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New Treasures: Congress of Secrets by Stephanie Burgis

New Treasures: Congress of Secrets by Stephanie Burgis

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congress-of-secrets-stephanie-burgis-smallStephanie Burgis is the author of the Kat, Incorrigible trilogy of Regency fantasy adventures for kids. Masks and Shadows, her first historical fantasy novel for adults, was published by Pyr earlier this year. Martha Wells calls her newest, Congress of Secrets, “A gripping and enjoyable historical fantasy thriller, with engaging characters scheming for survival and revenge, fighting addictive alchemical magic against the lush background of the 1814 Congress of Vienna.” That’s good enough for me.

In 1814, the Congress of Vienna has just begun. Diplomats battle over a new map of Europe, actors vie for a chance at glory, and aristocrats and royals from across the continent come together to celebrate the downfall of Napoleon… among them Lady Caroline Wyndham, a wealthy English widow. But Caroline has a secret: she was born Karolina Vogl, daughter of a radical Viennese printer. When her father was arrested by the secret police, Caroline’s childhood was stolen from her by dark alchemy.

Under a new name and nationality, she returns to Vienna determined to save her father even if she has to resort to the same alchemy that nearly broke her before. But she isn’t expecting to meet her father’s old apprentice, Michael Steinhüller, now a charming con man in the middle of his riskiest scheme ever. The sinister forces that shattered Caroline’s childhood still rule Vienna behind a glittering façade of balls and salons, Michael’s plan is fraught with danger, and both of their disguises are more fragile than they realize. What price will they pay to the darkness if either of them is to survive?

Our previous coverage of Stephanie Burgis includes:

A Most Improper Boxed Set
Masks and Shadows
Stephanie Burgis on Scandals in Regency England, Magickal Bathwater, and an Illness That Is No Laughing Matter by Emily Mah

Congress of Secrets was published by Pyr on November 1, 2016. It is 347 pages, priced at $17 in trade paperback and $9.99 in digital formats. The cover was designed by Nicole Sommer-Lecht.

The B&N Sci-Fi Blog on The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of November

The B&N Sci-Fi Blog on The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of November

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Jim Killen has been as the science fiction and fantasy buyer for Barnes & Noble for nearly 20 years, and every month he shares his top new SFF releases at the B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog. His November list includes exciting new books from Brandon Sanderson, Ben Bova, Emma Newman, Christopher Hinz, Kim Harrison, Cassandra Rose Clarke, Erika Johansen, David Weber, David Dalglish, and others — including Culdesac by Robert Repino, the sequel to the widely acclaimed Mort(e), the tale of a housecat who becomes a war hero in an apocalyptic battle between humans, giants ants, and sentient animals.

Repino returns to the war-torn world he established in Mort(e) as the War with No Name rages on. The Colony, a race of intelligent ants, has humanity on the run before its army of sentient and intelligent animals. Culdesac, a housecat-turned-general for The Colony, is a brutally effective warrior, for whom violence is always the answer. As his forces occupy the town of Milton, however, he must prepare for a brutal counteroffensive from the humans, even as he discovers secrets that threaten to undermine his understanding of this new universe. Repino imbues a startling sense of realism to a story about an intelligent cat’s desire to wipe out humanity; Culdesac’s story is not only tense and violent, but oddly emotional and touching.

Culdesac was published by Soho Press on November 15. It is 128 pages, priced at $9.99 in trade paperback and $7.99 for the digital edition. We covered Mort(e) here.

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Future Treasures: Gloriana: Or, The Unfulfill’d Queen by Michael Moorcock

Future Treasures: Gloriana: Or, The Unfulfill’d Queen by Michael Moorcock

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gloriana-or-the-unfulfilld-queen-smallMichael Moorcock is best known today for his ambitious Eternal Champion story arc, which includes the sword & sorcery classic Elric of Melnibone, the Hawkmoon novels, the Chronicles of Corum, the Von Bek novels… and man, a whole lot more. Seriously, if you want to dive in, there’s a whole lot of reading ahead of you. The Wikipedia page, which lists roughly a billion novels and short stories in the seres, will get you started.

