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!

Bennis, Robyn. By Fire Above [Tor]
Publisher's Description

By Fire Above is the rip-roaring new adventure in Robyn Bennis's Signal Airship military fantasy series that Patricia Briggs hails as “full of sass and terrific characters.” 

"All's fair in love and war," according to airship captain Josette Dupre, until her hometown of Durum becomes occupied by the enemy and her mother a prisoner of war. Then it becomes, "Nothing's fair except bombing those Vins to high hell."

Before she can rescue her town, however, Josette must maneuver her way through the nest of overstuffed vipers that make up Garnia's military and royal leaders in order to drum up support. The foppish and mostly tolerated Mistral crew member Lord Bernat steps in to advise her, along with his very attractive older brother.

Between noble scheming, under-trained recruits, and supply shortages, Josette and the crew of the Mistral figure out a way to return to Durum—only to discover that when the homefront turns into the frontlines, things are more dangerous than they seem. 

Why We Want It: Shana said The Guns Above was "pure flintlock awesomeness" and we completely agree. The other thing Shana noted was that "The Guns Above reads like the first episode in a series you wish you could binge watch all weekend" and as such, we're super excited for By Fire Above. The first book was so much damned fun that we can't wait for the second. Luckily, we don't have to wait much longer.

Donnelly, Lara Elena. Armistice [Tor]
Publisher's Description

Armistice returns to Donnelly’s ravishing 1930s Art Deco-tinged fantasy world of the Nebula Award-nominated Amberlough with a decadent, tumultuous mixture of sex, politics, and spies 

“A hefty novel full of fascinating characters exploring oversized topics such as sexuality, music, culture, fascism, nationalism, class wars, revolution and love.” —Shelf Awareness 

In a tropical country where shadowy political affairs lurk behind the scenes of its glamorous film industry, three people maneuver inside a high stakes game of statecraft and espionage:

Lillian, a reluctant diplomat serving a fascist nation,

Aristide, an expatriate film director running from lost love and a criminal past,

—and Cordelia, a former cabaret stripper turned legendary revolutionary.

Each one harbors dangerous knowledge that can upturn a nation. When their fates collide, machinations are put into play, unexpected alliances are built, and long-held secrets are exposed. Everything is barreling towards an international revolt...and only the wiliest ones will be prepared for what comes next. 

Why We Want It: Donnelly attempted to rip my heart straight from my chest with Amberlough and I was not ready for that book to end, though it did so perfectly. If you haven't read Amberlough yet, go now. If you have, you know why I need this book in my life,

Feist, Raymond E. King of Ashes [Harper Voyager]
Publisher's Description

The first volume in legendary master and New York Times bestselling author Raymond E. Feist’s epic heroic fantasy series, The Firemane Saga—an electrifying tale of two young men whose choices will determine a world’s destiny.

For centuries, the five greatest kingdoms of North and South Tembria, twin continents on the world of Garn, have coexisted in peace. But the balance of power is destroyed when four of the kingdoms violate an ancient covenant and betray the fifth: Ithrace, the Kingdom of Flames, ruled by Steveren Langene, known as "the Firemane" for his brilliant red hair. As war engulfs the world, Ithrace is destroyed and the Greater Realms of Tembria are thrust into a dangerous struggle for supremacy. 

Why We Want It: "The storm has broken." Those were the first words to Magician, the novel that put Raymond Feist on the fantasy map. I've long used "Pug" as one of my online handles bag in the halcyon days of message boards. I read and re-read those early novels of Riftwar so much the covers tattered and fell off. I may have been far less enchanted with the series by the end, but there's still a little bit of magic in the idea of the first novel in a new series by one of my favorite fantasists from when I was a teenager. I don't know if i have full and proper hope, but I want to believe.

Griffith, Nicola. So Lucky [FSG Originals]
Publisher's Description

From the author of Hild, a fierce and urgent autobiographical novel about a woman facing down a formidable foe

So Lucky is the sharp, surprising new novel by Nicola Griffith—the profoundly personal and emphatically political story of a confident woman forced to confront an unnerving new reality when in the space of a single week her wife leaves her and she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Mara Tagarelli is, professionally, the head of a multimillion-dollar AIDS foundation; personally, she is a committed martial artist. But her life has turned inside out like a sock. She can’t rely on family, her body is letting her down, and friends and colleagues are turning away—they treat her like a victim. She needs to break that narrative: build her own community, learn new strengths, and fight. But what do you do when you find out that the story you’ve been told, the story you’ve told yourself, is not true? How can you fight if you can’t trust your body? Who can you rely on if those around you don’t have your best interests at heart, and the systems designed to help do more harm than good? Mara makes a decision and acts, but her actions unleash monsters aimed squarely at the heart of her new community.

