Here’s a list of all scifi, fantasy and horror coming out this week. To see covers, click on title.
Released Monday, January 16th, 2012
The Emerald Maze: Long John Silver Vol. 3, by Xavier Dorison
The bloody mutiny was a success, and Long John is now in command of the Neptune. Following their native guide, the survivors find the mouth of the Amazon and sail on towards Guiana-Capac. But after the dangers of the open ocean, it’s the unknown terrors of the jungle they must now face ??? with a damaged ship and a reduced crew. To what doom will the lush labyrinth of the Amazon lead Long John, Lady Vivian and Dr Livesey?
The Crystal Channelers and the Last Reincarnation, by Sharon Ann Rowland
There comes a time on Earth for all life to be renewed, and for past truths to be known. In THE CRYSTAL CHANNELERS, Sharon Ann Rowland’s wildly inventive, thought-provoking new science-fiction fantasy series, the time when all is revealed is 2018. And the place for age-old truths to shine forth is the majestic, yet unrelenting terrain of Australia. Following the lives of six seemingly normal Australians, this globetrotting, time-travelling set of books is certain to rivet anyone who relishes richly drawn characters, unrestrained imagination, abundant humour, and a dash of romance. Book 1, THE CRYSTAL CHANNELERS AND THE LAST REINCARNATION, introduces the six main characters of the series. These include the heroine Sam Everett, a beautiful forty-year-old psychiatrist with Queensland Health; Varnin Alemanni, a rugged twenty-seven-year-old cattle property owner from Longreach; Peter Sabar, a perpetually randy young medical student from Sydney; Maggie Edwards, a nurturing Alice Springs publican; York Long, a promiscuous police superintendent from Margaret River; and Doc Abysinnia, the mysterious aboriginal doctor who brings the six together and into their new roles as Crystal Channelers. Their ordinary lives disappear when the Earth is dealt a lethal blow from an unknown enemy, and all humans of mixed blood are wiped from the face of the planet. As they rebuild their lives and learn to love and trust one another, they must look to the past to forge a new, more tolerant future. In their dreams, each is able to inhabit a previous life, not always within the race and culture that they are now a part of in 2018. Sam recalls her past life as Deirdre in Ireland (967 AD) and France (1945), Maggie as Guanyin in China (1100 AD), Varnin as Heracles in Crete (1264 AD), York as Thunder Helper in the Americas (1800 AD), while Peter conjures his life as Hang Tuah in Malaysia (Fifteenth Century). Every good story must have a villain, and THE CRYSTAL CHANNELERS AND THE LAST REINCARNATION has many, including Hunter, Varnin’s twin brother; Kreug, the twin’s evil father; Billie, Varnin’s estranged wife; Father Brian and the Brothers of the Carbrook Community Christian Church; and Devon and his Mountain Men. As each of the Crystal Channelers taps into his or her primordial identity through the power of their crystals, they must embrace their new gifts, honour the Crystal Law, and adapt. Action-packed with nuanced characters and surprising twists of plot, THE CRYSTAL CHANNELERS AND THE LAST REINCARNATION is certain to enthrall anyone who has a wanderlust for faraway places and long-ago times – and the equalising power of friendship and love.
The Therapist’s Cat, by Stephanie Sorrell
This is a poignant, charming and amusing fiction story that raises very moral questions about our interaction with animals and how this may impact on us at a later date. Psychotherapist, Pete Shepherd’s life is changed dramatically when his new girlfriend, Emmie, presents him with a kitten called Moo. Not particularly fond of cats he is about to take Moo into an animal rescue centre when he discovers that she can both speak his language and read his thoughts. Moo has a mission: to educate Pete about the very dire state of the animal kingdom due to humanity’s mistreatment and mishandling of animals. Gradually she begins to educate Pete on animal evolution that is strange, fascinating and rather disturbing if this is true. Apparently, a race of animal beings, known as the Nasym, have forced their way into the human evolutionary chain in order to escape the cruelty. Moo’s deepest fear is of becoming human and losing her fur; because a life without the qualities of fur is unbearable and also what she believes to be humanity’s fundamental problem.
Released Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine
-despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she’s far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can’t control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?
Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she’s reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy’s motives aren’t quite what she thought. Is their gift a miracle, a freak of nature-or something much more frightening?
For fans of best-sellers like Before I Fall and If I Stay, this is a fascinating and heart-rending story about love and friendship and the fine line between life and death.
