Echo
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Jack McDevitt, Ace, $24.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-441-01924-3 9780441019243
Fans of antiquities dealer Alex Benedict will find their expectations fully met by his fifth outing (after 2008's The Devil's Eye). Benedict innocently arranges the purchase of a curious but not obviously significant stone tablet with an unreadable inscription. When the slab proves inexplicably difficult to collect, Benedict and his partner, Chase Kolpath, investigate its connections to explorer Sunset Tuttle's abrupt abandonment of his quest to find another intelligent race. Death hounds Benedict and Chase as they inch closer to an old shame someone will kill to protect. McDevitt's characters may live 9,600 years in the future, but their values are entirely 21st century, which will endear them to some SF fans and turn off others. There are hints of the existential malaise that permeates McDevitt's Priscilla Hutchins novels, but despite the book's terrible events, the series retains its essential optimism about redemption and progress. (Nov.)
Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded
Edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, Tachyon (IPG, dist.), $14.95 trade paper (432p) ISBN 978-1-61696-001-8 9781616960018
The dynamic VanderMeers follow 2008's Steampunk with this engaging anthology of 23 stories (three original to this volume, including Jeffrey Ford's "Dr. Lash Remembers"), two essays (including one by Gail Carriger), and a roundtable interview, all of which define, deepen, and demonstrate the clockwork beauty of automaton-laden science fiction. Standouts include Tanith Lee's madness-inspired "The Persecution Machine"; Caitlín R. Kiernan's hauntingly beautiful tale of "The Steam Dancer (1896)"; Marc Laidlaw's photographic encyclopedia of "Great Breakthroughs in Darkness"; Sydney Padua's comic "Lovelace and Babbage: Origins, with Salamander"; the frightening Pinocchio of Cherie Priest's "Tanglefoot"; William Gibson's proto-steampunk tale "The Gernsback Continuum"; and "Flying Fish ‘Prometheus' (A Fantasy of the Future)" by Vilhelm Bergsøe, a Danish contemporary of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Fabulous interior design by John Coulthart completes this worthy sequel to its well-regarded predecessor. (Nov.)
Carousel Tides
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Sharon Lee, Baen, $14 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-1-4391-3395-8 9781439133958
A tourist town in Maine hosts a war of faerie magic in this engaging urban fantasy. The fireworks begin when Kate Archer returns to Archers Beach, Maine, to search for her vanished grandmother, Bonny Pepperidge, and to assume Bonny's role as Guardian of Fun Country, an amusement park whose carousel animals are actually exiled fae criminals. Almost immediately, Kate runs afoul of neighbor Joe Nemeier, a drug smuggler who sets his assassins after her. Then she learns from the local earth spirits that Bonny may have discovered the whereabouts of Kate's mom, newly escaped from a pursuing demonic captor. Lee brings these disparate subplots together in a pyrotechnic finale that plays out magically behind the ordinary facade of smalltown Maine life, evoking much of the romance and magic of her popular Liaden series. (Nov.)
She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror
Edited by Tim Lieder, Dybbuk (www.dybbuk-press.com), $12.75 trade paper (144p) ISBN 978-0-9766546-7-4 9780976654674
This darkly fascinating anthology of nine stories shows humans trembling in the presence of mighty, unknowable powers and their predatory servants. In Gerri Leen's "Whither Thou Goest," Ruth is revealed to be a psychic leech, giving freshly disturbing meaning to her touching vow never to leave her aged mother-in-law. Jesus' exhortation to drink His blood is taken literally by a congregation of vampires in D.K. Thompson's "Last Respects." A modern Daniel finds that his gift of prophecy can serve the greedy gods of a multinational security corporation in Daniel Kayson's "Babylon's Burning," and Stephen M. Wilson's "Swallowed!" puts a Lovecraftian spin on the tale of Jonah and the whale. Brief but potent, these stories are recommended for readers with very strong nerves. (Nov.)
Holiday
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M. Rickert, Golden Gryphon, $24.95 (164p) ISBN 978-1-930846-65-4 9781930846654
Combining fantasy with slow-burning, dreamlike horror, Rickert's second collection (after 2006's Map of Dreams) includes several seasonal stories that make The Nightmare Before Christmas look like a Charlie Brown special. In "Memoir of a Deer Woman," a woman's incurable slow transformation into a deer comes upon her like a cancer. The cheerful brutality of a disturbed child is a fatally bad match for tiny fairies in "Was She Wicked? Was She Good?" A happy little girl is turned into an unknowing suicide bomber by her own mother in "Traitor." In the World Fantasy Award winner "The Kingdom," a girl is seduced into unlife and a widower finds peace by successfully courting death. Fans of Rickert's talent for atmospheric, artistic terror will find plenty to enjoy in this slim volume. (Nov.)
