Release Week: 14 June 2022

Posted on 2022-06-14 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• The Dawnhounds By: Sascha Stronach, read by Anna Coddington for Simon and Schuster -- "Gideon the Ninth meets Black Sun in this queer, Māori-inspired debut fantasy about a police officer who is murdered, brought back to life with a mysterious new power, and tasked with protecting her city from an insidious evil threatening to destroy it."

• The Men By: Sandra Newman, read by Mia Barron for Recorded Books -- "From the author of The Heavens, a dazzling, mind-bending novel in which all men mysteriously disappear from the face of the earth."

• Crécy: Battle of Five Kings By: Michael Livingston, read by Rupert Farley for Bloomsbury -- "A groundbreaking new study of the battle of Crécy, in which the outnumbered English under King Edward III won a decisive victory over the French and changed the course of the Hundred Years War."

• Oleander City: A Novel Based on a True Story By: Matt Bondurant, read by Julia Atwood and Chris Henry Coffey for Blackstone -- "In the wake of the 1900 Galveston hurricane, three lives converge despite persecution from the Ku Klux Klan, a bare-knuckle boxing match gone wrong, and the recovery efforts of the American Red Cross."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Letters of Cold Fire: The Occult Cases of John Thunstone, Book 1 By: Manly Wade Wellman (1944), read by Andrew Nilles for Wordwooze -- "Thrill to the adventures of John Thunstone, straight from the pages of the world's greatest horror magazine—the legendary Weird Tales."

• The Beach By: Alex Garland (2005), read by Michael Page for Penguin -- "The irresistible novel that was adapted into a major motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The Khao San Road, Bangkok—first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveler slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach." The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend among young travelers in Asia: a lagoon hidden from the sea, with white sand and coral gardens, freshwater falls surrounded by jungle, plants untouched for a thousand years. There, it is rumored, a carefully selected international few have settled in a communal Eden."

• Blood Trinity: The Belador Series, Book 1 By: Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dianna Love (2010), read by Stephen Thorne for Blackstone -- "Supernatural warriors bound by an extraordinary code of honor face an ultimate test of loyalty."

SERIES WATCH:

• The Grief of Stones By: Katherine Addison: The Cemeteries of Amalo, Book 2, read by Liam Gerrard for Macmillan -- "Teturns to the world of The Goblin Emperor with a direct sequel to The Witness For The Dead. Celehar’s life as the Witness for the Dead of Amalo grows less isolated as his circle of friends grows larger. He has been given an apprentice to teach, and he has stumbled over a scandal of the city—the foundling girls. Orphans with no family to claim them and no funds to buy an apprenticeship. Foundling boys go to the Prelacies; foundling girls are sold into service, or worse. At once touching and shattering, Celehar’s witnessing for one of these girls will lead him into the depths of his own losses. The love of his friends will lead him out again."

• A Mirror Mended: Fractured Fables, Book 2 By: Alix E. Harrow, read by Amy Landon for Macmillan -- "Zinnia Gray, professional fairy-tale fixer and lapsed Sleeping Beauty is over rescuing snoring princesses. Once you’ve rescued a dozen damsels and burned 50 spindles, once you’ve gotten drunk with 20 good fairies and made out with one too many members of the royal family, you start to wish some of these girls would just get a grip and try solving their own narrative issues."

• The Queen's Assassin: Blood and Fire, Book 2 By: James Barclay, read by Mel Hudson for Gollancz -- "Naida is living a lie. A peerless battlefield surgeon. A talisman for the army. A symbol of hope in an impossible, grinding war. A fraud."

• Freezer Burn: Waymaker Wars, Book 2 By: Rachel Aukes, read by Scott Aiello for Recorded Books -- "Having an AI control the system can’t be that bad, can it?"

• Clockwork Destiny: Clockwork Angels, Book 3 By: Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart, read by Kevin J. Anderson for Recorded Books -- "In Clockwork Angels and Clockwork Lives, listeners met the optimistic young hero Owen Hardy, as well as the more reluctant adventurer Marinda Peake, in an amazing world of airships and alchemy, fantastic carnivals and lost cities. Now Owen Hardy, retired and content in his quiet, perfect life with the beautiful Francesca, is pulled into one last adventure with his eager grandson Alain."

• Storm Shattered: The Darkest Storm, Book 3 By: Patrick Dugan (2020), read by William Walker for Falstaff Books -- "The explosive conclusion to the trilogy that began with the award-winning Storm Forged."

• The Stuff of Dreams: Vampire Hunter D, Book 5 By: Hideyuki Kikuchi, illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano, translated by Kevin Leahy, read by Paul Boehmer

• Just Another Judgement Day: Nightside, Book 9 By: Simon R. Green, read by Dan Calley

• Trouble with the Cursed: Hollows, Book 16 By: Kim Harrison, read by Marguerite Gavin

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• Breaking Time By: Sasha Alsberg, read by Elle Newlands and Joshua Manning for Harlequin -- "When a mysterious Scotsman suddenly appears in the middle of the road, Klara thinks the biggest problem is whether she hit him with her car. But, as impossible as it sounds, Callum has stepped out of another time, and it’s just the beginning of a deadly adventure. Klara will soon learn that she is the last Pillar of Time—an anchor point in the timeline of the world and a hiding place for a rogue goddess’s magic. Callum believes he’s fated to protect her at all costs after being unable to protect the previous Pillar, his best friend, Thomas. A dark force is hunting the Pillars to claim the power of the goddess—and Klara and Callum are the only two people standing in the way. Thrown together by fate, the two have to learn to trust each other and work together…but they’ll need to protect their hearts from one another if they’re going to survive."

• Starship for Sale By: M.R. Forbes, read by Dave Jackson for Quirky Algorithms -- "When Ben Murdock receives a text message offering a fully operational starship for sale, he’s certain it has to be a joke. Already trapped in the worst day of his life and desperate for a way out, he decides to play along. Except there is no joke. The starship is real. And Ben’s life is going to change in ways he never dreamed possible. All he has to do is sign the contract."

• The Boys: Deeper and Deeper by Matt Berns, read by Chace Crawford, Leigh Bush, and Katy Breier for Audible Originals -- " From his exile from The Seven to his escape from an insidious cult, The Deep tells all in this companion to the hit Prime Video series The Boys."

• Project Kawayan by Randy Ribay, read by Eileen Stevens, Richard Ferrone, Jennifer Aquino, Manny Jacinto, and the author for Audible Originals -- " You wake up floating. Not in the air, but horizontally in a coffin-sized chamber filled with blue gelatinous fluid. You do not remember what this is. You do not remember why you are here. You do not remember who you are."

• The Beached Ones By: Colleen M. Story, read by Rob Shapiro for CamCat -- "Daniel and his younger brother grew up in an abusive home, but Daniel was the only one who escaped. Now an established stunt rider, he intends to go back to rescue his brother. But then one jump goes horribly wrong.... When he wakes up from a nightmare in Iowa, unscathed, with no memory of how he got there, his life falls apart. His team moves on without him. His best friend won’t answer his calls. Strangers die in front of him. Even his girlfriend is hiding something. All Daniel knows is that he must pick up his brother in San Francisco. In five days. From the isolating fields of Iowa to the crowded streets of San Francisco, Daniel must fight his way through a fog of disjointed memories and supernatural encounters to pay a debt he didn’t know he owed."

TIE-IN WATCH:

• The Veiled Masters: Twilight Imperium By: Tim Pratt, read by Erin deWard for Tantor -- "The galaxy stands on the brink of war, yet hope remains that the vast web of schemes can be exposed before it's too late, in this astounding space opera from the acclaimed game, Twilight Imperium."

• The Devourer Below: Arkham Horror edited by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells, stories by Josh Reynolds, Evan Dicken, Davide Mana, Georgina Kamsika, Thomas Parrott, David Annandale, and Cath Lauria, read by Jennifer Jill Araya for Tantor -- "The city of Arkham falls prey to ghoulish dread in this chilling anthology of action-packed adventure, from the bestselling world of Arkham Horror."

• Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai By: Hajime Kamoshida, read by Andrew Grace for Yen Audio -- "Bunny girls do not live in libraries. This is simply common sense. And yet, that's exactly where Sakuta finds one in the wild. More bewildering is who the bunny girl is: Mai Sakurajima, a girl one year older than Sakuta, famous at their school for her acting career even though she's currently on break. To top it all off, it seems like no one else in the library can see Mai at all, no matter what she does or...wears. Wanting to find out more about this mystery and maybe get a little closer to this beautiful upperclassman in the process, Sakuta launches an investigation to discover why an unforgettable bunny girl keeps becoming totally invisible."

MOST MISSING:

• January Fifteenth by Rachel Swirsky (Tordotcom) -- "January Fifteenth—the day all Americans receive their annual Universal Basic Income payment. For Hannah, a middle-aged mother, today is the anniversary of the day she took her two children and fled her abusive ex-wife. For Janelle, a young, broke journalist, today is another mind-numbing day interviewing passersby about the very policy she once opposed. For Olivia, a wealthy college freshman, today is “Waste Day”, when rich kids across the country compete to see who can most obscenely squander the government’s money. For Sarah, a pregnant teen, today is the day she’ll journey alongside her sister-wives to pick up the payment­­s that undergird their community—and perhaps embark on a new journey altogether. In this near-future science fiction novella by Nebula Award-winning author Rachel Swirsky, the fifteenth of January is another day of the status quo, and another chance at making lasting change."

• You Mean It or You Don't: James Baldwin's Radical Challenge by Jamie McGhee and Adam Hollowell (Broadleaf Books) -- "After a speech at UMass Amherst on February 28, 1984, James Baldwin was asked by a student: "You said that the liberal façade and being a liberal is not enough. Well, what is? What is necessary?" Baldwin responded, "Commitment. That is what is necessary. You mean it or you don't." Taking up that challenge and drawing from Baldwin's fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and interviews, You Mean It or You Don't will spur today's progressives from conviction to action. It is not enough, authors Hollowell and McGhee urge us, to hold progressive views on racial justice, LGBTQ+ identity, and economic inequality. True and lasting change demands a response to Baldwin's radical challenge for moral commitment. Called to move from dreams of justice to living it out in communities, churches, and neighborhoods, we can show that we truly mean it."

• Rogue Artists: An Origins Anthology (Atthis Arts) -- "To heal. to mourn. to redeem. to live. Rogue Artists presents seventeen speculative fiction stories of art used for change, in celebration of the 2022 Origins Game Fair, themed: The Art of Gaming. Featuring 2022 Guest of Honor Cat Rambo, E.D.E. Bell, Marie Bilodeau, Donald J. Bingle, Jennifer Brozek, C. S. E. Cooney, Sarah Hans, Carlos Hernandez, Chris A. Jackson, Addie J. King, R. L. King, Daniel Myers, Aaron Rosenberg, Tracy R. Ross, Jason Sanford, Michael R. Underwood, and Gregory A. Wilson."

• Queen: Hidden Earth, Book 1 by J.S. Fields (NineStar Press) -- "Nobody leaves Queen. On the tidally locked, women-only planet, a vulva and an authority problem are the only immigration requirements. Emigration is banned. Ember spends her days cruising Queen’s endless sand dunes, hunting sand pirates and wallowing in memories of her dead wife. After an ambush, Ember is dragged to the pirate camp and learns her wife’s biggest secret—before her death, she’d joined the pirates, built an illegal spaceship, and plotted to leave the planet."

• Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Warren Zevon edited by Libby Cudmore and Art Taylor (Down and Out Books) -- "From classics like “Werewolves of London,” “Excitable Boy,” and “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” to lesser-known gems across a career spanning nearly four decades, the songs of Warren Zevon are rich with crime and intrigue and suspense—guns and gunners, assassins and drug dealers, a supernatural serial killer, and a heap of hapless losers along the way too. And Zevon himself was a fan of crime fiction, especially the work of iconic mystery writer Ross Macdonald, to whom Zevon dedicated his 1980 album Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School."

• Immoral Origins: The Desire Card, Book 1 by Lee Matthew Goldberg (Rough Edges Press) -- "It’s 1978 in New York City, and disco is prominent. As are mobsters, gritty streets, needle parks and graffiti-stained subways. Jake Barnum lives in Hell’s Kitchen. He’s a petty thief selling hot coats with his buddy Maggs to make ends meet and help his sick kid brother. At a Halloween party downtown, he meets a woman with a Marilyn Monroe mask who works for an organization called The Desire Card—an underground operation promising its exclusive clients “Any Wish Fulfilled for the Right Price.” As Jake becomes taken with its leader, a pseudo father and sociopath at heart, he starts stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. In other words…himself. But as he dives deeper in with the Card, begins falling love with Marilyn, and sees the money rolling in, clients’ wishes start becoming more and more suspect—some leading to murder."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 7 June 2022

Posted on 2022-06-07 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• The City Inside By: Samit Basu, read by Reena Dutt for Random House -- "A near-future epic by the internationally celebrated Samit Basu, pulls no punches as it comes for your anxieties about society, government, the environment, and our world at large—yet never loses sight of the hopeful potential of the future."

• Ordinary Monsters: A Novel By: J. M. Miro, read by Ben Onwukwe for Macmillan -- "In Victorian London, two children with mysterious powers are hunted by a figure of darkness—a man made of smoke. Sixteen-year-old Charlie Ovid, despite a brutal childhood in Mississippi, doesn't have a scar on him. His body heals itself, whether he wants it to or not. Marlowe, a foundling from a railway freight car, shines with a strange bluish light. He can melt or mend flesh. When a jaded female detective is recruited to escort them to safety, all three begin a journey into the nature of difference, and belonging, and the shadowy edges of the monstrous. What follows is a story of wonder and betrayal, from the gaslit streets of London, and the wooden theatres of Meiji-era Tokyo, to an eerie estate outside Edinburgh where other children with gifts—the Talents—have been gathered. There, the world of the dead and the world of the living threaten to collide. And as secrets within the Institute unfurl, Marlowe, Charlie and the rest of the Talents will discover the truth about their abilities, and the nature of what is stalking them: that the worst monsters sometimes come bearing the sweetest gifts."

• It All Comes Down to This: A Novel By: Therese Anne Fowler, read by Barrie Kreinik for Macmillan -- "A warm, keenly perceptive novel of sisterhood, heartbreak, home, and what it takes to remake a life at its halfway point, for fans of Ann Patchett and Emma Straub."

• I, Antigone By: Carlo Gébler, read by Stephanie Racine for SAGA Egmot -- "The mythical Greek king, Oedipus, is no stranger to tragedy. As a baby, he is left to die on the mountainside of Thebes by his royal parents after the Oracle of Delphi prophesies that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Pitied by the shepherd tasked with leaving him, Oedipus is given to another royal family and grows up ignorant of his past as a foreign prince. Returning to Thebes by chance many years later, he defeats the Sphinx terrorising the city by answering her riddle and becomes king. From here on a series of tragic events begin to unfurl..."

• A History of the Defeated By: Zachary Jernigan, read by Diontae Black for Lethe Press -- "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."

• The Peacekeeper: A Novel By: B.L. Blanchard, read by Darrell Dennis for Brilliance -- "Against the backdrop of a never-colonized North America, a broken Ojibwe detective embarks on an emotional and twisting journey toward solving two murders, rediscovering family, and finding himself."

• Woman of Light: A Novel By: Kali Fajardo-Anstine, read by Melinna Bobadilla for Random House -- "A dazzling epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West."

• Nightcrawling: A Novel By: Leila Mottley, read by Joniece Abbott-Pratt for Random House -- "A dazzling novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system."

• The Kingdom of Sand: A Novel By: Andrew Holleran, read by David Pittu for Macmillan -- "Features a nameless narrator who has survived the death of his friends to AIDS and the loss of his parents to old age and tragedy. Now he must witness the slow demise of a friend just a shade older than he is. Semi-anonymous sexual encounters, gallows humor, and classic films are his tools for staving off the dying of the light. In prose that’s in turn mordantly funny and hauntingly elegiac, Andrew Holleran takes the listener from a video porn shop off Route 301 to the memory of parties in Washington, DC, filled with handsome young men, to the lonely facades of rural Florida."

• Cult Classic: A Novel By: Sloane Crosley, read by the author for Macmillan -- "A masterfully crafted tale of love, memory, morality, and mind control, as well as a fresh foray into the philosophy of romance."

• The Midcoast: A Novel By: Adam White, read by George Newbern for Random House -- "It’s spring in the tiny town of Damariscotta, a tourist haven on the coast of Maine known for its oysters and antiques. Andrew, a high school English teacher recently returned to the area, has brought his family to Ed and Steph Thatch’s sprawling riverside estate to attend a reception for the Amherst women’s lacrosse team. Back when they were all teenagers, Andrew never could have predicted that Ed, descended from a long line of lobstermen, or Steph, a decent student until she dropped out to start a family, would ever send a daughter to a place like Amherst. But so the tides have turned, and Andrew’s trying hard to admire, more than envy, the view from Ed’s rolling backyard meadow. As Andrew wanders through the Thatches’ house, he stumbles upon a file he’s not supposed to see: photos of a torched body in a burned-out sedan. And when a line of state police cruisers crashes the Thatches’ reception an hour later, Andrew and his neighbors finally begin to see the truth behind Ed and Steph’s remarkable rise. Soon the newspapers are running headlines about the Thatches, and Andrew’s poring over his memories, trying to piece together the story of a family he thought he knew."

• Wrath Goddess Sing: A Novel By: Maya Deane, read by Katherine Pucciariello for Harper -- "Drawing on ancient texts and modern archeology to reveal the trans woman's story hidden underneath the well-known myths of The Iliad, Maya Deane's Wrath Goddess Sing weaves a compelling, pitilessly beautiful vision of Achilles' vanished world, perfect for fans of Song of Achilles and the Inheritance trilogy."

• After the Lights Go Out By: John Vercher, read by Sean Crisden for HighBridge -- "Xavier "Scarecrow" Wallace, a mixed-race MMA fighter on the wrong side of thirty, is facing the fight of his life. Xavier can no longer deny he is losing his battle with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), or pugilistic dementia. Through the fog of memory loss, migraines, and paranoia, Xavier does his best to stay in shape by training at the Philadelphia gym owned by his cousin-cum-manager, Shot, a retired champion boxer to whom Xavier owes an unpayable debt."

• Fruiting Bodies: Stories By: Kathryn Harlan, read by Heather Masters for OrangeSky -- "This genre-bending debut collection of stories constructs eight eerie worlds full of desire, wisdom, and magic blooming amidst decay."

• The Maker of Swans By: Paraic O'Donnell, read by Mike Grady and Imogen Wilde for HighBridge -- "In the dead of night, shots ring out over the grounds of a sprawling English estate. The world-weary butler Eustace recognizes the gunman—his longtime employer, Mr. Crowe—and knows he must think and act quickly. Who is the man lying dead on the lawn? Who is the woman in his company? Can he clean up his master's mess like he always has before? Or will this bring a new kind of reckoning?"

• Hell Followed with Us By: Andrew Joseph White, read by Shaan Dasani, Graham Halstead, and Avi Roque for Listening Library -- "Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon with which they infected him. But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• The Warren By: Brian Evenson (2016), read by Neil Shah for Audible -- "X doesn’t have a name. He thought he had one—or many—but that might be the result of the failing memories of the personalities imprinted within him. Or maybe he really is called X. He’s also not as human as he believes himself to be. But when he discovers the existence of another—above ground, outside the protection of the Warren—X must learn what it means to be human, or face the destruction of their two species."

• A Time of Exile: Westlands, Book 1 By: Katharine Kerr (1961), read by Ruth Urquhart for Tantor -- "The world of Deverry: an intricate tapestry of fate, past lives, and unfathomable magic."

• Stormbringer: The Elric Saga, Volume 2 By: Michael Moorcock, foreword by Michael Chabon, read by Samuel Roukin

• The Eagle & the Nightingales: Bardic Voices, Book 3 By: Mercedes Lackey (1995), read by Christa Lewis

• Nevada: A Novel By: Imogen Binnie (2013), read by the author for Macmillan -- "A beloved and blistering cult classic and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction finally back in print, Nevada follows a disaffected trans woman as she embarks on a cross-country road trip."

• House of Blades: The Traveler's Gate Trilogy, Volume 1 By: Will Wight (2013), read by Travis Baldree for Audible -- "Simon can only watch, helpless, as his family is killed and his friends captured by enemy Travelers—men and women who can summon mystical powers from otherworldly Territories. To top it off, another young man from Simon's village discovers that he's a savior prophesied to destroy evil and save the realm."

• The Land of Mist By: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, read by Leslie Nicole Ivery for InAudio -- "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Land of Mist continues the story of the fictional character Professor George Edward Challenger. It follows the first two books of the Professor Challenger series, originally published in Strand Magazine in the early 20th century: The Lost World and The Poison Belt."

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• The Splendid City By: Karen Heuler, read by Lauryn Allman for Angry Robot -- "A genre-blending story of modern witchcraft, a police state, and WTF characters, for fans of Alice Hoffman and Madeline Miller."

• Aurora: A Novel By: David Koepp, read by Rupert Friend for Harper -- "From the author of Cold Storage comes a riveting, eerily plausible thriller, told with the menace and flair of Under the Dome or Project Hail Mary, in which a worldwide cataclysm plays out in the lives of one complicated midwestern family."

• The Knave of Secrets By: Alex Livingston, read by Philip Arditti, Montserrat Lombard for Penguin -- "When gambler and failed magician Valen Quinol is given the opportunity to play in the Forbearance Game—the invitation-only game where players gamble with secrets—he can't resist. Or refuse, as it turns out...."

• Aeon Rising By: Matthew Mather, read by Ray Porter for Recorded Books -- "An apocalyptic supernova flashes over the South Pole. A mysterious mission sent deep into the Amazon. The story of one family’s struggle to reunite…"

SERIES WATCH:

• Farilane: The Rise and Fall, Book 2 By: Michael J. Sullivan, read by Tim Gerard Reynolds,

• For the Throne: The Wilderwood, Book 2 By: Hannah Whitten, read by Inés del Castillo

• Stephen Leeds: Death & Faxes: Legion By: Brandon Sanderson, read by Oliver Wyman for Recorded Books -- "Chronologically takes place between the novellas Legion and Legion: Lies of the Beholder."

