Nanoreviews: Lyorn, Haunt Sweet Home, Extinction

Lyorn by Steven Brust

Many of Steven Brust’s novels, at least in his Jhereg sequence, play a narrative game with structure—sometimes with a food recipe, sometimes as a gothic novel—and in Lyorn Brust plays with the structure of musical theater. Smarter readers than I will be able to tell you how significant that structure is to the actual novel, but at a minimum I think it’s because it helps Brust maintain interest in what he is writing because he is also working out if he can pull off a Vlad Taltos story while doing something else.

With Lyorn he absolutely pulls it off and makes the gimmick work. This certainly could be a “your mileage may vary” situation if you’re typically not into theater, or into musical theater in particular, but Brust plays with the theater world while weaving in the story of the assassin in hiding (and bits of the larger relationship storyline of Vlad and his ex-wife Cawti, which frankly is the core of the series to me) and if it’s not a romp and not quite a farce, Lyorn is a delightfully fun book.

Lyorn is the seventeenth novel in the Vlad Taltos series (out of a proposed nineteen) and is thus far the latest novel in the chronology, taking place after the events of 2014’s Hawk (book 14; the two books between Hawk and Lyorn are set earlier in the chronology). This is the book where it finally feels like Brust is making a real push towards a series ending of some sort.

Haunt Sweet Home by Sarah Pinsker

Haunt Sweet Home is a perfect story to read just before Halloween. A young woman gets a job as an intern on a reality-haunted-house show (think Ghost Hunters or any of those paranormal investigation shows) and readers get a solid behind-the-scenes on how those shows are constructed through the introduction of Maya to an unfamiliar workplace.

That’s interesting, but not quite enough to make Haunt Sweet Home a good spooky season read. Where Sarah Pinsker shines is in slowly ratcheting up the weirdness, because all is not quite as it seems, and Maya is caught up in the middle of something a lot weirder than a TV show that fakes hauntings.

Pinsker is a master storyteller who doesn’t tell the same story twice, and Haunt Sweet Home is another outstanding story filled to the brim with heart. There’s haunts in the aforementioned weirdness, absolutely. No question. But Pinsker’s telling of Maya’s story is that of a woman beginning to find out who she is and who she wants to be. I’m not sure Haunt Sweet Home is a coming-of-age story when the person coming of age is in her mid-twenties, but that’s the vibe Pinsker brings. Plus ghosts. Don’t forget about the ghosts.

Extinction by Douglas Preston

The way I want to describe Extinction is that it’s like Jurassic Park, except it’s bringing back mammoths and other more recently extinct animals, and adds in a murder plot possibly by some ecological terrorists—but that’s really only the initial frame job of the book. Honestly, as much as I generally enjoyed Extinction, that is also the story I generally wish the full novel was.

Extinction (the novel) rolls into the secrets of the extraordinarily wealthy company reversing the extinction (the concept) of multiple species and how far that research may go, and ultimately *that* is the direction the novel pushes. My experience reading Extinction was an exercise in continually resetting my expectations of what sort of novel it would turn out to be—which on one hand is perhaps what I should want, because Extinction is all about discovery. On the other hand, every reset was a turn away from the parts of the novel I most enjoyed. I’m in the minority on this, I think.

The ultimate problem I have, for a novel I generally enjoyed, is that, when the scope of the real story is finally widened far enough to get to what’s actually going on, my reaction was to raise one eyebrow like I’m the Rock raising the People’s Eyebrow, and start to back away from the storytelling.

It’s fine.

Joe Sherry - Senior Editor of Nerds of a Feather, Hugo and Ignyte Award Winner. Minnesotan.

Nanoreviews: Tsalmoth, The Entropy of Loss, High Times in the Low Parliament

Tsalmoth, by Steven Brust [Tor 2023]

Tsalmoth is the sixteenth (of a purported nineteen) novel in the Vlad Taltos and returns the reader back to a happier time when Vlad is soon to marry his love, Cawti - who long time readers will remember as Vlad’s wife and ex-wife in term. Spoilers, I suppose, but this is the sort of series where we don’t really know when a particular book is going to be set in the chronology until we get there and put the pieces together. This one is earlier, from what I can sort out.

