Mercenary Clones, Immortal Tightrope Dancers, and Other New Releases

Maya is a member of the infamous Dirty Dozen, a group of criminals that operated all over the galaxy before being destroyed in one last job that went terribly wrong. She’s lived countless lives, resurrected over and over again in cyborg bodies. Now the broken remnants of the old crew are getting back together to try to solve the disaster of their last mission–but they’re not the only ones in pursuit of that dangerous secret.

If you didn’t know that William Gibson wrote a screenplay for Alien 3 that was never actually filmed (we got a very different movie), now you do. And it’s been adapted into a novel by Pat Cadigan for your reading pleasure, an authorized fix-it fic where Ripley, Hicks, and Newt face a very different fate.

The Montoya family is one surrounded by inexplicable magic and mysteries they know better than to ask about. But when Orquídea Divina, the matriarch who refused to ever leave their home, even for weddings and baptisms, invites them to her own funeral, rather than answers or a direct inheritance, her transformation leaves them only with more questions. After seven years, this inheritance has manifested differently for each of her descendants… and put them in the line of fire of a mysterious enemy that seems determined to pick them off, one by one.

Riya–not her real name–has been on the run from the Guildmaster who rules all five kingdoms of Thamorr for six years. Every time she tries to settle down and rebuild her life, his servants find her again and she’s forced to run. She’s tired of running… and as powerful as he is, any man can be defeated. With a team of miscreants, smugglers, and thieves, Riya plans to strike at his stronghold and take back her freedom–if she can do so before her selfish allies betray her.

Laina gets tragic news one October morning: Boston police have shot and killed her brother. But soon, this horror reveals something far stranger: monsters are real. And they’re coming out of the shadows now, looking for safety. This shift in the social fabric of the world leads to strife and protests. But the one question no one seems to be asking as society reshapes itself is: what has frightened the monsters so badly that they came out of the dark?

The Escapement is a reality different from our own, and through it rides a lone gunman called the Stranger, on a desperate quest to save his son from a parallel world. The shifting landscape is filled with dangerous versions of things his son loves: clowns, battles, storms, stone giants, cowboys. As he struggles through this shifting landscape toward the Mountains of Darkness, time is running short.

Iris is used to being an object of curiosity in Victorian London; she’s an African tightrope dancer. But while her audience focuses on her looks, her true strangeness is hidden: she cannot die. With no memories of her past and this unnatural power, Iris is obsessed with learning who she actually is. As if her life isn’t complicated enough, she meets Adam Temple of the Enlightenment Committee, who tells her that the world is ending, and they’re looking for a leader in the upcoming apocalypse. It could be her–and she could learn about her past–if she can win the Tournament of Freaks.

A collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories from award-winning author Nina Allen, which includes 14 stories from over the past decade. In the collection is the Hugo finalist short story “The Art of Space Travel” and the British Science Fiction shortlisted story “Flying in the Face of God.”