Late Eclipses
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Seanan McGuire, DAW, $7.99 mass market (400p) ISBN 978-0-7564-0666-0 9780756406660
In October "Toby" Daye's fourth outing, following 2010's An Artificial Night, the half-Fae private detective is once again run through the wringer when problems plaguing the San Francisco Fae community strike home on a personal level. First, in an unprecedented, unexpected move, the Queen of the Mists promotes Toby to countess. Given that the Queen hates her, it's quite obviously a trap, but not something Toby can refuse or avoid. Subsequently, several of Toby's closest friends are struck down through poison and illness, and she's accused of murder. Has an enemy from Toby's past resurfaced, or is she losing her mind? Physically, emotionally, and magically drained, faced with tragedy and despair, Toby's forced to deal with the long-hidden truth behind her Fae heritage. In this tightly plotted adventure, McGuire mixes nonstop action with a wealth of mythology to deliver a wholly satisfying story. (Mar.)
Never Knew Another
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J.M. McDermott, Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $14.99 trade paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-59780-215-4 9781597802154
This well-wrought fantasy trilogy launch maps the boundaries and sensibilities of Dogsland, a quasi-medieval domain that is hostile to any resident tainted by demon blood. McDermott (Last Dragon) evokes the lifestyles, politics, and attitudes of the realm through the experiences of three half-demons trying to go about their business unobtrusively: Jona, a dispossessed lord working as a noble's guard; Rachel Nolander, a cleaning maid living with her thuggish fully human brother; and Salvatore, a thief whose activities threaten to call attention to the unsavory activities of Jona's employer. Paths cross randomly and soon interesting connections develop among the characters. McDermott leaves many questions open, including the identities of the tale's wolfskin-wearing narrators, and readers will be eager to return to Dogsland in hope of finding answers. (Mar.)
The Ones That Got Away
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Stephen Graham Jones, Prime (www.prime-books.com), $24.95 (256p) ISBN 978-1-60701-235-1 9781607012351
Thirteen horror stories, most originally published between 2005 and 2010, make up Native American writer Jones's second collection (after 2005's Bleed into Me). Several stories feature children coming of age: in "Father, Son, Holy Rabbit," a father and son, stranded and awaiting rescue, sustain themselves by eating a magical rabbit over and over again, while in "So Perfect," 17-year-old girls lose weight by poisoning themselves. A standout western-zombie mashup, "Lonegan's Luck," twists the trickster trope when fate takes down a murderous snake-oil salesman. In "Crawlspace," original to this volume, an infant taps into his father's mind, waking up screaming when his dad reads horror. The story notes collected at the end of the book provide insight into Jones's writing process and will particularly interest aspiring fiction writers. The twisty endings, villainous characters, and truly shocking scenarios make several of these disturbing stories truly unforgettable. (Mar.)
Up Against It
M.J. Locke, Tor, $25.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1515-1 9780765315151
Compulsively readable and packed with challenging ideas, this hefty debut is set in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Asteroid colony Phoecea survives by using nanotech to process huge chunks of methane ice, until sabotage by the Martian crime syndicate throws everything into jeopardy. Meanwhile, a feral AI is evolving within the colony's computer net, intending to spread throughout the solar system. The humans who have to cope with these threats are competent, endearing, and believably frazzled: Resource Commissioner Jane Navio has to make life and death decisions while watching her public approval rating fluctuate, and teen Geoff Agre and his rocketbike-riding friends make heroic choices while squabbling with their families and each other. Locke has created a believable ecosystem of struggling, competing, sometimes uncomfortably interacting components, where trust is betrayed painfully, but allies appear unexpectedly. Most of all, this smart, satisfying hard SF adventure celebrates human resilience. (Mar.)
People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy
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Edited by Rachel Swirsky and Sean Wallace, Prime (www.prime-books.com), $14.95 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-60701-238-2 9781607012382
The strength of Michael Chabon's contribution to this uneven anthology, "Golems I Have Known, or, Why My Elder Son's Middle Name Is Napoleon: A Trickster's Memoir," only emphasizes, by contrast, the middling quality of many of the other 19 entries. Chabon blends reality and fiction in his fascinating account of how his life was affected by meeting golems. The most science-fictional tale, Matthew Kressel's "The History Within Us," explores Jewish and alien concepts of the afterlife 6,000 years in the future. The line between fantasy and scripture blurs in Rachel Pollack's "Burning Beard," which explores Joseph's gift—or curse—of dream interpretation. There are probably interesting reasons why there are no Jewish Narnias or Middle Earths, but the short introduction offers little guidance. (Mar.)
