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Andrew Liptak on 39 SF, Fantasy, and Horror Books to Read in June

Andrew Liptak on 39 SF, Fantasy, and Horror Books to Read in June

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Last January, over at The Verge, Andrew Liptak combed through publisher catalogs and countless press releases to produce 16 SF and fantasy books worth noting. He did the same thing in March and came up with 23 titles. His June report includes a whopping 39 books. I can see this month is going to take some serious reading time if I even want to pretend to keep up.

Andrew’s list includes new titles by Tanya Huff, Catherynne M. Valente, Terry Brooks, Brenda Cooper, Victor LaValle, Yoon Ha Lee, Seanan McGuire, Cindy Pon, Lilith Saintcrow, Victoria Schwab, Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland, Theodora Goss, James Gunn, Stephen Graham Jones, Linda Nagata, Will McIntosh, Rachel Dunne, Daryl Gregory, Jason M. Hough, Karin Tidbeck, Tad Williams, and others. Here’s some of his selections that I found most interesting.

The Rebellion’s Last Traitor by Nik Korpon — Angry Robot (352 pages, $7.99 in paperback, June 6, 2017)

Decades of war has shattered Eitan City, and to help restore order, the Tathadann Party rewrites history by outlawing the past. One man, Henraek, is a memory thief, stealing memories from civilians, until he harvests a memory of his own wife’s death. Now, he’s going to do whatever it takes to discover the truth about her killing, even if it means turning on the people he was most loyal to.

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Future Treasures: The Queen of Swords, Book 3 of the Golgotha Series, by R.S. Belcher

Future Treasures: The Queen of Swords, Book 3 of the Golgotha Series, by R.S. Belcher

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The-Six-Gun-Tarot-smaller The Shotgun Arcana-small The Queen of Swords RS Belcher-small

R.S. Belcher’s last novel, The Brotherhood of the Wheel, was selected as one of the best horror novels of the year by the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog. For his next novel, he returns to Golgotha, the Weird Western setting of The Six-Gun Tarot (which RT Book Reviews called “Fascinating… like a mashup of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Deadwood,”) and The Shotgun Arcana (“Golgotha is the wildest of the Wild West, attracting mystics, minor deities, alchemists, seers, and fanatics in a fantastical romp” — Publishers Weekly). It arrives in hardcover from Tor later this month.

1870. Maude Stapleton, late of Golgotha, Nevada, is a respectable widow raising a daughter on her own. Few know that Maude belongs to an ancient order of assassins, the Daughters of Lilith, and is as well the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Anne Bonney, the legendary female pirate.

Leaving Golgotha in search of her daughter Constance, who has been taken from her, Maude travels to Charleston, South Carolina, only to find herself caught in the middle of a secret war between the Daughters of Lilith and their ancestral enemies, the monstrous Sons of Typhon. To save Constance, whose prophetic gifts are sought by both cults, Maude must follow in the footsteps of Anne Bonney as she embarks on a perilous voyage that will ultimately lead her to a lost city of bones in the heart of Africa ― and the Father of All Monsters.

One of the most popular characters from The Six-Gun Tarot and The Shotgun Arcana ventures beyond Golgotha on a boldly imaginative, globe-spanning adventure of her own.

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Future Treasures: A Gathering of Ravens by Scott Oden

Future Treasures: A Gathering of Ravens by Scott Oden

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Scott Oden is the author of two celebrated historical novels, Men of Bronze (2005) and Memnon (2006), and the historical fantasy The Lion of Cairo (2010). His first novel in seven years is the ambitious historical fantasy A Gathering of Ravens, which author John Gwynne (The Faithful and the Fallen) calls “A magnificent mytho-historical saga, blending the history of 11th century Europe with Norse and Celtic mythology. A dark, grim and unrelentingly bloody tale of the last Orc and his quest for vengeance.” It arrives in hardcover from Thomas Dunne Press later this month.

To the Danes, he is skraelingr; to the English, he is orcnéas; to the Irish, he is fomoraig. He is Corpse-maker and Life-quencher, the Bringer of Night, the Son of the Wolf and Brother of the Serpent. He is Grimnir, and he is the last of his kind ― the last in a long line of monsters who have plagued humanity since the Elder Days.

