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Gizmodo on November’s New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books

Gizmodo on November’s New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books

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The Rush’s Edge by Ginger Smith-small This Virtual Night by C.S. Friedman-small Fishing for Dinosaurs and Other Stories by Joe R. Lansdale-small

Covers by Kieryn Tyler, Adam Auerbach, and Timothy Truman

We’re getting close to the holiday season, and you know what that means. 2020 will finally be over. But also! Many of us will have enough vacation time to catch up on our reading.

The new flurry of November releases hasn’t made that any easier. What we need is a roadmap to the most interesting destinations in this publishing wilderness. Something like Cheryl Eddy’s comprehensive list of November New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books to Help You Make It Through 2020’s Home Stretch at Gizmodo, which includes new titles from Brandon Sanderson, E.E. Knight, Joe R. Lansdale, Tamsyn Muir, Connie Willis, Peter F. Hamilton, Harry Turtledove, Ernest Cline, Bernard Cornwell, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Jonathan Lethem, C.S. Friedman, Charlie Holmberg, W. Michael Gear, Diana Gabaldon and John Joseph Adams, Tim Lebbon, Jonathan Maberry, Kiersten White, Christopher Hinz, P.D. Cacek, James Lovegrove, Greg Cox, R.F. Kuang, Tochi Onyebuchi, R.J. Barker, Benedict Jacka, Holly Black, Mercedes Lackey, and lots more. Here’s a look at some of the highlights.

The Rush’s Edge by Ginger Smith (Angry Robot, 328 pages, $14.99 paperback/$6.99 digital, November 10, 2020) — cover by Kieryn Tyler

A past-his-prime “genetically-engineered and technology implanted” former soldier is discarded by the government that created him, so he takes a salvage gig to pass the time. Things get complicated when the ship’s computer is overtaken by an alien invader.

Deep space salvage, rogue computers, aliens…. This debut novel is headed to the top of my TBR pile for November.

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Future Treasures: Memoria by Kristyn Merbeth

Future Treasures: Memoria by Kristyn Merbeth

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The Nova Vita Protocol: Fortuna and Memoria by Kristyn Merbeth.
Orbit Books, November 2019 and December 2020. Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio

Kristyn Merbeth’s first series, The Wastelanders (published under the name K.S. Merbeth), was described as a “no-holds-barred ride through a Mad Max-style wasteland.” Her most recent is a full-throttled space opera, and a successful one at that. It opened with Fortuna last year, which Kirkus Reviews called “a wild ride.”

Merbeth’s (Raid, 2017, etc.) latest — the first installment of an SF adventure trilogy — follows a family of smugglers as they unknowingly become entangled in a grand-scale conspiracy that could ignite an interstellar war and kill millions.

It’s been three years since Scorpia Kaiser’s older brother, Corvus, left the family business to enlist and fight in a bloody conflict on his war-torn home planet of Titan. But, with Corvus’ service officially ended, Scorpia — at the behest of her mother, the Kaiser matriarch — is piloting the family ship, Fortuna, to Titan to reunite her brother with the family. Picking up Corvus wasn’t the only mission, however. Her mother is completing a deal with government officials involving highly illegal alien biological weapons that could potentially end the war. As Corvus, Scorpia, and their siblings wait for their mother to return to the ship, they discover that a cataclysm is sweeping the planet, wiping out entire human populations. Forced to leave their mother behind, the siblings barely escape with their lives…. The nonstop action and varying levels of tension make this an unarguable page-turner, and the ending, while satisfying, is a perfect jumping-off point to another much larger adventure to come. A wild SF ride — alcohol and family dysfunction not included.

The second volume in The Nova Vita Protocol, Memoria, arrives in paperback from Orbit early next month. Here’s the description.

