Publishers Weekly: In this entrancing alternate history, Kowal (the Glamourist Histories series) introduces the Spirit Corps, a group that communicates with recently killed soldiers to gather important wartime information. It’s the summer of 1916, and American medium Ginger Stuyvesant works with the British Army at Le Havre to coordinate and lead spirit circles. When her intelligence officer fiancé, Capt. Benjamin Harford, uncovers a German plot to target the Spirit Corps and is sent to the front soon after, Ginger must use every power at her disposal to track down a traitor and protect the corps. Kowal’s depiction of spiritualism is richly imagined, and its complications and consequences are thoughtfully considered. Her depiction of the Western Front includes diverse characters often neglected in wartime stories: the many people who help Ginger include women young and old, people of color, and disabled veterans, all of whom are dismissed by the British men in charge. The well-drawn characters and the story’s gripping action and deep emotion will captivate readers.
Tor.com: Lee knows that if the fate of the world is at stake, the reader has to care about that world, so he uses language as a way to reveal a beauty that can be found even in the depths of an interstellar war. He builds more in a couple of sentences than some authors manage in entire novels, and beautifully.
…for those itching for dense worldbuilding, a riproaring plot, complex relationships, and military SF with a deep imagination, it’ll do just the trick. Lee’s already shown he has the chops for short fiction, and now Ninefox Gambit proves that he’s a novelist to watch out for. This is military SF with blood, guts, math, and heart.
B&N SFF Blog: Yoon Ha Lee’s short fiction has been praised for its elegant prose, outsize SF-nal ambition, and rigorous technical detail. Hard SF space opera from a mathematician and data analyst: one of those times you put a bunch of boring words together, and the result is only awesome. Ordered to retake a fortress captured by heretical rebels and with no other way to win, Captain Kel Cheris must welcome into her head the digitized consciousness of Shuos Jedao, an infamous military strategist who has been exiled to machine space ever since he engineered a disastrous campaign that left an entire planet dead. Together, they will unlock a galaxy-wide conspiracy that could disrupt the entirety of their rigid, ordered, highly mathematical society, throwing everything into chaos. This is one of the most challenging, mind-expanding new sci-fi books you’ll read this year.
When Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for her unconventional tactics, Kel Command gives her a chance to redeem herself, by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles from the heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake: if the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.
Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress. The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own.
As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao–because she might be his next victim.
RT Book Reviews: Suitably enough, given the rigid Doctrine of the hexarchate and the irresistible formation instinct of the warrior Kel faction, Ninefox Gambit is a book of precise rigor that gives a wonderful amount of worldbuilding without any clunky exposition dumps, is ruthlessly clear-eyed about the costs and concerns of war (especially at this technological level) and gives us an instantly ingratiating heroine who spends most of the book doing her best to outmaneuver the forces that have set her up to fail, waste the lives of her troops or just die. This is a future to get excited about, especially given the likely path of the next book.
Vicky Peterwald is no longer just the heir apparent to an imperial dynasty. She survived naval training and proved her mettle in combat to help the starving people of the ravaged world of St. Petersburg. Now, she is truly a Grand Duchess, leading a growing battle fleet in a rebellion against the tyranny of her stepmother, the Empress.
Determined to stop her spoiled stepdaughter’s betrayal from upsetting the balance of power within the Peterwald Empire, the Empress is leading her own armada to St. Petersburg, intent on killing Vicky and every soul on the planet that gave her refuge.
But Vicky is her father’s daughter, and it would be a grave mistake to underestimate her…
Polish rights to Anne Bishop’s MARKED IN FLESH, Book 4 of the Others series, via Milena Kaplarevic at Prava I Prevodi in association with Jennifer Jackson.
Spanish rights to Jim Butcher’s TURN COAT and CHANGES, the 11th and 12th books in the New York Times bestselling Dresden Files series, to NOSOLOROL by Maru De Montserrat at International Editors Co. in association with Jennifer Jackson.
French rights to Cherie Priest’s BONESHAKER, DREADNOUGHT, CLEMENTINE, three books from the Clockwork Century series, to Livre de Poche by David Camus at Anna Jarota Agency in association with Jennifer Jackson and Michael Curry.
Korean rights to Jo Walton’s MY REAL CHILDREN, to Design Comma, by Jackie Yang at the Eric Yang Agency in association with Katie Shea Boutillier.
French rights to Ekaterina Sedia’s ALCHEMY OF STONE, to Le Belial by David Camus at Anna Jarota Agency in association with Jennifer Jackson and Michael Curry.
Publishers Weekly: The 19th installment of the long-running Liaden Universe space adventure series (following 2015’s Dragon in Exile) opens with the members of Clan Korval and their allies still trying to solidify their economic position and regain their strength following their exile from their home planet. With the insidious Department of the Interior manipulating their public image and outright attacking their ships, the clan is hard-pressed to maintain and expand its trade routes. Meanwhile, Clan Korval member Padi yos’Galen is starting to manifest a power that could destroy her, and AI experts Tolly Jones and Hazenthull are dispatched to mentor a newborn computer intelligence, with orders to save or destroy it as necessary. The large number of ongoing story lines, ever-growing cast, and series-wide narrative arc make this an awkward book for newcomers, serving more as the mid-point of the current cycle. However, this space opera continues to delight with genteel interactions between mild-spoken characters who are capable of great passions and swift actions, and its immense scope encompasses a well-realized and comfortable universe.
Nicky Drayden’s debut novel THE PREY OF GODS, a near future thriller set in South Africa in which a diverse set of characters imbued with supernatural abilites by a street drug called Godsend must band together against a disenfranchised goddess who intends to remake their world and change the fate of humanity forever, along with a second untitled novel, to David Pomerico at HarperCollins Voyager by Jennifer Jackson.
Congratulations to all the DMLA authors whose work was named a finalist for a 2016 Locus Award!
Fantasy Novel: Karen Memory, Elizabeth Bear
Novella: Binti, Nnedi Okorafor
Novelette: “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson,” Elizabeth Bear
“And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead,” Brooke Bolander