But some of Moorcock’s most acclaimed fantasies were standalone works — including the World Fantasy Award and John W. Campbell Award winner Gloriana: Or, The Unfulfill’d Queen, which first appeared nearly 40 years ago. The tale of a beautiful but sexually frustrated queen who finds herself drawn into deadly court intrigue, Gloriana has been reprinted over a dozen times, and at the end of the month Saga Press returns it to print again in a handsome new hardcover description. Here’s the description.

In this “spellbinding” (The Sunday Times) award-winning fantasy, the vast empire of Albion is ruled by the beautiful and forlorn queen, Gloriana who must battle against a nefarious scoundrel, Captain Quire, and a court soured by debauchery with her wits.

First published in 1978, Gloriana is the award-winning story set in the alternate English kingdom of Albion that reimagines Queen Elizabeth’s reign.

Bawdy, cruel, and brilliant, Gloriana has been awarded the World Fantasy Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction, and is often cited as one of the great works of speculative fiction and fantasy along the lines of J.G. Ballard, Thomas Pynchon, and Philip K. Dick.

Gloriana has previously been published in the US by Avon Books, Questar, Warner Aspect, and the Science Fiction Book Club, and in the UK by Fontana, Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks, Gateway/Orion, and others. I’ve collected half a dozen examples below, with a gorgeous sampling of cover art — including the 1986 Flamingo edition, one of the rare examples of full frontal nudity I’ve ever seen on a mass market fantasy cover.

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Pirates, Golems, and the Dread Queen of the Skies: Tales of the Ketty Jay by Chris Wooding

Pirates, Golems, and the Dread Queen of the Skies: Tales of the Ketty Jay by Chris Wooding

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Retribution Falls, the opening volume of Chris Wooding’s four-volume Tales of the Ketty Jay saga, was short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Pretty auspicious beginning for a steampunk adventure series featuring pirates, sky battles, and armored golems.

The series has been widely acclaimed over the years. Publisher’s Weekly praised its “Beautifully crafted prose and remarkably imaginative scenes,” and SFFWorld called it “One of the best pieces of fun I’ve read in a long while… a whip-cracking pace and with characters you care about.” James Rollins said “Pirates, sky-ships, and golems are just the trappings for a far-flung adventure of stunning imagination and brilliant craftsmanship,” and Peter Hamilton called it “A fast exhilarating read… the kind of old fashioned adventure I didn’t think we were allowed to write anymore, of freebooting privateers making their haphazard way in a wondrous retro-future world.”

The pics above are of the British Gollancz editions, which have better covers than their US counterparts. Here in the US, the first two were reprinted by Spectra with the Gollancz covers, and the last two by Titan, with new covers that have more of a Firefly feel (deliberately, I think).

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New Treasures: Things From Outer Space, edited by Hank Davis

New Treasures: Things From Outer Space, edited by Hank Davis

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things-from-outer-space-smallHank Davis is my kind of editor. He’s one of the very few out there still mining pulps and science fiction digest magazines and packaging them up for a modern audience, in terrific books like In Space No One Can Hear You Scream (2013) and The Baen Big Book of Monsters (2014). In short, he’s one of the only folks introducing the work of Edmond Hamilton, John W. Campbell, Clifford D. Simak, Randall Garrett, Fritz Leiber and others to a modern audience — or at least, one of the very few doing it in affordable mass market editions, which is the way I discovered all those great wrters, mummnly-mumble decades ago.

Things From Outer Space is Hank’s latest, an original paperback collecting tales of “Mostly very, very bad things that want to harm humans and destroy Earth. Or take it for their own. Original stories and reprints of classics from the scary side of science fiction!” Here’s the description.

THE THINGS ARE COMING…

As we all know, in space, no one can hear you scream. Which doesn’t mean that anyone is safe just because they’re standing on the soil of planet Earth, because if a thing from out there drops in, screaming probably won’t save you.

