A big week with a lot of the May Releases from the Penguin Imprints plus some other odds and ends:
Ark by Stephen Baxter (Roc Hardcover 05/04/2010) – Hobbit/Mark read and enjoyed the first in this duology a couple of years ago.. Now that I have both books, maybe I’ll get to them.
With the discovery of another life-sustaining planet light years away, there is hope for a chosen few to leave the soon-to-be submerged Earth. Holle Groundwater is one of the candidates, having been trained for this purpose since childhood, when the ships Ark One and Ark Three were being built. But as Holle prepares to endure life aboard the Ark, she comes to realize that her attempt at escape may be more dangerous than trying to stay afloat on a drowning planet...
The Loving Dead by Amanda Beamer (NightShade Books Trade Paperback 07/14/2010)– Zombie love sotry
Kate and Michael are roommates living in the Oakland hills, working at the same Trader Joes supermarket. A night of drunken revelry changes their lives forever, but not in the way that anyone would expect. A slow-spreading plague of zombie-ism breaks out at their house party, spreading amongst their circle of friends, and simultaneously through the Bay Area. This zombie plague - an STD of sorts - is spread through sex and kissing, turning its victims into mindless, horny, voracious killers. Thrust into extremes by this slow- motion tragedy, Kate and Michael are forced to confront the choices they've made in their lives, and their fears of commitment, while trying to stay alive and reunite in the one place in the Bay Area that's likely to be safe and secure from the zombie hoards: Alcatraz.
Ghosts and Echoes (A Shadows Inquiries #2) by Lyn Benedict (Roc Mass Market Paperback 05/04/2010) – Second in a series, where “The things that go bump in the night are real. Werewolves stalk the Everglades, legends hide in modern form, and even the old gods may occasionally make an appearance.”
Sylvie is back from vacation, and all she wants out of life right now is for the Magicus Mundi to leave her alone for a bit. No dead things, no mayhem, no life-and-death struggles. Just because Sylvie managed to take some time off doesn't mean that the Magicus Mundi has to follow her example, though, and it's been piling things up on her doorstep while she was away.
Still, she can pick and choose her cases, right? Solving a string of burglaries sounds perfect--mind-numbingly boring and mundane. Until you throw in Sylvie's missing sister, a generous helping of necromancy, and a Chicago cop possessed by a disturbingly familiar spirit.
As the Rolling Stones sang, "You can't always get what you want."
Conspirator (Foreigner #10) by C. J. Cherryh (DAW Mass Market Paperback 05/04/2010) – This is the first of a new trilogy set in Cherryh’s Foreigner universe of books and the 10th overall and the MMPB version of the hardcover I received exactly a year a go.
Cajeiri is the young son of the powerful leader of the Western Association—and he has become a target for forces bent on destroying his father's rule. For Cajeiri is the first ateva youth to have lived in a human environment. And after hundreds of years of fragile atevi-human coexistence, he may very well be the first of his people to ever truly understand the so similar—yet so dangerously different—aliens who share his home planet and threaten the hidebound customs of his race.
Deceiver (Foreigner #11) by C. J. Cherryh (DAW Hardcover 05/04/2010) – If nothing else, Cherryh maintains an impressive schedule of output, this is the 11th in the series for which I received the 10th exactly a year ago.
The civil war among the alien Atevi has ended. Tabini-aiji, powerful ruler of the Western Association, along with Cajeiri, his son and heir, has returned to the Bujavid, his seat of power. But factions that remain loyal to the opposition are still present, and the danger these rebels pose is far from over.
Starfishers Volume Two of The Starfishers Trilogy by Glen Cook (Night Shade Books, Trade Paperback 04/09/2010) – Night Shade continues to re-issue program Glen Cook’s backlist in these attractive trade paperbacks. I’ve a feeling I’ll be reading quite a bit of Glen Cook this year and since I’ve hankering for SF with a Space Opera feel.
Starfish: Treasure troves of power. They were creatures of fusion energy, ancient, huge, intelligent, drifting in herds on the edge of the galaxy, producing their ambergris, the substance precious to man and the man-like Sangaree alike. In deep, starless space the herds were protected by the great harvestships of the Seiners, or Starfishers - the independent, non-Confederation people who dared to skirt the deadly boundaries of Stars' End and battle the Sangaree. It is with them on the harvestship Danion that Confederation agents Mouse Storm and Moyshe BenRabi have to fly and fight, probing mystery and myth. And where BenRabi, man of many names, must surrender his dreams and his mind itself to the golden dragons of space and their shepherds, the gathering... Starfishers.
The Dragon and the Stars edited by Derwin Makand Eric Choi (DAW Paperback 05/04/2010) – The DAW monthly anthology for May, featuring stories about Chinese/Asian Dragons.
