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When one looks in the box, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the cat.

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Seventeen new releases join the dystopian science fiction shelves this month, with titles from, among others, Jonathan Maberry (Joe Ledger), David Walton, Wesley Chu (Tao), Robert Charles Wilson, John C. Wright (Count to a Trillion), and Adam Christopher (Spider Wars).

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

The Gemini EffectChuck Grossart (April 1, 47North)

A single raindrop opens a Pandora’s box when the spawn of perverse genetic research performed during World War II is unleashed on an unsuspecting modern world. By dawn, only a dead city remains, eerily quiet and still, except for mutant beasts that hide from the light, multiply, and await the shadows of night to continue their relentless advance. Ordered to investigate the unfolding crisis, biowarfare specialist Carolyn Ridenour barely escapes the creatures’ nocturnal onslaught, saved in the nick of time by Colonel Garrett Hoffman, who lost hundreds of his troops to a swarm that neither bombs nor bullets can stop. As Carolyn and Garrett race to stop the plague, a battered and broken government prepares to release the fury of America’s nuclear arsenal on its own soil and its own citizens.

Cyber RoguesJames P. Hogan (April 7, Baen)

Two Faces of Tomorrow: Midway through the 21st century, a proposed major software upgrade will give the world communications system an unprecedented degree of independent decision-making. A new space station habitat is deployed with an A.I. named Spartacus. The idea is that if Spartacus gets out of hand, the system can be shut down, unless Spartacus decides to take matters into its own hands and take the fight to Earth. Realtime Interrupt: Joe Corrigan awakens in a hospital to find that his life no longer exists. As director of the supersecret Oz Project, his job was to create a computerized environment virtually indistinguishable from reality. Oz failed. Joe finds himself in an unfamiliar world, a world where nothing is quite as it should be. Joe must discover a terrible truth about his new world, and figure out how to get out alive.

Predator One (Joe Ledger #7)Jonathan Maberry (April 7, St. Martin’s Griffin)

On opening day of baseball season a small model-kit airplane flies down from the stands and buzzes the mound, where a decorated veteran pilot is about to throw out the first ball. The toy plane is the exact replica of the one flown by the war hero. Everyone laughs, thinking it’s a prank. Until it explodes, killing dozens. Seconds later a swarm of killer drones descend upon the picnicked crowd, each one carrying a powerful bomb. All across the country artificial intelligence drive systems in cars, commuter trains and even fighter planes go out of control. Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences go on the hunt for whoever is controlling these machines. Joe Ledger and his team begin a search for the secret to this new technology and the madmen behind it. The enemy virus infects Air Force One. The president is trapped aboard as the jet heads toward the heart of New York City. It has become PREDATOR ONE.

SuperpositionDavid Walton (April 7, Pyr)

Jacob Kelley’s family is turned upside down when an old friend turns up, waving a gun and babbling about an alien quantum intelligence. The mystery deepens when the friend is found dead in an underground bunker, apparently murdered the night before he appeared at Jacob’s house. Jacob is arrested for the murder and put on trial. As the details of the crime slowly come to light, the weave of reality becomes ever more tangled, twisted by a miraculous new technology and a quantum creature unconstrained by the normal limits of space and matter. With the help of his daughter, Alessandra, Jacob must find the true murderer before the creature destroys his family and everything he loves.

The Rebirths of Tao (Tao #3)Wesley Chu (April 7, Angry Robot)

Several years have passed since the events in The Deaths of Tao. The world is split into pro-Prophus and pro-Genjix factions, and is poised on the edge of a devastating new World War. A Gengix scientist who defects to the other side holds the key to preventing bloodshed on an almost unimaginable scale. With the might of the Genjix in active pursuit, Roen is the only person who can help him save the world, and the Quasing race, too. And you thought you were having a stressful day.

