Black Gate

Here’s another debut fantasy with an original and intriguing premise: ferryman Charlie Dawson, condemned to transport souls to the underworld for all eternity, finds his existence unraveling after he prevents a young woman from committing suicide. And his life — such as it is — rapidly gets very complicated. In her review, Jaclyn Fulwood at Shelf Awareness writes,

Since the moment of his near-death more than two centuries ago, Charlie has been in the employ of the shadowy Ferryman Institute, guiding newly deceased souls through the departure process. When a Ferryman fails to convince a spirit to cross over, it becomes a vengeful ghost; Charlie Dawson, star of the Institute’s stable, never fails… In an age when the Institute competes with comparable organizations like the Sisters of Valhalla, Charlie is simply too good to let go. Supported by his refined mentor Cartwright, but stalked by internal affairs liaison Inspector Javrouche (the only person who actively despises him), Charlie limps through his malaise until he receives a special assignment from the president of the Institute — to see to the soul of one Alice Spiegel, a soon-to-be suicide — and is surprised with options: “Be a Ferryman or save the girl. Your choice.”

Gigl pays homage to Greco-Roman mythology while poking fun at corporate structure, but this fast-paced fantasy has its serious side, taking the real-life problem of getting stuck in a dead-end job to a more mystical but still weighty extreme. Gigl seems to realize his concept treads familiar ground; readers will find easy laughs here, but more introspection than in novels with similar premises.

The Ferryman Institute will be published by Gallery Books on September 27, 2016. It is 432 pages, priced at $16 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition. Click the images above for bigger versions, or read an excerpt at the Simon & Schuster website.

Delia Sherman is the author of the Andre Norton Award-winning The Freedom Maze,  Through a Brazen Mirror, The Porcelain Dove, and The Fall of the Kings (2002, with Ellen Kushner). Her latest novel is an ambitious (and very funny) tale of Nick, a lost boy who finds himself an unlikely apprentice to the ancient, sorta evil, but mostly just grumpy wizard Smallbone. It contains magic spells, enchanted animals, dueling wizards, biker werewolf minions, and much more.

When twelve-year-old Nick runs away from his uncle’s in the middle of a blizzard, he stumbles onto a very opinionated bookstore. He also meets its guardian, the self-proclaimed Evil Wizard Smallbone, who calls Nick his apprentice and won’t let him leave, but won’t teach him magic, either. It’s a good thing the bookstore takes Nick’s magical education in hand, because Smallbone’s nemesis — the Evil Wizard Fidelou — and his pack of shape-shifting bikers are howling at the borders. Smallbone might call himself evil, but compared to Fidelou, he’s practically a puppy. And he can’t handle Fidelou alone.

Wildly funny and cozily heartfelt, Delia Sherman’s latest is an eccentric fantasy adventure featuring dueling wizards, enchanted animals, and one stray boy.

Our previous coverage of Delia Sherman includes:

Read “The Great Detective” by Delia Sherman at Tor.com
Time Travel and YA Lit: A Talk with Delia Sherman, by Patty Templeton
Delia Sherman’s “The Wizard’s Apprentice” at Podcastle, by C.S.E. Cooney

The Evil Wizard Smallbone will be published by Candlewick on September 13, 2016. It is 416 pages, priced at $17.99 in hardcover, and $9.99 for the digital edition.

Nisi Shawl has been writing short stories for over two decades, and her long awaited first novel, an historical fantasy steampunk tale set in the Belgian Congo, will be released this week. It explores one of the darkest periods in human history — King Leopold’s African holocaust — and imagines what might have been if the native peoples of the Congo had developed steam technology of their own. It’s a fascinating premise, and Everfair is one of the most intriguing literary offerings of the fall.

Everfair is a wonderful Neo-Victorian alternate history novel that explores the question of what might have come of Belgium’s disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier. Fabian Socialists from Great Britian join forces with African-American missionaries to purchase land from the Belgian Congo’s “owner,” King Leopold II. This land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia for native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning from America and other places where African natives were being mistreated.

Nisi Shawl’s speculative masterpiece manages to turn one of the worst human rights disasters on record into a marvelous and exciting exploration of the possibilities inherent in a turn of history. Everfair is told from a multiplicity of voices: Africans, Europeans, East Asians, and African Americans in complex relationships with one another, in a compelling range of voices that have historically been silenced. Everfair is not only a beautiful book but an educational and inspiring one that will give the reader new insight into an often ignored period of history.

Everfair will be published by Tor Books on September 6, 2016. It is 384 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Victo Ngai.

Read a sample chapter at Tor.com.