Release Week: 18 June 2024

Release Week: 18 June 2024

Posted on 2024-06-18 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind By: Annalee Newitz, read by Alexandra Cohler for Kalorama -- "Delves into America's deep-rooted history with psychological operations, beginning with Benjamin Franklin's Revolutionary War-era fake newspaper and nineteenth-century wars on Indigenous nations, and reaching its apotheosis with the Cold War and twenty-first-century influence campaigns online."

• The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands By: Sarah Brooks, read by Katie Leung and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith for Macmillan -- "For fans of Piranesi and The Midnight Library, a stunning historical fantasy novel set on a grand express train, about a group of passengers on a dangerous journey across a magical landscape."

• We Used to Live Here By: Marcus Kliewer, read by Jeremy Carlisle Parker and Corey Brill for Simon and Schuster -- "Get Out meets Parasite in this eerily haunting debut about two homeowners whose lives are turned upside down when the house’s previous residents unexpectedly visit."

• How to Make a Horror Movie and Survive By: Craig DiLouie, read by Garrett Michael Brown for Redhook -- "A darkly humorous horror novel that sees a famous 80s slasher director set out to shoot the most terrifying horror movie ever made using an occult camera that might be (and probably is) demonic."

• The Witchstone By: Henry H. Neff, read by Ramiz Monsef for Blackstone -- "Meet Laszlo, eight-hundred-year-old demon and Hell’s least productive Curse Keeper. From his office beneath Midtown, he oversees the Drakeford Curse, which involves a pathetic family upstate and a mysterious black monolith. It’s a sexy enough assignment—colonial origins, mutating victims, et cetera—but Laszlo has no interest in maximizing the curse’s potential; he’d rather sunbathe in Ibiza, quaff martinis, and hustle the hustlers on Manhattan’s subway. Unfortunately, his division has new management, and Laszlo’s ratings are so abysmal that he’s given six days to shape up or he’ll be melted down and returned to the Primordial Ooze."

• Rogue Sequence By: Zac Topping, read by Roger Wayne for Macmillan -- "It's 2091 and independent contract companies around the world are producing genetically modified soldiers…to be sold to the highest bidders."

• Daughter of Calamity By: Rosalie M. Lin, read by Si Chen for Macmillan -- "Jingwen spends her nights as a showgirl at the Paramount, one of the most lavish clubs in 1930s Shanghai, competing ruthlessly to charm wealthy patrons. To cap off her shifts, she runs money for her grandmother, the exclusive surgeon to the most powerful gang in the city. A position her grandmother is pressuring her to inherit…"

• Rakesfall By: Vajra Chandrasekera, read by Shiromi Arserio for Dreamscape -- "Annelid and Leveret met as children in the middle of the Sri Lankan civil war. They found each other in a torn-up nation, peering through propaganda to grasp a deeper truth. And in a demon-haunted wood, another act of violence linked them and propelled their souls on a journey throughout the ages."

• Angels Before Man By: Rafael Nicolás, read by Lance West for Tantor -- "In an eternal paradise, the most beautiful angel, Lucifer, struggles with shame, identity, and timidity, with little more than the desire to worship his creator. It isn't until the strongest angel, Michael, comes into his life that Lucifer learns to love himself. Along the way, their friendship begins to bloom into something else. Maybe the first romance in the history of everything. But this God is a jealous one, and maybe paradise is not paradise."

TIE-IN WATCH:

• Conan: City of the Dead By: John C. Hocking, read by Bradford Hastings for Blackstone -- "Two epics in one (the classic Conan and the Emerald Lotus, with the all-new original Conan and the Living Plague) as Conan the mercenary faces hideously transformed wizards and undead creatures in action-packed fantasy combining Robert E. Howard’s trademark sword and sorcery with concepts straight out of Lovecraftian horror."

SERIES WATCH:

• We Speak Through the Mountain: Annual Migration of Clouds, Book 2 By: Premee Mohamed, read by Eva Tavares for ECW Press -- "Traveling alone through the climate-crisis-ravaged wilds of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, 19-year-old Reid Graham battles the elements and her lifelong chronic illness to reach the utopia of Howse University. But life in one of the storied “domes”—the last remnants of pre-collapse society—isn’t what she expected."

• The Unrelenting Earth: Surviving Sky, Book 2 By: Kritika H. Rao, read by Pranshu Mishra, and Sharmila Devar for Recorded Books -- "Two months have passed since Ahilya and Iravan learned the devastating truths behind the earthrages. As the cosmic creatures struggle to break into the world, and Nakshar’s architecture disintegrates, the desperate council summons their sister ashrams to a Conclave, to discuss the future of life in the skies."

• The Gods Undoing: A Michael Talbot Adventure By: Mark Tufo, read by Sean Runnette for Audible -- "Can one soldier, one Genogerian, one old gatekeeper, and a renegade witch save the world?"

• Dead Man's Justice: Assassins of Landria, Book 6 By: Gail Z. Martin, read by Samuel Roukin for Recorded Books -- "Ridge and Rett go into hiding with the kidnapped heir, evading the warlock hitmen and using Rett’s magic to stay one step ahead of the people trying to kill them."

• Winter Lost: A Mercy Thompson Novel, Book 14 By: Patricia Briggs, read by Lorelei King for Penguin -- "Mercy Thompson, car mechanic and shapeshifter, must stop a disaster of world-shattering proportions."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• The Left Hand of Darkness By: Ursula K. Le Guin (1969) with an afterword by Charlie Jane Anders (2019), read by Alyssa Bresnahan and Michael Crouch for Recorded Books -- I'm not sure what this means for the George Guidall narration that I've so enjoyed over the years, but this is a new audio production of the 50th anniversary edition of Le Guin's stunning, "trailblazing novel about a planet full of genderless beings."

• Restoration: Verity Fassbender, Book 3 By: Angela Slatter (2019), read by Taryn Ryan for W.F. Howes (2019) -- Now available in the US: "Walking between the worlds has always been dangerous—but this time Verity's facing the loss of all she holds dear."

• The Year’s Best Fantasy: Volume One edited by Paula Guran (2022), read by Perry Daniels and Dina Pearlman for Tantor -- "This superbly curated collection explores myth and fable, dark and light—a heroic creature facing a dangerous demon; an earthly love facing the mossy decay of death. With tales of living ball gowns and timid monsters, of modern witches and multidimensional magic, these twenty-four stories will transport you from fantastical realms that push the limits of imagination to alternative realities mirroring much of our own."

(in progress...)

6/18 Shadowheart by Meg Gardiner

6/18 The Salmon Who Dared to Leap Higher By: Ahn Do-hyun, Deborah Smith - translator Narrated by: Jun Hwang for Pan Macmillan

6/18/24 The Leisure Class

6/18 murder in mennefer by Al Sirois

6/18 Craft Stories I Wrote for the Devil By: Ananda Lima Narrated by: Taylor Harvey

6/18 The Only Way Through Is Out By: Suzette Mullen Narrated by: Shawna Wolf

Posted in Release Week