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Mission Impossible with Dragons: The Kingdom of Grit Trilogy by Tyler Whitesides

Mission Impossible with Dragons: The Kingdom of Grit Trilogy by Tyler Whitesides

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The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn-small The Shattered Realm of Ardor Benn-small The Last Lies of Ardor Benn

The Kingdom of Grit trilogy by Tyler Whitesides (Orbit Books). Covers by Ben Zweifel

I was in Barnes & Noble on Saturday and I found a fat fantasy with a striking cover, and all the hallmarks of a good read — starting with this cover quote by David Dalglish, author of the bestselling Shadowdance series:

Mission Impossible, but with magic, dragons, and a series of heists that go from stealing a crown to saving the world.

The book was The Shattered Realm of Ardor Benn by Tyler Whitesides, and I was surprised to find it was the second volume in a trilogy. How had I missed the first one? Because it was released only two weeks ago, that’s how. And the final volume? It’s due in less than a month. That’s over 2,000 pages of epic fantasy, served up on a platter by Orbit Books.

The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn (752 pages, $17.99 paperback/$9.99 digital, October 22, 2020)
The Shattered Realm of Ardor Benn (704 pages, $17.99 paperback/$9.99 digital, November 3, 2020)
The Last Lies of Ardor Benn (672 pages, $17.99 paperback/$9.99 digital, December 1, 2020)

Okay, technically the first book was originally published two years ago, but still. Orbit has repackaged the first volume (with a brand new cover by Ben Zweifel), and side-by-side these books look very striking indeed. Reviewers have been kind as well (the British Fantasy Society says, “There is something a little Locke Lamora about Ardor Benn which fans will delight in… The pace in this first book is excellent and holds up from start to finish, and it looks like we have a very desirable series to devour in Kingdom of Grit“). If you’re looking for a substantial new fantasy series to get you through the fall, look no further.

See all our recent coverage of the best new fantasy series here.

New Treasures: Daughter of the Serpentine by E. E. Knight

New Treasures: Daughter of the Serpentine by E. E. Knight

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Novice Dragoneer and Daughter of the Serpentine (Ace Books). Covers by Dan Burgess

Happy Book Birthday to Daughter of the Serpentine, the second volume in E. E. Knight’s hugely popular Dragoneer Academy series!

Eric, of course, needs no introduction to Black Gate readers — his 11-volume Vampire Earth series and his six-volume Age of Fire epic are both perennial favorites in our offices, and Eric’s also a regular blogger for us. And I was very proud to publish his Blue Pilgrim tale “The Terror in the Vale,” one of the very best stories in our Black Gate Online Fiction library.

The opening volume in his new series, Novice Dragoneer, was published last year to wide acclaim. The Bibliosanctum called it “Delightfully entertaining,” and Booklist proclaimed it “An excellent fantasy coming of age story.” Anticipation for the second book has been through the roof, and it looks like the wait was worth it — check out this snippet from the rave review at Library Journal.

Knight (Age of Fire series) continues the story of Ileth, a teen who comes from nothing and strives to fulfill her childhood dream of becoming a dragonrider in the Serpentine academy. Ileth has matured since the first book and takes on new challenges, such as balancing two apprenticeships; one as a dragonrider and the other as a dancer. As she rises in rank, enemies threaten the republic, forcing her to take charge of her future sooner than she anticipated. Knight creates a marvelous character study of a young woman within the walls of a mostly male-dominated world… VERDICT: Highly recommended… Start with the first in the series or just dive right into this perfect adventure tale.

Daughter of the Serpentine was published today by Ace Books. It is 496 pages, priced at $16.99 in trade paperback and $9.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Dan Burgess. Read an excerpt here. See all our coverage of the latest releases by BG Staff here.

Giant Spiders, Horrifying Plants, and Robots at the End of Time: The Best of James Van Pelt

Giant Spiders, Horrifying Plants, and Robots at the End of Time: The Best of James Van Pelt

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The Best of James van Pelt (Fairwood Press, November 2020). Cover by Gabriel Gajdoš

If you’re a regular Black Gate reader, James Van Pelt needs no introduction.

