Monday, June 27, 2016

New Books Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of the New Books Spotlight, where each month or so we curate a selection of 6 forthcoming books we find notable, interesting, and intriguing. It gives us the opportunity to shine a brief spotlight on some stuff we're itching to get our hands on.

What are you looking forward to? Anything you want to argue with us about? Is there something we should consider spotlighting in the future? Let us know in the comments!



Cover Art by Julia Lloyd
Allan, Nina. The Race [Titan, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb
A child is kidnapped with consequences that extend across worlds… A writer reaches into the past to discover the truth about a possible murder… Far away a young woman prepares for her mysterious future…

In a future scarred by fracking and ecological collapse, Jenna Hoolman lives in the coastal town of Sapphire. Her world is dominated by the illegal sport of smartdog racing: greyhounds genetically modified with human DNA. When her young niece goes missing that world implodes... Christy’s life is dominated by fear of her brother, a man she knows capable of monstrous acts and suspects of hiding even darker ones. Desperate to learn the truth she contacts Alex, a stranger she knows only by name, and who has his own demons to fight… And Maree, a young woman undertaking a journey that will change her world forever.

The Race weaves together story threads and realities to take us on a gripping and spellbinding journey…
Why We Want It: Originally published by the smaller Newcon Press in 2014, The Race received a significant amount of buzz for how good it was. Now it is receiving a larger publication push from Titan, so we'll all get the chance to read it.

Photo by Shirley Green, Illustration by Don Sipley, Design by Lauren Panepinto

Carriger, Gail. Imprudence [Orbit, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb
Rue and the crew of the Spotted Custard return from India with revelations that shake the foundations of England's scientific community. Queen Victoria is not amused, the vampires are tetchy, and something is wrong with the local werewolf pack. To top it all off, Rue's best friend Primrose keeps getting engaged to the most unacceptable military types.

Rue has family problems as well. Her vampire father is angry, her werewolf father is crazy, and her obstreperous mother is both. Worst of all, Rue's beginning to suspect what they really are... is frightened.
Why We Want It: I may be a touch behind on my Gail Carriger reading, having only read the first two books of The Parasol Protectorate and Imprudence is the second volume of the sequel series The Custard Protocol. But Carriger's novels of Victorian era manners, steampunk, and urban fantasy are simply not to be missed and the publication of Imprudence serves to remind me that I simply need to get cracking.


Cover Artist Unknown

Higgins, C.A. Supernova [Del Rey, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb
C. A. Higgins’s acclaimed novel Lightless fused suspenseful storytelling, high-caliber scientific speculation, and richly developed characters into a stunning science fiction epic. Now the dazzling Supernova heightens the thrills and deepens the haunting exploration of technology and humanity—and the consequences that await when the two intersect.

Once Ananke was an experimental military spacecraft. But a rogue computer virus transformed it—her—into something much more: a fully sentient artificial intelligence, with all the power of a god—and all the unstable emotions of a teenager.

Althea, the ship’s engineer and the last living human aboard, nearly gave her life to save Ananke from dangerous saboteurs, forging a bond as powerful as that between mother and daughter. Now she devotes herself completely to Ananke’s care. But teaching a thinking, feeling machine—perhaps the most dangerous force in the galaxy—to be human proves a monumental challenge. When Ananke decides to seek out Matthew Gale, the terrorist she regards as her father, Althea learns that some bonds are stronger than mortal minds can understand—or control.

Drawn back toward Earth by the quest, Althea and Ananke will find themselves in the thick of a violent revolution led by Matthew’s sister, the charismatic leader Constance, who will stop at nothing to bring down a tyrannical surveillance state. As the currents of past decisions and present desires come into stark collision, a new and fiery future is about to be born.
Why We Want It: I reviewed Lightless back in March and found it a delightfully good science fiction novel. Though Lightless worked as a complete story on its own, I am very much into seeing what else Higgins does with this setting.


Cover Artist Unkown
Rowling, J.K., Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two [Scholastic, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb
The Eighth Story. Nineteen Years Later.

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London's West End on July 30, 2016.

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn't much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

Why We Want It: While there is a "Definitive Edition" coming early next year, I don't know if I'll be able to hold off reading the "Special Rehearsal Script Edition" because, come on! It's a new and official Harry Potter story! Reading the script is as close as I'm going to come to seeing the play for any number of years. New Harry Potter!


Cover Art by Les Edwards

Strahan, Jonathan (editor). Drowned Worlds [Solaris, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb
We live in a time of change. The Anthropecene Age - the time when human-induced climate change radically reshapes the world - is upon us.  Sea water is flooding the streets of Florida, island nations are rapidly disappearing beneath the waves, the polar icecaps are a fraction of what they once were, and distant, exotic places like Australia are slowly baking in the sun.

Drowned Worlds asks over a dozen of the top science fiction and fantasy writers working today to look to the future, to ask how will we survive? Do we face a period of dramatic transition and then a new technology-influenced golden age, or a long, slow decline?  Swim the drowned streets of Boston, see Venice disappear beneath the waves, meet a woman who's turned herself into a reef, traverse the floating garbage cities of the Pacific, search for the elf stones of Antarctica, and spend time in the new, dark Dust Bowl of the American mid-west.  See the future for what it is: challenging, exciting, filled with adventure, and more than a little disturbing.

Whether here on Earth or elsewhere in our universe, Drowned Worlds give us a glimpse of a new future, one filled with romance and adventure, all while the oceans rise...

Why We Want It: I'm a sucker for any number of things, but included in that epically long list are anthologies from Jonathan Strahan, the literary destruction of our world, and giant floods. Drowned Worlds is just what I'm looking for, isn't it?


Cover Artist Unknown

VanderMeer, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (editors). The Big Book of Science Fiction [Vintage, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb
Quite possibly the greatest science fiction collection of all time—past, present, and future!

What if life was neverending? What if you could change your body to adapt to an alien ecology? What if the pope were a robot? Spanning galaxies and millennia, this must-have anthology showcases classic contributions from H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Octavia E. Butler, and Kurt Vonnegut, alongside a century of the eccentrics, rebels, and visionaries who have inspired generations of readers. Within its pages, you’ll find beloved worlds of space opera, hard SF, cyberpunk, the New Wave, and more. Learn about the secret history of science fiction, from titans of literature who also wrote SF to less well-known authors from more than twenty-five countries, some never before translated into English. In The Big Book of Science Fiction, literary power couple Ann and Jeff VanderMeer transport readers from Mars to Mechanopolis, planet Earth to parts unknown. Immerse yourself in the genre that predicted electric cars, space tourism, and smartphones. Sit back, buckle up, and dial in the coordinates, as this stellar anthology has got worlds within worlds.

Including:
· Legendary tales from Isaac Asimov and Ursula K. Le Guin
· An unearthed sci-fi story from W. E. B. Du Bois
· The first publication of the work of cybernetic visionary David R. Bunch in twenty years
· A rare and brilliant novella by Chinese international sensation Cixin Liu

Plus:
· Aliens!
· Space battles!
· Robots!
· Technology gone wrong!
· Technology gone right!

Why We Want It: Some 750,000 words and 1200 pages of science fiction goodness curated by the VanderMeers. One hundred years of science fiction, with fiction from some of the legends of SF as well as works being translated into English for the first time. This is a must read.


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Writer / Editor at Adventures in Reading since 2004. Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2015, editor since 2016. Minnesotan.