April 2011

Divine Misfortune

A. Lee Martinez

Apr-2011 | 978-0-316-04992-4 | Mass Market Paperback

Teri and Phil had never needed their own personal god. But when Phil is passed up for a promotion — again — it’s time to take matters into their own hands. And look online.

Choosing a god isn’t as simple as you would think. There are too many choices; and they often have very hefty prices for their eternal devotion: blood, money, sacrifices, and vows of chastity. But then they find Luka, raccoon god of prosperity. All he wants is a small cut of their good fortune.

Oh — and to crash on their couch for a few days.

DIVINE MISFORTUNE is a story of gods and mortals — in worship, in love, and at parties.

The Ambassador’s Mission

The Traitor Spy Trilogy: Book One

Trudi Canavan

Apr-2011 | 978-0-316-03781-5 | Mass Market Paperback

Half the Thieves in the city are dead and nothing can account for the randomness and the inventiveness of each death.

Sonea, a Black Magician of Kyralia, knows that she is needed to help hunt down the rogue magician killing the Thieves. But Sonea has problems of her own. Her son is now the assistant to the new Guild Ambassador of Sachaka and will be in deadly danger when he sets foot on their ancient enemy’s soil. As a Black Magician, however, her every action is watched – and monitored. Any attempt to leave the city will result in her exile, and lose her any chance of helping her friends — or her son.

Equations of Life

Samuil Petrovitch, Book One

Simon Morden

Apr-2011 | 978-0-316-12518-5 | Mass Market Paperback

Samuil Petrovitch is a survivor.

He survived the nuclear fallout in St. Petersburg and hid in the London Metrozone — the last city in England. He’s lived this long because he’s a man of rules and logic.

For example, getting involved = a bad idea.

But when he stumbles into a kidnapping in progress, he acts without even thinking. Before he can stop himself, he’s saved the daughter of the most dangerous man in London.

And clearly saving the girl = getting involved.

Now, the equation of Petrovitch’s life is looking increasingly complex.

Russian mobsters + Yakuza + something called the New Machine Jihad = one dead Petrovitch.

But Petrovitch has a plan — he always has a plan — he’s just not sure it’s a good one.

The Dragon’s Path

The Dagger and the Coin, Book One.

Daniel Abraham

Apr-2011 | 978-0-316-08068-2 | Trade Paperback

Summer is the season of war in the Free Cities.

Marcus wants to get out before the fighting starts. His hero days are behind him and simple caravan duty is better than getting pressed into service by the local gentry. Even a small war can get you killed. But a captain needs men to lead — and his have been summarily arrested and recruited for their swords.

Cithrin has a job to do — move the wealth of a nation across a war zone. An orphan raised by the bank, she is their last hope of keeping the bank’s wealth out of the hands of the invaders. But she’s just a girl and knows little of caravans, war, and danger. She knows money and she knows secrets, but will that be enough to save her in the coming months?

Geder, the only son of a noble house is more interested in philosophy than swordplay. He is a poor excuse for a soldier and little more than a pawn in these games of war. But not even he knows what he will become of the fires of battle. Hero or villain? Small men have achieved greater things and Geder is no small man.

Falling pebbles can start a landslide. What should have been a small summer spat between gentlemen is spiraling out of control. Dark forces are at work, fanning the flames that will sweep the entire region onto The Dragon’s Path — the path of war.

The Company Man

Robert Jackson Bennett

Apr-2011 | 978-0-316-05470-6 | Trade Paperback

The year is 1919. The McNaughton Corporation is the pinnacle of American industry. They built the guns that won the Great War before it even began. They built the airships that tie the world together. And, above all, they built Evesden — a shining metropolis, the best that the world has to offer.

But something is rotten at the heart of the city. Deep underground, a trolley car pulls into a station with eleven dead bodies inside. Four minutes before, the victims were seen boarding at the previous station. Eleven men and women butchered by hand in the blink of an eye. All are dead. And all are union.

Now, one man, Cyril Hayes, must fix this. There is a dark secret behind the inventions of McNaughton, and with a war brewing between the executives and the workers, the truth must be discovered before the whole city burns. Caught between the union and the company, between the police and the victims, Hayes must uncover the mystery before it kills him.

