt Tongues edited by Chuck Palahniuk, Richard Thomas, and Dennis Widmyer (Medallion Press, August 2014) — “This collection of transgressive short stories will be out in August. Cover art by Jay Shaw. With an introduction by Chuck Palaniuk. Stories by Neil Krolicki, Chris Lewis Carter, Gayle Towell, Tony Liebhard, Michael De Vito, Jr., Tyler Jones, Phil Jourdan, Richard Lemmer, Amanda Gowin, Matt Egan, Fred Venturini, Brandon Tietz, Adam Skorupskas, Bryan Howie, Brien Piechos, Jason M. Fylan, Terence James Eeles, Keith Buie, Gus Moreno, and Daniel W. Broallt.”

SEPTEMBER 2014:

• Acceptance: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy) by Jeff VanderMeer (Sep 1, 2014)
• City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett (Crown/Broadway and Recorded Books, September 9, 2014) — “a second-world story of spies, subterfuge, and statesmanship set in a nation of dead gods.” — latest IndieBound and Amazon listings
• Consumed: A Novel by David Cronenberg (Sep 2, 2014) — debut novel from the acclaimed filmmaker: “the story of two journalists whose entanglement in a French philosopher’s death becomes a surreal journey into global conspiracy.”
• Sleeping Late On Judgement Day: A Bobby Dollar Novel by Tad Williams (DAW Hardcover, September 2) — “Where does an angel go when he’s been to Hell and back? Renegade angel Bobby Dollar does not have an easy afterlife. After surviving the myriad gruesome dangers Hell oh-so-kindly offered him, Bobby has returned empty-handed – his demon girlfriend Casmira, the Countess of Cold Hands, is still in the clutches of Eligor, Grand Duke of Hell. Some hell of a rescue. Forced to admit his failure, Bobby ends up back at his job as an angel advocate. That is, until Walter, an old angel friend whom Bobby never thought he’d see again, shows up at the local bar. The last time he saw Walter was in Hell, when Walter had tried to warn him about one of Bobby’s angel superiors. But now Walter can’t remember anything, and Bobby doesn’t know whom to trust.” I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the first two Bobby Dollar books (The Dirty Streets of Heaven and Happy Hour in Hell) and am looking forward to finally finding out what the hell is going on among the big powers.
• ADDED: Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson by Briggs, Patricia (Sep 2, 2014) (via Suvudu)
• The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Izzo Hunter (Ace Trade, September 2) — “Gray’s deep talent for magick has won him a place at Merlin College. But when he accompanies four fellow students on a mysterious midnight errand that ends in disaster and death, he is sent away in disgrace—and without a trace of his power. He must spend the summer under the watchful eye of his domineering professor, Appius Callender, working in the gardens of Callender’s country estate and hoping to recover his abilities. And it is there, toiling away on a summer afternoon, that he meets the professor’s daughter.”
• Spells at the Crossroads by Barbara Ashford (DAW, September 2)
• The Golden Princess: A Novel of the Change (Change Series) by S.M. Stirling (Roc Hardcover, September 2) — “A new generation faces its own challenges in the world the Change has made. Princess Orlaith, heir to Rudi Mackenzie, Artos the First, High King of Montival, now wields the Sword of the Lady—and faces a new enemy. Fortunately, she also has a new ally in Reiko, Empress of Japan, who has been pursued to America by a conquering army from Asia.”
• Maplecroft: The Borden Dispatches by Cherie Priest (Roc Trade, Sep 2) — “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks; and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one…. The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny. But it is not far enough from the affliction that possessed my parents. Their characters, their very souls, were consumed from within by something that left malevolent entities in their place. It originates from the ocean’s depths, plaguing the populace with tides of nightmares and madness.”
• Twelve Kings in Sharakhai (The Song of the Shattered Sands) by Bradley Beaulieu (Sep 2, 2014)
• The Savior (The General) by Tony Daniel and David Drake (Baen, Sep 2) — “Sequel to The Heretic, Book 10 in the nationally best-selling General series.”
• Outrider: A Novel by Steven John (Night Shade, Sep 2) — “The only people that can stop the high-tech terrorists who are stealing power are on horseback.”
