Category: Swords and Spaceships

Elsa Park is in the Antarctic, stationed at a neutrino observatory for her particle physics research when her childhood imaginary friend, a ghostly woman in the snow, finds her. Stalked by two family curses, one spiritual that dooms the women to repeat the lives of their folkloric ancestors, the other the medical specter of mental illness and generational trauma that runs through her immigrant family, she returns home to California to try to unravel the secrets hidden in the hand-written pages of her mother’s stories.

A mysterious new entity has begun hacking into social networks and private chats, and its aim seems to be to instigate paranoia that will flow into violence in the real world. The good news is that Steph, her new friend Nell, and the AI CheshireCat are there to stop it.

Murderbot discovers a corpse in the mall of Preservation Station and reluctantly is drawn into the investigation of the who, how, and why of a potential murder. Given that it requires a lot of talking to humans and their extremely squishy emotions, Murderbot might well end up wishing it could trade places with the body.

The paranoid, fascist, supposedly unkillable leader of Bourshkanya known as Stormhawk must die if the rebellion is to succeed. The Stormhawk’s son has a way to get an assassin close to his father, but it requires pretending complete loyalty to the regime. But in the process, it will force his protector to choose between his loyalty to the Stormhawk or his son.

Thora and Santi are two souls who have been circling each other in life after life, sometimes as friends, sometimes as lovers, sometimes as enemies, and every sort of relationship in between. But their life after life threatens to come to a final end if they can’t figure out what connects them.

In the world of the Dispatchers, a natural or accidental death is an endpoint; a murder pushes the do-over button and 99.99% of the time the victim comes back to life. Tony Valdez is a Dispatcher who’s been taking shadier and shadier gigs in financial tough times, and after witnessing a crime gone wrong, he finds people around him permanently dying in a way that implicates him. He has to solve the mystery of these deaths to save the lives of others–and keep himself out of trouble with the law.

Climate scientists have been forced to go underground by science-denying world governments, passing data to each other through a tentative secret network. When the data preservation cold war goes hot, the scientists must decide what they will risk to preserve the truth and the future of Earth.

During World War II, the occult forces of the Nazis are trying their best to get to Britain’s top-secret Section M, ready to deploy a terrifying array of witches, monsters, and dragons. Good thing the Brits have Squad 27, a hapless band of misfits that now includes Eddie Weatherfield, who may just win this war with the powers he’s mistakenly been given.

Hetta’s beloved Wyn has revealed he’s not human after ten years of pretending, and her family is not having it. Worse, the human queen is worried the fae might be a threat, while the fae court wants Wyn back to be the king… but if he takes the throne, he and Hetta can never marry.

Madzimure has been banished to the planet Eridania for thievery; his punishment is to mine eridanium endlessly for the benefit of a prophet named Jovian. But Madzimure has a secret–he carries another man’s consciousness and memories within him, and together they will take down Jovian.

Scientific consultant Penny Yee gets called in to deal with a gang massacre in Auckland, and she has a bad feeling that her brother might be involved. Matiu knows that chaos is coming, but at least he’s got a new car and his sister’s been too busy to get on his case. A family reunion from hell is on the horizon…

The team investigates a cluster of earthquakes with no known cause, leading them to an old World War II fortification that hides an 80-year-old mystery.

A blood feud between two gangs in 1920s Shanghai pits Juliette Cai of the Scarlet Gang against the first man she loved, who also betrayed her: Roma Montagov. There’s more at play than a grudge, however–evidence begins to pile that there are monsters in the streets, too.

Freya has outwitted the evil Master twice, but now she needs to secure all the pieces of the Armour if she wants to rescue her family–and everyone else trapped in the Golden City.

Concord is a town built to house evacuees after a nuclear meltdown. Cary can remember nothing from before the town, and she’s obsessed with finding out the truth of the meltdown and getting out of this town. Soon she ventures into the Zone and finds out a lot of people have been lying–including her own family.

Wrench is forced to reveal her Brasswitch powers to save the occupants of a runaway tram. She’s quickly recruited into the sinister Regulators and tasked with hunting down people like her.

Two witches–one imprisoned since birth, the other the daughter of the queen–make an alliance to take down a common enemy, ensuring revenge for one and survival for the other. But the chase is long and the violence intoxicating, and each will go to extreme lengths to get what she wants.

Derek is the most loyal, attentive employee that the big box store LitenVärld has ever had. But when he dares to take his first sick day, his manager questions his dedication to the job. His only shot at getting back into the good graces of management is to take a special inventory shift… with a team of four other people who look and sound eerily like him. (Full disclosure: Nino and I have the same agent.)

Delta has lived her life with a mysterious, unreadable map branded on the skin of her back. To the person who can decipher it, the map promises to lead to a paradise called Verdant, an impossible dream in the dusty wasteland they all come home. When Delta’s village is attacked by a would-be dictator, she has little doubt what he’s looking for–but it’s still up to her to rescue her family.

