Congratulations to all the DMLA authors whose titles were named a GoodReads Editor’s Top Genre Pick for the past five years!
Fantasy
Horror
Temmi, a young trash collector stuck in a dead-end job on a garbage planet, finds herself with a golden ticket she never expected: the opportunity to be cast on an interstellar dating show starring the brother and sister heirs to the galactic empire. Through diplomatic challenges and dramatized dates, twenty-four women will compete to marry the prince and princess—and to win the dynasty’s favor for their home planet.
Temmi may have been hand-picked to date the quiet, bookish prince, who is immediately taken by her brash personality and their shared passion for the sciences. But she can’t seem to keep away from the princess—and even though she’s strictly off-limits, their chemistry is undeniable.
But when contestants start turning up dead, whispers begin to circulate that some competitors might be harboring anti-imperialist motivations—Temmi among them. And suddenly it’s clear that so much more than feelings are at stake.
In fact, very few of the participants of Love Galaxy have come on the show to find love.
Sexy, snarky, and revolutionary, this fast-paced thrill ride will hook lovers of reality TV, fans of thoughtful sci-fi, and anyone who lives for drama.
Chicago Review of Books: “This is a savvy release by Tor and a smart and engaging work by Walton and Palmer.”
The genre of science fiction has been stereotyped and maligned for too long, and two of its contemporary champions, Jo Walton and Ada Palmer, would like to set the record straight.
It’s hard to imagine a pair better suited to the job. They are decorated science fiction authors in their own right. Walton won Hugo and Nebula Awards for Among Others and Palmer earned the Astounding Award for Too Like the Lightning. Only a select few have been so knighted by the science fiction gods, and that alone gives them a unique perspective. But, as they handily demonstrate in their passionate defense of science fiction, Trace Elements: Conversations on the Project of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Walton and Palmer deserve honorary accolades for their voluminous experience as readers. In point of fact, these tremendously well-read authors proudly identify as science fiction and fantasy (SF&F) fans and draw liberally from the well of fandom throughout this rousing and strikingly candid broadside.
Library Journal: The underqualified misfits undertaking this intergalactic art heist have no idea what mission they’ve actually signed up for. They think they’re going to steal back the art treasures that Earth gave up in return for a quick fix to their onrushing apocalypse. Now that Earth is repaired, it wants its stuff back, even if they have to steal it. The crew thinks the mission is sanctioned, their leader believes that everyone will forgive his deceptions, and the art historian is in this to get her lover back. Meanwhile, their friendly alien pilot with the handy spaceship plans to use them as a convenient scapegoat for nefarious plans of their own. It will be a miracle if any of them get out of this one alive. Tanzer’s (Creatures of Charm and Hunger) sci-fi heist caper surprises everyone, including readers, every parsec of the way.
VERDICT Inside this combination of Beth Revis’s Full Speed to a Crash Landing with Becky Chambers’s To Be Taught, If Fortunate is a story about alien con artists, self-deceptive historians, self-aware clones, and self-centered cyborgs, along with a surprising look at what it means to be real in both art and relationships.
The residents of Mariner’s Cove are changing…
In the aftermath of a violent storm, a collective obsession is rapidly developing among the people of this quaint suburban neighborhood. Random, everyday items left scattered upon the lawns, the streets, and the shoreline all seem to call out to them. There is an item for almost everyone, and each item has a certain hold over the person who finds it—a hold that soon turns into unwavering infatuation. They hide their items from each other, obsess over them, and they will do anything—anything—to protect them.
The collective hum of bees’ wings…
A young boy finds himself the possessor of a strange and inexplicable power. Is the arrival of this power linked to the increasingly odd and dangerous behavior of the residents of Mariner’s Cove? Has he been granted this power in order to thwart whatever is about to happen in this small, bayside community, or is there a more sinister purpose?
All hail the Dragon…
All eyes are on him now.
The residents of Mariner’s Cove are watching.
They move as one, like a solitary organism, and will do anything to succeed in their single-minded purpose.
They will not be stopped.
