Publishers Weekly: Dickinson’s debut, the start of a trilogy set in an impressively well-crafted fantasy world, is assured and impressive. … Readers will share every one of Baru’s strong, suppressed emotions. Dickinson’s worldbuilding is ambitious and his language deviously subtle; both are seductive in their complexity. He combines social engineering, economic trickery, and coldhearted pseudoscientific theories to weave a compelling, utterly surprising narrative that keeps readers guessing until the end.
Jul 242015
RT Book Reviews: Sarah and Henry stand front and center as the side stories of Pris’ romance, Joe and Simon’s return from Colorado, and shy Amanda’s dangerous escapade with rebellious Jesse keep Whinburg Township on its toes. Readers will be pleased and relieved when this intense romance is resolved and Henry accepts that his heart’s desire was beside him all along.
Barnes & Noble: “As action-filled and nail-biting as it can be, Bishop makes the powerful choice to confine the most important battles to play out in her characters’ psyches and emotional landscapes. Instead of making them victims for some hero to save, Bishop makes these damaged characters into champions, leading to the trilogy’s most heartbreaking, memorable sequences, as driving most of the major climaxes.
Kirkus: A young woman cursed with a powerful paranormal ability takes drastic action to escape her fate. The prolific and often profane Wendig (Zeroes, 2015, etc.) originally published this novel in the U.K. in 2012, and he seemed to catch readers by surprise with the foulmouthed, punk-rock girl at its heart. The first in a series, this delightfully vicious and bloody urban horror novel provides a perversely entertaining introduction to a dangerous fugitive with a little something special up her sleeves. …This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea—Wendig spins his story with Tarantino-esque multiplicity, and the book’s pyrotechnic profanity, bloody ultraviolence, and lack of romance are unlikely to appeal to fans of Laurell K. Hamilton or Patricia Briggs. But for those who like their noir with a twist of horror, this novel provides an engaging blend of occult surrealism, nihilism, and startling violence. A lean, mean fantasy novel that’s likely to leave readers dented and bruised.
Library Journal: Five hackers are picked up separately by government agent Hollis Copper and offered a one-time-only deal: work for the National Security Agency (NSA) or go to jail. The five have little in common—Aleena is an Arab Spring activist, DeAndre a clever thief, Chance a poser hacker, Wade an old-school conspiracy nut, and Reagan an online troll—but they are forced to work together when they are dropped at a secret location called the Lodge. Their individual missions to hack various companies seem connected, and they start putting together evidence that the government is using them to test a new computer called Typhon. As they near the truth, the hackers become a threat to the people who are trying to manipulate them. This new novel from Wendig, whose Miriam Black books (
Publishers Weekly: Clarke (the Assassin’s Curse series) brings novelty and delight to steampunk Antarctica in this complex and lovely mystery. Eliana Gomez is the first female PI in Hope City, a domed city originally built to support an amusement park full of steam-powered automatons, and she wants nothing more than to emigrate to warmer climes. When recently widowed Lady Luna, an heiress with a secret, asks Eliana to recover some stolen documents, the fee is too good to turn down, even though it puts Eliana in the path of Hope City’s biggest crime boss and at odds with her boyfriend. With robots from the amusement park evolving their own intelligence and agendas, freedom fighters agitating more openly for Antarctic independence, and the increasing unreliability of the power supplying heat and light to the city’s main dome, Eliana’s need for a hasty departure quickly becomes urgent, even as the tasks required become riskier. The worldbuilding will sweep readers away, and the entertaining and compelling cast of characters will make excellent company on the journey.
Kirkus: This collection of stories provocatively and effectively illustrates the multidimensionality of someone considered to be a monster, and readers will find much of it fascinating and moving. A variety of characters affected by a school shooting offer their perspectives in this work of realistic fiction penned by 17 different authors and coordinated by Hutchinson. When Kirby Matheson, a high school student with a history both of being bullied and of coming to the aid of others being maltreated, kills six of his fellow students and then himself, everyone searches for answers. A vignette from the point of view of his childhood tormentor is deeply troubling. The most experimental section is narrated by the gun Kirby used to commit the murders. However, the sheer number of perspectives feels unwieldy at times. Engaging and heart-wrenching but spread a bit too thin.
Stranger Horizons: Vermilion: The Adventures of Lou Merriwether, Psychopomp by Molly Tanzer is a fun adventure novel that is as intersectional in genre as it is in character. … a madcap comedy of errors that resolves in a moustache-twirling over-the-top climax—and which leaves plenty of room open for sequels, in the best pulp tradition.
The Guild of Saint Cooper is a wistful, elegiac and far-reaching cosmic dystopian novel set in Seattle and its suburbs.