The Girl who was on Fire, edited by Leah Wilson
The Girl Who Was on Fire – Movie Edition includes three brand new essays to take readers even deeper into this challenging YA phenomenon.
Katniss Everdeen’s adventures may have come to an end, but her story continues to blaze in the hearts of millions worldwide . . . especially with the highly anticipated March 2012 release of the film version of The Hunger Games, starring Jennifer Lawrence.
In The Girl Who Was on Fire, thirteen YA authors take you back to Panem with moving, dark, and funny pieces on Katniss, the Games, Gale and Peeta, reality TV, survival, and more. From the trilogy’s darker themes of violence and social control to fashion and weaponry, the collection’s exploration of the Hunger Games reveals exactly how rich, and how perilous, protagonist Katniss’ world really is.
• How does the way the Games affect the brain explain Haymitch’s drinking, Annie’s distraction, and Wiress’ speech problems?
• What does the rebellion have in common with the War on Terror?
• Why isn’t the answer to “Peeta or Gale?” as interesting as the question itself?
• What should Panem have learned from the fates of other hedonistic societies throughout history—and what can we?
CONTRIBUTORS: Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Mary Borsellino, Sarah Rees Brennan, Terri Clark, Bree Despain, Adrienne Kress, Sarah Darer Littman, Cara Lockwood, Elizabeth M. Rees, Carrie Ryan, Ned Vizzini, Lili Wilkinson, Blythe Woolston, Diana Peterfreund (NEW), Brent Hartinger (NEW), Jackson Pearce (NEW)
Split. After being inexplicably targeted by an evil intent on harming her at any cost, seventeen-year-old Nikki finds herself under the watchful guardianship of three mysterious young men who call themselves halflings. Sworn to defend her, misfits Mace, Raven, and Vine battle to keep Nikki safe while hiding their deepest secret—and the wings that come with. A growing attraction between Nikki and two of her protectors presents a whole other danger. While she risks a broken heart, Mace and Raven could lose everything, including their souls. As the mysteries behind the boys’ powers, as well as her role in a scientist’s dark plan, unfold, Nikki is faced with choices that will affect the future of an entire race of heavenly beings, as well as the precarious equilibrium of the earthly world.
Hallowed (Unearthly), by Cynthia Hand
For months Clara Gardner trained to face the fire from her visions, but she wasn’t prepared for the choice she had to make that day. And in the aftermath, she discovered that nothing about being part angel is as straightforward as she thought.
Now, torn between her love for Tucker and her complicated feelings about the roles she and Christian seem destined to play in a world that is both dangerous and beautiful, Clara struggles with a shocking revelation: Someone she loves will die in a matter of months. With her future uncertain, the only thing Clara knows for sure is that the fire was just the beginning.
In this compelling sequel to Unearthly, Cynthia Hand captures the joy of first love, the anguish of loss, and the confusion of becoming who you are.
Immortal Longings: A Vampire Novel, by Diane Dekelb-Rittenhouse
Lauren and Kayla are the perfect high school couple–except they aren’t actually a couple. The cute, smart, sarcastic Lauren is secretly in love with her best friend, Kayla, the gorgeous bi-racial lead actress in the drama club. But Kayla, one of the most popular girls at school, changes partners (male and female) like other girls change shoes.
After seeing a play in Manhattan one autumn afternoon, the two 17-year-olds wander into a vintage clothing store, Deja Nous. Their impromptu shopping spree leads to a chance meeting with the mysterious and beautiful owner, Elizabeth Valiant. Despite strange, subtle warnings from Matt, another clerk at the store, both girls agree to take after-school jobs at the enticing shop. On the ride home to Queens, Kayla talks non-stop about the wonderful clothes, the fabulous Elizabeth and how much fun the girls will have working together.
Deja Nous–and the intriguing and sensual Elizabeth–soon becomes an obsession for Lauren and Kayla. Then, after being accosted at the subway by a strange man and overhearing a surprising conversation, Lauren accidentally discovers the secret behind the shop and the Valiant family. As she delves deeper into the mystery, she realizes that her life and that of her beloved Kayla are in danger–life-threatening danger–from a centuries-old curse.
Stolen Away, by Alyxandra Harvey
For seventeen years, Eloise Hart had no idea the world of Faery even existed. Now she has been abducted and trapped in the Rath of Lord Strahan, King of Faery. Strahan was only meant to rule for seven years, as Faery tradition dictates, and then give up his crown to another. But he won’t comply, and now chaos threatens both worlds.