I wonder, is this the first time we really get to learn who Vlad is telling these stories to? I’m not sure if that’s been a point of contention or not, but it’s been at least a point of curiosity. Every book has a narrator but Vlad is actively telling these stories and he is telling them to *someone*. Now we know who. We perhaps still don’t know why.

Right. The book. Tsalmoth starts with the idea that someone owes Vlad money (he’s a low level crime boss and assassin, you see) and his attempt to collect gets Vlad more and more involved in something really big and beyond the scope of where Vlad should be operating - except it’s not unusual for Vlad to operate above his station in life. It’s part of his charm, and the charm of the series.

Listen, you can probably start with Tsalmoth just fine. So many of the events of the series haven’t happened yet so new readers aren’t going to miss anything - and I’ve already told you that Vlad and Cawti do get married (the wedding planning is an interstitial for this book) and then get unmarried of sorts, so the main thing that would be missed is the heart of the emotional resonance - which is a loss, to be sure. The series has a lot of ups and downs and the relationship is perhaps never the main story of a particular book but it is one of the most important developments that runs through the whole thing.

Steven Brust is generally firing on all cylinders with his Vlad Taltos series and we are inching our way towards a conclusion that we can’t see - because this isn’t that sort of series - but each step of the way, whether backwards or forwards, is absolutely worth taking. That happier time (minus a gut punch late in the book) is refreshing for the long time reader.

-Reviewed by Joe  

The Entropy of Loss by Stewart Hotston [NewCon Press, 2022]

The Entropy of Loss follows scientist Sarah Shannon as she navigates both the impending loss of her terminally ill wife Rhona, her feelings about her affair with a colleague, and the possibility that her work modelling black holes might have triggered a first contact situation. It's a novella sectioned up into the stages of grief, and one very concerned with Shannon's own emotional responses to all these events that each alone would be immense, but together feel nearly insurmountable.

The novella's strength is, for the most part, in its prose, and in how it diverts from typical narratives around a first contact situation. Sarah is not an action movie scientist-protagonist, deferred to and given all the facts of the situation, allowed to dominate the agency of the encounter. Instead, she - and thus we - are kept in the dark about a lot of the logistics of the situation, in a way that feels extremely realistic.

It also benefits from how closely it attends to Sarah's emotions. She's a complex woman, dealing with complex problems, who manages the tricky contradiction of loving her wife deeply and painfully, while also having an affair with a younger woman at work. There's a lot of pain and sadness in the book, and Hotston has managed it relatively well, dwelling in the grief from the perspective of the griever. What it falls down on a little in this is that Rhona is... incredibly forgiving. Saintly, almost. And it somewhat undermines the complexity of Sarah's perspective to have that external validation so freely given.

There's also quite a high volume of maths/programming for the shortness of the novella, and so there are moments in the early part of the story where things feel a little bogged down, dwelling on those necessary details of exposition rather than letting us move along at any sort of pace.

That early part also struggles a little under the weight of some rather clunky similes that audibly clang out of the rest of the - otherwise really much better than the average SF story - prose.

All in all, it's an SF story that tackles a well known trope - first contact - through a much less well-worn lens of grief, and while it has its flaws, and that deep, inescapable sadness may not be for everyone, it is doing something interesting with its ideas and its form, and is a worthwhile read for that.

-Reviewed by Roseanna

High Times in the Low Parliament, by Kelly Robson [Tordotcom Publishing, 2022]

Somehow, I missed the marketing of this book as "lesbian stoner fantasy" until after reading it, but as cutesy one-liners go this is a great description of the strange yet delightful vibes that Robson brings to this novella. At its heart is Lana, a scribe from Aldgate whose life revolves around alcohol and pretty women - until one of her paramours tricks her into delivering a message that gets her out of parliamentary scribe duties, and the fairy responsible ends up sending her instead. As if enforced labour wasn't bad enough, said parliament (which is sort of like if the European Parliament stooped to Westminster standards of behaviour and decided not to use interpreters and speak past each other all the time) is about to be flooded by the fairies who steward it, as punishment for failing to agree on anything.

