McNulty knows how to subvert expectations in a way that leads her readers down literary paths at once familiar and unknowable. Her debut collection of short fiction, which includes two stories previously nominated for the Canadian Journey Prize, embarks on a lyrical, sometimes surreal descent into the unexpected, populated by people who “grew up on the wrong side of sane.” In this universe, a divorcée thinks nothing of saving the life of a cephalopod that communicates in ink-splattered prose, a cancer survivor living in the woods must survive a family intervention, a multi-armed god can’t figure out what to do with its life, and a mother laments being less pretty than her transgender daughter. There is true delight to be found in this menagerie of damaged individuals, all valiantly striving to hold on to their inherent dignity in the face of severe (sometimes ridiculous) obstacles. Sad and funny, delicate and ferocious, this is an intoxicating potpourri of marvelous stories that bears repeated readings to uncover every subtle nuance. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 06/23/2017 | Details & Permalink

Warren Botts, a substitute teacher in a small unnamed Canadian town, is suspected of murder in this sly and clever thriller from Lundrigan (The Widow Tree). He discovers the victim, Amanda Fuller, a 13-year-old girl in one of his classes, hanging from a tree in his backyard. His shocked phone call to 911 and odd responses to the operator’s questions only further implicate him. Botts is socially awkward to begin with, and his scattered reaction to Amanda’s death makes readers wonder if he really is that way or if he is just an unreliable character in a third-person narrative. There’s also another first-person narrator, someone who seems to know all the secrets. Lundrigan’s use of the two alternating narrative styles deepens the suspense. This slow-burning thriller can be a bit too slow at times, weighed down by description, and beginning the story with the discovery of a dead teenage girl is an overused trope. Nevertheless, this book will keep readers guessing, and, for the most part, they’ll be surprised by how it all plays out. Agent: Hilary McMahon, Westwood Creative Artists. (June)

Reviewed on 06/23/2017 | Details & Permalink

Egan’s latest work of experimental science fiction (after the Orthogonal trilogy) is impressively bizarre. He takes some of the physics concepts explored in Christopher Priest’s The Inverted World and turns them up to 11, imagining a universe in which there are two dimensions each of time and space. Gravity works in wholly unfamiliar ways. Some people, called walkers, are born only able to look east and (if they bend backwards) west, but not north and south; they have a symbiotic relationship with siders, who live in walkers’ brains and can look north and south and relay what they detect. Seth is a walker who shares his brain with Theo, a sider. The two of them work as surveyors, searching for the properly habitable zones into which their city, Baharabad, can be moved as its current zone becomes inhabitable due to the planet’s rotation. (Baharabad is in constant motion, its forward edge being extended as its back edge is destroyed.) Egan provides copious and necessary papers on the math and physics of world (there’s less information on the staggeringly weird biology), but even with that help, much of the science will make the plotting borderline impenetrable for anyone not already immersed in the concepts. Nonphysicists hoping to stay afloat by clinging to the plot will find there’s little of it to hold onto. Egan may have out-Eganed himself with this one. Agent: Russell Galen, Scovil Chichak Galen Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 06/23/2017 | Details & Permalink

Through the eyes of a dead woman, Shirley Jackson Award–finalist Miskowski (Muscadines) reveals a fraught and unhappy world; black humor underneath the grit keeps the reader enthralled. When 20-something Greta Garver landed in Seattle, she befriended a theater maven and bluffed her way into a job as a theater reviewer for an alternative newspaper. She is living in a small apartment in 1994 when she finds her own dead body and realizes she’s become a ghost. Greta’s restless spirit haunts the good (and not-so-good) folks on the seamy side of Seattle, coaxing them to end their misery in various ways. Greta’s too smart for her own good and often too lazy to care, and the literally cutthroat world of alternative news just might be her undoing. Greta is an acerbic delight, and revenge is sweet, but the real question is whether she’ll ever be able to let go of the living world and find a measure of peace. This biting, sly gem of a novel shouldn’t be missed. (July)

Reviewed on 06/23/2017 | Details & Permalink

Ringman (Makara) has woven her recollections of personal experiences with “fae creatures” into these 14 lyrical, disturbing first-person tales, all told to victims by vampiric shape-shifting beings drawn from various mythological traditions. Ringman, who is Deaf, postulates telepathic fae-to-human connections as well as signed communication with emotional overtones that no auditory vibrations can match. Among the more unsettling of these stories, the touching “A Real Dog” presents a fae creature locked in the body of a shelter dog who steals a person with its eyes, and “Love Within Tangled Branches,” voiced by a birch tree spirit out of Icelandic saga lore, shows that love can make fae and human alike take risks. All fae creatures, Ringman suggests, come from humans, through dreams that are humans’ way of seeing other realities. Closing with a painful vision of suicidal humans who inevitably destroy themselves and their world, this fantasy collection poses otherness that simultaneously attracts and repels, couched in an occasionally brutal modern idiom. Ringman successfully brings readers a few steps out of everyday reality. (July)

