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B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog on the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2017 So Far

B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog on the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2017 So Far

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All Systems Red-small The Last Good Man Linda Nagata-small Borne Jeff VanderMeer-small

Over at the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, Joel Cunningham has taken on the big job of cataloging the best books of the year so far. His list includes a whopping 25 titles… which may be more books than I’ve read this year. There’s some terrific stuff on his list, so let’s get to it.

All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells

Veteran fantasist Wells proves her sure hand at sci-fi as she imagines a future dominated by corporations, in which the twin imperatives of bureaucratic adherence to policies and the need to award all contracts to the lowest bidder result in every planetary mission being required to be accompanied by a company-supplied SecUnit, an artificially intelligent android built from cheap parts, and as likely to malfunction as all of the other shoddy equipment the expeditions are counting on to, oh, keep them breathing. The SecUnit narrating the story has hacked its own Governor Module, attaining sentience and free will; it would despise the humans it protects if it didn’t find them so boring, but it nevertheless refers to itself as Murderbot. When its humans are attacked by something outside of the experience provided by its data banks, however, Murderbot must turn its prickly, near-omniscient mind towards not just the survival of its humans, but itself. This slim read is both surprisingly funny and packed with intriguing future worldbuilding — all the more reason to celebrate the three planned sequels that will continue Murderbot’s adventures. Read our review.

All Systems Red was published by Tor.com on May 2, 2017. It is 160 pages, priced at $14.99 in trade paperback and $3.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Jamie Jones. Read an excerpt at Tor.com.

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What Has Orbit’s Expansion Wrought?

What Has Orbit’s Expansion Wrought?

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Vivian Shaw Strange Practice-smallI know most readers don’t pay attention to publishers. But I do. And I’ve been watching the astounding success of Orbit, the SF and Fantasy imprint of Hachette Book Group, for the past few years. Their breakout books include Andrzej Sapkowski’s New York Times bestselling Witcher series, James S. A. Corey’s The Expanse, Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, M.R. Carey’s The Girl With All the Gifts, and even Black Gate author John R. Fultz’s Books of the Shaper trilogy.

When Orbit US announced a major expansion two years ago, I was curious what it would bring. Turns out quite a bit… here’s just a sampling of some of their releases over the past 24 months.

Mur Lafferty’s Six Wakes
Greg Bear’s War Dogs trilogy
Ian Tregillis’s Alchemy Wars trilogy
Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140
Alastair Reynolds’s Locus Award-winning Revenger
N.K. Jemisin’s Nebula nominee The Obelisk Gate
Brian McClellan’s new Gods of Blood and Powder series

That’s a darned impressive list. Of course, many of those authors probably would have been published even without the expansion… but you can’t say the same for their newer writers.

Not every publisher that hits it big plows some of their revenue back into developing new writers — Bantam Spectra, for example, once one of the most experimental and risk-friendly imprints, has shrunk their line to essentially a single author: George R.R. Martin. Martin is by far the top-selling fantasy writer in the field, but Bantam isn’t using that huge success to fund the search for their next new author. At least not as far as I can see.

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July Issue of The Dark Now on Sale

July Issue of The Dark Now on Sale

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The Dark July 2017-smallOver at SF Revu, Sam Tomaino sheds some light on the latest issue of The Dark.

The first new story is “A Performance for Painted Bones” by Kelly Stewart… In a town where the populace is just skeletons, a dancer and a hunter have skin. They are kept alive as long as they do their jobs. But one could take the train east if there was a good reason to, like returning an object to its rightful owner. Written like a proposal for a movie, this is wonderfully atmospheric. Works perfectly.

The other new story is “A Lasting Legacy” by Osahon Ize-Iyamu… Ogu is from a disgraced family and wants to get respect by becoming the leader of the machi. He wants to find something that will ensure that. But his uncle is a disgrace and burden to the family. What can he do? A grim, sad story but very effective.

The Dark has its own brand of unique horror and is certainly worth reading. It deserves your support.

The July cover is by Vincent Chong. Here’s the Table of Contents for issue #26, cover-dated July 2017.