Earth has spawned myriad unpleasant life forms which are bad news for humans, ranging in size from the Ebola virus to the great white shark up to the Tyrannosaurus Rex (extinct, fortunately for us) — and that’s just one planet. What even more deadly life forms might the billions of planets in our galaxy have spawned? And suppose the things are intelligent and capable of crossing space and coming here . . .

Considering that very possibility are the masters of science fiction starring in this book, including Robert Silverberg, David Drake, Sarah A. Hoyt, James H. Schmitz, Fritz Leiber, Robert Sheckley, Murray Leinster and John W. Campbell, as well as classic stories of extraterrestrial horrors by H.P. Lovecraft, George Allan England and more.

E.T. might have been happy eating Reese’s Pieces, but other visitors from the void might have less dainty appetites. And there are probably worse things than merely being eaten…

Alas, description notwithstanding, there is no contribution from Murray Leinster. But there are twenty stories of nasty alien creatures, new and old. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Future Treasures: The Liberation, the Final Novel in The Alchemy Wars by Ian Tregillis

Future Treasures: The Liberation, the Final Novel in The Alchemy Wars by Ian Tregillis

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Concerning Ian Tregillis, last year Howard Andrew Jones wrote:

Ian is an extremely gifted writer… I have to wait to read his books until I have a substantial amount of time in front of me, because I usually can’t stop reading once I begin… I power read the last two [of the Milkweed Triptych] because I couldn’t stand not knowing what happened next. Blew an entire writing day. His work is dangerous for me that way as few modern authors are.

High praise indeed from our Managing Editor. But he’s not alone in his assessment — Publishers Weekly called The Mechanical, the opening volume in his new trilogy, “Superb alternate history filled with clockwork men and ethical questions on the nature of free will… a gripping story,” and George R.R. Martin labeled Ian “A major talent” (a quote that’s been slapped on every single volume of The Alchemy Wars). Now the long-awaited third and final volume in the trilogy will finally be released next month by Orbit.

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Black Gate Online Fiction: An Exclusive Excerpt from The Wall of Storms by Ken Liu

Black Gate Online Fiction: An Exclusive Excerpt from The Wall of Storms by Ken Liu

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Black Gate is very pleased to offer our readers an exclusive excerpt from Chapter One of Ken’s Liu’s The Wall of Storms, the second novel of The Dandelion Dynasty, published in hardcover and digital formats last month by Saga Press. Here’s the description.

In the much-anticipated sequel to the “magnificent fantasy epic” (NPR) Grace of Kings, Emperor Kuni Garu is faced with the invasion of an invincible army in his kingdom and must quickly find a way to defeat the intruders. Kuni Garu, now known as Emperor Ragin, runs the archipelago kingdom of Dara, but struggles to maintain progress while serving the demands of the people and his vision. Then an unexpected invading force from the Lyucu empire in the far distant west comes to the shores of Dara — and chaos results.

But Emperor Kuni cannot go and lead his kingdom against the threat himself with his recently healed empire fraying at the seams, so he sends the only people he trusts to be Dara’s savvy and cunning hopes against the invincible invaders: his children, now grown and ready to make their mark on history.

The Grace of Kings, Ken Liu’s debut novel and the opening novel of The Dandelion Dynasty, was nominated for the Nebula Award, and won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. His short story collection The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories was called “Profound enough to hurt” by Amal El-Mohtar of NPR, and his acclaimed translation of Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015.

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New Treasures: The Supernaturals by David L. Golemon

New Treasures: The Supernaturals by David L. Golemon

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the-supernaturals-david-golemon-smallI don’t know about you lot, but here in Chicago, a blustery wind just blew through the city and temperatures have plummeted 25 degrees. Dead leaves are blowing across the streets by the thousands, and the water in the bird feeder froze overnight. Fall is well and truly here, and the only way to manage it is to sit by the window, listen to the wind blow through the trees, and curl up under a blanket with a good creepy book.