The Seven Days of Cain
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Ramsey Campbell, PS Publishing (www.pspublishing.co.uk), $32 (312p) ISBN 978-1-848630-98-7 9781848630987
British horror master Campbell (The House on Nazareth Hill) somewhat returns to form with a modern-day tale of psychological terror. British photographer Andy Bentley has a sedate life, working for the family firm and trying to figure out why he and his wife, Claire, can't conceive. Things begin to unravel after Max Beyer, a wealthy eccentric, hires Bentley to take a series of pictures intended to capture Beyer's disturbing true nature. Bentley has also been getting disturbing e-mails that may be connected to some brutal murders. After a short, unsettling prologue, the book takes its time returning to the horror plot line. The ultimate payoff is a bit of a letdown, with occasional lurches into silliness, but Campbell's characterizations and prose, especially in the opening sections, are solid. (Nov.)
Magic at the Gate
Devon Monk, Roc, $7.99 mass market (368p) ISBN 978-0-451-46362-3 9780451463623
The action-packed fifth Allie Beckstrom novel (after 2009's Magic in the Shadows) amps up the magical mayhem. Just as Allie joins the Authority, a secret group of magical enforcers, internal warfare threatens the organization. Also in danger is Zayvion Jones, Allie's Soul Complement. To save him, she must travel through the gates of Death to retrieve his soul at the cost of her own magic. Unlike most magic users, Allie carries magic within her and doesn't have to draw on the city wells—but technology created by her malevolent father may have made magic portable for everyone, including the Veiled, evil ghosts who think the infinitely reusable magic disks are their route to immortality in the world of the living. Allie's adventures are gripping and engrossing, with an even, clever mix of humor, love, and brutality. (Nov.)
The Horns of Ruin
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Tim Akers, Pyr, $16 trade paper (270p) ISBN 978-1-61614-246-9 9781616142469
Akers (Heart of Veridon) creates a complex steampunk world in which rival brothers Morgan, Alexander, and Amon are revered as gods. The last of Morgan's Paladins, Eva Forge, is tasked with providing security for Barnabas, the Fratriarch of the Cult of Morgan, just as a plot is set in motion—ostensibly by the remnants of the Cult of Amon—to destroy the Morganites. As she travels from the monorails above the city of Ash to the hidden underground lairs of the remaining Amonites, Forge is forced to face her preconceptions and question her training and her understanding of the world in which she lives. Ash is a vibrant city, and the cults of the three brothers have a relationship as ambivalent and complicated as the relationship among any actual siblings. (Nov.)
Bomber Bombs: The Ninth Bomber Hanson Mystery
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David Champion, Allen A. Knoll, $23 (264p) ISBN 978-1-888310-49-8 9781888310498
Champion's lighthearted ninth Bomber Hanson mystery (after 2005's To Die For) finds the bombastic California attorney and his diffident son, Tod, tackling the defense of 10 Cal Southern football players, all black, accused of raping stripper Mimi Parquette, also black, at a stag party that got out of hand. When attempts by Clarence Dixon, head of Cal's booster club, to buy off the plaintiff fail, he turns to Bomber, who, despite his disdain for football, decides to accept the case. Bomber's nemesis, Judge Sean McKorkle, stymies him at every turn in court until Bomber collapses. McKorkle, prosecutor Web Granger, and the defendants press Tod to take over, despite his inexperience and unwillingness to do so. It's do or die for Tod, who holds the fate of the 10 players and, perhaps, the Cal Southern coach and team in his sweating hands. Tod's courtroom performance proves unorthodox, amusing, and effective. (Nov.)
The Blue Hackle: A Jean Fairbairn/Alasdair Cameron Mystery
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Lillian Stewart Carl, Five Star, $25.95 (380p) ISBN 978-1-59414-922-1 9781594149221
At the start of Stewart's spirited fifth mystery featuring American travel journalist Jean Fairbairn and her Scottish fiancé, retired detective inspector Alasdair Cameron (after 2009's The Charm Stone), the pair are happily anticipating their New Year's wedding on the Isle of Skye at Dunasheen Castle, owned by their friend Fergus "Fergie" MacDonald. They almost cancel their nuptials after the stabbing murder of Greg MacLeod, an Australian staying at the castle's inn with his wife. Jean later finds the murder weapon, an antique dirk stolen from Fergie's display of family weaponry. Was it wielded by Colin Urquhart, a hermit in love with Diana, Fergie's daughter; Scott Krum, a visiting American antique dealer; or some disgruntled local? Seonaid MacDonald, Fergie's ghostly ancestress (aka "the Green Lady"), interacts with Jean and Krum's young daughter, Dakota, to diverting effect. (Nov.)
