Release Week: 11 June 2024
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Release Week: 11 June 2024
Posted on 2024-06-11 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn
PICKS:
Moonbound: A Novel By: Robin Sloan, read by Gabra Zackman fpr Macmillan -- "It is eleven thousand years from now . . . A lot has happened, and yet a lot is still very familiar. Ariel is a boy in a small town under a wizard’s rule. Like many adventurers before him, Ariel is called to explore a world full of unimaginable glories and challenges: unknown enemies, a mission to save the world, a girl. Here, as they say, be dragons. But none of this happens before Ariel comes across an artifact from an earlier civilization, a sentient, record-keeping artificial intelligence that carries with it the perspective of the whole of human history—and becomes both Ariel’s greatest ally and the narrator of our story."
Horror Movie: A Novel By: Paul Tremblay, read by a full cast for Harper -- "In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing art-house horror flick. The weird part? Only three of the film’s scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot. The man who played “The Thin Kid” is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. As memories flood back in, the boundaries between reality and film, past and present start to blur. But he’s going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors, and surreal fan conventions—demons of the past be damned."
Assassins Anonymous By: Rob Hart, read by Neill Thorne for Penguin -- "In this clever, surprising, thriller, the world’s most lethal assassin gives up the violent life only to find himself under siege by mysterious assailants. It’s a kill-or-be-killed situation, but the first option is off the table. What’s a reformed hit man to do?"
The Knife and the Serpent by Tim Pratt, read by Zura Johnson and Gary Tiedemann for Podium -- "After her grandmother is murdered in a home invasion, Tamsin Culver leaves her cushy programming job in San Francisco and returns to her Midwestern hometown to settle the estate. What she doesn't expect is to find out her grandmother's life-changing secret. She's not an Earth native but an exile from another level of the Nigh-Space continuum, an adjacent reality with technology far more advanced than ours. What's more, her grandmother ruled there as an oligarch, meaning Tamsin is the heir to vast wealth only accessible by someone from her bloodline... but the enemies who tried to exterminate her family won't be happy to see her return."
The Stardust Grail: A Novel by Yume Kitasei, read by Katharine Chin for Macmillan -- "Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy. For ten years, she returned stolen artifacts to alien civilizations—until a disastrous job forced her into hiding. Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life as a graduate student of anthropology, but she’s haunted by persistent and disturbing visions of the future. Then an old friend comes to her with a job she can’t refuse: find a powerful object that could save an alien species from extinction. Except no one has seen it in living memory, and they aren’t the only ones hunting for it."
The Afterlife of Mal Caldera By: Nadi Reed Perez, read by EJ Lavery for Dreamscape -- "Mal Caldera—former rockstar, retired wild-child, and excommunicated black sheep of her Catholic family—is dead. Not that she cares. She only feels bad that her younger sister, Cris, has been left to pick up the pieces Mal left behind. While her fellow ghosts party their afterlives away at an abandoned mansion they call the Haunt, Mal is determined to make contact with Cris from beyond the grave. She enlists the help of a reluctant local medium, Ren, and together, they concoct a plan to pass on a message to Cris. But the more time they spend together, the more they begin to wonder what might have been if they'd met before Mal died."
The Stars Too Fondly: A Novel By: Emily Hamilton, read by Vico Ortiz for Harper -- "So, here’s the thing: Cleo and her friends really, truly didn’t mean to steal this spaceship. They just wanted to know why, twenty years ago, the entire Providence crew vanished without a trace. But then the stupid dark matter engine started all on its own, and now these four twenty-somethings are en route to Proxima Centauri, unable to turn around, and being harangued by a snarky hologram that has the face and attitude of the ship’s missing captain, Billie."
Running Close to the Wind By: Alexandra Rowland, read by Casey Jones for Recorded Books -- "Avra Helvaçi, former field agent of the Arasti Ministry of Intelligence, has accidentally stolen the single most expensive secret in the world—and the only place to flee with a secret that big is the open sea. To find a buyer with deep enough pockets, Avra must ask for help from his on again, off-again ex, the pirate captain Teveri az-Haffar. They are far from happy to see him, but together, they hatch a plan: take the information to the isolated pirate republic of the Isles of Lost Souls, fence it, profit."
Bloodhound by Thomas Page McBee and Todd Ellis Kessler, read by Elliot Fletcher, Alice Kremelberg, Stephen Root, and a full cast for Audible Originals -- "A coming-of-age suspense drama about Jay Pulver, a trans college student who discovers he has mysteriously acquired superhuman abilities when he accidentally kills his sister’s ex-boyfriend. Recruited by a brilliant but eccentric scientist at the FBI, Jay is tasked with employing his unique powers to track down a domestic terrorist group currently setting off bombs around Washington, DC."