“A Performance for Painted Bones” by Kelly Stewart
“Girl, I Love You” by Nadia Bulkin (from Phantasm Japan,, 2014)
“A Lasting Legacy” by Osahon Ize-Iyamu
“Harvest” by Michael Harris Cohen (from From Their Cradle to Your Grave, 2013)

The Dark is co-edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Sean Wallace, with assistance by Jack Fisher. It is published monthly online and in digital formats, and includes two original stories and two reprints each issue. You can read issues free online, or help support the magazine by buying the ebook editions, available for the Kindle and Nook in Mobi and ePub format. Issues are around 50 pages, and priced at $2.99 through Amazon, B&N.com, Apple, Kobo, and other fine outlets — or subscribe for just $1.99 per issue. If you enjoy the magazine you can contribute to their new Patreon account here. You can also support The Dark by buying their books, reviewing stories, or even just leaving comments.

Read the July issue here, and see their complete back issue catalog here. We last covered The Dark with the May issue. See our June Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.

A Book That Makes You Yearn to be Stranded on a Desert Island: Modern Classics of Fantasy edited by Gardner Dozois

A Book That Makes You Yearn to be Stranded on a Desert Island: Modern Classics of Fantasy edited by Gardner Dozois

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Modern Classics of Fantasy-small Modern Classics of Fantasy-back-small

Like most of you folks, I used to have more reading time. Like, a ton more reading time. Whole summer vacations just lazing around with my feet on the furniture and my nose in an epic fantasy. Nowadays I’m lucky to negotiate a three-day weekend and, believe me, that kind of reading time is much too precious to devote to a single author. Yes, reading vacations still tend to be devoted to big books — I haven’t broken that habit– but these days more often than not they’re thick anthologies that let me sample a wide range of writers. And usually anthologies curated by an editor who’s earned my trust.

That’s why I’m so partial to Gardner Dozois. He’s got great taste, for one thing. For another, he produces big books, the kind you can plan a vacation around. One of my favorites is his massive survey anthology Modern Classics of Fantasy, which is the kind of book that makes you wish you could be stranded on a desert island. Sure, I’d probably go hungry and miss the internet. But if it meant I finally had 15 uninterrupted hours to read this thing cover to cover, it’d totally be worth it.

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Vintage Treasures: Starship/Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss

Vintage Treasures: Starship/Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss

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Brian Aldiss Starship Signet-small Brian Aldiss Starship Avon-small Brian-Aldiss-Non-Stop-Pan-small
Brian Aldiss Non-Stop Grafton-small Brian Aldiss Non-Stop Carroll and Graf-small Brian Aldiss Non-Stop Masterworks-small

Joe Wehrle’s terrific review of Brian Aldiss’ Hothouse short story cycle in the latest issue of The Digest Enthusiast piqued my interest in other Aldiss classics. There’s certainly a lot to consider — Aldiss has written some thirty novels, including The Dark Light Years (1964), Report on Probability A (1968), Barefoot in the Head (1969), The Eighty-Minute Hour (1974), The Malacia Tapestry (1976), and The Helliconia Trilogy, just to mention a few. His most recent novel Finches of Mars was published in 2012, and his short story “Abundances Above” appeared in Postscripts 36/37 last year, shortly before the author’s 91st birthday (!!).

But any serious study of Brian Aldiss should probably start with his first novel Non-Stop, published in 1958. The tale of a generation ship whose inhabitants have degenerated into near barbarism, it was an instant classic, and remained in print for over five decades. The novel was re-titled Starship for its 1959 appearance in the US; that title stuck through multiple editions. I’ve collected a sample of a half-dozen of my favorite covers above, starting with the 1963 Signet paperback (top left, cover by Paul Lehr) and progressing through the decades to the 1989 Carroll & Graf edition (bottom middle, art by Tony Roberts) and the SF Masterworks edition (2000, cover by Fred Gambino).

