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.”
io9: At the end of the day, Vermilion is a roller-coaster of a ride: it’s exciting, suspenseful and a downright blast to read, but it maintains a serious side that underscores the complicated history of the American West.
Tor.com: Dreams of Shreds and Tatters is a baroque, creepy, gorgeous, atmospheric book. I keep wanting to find more adjectives, for there’s a layered, textured depth to the prose here, rich and velvety and dark. … I loved Downum’s other work, but I didn’t expect to enjoy Dreams of Shreds and Tatters half as much as I did. Unexpectedly, I adored it. It’s darkly gorgeous, tense, and gripping, with compelling characters and a subtle, unnervingly psychological element to its fantasy-horror turn. And, delightfully, not without a sense of humour. I recommend it highly. Please tell me there’ll be another novel like this.
Publishers Weekly: Wendig (Blackbirds) piles on the thrills and chills in this fast-paced near-future novel about human frailty and inhuman ambition. Five American hackers grabbed by the Feds are given a choice: a jail sentence, or a job working on a secret NSA program run by the mysterious Typhon. Now the hackers need to figure out Typhon’s true identity and motivation, preferably before Typhon is done using them. Wendig wields the tools of suspense and tension with skill. His large cast of characters is entertaining, the moments of horror are sharp and chilling, and the story races to a breathless conclusion. This is a promising opening to a new series for SF thriller fans.
Booklist: Griep’s debut is a fresh, original take on a group of fairy-tale familiars. Though Ceci (Cinderella), Bianca (Snow White), Rory (Sleeping Beauty), and Zell (Rapunzel) seem to have it all as princesses of Grimmland, their perfect team is broken up and their storybook happily-ever-afters are rocked to the core when Zell, in a troubling fit of independence, departs Grimmland to manage a unicorn preserve. Forced to question their own stories, the other three pen a series of letter to Zell, revealing a poignant restlessness and dissatisfaction with their own seemingly predetermined fates. As the princesses flit between Grimmland and contemporary Los Angeles, each grapples with timeless questions of love, desire, freedom, and ambition. This fractured fairy tale will appeal to Gregory Maguire devotees as well as fans of television shows like Once Upon A Time and Grimm.
Booklist: McCammon’s latest novel is a thrilling sf adventure. Two powerful, mysterious alien races are at war; Earth is caught in the middle, collateral damage. The planet is devastated, its people made nearly extinct. Those who have survived the catastrophic destruction caused by the alien war are succumbing to fallout from the battle, which is turning them into half-human creatures preying on those who are still human. Mankind seems doomed, but there is one small hope: a young boy who possesses powers that could save humanity. The problem is, the warring alien races might just prefer that humanity go extinct. Can this boy, who barely understands his own abilities, save the race? This is a very ambitious novel, an epic-scaled story of perseverance and survival in the face of monstrous odds. McCammon brings his usual storytelling gifts to the table: his ability to create characters who feel real, no matter how unreal the situations they find themselves in; dialogue that rings true; and a story that captures our imaginations from the very first page.
Booklist: A general guideline in high fantasy is the need for a sympathetic and ignorant main character—someone readers can follow close behind and from whom they can learn about this new world, just as the protagonist does. Practically every character in this author’s new novel is insane, deplorable, or both, but in some dark corner of themselves, readers will admire all of them and thus be compelled to follow their grippingly fascinating story through to its terrifying climax. Living in a world where the lines between sane reality and the fantasies of madness are blurred, Konig, the high priest of a powerful cult, has tried for 10 years to create a new child-god, given power by the delusions of the faithful and controlled by Konig himself. But a trio of nearly as ambitious bandits has plans to capitalize on this growing cult at exactly the right time. The journey is dark and emotionally taxing, but there aren’t many fantasy novels as smart, ambitious, and excellently written as this one.