Trail of Evil (Tau Ceti Agenda #4)Travis S. Taylor (April 7, Baen)

A century and a half after the Martian Separatist Wars, Alexander Moore returns to the stars with the Sienna Madira, a United States Navy supercarrier spacecraft. He’s brought Marines. These are troops superbly trained for space battle. Moore’s task: hunt down weaponry platforms left by the artificial intelligence known as Copernicus. Moore is about to uncover something far more sinister: before his destruction, Copernicus had established multiple mecha-warrior defended bases with the intent of resuming the destruction of humanity. An a.i. presence even more dangerous than Copernicus may have formed an alliance with something else out there with a similar goal. Those enemies will have to face a fully armed and equipped military task force led by a resolute general and his soldiers who know they are all that stand between human life, freedom, and progress, and the total annihilation of mankind.

 

WEEK TWO

ZeroboxerFonda Lee (April 8, Flux)

Young Adult. A rising star in the weightless combat sport of zeroboxing, Carr “the Raptor” Luka dreams of winning the championship title. Recognizing his talent, the Zero Gravity Fighting Association assigns Risha, an ambitious and beautiful Martian colonist, to be his brandhelm, a personal marketing strategist. It isn’t long before she’s made Carr into a popular celebrity and stolen his heart along the way. As his fame grows, Carr becomes an inspirational hero on Earth, a once-great planet that’s fallen into the shadow of its more prosperous colonies. But when Carr discovers a far-reaching criminal scheme, he becomes the keeper of a devastating secret. Not only will his choices place everything he cares about in jeopardy, but they may also spill the violence from the sports arena into the solar system.

The Dead LandsBenjamin Percy (April 14, Grand Central)

A super flu and nuclear fallout have made a husk of the world we know. A few humans carry on, living in outposts such as the Sanctuary, the remains of St. Louis, a shielded community that owes its survival to its militant defense and fear-mongering leaders. Then a rider comes from the wasteland beyond its walls. She reports on the outside world: west of the Cascades, rain falls, crops grow, civilization thrives. But there is danger too: the rising power of an army that pillages and enslaves every community they happen upon. Against the wishes of the Sanctuary, a small group sets out in secrecy. Led by Lewis Meriwether and Mina Clark, they hope to expand their infant nation, and to reunite the States. But the Sanctuary will not allow them to escape without a fight.

The FearlessEmma Pass (April 14, Delacorte Press)

When the Fearless invaded, they injected everyone in their path with the same serum that stripped them of humanity. Life became a waking nightmare. Cass has the invasion seared in her memory. Seven years later, she and her brother, Jori, are living on Hope Island in a community of survivors. No one can enter, and no one can leave. It’s the only way to stay safe. But when Hope Island’s security is breeched and Jori is taken by the Fearless, Cass will risk everything to get him back. (U.S. Release)

 

WEEK THREE

Angles of Attack (Frontlines #3)Marko Kloos (April 21, 47North)

The alien forces known as the Lankies are gathering on the solar system’s edge, consolidating their conquest of Mars and setting their sights on Earth. The far-off colony of New Svalbard teeters on the verge of starvation and collapse. The forces of the two Earth alliances have won minor skirmishes but are in danger of losing the war. For battle-weary staff sergeant Andrew Grayson and the ragged forces of the North American Commonwealth, the fight for survival is entering a catastrophic new phase. Forging an uneasy alliance with their Sino-Russian enemies, the NAC launches a task force on a stealth mission to breach the Lanky blockade and reestablish supply lines with Earth. Andrew and his fellow troopers could end up cornered on their home turf, This time, the struggle for humanity’s future can only end in either victory or annihilation.

The AffinitiesRobert Charles Wilson (April 21, Tor)

To join one of the twenty-two Affinities is to change one’s life. It’s like family, and more than family. They’re the people with whom you can best cooperate in all areas of life, creative, interpersonal, even financial. Adam Fisk takes the suite of tests to see if he qualifies for any of the Affinities, and finds that he’s a match for one of the largest, the one called Tau. It’s utopian, at first. Problems in all areas of his life begin to simply sort themselves out, as he becomes part of a global network of people dedicated to helping one another. As the differing Affinities put their new powers to the test, they begin to rapidly chip away at the power of governments, of global corporations, of all the institutions of the old world. Then the different Affinities begin to go to war, with one another. What happens next will change Adam, and his world, forever.

