Donald Maass Literary Agency

DMLA congratulates its authors whose work made Publishers Weekly’s Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror Books of 2013 list: American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett Conservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha Lee 21st Century Science Fiction, including stories by Elizabeth Bear, Yoon Ha Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Karl Schroeder

Booklist: When Penelope Sparrow wakes up in the hospital, she’s told she fell 14 stories and is lucky to be alive. But with bruises and pain and a broken bone, Penny faces the possibility of life without dance. All Penny ever wanted was to be a dancer, but her five-foot, eight-inch stature and wide hips (despite a lifetime of eating just enough “to stay on the right side” of anorexia) meant rejection from the traditional five-foot, five-inch and 95-pound-worshiping dance world.

Bulgarian rights to Steve Bein’s DAUGHTER OF THE SWORD and YEAR OF THE DEMON (books 1 & 2 of the Fated Blades) to Ciela Norma by Prava I Prevodi in association with Cameron McClure. Italian rights to Steve Bein’s DAUGHTER OF THE SWORD and YEAR OF THE DEMON (books 1 & 2 of the Fated Blades) to Fanucci by Stefania Fietta at Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale in association with Cameron McClure. German rights to Jim Butcher’s SKIN GAME and SIDE JOBS (book 15 […]

Publishers Weekly: Charbonneau continues the trilogy that began with The Testing with this densely plotted follow-up, a tense, paranoid story in which layers of treachery, deceit, and danger are peeled away one by one. Having survived the lethal Testing, which forces the best and brightest of a ravaged and rebuilding future America to fight for survival, and having completed her initial courses at the University in Tosu City, Cia Vale is ready to discover what field of study she’ll be assigned.

Kirkus: Calling itself a “novel-in-stories,” this debut collection of 20 tales takes a close, respectful look at poor folks in contemporary rural Arkansas. Members of several families recur: Dalton, Pribble, Womack, Tatum; women named Staci, MeChell and Birdie; men named Rusty, Cleo and Skinny Dennis. Many of the stories are vignettes. Together, they paint a grim picture of a community that may or may not have been prosperous once but now is not.

Publishers Weekly: A new effort to close an unsolved murder case reopens old wounds in this enigmatic novel from the author of Hick and Anatomy of a Misfit. In Muskegon, Mich., 25 years have passed since a hapless snowplow operator discovered 22-year-old Elizabeth Krause’s body off Route 31.

Publishers Weekly: In this vibrant collection of speculative fiction, Okorafor (Who Fears Death) proves yet again that she is among the 21st century’s most significant and noteworthy Science Fiction authors. The American-born author features her parents’ Nigerian homeland in many of her stories, casting a sympathetic but informed eye on that nation.

Library Journal: Because of her efforts to prove her worth, DS Mariko Oshiro has been promoted to Tokyo’s Narcotics Unit, an elite group of detectives who tackle the most difficult cases. When a member of a powerful yakuza syndicate places a price on Mariko’s head, she finds that the only way the bounty can be lifted is if she retrieves the iron demon mask recently stolen from the crime lord.

Publishers Weekly: Priest’s final Clockwork Century novel (after The Inexplicables) wraps things up nicely, once again turning a mash-up of too-worn genre tropes (steampunk, alternate Civil War, zombies) into a work of entertainment laced with social criticism. In 1879, as the Civil War continues to rage, scientist and ex-slave Gideon Bardsley’s invention, a massive computer called the Fiddlehead, has predicted that the zombie outbreak from the Northwest will overwhelm both sides if they don’t end the war.

Jay Lake’s short story collection Last Plane to Heaven, with an introduction by Gene Wolfe, to Beth Meacham at Tor by Jennifer Jackson.