Revolution World
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Katy Stauber, Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $14.99 trade paper (228p) ISBN 978-1-59780-233-8 9781597802338
Stauber's near-future debut describes the romance of Seth Boucher and Clio Somata against the backdrop of a burgeoning revolution against a vastly overreaching U.S. government. Seth is affiliated with Omerta, a security group from the Charlotte Islands; Clio's family runs Floracopia, a gene-splicing laboratory in Ambrosia Springs, Tex. The U.S. Army wants to know what Omerta is hiding, and Floracopia has a problem with corporate espionage. When the companies' enemies connect, the action leads to a showdown between the citizens of Texas and the overbearing government agents. Seth, Clio, and their allies are well-realized characters, but their enemies are more melodramatic in nature, and the novel suffers from some inconsistencies. Nonetheless, libertarians will enjoy this story of individuals fighting for their rights against the evil Feds. (Mar.)
The Ice Trilogy
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Vladimir Sorokin, NYRB Classics, $19.95 trade paper (704p) ISBN 978-1-59017-386-2 9781590173862
Sorokin's epic trilogy, originally published between 2002 and 2005, expands the enigma of the 1908 Tunguska meteorite blast into an impressive merger of metaphysical fantasia and gritty conspiracy thriller. Following the impact, select humans realize they are actually cosmic entities and form a group called the Brotherhood in hopes of finding the way back to the Light. Though the relatively weak first book, Bro, is crippled by an excess of overwrought prose, Ice is a spectacular achievement, vividly exposing the eventual corruption and brutality surrounding even the noblest of goals, while 23,000 moves effectively outward to encompass those who fight to uncover and defeat the Brotherhood in a tense race against time. Though very slow to develop and marred somewhat by irritating redundancies and areas where disbelief is difficult to suspend, the trilogy builds into both a gripping story and an impressive metaphorical window into the 20th-century Soviet experience, offering substantial rewards to the patient and thoughtful reader. (Mar.)
King's Justice: The Knights of Breton Court II
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Marcus Broaddus, Angry Robot (www.angryrobotbooks.com), $7.99 mass market (416p) ISBN 978-0-85766-082-4 9780857660824
King Arthur and his court are reimagined as a motley but courageous group of young men and women trying to make the Breton Court housing project a better place to live in this refreshing urban fantasy, the sequel to 2010's King Maker. King James White is the son of deceased and morally ambiguous neighborhood boss Luther. His right-hand man, Lott Carey, is an idealistic FedEx driver. Merlin and Morgana are genuine sorcerers, but are generally held to be crazy. Lady G. is particularly sympathetic: she's young, scared, ambitious, and still not sure what or who she really wants. Notably, Tristan and Isolde cameo as Tristan and Isabel, a pair of star-crossed lesbians. New readers will find it easy to break into the series with this engaging tale of urban renewal and vigilante justice. (Mar.)
The Way of the Wizard
Edited by John Joseph Adams, Prime (www.prime-books.com), $14.95 trade paper (480p) ISBN 978-1-60701-232-0 9781607012320
Anthologist extraordinaire Adams (Federations) once again strikes gold with 33 original and reprinted tales of wizardry in a wide variety of settings, from the medieval (Mike Resnick's "Winter Solstice") to the modern (Jeremiah Tolbert's "One-Click Banishment"). George R.R. Martin effortlessly creates a convincing mythic world in "In the Lost Lands," wherein a knight tries to discourage his lady's interest in shape-shifting. Resnick's contribution movingly depicts Merlin suffering dementia-like effects from living backwards in time. A peasant endures numerous trials at the hands of a wizard king in Susanna Clarke's humorous "John Uskglass and the Cambrian Charcoal Burner," while Wendy N. Wagner's "The Secret of Calling Rabbits" is a melancholy and deeply affecting account of the last days of the last dwarf. Adams just keeps getting better and this anthology is no exception. (Mar.)
Killer Routine: A Last Laff Mystery
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Alan Orloff, Midnight Ink (www.midnightinkbooks.com), $14.95 trade paper (312p) ISBN 978-0-7387-2310-5 9780738723105
Orloff's entertaining first in a new series set in the standup comedy world immediately engages the reader's sympathies with the lead's tragic backstory. Channing Hayes stopped performing after the car accident that took the life of his fiancée, Lauren Dempsey, and left him scarred and maimed. Hayes, now the co-owner of the Last Laff Comedy Club in northern Virginia, has been encouraging Lauren's sister, Heather, to make her solo appearance before the microphone. But the night of Heather's debut, she disappears right before she's about to go on, a puzzle that may be connected with a series of murders. Hayes's frantic search for his almost-sister-in-law meets with relative indifference, both from law enforcement and from family members familiar with Heather's flaking out in the past. Despite a mundane solution to the mystery, Orloff (Diamonds for the Dead) does a great job of evoking smalltime, struggling comedy clubs. (Apr.)
