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Fourteen new science fiction titles crowd around the first part of the month in November, including new standalones from Robert Charles Wilson (Burning Paradise), Tom Kratman (Come and Take Them), and Ryk E. Spoor (Spheres of Influence). Also look for a new entry in the Liaden Universe, and a big sci-fi anthology edited by David G. Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden.

Fiction Affliction details releases in science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and “genre-benders.” Keep track of them all here.

Note: All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher.

WEEK ONE

A Cosmic Christmas 2 You—edited by Hank Davis (November 5, Baen)

Twelve new stories of Christmas in very unusual circumstances, ranging from vampires to robots, from the hills of Appalachia to a high orbit space station, all celebrating the holiday in their own, off-beat ways. Features tales by Larry Correia, Sarah A. Hoyt, Wen Spencer, Joe Haldeman, Frederik Pohl, Tony Daniel, Connie Willis and many more.

After Eden (After Eden #1)Helen Douglas (November 5, Bloomsbury)

Young Adult. The day Eden met Ryan changed her world forever. Actually, not just her world. Ryan has time traveled from the future to save the world. In a few weeks, Eden’s best friend Connor will discover a new planet, one where human life is possible. The discovery will make him famous. It will also ruin the world as we know it. When Ryan asks Eden for help, she must choose between saving the world and saving her best friend’s greatest achievement. And a crush on Ryan complicates things more than she could have imagined. Because Connor is due to make the discovery after the girl he loves breaks his heart. That girl is Eden.

Burning ParadiseRobert Charles Wilson (November 5, Tor)

Cassie Klyne, nineteen years old, lives in the United States in the year 2015, but it’s not our United States, and it’s not our 2015. Cassie’s world has been at peace since the Great Armistice of 1918. Cassie knows the world isn’t what it seems. Her parents were part of a group who gradually discovered the awful truth: that for decades, back to the dawn of radio communications, human progress has been interfered with, made more peaceful and benign, by an extraterrestrial entity. Cassie’s parents were killed for this knowledge. Cassie and her younger brother Thomas now live with her aunt Nerissa. For eight years they have attempted to lead unexceptional lives in order to escape detection. The tactic has worked. Until now. Because the killers are back. And they’re not human.

Come and Take ThemTom Kratman (November 5, Baen)

On the colony planet of Terra Nova, soldier turned political leader Carrera has achieved his revenge, destroying those who killed his wife and children in a terrorist strike, and helping to establish a free country. War with the Tauran Union is inevitable. Carrera has been preparing his new country for this all-out conflict for years, intending to drive out the last vestige of foreign imperialism in Balboa, the Tauran Union Security Force. Then his own government calls a halt even as the commander of the United Earth Peace Fleet, High Admiral Marguerite Wallenstein, injects a dose of realism and spine into the Tauran Union. Carrera knows that sooner or later, he must fight, only now the task will be more difficult and more bloody. Carerra knows he will do whatever it takes to win.

Spheres of InfluenceRyk E. Spoor (November 5, Baen)

Leader of the Faction of Humanity. It was a ridiculous title, but the Arena said that was what Captain Ariane Austin was since she’d led the crew of the Holy Grail in their discovery of the impossible, physics-violating place and their eventual return, and when the nigh-omnipotent Arena said something, it meant it. Ariane must discover what it means to be the Leader of Humanity, both for herself and for humanity, before her enemies, at home or in the Arena, depose her, kill her, or worse. It will take her luck, Marc DuQuesne’s will, Simon Sandrisson’s genius, and the skill of a living legend. Humanity’s fate in the galaxy will hinge on the choice of an uncertain ally who has nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by aiding those neophyte upstarts, the humans.

Starhawk (The Academy)Jack McDevitt (November 5, Ace)

Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins has realized her lifelong dream: She’s completed a nerve-bending qualification flight for a pilot’s license. Faster-than-light travel has only recently become a reality, and the World Space Authority is still learning how to manage long-range missions safely. Efforts to prepare two planets for colonization are killing off native life forms. Priscilla thinks her career may be over before it has begun. Her ambition won’t be denied, and soon she is on the bridge of an interstellar ship, working for the corporation that is responsible for the terraforming. Her working conditions include a mission to a world that harbors a life-form unlike anything humanity has seen. She will be part of a struggle that will test her capabilities and her character.

The ChildKeith F. Goodnight (November 5, 47North)

Dave Harris is a scientist living aboard the Alley, a military space station where he carries out hyperfield experiments. The technology to harvest energy from hyperspace saved humanity from extinction thirty years ago, and Dave’s research is at the cutting edge of hyperfield technology. An accident engulfs the Alley in a whirlwind of chaos and mysterious forces, leading Dave to a disturbing discovery: his work has uncovered the energy behind psychic powers. Crew members are going insane at a frightening pace and Dave’s mind becomes clouded by horrifying visions. Dave realizes that it wasn’t a singular event and if he can’t fight the impending madness, there is one certainty: the Alley will be destroyed, along with everyone in it.

