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A Tale of Two Covers: Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor

A Tale of Two Covers: Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor

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Akata Warrior-small Sunny and the Mysteries of Osis-small

Nnedi Okorafor is one of the most exciting novelists at work in the field of fantasy. She’s won the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards, and the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. She writes Black Panther comics for Marvel, and her World Fantasy Award-winning novel Who Fears Death is being developed by George R.R. Martin as an HBO series.

Her latest novel, Akata Warrior, was published by Viking Books for Young Readers last October (above left, cover by Greg Ruth). It was republished in the UK in March by Cassava Republic Press under the title Sunny and the Mysteries of Osisi (above right, design by Anna Morrison). Both books (er, the single book) are (is?) the sequel to 2011’s Akata Witch.

Although the books are being sold to separate markets with different titles and different covers, I was struck at just how similar the cover images are. In fact, both use Greg Ruth’s core image of a woman with a black scarf (albeit flipped), and both make use of overt spider imagery, along with an overlay of curvy white Nsibidi symbols on her skin. Both also use the same quote by Neil Gaiman. Note the differences, however — the British cover has markedly different hair, and a completely different color tone. She’s looking in different directions as well.

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Future Treasures: The Poppy War by R. F Kuang

Future Treasures: The Poppy War by R. F Kuang

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The Poppy War-smallThe Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog is calling R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War “the Buzziest Fantasy Debut of 2018.”

Last year, Harper Voyager introduced us to two exciting new voices in fantasy, Nicky Drayden (The Prey of Gods) and S.A. Chakraborty (City of Brass), so when David Pomerico, the imprint’s editorial director, R.F. Kuang, whose debut The Poppy War Harper Voyager will publish in May, “an incredible new talent in the speculative fiction industry,” we’ve got reason to trust his judgement (and track record). Certainly the book sounds like just the thing — a richly detailed epic born out of 20th century Chinese history, with an adult sensibility and a narrative hook that gives it the addictive appeal of the best young adult literature.

The official summary for this first-in-a-trilogy novel makes a compelling case… Pomerico, who acquired the book after a heated auction on what turned out to be the author’s 20th birthday, promises it blends military fantasy and a coming-of-age story, combining the author’s “cultural authenticity with personal creativity at a time when both qualities are very much demanded by readers.”

Hey, I’m as big a fan of writing prodigies as the next guy. But is a fat 544-page fantasy written by a teenager really what I’m looking for? Especially one that’s the start of a trilogy?

Well, maybe I’m just a grumpy old man. Certainly there’s been no shortage of praise from people less grumpy than I. Kameron Hurley calls it, “A blistering, powerful epic of war and revenge that will captivate you to the bitter end.” And Publishers Weekly praises it as “An ambitious fantasy reimagining of Asian history populated by martial artists, philosopher-generals, and gods… a strong and dramatic launch to Kuang’s career.”

You can decide for yourself when the book arrives in hardcover from Harper Voyager next week. Here’s the description.

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A Spooky Trip Back to the Golden Age of Weird: The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, by Seabury Quinn

A Spooky Trip Back to the Golden Age of Weird: The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, by Seabury Quinn

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The Horror on the Links The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin Volume One-small The Devil's Rosary The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin Volume Two-small The Dark Angel The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin Volume Three-small

Seabury Quinn’s occult detective Jules de Grandin first appeared in Weird Tales in 1925 and, in over 90 stories published over the next 26 years, he squared off against ghosts, werewolves, satanists, serial killers, and more sinister things. His adventures were among the most popular ever published in that venerable old pulp, surpassing even the legendary exploits of Robert E. Howard’s Conan and H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

Publishers’s Weekly had this to say about the first installment of The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, The Horror on the Links, released by Night Shade Books in April 2017:

The first volume… is a fun, spooky trip back to the golden age of weird. Each story is narrated by de Grandin’s bemused and long-suffering friend Dr. Samuel Trowbridge, and most include de Grandin’s concluding explanation of the how and why of the events. Each story has its merits, but standouts include the shudder-worthy “The Isle of Missing Ships,” in which de Grandin and Trowbridge’s ship is overtaken by pirates; they end up stranded on an island where a strange man dwells in a lavish underwater cave and “long pork” is on the menu. “The Great God Pan” sees de Grandin and Trowbridge among a bevy of beauties in thrall to a strange guru. In other stories, the duo face werewolves, disembodied hands, and an evil scientist who keeps horrifying “pets” in his cellar. Seabury had a keen imagination and gift for atmosphere, and, even though modern readers may flinch a bit at some of the dated viewpoints and tropes, they’re likely to still have a grand time.