• Age of Iron (Iron Age) by Angus Watson (Orbit, Sep 2)
• The Bone Clocks: A Novel by Mitchell, David (Random House, Sep 9, 2014) — the author of Cloud Atlas sets his sights on the near, post-oil future with a “metaphysical thriller” unveiled as an interactive graphic in The Guardian
• The Witch with No Name (Hollows) by Kim Harrison (Sep 9, 2014)
• Teen: The Caller (Shadowfell) by Juliet Mariller (Knopf Books for Young Readers, Sep 9) — “In the final book in this gripping, romantic fantasy trilogy perfect for fans of Robin McKinley, Kristin Cashore, and Shannon Hale, Neryn’s band of rebels reach their climactic confrontation with the king. The stunning conclusion to the story that began with Shadowfell and Raven Flight is full of romance, intrigue, magic, and adventure.”
• Yesterday’s Kin by Nancy Kress (Tachyon, Sep 9) — “Aliens have landed in New York. A deadly cloud of spores has already infected and killed the inhabitants of two worlds. Now that plague is heading for Earth, and threatens humans and aliens alike. Can either species be trusted to find the cure?”
• Exo (Jumper) by Steven Gould (Tor, Sep 9)
• Hieroglyph: Stories and Blueprints for a Better Future by Neal Stephenson (William Morrow, September 9) — I assume this is in reference to Stephenson’s “Hieroglyph” challenge/project, to inspire tech and science research with grand sf stories
• Anthology: Rogues edited by Gardner Dozois and George R.R. Martin (Bantam Spectra, September 9, 2014) — “There’s something for everyone in ROGUES — SF, mystery, historical fiction, epic fantasy, sword and sorcery, comedy, tragedy, crime stories, mainstream, as well as rogues, cads, scalawags, con men, thieves, and scoundrels of all descriptions.” With stories from: Gaiman, Rothfuss, Willis, Nix, Abraham, Cornell, Cherie Priest, Lynch, Vaughn, Swanwick, Lansdale, Hughes, Gillian Flynn!, and Joe Abercrombie
• ADDED: Broken Monsters by Beukes, Lauren (Mulholland, Sep 16, 2014) — “A criminal mastermind creates violent tableaus in abandoned Detroit warehouses in Lauren Beukes’s new genre-bending novel of suspense. Detective Gabriella Versado has seen a lot of bodies. But this one is unique even by Detroit’s standards: half boy, half deer, somehow fused together. As stranger and more disturbing bodies are discovered, how can the city hold on to a reality that is already tearing at its seams?”
• Ancestral Machines: A Humanity’s Fire novel by Michael Cobley (Sep 16, 2014)
• Anthology: Phantasm Japan: Fantasies Light and Dark, From and About Japan edited by Nick Mamatas (Haikasoru, Sep 16, 2014) — another original trade paperback anthology edited by Mamatas for VIZ Media’s Haikasoru sf/f prose imprint after 2012′s well-received The Future is Japanese
• Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon by David Barnett (Tor, Sep 16)
• The Infinite Sea: The Second Book of the 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (Sep 16, 2014)
• Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld (Sep 23, 2014) — “Scott Westerfeld, the author of the extremely popular Uglies and Leviathan series, has a new novel novel coming out on Sept. 23. Afterworlds is a suspenseful thriller about a young writer, Darcy Patel, who arrives in New York City with a contract to write a YA novel. There’s a meta element: Darcy’s novel-within-the-novel, also called Afterworlds— about a girl who delves into a realm between the living and the dead to hide out during a terrorist attack — is woven into Darcy’s narrative as she learns to navigate life in the city.”
• The Bodies We Wear by Jeyn Roberts (Knopf Books for Young Readers, Sep 23) — “People say when you take Heam, your body momentarily dies and you catch a glimpse of heaven. Faye was only eleven when dealers forced Heam on her and her best friend, Christian. But Faye didn’t glimpse heaven—she saw hell. And Christian died. ”
• The Seventh Sigil by Margaret Weis and Robert Krammes (Tor, Sep 23)
• The Wonder of All Things by Mott, Jason (Harlequin MIRA, Sep 30, 2014) — the author of The Returned returns with a new novel about the cost and power of living with miracles: “On an ordinary day, at an air show like that in any small town across the country, a plane crashes into a crowd of spectators, killing and injuring dozens. But when the dust clears, a thirteen-year-old girl named Ava is found huddled beneath a pocket of rubble with her best friend, Wash. He is injured and bleeding, and when Ava places her hands over him, his wounds miraculously disappear.”
