Release Week: Acceptance, The Bone Clocks, Maplecroft, Sleeping Late on Judgement Day, and Randall Munroe's "What If?"

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Release Week: Acceptance, The Bone Clocks, Maplecroft, Sleeping Late on Judgement Day, and Randall Munroe's "What If?"

Posted on 2014-09-09 at 03:49 by Sam

AUGUST 27-SEPTEMBER 2, 2014: September is here, and so are 5 of my most-anticipated audiobooks of the entire year: Jeff VanderMeer’s Acceptance concludes his Southern Reach trilogy, David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks is the Cloud Atlas author’s first new novel in four years, Cherie Priest’s Maplecroft gives us Lizzie Borden and her axe, we find out what happens to an angel on the run after Sleeping Late on Judgement Day, and Wil Wheaton narrates an audiobook adaptation of Randall Munroe’s What If? Also out this week: Seanan McGuire’s The Winter Long, Gregory Sherl’s The Future for Curious People, Sylvia Izzo Hunter’s The Midnight Queen, Charlie N. Holmberg’s The Paper Magician, Richard Parks’ Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter, along with an absolutely unbelievable lineup of narrators for the complete run of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels and! thrillers galore, including Tana French’s The Secret Place. Seen but not heard picks include: Stuart Rojstaczer’s The Mathematician’s Shiva, Ben Lerner’s 10:04, Tony Daniel and David Drake’s The Savior, J.F. Lewis’ Grudgebearer, and Nina Allen’s The Race. Plenty of news and links to share this week: Ellen Kushner talks audiobooks with Forbes, Veronica Scott talks audiobooks with USA Today, Ford is giving away copies of Edan Lepucki’s California, Simon & Schuster Audio is having a massive thriller audiobook giveaway contest, and indie narrator Jeff Hays did an “ask me anything” on reddit. OK! By the time you read this, Robert Jackson Bennett’s City of Stairs, Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, Steven Gould’s Exo, and Neal Stephenson’s Hieroglyph anthology will already be out. (Not to mention Siobhan Adcock’s The Barter, which already is, and, finally! The Rabbit Back Literature Society which is due September 11.) Happy listening!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Acceptance: The Southern Reach Trilogy, Book 3 | [Jeff VanderMeer] The Bone Clocks | [David Mitchell]

Acceptance: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy, Book 3) by Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals, Sep 2, 2014) is the concluding third book of VanderMeer’s fantastic Southern Reach trilogy after Annihilation and Authority. Read by Xe Sands, Bronson Pinchot, and Carolyn McCormick for Blackstone Audio, this book… Answers. Mysteries. The surreal.

[Note: the following review contains material spoilers for the first two books in the series, but attempts to cover in detail only early events in Acceptance, with the primary spoilage being which narrators voice which characters, which also implies detailing which characters appear in the book.]

I expected Sands’ “Director” to blow me away, and it does, her voice full of texture and emotion, regret and frustration. The book opens with Sands as “The Director”, whom we learned in Authority was also the unnamed “psychologist” from Annihilation. VanderMeer’s use of second person in her chapters is genius — as an interview with Electric Literature highlights — making the emotional undercurrents punch even more — which, as in the first chapter we are experiencing her death on the beach below the lighthouse, shouting “Annihilation! Annihilation!” as the biologist approaches, is indeed quite an escalation. Ensuing chapters from her POV pick up much earlier, with events at The Southern Reach well prior to Annihilation, including some events we’ve seen referenced and reported on in the previous books as well as complex, unexpected connections made all the richer for having only seen them shallowly or through second-hand eyes.

I didn’t expect to be so drawn by the character of the lighthouse keeper, or that we’d be in his point of view at all. Pinchot later reprises his role as “Control” a.k.a. “John Rodriguez” from Authority as well, but from the first lines of “0001: The Lighthouse Keeper” Pinchot’s portrayal of Saul Evans is fantastic. Right away we are introduced to two members of the S&SB — the “Séance & Science Brigade” — and, through these chapters, we begin to get glimpses and glimmers of the origins of Area X. We also get to know Gloria, a grade-school-aged girl who plays on the rocks near the lighthouse, and the way Pinchot brings VanderMeer’s characterization of her direct, no-nonsense conversations with Saul to remarkable life is truly a delight.

I really didn’t expect either the “Ghost Bird” point of view or even more that these would be read by Pinchot instead of McCormick, who narrated the biologist’s journal that is Annihilation in its entirety. In Authority, “Ghost Bird” is presented as either the biologist herself, returned from Area X and hiding crucial information, or perhaps a copy. But as the audiobook for Acceptance continues the choice of using Pinchot is also revealed as inspired. When we last left Ghost Bird and Control, they were diving into a tide pool that was also, somehow, a new door into Area X. Now, emerged inside Area X, we follow their journey across its landscape, looking for answers.

