Release Week: The Queen of the Tearling, Alias Hook, California, A Plunder of Souls, Landline, To Kill a Mockingbird, Close Your Eyes Hold Hands, and How to Survive a Sharknado

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Release Week: The Queen of the Tearling, Alias Hook, California, A Plunder of Souls, Landline, To Kill a Mockingbird, Close Your Eyes Hold Hands, and How to Survive a Sharknado

Posted on 2014-07-12 at 10:52 by Sam

JULY 2-8, 2014: Another fantastic week’s worth of audiobooks has come our way, from beloved Pulitzer-winning classics in audiobook (and ebook) for the first time to post-apocalyptic sf and epic fantasy, Peter Pan retold, historical fantasy, and time-travel romance. Also out this week: Terry Brooks returns to Shannara (read by Simon Vance), along with new audiobooks from Chris Bohjalian and Veronica Roth, J.M. Ledgard’s Submergence, and a standalone short audiobook from Neil Gaiman, his The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains which appeared in the fantastic Stories anthology in 2010. In terms of news this week, Mary Robinette Kowal announced the sale of three novels to Audible, and the World Fantasy Award nominees were announced as well, with all six novels available in audio. Also, there’s a bunch of newly added titles in the further-ahead listings, mostly pulled from The Millions preview of what’s yet to come this year. Enjoy! And if you’re new to audiobooks, among the many ways to get started are: you can try Audible with a free audiobook or get your first 3 months at Audible for $7.49/month; try a free 30-day trial at audiobook streaming service Audiobooks.com; or sign up for a $12.99 monthly membership at DRM-free Downpour.com.

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen Alias Hook by Lisa Jensen

The Queen of the Tearling: A Novel by Erika Johansen, narrated by Katherine Kellgren for Harper Audio (Harper) — “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.” There’s an interview and excerpt up on SoundCloud for this book, already set for a big screen adaptation starring Emma Watson. [IndieBound | Kobo | Powell’s | Amazon | Audible]

Alias Hook by Lisa Jensen, read by Ralph Lister for Blackstone Audio (Thomas Dunne Books) – ”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.” I’m a big, big fan of Lister and while Peter Pan’s Hook (along with “the villain of this old tale is more complicated and/or the hero, actually” reversal in general) is familiar ground, this one has a pretty unique twist. [IndieBound | Kobo | Powell’s | Amazon | Audible]

California by Edan Lepucki A Plunder of Souls: Thieftaker Chronicles, Book 3 | [D.B. Jackson]

California: A Novel by Edan Lepucki, read by Emma Galvin for Hachette Audio and Dreamscape Media (Little, Brown and Company) — “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.” Already on my radar before the book exploded into the national conversation due to Stephen Colbert’s coverage on his The Colbert Report; Jeff VanderMeer’s review in the NY Times also offers some guidance: “Perhaps the world as we know it will indeed end this way for many Americans: terrified of porcupines, longing for the sound of S.U.V.s, unable to distinguish between an artifact and a keepsake, helped to find temporary sanctuary by the last black man on earth.” [IndieBound | Kobo | Powell’s | Amazon | Audible]

A Plunder of Souls by D. B. Jackson, narrated by Jonathan Davis for Audible (Tor Books) — “Boston, 1769: Ethan Kaille, a Boston thieftaker who uses his conjuring to catch criminals, has snared villains and defeated magic that would have daunted a lesser man. What starts out as a mysterious phenomenon that has local ministers confused becomes something far more serious. A ruthless, extremely powerful conjurer seeks to wake the souls of the dead to wreak a terrible revenge on all who oppose him. Kaille’s minister friends have been helpless to stop crimes against their church.” Jackson, a pseudonym of best-selling author David B. Coe, wrote about the Big Idea behind this third “Thieftaker” historical fantasy earlier this week, and Davis is as always a fantastic narrator. [IndieBound | Kobo | Powell’s | Amazon | Audible]

Landline | [Rainbow Rowell] To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Landline by Rainbow Rowell, narrated by Rebecca Lowman for Macmillan Audio (St. Martin’s Press) — “From the New York Times best-selling author of Eleanor & Park and Fangirl, comes a hilarious, heart-wrenching take on love, marriage, and magic phones. Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. That it’s been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply - but that almost seems beside the point now. Maybe that was always beside the point. Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her - Neal is always a little upset with Georgie - but she doesn’t expect to him to pack up the kids and go without her. When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything. That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts. Is that what she’s supposed to do?” Brought to my attention by TIME’s summer books preview, which gave the book “4 to 1” odds of becoming “the book of the summer”. [IndieBound | Kobo | Powell’s | Amazon | Audible]

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, narrated by Sissy Spacek — “Harper Lee’s Pulitzer prize-winning 1960 masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep south - and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred, available now for the first time as a digital audiobook. One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the 20th century by librarians across the country.” Also the first ebook release. [Kobo | Kindle | Audible]

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands: A Novel | [Chris Bohjalian] The High Druid's Blade: The Defenders of Shannara, Book 1 | [Terry Brooks]

SEEN BUT NOT HEARD:

 

