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Category: Future Treasures

io9 on 20 Amazing New SF and Fantasy Books in May

io9 on 20 Amazing New SF and Fantasy Books in May

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Wicked Wonders Ellen Klages-small Thick as Thieves Megan Whalen Turner-small River of Teeth-small

Over at io9, Cheryl Eddy takes a look at 20 of the most intriguing titles arriving this month, including a whole bunch of novels, collections and anthologies we haven’t gotten around to yet. Her list features titles from Robin Hobb, Haruki Murakami, Timothy Zahn, M.R. Carey, Foz Meadows, Martha Wells, Robert Jackson Bennett, Marie Brennan, Kit Reed, and others.

The list includes the latest collection from Black Gate author Ellen Klages, Wicked Wonders.

The author of The Green Glass Sea presents her second short-story collection of “lyrical stories with vintage flair” (topics include: life on Mars, gambling with fairies), with an introduction by Karen Joy Fowler.

Wicked Wonders was published by Tachyon Publications on May 9. It is 240 pages, priced at $15.95 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition.

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Future Treasures: Dark Cities, edited by Christopher Golden

Future Treasures: Dark Cities, edited by Christopher Golden

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Dark Cities Christopher Golden-smallThe prolific Christopher Golden (who’s produced, by my count, over a hundred novels in the last 20 years) has edited several noteworthy anthologies recently, including zombie anthologies The New Dead (2010) and 21st Century Dead (2012), The Monster’s Corner (2011), and vampire collection Seize the Night (2015). He turns his attention to urban horror in Dark Cities, coming in hardcover next week from Titan.

For you puritans who don’t like to mix your horror genres, the Titan website notes “The book won’t include zombies, vampires, or anything apocalyptic.” But it does contain original non-apocalyptic, non-zombie-vampire fiction by Scott Smith, Tim Lebbon, Helen Marshall, M.R. Carey, Cherie Priest, Jonathan Maberry, Paul Tremblay, Nathan Ballingrud, Ramsey Campbell, Seanan McGuire, and many others.

In shadowy back alleys, crumbling brownstones, and gleaming skyscrapers, cities harbor unique forms of terror. Here lie malicious ghosts, cursed buildings, malignant deities, and personal demons of every kind.

Twenty of today’s most talented writers bend their skills toward the darkness, creating brand-new tales guaranteed to keep you awake at night — especially if you live in the dark cities.

Far worse than mythical creatures such as vampires and werewolves, these are horrors that lurk in the places you go every day — where you would never expect to find them. But they are there, and now that you know, you’ll never again walk the streets alone.

Dark Cities will be published by Titan Books on May 16, 2017. It is 400 pages, priced at $22.95 in hardcover and $7.99 for the digital edition. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Future Treasures: Nebula Awards Showcase 2017, edited by Julie E. Czerneda

Future Treasures: Nebula Awards Showcase 2017, edited by Julie E. Czerneda

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I attended the Nebula Awards ceremony here in Chicago last year, where Black Gate bloggers C.S.E. Cooney and Amal El-Mohtar were both nominated for awards, and got to see the gorgeous Nebula trophies (surely one of the most beautiful awards in the business) given out in person. So you can understand that I’ve been looking forward to Nebula Award Showcase 2017, which collects all of the winning stories — including “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” by Alyssa Wong (Best Short Story), “Our Lady of the Open Road” by Sarah Pinsker (Best Novelette), and Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (Best Novella) — as well as excerpts from all the nominees for Best Novel (including the winner, Naomi Novk’s Uprooted) and all the nominees for Best Short Story.

Believe it or not, the Nebula Awards have been given out by SFWA for 50 years, and this is the 50th anthology collecting the winners and runners-up. That’s a lot of great fiction packed into a highly collectible series of hardcover and paperback volumes (that’s a subtle tip for you collectors.) Nebula Awards Showcase 2017 will be published by Pyr on May 16, 2017. It is 336 pages, priced at $18 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition — a bargain, considering it includes Binti (priced at $9.99 all on its own) in its entirety. The cover is by Maurizio Manzieri.

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A Tale of Magical Apocalypse: The Ley Trilogy by Joshua Palmatier

A Tale of Magical Apocalypse: The Ley Trilogy by Joshua Palmatier

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Shattering the Ley-small Threading the Needle-small Reaping the Aurora-small

Joshua Palmatier’s Ley Trilogy is one of the more original fantasy series out there. Set in Erenthrall, a vast city of light and magic fueled by a ley line network, the series follows a sprawling cast of rebels, traders, assassins, guardsmen, and magic wielders through a series of shattering events that bring apocalyptic change to their world, including quakes, magical distortions, and creatures beyond nightmare. The first novel is available in paperback from DAW, and the second in hardcover; the final volume arrives this August.