And here is where Acceptance must, and does, earn its complexity of construction. At some level any answers in detail can be a disappointment when compared to the unknowable possibilities of the unanswered or even unanswerable. But when fleshed out and allowed to breathe, to grow organically, fractally through the text, like a frog sitting in a pot as it cooks, your comfort is all the more shattered for the illusion of answers which Acceptance offers and considers and discards, achieving a balance of explanation and mystery which makes this trilogy even more special. Annihilation was fantastic, concluding with perhaps infinitely more questions than answers, and yet ending in a way that evoked satisfaction and completeness. By continuing first into the halls of The Southern Reach in Authority and now back again into Area X with Acceptance the author risked spoiling that, in making the missteps that other stories have made, in tarnishing the achievement that Annihilation was and is. VanderMeer did not play it safe, and we’re all the more rewarded for it. From the first-person journal account of the biologist, to the close third person of “Control” and the spy novel themes of the second book, to exploding ever outward in scope and length and complexity, The Southern Reach Trilogy is an ambitious and unequivocal success, having traversed from solitary account through the transitional ground of investigation and, finally, a powerful ensemble cast rumination on acceptance itself.

Lastly, however, I must note that while the performances on the audiobook are fantastic, some audio re-take splices are noticeable here and there. Nothing to the point of true distraction, but at a level one doesn’t expect from a professionally-produced audiobook. Perhaps this is only an artifact of the Downpour.com digital release (downloaded Monday Sep 1 at 12:05 AM) and more care was taken during the CD mastering process. More: Tor.com, New Statesman, Slate, Chuck Wendig. Buy: [IndieBound | Downpour | Audible | Kobo | Kindle]

The Bone Clocks: A Novel by Mitchell, David (Random House, Sep 2, 2014) — the author of Cloud Atlas sets his sights on the near, post-oil future with a “metaphysical thriller” unveiled as an interactive graphic in The Guardian. The audiobook is narrated by Jessica Ball, Leon Williams, Colin Mace, Steven Crossley, Laurel Lefkow, and Anna Bentinck for Recorded Books. “Following a scalding row with her mother, 15-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.” Buy: [IndieBound | Audible | Kobo | Kindle]

Maplecroft: The Borden Dispatches, Book 1 | [Cherie Priest] Sleeping Late On Judgement Day: Bobby Dollar, Book 3 | [Tad Williams]

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.” Narrated by Johanna Parker and Roger Wayne for Tantor Audio, the book has picked up some fantastic reviews from RT and Fantasy Literature (“A gothic tour de force by a writer at the peak of her powers”). While I’m much more familiar with Priest’s Clockwork Century novels (Boneshaker et al.) I’m looking forward to this Lovecraftian take on the infamous murders. Buy: [IndieBound | Audible | Kobo | Kindle]

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 audiobooks (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. George Newbern has been the voice of Bobby Dollar for Penguin Audio thus far and has been fantastic, so it’s no surprise he’s back again for the third installment. Buy: [IndieBound | Downpour | Audible | Kobo | Kindle | Overdrive]

What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe, read by Wil Wheaton for Blackstone Audio — “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.” Cory Doctorow reviews the production effusively at BoingBoing, saying: “There is, incredibly enough, an audiobook of What If?, which is a weird idea, given how much the explanations rely on Munroe’s charming diagrams. But the book is read by Wil Wheaton, who is, for my money, the best audiobook narrator working today, and it was produced by Blackstone Audio and recorded at Skyboat in Los Angeles, who do outstanding work, and they all labored mightily with Munroe to turn the diagrams into spoken word (and there’s an accompanying PDF, which also helps).” No word from Doctorow, however, as to how many digits of “pi” Wheaton had to read for this audiobook. More: [Soundcloud] Buy: [IndieBound | Downpour | Audible | Kobo | Kindle]

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

The Midnight Queen | [Sylvia Izzo Hunter] The Paper Magician | [Charlie N. Holmberg]

SEEN BUT NOT HEARD:

  

