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Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
by Neil Gaiman
Multiple award winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman returns to dazzle, captivate, haunt, and entertain with this third collection of short fiction following Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things—which includes a never-before published American Gods story, “Black Dog,” written exclusively for this volume.
In this new anthology, Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath. Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction—stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013—as well “Black Dog,” a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection.
Trigger Warning explores the masks we all wear and the people we are beneath them to reveal our vulnerabilities and our truest selves. Here is a rich cornucopia of horror and ghosts stories, science fiction and fairy tales, fabulism and poetry that explore the realm of experience and emotion. In Adventure Story—a thematic companion to The Ocean at the End of the Lane—Gaiman ponders death and the way people take their stories with them when they die. His social media experience A Calendar of Tales are short takes inspired by replies to fan tweets about the months of the year—stories of pirates and the March winds, an igloo made of books, and a Mother’s Day card that portends disturbances in the universe. Gaiman offers his own ingenious spin on Sherlock Holmes in his award-nominated mystery tale The Case of Death and Honey. And Click-Clack the Rattlebag explains the creaks and clatter we hear when we’re all alone in the darkness.
A sophisticated writer whose creative genius is unparalleled, Gaiman entrances with his literary alchemy, transporting us deep into the realm of imagination, where the fantastical becomes real and the everyday incandescent. Full of wonder and terror, surprises and amusements, Trigger Warning is a treasury of delights that engage the mind, stir the heart, and shake the soul from one of the most unique and popular literary artists of our day.
Available February 3, 2015
Get in Trouble: Stories
by Kelly Link
She has been hailed by Michael Chabon as “the most darkly playful voice in American fiction” and by Neil Gaiman as “a national treasure.” Now Kelly Link’s eagerly awaited new collection—her first for adult readers in a decade—proves indelibly that this bewitchingly original writer is among the finest we have.
Link has won an ardent following for her ability, with each new short story, to take readers deeply into an unforgettable, brilliantly constructed fictional universe. The nine exquisite examples in this collection show her in full command of her formidable powers. In “The Summer People,” a young girl in rural North Carolina serves as uneasy caretaker to the mysterious, never-quite-glimpsed visitors who inhabit the cottage behind her house. In “I Can See Right Through You,” a middle-aged movie star makes a disturbing trip to the Florida swamp where his former on- and off-screen love interest is shooting a ghost-hunting reality show. In “The New Boyfriend,” a suburban slumber party takes an unusual turn, and a teenage friendship is tested, when the spoiled birthday girl opens her big present: a life-size animated doll.
Hurricanes, astronauts, evil twins, bootleggers, Ouija boards, iguanas, The Wizard of Oz, superheroes, the Pyramids . . . These are just some of the talismans of an imagination as capacious and as full of wonder as that of any writer today. But as fantastical as these stories can be, they are always grounded by sly humor and an innate generosity of feeling for the frailty—and the hidden strengths—of human beings. In Get in Trouble, this one-of-a-kind talent expands the boundaries of what short fiction can do.
Available February 3, 2015
As Time Goes By
by Hank Davis (ed.)
“Love’s not time’s fool,” Shakespeare wrote, though he might have added that men and women can be both love and time’s fools. For time and love are universally experienced, yet mysterious and only dimly understood. Here’s a collection of stories with both transcendental mysteries in high gear, as lovers, happy and otherwise, are caught in bizarre twists of time. On hand to twist time into pretzel shapes, if not into Moebius strips, are best-selling and award-winning authors such as Poul Anderson, John Wyndham, Christopher Priest, Richard McKenna, Michael Swanwick, Charlie Jane Anders, Tony Daniel, Sarah A. Hoyt, and more, as cupid hops aboard a time machine and the course of true love not only may not run smooth, but may run backwards and even sideways.
Includes stories by Richard McKenna (Nebula Award winning story), author of the award-winning novel The Sand Pebbles; John Wyndham, author of the mega-bestseller The Day of the Triffids; multiple-award winning author Poul Anderson, multiple award-winner Christopher Priest, author of The Prestige (BSFA Award winning novel); Charlie Jane Anders (Hugo Award winning story which is currently being developed for TV); Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award winning author Michael Swanwick; Hugo Award finalist and Asimov’s Reader’s Choice Award winner Tony Daniel; Prometheus Award winner Sarah A. Hoyt; and more.
