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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

04/26/11 - [Part 1] New Releases in Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal & more..

The new release list today is fairly large - 40+ titles and an interesting variety of genres - I'm splitting today's release blog into two (somewhat more manageable) parts.  Kicking it off - two steampunk titles from Angry Robot - an imprint that I can't say enough good things about.  I'll be reviewing one of their upcoming releases later this week.

Camera Obscura by Lavie Tidhar - CAN'T FIND A RATIONAL EXPLANATION TO A MYSTERY?

CALL IN THE QUIET COUNCIL.

The mysterious and glamorous Lady De Winter is one of their most valuable agents. A despicable murder inside a locked and bolted room on the Rue Morgue in Paris is just the start. This whirlwind adventure will take Milady to the highest and lowest parts of that great city - and cause her to question the very nature of reality itself.

Infernal Devices by K. W. Jeter - HE INHERITED A WATCHMAKER'S STORE - AND A WHOLE HEAP OF TROUBLE. But idle sometime-musician George has little talent for clockwork. And when a shadowy figure tries to steal an old device from the premises, George finds himself embroiled in a mystery of time travel, music and sexual intrigue. A genuine lost classic, a steampunk original whose time has come.

The Scarab Path by Adrian Tchaikovsky - The war with the Wasp Empire has ended in a bitter stalemate, and Collegium has nothing to show for it but wounded veterans. Cheerwell Maker finds herself crippled in ways no doctor can mend, haunted by ghosts of the past that she cannot appease, seeking for meaning in a city that no longer seems like home.

The Empress Seda is regaining control over those imperial cities that refused to bow the knee to her, but she draws her power from something more sinister than mere armies and war machines. Only her consort, the former spymaster Thalric, knows the truth, and now the assassins are coming and he finds his life and his loyalties under threat yet again.

Out past the desert of the Nem the ancient city of Khanaphes awaits them both, with a terrible secret entombed beneath its stones...

Heaven's Needle by Liane Mercial - The mountain fortress of Duradh Mal was mysteriously destroyed centuries ago. And now, in its shadow, evil stirs. . . .

Unaware of the danger, two inexperienced Illuminers set out for the village of Carden Vale, at the foot of Duradh Mal, to minister to the people. The warrior Asharre, her face scarred with runes, her heart scarred by loss, is assigned to protect the young clerics. But in Carden Vale they find unspeakable horrors—the first hint of a terrifying ghost story come true.
The Sun Knight Kelland has been set free by the woman he loves, the archer Bitharn, but at the cost of undertaking a mission only he can fulfill.

Joined by a Thornlord steeped in the magic of pain, they too make their way to Duradh Mal. There lies the truth behind the rumors of the dead come back to life, flesh ripped from bones, and creatures destroying themselves in a violent frenzy. And if Kelland cannot contain the black magic that has been unleashed after six hundred years, an entire world will fall victim to a Mad God’s malevolent plague. . . .

Haven by Joel Shepherd - The great powers of the Saalshen Bacosh are falling. The feudal army of the Regent Balthaar Arosh marches victorious across Rhodaan and Enora, determined to restore the old human ways that were abolished by the serrin of Saalshen two centuries before. The army of Lenayin marches in their wake, in shame. The greater battle was won, yet Lenayin's part in it was defeat, their king slain, their warriors sent running from the field.

Sashandra Lenayin marches with her people, yet she sees the carnage the Regent's armies are inflicting upon her former allies, and like most Lenays, she feels dishonored. Sasha leads three quarters of the army of Lenayin to defect and fight for Saalshen, leaving her brothers Koenyg and Myklas with the Verenthane hardliners to fight for the Regent.

All forces now converge on the city of Jahnd, an Enoran word meaning "Haven." A city of humanity's refugees in Saalshen, its serrin hosts have allowed it to build into a major power over the centuries, humankind's only outpost in Saalshen. But the Saalshen Bacosh's third province, the mountainous land of Ilduur, refuses to come to the aid of its neighbors and without it victory is impossible. Sasha must lead a delegation to the Ilduuri capital, to combat the xenophobic Ilduuri regime's retreat into isolation, and convince the Ilduuri army to defy their own leaders and rise up in rebellion to fight a foreign war that most Ilduuris do not want.