  • Collection: Toad Words And Other Stories by T. Kingfisher (Red Wombat Tea Company, Aug 4, 2014) -- "T. Kingfisher" is a pseudonym for children's author (and Hugo Award winning graphic novelist) Ursula Vernon. Here: "From author T. Kingfisher comes a collection of fairy-tale retellings for adults. By turns funny and dark, sad and lyrical, this anthology draws together in one volume such stories as "The Wolf and the Woodsman," "Loathly," and "Bluebeard's Wife," along with an all-new novella, 'Boar & Apples'."
  • Anthology: Dreams of Shadow and Smoke: Stories for J.S. Le Fanu edited by Jim Rockhill and Brian J. Showers (Swan River Press, August 28) -- "With Henry James, Elizabeth Bowen, and James Joyce among his admirers, the ghost stories and novels of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) cast a long shadow on the literary landscape. Dreams of Shadow and Smoke features ten new tales of the fantastic and macabre written in celebration of the bicentenary of Dublin's "Invisible Prince". Revisit a world in which certain elixirs remain capable of awakening the mind to the presence of unknown forces; where the monuments, portraits, and other legacies of history lay traps for the unwary; and the logic of finance butts up against the unyielding rules of folklore. We would like to think that should Le Fanu be handed this book, he would smile at the results and deem it worthy of his consideration."
  • 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.”
  • Collection: Blood Splatters 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.”
  • Say Anything But Your Prayers by Alan M. Clark (Lazy Fascist Press, August 2014) -- "The beast of poverty and disease had stalked Elizabeth all her life, waiting for the right moment to take her down. To survive, she listened to the two extremes within herself--Bess, the innocent child of hope, and Liza, the cynical, hard-bitten opportunist. While Bess paints rosy pictures of what lies ahead and Liza warns of dangers everywhere, the beast, in the guise of a man offering something better, circles closer."
  • Anthology: Qualia Nous by Michael Bailey, Marge Simon, Christian A. Larsen and Max Booth III (Written Backwards, Aug 31, 2014) -- "A literary blend of science fiction and horror, Qualia Nous contains short stories, novelettes, and poetry from established authors and newcomers from around the world. Featuring the imaginations of Stephen King, Gene O'Neill, William F. Nolan, John Everson, Lucy A. Snyder, Thomas F. Monteleone, Elizabeth Massie, Gary A. Braunbeck, and many others."
  • Anthology: The End is Now: The Apocalypse Triptych #2 edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey (August 2014) — via io9
  • Anthology: Paradox edited by Ian Whates (NewCon, August 2014) -- "An intriguing-looking anthology of original stories inspired by the Fermi Paradox with a top-notch list of contributors, including Pat Cadigan, Paul Cornell, Tricia Sullivan, Stephanie Saulter, Mercurio D. Rivera, and Adam Roberts." (via Paul Kincaid)
  • The Race by Nina Allen (NewCon, August 2014) -- "Nina Allan’s first full-length novel, The Race. Already the winner of a BSFA Award, for her novella Spin, and a Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire for the translation of The Silver Wind, there is quite a lot of expectation about this novel. Opening in a near-future, post-catastrophe Britain it nests fiction within reality, reality within fiction with an assurance that will be familiar to any readers of her shorter fiction, yet which is still designed to challenge and exhilarate the reader. As one fine review puts it: ‘Readers with a kink for understatement, alienation, and locution will be at home’. Nina Allan has promised for some time to be one of the most interesting of the new generation of British writers, and with The Race she starts to fulfil that promise." (via Paul Kincaid)
  • Collection: Stay by John Clute (Beccon, August 2014) -- "gathers together 100,000 words of reviews, plus short fiction" -- "This is, as you might expect, a collection of the inimitable reviews that have made him just about the finest critic science fiction has seen, but a couple of other features make this book particularly interesting. For a start it includes the complete text of The Darkening Garden, which only ever appeared from a small press and has long been out of print, but that is perhaps the most important work of criticism on horror to date. Perhaps more surprising is the middle section of the book. Clute hasn’t written much fiction in his career, two novels and a handful of stories in a variety of old magazines and anthologies, but now he has brought together five of his stories, which is, as he puts it, ‘as close to a Collected Stories as I expect to present to a world which had not, until this point, known it was waiting’. The earliest of the stories is from 1987, the latest, a drabble, from 2004, and the book is worth it just to get this unexpected perspective on the man." (via Paul Kincaid)
  • 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.” [IndieBound | Kobo]
  • The Savior (The General) by Tony Daniel and David Drake (Baen, Sep 2) — from co-author Daniel: "This is the sequel to the The Heretic and completes the story, although it can also be read as a stand alone novel, of course. The Heretic and The Savior are, respectively, books nine and ten in the General series. Dave and I tried to make it adventurous, gritty, thoughtful, amusing -- and generally an entertaining read." [IndieBound]
  • 10:04: A Novel by Ben Lerner (Faber & Faber, Sep 2, 2014) -- "In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unlikely literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal medical condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child. In a New York of increasingly frequent superstorms and social unrest, he must reckon with his own mortality and the prospect of fatherhood in a city that might soon be underwater." -- an audio edition is coming Sep 23 from Dreamscape
  • 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.”
  • Fortunes of the Imperium by Jody Lynn Nye (Baen, Sep 2, 2014) -- military SF novel, sequel to 2011's View from the Imperium
  • Wood Sprites (Elfhome) by Wen Spencer (Baen, Sep 2, 2014)
  • Spells at the Crossroads by Barbara Ashford (DAW, September 2) -- omnibus of Spellcast and Spellcrossed
  • Jungle Horses by Scott Adlerberg (Broken River Books, Sep 2, 2014) -- "Arthur lives a quiet life in London, wandering from the bar to the racetrack and back again. When his pension check dries up, Arthur decides to win it all back with one last big bet at the bookie. When that falls through, Arthur borrows money and repeats the process, until he's in too deep with a vicious gang of leg-breakers."
  • Poetry collection: The Haunted Girl by Lisa Bradley (Aqueduct Press, September 2014) -- "The supernatural, the animal, and the deadly often find each other in Lisa M. Bradley's landscapes, tame or wild. Vampires, either restless or filled with ennui; shape-shifters and skin-walkers; demigoddesses of evil and lust; haunted girls and dying fairies—the characters in this collection inhabit worlds of danger, decay, and, sometimes, rebirth. Often rooted in issues of family, ritual, and belonging, the poems and short stories in The Haunted Girl display Bradley's loving mastery of language, which grants us myriad moments of impish wit and startling beauty."
COMING SOON:

 

  • Primordial: An Abstraction by D. Harlan Wilson (Anti-Oedipus Press, Sep 3, 2014) — “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 folly, redundancy and pornography 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.”
  • Anthology: Zombies: More Recent Dead edited by Paula Guran, with stories by Mike Carey, Jonathan Maberry, Maureen F. McHugh, Carrie Vaughn, Marie Brennan, Caitlin R. Kiernan, and Neil Gaiman (Prime Books, Sep 3, 2014) -- narrated by Marguerite Gavin and Sean Pratt for Audible
  • Devil's Bargain and House of War By Judith Tarr, Narrated By Ralph Lister (Sep 3)
  • The Last Citadel By Kevin Ashman, Narrated By Michael Troughton for Silverback Books (Sep 3)
  • The Spire by William Golding (1964), read by Benedict Cumberbatch (Sep 4) — “The actor Benedict Cumberbatch is to narrate the first ever unabridged recording of William Golding‘s vision of an immense spire erected on a cathedral.”
  • Street By Jack Cady, Narrated By Mark Boyett for Audible (Sep 4) -- "A haunting, eerie and distinctive 1994 novel by the World Fantasy Award-winning author of The Sons of Noah. A killer is preying upon young women in Seattle. Police efforts have been minimal, and now the only people who might stop this rampant evil are street people." -- also out: Inagehi, Narrated By Eileen Stevens
  • The Barter By Siobhan Adcock, Narrated By Meredith Mitchell for Blackstone Audio (Sep 4) -- intriguing-looking debut novel, a ghost story
  • Short: The Poppet By Paul Finch, Narrated By Jonathan Keeble for Whole Story Audio (Sep 4)
  • Reapers: Breakers, Book 4 By Edward W. Robertson, Narrated By Ray Chase for Podium Publishing (Sep 5)
  • Paradise Damned: An Urban Fantasy Novel: The Descent Series By S. M. Reine, Narrated By Kate Udall (Sep 5)
  • Indie: The Scout By Eric Tozzi, Narrated By Stephen J. Holowid (Sep 5)
  • Hatch By James Stevens, Narrated By Tim Bruce for Podium Publishing (Sep 5)
  • Wielder’s Awakening: Wielder Trilogy: Book One By T. B. Christensen, Narrated ByMalk Williams for Podium Publishing (Sep 5)
  • Hellifax: Mountain Man, Book 3 By Keith C. Blackmore, Narrated By R. C. Bray for Podium Publishing (Sep 5)
  • Free: The Jewel of Dantenos: The FREE Lee Starfinder Adventure: from the World of the Godling Chronicles, Book 0.5 By Brian D. Anderson, Narrated By Derek Perkins for Podium (Sep 5)
  • 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 — Narrated By Alma Cuervo
  • 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
  • Fiction: The Moor's Account: A Novel by Laila Lalami (Pantheon, Sep 9, 2014) -- "In this stunning work of historical fiction, Laila Lalami brings us the imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America—a Moroccan slave whose testimony was left out of the official record."
  • Fiction: The Children Act By Ian McEwan, Narrated By Lindsay Duncan for Recorded Books (Sep 9)
  • Collection: After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones (Dark House Press, Sep 9, 2014)
  • Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf and Random House Audio, 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) — Narrated By Kirsten Potter -- excerpt up at EW
  • 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 -- Grant interviewed at Tor.com
  • 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) — Narrated By Marguerite Gavin -- io9 highlights a fantastic video promoting this last book in Harrison's Hollows series
  • Mystery: Perfidia: A Novel By James Ellroy, Narrated By Craig Wasson (Sep 9) -- "The noir master's new work is a World War II-era cop epic set on the eve of Pearl Harbor, and it marks the first installment in a new quartet of novels set in Los Angeles. Expect to encounter characters from Ellroy's previous books L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia." (via TIME Magazine)
  • 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) — Narrated By Emily Rankin
  • Hieroglyph: Stories and Blueprints for a Better Future by Neal Stephenson (William Morrow, September 9) — in reference to Stephenson’s “Hieroglyph” challenge/project, to inspire tech and science research with grand sf stories — Narrated By Danny Campbell, Cassandra Campbell -- Stephenson interviewed by the BBC
  • Vampires of Manhattan: The New Blue Bloods Coven By Melissa de la Cruz, Narrated By MacLeod Andrews (Sep 9)
  • The Rabbit Back Literature Society By Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, Narrated By Kate Rawson (Sep 11) — “Only very special people are chosen by children’s author Laura White to join ‘The Society’, an elite group of writers in the small town of Rabbit Back. Now a 10th member has been selected: Ella, literature teacher and possessor of beautifully curving lips. But soon Ella discovers that the Society is not what it seems. What is its mysterious ritual, ‘The Game’? What explains the strange disappearance that occurs at Laura’s winter party, in a whirlwind of snow? Why are the words inside books starting to rearrange themselves?”
  • And After: Until the End of the World, Book 2 and So Long, Lollipops: The FREE Until The End of the World Novella By Sarah Lyons Fleming, Narrated By Julia Whelan for Podium Publishing (Sep 12)