Available February 3, 2015
Karen Memory
by Elizabeth Bear
“You ain’t gonna like what I have to tell you, but I’m gonna tell you anyway. See, my name is Karen Memery, like memory only spelt with an e, and I’m one of the girls what works in the Hôtel Mon Cherie on Amity Street. Hôtel has a little hat over the o like that. It’s French, so Beatrice tells me.”
Set in the late 19th century—when the city we now call Seattle Underground was the whole town (and still on the surface), when airships plied the trade routes, would-be gold miners were heading to the gold fields of Alaska, and steam-powered mechanicals stalked the waterfront, Karen is a young woman on her own, is making the best of her orphaned state by working in Madame Damnable’s high-quality bordello. Through Karen’s eyes we get to know the other girls in the house—a resourceful group—and the poor and the powerful of the town. Trouble erupts one night when a badly injured girl arrives at their door, beggin sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take over anyone’s mind and control their actions. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in their rubbish heap—a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered.
Bear brings alive this Jack-the-Ripper yarn of the old west with a light touch in Karen’s own memorable voice, and a mesmerizing evocation of classic steam-powered science.
Available February 3, 2015
Castaway Planet (Boundary Series Book 4)
by Eric Flint and Ryk E. Spoor
NEW ENTRY IN THE BEST-SELLING BOUNDARY SERIES. Stranded humans must adapt alien technology to survive on a dangerous planet.
Lost in the dark, half a year into their journey to the colony world of Tantalus, Sakura Kimei, her family, and her best friend, the alien “Bemmie” nicknamed Whips, are torn from the safety of their colony ship. In a crippled lifeboat, they had one chance to find a habitable world. But even then, they would find that their apparent salvation was a world of a thousand secrets.
Available February 3, 2015
Vitrium
by Michael Guthrie
At the heart of a global economic recovery effort, the mysterious Secretary General of the Order of Nations Enterprise presides over a vast infrastructure project, the VAC. The VAC connects the wealth and civilized world of thirty-two Mega-Alpha cities through underground trains in vacuum chamber tunnels traveling in excess of 8,000 kmh.
Seventeen-year-old Jada Brilliant adjusts to life after losing her father, anxiously awaiting the next chapter of her life in college— until a chance trip to an Outlier City with her grandfather results in a freak accident in the Everglades, leaving her in sole possession of a secret formula capable of world domination.
Left alone, fleeing from the wilderness into the world’s new cosmopolitan capitol, Jada is in a race for her life to keep her grandfather’s legacy from what she believes is corporate espionage, only to realize she is being pursued by the most powerful man on earth.
When these two worlds collide, Jada’s new passage to adulthood presses the envelope of courage, love, trust, and survival.
Available February 3, 2015
Cobra Outlaw (Cobra Rebellion Saga Book 2)
by Timothy Zahn
ORIGINAL TRADE PAPERBACK. SEQUEL TO COBRA SLAVE. New York Times #1 best-selling author Timothy Zahn continues his Cobra SF adventure series with book #2 of a new Cobra saga, Cobra Rebellion.
Cobra warriors: technologically enhanced human warriors designed to combat an implacable alien menace. Now, and not for the first time, the Cobras are facing trouble from their own kind.
The Broom clan of Cobra warriors finds itself pressed between two star empires headed for war. On the planet Aventine, the Broom’s homeworld, pater familia Paul Broom has been taken prisoner by Commodore Santeros, an implacable operative of the Dominion of Man. Paul is due to have his memories sifted through by the dreaded and often destructive Dominion MindsEye in order to root out the location of legendary Qasamaa planet where huge advances in military hardware, particularly a svelte powered armor, might give the Dominion of Man an edge in a coming war with the alien Troft. Santeros hopes to strike a deal with Qasama and, if a deal cannot be struck, then Santores and the Dominion are prepared to take what they want.
Elsewhere on Aventine and in the galaxy beyond, rebellion is brewing against Dominion atrocities and Dominion scheming, with outlaw Cobra warriors Lorne and Jody Broom in the vanguard.
Meanwhile, Cobra Jason Broom poses as an escaped slave on a secret Troft prison planet where humans are sent to gladiatorial combat to the death for Troft amusement and wagering. He is seeking information on Troft factions, for not every Troft wants war with humankind, and if he can identify moderate elements, he may save the Cobra worlds, and head off a massive interstellar war in the bargain.