This unique collection of science fiction tales demonstrates the diversity of the Chinese experience around the world, merging China's rich heritage with new traditions, offering North American readers an opportunity to discover these exciting writers.
The Sweet Scent of Blood ( Spellcrackers.com #1) by Suzanne McLeod (Roc Mass Market Paperback 05/04/2010) – Mark reviewed this when it published in the UK in 2008:
Genevieve Taylor is a Sidhe-one of the noble fae-and she's unusual, even in a London where celebrity vampires, eccentric goblins, and scheming lesser fae mix freely with humanity. But she's about to learn that some magive isn't all its cracked up to be.
Kraken by China Miéville (Del Rey Hardcover 06/29/2010) – Mieville channeling Lovecraft – ‘NUFF SAID!
With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this—or any other—year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about—or prevent—the End of All Things.
In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.
As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens—human and otherwise—are adept in magic and murder.
There is the Congregation of God Kraken, a sect of squid worshippers whose roots go back to the dawn of humanity—and beyond. There is the criminal mastermind known as the Tattoo, a merciless maniac inked onto the flesh of a hapless victim. There is the FSRC—the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit—a branch of London’s finest that fights sorcery
with sorcery. There is Wati, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a ragtag union of magical familiars. There are the Londonmancers, who read the future in the city’s entrails. There is Grisamentum, London’s greatest wizard, whose shadow lingers long after his death. And then there is Goss and Subby, an ageless old man and a cretinous boy who, together, constitute a terrifying—yet darkly charismatic—demonic duo.
All of them—and others—are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.
Magic in the Shadows (Allie Beckstrom #3) by Devon Monk (Roc Mass Market Paperback 05/04/2010) – I read the first book by Monk in this series, Magic to the Bone, way back in 2008, boy does time fly.
Allison Beckstrom's magic has taken its toll on her, physically marking her and erasing her memories-including those of the man she supposedly loves. But lost memories aren't the only things preying on Allie's thoughts.
Her late father, the prominent businessman-and sorcerer-Daniel Beckstrom, has somehow channeled himself into her very mind. With the help of The Authority, a secret organization of magic users, she hopes to gain better control over her own abilities-and find a way to deal with her father...
Redemption Corps (Warhammer 40,000/Imperial Guad) by Rob Sanders (Black Library Mass Market Paperback 04/23/2010) – This is Sanders debut novel set in the same sub series as Aaron Dembeski-Bowden’s well-received Cadian Blood
Redemption Corps is the latest Imperial Guard novel from debut author, Rob Sanders, featuring an elite regiment of SAS type stromtroopers. The Redemption Corps must fight the enemies of the imperium as well as internal foes who fear that chaos has tainted the hard bitten Col of the Regiment Mortensen. Full of characters, action and twists.
Bewitched & Betrayed (Raine Benares #4) by Lisa Shearin – (Ace Mass Market Paperback 05/04/2010) – This is the fourth book in a fantasy/mystery/Renaissance hybrid.
Raine Benares is a seeker. She finds lost things and missing people- usually alive. But now she's been bonde with the Saghred, a soul- stealing stone of unlimited power, and must hunt down its escapees. Especially since one of them is also hunting her...
Fritz Leiber: Selected stories edited by Jonathan Strahan and Charles N. Brown (NightShade Books, Hardcover April 2009) – Leiber is one of the greats of the genre’s golden age, with the ability to switch gears between genres in a hearbeat.
Known in his lifetime primarily to readers of science fiction and fantasy, Fritz Leiber is now recognized as one of the finest writers of popular fiction of the twentieth century. An intimate of H. P. Lovecraft, Leiber crafted the twentieth century's first great stories of urban horror, created the sword and sorcery tale almost single-handedly, and wrote strong, resonant science fiction. Nothing less than a visionary American author, Leiber is considered by critics and fans alike to be one of our most original and versatile storytellers.
The seventeen tales selected for this volume showcase Leiber's virtuoso range and unforgettable characters: from the fabled, decadent streets of god-haunted Lankhmar to the eerie underworld of a Martian gambling hall; from a sunless, frozen Earth to the shattered, bombed, and violent wreckage of a post-atomic New York, and beyond. Edited by master anthologist Jonathan Strahan and Locus magazine founder Charles N. Brown, Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories presents a wide sampling of his best short fiction so that a new generation of twenty-first century readers can continue to discover and enjoy his groundbreaking and memorable fiction.