  • 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?” — subject of a fantastic blurbfrom Stephen King -- Narrated By Christine Lakin, Terra Deva, Sunil Mohatra, Robert Morgan Fisher, J. D. Jackson
  • Wolf in White Van: A Novel by John Darnielle (FSG, Sep 16, 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.”
  • Gifts for the One Who Comes After by Helen Marshall (ChiZine, Sep 16, 2014)
  • They Do the Same Things Different There by Robert Shearman (ChiZine, Sep 16, 2014)
  • Ancestral Machines: A Humanity’s Fire novel by Michael Cobley (Sep 16, 2014)
  • Outrider: A Novel by Steven John (Night Shade, Sep 16) — “Within a few decades, solar technology will evolve to the point where power is endless . . . unless someone wants to stop the flow—which someone does. The only people that can stop the high-tech terrorists who are stealing power are on horseback.”
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • Kids: The Witch’s Boy by Kelly Barnhill (Algonquin Books for Young Readers, Sep 16) — “In a story of an unexpected hero, a thief’s daughter, and some very tricky magic, Barnhill weaves a powerful narrative about the small tragedies that happen when parents fail their children, even with the best intentions.” -- read by Ralph Lister for HighBridge
  • The Gifted Dead by Jenna Black (September 23, 2014) — “Politics and magic make dangerous bedfellows.”
  • Teen: 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.”
  • Shadow of the Ancients (Secret of JI) by Pierre Grimbert and translated by Matt Ross(Amazon Crossing, Sep 23, 2014) — 3rd volume in the new English translations of this best-selling and prize-winning French epic fantasy series
  • 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. ”
  • Anthology: Upgraded edited by Neil Clarke (Wyrm Publishing, September 23, 2014) — “An anthology of original cyborg stories edited by a cyborg. Stronger. Better. Faster. We will rebuild you.”
  • The Seventh Sigil by Margaret Weis and Robert Krammes (Tor and Dreamscape Media, Sep 23)
  • The Hawley Book of the Dead: A Novel By Chrysler Szarlan, Narrated By Cassandra Campbell (Sep 23)
  • Gordon R. Dickson‘s Dragon Knight series, narrated by Paul Boehmer: The Dragon and the George, The Dragon Knight, The Dragon on the Border, The Dragon, the Earl, and the Troll, The Dragon and the Djinn, The Dragon and the Gnarly King, and The Dragon in Lyonesse as well as The Dragon and the Fair Maid of Kent (Sep 23)
  • J: A Novel by Howard Jacobson (Whole Story Audio, Sep 25) -- "Man Booker Prize–winner Howard Jacobson’s brilliant and profound new novel, J, “invites comparison with George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World” (Sunday Times, London). Set in a world where collective memory has vanished and the past is a dangerous country, not to be talked about or visited, J is a boldly inventive love story, both tender and terrifying."
  • Cut Off: Breakers, Book 5 By Edward W. Robertson, Narrated By Ray Chase for Podium Publishing (Sep 26)
  • Blood of the Earth: Sovereign of the Seven Isles, Book 4 By David A. Wells, Narrated ByDerek Perkins for Podium Publishing (Sep 26)
  • 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.” -- recently featured in USA Today
  • We Will All Go Down Together by Gemma Files (ChiZine, Sep 30) — “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.”
  • A Sudden Light: A Novel By Garth Stein (Simon & Schuster Audio, Sep 30) — “When a boy tries to save his parents’ marriage, he uncovers a legacy of family secrets in a coming-of-age ghost story by the author of the internationally best-selling phenomenonThe Art of Racing in the Rain.”
  • 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)
  • Consumed: A Novel by David Cronenberg (Sep 30, 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.”
  • Rise of the King by R.A. Salvatore (Wizards of the Coast, Sep 30) — “In the second book of the Companions Codex, the latest series in the New York Times best-selling saga of dark elf Drizzt Do’Urden, R.A. Salvatore picks up the storyline of dwarf king Bruenor Battlehammer and his bloody feud with the orc kingdom of Many Arrows.”
  • 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)
  • 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.”
  • Black Hat by Joe Lansdale (Subterranean Press, Sep 30) -- "The story of African-Americans in the West has been confined to the dusty, bottom shelf of recorded history and American literature. But in the vein of the old dime novels containing stories about such heroes as Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, and Jesse James, comes the true story of one of those ten-cent novel heroes, Deadwood Dick, disguised in those novels as a white champion of justice and adventure, but in reality a black cowboy, buffalo soldier, Indian fighter, and general hell raiser."
  • The Ninth Wind by Moses Siregar III (September 2014) -- Follow-on to The Black God's War in Siregar's epic fantasy "Splendor and Ruin" trilogy: "I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands on an early copy of The Ninth Wind by Moses Siregar, a terrific Indy writer who I think is going to blow up big when this comes out. A top tier epic fantasy from him, and hopefully it will be out soon." --Jonathan Wood, author of NO HERO
  • 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 