The political setting is fun, and it builds on some impeccable vibes - badly behaved parliaments are an underexplored institution in fantasy, and putting one in an all-female setting is particularly entertaining - but they very much play second fiddle to the relationships between Lana, her fairy friend Bugbite, and Eloquentia the parliamentarian she develops an infatuation with. Lana and Bugbite's relationship mostly grows over their use of various substances, and Lana's interest in the proceedings around her is mostly driven by self-preservation rather than a genuine interest in the political agenda, but there's something genuinely endearing about the pair of them that's hard not to root for. That goes double as Lana's interest in Eloquentia morphs from "pathetically horny" into a more well-rounded admiration and respect. On the whole, High Times in the Low Parliament didn't blow my mind, but it did have me going "you're doing great, sweetie" at its protagonist as she wandered around her world's various messes, and sometimes that's just the kind of story you need.

-Reviewed by Adri


Joe Sherry, Senior Editor at Nerds of a Feather, Hugo Award Winner. Minnesotan. He / Him

Roseanna Pendlebury, the humble servant of a very loud cat. @chloroform_tea

Adri Joy, Nerds of a Feather senior editor, dog owner, aspiring mermaid, having an increasingly weird time about her own biography

Nanoreviews: Good Guys, Penric's Fox, The Black Tides of Heaven

Brust, Steven. Good Guys [Tor]

Seldom has there been a novel I've been quite so disappointed in. As a general rule, I adore Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos novels (see here), but I haven't read any of his standalone work (minus his Firefly fanfic novel). Good Guys is his first solo standalone novel in twenty years, or so the book publicity told me. I was so excited for this book. Then I read the description. Then I read the book. It's my fault, really. I was more hyped to see what Brust would do outside of Vlad Taltos than I was to read this particular book - because just based on the description of low rent / low budget magic copies (and Brust's particualr wit), this didn't sound all that great. Brust's name was the selling point. As much as I love Brust's voice and wit, the jokes here didn't land and the story itself wasn't as well executed or as interesting as I'd like.
Score: 5/10

Bujold, Lois McMaster. Penric's Fox [Subterranean Press]

Penric's Fox is the fifth published and third chronological novella in the Penric and Desdemona mini series. It is also part of the larger Chalion / Five Gods universe, but no knowledge of those novels is required. The joy of this series is the interplay between Penric and his indwelling demon Desdemona. I'm not willing to go so far as to say that the story doesn't matter, but we know Bujold can tell a fantastic and compelling story and she does so here. It's the characters that are vital and that are the hooks to keep us reading. We want more of Penric and more of Desdemona. This is as good as any of the previous four novellas, and that means it is good indeed.
Score: 8/10

Yang, JY. The Black Tides of Heaven [Tor.com Publishing]

Have you ever read a book and midway through you're actively angry at yourself for not reading it sooner? That was me after maybe twenty pages of The Black Tides of Heaven. By the end of the book my jaw was on the floor in amazement at just how spectacular this novella is. Told over the course of more than thirty years, The Black Tides of Heaven is not quite the story of revolution, but it is more a story of politics, of family, of personal choice, with a bit of revolution in the mix. All of that, and more, is woven together to something that is far superior than any facile description I could possibly give. I'm not sure I am up to the task of properly reviewing thie novella. I can only give The Black Tides of Heaven my highest possible recommendation.
Score: 10/10 


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. 

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!

Baker, Mishell. Imposter Syndrome [Saga Press]
Publisher's Description

In the third book of the Nebula Award–nominated Arcadia Project series, which New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire called “exciting, inventive, and brilliantly plotted,” Millie Roper has to pull off two impossible heists—with the fate of the worlds in the balance.

Three months ago, a rift between agents in London and Los Angeles tore the Arcadia Project apart. With both fey Courts split down the middle—half supporting London, half LA—London is putting the pieces in place to quash the resistance. But due to an alarming backslide in her mental health, new LA agent Mille Roper is in no condition to fight.

When London’s opening shot is to frame Millie’s partner, Tjuan, for attempted homicide, Millie has no choice but to hide him and try to clear his name. Her investigation will take her across the pond to the heart of Arcadia at the mysterious and impenetrable White Rose palace. The key to Tjuan’s freedom—and to the success of the revolution—is locked in a vault under the fey Queen’s watchful eye. It’s up to Millie to plan and lead a heist that will shape the future of two worlds—all while pretending that she knows exactly what she’s doing…

Why We Want It: Listen, despite the Nebula and World Fantasy Award nominations for Borderline, I think that Baker's Arcadia Project has flown a little bit under the radar - at least in the places I see online. If that's the case, I strongly recommend that everyone go read these books. Phantom Pains leveled up everything I loved about Borderline and then Baker closed it out with an exceptional last act. I'm all in for Imposter Syndrome.