The stage is set for adventure with one family of Cobra heroes once again fighting for freedom and peace in a galaxy on the edge of war.
Available February 3, 2015
Dark Intelligence (Transformations)
by Neal Asher
One man will transcend death to seek vengeance. One woman will transform herself to gain power. And no one will emerge unscathed…
Thorvald Spear wakes in a hospital to find he’s been brought back from the dead. What’s more, he died in a human vs. alien war that ended a century ago. Spear had been trapped on a world surrounded by hostile Prador forces, but Penny Royal, the AI inside the rescue ship sent to provide backup, turned rogue, annihilating friendly forces in a frenzy of destruction and killing Spear. One hundred years later the AI is still on the loose, and Spear vows for revenge at any cost.
Isobel Satomi ran a successful crime syndicate, but after competitors attacked she needed power and protection. Negotiating with Penny Royal, she got more than she bargained for: Turning part-AI herself gave Isobel frightening power, but the upgrades hid a horrifying secret, and the dark AI triggered a transformation that has been turning her into something far from human…
Spear hires Isobel to track Penny Royal across worlds to its last known whereabouts. But he cheats her in the process and quickly finds himself in her crosshairs. As Isobel continues to evolve into a monstrous predator, it’s clear her rage will eventually win out over reason. Will Spear finish his hunt before he himself becomes the hunted?
Dark Intelligence is the explosive first novel in a brand new trilogy from military SF master Neal Asher and a new chapter in his epic Polity universe.
Available February 3, 2015
Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: A Novel
by Judd Trichter
Set in a near-future LA, a man falls in love with a beautiful android—but when she is kidnapped and sold piecemeal on the black market, he must track down her parts to put her back together.
Bad luck for Eliot Lazar, he fell in love with an android, a beautiful C-900 named Iris Matsuo. That’s the kind of thing that can get you killed in late 21th century Los Angeles or anywhere else for that matter – anywhere except the man-made island of Avernus, far out in the Pacific, which is where Eliot and Iris are headed once they get their hands on a boat. But then one night Eliot knocks on Iris’s door only to find she was kidnapped, chopped up, sold for parts.
Unable to move on and unwilling to settle for a woman with a heartbeat, Eliot vows to find the parts to put Iris back together again—and to find the sonofabitch who did this to her and get his revenge.
With a determined LAPD detective on his trail and time running out in a city where machines and men battle for control, Eliot Lazar embarks on a bloody journey that will take him to the edge of a moral precipice from which he can never return, from which mankind can never return.
Judd Trichter’s Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is a science fiction love story that asks the question, how far will you go to save someone you love?
Available February 3, 2015
The Thorn of Dentonhill: A Novel of Maradaine
by Marshall Ryan Maresca
Veranix Calbert leads a double life. By day, he’s a struggling magic student at the University of Maradaine. At night, he spoils the drug trade of Willem Fenmere, crime boss of Dentonhill and murderer of Veranix’s father. He’s determined to shut Fenmere down.
With that goal in mind, Veranix disrupts the delivery of two magical artifacts meant for Fenmere’s clients, the mages of the Blue Hand Circle. Using these power-filled objects in his fight, he quickly becomes a real thorn in Fenmere’s side.
So much so that soon not only Fenmere, but powerful mages, assassins, and street gangs all want a piece of “The Thorn.” And with professors and prefects on the verge of discovering his secrets, Veranix’s double life might just fall apart. Unless, of course, Fenmere puts an end to it first.
Available February 3, 2015
Impulse: Lightship Chronicles, Book One
by Dave Bara
Lieutenant Peter Cochrane of the Quantar Royal Navy believes he has his future clearly mapped out. It begins with his new assignment as an officer on Her Majesty’s Spaceship Starbound, a Lightship bound for deep space voyages of exploration.
But everything changes when Peter is summoned to the office of his father, Grand Admiral Nathan Cochrane, and given devastating news: the death of a loved one. In a distant solar system, a mysterious and unprovoked attack upon Lightship Impulse resulted in the deaths of Peter’s former girlfriend and many of her shipmates.
Now Peter’s plans are torn asunder as he is transferred to a Unified Space Navy ship under foreign command, en route to an unexpected destination, and surrounded almost entirely by strangers. To top it off, his superiors have given him secret orders that might force him to become a mutineer.