• Wolf in White Van: A Novel by John Darnielle (FSG, Sep 30, 2014) — “Welcome to Trace Italian, a game of strategy and survival! You may now make your first move. Isolated by a disfiguring injury since the age of seventeen, Sean Phillips crafts imaginary worlds for strangers to play in. From his small apartment in southern California, he orchestrates fantastic adventures where possibilities, both dark and bright, open in the boundaries between the real and the imagined. As the creator of “Trace Italian”—a text-based, role-playing game played through the mail—Sean guides players from around the world through his intricately imagined terrain, which they navigate and explore, turn by turn, seeking sanctuary in a ravaged, savage future America.”
• ADDED: The Brothers Cabal (Johannes Cabal Novels) by Jonathan L. Howard (Sep 30, 2014)
• Clash of Eagles by Alan Smale (Del Rey, 2014) — “His novella of a Roman invasion of ancient America, “A Clash of Eagles” in the Panverse Two anthology (edited by Dario Ciriello), won the 2010 Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and he has recently sold a trilogy of novels set in the same universe. The first book, CLASH OF EAGLES, will appear from Del Rey in 2014.”
• The Mirror Empire (Worldbreaker Saga, Book 1) by Kameron Hurley (Angry Robot, September 2014) — “On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event known to extinguish nations and reshape continents, a troubled orphan evades death and slavery to uncover her own bloody past… while a world goes to war with itself.”
• The Winter Long (October Daye, #8) by Seanan McGuire (September 2014)
• Mortal Beauty (Immortal Game, #1) by Ann Aguirre (September 2014)
• Kids: The Eighth Continent by Matt London (Razorbill, September 2014) — via PW Book Deals: “Debut novelist Matt London sold his middle-grade series, the 8th Continent, to Gillian Levinson at Razorbill. Agent Sara Crowe at Harvey Klinger handled the three-book, world-rights deal for the author. Razorbill said the humorous series was pitched as “Despicable Me meets Where in the World Is Carmen San Diego?”; it follows a brother and sister trying to turn the Great Pacific Garbage Patch into “a utopic eighth continent.””

OCTOBER 2014:

• Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Orbit, October 7) — sequel and book two in the planned trilogy which started with Ancillary Justice
• Armada by Ernest Cline (October 7) — “Cline wowed the world with Ready Player One in 2011, a brilliant debut that was pure geek gold: a glorious fusion of near future science fiction, epic fantasy quest, and unlikely love story, that above all else is an homage to the 1980s. Millions of readers worldwide have been anxiously awaiting his second novel, which evidently chronicles the adventures of a video game geek named Zack, who is conscripted into a top-secret government program and must save the world from an alien invasion.” (via Paul Goat Allen’s “The Most Anticipated Sci-fi and Fantasy Releases of 2014″ for Barnes & Noble)
• Falling Sky by Rajan Khanna (Pyr, Oct 7) — “Ben Gold lives in dangerous times. Two generations ago, a virulent disease turned the population of most of North America into little more than beasts called Ferals. Some of those who survived took to the air, scratching out a living on airships and dirigibles soaring over the dangerous ground. Ben has his own airship, a family heirloom, and has signed up to help a group of scientists looking for a cure. But that’s not as easy as it sounds, especially with a power-hungry air city looking to raid any nearby settlements. To make matters worse, his airship, the only home he’s ever known, is stolen. Ben must try to survive on the ground while trying to get his ship back. This brings him to Gastown, a city in the air recently conquered by belligerent and expansionist pirates. When events turn deadly, Ben must decide what really matters–whether to risk it all on a desperate chance for a better future or to truly remain on his own.”