This is fiction from the front lines, incandescent and urgent, a narrative juggernaut that rips through sentiment to expose the savagery of America’s treatment of the disabled and chronically ill. But So Lucky also blazes with hope and a ferocious love of self, of the life that becomes possible when we stop believing lies. 

Why We Want It: I'm at the point that I'm going to read any novel written by Nicola Griffith. Whether it is Ammonite, Slow River, or Hild, Griffith has more than earned an automatic spot on my reading list. But, So Lucky appears to be a vital, powerful novel that demand to be read.

King, Stephen. The Outsider [Scribner]
Publisher's Description

An unspeakable crime. A confounding investigation. At a time when the King brand has never been stronger, he has delivered one of his most unsettling and compulsively readable stories.

An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.

As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can. 

Why We Want It: New Stephen King. Though, as a father, I have a harder time reading certain things that I used to have no trouble with and the description here has me a little concerned.

McClellan, Brian. Wrath of Empire [Orbit]
Publisher's Description

The country is in turmoil. With the capital city occupied, half a million refugees are on the march, looking for safety on the frontier, accompanied by Lady Flint’s soldiers. But escaping war is never easy, and soon the battle may find them, whether they are prepared or not.

Back in the capital, Michel Bravis smuggles even more refugees out of the city. But internal forces are working against him. With enemies on all sides, Michel may be forced to find help with the very occupiers he’s trying to undermine.

Meanwhile, Ben Styke is building his own army. He and his mad lancers are gathering every able body they can find and searching for an ancient artifact that may have the power to turn the tides of war in their favor. But what they find may not be what they’re looking for. 

Why We Want It: I'm still one novel behind, but I loved McClellan's Powder Mage trilogy and I'm excited to see where he goes with this follow up series. I just need to read Sins of Empire first. I'm going to get right back into this series once I make some progress with my Hugo Award reading, but more Powder Mage is exactly what I want.


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 & 2018 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Writer / Editor of the mostly defunct Adventures in Reading since 2004. Minnesotan. 

SFF Essentials: Books you should totally be reading out loud to your kids

Lists like this are always a disaster: the books on them are either so obvious it hardly bears mentioning (The Hobbit, for instance) or "completely inappropriate for my sensitive/flighty/etc. kids". I'm sure many readers will disagree/object strenuously to some of these selections. And it's true, I've only read a few of them to my own kids so far (we're currently halfway through Taran Wanderer). But I remain convinced that, despite the sometimes archaic language and confusing situations in some of these books, they're doing my kids good. Do I have any evidence for that? Not a bit. But then, when has that ever stopped me before?

The below list is in ascending order of seriousness/target age (from 3 or so up to about 10, assuming my kids are still speaking to me then!)

Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak     

I don't really remember much about this book, to be honest, except the strange certainty that it was my favorite book as a preliterate kid. I loved having it read to me--like candy for my ears. The more serious question is, should we be showing the movie adaptation to our young kids? My answer is "probably not", because the only other thing I remember about the book was that it was a bit frightening, and the movie is bound to up the fright ante...

The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander

   The Book of Three

   The Black Cauldron  

         The Princess of Llyr

         Taran Wanderer (we’re halfway through right now!)

         The High King

I loved these tales as a child, enough to attempt reading them to my own little ones. They seem moderately taken with it, especially the almost-six year old, but I find myself changing the story a bit as a I read it, so needlessly archaic is the language at times. We'll see if their interest survives to the end of book five. The older kid has also seen the movie "adaptation", the Black Cauldron, which is thoroughly mediocre and even a bit scary at times, but seemed to think it was okay.

Hey, I never got a poster map! That would've been great...

