Friday, September 23, 2011

Friday Finds

Posted by Simcha 4:54 AM, under | 4 comments

I'm glad to say that for once I've actually managed to easily acquire all of my recent book discoveries, and I can't wait get started on them during the upcoming week.

These first two books I found on Netgalley.

Andrew Kaufman is the author of another book on my TBR list that I haven't yet gotten hold of, All my Friends are Superheroes, and so I was interested in sampling his writing with this intriguing novella.

The Tiny Wife by Andrew Kaufman

A thief charges into a bank with a loaded gun, but he does not ask for money; what he asks for, instead, is the object of greatest significance currently in the possession of each patron. The thief then leaves, and the patrons all survive, but strange things soon begin to happen to them: One survivor’s tattoo jumps off her ankle and chases her around; another wakes up to find that she’s made of candy; and Stacey Hinterland discovers that she’s shrinking, incrementally, a little every day, and nothing that her husband or son do can reverse the process. The Tiny Wife is a fable about losing yourself in circumstances and finding yourself in the the love of another.


The Emperor's Knife caught my attention because it sounds so much like Brandon's
Sanderson's Elentris, at least the first part of the synopsis. I haven't yet heard anything about this book, author, or publisher so I'm not sure what to expect but I really hope it will turn out to be as good as it sounds.


The Emperor's Knife by Mazarkis Williams

There is a cancer at the heart of the mighty Cerani Empire: a plague that attacks young and old, rich and poor alike, marking each victim with a fragment of a greater pattern. Anyone showing the marks is put to death. That is Emperor Beyon's law . . .

But now the pattern is reaching closer to the palace than ever before. In a hidden room, a forgotten prince has grown from child to man, and as the empire sickens, Sarmin, the emperor’s only surviving brother, is remembered. He awaits the bride his mother has chosen: a chieftain’s daughter from the northern plains.

Mesema travels from her homeland, an offering for the empire’s favour. She is a Windreader, used to riding free across the grasslands, not posing and primping in rare silks. She finds the Imperial Court’s protocols stifling, but she doesn’t take long to realise the politicking and intrigues are not a game, but deadly earnest.

Eyul is burdened both by years and by the horrors he has carried out in service to the throne. At his emperor’s command he bears the emperor’s Knife to the desert in search of a cure for the pattern-markings.

As long-planned conspiracies boil over into open violence and rebellion, the enemy moves toward victory. Now only three people stand in his way: a lost prince, a world-weary killer, and a young girl from the steppes who once saw a path through a pattern, among the waving grasses.

I just got this book out of the library, and it's another one that I haven't heard of before, but am really hoping that it turns out to be as good as it sounds.


Before Ever After
Samantha Sotto

Three years after her husband Max's death, Shelley feels no more adjusted to being a widow than she did that first terrible day. That is, until the doorbell rings. Standing on her front step is a young man who looks so much like Max; same smile, same eyes, same age, same adorable bump in his nose; he could be Max's long-lost relation. He introduces himself as Paolo, an Italian editor of American coffee table books, and shows Shelley some childhood photos. Paolo tells her that the man in the photos, the bearded man who Paolo says is his grandfather though he never seems to age, is Max. Her Max. And he is alive and well.

As outrageous as Paolo's claims seem; how could her husband be alive? And if he is, why hasn't he looked her up? Shelley desperately wants to know the truth. She and Paolo jet across the globe to track Max down; if it is really Max and along the way, Shelley recounts the European package tour where they had met. As she relives Max's stories of bloody Parisian barricades, medieval Austrian kitchens, and buried Roman boathouses, Shelley begins to piece together the story of who her husband was and what these new revelations mean for her "happily ever after." And as she and Paolo get closer to the truth, Shelley discovers that not all stories end where they are supposed to

Fun links of the Week:

First I came across this article listing 10 of the strangest items that have been left unclaimed at airlines, but which is just my kind of thing, but then, even better, was this link to a store in Alabama that sells all these items which no one has ever come to pick up. How have I never heard of this place before?! I've never had a reason to go to Alabama but before now it's at the top of my list of place to go the next time I'm in America.

Some of the recent Imagur pictures that made me laugh, along with their original headlines:

Um... I'll catch the next bus.