• Focal Point: O.C.L.T. Supernatural Thrillers, Book 7 By: Aaron Rosenberg, read by Daniel Bledsoe

• Tom Clancy Zero Hour: A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel, Book 9 By: Don Bentley, read by Scott Brick

• Infinity: First Colony, Book 13 By: Ken Lozito, read by Scott Aiello

• Match Game: Expeditionary Force, Book 14 By: Craig Alanson, read by R.C. Bray

• The Touch: Necroscope, Book 15 By: Brian Lumley (2006), read by Joshua Saxon for Crossroad Press

MOST MISSING:

• The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel (Subterranean Press) -- "Collects Kessel's best short fiction, beginning with 1981's "Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!" and ending with 2021's "The Dark Ride." The stories range from flash pieces to novellas, from comedy to existential horror, from far future SF to Kafkaesque fantasy, including 40,000 words of never-before-collected fiction and extensive author's notes."

I have the same curiosity!

I have not!

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 31 May 2022

Posted on 2022-05-31 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• Dark Factory by Kathe Koja, read by Natasha Soudek for Tantor -- "Welcome to Dark Factory! You may experience strobe effects, Y reality, DJ beats, love, sex, betrayal, triple-shot espresso, broken bones, broken dreams, ecstasy, self-knowledge, and the void."

• How to Be Eaten: A Novel By: Maria Adelmann, read by Lauren Ezzo for Little, Brown and Company -- "This darkly funny and provocative novel reimagines classic fairy tale characters as modern women in a support group for trauma."

• Walk the Vanished Earth By: Erin Swan, read by Saskia Maarleveld, Keylor Leigh, and Dylan Moore for Penguin -- "In the tradition of Station Eleven, Severance and The Dog Stars, a beautifully written and emotionally stirring dystopian novel about how our dreams of the future may shift as our environment changes rapidly, even as the earth continues to spin."

• Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms edited by John Joseph Adams, read by Gabrielle de Cuir, Justine Eyre, Susan Hanfield, Roxanne Hernandez, Emily Rankin, Stefan Rudnicki, and Judy Young for Skyboat -- "The need to seek and discover the unknown is embedded in who we are, no matter the culture or era. To celebrate this sense of wonder, award-winning editor John Joseph Adams has gathered together some of the best SF&F writers working today, collecting adventure and mystery in this spectacular anthology. With original contributions from Kate Elliott, Tobias S. Buckell, Dexter Palmer, E. Lily Yu, Jonathan Maberry, and a dozen more, there are short stories sure to enthrall every listener."

• Planes: A Novel, read by Peter C. Baker, read by Lameece Issaq for Random House -- "For years, Amira—a recent convert to Islam living in Rome—has gone to work, said her prayers, and struggled to piece together her husband’s redacted letters from the Moroccan black site where he is imprisoned. She moves as inconspicuously as possible through her modest life, doing her best to avoid the whispered curiosity of her community. Meanwhile, Mel—once an activist—is trying to get the suburban conservatives of her small North Carolina town to support her school board initiatives, and struggles to fill her empty nest. It's a steady, settled life, except perhaps for the affair she can't admit she's having."

• Time Shelter By: Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel, read by Jeff Harding for Dreamscape -- "In an apricot-colored building in Zurich, surrounded by curiously planted forget-me-nots, Gaustine has opened the first “clinic for the past,” an institution that offers an inspired treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a past decade in minute detail, allowing patients to transport themselves back in time to unlock what is left of their fading memories."

• Her Majesty's Royal Coven: A Novel By: Juno Dawson, read by Aoife McMahon for Penguin -- "A Discovery of Witches meets The Craft in this epic fantasy about a group of childhood friends who are also witches."

• A Rip Through Time: A Novel By: Kelley Armstrong, read by Kate Handford for Macmillan -- "A modern-day homicide detective finds herself in Victorian Scotland—in an unfamiliar body—with a killer on the loose."

• Black Tide By: KC Jones, read by John Pirhalla, Sophie Amoss for Macmillan -- "Mike and Beth didn't know each other existed before the night of the meteor shower. A melancholy film producer and a house sitter barely scraping by—chance made them neighbors, a bottle of champagne brought them together, and a shared need for human connection sparked something more. After a drunken and desperate one-night stand, the two strangers awake to discover a surprise astronomical event has left widespread destruction in its wake. But the cosmic lightshow was only part of something much bigger and far more terrifying."

• Dance Among the Flames By: Tori Eldridge, read by Alex Picard for Blackstone -- "Across forty years, three continents, and a past incident in 1560 France, Serafina Olegario tests the boundaries of love, power, and corruption as she fights to escape her life of poverty and abuse. Serafina’s quest begins in Brazil when she’s possessed by the warrior goddess Yansã, who emboldens her to fight yet threatens to consume her spirit."

• The Middling Affliction By: Alex Shvartsman, read by Patrick Boylan for OrangeSky -- "Guard Brooklyn, fight monsters, taunt bad guys."

• Biketopia: Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories in Extreme Futures edited by Elly Blue, read by Carolina Hoyos for Scribd -- "In a world with an uncertain future, do you imagine for the best or for the worst case scenario? Twelve writers tackle extreme solarpunk utopias and apocalyptic or political dystopias—and the gray areas in between."

SERIES WATCH:

• Paladin's Hope: The Saint of Steel, Book 3 By: T. Kingfisher, read by Joel Richards for Tantor -- "Piper is a lich-doctor, a physician who works among the dead, determining causes of death for the city guard's investigations. It's a peaceful, if solitary profession . . . until the day when he's called to the river to examine the latest in a series of mysterious bodies, mangled by some unknown force. Galen is a paladin of a dead god, lost to holiness and no longer entirely sane. He has long since given up on any hope of love. But when the two men and a brave gnole constable are drawn into the maze of the mysterious killer, it's Galen's job to protect Piper from the traps that await them."

• Akata Woman: Nsibidi Scripts, Book 3 By: Nnedi Okorafor, read by Nene Nwoko for Tantor -- "From the moment Sunny Nwazue discovered she had mystical energy flowing in her blood, she sought to understand and control her powers. Throughout her adventures in Akata Witch and Akata Warrior, she had to navigate the balance between nearly everything in her life—America and Nigeria, the "normal" world and the one infused with juju, human and spirit, good daughter and powerful Leopard Person. Now, those hard lessons and abilities are put to the test in a quest so dangerous and fantastical, it would be madness to go . . . but may destroy the world if she does not."

• The Jade Setter of Janloon: The Green Bone Saga, Book 0.5 By: Fonda Lee, read by Andrew Kishino for Recorded Books -- "Return to the world of the Green Bone Saga with a new standalone novella."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• The Purple Cloud By: M. P. Shiel (1901), read by Stefan Rudnicki for Blackstone -- "Adam Jeffson is the first man to ever reach the North Pole but, south of him, a deadly purple vapor spreads, passing over the world and wiping out all living creatures. The sole survivor on Earth, Adam embarks on an epic journey across the silent and devastated planet, piecing together a life from the flotsam and jetsam of his former existence."

• Daughters of a Coral Dawn: The Coral Dawn Trilogy, Book 1 By: Katherine V. Forrest (1984), read by Amanda Dolan, Kate Rudd, and Erin Bennett for Audible -- "Late in the 22nd century, the settling of a new world falls on the strong shoulders of young Megan. The perfect leader, she undertakes to guide her sisters to a new planet, free from the shackles of the brutal Earth regime. Negotiating politics in a society of women is second only to securing their safety. When a landing party of men and women discover their colony Megan must decide if the outsiders will live or die. And that includes Lt. Laurel Meredith, whose disturbing beauty is as dangerous to Megan as her people are to Megan's world."

AUDIBLE ORIGINALS:

• The Ophelia Network By: Mur Lafferty, read by Khristine Hvam -- "In an authoritarian America, personal freedoms are at risk, information is being controlled, and legal citizens suddenly find themselves being deported. A growing resistance movement is active, angry, and looking to strike back. And a TV show for kids may be the key."

• Self Help By: Ben H. Winters, read by Wil Wheaton and Ron Perlman -- "Jack Diller is just one more struggling actor on the road to nowhere. He’s got an agent who barely remembers his name, his ex-girlfriend has hooked up with a Silicon Valley dude, and the milk in his fridge is so far past its sell-by date it’s historic. The only way Jack can scrape together a bare existence is by delivering food to exactly the types of successful people he wishes he could be. Then, one day, a very strange audiobook shows up on his phone. The Killer Instinct seems to be your basic self-help guide, narrated by a washed-up action star named Hector Bruno, and brimming with cheesy advice for how to get your life together. With so little to lose, Jack starts listening… and listening some more. He starts talking to Hector like he’s his best friend. And then… Hector starts talking back."

MOST MISSING:

• These Prisoning Hills by Christopher Rowe (Tordotcom) -- "In a long-ago war, the all-powerful A.I. ruler of the Voluntary State of Tennessee—Athena Parthenus, Queen of Reason—invaded and decimated the American Southeast. Possessing the ability to infect and corrupt the surrounding environment with nanotechnology, she transformed flora, fauna, and the very ground itself into bio-mechanical weapons of war. Marcia, a former captain from Kentucky, experienced first-hand the terrifying, mind-twisting capabilities of Athena’s creatures. Now back in the Commonwealth, her retirement is cut short by the arrival of federal troops in her tiny, isolated town. One of Athena’s most powerful weapons may still be buried nearby. And they need Marcia’s help to find it."

• Nothing but the Blood by J. Matthew Saunders (St George's Press) -- "Long kept secrets come to light, threatening to upset the comfortable lives of everyone in Avalon and the simple day-to-day of high school football games, church socials, and gossip at the barber shop. An evil has taken root, one the entire town has turned a blind eye to for far too long."

• Seven Dead Sisters by Jen Williams (PS Publishing) -- " Alizon Grey is being driven to her death, caged in the back of a cart ready to be burned to death as a witch, and for killing her father. When the cart is attacked and she finds herself loose, we follow her journey as she tries to reach safety even as the story of her life―mistreated and the last of her siblings―is gradually revealed. Alizon has had to fight for her life before now, but this time wins all and the truth will be revealed."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 24 May 2022

Posted on 2022-05-24 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• Future Artifacts: Stories By: Kameron Hurley, read by Samara Naeymi and Rob Granniss for Recorded Books -- "Brutal. Devastating. Dangerous. Join an investigation into a cruel and heartless leader...crawl through filth and mud to escape biological warfare...team up with time-traveling soldiers faced with potentially life-altering instructions."

• Sleepwalk: A Novel By: Dan Chaon, read by John Pirhalla for Macmillan -- "Will Bear is a man with so many aliases that he simply thinks of himself as the Barely Blur. At 50 years old, he’s been living off the grid for over half his life. He’s never had a real job, never paid taxes, never been in a committed relationship. A good-natured henchman with a complicated and lonely past and a passion for LSD microdosing, he spends his time hopscotching across state lines in his beloved camper van, running sometimes shady often dangerous errands for a powerful and ruthless operation he’s never troubled himself to learn too much about. He has lots of connections, but no true ties. His longest relationships are with an old rescue dog that has post-traumatic stress and a childhood friend as deeply entrenched in the underworld as he is, who, lately, he’s less and less sure he can trust."

