Bracken, Alexandra: The Mirror of Beasts (Penguin Random House/Knopf 9780593481691, $20.99, 496pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 07/30/2024)
Young-adult dark fantasy novel, second in the Silver in the Bone duology. With the dream of Avalon in ruins, Tamsin and her friends are all that stands in the way of Lord Death’s plans to unleash the horrors of Anwnn on the world of the living. Legend tells of a “Mirror of Beasts” ...Read More
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Three titles debut this week, most prominently Deborah Harkness’s The Black Bird Oracle (Ballantine), fifth book in her All Souls series that began with A Discovery of Witches in 2011. It ranks among the top ten on the four print lists compiled here. Also debuting: Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword (Viking), on three lists, and Stephen Graham Jones’s I Was a Teenage Slasher (Saga), on two.
Frankie Barnet, Mood Swings (Astra House 5/24) This biting debut is set on a “preapocalyptic” Earth where all non-human animal life has become extinct… but a billionaire in California claims to have a time machine and a plan to save the world. “For a novel that doesn’t feature a single paradox, time loop, or change to history, Mood Swings offers up an incisive critique of time-travel narratives… [A] darkly satirical ...Read More
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Aira, César: Festival and Game of the Worlds (New Directions 9780811237307, $15.95, 192pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 07/23/2024)
Collection of two novellas, one about a director of SF films, the other a far-future SF story set in a regimented world where an immersive video game encourages players to exterminate the inhabitants of distant worlds. Translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver.
Anderson, Kevin J. & Longueira, Allyson, eds.: Feisty ...Read More
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Two books debut in the top ten on lists at New York Times and Publishers Weekly this week. Sarah Beth Durst’s The Spellshop (Bramble) ranks #7 and #6 respectively, on fiction hardcover lists. And Tricia Levenseller’s The Darkness Within Us – second in a trilogy, following The Shadows Between Us, being released at monthly intervals by Feiwel & Friends – is #1 and #4 respectively, on young adult lists.
Alering, Alisa: Smothermoss (Tin House 9781959030584, $17.95, 264pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 07/16/2024)
Dark fantasy/rural gothic/fairytale novel. Two sisters in 1980s rural Appalachia are drawn into the hunt for the murderer of two female hikers on a nearby trail, as darkness seems to take over their home and community.
Allen, Mike: Slow Burn (Mythic Delirium Books 9781956522037, $18.95, 296pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 07/16/2024)
Collection of short body ...Read More
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A new fantasy novel by K.X. Song, The Night Ends with Fire (Ace), debuts on three lists, ranking as high as #10 on the Publishers Weekly list.
Meanwhile, Powerless and Powerful by Lauren Roberts have disappeared from New York Times‘ Young Adult Hardcover list, after ranking there for many weeks. With the publication of a third book in that series, Reckless, NYT has combined them into a single entry
Aryan, Stephen: The Blood-Dimmed Tide (Angry Robot 9781915202864, $18.99, 400pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, audio, 07/09/2024)
Historical fantasy novel, the second in the Nightingale and the Falcon trilogy inspired by the Mongol Empire’s invasion of Persia. Kaivon, the last Persian General, is celebrating as Hulagu Khan’s dream of conquering the whole world lies in tatters. But the fight is not yet done, as Persia is still occupied by Mongol invaders. ...Read More
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Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Anguish and Anarchy (Henry Holt), third and concluding volume in the author’s Legacy of Orisha series, debuts on two lists, ranking #1 on Publishers Weekly‘s Children’s Frontlist Fiction list.
Asaro, Catherine: The Down Deep (Baen 9781982193508, $28, 240pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 07/02/2024)
SF novel, first in the Dust Knights series set in the Skolian Empire. In a city divided between the rich and the poor, a member of the Royal class wants to help the Undercity, and recruits Major Bhaajan and her Dust Knights for a mission of good will. But the problems of the Undercity run deeper ...Read More
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The latest Mercy Thompson novel by Patricia Briggs, Winter Lost (Ace), debuts on three lists, ranking as high as #12 on the New York Times and Publishers Weekly lists.
Ashton, Edward Mal Goes to War (St. Martin’s 4/24) Ashton made a splash years ago with SF novel Mickey7, and this new volume blends thrills with satire. Mal, a free AI who lives bodilessly in the Infosphere, finds the war between augmented Federals and puritanical Humanists tedious and pointless… until a salvage job goes wrong and he finds himself trapped in the corpse of a cyborg soldier, ...Read More
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Ackley-McPhail, Danielle, ed.: The Chaos Clock: Tales of Cosmic Aether (eSpec/NeoParadoxa 9781956463354, $17.95, 328pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 07/01/2024)
Anthology of short stories involving time, mixing the cosmic weird of H.P. Lovecraft and the steam-age technology of H.G. Wells. Authors include James Chambers, Carol Gyzander, Will McDermott, Jody Lynn Nye.
