May 15, 2013
The Button Man and the Murder Tree
An all-new Wild Cards story
May 14, 2013
Shall We Gather
When one world brushes another, asking the right question can be magic…
May 8, 2013
Fire Above, Fire Below
The dragon below our city has died. What is to be done?
May 7, 2013
We Have Always Lived On Mars
They've never seen the sky. Or the sun. Or the stars. Or the moons.
Some days we can't help but compare ourselves to the girl on the cover of Jenna Black's Replica, staring out wistfully over a shining New York City that we can only peer at through giant glass windows of an odd shape and size.
The book itself is out on July 16 from Tor Books, and contains a twist we don't often see in a YA yarn, so you really shouldn't miss it! But in the meantime, just stare at the cover with us. And relate.
Check out Magician's End, the finale book in Raymond E. Feist's Chaoswar Saga, out tomorrow from Harper Voyager:
An uneasy quiet has settled upon Midkemia in the wake of a surprise invasion. But the land is far from peaceful. Leaderless, the Kingdom is on the brink of anarchy and civil war, unless Hal conDoin, Duke of Crydee, and his brothers can rally their allies to crown a new king. They must move quickly, for war has left the land vulnerable to an agency of horrific destruction not of this world. No one is safe, not even the Star Elves whose city deep in the Grey Tower Mountains has come under attack by an ancient darkness that seeks to extinguish every living thing in Midkemia.
Yet the bravery of determined warriors—brothers in blood and arms—is not enough to ensure the Kingdom's preservation without the magic of the Master Sorcerer Pug. A powerful spell has trapped him, his son Magnus, and two unlikely allies in an unfamiliar realm, and they must find their separate ways home—a journey of memory and discovery that will illuminate the truth of the destiny that awaits them. But to save Midkemia—and everything he has fought for and all he cherishes—Pug will have to pay the ultimate price.
Check out L. E. Modesitt, Jr.’s new novel, The One-Eyed Man, out on September 17:
The colony world of Stittara is no ordinary planet. For the interstellar Unity of the Ceylesian Arm, Stittara is the primary source of anagathics: drugs that have more than doubled the human life span. But the ecological balance that makes anagathics possible on Stittara is fragile, and the Unity government has a vital interest in making sure the flow of longevity drugs remains uninterrupted, even if it means uprooting the human settlements.
Offered the job of assessing the ecological impact of the human presence on Stittara, freelance consultant Dr. Paulo Verano jumps at the chance to escape the ruin of his personal life. He gets far more than he bargained for: Stittara’s atmosphere is populated with skytubes—gigantic, mysterious airborne organisms that drift like clouds above the surface of the planet. Their exact nature has eluded humanity for centuries, but Verano believes his conclusions about Stittara may hinge on understanding the skytubes’ role in the planet’s ecology—if he survives the hurricane winds, distrustful settlers, and secret agendas that impede his investigation at every turn.
Take a look at Mark T. Barnes' The Garden of Stones, out on May 21 from 47 North:
An uneasy peace has existed since the fall of the Awakened Empire centuries ago. Now the hybrid Avan share the land with the people they once conquered: the star-born humans; the spectral, undead Nomads; and what remains of the Elemental Masters.
With the Empress-in-Shadows an estranged ghost, it is the ancient dynasties of the Great Houses and the Hundred Families that rule. But now civil war threatens to draw all of Shrian into a vicious struggle sparked by one man’s lust for power, and his drive to cheat death.
Visions have foretold that Corajidin, dying ruler of House Erebus, will not only survive, but rise to rule his people. The wily nobleman seeks to make his destiny certain—by plundering the ruins of his civilization’s past for the arcane science needed to ensure his survival, and by mercilessly eliminating his rivals. But mercenary warrior-mage Indris, scion of the rival House Näsarat, stands most powerfully in the usurper’s bloody path. For it is Indris who reluctantly accepts the task of finding a missing man, the only one able to steer the teetering nation towards peace.
Check out Jim Ottaviani's Primates, out on June 11!