Contents:
Introduction by Neil Gaiman / Smoke Ghost / The Girl with the Hungry Eyes / Coming Attraction / A Pail of Air / A Deskful of Girls /Space Time for Springers / Ill Met in Lankhmar / Four Ghosts in Hamlet / Gonna Roll the Bones / The Inner Circles (aka The Winter Flies) / America the Beautiful / Bazaar of the Bizarre / Midnight by the Morphy Watch / Belsen Express / Catch That Zeppelin! / Horrible Imaginings / The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars
Ark by Stephen Baxter (Roc Hardcover 05/04/2010) – Hobbit/Mark read and enjoyed the first in this duology a couple of years ago.. Now that I have both books, maybe I’ll get to them.With the discovery of another life-sustaining planet light years away, there is hope for a chosen few to leave the soon-to-be submerged Earth. Holle Groundwater is one of the candidates, having been trained for this purpose since childhood, when the ships Ark One and Ark Three were being built. But as Holle prepares to endure life aboard the Ark, she comes to realize that her attempt at escape may be more dangerous than trying to stay afloat on a drowning planet...
The Loving Dead by Amanda Beamer (NightShade Books Trade Paperback 07/14/2010)– Zombie love sotryKate and Michael are roommates living in the Oakland hills, working at the same Trader Joes supermarket. A night of drunken revelry changes their lives forever, but not in the way that anyone would expect. A slow-spreading plague of zombie-ism breaks out at their house party, spreading amongst their circle of friends, and simultaneously through the Bay Area. This zombie plague - an STD of sorts - is spread through sex and kissing, turning its victims into mindless, horny, voracious killers. Thrust into extremes by this slow- motion tragedy, Kate and Michael are forced to confront the choices they've made in their lives, and their fears of commitment, while trying to stay alive and reunite in the one place in the Bay Area that's likely to be safe and secure from the zombie hoards: Alcatraz.
Ghosts and Echoes (A Shadows Inquiries #2) by Lyn Benedict (Roc Mass Market Paperback 05/04/2010) – Second in a series, where “The things that go bump in the night are real. Werewolves stalk the Everglades, legends hide in modern form, and even the old gods may occasionally make an appearance.”Sylvie is back from vacation, and all she wants out of life right now is for the Magicus Mundi to leave her alone for a bit. No dead things, no mayhem, no life-and-death struggles. Just because Sylvie managed to take some time off doesn't mean that the Magicus Mundi has to follow her example, though, and it's been piling things up on her doorstep while she was away.
Still, she can pick and choose her cases, right? Solving a string of burglaries sounds perfect--mind-numbingly boring and mundane. Until you throw in Sylvie's missing sister, a generous helping of necromancy, and a Chicago cop possessed by a disturbingly familiar spirit.
As the Rolling Stones sang, "You can't always get what you want."
Conspirator (Foreigner #10) by C. J. Cherryh (DAW Mass Market Paperback 05/04/2010) – This is the first of a new trilogy set in Cherryh’s Foreigner universe of books and the 10th overall and the MMPB version of the hardcover I received exactly a year a go.Cajeiri is the young son of the powerful leader of the Western Association—and he has become a target for forces bent on destroying his father's rule. For Cajeiri is the first ateva youth to have lived in a human environment. And after hundreds of years of fragile atevi-human coexistence, he may very well be the first of his people to ever truly understand the so similar—yet so dangerously different—aliens who share his home planet and threaten the hidebound customs of his race.
Deceiver (Foreigner #11) by C. J. Cherryh (DAW Hardcover 05/04/2010) – If nothing else, Cherryh maintains an impressive schedule of output, this is the 11th in the series for which I received the 10th exactly a year ago.The civil war among the alien Atevi has ended. Tabini-aiji, powerful ruler of the Western Association, along with Cajeiri, his son and heir, has returned to the Bujavid, his seat of power. But factions that remain loyal to the opposition are still present, and the danger these rebels pose is far from over.
Starfishers Volume Two of The Starfishers Trilogy by Glen Cook (Night Shade Books, Trade Paperback 04/09/2010) – Night Shade continues to re-issue program Glen Cook’s backlist in these attractive trade paperbacks. I’ve a feeling I’ll be reading quite a bit of Glen Cook this year and since I’ve hankering for SF with a Space Opera feel.Starfish: Treasure troves of power. They were creatures of fusion energy, ancient, huge, intelligent, drifting in herds on the edge of the galaxy, producing their ambergris, the substance precious to man and the man-like Sangaree alike. In deep, starless space the herds were protected by the great harvestships of the Seiners, or Starfishers - the independent, non-Confederation people who dared to skirt the deadly boundaries of Stars' End and battle the Sangaree. It is with them on the harvestship Danion that Confederation agents Mouse Storm and Moyshe BenRabi have to fly and fight, probing mystery and myth. And where BenRabi, man of many names, must surrender his dreams and his mind itself to the golden dragons of space and their shepherds, the gathering... Starfishers.
The Dragon and the Stars edited by Derwin Makand Eric Choi (DAW Paperback 05/04/2010) – The DAW monthly anthology for May, featuring stories about Chinese/Asian Dragons.This unique collection of science fiction tales demonstrates the diversity of the Chinese experience around the world, merging China's rich heritage with new traditions, offering North American readers an opportunity to discover these exciting writers.