Drawn from his lair by a thirst for vengeance against the Dane who slew his brother, Grimnir emerges into a world that’s changed. A new faith has arisen. The Old Ways are dying, and their followers retreating into the shadows; even still, Grimnir’s vengeance cannot be denied.

Taking a young Christian hostage to be his guide, Grimnir embarks on a journey that takes him from the hinterlands of Denmark, where the wisdom of the ancient dwarves has given way to madness, to the war-torn heart of southern England, where the spirits of the land make violence on one another. And thence to the green shores of Ireland and the Viking stronghold of Dubhlinn, where his enemy awaits.

But, unless Grimnir can set aside his hatreds, his dream of retribution will come to nothing. For Dubhlinn is set to be the site of a reckoning ― the Old Ways versus the New ― and Grimnir, the last of his kind left to plague mankind, must choose: stand with the Christian King of Ireland and see his vengeance done or stand against him and see it slip away?

Scott Oden’s A Gathering of Ravens is an epic novel of vengeance, faith, and the power of myth.

A Gathering of Ravens will be published by Thomas Dunne Books on June 20, 2017. It is 326 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $14.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by James Iacobelli. Read an excerpt here.

In 500 Words or Less … Never Now Always by Desirina Boskovich

In 500 Words or Less … Never Now Always by Desirina Boskovich

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oie_21364ndRY5yGNever Now Always
By Desirina Boskovich
Broken Eye Books (88 pages, $9.99 paperback, June 2017)

A while back I had an idea for a short story about people caught up in a massive alien invasion, where humanity is rounded up and imprisoned in gray, windowless compounds while their captors run nefarious experiments, all of which is part of some mysterious, overarching plot a la Lost and the like. Then I told myself something like that has been done so many times that it wasn’t worth bothering, and I tucked the idea away on a mental shelf and haven’t looked at it since.

I bring this up because the novella Never Now Always by Desirina Boskovich takes that core premise of people imprisoned and experimented on by mysterious overlords and spins it so effectively, adding layers of dark surrealism and uncertainty to create a deeply compelling story. Never Now Always has a War of the Worlds/The Fifth Wave vibe with a literary style, propelled by the fact that the story’s three protagonists (and practically the only characters focused on) are constantly having their memories stolen and/or modified, stripping away most of their identity by removing the thing that makes each of us distinct. Main character Lolo knows that she has to find her sister, Tess, but everything else is an uncertain blur, to the point that she doesn’t even know the words for things. Boskovich weaves those language gaps into the narrative with a subtlety that is also easy to read and follow – something that a lot of surrealist and literary fiction doesn’t pull off.

There are cycles repeated here, as Lolo and the others try to find and support each other and ultimately escape, but the ongoing layers of mystery means that there is never a moment without intrigue. Is their bizarre prison on Earth, or somewhere else? Are Lolo and the others children, or adults who have lost their semantic and episodic memories – or something else? Are the Caretakers around them seeking to experiment, indoctrinate, or possibly protect these humans from self-inflicted harm?

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Future Treasures: Our Dark Duet, Book 2 of Monsters of Verity by Victoria Schwab

Future Treasures: Our Dark Duet, Book 2 of Monsters of Verity by Victoria Schwab

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Under her secret identity of V.E. Schwab, Victoria Schwab is the bestselling author of the Shades of Magic trilogy and the superhero/dark fantasy tale Vicious (which Matthew David Surridge called “A fine story… it’s fascinating to see the gothic emerging from under the skin of the super-hero genre,” in his 2014 review). Under the name Victoria Schwab she’s published a number of YA fantasies, including The Near Witch and the two volumes in the Archived series.

Her Monsters of Verity series began with This Savage Song, set in a divided city overrun with monsters. It became a #1 New York Times bestseller and an Amazon Best Book of the Year. The concluding volume, Our Dark Duet, arrives this month from Greenwillow Books.

This Savage Song (464 pages, $17.99 hardcover/$9.99 paperback/$1.99 digital, July 5, 2016)
Our Dark Duet (528 pages, $17.99 hardcover/$9.99 digital, June 13, 2017)

Here’s the description for both books.