In the Jules de Grandin entry of The Nightmare Men, his long-running Black Gate series on occult detectives, Josh Reynolds offered his own thoughtful assessment of this great pulp hero. Here it is.

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New Treasures: The Long Sunset by Jack McDevitt

New Treasures: The Long Sunset by Jack McDevitt

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The Long Sunset Jack McDevitt-smallJack McDevitt’s Academy series began with The Engines of God in 1994. The series has garnered four Nebula nominations (for Chindi, Omega, Odyssey, and Cauldron) and one Campbell Memorial Award win (for Omega). It has become one of the most popular and acclaimed science fiction series on the market (see the complete list of books in the series in my previous post here).

In the eighth and latest installment, The Long Sunset, Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins discovers an interstellar message from a highly advanced race that could be her last chance for a mission before the program is shut down for good. Jeff Somers at The Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog calls it “Classic space adventure in the best sense of the term… McDevitt’s optimism and enthusiasm for the profound mysteries of the universe shines through, lending the increasingly fascinating investigation an air of excitement as the crew sifts through dead planets…”

It arrived in hardcover from Saga Press last week. Here’s the description.

Hutch has been the Academy’s best pilot for decades. She’s had numerous first contact encounters and even became a minor celebrity. But world politics have shifted from exploration to a growing fear that the program will run into an extraterrestrial race more advanced than humanity and war.

Despite taking part in the recent scientific breakthrough that rejuvenates the human body and expands one’s lifespan, Hutch finds herself as a famous interstellar pilot with little to do, until a message from an alien race arrives.

The message is a piece of music from an unexplored area. Despite the fact that this alien race could pose a great danger and that this message could have taken several thousand years to travel, the program prepares the last interstellar ship for the journey. As the paranoia grows, Hutch and her crew make an early escape — but what they find at the other end of the galaxy is completely unexpected.

The Long Sunset was published by Saga Press on April 17, 2018. It is 451 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $7.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by John Harris.

The Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog on the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of April 2018

The Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog on the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of April 2018

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From Darkest Skies Sam Peters-small Unbury Carol Josh Malerman-small Time Was Ian McDonald-small

April is maybe the best month for new book releases so far in 2018. There’s a plethora of new titles I want to feature — and read — and I barely have time to keep tabs on them all. Jeff Somers at the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog isn’t helping the situation by highlighting over two dozen of the best new releases, including a fair number I was completely unaware of. Here’s a few of his more interesting selections.

From Darkest Skies by Sam Peters (Gollancz, 352 pages, $26.99 hardcover/$13.99 trade paperback, April 10)

Detective tropes are given a techno-philosophical twist in this sci-fi mystery. Two hundred years in the future, an alien race known as the Masters have terraformed Earth and spread humanity into the universe, settling us on dozens of colony worlds. Keon Rause is a government agent returning to service on the planet Magenta after a five year leave of absence while he mourned his wife, a fellow agent killed in a terrorist explosion while investigating an unknown lead. Rause isn’t alone; he’s come back with an AI version of his wife, a digital reconstruction crafted from every trace of data she left behind — and crafted with the purpose of helping him figure out how and why she really died. Cashing in every favor he has left from his previous life, he finds himself following in her footsteps even as he struggles with his feelings for the simulacrum he’s created. It all leads to an impossible choice when he and his team stumble onto a disaster in the making: save the planet and lose his wife forever, or let something terrible happen and solve the mystery?

From Darkest Skies is Sam Peters’ debut novel. The sequel, From Distant Stars, is already scheduled to arrive on August 21.

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New Treasures: Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller

New Treasures: Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller

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Sam J. Miller’s short stories have been nominated for the Nebula, World Fantasy, Sturgeon, and Locus Awards. His debut novel The Art of Starving (2017), a YA tale about a boy who discovers that starving gives him superpowers, was nominated for the Andre Norton Award, and was an honorable mention for the 2017 Tiptree Award. John DeNardo selected it as one of the Best Bets for SF, Fantasy and Horror in July. His new novel Blackfish City is one of the most anticipated SF books of the year. It arrived in hardcover this week.