• Nightmare Carnival edited by Ellen Datlow (Dark Horse Books, Oct 7, 2014) — new anthology includes (among others) Nick Mamatas, Nathan Ballingrud, Jeffrey Ford, Genevieve Valentine, Stephen Graham Jones, Robert Shearman, and Laird Barron
• The Shotgun Arcana by R.S. Belcher (Tor, Oct 7)
• The Chaplain’s War by Brad Torgersen (Baen, October 7, 2014) — debut novel — “A chaplain serving in Earth’s space fleet is trapped behind enemy lines where he struggles for both personal survival and humanity’s future. The mantis cyborgs: insectlike, cruel, and determined to wipe humanity from the face of the galaxy. The Fleet is humanity’s last chance: a multi-world, multi-national task force assembled to hold the line against the aliens’ overwhelming technology and firepower. Enter Harrison Barlow, who like so many young men of wars past, simply wants to serve his people and partake of the grand adventure of military life. Only, Harrison is not a hot pilot, nor a crack shot with a rifle. What good is a Chaplain’s Assistant in the interstellar battles which will decide the fate of all?”
• The Sword of Michael (Depossessionist) by Marcus Wynne (Baen, Oct 7, 2014)
• Spark: A Novel by John Twelve Hawks (Doubleday, Oct 7)
• Broken Soul by Faith Hunter (Oct 7, 2014) — presumably the next Jane Yellowrock book
• Poison Fruit: Agent of Hel by Jacqueline Carey (Roc Hardcover, Oct 7)
• Silverblind (Ironskin) by Tina Connolly (Tor, October 7) — the third book in Connolly’s Ironskin series
• The Dark Defiles by Richard Morgan (Del Rey, Oct 7) — “The final part of Richard Morgan’s fast-moving and brutal fantasy brings Ringil to his final reckoning and sees the world tipping into another war with the dragon folk. And, most terrifying of all, the prophecy of a dark lord come to rule may be coming true very close to home …”
• Hawk (Vlad) by Steven Brust (Tor, October 7)
• Closer to Home: Book One of Herald Spy by Mercedes Lackey (October 7)
• The Young Elites by Marie Lu (Oct 7, 2014)
• Anthology: Fearsome Magics by K.J. Parker, Scott Lynch, Christopher Priest and Jonathan Strahan (Oct 7, 2014)
• Those Above by Daniel Polansky (Hodder & Stoughton, Oct 9, 2014) — “You’ve seen him do crime – low fantasy by way of HBO’s The Wire. You knew it as Low Town, the crime-ridden city where only death is certain. But you’ve never seen him do epic fantasy. Until now. From the acclaimed author of THE STRAIGHT RAZOR CURE comes this spectacular new series – epic fantasy, as only Daniel Polansky can imagine it.”
• The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, translated by Ken Liu (Tor Books, October 14, 2014) — the first of an announced trilogy of translated editions of this 400,000-copy-selling Chinese sf series; a Tor.com article in early May provides yet more information
• Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen by Garth Nix (Oct 14, 2014)
• Collection: The Wilds by Julia Elliott (Tin House, Oct 14, 2014) — “At an obscure South Carolina nursing home, a lost world reemerges as a disabled elderly woman undergoes newfangled brain-restoration procedures and begins to explore her environment with the assistance of strap-on robot legs. At a deluxe medical spa on a nameless Caribbean island, a middle-aged woman hopes to revitalize her fading youth with grotesque rejuvenating therapies that combine cutting-edge medical technologies with holistic approaches and the pseudo-religious dogma of Zen-infused self-help. And in a rinky-dink mill town, an adolescent girl is unexpectedly inspired by the ravings and miraculous levitation of her fundamentalist friend’s weird grandmother. These are only a few of the scenarios readers encounter in Julia Elliott’s debut collection, The Wilds. In these genre-bending stories, teetering between the ridiculous and the sublime, Elliott’s language-driven fiction uses outlandish tropes to capture poignant moments in her humble characters’ lives. Without abandoning the tenets of classic storytelling, Elliott revels in lush lyricism, dark humor, and experimental play.”
• Fire in the Blood by Erin M. Evans (Wizards of the Coast, Oct 14) — “SCRIBE-award-winning author, Erin M. Evans, continues the riveting tale of her Sundering character, Farideh, as she becomes embroiled in a Forgotten Realms-flavored game of thrones.”
• Teen: The Doubt Factory by Paolo Bacigalupi (Little Brown Books for Young Readers and Listening Library, Oct 14) — “In this page-turning contemporary thriller, National Book Award Finalist and New York Times bestselling author Paolo Bacigalupi explores the timely issue of how public information is distorted for monetary gain, and how those who exploit it must be stopped.”