The Sweet Scent of Blood ( Spellcrackers.com #1) by Suzanne McLeod (Roc Mass Market Paperback 05/04/2010) – Mark reviewed this when it published in the UK in 2008:Genevieve Taylor is a Sidhe-one of the noble fae-and she's unusual, even in a London where celebrity vampires, eccentric goblins, and scheming lesser fae mix freely with humanity. But she's about to learn that some magive isn't all its cracked up to be.
Kraken by China Miéville (Del Rey Hardcover 06/29/2010) – Mieville channeling Lovecraft – ‘NUFF SAID!With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this—or any other—year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about—or prevent—the End of All Things.
In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.
As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens—human and otherwise—are adept in magic and murder.
There is the Congregation of God Kraken, a sect of squid worshippers whose roots go back to the dawn of humanity—and beyond. There is the criminal mastermind known as the Tattoo, a merciless maniac inked onto the flesh of a hapless victim. There is the FSRC—the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit—a branch of London’s finest that fights sorcery
with sorcery. There is Wati, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a ragtag union of magical familiars. There are the Londonmancers, who read the future in the city’s entrails. There is Grisamentum, London’s greatest wizard, whose shadow lingers long after his death. And then there is Goss and Subby, an ageless old man and a cretinous boy who, together, constitute a terrifying—yet darkly charismatic—demonic duo.
All of them—and others—are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.
Magic in the Shadows (Allie Beckstrom #3) by Devon Monk (Roc Mass Market Paperback 05/04/2010) – I read the first book by Monk in this series, Magic to the Bone, way back in 2008, boy does time fly.Allison Beckstrom's magic has taken its toll on her, physically marking her and erasing her memories-including those of the man she supposedly loves. But lost memories aren't the only things preying on Allie's thoughts.
Her late father, the prominent businessman-and sorcerer-Daniel Beckstrom, has somehow channeled himself into her very mind. With the help of The Authority, a secret organization of magic users, she hopes to gain better control over her own abilities-and find a way to deal with her father...
Redemption Corps (Warhammer 40,000/Imperial Guad) by Rob Sanders (Black Library Mass Market Paperback 04/23/2010) – This is Sanders debut novel set in the same sub series as Aaron Dembeski-Bowden’s well-received Cadian BloodRedemption Corps is the latest Imperial Guard novel from debut author, Rob Sanders, featuring an elite regiment of SAS type stromtroopers. The Redemption Corps must fight the enemies of the imperium as well as internal foes who fear that chaos has tainted the hard bitten Col of the Regiment Mortensen. Full of characters, action and twists.
Bewitched & Betrayed (Raine Benares #4) by Lisa Shearin – (Ace Mass Market Paperback 05/04/2010) – This is the fourth book in a fantasy/mystery/Renaissance hybrid.Raine Benares is a seeker. She finds lost things and missing people- usually alive. But now she's been bonde with the Saghred, a soul- stealing stone of unlimited power, and must hunt down its escapees. Especially since one of them is also hunting her...
Fritz Leiber: Selected stories edited by Jonathan Strahan and Charles N. Brown (NightShade Books, Hardcover April 2009) – Leiber is one of the greats of the genre’s golden age, with the ability to switch gears between genres in a hearbeat.Known in his lifetime primarily to readers of science fiction and fantasy, Fritz Leiber is now recognized as one of the finest writers of popular fiction of the twentieth century. An intimate of H. P. Lovecraft, Leiber crafted the twentieth century's first great stories of urban horror, created the sword and sorcery tale almost single-handedly, and wrote strong, resonant science fiction. Nothing less than a visionary American author, Leiber is considered by critics and fans alike to be one of our most original and versatile storytellers.
The seventeen tales selected for this volume showcase Leiber's virtuoso range and unforgettable characters: from the fabled, decadent streets of god-haunted Lankhmar to the eerie underworld of a Martian gambling hall; from a sunless, frozen Earth to the shattered, bombed, and violent wreckage of a post-atomic New York, and beyond. Edited by master anthologist Jonathan Strahan and Locus magazine founder Charles N. Brown, Fritz Leiber: Selected Stories presents a wide sampling of his best short fiction so that a new generation of twenty-first century readers can continue to discover and enjoy his groundbreaking and memorable fiction.
Contents:
Introduction by Neil Gaiman / Smoke Ghost / The Girl with the Hungry Eyes / Coming Attraction / A Pail of Air / A Deskful of Girls /Space Time for Springers / Ill Met in Lankhmar / Four Ghosts in Hamlet / Gonna Roll the Bones / The Inner Circles (aka The Winter Flies) / America the Beautiful / Bazaar of the Bizarre / Midnight by the Morphy Watch / Belsen Express / Catch That Zeppelin! / Horrible Imaginings / The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars
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