SERIES WATCH:
Familiaris By: David Wroblewski, read by Richard Poe for Blackstone -- "The follow-up to the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling modern classic The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Familiaris is the stirring origin story of the Sawtelle family and the remarkable dogs that carry the Sawtelle name."
The Fall of Waterstone: Black Land's Bane, Book 2 By: Lilith Saintcrow, read by Saskia Maarleveld for Orbit -- "An elemental witch and her shieldmaiden navigate a dangerous world of forgotten myth and deep magic."
The Fire Within Them: Soulfire Saga, Book 2 By: Matthew Ward, read by Sara Novak for Orbit -- "In a world ruled by an immortal king, souls fuel magic and a supernatural mist known as the Veil threatens to engulf the land."
First Frost: A Walt Longmire Mystery, Book 20 By: Craig Johnson, read by George Guidall for Recorded Books -- "Following the events of The Longmire Defense, we return to find Walt and our familiar cast of characters from Abaroska county tasked with solving a crime even more challenging than the last."
Temptation of the Force: Star Wars: The High Republic, Book 5 By: Tessa Gratton, read by Marc Thompson for Random House -- "The reunited Jedi prepare to strike back against the ruthless Nihil in this thrilling sequel to The Eye of Darkness."
BACKLIST WATCH:
The Godel Operation: Billion Worlds, Book 1 By: James L. Cambias (2021), read by J.S. Arquin for Tantor -- "A wild chase through the billion worlds of the Tenth Millennium in search of a mythical weapon that could save civilization—or doom it."
The Branded: The Branded Season, Book 1 By: Jo Riccioni (2022), read by Leah Filley for Bolinda -- "Isfalk is divided into two classes – the Branded, who are vulnerable to disease, and the Pure, who are bigger, stronger and immune. Orphaned twins Nara and Osha are sequestered in the citadel, where their unbranded skin entitles them to a life of privilege, as precious breeding stock."
INDIE WATCH:
- Dungeon Planet: A Sci-Fi LitRPG Adventure By: Jake Edwin, read by Austin Rising for Podium -- "After a galaxy-destroying cataclysm, a devastated Earth cut free from its universe and fell into the Spiral, an endless twist of thousands of orphaned planets, stars, and alien civilizations, fueled by both advanced technology and magic. Among the planet's refugees is Miles Asher, a soft-spoken tutor with a checkered, secret past. Miles needs to find his way in this world—and quickly. When he's hired onto the Starlit Kipper as ship's healer, Miles quickly realizes his Harmonizer-class magic isn't up to the challenge . . . yet."
MOST MISSING:
Trinity: A Novel by Tom Delonge with AJ Hartley (To The Stars) -- "It’s 1962, in Trinity, Nevada, a small town on the edge of the desert, home to a military base serving the nuclear testing grounds. Van Lopez and his brother Andy have enough to do keeping their truck running and the local criminal gang happy to be concerned about nuclear tests. Van has dreams, or—he’s not sure what to call them—that he cannot explain or forget, but when he sees mysterious lights in the sky, he struggles to make sense of what now feel like his earliest memories. On the day of the atomic test, the nuclear blast brings down something over Trinity that wasn’t supposed to be there—something not of this world. Now Van is running for his life, pursued by a murderous Soviet agent and government forces bent on keeping all he has seen—and all he has remembered—from getting out."
Dead Hand by Valerie Nieman (Avig Press) -- "In this sequel to To the Bones, Lourana and Darrick have taken down Eamon Kavanagh, patriarch of the dreaded coal barons of Redbird, WV, but it seems that the family isn’t done yet. The college-age son Rory has unexpectedly inherited not only the family’s empire but the family itself: generations of Kavanagh men whose spirits persist and who have now taken up residence in Rory’s mind and body."
The Ballad of Roy Benavidez: The Life and Times of America’s Most Famous Hispanic War Hero by William Sturkey (Basic Books) -- "The dramatic life of Vietnam War hero Roy Benavidez, revealing how Hispanic Americans have long shaped US history."
Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness by Inger Sigrun Bredkjær Brodey (John Hopkins University Press) -- "How did Jane Austen become a cultural icon for fairy-tale endings when her own books end in ways that are rushed, ironic, and reluctant to satisfy readers' thirst for romance?"