To save Saalshen and all that she loves about Lenayin, Sasha must become a true Lenay warlord, feared and hated by her enemies, uncompromising and all conquering. But will her own people now inflict upon her one of her worst nightmares, by insisting that she, and not her brother Damon, should assume the Lenay throne and lead her people in the greatest battle that the land of Rhodia has ever seen?

Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding - Sky piracy is a bit out of Darian Frey’s league. Fate has not been kind to the captain of the airship Ketty Jay—or his motley crew. They are all running from something. Crake is a daemonist in hiding, traveling with an armored golem and burdened by guilt. Jez is the new navigator, desperate to keep her secret from the rest of the crew. Malvery is a disgraced doctor, drinking himself to death. So when an opportunity arises to steal a chest of gems from a vulnerable airship, Frey can’t pass it up. It’s an easy take—and the payoff will finally make him a rich man.

But when the attack goes horribly wrong, Frey suddenly finds himself the most wanted man in Vardia, trailed by bounty hunters, the elite Century Knights, and the dread queen of the skies, Trinica Dracken. Frey realizes that they’ve been set up to take a fall but doesn’t know the endgame. And the ultimate answer for captain and crew may lie in the legendary hidden pirate town of Retribution Falls. That’s if they can get there without getting blown out of the sky.

Five Odd Honors by Jane Lindskold - The Thirteen Orphans and their allies have opened the ninth gate into the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice . . . and discover that the Lands have been altered almost beyond recognition, transformed by magic into an apparently uninhabited world where land shifts beneath one’s feet and fire burns blue.  Investigating, the Orphans learn that the Center of the world is sealed behind nearly-impassable barriers composed of each of the five elements of Chinese myth.  Combining ancient and modern magics, a scouting party penetrates the barriers, only to be captured and given over to tortures designed to separate the Orphans from their magical abilities.

On Earth, Pearl Bright, the Tiger, is attacked—is this treachery by our world’s magical traditions or has one of the Orphans betrayed her?  Brenda Morris learns of the Orphans’ dangers when it is nearly too late—but along with the sidhe, who are drawn to her Irish heritage, Brenda risks her life to help rescue those trapped in the Lands.

A story of betrayal and redemption, of bravery in the face of terror, and of loyalty and hatred that reach beyond the grave, Five Odd Honors continues Jane Lindskold’s stunning Breaking the Wall series.

Caledor by Gav Thorpe - The rise of the Druchii has driven the land of Ulthuan into a brutal civil war. As conflict rages through the cities and forests, sides must be chosen and old allegiances and friendships will be torn apart forever. After by the betrayal by Malekith and the murder of his court, Prince Imrik adopts the name of his grandfather, the mighty Caledor, and the bloodshed escalates. No elf can escape the fighting, and the mighty dragons are awakened to the call of battle once more. Only a confrontation between legends can decide the future of Ulthuan, with Malekith and Caledor meeting blade to blade in a long-overdue reckoning. But even worse is to follow, as Malekith launches a final, desperate plan to triumph...

Caledor is the epic conclusion to The Sundering trilogy, telling the incredible tale of the battles that would change the fate of the elves forever.

The Alchemist in the Shadows by Pierre Pevel - Welcome to Paris, in 1633, where dragons menace the realm. Cardinal Richelieu, the most powerful and most feared man in France, is on his guard. He knows France is under threat, and that a secret society known as the Black Claw is conspiring against him from the heart of the greatest courts in Europe. They will strike from the shadows, and when they do the blow will be both terrible and deadly. To counter the threat, Richelieu has put his most trusted men into play: the Cardinal's Blades, led by Captain la Fargue. Six men and a woman, all of exceptional abilities and all ready to risk their lives on his command. They have saved France before, and the Cardinal is relying on them to do it again.

So when la Fargue hears from a beautiful, infamous, deadly Italian spy claiming to have valuable information, he has to listen ...and when La Donna demands Cardinal Richelieu's protection before she will talk, la Fargue is even prepared to consider it. Because La Donna can name their enemy. It's a man as elusive as he is manipulative, as subtle as Richelieu himself, an exceptionally dangerous adversary: the Alchemist in the shadows ...

