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.
Last week brought two books in the mail. I was hoping to make a trip to the bookstore over the weekend, but I’m now planning to go browse the bookstore next weekend. There are a LOT of recent releases that sound fantastic!
Dragon Coast (Daniel Blackland #3) by Greg van Eekhout
This conclusion to a trilogy will be released on September 15 (hardcover, ebook). The previous two books are California Bones (which has its own website at www.californiabones.com) and Pacific Fire, in that order.
An excerpt from Dragon Coast can be read on the Tor-Forge blog, and if you missed the first book, Tor.com has an excerpt from California Bones.
I haven’t read the previous books in this series, but they do sound rather interesting.
Dragon Coast: the sequel to Greg Van Eekhout’s California Bones and Pacific Fire, in which Daniel Blackland must pull off the most improbable theft of all.
Daniel’s adopted son Sam, made from the magical essence of the tyrannical Hierarch of Southern California whom Daniel overthrew and killed, is lost-consumed by the great Pacific firedrake secretly assembled by Daniel’s half-brother, Paul.
But Sam is still alive and aware, in magical form, trapped inside the dragon as it rampages around Los Angeles, periodically torching a neighborhood or two.
Daniel has a plan to rescue Sam. It will involve the rarest of substances, axis mundi, pieces of the bones of the great dragon at the center of the Earth. Daniel will have to go to the kingdom of Northern California, boldly posing as his half-brother, come to claim his place in the competition to be appointed Lord High Osteomancer of the Northern Kingdom. Only when the Northern Hierarch, in her throne room at Golden Gate Park, raises her scepter to confirm Daniel in his position will he have an opportunity to steal the axis mundi-under the gaze of the Hierarch herself.
And that’s just the first obstacle.
Sound by Alexandra Duncan
This young adult science fiction novel will be released on September 22 (hardcover, ebook). It’s a companion to Alexandra Duncan’s debut novel, Salvage, which was a finalist for the Andre Norton Award and a Compton Crook Award winner.
SOUND is the stand-alone companion to Alexandra Duncan’s acclaimed novel Salvage, a debut that internationally bestselling author Stephanie Perkins called “kick-ass, brilliant, feminist science fiction.” For fans of Beth Revis, Firefly, and Battlestar Galactica.
As a child, Ava’s adopted sister Miyole watched her mother take to the stars, piloting her own ship from Earth to space making deliveries. Now a teen herself, Miyole is finally living her dream as a research assistant on her very first space voyage. If she plays her cards right, she could even be given permission to conduct her own research and experiments in her own habitat lab on the flight home. But when her ship saves a rover that has been viciously attacked by looters and kidnappers, Miyole—along with a rescued rover girl named Cassia—embarks on a mission to rescue Cassia’s abducted brother, and that changes the course of Miyole’s life forever.
