Black Gate

I see that Amazon.com is taking pre-orders for Remnants of Trust, the second Central Corps novel and the sequel to Elizabeth Bonesteel’s debut The Cold Between.

That means it’s definitely time for me to read the first one. I love an ambitious space opera, and The Cold Between looks like just the ticket. It’s is a military SF novel with romance elements that SFF World calls a “taut, space-based science fiction mystery.” Here’s the verdict from Publishers Weekly.

Bonesteel’s space opera debut, the first in the Central Corps series, expertly revitalizes familiar plot elements… Bonesteel keeps the plot moving briskly… The headlong action will attract readers, but they’ll find themselves paying more attention to the characters’ convincing and satisfying emotional relationships.

The Cold Between was published by Harper Voyager on March 8, 2016. It is 528 pages, priced at $16.99 in trade paperback, and $9.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Chris McGrath (click the images above for bigger versions).

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I’ve been hearing about Robert Reed’s Greatship stories for a very long time. The tales of a vast spaceship relic that is larger than worlds, and which contains thousands of alien species, the Greatship stories appeared first in F&SF and Asimov’s Science Fiction in the mid-90s, and were frequently reprinted in Best of the Year anthologies.

By the last decade Reed was producing ambitious novellas in his Greatship universe, and they were appearing primarily in anthologies — especially the novella-friendly anthologies from the Science Fiction Book Club — such as “Camouflage” (in Down These Dark Spaceways, May 2005), “Rococo” (Forbidden Planets, May 2006), “The Man with the Golden Balloon” (Galactic Empires, February 2008), and “Alone” (Godlike Machines, September 2010). There was also at least one standalone chapbook, Mere, from Golden Gryphon Press, and three novels: Marrow (2000), The Well of Stars (2005), and A Memory of Sky (2014).

Three years ago, Argo-Navis press produced the first collection, The Greatship, which gathered a dozen short stories and novellas written over the past 20 years (including Mere and all four novellas mentioned above), along with additional connecting material and an introduction. At $31.99 in trade paperback it’s a bit pricey, but it’s well worth it to have so much great material in one place.

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Rjurik Davidson’s Unwrapped Sky was one of the most intriguing works of weird fantasy of 2014. Scott Westerfield called it “An amazing debut… Rjurik Davidson works the sharp edges where epic fantasy, uncanny science fiction, and the New Weird collide.” One of the most fascinating things about it was the marvelously realized fantasy city of Caeli-Amur, home to men, minotaurs, and ancient magic. Hannu Rajaniemi said, “Rjurik has a brilliant, fecund imagination, and I absolutely love the setting… Caeli-Amur is one of the more memorable cities in recent fantasy.” The Stars Askew is the long-awaited sequel, on sale now from Tor Books.

With the seditionists in power, Caeli-Amur has begun a new age. Or has it? The escaped House officials no longer send food, and the city is starving. When the moderate leader Aceline is murdered, the trail leads Kata to a mysterious book that explains how to control the fabled Prism of Alerion. But when the last person to possess the book is found dead, it becomes clear that a conspiracy is afoot. At its center is former House Officiate Armand, who has hidden the Prism. Armand is vying for control of the Directorate, the highest political position in the city, until Armand is betrayed and sent to a prison camp to mine deadly bloodstone.

Meanwhile, Maximilian is sharing his mind with another being: the joker-god Aya. Aya leads Max to the realm of the Elo-Talern to seek a power source to remove Aya from Max’s brain. But when Max and Aya return, they find the vigilants destroying the last remnants of House power.

It seems the seditionists’ hopes for a new age of peace and prosperity in Caeli-Amur have come to naught, and every attempt to improve the situation makes it worse. The question now is not just whether Kata, Max, and Armand can do anything to stop the bloody battle in the city, but if they can escape with their lives.

Read an original story in the same setting, “Nighttime in Caeli-Amur,” published free at Tor.com.

The Stars Askew was published by Tor Books on July 12, 2016. It is 411 pages, priced at $25.9 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Allen Williams.

Miyuki Miyabe is a best-selling novelist in her native Japan. Her first fantasy novel Brave Story won the Batchelder Award for best children’s book in translation from the American Library Association in 2007; her second, The Book of Heroes, appeared in English translation in 2010. It was followed by Ico: Castle in the Mist (2010), inspired by the classic Playstation game Ico.

The Gate of Sorrows is  a departure from her previous work — and yet strongly linked to it. It’s an adult novel, set in the same universe as her children’s book The Book of Heroes. It goes on sale in hardcover in two weeks. Here’s the description.

A series of murders shocks Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward, but Shigenori, a retired police detective, is instead obsessed with a gargoyle that seems to move. College freshman Kotaro launches a web-based investigation of the killer, and comes to find that answers may lie within an abandoned building in the center of Japan’s busiest neighborhood, and beyond the Gate of Sorrows. In this adult sequel to Miyabe’s The Book of Heroes, you will meet monsters from other worlds and ordinary horrors that surpass even supernatural threats.

The Gate of Sorrows will be published by Haikasoru on August 16, 2016. It is 600 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital version. It is translated by Jim Hubbert. Click the images above for bigger versions.