Kirkus: Bear, then, offers plenty of big, bold, fascinating ideas in a narrative that culminates in a double showdown with a dazzling array of said thoughtful beings…. Impressive at the core. Readers who relished the Jacob’s Ladder trilogy will certainly enjoy this one.
World English Audio rights Anna Kashina’s SHADOWBLADE, to Michael Olah at Dreamscape Media, by Katie Shea Boutillier, for Jennie Goloboy.
French rights to New York Times bestselling author Anne Bishop’s WILD COUNTRY, a novel of the Others, to Bragelonne, by Robin Batet at the Anna Jarota Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
French rights to Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor’s AKATA WITCH, to L’école des Loisirs, by Robin Batet at Anna Jarota Agency on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Donald Maass.
German rights to Robert McCammon’s BOY’S LIFE, to Luzifer, by Kathrin Nehm at Thomas Schlueck Agency on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.
Catalan rights to Cassandra’s Khaw’s British Fantasy Award-nominated HAMMERS ON BONE, a Persons Non Grata novella, to Mai Més, by Amaiur Fernández at International Editors Co. for Michael Curry
German rights to Micaiah Johnson’s THE SPACE BETWEEN WORLDS, to Droeme, by Kathrin Nehm at Thomas Schlueck Agency on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.
French rights to C.L. Polk’s WITCHMARK, to MxM Bookmark by Robin Batet at Anna Jarota Agency on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Caitlin McDonald.
AudioFile: Narrator Yetide Badaki’s dynamic voice returns with this story of Sunny, an Igbo and American albino girl with the juju needed to save humanity. Badaki enlivens Sunny’s character with a bright American accent and gives her friends varied Nigerian- and American-sounding voices. Continuing on from AKATA WITCH, Sunny, Chichi, Orlu, and Sasha are growing as scholars, pushing the boundaries of the rules governing the magical Leopard People and coming full circle to challenge Sunny’s prophetic dream of the apocalypse at the start of series.
Horn Book Magazine: Thirteen-year-old Min is feisty and clever, and she has a powerful secret: she’s a gumiho, a fox spirit disguised as a human. Min can shape-shift and use Charm (fox magic) to alter others’ perceptions and emotions. She enthusiastically wields these powers when she ditches her “dismal life” on the barren planet Jinju in order to track down her brother Jun, a Thousand Worlds Space Forces cadet who’s gone AWOL. Min’s epic adventure leads to run-ins with spaceport security guards, gamblers, and ghosts. She impersonates a dead cadet on a starship battle cruiser and encounters the legendary Dragon Pearl, a mystical orb that creates life. Lee has a knack for world-building. His richly detailed, cohesive, original vision is a lively mash-up of outer-space sci-fi and Korean culture and folklore: starships have gi, an energy flow; pirates fly in groups of four because it’s a number that signifies death; characters, both supernatural and human, eat gimchi and play the board game baduk; Min befriends a dragon cadet who can summon the weather—sometimes inadvertently—and a dokkaebi (Korean goblin) who carries a magical spork. The dokkaebi is also a nonbinary character, who’s referred to with gender-neutral pronouns—a small detail that’s woven in matter-of-factly and just as smoothly as all the other strands in this engaging space opera.
Robert Jackson Bennett’s Vigilance is a dark science fiction action parable from an America that has permanently surrendered to gun violence.
The United States. 2030. John McDean executive produces “Vigilance,” a reality game show designed to make sure American citizens stay alert to foreign and domestic threats. Shooters are introduced into a “game environment,” and the survivors get a cash prize.
The TV audience is not the only one that’s watching though, and McDean soon finds out what it’s like to be on the other side of the camera.
Rick Riordan Presents Yoon Ha Lee’s space opera about thirteen-year-old Min, who comes from a long line of fox spirits. But you’d never know it by looking at her. To keep the family safe, Min’s mother insists that none of them use any fox-magic, such as Charm or shape-shifting. They must appear human at all times.
Min feels hemmed in by the household rules and resents the endless chores, the cousins who crowd her, and the aunties who judge her. She would like nothing more than to escape Jinju, her neglected, dust-ridden, and impoverished planet. She’s counting the days until she can follow her older brother, Jun, into the Space Forces and see more of the Thousand Worlds.
When word arrives that Jun is suspected of leaving his post to go in search of the Dragon Pearl, Min knows that something is wrong. Jun would never desert his battle cruiser, even for a mystical object rumored tohave tremendous power. She decides to run away to find him and clear his name.
Min’s quest will have her meeting gamblers, pirates, and vengeful ghosts. It will involve deception, lies, and sabotage. She will be forced to use more fox-magic than ever before, and to rely on all of her cleverness and bravery. The outcome may not be what she had hoped, but it has the potential to exceed her wildest dreams.
This sci-fi adventure with the underpinnings of Korean mythology will transport you to a world far beyond your imagination.
Publishers Weekly
: Matthews’s second novel (after Blood Enemies) since the relaunch of her Jurisdiction series is a tightly styled, simply plotted examination of ambition, obsession, and the many faces of justice, played out in a military SF setting that is deeply informed by the author’s own military experience. Andrej Kosciusko, former torturer for the established order of Jurisdiction, has decamped to Gonebeyond space. Rocked by crises, Jurisdiction is reaching out to its exiles to find a new path forward and so are some other elements who would like to tip the boat over. One of these is the Witt crime syndicate, whose boss nurtures an unhealthy obsession with “Black Andrej.” He delegates Danyo Pefisct, another ex-torturer, to incapacitate Andrej with an engineered virus and transport him back to Jurisdiction. But the Gonebeyond coalition is engaged in military operations against slavers, with all the chaos and displacement of war, and Danyo’s task becomes knotted into the lives of hundreds. Matthews does yeoman’s work in contextualizing characters and past events.