Tour of the Merrimack: Volume TwoR.M. Meluch (November 5, DAW)

Earth’s space forces, spearheaded by the United States, have been at war with the forces of the Palatine Empire, a neo-Roman culture that broke away from Earth’s control long ago. The pride of the U.S. space fleet is the battle-class starship, the U.S.S. Merrimack, commanded by Captain John Farragut. When the alien life-form known as the Hive, a biological force whose only imperative is to seek and devour, begins wreaking destruction across the galaxy, the Romans are forced to turn to Earth for help. Can these two longtime enemies keep from fighting each other long enough to destroy the Hive and save mankind? Tour of the Merrimack: Volume Two contains the third and fourth books, The Sagittarius Command and Strength and Honor, of the Tour of the Merrimack series.

Trade Secret (Liaden Universe)Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (November 5, Baen)

Novice Terran trader Jethri Gobelyn, adopted by a Liaden clan after an ill-directed bow of honor insulted the scion of a major Liaden house, is alive and whole to tell the tale. Even as Jethri’s initiation into the mysteries and joys of Liaden Festival bring him to manhood he’s forced to face Necessity and the facts of life: his adoption has also invigorated a net of unfinished Balance more complex and potentially deadly than a simple Terran blood feud. He must embrace his Terran birthright as well as his Liaden connections while leaving behind the safety of the great Liaden trade ship Elthoria to defend his honor. Jethri’s convinced he’s already at wit’s end, when several familiar faces threaten all that he knows of himself, and all that he wishes to do.

Twenty-First Century Science Fiction—edited by David G. Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden (November 5, Tor)

An enormous anthology of short stories featuring recent stories from some of science fiction’s greatest up-and-coming authors. Twenty-First Century Science Fiction presents fans’ first opportunities to see what their considerable talents come up with together, and also to get a unique perspective on what’s coming next in the science fiction field. The anthology includes authors ranging from bestselling and established favorites to incandescent new talents including Paolo Bacigalupi, Cory Doctorow, Catherynne M. Valente, John Scalzi, Jo Walton, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear, and Peter Watts, and the stories selected include winners and nominees of all of the science fiction field’s major awards.

Twinmaker (Twinmaker #1)Sean Williams (November 5, Balzer + Bray)

Young Adult. You can be Improved. In a near-future world in which technology can transport you anywhere instantly, can a coded note enable you to change your body, to become taller, stronger, more beautiful? Clair is pretty sure the offer is too good to be true. But her best friend, Libby, is determined to give it a try, longing for a new, improved version of herself. What starts as Libby’s dream turns into Clair’s nightmare when Libby falls foul of a deadly trap. With the help of Jesse, the school freak, and a mysterious, but powerful, stranger called Q, Clair’s attempt to protect Libby leads her to an unimagined world of conspiracies and cover-ups. Soon her own life is at risk, and Clair is chased across the world in a desperate race against time.

Gamification/C-MonkeysKeith Hollihan (November 6, ChiZine)

This is a double novella “flip book” pairing a modern corporate suspense story about the cover-up of a CEO’s illicit affair, with a 1970s-era science fiction thriller about an oil company’s environmental disaster. It is an exploration of the paranoia inherent in business and the thin line between competition and conspiracy.

 

WEEK TWO

A Stranger Thing (Ever-Expanding Universe #2)Martin Leicht and Isla Neal (November 12, Simon & Schuster)

Pregnancy was pretty rough for sixteen-year-old Elvie Nara, what with the morning sickness, constant food cravings, and the alien race war she found herself in the middle of. After Elvie somehow has a baby girl, the always-male Almiri completely wig out. Suddenly Elvie’s supposed allies have shipped her, along with her father, her best friend, Ducky, and her maybe-boyfriend, boneheaded Almiri commando Cole Archer, off to a remote “retention facility” in Antarctica. Things really get complicated when a new group of hybrid aliens arrive with information that sends Elvie’s world spinning. Elvie is trekking across the bottom of the Earth with a band of friends and frenemies to uncover the secrets of her own origin.

 

WEEK THREE

No new releases.

 

WEEK FOUR

Alien HonorVaughn Heppner (November 26, 47North)

2457 AD. The longest space voyage in history has begun: 230 light years from a ravaged Earth to the star system of New Eden, a beacon of hope following the Doom Star days. Aboard the ship are human colonizers, the Space Navy, fierce “Monitors” and four “Specials”, humans with psionic abilities, capable of ripping holes in space to jump vast distances. One Special has his own agenda and when an alien makes an offer he can’t refuse, the mission takes a deadly turn. Cyrus Gant, a former Dust-dealing gang member from Earth’s subterranean slums, is onto the renegade Special. Cyrus’s psi powers aren’t as strong as he might like, but his street smarts make up for this disadvantage. As the ship makes the final leap toward New Eden, Cyrus is everyone’s last hope for survival.


Author Suzanne Johnson is the author of the Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series from Tor Books, whose third release, Elysian Fields, came out this fall. She can be found on Facebook and her daily book blog, Preternatura.

About the Author

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Suzanne Johnson

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Urban fantasy author with a new series, set in immediate post-Katrina New Orleans, starting with ROYAL STREET on April 10, 2012, from Tor Books. Urban fantasy author with a new series, set in immediate post-Katrina New Orleans, starting with ROYAL STREET on April 10, 2012, from Tor Books.
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