Starburst: For all of Foreign Devils’ magic, mystery and monsters, it’s a novel about people, and how they react to forces beyond their control and the machinations of those in power. Despite its events potentially having repercussions throughout the world, it never stops feeling like the most important aspects are the individual journeys of those embarked upon them, and it’s precisely this personal perspective that keeps the book endlessly captivating.
Publishers Weekly: This heartbreaking adventure is a tragedy of science and faith. Renata “Ren” Ghali followed her lover, Lee Suh-Mi, on a voyage to the stars with 1,000 other colonists. They found a new world, but Suh-Mi went into the alien structure known as God’s City, and she never came back. In the 22 years since, Ren has contented herself with her work as a technician. She lives at the foot of God’s City and seeks balance between her secret […]
Ada Palmer’s debut TOO LIKE THE LIGHTNING, set in 2454, about how a brilliant reformed criminal, a child with a god-like gift, and the theft of a piece of paper unravel the world in seven days, to Patrick Nielsen Hayden at Tor, in a four-book deal, for publication in May 2016, by Amy Boggs.
B&N SF&F Blog: I like my fantasy quirky, irreverent, and constantly working to surprise me. Which is why I loved The Aeronaut’s Windlass, the first volume in Jim Butcher’s new series, The Cinder Spires. […] The best books give us characters who live on in our minds long after the covers have closed. In Windlass, every cast member is fun, funny, and uniquely courageous. You’ll meet aeronauts, soldiers, aristocrats, the half-human “warrior-born,” wizard, and an entire civilization of talking cats, […]
Publishers Weekly: Christopher (The Machine Awakes) merges pulp SF and crime novels in the pleasing launch of his L.A. trilogy. In an alternate 1960s America, Raymond is a robot PI, the last of his kind. He’s hired to find a missing movie star with secrets as deep as Raymond’s own. Raymond and his computer partner, Ada, would be at home in an Asimovian retro-future, but Asimov’s three laws of robotics are broken with impunity. The pacing, banter, and descriptions are classic […]
Star Wars: Aftermath hit the New York Times Best Seller list for the fourth week in a row, this time at #16! As the Empire reels from its critical defeats at the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance—now a fledgling New Republic—presses its advantage by hunting down the enemy’s scattered forces before they can regroup and retaliate. But above the remote planet Akiva, an ominous show of the enemy’s strength is unfolding. Out on a lone reconnaissance mission, pilot Wedge Antilles watches Imperial Star […]
NPR: To read The Traitor Baru Cormorant is to sink inexorably into a book that should not be anywhere near as absorbing as it is — to realize that the white-knuckled grip with which you hold it was provoked by several consecutive pages of loans, taxes and commodity trading. It seems impossible that the economics of a fantasy world should be so viscerally riveting, but they are, and it’s incredible: You think you’re on solid ground right up until you […]
S.B. Divya’s debut novella, MINERVA’S CHALLENGE, about a race across the Sierra Nevadas that attracts the wealthiest bio-engineered contestants, featuring a girl who cobbles together her enhancements from others’ cast offs and and has no chance of winning but receives surprising help, exploring the various facets of privilege, to Carl Engle-Laird at Tor.com by Cameron McClure.
Kirkus: A minute-by-minute account of mass murder at a high school by a former student. Four students from a range of different backgrounds at Alabama’s Opportunity High, all of whom have a history with Tyler, the gunman, take turns telling this harrowing story in the first person. They include his sister, Autumn, and her clandestine girlfriend, Sylv, who have only each other for solace as the home lives of both are in upheaval. Tomás, Sylv’s brother, recounts his and his […]
School Library Journal: When a new social network pops up promising to fulfill any need, 16-year-old Kaylee Dunham knows it’s too good to be true. […] Charbonneau delivers a tightly paced thriller packed with enough tension to keep teens hooked until the dramatic finale. Readers will root for Kaylee as she faces down hateful classmates, a mother who doesn’t trust her, and an out-of-control social network bent on turning everyone she knows into a killer. Told through the perspective of multiple students […]