Star Trek: Watching the Clock [ST: Dept. of Temporal Investigations] by Christopher L. Bennett - There’s likely no more of a thankless job in the Federation than temporal investigation. While starship explorers get to live the human adventure of traveling to other times and realities, it’s up to the dedicated agents of the Federation Department of Temporal Investigations to deal with the consequences to the timestream that the rest of the Galaxy has to live with day by day. But when history as we know it could be wiped out at any moment by time warriors from the future, misused relics of ancient races, or accident-prone starships, only the most disciplined, obsessive, and unimaginative government employees have what it takes to face the existential uncertainty of it all on a daily basis . . . and still stay sane enough to complete their assignments.

That’s where Agents Lucsly and Dulmur come in—stalwart and unflappable, these men are the Federation’s unsung anchors in a chaotic universe. Together with their colleagues in the DTI—and with the help and sometimes hindrance of Starfleet’s finest—they do what they can to keep the timestream, or at least the paperwork, as neat and orderly as they are. But when a series of escalating temporal incursions threatens to open a new front of the history-spanning Temporal Cold War in the twenty-fourth century, Agents Lucsly and Dulmur will need all their investigative skill and unbending determination to stop those who wish to rewrite the past for their own advantage, and to keep the present and the future from devolving into the kind of chaos they really, really hate.

The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught by Jack Campbell - The Alliance woke Captain John "Black Jack" Geary from cryogenic sleep to take command of the fleet in the century-long conflict against the Syndicate Worlds. Now Fleet Admiral Geary's victory has earned him the adoration of the people-and the enmity of politicians convinced that a living hero can be a very inconvenient thing.

Geary knows that members of the military high command and the government question his loyalty to the Alliance and fear his staging a coup-so he can't help but wonder if the newly christened First Fleet is being deliberately sent to the far side of space on a suicide mission.

The Age of Darkness edited by Christian Dunn - After the betrayal at Isstvan, Horus begins his campaign against the Emperor, a galaxy-wide war that can lead only to Terra. But the road to the final confrontation between father and son is a long one – seven years filled with secrecy and silence, plans and foundations being formed across distant stars. An unknown history is about to be unveiled as light is shed on the darkest years of the Horus Heresy, and revelations will surface that will shake the Imperium to its very foundation...

The Sorrow King by Andersen Prunty - The papers call it "The Suicide Virus." The teenagers of Gethsemane, Ohio, are killing themselves at an alarming rate.

Steven Wrigley is trying to survive his senior year of high school, still reeling from the death of his mother and adjusting to life with his father. Along the way, he meets a girl who becomes another kind of obsession: Elise Devon.

Elise's secrets keep her distanced from everyone. She has a special place she calls the Obscura. She goes there when she is depressed or angry. The Obscura makes her feel like nothing she's ever felt before. When she loses herself to the Obscura, she fears she also gives herself to something much darker, something much more powerful. Something calling itself the Sorrow King.

Who is the Sorrow King?
He is carved from wood and bone.
He smells like wax, dead leaves, and memories.
He travels by moonlight and drinks the sorrow of others.
Can love exact vengeance on a monster made from madness, depression, and misery? Or will the Sorrow King bleed the town dry before satiating himself and moving on?

Uncertain Allies by Mark Del Franco - After a night of riots and fires, the Boston neighborhood known as the Weird is in ruins. And when a body is found drained of its essence, ex- Guild investigator Connor Grey is drawn into the case against his will. And he has reason to be wary. Because the case will lead to an explosive secret that threatens to tear apart the city-and the world.

The Sable Queen by Brian Jacques - Buckler the hare, Blademaster of the Long Patrol, must save the youngsters of Redwall Abbey-kidnapped by the vile Vilaya the Sable Quean-and stop the villain's conquest of Mossflower Wood.

Gods and Monsters by Lyn Benedict - Sylvie Lightner is no ordinary P.I. She specializes in cases involving the unusual and unbelievable. When she finds the bodies of five women in the Florida Everglades, Sylvie believes them to be the work of a serial killer and passes the buck. But when the bodies wake and shift shape, killing the police, Sylvie finds herself at the head of a potentially lethal investigation.