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New Treasures: The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF, Volume 3 edited by David Afsharirad

New Treasures: The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF, Volume 3 edited by David Afsharirad

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The Year's Best Military and Adventure SF Volume 3-smallWhen you read as many Year’s Best volumes as I do, you come to accept a certain amount of story overlap. Yes, most of the editors do their best to coordinate with each other, but this is still a pretty small field, and with more than a half dozen Year’s Best titles every year, some repetition is to be expected. That’s one of the strengths of David Afsharirad’s Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF — he walks his own path, and in the three years he’s been doing this, I’m not sure there’s been any overlap with his fellow editors. Here’s the TOC for the newest installment, now on sale.

Preface by David Afsharirad
Introduction by David Weber
“Cadet Cruise” by David Drake (Baen.com, May 2016)
“Tethers” by William Ledbetter (Baen.com, November 2018)
“Unlinkage” by Eric Del Carlo (Analog Science Fiction and Fact, March 2016)
“Not in Vain” by Kacey Ezell (Black Tide Rising, 2016)
“Between Nine and Eleven” by Adam Roberts (Crises and Conflicts, 2016)
“Sephine and the Leviathan” by Jack Schouten (Clarkesworld, Issue 118, July 2016)
“The Good Food” by Michael Ezell (Beyond the Stars: At Galaxy’s Edge, 2016)
“If I Could Give This Time Machine Zero Stars, I Would” by James Wesley Rogers (Unidentified Funny Objects 5, 2016)
“Wise Child” by Steve Miller and Sharon Lee (Baen.com, June 2016)
“Starhome” by Michael Z. Williamson (Baen.com, October 2016)
“The Art of Failure” by Robert Dawson (Compelling Science Fiction, Issue 1, April/May 2016)
“The Last Tank Commander” by Allen Stroud (Crises and Conflicts, 2016)
“One Giant Leap” by Jay Werkheiser (Strange Horizons, November 21 2016)
“The Immortals: Anchorage” by David Adams (Beyond the Stars: A Planet Too Far, 2016)
“Backup Man” by Paul Di Filippo (Terraform, April 7 2016)

The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF, Volume 3 was published by Baen on June 6, 2017. It is 336 pages, priced at $16 in trade paperback and $8.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Greg Bobrowski. We covered the first volume here, and the second volume here. Read story samples at the Baen website.

The Digest Enthusiast #6 Now Available

The Digest Enthusiast #6 Now Available

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The Digest Enthusiast 6 June 2017-small The Digest Enthusiast 6 June 2017-back-small

There’s a lot of fascinating content in The Digest Enthusiast. I’m a guy who skims magazines, stopping to read a story when an author’s name or a piece of interior art catches my eye, and TDW sure don’t make it easy. Their June issue, the sixth, is crammed full of the kinds of pieces that you start out skimming and end up reading front to back.

There’s too much here for me to catalog it all, but the highlights include: Editor Richard Krauss’ News Digest, 12 pages of news and gossip on Down & Out: The Magazine, Nostalgia Digest, Paperback Parade, Weirdbook, Pulp Literature, The Pulpster, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Broadswords & Blasters, and other fine publications; an interview with publisher and writer Edd Vick, Steve Carper’s fascinating piece on “the bestselling digest paperback of all time,” Bob Hope’s self-published They Got Me Covered; Richard Krauss’ survey of 60s SF mag International Science Fiction; Krauss’ review of Weirdbook #34; and Joe Wehrle Jr’s review of Brian Aldiss’ Hothouse story cycle.

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Future Treasures: Moskva by Jack Grimwood

Future Treasures: Moskva by Jack Grimwood

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Moskva Jack Grimwood-smallJon Courtenay Grimwood has had a very impressive career. His Arabesk Trilogy, a trio of alternate history cyberpunk hard-boiled detective novels set in Alexandria, had the unusual distinction of being nominated for both the British Science Fiction and British Fantasy Awards. And we talked about his Assassini Trilogy, a tale of politics and the supernatural in 15th Century Venice, right here just last week.

His latest is a bit of a departure, but still very interesting — a thriller with political overtones set in 1980s Moscow. It arrives in hardcover from Thomas Dunne next week.

