Release Week: 8 February 2022
← Release Week: 1 February 2022Release Week: 15 February 2022 →
Release Week: 8 February 2022
Posted on 2022-02-08 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
PICKS:
The This By: Adam Roberts, read by Elliot Fitzpatrick for Gollancz -- "The This is the new social media platform everyone is talking about. Allow it to be injected into the roof of your mouth and it will grow into your brain, allowing you to connect with others without even picking up your phone. Its followers are growing. Its detractors say it is a cult. But for one journalist, hired to do a puff-piece interview with their CEO, it will change the world forever."
Echo By: Thomas Olde Heuvelt, read by David Wayman, Greg Lockett, and Lauryn Allman for Macmillan -- "Travel journalist and mountaineer Nick Grevers awakes from a coma to find that his climbing buddy, Augustin, is missing and presumed dead. Nick’s own injuries are as extensive as they are horrifying. His face wrapped in bandages and unable to speak, Nick claims amnesia - but he remembers everything. He remembers how he and Augustin were mysteriously drawn to the Maudit, a remote and scarcely documented peak in the Swiss Alps. He remembers how the slopes of Maudit were eerily quiet, and how, when they entered its valley, they got the ominous sense that they were not alone. He remembers: Something was waiting for them...."
The Nineties: A Book By: Chuck Klosterman, read by the author and Dion Graham for Penguin -- "From the New York Times best-selling author of But What if We’re Wrong, a wise and funny reckoning with the decade that gave us slacker/grunge irony about the sin of trying too hard, during the greatest shift in human consciousness of any decade in American history."
Dead Silence By: S.A. Barnes, read by Lauren Ezzo for Macmillan -- "Titanic meets The Shining in S.A. Barnes’ Dead Silence, a SF horror novel in which a woman and her crew board a decades-lost luxury cruiser and find the wreckage of a nightmare that hasn't yet ended."
Clean Air By: Sarah Blake, read by Sol Madariaga for Workman -- "The climate apocalypse has come and gone, and in the end it wasn’t the waters rising, as the scientists predicted, nor the temperature climbing, nor the forest fires spreading. It was pollen - spring allergies becoming worse and worse until the air became unbreathable, the world overgrown with trees. In the past 10 years, humanity has rebuilt, and Izabel has gotten used to the airtight domes that now contain her life. She raises her young daughter and attempts to make peace with her mother’s death. She tries hard to be satisfied with this new world, safe and prosperous as it is. Instead she feels stuck."
The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 6 edited by Neil Clarke, read by Neil Shah, Sneha Mathan, Ronald Peet, Jasmin Walker, Avi Roque, and Nikki Massoud for Recorded Books -- "For decades, science fiction has compelled us to imagine futures both inspiring and cautionary. Whether it’s a warning message from a survey ship, a harrowing journey to a new world, or the adventures of well-meaning AI, science fiction inspires the imagination and delivers a lens through which we can view ourselves and the world around us."
Bluebird By: Ciel Pierlot, read by Stephanie Cannon for Angry Robot -- "Three factions vie for control of the galaxy. Rig, a gunslinging, thieving rebel-with-a-cause, doesn’t give a damn about them, and she hasn’t looked back since abandoning them three years ago. That is, until her former faction sends her a message: Return what she stole from them, or her twin sister will die."
BACKLIST WATCH:
- Creatures of Light and Darkness By: Roger Zelazny (1969), read by Matt Godfrey for Recorded Books -- "Two gods, two houses, one quest, and the eternal war between life and death."
SERIES WATCH:
The Night Parade of 100 Demons: Legend of the Five Rings By: Marie Brennan, read by Kaipo Schwab for Tantor -- "A thrilling epic fantasy adventure in the astonishing realm of Legend of the Five Rings, as two rival clans join forces to investigate a lethal supernatural mystery."
The Broken Realm: Kingdom of the White Sea, Book 2 By: Sarah M. Cradit, read by Kimberly M. Wetherell for OrangeSky -- "The crown demanded everything. The kingdom will answer."
Critical Failures IX: Caverns and Creatures, Book 9 By: Robert Bevan, read by Jonathan Sleep -- "After being scattered across the globe, our heroes seek to reunite with each other. But the consequences of recent events continue to plague them."
INDIE WATCH:
Blood Work By: Jeff Johnston, read by Edison McDaniels for Crossroad Press -- "Reverend Blake Hardesty has lived the life of Job. His parents were killed in a fire when he was seven. The aunt who raised him died just before he graduated from the seminary. His wife was killed during a bank robbery only a year ago. And a diagnosis of brain cancer is only the latest in a long line of hardships he’s had to endure. Yet he continues to preach faith in God to a dwindling congregation, sharing his life with his teenage daughter, Bethany, who seems to blame him for her mother’s death. If it weren’t for the angel who protects him from the beast who fills his dreams, he would be completely alone. But when trying to help a disturbed congregant makes him the victim of a vicious attack, he realizes that the angel may not be able to protect him any longer from the beast - the wolf - that is now growing inside him."
The High Mountain Court: The Five Crowns of Okrith, Book 1 By: AK Mulford, read by Mela Lee for Podium -- "Thirteen years fleeing witch hunters and the looming threat of death. Nineteen-year-old Remy knows she is possibly the last red witch alive, and she is determined to stay that way. The Northern Court King has slaughtered her home court and placed a bounty on red witch heads."
MOST MISSING:
The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran (Dreamland Books) -- "A mysterious book that promises unlimited power and unrivaled sexual pleasure. A down-on-her-luck book dealer hoping for the sale of a lifetime. And a twist so shocking, no one will come out unscathed."
A History of the Defeated by Zachary Jernigan (Lethe Press) -- "In this gripping science-fiction novella: Amur grew up among the Nosi, a matriarchal society where decisions are enforced through violence, until he was chosen by Dorone and taken to live among the elderim, beings of immense power. Stripped of family, increasingly at odds with his own drug-altered body and mind, Amur now lives by the sea, where he hones his fighting skills and contemplates revenge against his former lover. He enlists the aid of a magical hound, hoping to pit her against his enemy. But loyalties will be tested before Amur can face Dorone once more."