Jim Ottaviani returns with an action-packed account of the three greatest primatologists of the last century: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas. These three ground-breaking researchers were all students of the great Louis Leakey, and each made profound contributions to primatology—and to our own understanding of ourselves.
Tackling Goodall, Fossey, and Galdikas in turn, and covering the highlights of their respective careers, Primates is an accessible, entertaining, and informative look at the field of primatology and at the lives of three of the most remarkable women scientists of the twentieth century. Thanks to the charming and inviting illustrations by Maris Wicks, this is a nonfiction graphic novel with broad appeal.
Take a sneaky peek at Vicious by V. E. Schwab, out on September 24:
Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.
Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?
Check out Elizabeth Knox's Mortal Fire, out on June 11:
Sixteen-year-old Canny Mochrie's parents go away on a vacation, so they send her off on a trip of her own with her step-brother Sholto and his opinionated girlfriend Susan, who are interviewing the survivors of a strange coal mine disaster and researching local folklore in 1959 Southland, New Zealand. Canny is left to herself to wander in a mysterious and enchanting nearby valley, occupied almost entirely by children who all have the last name Zarene and can perform a special type of magic that tells things how to be stronger and better than they already are. With the help of a seventeen-year-old boy who is held hostage in a hidden away house by a spell that is now more powerful than the people who first placed it, Canny figures out why she, too, can use this special magic that only Zarenes should know, and where she really came from. Printz Honor author Elizabeth Knox has created another stunning world of intrigue in Mortal Fire.
We've got a special new excerpt from James Renner's The Man From Primrose Lane which is now on sale from retailers everywhere!:
In West Akron, Ohio, there lived a reclusive elderly man who always wore mittens, even in July. He had no friends and no family; all over town, he was known as the Man from Primrose Lane. And on a summer day, someone murdered him.
Fast-forward four years. David Neff, the bestselling author of a true-crime book about an Ohio serial killer, is a broken man after his wife’s inexplicable suicide. When an unexpected visit from an old friend introduces him to the strange mystery of “the man with a thousand mittens,” David decides to investigate. What he finds draws him back into a world he thought he had left behind forever. And the closer David gets to uncovering the true identity of the Man from Primrose Lane, the more he begins to understand the dangerous power of his own obsessions and how they may be connected to the deaths of both the old hermit and his beloved wife.
Take a look at Faeryland: The Secret World of the Hidden Ones by John Matthews with illustraions by Matt Dangler, out on May 7 from Abrams Books:
The author of Abrams’ How to See Faeries (with Brian Froud) opens the land of faerie to all readers. The book provides a broad overview of faeries, including a Who’s Who of Faeries; Good Faeries vs. Bad Faeries; Faerie Courts; Faerie Spells; and Faerie Sightings. Faeries of the British Isles as well as those of Scandinavia, Germany, North America, and even the Asian, Arabic, and African worlds are discussed. Matt Dangler and other contemporary fantasy artists bring the land of faerie to life alongside such fine artists as William Blake, Henry Fuseli, and J. M. W. Turner. Faeryland contains an envelope of faerie photos to use as postcards; an invitation from Puck to a Faerie Ball; a 19th-century faerie pull-out map (currently housed in the Library of Congress!) and more.
Take a look at the sequel to Alex Bledsoe's The Hum and the Shiver—Wisp of a Thing, out on June 18:
Touched by a very public tragedy, musician Rob Quillen comes to Cloud County, Tennessee, in search of a song that might ease his aching heart. All he knows of the mysterious and reclusive Tufa is what he has read on the they are an enigmatic clan of swarthy, black-haired mountain people whose historical roots are lost in myth and controversy. Some people say that when the first white settlers came to the Appalachians centuries ago, they found the Tufa already there. Others hint that Tufa blood brings special gifts.
Rob finds both music and mystery in the mountains. Close-lipped locals guard their secrets, even as Rob gets caught up in a subtle power struggle he can’t begin to comprehend. A vacationing wife goes missing, raising suspicions of foul play, and a strange feral girl runs wild in the woods, howling in the night like a lost spirit.
Change is coming to Cloud County, and only the night wind knows what part Rob will play when the last leaf falls from the Widow’s Tree…and a timeless curse must be broken at last.