May 2011

Theories of Flight

Samuil Petrovitch, Book Two

Simon Morden

May-2011 | 978-0-316-12515-4 | Mass Market Paperback

Theorem: Petrovitch has a lot of secrets.

Proof: Secrets like how to make anti-gravity for one. For another, he’s keeping a sentient computer program on a secret server farm — the same program that nearly destroyed the Metrozone a few months back.

Theorem: The city is broken.

Proof: The people of the OutZone want what citizens of the Metrozone have. And then burn it to the ground. Now, with the heart of the city destroyed by the New Machine Jihad, the Outies finally see their chance.

Theorem: These events are not unconnected.

Proof: Someone is trying to kill Petrovitch and they’re willing to sink the whole city to do it.

Ember and Ash

Pamela Freeman

May-2011 | 978-0-316-05375-4 | Mass Market Paperback

The old ones will have their revenge.

Two peoples have been fighting over the same land for a thousand years. Invaders crushed the original inhabitants, and ancient powers have reluctantly given way to newer magics. But Ember was to change all this with a wedding to bind these warring people together — until her future goes up in flames.

Ember’s husband-to-be is murdered by a vengeful elemental god, who sees peace as a breach of faith. Set on retribution, she enlists the help of Ash, son of a seer. Together they will pit themselves against elementals of fire and ice in a last attempt to end the conflicts that have scarred their past. They must look to the present, as old furies are waking to violence and are eager to reclaim their people.

The Rogue

The Traitor Spy Trilogy, Book Two

Trudi Canavan

May-2011 | 978-0-316-03786-0 | Hardcover Book

Sonea, Black Magician of Kyralia, remains deeply concerned about her son Lorkin, who has gone missing on assignment in the foreign land of Sachaka. Her problems at home remain as well, for there is a rogue magician on the loose, threatening the life of her friend Cery, leader of the Thieves.Lorkin, living among the Sachakan rebels, does his best to learn about them and their unique magic. But the Traitors are reluctant to trade their knowledge for the Healing they so desperately want, and while he assumes they fear revealing their existence to the world, there are hints they have bigger plans.

In Sachaka, Dannyl has lost the respect of the Sachakan elite for letting Lorkin join the Traitors. The Ashaki’s attention has shifted, instead, to the new Elyne Ambassador, a man Dannyl knows all too well.

And in the University, two female novices are about to remind the Guild that sometimes their greatest enemy is found within.

Surface Detail

Iain M. Banks

May-2011 | 978-0-316-12341-9 | Trade Paperback

It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters.

It begins with a murder.

And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself.

Lededje Y’breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to risk everything for her freedom, her release — when it comes — is at a price, and to put things right she will need the help of the Culture.

Benevolent, enlightened and almost infinitely resourceful though it may be, the Culture can only do so much for any individual. With the assistance of one of its most powerful — and arguably deranged — warships, Lededje finds herself heading into a combat zone not even sure which side the Culture is really on. A war — brutal, far-reaching — is already raging within the digital realms that store the souls of the dead, and it’s about to erupt into reality.

It started in the realm of the Real and that is where it will end. It will touch countless lives and affect entire civilizations, but at the center of it all is a young woman whose need for revenge masks another motive altogether.

Chasing the Moon

A. Lee Martinez

May-2011 | 978-0-316-09355-2 | Hardcover Book

 

Diana’s life was in a rut — she hated her job, she was perpetually single, and she needed a place to live. But then the perfect apartment came along. It seemed too good to be true — because it was.

As it turns out, the apartment was already inhabited — by monsters. Vom the Hungering was the first to greet Diana and to warn her that his sole purpose in life was to eat everything in his path. This poses a problem for Diana since she’s in his path…and is forbidden from ever leaving the apartment.

It turns out though that there are older and more ancient monstrous entities afoot — ones who want to devour the moon and destroy the world as we know it. Can Diana, Vom, and the other horrors stop this from happening? Maybe if they can get Vom to stop eating everything…and everyone.

