Categories
Swords and Spaceships

Getting the (Bounty Hunter) Band Back Together and Other New Releases

Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex, with a selection of new releases and a few news items for you. My foray into the world of the garage sale went well over the weekend (I was excited to see how many people wanted to buy books!) but things took a downright post apocalyptic turn Saturday morning, when a change in the wind blew a massive amount of wildfire smoke over use. We’re talking yellow skin, dull orange sun, light looking pink on the concrete. It was a commonplace experience last year during wildfire season, and I’m not excited to see it back. I hope you’re staying safe out there, space pirates, and remember that N95s can filter out the smoke if it gets bad where you are. See you on Friday!

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co


New Releases

Cover of Under the Milky Way by Vanessa Barneveld

Under the Milky Way by Vanessa Barneveld

Dawson, Colorado, is a sleepy town where nothing happens, until Cassidy’s mom check’s into a “wellness center” for apparently no reason. And everyone continues to insist that nothing is happening when mysterious lights appear in the sky and people find themselves missing chunks of time. And the new boy in school, Hayden, starts to notice Cassidy… while she notices that everything weird going on seems to lead right back to him.

They Met in a Tavern by Elijah Menchaca

A group of former heroes known as the Starbreakers have long since gone their separate ways and built their own lives after the destruction of a city left them all blaming each other. But now bounty hunters are tracking them down and they have little choice to reunite if they want to protect what little they have left. After seven years, getting back together is even harder than breaking up, and they need to mend old wounds if they want to survive.

Cover of The Sisters of Reckoning by Charlotte Nicole Davies

The Sisters of Reckoning by Charlotte Nicole Davis

Now that the Good Luck Girls are free, most have crossed the border to pursue new lives, while Aster tries to help more girls escape. But when she finds out about a new welcome house opening, she decides that helping individuals isn’t enough. She hatches an ambitious and dangerous plan to free all dustbloods, and calls upon her friends to make it a reality.

The Rookery by Deborah Hewitt

Alice Wyndham has discovered within herself a magical ability–she can see souls. Now, she wishes to return to the Rookery, learn to use her magic, and discover the truth behind who she is. But barely-remembered secrets from her past threaten her plans and the Rookery is on the brink of destruction. To save her city and her people, there are more sacrifices she must make.

Cover of The Shimmering State by Meredith Westgate

The Shimmering State by Meredith Westgate

A new drug, Memoroxin, is undergoing testing as a treatment for Alzheimer’s. Unsurprisingly, this drug has also seen far more recreational use throughout Hollywood, with those who have abused it finding their memories deeply affected if not completely erased. Lucien, whose mother has Alzheimer’s, and Sophie, a ballerina who makes ends meet with waitressing, meet at a treatment facility for heavy users of Memoroxin. Inexplicably drawn to each other, they cannot remember anything that came before… such as how they might actually know each other.

The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel

Kobo is a scout for Big Pharma-owned baseball teams, scoping out the latest genetically-augmented players… but he’s barely scraping by and doesn’t have the money to update his own cybernetics while loan sharks are closing in. Then his brother gets murdered, and Kobo must level up to searching through an entirely new stratum of corruption and risk both his safety and sanity.

News and Views

Congratulations to the winners of the 2021 Sir Julius Vogel Awards!

Over at his Patreon, Charles Payseur rounded up a ton of queer short SFF published in July

Read Before Assembly: The Influence of Sci-Fi on Technology and Design

Martha Wells and Becky Chambers in conversation

Rankin designs covers for Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy

Arrakis Rippers: A Guide to Dune-inspired Metal

Interview with Adrian Tchaikovsky

Interview with John Appel

Young People Read Old SFF does Neutron Star by Larry Niven

The Tolkien Society has announced its Autumn Seminar

Writing Against the Grain: T. Kingfisher’s Feminist Mythopoeic Fantasy

On Book Riot

Hopepunk featuring creative solutions to the climate crisis

This month you can enter to win a $250 Barnes & Noble gift card, a $100 gift card to a Black-owned bookstore, a pair of airpods pro, and a QWERKY keyboard.


See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.