Release Week: 19 July 2022
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Release Week: 19 July 2022
Posted on 2022-07-19 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
PICKS:
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau By: Silvia Moreno-Garcia, read by Gisela Chípe for Random House -- "From the bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night comes a dreamy reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Mexico."
Hokuloa Road: A Novel By: Elizabeth Hand, read by Kaleo Griffith for Mulholland -- "On a whim, Grady Kendall applies to work as a live-in caretaker for a luxury property in Hawaiʻi, as far from his small-town Maine life as he can imagine. Within days he's flying out to an estate on remote Hokuloa Road, where he quickly uncovers a dark side to the island’s idyllic reputation: it has long been a place where people vanish without a trace. When a young woman from his flight becomes the next to disappear, Grady is determined—and soon desperate—to figure out what's happened to Jessie, and to all those staring out of the island’s “missing" posters. But working with Raina, Jessie’s fiercely protective best friend, to uncover the truth is anything but easy, and with an inexplicable and sinister presence stalking his every step, Grady can only hope he'll find the answer before it's too late."
Dark Earth: A Novel By: Rebecca Stott, read by Hannah Morrish for Random House -- "The year is 500 AD. Sisters Isla and Blue live in the shadows of the Ghost City, the abandoned ruins of the once-glorious mile-wide Roman settlement Londinium on the bank of the River Thames. But the small island they call home is also a place of exile for Isla, Blue, and their father, a legendary blacksmith accused of using dark magic to make his firetongue swords—formidable blades that cannot be broken—and cast out from the community. When he dies suddenly, the sisters find themselves facing enslavement by the local warlord and his cruel, power-hungry son. Their only option is to escape to the Ghost City, where they discover an underworld of rebel women living secretly amid the ruins. But if Isla and Blue are to survive the men who hunt them, and protect their new community, they will need to use all their skill and ingenuity—as well as the magic of their foremothers—to fight back."
Briefly, a Delicious Life By: Nell Stevens, read by Ferdelle Capistrano for Simon and Schuster -- "A lively, daring ghost story about a teenage ghost who falls in love with a writer who doesn’t know she exists."
Just Like Home By: Sarah Gailey, read by Xe Sands for Macmillan -- "Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren’t alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back and is slowly stripping Vera’s childhood for spare parts. He insists that he isn’t the one leaving notes around the house in her father’s handwriting… but who else could it possibly be?"
The Book of Sand By: Theo Clare, read by Kristin Atherton for Blackstone -- "Sand. A hostile world of burning sun. Outlines of several once-busy cities shimmer on the horizon. Now empty of inhabitants, their buildings lie in ruins. In the distance a group of people—a family—walks toward us. Ahead lies shelter: a “shuck” the family calls home and which they know they must reach before the light fails, as to be out after dark is to invite danger and almost certain death. To survive in this alien world of shifting sand, they must find an object hidden in or near water. But other families want it too. And they are willing to fight to the death to make it theirs. It is beginning to rain in Fairfax County, Virginia, when McKenzie Strathie wakes up. An ordinary teenage girl living an ordinary life—except that the previous night she found a sand-lizard in her bed, and now she’s beginning to question everything around her, especially who she really is...."
Venomous Lumpsucker By: Ned Beauman, read by John Hastings for HighBridge -- "The near future. Tens of thousands of species are going extinct every year. And a whole industry has sprung up around their extinctions, to help us preserve the remnants, or perhaps just assuage our guilt. For instance, the biobanks: secure archives of DNA samples, from which lost organisms might someday be resurrected . . . But then, one day, it's all gone. A mysterious cyber-attack hits every biobank simultaneously, wiping out the last traces of the perished species. Now we're never getting them back."
Dead Water By: C. A. Fletcher, read by Siobhan Redmond for Redhook -- "On the edge of the Northern Atlantic lies a remote island. The islanders are an outwardly harmonious community - but all have their own secrets, some much darker than others. And when a strange disorder begins to infect them all, those secrets come to light. Ferry service fails, and contact with the mainland is lost. Rumors begin to swirl as a temporary inconvenience grows into nightmarish ordeal. The fabric of the once tight-knit island is unnervingly torn apart—and whatever the cause, the question soon stops being how or why it happened, but who, if anyone, will survive."
Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Rena Mason, read by Jeanette Illidge, Catherine Ho, James Fouhey, Tim Chiou, Neil Shah, and Blessing Mokgohloa for Harper -- "Be they of a different culture, a different background, a different sexual orientation or gender identity, a different belief system, or a different skin color, some people simply aren’t part of the community’s majority - and are perceived as scary. Humans are almost instinctively inclined to fear what’s different, and there are a multitude of individuals who have spent far too long on the outside looking in. And the thing about the outside is...it’s much larger than you think. In Other Terrors, horror writers from a multitude of underrepresented backgrounds have created stories of everyday people, places, and things where something shifts, striking a deeper, much more primal chord of fear. Are our eyes playing tricks on us, or is there something truly sinister lurking under the surface of what we thought we knew? And who among us is really the other after all?"
Split Decision: Life Stories By: Ice-T, Spike, and Douglas Century, read by the authors for Simon and Schuster -- "Award-winning actor, rapper, and producer Ice-T unveils a compelling and astonishing memoir of his early life robbing jewelry stores until he found fame and fortune—while a handful of bad choices sent his former crime partner down an incredibly different path."
BACKLIST WATCH:
The Moonday Letters By: Emmi Itaranta (2020), read by Xe Sands for Recorded Books -- "Part space-age epistolary, part eco-thriller, and a love story between two individuals from very different worlds. Sol has disappeared. Their Earth-born wife Lumi sets out to find them but it is no simple feat: each clue uncovers another enigma. Their disappearance leads back to underground environmental groups and a web of mystery that spans the space between the planets themselves. Told through letters and extracts, the course of Lumi’s journey takes her not only from the affluent colonies of Mars to the devastated remnants of Earth, but into the hidden depths of Sol’s past and the long-forgotten secrets of her own."