June 2011

The Map of All Things

Terra Incognita, Book 2

Kevin J. Anderson

Jun-2011 | 978-0-316-00422-0 | Mass Market Paperback

After terrible atrocities by both sides, the religious war between Tierra and Uraba has spread and intensified, irreparably dividing the known world. What started as a series of skirmishes has erupted into a full-blown crusade.

Now that the Uraban leader, Soldan-Shah Omra, has captured the ruined city of Ishalem, his construction teams discover a priceless ancient map in an underground vault — a map that can guide brave explorers to the mysterious Key to Creation.

Deadline

The Newsflesh Trilogy, Book Two

Mira Grant

Jun-2011 | 978-0-316-08106-1 | Mass Market Paperback

Shaun Mason is a man without a mission. Not even running the news organization he built with his sister has the same urgency as it used to. Playing with dead things just doesn’t seem as fun when you’ve lost as much as he has.

But when a CDC researcher fakes her own death and appears on his doorstep with a ravenous pack of zombies in tow, Shaun has a newfound interest in life. Because she brings news — he may have put down the monster who attacked them, but the conspiracy is far from dead.

Now, Shaun hits the road to find what truth can be found at the end of a shotgun.

Degrees of Freedom

Samuil Petrovitch, Book Three

Simon Morden

Jun-2011 | 978-0-316-12517-8 | Mass Market Paperback

The Six Degrees of Petrovitch

1. Michael is an AI of incalculable complexity trapped under the remains of Oshicora tower. Petrovitch will free him one day, he just has to trust Michael will still be sane by the time he does.
2. Maddy and Petrovitch have trust issues. She’s left him, but Petrovitch is pretty sure she still loves him.
3. Sonja Oshicora loves Petrovitch too. But she’s playing a complicated game and it’s not clear that she means to save him from what’s coming.
4. The CIA wants to save the world. Well, just America, but they’ll call it what they like.
5. The New Machine Jihad is calling. But Petrovitch killed it. Didn’t he?
6. And the Armageddonists tried to kill pretty much everyone by blowing the world up. Now, they want to do it again.

Once again, all roads lead back to Petrovitch. Everyone wants something from him, but all he wants is to be free…

The Deadliest Bite

Jaz Parks, Book 8

Jennifer Rardin

Jun-2011 | 978-0-316-04381-6 | Trade Paperback

Jaz is no longer in a hurry.  Working as a consultant has its perks, and one of them is the option to say, “No I don’t feel like killing anybody for you this week.  Call me at the end of June.”  If I’m still alive. Because by then she’d be finished with her trip to Hell, where she would’ve carved Brude’s name into its bile-encrusted gates. Or lost her soul.

For now she and Vayl are content to wait for Raoul’s signal that the time is ripe, while playing hide-and-seek in Vayl’s massive Victorian manor.  That is, until their doorbell rings, just as Cassandra calls to warn Jaz that Vayl is about to be staked by his long lost son.  Jaz quickly stops this from happening, but finds herself pulled into a tangled web that takes the gang to Romania.

So how will Jaz save a ghost, rescue a demon, and cheat the Great Taker out of a soul he’s slavering for while defeating her nastiest foe yet so that Vayl can, at last, cherish a few precious years with his sons?  With careful planning, major violence, and one (hopefully) final trip to Hell.

Leviathan Wakes

The Expanse, Book One

James S.A. Corey

Jun-2011 | 978-0-316-12908-4 | Trade Paperback

Welcome to the future. Humanity has colonized the solar system — Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond — but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, The Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for — and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to The Scopuli and rebel sympathizer, Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations — and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

July 2011

Eat Slay Love

Living with the Dead, Book Three

Jesse Petersen

Jul-2011 | 978-0-316-10292-6 | Mass Market Paperback

Sarah and David have survived the zombie apocalypse. They stood side by side and fought the undead, mad scientists, and even bionic monsters until the unthinkable happened. A zombie bite. But not even that could stop them. Now, with a possible cure in hand, they’re headed east, looking for a safe zone behind the rumored ‘Wall.’ They’re feeling pretty optimistic.

That is until Dave stops sleeping and starts lifting huge objects.

Eat. Slay. Love.

Because they haven’t got a prayer.

