Category: Swords and Spaceships

I love a good anthology, and this one — full of speculative fiction from African and African diaspora writers — is at the top of my TBR.

Couldn’t get enough of the Amazon Prime Rings of Power TV show? This newly expanded edition of Tolkien’s writings about the Second Age of Middle-Earth should satisfy that craving.

The Colorado mining town of Goetia booms with prospectors in 1883; wealth practically pours from the mines where a new element called Divinity has been found. It is the descendants of demons, called the Fallen, who helped find this new ore. And it is the Virtues, who won the ancient war, who rule. When card sharp Celeste’s sister is accused of murdering a Virtue, she must take on the role of advocatus diaboli to save her.

Kaori and Kair are twins, one born of fire and one born of water — and they are the first twins to survive into childhood on the island of Mu, a place where gender is fluid as water. But their survival is not greeted with celebration, because a prophecy hangs over them: they will lead to the destruction of the island, with volcano and tsunami.

Zuberi, Lencho, and Uzochi have never seen their utopic, ancestral homeland of Nubia; it was destroyed by massive storms. Their families fled as climate refugees to New York City, already suffering its own climate difficulties and torn by class struggle. For most of their fellow Nubians, being a refugee means being constantly disrespected. But these three teenagers are awakening to something more, powers both extraordinary and terrifying that they could use to either lift their people up — or leave them behind.

Bree wanted only to find out the truth about her mother’s death when she infiltrated the Legendborn Order; on the other side, she’s found herself the wielder of power she could have never imagined. She is a medium, a bloodcrafter, and a scion — and the boy she has fallen in love with has been kidnapped. The Regent of the Order claim they want to protect her, and that secrecy is of the utmost importance; Bree isn’t about to let any of that stop her.

A collection of new short stories inspired by the eastern European legend of Baba Yaga, the witch who lives in a house that runs on chicken legs and travels in a mortar and pestle.

A magical detective once sold her soul to save her brother’s life; now she’s got a chance to do one last job before taking her place in hell for the rest of eternity. But when she refuses, the client offers her the impossible: a chance to have a future, one where she stays with the woman she loves. All she has to do is track down Chicago’s most dangerous serial killer, the White City Vampire.

Viv is an orc who has lived her life as a sellsword…but now she’s ready to retire, and she’s got a plan. She’ll open the first coffee shop in the city of Thune, a place where no one actually has any idea what coffee is, let alone its fancier preparations.

Here’s a new short story collection by the inimitable Nisi Shawl, one that focuses on old growth and fresh decay, and the connections between life and nonlife.

Ranka is a young blood-witch already tired of life, traumatized by her past; all she wishes is to live quietly with her coven. But when she is chosen as the treaty bride to be given south to the human kingdom of Isodal, she is sent with one mission: kill him. But the prince is nothing like Ranka expected, and neither is his sister — and when other witches begin to die of a mysterious, magical plague, Ranka’s only chance is to make alliances and finally learn to control her magic.

The avatars of New York City may have temporarily defeated the Woman in White, but she has far more powers at her disposal — and now she’s angry. Her new attack takes the form of a candidate for mayor wielding racist, xenophobic, populist rhetoric who seems set on warping the very fabric of the city. If the avatars are to triumph over this enemy, they’ll need to join together with the other Great Cities to do it.

Tennal is a neuromodified “reader” who can quite literally read minds and navigate spaceships across interstellar distances, a rare asset, who has been conscripted into the military. There, he’s placed under the care of Surit, the son of a disgraced general and an “architect” who can impose his will on others — and in this case, he’s supposed to control Tennal by merging their minds together. But Surit is too honorable to follow his illegal orders, and so he and Tennal fake a sync bond so they can both plot their escape…until a war begins in their path.

A second “sun” has appeared in Earth’s sky — “sun” being a loose term here, since it looks more like Pac-Man in shape — and it’s causing a massive heatwave. As the mysterious “sun” approaches and the heat cranks up, the Korean government decides to help by aiding the U.S.-led Allied Space Force, creating its own Korean Space Force.

Peyote Trip is a regular guy in the deals department…on the fifth floor of Hell. It’s not a bad job (though the coffee maker has been broken for centuries), but he’s gunning for a promotion — and he’ll have it if he just gets one more member of the Harrison family to sign their soul over. When the Harrisons go on vacation to the family lake house, he jumps into action with his coworker Calamity…but things are not as they seem, and a sure deal…isn’t.

Wandering cleric Chih — accompanied by a talking bird with a perfect memory named Almost Brilliant — travels the lands to record tales of the strange and interesting. This journey takes them to the riverlands in search of near-immortal martial artists; on their journey they fall in with a pair of young women and an older couple, and this drags them headlong into an ancient feud that they never expected.

For decades, everyone in the Seattle-Portland megalopolis have lived under both constant surveillance and the slogan WHAT’S RIGHT IS RIGHT. Then came a revolution, freeing everyone from the rigid control of the Delegation — and imprisoning the former rulers. Sonya was once a poster girl for the Delegation, and she’s been in prison for that for 10 years. Then she’s offered a chance at freedom: find a missing girl who was abducted by the old regime and earn her way out.

Katyani is the best guardswoman in Garuda, advisor to the prince — and subject of a forbidden soul bond to the queen of Chandela that saved her as a child. After a foiled assassination attempt leaves her with a faceless corpse on her hands and no further leads, she dutifully follows the princes to a monastic school in a forest where monsters roam. When tragedy strikes, Katyani finds herself separated from the only life she has ever known, and the key to her future will be the answers found only in her past.

In the 1960s, Mars has been sending Earth mathematical puzzles by carving them into the surface of the planet; it’s been 30 years since the last unsolved proof, however. But Crystal Singer, her boyfriend Rick, and three other MIT grad students think they have the answer and trek out to Arizona to paint it across the desert. But after this experiment of theirs, Crystal disappears…and Rick is left to find a new path for himself.

Pepper Rafferty seems to have a good life now (two loving mothers, a stable and supportive husband), but she had a rough start — she was abandoned as an infant on the front porch of a veterinarian. And while she’s kept the knowledge secret, she’s known who her biological mother is since she was 15: none other than reclusive painter Ula Frost, who claims her portraits summon the doppelgängers of their subjects. But knowing this, Pepper cannot help but wonder if there is another universe, where her mother might have kept her…

Sequel to The Atlas Six. Once, six magicians were presented with an almost unimaginable opportunity and access to power. Five of them are now members of the Society of Alexandrians, but all six of them must still pick a side when it comes to the world-changing plans of the terrifyingly powerful head of the Alexandrians.