Shattering the Ley (484 pages, $25.95 in hardcover/$9.99 paperback/$7.99 digital, July 1, 2014)
Threading the Needle (453 pages, $27 in hardcover/$13.99 digital, July 5, 2016)
Reaping the Aurora (464 pages, $26 in hardcover, August 1, 2017)

All three covers are by Stephan Martiniere. Here’s the description for the opening volume.

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Future Treasures: The Empire’s Ghost by Isabelle Steiger

Future Treasures: The Empire’s Ghost by Isabelle Steiger

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The Empire's Ghost-smallIsabelle Steiger is something of a mystery, to me at least. She came out of nowhere… no previous novels, no short stories that I can find, zip. Not even a website.

Is Steiger a pseudonym, maybe? Who knows. All I know is that she’s produced the opening novel of a brand new fantasy series that’s getting a lot of attention — no small achievement. The Empire’s Ghost arrives in hardcover in ten days.

The empire of Elesthene once spanned a continent, but its rise heralded the death of magic. It tore itself apart from within, leaving behind a patchwork of kingdoms struggling to rebuild.

But when a new dictator, the ambitious and enigmatic Imperator Elgar, seizes power in the old capital and seeks to recreate the lost empire anew, the other kingdoms have little hope of stopping him. Prince Kelken of Reglay finds himself at odds with his father at his country’s darkest hour; the marquise of Esthrades is unmatched in politics and strategy, but she sits at a staggering military disadvantage. And Issamira, the most powerful of the free countries, has shut itself off from the conflict, thrown into confusion by the disappearance of its crown prince and the ensuing struggle for succession.

Everything seems aligned in Elgar’s favor, but when he presses a band of insignificant but skilled alley-dwellers into his service for a mission of greatest secrecy, they find an unexpected opportunity to alter the balance of power in the war. Through their actions and those of the remaining royals, they may uncover not just a way to defeat Elgar, but also a deeper truth about their world’s lost history.

The Empire’s Ghost will be published by Thomas Dunne Books on May 16, 2017. It is 419 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover and $12.99 for the digital edition. The cover was designed by Young Jin Lim,

Future Treasures: Shattered Warrior by Sharon Shinn and Molly Knox Ostertag

Future Treasures: Shattered Warrior by Sharon Shinn and Molly Knox Ostertag

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Shattered Warrior-small Shattered Warrior-back-small

Sharon Shinn is one of our favorite writers around these parts. I know, I know, we have a lot of favorite writers. But do we have fond memories of mobbing them at breakfast with the entire Black Gate staff, as we do with Sharon? No, we do not.

Sharon has published more than 25 novels over the past two decades, including the Samaria series, Twelve Houses series, and the Elemental Blessings novels. Her latest project is a graphic novel with award-winning webcomic artist Molly Knox Ostertag (Strong Female Protagonist), titled Shattered Warrior. Set on a world conquered by the alien Derichets, it tells the tale of Colleen Cavenaugh, who toils in a factory for her alien masters, until the day her home is invaded by an unlikely band of human resistance fighters.

Here’s a scan of the inside flap, and a few sample pages to showcase some of Ostertag’s colorful art and character design.

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Future Treasures: Netherspace by Andrew Lane and Nigel Foster

Future Treasures: Netherspace by Andrew Lane and Nigel Foster

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Netherspace-smallThere’s a host of space opera out there at the moment, but in my opinion far too much of it suffers from the Star Trek syndrome — aliens who are basically just humans with a little make-up. Everyone speaks English, there’s no miscommunication, and those strange methane-breathers from that swamp planet turn out to be not too much different from your neighbors down the street.

That’s not the way the best SF treats aliens. I prefer my aliens with a bit more mystery, and thankfully there a still a few writers who agree with me. The hit movie Arrival, based on the famous short story by Ted Chiang, is a great example. And so is the upcoming novel Netherspace, by the writing team of Andrew Lane (Young Sherlock Holmes) and Nigel Foster (On Polar Tides). It arrives in trade paperback from Titan Books next week.

Contact with aliens was made forty years ago, but communication turned out to be impossible. Humans don’t share a way of thinking with any of the alien species, let alone a grammar. But there is trade, an exchange of goods that produces scientific advances that would have taken a thousand years. The cost for these alien technologies has no discernible pattern: an apple core, Tower Bridge, a used fondue kit, a live human…

Kara’s sister was one of the hundreds exchanged for the alien netherspace drives, faster-than-light technology that has allowed humans to colonize the stars, and she has little love for aliens. But when a group of colonists are captured the ex-army sniper is reluctantly recruited into the hostage team. Her role in the group is clear, less so is Marc Keislack, a multi-media artist made famous by the aliens unexplained interest in his work.