 

Should I "use soap" too?


Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Favorite Fictional Character: S.A.R.A.H

Posted by Simcha 5:25 PM, under | 5 comments

Favorite Fictional Character
Hosted by Ryan at Wordsmithonia




I decided to take this Meme out of retirement for the day as an excuse to talk about a TV show that I recently discovered and fell-in-love with, and about some of the fantastic characters that make up the show.

I started watching Eureka a few weeks ago when I mentioned on Twitter that I was looking for a new show to watch, and someone suggested this one to me. I don't think I had ever heard of Eureka before, which was surprising since it's been running for four seasons, but after just one episode I was hooked.



Eureka is about a small town which had been built by the government to house the world's greatest geniuses, and their families, in order to build futuristic inventions and find solutions to scientific problems. In the first episode a US Marshall, Jack Carter, and his juvenile delinquent daughter, Zoe, stumble into this town when their car crashes. After helping solve a case during his stay in Eureka, Jack is relocated there permanently as the town's new sheriff. In each episode there is some crazy situation that has come about from one of the scientist's inventions or experiments, and Jack has to figure out how to solve it.


Eureka has some wonderful characters, which drew me in from the very first episode. There is Jack, an average guy trying to keep in line a town full of crazy scientists, and his deputy, Joe, a weapon-obsessed young woman whose tough exterior hides a secret passion for fashion magazines and weddings. Jack's daughter, Zoe, is also a character that I enjoyed getting to know, especially as she develops from a rebellious teenager with a criminal record to an elegant and intelligent young woman. But none of these characters are the ones that I'm intending on focusing on here. The focus of this FFC post is actually S.A.R.A.H, Jack and Zoe's house.



When Jack moves to Eureka he is provided by one of young scientists with an experimental house that he had been working on, and which is set up in a bunker. This house is equipped to meet the personal needs of its residents and guests, and is even able to communicate with it's occupants by speaking to them directly in female voice. The house was named SARAH (Self Actuated Residential Automated Habitat) and over time SARAH come to develop a personality of her own that leads to many humorous incidents throughout the series.





In the first episode SARAH refuses to allow Jack into the house because he didn't notify her that he would be late for dinner. In another episode SARAH takes Jack and several other characers hostage because she suspects that Jack may be planning to leave town. Though one of my favorite moments is when Jack and  Zoe, are having a heart-to-heart talk and SARAH decides to provide them with stirring background music to help with match the mood.


After catching up with all the episodes I was sad to discover that Eureka has been canceled, and the show will be wrapped up after a six episode season, next year. I'm very disappointed and am already missing this fantastic show and its characters. 

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Guest Review of The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

Posted by Simcha 4:11 PM, under | 8 comments

When I had first heard of The Quantum Thief I thought it sounded like a unique and fun scifi adventure, and so I asked Tor if I could receive a copy to review. To my delight I found the book waiting for me in my mailbox a couple of weeks later and as soon as I got home I got started on it. But The Quantum Thief was not quite what I had expected and after finishing it I knew there was no way I would be able to write a coherent review of this book. In fact, the more I thought about the story the more confused I was. The only solution was to pass the book on to someone else, so I offered it up to Baruch who has written several reviews for me in the past. Baruch is also well-versed in geeky tech stuff so I thought he would understand the story a lot better than I. Luckily for me I was right and I am happy to be able to present you with his review of The Quantum Thief.

Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy - from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to steal their thoughts, to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of the Moving Cities of Mars. Except that Jean made one mistake. Now he is condemned to play endless variations of a game-theoretic riddle in the vast virtual jail of the Axelrod Archons - the Dilemma Prison - against countless copies of himself. Jean's routine of death, defection and cooperation is upset by the arrival of Mieli and her spidership, Perhonen. She offers him a chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self - in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed . . . 



The Quantum Thief reviewed by Baruch Speiser

“You know, I’m finally starting to feel myself again. Fighting a cabal of planetary mind-controlling masterminds with a group of masked vigilantes – that’s what life should be all about.”