The only one who can break his stranglehold on the Faery court is his wife. . . Eloise’s aunt Antonia. Using Eloise to lure Antonia, Strahan captures his wife, desperate to end the only threat to his reign. Now Eloise must become the rescuer. Together with her best friends Jo and Devin, she must forge alliances with other Fae, including a gorgeous protector named Lucas, and Strahan’s mysterious son, Eldric-who may or may not betray them.
The Vampire Diaries: Stefan’s Diaries #5: The Asylum, by L. J. Smith et al
The hunters become the hunted. . . .
Driven from their hometown of Mystic Falls, both Stefan Salvatore and his brother, Damon, arrived in Europe looking for a fresh start. But Samuel, a wealthy and cunning vampire, has other plans for them. First he ruined Stefan’s peaceful existence and now he’s framing Damon for the most gruesome murders London has ever seen.
United against their common enemy, Stefan and Damon are stunned when they realize that the source of Samuel’s rage lies in their past—tied up with the woman who forever changed their lives. Haunted by the memory of Katherine, the brothers find that their uneasy alliance is tested. Can they overcome their rivalry to defeat Samuel before he exacts his final revenge?
Based on the popular CW TV show inspired by the bestselling novels, Stefan’s Diaries reveals the truth about what really happened between Stefan, Damon, and Katherine—and how the Vampire Diaries love triangle began.
Commandment, by Daryl Chestney
For years, Lakif has agonized over the timeless secret of the Arcanum, but at last her dream, the elusive Rare Earth Stone, is literally in hand. All she must do is liberate its eldritch might. It seems straightforward, but harnessing the Arcanum proves to be a task beyond all imagining. Is the answer in the fiery magma pits of the Vulcan? Or is it, as some locals whisper, guarded by an ancient figure that haunts the ruined city underneath Grimpkin? And, her interest in the forbidden relic has attracted some attention–a mysterious agent is now tracking her. There are many plaguing questions, not the least of which is disturbing new information that ties Torkoth, Lakif’s amnesic guard, to a series of violent murders. To sort it all out, Lakif must confront her own secret past, an odyssey that propels her into the dreaded underworld and further, to the threshold of a distant shrine with an unspeakable past.
Magda Lazarus was a reluctant witch until the dire threat of Nazi Germany convinced her to assume the mantle of her family’s ancient powers. But though this young, beautiful Jewish woman has fought off Hitler’s SS werewolves and the demon who would rule through the Führer, she has been unable to prevent the outbreak of World War II.
As long as Magda can summon spirits, there is still a chance to save people from the dire threat of the Holocaust. Her family’s guardian angel, Raziel, stands beside her in the battle against the human and supernatural forces of evil arrayed against her people and all of Europe.
In Michele Lang’s Dark Victory, as the Nazis prepare to invade Poland, Magda and her beloved Raziel marshal their own army, a supernatural force that will battle Hitler’s minions to the death…or beyond.
In a future North America at once familiar and utterly strange, a young man and woman, Skip and Chelle, fall in love and marry. But Chelle is enlisted in the military, there is a war on, and she must serve her tour of duty before they can settle down. Earth is fighting a war with aliens in distant star systems, and Chelle’s months in the service will be years in relative time on Earth. She returns to recuperate from severe injuries, still a young woman but not necessarily the same person—while Skip is now a wealthy businessman in his forties. Still in love, they go on a Caribbean cruise that rapidly goes awry with spies, aliens, and battles with pirates who capture the ship for ransom. There is no writer in SF like Gene Wolfe and no SF novel like Home Fires.
In the Lion’s Mouth, by Michael Flynn
It’s a big Spiral Arm, and the scarred man, Donavan buigh, has gone missing in it, upsetting the harper Mearana’s plans for a reconciliation between her parents. Bridget ban, a Hound of the League, doubts that reconciliation is possible or desirable; but nonetheless has dispatched agents to investigate the disappearance.
The powerful Ravn Olafsdottr, a Shadow of the Names, slips into Clanthompson Hall to tell mother and daughter of the fate of Donovan buigh. In the Long Game between the Confederation of Central Worlds and the United League of the Periphery, Hound and Shadow are mortal enemies; yet a truce descends between them so that the Shadow may tell her tale. There is a struggle in the Lion’s Mouth, the bureau that oversees the Shadows—a clandestine civil war of sabotage and assassination between those who would overthrow Those of Name and the loyalists who support them. And Donovan, one-time Confederal agent, has been recalled to take a key part, willingly or no.
