Donald Maass Literary Agency

Publishers Weekly: The mysterious Need network, an anonymous social network that springs up overnight, claims that it can fulfill the deepest desires of the students at Nottawa High School. At the center of the storm is 16-year-old Kaylee Dunham; while her classmates mainly seek material gain, her priorities lie with finding her younger brother a kidney donor. Need’s users must follow its directions like lemmings, and a web of deceit and cruel pranks quickly becomes dangerous and deadly. Charbonneau (the Testing […]

B&N SF&F Blog: The Traitor Baru Cormorant is riveting, immersive, and tough to talk about without spoilers. To give away too much is to risk losing some of the tension that will keep you compulsively turning pages, though the ending is less a surprise than an inevitability toward which you careen helplessly. The writing is so tight, the plot so well-constructed, that if you were to surreptitiously read the ending first­–or the original short story of the same name­–you would still […]

Kirkus: Extraterrestrials offer depressed, acerbic Henry Denton the chance to save the Earth from certain destruction by pressing a red button. The stalk-eyed, variably tentacled sluggers’ repeated, humiliating abductions and habit of dumping Henry in strange places with minimal clothing make Henry’s life tough, but the focus here is less on the aliens and more on the button. Bullied at school, pushed around at home, and reeling from his once-boyfriend’s suicide, Henry doesn’t think he wants to press it. “If you […]

Tor.com: Be she traitor or patriot by the end of the book — ­to who might be the more pertinent question­–Baru Cormorant must be the most memorable character fantasy fiction will feature in 2015. Happily, the narrative Dickinson designs around her is every inch as rich and convincing. His debut is paced like a race­–excepting some slight slowdown in advance of a surprisingly action-packed last act–­and never less than poetically put. All told, The Traitor Baru Cormorant is a devastating debut­–and […]

Locus: One of McCammon’s great achievements in this novel is the horrifying sense he conveys of humanity reduced to the equivalent of so many ants in a field, being stomped on by warring combatants. The scenes of battle between the two armies and the firepower and weapons they yield are spectacular and vivid. […] Readers familiar with Stinger will find that many of the relationships, interactions, and plot twists in that novel resonate with those in The Border, though without […]

Booklist:  Self-hating teenager Henry is caught in an existential trap: finding life to be absurd, he thinks humans are not the apex of civilization—on the contrary, they’re no more significant than ants. Are they even worth saving? A relevant question, for Henry has a secret: the aliens who have abducted him a dozen times or more have told him when the world will end. Strangely, they’ve also given him the choice to prevent doomsday; he can simply press a button […]

Booklist: Butcher, the best-selling author of the Dresden Files, now launches the Cinder Files, a new epic fantasy, steampunk hybrid series that has shades of both Naomi Novik and Cherie Priest, set in a world where people live in highly developed societies housed in spires that protrude into the sky. Each spire has its own guard and fleets of airships to use for trade and defense—fleets made up of Master and Commander–style ships that float through the mist-shrouded skies, powered by […]

The hard cover of Star Wars: Aftermath debuts at #4 on the New York Times Best Seller list and at #4 on the USA Today Bestseller List! 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, […]

Nerdist: Each sentence, each description of action, each joke — it all hits you right between the eyes in the exciting head rush sort of way. No space is wasted, and we dive deep inside the inner workings of our lead characters. […] Wendig neatly captures the current states of the Empire and Rebel Alliance and does so through flawed, real, and nuanced characters. His writing gets you up close and personal with anyone we come in contact with, whether we spend […]

RT Book Reviews:  The Matchmaking Babies series continues as Lord Arthur Trelawney decides to spend more time with the rescued orphans staying at his family’s estate. Arthur believes it a splendid idea, particularly if he courts a widowed acquaintance with two babies. However, that was before it put him in close proximity with lovely nurse Maris Oliver. Maris is drawn to Arthur, but she also knows he’s getting ready to woo someone else. Not only that, but they are both hiding […]