Release Week: Broken Monsters, My Real Children, The Rabbit Back Literature Society, and Jay Lake's Last Plane to Heaven

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Release Week: Broken Monsters, My Real Children, The Rabbit Back Literature Society, and Jay Lake's Last Plane to Heaven

Posted on 2014-09-22 at 17:22 by Sam

SEPTEMBER 10-16, 2014: One of the quietest weeks in overall numbers in a good while nonetheless has very, very much to recommend it, with US audio releases for the latest novels from Lauren Beukes and Jo Walton, an eagerly-awaited Finnish speculative fiction, and Jay Lake’s posthumous final collection Last Plane to Heaven. Also out this week: John Shirley’s historical fiction Wyatt in Wichita well ahead of the planned print/ebook release, Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy concludes with Edge of Eternity, Kelly Barnhill’s The Witch’s Boy, Margaret Atwood’s Stone Mattress: Nine Tales, a fantastic Skyboat Media production of Christopher Morley’s The Haunted Bookshop, and Jonathan Kellerman (with son Jesse) revisits the legendary golem of Prague with The Golem of Hollywood. Seen but not heard selections include the Nick Mamatas-edited Phantasm Japan anthology, Helen Marshall’s collection Gifts for the One Who Comes After, Beth Cato’s The Clockwork Dagger, and (both already out in audio mid-week) Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle and Cry Father by Benjamin Whitmer. Meanwhile, in podcast land, the Baen Free Radio Hour has just included part 1 of a 4-part radioplay miniseries for which I had a small part: “a full-cast, lushly produced audio drama adaptation” of the novella “Islands” by Eric Flint, set in the world of the Belisarius series by Eric Flint and David Drake. Enjoy!

PICKS OF THE WEEK:

Broken Monsters | [Lauren Beukes] My Real Children | [Jo Walton]

Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes (Mulholland and Hachette Audio, 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 blurb from Stephen King, once again Beukes gets a multi-cast narration courtesy of Christine Lakin, Terra Deva, Sunil Mohatra, Robert Morgan Fisher, and J. D. Jackson. The book is reviewed quite positively at io9 where she hosted a Q&A session as well. NPR’s review is “out of the park” level praise, and for my money Beukes is literally tearing it up with her books: Moxyland, Zoo City, and The Shining Girls kept raising the bar. Taking on urban decay in Detroit, with a supernatural horror twist? Yup. As my tastes bend ever further towards crime and realistic fiction, Beukes’ oeuvre is a step back into my (and her) more fantastical roots, and I’m really excited about getting deeper into this one. Get: [Downpour | Audible | IndieBound | Kobo | Kindle]

Speaking of excitement, as I loved her multiple-award-winning 2011 novel Among Others I was already looking forward to Jo Walton’s My Real Children when it was published in print/ebook earlier this year, and after reading Lev Grossman’s review (“My Real Children has as much in common with an Alice Munro story as it does with, say, Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. It explores issues of choice and chance and destiny and responsibility with the narrative tools that only science fiction affords, but it’s also a deeply poignant, richly imagined book about women’s lives in 20th- and 21st-century England, and, in a broader sense, about the lives of all those who are pushed to the margins of history: the disabled, the disenfranchised, the queer, the lower middle class.”) I have been hoping to see it come to audio. Well, here it is, narrated by Alison Larkin for Audible. “It’s 2015, and Patricia Cowan is very old. ‘Confused today,’ read the notes clipped to the end of her bed. She forgets things she should know - what year it is, major events in the lives of her children. But she remembers things that don’t seem possible. She remembers marrying Mark and having four children. And she remembers not marrying Mark and raising three children with Bee instead. She remembers the bomb that killed President Kennedy in 1963, and she remembers Kennedy in 1964, declining to run again after the nuclear exchange that took out Miami and Kiev. Her childhood, her years at Oxford during the Second World War - those were solid things. But after that, did she marry Mark or not? Did her friends all call her Trish, or Pat? Had she been a housewife who escaped a terrible marriage after her children were grown, or a successful travel writer with homes in Britain and Italy? And the moon outside her window: does it host a benign research station, or a command post bristling with nuclear missiles? Two lives, two worlds, two versions of modern history; each with their loves and losses, their sorrows and triumphs. Jo Walton’s My Real Children is the tale of both of Patricia Cowan’s lives… and of how every life means the entire world.​” More: A lengthy excerpt and a very positive review from Cory Doctorow are available at BoingBoing. Get: [Audible | Kobo | Indiebound| Amazon | Kindle]

The Rabbit Back Literature Society | [Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen] Last Plane to Heaven: The Final Collection | [Jay Lake]

The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, narrated by Kate Rawson for Audible comes well ahead of the January 2015 US ebook release, giving US listeners a head start on this intriguing Finnish speculative fiction of a highly contagious book virus, a literary society, and a Snow Queen-like disappearing author, first published late last year in the UK. “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?”