  • The Great Glass Sea by Josh Weil (Grove Press, Jul 2, 2014) — “In an alternate near future, space mirrors make sure daylight never ends for a glass-encased farming town in Russia. After an encounter with the town’s oligarch, two cousins whose paths have diverged become unwilling rivals.” (via the LA Times Summer Reading Guide) —reviewed positively by Jeff VanderMeer in the LA Times as “the moving and sensitive tale of two brothers caught up in cultural turmoil.” [IndieBound]
  • The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron by Ross E. Lockhart and Justin Steele (Word Horde, Jul 2, 2014) -- "There are Things - terrifying Things - whispered of in darkened forests beyond the safe comfort of firelight: The Black Guide, the Broken Ouroboros, the Pageant, Belphegor, Old Leech... These Things have always been here. They predate you. They will outlast you. This book pays tribute to those Things. For We are the Children of Old Leech... and we love you." [IndieBound]
  • 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…”
  • Non-Fiction: Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution by Laurie Penny (Bloomsbury USA, Jul 3, 2014) -- "Smart, clear-eyed, and irreverent, Unspeakable Things is a fresh look at gender and power in the twenty-first century, which asks difficult questions about dissent and desire, money and masculinity, sexual violence, menial work, mental health, queer politics, and the Internet."
  • Primordial: An Abstraction by D. Harlan Wilson (Anti-Oedipus Press, July 4) — “A nameless professor’s methods of teaching and scholarship become toxic; he is sent back to college to redo his Ph.D. and redeem his authority. This is only the beginning of terror. Life at the university isn’t what it used to be. Confronted by absurdity, redundancy, and pornogrpahy at every turn, the professor must struggle to follow the rules and be a good student even as he terrorizes the roommates, faculty, staff and administrators that threaten to undermine his rancorous will to power. Narrated in D. Harlan Wilson’s token “Hörnblower prose,” Primordial is an exercise in contemporary idiocy that rakes academia over the coals while plumbing the uncanny obscurities of existence and identity.”
  • The Symmetry Teacher: A Novel by Andrei Bitov and translated by Polly Gannon (FSG, Jul 8, 2014) -- Published in Russian in 2008, a "Metaphysical novel about the author, Bitov, reconstructing an old British novel he once read and had forgotten." (via Locus Online)
  • 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."
  • The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure) by Mark Hodder (Jul 8, 2014) – coming to audio next week, narrated by Gerard Doyle (Jul 15)
  • Resistance by Samit Basu (Titan, Jul 8, 2014) — follow-on to Turbulence
  • 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.”
  • The Forever Man: A Near-Future Thriller by Pierre Ouellette (Random House/Alibi, Jul 8, 2014) -- "Near-future thriller, in an e-book only publication, about a contract cop in a degenerated Portland who discovers that his brother is part of a secret experiment into immortality." (via Locus Online)
  • Collection: Tales of the Hidden World by Simon R. Green (Open Road, Jul 8, 2014) -- "Collection of 17 stories, including one original about the Droods." (via Locus Online)
  • Collection: Kestrel's Voyages by Misty Massey (Jul 8, 2014) -- a collection of Mad Kestrel stories: "Mad Kestrel, proud captain of the pirate vessel Thanos and secret wielder of wild magics, is back! In between assignments as the Privateer for the King of the Nine Islands, Kestrel and her crew have thrilling adventures all their own. Mermaids and magic springs, dead men walking and mages drinking, enchanted gateways and horrible monsters...the thrills never stop! Come on board and ride the waves in these four stories of derring-do and the marvelous tingle of magic."
  • Anthology: The Apex Book of World SF 3 edited by Lavie Tidhar (Apex Books, July 8)
  • Teens/Kids: Midnight Thief by Livia Blackburne (Disney Hyperion, Jul 8, 2014) -- "Growing up on Forge's streets has taught Kyra how to stretch a coin. And when that's not enough, her uncanny ability to scale walls and bypass guards helps her take what she needs. But when the leader of the Assassins Guild offers Kyra a lucrative job, she hesitates. She knows how to get by on her own, and she's not sure she wants to play by his rules. But he is persistent—and darkly attractive—and Kyra can't quite resist his pull. Tristam of Brancel is a young Palace knight on a mission. After his best friend is brutally murdered by the Demon Riders, a clan of vicious warriors who ride bloodthirsty wildcats, Tristam vows to take them down. But as his investigation deepens, he finds his efforts thwarted by a talented thief, one who sneaks past Palace defenses with uncanny ease. When a fateful raid throws Kyra and Tristam together, the two enemies realize that their best chance at survival—and vengeance—might be to join forces. And as their loyalties are tested to the breaking point, they learn a startling secret about Kyra's past that threatens to reshape both their lives. In her arresting debut novel, Livia Blackburne creates a captivating world where intrigue prowls around every corner—and danger is a way of life."
  • Graphic Novel: Ringworld: The Graphic Novel, Part One by Larry Niven, adapted by Robert Mandell and illustrated Sean Lam (Jul 8, 2014)
COMING SOON:

WorldOfTrouble_Final Full Fathom Five review Max Gladstone

  • Collection/Anthology: Eastlick and Other Stories By Shannon Page, Chaz Brenchley, Mark J. Ferrari, Jay Lake, Janna Silverstein, Narrated By Paula Hoffman, Jane Dodds,Aaron Abano, Eric Pollins, Michelle Ferguson for Audible (July 9)
  • Take Back the Skies By Lucy Saxon, Narrated By Gemma Dawson for Audible for Bloomsbury (July 9) -- Series: Tellus, Book 1
  • 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.”
  • The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai (July 10) --"The second novel from Rebecca Makkai (after 2011’s The Borrower) moves back and forth in the 20th century to tell a story of love, ghosts, and intrigue. The house for which The Hundred-Year House is named is Laurelfield, a rambling estate and former artists’ colony in Chicago’s wealthy North Shore. Owned by the Devohr family for generations, it now finds Zee (née Devohr) and her husband returning to live in the carriage house while she teaches at a local college and he supposedly writes a poet’s biography. What he does instead is ghostwrite teen novels and uncover family secrets." (via The Millions) -- Narrated by Jen Tullock for Penguin Audio
  • 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.” -- Narrated By Adam Paul
  • Collection: Last Stories and Other Stories by William T. Vollmann (July 10) -- "Vollmann has over 30 years and damn near as many books earned a reputation as a wildly prolific novelist. Still, almost a decade has passed since his last full-length work of fiction, the National Book Award-winning Europe Central. Here, he offers what may have started as a suite of ghost stories… but is now another sprawling atlas of Vollmann’s obsessions. Stories of violence, romance, and cultural collision are held together by supernatural elements and by Vollmann’s psychedelically sui generis prose." (via The Millions)
  • Indie: Southern Bound: Max Porter, Book 1 By Stuart Jaffe, Narrated By Stuart Jaffe (July 10) -- "When Max and Sandra Porter moved down to North Carolina, they thought they were getting a new beginning - good job, good pay, and a lovely little place in Winston-Salem. But the family that hired him to research land deals in North Carolina is not all that they seem. And when Max discovers that his office is haunted by Marshall Drummond, PI - a ghost from the 1940s - what started as a simple research job sinks him neck-deep in a world of old mysteries and dangerous enemies."
  • 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 -- in an interview for USA Today he plays ukulele and talks about the end of the world
  • Half a King by Joe Abercrombie (Del Rey, July 15, 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.” — narrated by John Keating for Recorded Books
  • 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.” -- Narrated By Roger Wayne for Tantor
  • 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 as well as a very positive review from Liz Bourke
  • Seeders: A Novel by A. J. Colucci (Thomas Dunne, Jul 15, 2014)
  • Head Full of Mountains by Brent Hayward (ChiZine, July 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.”
  • 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) – Narrated By Jennifer Ikeda
  • The Outsorcerer’s Apprentice by Holt, Tom (Orbit, Jul 15, 2014)
  • The Scorched Earth by Drew Karpyshyn (Del Rey, July 15, 2014) — sequel to 2013 novel Children of Fire
  • Circle of Reign by Jacob Cooper (July 15) — book one of the Dying Lands Chronicle
  • Caves of Steel: Robot, Book 1, The Naked Sun: The Robot Series, Book 2, and The Robots of Dawn: The Robot Series, Book 3 By Isaac Asimov, Narrated By William Dufris (Jul 15)
  • The Return of the Discontinued Man: Burton & Swinburne, Book 5 By Mark Hodder, Narrated By Gerard Doyle (Jul 15)
  • Wellspring of Chaos: Saga of Recluce, Book 12 By L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Narrated By Kirby Heyborne (July 15)
  • Anthology: The Year's Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction 6 By Greg Egan, Nancy Kress, Ian R. MacLeod,Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Allen M. Steele, Michael Swanwick, Narrated By Tom Dheere, Nancy Linari, Dara Rosenberg (July 15)
  • 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)
  • Valor (The Faithful and the Fallen) by John Gwynne (Orbit, Jul 22, 2014)
  • ADDED: Doghouse by L.A. Kornetsky (Pocket Books, Jul 22) -- latest "Gin and Tonic" mystery series with elements of light fantasy (a dog and cat help with investigations)
  • Kids: The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher by Dana Alison Levy (Jul 22, 2014)
  • Marina By Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Narrated By Daniel Weyman for Hachette (Jul 22)
  • The Guild of Assassins by Anna Kashina (Angry Robot, July 28) — sequel to Blades of the Old Empire
  • Tigerman by Nick Harkaway (July 29) — US release, published in the UK on May 22 by William Heinemann and (read by Matt Bates for) Whole Story Audio — “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
  • The Buried Life by Patel, Carrie (Angry Robot, Jul 29, 2014)
  • Jani and the Greater Game by Eric Brown (Solaris, Jul 29, 2014) — “It’s 1910 and the British rule the subcontinent with an iron fist – and with strange technology fueled by a power source known as Annapurnite – discovered in the foothills of Mount Annapurna. But they rule at the constant cost of their enemies, mainly the Russian and the Chinese, attempting to learn the secret of this technology… This political confrontation is known as The Greater Game. Into this conflict is pitched eighteen year old Janisha Chaterjee who discovers a strange device which leads her into the foothills of the Himalayas. When Russians spies and the evil priest Durja Das find out about the device, the chase is on to apprehend Janisha before she can reach the Himalayas. There she will learn the secret behind Annapurnite, and what she learns will change the destiny of the world for ever. Jani and The Greater Game is the first book in a rip-roaring, spice-laden, steampunk action adventure series set in an exotic India and featuring a feisty heroine who subverts all the norms.”
  • One Night in Sixes (Children of the Drought) by Arianne ‘Tex’ Thompson (Solaris, 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)
  • The Winter King by C. L. Wilson (Avon and Harper Audio, Jul 29, 2014) — epic fantasy romance — “After three long years of war, starkly handsome Wynter Atrialan will have his vengeance on Summerlea’s king by taking one of the man’s beautiful, beloved daughters as his bride. But though peace is finally at hand, Wynter’s battle with the Ice Heart, the dread power he embraced to avenge his brother’s death, rages on.” — Narrated by Heather Wilds
  • Skin of the Wolf by Sam Cabot (Blue Rider Press, Jul 31, 2014) — “Months after Father Thomas Kelly, art historian Livia Pietro, and scholar Spencer George found themselves racing through Rome in a desperate effort to locate and preserve an incalculably valuable docu-ment, the three are about to be reunited in New York City. Thomas, still trying to assimilate what he learned—that vam¬pires exist, and that Livia and Spencer are among them—is looking forward to seeing Livia again. Livia is excited to be allowed into the back room of Sotheby’s for an exclusive viewing of an ancient Iroquois mask. And Spencer’s in love. But before the three can meet, Spencer is badly injured when he’s inexplicably attacked in Central Park—by a wolf.”
  • Bound (Alex Caine, Book 1) by Alan Baxter (HarperVoyager Australia, July 2014) — first in a trilogy of “modern grim dark fantasy thrillers”
  • Black Gum Godless Heathen by J David Osborne (Broken River Books, July 2014) — sequel to Low Down Death Right Easy
  • Anthology: Upgraded edited by Neil Clarke (Wyrm Publishing, July 2014) — “An anthology of original cyborg stories edited by a cyborg. Stronger. Better. Faster. We will rebuild you.”
  • Collection: The Court of Lies by Mark Teppo (Fairwood Press, July 2014)
AUGUST 2014:

the-magicians-land-cover

  • Inamorata By Megan Chance, Narrated By David deVries for Brilliance Audio (Aug 1)
  • Induced Coma by Harold Jaffe (Anti-Oediupus Press, Aug 1) -- a "docufiction" novel
  • 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 (Doubleday and Dreamscape Media, Aug 5, 2014) — “David, a college student, takes a summer job at a run-down family resort in a dying English resort town. This is against the wishes of his family…because it was at this resort where David’s biological father disappeared fifteen years earlier. But something undeniable has called David there.”
  • 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)
  • Islands of Rage and Hope (Black Tide Rising) by John Ringo (Baen, 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 chapter sampler are online, as is a positive review from Kirkus in which we learn of an important message: “always stand downwind from a troll”
  • Teen: Opposition (A Lux Novel) by Jennifer L. Armentrout (Aug 5, 2014)
  • Inhuman: Post-Human Series, Book 5 By David Simpson, Narrated By Ray Chase (Aug 8)
  • 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)
  • Cursed Moon (Prospero’s War) by Jaye Wells (Orbit, Aug 12, 2014)
  • Soda Pop Soldier: A Novel by Nick Cole (Harper Voyager, Aug 12, 2014) — “Call of Duty meets Diablo in this fast-paced, action-packed novel from the author of The Wasteland Saga.”
  • The Atlantis World: The Origin Mystery, Book 3 By A.G. Riddle, Narrated By Stephen Bel Davies (Aug 12)
  • Fortune’s Favors (Nyx Fortuna) by Marlene Perez (Orbit, 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)
  • Hellhole Inferno By Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Narrated by Scott Brick (Aug 12)
  • Fiction: 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 Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory (Tachyon, Aug 15) — “Harrison is the Monster Detective, a storybook hero. Now he’s in his mid-thirties and spends most of his time not sleeping. Stan became a minor celebrity after being partially eaten by cannibals. Barbara is haunted by the messages carved upon her bones. Greta may or may not be a mass-murdering arsonist. And for some reason, Martin never takes off his sunglasses.  Unsurprisingly, no one believes their horrific tales until they are sought out by psychotherapist Dr. Jan Sayer. What happens when these likely-insane outcasts join a support group? Together they must discover which monsters they face are within and which are lurking in plain sight.”
  • We Will All Go Down Together by Gemma Files (ChiZine, 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.”
  • 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.
  • The Ripper Affair by Lilith Saintcrow (Orbit, Aug 19)
  • Visions: A Cainsville Novel by Armstrong, Kelley (Aug 19, 2014)
  • Echopraxia by Peter Watts (Tor Books and Dreamscape Media, August 26, 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 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.” — via Scalzi’s Whatever blog, Tor.com will be excerpting the first five chapters starting with Chapter 1 here; a starred review from Publishers Weekly says: “Hugo-winner Scalzi (Redshirts) successfully shifts away from space opera with this smart, thoughtful near-future thriller resonant with the themes of freedom, ethics, and corporate greed… This powerful novel will intrigue and entertain both fans and newcomers.”
  • The Mirror Empire (Worldbreaker Saga, Book 1) by Kameron Hurley (Angry Robot, Aug 26, 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 Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter by Rod Duncan (Angry Robot, Aug 26) — book one of a new duology — “Elizabeth Barnabus lives a double life – as herself and as her brother, the private detective. She is trying to solve the mystery of a disappearing aristocrat and a hoard of arcane machines. In her way stand the rogues, freaks and self-proclaimed alchemists of a travelling circus.”
  • 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)
  • World of Fire by James Lovegrove (Solaris, Aug 26, 2014)
  • Anthology: Solaris Rising 3: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction by Aliette de Bodard, Adam Roberts, Ken Liu and Ian Whates (Solaris, 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.”
  • Anthology: A Mountain Walked edited by S.T. Joshi (Centipede Press, August 2014) — “an oversize anthology with almost 700 pages. S.T. Joshi has selected the best of the reprinted Cthulhu Mythos stories and combined them with over a dozen new works written just for this anthology. This book has over 25 stories, including new stories by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., Donald Tyson, Cody Goodfellow, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Jonathan Thomas, Laird Barron, Michael Shea, Patrick McGrath, Mark Samuels, Gemma Files, and others. The book also has new artwork by David Ho, John Kenn Mortensen, Drazen Kozjan, Denis Tiani, and Thomas Ott.”
  • Collection: Blood Spatters Quicky by Edward D. Wood, Jr. (OR Books, August 2014) — “Wood died in 1978, but the legacy of the director of “Plan 9 from Outer Space,” “Glen or Glenda,” “Jail Bait” and so many other beloved screen classics has only grown in importance. Wood speaks—not least for himself—as one of America’s “outsiders” caught up in the struggle to find acceptance inside—and never more directly than in the material in this book.”
SEPTEMBER 2014:

acceptanceanimation14 

  • 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.
  • Grudgebearer (THE GRUDGEBEARER TRILOGY) by J.F. Lewis (Pyr, Sep 2, 2014) — “Kholster is the first born of the practically immortal Aern, a race created by the Eldrennai as warrior-slaves to defend them from the magic-resistant reptilian Zaur.  Unable to break an oath without breaking their connection with each other, the Aern served the Eldrennai faithfully for thousands of years until the Sundering. Now, the Aern, Vael, and Eldrennai meet every hundred years for a Grand Conjunction to renew their tenuous peace.”
  • 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)
  • ADDED: Non-Fiction: What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Monroe, read by Wil Wheaton (Blackstone Audio, Sep 2) -- "From the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd comes this hilarious and informative book of answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask."
  • 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)
  • Fiction: The Mathematician’s Shiva: A Novel by Stuart Rojstaczer (Penguin, Sep 2, 2014) — “Alexander “Sasha” Karnokovitch and his family would like to mourn the passing of his mother, Rachela, with modesty and dignity. But Rachela, a famous Polish émigré mathematician and professor at the University of Wisconsin, is rumored to have solved the million-dollar, Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize problem. Rumor also has it that she spitefully took the solution to her grave. To Sasha’s chagrin, a ragtag group of socially challenged mathematicians arrives in Madison and crashes the shiva, vowing to do whatever it takes to find the solution–even if it means prying up the floorboards for Rachela’s notes.”
  • Thriller: Seven Wonders by Ben Mezrich (Running Press, Sep 2, 2014) — via Scalzi’s Books and ARCs roundup
  • Anthology: Zombies: More Recent Dead by Mike Carey, Paula Guran, Jay Wilburn and Neil Gaiman (Prime Books, Sep 3, 2014)
  • 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
  • Fiction: The Family Hightower: A Novel by Brian Francis Slattery (Seven Stories Press, Sep 9, 2014) — “a Ukrainian-American Godfather” from the author of Spaceman Blues, Liberation, and the Philip K. Dick Award winning Lost Everything
  • Collection: After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones (Dark House Press, Sep 9, 2014)
  • ADDED: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf, Sep 9) -- "Station Eleven is Millionsstaff writer Emily St. John Mandel’s fourth novel, and if pre-publication buzz is any indication, it’s her best, most ambitious work yet. Post-apocalyptic tales are all the rage this season, but Mandel’s intricate plotting and deftness with drawing character makes this novel of interlinked tales stand out as a beguiling read. Beginning with the onslaught of the deadly Georgian flu and the death of a famous actor onstage, and advancing twenty years into the future to a traveling troupe of Shakespearean actors who perform for the few remaining survivors, the novel sits with darkness while searching for the beauty in art and human connection." (via The Millions)
  • ADDED: YA anthology: Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales by Various, Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant (Candlewick, Sep 9, 2014) -- reviewed positively by Kirkus
  • Collection: Lovely, Dark, Deep by Joyce Carol Oates (Sep 9, 2014)
  • Sword of the Bright Lady (WORLD OF PRIME) by M.C. Planck (Pyr, Sep 9, 2014) — “Christopher Sinclair goes out for a walk on a mild Arizona evening and never comes back. He stumbles into a freezing winter under an impossible night sky, where magic is real — but bought at a terrible price.”
  • 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.”
  • 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
  • Yesterday’s Kin by Nancy Kress (Tachyon, Sep 15) — “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?”
  • 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
  • The Clockwork Dagger: A Novel by Beth Cato (Harper Voyager, Sep 16, 2014) — “Orphaned as a child, Octavia Leander was doomed to grow up on the streets until Miss Percival saved her and taught her to become a medician. Gifted with incredible powers, the young healer is about to embark on her first mission, visiting suffering cities in the far reaches of the war-scarred realm. But the airship on which she is traveling is plagued by a series of strange and disturbing occurrences, including murder, and Octavia herself is threatened.”
  • 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)
  • ADDED: Collection: Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood (Nan. A. Talese, Sep 16) -- "Some fans will remember well the titular story in Atwood’s forthcoming collection, which was published in the New Yorker in December of 2011, and which begins, in Atwood’s typical-wonderful droll fashion: “At the outset, Verna had not intended to kill anyone.” With this collection, according to the jacket copy, “Margaret Atwood ventures into the shadowland earlier explored by fabulists and concoctors of dark yarns such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Daphne du Maurier and Arthur Conan Doyle…” If you aren’t planning to read this book, it means you like boring stuff." (via The Millions)
  • 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.”
  • Rooms by Lauren Oliver (Ecco, Sep 23) — adult debut from best-selling YA author, in the vein of The Ocean at the End of the Lane
  • 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 and Dreamscape Media, 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.”
  • Company Town by Madeline Ashby (Angry Robot, Sep 30)
  • The Waterborne Blade by Susan Murray (Angry Robot, Sep 30)
  • The Brothers Cabal (Johannes Cabal Novels) by Jonathan L. Howard (Sep 30, 2014)
  • ADDED: Fiction collection: The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories by Hilary Mantel (Henry Holt, Sep 30) -- "Just this month, Mantel was made a dame; the reigning queen of British fiction, she’s won two of the last five Man Booker Prizes. But Mantel’s ascension to superstardom was long in the making: she is at work on her twelfth novel in a career that’s spanned four decades. This fall sees the publication of her second collection of short stories, set several centuries on from the novels that earned her those Bookers. Her British publisher, Nicholas Pearson, said, 'Where her last two novels explore how modern England was forged,The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher shows us the country we have become. These stories are Mantel at her observant best.'" (via The Millions)
  • 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 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.””
  • Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett (Aqueduct Press, September 2014) — “A computer program etched into the atmosphere has a story to tell. It’s the story of two people … of a city lost to chaos … of survival and love … but the data has been corrupted.”
  • Collection: Bitter Waters by Chaz Brenchley (Lethe Press, Autumn 2014) — with an introduction by Geoff Ryman
  • Anthology: War Stories edited by Jaym Gates and Andrew Liptak (Apex Books, September/October 2014) — initially funded by Kickstarter, an original anthology of military sf with stories from (among others) Joe Haldeman, Ken Liu, Linda Nagata, Maurice Broaddus, Jay Posey, Yoon Ha Lee, T.C. McCarthy, and Karin Lowachee [full table of contents]
OCTOBER 2014:

Armada 

  • ADDED: Fiction: A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (Riverhead, Oct 2) -- "Marlon James follows his stunning and brutal The Book of Night Women with A Brief History of Seven Killings, which depicts the 1976 assassination attempt on Bob Marley, “spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters — assassins, journalists, drug dealers, and even ghosts.” Irvine Welsh calls it 'an amazing novel of power, corruption and lies. I can’t think of a better one I’ve read this century.'" (via The Millions)
  • 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.”
  • An English Ghost Story by Kim Newman (Titan, Oct 7, 2014) — “A dysfunctional British nuclear family seek a new life away from the big city in the sleepy Somerset countryside. At first their new home, The Hollow, seems to embrace them, creating a rare peace and harmony within the family. But when the house turns on them, it seems to know just how to hurt them the most—threatening to destroy them from the inside out.”
  • 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
  • Scarlet Tides by David Hair (Jo Fletcher, Oct 7, 2014) — US release for this middle book of a trilogy published late last year in the UK — “The Moontide has come, and a scarlet tide of Rondian legions is flooding into the East, slaughtering and pillaging in the name of Emperor Constant. But the Scytale of Corineus, the source of ultimate magical power, has slipped through the emperor’s fingers.”
  • 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)
  • Collection: Unseaming by Mike Allen (Antimatter Press, Oct. 7, 2014) – with an introduction by Laird Barron: “Mike Allen has put together a first class collection of horror and dark fantasy. Unseaming burns bright as hell among its peers.”
  • 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)
  • Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future by A.S. King (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Oct 14) — “In this masterpiece about freedom, feminism, and destiny, Printz Honor author A.S. King tells the epic story of a girl coping with devastating loss at long last–a girl who has no idea that the future needs her, and that the present needs her even more.”
  • 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.”
  • ADDED: 300,000,000 by Blake Butler (Harper, Oct 14) -- "Blake Butler deploys words like chemicals that merge into phrases, coalescing in alternate existences, with familiar worlds distorted. In Butler’s third novel, There is No Year, a family survives a disease but is still subject to a scourge of infestations and other horrors and mysteries, including a house with secret passageways and the existence of a duplicate “copy family.” Butler began his latest novel, 300,000,000, as a retaliation against the hype surrounding Roberto Bolaño’s 2666. The result? A portrait of American violence, told through the minds of a Manson-like cult figure and the policeman responsible for figuring him out, while tracking a trail of violence and descent into psychosis." (via The Millions)
  • 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.”
  • Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris (October 14, 2014) — no, an audiobook doesn’t seem to make sense here (though an app maybe…)
  • Red Tide by Larry Niven, Brad Torgersen, and Matthew J. Harrington (Phoenix Pick, Oct 15)
  • Anthology: The Cutting Room: Dark Reflections of the Silver Screen edited by Ellen Datlow (Tachyon, Oct 15)
  • 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.”
  • Floating Boy and the Girl Who Couldn’t Fly by Stephen Graham Jones and Paul Tremblay (ChiZine, Oct 21, 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 Door in the Mountain by Caitlin Sweet (Oct 21, ChiTeen) — 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.”
  • Bathing the Lion by Jonathan Carroll (St. Martin’s Press, Oct 21, 2014) — “In Jonathan Carroll’s surreal masterpiece, Bathing the Lion, five people who live in the same New England town go to sleep one night and all share the same hyper-realistic dream. Some of these people know each other; some don’t. “
  • Collection: Knife Fight and Other Struggles by David Nickle (ChiZine, Oct 21, 2014)
  • 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 Slow Regard of Silent Things: A KingKiller Chronicle Novella by Patrick Rothfuss (DAW Hardcover and Penguin Audio, October 28, 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.”
  • 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
  • Fiction: Falling from Horses by Molly Gloss (Oct 28)
  • The Wolf in Winter: A Charlie Parker Thriller by John Connolly (Oct 28, 2014)