After the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle, a remarkable feat of mechanical and social engineering, complete with geothermal heating and sustainable energy. The city’s denizens have become accustomed to a roughshod new way of living, however, the city is starting to fray along the edges — crime and corruption have set in, the contradictions of incredible wealth alongside direst poverty are spawning unrest, and a new disease called “the breaks” is ravaging the population.

When a strange new visitor arrives—a woman riding an orca, with a polar bear at her side — the city is entranced. The “orcamancer,” as she’s known, very subtly brings together four people — each living on the periphery — to stage unprecedented acts of resistance. By banding together to save their city before it crumbles under the weight of its own decay, they will learn shocking truths about themselves.

Blackfish City is a remarkably urgent — and ultimately very hopeful — novel about political corruption, organized crime, technology run amok, the consequences of climate change, gender identity, and the unifying power of human connection.

Blackfish City was published by Ecco on April 17, 2018. It is 336 pages, priced at $22.99 in hardcover, and $11.99 in digital formats. The cover was designed by Will Staehle. Read a sample chapter at the Orbit Books website.

New Treasures: Spectral Evidence by Gemma Files

New Treasures: Spectral Evidence by Gemma Files

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Spectral Evidence Gemma Files-small Spectral Evidence Gemma Files-back-small

There’s no pleasure quite like a top-notch collection of horror stories, and I’m always on the lookout for one. Gemma Files’ latest collection Spectral Evidence, released in February from Trepidatio, sounds like a great candidate. Just check out these story descriptions.

An embittered blood-servant plots revenge against the vampires who own him; a little girl’s best friend seeks to draw her into an ancient, forbidden realm; two monster-hunting sisters cross paths with an amoral holler-witch again and again, battling both mortal authorities and immortal predators. From the forgotten angels who built the cosmos to the reckless geniuses whose party drug unleashes a plague, madness, monsters and murder await at every turn.

Monster-hunting sisters? Ancient, forbidden realms? Reckless geniuses and holler-witches? Why don’t I have this book already?

Spectral Evidence gathers nine stories from major anthologies of the past few years, including Ellen Datlow’s Fearful Symmetries, Hauntings, October Dreams II from Cemetery Dance, and many others. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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New Treasures: The City of Lost Fortunes by Bryan Camp

New Treasures: The City of Lost Fortunes by Bryan Camp

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John Joseph Adams, the tireless editor of Lightspeed and Nightmare, also has his own imprint over at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. John Joseph Adams Books has published several big names, including Carrie Vaughn, Molly Tanzer, and Hugh Howey, but John has also made his fair share of fresh-faced discoveries. One of the latter is Bryan Camp, whose debut fantasy arrives in hardcover next Tuesday. The City of Lost Fortunes is a novel of gods, games, and monsters, in which the fate of New Orleans rests in the hands of a wayward grifter with an unusual talent.

The post–Katrina New Orleans of The City of Lost Fortunes is a place haunted by its history and by the hurricane’s destruction, a place that is hoping to survive the rebuilding of its present long enough to ensure that it has a future. Street magician Jude Dubuisson is likewise burdened by his past and by the consequences of the storm, because he has a secret: the magical ability to find lost things, a gift passed down to him by the father he has never known — a father who just happens to be more than human.

Jude has been lying low since the storm, which caused so many things to be lost that it played havoc with his magic, and he is hiding from his own power, his divine former employer, and a debt owed to the Fortune god of New Orleans. But his six-year retirement ends abruptly when the Fortune god is murdered and Jude is drawn back into the world he tried so desperately to leave behind. A world full of magic, monsters, and miracles. A world where he must find out who is responsible for the Fortune god’s death, uncover the plot that threatens the city’s soul, and discover what his talent for lost things has always been trying to show him: what it means to be his father’s son.

The City of Lost Fortunes will be published by John Joseph Adams Books on April 17, 2018. It is 384 pages, priced at $24 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital version. The cover is by Will Staehle. Read an excerpt at Bryan Camp’s website.