  • 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.”
  • Anthology: 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
  • Anthology: Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volume 1 edited by Laird Barron (ChiZine, Oct 7, 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.
  • 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) — Narrated By Bernard Setaro Clark
  • Closer to Home: Book One of Herald Spy by Mercedes Lackey (October 7)
  • The Young Elites by Marie Lu (Oct 7, 2014)
  • A Vision of Fire by Gillian Anderson and Jeff Rovin (Simon451, October 7, 2014) — “first in the EarthEnd trilogy” by the X-Files actress and her co-author Rovin; coming to Simon & Schuster Audio read by Anderson
  • The Dark Defiles: A Land Fit for Heroes, Book 3 By Richard K. Morgan, Narrated BySimon Vance (Oct 7)
  • Hawk: Vlad Taltos, Book 14 By Steven Brust, Narrated By Bernard Setaro Clark (Oct 7)
  • 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.”
  • YA Fiction: Althea and Oliver by Cristina Moracho (Viking Juvenile, Oct 9)
  • Cursed Bones: Sovereign of the Seven Isles, Book 5 By David A. Wells, Narrated ByDerek Perkins for Podium Publishing (Oct 10)
  • 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.” -- Jeff VanderMeer calls the collection "A potent mix of the real and the unreal."
  • Anthology: A Mountain Walked edited by S.T. Joshi (Centipede Press, October 14, 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.”
  • 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)
  • The Big Tree by Rick Hautala, Christopher Golden, Thomas F. Monteleone and Glenn Chadbourne (Oct 14, 2014)
  • 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.””
  • Fiction: McGlue (The Fence Modern Prize in Prose) by Ottessa Moshfegh (Oct 14, 2014) — “Salem, Massachusetts, 1851: McGlue is in the hold, still too drunk to be sure of name or situation or orientation—he may have killed a man. That man may have been his best friend. Intolerable memory accompanies sobriety. A-sail on the high seas of literary tradition, Ottessa Moshfegh gives us a nasty heartless blackguard on a knife-sharp voyage through the fogs of recollection.”
  • Heraclix and Pomp: A Novel of the Fabricated and the Fey by Forrest Aguirre (Resurrection House, Oct 14, 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)” — Narrated By Brandon Massey
  • The Trafalgar Gambit: Ark Royal, Book 3 By Christopher G. Nuttall, Narrated By Ralph Lister (Oct 14)
  • The Free by Brian Ruckley (Orbit, Oct 14)
  • Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch (Balzer + Bray, Oct 14, 2014)
  • The Trafalgar Gambit: Ark Royal, Book 3 By Christopher G. Nuttall, Narrated By Ralph Lister for Audible (Oct 14)
  • 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…)
  • ADDED: Non-Fiction: Thrown by Kerry Howley (Sarabande, Oct 14, 2014) -- "A philosophical examination of the maligned subculture of mixed martial arts “cage” fighting." [Kirkus]
  • 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)
  • Fish Tails: A Novel by Sheri S. Tepper (Harper Voyager, 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 Man Lies Dreaming by Lavie Tidhar (Hodder & Stoughton, 23 Oct 2014) — “Deep in the heart of history’s most infamous concentration camp, a man lies dreaming. His name is Shomer, and before the war he was a pulp fiction author. Now, to escape the brutal reality of life in Auschwitz, Shomer spends his nights imagining another world – a world where a disgraced former dictator now known only as Wolf ekes out a miserable existence as a low-rent PI in London’s grimiest streets. An extraordinary story of revenge and redemption, A Man Lies Dreaming is the unforgettable testament to the power of imagination.”
  • 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.” -- audio coming concurrently from Penguin Audio, read by Lorelei King
  • 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.” — read by the author!
  • Frontera by Lewis Shiner, read by Stefan Rudnicki for Skyboat Media (Oct 28) — Shiner’s Philip K. Dick and Nebula Award finalist debut sf novel, first published in 1984: “After the world’s governments collapsed, the corporations took control. Houston’s Pulsystems has sent an expedition to the lost Martian colony of Frontera to search for survivors, but Reese, aging hero of the US space program, knows better. The colonists are not only alive; they have discovered a secret so devastating that the new rulers of Earth will stop at nothing to own it. But none of them have reckoned with Kane, tortured veteran of the corporate wars, whose hallucinatory voices are urging him to complete an ancient cycle of heroism and alter the destiny of the human race.” Quoth George R. R. Martin: “Hard-edged and colorful and relentless, and altogether a compelling read.”
  • 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)
  • The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber (Hogarth and Random House Audio, 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)
  • Talon: The Talon Saga, Book 1 By Julie Kagawa (Oct 28)