• City of Orange By: David Yoon, read by Intae Kim for Penguin -- "A man wakes up in an unknown landscape, injured and alone. He used to live in a place called California, but how did he wind up here with a head wound and a bottle of pills in his pocket? He navigates his surroundings, one rough shape at a time. Here lies a pipe, there a reed that could be carved into a weapon, beyond a city he once lived in. He could swear his daughter’s name began with a J, but what was it, exactly? Then he encounters an old man, a crow, and a boy—and realizes that nothing is what he thought it was, neither the present nor the past."

• Either/Or By: Elif Batuman, read by the author for Penguin -- "From the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Idiot, the continuation of beloved protagonist Selin’s quest for self-knowledge, as she travels abroad and tests the limits of her newfound adulthood."

• Cold as Hell: Black Badge Series, Book 1 By: Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle, read by Roger Clark for Blackstone -- "In the West, there are worse things to fear than bandits and outlaws. Demons. Monsters. Witches. James Crowley’s sacred duty as a Black Badge is to hunt them down and send them packing, banish them from the mortal realm for good. He didn’t choose this life. No. He didn’t choose life at all. Shot dead in a gunfight many years ago, now he’s stuck in purgatory, serving the whims of the White Throne to avoid falling to Hell. Not quite undead, though not alive either, the best he can hope for is to work off his penance and fade away."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Lord of Light By: Roger Zelazny (1967), read by Matt Godfrey for Recorded Books -- "Earth is long since dead. On a colony planet, a band of men has gained control of technology, made themselves immortal, and now rule their world as the gods of the Hindu pantheon. Only one dares oppose them: he who was once Siddhartha and is now Mahasamatman. Binder of Demons, Lord of Light."

• The Voices of Martyrs: Stories By: Maurice Broaddus (2017), read by Julian Elfer, Karen Chilton, and Leon Nixon for Recorded Books -- "We are a collection of voices, the assembled history of the many voices that have spoken into our lives and shaped us. Voices of the past, voices of the present, and voices of the future."

• Peach Blossom Paradise By: Ge Fei (2004), translated by Canaan Morse (2020), read by Cindy Kay for Blackstone -- "In 1898 reformist intellectuals in China persuaded the young emperor that it was time to transform his sclerotic empire into a prosperous modern state. The Hundred Days’ Reform that followed was a moment of unprecedented change and extraordinary hope—brought to an abrupt end by a bloody military coup. Dashed expectations would contribute to the revolutionary turn that Chinese history would soon take, leading in time to the deaths of millions."

• The Last Wizard: The Wizard of the Grove Series, Book 2 By: Tanya Huff (1989), read by Chelsea Stephens for Blackstone -- "Tanya Huff—acclaimed author of the Blood Books series—continues her high fantasy duology that began with Child of the Grove, in which she explores just what happens when a hero completes their quest, but must go on living in the world they have saved."

• Play: Hexworld, Book 2 By: Kevin J. Anderson (2021), read by Neil Hellegers for Tantor -- "It was written in the Rules—Save the World! Over the past two years, a group of four players had given so much to their role-playing world that it had developed a magic of its own. The creatures, warriors, sorcerers, thieves—all came alive. Now, there is an odd connection between the gamers and their characters, splitting into factions to determine the fate of the Game itself, and both the inside and the outside worlds. One thing is for certain. Hexworld will never be the same."

• Histories: A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Short Story Collection By: John G. Hartness (2018), read by James Anderson Foster for Tantor -- "An attack in the dark. The loss of a love. Waking up hung over in a ditch. These are the things that make a hero, especially if that hero is Quincy Harker, immortal wizard, snarky bastard, and general badass."

INDIE WATCH:

• The Hidden Saint: A Novel By: Mark Levenson, read by Brent Halfyard for Dames of Detection -- "The historical horrors of eighteenth-century Eastern Europe are interwoven with fantastic creatures drawn from 3,500 years of Jewish myth and magic. For the first time, The Hidden Saint conjures up a very human origin story for one of the greatest superheroes of Jewish folklore: Rabbi Adam, famous for battling wizards, witches, and demons."

• Etched in Honor: Aspen Pack, Book 1 By: Carrie Ann Ryan, read by Aiden Snow and Kit Swann -- "The betrayal that had nearly taken out the Aspen Pack has passed, but the ramifications of starting with a new hierarchy are taking their toll on Audrey Porter. Once traitor to the former leaders for trying to save their people, she’s now the beta of the pack and must try to hold their shattered remains together. Only she never expected the man from her past to awaken memories long since buried."

MOST MISSING:

• The Problem with Prophecies by Scott Reintgen (Aladdin) -- "Most people inherit eye colors or heirlooms, but for Celia Cleary, the gift of prophecy has been passed down in her family for generations. And on the 4,444th day of her life, Celia will have her first vision. But nothing could have prepared her for what she sees—the quiet boy down the street, Jeffrey Johnson, is about to die."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 17 May 2022

Posted on 2022-05-17 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• All the Seas of the World By: Guy Gavriel Kay, read by Simon Vance for Penguin -- "Returning triumphantly to the brilliantly evoked near-Renaissance world of A Brightness Long Ago and Children of Earth and Sky, international bestselling author Guy Gavriel Kay deploys his signature "quarter turn to the fantastic" to tell a story of vengeance, power, and love."

• This Time Tomorrow: A Novel By: Emma Straub, read by Marin Ireland for Penguin -- "On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday."

• Another Now: A Novel By: Yanis Varoufakis, read by Kevin Kenerly for Blackstone -- "Imagine a world with no banks. No stock market. No tech giants. No billionaires. Imagine if Occupy and Extinction Rebellion actually won. In Another Now, world-famous economist Yanis Varoufakis shows us what such a world would look like. Far from being a fantasy, he describes how it could have come about—and might yet. But would we really want it?"

• Razzmatazz: A Novel By: Christopher Moore, read by Johnny Heller for Harper -- "Repeat New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore returns to the mean streets of San Francisco in this outrageous follow-up to his madcap novel Noir."

• River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile By: Candice Millard, read by Paul Michael for Random House -- "For millennia the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe–and extend their colonial empires."

MORE SCI-FI and FANTASY:

• The Stardust Thief By: Chelsea Abdullah, read by Nikki Massoud, Sean Rohani, and Rasha Zamamiri for Orbit -- "Inspired by stories from One Thousand and One Nights, this book weaves together the gripping tale of a legendary smuggler, a cowardly prince, and a dangerous quest across the desert to find a legendary, magical lamp."

• The Collarbound By: Rebecca Zahabi, read by Lara Sawalha and Peter Kenny for Gollancz -- "A man marked by magic. A woman marked by her past. On the other side of the Shadowpass, rebellion is brewing and refugees have begun to trickle into the city at the edge of the world. Looming high on the cliff is The Nest, a fortress full of mages who offer protection, but also embody everything the rebellion is fighting against: a strict hierarchy based on magic abilities. When Isha arrives as a refugee, she attempts to fit in amongst the other mages, but her Kher tattoo brands her as an outcast. She can't remember her past or why she has the tattoo. All she knows is that she survived. She doesn't intend to give up now. Tatters, who wears the golden collar of a slave, knows that this rebellion is different from past skirmishes. He was once one of the rebels, and technically, they still own him. He plans to stay in the shadows, until Isha appears in his tavern. He's never seen a human with a tattoo, and the markings look eerily familiar...."

• The Watchers By: A.M. Shine, read by Jacqueline Milne for Head of Zeus on WF Howes -- "You can't see them. But they can see you. This forest isn't charted on any map. Every car breaks down at its treeline. Mina's is no different. Left stranded, she is forced into the dark woodland only to find a woman shouting, urging Mina to run to a concrete bunker. As the door slams behind her, the building is besieged by screams."

• Out of the Earth: Out of the Earth Series, Book 1 By: Jake Bible, read by Eric Michael Summerer for Tantor -- "The Yellowstone supervolcano has begun to erupt, sending North America into chaos and the rest of the world into a panic. People are dangerous and desperate, knowing this will plunge the continent, and the world, into perpetual winter. Until they realize that the eruption is the least of their worries . . . Out of the massive chasm comes more than ash and lava. Giant monsters emerge, bent on destroying everything in sight."

• A Rumor of Kings: Kingdom of Ghosts, Book 1 By: Victor Gischler, read by John Lee for Tantor -- "He's a gambler, womanizer, opportunist, and inebriate . . . and the kingdom's only chance. Greymond, the Scattered Kingdom, has been without a king for hundreds of years, a place ruled by squabbling barons and dukes. Occasionally, rumors arise: a king of the old blood has returned to claim his throne. These days, such claims are met with groans and eye-rolls. Pretenders abound . . . and are generally ignored. But scheming powers are plotting, machinations that have been in the works for years, and this time . . . Enter Merrik Niles. A thief hired by dangerous people to steal a map, he instead keeps it for himself, hoping to follow it to some mysterious prize."

• Nine Tenths By: Jeff Macfee, read by Rob Brinkmann for OrangeSky -- "Augment phase technology was rare. The last appearance of anything resembling phase technology was 15 years ago. I knew the date.... It was the date of the Doctor Dimension repo. In a world full of “Augments”—humans who use technology to imbue themselves with superpowers of every sort—being an average man would seem a good way to keep out of trouble. Not so for repo man Gayle Harwood. It’s his job to seize enhancements from Augments who fall behind on the payments for their high-tech advantages. And they rarely part with them easily. Now an infamous job Gayle was a part of long ago has come back to haunt him."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• The Din of Celestial Birds By: Brian Evenson (1997), read by Jonathan Beville for Audible -- "Though published second after Altmann's Tongue, The Din of Celestial Birds (1997) consists of the best of Evenson's early stories. They take place in a country (perhaps several countries) that seems at once everywhere and nowhere, haunted by birds, ghosts, poverty, tyranny, and the permeability of the line between the living and the dead."

• Archform: Beauty By: L. E. Modesitt Jr. (2010), read by BJ Harrison and Tina Wolstencroft for Tantor -- "Four centuries in the future, the world is rich—nanomachines watch the health of the wealthy and manufacture food and gadgets for everybody—but no utopia, as we see in the lives of five very different people: a singing teacher, a news researcher, a police investigator, a politician, and a ruthless businessman."

• Armageddon's Children: Pre-Shannara: Genesis of Shannara, Book 1 By: Terry Brooks (2006), read by Dick Hill for Random House -- "The perfect opportunity for listeners unfamiliar with Brooks’s previous work to experience an author at the height of his considerable storytelling powers. It is a gripping chronicle of a once-familiar world now spun shockingly out of control, in which an extraordinary few struggle to salvage hope in the face of terrifying chaos."

• The Palace of Love: The Demon Princes Series, Book 3 By: Jack Vance, read by Stefan Rudnicki for Skyboat -- "Five intergalactic criminal masterminds raid the tranquil world of Mount Pleasant, leaving behind only ruin and slaughter—and the orphaned child Kirth Gersen, who comes to manhood swearing to take bloody revenge. Now Gersen roams the galaxy, bringing vengeance to the Demon Princes one by one, in Jack Vance’s classic series of hardboiled space opera."