• Teen: Girl on a Wire by Gwenda Bond (Skyscape, Oct 14) — “A ballerina, twirling on a wire high above the crowd. Horses, prancing like salsa dancers. Trapeze artists, flying like somersaulting falcons. And magic crackling through the air. Welcome to the Cirque American!”
• Teen: Girl at the Bottom of the Sea by Michelle Tea (McSweeney’s McMullen’s, October 14) — “the follow-up to Michelle Tea’s beloved Mermaid in Chelsea Creek, “a refreshing breath of air in the world of YA, equal parts eerie, heartbreaking, and fantastical.””
• The Free by Brian Ruckley (Orbit, Oct 14)
• Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch (Balzer + Bray, Oct 14, 2014)
• Graphic Novel: In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang (First Second, Oct 14, 2014) — from the announcement: “a graphic novel about gaming and gold farming for young adults based on Doctorow’s award-winning story Anda’s Game, adapted by Jen Wang, creator of the amazing graphic novel Koko Be Good.”
• The Death House by Sarah Pinborough (Gollancz, Oct 16, 2014) — “The Death House is a home where, in a world where people are safe against illness, children and teenagers who are susceptible to terminal conditions are sent to die. Their fates are certain. Their lives are in their hands. The question is: what will they choose to do with them?”
• The Mime Order: The Bone Season (The Remnant Chronicles) by Samantha Shannon (Oct 21, 2014) — sequel to The Bone Season – “Paige Mahoney has escaped the brutal penal colony of Sheol I, but her problems have only just begun: many of the fugitives are still missing and she is the most wanted person in London.”
• Kids: Centaur Rising by Jane Yolen (Henry Holt, Oct 21, 2014) — “One night during the Perseid meteor shower, Arianne thinks she sees a shooting star land in the fields surrounding her family’s horse farm. About a year later, one of their horses gives birth to a baby centaur. The family has enough attention already as Arianne’s six-year-old brother was born with birth defects caused by an experimental drug—the last thing they need is more scrutiny. But their clients soon start growing suspicious. Just how long is it possible to keep a secret? And what will happen if the world finds out?”
• War Dogs by Greg Bear (Orbit, October 21) — “AN EPIC INTERSTELLAR TALE OF WAR FROM A MASTER OF SCIENCE FICTION. The Gurus came in peace, bearing gifts. They were a highly advanced, interstellar species who brought amazingly useful and sophisticated technology to the human race. There was, of course, a catch. The Gurus warned of a far more malevolent life form, beings who have hounded the Gurus from sun to sun, planet to planet, across the cosmos. Pundits have taken to calling them the Antagonists-or Antags-and they have already established a beachhead on Mars. For all they’ve done for us, the Gurus would now like our help.”
• The Abyss Beyond Dreams: Chronicle of the Fallers by Peter F. Hamilton (Del Rey, Oct 21)
• Ink Mage (Ink Mage series) by Gischler, Victor (Oct 22, 2013)
• A Vision of Fire by Gillian Anderson and Jeff Rovin (Simon451, October 2014) — “first in the EarthEnd trilogy” by the X-Files actress and her co-author Rovin
• The Peripheral by William Gibson (Putnam Adult, October 28) — “William Gibson returns with his first novel since 2010’s New York Times–bestselling Zero History. Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran’s benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC’s elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there’s a job he’s supposed to do—a job Flynne didn’t know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her. The job seems to be simple: work a perimeter around the image of a tower building. Little buglike things turn up. He’s supposed to get in their way, edge them back. That’s all there is to it. He’s offering Flynne a good price to take over for him. What she sees, though, isn’t what Burton told her to expect. It might be a game, but it might also be murder.”