He’s been a prolific contributor to all the major science fiction magazines we’ve covered for the past two decades. He’s also a part-time BG columnist, covering the short fiction beat for us with his occasional Stories That Work column. His latest book is sure to be of interest to all our readers — The Best of James Van Pelt, just released by Fairwood Press, is an enormous 700-page survey of James’ entire career, collecting 62 stories and nearly 300,000 words of fiction. Here’s a snippet from the starred review at Publishers Weekly.

Van Pelt showcases his mastery of short-form fiction in these 62 stories, all published between 1993 and 2018 and ranging from apocalyptic fiction to subtle daylight horror, Lovecraftian riffs, and speculation about future social policy initiatives. . . .Van Pelt’s superior combination of imaginative concepts with recognizable human emotions makes him a talent deserving of a wide readership.

Here’s the publisher’s description.

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New Treasures: Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

New Treasures: Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

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Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga Press, October 2020). Cover by John Picacio

Rebecca Roanhorse burst on the scene in 2018 with her debut novel Trail of Lightning. I remember pretty vividly because my own debut The Robots of Gotham was released the same month, and I watched in awe as Trail of Lightning outsold it by a comfortable margin — and then went on to be nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, and won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. It was certainly humbling, but I’m still proud we were both part of the same June 2018 graduation class, and I’ve followed her career enthusiastically every since.

Her latest is Black Sun, the first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, an epic of forbidden magic and celestial prophecy, set in an imaginary Pre-Columbian North America as it was before European explorers invaded. Here’s an excerpt from the review at Kirkus.

The winter solstice is coming, and the elite members of the sacred Sky Made clans in the city of Tova are preparing for a great celebration, led by Naranpa, the newly appointed Sun Priest. But unrest is brewing in Carrion Crow, one of the clans…. Meanwhile, a young sailor named Xiala has been outcast from her home and spends much of her time drowning her sorrows in alcohol in the city of Cuecola. Xiala is Teek, a heritage that brings with it some mysterious magical abilities and deep knowledge of seafaring but often attracts suspicion and fear. A strange nobleman hires Xiala to sail a ship from Cuecola to Tova. Her cargo? A single passenger, Serapio, a strange young man with an affinity for crows and a score to settle with the Sun Priest. Roanhorse’s fantasy world based on pre-Columbian cultures is rich, detailed, and expertly constructed… A beautifully crafted setting with complex character dynamics and layers of political intrigue? Perfection. Mark your calendars, this is the next big thing.

Black Sun was published by Saga Press on October 13, 2020. It is 454 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $11.99 in digital versions. The cover is by John Picacio. Listen to an audio excerpt or read the complete first chapter at the Simon & Schuster website.

See all our recent New Treasures here.

New Treasures: Agent of the Imperium by Marc Miller

New Treasures: Agent of the Imperium by Marc Miller

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Agent of the Imperium Marc Miller-smallMarc Miller created Traveller back in 1977, and over the last forty years it’s become pretty much the de facto science fiction role playing game. It’s certainly the one to beat, anyway.

A few years back Marc Miller launched a Kickstarter to fund the publication of the Traveller novel Agent of the Imperium. It was a huge success. raising $35,113 from 970 backers, and the book appeared in 2015. Like most Kickstarter-funded book projects however, it’s early success didn’t immediately translate into a lot of readers.

Baen Books is hoping to rectify that with a 2020 reissue, which arrived this week in a handsome new trade paperback edition. Here’s an excerpt from Shannon Appelcline’s thoughtful review at RPG.Net.

Jonathan Bland is a dead man, but he lives on in a technological wafer that allows him to exist again for 30 days at a time as an Agent of the Imperium. When called upon, he continues the work of the Imperial Quarantine Agency — which as often as not requires the scrubbing of dangerous planets. Jonathan Bland is a dead man, but that doesn’t mean he’s stopped learning… The threats of Agent of the Imperium include rogue robots, virulent diseases, and psionic infections, but at its core it’s a journey into the heart of a man who lives the most unusual life imaginable….