Bear, Elizabeth. Stone Mad [Tor.com Publishing]
Publisher's Description

Readers met the irrepressible Karen Memory in Elizabeth Bear’s 2015 novel Karen Memory, and fell in love with her steampunk Victorian Pacific Northwest city, and her down-to-earth story-telling voice.

Now Karen is back with Stone Mad, a new story about spiritualists, magicians, con-men, and an angry lost tommy-knocker—a magical creature who generally lives in the deep gold mines of Alaska, but has been kidnapped and brought to Rapid City.

Karen and Priya are out for a night on the town, celebrating the purchase of their own little ranch and Karen’s retirement from the Hotel Ma Cherie, when they meet the Arcadia Sisters, spiritualists who unexpectedly stir up the tommy-knocker in the basement. The ensuing show could bring down the house, if Karen didn’t rush in to rescue everyone she can. 

Why We Want It: Charles really liked Bear's novel Karen Memory (his review) and I thought it was even better than that. I loved Karen's voice and the steampunk western aesthetic. Bear is one hell of a storyteller and with Stone Mad she revisits Rapid City and gives us an unexpected adventure with Karen.

Brust, Steven. Good Guys [Tor]
Publisher's Description

A snarky, irreverent tale of secret magic in the modern world, the first solo standalone novel in two decades from Steven Brust, the New York Times bestselling author of the Vlad Taltos series 

“Delightful, exciting, and sometimes brilliant.” —Neil Gaiman on Steven Brust 

Donovan was shot by a cop. For jaywalking, supposedly. Actually, for arguing with a cop while black. Four of the nine shots were lethal—or would have been, if their target had been anybody else. The Foundation picked him up, brought him back, and trained him further. “Lethal” turns out to be a relative term when magic is involved.

When Marci was fifteen, she levitated a paperweight and threw it at a guy she didn’t like. The Foundation scooped her up for training too.

“Hippie chick” Susan got well into her Foundation training before they told her about the magic, but she’s as powerful as Donovan and Marci now.

They can teleport themselves thousands of miles, conjure shields that will stop bullets, and read information from the remnants of spells cast by others days before.

They all work for the secretive Foundation…for minimum wage.

Which is okay, because the Foundation are the good guys. Aren’t they?

Why We Want It: I'm sold on Good Guys simply because it is a novel written by Steven Brust. I absolutely love his Vlad Taltos series, but I haven't read any of his non-series novels (assuming we're not counting his Firefly fanfic novel, because that I've read and it's delightful). My expectations are high.

Kress, Nancy. If Tomorrow Comes [Tor]
Publisher's Description

Nancy Kress returns with If Tomorrow Comes, the sequel of Tomorrow's Kin, part of an all-new hard science fiction trilogy based on a Nebula Award-winning novella

Ten years after the Aliens left Earth, humanity succeeds in building a ship, Friendship, to follow them home to Kindred. Aboard are a crew of scientists, diplomats, and a squad of Rangers to protect them. But when the Friendship arrives, they find nothing they expected. No interplanetary culture, no industrial base—and no cure for the spore disease.

A timeslip in the apparently instantaneous travel between worlds has occurred and far more than ten years have passed.

 Once again scientists find themselves in a race against time to save humanity and their kind from a deadly virus while a clock of a different sort runs down on a military solution no less deadly to all. Amid devastation and plague come stories of heroism and sacrifice and of genetic destiny and free choice, with its implicit promise of conscious change.

Why We Want It: I'm a touch behind here because I have Tomorrow's Kin on my nightstand just waiting to be read. I've been a fan of pretty much everything I've read from Kress, including the original novella this series was based on, "Yesterday's Kin".