Take a look at The Whispering Muse by Icelandic author Sjón, out today:
The year is 1949 and Valdimar Haraldsson, an eccentric Icelander with elevated ideas about the influence of fish consumption on Nordic civilization, has had the singular good fortune to be invited to join a Danish merchant ship on its way to the Black Sea. Among the crew is the mythical hero Caeneus, disguised as the second mate. Every evening after dinner he entrances his fellow travelers with the tale of how he sailed with the fabled vessel the Argo on the Argonauts’ quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece.
What unfolds is a slender, brilliant, always entertaining novel that evokes Borges and Calvino as it weaves together tales of myth and antiquity with the modern world in a literary voice so singular as to seem possessed.
Check out Chris Moriarty's Ghost Spin, out on May 28 from Spectra Books:
The Age of Man is ending. The UN’s sprawling interstellar empire is failing as its quantum teleportation network collapses, turning once-viable colonies into doomed island outposts. Humanity’s only hope of survival is the Drift: a mysterious region of space where faster-than-light travel—or something far stranger—seems possible. As mercenaries and pirates flock to the Drift, the cold war between the human-led UN and the clone-dominated Syndicates heats up. Whoever controls the Drift will chart the future course of human evolution—and no one wants to be left behind in a universe where the price of failure is extinction.
When the AI called Cohen ventures into the Drift, he dies—allegedly by his own hand—and his consciousness is scattered across the cosmos. Some of his ghosts are still self-aware. Some are insane. And one of them hides a secret worth killing for. Enter Major Catherine Li, Cohen’s human (well, partly human) lover, who embarks on a desperate search to solve the mystery of Cohen’s death—and put him back together. But Li isn’t the only one interested in Cohen’s ghosts. Astrid Avery, a by-the-book UN navy captain, is on the hunt. So is William Llewellyn, a pirate who has one of the ghosts in his head, which is slowly eating him alive. Even the ghosts have their own agendas. And lurking behind them all is a pitiless enemy who will stop at nothing to make sure the dead don’t walk again.
Enjoy this excerpt from Austin Grossman’s You, out now from Mulholland Books, an imprint of Little, Brown. And don't miss your chance to see Austin Grossman at Greenlight Bookstore tonight!:
When Russell joins Black Arts games, brainchild of two visionary designers who were once his closest friends, he reunites with an eccentric crew of nerds hacking the frontiers of both technology and entertainment. In part, he’s finally given up chasing the conventional path that has always seemed just out of reach. But mostly, he needs to know what happened to Simon, the strangest and most gifted friend he ever lost, who died under mysterious circumstances soon after Black Arts’ breakout hit.
Then Black Arts’ revolutionary next-gen game is threatened by a mysterious software glitch, and Russell finds himself in a race to save his job, Black Arts’ legacy, and the people he has grown to care about. The bug is the first clue in a mystery leading back twenty years, through real and virtual worlds, corporate boardrooms and high school computer camp, to a secret that changed a friendship and the history of gaming. The deeper Russell digs, the more dangerous the glitch appears—and soon, Russell comes to realize there’s much more is at stake than just one software company’s bottom line.
Check out The Eighth Court by Mike Shevdon, out from Angry Robot Books on May 28:
The Eighth Court has been established, but petty rivalries and old disputes threaten its stability. The mongrels that make up the court are not helping, and Blackbird enlists the help of the warders to keep the peace.
Has Blackbird bitten off more than she can chew, and can the uneasy peace between the courts continue under such tension and rivalry?
Take a peek at From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón, out on April 30:
From the Mouth of the Whale is an Icelandic saga for the modern age. In the words of Hari Kunzru, “Hallucinatory, lyrical, by turns comic and tragic, this extraordinary novel should make Sjón an international name. His evocation of seventeenth-century Iceland through the eyes of a man born before his time has stuck in my mind like nothing else I’ve read in the last year.”
The year is 1635. Iceland is a world darkened by superstition, poverty, and cruelty. Men of science marvel over a unicorn’s horn, poor folk worship the Virgin in secret, and both books and men are burned.