Red Square, 1985. The naked body of a young man is left outside the walls of the Kremlin, frozen solid ― like marble to the touch ― missing the little finger from his right hand.

A week later, Alex Marston, the headstrong fifteen-year-old daughter of the British Ambassador, disappears. Army Intelligence Officer Tom Fox, posted to Moscow to keep him from telling the truth to a government committee, is asked to help find her. It’s a shot at redemption.

But Russia is reluctant to give up the worst of her secrets. As Fox’s investigation sees him dragged deeper towards the dark heart of a Soviet establishment determined to protect its own, his fears for Alex’s safety grow with those of the girl’s father.

And if Fox can’t find her soon, she looks likely to become the next victim of a sadistic killer whose story is bound tight to that of his country’s terrible past…

Moskva will be published by Thomas Dunne Books on July 11, 2017. It is 358 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $14.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Blacksheep UK. See all of our recent Future Treasures here.

Disturbing Monsters, Tragic Undead, and Gorgeous Worldbuilding: Sorting Out The Old Kingdom by Garth Nix

Disturbing Monsters, Tragic Undead, and Gorgeous Worldbuilding: Sorting Out The Old Kingdom by Garth Nix

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Sabriel Garth Nix-small Lirael Garth Nix-small Abhorsen Garth Nix-small
Clariel Gath Nix-small To Hold the Bridge Gath Nix-small Goldenhand Gath Nix-small

Australian writer Garth Nix became a New York Times bestselling author with The Old Kingdom series, which began in 1995 with Sabriel. He’s had a very significant career quite apart from these novels, with his popular Seventh Tower books (6 volumes), The Keys to the Kingdom (7 books), Shade’s Children (1997 — that’s the publication year, not the number of volumes), and many others.

But The Old Kingdom remains perhaps his most popular series, and it’s appeared in multiple editions. At various times it’s also been called The Abhorsen Trilogy, The Old Kingdom Chronicles, and The Abhorsen Chronicles. He’s returned to it many times over the years… often enough, in fact, that it’s hard to figure out just how many books there are, and how they all fit together.

Hard for me, anyway. So the task I set for myself today was to get the whole series sorted, including all the various prequels, sequels, collections, omnibus volumes, and the like. Here we go.

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Vintage Treasures: The Hormone Jungle by Robert Reed

Vintage Treasures: The Hormone Jungle by Robert Reed

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The Hormone Jungle Robert Reed-small The Hormone Jungle Robert Reed-back-small

Robert Reed is one of the most acclaimed and prolific writers at work in SF today. He was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction in 1987, and won the Hugo Award for his 2006 novella “A Billion Eyes.” He’s sold some 200 short stories to numerous markets, including Asimov’s Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Interzone, Albedo One, Postscripts, F&SF, and Daily Science Fiction, and published over a dozen novels, including Down the Bright Way (1991), An Exaltation of Larks (1995), and Marrow (2000).

But back in 1988 he was a young writer with just one novel under his belt, The Leeshore (1987). His second, The Hormone Jungle, was published in hardcover that year by Donald Fine, and reprinted in paperback a year later by Popular Library with a cover by Luis Royo. Unlike the sophisticated space opera for which Reed is known today, The Hormone Jungle was packaged as a straight-ahead adventure story tailor made for a film treatment staring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Set “on an Earth overrun by a trillion species,” it featured a square-jawed “professional hero,” a beautiful lady android in distress, and a noir edge. That didn’t help it find a market, however… it pretty much vanished without a trace, and has never been reprinted. Copies aren’t hard to find, but it nonetheless took me a while to acquire one. I finally found one on eBay recently for $4.99 (including shipping).

Our previous coverage of Robert Reed includes:

Is Robert Reed the New Century’s Most Compelling SF Voice?
New Treasures: The Greatship

The Hormone Jungle was published by Questar/Popular Library in June 1989. It is 300 pages, priced at $4.50 in paperback. The cover is by Luis Royo. Read more at Reed’s website, and see all our recent Vintage Treasures here.