The crisis at hand becomes a gateway to something much more when the ship’s Historian leads Peter and his shipmates into a galaxy of the unknown — of ancient technologies, age-old rivalries, new cultures, and unexpected romance. It’s an overwhelming responsibility for Peter, and one false step could plunge humanity into an apocalyptic interstellar war….
Available February 3, 2015
The Way Into Darkness: Book Three of The Great Way
by Harry Connolly
BOOK THREE OF THE GREAT WAY: What was once the Peradaini Empire is now a wasted landscape of burned, empty cities and abandoned farmlands. The Blessing, now more numerous than ever, continues to spread across the continent, driving refugees to the dubious safety of the city walls. Unharvested crops mean that few strongholds have enough provisions to last the winter, although most know the grunts will take them before starvation will.
But hope survives. A piece of stolen magic just might halt the spread of The Blessing if Tejohn and Cazia can find a scholar with the skill to recreate the spell. If such a person still lives.
Unfortunately, they are nearly out of time. The few remaining human enclaves are isolated and under siege. Worse, The Blessing has spread to other sentient creatures. If Cazia and Tejohn are going to strike back at their monstrous enemy, they can not delay.
And there’s another, deeper question left unaddressed: where did The Blessing come from, and why have they invaded Kal-Maddum?
The Way Into Darkness is the final book in The Great Way, wrapping up the story begun in The Way Into Chaos and continued in The Way Into Magic.
Available February 3, 2015
Holy Cow: A Modern-Day Dairy Tale
by David Duchovny
Debut Novel
A rollicking, globe-trotting adventure with a twist: a four-legged heroine you won’t soon forget
Elsie Bovary is a cow, and a pretty happy one at that—her long, lazy days are spent eating, napping, and chatting with her best friend, Mallory. One night, Elsie and Mallory sneak out of their pasture; but while Mallory is interested in flirting with the neighboring bulls, Elsie finds herself drawn to the farmhouse. Through the window, she sees the farmer’s family gathered around a bright Box God—and what the Box God reveals about something called an “industrial meat farm” shakes Elsie’s understanding of her world to its core.
There’s only one solution: escape to a better, safer world. And so a motley crew is formed: Elsie; Jerry—excuse me, Shalom—a cranky, Torah-reading pig who’s recently converted to Judaism; and Tom, a suave (in his own mind, at least) turkey who can’t fly, but who can work an iPhone with his beak. Toting stolen passports and slapdash human disguises, they head for the airport.
Elsie is our wise-cracking, pop-culture-reference-dropping, slyly witty narrator; Tom—who does eventually learn to fly (sort of)—dispenses psychiatric advice in a fake German accent; and Shalom, rejected by his adopted people in Jerusalem, ends up unexpectedly uniting Israelis and Palestinians. David Duchovny’s charismatic creatures point the way toward a mutual understanding and acceptance that the world desperately needs.
Available February 3, 2015
Dragons at Crumbling Castle: And Other Tales
by Terry Pratchett
This never-before-published collection of fourteen funny and inventive tales by acclaimed author Sir Terry Pratchett features a memorable cast of inept wizards, sensible heroes, and unusually adventuresome tortoises.
Including more than one hundred black-and-white illustrations, the appealingly designed book celebrates Pratchett’s inimitable wordplay and irreverent approach to the conventions of storytelling.
These accessible and mischievous tales are an ideal introduction for young readers to this beloved author. Established fans of Pratchett’s work will savor the playful presentation of the themes and ideas that inform his best-selling novels.
Available February 3, 2015
Covenant’s End: A Widdershins Adventure
by Ari Marmell
The thief Widdershins and her own “personal god,” Olgun, return to their home city of Davillon after almost a year away. While Shins expects only to face the difficulty of making up with her friends, what she actually finds is far, far worse. Her nemesis, Lisette, has returned, and she is not alone. Lisette has made a dark pact with supernatural powers that have granted her abilities far greater than anything Widdershins and Olgun can match.
Together, Widdershins and Olgun will face enemies on both sides of the law, for Lisette’s schemes have given her power in both Davillon’s government and its underworld. For even a slim chance, Shins must call on both old friends–some of whom haven’t yet forgiven her–and new allies.
Even with their help, Widdershins may be required to make the hardest sacrifice of her life, if she is to rid Davillon–and herself–of Lisette once and for all.
Available February 3, 2015
Robert Junker – AISFP Contributor
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