With humans reliant on alien technology the mission requires a careful balance, but how can you negotiate when you don’t know what your target wants, or why they took your people in the first place?

Netherspace will be published by Titan Books on May 2, 2017. It is 379 pages, priced at $14.95 in trade paperback and $7.99 in digital formats. It is the first volume in a proposed new series. See pics from the book luanch party at Winstone Books (where the authors met) here.

Future Treasures: A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge

Future Treasures: A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge

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A Face Like Glass-smallJust last week I was complaining about the dearth of good subterranean fiction… and along comes Frances Hardinge’s A Face Like Glass, set in an underground world that Kirkus calls an “utterly original setting… [with] a cracking good story.”

Frances Hardinge is the author of Cuckoo Song, the 2015 winner of the British Fantasy Award, as well as Fly By Night, Verdigris Deep, and Twilight Robbery. She has twice been nominated for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, for Cuckoo Song and The Lie Tree. A Face Like Glass was published in the UK in 2012; the US version arrives from Amulet Books in early May.

In the underground city of Caverna, the world’s most skilled craftsmen toil in the darkness to create delicacies beyond compare — wines that remove memories, cheeses that make you hallucinate, and perfumes that convince you to trust the wearer, even as they slit your throat. On the surface, the people of Caverna seem ordinary, except for one thing: their faces are as blank as untouched snow. Expressions must be learned, and only the famous Facesmiths can teach a person to express (or fake) joy, despair, or fear — at a steep price.

Into this dark and distrustful world comes Neverfell, a girl with no memory of her past and a face so terrifying to those around her that she must wear a mask at all times. Neverfell’s expressions are as varied and dynamic as those of the most skilled Facesmiths, except hers are entirely genuine. And that makes her very dangerous indeed…

A Face Like Glass will be published by Amulet Books on May 9, 2017. It is 496 pages, priced at $19.95 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital edition.

Robin Hobb Wraps Up the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy with Assassin’s Fate

Robin Hobb Wraps Up the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy with Assassin’s Fate

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Fool's Assassin-small Fool's Quest-small Assassin's Fate-small

Two decades ago Robin Hobb (who also writes fantasy as Megan Lindholm) burst on the scene with her debut the Farseer Trilogy (Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassin’s Quest). They were almost immediately successful, and by 2003 Robin Hobb had sold over a million copies of her first nine novels.

The Farseer Trilogy is the first-person narrative of FitzChivalry Farseer, the illegitimate son of a prince, and his adventures with an enigmatic character called the Fool. The story continued in the Tawny Man Trilogy (Fool’s Errand, The Golden Fool, and Fool’s Fate), and in 2013 Hobb announced she would pick up the tale decades later with the Fitz and the Fool Trilogy. The first two books are now in print in both hardcover and paperback, and the third and final volume arrives in hardcover next month. So for those of you who hang on until a series is complete to start the first book, the long wait is finally over.

Fool’s Assassin (667 pages, $28 hardcover, $8.99 paperback, $7.99 digital, August 12, 2014)
Fool’s Quest (784 pages, $28 hardcover, $8.99 paperback, $7.99 digital, August 11, 2015)
Assassin’s Fate (864 pages, $32 hardcover, $14.99 digital, May 9, 2017)

All three are published by Del Rey, with covers by Alejandro Colucci.

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Future Treasures: A Tyranny of Queens, Book 2 of The Manifold Worlds, by Foz Meadows

Future Treasures: A Tyranny of Queens, Book 2 of The Manifold Worlds, by Foz Meadows

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An-Accident-of-Stars-medium A Tyranny of Queens-small

Foz Meadows, who’s been nominated for a 2017 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, wraps up her 2-volume Portal Fantasy The Manifold Worlds with A Tyranny of Queens, arriving in mass market paperback from Angry Robot next month. When she signed a 2-book deal with Angry Robot in 2015, Foz wrote,

After years of quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) obsessing over magic portals, feminism and adventuring ladies, I’m delighted to announce that Angry Robot has decided to enable me in these endeavours. An Accident of Stars is the book I desperately wanted to read, but couldn’t possibly have written, at sixteen – and, as you may have guessed, it features (among a great many other things) magic portals, feminism and adventuring ladies. I’m immensely excited to share it with you, and I look forward to collaborating in its production with our glorious Robot Overlords, who only asked in exchange a very small blood sacrifice and part ownership of my soul.

A Tyranny of Queens arrives on May 2.

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