  • ADDED: The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber (Hogarth, Oct 28) -- "Faber’s latest novel – which David Mitchell called his “second masterpiece” after The Crimson Petal and the White – touches on interstellar space travel, cataclysmic events, romantic love, and religious faith. Such broad territory seems befitting for an author claimed simultaneously by the nations of Scotland, Australia, and the Netherlands." (via The Millions)
  • 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)”
  • ADDED: Bad Wizard by James Maxey (Antimatter Press, October 2014) -- "Dorothy Gale is a reporter for the Kansas Ear investigating Oscar Zoaraster Diggs, the man she met as a child who called himself the Wizard of Oz. Diggs returned from Oz with a balloon stuffed full of high quality emeralds and promptly became the richest man in Kansas. With his winning smile, a gift for gab, and willingness to throw his wealth around, he soon got himself appointed US senator from Kansas, where he became friends with a go-getter named Teddy Roosevelt. Now that Roosevelt is president, Diggs has become the US Secretary of War. Dorothy has discovered that Diggs is overseeing a top secret project to build a fleet of rigid hulled, steerable balloons designed by some German named Count Zeppelin, ostensibly so Roosevelt can expand his quest to make the world safe for democracy. Dorothy suspects Diggs has a darker agenda for his armed aircraft. But proving to her editor that Diggs is planning to invade an invisible island floating over Kansas presents a few difficulties..."
  • 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:
  • ADDED: Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet (WW Norton, Nov 3) -- "After the high hilarity of her satirical early work, Lydia Millet reached new emotional depths in her last three novels. This new novel, concerning the discovery of mermaids and the ensuing scramble to cash in, looks to achieve a new kind of synthesis." (via The Millions)
  • Normal: A Novel by Warren Ellis (FSG Originals, Nov 4, 2014) — “A smart, tight, provocative techno-thriller straight out of the very near future—by an iconic visionary writer. Some people call it “abyss gaze.” Gaze into the abyss all day and the abyss will gaze into you.”
  • Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel edited by George R.R. Martin (Tor, Nov 4) — the 22nd Wild Cards book! with: “The Big Bleed” by Michael Cassutt; “Those About to Die” by David Anthony Durham; “Galahad in Blue” by Melinda M. Snodgrass; “Ties That Bind” by Mary Anne Mohanraj; “Cry Wolf” by David D. Levine; “Road Kill” by Walter Jon Williams; “Once More, for Old Time’s Sake” by Carrie Vaughn; “No Parking…” by Ian Tregillis
  • 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.”
  • A Dance of Ghosts (Shadowdance) by David Dalglish (Orbit, Nov 11, 2014)
  • Chaos Unleashed by Drew Karpyshyn (Del Rey, Nov 11)
  • ADDED: The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck (New Directions, Nov 11) -- "One of the most significant German-language novelists of her generation, Erpenbeck follows up the celebrated novel Visitation with a heady conceit located somewhere between Cloud Atlas and Groundhog Day. The End of Days follows a single character, born early in the 20th Century, to five different deaths: the first as an infant, the second as a teenager, and so on. In each case, her life illuminates the broader history of Europe, which remains ever in the background, dying its own deaths." (via The Millions)
  • The Mechanical (The Alchemy Wars) by Ian Tregillis (Orbit, Nov 18, 2014)
  • Symbiont (Parasitology) by Mira Grant (Orbit, Nov 25, 2014)
  • 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)
  • City of Eternal Night (Crescent City) by Kristen Painter (Orbit, Dec 2, 2014)
  • Vacant: A Mindspace Investigations Novel by Alex Hughes (Roc, Dec 2, 2014)
  • The Beating of His Wings by Paul Hoffman (Dec 2, 2014) — US release for the final installment of Hoffman’s The Left Hand of God trilogy
  • 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
  • ADDED: Skylight by José Saramago (HMH, Dec 2) -- "This is Saramago’s so-called “lost work,” which was written in the 1950s, but rediscovered after the Nobel laureate’s death in 2010. The novel features the interconnected stories of the residents of an apartment building in Lisbon in the 1940s." (via The Millions)
  • The Lady (Marakand) by K.V. Johansen (Pyr, Dec 9)
  • The Jupiter Pirates #2: Curse of the Iris by Jason Fry (Dec 16, 2014)
  • The Cendrillon Cycle by Stephanie Ricker (Dec 21, 2014) — “I’m extremely pleased to announce that if you enjoy the world of A Cinder’s Tale, you’ll have the chance to explore that universe further in The Cendrillon Cycle, a series of novellas recounting the past and future adventures of Elsa, Karl, Bruno, and the rest of the cinder crew.”
  • 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 Take An Exclusive Peek At The Most Anticipated Scifi Imprint In Years