The Final Evolution

Avery Cates, Book 5

Jeff Somers

Jul-2011 | 978-0-316-06984-7 | Mass Market Paperback

The world is dying. With avatars replacing humans and the birth rate non-existent, the human race is almost extinct. In the end, it comes down to Canny Orel; Avery’s long sought after nemesis — transformed now into something other than human.

Orel might hold the secret to humanity’s salvation, if he can be convinced — or forced — to relinquish it. And when Cates chances on a way to trick his old master, he suddenly has a choice to make: get his long-delayed revenge, or save the world.

Heartless

The Parasol Protectorate, The Fourth

Gail Carriger

Jul-2011 | 978-0-316-12719-6 | Mass Market Paperback

Lady Alexia Maccon, soulless, is at it again, only this time the trouble is not her fault. When a mad ghost threatens the queen, Alexia is on the case, following a trail that leads her deep into her husband’s past. Top that off with a sister who has joined the suffragette movement (shocking!), Madame Lefoux’s latest mechanical invention, and a plague of zombie porcupines and Alexia barely has time to remember she happens to be eight months pregnant.

Will Alexia manage to determine who is trying to kill Queen Victoria before it is too late? Is it the vampires again or is there a traitor lurking about in wolf’s clothing? And what, exactly, has taken up residence in Lord Akeldama’s second best closet?

The Reluctant Mage

Fisherman’s Children, Book 2

Karen Miller

Jul-2011 | 978-0-316-13338-8 | Mass Market Paperback

It’s been many months since Rafel ventured over Barl’s Mountains into the unknown, in a desperate bid to seek help for their ravaged land. With his father’s Weather Magic exhausted, there seemed no other hope. Now this too has died.

Only Deenie believes Rafel still lives, sensing her brother in tortured dreams. She also knows she must try to find him, as only Rafel’s talents can heal their land. The prospect terrifies Deenie, yet she sees no other choice.

Deenie soon learns of a dangerous power. She comes to suspect that not only is her brother involved, but that the evil their father destroyed is somehow reborn.The Reluctant Mage is the sequel to The Prodigal Mage, and continues one of the most popular fantasy series of recent years.

Hell Ship

Philip Palmer

Jul-2011 | 978-0-316-12513-0 | Trade Paperback

There is a ship — the Hell Ship. Inside the ship is a world. On the world are thousands of alien life forms–all the last members of their race. Each and every one of them is a slave. And it was the Hell Ship and its infernal crew that destroyed their homes and slaughtered their families and imprisoned them forever.

One man, Jak, has been pursuing the Hell Ship for its crimes. Battle after battle has left Jak scarred and broken and bit by bit he has surrendered his humanity to his quest for revenge.

Now, Jak is no more than a mind in the body of a starship, bent on bloody vengeance. But when one slave finds a way to communicate with the Hell Ship’s relentless pursuer, he realizes that there is more to this mad chase than he realized. And just possibly, there’s a way to end this long, interstellar nightmare.

The Key to Creation

Terra Incognita, Book Three

Kevin J. Anderson

Jul-2011 | 978-0-316-00423-7 | Trade Paperback

The third volume of Kevin J. Anderson’s Terra Incognita trilogy brings brave explorers and mortal enemies across the world to clash at a mysterious lost continent.

After long voyages, encountering hurricanes and sea monsters, Criston Vora from Tierra and Saan of Uraba race to Terravitae, the legendary promised land. Saan’s quest is to find the Key to Creation, a weapon that may defeat Uraba’s enemies, and Criston wants vengeance against the monstrous Leviathan that ruined his life long ago.

Back home, two opposing continents and religions clash for the remnants of a sacred city, unleashing their hatred in a war that could end both civilizations. Queen Anjine and Soldan-Shah Omra are driven by mutual hatred, heaping atrocity upon atrocity in an escalating conflict that only their gods can end.And the secretive Saedrans manipulate both sides, with the ultimate goal of completing the Map of All Things, which will cause God’s return.

August 2011

Germline

The Subterrene War Trilogy, Book One

T.C. McCarthy

Aug-2011 | 978-0-316-12818-6 | Mass Market Paperback

Germline (n.) the genetic material contained in a cellular lineage which can be passed to the next generation.

Also: secret military program to develop genetically engineered super-soldiers (slang).

