DMLA is pleased to announce that Jay Lake had three works nominated for the 2015 Endeavour Awards:
Last Plane to Heaven by Jay Lake (Tor Books)
Metatropolis by Ken Scholes and Jay Lake (WordFire Press)
Our Lady of the Islands by Shannon Page and Jay Lake (Per Aspera Press)
Long before he was a novelist, SF writer Jay Lake, was an acclaimed writer of short stories. In Last Plane to Heaven, Lake has assembled thirty-two of the best of them. Aliens and angels fill these pages, from the title story, a hard-edged and breathtaking look at how a real alien visitor might be received, to the savage truth of “The Cancer Catechisms.” Here are more than thirty short stories written by a master of the form, science fiction and fantasy both.
Audio rights to Jim Butcher’s WORKING FOR BIGFOOT, collecting the stories where Harry Dresden works cases for Bigfoot, to Amy Metsch at Penguin Random House Audio by Jennifer Jackson.
Nationally syndicated columnist and humorist Amy Alkon’s UNF*CK YOURSELF, the science-based guide on how to live with confidence, guts, and integrity, to Erica Proulx at Brilliance, by Katie Shea Boutillier on behalf of Cameron McClure.
Robert McCammon’s sixth book in the Matthew Corbett series, FREEDOM OF THE MASK, to Steve Feldberg at Audible, by Katie Shea Boutillier on behalf of Cameron McClure.
Susan R. Matthews’ BLOOD ENEMIES, a new novel in the Philip K. Dick Award nominated Jurisdiction Universe series, along with reprint rights to the first six novels in the series including the critically acclaimed EXCHANGE OF HOSTAGES to Tony Daniel at Baen Books by Jennifer Jackson.
Locus: It’s surprising that Cherie Priest hasn’t made the jump into full-on young-adult fiction before. Many of her previous books, like Boneshaker, Dreadnought and the rest of the Clockwork Century, could easily be marketed to a younger audience. I Am Princess X, however, is the first one that is explicitly aimed at the 12 and over set.
The story itself is fairly straightforward. Libby and May meet in elementary school and become BFF. The friendship ends, however, because Libby is killed in a car accident as a young teen and May moves away from their shared pocket of Seattle. May comes back to visit her old stomping grounds and starts spotting Princess X stickers everywhere, which wouldn’t be a big deal except Princess X is a character she and Libby created as kids. Libby, it turns out, might not be as dead as May has been led to believe.
May’s hunt for her lost friend isn’t told simply with words. Interspersed with a straightforward narrative are comics-style pages that fill in the gaps in the Princess X story; we learn about how this mysterious, katana-wielding, webcomic-starring princess found herself on the search for four keys and how May realizes that the keys are actually aimed at her. It’s a refreshing take on a standard “magic ticket” story.
What’s also refreshing is the lack of a romantic subplot. Priest’s Princess is about the lasting power of friendship, rather than about finding a boyfriend. It’s a fun, oddly cheerful murder mystery that pushes against some of the restrictions of straight-up words on a page.
Shelf Awareness: In her first novel for young adults, Cherie Priest (Boneshaker) introduces Libby Deaton and May Harper, who unite to create the comics character Princess X. The story quickly becomes a gripping mystery after Libby mysteriously disappears and May becomes obsessed with finding her.
In a clever innovation, Priest seamlessly integrates Kali Ciesemier’s comics within the prose narrative. Each new episode of Princess X reveals further clues and a terrifying reality for their creator. Ciesemier’s portrait of Princess X achieves a sense of both anxiety and bravery. Priest demonstrates that creative teamwork of the kind shared by Libby and May leads to an intimate knowledge of one’s collaborator.
Locus: Of Noble Family, book five of Mary Robinette Kowal’s “The Glamourist Histories”, concludes the sequence with emphatic proof that her world-building and her characters can’t be constrained by the standard tropes of alternate-historic magical fantasies or variations on Regency Romance. There’s a sharp irony in the epigraph, from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park: “Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.”
Questions of identity drive these books, centered around the husband in a married pair of glamourists. David Vincent couldn’t come into his own until he cast off his former self: the Honourable Vincent Hamilton, third son of Lord Verbury (an earl). Of Noble Family forces David to confront that self and its heritage, when he gets word of his father’s death: not in England, but on the Hamiltons’ sugar cane estate on the Caribbean island of Antigua (British West Indies), where the tyrant long held sway. Continue reading »
Moon, Jade, and other favorites from the Indigo Cloud Court return with two new novellas from Martha Wells.
“The Dead City” is a tale of Moon before he came to the Indigo Court. As Moon is fleeing the ruins of Saraseil, a groundling city destroyed by the Fell, he flies right into another potential disaster when a friendly caravanserai finds itself under attack by a strange force. In “The Dark Earth Below,” Moon and Jade face their biggest adventure yet; their first clutch. But even as Moon tries to prepare for impending fatherhood, members of the Kek village in the colony tree’s roots go missing, and searching for them only leads to more mysteries as the court is stalked by an unknown enemy.
Stories of Moon and the shape changers of Raksura have delighted readers for years. This world is a dangerous place full of strange mysteries, where the future can never be taken for granted and must always be fought for with wits and ingenuity, and often tooth and claw. With these two new novellas, Martha Wells shows that the world of the Raksura has many more stories to tell…
Star-trading Clan Korval—known to Terrans as the Tree-and-Dragon Family and to the locals simply as “the Dragon”—has been convicted of crimes against the homeworld. No matter that one of the “crimes” consisted of saving the elitist planet of Liad from very real internal threats, the Council of Clans wanted Korval heads to roll. Unfortunately for the Council, the Dragon’s allies conspired to impose a milder punishment for saving the world: banishment, rather than execution.
Now relocated to the free-for-all world of Surebleak, the Dragon is under contract to keep the Port Road open to all traffic, and to back the New Bosses in imposing law and order on a society originally based on larceny and assassination. This modest rustication is going surprisingly well, until Korval discovers that the enemy they’d sought to destroy. . .wasn’t quite destroyed, and is more determined than ever to eradicate Korval.
While the banishment killed no one initially, many of Korval’s trading allies are spooked, and some are reneging on ancient agreements, leaving the Dragon to make its own way. The clan’s efforts to stealthily recruit new allies is going haywire, and a secret death toll is rising even as the clan’s adherents endure increasing exposure to danger and deceit off-world.
To make matters worse, an active portion of Surebleak’s native population liked the Old Ways just fine, and are conspiring to take the New Bosses—and the Dragon—down, and are sure they have the firepower and people to do it.
The exiled Dragon has to make an urgent choice—accept an alliance with criminals or face down each and every enemy in person, one by one.
Audio rights to Molly Tanzer’s VERMILION, to Haila Williams at Blackstone Audio, at auction, by Katie Shea Boutillier on behalf of Cameron McClure.
Audio rights to Elizabeth Bear’s The Lotus Kingdoms trilogy, to Brian Sweany at Recorded Books, by Jennifer Jackson and Michael Curry.
Audio rights to Amanda Downum’s DREAMS OF SHREDS AND TATTERS, to Brian Sweany at Recorded Books, by Jennifer Jackson and Michael Curry.