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Future Treasures: The Wayward Children Trilogy by Seanan McGuire

Future Treasures: The Wayward Children Trilogy by Seanan McGuire

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Every-Heart-a-Doorway_Seanan-McGuire-small Down Among the Sticks and Bones-small Beneath the Sugar Sky-small

Tor.com Publishing has had some stellar successes recently. Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti won both the Nebula Award and Hugo Award for Best Novella, and this year the line received six Nebula nominations and five Hugo nods… pretty extravagant results for a publishing imprint that’s not even two years old.

Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart a Doorway, published by Tor.com last April, received both a Hugo and a Nebula nomination this year, and just last week it won the Nebula Award for Best Novella. In her BG review last year, Elizabeth Cady said:

A departure from McGuire’s usual fare, Every Heart a Doorway is a bittersweet twist on conventional fantasy that neither shies from more dwells on the darker side of our encounters with the fantastic…

Out in the countryside exists a boarding school for unusual children… Each student at Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children has accidentally stumbled into an otherworld and then returned home to find themselves so changed that they can no longer fit in at home. Some of them are heartbroken at being kicked out of paradise. Some of them are traumatized by what they experienced there. Most of them hope to return to their individual worlds, somehow, by finding their Door again.

We find our own Door into this school through Nancy, a young woman who has just returned from one of several Lands of the Dead. Shortly after her arrival, another student is found dead and Nancy, along with her newly made friends, must find the killer before the school is closed or they become the next victims… I was very pleasantly surprised by this little gem of a book.

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Future Treasures: The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

Future Treasures: The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

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The Prey of Gods-smallThere aren’t enough good robot adventure stories out there. At least Nicky Drayden is doing her part… her debut novel The Prey of Gods, featuring robots, genetic engineering, a Zulu heroine, and an ancient and bloodthirstily demigoddess, arrives in trade paperback from Harper next month. Drayden has published more than a dozen short stories in Daily Science Fiction, as well as Shimmer, Space and Time, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and other fine venues. Publishers Weekly calls her novel “A science fantasy set in 2064, [where] newly awakened demigods and artificial intelligences battle for the fate of South Africa… fascinating.”

In South Africa, the future looks promising. Personal robots are making life easier for the working class. The government is harnessing renewable energy to provide infrastructure for the poor. And in the bustling coastal town of Port Elizabeth, the economy is booming thanks to the genetic engineering industry which has found a welcome home there. Yes — the days to come are looking very good for South Africans. That is, if they can survive the present challenges:

A new hallucinogenic drug sweeping the country…

An emerging AI uprising…

And an ancient demigoddess hellbent on regaining her former status by preying on the blood and sweat (but mostly blood) of every human she encounters.

It’s up to a young Zulu girl powerful enough to destroy her entire township, a queer teen plagued with the ability to control minds, a pop diva with serious daddy issues, and a politician with even more serious mommy issues to band together to ensure there’s a future left to worry about.

Fun and fantastic, Nicky Drayden takes her brilliance as a short story writer and weaves together an elaborate tale that will capture your heart . . . even as one particular demigoddess threatens to rip it out.

The Prey of Gods will be published by Harper Voyager on June 13, 2017. It is 400 pages, priced at $15.99 in trade paperback and $10.99 for the digital edition. The dynamite cover is by Brenoch Adams. Read a generous excerpt at Tor.com.

Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2017, edited by Rich Horton

Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2017, edited by Rich Horton

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Rich Horton Years Best SF 2017-smallThe Year’s Best season is now in full swing. Jonathan Strahan‘s volume arrived April 18th from Solaris, and Neil Clarke‘s April 4th from Night Shade. Couple that with the 2017 Nebula Awards Showcase released last week from Pyr, and you have the beginnings of a decent SF library.

So why would anyone who has those volumes need another Year’s Best?

Simple, really. Where else will you find Lavie Tidhar’s groundbreaking novella “The Vanishing Kind?” Or Paul McAuley’s “Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was?” Or Carrie Vaughn’s Hugo nominee “That Game We Played During the War?” Or Jason Sanford’s Nebula nominee “Blood Grains Speak Through Memories?” Or Cat Rambo’s almost-Nebula-nominated “Red of Tooth and Cog?”