Adeyemi, Tomi: Children of Anguish and Anarchy (Macmillan/Holt 9781250171016, $24.99, 368pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 06/25/2024)
Young-adult fantasy novel ...Read More
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Two fantasy novels debut this week: Carissa Broadbent’s The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King (Bramble), Book 2 of the Nigthborn Duet; and K.A. Linde’s The Wren in the Holly Library (Entangled: Red Tower Books). Both rank on the NY Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly lists, as high as 5th and 6th places, respectively.
Breakwell, James: The Gods of Spenser Island (Rebellion/Solaris UK 9781786189967, $15.99, 384pp, formats: trade paperback, 06/18/2024)
SF thriller novel, second in the series The Chosen Twelve. A colony world with the last 12 humans, all of them children, struggle to create a new civilization on the alien island that is now their forever home—a place full of monsters and the deadly robots brought with them on the colony ship.
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Bowles, David & McCall, Guadalupe García: Hearts of Fire and Snow (Bloomsbury USA 9781547610044, $19.99, 320pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, 06/11/2024)
Young-adult fantasy romance about two people linked by a magic conch: a woman in modern day Mexico fleeing gang violence and a man in 1521 Tenochtitlan under siege by Spanish invaders. The authors provide a long note on working together and their inspirations.
Cashore, Kristin: There Is a Door ...Read More
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Bumped out of first place by the latest John Grisham novel, Stephen King’s You Like It Darker: Stories ranks #2 on the three lists it debuted on last week, and debuts at #8 on the LA Times list this week.
Cerilli, Matteo: Lockjaw (Penguin Random House Canada/Tundra 9781774882306, $17.99, 328pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 06/04/2024)
Young-adult horror novel of two queer teens in a community that doesn’t accept them. When one is killed by a monster the other has to prove it’s real to clear herself and save the town.
Cobell, K.A.: Looking for Smoke (HarperCollins/Heartdrum 9780063318670, $19.99, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 06/04/2024)
Young-adult thriller novel set on ...Read More
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As anticipated, Stephen King’s new collection, You Like It Darker: Stories debuts on print lists this week, ranking #1 on three of the four compiled here.
The Locus Selected Books by Author list has been updated on our Forthcoming Books page, with information from the June 2024 issue covering upcoming titles from genre houses slated through March 2025. Find out about your favorite authors’ upcoming books!
For the complete list of books by publisher, subscribe to our print magazine or purchase the June issue in print or digital editions, available June 1, 2024.
While you are ...Read More
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Barnet, Frankie: Mood Swings (Astra House 9781662602597, $26, 304pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audio, 05/31/2024)
Humorous, near-future SF novel. An Instragram poet starts an affair with the California billionaire who destroyed all the animals on Earth after they started attacking humans, but now promises a time machine that will make everything “normal” again. A first novel.
For a novel that doesn’t feature a single paradox, time loop, or change to history, ...Read More
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Stephen King’s new collection, You Like It Darker: Stories (Scribner), published last week, still ranks respectfully on the three Amazon lists today; look for it on print bestseller lists next week.
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Cory Doctorow, The Bezzle (Tor 2/24) Forensic accountant Martin Hench returns in this noir thriller, a prequel to Red Team Blues set during the dot-com bubble. Hench and a friend bring down an amoral millionaire running a pyramid scheme, who retaliates with a slow, vicious revenge, in a tale that introduces some moral complexities that will leave this younger Hench a bit wiser in the future.
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Bell, Crystal J.: The Lamplighter (North Star Editions/Flux 9781635830989, $14.99, 304pp, formats: trade paperback, ebook, 05/21/2024)
Young-adult historical horror novel. Temperance takes over as lamplighter in the 19th-century whaling village of Warbler after her father’s death, and has to prove she can do the job after a girl disappears and her investigation shows there may be a monster at large. A first novel.
Boldizar, Alexander: The Man Who Saw ...Read More
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Two books debut prominently on lists this week. Mai Corland’s Five Broken Blades (Entangled: Red Tower Books), first in a series by an author who also publishes as Meredith Ireland, debuts on three lists, ranking as high as #3 on the NY Times fiction hardcover list. And Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time (Simon & Schuster/Avid Reader Press) debuts on four lists, ranking as high as #11 on the same
Clarkesworld 3/24
Clarkesworld’s March issue opens with “Hello! Hello! Hello!” by Fiona Jones, a sweet story about an alien entity encountering a human adrift in a shuttle, eventually realizing that the human is dying, and carrying out a rescue mission. Jones does a wonderful job of presenting a truly alien alien, and showing the difficulties of communication between vastly dissimilar species, but also the possibilities opened up ...Read More
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