Agent of the Imperium is a troubleshooter novel, much like the Retief series (1967+) that Miller has listed as an influence on Traveller. Here, you can see the connection; where Keith Laumer wrote silly tales of a diplomatic troubleshooter, Miller instead offers the serious and sometimes grim tales of a quarantine troubleshooter in the Official Traveller Universe….

It is surprising that Marc Miller is able to incorporate so many elements of the Traveller universe in such an effortless, organic way. Vilani, psionics, newts, stasis globes, Geonee, naval officers, Threep, and amber zones. They’re all here, and they never feel gratuitous. Somehow, Miller is able both to fill Agent of the Imperium with the wonders of the Third Imperium and to convince us that he had to include those many and varied elements to give us the complete story…. Agent of the Imperium also does a great job of depicting Traveller‘s history. Because his book is set so far before the Golden Age, Miller is able to easily introduce historic elements such as the Frontier Wars and the Emperors of the Flag that could be backstory for any Traveller game… At the same time, Miller also foreshadows some of the future problems of the Imperium — great mysteries from the final days of the classic game. It’s an impressive (and surprising) trick.

Agent of the Imperium was published by Baen Books on November 3, 2020. It is 368 pages, priced at $16 in trade paperback and $8.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Alan Pollack. Read a generous sample at the Baen website.

See all our recent New Treasures here.

Return to the World of The Three Musketeers in Blood Royal by Alexandre Dumas

Return to the World of The Three Musketeers in Blood Royal by Alexandre Dumas

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Blood Royal Alexandre Dumas-smallNeed a break from obsessively following US election results tonight? I have just the thing: Blood Royal, the latest entry in the acclaimed series of new translations of the Musketeer novels by our very own Lawrence Ellsworth, is on sale today.

I’ve really been enjoying Lawrence’s Cinema of Swords series here at Black Gate. But his day job is even cooler: he’s been bringing Alexandre Dumas’s classic novels of swashbuckling intrigue back into print in exciting and handsome new editions, complete with modern translations.

The latest, Blood Royal, continues the adventures of the valiant d’Artagnan and his three loyal friends. It follows The Red Sphinx and the newly translated The Three Musketeers; here’s what Lawrence told us about it last week.

Blood Royal is the second volume of Dumas’s Twenty Years After; there hadn’t been a significant new English translation of this novel in over a century, which was reason enough to take on the challenge, but the truth is I did it because it was so much fun.

Here’s the publisher’s description.

The latest translation in Lawrence Ellsworth’s acclaimed new series of Alexandre Dumas’s greatest adventures is Blood Royal, the second half of what Dumas originally published as Twenty Years After. In this volume all the plots and schemes set up in the previous novel come to dramatic fruition in the kind of exciting thrill-ride Dumas is famous for — while at the same time introducing the characters and themes that form the foundation of the rest of the series, leading to its great climax in The Man in the Iron Mask.

In Blood Royal, the Four Musketeers all venture to England on parallel missions to save King Charles I, pursued by the murderous and vengeful Mordaunt, the son of Milady de Winter, the great villain of The Three Musketeers. Despite all his experience, d’Artagnan is repeatedly foiled by the much-younger Mordaunt, who erupts out of the past to embody the strengths of audacity and cunning that were once d’Artagnan’s hallmarks. Mordaunt has corrupted those youthful strengths, and the older d’Artagnan is no match for him until he is able to pull his former team together again. To do this d’Artagnan will have to become a true leader of men, leading not just by example but also by foresight, persuasion, and compromise. Only then can the team of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis be re-formed in all its might to defeat the specter of their past. Blood Royal is unmatched in Dumas’s oeuvre in its depictions of his most famous and beloved characters, and an unforgettable saga of swordplay, suspense, revenge, and ultimate triumph.