 The Ice Dragon, by George R.R. Martin

I was pleasantly surprised by this for-kids book by GRRM, who after all is not known for his kid-friendly themes. I immediately began reading this to my kids, with mixed results: they loved it (because of the illustrations), and thus were spoiled for non-illustrated books for all time :(

The Earthsea Trilogy, by Ursula K. LeGuin 

A Wizard of Earthsea

The Tombs of Atuan

The Farthest Shore

This one's a no-brainer. Despite being rather sexist (a surprise considering LeGuin's later career!) all three of these books, especially the first, are excellent, if a bit dark (and thus their place in the ascending order of seriousness/target age is a bit higher). Tehanu I disliked as a child, but like now as an adult; the same goes for the fifth book. But should you show the movie adaptations (Earthsea, a live action adaptation, or Tales from Earthsea, the animated adaptation)? A firm "no" to the first, a "meh" to the second.

The Dark Is Rising Series, by Susan Cooper             

Over Sea, Under Stone

The Dark is Rising

Greenwitch

The Grey King

Silver on the Tree

I haven't started reading these to my kids yet, and thus haven't re-read them myself for decades, but I have high hopes that my rosy memory of this series is not a mere illusion: I loved them! The film version, on the other hand, is all kinds of awful, in my opinion. What's with the gratuitous blowing up of stuff scene?

 The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien

"And not for the last time!" The periodic intonation of this line (or something like it) made a powerful impression on me, for some reason, and I loved having this read to me. So much so, my parents (unwisely?) just gave me the Lord of the Rings books and said "do your best." There's nothing objectionable in the content, really, aside from some rather comical violence. But then there's the schizophrenic movies, which can't decide whether to be for kids or some sort of weird LOTR 2.0 wannabes. Should you show your kids (any of) the movies? No.

The Hero and the Crown, by Robin McKinley

As a child (and as an adult, come to think of it) I adored books about intrepid heroines (not that it was easy to find them!), and this was one of my favorites. I can't remember anything particularly problematic about it, so it should be fair game for reading to my kids once we get through all the material above!

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle

Of course you should be reading your kids this book: it'll teach them the word 'tesseract'! True, I still don't understand what that is, but I sure liked reading about it as a kid! And unusually for this list, I actually have re-read this book as a quasi-adult (~20), and found it "still good", just like the Dead Sea Tupperware from Aladdin!

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll          

If you want to blow your kids' minds, a) read them this, but b) wait until they're a bit older (that's why this book is in the middle of this list, rather than at the light-and-fluffy top). Glowing eyes in the shadows, queens who chop off nigh everybody's heads--it's not for the faint of heart! Nor are the many movie adaptations, in general: screen them with care, if at all. Nightmares may logically result.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (but not the rest), by C.S. Lewis 

Note that I haven't included any of the six sequels in this list, and yes, that's intentional. I vividly remember many details from this book, and virtually nothing from the other six. I guess you could read them to your kids if you're desperately in search of something to fill up hundreds of hours of reading-time, but otherwise, I'd leave it at book one and tell them to read the rest themselves if they want. Not coincidentally, the same advice holds for the movies, which started rather mediocrely with LWW and then nosedived quickly. 

The Princess Bride, by William Goldman             

Holy crap, I think I've just found a book that's better than its movie adaptation! Can such a thing truly exist? But in all seriousness, the book is a lot better, mostly because of the awesome, sassy Princess Buttercup (as opposed to the Robin Wright push-over damsel-in-distress oxygen waster in the movie). Don't believe me? Go back and re-watch this film, then re-read the book, and you'll see what I mean. Yikes! How did I love this movie so much, when it's such a pale (not to mention sexist) echo of the book? On the plus side, content-wise both are totally okay for kids (in fact, they should probably be higher on this list, as below we get into some dark-ish stuff).

Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

This is one of the only books on this list that I never read as a child (I got around to it as an adult). I sure wish someone had loved me enough to read it to me, though. What a great story! The Ghibli adaptation is quite good also, though it takes the story in a decidedly darker, war-torn direction, and it's partly for this reason that the book appears so far down the list (indicating the seriousness of its topic). It's unfair to judge a book by its movie adaptation, you say? No, it's just practicality: your kids will totally wear you down into showing you the movie, and there's some rather haunting stuff in this film that might make it unsuitable for very young children.