Robson, Kelly. Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach [Tor.com Publishing]
Publisher's Description

"Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach is a tour-de-force, with nuanced characters in a masterfully conceived world of stunning, mind-bending eco-tech." —Annalee Newitz 

Experience this far-reaching, mind-bending science fiction adventure that uses time travel to merge climate fiction with historical fantasy. From Kelly Robson, Aurora Award winner, Campbell, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon finalist, and author of Waters of Versailles 

Discover a shifting history of adventure as humanity clashes over whether to repair their ruined planet or luxuriate in a less tainted past.

In 2267, Earth has just begun to recover from worldwide ecological disasters. Minh is part of the generation that first moved back up to the surface of the Earth from the underground hells, to reclaim humanity's ancestral habitat. She's spent her entire life restoring river ecosystems, but lately the kind of long-term restoration projects Minh works on have been stalled due to the invention of time travel. When she gets the opportunity take a team to 2000 BC to survey the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, she jumps at the chance to uncover the secrets of the shadowy think tank that controls time travel technology. 

Why We Want It: Robson has been absolutely crushing short fiction for several years now and conceptually, this story of time travel and ecology fits so much of what I want out of a story. I read pretty much everything Tor.com Publishing puts out, but I'm sold on the description alone.

St. James, Simone. Broken Girls [Random House]
Publisher's Description

The “clever and wonderfully chilling” (Fiona Barton) suspense novel from the award-winning author of The Haunting of Maddy Clare… 

Vermont, 1950. There’s a place for the girls whom no one wants—the troublemakers, the illegitimate, the too smart for their own good. It’s called Idlewild Hall. And in the small town where it’s located, there are rumors that the boarding school is haunted. Four roommates bond over their whispered fears, their budding friendship blossoming—until one of them mysteriously disappears…

Vermont, 2014. As much as she’s tried, journalist Fiona Sheridan cannot stop revisiting the events surrounding her older sister’s death. Twenty years ago, her body was found lying in the overgrown fields near the ruins of Idlewild Hall. And though her sister’s boyfriend was tried and convicted of murder, Fiona can’t shake the suspicion that something was never right about the case.

When Fiona discovers that Idlewild Hall is being restored by an anonymous benefactor, she decides to write a story about it. But a shocking discovery during the renovations will link the loss of her sister to secrets that were meant to stay hidden in the past—and a voice that won’t be silenced… 

Why We Want It: So, my wife and I  are members of the Book of the Month club and Broken Girls was our February selection. A good ghost story is always intriguing and we've been on a bit of a mystery / thriller kick.



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

Nanoreviews: Vallista, Penric's Mission, Beyond the Empire

Brust, Steven. Vallista [Tor, 2017]
Vallista is something of a locked room mystery where the rules of the room keep changing because of magic and time travel. This is the fifteenth volume in the long running Vlad Taltos series of novels and Steven Brust's wit and charm are on full display here. I laughed. I had emotions. I was confused. I loved it. Steven Brust is spectacular. “Reader, I murdered him” was one of many lines I read aloud to my wife, and it's one that I'm going to leave here without context.
Score: 9/10

Bujold, Lois McMaster. Penric's Mission [Spectrum Literary Agency, 2016]
I'm left wondering quite what happens in the next chapter of Penric's Mission.  I would say that the ending is a touch abrupt, but the story of Penric's Mission is complete. It's just that Bujold begins another storyline late in the novella that is, presumably, going to be continued in a later book.  The Penric & Desdemona novellas are a continuing delight
Score: 8/10 

Wagers, K.B. Beyond the Empire [Orbit, 2017]
Let's not bury the lede here, Wagers stuck the landing with Beyond the Empire. Everything that you loved about Behind the Throne and After the Crown is in full force here, from the wit to the action to Hail questioning that she's the best choice to lead the empire but willing to do it anyways. There's scheming, plotting, murder, betrayal, and a whole lot of ass kicking. Beyond the Empire is a frigging delight and somebody should make a movie of these books. 
Score: 8/10


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

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!

Bear, Elizabeth. The Stone in the Skull [Tor, 2017]
Publisher's Description:

Hugo Award–winning author Elizabeth Bear returns to her critically acclaimed epic fantasy world of the Eternal Sky with a brand new trilogy.

The Stone in the Skull, the first volume in her new trilogy, takes readers over the dangerous mountain passes of the Steles of the Sky and south into the Lotus Kingdoms.

