The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I talk about books I got over the last week – old or new, bought or received for review consideration (often unsolicited). Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included.
One of last week’s books is not included in the list this week because I just mentioned it a few days ago and am giving away 2 copies of it! I also reviewed The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman last week. It’s a lot of fun, and shortly after my review went up, I heard the news that it will be published in the US in June 2016! I was thrilled to hear this since it’s a great book.
Now, on to this week’s book list!
This Gulf of Time and Stars (Reunification #1) by Julie Czerneda
This Gulf of Time and Stars, the first book in the Reunification trilogy, will be released on November 3 (hardcover, ebook). It takes place in the same setting as the Stratification and Trade Pact trilogies. To read more about the book and cover design, check out the cover reveal on SF Signal!
First in a new science fiction trilogy, set in the same universe as the Clan Chronicles, by the Prix Aurora Award-winning Julie E. Czerneda.
Chasing the Phoenix by Michael Swanwick
Chasing the Phoenix will be released on August 11 (hardcover, ebook). An excerpt from the book is available Tor.com.
A science fiction masterpiece from a five-time Hugo Award winner!
In the distant future, Surplus arrives in China dressed as a Mongolian shaman, leading a yak which carries the corpse of his friend, Darger. The old high-tech world has long since collapsed, and the artificial intelligences that ran it are outlawed and destroyed. Or so it seems.
Darger and Surplus, a human and a genetically engineered dog with human intelligence who walks upright, are a pair of con men and the heroes of a series of prior Swanwick stories. They travel to what was was once China and invent a scam to become rich and powerful. Pretending to have limited super-powers, they aid an ambitious local warlord who dreams of conquest and once again reuniting China under one ruler. And, against all odds, it begins to work, but it seems as if there are other forces at work behind the scenes. This is a sharp, slick, witty science fiction adventure that is hugely entertaining from one of the best SF writers alive.
The Girl with Ghost Eyes by M. H. Boroson
This debut novel will be released on November 3 (hardcover, ebook).
It’s the end of the nineteenth century in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and ghost hunters from the Maoshan traditions of Daoism keep malevolent spiritual forces at bay. Li-lin, the daughter of a renowned Daoshi exorcist, is a young widow burdened with yin eyes—the unique ability to see the spirit world. Her spiritual visions and the death of her husband bring great shame to Li-lin and her father—and shame is not something this immigrant family can afford.
When a sorcerer cripples her father, terrible plans are set in motion, and only Li-lin can stop them. To aid her are her martial arts and a peachwood sword, her burning paper talismans, and a wisecracking spirit in the form of a human eyeball tucked away in her pocket. Navigating the dangerous alleys and backrooms of a male-dominated Chinatown, Li-lin must confront evil spirits, gangsters, and soulstealers before the sorcerer’s ritual summons an ancient evil that could burn Chinatown to the ground.
With a rich and inventive historical setting, nonstop martial arts action, authentic Chinese magic, and bizarre monsters from Asian folklore, The Girl with Ghost Eyes is also the poignant story of a young immigrantt searching to find her place beside the long shadow of a demanding father and the stigma of widowhood. In a Chinatown caught between tradition and modernity, one woman may be the key to holding everything together.
The Pilots of Borealis by David Nabhan
The Pilots of Borealis will be released on August 11 (paperback, ebook).
Top Gun heads to outer space in this throwback to the classic science fiction of Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein.
Strapped in to artificial wings spanning twenty-five feet across, your arms push a tenth of your body weight with each pump as you propel yourself at frightening speeds through the air. Inside a pressurized dome on the Moon, subject to one-sixth Earth’s gravity, there are swarms of chiseled, fearless, superbly trained flyers all around you, jostling for air space like peregrine falcons racing for the prize. This was the sport of piloting, and after Helium-3, piloting was one of the first things that entered anyone’s mind when Borealis was mentioned.
It was Helium-3 that powered humanity’s far-flung civilization expansion, feeding fusion reactors from the Alliances on Earth to the Terran Ring, Mars, the Jovian colonies, and all the way out to distant Titan. The supply, taken from the surface of the Moon, had once seemed endless. But that was long ago. Borealis, the glittering, fabulously rich city stretched out across the lunar North Pole, had amassed centuries of unimaginable wealth harvesting it, and as such was the first to realize that its supplies were running out.