The Cold Kiss of Death by Suzanne McLeod - When sidhe-blooded Genny Taylor's friend is murdered and all evidence points to her, she goes on the run. But she's being pursued by some of the most powerful supernaturals in town-and one of them is most certainly the killer.

The Green Hills of Earth / Menace From Earth by Robert A. Heinlein - Two of the Grand Master’s finest:

The saga of the opening of the space frontier as courageous men and women risked their lives to build the first space station and colonize the Moon and Venus, while praying for one last landing on the globe that gave them birth, to return to The Green Hills of Earth.

From a mysterious region on Earth, where a more advanced lifeform may be studying the interesting creatures called “humans,” to the first moon colony, where a young girl’s relationship with her boyfriend is endangered by the beautiful Menace from Earth.

Classic Heinlein, in a new two-for-one package.

Prescription for Chaos by Christopher Anvil - Science and technology have made our lives easier, cured diseases, with achievements that an earlier age would have considered impossible. But once in a while, the law of unintended consequences breaks loose. Christopher Anvil considers the two faces of technological innovation: Sometimes the result is a literal life-saver; but at other times a breakthrough may not break quite the way it was supposed to.

A new wonder drug has the unexpected side effect of making people happy. Not a problem - everybody should want to be happy, right? But should people be happy all of the time? Suppose being happy required you never to disappoint anyone, no matter what they're requesting. . . .

Then there was the energy source for every home that would free the country from its dependence on foreign oil—except that the prototype was rushed into production a bit too fast.

Back on the bright side, another device not only couldn't possibly work by every known law of science, but didn't have any obvious uses. Then alien invaders landed and suddenly the crackpot device was the world's only hope.

The upside and downside of marvelous new gadgets, as told by a master of science fiction adventure with a prescription for fun.

The Lotus Eaters by Tom Krautman -   Sometimes paranoia is just a heightened state of awareness.

Carrera's won his war, and inflicted a horrific revenge upon his enemies. But there are wars after wars. The Tauran Union is planning an attack. The criminals of neighboring states are already attacking, and threatening to embroil him in a war with the planet's premier power. His only living son is under fire among the windswept mountains of Pashtia. An enemy fleet is hunting his submarines. His organization has been infiltrated by spies. One of the two governments of his adopted country, Balboa, is trying to destroy everything he's built and reinstitute rule by a corrupt oligarchy. Worst of all, perhaps, he, himself, bearing a crushing burden of guilt, isn't quite the man he once was.

Fortunately, the man he once was, was lucky enough to marry the right woman...

The Medusa Amulet by Robert Masello - Benvenuto Cellini—the master artisan of Renaissance Italy: goldsmith, sculptor . . . necromancer. Creator of a beautifully carved amulet that was once the proud possession of popes and princes, queens and conquerors. A work of unimaginable power . . . and menace.

In this new spine-tingling thriller by Robert Masello, the critically acclaimed and bestselling author of Blood and Ice, the quest to recover a legendary artifact—and plumb its secrets—depends upon one man: David Franco, a brilliant but skeptical young scholar at Chicago’s world-renowned Newberry Library.

What begins as a simple investigation quickly spirals into a twisting, turning tale of suspense and intrigue, a race against time that carries Franco across continents and centuries in a desperate search for the ultimate treasure—and an answer to a riddle that has puzzled mankind since the beginning of time.

Aided only by a beautiful young Florentine with a conspirator’s mind and dark secrets, Franco is soon caught up in a life-and-death struggle from which there is no escape. Relentlessly pursued by deadly assassins and demons of his own, in the end he must confront—and defeat—an evil greater than anything conjured in his worst nightmares.

Packed with breathtaking invention and breakneck adventure, The Medusa Amulet is a harrowing ride from the streets of Chicago to the châteaux of France, from the ramparts of the French Revolution to the palazzos of Rome, a story where historical fact meets with fascinating conjecture . . . and the impossible becomes terrifyingly real. Like a masterpiece from the hand of Cellini himself, The Medusa Amulet is a unique and powerful work, as inviting as it is forbidding, as ingenious as it is bold.

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As always, our new genre titles are at least 10% off on our site (discount appears in shopping cart) and we offer free domestic shipping on orders over $25.00.  So why not shop Kayleighbug?

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