Reviewed on 06/23/2017 | Details & Permalink

This blood-drenched sequel to Extinction Horizon shows the perils of good intentions. Billions of humans became carnivorous when a U.S. military attempt to develop unstoppable supersoldiers went haywire. Dr. Kate Lovato developed a virus intended to wipe out the creatures; it killed most of them, but millions of “variants” survived. Now they’re mutating, becoming more threatening physically and mentally. They’ve even become smart enough to ambush the overconfident soldiers sent to retake America’s cities. Special Forces Master Sgt. Reed Beckham, Kate’s lover, is part of that mission, and the novel ends with him trapped in the ruins of New York. The only thing that may save him is that the Extinction series has at least five more books to go. Smith is ingenious in evolving the threat and escalating the action, but after a while the reader becomes numb to the ultraviolence. Agent: David Fugate, Launch Books. (June)

Reviewed on 06/23/2017 | Details & Permalink

After impressive sales as self-published e-books, the Extinction novels are finally making their mass market debut. Smith has realized that the way to rekindle interest in zombie apocalypse fiction is to make it louder, longer, and bloodier. This first volume narrates the disastrous escape of a bioweapon that combines the worst features of Ebola with a drug the U.S. Army developed to create supersoldiers. Infected people mutate into cunning, fast-moving, ravenously carnivorous monsters. As the virus spreads and society collapses, the story focusses on rugged, sensitive Master Sgt. Reed Beckham, leader of Delta Force Team Ghost, and beautiful, brilliant Dr. Kate Lovato, whom Beckham rescues from the besieged Center for Disease Control in Atlanta so that she can continue trying to find a way to fight the swarms of infected. Smith intensifies the disaster efficiently as the pages flip by, and readers who enjoy juicy blood-and-guts action will find a lot of it here. Agent: David Fugate, Launch Books. (May)

Reviewed on 06/23/2017 | Details & Permalink

Larson, a clinical professor of medicine, and DeClaire (Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, co-author), a health journalist, offer an empowering exploration, targeted to baby boomers, of ways to age healthfully while staving off disability and maintaining an active life. Rather than suggesting some “magic bullet,” the authors focus on increasing resilience, the ability to recover from setbacks and adapt to changing circumstances, through building mental, physical, and social reserves. They state that baby boomers have a better chance of aging healthfully than any generation before them, and identify factors that lead to better aging, including proactivity, attitude, and acceptance. They also caution against overdiagnosis, overtreatment, and new but not necessarily improved medication, instead lauding lifestyle changes as solutions to age-related problems. Larson and DeClaire advise readers to make decisions that are right for them and be proactive about their healthcare. Building on the subject of attitude, they recommend making aspirations more focused and attainable as one ages, something they see as leading to greater happiness and life satisfaction. Though no one can guarantee a long, healthy life, Larson and DeClaire help stack the odds in readers’ favor with their informative work. (June)

Reviewed on 06/23/2017 | Details & Permalink

Sportswriter Robinson (Ultimate Warrior) sets out to tell the whole story of NXT, a fast-growing new offshoot of the mainstream World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) behemoth, but the book is too much of an insider narrative for readers who don’t already know the WWE world. “WWE is stadiums and massive arenas and pyro assaulting your senses. NXT is about the in-ring product,” says NXT executive Paul Levesque, better known as former WWE world champion Triple H (and WWE kingpin Vince McMahon’s son-in-law). Levesque’s vision of NXT helped the WWE expand and draw in some of the top wrestlers who weren’t already in the company, and much of the story is told through his words. Unfortunately, Robinson includes little context to help newcomers grasp who the interviewees are or what their significance is. For example, Windham Rotunda, who used NXT as a stepping stone to WWE stardom as Bray Wyatt, explains how his character developed through the years, but readers don’t learn that his father, uncles, and grandfather all wrestled, or that he played college football. Amid the back-patting and celebration of the “anti-establishment feeling” of a product that is actually an integral part of the WWE, exposition and explanation are missing and the basics of storytelling have been forgotten. Color photos. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 06/23/2017 | Details & Permalink

Dranoff, a trailblazing author (Every Woman’s Guide to the Law) and feminist lawyer, looks back on her busy career in this important overview of remarkable legal and social changes brought about by the Canadian women’s liberation movement. This personal record of relentless persistence in making the law more accessible to women while removing barriers regarding birth control, reproductive autonomy, custody and property rights, and equal pay for work of equal value is a welcome addition to the burgeoning written history of the women’s movement. This important record could have benefitted from and been streamlined by stronger editing. Written in a conversational style and occasionally relying on awkward phrasings that would be more at home in a personal diary, it often reads like a fleshed-out résumé, even listing the awards she received and media appearances she made in particular years. Nonetheless, Dranoff’s recounting of her early years of carving out a significant space in a male-dominated profession, her landmark work as a legal columnist for Chatelaine magazine, and the intersection of court work and political organizing serves as a critical reminder of how far Canadian women have come, as well as a warning to remain vigilant and safeguard hard-earned victories. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 06/23/2017 | Details & Permalink