This revelation of Jean le Flambeur, which comes about two hundred pages into Hannu Rajaniemi’s incredibly accomplished The Quantum Thief, is a perfect summary of this epic-but-gonzo tale of mystery. Rajaniemi’s first novel is a shockingly unique kind of artwork, a patchwork of brilliant ideas packaged into something so inordinately different that you can’t help but marvel at the author’s imagination. It is as if Rajaniemi, a self-professed hardcore mathematics, physics, and artificial intelligence geek, dares to hover near the edge of ludicrous in order to stimulate us; trying to have us conceptualize a world so very different than our own.

Flambeur, a famous thief imprisoned in The Prison (as if there was anywhere else a famous thief should end up), is forced to spend all day engaged in duels against himself and other alien life forms. This is followed afterward by constant resurrections, over and over again, in order to repeat the process. Each time he is defeated, the other beings – whether they are copies of him or other life altogether – “spread.” It’s not really defined what that means, but you really don’t care – because suddenly, the unthinkable happens: someone actually breaks the shmuck out.

Rescued by a winged Oortian named Mieli – who often sends her glass crashing to the floor when she forgets that she’s actually in a place with gravity – Flambeur discovers that he is far from being anyone’s favorite. Mieli has sprung him only because she needs him to do a job. She needs him to steal something. After all, he’s a thief.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to steal. All Mieli knows is that her deity has instructed her to go to The Oubliette and find whatever it is Flambeur hid from himself. See, the crafty bastard is so good that he even stole his own memories – and now someone important wants them back.

If you enjoy being confused, then you will find no shortage of entertainment. The Quantum Thief is not just science fiction, but a step into a majestically vast world of indescribable otherness. It steals from nearly every language and culture to throw together a world whose building blocks are perhaps deliberately foreign. Nearly every sentence in this novel contains verbiage that reminds you you’re not in Kansas anymore: co-memories, gevulot, synthbio life, combat autism, zokus, Atlas Quiets, the exomemory, q-dots, illegal Sobornost tech, gogol pirates, Resurrection Men, mind-revealing agoras, tempmatter, masked Tzaddikim, cryptarchs, the phoboi – if you lack the ability to “just go with it”, then this book is not for you. Not everything is explained; and to some extent, that’s sort of the point – no one explains to you how your refrigerator works, so no one will bother explaining to you how a spaceship is a recombinant telepathic life form. It just is. Get over it and move on.

Any attempt at comparing The Quantum Thief to other works in science fiction is an exercise in literary stretching - enough that you might just pull a muscle. I profess to not be well-steeped in modern science fiction, but I find it hard to imagine The Quantum Thief being remotely like anything else out there. In many ways, it is familiar; yet in others, so radically different. Parhonen, the living spaceship, seems oddly reminiscent of Jane in Orson Scott Card’s Ender series; yet I only conceived of this connection well after I finished it.

Perhaps more familiar is the tsundere-ish Mieli, who externally seems to despise Jean yet still ends up seeing him as a comrade somehow. Of course, Rajaniemi decides the audience hasn’t had their daily dose of sexual romp, so “the Pellegrini” – Mieli’s goddess – takes over her body just so that she can play the seductress. To be fair, the Pellegrini seems to have a history with Monsieur Flambeur – so I doubt that this is a forced encounter. Nonetheless, it still had me thinking of the Borg Queen from Star Trek: First Contact, another plot device in which a vast consciousness is shoved into a female’s body for nothing more than the sake of good theater. On the other hand, The Quantum Thief is entirely about vast consciousness being shoved into bodies, so perhaps that’s just par for the course.

There are other shortcomings, although they may not really be shortcomings as much as deliberately unanswered questions. The ending of the book is wide open for multiple sequels with several avenues of thought unexplored, and after a book already filled with so much original content, that can leave a reader feeling unfulfilled and unsatisfied. In addition, there are quite a few “interludes” - perspectives of characters who the reader will never really know anything about in this book; clearly indicating that the author is foreshadowing further development in some future follow-up works that are yet to come. It’s not to say that this novel is rambling – it is far more streamlined than many sci-fi books are, and it actually commences with a brisk pace – but some of the interludes do seem like minor distractions. Thankfully, all of them are reasonably brief.

