Sunday, October 05, 2008

Books in the Mail (W/E 10/04/2008)

Seven for a Secret by Elizabeth Bear Subterranean Press, (Hardcover early 2009) – I’ve only read Bear’s short fiction in various anthologies, but I’ve really enjoyed it. This sounds interesting and hopefully, I’ll be able to get to it.

The sequel to New Amsterdam! - The wampyr has walked the dark streets of the world's great cities for a thousand years. In that time, he has worn out many names--and even more compatriots.

Now, so that one of those companions may die where she once lived, he has come again to the City of London. In 1938, where the ghosts of centuries of war haunt rain-grey streets and the Prussian Chancellor's army of occupation rules with an iron hand.

Here he will meet his own ghosts, the remembrances of loves mortal--and immortal. And here he will face the Chancellor's secret weapon: a human child.


Fast Forward 2 edited by Lou Anders (Pyr, (Trade Paperback 10/3/2008) – I read Fast Forward 1 Last year and thought it was a very strong collection, which illustrates Anders’ ability as an Editor both of the short form and of the long form. This volume includes stories from the following:
Paul Cornell; Kay Kenyon; Chris Nakashima-Brown; Nancy Kress; Jack Skillingstead; Cory Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum; Jack McDevitt; Paul McAuley; Mike Resnick and Pat Cadigan; Ian McDonald; Kristine Kathryn Rusch; Karl Schroeder and Tobias S. Buckell; Jeff Carlson; and Paolo Bacigalupi.

A Fantasy Medley edited by Yanni Kuznia (Subterranean Press , Hardcover 3/01/2009) With two writers whose work I really enjoy and another writer I’ve been wanting to sample for a while, this looks like a terrific collection.

A Fantasy Medley features the superlative storytelling abilities of four diverse authors:
In Zen and the Art of Vampirism Zoe Takano, the only vampire in Toronto, a city filled with supernatural creatures of Kelley Armstrong’s Otherworld, finds her place in the hierarchy threatened by two interlopers.

Riding the Shore of the River of Death returns us to the world of Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars. Kareka, daughter of the begh of the Kirshat, hunts to take a man’s head. It is her last opportunity to prove herself as a man or else she will find herself restricted to the role of woman and wife in the clan forever.

Robin Hobb revisits her Farseer world in Words Like Coins. Mirrifen, a failed hedge-witch’s apprentice who has married to find security finds that threatened by a severe drought and the appearance of a pregnant female pecksie.

C.E. Murphy takes us to frozen Moscow in From Russia, with Love. Baba Yaga’s daughter is a barmaid at a dive when Janx and Eliseo Daisani walk in. They discover, as they compete for the girl’s affections, that Baba Yaga has plans for Janx and that her beautiful daughter had merely been the bait.

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