The Gage is a brass automaton created by a wizard of Messaline around the core of a human being. His wizard is long dead, and he works as a mercenary. He is carrying a message from a the most powerful sorcerer of Messaline to the Rajni of the Lotus Kingdom. With him is The Dead Man, a bitter survivor of the body guard of the deposed Uthman Caliphate, protecting the message and the Gage. They are friends, of a peculiar sort.

They are walking into a dynastic war between the rulers of the shattered bits of a once great Empire.

Why We Want It: Shana and I don't always overlap in our New Books Spotlight, but when we do we Elizabeth Bear. Normally, I would leave this one off my list and let Shana's selection stand on its own, but I adore the fiction of Elizabeth Bear. The opening novel in a new trilogy set in the same world of her Eternal Sky? You know I'm there.

Brust, Steven. Vallista [Tor, 2017]
Publisher's Description

Full of swordplay, peril, and swashbuckling flair, Steven Brust's Vallista is a treat for longtime fans of this popular fantasy series, a deep dive into the mysteries of Dragaera and all within it. 

Vlad Taltos is an Easterner—an underprivileged human in an Empire of tall, powerful, long-lived Dragaerans. He made a career for himself in House Jhereg, the Dragaeran clan in charge of the Empire’s organized crime. But the day came when the Jhereg wanted Vlad dead, and he’s been on the run ever since. He has plenty of friends among the Dragaeran highborn, including an undead wizard and a god or two. But as long as the Jhereg have a price on his head, Vlad’s life is…messy.

Meanwhile, for years, Vlad’s path has been repeatedly crossed by Devera, a small Dragaeran girl of indeterminate powers who turns up at the oddest moments in his life.

Now Devera has appeared again—to lead Vlad into a mysterious, seemingly empty manor overlooking the Great Sea. Inside this structure are corridors that double back on themselves, rooms that look out over other worlds, and—just maybe—answers to some of Vlad’s long-asked questions about his world and his place in it. If only Devera can be persuaded to stop disappearing in the middle of his conversations with her…

Why We Want It: Vallista is the fifteenth of a proposed nineteen novels featuring Vlad Taltos and they're all friggin great. As I mentioned in my 24 Books I'm Looking Forward to in 2017: It's a new Vlad Taltos novel. This is a cause for celebration.

Erdrich, Louise. Future Home of the Living God [Harper Collins, 2017]
Publisher's Description

Louise Erdrich, the New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of LaRose and The Round House, paints a startling portrait of a young woman fighting for her life and her unborn child against oppressive forces that manifest in the wake of a cataclysmic event.

The world as we know it is ending. Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. Science cannot stop the world from running backwards, as woman after woman gives birth to infants that appear to be primitive species of humans. Thirty-two-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, adopted daughter of a pair of big-hearted, open-minded Minneapolis liberals, is as disturbed and uncertain as the rest of America around her. But for Cedar, this change is profound and deeply personal. She is four months pregnant.

Though she wants to tell the adoptive parents who raised her from infancy, Cedar first feels compelled to find her birth mother, Mary Potts, an Ojibwe living on the reservation, to understand both her and her baby’s origins. As Cedar goes back to her own biological beginnings, society around her begins to disintegrate, fueled by a swelling panic about the end of humanity.

There are rumors of martial law, of Congress confining pregnant women. Of a registry, and rewards for those who turn these wanted women in. Flickering through the chaos are signs of increasing repression: a shaken Cedar witnesses a family wrenched apart when police violently drag a mother from her husband and child in a parking lot. The streets of her neighborhood have been renamed with Bible verses. A stranger answers the phone when she calls her adoptive parents, who have vanished without a trace. It will take all Cedar has to avoid the prying eyes of potential informants and keep her baby safe.

A chilling dystopian novel both provocative and prescient, Future Home of the Living God is a startlingly original work from one of our most acclaimed writers: a moving meditation on female agency, self-determination, biology, and natural rights that speaks to the troubling changes of our time.

Why We Want It: A new Louise Erdrich novel is a literary event that seldom disappoints. Everything about the description of Future Home appeals to me, not the least of which is simply knowing that it is written by Erdrich.  I've already pre-ordered this one, which is not something I say lightly.