For a first novel, you have to give Hannu Rajaniemi credit – The Quantum Thief is something rather extraordinary. It has its weaknesses, but its own weaknesses are its strengths. I prefer to believe that reading this book is not a journey through bewilderment and disorientation, but rather as a wacky joyride towards a breakthrough in the art of discovery. There’s nothing quite like reading something different, and let me tell you, this book is different. In a good way, though – few novels these days take you places where you could never even dream of being. If that’s what you’re looking for, I recommend you let The Quantum Thief steal you away for a while.

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Thank you to Tor for providing me with a review copy of The Quantum Thief, and to Baruch for taking the time to read and review it.

The Fractal Prince, the sequel to The Quantum Thief, is released today in the UK.

Monday, September 19, 2011

New Scifi and Fantasy Releases: Week of September 18

Posted by Simcha 7:47 AM, under | 5 comments

If you've been following Scott Westerfeld's highly-acclaimed YA steampunk series, Levithan, then you're probably excited about this week's release of the third book, Goliath. And I know that there are many fantasy fans who are eagerly anticipating Clay & Susan Griffith's sequel to The Greyfriar, which is also being released this week. As for me, I can't say there is anything here that really calls to me, though I have enough books by my nightstand, and in Nook, to keep me busy for a while. And I just finished some really great book which I can't wait to tell you about (including Ready Player One, which was fantastic)


How about you? Are there any books from this week's list that you're planning on adding to your bookshelf?

Hope you have a great reading week!

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Blackdog
K.V. Johansen
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Pyr
Release Date: September 20

Long ago, in the days of the first kings in the north, there were seven devils...

And long ago, in the days of the first kings in the north, the seven devils, who had deceived and possessed seven of the greatest wizards of the world, were defeated and bound with the help of the Old Great Gods...

And perhaps some of the devils are free in the world, and perhaps some are working to free themselves still…

In a land where gods walk on the hills and goddesses rise from river, lake, and spring, the caravan-guard Holla-Sayan, escaping the bloody conquest of a lakeside town, stops to help an abandoned child and a dying dog. The girl, though, is the incarnation of Attalissa, goddess of Lissavakail, and the dog a shape-changing guardian spirit whose origins have been forgotten. Possessed and nearly driven mad by the Blackdog, Holla-Sayan flees to the desert road, taking the powerless avatar with him.

Necromancy, treachery, massacres, rebellions, and gods dead or lost or mad, follow hard on the their heels. But it is Attalissa herself who may be the Blackdog’s—and Holla-Sayan’s—doom.

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The Business of Death (Death Works, Bk 3)
Trent Jamieson
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Orbit
Release Date: September 19

Life is tough at the top when work is a matter of life or death.

It's one thing to run Mortmax International as head of a team, but it's quite another to rule alone. Staff fatalities have left Steven by himself on the Throne of Death, and there's no time to get comfortable. The Stirrer god's arrival is imminent, threatening life as we know it. Plus Steven has managed to mortally offend the only ally strong enough to help out.

And how can he ask someone to marry him when the End of Days seems inevitable? As if they're going to think he's committed. The portents don't look good as a comet burns vast and looming in the sky and Steven can almost hear a dark clock ticking. He will have to play nice if he wants his ally back, and must address the madness of the Hungry Death within himself if he even has a chance at defeating the Stirrer god.

If he fails, Hell and Earth are doomed and wedding bells will be quite out of the question.

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Cold Kiss
Amy Garvey
Genre:YA Paranormal
Publisher:HarperTeen
Release Date: September 20

When her boyfriend, Danny, is killed in a car accident, Wren can’t imagine living without him. Wild with grief, she uses the untamed powers she’s inherited to bring him back. But the Danny who returns is just a shell of the boy she once loved.

Wren has spent four months keeping Danny hidden, while her life slowly unravels around her. Then Gabriel DeMarnes transfers to her school and somehow, inexplicably, he can sense her secret. Wren finds herself drawn to Gabriel, who is so much more alive than the ghost of the boy she loved. But Wren can’t turn her back on Danny or the choice she made for him—and she realizes she must find a way to make things right, even if it means breaking her own heart.
 
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Daniel X: Game Over
James Patterson & Ned Rust
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Release Date: September 19

When Daniel X discovers that a duo of evil extraterrestrials is plotting to control kids around the world through videogames, he's determined to take them both out of commission. This pair of wicked game masters wants to destroy the human race by turning brainwashed videogamers into an unstoppable army of doom! They're also running an endangered species hunting club on the side, and their next target is none other than Daniel. He'll have no choice but to turn to the aliens' rebellious son who needs help to stand up to his malicious parents. But can Daniel trust the progeny of this treacherous twosome? Or will it be "Game Over" for the alien hunter?