SERIES WATCH:

• The Hourglass Throne: The Tarot Sequence, Book 3 By: K. D. Edwards, read by Josh Hurley for Audible -- "As Rune Saint John grapples with the challenges of assuming the Sun Throne, a powerful barrier appears around New Atlantis’ famed rejuvenation center. But who could have created such formidable magic...what do they want from the immortality clinic...and what remains of the dozens trapped inside?"

• Vampire Hunter D: Tale of the Dead Town: Vampire Hunter D Series, Book 4 By: Hideyuki Kikuchi, illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano, translated by Kevin Leahy, read by Paul Boehmer

• The Lost Journals: Zombie Fallout, Book 17 By: Mark Tufo, read by Sean Runnette

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 5 April 2022

Posted on 2022-04-05 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• Sea of Tranquility: A Novel By: Emily St. John Mandel, read by John Lee, Dylan Moore, Arthur Morey, and Kirsten Potter for Random House -- "The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the listener from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon 500 years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space."

• The Candy House: A Novel By: Jennifer Egan, read by Michael Boatman, Nicole Lewis, Thomas Sadoski, Colin Donnell, Griffin Newman, Rebecca Lowman, Jackie Sanders, Lucy Liu, Christian Barillas, Tara Lynne Barr, Alex Allwine, Emily Tremaine, Kyle Beltran, Dan Bittner, and Chris Henry Coffey for Simon and Schuster -- "From one of the most celebrated writers of our time, a literary figure with cult status, a “sibling novel” to her Pulitzer Prize- and ​NBCC Award-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad—an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the quest for authenticity and meaning in a world where memories and identities are no longer private."

• Aspects By: John M. Ford, with an introduction by Neil Gaiman, read by Steven Crossley for Recorded Books -- "The first publication of a lost fantasy novel. Aspects has sorcery and politics and romance in an alternate 18th century setting. At last, the final work of one of the greatest SF and fantasy authors of his time."

• The Unwritten Book: An Investigation By: Samantha Hunt, read by the author with Richard Ferrone for Blackstone -- "A genre-bending work of nonfiction that explores the broadest sense of ghosts, ghost stories, and haunting. What is it to be haunted, to be a ghost, to die, to live, to read? Books are ghosts; reading is communion with the dead. Alcohol is a way of communing, too, as well as a way of dying. Each chapter gathers subjects that haunt: dead people, the forest, the towering library of all those books we’ll never have time to read or write. Hunt, like a mad crossword puzzler, looks for patterns and clues."

• Portrait of a Thief: A Novel By: Grace D. Li, read by Eunice Wong and Austin Ku for Penguin -- "Ocean’s Eleven meets The Farewell in Portrait of a Thief, a lush, lyrical heist novel inspired by the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums, about diaspora, the colonization of art, and the complexity of the Chinese American identity."

• My Evil Mother: A Short Story By: Margaret Atwood, read by Hillary Huber for Amazon Original Stories -- "A bittersweet short story about mothers, daughters, and the witches’ brew of love - and control - that binds them, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments."

• In a Garden Burning Gold: A Novel By: Rory Power, read by Jesse Vilinsky for Random House -- "Twins imbued with incredible magic and near-immortality will do anything to keep their family in power—even if it tears the family apart—in the first book of a mythic epic fantasy duology."

• Four Treasures of the Sky: A Novel By: Jenny Tinghui Zhang, read by Katharine Chin for Macmillan -- "A propulsive and dazzling debut novel set against the backdrop of the Chinese Exclusion Act, about a Chinese girl fighting to claim her place in the 1880s American West."

• The Return of Faraz Ali: A Novel By: Aamina Ahmad, read by Homer Todiwala and Nina Wadia for Penguin -- "Sent back to his birthplace—Lahore’s notorious red-light district—to hush up the murder of a child prostitute, a man finds himself in an unexpected reckoning with his past."

• Braking Day By: Adam Oyebanji, read by Ariyan Kassam for Recorded Books -- "On a generation ship bound for a distant star, one engineer-in-training must discover the secrets at the heart of the voyage."

• The Bladed Faith By: David Dalglish, read by Devante Johnson and Imani Parks for Orbit -- "A usurped prince prepares to take up the mantel of a deadly assassin and reclaim his kingdom, his people, and his slain gods."

• Atomic Anna By: Rachel Barenbaum, read by Traci Odom, Natalie Naudus, Emily Lawrence, and Zachary Johnson for Grand Central -- "Three generations of women work together and travel through time to prevent the Chernobyl disaster and right the wrongs of their past."

• Stringers By: Chris Panatier, read by Greg Lockett for Angry Robot -- "Ben is not a genius, but he can spout facts about animals and wristwatches with the best of experts. He just can't explain how he knows any of it. He also knows about the Chime. What it is or why it's important he couldn't say. But this knowledge is about to get him in a whole heap of trouble."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• The Ninth Circle By: Brendan Deneen (2013), read by Curt Bonnem for Blackstone -- "The story of a teenager who runs away with a traveling circus in hopes of finding a better life after becoming enraptured by the bewitching blue eyes of a bearded lady, only to discover that nothing is ever quite what it seems."

SERIES WATCH:

• Dreams Bigger than Heartbreak: Unstoppable, Book 2 By: Charlie Jane Anders, read by Hynden Walch, Imani Jade Powers, and Sena Bryer for Macmillan Young Listeners -- "From the international best-selling author of All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders, comes Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak, the sequel to Victories Greater Than Death in the thrilling adventure Unstoppable series, set against an intergalactic war."

• Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments: Edinburgh Nights, Book 2 By: T. L. Huchu, read by Kimberly Mandindo for Macmillan

• Sisters of the Forsaken Stars: Sisters of the Vast Black, Book 2 By: Lina Rather, read by Adenrele Ojo for Recorded Books

• The Date from Hell: Not Your Average Hot Guy, Book 2 By: Gwenda Bond, read by Karissa Vacker and Graham Halstead for Random House

• A Matter of Death and Life: Gideon Sable, Book 2 By: Simon R. Green, read by Gideon Emery for Recorded Books

• Dark Moon: E-Day, Book 3 By: Nicholas Sansbury Smith, read by R.C. Bray for Recorded Books

• Robert Ludlum's The Treadstone Transgression: A Treadstone Novel, Book 3 By: Joshua Hood, read by Ron Butler for Penguin

• Youngbloods: Impostors, Book 4 By: Scott Westerfeld, read by Thérèse Plummer for Scholastic

TIE-IN WATCH:

• Sword of the White Horse: Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Book 1 By: Elsa Sjunneson, read by Moira Quirk for Recorded Books -- "Mercia, 878. Witch-warrior Niamh discovers a new order called the Hidden Ones is seeking to establish a foothold in Lunden. Her land is already scarred by Viking raiders, bloody wars, and clashing cultures. Determined to protect what remains of her homeland, she infiltrates this new group to discover whether they stand with her...or against her."

• Star Wars: Queen's Hope By: E. K. Johnston, read by Catherine Taber for Disney Lucasfilm -- "A peace-loving senator faces a time of war in another thrilling Padmé Amidala adventure."

• Star Wars Legends: Wedge's Gamble: Rogue Squadron, Book 2 By: Michael A. Stackpole (1996), read by Marc Thompson for Random House -- "The second book in the legendary series featuring the pilots of Rogue Squadron."

MOST MISSING:

• Y'all Means All: The Emerging Voices Queering Appalachia edited by Z. Zane McNeill (PM Press) -- "A celebration of the weird and wonderful aspects of a troubled region in all of their manifest glory! This collection is a thought-provoking hoot and a holler of “we’re queer and we’re here to stay, cause we’re every bit a piece of the landscape as the rocks and the trees” echoing through the hills of Appalachia and into the boardrooms of every media outlet and opportunistic author seeking to define Appalachia from the outside for their own political agendas."

• CassaDark by Alex J. Cavanaugh (Dancing Lemur Press) -- "Cavanaugh returns to the world of his Cassa Series...for a fourth inventive space opera." (PW)

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 29 March 2022

Posted on 2022-03-29 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

A week late (I was on vacation!) here we go...

PICKS:

• Sweep of Stars By: Maurice Broaddus, read by Emana Rachelle for Macmillan -- "The first in the Astra Black trilogy that explores the struggles of an empire. Epic in scope and intimate in voice, it follows members of the Muungano empire - a far-reaching coalition of city-states that stretches from O.E. (original Earth) to Titan - as it faces an escalating series of threats."

• The Long Weekend: A Novel By: Gilly Macmillan, read by Olivia Poulet for Harper -- "In this pulse-pounding thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Nanny, a group of women travel to the most remote place in England for a weekend escape, only to discover a startling note that one of their husbands will be killed before they return home - perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley."

• A House Between Earth and the Moon: A Novel By: Rebecca Scherm, read by Xe Sands for Penguin -- "The gripping story of one scientist in outer space, another who watches over him, the family left behind, and the lengths people will go to protect the people and planet they love."

• The Temps By: Andrew DeYoung, read by Paul Heitsch for Dreamscape -- "Jacob Elliot doesn’t want a temporary job in the mailroom at Delphi Enterprises, but after two post-college years of unpaid internships and living in his parents’ basement, he needs the work. Then, on his first day, the unthinkable happens: toxic gas descends on a meeting in Delphi’s outdoor amphitheater, killing all the regular employees and leaving Jacob stranded inside the vast office complex."

• Out There: Stories By: Kate Folk, read by Sophie Amoss, Hannah Choi, Michael Crouch, Will Damron, Renata Friedman, and Kristen Sieh for Random House -- "With a focus on the weird and eerie forces that lurk beneath the surface of ordinary experience, Kate Folk’s debut collection is perfectly pitched to the madness of our current moment. A medical ward for a mysterious bone-melting disorder is the setting of a perilous love triangle. A curtain of void obliterates the globe at a steady pace, forcing Earth’s remaining inhabitants to decide with whom they want to spend eternity. A man fleeing personal scandal enters a codependent relationship with a house that requires a particularly demanding level of care. And in the title story, originally published in The New Yorker, a woman in San Francisco uses dating apps to find a partner despite the threat posed by “blots”, preternaturally handsome artificial men dispatched by Russian hackers to steal data. Meanwhile, in a poignant companion piece, a woman and a blot forge a genuine, albeit doomed, connection."

• Pennyblade By: J. L. Worrad, read by Sarah Lambie for Blackstone -- "A sharp-tongued, disgraced noble-turned-mercenary has to stop the world collapsing into chaos in this gripping, savagely funny epic fantasy packed with unforgettable characters, for fans of Joe Abercrombie."

• Wild and Wicked Things By: Francesca May, read by Marisa Calin, Gemma Dawson, and Ralph Lister for Redhook -- "In the aftermath of World War I, a naive woman is swept into a glittering world filled with dark magic, romance, and murder in this lush and decadent debut."