Last Plane to Heaven: The Final Collection by the late Jay Lake, narrated by Robin Miles, Victor Bevine, Jay Snyder, and Katherine Kellgren for Audible is “the final and definitive short story collection of award-winning SF author Jay Lake, author of Green, Endurance, and Kalimpura. Long before he was a novelist, SF writer Jay Lake was an acclaimed writer of short stories. In Last Plane to Heaven, Lake has assembled 32 of the best of them. Aliens and angels fill these pages, from the title story, a hard-edged and breathtaking look at how a real alien visitor might be received, to the savage truth of ‘The Cancer Catechisms.’ Here are more than 30 short stories written by a master of the form, science fiction and fantasy both.” The book is also out in hardcover and ebook [Kobo | Kindle] from Tor.

ALSO OUT THIS WEEK:

Wyatt in Wichita: A Historical Novel | [John Shirley] Witch's Boy | [Kelly Barnhill]

SEEN BUT NOT HEARD:

 

  • The Grasshopper's Child (Bold As Love Book 6) by Gwyneth Jones (Sep 12, 2014) -- "A near-future thriller for Young Adults, set in the Bold As Love world. Heidi’s sweet, feckless father has been murdered. She’s a recovered asset, working for the Loan Company to pay off his debts. The Garden House, in the middle of the once glorious, long derelict Mehilhoc Gardens, is cold and desolate. Heidi’s reclusive “owners”, brother and sister Tallis and Roger Maylock, seem half crazy. It’s horrible to be a slave, and she isn’t safe from creepy Roger, in her icy attic bedroom. But Heidi doesn’t care about any of that. Her only reason for living is to prove that her Mum didn’t kill her Dad. Her only hope in the world is the Police Inspector’s phone number, and the memory of his words: 'if you recall anything, anything at all, please get in touch...'"
  • Clockwork Secrets: Heavy Fire by Dru Pagliassotti (Hades,/EDGE Sep 15, 2014) -- "Steampunk fantasy novel, third in a trilogy followingClockwork Heart (2013) and Clockwork Lies (March 2014)."
  • 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.” — audiobook is coming Sep 30, read by the author for Macmillan Audio
  • Gifts for the One Who Comes After by Helen Marshall (ChiZine, Sep 16, 2014) — “This is one of the books you will always remember reading for the first time. It’s really that good.” -Nathan Ballingrud
  • 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) -- "Nineteenth century London is the center of a vast British Empire, a teeming metropolis where steam-power is king and airships ply the skies, and where Queen Victoria presides over three quarters of the known world—including the east coast of America, following the failed revolution of 1775."
  • 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
  • Collection: They Do the Same Things Different There by Robert Shearman (ChiZine, Sep 16, 2014)
  • Collection: Black Water: A Jane Yellowrock Collection by Faith Hunter (Sep 16, 2014)
  • Crime: Cry Father by Benjamin Whitmer (Gallery Books, Sep 16) -- the author has a publication day roundup: "In the tradition of Cormac McCarthy and Larry Brown comes a haunting story about men, their fathers, their sons, and the legacy of violence. For Patterson Wells, disaster is the norm. Working alongside dangerous, desperate, itinerant men as a tree clearer in disaster zones, he’s still dealing with the loss of his young son. Writing letters to the boy offers some solace. The bottle gives more. Upon a return trip to Colorado, Patterson stops to go fishing with an old acquaintance, only to find him in a meth-induced delirium and keeping a woman tied up in the bathtub. In the ensuing chain of events, which will test not only his future but his past, Patterson tries to do the right thing. Still, in the lives of those he knows, violence and justice have made of each other strange, intoxicating bedfellows." -- coming to audio narrated By T. Ryder Smith for Recorded Books on Sep 19
  • Kids: The Eighth Continent by Matt London (Razorbill, September 16, 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.””
  • Kids: Tut: The Story of My Immortal Life by P. J. Hoover (Tor/Starscape, Sep 16, 2014) -- "Middle-grade fantasy novel, first of a series, about King Tut, living as an eighth-grader in modern-day Washington DC." (via Locus Online)
COMING SOON:

Wolf in White Van | [John Darnielle] War Stories: New Military Science Fiction

OCTOBER 2014:
  • Teen: Girl on a Wire by Gwenda Bond (Skyscape, Oct 1) — “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!”
  • Fiction: The Moonlight Palace by Liz Rosenberg (Oct 1, 2014)
  • 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
  • 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.” [excerpt]
  • 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) — read by Scott Brick — “Edgy, hard-core, and wildly imaginative, this new thriller from New York Times best-selling author John Twelve Hawks (The Traveler, The Dark River, The Golden City) features an assassin-narrator unlike anyone we’ve seen before, set in a present-day dystopia.”
  • 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.”
  • Fiction: Lila: A Novel By Marilynne Robinson, Narrated By Maggie Hoffman (Oct 7) -- a sneak peek is available at FSG -- "Revisiting the beloved characters and setting of Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Gilead and Home, a National Book Award finalist, Lila is a moving expression of the mysteries of existence that is destined to become an American classic."
  • Non-Fiction: Deep Down Dark by Hector Tobar (Macmillan Audio, Oct 7) -- "When the San José mine collapsed outside of Copiapó, Chile, in August 2010, it trapped 33 miners beneath thousands of feet of rock for a record-breaking 69 days. Across the globe, we sat riveted to television and computer screens as journalists flocked to the Atacama desert. While we saw what transpired above ground during the grueling and protracted rescue, the story of the miners' experiences below the earth's surface—and the lives that led them there—hasn't been heard until now."
  • 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 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…)
  • Related Non-Fiction: As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes, Joe Layden and Rob Reiner (Oct 14, 2014) — more information available via an interview with Elwes
  • 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.”
  • YA: Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven Cycle #3) by Maggie Stiefvater (Oct 21)
  • 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.” — yes indeed, 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
  • 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.
  • Teen: The Silence of Six by E.C. Myers (Adaptive Books, Nov 5, 2014) — in a guest post for YA Books Central he writes: “Ever since I read Alvin’s Secret Code by Clifford Hicks when I was a kid, I have been fascinated with ciphers. This one is pretty easy to crack, but I got to play with some more challenging puzzles in THE SILENCE OF SIX. Designing a book cover is a little like cryptography: You try several different approaches and when you hit on the right one, it just fits. That’s how it was with this cover! As soon as I saw what the brilliant creative team at Adaptive Books had come up with, I knew it was the perfect image to convey the intrigue, technology, and darkness at the core of the story — without giving away too much.” The post includes an excerpt as well as this synopsis: “Haunted by the unforgettable image of his best friend’s death, Max’s entire world is upended as he suddenly finds himself the target of a corporate-government witch-hunt. Fearing for his life and fighting for his own innocence, Max is on the run with no one to trust and too many unanswered questions.”
  • 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)
  • Related non-fiction: The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help by Amanda Palmer (Grand Central, Nov 11) — an audiobook is coming as well, read by the author — “Rock star, crowdfunding pioneer, and TED speaker Amanda Palmer knows all about asking. Performing as a living statue in a wedding dress, she wordlessly asked thousands of passersby for their dollars. When she became a singer, songwriter, and musician, she was not afraid to ask her audience to support her as she surfed the crowd (and slept on their couches while touring). And when she left her record label to strike out on her own, she asked her fans to support her in making an album, leading to the world’s most successful music Kickstarter.”
  • 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
  • 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)
  • 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.”
  • Our Love Will Go the Way of the Salmon by Cameron Pierce (Broken River Books, December 2014)
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)
  • Strands of Sorrow (Black Tide Rising) by John Ringo (Jan 6, 2015)
  • 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)
  • ADDED: The Dragon Conspiracy (SPI Files) by Lisa Shearin (Ace, Jan 27, 2015)
  • 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
  • Dark Intelligence: Transformation: Book One by Neal Asher (29 Jan 2015)
  • 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.”
  • 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….”
  • ADDED: Into the Maelstrom (Citizen) by David Drake and John Lambshead (Mar 3, 2015)
  • 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.”
  • Stiletto (The Checquy Files 2) by Daniel O’Malley (Head of Zeus, 1 Apr 2015) — UK release for the sequel to The Rook
  • 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