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Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions
edited by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong
Genre: Young Adult Anthology
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: September 20

A journey may take hundreds of miles, or it may cover the distance between duty and desire.
Sixteen of today’s hottest writers of paranormal tales weave stories on a common theme of journeying. Authors such as Kelley Armstrong, Rachel Caine, and Melissa Marr return to the beloved worlds of their bestselling series, while others, like Claudia Gray, Kami Garcia, and Margaret Stohl, create new land-scapes and characters. But whether they’re writing about vampires, faeries, angels, or other magical beings, each author explores the strength and resilience of the human heart.
Suspenseful, funny, or romantic, the stories in Enthralled will leave you moved.

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First Kill
Heather Brewer
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Dial
Release Date: September 20

Joss McMillan’s perfect life crashes down the night he witnesses his sister’s murder — at the hands of a vampire. He then finds out his family’s secret heritage: They are part of the Slayer Society, a group whose mission is to rid the world of vampires. Joss is their new recruit. As Joss trains, bent on seeking revenge for his sister, he discovers powers that could make him the youngest, strongest Slayer in history. But there is a traitor in the Society, one whose identity would shake Joss to the core . . . if the traitor doesn’t kill him first. With over a million copies already in print, The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod is still sinking its fangs into new readers every day. Now, bestselling author Heather Brewer brings us the other side of the story, from the perspective of Vlad’s former friend turned mortal enemy: vampire slayer Joss McMillan. This is the first in a series of five books that can be read alongside Vlad Tod or entirely on their own.

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The Fractal Prince (The Quantum Thief, Bk 2)
Hannu Rajaniemi
Genre: Science Fiction
Publisher: Gollancz
Release Date: September 20 (in UK)

The sequel to Hannu Rajaniemi's extraordinary debut novel is set to build on the extravagent promise of one of the most exciting new voices to come out of the genre this century. Jean le Flambeur, posthuman thief, is out of prison, but still not free. To pay his debts to Oortian warrior Mieli and her mysterious patron the pellegrini, he has to break into the mind of a living god. Planning the ultimate heist takes Jean and Mieli from the haunted city of Sirr on broken Earth to the many-layered virtual realms of the mighty Sobornost. But when the stakes of the pellegrinis game are revealed, Jean has to decide how far he is willing to go to get the job done.

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The Girl of Fire and Thorns
Rae Carson
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Release Date: September 20

Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness.

Elisa is the chosen one.

But she is also the younger of two princesses, the one who has never done anything remarkable. She can’t see how she ever will.

Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs the chosen one, not a failure of a princess.

And he’s not the only one who needs her. Savage enemies seething with dark magic are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people’s savior. And he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake.

Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young.

Most of the chosen do
.

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Goliath (Leviathan 3)
Scott Westerfeld
Genre: YA Steampunk
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release Date: September 20

Alek and Deryn are on the last leg of their round-the-world quest to end World War I, reclaim Alek’s throne as prince of Austria, and finally fall in love. The first two objectives are complicated by the fact that their ship, the Leviathan, continues to detour farther away from the heart of the war (and crown). And the love thing would be a lot easier if Alek knew Deryn was a girl. (She has to pose as a boy in order to serve in the British Air Service.) And if they weren’t technically enemies.
The tension thickens as the Leviathan steams toward New York City with a homicidal lunatic on board: secrets suddenly unravel, characters reappear, and nothing is at it seems in this thunderous conclusion to Scott Westerfeld’s brilliant trilogy.

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If I Die (Soul Screamers, Bk 5)
Rachel Vincent
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy/ Paranormal
Publisher: Harlequin
Release Date: September 20

No one wants to be this teacher’s pet . . .

Everyone else is talking about Eastlake High’s gorgeous new math teacher, Mr. Beck, but Kaylee Cavanaugh has bigger things on her mind. Kaylee’s a banshee—her scream is a portent of death.

But the next scream might hit too close to home. Kaylee’s borrowed lifeline has almost run out.