The distant memories of the horrific planetwide devastation spawned by the petroleum wars were not enough to quell the rising energy and political crises. A new war to rival no other appeared imminent, but the solar system’s competing powers would discover something more powerful than Helium-3: the indomitable spirit of an Earth-born, war-weary mercenary and pilot extraordinaire.
The Song of Synth by Seb Doubinsky
August 4 is the official release date for The Song of Synth (paperback, ebook), but the print edition seems to be available in at least some stores now.
Williams Burroughs meets Philip K. Dick in this dystopian drug-fueled novel set in the not-so-distant future.
Synth is a drug able to induce hallucinations indistinguishable from reality. But it’s brand new, highly addictive, and more than likely dangerous. Even the dealers peddling the pills don’t know what long term effects the drug will have on its users. For Markus Olsen, Synth offers an easy escape to his crumbling life. Markus, an ex-hacker, has been caught red-handed, and while his friends were sent to jail for thirty years, Markus decided to cooperate, agreeing to lend his services and particular criminal expertise to Viborg City’s secret service, aiding the oppressive state power he’d been fighting to break in exchange for his relative freedom.
But Markus’ past as an anarchist comes back to haunt him, in the form of a credit card with no account but an seemingly unlimited balance as well as the discovery of a mysterious novel in which he is a main character. How much of his reality is being produced by Synth? How disconnected from real life has Markus become? Forced to face his past and the decisions he’s made, Markus must decide to choose between the artificial comfort of his constructed life and the harsh reality of treason and the struggle for freedom.
The Left-Hand Way (American Craftsmen #2) by Tom Doyle
This novel, following American Craftsmen, will be available on August 11 (hardcover, ebook). The first chapter of The Left-Hand Way can be read on the Tor/Forge blog.
Poe’s Red Death returns, more powerful than ever. Can anyone stop him before he summons an apocalyptic nightmare even worse than himself?
In The Left-Hand Way, the second book of Tom Doyle’s contemporary fantasy series, the American craftsmen are scattered like bait overseas. What starts as an ordinary liaison mission to London for Major Michael Endicott becomes a desperate chase across Europe, where Endicott is both hunted and hunter. Reluctantly joining him is his minder from MI13, Commander Grace Marlow, one of Her Majesty’s most lethal magician soldiers, whose family has centuries of justified hostility to the Endicotts.
Meanwhile, in Istanbul and Tokyo, Endicott’s comrades, Scherie Rezvani and Dale Morton, are caught in their own battles for survival against hired assassins and a ghost-powered doomsday machine. And in Kiev, Roderick Morton, the spider at the center of a global web, plots their destruction and his ultimate apotheosis. After centuries of imprisonment, nothing less than godlike power will satisfy Roderick, whatever the dreadful cost.
Chaos Unleashed (The Chaos Born #3) by Drew Karpyshyn
The conclusion to the Chaos Born trilogy will be released on October 13 (paperback, ebook, audiobook). The first two books in the series are as follows:
- Children of Fire (Read an Excerpt)
- The Scorched Earth
The Demon Cycle meets The Wheel of Time in this action-packed adventure! From New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed videogame writer Drew Karpyshyn comes the third and final novel in an original epic fantasy trilogy for fans of Terry Goodkind, Peter V. Brett, and Brandon Sanderson.
Four unlikely champions, each touched with Chaos magic at birth, are all that can stop the return of Daemron the Slayer, a hero who became a god—and then a demon. Exiled by the Old Gods, Daemron has long plotted his vengeful return. Now that moment is at hand, as the barrier imprisoning him—the Legacy—crumbles.
Armed with mighty Talismans, the four champions—Keegan, a wizard beset with self-doubt; Cassandra, a seer terrified by her own future; Scythe, a peerless warrior whose only weak spot is a broken heart; and Vaaler, a prince without a kingdom—seek the Keystone, a fabled place where, or so it is said, the Legacy can be restored.
But the plots of the Slayer are cunning and deep, and even the most noble heart can be twisted by the tainted magic of Chaos—as Keegan, Cassandra, Scythe, and Vaaler will soon discover.