Jonas Palmason, a poet and self-taught healer, has been condemned to exile for heretical conduct, having fallen afoul of the local magistrate. Banished to a barren island, Palmason recalls his gift for curing “female maladies,” his exorcism of a walking corpse on the remote Snjafjoll coast, the frenzied massacre of innocent Basque whalers at the hands of local villagers, and the deaths of three of his children.
Palmason’s story echoes across centuries and cultures, an epic tale that makes us see the world anew.
Check out the foreword for Shadows of the New Sun, an anthology honoring Gene Wolfe, featuring short stories from Neil Gaiman, David Brin, Nancy Kress, and Wolfe himself! It will hit shelves on August 27—check out the Table of Contents after the excerpt!:
Perhaps no living author of imaginative fiction has earned the awards, accolades, respect, and literary reputation of Gene Wolfe. His prose has been called subtle and brilliant, inspiring not just lovers of fantasy and science fiction, but readers of every stripe, transcending genre and defying preconceptions.
In this volume, a select group of Wolfe’s fellow authors pay tribute to the award-winning creator of The Book of the New Sun, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Soldier of the Mist, The Wizard Knight and many others, with entirely new stories written specifically to honor the writer hailed by The Washington Post as “one of America’s finest.”
Check out the fourth book in Ian Douglas’ Star Carrier series—Deep Space, out on April 30 from Harper Voyager:
Humanity had appeared to fend off the Sh’daar assault once and for all, though they never learned why the alien empire was driven to halt Earth’s advancement toward technological Singularity.
But in this war of worlds, victory is always elusive. And now a new battle begins.
After twenty years of peace, not one but two fragile truces are unraveling. Alexander Koenig, the former Navy commander whose heroics forced the Sh’daar into submission, has won a second term as President of the United States of North America. But pursuing his mandate—sovereignty from the centuries-old Earth Confederation—becomes a risky proposition dueto events taking place on the other side of the galaxy. A Confederation research vessel has been ambushed. Destroyers are descending on a human colony. It seems the Sh’daar have betrayed their treaty, and all nations must stand united—or face certain death.
You’ve read the excerpt, but it’s not nearly enough! Good thing we’re giving away copies of Bethany Wiggins’ Stung. We’ve got five, so comment in the post to enter!
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A purchase does not improve your chances of winning. Sweepstakes open to legal residents of fifty (50) United States and the District of Columbia, who are 18 or older. To enter, comment on this post beginning at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on April 19, 2013. Sweepstakes ends at 12:00 p.m. ET April 23, 2013. Void outside of the 50 US, and DC where prohibited by law. Please see full details and official rules here. Sponsor: Tor.com, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010.
Take a look at the sequel to Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity by Dave Roman—Astronaut Academy: Re-Entry, out on May 14:
The wild and wacky world of Astronaut Academy is back! It's spring semester at this futuristic institution of learning, and Hakata Soy has lost his heart. Literally. And he's not the only one . . . something is stalking the halls of Astronaut Academy, impersonating the crush-objects of students and making off with their extra hearts! With a sprawling cast of unforgettable characters, Astronaut Academy Re-Entry is a high-octane, hilarious follow-up to Dave Roman's quirky Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity.
Check out Brian Switek's My Beloved Brontosaurus, out now! (And enter to win a copy here!):
Dinosaurs, with their awe-inspiring size, terrifying claws and teeth, and otherworldly abilities, occupy a sacred place in our childhoods. They loom over museum halls, thunder through movies, and are a fundamental part of our collective imagination. In My Beloved Brontosaurus, the dinosaur fanatic Brian Switek enriches the childlike sense of wonder these amazing creatures instill in us. Investigating the latest discoveries in paleontology, he breathes new life into old bones.
Switek reunites us with these mysterious creatures as he visits desolate excavation sites and hallowed museum vaults, exploring everything from the sex life of Apatosaurus and T. rex’s feather-laden body to just why dinosaurs vanished. (And of course, on his journey, he celebrates the book’s titular hero, “Brontosaurus”—who suffered a second extinction when we learned he never existed at all—as a symbol of scientific progress.)