Blood Royal was published today by Pegasus Books. It is 496 pages, priced at $26.95 in hardcover and $17.99 in digital formats.

See all our recent coverage of the best new releases here.

New Treasures: The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson

New Treasures: The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson

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Cover design by Richard Yoo

Way back in early 2017, John DeNardo included Entropy in Bloom: Stories in a Kirkus Reviews article on The Science Fiction & Fantasy Books Everyone Will be Talking About in April. That was my introduction to the work of Jeremy Robert Johnson, a rising star in horror fiction, author of the 2015 novel Skullcrack City and the earlier collection We Live Inside You (2011).

His new novel The Loop was released by Saga Press last month to some pretty gonzo acclaim. Kirkus called it a “grotesque teen nightmare that’s pretty much Stranger Things meets Rogue One,” and I have no idea what that even means. Here’s a cut from Sadie Hartmann’s enthusiastic notice at Cemetery Dance:

This book covers a lot of ground and offers something for everyone: A strong, female protagonist named Lucy; witty (hilarious) sidekick besties, Brewer and Bucket; and a rocket-fueled storyline about a biologically engineered virus leaked from a lab and wreaking havoc in a small, rural town in the Pacific Northwest. There’s even a likable radio personality known as the Nightwatchman that gave me strong Pump Up the Volume vibes. Do you remember that movie with Christian Slater? Well I do. One of my favorite aspects of Johnson’s writing is the way everything is stylistically cinematic to read like a cult-classic from a familiar era (definitely the late ‘80s to mid-’90s)…

Folded into this tension is Johnson’s natural-born talent for wit and sarcasm as well as his flair for spot-on pop culture references — a trifecta of storytelling gifts that Johnson’s fanbase has come to expect from his books…. This is a favorite book of 2020 for sure.

The Loop was published by Saga Press on September 29, 2020. It is 306 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $9.99 in digital formats. The cover was designed by Richard Yoo. Listen to an audio excerpt or read Chapter One at the Simon & Schuster website.

See all our recent New Treasures here.

Andrew Liptak on 24 Sci-fi and Fantasy Books to Check Out in October

Andrew Liptak on 24 Sci-fi and Fantasy Books to Check Out in October

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Covers by: Kathryn Galloway English, DoFresh, and uncredited (click to embiggen)

Andrew Liptak’s monthly SF and fantasy book roundup in his email newsletter is both exhilarating and frustrating. You probably know what I’m talking about. It’s like being rushed through a tantalizing buffet — it looks fantastic, but no way you’ll have time to try it all.

His October book list is especially appetizing, with new releases from Linda Nagata, Kim Stanley Robinson, V.E. Schwab, Elizabeth Bear, P. Djèlí Clark, Cory Doctorow, Alix E. Harrow, Rebecca Roanhorse, Patrick Tomlinson, Neil Gaiman, Yoon Ha Lee, Cixin Liu, Lou Diamond Phillips, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Charles Stross, and more. But time’s a-wasting. Let’s check out the highlights.

Trinity Sight by Jennifer Givhan (Blackstone Publishing, 304 pages, $15.99 paperback/$7.99 digital, October 13, 2020) – cover design by Kathryn Galloway English

An anthropologist named Calliope Santiago is driving home from work and experiences a bright flash of light, and crashes. When she awakens, she discovers that almost everyone has vanished, and that New Mexico has turned into an unforgiving landscape of volcanoes, monsters, and magic. Along with her son and unborn twins, she and a neighbor’s child navigate this new wilderness, meeting survivors along the way as they try and find safety.

Kirkus Reviews notes that Givhan “employs Southwestern Puebloan mythology to inform the plot,” as well as more contemporary tensions between the US Government, atomic bombs, and more.

Jennifer Givhan is also the author of Jubilee and the collection Girl with Death Mask.

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