David L. Golemon (author of the Event Group Thrillers) has a new haunted house novel out in hardcover from Thomas Dunne Books that fits the bill nicely.

Built at the turn of the twentieth century by one of the richest and most powerful men in the world tucked away in the pristine Pocono Mountains, Summer Place, a retreat for the rich and famous, seems the very essence of charm and beauty, “a scene borrowed from a wondrous fairytale of gingerbread houses, bright forests, and glowing, sunny meadows.”

But behind the yellow and white trimmed exterior lurks an evil, waiting to devour the unwary…

Seven years ago, Professor Gabriel Kennedy’s investigation into paranormal activity at Summer Place ended in tragedy, and destroyed his career. Now, Kelly Delaphoy, the ambitious producer of a top-rated ghost-hunting television series, is determined to make Summer Place the centerpiece of an epic live broadcast on Halloween night. To ensure success, she needs help from the one man who has come face-to-face with the evil that dwells in Summer Place, a man still haunted by the ghosts of his own failure. Disgraced and alienated from the academic community, Kennedy wants nothing to do with the event. But Summer Place has other plans…

As Summer Place grows stronger, Kennedy, along with the paranormal ghost hunting team, The Supernaturals, sets out to confront… and if possible, destroy… the evil presence dwelling there.

The Supernaturals was published by Thomas Dunne Books on October 18, 2016. It is 383 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Jerry Todd.

John DeNardo on the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Reads for November

John DeNardo on the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Reads for November

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How does John DeNardo pick the best books every month? “Jedi Mind Tricks,” he tells me. Fine. Keep your secrets, DeNardo. We probably wouldn’t believe the answer, anyway.

John’s picks for November include new titles from Bruce Sterling, Anne Rice, Jean Johnson, Ken MacLeod, Rachel Neumeier, and many others. Here he is on Alien Morning by Rick Wilber

When seemingly-benevolent aliens arrive in our near-future and their true nature is revealed, the fate of two civilizations depends on the members of a family who have some serious issues to resolve… This near-future first contact story adds a personal element by placing a troubled family at the center of history-changing events.

And Remnants of Trust by Elizabeth Bonesteel, the sequel to The Cold Between.

Two central corps soldiers, patrolling an empty sector of space as punishment for trying to uncover a government conspiracy, receive a distress call from a ship embroiled in battle. When they arrive, they find nearly one hundred corpses. But are they dead because of attacking raiders or due to sabotage?… Remnants of Trust is an engaging blend of military science fiction, mystery, and thriller.

See John’s complete article at Kirkus Reviews.

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Future Treasures: Apes and Angels, the Newest Volume in the Star Quest Trilogy by Ben Bova

Future Treasures: Apes and Angels, the Newest Volume in the Star Quest Trilogy by Ben Bova

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When I was a teenager in Ottawa I attended the local SF convention, Maplecon, a marvelous con that I still miss today, without fail every year. In 1984 I was a volunteer, and I was assigned as the liaison for our Guest of Honor, author and editor Ben Bova. I picked Ben and his wife up from the airport and drove them around town, and got to know them pretty well. Ben was gracious, kind, and a marvelous conversationalist, and we talked about everything — various ways to express the laws of thermodynamics, the re-election of Ronald Reagan, his time as editor of Analog, and lots more. In fact, Ben was one of the first industry professionals I got to know personally, and he made a big impression on me.

As a writer, he’s been amazingly prolific over the past few decades, releasing 22 books in his Grand Tour SF series, which explore the solar system, as well as his Voyager series, his Sam Gunn stories, six novels in the Orion sequence, and nearly two dozen standalone novels and collections. His current project is the Star Quest Trilogy (part of the Grand Tour), which takes the series outside the solar system for the first time. New Earth (2013) sets the stage for the trilogy, which began with Death Wave (2015), and continues with Apes and Angels, arriving in hardcover from Tor Books at the end of this month.

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