War is Oscar Wendell’s ticket to greatness. A reporter for The Stars and Stripes, he has the only one way pass to the front lines of a brutal war over natural resources buried underneath the icy, mineral rich mountains of Kazakhstan.

But war is nothing like he expected. Heavily armored soldiers battle genetically engineered troops hundreds of meters below the surface. The genetics-the germline soldiers-are the key to winning this war, but some inventions can’t be un-done. Some technologies can’t be put back in the box.

Kaz will change everything, not least Oscar himself. Hooked on a dangerous cocktail of adrenaline and drugs, Oscar doesn’t find the war, the war finds him.

Stormlord’s Exile

Stormlord, Book 3

Glenda Larke

Aug-2011 | 978-0-316-06913-7 | Mass Market Paperback

SHALE is finally free from his greatest enemy. But now, he is responsible for bringing life-giving rain to all the people of the Quartern. He must stretch his powers to the limit or his people will die-if they don’t meet a nomad’s blade first. And while Shale’s own highlords and waterpriests plot against him, his Reduner brother plots his revenge.

TERELLE is Shale’s secret weapon, covertly boosting his powers with her own mystical abilities. But she is compelled by the strange magic of her people and will one day have to leave Shale’s side. No one knows what waits for her across the desert, but her people gave the Quartern its first Stormlord and they may save Shale and his people once again-or lead them to their doom.

This is the final volume of the epic Stormlord series.

Cold Magic

The Spiritwalker Trilogy, Book 1

Kate Elliott

Aug-2011 | 978-0-316-08087-3 | Mass Market Paperback

The Wild Hunt is stirring — and the dragons are finally waking from their long sleep…

Cat Barahal was the only survivor of the flood that took her parents. Raised by her extended family, she and her cousin, Bee, are unaware of the dangers that threaten them both. Though they are in beginning of the Industrial Age, magic — and the power of the Cold Mages — still hold sway.

Now, betrayed by her family and forced to marry a powerful Cold Mage, Cat will be drawn into a labyrinth of politics. There she will learn the full ruthlessness of the rule of the Cold Mages. What do the Cold Mages want from her? And who will help Cat in her struggle against them?

Eye of the Tempest

Jane True, Book Four

Nicole Peeler

Aug-2011 | 978-0-316-12808-7 | Mass Market Paperback

Nothing says ‘home’ like being attacked by humans with very large guns, as Jane and Anyan discover when they arrive in Rockabill.

These are professionals, brought into kill, and they bring Anyan down before either Jane or the barghest can react. Seeing Anyan fall awakens a terrible power within Jane, and she nearly destroys herself taking out their attackers.

Jane wakes, weeks later, to discover that she’s not the only thing that’s been stirring. Something underneath Rockabill is coming to life: something ancient, something powerful, and something that just might destroy the world.

Jane and her friends must act, striking out on a quest that only Jane can finish. For whatever lurks beneath the Old Sow must be stopped…and Jane’s just the halfling for the job.

A Blight of Mages

Karen Miller

Aug-2011 | 978-0-316-02922-3 | Hardcover Book

Dorana is a country ruled by a rigid class system based upon magical aptitude and the right pedigree. While all Doranens have mage ability, some are more blessed than others.

Morgan is one of the powerful ruling elite, fanatically devoted to enforcing the regulations and maintaining the purity of mage bloodlines. When he falls in love with Barl, a woman of inferior breeding who possesses astonishing mage powers, he sets himself upon a dangerous course.

A terrible mage war erupts when Morgan becomes unstoppable, driving Barl to lead a small pack of survivors into the distant mountains. When they arrive, their welcome is not what they expected, and Barl must embark upon a desperate course to protect and preserve her people until they may be needed once again…

The Edinburgh Dead

Brian Ruckley

Aug-2011 | 978-0-316-07996-9 | Trade Paperback

The year is 1827. For Adam Quire, an officer of the recently formed City Police, Edinburgh is a terrifying place. It is a city populated by mad alchemists and a criminal underclass prepared to treat with the darkest of powers. But nothing can prepare him for the trail of undead hounds, emptied graves, brutal murders and mob violence that will take him into the darkest corners of the underworld and to the highest reaches of elegant Edinburgh society.