Future Treasures: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Twelve, edited by Jonathan Strahan

Future Treasures: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Twelve, edited by Jonathan Strahan

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The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Twelve-smallI recently discovered the Coode Street Podcast, hosted by editor Jonathan Strahan and Chicago Tribune critic Gary K. Wolfe, and have been thoroughly enjoying it. They discuss a wide variety of topics of interest to SF and fantasy readers every week — everything from the Hugo nominations, the best debuts of the year, art in science fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin, conventions, upcoming releases, and so much more — and they’re both so articulate and knowledgeable, and so darn enthusiastic, that you can’t help coming away from each hour-long conversation with a lengthy list of brand new books you just have to check out.

I feel the same way about Jonathan Strahan’s annual Best Science Fiction of the Year. The latest volume makes it an even dozen, and each one has helped me discover a handful of delightful new authors. It’s a book I cherish every year, and this one — with stories by Samuel R. Delany, Yoon Ha Lee, Caroline M. Yoachim, Rich Larson, Indrapramit Das, Charlie Jane Anders, Linda Nagata, Theodora Goss, Greg Egan, Mary Robinette Kowal, Scott Lynch, Maureen McHugh, Alastair Reynolds, Karl Schroeder, Kai Ashante Wilson, and our very own C.S.E. Cooney — looks even more stellar than most.

It arrives in trade paperback from Solaris next week. Here’s the Table of Contents.

“The Mocking Tower,” Daniel Abraham (The Book of Swords)
“Don’t Press Charges and I Won’t Sue,” Charlie Jane Anders (Boston Review)
“Probably Still the Chosen One,” Kelly Barnhill (Lightspeed)
“My English Name,” R. S. Benedict (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)
“Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance,” Tobias Buckell (Cosmic Powers)
“Though She Be But Little,” C.S.E. Cooney (Uncanny)
“The Moon is Not a Battlefield,” Indrapramit Das (Infinity Wars)
“The Hermit of Houston,” Samuel R. Delany (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)
“The Discrete Charm of the Turing Machine,” Greg Egan (Asimov’s Science Fiction)
“Crispin’s Model,” Max Gladstone (Tor.com)
“Come See the Living Dryad,” Theodora Goss (Tor.com)

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Military SF, Mystery, and Thriller all in one Package: The Central Corps Trilogy by Elizabeth Bonesteel

Military SF, Mystery, and Thriller all in one Package: The Central Corps Trilogy by Elizabeth Bonesteel

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Elizabeth Bonesteel’s Central Corps trilogy began with The Cold Between in 2016, which SFF World called a “taut, space-based science fiction mystery.” John DeNardo selected the sequel, Remnants of Trust, as one of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Reads of November 2016, calling it “an engaging blend of military science fiction, mystery, and thriller.” The third installment, Breach of Containment, arrived last October. Man, I hope it’s not too late to jump on board. Here’s the description.

Space is full of the unknown… most of it ready to kill you.

When hostilities between factions threaten to explode into a shooting war on the moon of Yakutsk, the two major galactic military powers, Central Corps and PSI, send ships to defuse the situation. But when a strange artifact is discovered, events are set in motion that threaten the entire colonized galaxy — including former Central Corps Commander Elena Shaw.

Now an engineer on a commercial shipping vessel, Elena finds herself drawn into the conflict when she picks up the artifact on Yakutsk — and investigation of it uncovers ties to the massive, corrupt corporation Ellis Systems, whom she’s opposed before. Her safety is further compromised by her former ties to Central Corps — Elena can’t separate herself from her past life and her old ship, the CCSS Galileo.

Before Elena can pursue the artifact’s purpose further, disaster strikes: all communication with the First Sector — including Earth — is lost. The reason becomes apparent when news reaches Elena of a battle fleet, intent on destruction, rapidly approaching Earth. And with communications at sublight levels, there is no way to warn the planet in time.

Armed with crucial intel from a shadowy source and the strange artifact, Elena may be the only one who can stop the fleet, and Ellis, and save Earth. But for this mission there will be no second chances — and no return.

Breach of Containment was published by Harper Voyager on October 17, 2017. It is 576 pages, priced at $16.99 in trade paperback and $11.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Chris McGrath. Get excerpts from all three novels at Bonesteel’s website.