• The Diamond Eye: A Novel by Kate Quinn, read by Saskia Maarleveld for Harper -- "An unforgettable World War II tale of a quiet librarian who becomes history's deadliest female sniper."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Changing Planes By: Ursula Le Guin (2003), read by Gabrielle de Cuir for Phoenix Books -- "Sita Dulip has missed her flight out of Chicago. But instead of listening to garbled announcements in the airport, she discovers a method of bypassing the crowds at the desks, a nasty lunch, whimpering children, their punitive parents, and the blue plastic chairs bolted to the floor: she changes planes—literally. Sita discovers entire planes of existence and visits societies not found on Earth—bizarre societies that share similarities with Earth's cultures and sometimes open doors into the alien."

• Cyber Mage By: Saad Z. Hossain (2021), read by Fajer Al-Kaisi for Scribd -- "Welcome to Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2089. A city notorious for its extreme population density has found an unexpected way to not just survive a global climate apocalypse, but thrive: pump enough biological nanotech into the neighborhood and all of the bodies together form a self-sustaining, and even temperate, microclimate. Of course, this means that millions of humans have to stay put in order to maintain a livable temperature, and people are getting restless. All of the nanotech has also led to some surprises: certain people no longer need food or water, while others can live without functioning organs. So the mercenary Djibrel has to carry a machete wherever he goes."

• Red Dust By: Yoss (2020), read by Javier Vazquez Jr for Scribd Audio -- "From beloved Cuban science fiction author Yoss comes a bitingly funny space-opera homage to Raymond Chandler, about a positronic robot detective on the hunt for some extra-dangerous extraterrestrial criminals."

• Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold! By: Terry Brooks (1986), read by Jeremy Arthur for Random House -- Supplanting the 2001 Cameron Beierle narration for Books in Motion and the 2008 Dick Hill narration for Brilliance Audio, a new production of Brooks' first non-Shannara series of 6 books: "Landover was a genuine magic kingdom, with fairy folk and wizardry, just as the advertisement has promised. But after he purchased it, Ben Holiday learned that there were a few details the ad had failed to mention. The kingdom was in ruin. The Barons refused to recognize a king, and the peasants were without hope. A dragon was laying waste the countryside, while an evil witch plotted to destroy everything."

• Hex and the City: Nightside Series, Book 4 By: Simon R. Green (2005), read by Dan Calley for Tantor

SERIES WATCH:

• The Chasm: The Seclusion Series, Book 2 By: Jacqui Castle, read by Lisa Beacom -- Sequel to 2020 INDIES Book of the Year Award Winner in Science Fiction ("In the year 2090, America has walled itself off from the rest of the world.") here, "When a familiar enemy resurfaces and she learns the previously unknown fate of a loved one, Patch must make a choice: stay and live a life of relative safety, or risk everything to expose the Board’s actions to the world."

• Until the Last of Me: Take Them to the Stars, Book Two By: Sylvain Neuvel, read by the author and Thomas Judd for Macmillan -- "A darkly satirical first contact thriller, as seen through the eyes of the women who make progress possible and the men who are determined to stop them."

• Race Rivalry: Gate Ghosts, Book 3 By: S.H. Jucha, read by Nicole Poole

• Forbidden: Forgotten Space, Book 3 By: M.R. Forbes, read by Dave Jackson

• World of Warcraft: Sylvanas By: Christie Golden, read by Patty Mattson -- "The epic, definitive story of Sylvanas Windrunner, one of World of Warcraft’s most enduring and iconic characters."

INDIE WATCH:

• Not a Lot of Reasons to Sing, But Enough by Kyle Tran Myhre, read by the author for Button Publishing -- "A sci-fi-flavored exploration of the role that art and artists play in resisting authoritarianism. Featuring new poems, theater elements, and Casper Pham‘s stunning visual art, the book follows two wandering poets as they make their way from village to village, across a prison colony moon full of exiled rebels, robots, and storytellers. Part post-apocalyptic road journal, part alternate universe ode to hip-hop, and part Letters to a Young Poet-style toolkit for emerging poets and aspiring movement-builders, it’s also a one-of-a-kind practitioners’ take on poetry, power, and possibility."

• Officer, Gentleman, Monster By: Alec Birri, read by Jonathan Keeble -- "What if Britain's royal family had been murdered after World War One? It’s 1919, and an atrocity with worldwide implications plunges a returning WWI veteran straight into a new fight—against the rise of the Nazis and a mysterious multiverse-bending professor determined to help the monsters. But why?" Keeble's Churchill is pretty fantastic here.

• An Unwitting Prince: New Home, Book 1 By: Sean Oswald, read by Peter Berkrot for Recorded Books -- "Coming of age is hard enough when you don't have to face monsters.... When your family ends up stranded in a magical world, you don't have much choice."

• A Soul as Cold as Frost: The Winter Souls, Book 1 By: Jennifer Kropf, read by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw -- "Sixteen-year-old Helen Bell understood tragedy better than most kids growing up—she knew what it was like to wear clothes from donation bins and be mocked by the beautiful girls in school. She thought these brutal experiences made her ready for anything. But, she wasn't ready for this. After an eccentric girl opens Helen's eyes to let her see the realm of winter—a world with intersects tucked carefully into the cracks of our own, where monarchs have risen and fallen, it's forbidden to mention the name of the dead king of winter, and the currency is gold rings—Helen comes to realize the downtown confrontation was more significant than what the eccentric girl let on."

• Legend of Horian and the Dycentian Blade By: Shah Jalal (2017), read by Nigel Peever (2019) for Pro Audio Voices -- "The Kingdom of Dycentia was tyrannized by the Dragonking. His supremacy unchallenged, no one was able to right the many wrongs, no one was brave enough to even try—until Horian rose from the shadows. How did this hero and his deep sense of duty save Dycentia?"

MOST MISSING:

• Conflict Born: Endless Skies, Book 1 by Richard Fife (Falstaff Books) -- "Hunting pirates in the gravity-free sky was a simple enough life for Captain Ellie Nivkah, but her latest contract has become complicated. A mysterious skyraker appeared from nowhere, destroyed her bounty, and nearly blew her out of the sky as well. Now, with a damaged ship, injured crew, and few options, she has to accept a noblewoman’s help and become embroiled in a conspiracy threatening both the empire she loathes and the skies she loves."

• Burning Shakespeare by A.J. Hartley (Falstaff Books) -- "How would the world look without the influence of Shakespeare pervading so many aspects of life and culture and belief? In a race against time, with the fate of lives and souls hanging in the balance, the forces of good and evil battle to save or destroy Shakespeare’s works. Which side works to which end? That is the question, isn’t it? Would we be better off without Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, and the others, or would the safety valve that theatrical expression provides back up into an explosion of apocalyptic proportions? Follow the cast of this tale--from university student to petty thief to talk show host--as they travel through time and space."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 22 March 2022

Posted on 2022-03-22 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• The Bone Orchard By: Sara A. Mueller, read by Ell Potter for Macmillan -- "A fascinating whodunit set in a lush gothic world of secrets and magic - where a dying emperor charges his favorite concubine with solving his own murder, and preventing the culprit, which undoubtedly is one of his three terrible sons, from taking control of an empire."

• Don't Know Tough By: Eli Cranor, read by the author for Recorded Books -- "In a tiny Arkansas town, high school football is religion, and there will always be people who will go to any lengths to protect their faith - even murder."

• French Braid: A Novel By: Anne Tyler, read by Kimberly Farr for Random House -- "From the beloved best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family’s foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild in our pandemic present."

• The Shadow Glass By: Josh Winning, read by Colin Mace for Recorded Books -- "A debut horror-fantasy, The Shadow Glass is Dark Crystal meets About a Boy in London, a race against the clock to stop bloodthirsty puppets from taking over the world."

• Curfew By: Jayne Cowie, read by Patience Tomlinson, Celine Buckens, and Olivia Poulet for Penguin -- "Think The Handmaid's Tale but with the women in charge, set in a world where all men are electronically tagged and placed under strict curfew, and the murder investigation threatening to undo it all."

• The City of Dusk By: Tara Sim, read by Nikki Patel for Orbit -- "This dark epic fantasy follows the heirs of four noble houses—each gifted with a divine power—as they form a tenuous alliance to keep their kingdom from descending into a realm-shattering war."

• The Impossible Us By: Sarah Lotz, read by Olivia Dowd, Clifford Samuel, and Paul Tyreman for Penguin -- "Bee thinks she has everything: a successful business repurposing wedding dresses, and friends who love and support her. She’s given up on finding love, but that’s fine. There’s always Tinder. Nick thinks he has nothing: His writing career has stalled after early promise, and his marriage has disintegrated, but that’s fine. There’s always gin. So when one of Nick’s emails, a viciously funny screed intended for a non-paying client, accidentally pings into Bee's inbox, they decide to keep the conversation going. After all, they never have to meet. But when their efforts to meet in real life fail spectacularly, Bee and Nick discover that they’re actually living in near-identical but parallel worlds."

• Beat the Devils By: Josh Weiss, read by Fred Berman for Grand Central -- "An inventive crime thriller set in an alternate United States during the height of the Red Scare - with shocking parallels to America in the 2020s."

• The Oceanography of the Moon: A Novel By: Glendy Vanderah, read by Brittany Pressley and Zachary Johnson for Brilliance -- "After the untimely deaths of her aunt and mother, young Riley Mays moved from Chicago to her cousins’ Wisconsin farm. Here she found solace in caring for her extraordinary adoptive brother, exploring the surrounding wild nature, and gazing at the mystical moon - a private refuge in which she hides from her most painful memories. But ten years later, now twenty-one, Riley feels too confined by the protective walls she’s erected around herself. When a stranger enters her family’s remote world, Riley senses something he’s hiding, a desire to escape that she understands well."

• Death Game Quality Assurance by Andrew Rowe, read by Dina Pearlman, Travis Baldree, Yoshi Amao, Andrew Call, Fiona Rene, Judy Alice Lee, Adam McArthur, and Jalen Gilbert for Audible Original Stories -- "Working as a quality-assurance grunt in the gaming industry sounds like fun, right? You get to play the coolest new games before anyone else. And all you have to do is to find, reproduce, and report bugs before the last pixel is locked in and the games are launched to an eager public. Sure, there’s the unpaid overtime, the office politics, and the ever-present threat of layoffs. But you get to game! But when a small third-party testing team is assigned to work on Blade Skill Online—a highly anticipated virtual reality MMORPG—they quickly find that some bugs are more serious than others, and some truly insidious features are "working as intended". If our intrepid QA team wants to survive the launch cycle, they're going to have to break this game. Hard."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• The Ones That Got Away: Stories By: Stephen Graham Jones (2010), read by Rich Miller for Tantor -- "A boy's summer romance doesn't end in that good kind of heartbreak, but in blood. A girl on a fishing trip makes a friend in the woods who's exactly what she needs, except then that friend follows her back to the city. A father hears a voice through his baby monitor that shouldn't be possible, but now he can't stop listening. A woman finds out that the shipwreck wasn't the disaster, but who she's shipwrecked with. A big brother learns just what he will, and won't, trade for one night of sleep. From prison guards making unholy alliances to snake-oil men in the Old West doling out justice, these stories carve down into the body of the mind, into our most base fears and certainties, and there's no anesthetic. Turn the light on if you want, but that just makes for more shadows."