The Architect of Aeons (Count to a Trillion #3)John C. Wright (April 21, Tor)

Menelaus Montrose, having forged an uneasy alliance with his immortal adversary, Ximen del Azarchel, maps a future on a scale beyond anything previously imagined. No longer concerned with the course of history across mere millennia, Montrose and del Azarchel have become the architects of aeons, bringing forth minds the size of planets as they steer the bizarre intellectual descendants of an extinct humanity. Ever driving their labors and their enmity is the hope of reunion with their shared lost love, the posthuman Rania, whose eventual return is by no means assured, but who may unravel everything these eternal rivals have sought to achieve.

The Machine Awakes (Spider Wars #2)Adam Christopher (April 21, Tor)

In the decades since the human race first made contact with the Spiders, a machine race capable of tearing planets apart, the two groups have fought over interstellar territory. With the failure of the Fleet Admiral’s secret plan, the commander is overthrown by a group determined to get the war back on track. When the deposed Fleet Admiral is assassinated, Special Agent Von Kodiak suspects the new guard is eliminating the old. When the Admiral’s replacement is also murdered, all bets are off as Kodiak discovers the prime suspect is one of the Fleet’s own, a psi-marine and decorated hero, a hero killed in action, months ago, at the same time his twin sister vanished from the Fleet Academy. The Jovian Mining Corporation is hiding something, a secret that will tear the Fleet apart and that the Morning Star, a group of militarized pilgrims searching for their lost god, is determined to uncover. Something else is hiding in Jovian system. Something insidious and intelligent, machine-like and hungry. The Spiders are near.

 

WEEK FOUR

Alien Wars (Fenris #3)Vaughn Heppner (April 28, 47North)

Human pioneers fleeing Earth for the promised land of New Eden found hell instead, falling prey to the reptilian Kresh. But street-savvy Cyrus Gant escaped the aliens, rescued master telepath Klane, and began a desperate journey to head off the impending Kresh invasion of Earth. When the insectile Chirr and human cyborgs join the war, Cyrus suddenly faces a triple threat. Only by absorbing the powerful consciousness of the mortally wounded Klane does he stand a chance against the deadly enemies surrounding him. But when a malevolent alien entity invades his mind, Cyrus must do battle in both outer and inner space to save his soul and his sanity. Cyrus rolls the dice to win the biggest prize anyone has ever chased: the future of humanity.

MagoniaMaria Dahvana Headley (April 28, HarperCollins)

Young Adult. Aza Ray is drowning in thin air. Aza has suffers from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak, to live. When Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. Aza doesn’t think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name. Only her best friend, Jason, listens. Jason, for whom she might have more-than-friendly feelings. Something goes terribly wrong. Aza is lost to our world, and found, by another. Magonia. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. She has immense power, and as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war is coming. Magonia and Earth are on the cusp of a reckoning. And in Aza’s hands lies the fate of the whole of humanity, including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie?

MirrorWorldJeremy Robinson (April 28, Thomas Dunne)

Crazy has no memory and feels no fear. He’s locked away in SafeHaven, a psychiatric hospital, where he spends the days watching Wheel of Fortune and wondering what the outside world smells like. When a visitor arrives and offers him a way out Crazy doesn’t hesitate to accept. Outside, Crazy is faced with a world on the brink of nuclear annihilation, and finds himself relocated to Neuro Inc., a secretive corporation with strange government ties. When he discovers evidence of human experimentation he escapes with a syringe, the contents of which are unknown to him but precious to Neuro. Crazy makes himself indispensable by injecting the substance into his leg. His eyes are opened to a world beyond human experience. Crazy allies himself with the company he fled and begins peeling back the layers of his past, the brewing war between worlds, how he can stop it, and what he did to start it.

The Hercules TextJack McDevitt (April 28, Ace)

Revised from the original edition, and featuring a new foreword. From a remote corner of the galaxy a message is being sent. The continuous beats of a pulsar have become odd, irregular, artificial. It can only be a code. Frantically, a research team struggles to decipher the alien communication. And what the scientists discover is destined to shake the foundations of empires around this world, from Wall Street to the Vatican.


Suzanne Johnson is the author of the Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series, including this month’s new release, Pirate’s Alley. You can find Suzanne on Facebook and on her website.

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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