• The City Stained Red (Bring Down Heaven) by Sam Sykes (Orbit, Oct 28, 2014) — begins a new series from the author of Tome of the Undergates
• Falling from Horses by Molly Gloss (Oct 28)
• The Wolf in Winter: A Charlie Parker Thriller by John Connolly (Oct 28, 2014)
• Teen: Stone Cold Touch (The Dark Elements) by Jennifer L. Armentrout (Oct 28, 2014)
• The Undying by Ethan Reid (Simon451, October 2014) — a dystopia
• Chimpanzee by Darin Bradley (Resurrection House, Fall 2014) — “a delightfully weird existential near-fi conspiracy theory romance”
• Heraclix and Pomp by Forrest Aguirre (Resurrection House, Fall 2014) — “an alternative history fantasy set in the Eastern Europe. It features a golem, a faery, and a mad scientist (well, more of 17th century alchemist/demonologist, but it’s the same trope)”
• Rooms by Lauren Oliver (Fall 2014)
• Collection: The Nickronomicon by Nick Mamatas (Inssmouth Free Press, Fall/Winter 2014) — collects all of Mamatas’ Lovecraft-inspired fiction into a single volume, including a new, never-before-published novella, titled “On the Occasion of My Retirement.”

NOVEMBER and DECEMBER 2014:

• The Slow Regard of Silent Things: A KingKiller Chronicle Novella by Patrick Rothfuss (DAW, November 4, 2014) — “set at The University, where the brightest minds work to unravel the mysteries of enlightened sciences, such as artificing and alchemy. Auri, a former student (and a secondary but influential character from Rothfuss’s earlier novels) now lives alone beneath the sprawling campus in a maze of ancient and abandoned passageways. There in The Underthing, she feels her powers and learns to see the truths that science—and her former classmates—have overlooked.”
• Willful Child by Steven Erikson (Tor, Nov 4, 2014) — “From the New York Times Bestselling author Steven Erikson comes a new SF novel of devil-may-care, near calamitous and downright chaotic adventures through the infinite vastness of interstellar space. These are the voyages of the starship A.S.F. Willful Child. Its ongoing mission: to seek out strange new worlds on which to plant the Terran flag, to subjugate and if necessary obliterate new life-forms, to boldly blow the… And so we join the not-terribly-bright but exceedingly cock-sure Captain Hadrian Sawback and his motley crew on board the Starship Willful Child for a series of devil-may-care, near-calamitous and downright chaotic adventures through ‘the infinite vastness of interstellar space.’”
• The Future Falls: Book Three of the Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff (Nov 4, 2014)
• Genesis Code: A Thriller of the Near Future by Jamie Metzl (Arcade Publishing, Nov 4) — “Blue Magic, the latest designer drug linked to a rash of overdoses, might explain the needle mark on the arm of a young woman found dead in her apartment in Kansas City. But when Star reporter Rich Azadian digs deeper, the clues tie her to a much bigger story: MaryLee Stock was a special protégée of evangelical megastar and powerbroker Cobalt Becker, who is poised to deliver his followers and the presidency to a firebrand rightwing senator in the next election. What makes the story hot is she may have been pregnant by Becker. More disturbing, the embryo may have been—illegally—genetically enhanced to produce a superbaby. But in America in 2023—bankrupt, violently divided by the culture wars, and beholden to archrival China—the rules of the game are complicated, and when the Department of National Competitiveness shuts down Azadian’s investigation and he learns that Chinese agents were also interested in the dead woman, he can only do what he does best: go rogue, assemble a team of brilliant misfits like himself, and investigate.”
• Jala’s Mask by Mike and Rachel Grinti (Pyr, Nov 4)
• Dreamer’s Pool: A Blackthorn & Grim Novel by Juliet Mariller (Nov 4)
• Anthology: Shattered Shields edited by Jennifer Brozek and Bryan Thomas Schmidt (Baen, Nov 4) — a military fantasy anthology with headliners Glen Cook (Black Company), Larry Correia, John Marco, Elizabeth Moon (new Paksenarrion), David Farland (new Runelords), Catherine Asaro, Sarah A. Hoyt, Robin Wayne Bailey.
• Revival: A Novel by King, Stephen (Scribner, Nov 11, 2014) — “A dark and electrifying novel about addiction, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life.”
