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Starred Review: Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher

Sep 042015
 

Cover for The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher.Publishers Weekly: Butcher (the Dresden Files series) opens the imaginative Cinder Spires series with this sweeping fantastical epic with pseudo-Victorian sensibilities. In this strange realm, some cataclysm has left the surface world uninhabitable, but the ancient Builders created spires that stretch miles into the sky. Transportation, trade, and warfare are conducted by way of airships. The AMS Predator is captained by Francis Grimm, formerly of the Albion Fleet, and when Grimm’s quick action saves his spire from a devastating attack, he and several members of the Spirearch’s Guard are sent on a secret assignment to prevent disaster. After a slower-paced start that sets up a multitude of story lines and viewpoint characters, each of those threads is woven into a fascinating, adventurous, and intricate story. Butcher brings a fresh and exciting perspective to secondary-world steampunk, giving the reader a thrilling ride.

 September 4, 2015  Tagged with: ,

Starred Review: The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher

Sep 022015
 

Cover for The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher.RT Book Reviews: Butcher’s first installment in the Cinder Spires series is a rip-roaring adventure! Revealing the story through the perspective of a variety of characters, Butcher expertly breathes life into a vastly intriguing ensemble of players. Heart-stopping action, dangerous magic and plenty of evil chills make this a tale of the first magnitude!

After being unjustly drummed out of the Fleet, Captain Grimm now commands the merchant ship Predator. Loyal to Spire Albion, one of the immense Spires run by noble families that have sheltered and controlled humanity for centuries, Grimm and his crew have fought in the cold war against Spire Aurora. But now the cold war is heating up, and the Spirearch of Albion has an assignment for Grimm and his crew. They are to join a team of agents on a vital mission, and this unconventional team is about to learn that an ancient enemy is stirring.

 September 2, 2015  Tagged with: ,

Chapelwood by Cherie Priest

Sep 012015
 

Cover for Chapelwood by Cherie Priest. An older Lizzie Borden stands looking out a darkened window in a dark purple gown, holding a bloody ax.Birmingham, Alabama is infested with malevolence. Prejudice and hatred have consumed the minds and hearts of its populace. A murderer, unimaginatively named “Harry the Hacker” by the press, has been carving up citizens with a hatchet. And from the church known as Chapelwood, an unholy gospel is being spread by a sect that worships dark gods from beyond the heavens.

This darkness calls to Lizzie Borden. It is reminiscent of an evil she had dared hoped was extinguished. The parishioners of Chapelwood plan to sacrifice a young woman to summon beings never meant to share reality with humanity. An apocalypse will follow in their wake which will scorch the earth of all life.

Unless she stops it…

 September 1, 2015  Tagged with: ,

August Translation Deals

Aug 312015
 

photo of EarthFrench rights to Anna Zabo’s TAKEOVER, to Bragelonne, by Katharina Loix van Hooff at Anna Jarota Agency in association with Katie Shea Boutillier on behalf of Jennifer Udden.

German rights to Molly Tanzer’s VERMILION, to Papierverzierer Verlag, at auction, by Julia Aumüller at Thomas Schlueck Agency in association with Katie Shea Boutillier on behalf of Cameron McClure.

German rights to Robert McCammon’s short story THE DEEP END, to Krachkultur, by Julia Aumuller at Thomas Schlueck Agency in association with Katie Shea Boutillier on behalf of Cameron McClure.

Turkish rights to Anne Bishop’s WRITTEN IN RED, Book 1 in the Others series, to Martı Yayınları, by Nazli Çökdü at the ONK Agency in association with Jennifer Jackson and Michael Curry.

Polish renewal rights to Brent Weeks’s The Night Angel Trilogy and THE BLACK PRISM, Book 1 of the Lightbringer series, to Mag Jacek Rodek, in a four-book deal, by Milena Kaplarevic at Prava I Prevodi in association with Katie Shea Boutillier.

 August 31, 2015  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Deal: Yoon Ha Lee

Aug 242015
 

Photo of author Yoon Ha Lee.World Fantasy Award nominee Yoon Ha Lee’s debut novel NINEFOX GAMBIT, in which disgraced hexarchate captain Kel Cheris can redeem her career by retaking a star fortress lost to heretics but must ally with the brilliant undead general Shuos Jedao — genius, arch-traitor, and mass murderer, plus two sequels to Jonathan Oliver at Solaris by Jennifer Jackson.