SERIES WATCH:

• Kingdoms of Death: Sun Eater, Book 4 By: Christopher Ruocchio, read by Samuel Roukin for Recorded Books -- "The fourth novel of the galaxy-spanning Sun Eater series merges the best of space opera and epic fantasy, as Hadrian Marlowe continues down a path that can only end in fire." (Technically delayed to Thursday for some reason, but it's my pre-order this week!)

• The Liar's Knot: Rook & Rose, Book 2 By: M. A. Carrick, read by Nikki Massoud for Orbit -- "A clever con artist, a legendary vigilante, and a dashing crime lord must fight to free their city from the clutches of a dark and ancient magic."

• Raiser of Gales: Vampire Hunter D, Volume 2 By: Hideyuki Kikuchi, illustranted by Yoshitaka Amano, translated by Kevin Leahy, and read by Paul Boehmer for Tantor

• The Hidden Kingdom: Kingdom of the White Sea, Book 3 By: Sarah M. Cradit, read by Kimberly M. Wetherell for OrangeSky -- "A kingless crown will fall. A crownless kingdom will rise."

INDIE WATCH:

• The Ghosts of Thorwald Place By: Helen Power, read by Rachel Fulginiti -- "Rachel Drake is on the run from the man who killed her husband. She never leaves her safe haven in an anonymous doorman building, until one night a phone call sends her running. On her way to the garage, she is murdered in the elevator. But her story doesn’t end there. She finds herself in the afterlife, tethered to her death spot, her reach tied to the adjacent apartments."

• Lost Soul: A LitRPG Cultivation Series: The Tian Trilogy, Book 1 By: V.A. Lewis, read by Emily Woo Zeller for Podium -- "Death is a disease, and there is only one cure. Tian, a Cultivator at the precipice of ascension, is thwarted in her quest for immortality. Defeated, she escapes to another world with Levels, Classes, magic, and monsters. She becomes a Lost Soul. Her core begins to dwindle, but she does not abandon her goal. Working with a group of rebels in this new world, she opposes the unkillable tyrant Galgom to learn his secrets. Against his army of machines wielding laser guns and laser swords, she will cultivate her new powers, achieving Feats as she seeks her antidote: Immortality."

MOST MISSING:

• The Adventurists: and Other Stories by Richard Butner (Small Beer Press) -- "Remember the girl you once knew, the theater kid? Now she’s become the Queen, and you might need to rescue her. There’s the historic house, where someone once saw a ghost and you almost fell in love. An ornithopter hangs in the lobby of your corporate workplace: your co-worker thinks he might be able to operate it. Once you found a tunnel under your old high school, and couldn’t resist going to see where it led. Sometimes a door will open into a new world, sometimes into the past. Putting on a costume might be the restart you are half hoping for. There are things buried here. You might want to save them. You might want to get out of the way."

• Utopias of the Third Kind by Vandana Singh (PM Press/Outspoken Authors) -- "One of contemporary SF’s most original and compelling voices, Vandana Singh is a professor of physics who weaves the ancient wisdom of her native India and the hard truths of quantum science into stories that speak to the complex wonders of today’s world. This collection includes both her fiction and her report on the Utopian experiments that are finding new ways to save our unraveling dystopia."

• Comeuppance Served Cold by Marion Deeds (Tordotcom) -- "Seattle, 1929—a bitterly divided city overflowing with wealth, violence, and magic. A respected magus and city leader intent on criminalizing Seattle’s most vulnerable magickers hires a young woman as a lady’s companion to curb his rebellious daughter’s outrageous behavior. The widowed owner of a speakeasy encounters an opportunity to make her husband’s murderer pay while she tries to keep her shapeshifter brother safe. A notorious thief slips into the city to complete a delicate and dangerous job that will leave chaos in its wake. One thing is for certain—comeuppance, eventually, waits for everyone."

• Born for Trouble: The Further Adventures of Hap and Leonard by Joe R. Lansdale (Tachyon) -- "In Edgar Award winner Joe R. Lansdale’s newest Hap and Leonard story collection, the boys are back with more righteous ass-kickings, highly improbable adventures, and disastrous fishing trips."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 15 March 2022

Posted on 2022-03-15 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• The Kaiju Preservation Society By: John Scalzi, read by Wil Wheaton for Audible -- "When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food-delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls “an animal rights organization”. Tom’s team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on. What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world. They're the universe's largest and most dangerous panda, and they're in trouble. It's not just the Kaiju Preservation Society who's found their way to the alternate world. Others have, too. And their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die."

• The Cartographers: A Novel by Peng Shepherd, read by Emily Woo Zeller, Nancy Wu, Karen Chilton, Ron Butler, Neil Hellegers, Jason Culp, and Brittany Pressley for Harper -- "From the critically acclaimed author of The Book of M, a highly imaginative thriller about a young woman who discovers that a strange map in her deceased father’s belongings holds an incredible, deadly secret - one that will lead her on an extraordinary adventure and to the truth about her family’s dark history."

• When We Were Birds: A Novel By: Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, read by Sydney Darius and Wendell Manwarren for Random House -- "A mythic love story set in Trinidad, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's radiant debut introduces two unforgettable outsiders brought together by their connection with the dead."

• Ocean State By: Stewart O'Nan, read by Sara Young for Dreamscape -- "In the first line of Ocean State, we learn that a high school student was murdered, and we find out who did it. The story that unfolds from there with incredible momentum is thus one of the buildup to and fallout from the murder, told through the alternating perspectives of the four women at its heart."

• Drowning Practice: A Novel By: Mike Meginnis, read by Stacey Glemboski for Harper -- "One night, everyone on Earth has the same dream - a dream of being guided to a watery death by a loved one on November 1. When they wake up, most people agree: After Halloween, the world will end. In the wake of this haunting dream and saddled with its uncertainty, Lyd and her daughter, Mott, navigate a changed world, wrestling with how to make choices when you really don’t know what comes next."

• Secret Identity: A Novel By: Alex Segura, read by Aida Reluzco for Macmillan -- "It’s 1975, and the comic book industry is struggling, but Carmen Valdez doesn’t care. She’s an assistant at Triumph Comics, which doesn’t have the creative zeal of Marvel nor the buttoned-up efficiency of DC, but it doesn’t matter. Carmen is tantalizingly close to fulfilling her dream of writing a superhero book. That dream is nearly a reality when one of the Triumph writers enlists her help to create a new character, which they call “The Lethal Lynx”, Triumph's first female hero. But her colleague is acting strangely and asking to keep her involvement a secret. And then he’s found dead, with all of their scripts turned into the publisher without her name. Carmen is desperate to piece together what happened to him, to hang on to her piece of the Lynx, which turns out to be a runaway hit. But that’s complicated by a surprise visitor from her home in Miami, a tenacious cop who is piecing everything together too quickly for Carmen, and the tangled web of secrets and resentments among the passionate eccentrics who write comics for a living."

• A Black and Endless Sky By: Matthew Lyons, read by Hillary Huber, Neil Hellegers, Amara Jasper, Pat Grimes, and Qarie Marshall for Dreamscape -- "Siblings Jonah and Nell Talbot used to be inseparable, but ever since Jonah suddenly blew town 12 years ago, they couldn’t be more distant. Now, in the wake of Jonah’s divorce, they embark on a cross-country road trip back to their hometown of Albuquerque, hoping to mend their broken relationship along the way. But when a strange accident befalls Nell at an abandoned industrial site somewhere in the Nevada desert, she begins experiencing ghastly visions and exhibiting terrifying, otherworldly symptoms. As their journey through the desolate American Southwest reveals the grotesque change happening within his sister, one thing becomes clear to Jonah: It’s not only Nell in there anymore."

• Ogres By: Adrian Tchaikovsky, read by Emma Newman for Penguin -- "Ogres are bigger than you. Ogres are stronger than you. Ogres rule the world. It's always idyllic in the village until the landlord comes to call. Because the landlord is an Ogre. And Ogres rule the world, with their size and strength and appetites. It's always been that way. It's the natural order of the world. And they only eat people sometimes. But when the headman's son, Torquell, dares lift his hand against the landlord's son, he sets himself on a path to learn the terrible truth about the Ogres, and about the dark sciences that ensured their rule."

• Mage of Fools By: Eugen Bacon, read by Kofi Boakye for Recorded Books -- "Mafinga's malevolent king dislikes books and, together with his sorcerer Atari, has collapsed the environment to become almost uninhabitable. The sun has killed all the able men, including Jasmin’s husband Godi. But Jasmin has Godi’s secret story machine that tells of a better world, far different from the wastelands of Mafinga. Jasmin’s crime for possessing the machine and its forbidden literature filled with subversive text is punishable by death. Fate grants a cruel reprieve in the service of a childless queen who claims Jasmin’s children as her own. Jasmin is powerless - until she discovers secrets behind the king and his sorcerer."

• The Carnival of Ash By: Tom Beckerlegge, read by Nathaniel Priestley for Penguin -- "Cadenza is the City of Words, a city run by poets, its skyline dominated by the steepled towers of its libraries, its heart beating to the stamp and thrum of the printing presses in the Printing Quarter. Carlo Mazzoni, a young wordsmith, arrives at the city gates intent on making his name as the bells ring out with the news of the death of the city's poet-leader. Instead, he finds himself embroiled with the intrigues of a city in turmoil, the looming prospect of war with their rival Venice ever-present. A war that threatens not only to destroy Cadenza but remove it from history altogether...."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• The Trees: A Novel By: Percival Everett (2021, Graywolf Press), read by Bill Andrew Quinn for Tantor -- "An uncanny literary thriller addressing the painful legacy of lynching in the US, by the author of Telephone."

• The Gospel Singer By: Harry Crews (1968), with a foreword by Kevin Wilson, read by Matt Godfrey for Penguin -- "When a local man returns to Enigma, Georgia, as a successful traveling evangelist, the townspeople, who idolize him, begin to attribute him with healing powers he knows he doesn’t have."

• Just an Ordinary Day: Stories By: Shirley Jackson (1997, posthumous), read by Kirsten Potter, Mark Deakins, Kimberly Farr, Linda Jones, Karissa Vacker, and Gary Bennett for Random House -- "Acclaimed in her own time for her short story “The Lottery” and her novel The Haunting of Hill House - classics ranking with the work of Edgar Allan Poe - Shirley Jackson blazed a path for contemporary writers with her explorations of evil, madness, and cruelty. Soon after her untimely death in 1965, Jackson’s children discovered a treasure trove of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, many of which are brought together in this remarkable collection."

• Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings By: Shirley Jackson (2015, posthumous), read by Kirsten Potter, Gary Bennett, Mark Deakins, Kimberly Farr, and Linda Jones for Random House -- "Brings together the deliciously eerie short stories Jackson is best known for, along with frank, inspiring lectures on writing and comic essays about her large, boisterous family. Jackson’s landscape here is most frequently domestic: dinner parties and bridge, household budgets and homeward-bound commutes, children’s games and neighborly gossip. But this familiar setting is also her most subversive: She wields humor, terror, and the uncanny to explore the real challenges of marriage, parenting, and community - the pressure of social norms, the veins of distrust in love, the constant lack of time and space."