Modesitt, L. E., Jr. The Mongrel Mage [Tor, 2017]
Publisher's Description:

The Saga of Recluce chronicles the history of this world with world-building detail and an ingenious and disciplined magic system. L. E. Modesitt, Jr. returns to his longest and bestselling fantasy series with volume nineteen, The Mongrel Mage, which marks the beginning of a new story arc.

In the world of Recluce, powerful mages can wield two kinds of magic—the white of Chaos or the black of Order. Beltur, however, has talents no one dreamed of, talents not seen in hundreds of years that blend both magics.

On the run from a power hungry white mage, Beltur is taken in by Order mages who set him on the path to discover and hone his own unique gifts and in the process find a home.

However, when the white mage he fled attempts to invade his new home, Beltur must hope his new found power will be enough to save them all.

Why We Want It: Recluce. I'm tempted to leave it at that. I've loved these novels since I first stumbled upon Creslin skiing away from Westwind in Towers of the Sunset. Reading Recluce is like coming home.

Pullman, Philip. The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage [Random House, 2017]
Publisher's Description

The much-anticipated new work from the author of The Golden Compass is coming at last! 

Renowned storyteller Philip Pullman returns to the parallel world of Lyra Belacqua and His Dark Materials for a thrilling and epic adventure in which daemons, alethiometers, and the Magisterium all play a part. 

The Book of Dust will be a work in three parts, like His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass). The book is set ten years before The Golden Compass and centers on the much-loved character Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon.

Philip Pullman offers these tantalizing details: “I’ve always wanted to tell the story of how Lyra came to be living at Jordan College, and in thinking about it, I discovered a long story that began when she was a baby and will end when she’s grown up. This volume and the next will cover two parts of Lyra’s life: starting at the beginning of her story and returning to her twenty years later. As for the third and final part, my lips are sealed.

“So, second: is it a prequel? Is it a sequel? It’s neither. In fact, The Book of Dust is . . . an ‘equel.’ It doesn’t stand before or after His Dark Materials, but beside it. It’s a different story, but there are settings that readers of His Dark Materials will recognize, and characters they’ve met before. Also, of course, there are some characters who are new to us, including an ordinary boy (a boy we have glimpsed in an earlier part of Lyra’s story, if we were paying attention) who, with Lyra, is caught up in a terrifying adventure that takes him into a new world.

“Third: why return to Lyra’s world? Dust. Questions about that mysterious and troubling substance were already causing strife ten years before His Dark Materials, and at the center of The Book of Dust is the struggle between a despotic and totalitarian organization, which wants to stifle speculation and inquiry, and those who believe thought and speech should be free. The idea of Dust suffused His Dark Materials. Little by little through that story the idea of what Dust was became clearer and clearer, but I always wanted to return to it and discover more.”

The books of the His Dark Materials trilogy were showered with praise, and the Cincinnati Enquirer proclaimed, “Pullman has created the last great fantasy masterpiece of the twentieth century.” With The Book of Dust, Philip Pullman embarks on an equally grand adventure, sure to be hailed as the first great fantasy masterpiece of the twenty-first century.

Why We Want It: It's like this. I read His Dark Materials as an impressionable teenager and they left, well, an impression on me. I haven't read them since, so I don't know how they've aged or - more specifically, how I've aged. But I've been eagerly awaiting The Book of Dust for pretty much my entire adult life - since the title was announced with no details and no word for the better part of two decades. I'm not sure this can possibly live up to my expectation, but that's no reason to not read the book.

Wallace, Matt. Gluttony Bay [Tor.com Publishing, 2017]
Publisher's Description

Gluttony Bay is the penultimate Sin du Jour affair, Matt Wallace's funny foodie series about the New York firm that caters to the paranormal, which began with Envy of Angels.

Welcome to Gluttony Bay High Security Supernatural Prison. We value your patronage. For your entertainment this evening, we are delighted to welcome the world's most renowned paranormal culinary experts.

And on the menu: You.

Why We Want It: Matt Wallace's Sin du Jour novellas are an absolute treat. They're some of my favorite pieces of fiction written over the last two years and, sadly, we're nearing the end. Each story comes with my highest recommendation and I could not be more excited for it.



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