The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende                 

And this book is in fact the only one on this list that I still haven't ever read. The movie made a deep (in fact, a terrifying) impression on me, and I guess I never dared read the source material for fear of deepening the scars. This is by way of saying that some might believe this book is less serious and should therefore be higher on the list, but my traumatic experience watching the movie at a very young age has convinced me that concepts like The Nothing are too much for a __-year old to handle...yet also quite memorable and fascinating stuff if the child is ready to hear it!

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling                 

"Why isn't this higher on the list? It's for kids!" Yes, the first three or so books are light-hearted enough, but good luck getting your kids to stop at book one. If you dare read this one to them, be prepared to suffer the consequences (not least, having a few solid years of reading material that grows increasingly more upsetting). Same goes for the movies, only more so. Actually, the first two movies are kind of crappy from a technical point of view (sloppy, Chris Columbus-esque sequential reaction shots of all the kids, poorly paced editing, etc.), but they're the only two that you can show your (young) kids without rocking the foundations of their world, and once you start reading book one, you're committing to having them hear/read/see the rest, in short order no less.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets            

Hah! If you're reading this, it means you ignored my advice and started reading Harry Potter to your kids when they were like six. Now they're catatonic on the floor at age 6.5, having watched all the movies already and suffering permanent damage in the process. You'll curse yourself for not having cast expelliarmus on your own hand when it was reaching for the Prisoner of Azkaban, so let me reiterate: read HP books to your kids at your own peril, and try mightily to 'pause' here, after book two (which, unlike #1, didn't have a patronizing dumbed-down title for the "Yanks"), to give your kids time to beef up their psychological defenses before the onslaught of the rest!

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (manga), by Miyazaki Hayao

The movie is awesome, and while shockingly violent in some ways, is still okay to show kids of a certain baseline age (maybe 10+?). But did you know that Miyazaki actually wrote the manga himself--and wrote it first, before his seminal film? Manga are actually a great choice for bedtime reading material, since they come with pictures, but most manga are way too sexualized/violent/adult-themed for pleasant dreams; Nausicaa is something of a (potential) exception. I can't promise the God Warriors won't cause a nightmare or two, of course!

Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card

In some ways this is a natural choice for a list like this, but in others its subtly though deeply disturbing subject matter might perhaps disqualify it altogether as bedtime reading material. Who wants to read their kids a story of inter-species genocide, after all? But on the other hand, it's one of the most intriguing novels of the last several decades (unlike its sequels, which I found underwhelming as a child), and as long as your kid(s) is(are) old enough to handle the content, might as well show them the solid movie adaptation while you're at it!

Magician, by Raymond Feist 

(but probably not the rest of them, as they get 'heavy' quickly)

This is a book that could easily be higher on the list, but I remember it as being rather long and more of an adolescent coming-of-age tale than a 'for kids' sort of story. Still, I used to ride my bike down to the local library in a tizzy over the chance to re-read it when I was like nine, so it can't have been all bad, right? (Judging from Feist's recent "novels", I'm inclined to think Magician might secretly be really bad, and I was just too young/dumb to notice it at the time, however.)

Coraline, by Neil Gaiman      

What a cool, creepy story! And the movie even more so, if anything! That's the good news. The bad news: do not, under any circumstances, show your five-year-olds or under any part of this terrifying movie, and for good measure, best steer clear of the book too until they're old enough to weather the emotional turmoil of imagining their Other Mommy as a spidery monster...but what an awesome bedtime story, if they can handle it!

Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Two Towers

The Return of the King

I've saved the best (?) but also the longest, most archaic, and downright most boring for last. Gasp--boring? Yeah, the whole Tom Bombadill digression in Fellowship of the Ring is uber-boring! I hate to trample on the bible of you Tolkien worshipers out there, but the series doesn't really get good until the very end of the FOTR, and more properly the beginning of TTT. That's why they're here at the end of the list: not because they're too scary (though there are certainly scary parts), but because they're too boring for younger kids to suffer through and not start to hate. And you can't raise a new generation of Nerds of a Feather if you ruin Tolkien for them by exposing them to it too early, now can you?

And thus, we have 24 books (actually over 30) that are indispensable reading materials when bedtime rolls around in your house. Your kids will probably love all these books, but take care about when to introduce them to this precious material, or your earnest efforts to proselytize your kids might backfire!

This list was constructed by Zhaoyun, Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2013, SFF lover since the snot-nosed age of five and fervent believer in a cautious approach to starting kids on a course of bedtime SFF.