  • The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones By George R. R. Martin, Elio Garcia, Linda Antonsson (Random House Audio, Oct 28)
  • Teen: Stone Cold Touch (The Dark Elements) by Jennifer L. Armentrout (Oct 28, 2014)
  • The Blood Vivicanti Part 3: Theo By Becket, Narrated By Simone Tetrault for Audible (Oct 31)
  • The Last Projector by David James Keaton (Broken River Books, October 31, 2014) — “In this hysterical fever dream of a novel, meet an unhinged paramedic turned porn director uprooted from an ever-shifting ’80s fantasy. Discover a crime that circles back through time to a far-reaching cover-up in the back of an ambulance. Reveal a manic tattoo obsession and how it conspires to ruin the integrity of a story and corrupt identity itself. Unravel the mystery surrounding three generations of women and the one secret they share. And follow two amateur terrorists, whose unlikely love story rushes headlong toward a drive-in apocalypse.”
  • 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”
  • 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:
  • Collection: Bitter Waters by Chaz Brenchley (Lethe Press, November 2014) — with an introduction by Geoff Ryman, and more recently a starred review from Publishers Weekly
  • 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)
  • The Glass Magician (The Paper Magician Series) by Charlie N. Holmberg(47North, Nov 4, 2014)
  • 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.
  • Linkershim: Sovereign of the Seven Isles, Book 6 By David A. Wells, Narrated By Derek Perkins for Podium Publishing (Nov 7)
  • No Worse Enemy: The Empire’s Corps, Book 2 By Christopher G. Nuttall, Narrated ByJeffrey Kafer for Podium Publishing (Nov 7)
  • Revival: A Novel by Stephen King (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)
  • 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)
  • Teen: Revolution (Replica) by Jenna Black (Tor Teen, Nov 11, 2014)
  • Black Gum Godless Heathen by J David Osborne (Broken River Books, November 15, 2014) — sequel to Low Down Death Right Easy
  • Fiction: Wyatt in Wichita: A Historical Novel by John Shirley (Night Shade Books, Nov 17, 2014)
  • The Mechanical (The Alchemy Wars) by Ian Tregillis (Orbit, Nov 18, 2014)
  • Asura Girl by Otaro Maijo and Stephen Snyder (Haikasoru, Nov 18, 2014)
  • Symbiont (Parasitology) by Mira Grant (Orbit, Nov 25, 2014)
  • Night Shift by Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Lisa Shearin, and Milla Vane (Berkley, Nov 25)
  • The Last Changeling by Jane Yolen (Viking Children's, Nov 28)
  • When the Bough Breaks: The Empire’s Corps, Book 3 By Christopher G. Nuttall, Narrated By Jeffrey Kafer for Podium Publishing (Nov 28)
  • 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
  • The Dragons of Dorcastle By Jack Campbell, Narrated By MacLeod Andrews (Dec 2)
  • 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
  • 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)
  • ADDED: The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami and translated by Ted Goossen (Knopf and Random House Audio, Dec 2, 2014) -- an illustrated short novel of "A lonely boy, a mysterious girl, and a tormented sheep man plot their escape from the nightmarish library of internationally acclaimed, best-selling Haruki Murakami's wild imagination."
  • The Whispering Swarm: Book One of The Sanctuary of the White Friars by Michael Moorcock (Tor, Dec 9)
  • 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.”
  • Jazz Age Cthulhu by Jennifer Brozek, A.D. Cahill, and Darin Grey (Innsmouth Free Press, 2014)
  • All That Outer Space Allows (The Apollo Quartet, Book 4) by Ian Sales (Whippleshield, December 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.”
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)
  • ADDED: Kids: Dragonbreath #10: Knight-napped! by Ursula Vernon (Jan 6, 2015)
  • The Providence of Fire (Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne) by Brian Staveley (Tor, Jan 13, 2015) — “Brian Staveley’s Providence of Fire, the second novel in the Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, a gripping new epic fantasy series in the tradition of Brandon Sanderson and George R. R. Martin. The conspiracy to destroy the ruling family of the Annurian Empire is far from over.”
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • 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
  • Related non-fiction: The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction (Cambridge Companions to Literature) by Gerry Canavan and Eric Link (Jan 31, 2015)
  • Anthology: Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer (PM Press, Feb 1, 2015)
  • Collection: Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman (Feb 3)
  • 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)
  • Dendera by Yuya Sato and translated by Edwin Hawkes (Haikasoru, Feb 10, 2015)
  • 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.”
  • ADDED: Star Trek: The Original Series: Savage Trade by Tony Daniel (Feb 24, 2015)