Reads L to R (Western Style).
Japan is beset by natural disasters all the time: typhoons, earthquakes, and…giant monster attacks. A special anti-monster unit called the Meteorological Agency Monsterological Measures Department (MMD) has been formed to deal with natural disasters of high “monster magnitude.” The work is challenging, the public is hostile, and the monsters are hungry, but the MMD crew has science, teamwork…and a legendary secret weapon on their side. Together, they can save Japan, and the universe!
Poor Richard’s Lament: A Most Timely Tale, by Tom Fitzgerald
Benjamin Franklin once wished it were possible…to invent a method of embalming drowned persons in such a manner that they [could] be recalled to life at any period, however distant; for, having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence, I should prefer to any ordinary death [that of] being immersed in a cask of Madeira wine, with a few friends, till the [proper] time, to be then recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country.
Poor Richard’s Lament grants Franklin his wish.
Benjamin Franklin has been confined to a private apartment in the Plantation of the Unrepentant for the past two-plus centuries, and has recently received notice that his petition for final processing has at last been approved. In the company of two Intermediaries, Ben appears before a panel of examiners in the Celestial Court of Petitions to make his case. His examiners are three former arch-adversaries: John Adams, Alexander Wedderburn, and Reverend William Smith.
By the end of Ben’s examination, in which the sins of the Pater are brought devastatingly to light, Ben fully expects to be cast into the abyss. Instead, he’s invited to bear witness to what has become of America in the two-plus centuries of his absence. Ben’s odyssey of witness begins at his birth site in Boston, passes through New York (where Ben upstages a leadership conference at the Waldorf Astoria), and ends, with wrenching poignancy, at his gravesite in Philadelphia.
Interwoven into the main story is a second, beginning in the red-carpeted parlors of the West Wing and ending in the blood-stained streets of West Philadelphia. Eventually, the parallel stories collide, like tectonic plates, in a stunning series of shocks and aftershocks.
Following in the traditions of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, and Dante’s Divine Comedy, Poor Richard’s Lament, nine years in the making, is an intricately woven, ultimately uplifting, tale of revelation and redemption, written in close consonance with the avuncular and aphoristic persona of Benjamin Franklin, Printer.
Shadow in Flight, by Orson Scott Card
Ender’s Shadow explores the stars in this all-new novel…
At the end of Shadow of the Giant, Bean flees to the stars with three of his children–the three who share the engineered genes that gave him both hyper-intelligence and a short, cruel physical life. The time dilation granted by the speed of their travel gives Earth’s scientists generations to seek a cure, to no avail. In time, they are forgotten–a fading ansible signal speaking of events lost to Earth’s history. But the Delphikis are about to make a discovery that will let them save themselves, and perhaps all of humanity in days to come.
For there in space before them lies a derelict Formic colony ship. Aboard it, they will find both death and wonders–the life support that is failing on their own ship, room to grow, and labs in which to explore their own genetic anomaly and the mysterious disease that killed the ship’s colony.
Taft 2012: A Novel, by Jason Heller
HE’S BACK.
AND HE’S THE BIGGEST THING IN POLITICS.
He is the perfect presidential candidate. Conservatives love his hard-hitting Republican résumé. Liberals love his peaceful, progressive practicality. The media can’t get enough of his larger-than-life personality. And all the American people love that he’s an honest, hard-working man who tells it like it is.
There’s just one problem. He is William Howard Taft . . . and he was already president a hundred years ago. So what on earth is he doing alive and well and considering a running mate in 2012?
A most extraordinary satire, Jason Heller’s debut novel follows the strange new life of a presidential Rip Van Winkle: a man who never even wanted the White House in the first place, yet finds himself hurtling toward it once more—this time, through the media-fueled madness of 21st-century America.
Werewolves are real.
And they make excellent pets.
Owning one of the legendary creatures is the latest fad. The WereHouse insists their werepets are loyal, docile, and 100% safe, but what happens when these gentle giants turn on their masters?
While on a routine EMS call, paramedic Christine Alt is attacked by a rogue werepet. She escapes with her life, but the encounter leaves her with more than just scars. As her body begins to change, she discovers the WereHouse is hiding a terrible secret, and they will stop at nothing to keep her from exposing them.
Tamed is a werewolf tale with a twist from the author of the The Light of Epertase trilogy.