• Chaos Unleashed by Drew Karpyshyn (Del Rey, Nov 11)
• The Whispering Swarm: Book One of The Sanctuary of the White Friars by Michael Moorcock (Tor, Nov 25)
• The Thorn of Emberlain (Gentleman Bastard #4) by Scott Lynch (November 2014)
• Anthology: Carbide Tipped Pens edited by Ben Bova and Eric Choi (Tor, December 2, 2014) — a an original hard sf anthology with stories from Gregory Benford, Nancy Fulda, Aliette de Bodard, Liu Cixin (translated by Ken Liu), Daniel H. Wilson, and more
• The Lady (Marakand) by K.V. Johansen (Pyr, Dec 9)
• The Jupiter Pirates #2: Curse of the Iris by Jason Fry (Dec 16, 2014)
• Anthology: The End is Now: The Apocalypse Triptych #2 edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey (December 2014) — via io9

UNDATED or 2015:

• The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord (Del Rey, Jan 6, 2015) — a follow-on to 2013′s The Best of All Possible Worlds: “For years, Rafi Delarua saw his family suffer under his father’s unethical use of psionic power. Now the government has Rafi under close watch, but, hating their crude attempts to analyse his brain, he escapes to the planet Punartam, where his abilities are the norm, not the exception. Punartam is also the centre for his favourite sport, wallrunning – and thanks to his best friend, he has found a way to train with the elite. But Rafi soon realises he’s playing quite a different game, for the galaxy is changing; unrest is spreading and the Zhinuvian cartels are plotting, making the stars a far more dangerous place to aim. There may yet be one solution – involving interstellar travel, galactic power and the love of a beautiful game.” — released June 5, 2014 in the UK
• Spell-Blind (Casebooks of Justis Fearsson) by David B. Coe (Baen, Jan 6, 2015)
• Get in Trouble: Stories by Kelly Link (Random House, Jan 13, 2015)
• Golden Son: Book II of the Red Rising Trilogy by Pierce Brown (Jan 13, 2015)
• Cities & Thrones by Carrie Patel (Feb 5, 2015) — follow-up to The Buried Life
• The Thousand and One: Book II of The Crescent Moon Kingdoms by Saladin Ahmed (February 2015)
• The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth) by Jemisin, N. K. (Orbit, 2015) — “This is the way the world ends. Again.”
• Collection: Irredeemable by Jason Sizemore (Seventh Star Press) — “Featuring twenty one tales of dark SF and horror, many of which have flavors of Appalachia, Irredeemable brings together a number of Jason’s previously published stories and features two brand new ones. The book will be released in all eBook formats and trade paperback during the second week of April. The collection will also feature a cover from Polish artist Tomasz Trafial.”
• All the Worlds Against Us (Jon and Lobo) by Mark L. Van Name (Baen) — Audible Frontiers has produced the previous books in the series, under fantastic narrations by Tom Stechschulte
• Tsarina by J. Nelle Patrick (2014)
• Love in the Time of Mechanical Replication by Judd Trichter (St. Martins? Thomas Dunne? 2014?)
• Ebon (Pegasus, #2) by Robin McKinley (2014?)
• The Doors of Stone (Kingkiller Chronicle #3) by Patrick Rothfuss (DAW, 2014?)
• Shadows of Self (Mistborn, #5) by Brandon Sanderson (Tor, 2014?)
• Edge of Eternity (The Century Trilogy #3) by Ken Follett (2014?)
• The Winds of Winter (A Song of Ice and Fire, #6) by George R.R. Martin (2015?)
• The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi (Knopf, 2015) — “Knopf has acquired a new novel by Paolo Bacigalupi, the science fiction writer whose 2009 book “The Windup Girl” sold 200,000 copies and was considered one of the top novels of the year. The new book, “The Water Knife,” is set in a lawless, water-starved American Southwest in the not-too-distant future.”
• Because You’ll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas (Bloomsbury USA, 2015) — first novel from 2010 Clarion Workshop graduate
• Anthology: Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams (Titan Books, February 2015) – “Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams, WASTELANDS 2: MORE STORIES OF THE APOCALYPSE is the star-studded follow-up to the 2008 bestselling anthology Wastelands.”
• The Philosopher’s Zombie by Robert J. Sawyer (April 2015)
• Anthology: The End has Come: The Apocalypse Triptych #3 edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey (June 2015) — via io9
• John Claude Bemis is set to launch a new Steampunk/alchemist series for young readers, to be published by Disney/Hyperion starting in 2015
• The Skull Throne (Demon Cycle, #4) by Peter V. Brett (2015?)