  • Clash of Iron by Angus Watson (Orbit, Apr 14, 2015) — “Battle-hardened warriors and bloodthirsty druids clash in the second volume of this action-packed historical fantasy trilogy that will appeal to fans of Joe Abercrombie and HBO’s Game of Thrones.”
  • ADDED: Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon (Dial, Apr 21, 2015) -- "From the creator of Dragonbreath comes a tale of witches, minions, and one fantastic castle, just right for fans of Roald Dahl and Tom Angleberger. When Molly shows up on Castle Hangnail's doorstep to fill the vacancy for a wicked witch, the castle's minions are understandably dubious. After all, she is twelve years old, barely five feet tall, and quite polite."
  • Disciple of the Wind by Steve Bein (April 2015) — concluding book in a trilogy (Daughter of the Sword and Year of the Demon)
  • A Long Time Until Now (BAEN) by Michael Z Williamson (May 5, 2015)
  • Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit, May 2015) — “A new work that takes us on an interstellar journey in search of a new home planet from New York Times bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson.”
  • Dance of Chaos by David Dalglish (Orbit, May 2015)
  • 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.”
  • Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey (Orbit, June 2015) — “The fifth novel in James S.A. Corey’s New York Times bestselling Expanse series–now being produced for television by the SyFy Channel!”
  • 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, August 4, 2015) — “This is the way the world ends. Again.”
  • The Witchwood Crown by Tad Williams (DAW, 2015) — Williams returns to the world of his Memory, Sorrow and Thorn epic fantasy trilogy
  • 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, 2015?)
  • Shadows of Self (Mistborn, #5) by Brandon Sanderson (Tor, 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.”
  • Pocket Apocalypse: InCryptid, Book Four by Seanan McGuire (Mar 3, 2015)
  • In the Time of Dragon Moon by Janet Lee Carey (Penguin/Kathy Dawson, Mar 24, 2015)
  • 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)
  • Dark Heir: A Jane Yellowrock Novel by Faith Hunter (Apr 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 thecover 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)
  • ADDED: The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (Jul 7, 2015) -- cover reveal on Tor.com for this second book in "The 3-Body Problem" translated by Ken Liu
  • Armada by Ernest Cline (Crown, July 28, 2015) — “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)
  • 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)
  • The Spider’s War by Daniel Abraham (Orbit, August 2015) — “The epic conclusion to The Dagger and The Coin series, perfect for fans of George R.R. Martin.”
  • 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.”
  • Illuminae by Annie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (Knopf, Fall 2015) — “Told through a dossier of hacked documents – including emails, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, graphics, and more – for what’s billed as a found footage-style mashup of Battlestar Galactica and Ten Things I Hate About You, Illuminae is the story of of a young hacker and her fighter pilot ex-boyfriend who must uncover the truth about the deadly plague ravaging their fleet, the AI that should be protecting them, and the powers that be who may or may not be lying about everything.”
  • YA: Seriously Wicked by Tina Connolly (Tor Teen, 2015) -- "a YA about a girl who’s being raised by a seriously wicked witch. It contains: 1 sweet boy-band boy, 1 dragon who lives in an RV garage, 1 demon who occasionally imitates Elvis, 1 hidden phoenix that’s going to explode on Halloween, 1 witch who just wants to run the whole city, sheesh, is that too much to ask? and 1 girl named Cam trying to fix it all"
  • The End of All Things (The Human Division, Book 2) by John Scalzi (Tor, 2015)
  • 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)
  • Tell the Wind and Fire by Sarah Rees Brennan (HarperCollins, 2015?) — “A modern retelling of A Tale of Two Cities. With magic!”
  • The Dregs by Leigh Bardugo (Henry Holt, 2015?) — “The project, described as a blend of Ocean’s 11 and Game of Thrones, is set in Kerch, a small island nation in the “Grishaverse” (meaning the same universe as her Shadow and Bone books) with tremendous economic power, the hub of all international trade and a country rich in art and culture … but also home to one of the most dangerous criminal underworlds. A crew of dangerous felonious misfits face impossible odds when they are pulled together to break into one of the most guarded places in the world.”
  • Underground Airline by Ben H. Winters (Mulholland, Spring 2016) — “an ‘epic contemporary detective story,’ according to the publisher, set in alternate world in which the Civil War never happened and slavery still exists in the American South. The novel follows an undercover agent trying to capture an escaped slave. Winters, who has written titles for adults and children, won both the Edgar and the Philip K. Dick Award for books in the Last Policeman series.” (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 alison larkin, broken monsters, jay lake, jo walton, lauren beukes, my real children, pasi ilmari jaaskelainen, the rabbit back literature society