Yeah—it’s a shock to her, too. So to distract herself from her own problems, Kaylee is determined to defend her school against the latest supernatural threat. That hot new teacher is really an incubus, who feeds from the desire of unsuspecting students. The only girls immune to his lure are Kaylee and Sabine, her boyfriend’s delinquent ex-girlfriend. Now the unlikely allies have to get rid of Mr. Beck…before he discovers they aren’t quite human either.

But Kaylee’s running out of time, and those who love her will do anything to save her life.

Anything.

Soul Screamers: The last thing you hear before you die.

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The Islanders
Christopher Priest
Genre:
Publisher: Gollancz
Release Date: September 22

A tale of murder, artistic rivalry and literary trickery; a chinese puzzle of a novel where nothing is quite what it seems; a narrator whose agenda is artful and subtle; a narrative that pulls you in and plays an elegant game with you. The Dream Archipelago is a vast network of islands. The names of the islands are different depending on who you talk to, their very locations seem to twist and shift. Some islands have been sculpted into vast musical instruments, others are home to lethal creatures, others the playground for high society. Hot winds blow across the archipelago and a war fought between two distant continents is played out across its waters. The Islanders serves both as an untrustworthy but enticing guide to the islands, an intriguing, multi-layered tale of a murder and the suspect legacy of its appealing but definitely untrustworthy narrator. It shows Christopher Priest at the height of his powers and illustrates why he has remained one of the country's most prized novelists. 

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Reamde
Neal Stephenson
Genre: Science Fiction
Publisher: William Morrow
Release Date: September 20

Having fled to British Columbia decades ago to avoid the draft, Richard Forthrast then amassed a fortune transporting marijuana over the border to Idaho. Now he spends his time playing a power-wielding online fantasy game and his money buying viral gold and other necessaries from Chinese gold farmers and, finally, launching his own techie start-up. Alas, one of the gold farmers sets off a virtual war for dominance that could be the end of Richard.

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The Rift Walker (Vampire Empire, Bk 2)
Clay & Susan Griffith
Genre: Steampunk/ Fantasy
Publisher: Pyr
Release Date: September 20

Princess Adele struggles with a life of marriage and obligation as her Equatorian Empire and their American Republic allies stand on the brink of war against the vampire clans of the north. However, the alliance's horrific strategy for total victory drives Adele to abandon her duty and embark on a desperate quest to keep her nation from staining its hands with genocide. Reunited with her great love, the mysterious adventurer known to the world as the Greyfriar, Adele is pursued by her own people as well as her vengeful husband, senator Clark. With the human alliance in disarrray, Prince Cesare, lord of the British vampire clan, seizes the initiative and strikes at the very heart of Equatoria.

As Adele labors to bring order to her world, she learns more about the strange powers she exhibited in the north. Her teacher, Mamoru, leads a secret cabal of geomancers who believe Adele is the one who can touch the vast power of the Earth that surges through ley lines and wells up at the rifts where the lines meet. These energies are the key to defeating the enemy of mankind, and if Princess Adele could ever bring this power under her command, she could be death to vampires. But such a victory will also cost the life of Adele's beloved Greyfriar.

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Sacrifice (Crave, Bk 2)
Melinda Metz
Genre: YA Paranormal
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Release Date: September 20

Gabriel and Shay are convinced that they can make their relationship work. Knowing that Shay is half-vampire, Gabriel thinks that his coven will embrace her as one of their own, but instead they view her as an abomination, a thing that doesn’t belong in either world. And they want her dead. Now Gabriel must make the ultimate decision - watch his love be killed by his coven or defy the people closest to him, the people he has spent centuries with to save her.

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Wereworld: Rise of the Wolf
Curtis Jobling
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Publisher: Viking
Release Date: September 20

Imagine a world ruled by Werelords--men and women who can shift at will into bears, lions, and serpents. When Drew suddenly discovers he's not only a werewolf but the long-lost heir to the murdered Wolf King's throne, he must use his wits and newfound powers to survive in a land suddenly full of enemies. Drew's the only one who can unite the kingdom in a massive uprising against its tyrant ruler, Leopold the Lion. But the king is hot on Drew's tail and won't rest until he's got the rebel Wolf's head.


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