• The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker (St. Martin’s Press, 2015) — “Originally planned as a collection of short stories, the project changed to focus on Harry D’Amour going up against Pinhead. The novel has been in works for more than a decade and we’ll be able to read it in 2015, courtesy of St. Martin’s Press: ‘Clive is delighted to announce that St Martin’s Press has acquired world English rights to publish The Scarlet Gospels, his upcoming novel featuring Pinhead and Harry D’Amour. St Martin’s anticipates a winter 2015 publication date.’”
• The City of Mirrors (The Passage, #3) by Justin Cronin
• The Uninvited by Cat Winters (William Morrow) — via PW Book Deals: “Lucia Macro at HarperCollins’s William Morrow imprint acquired world English rights to Cat Winters’s novel, The Uninvited. The book, which Morrow compares to The Night Circus and The Thirteenth Tale, is a paranormal work set during the influenza pandemic of 1918. Winters, who was represented by Barbara Poelle at the Irene Goodman Literary Agency, was a finalist for the YALSA’s 2014 Morris Award, for her novel In the Shadow of Blackbirds.”
• How to Invent a Language by David Peterson (Penguin) — via PW Book Deals: “For Penguin Press, Elda Rotor took world rights to David Peterson’s How to Invent a Language. Peterson has created languages for shows like HBO’s Game of Thrones and Syfy’s Defiance, and the book will be a guide for anyone looking to craft a new tongue. Agent Joanna Volpe at New Leaf Literary & Media represented Peterson.”
• Teen: The Burning Depths by James P. Smythe (Hodder, February 2015) — “Centuries ago, the Australia left a dying Earth in search of an inhabitable planet its colonists could call home. But no such planet was ever discovered. Law and order gave way to rioting and chaos as gangs began battling for control of the ship and its dwindling resources, and the Australia was left to drift, directionless, through the emptiness of space. Seventeen-year-old Chan, fiercely independent and self-sufficient, keeps her head down and lives quietly, careful not to draw attention to herself amidst the violence and disorder. Until the day she makes an extraordinary discovery – a way to return the Australia to Earth. But doing so would bring her to the attention of the fanatics and the murderers who control life aboard the ship, putting her and everyone she loves in terrible danger. And a safe return to Earth is by no means certain.”
• Shower of Stones by Zachary Jernigan (Night Shade Books, Spring 2015) — “Conclusion to the visceral, inventive narrative begun in No Return, ‘the most daring debut novel of 2013,’ Shower of Stones pits men against gods, swords against world-destroying magic, offering readers another glimpse into the fascinatingly harsh world of Jeroun.”
• King of Ashes: Book One of The War of Five Crowns by Raymond E. Feist (April 7, 2015)
• The Unnoticeables by Robert Brockway (Tor, July 2015) — “Tor said the books are “hilarious urban fantasy novels” set in a world that pulls from New York’s punk scene in the 1970s as well as the modern-day Los Angeles entertainment industry.” (via PW)
• Truthwitch by Susan Dennard (Tor, Fall 2015) — “The series is set in a world where three empires rule and every member of the population is born with a magical skill set, known as a “witchery.” Tor elaborated: “Now, as the Twenty Year Truce in a centuries-long war is about to end, the balance of power will fall on the shoulders of two young women, who must accept their fate, and themselves, to survive.”” (via PW)
• The War Against Assholes by Sam Munson (Simon & Schuster / Saga Press, 2015?) — “set in a Manhattan “shrouded in mystery” and follows a 17-year-old Catholic high school student who begins to acquire supernatural powers after being introduced to a book called The Calendar of Sleights by a strange classmate. The protagonist is then pulled into a long-running war among rival factions of magicians.” (via PW)
• Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear (Gollanzc, late 2016) — first in a two-book space opera which “imagines the invention of The White Drive: an easy, nonrelativistic means of travel across unimaginable distances. The gripping story follows salvage operators, Haimey Dz and her partner Connla Kurucz, as they pilot their tiny ship into the scars left by unsuccessful White Transitions, searching for the relics of lost human – and alien – vessels.”

Posted in Release Week | Tagged authority, bronson pinchot, charlie fletcher, claire danes, deadman's road, jeff vandermeer, joe r lansdale, john joseph adams, laline paull, michael cunningham, nightwings, orlagh cassidy, robert silverberg, simon prebble, stefan rudnicki, the bees, the oversight, the snow queen, wastelands