Publishers Weekly: An exercise in elaborate worldbuilding, this ambitious outing from Hugo and Nebula Award winner Walton (Or What You Will) transports readers to the fantastical city of the Serenissima, “built on nothing but layers of magical mist and memories and dreams.” The Serenissima’s geography shifts with the fog that drifts through it, “opening a new square here, closing up an old canal there, like a face caught in the fleeting act of changing expression.” Its waterways, maintained by shared belief in their existence, connect eight disparate worlds, including Earth. The Venetians believed the Serenissima into being first, and through it soon found neighbors: beings who look much like the Venetians, but with the faces of cats, dogs, or domino masks garlanded with flowers and feathers, and who connect to the magic of the Serenissima in their own ways. Against this inventive backdrop, a fisherman wakes from a dream that the city will elect its first doge. A local mystic confirms that she can see this coming to pass—and also sees a cure for the plague that blights the fisherman and his lover—after which the city itself pulls everyone around him into the rush to fulfill the prophecy. Told through the eyes of nine different characters, each with a perspective and backstory rich enough for its own novel, the relatively low-stakes plot still manages to feel personal and affecting. This fascinates. (June)
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Booklist: If “unfair” had a picture next to its dictionary definition, Temmi Ialan’s face would be there. She’s grinding out an existence on the planet X72, working as a trash collector to barely keep a roof over head, along with caring for her sick mother and disabled brother. Despite the grim circumstances, Temmi’s brother is excited for the new season of Love Galaxy, a The Bachelor-esque show where empire royalty dates prospective suitors until they find true love at the end of the season. After an especially bad day, Temmi inadvertently goes toe-to-toe with Spie and Nix Expani, the emperor’s heirs starring on this season, and finds herself cast on the show with a life-changing sum of money hanging on her ability to make it far enough into the season to make a mark. Temmi is thrust into the spotlight and mingles reluctantly with the elite . . . until her fellow cast members start dying. It quickly becomes clear that there is far more afoot than simply a dating show—it is part Hunger Games in outer space and part makeover show. Branham’s debut is a page-turner expertly set up for the next in the series, with enough twists and turns to keep readers guessing until the end
Bulgarian rights to Robert Sheckley’s STORE OF INFINITY to Alto, by Tamara Vukicevic at Prava i Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.
Czech audio rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ ROGUE PROTOCOL, EXIT STRATEGY, NETWORK EFFECT, FUGITIVE TELEMETRY, and SYSTEM COLLAPSE, books 3-7 in The Murderbot Diaries, to OneHotBook, by Nada Popovic at Prava i prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
French renewal rights to New York Times bestselling author Anne Bishop’s MARKED IN FLESH and ETCHED IN BONE, the fourth and fifth books in the Others series, to Bragelonne, by Sarah Dray at Anna Jarota Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
French omnibus rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ ALL SYSTEMS RED, ARTIFICIAL CONDITION, ROGUE PROTOCOL, and EXIT STRATEGY, the first four books in The Murderbot Diaries, to Editions L’Atalante, by Sarah Dray at Anna Jarota Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
German rights to J.M. Kearl’s THE ASSASSIN’S WAY, to Piper, at auction, in a three-book deal, by Sarah Knofius at Thomas Schlueck Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier at Donald Maass Literary Agency.
Japanese rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ PLATFORM DECAY, the eighth book in the Murderbot Diaries series, to Tokyo Sogensha, by Shreya De Sousa at The English Agency (Japan) in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
Ukrainian rights to British Fantasy Award winner Simon Jimenez’s THE SPEAR CUTS THROUGH WATER, to Athena, by Tamara Vukićević at Prava i Prevodi in association with Michael Curry.
Kirkus: The rich worldbuilding is arguably the novel’s biggest strength, but the well-developed dynamics between the main characters, particularly Mel and Ismene’s complex relationship, are also compelling. The narrative has an impressive pace fueled by intertwining and action-packed plotlines that maintain the pedal-to-the-metal momentum.
Jo Walton and Ada Palmer are two of the most innovative and insightful writers to emerge in the SF and fantasy genres in this century. As writers of fiction they’ve each won multiple awards. As commenters on SF and fantasy in print and in visual media, they’ve both sparked new conversations that expanded our imaginations and understanding of how SF and fantasy work, and what more it could be doing.
Now, in Trace Elements, Walton and Palmer have come together to write a book-length and supremely entertaining look at modern science fiction and fantasy, at how our genre is written and how it is read, that will join nonfiction works like Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Language of the Night, Samuel R. Delany’s The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, and Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud on the short shelf of titles essential to all readers of our genre.
Subjects covered include the nature of genre itself, the history of SF publishing, the implicit contract between author and reader, the ways SF and fantasy disguise themselves as one another, what SF&F can learn from outside influences ranging from Shakespeare to Diderot to anime, the role of complicity in reading, the need to expand our “sphere of empathy”, and finally the need for optimism, the importance of rejecting “purity” culture, and the fact that the human story for centuries to come will be composed of hard work.