The Robot Who Looked Like Me: Stories By: Robert Sheckley (1973), read by Johnny Heller for Tantor -- "From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. Rediscover, or discover for the first time, a master of science fiction."
MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:
The Weight of Command By: Michael Mammay Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell for Audible Originals -- "Lieutenant Kiera Markov is a scout platoon leader for a peacekeeping force on the remote planet of Tanara, where little has happened for decades, and the only mission is to keep the lithium flowing up the space elevator to feed the galaxy’s incessant demand. But when an unprecedented attack kills the entirety of the brigade’s leadership, the untested lieutenant suddenly finds herself in command. Isolated and alone, Markov must contend with rival politicians on both sides of the border, all of whom have suspect motives and reason to take advantage of an untested leader, while an unseen enemy seeks to drive the two sides toward a war that Markov has a mission to prevent. It’s enough to test even a seasoned leader. Markov isn’t that. With challenges from all sides, and even from her own troops, Markov will have to learn quickly and establish her authority. Because what hangs in the balance is not only the future of the peacekeeping force, but of the planet itself."
Wild Fire: New Frontier, Book 1 By: Nicholas Sansbury Smith and Anthony Melchiorri, read by Bronson Pinchot for Recorded Books -- "Two years after an attack brought down the electrical grid across the United States, the recovery effort is well underway. A new network of armored trains carry supplies and industrial equipment crucial to rebuilding the country. But along the rails, one area of America is still mired in darkness, violence, and danger. Some call it the Badlands. Others the Wild West. The government simply refers to it as the New Frontier."
Ion Curtain By: Anya Ow, read by Jason Keller for Penguin -- "Lieutenant Kalina Sokolova is aid to Counter-Admiral Kasparov the major strategist for the Russian navy. Kalina is also an agent of the Jinyiwei, an elite spy working for the UN. She is tasked with watching the Counter-Admiral, and assassination is not out of the question. For decades the UN and the Russian military have navigated a tense interstellar Cold War. Peace is on the knife's edge, and events are coming ever closer to open conflict. Solitaire Yeung is a corsair, a scavenger, a pirate, In the heart of a destroyed Russian battleship, his salvage crew discovers a mysterious device they shouldn't have: the brain of the ship's top secret artificial intelligence. And against all better sense, they take it and run. The UN wants it, and the Russians want it back. Solitaire and his crew are on the run from the most powerful forces in the system, but they are not the only ones hunting the AI brain. An even more powerful foe grows in the darkness of space. Now all of humanity has to fight to survive...."
SERIES WATCH:
Out of the Sky: Out of the Earth, Book 2 By: Jake Bible, read by Eric Michael Summerer for Tantor -- "Federal Marshal Lu Morgan and her ragtag group of survivors and government agents fought hard to stay alive and defeat the massive monsters, but now a second eruption has sent even more deadly creatures flying up into the ash-cloud that covers the land."
Forest Folk: The Folklore Cycle, Book 2 By: John Hood, read by Benjamin Fife -- "The focus shifts to the War of 1812, the beginnings of the abolitionist movement, and the Trail of Tears."
The Puppeteer: Nathan K, Book 11 By: Stuart Jaffe, read by the author
TIE-IN WATCH:
The Orville: Sympathy for the Devil By: Seth MacFarlane, read by Bruce Boxleitner for Hyperion Avenue -- "An original novella set in season three of The Orville—straight from the pen of Seth MacFarlane, creator of the beloved sci-fi TV show! When Captain Ed Mercer and the crew of the U.S.S. Orville come face-to-face with one of humanity's most vile ideologies, they must solve the moral conundrum of who to hold accountable for evil deeds real… and imagined. Occurring just after episode 308, this is the Orville like you've never seen it before."
Avatar, the Last Airbender: The Dawn of Yangchen: The Chronicles of the Avatar Series, Book 3 By: F. C. Yee, read by Nancy Wu
INDIE WATCH:
His Black Tongue By: Mitchell Luthi, read by Anna Capraro and Scott Miller -- "A tale of medieval horror, plunging the listener into the plague-torn land of 14th-century France when pestilence and death walked hand-in-hand, and life was little more than a sputtering candle, waiting to be put out. But there are worse things than death, than sickness and decay…and it comes upon leathery black wings."
The Void: A Space Opera By: Jason Hill, read by Rodney Tompkins -- "When veteran astronaut Capt. Butch Turner finds himself trapped in one of the gigantic voids of intergalactic space, he has a lot of time to think about things—namely his flaws, his past, and President Penelope Kane—his former lover, mistress, and the person who sent him (and three other crew members) on this ill-fated mission. Before that even happens, however, there is a roller-coaster ride of adventure and political intrigue and plenty of classic science-fiction leading up to it."
Zan By: Angela Pepper, read by DJ Holte -- "Zan West has a strange power that only works on girls. He doesn't know why he has this so-called “gift”, but it's killing his chances of ever getting a girlfriend. Then he meets an older girl named Austin, and she's strangely immune to his power. Zan can't see her secrets, but he can't see her future, either. There's something she isn't telling him, and it's driving him mad. Zan consults a powerful witch who offers him peace of mind in exchange for his power. What he doesn't know is this so-called peace of mind comes with a big bad heaping of death. The permanent kind."
MOST MISSING:
- The Sisters of Saint Nicola by Garth Nix (Tor.com) -- "In this raucous, steampunk tale a sacred order of scientist nuns battle against vicious Invaders from Mars and their murderous machines in an ongoing conflict that has lasted centuries."