  • Anthology: Old Venus by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (Mar 3, 2015)
  • Edge of Dark (The Glittering Edge) by Brenda Cooper (Pyr, Mar 3, 2015) -- "What if a society banished its worst nightmare to the far edge of the solar system, destined to sip only dregs of light and struggle for the barest living.  And yet, that life thrived?  It grew and learned and became far more than you ever expected, and it wanted to return to the sun.  What if it didn’t share your moral compass in any way? The Glittering duology describes the clash of forces when an advanced society that has filled a solar system with flesh and blood life meets the near-AI’s that it banished long ago.  This is a story of love for the wild and natural life on a colony planet, complex adventure set in powerful space stations, and the desire to live completely whether you are made of flesh and bone or silicon and carbon fiber.  In Edge of Dark, meet ranger Charlie Windar and his adopted wild predator, and explore their home on a planet that has been raped and restored more than once.  Meet Nona Hall, child of power and privilege from the greatest station in the system, the Diamond Deep.  Meet Nona’s best friend, a young woman named Chrystal who awakens in a robotic body…."
  • 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.”
  • Clash of Eagles by Alan Smale (Del Rey, Mar 17, 2015) — “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.”
  •  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.”
  • Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (William Morrow, Apr 14, 2015) — I know nothing yet about this book, other than that I will be reading and/or listening to it on April 14
  • Disciple of the Wind by Steve Bein (April 2015) — concluding book in a trilogy (Daughter of the Sword and Year of the Demon)
  • The Shadow Revolution (Crown & Key) by Clay Griffith and Susan Griffith (Jun 2, 2015) -- "In the 1820s, a powerful but inexperienced magician is trapped in a struggle between ancient necromancers and elementals. To save innocents from the growing darkness, he gathers a group of alchemists, arcane engineers, and monster hunters to fight with him. Think of it as Charlotte Bronte's Avengers."
  • The Thorn of Emberlain (Gentleman Bastard #4) by Scott Lynch (2015)
  • 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
  • Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Del Rey, June 2015) — “Naomi Novik, author of theTemeraire novels, is taking us to a new world with Uprooted! The story is a dark fairy tale, where a grim wizard defends villagers from the horrors of an enchanted Wood. In return? He demands ten years of service from a young girl of his choosing. Now the choosing is approaching, and a young woman named Agnieszka fears that her best friend, the lovely Kasia, will be taken. But what if the wizard makes a different choice?” (via Tor.com)
  • 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)
  • Lair of Dreams: A Diviners Novel by Bray, Libba (Apr 14, 2015)
  • Of Noble Family by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor, Apr 28, 2015) — coming simultaneously in audio from Audible, read by the author; RT has the scoop on the cover reveal
  • The Familiar: One Rainy Day in May by Mark Z. Danielewski (Pantheon, May 19, 2015)
  • Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente (Tor, June 1, 2015)
  • The Unnoticeables by Robert Brockway (Tor, July 2015) — “Tor said the books are “hilarious urban fantasy novels” set in a world that pulls from New York’s punk scene in the 1970s as well as the modern-day Los Angeles entertainment industry.” (via PW)
  • Truthwitch by Susan Dennard (Tor, Fall 2015) — “The series is set in a world where three empires rule and every member of the population is born with a magical skill set, known as a “witchery.” Tor elaborated: “Now, as the Twenty Year Truce in a centuries-long war is about to end, the balance of power will fall on the shoulders of two young women, who must accept their fate, and themselves, to survive.”” (via PW)
  • Anthology: Neverland’s Shadow edited by Shawn Speakman and Roger Bellini (Grim Oak Press, 2015) — from the editor/publisher of Unfettered comes an original short fiction anthology focusing on the antagonist, with contributors including Ken Liu, Ann Aguire, R. Scott Bakker, Mark Lawrence, Tanith Lee, Scott Lynch, and Michael J. Sullivan (among others)
  • The Lost Level by Brian Keene (Apex Books, 2015)
  • Fake Fruit Factory by Patrick Wensink (Curbside Splendor, Fall 2015) — “Thrilled to announce that we’ll publish best-selling author Patrick Wensink’s next novel FAKE FRUIT FACTORY in Fall 2015. Part screwball comedy, part sociological autopsy of small town America, and part love story FAKE FRUIT FACTORY is like Karen Russell by way of E.L. Doctorow.”
  • 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 bobby dollar, bronson pinchot, cherie priest, david mitchell, jeff vandermeer, maplecroft, randall munroe, tad williams, the bone clocks, the southern reach, what if, wil wheaton, xe sands, xkcd