SERIES WATCH:

• The League of Gentlewomen Witches: Dangerous Damsels, Book 2 By: India Holton, read by Elizabeth Knowelden

• The Banneret: Blood of Kings, Book 2 By: Duncan M. Hamilton, read by John Lee

• The Observer Effect: The Joseph Bridgeman Series, Book 3 By: Nick Jones, read by Ray Porter

• Memory's Legion: The Complete Expanse Story Collection By: James S. A. Corey, read by Jefferson Mays, Daniel Abraham, and Ty Franck -- Includes a new novella, The Sins of Our Fathers, which is also available standalone

• Litany of Dreams: Arkham Horror Series By: Ari Marmell, read by Todd Menesses for Tantor -- "Dark incantations expose the minds of Miskatonic University students to supernatural horrors, in this chilling mystery novel of Arkham Horror."

INDIE WATCH:

• Autonomy By: Victoria Hetherington, read by Sierra Kline for OrangeSky -- "In a near future ravaged by illness, one woman and her AI companion enter a dangerous bubble of the superrich."

• Goodreads Best Short Stories 2021 by Beatrice Williams, Catherine Habbie, Emily Zanker, H. Seeking, Justin Tuijl, M. Ainihi, and Walter Bayrhamer, read by Alex Lee -- "This collection of stories from Goodreads bares the truth of the pandemic in 500 words and more. It exposes the ugly face of the epidemic and the havoc it unleashed on our collective minds. Enjoy the works of eight authors as they depict their version of the epic times we have lived in and survived to tell the tale."

• Trojan Nightmare: Apocalypse Cultivation, Book 1 By: Blaise Corvin, read by Luke Daniels for Recorded Books -- "Post-apocalypse America is unrecognizable from the past. Jake survives by working as the leader of a scavenging adventuring team. A former mage, now he follows the strange path of cultivation, taught to him by a mysterious traveler. As far as he knows, he is one of the only people on Earth with this power."

Posted in Release Week

Release Week: 8 March 2022

Posted on 2022-03-08 at 12:00 by Samuel Montgomery-Blinn

PICKS:

• Booth By: Karen Joy Fowler, read by January LaVoy for Penguin -- "In 1822, a secret family moves into a secret cabin some 30 miles northeast of Baltimore, to farm, to hide, and to bear 10 children over the course of the next 16 years. Junius Booth - breadwinner, celebrated Shakespearean actor and master of the house in more ways than one - is at once a mesmerizing talent and a man of terrifying instability. One by one the children arrive, as year by year, the country draws frighteningly closer to the boiling point of secession and civil war. As the tenor of the world shifts, the Booths emerge from their hidden lives to cement their place as one of the country’s leading theatrical families. But behind the curtains of the many stages they have graced, multiple scandals, family triumphs, and criminal disasters begin to take their toll, and the solemn siblings of John Wilkes Booth are left to reckon with the truth behind the destructively specious promise of an early prophecy."

• Last Exit By: Max Gladstone, read by Natalie Naudus for Recorded Books -- "American Gods meets The Dark Tower in a dark, contemporary fantasy of the open road, alternate realities, and self-discovery, from a Locus-nominated and Hugo and Nebula Award-winning writer."

• Quantum Girl Theory: A Novel By: Erin Kate Ryan, read by Saskia Maarleveld, Joniece Abbott-Pratt, and P.J. Ochlan for Random House -- "Mary Garrett has a gift for finding missing girls, a special kind of clairvoyance she calls “the sight”. Lured by a poster and the promise of a reward, she arrives at a small town in the Jim Crow South to discover that not one but three girls have vanished - two of whom are Black and whose disappearances have gone uninvestigated outside their own community. She sets out to find them."

• The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories: A Collection of Chinese Science Fiction and Fantasy in Translation from a Visionary Team of Female and Nonbinary Creators edited by Yu Chen and Regina Kanyu Wang, read by Katharine Chin for Macmillan -- "From an award-winning team of authors, editors, and translators comes a groundbreaking short story collection that explores the expanse of Chinese science fiction and fantasy."

• Finding Tamika By: Erika Alexander, Kevin Hart, Charlamagne Tha God, Ben Arnon, Rebkah Howard, David Person, James T. Green, SBH Productions, and Color Farm Media, read by Erika Alexander for Audible Originals -- "Black girls and women disappear every day, but not without a trace. Join actress and activist Erika Alexander in a neo-noir, true crime drama as she searches for Tamika Huston, a 24-year-old Black woman from Spartanburg, SC who went missing in 2004. Her case became a rallying cry for other missing Black women in America and led to a growing demand to expose a system that ignores missing girls and women of color."

• Run, Rose, Run: A Novel By: James Patterson and Dolly Parton, read by Dolly Parton, Kelsea Ballerini, James Fouhey, Kevin T. Collins, Peter Ganim, Luis Moreno, Soneela Nankani, Ronald Peet, Robert Petkoff, Ella Turenne, and Emily Woo Zeller for Little, Brown and Company -- "From America’s most beloved superstar and its greatest storyteller - a thriller about a young singer-songwriter on the rise and on the run, and determined to do whatever it takes to survive."

• One for All By: Lillie Lainoff, read by Mara Wilson for Recorded Books -- "One for All is an OwnVoices, gender-bent retelling of The Three Musketeers, in which a girl with a chronic illness trains as a Musketeer and uncovers secrets, sisterhood, and self-love."

• The Ogress and the Orphans By: Kelly Barnhill, read by Suzanne Toren for Workman -- "Stone-in-the-Glen, once a lovely town, has fallen on hard times. Fires, floods, and other calamities have caused the people to lose their library, their school, their park, and even their neighborliness. The people put their faith in the Mayor, a dazzling fellow who promises he alone can help. After all, he is a famous dragon slayer. (At least, no one has seen a dragon in his presence.) Only the clever children of the Orphan House and the kindly Ogress at the edge of town can see how dire the town’s problems are. Then one day a child goes missing from the Orphan House. At the Mayor’s suggestion, all eyes turn to the Ogress. The Orphans know this can’t be: the Ogress, along with a flock of excellent crows, secretly delivers gifts to the people of Stone-in-the-Glen. But how can the Orphans tell the story of the Ogress’ goodness to people who refuse to listen? And how can they make their deluded neighbors see the real villain in their midst?"

• The Damage Done By: Michael Landweber, read by Anna Caputo, Gary Bennett, Senn Annis, Raymond J. Lee, Cary Hite, J. D. Jackson, Dominique Franceschi-Cybulski, and Zac Aleman for Dreamscape -- "Imagine a world devoid of violence - a world where fists can’t hit, guns don’t kill, and bombs can’t destroy. In this tantalizing novel of possibility, this has - suddenly and inexplicably - become our new reality. The US president must find a new way to wage war. The pope ponders whether the Commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is still relevant."

• Sam Gunn Jr. By: Ben Bova, read by Stefan Rudnicki for Blackstone -- "The final completed novel by Ben Bova. Intergalactic explorer, venture capitalist, and Casanova Sam Gunn may be gone, but his legacy lives on in his son, Sam Gunn Jr. In his first-ever adventure, Sam Gunn Jr. sets off to fulfill his father’s left-behind mission of interplanetary enterprising. He soon learns his father’s shoes are tough to fill, but he is up for the task. Junior takes a journey through the stars, falling in love with beautiful women and leaving his unique mark everywhere he ventures. Soon, however, this trip through the universe takes a dangerous turn when Junior lands on Saturn and learns about a recent scientific discovery that will change everything, possibly forever."

• A Far Wilder Magic By: Allison Saft, read by Jesse Vilinsky for Macmillan Young Listeners -- "When Margaret Welty spots the legendary hala, the last living mythical creature, she knows the Halfmoon Hunt will soon follow. Whoever is able to kill the hala will earn fame and riches, and unlock an ancient magical secret. While Margaret is the best sharpshooter in town, only teams of two can register, and she needs an alchemist. Weston Winters isn’t an alchemist - yet. He's been fired from every apprenticeship he's landed, and his last chance hinges on Master Welty taking him in. But when Wes arrives at Welty Manor, he finds only Margaret. She begrudgingly allows him to stay, but on one condition: He must join the hunt with her. Although they make an unlikely team, they soon find themselves drawn to each other. As the hunt looms closer and tensions rise, Margaret and Wes uncover dark magic that could be the key to winning the hunt - if they survive that long."

BACKLIST WATCH:

• Litany of the Long Sun: Book of the Long Sun, Books 1 and 2, and Epiphany of the Long Sun: Book of the Long Sun, Books 3 and 4 By: Gene Wolfe, read by Jason Culp for Audible -- "Litany of the Long Sun contains the full texts of Nightside the Long Sun and Lake of the Long Sun that together make up the first half of The Book of the Long Sun. The two novels combined in the Epiphany of the Long Sun oomnibus (Caldé of the Long Sun and Exodus from the Long Sun) comprise the second half of Gene Wolfe's series The Book of the Long Sun. This great work is set on a huge generation starship in the same future as the classic Book of the New Sun."

SERIES WATCH:

• Crowbones: The World of the Others, Book 3 By: Anne Bishop, read by Alexandra Harris for Penguin

• Constance Verity Destroys the Universe: Constance Verity, Book 3 By: A. Lee Martinez, read by Cynthia Farrell for Recorded Books

• Star Father: Star Mother, Book 2 By: Charlie N. Holmberg, read by Karen Chilton for Brilliance

• Nightwatch on the Hinterlands: Arithmancy and Anarchy: The Weep Series, Book 1 By: K. Eason, read by Nicole Poole for Tantor

INDIE WATCH:

• Eye of the Wolf: The Lords of Alekka, Book 1 By: A.E. Rayne, read by Kate Reading for Podium -- "A lord forsaken by the gods. A mysterious woman with many secrets. A kingdom on the brink of war...."

• Biomancer: Biomancer, Book 1 By: Shemer Kuznits, read by Luke Daniels for Podium -- "John Slater never had any interest in video games. Now he’s got to beat one to save his brother."

• The Primal Hunter: A LitRPG Adventure By: Zogarth, read by Travis Baldree for Aethon -- "On just another average day, Jake finds himself in a forest filled with monsters, dangers, and opportunity...."

MOST MISSING:

• Hex: Darkland Tales by Jenni Fagan (Polygon) -- "IT’S THE 4TH OF DECEMBER 1591. On this, the last night of her life, in a prison cell several floors below Edinburgh’s High Street, convicted witch Geillis Duncan receives a mysterious visitor – Iris, who says she comes from a future where women are still persecuted for who they are and what they believe. As the hours pass and dawn approaches, Geillis recounts the circumstances of her arrest, brutal torture, confession and trial, while Iris offers support, solace – and the tantalising prospect of escape."

• Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms edited by John Joseph Adams (Grim Oak Press) -- "The need to seek and discover the unknown is embedded in who we are, no matter the culture or era. To celebrate this sense of wonder, award-winning editor John Joseph Adams has gathered together some of the best SF&F writers working today, collecting adventure and mystery in this spectacular anthology. With original contributions from Kate Elliott, Tobias S. Buckell, Dexter Palmer, E. Lily Yu, Jonathan Maberry, and a dozen more, there are short stories sure to enthrall every reader."

Posted in Release Week