 August 24, 2015  Tagged with: ,

Deal: Cherie Priest

Aug 122015
 

Photo credit: Libby BulloffAuthor of I AM PRINCESS X and BONESHAKER, Cherie Priest’s DRAWING FIRE, a new young adult novel in which Denise Farber moves into a haunted house her mother is restoring and discovers a golden age master’s unpublished epic comic book that some people might kill to get their hands on, to Cheryl Klein at Scholastic by Jennifer Jackson.

 August 12, 2015  Tagged with: ,

Starred Review: The Traitor Baru Cormorant

Aug 072015
 

Cover for The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson. A realistic porcelain mask of a feminine mask hits the ground, starting to shatter.Library Journal: VERDICT: This is an accomplished debut, with a heroine whose motives are murky, seemingly even to herself. The twists and turns our unreliable narrator takes as she pushes the Aurdwynn nobles to rebel reveal her goals yet also expose her loneliness. We’ve only seen a fraction of the world of the Masquerade and a glimpse of Baru’s plans, setting the stage for a compelling series.

Read the full review of The Traitor Baru Cormorant at Library Journal.

 August 7, 2015  Tagged with: ,

Review: Chapelwood by Cherie Priest

Aug 052015
 

Cover for Chapelwood by Cherie Priest. An older Lizzie Borden stands looking out a darkened window in a dark purple gown, holding a bloody ax.RT Book Reviews: In Chapelwood, Priest manages the very difficult task of jumping decades ahead — with a cast winnowed by the events of the previous novel in the series and the passing of years — and writing an equally gripping Lovecraftian thriller where our heroes are nearing or at retirement age and are pitched fully out of their normal settings. In some ways, this book is even scarier than the first, with their monstrous opponents coming to almost total power through good old-fashioned prejudice and hate; it feels very much like Borden, Wolf and their few allies are the last decent people in town. It’s a shame this feels like it must be the end of the series because readers will want more adventures with Borden and Wolf.

 August 5, 2015  Tagged with: ,

Liaden Universe Constellation: Vol. 3 by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Aug 042015
 

Cover for A Liaden Universe Constellation: Volume 3 by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller.BOOK 3 in the multivolume Liaden Universe ®  short fiction collection.  Tales of the Liaden Universe® brought together for the first time. Space opera and romance on a grand scale in a galaxy full of interstellar trading clans.

A dozen recent Liaden Universe short works are added to the collection in the third volume of A Liaden Universe Constellation. Ranging from comic to cosmic, only one of these works was first published before 2011. These welcome new additions bring the collected Constellation of Lee & Miller Liaden short stories to 45 works in three mega-volumes.

The nationally best-selling Liaden Universe® novels are treasured by space opera aficionados for their wit, world-building, strong characterizations, tender romance, and edge-of-the-chair action.

Since 1995, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller also created shorter tales, illuminating additional facets of the Liaden experience. Here is a vast tapestry of tales of the scouts, artists, traders, priestesses, sleight of hand magicians, and pilots who fill the Liaden Universe® with the excitement, action, and romance that readers of the hit series have come to adore. Contains all new entries published after 2011.

 August 4, 2015  Tagged with: ,

The Twice and Future Caesar by R.M. Meluch

Aug 042015
 

Cover for The Twice and Future Caesar by R.M. Meluch.In the year 2448, the interstellar Empire of Rome spans an area almost as wide as the far-flung colonial worlds of the United States of America.

Caesar Numa Pompeii is still rebuilding his shredded empire after the catastrophic war that his predecessor, Caesar Romulus, waged against the United States. War’s end left Romulus in a nanovirus-induced coma, captive of Caesar Numa.

Numa has under his command a powerful living weapon—a patterner, an augmented man capable of synthesizing vast amounts of data into actionable intelligence.

Now, Numa has lost his prisoner, and his patterner may have turned on him, while the U.S.S. Merrimack has lost the commander of her Fleet Marines, Colonel T. R. Steele.

Events take a Mobius turn when fanatical devotees of Romulus rescue their fallen leader from his tortured captivity and fashion him into the most capable patterner ever created. Romulus is back, more insanely brilliant than ever. But without his queen, all the power in the universe means nothing. Romulus will move heaven and Earth and space and time to rescue his beloved Claudia.

Admiral John Farragut returns to the space battle­ship Merrimack in an attempt to head off the impend­ing temporal catastrophe. Past and future hinge on a critical moment when time broke once before in the distant star cluster known as the Myriad.

 August 4, 2015  Tagged with: ,
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