  • 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.”
  • Firefight (The Reckoners) by Brandon Sanderson (Tor, Jan 6, 2015) — follow-on to best-selling Steelheart
  • 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)
  • The Dagger’s Path by Glenda Larke (Orbit, Jan 13, 2015) — sequel to The Lascar’s Dagger
  • Golden Son: Book II of the Red Rising Trilogy by Pierce Brown (Jan 13, 2015)
  • ADDED: Fiction: Binary Star by Sarah Gerard (Two Dollar Radio, Jan 13) -- "Sara Gerard’s star is rising. The NYC-based bookseller slash art-mag-employee slash writer drew attention last fall with “Things I Told My Mother,” an essayistic inquiry into women’s representation in society, spawned by a topless walk the author took through Times Square. This kind of intensity and boldness guide all of Gerard’s work — whether concerning other writers, or her own bout with anorexia, addiction, and a stint jumping freight trains, and now in her first novel Binary Star. Binary Star interweaves astronomical research with a story about an unnamed anorexic who burns through her intensely dysfunctional life like a star burns fuel, never to be replenished." (via The Millions)
  • ADDED: Glow by Ned Beauman (Knopf, Jan 20) -- "Beauman’s previous novels, The Boxer Beetle and The Teleportation Accident — the one a fanciful look at eugenics and fascism, the other a genre-bending wonder about an avant-garde set designer in 1930s Berlin — each displayed a learned, diabolical imagination at work. His latest appears just as unhinged. Enrolled in a “continuous amateur neurochemistry seminar” and suffering from a sleep disorder, its hero experiments with the designer drug, “glow,” which opens up a gateway into a Pynchonian universe: a disappeared friend, pirate radio stations, and a nefarious Burmese mining company." (via The Millions)
  • Teen: Fairest by Melissa Meyer (Macmillan, Jan 27) — a prequel to Cinderin her The Lunar Chronicles series
  • Teen: A Cold Legacy by Megan Shepherd (Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins, January 27, 2015) – the final book in the Madman’s Daughter series
  • ADDED: Anthology: Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer (PM Press, Feb 1, 2015)
  • City of Savages by Lee Kelly (Simon & Schuster/SAGA, Feb 3, 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 Autumn Republic by Brian McClellan (Orbit, Feb 10, 2015)
  • ADDED: Find Me by Laura van den Berg (FSG, Feb 17) -- "Laura van den Berg’s fictions often unfurl just beyond the real, with their madcap mix of zany and dreamlike set-ups. Case in point, van den Berg’s recent story collection, The Isle of Youth, was peopled by yacht thieves, a mother-daughter magician team, and newlyweds who survive a plane crash. Her first novel, Find Me, continues this surreal, at times catastrophic streak, as it follows Joy, a grocery clerk, cough-syrup addict who’s immune to an ongoing plague of memory illness. Joy’s resulting hospital stay and cross-country journey plotline sounds like a surreal mash-up of Stephen King’s The Stand and Grace Krilanovich’s The Orange Eats Creeps."
  • Persona by Genevieve Valentine (Simon & Schuster/SAGA, 3/10/15) — “When Suyana, Face of the United Amazonia Rainforest Confederation, secretly meets Ethan of the United States for a date that can solidify a relationship for the struggling UARC, the last thing she expects is an assassination attempt. Daniel, a teen runaway-turned-paparazzi out for his big break, witnesses the first shot hit Suyana, and before he can think about it, he jumps into the fray, telling himself it’s not altruism, it’s the scoop. Just like that, Suyana and Daniel are now in the game of Faces. And if they lose, they’ll die.”
  •  The Darkside War by Zachary Brown (Simon & Schuster/SAGA, 3/17/15) — “People used to wonder if we were alone in the universe. Well, we’re not. Not by a long shot. Aliens come in all shapes and sizes, and even the good guys are likely to haunt your nightmares. And oh, you’ll have nightmares, even after you leave the service. If you leave the service.”
  • The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu (Simon & Schuster/SAGA, 4/7/15) — “Wily, charming Kuni Garu, a bandit, and stern, fearless Mata Zyndu, the son of a deposed duke, seem like polar opposites. Yet, in the uprising against the emperor, the two quickly become the best of friends after a series of adventures fighting against vast conscripted armies, silk-draped airships, soaring battle kites, conspiring goddesses, underwater boats, magical books, as a streetfighter-cum-general who takes her place as the greatest tactitian of the age. Once the emperor has been overthrown, however, they each find themselves the leader of separate factions—two sides with very different ideas about how the world should be run and the meaning of justice.”
  • Disciple of the Wind by Steve Bein (April 2015) — concluding book in a trilogy (Daughter of the Sword and Year of the Demon)
  • Anthology: Exigencies edited by Richard Thomas (Dark House Press, 2015) — a 22-story original neo-noir fiction anthology
  • The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth) by Jemisin, N. K. (Orbit, 2015) — “This is the way the world ends. Again.”
  • 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.”
  • Anthology: The Doll Collection edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor, March 2015) -- all-original dark tales including: "Heroes and Villains” by Stephen Gallagher; “The Doll-Master” by Joyce Carol Oates; “Gaze” by Gemma Files; “In Case of Zebras” by Pat Cadigan; “Miss Sibyl-Cassandra” by Lucy Sussex; “Skin and Bone” by Tim Lebbon; “There Is No Place for Sorrow in the Kingdom of the Cold” by Seanan McGuire; “Goodness and Kindness” by Carrie Vaughn; “Daniel’s Theory of Dolls” by Stephen Graham Jones; “After and Back Before” by Miranda Siemienowicz; “Doctor Faustus” by Mary Robinette Kowal; “Doll Court” by Richard Bowes; “Visit Lovely Cornwall on the Western Railway Line” by Genevieve Valentine; “Ambitious Boys Like You” by Richard Kadrey; “The Permanent Collection” by Veronica Schanoes; “Homemade Monsters” by John Langan; “Word Doll” by Jeffrey Ford
  • 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)
  • ADDED: Of Noble Family by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor, Apr 28, 2015) -- coming simultaneously in audio from Audible, read by the author
  • 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 a plunder of souls, alias hook, california, db jackson, edan lepucki, emma galvin, erika johansen, harper lee, jonathan davis, katherine kellgren, lisa jensen, rainbow rowell, ralph lister, rebecca lowman, sissy spacek, the queen of the tearling, to kill a mockingbird