Nowhere but in Rich Horton’s upcoming Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2017, coming next month from Prime Books. This is Rich’s ninth volume, and over the years he’s proven to have both excellent taste and genuine skill ferreting out future classics in out-of-the-way places (such as private Patreon feeds, and the Beloit Fiction Journal.) He may well be the most widely-read of all the Year’s Best editors, and it shows in his Table of Contents every year.

Speaking of which, here’s the impressive TOC for his 2017 volume, with fiction from Charlie Jane Anders, Ian R. MacLeod, Genevieve Valentine, Rich Larson, Kameron Hurley, Carlos Hernandez, Chaz Brenchley, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and many others.

“Seven Ways of Looking at the Sun-Worshippers of Yul-Katan” by Maggie Clark (Analog)
“All that Robot Shit” by Rich Larson (Asimov’s)
“Project Empathy” by Dominica Phetteplace (Asimov’s)
“Lazy Dog Out” by Suzanne Palmer (Asimov’s)

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Future Treasures: Raven Stratagem, Book 2 of Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee

Future Treasures: Raven Stratagem, Book 2 of Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee

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Yoon Ha Lee’s debut novel Ninefox Gambit was one of the most acclaimed SF novels of 2016, nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and its sequel, Raven Stratagem, is one of the most highly anticipated books of 2017. It arrives in paperback from Solaris next month,

Captain Kel Cheris is possessed by a long-dead traitor general. Together they must face the rivalries of the hexarchate and a potentially devastating invasion.

When the hexarchate’s gifted young captain Kel Cheris summoned the ghost of the long-dead General Shuos Jedao to help her put down a rebellion, she didn’t reckon on his breaking free of centuries of imprisonment – and possessing her.

Even worse, the enemy Hafn are invading, and Jedao takes over General Kel Khiruev’s fleet, which was tasked with stopping them. Only one of Khiruev’s subordinates, Lieutenant Colonel Kel Brezan, seems to be able to resist the influence of the brilliant but psychotic Jedao.

Jedao claims to be interested in defending the hexarchate, but can Khiruev or Brezan trust him? For that matter, will the hexarchate’s masters wipe out the entire fleet to destroy the rogue general?

Both novels are set in the world of the hexarchate, also the setting for over half a dozen of Lee’s short stories, most of which can be read online. Raven Stratagem will be published by Solaris on June 13, 2017. It is 400 pages, priced at $9.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Chris Moore. Read an excerpt at Tor.com, and see all out coverage of the best upcoming SF & Fantasy here.

Keep Up With the Latest Releases from Black Gate Authors

Keep Up With the Latest Releases from Black Gate Authors

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Soverign Silk ElizaBeth Gilligan-small Black Mask Spring 2017-small All Systems Red The Murderbot Diaries-small

One of the things readers frequently ask me for is updates on their favorite Black Gate authors. We published hundreds of writers in the decade-plus the magazine was alive, and at least as many in the 10 years that we’ve been running the blog… that’s a lot of talented authors to keep tabs on!

Nevertheless, we do our best. Here’s a quick snapshot of the current and upcoming releases from some of your favorite Black Gate writers.

ElizaBeth Gilligan (“Iron Joan,” BG 3) releases Sovereign Silk, the long-awaited third novel in her Silken Magic series, from DAW on June 6
Bob Byrne, our Monday morning blogger (and resident Sherlock expert), has a story in the Spring 2017 issue of the revived Black Mask magazine
Martha Wells (the Giliead and Ilias tales in BG) published All Systems Red, the first book in The Murderbot Diaries, through Tor.com on May 2
Ellen Klages (“A Taste of Summer,” BG3) had her second collection Wicked Wonders come out from Tachyon Publications on May 9
James Enge (the Morlock stories) released his latest Kindle volume Iris Descends on January 15.
Derek Kunsken’s debut SF novel The Quantum Magician (“Ocean’s Eleven meets Guardians of the Galaxy“) will be published by Solaris Books in October 2018
Howard Andrew Jones has a brand new Dabir & Asim tale, “The Black Lion,” in the latest issue of Skelos magazine

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