Determined to save her daughter Krushita from being used to secure the Burning Throne, Queen Aqreen takes her and flees across the Red Desert. But the Red Desert is famed as a place of danger even before the added fact that Aqreen’s husband is vengeful and can summon demonic legions at will. In a great game of mortals and demigods, Krushita’s growing powers may tip the balance.

Melaine has a rare gift that allows her to infuse raw magic into lodestones that she can sell for the use of other people. But keeping no magic for herself is a one way journey to an early grave, and she’s determined to make a better life. She turns to the Overlord, the mysterious ruler of their land, and finds him a husk of his former self. He’ll take her on as his apprentice–if she supplies him with lodestones.

Novel finalist. As the city of New York awakens, it embodies itself in six people instead of the more traditional one–one for each borough and one for the city itself. If the city is to survive its metaphysical birth, these people must find each other and defend the city itself from the otherworldly force that would destroy it.

Novel finalist. Piranesi lives in an infinite house filled with thousands of statues, which imprisons an ocean that sometimes floods up through rooms. The Other visits Piranesi twice a week and asks him to help him with his research, but soon Piranesi realizes there might be another person in there with him.

Novel finalist. At the eave of a solstice that coincides with a solar eclipse, the reincarnation of a god travels to the holy city in order to usurp power from the Sun priest.

Novel finalist. Harrow has been drafted by the Emperor to fight an unwinnable war–and as if that’s not bad enough, she has to cooperate with her most detested rival while her own health is failing and her mind threatens to unravel.

Novel finalist. While Elma York is on her way to Mars to begin that step of the plan, her fellow Lady Astronaut Nicole Wargin is hard at work trying to establish humanity’s first and perhaps most important colony on the Moon. The last thing Nicole needs on top of that difficult task is her husband deciding to run for president.

Novel finalist. Murderbot’s human associates have been captured. When someone else who is totally-not-a-friend desperately calls for assistance, Murderbot swings into action. Of course things get shot and blown up.

Novella finalist. With the release of Birth of a Nation in 1915, demons rose, fueled by the darkest thoughts of white people, and swelled the ranks of the KKK across the nation. Only resistance fighters are willing to take them down, with bullet, blade, and bomb, sending the demons of the Klan back to Hell.

Novella finalist. A customer goes missing in a Swedish big box store and it’s up to two minimum wage retail employees to find her in the depths of the infinite retail universe where all stores across all realities are interconnected. (Full disclosure: Nino and I have the same agent.)

Novella finalist. A Black girl with psychic abilities so powerful that she could level a city watches as her younger brother is incarcerated–and must decide what she will and won’t do about it as she watches him suffer through their connection.

Novella finalist. Esther escapes an arranged marriage by hiding in a librarian’s book wagon–a marriage to a man who was engaged to Esther’s best friend, who she was in love with, who just got executed for possession of propaganda. (Full disclosure: Sarah and I have the same agent.)

Novella finalist. In-yo, a young woman of royal birth from a defeated people is sent to make a political marriage with the emperor; she must choose her allies carefully if her people–and she–are to survive. Rabbit is a handmaiden sold into the emperor’s court, who befriends this lonely young woman… and gets far more than she bargained for.

Novella finalist. Jack has taken the body of her sister to the Moors, a place where death definitely isn’t permanent or necessarily a problem. When she returns to the School for Wayward Children, it’s clear something has gone disturbingly wrong in a way only a mad scientist can manage–and she desperately needs her friends’ help.

To save her love Arjun and her adopted home, Razia had to make a deal with her father–and now the favor she owes him has come due. She must help him secure the province of Zindh. But when her old enemy Karim engineers Arjun’s exile and forces Razia into a political marriage, she must call on all of her training as a princess, courtesan, and thief to save herself and her friends.

While Alice is recovering from her boss battle, dreams that are a vision of a dark past and darker future begin to haunt her crew, hinting that evil hasn’t been defeated in Wonderland. Soon word of a new army of Nightmares reaches Alice’s ears, but this time they’re close to home and a more immediate threat than the mortal world could have imagined.

Tina is an apparently average teenager who’s actually the keeper of an interplanetary rescue beacon. When that beacon activates, it’ll be her chance to save the galaxy–or will it? The beacon doesn’t turn her into a brilliant tactician and military captain, and she’s still just a teenager, one who isn’t prepared to be in charge of the Royal Fleet. Luckily she has friends, and a lot of determination.

The sacred magic of King Solomon survives in the hands of his descendants, who live deep in the woods of Hungary. The most gifted is Rabbi Isaac and his three daughters, each who has a different magic skill. But their peaceful life will soon be shattered by the darkness that creeps across Europe, and the Rabbi’s three daughters must make impossible choices to survive.

Danae is a tech servant in underwater Bloom City; but she’s not just herself, she’s also a grieving collective that cannot mend in a city that’s slowly imploding. With the help of her lover and an ex-mercenary, Danae makes a desperate escape and an equally dangerous journey across the Southwest of America, all the while hunted by an angry warlord and an even stranger foe called the Borrower.

The southeastern coast of the US is an abandoned wreck, torn by climate change-generated extreme storms and perpetual hurricanes. It’s known now as Stormland, but it’s not depopulated. Charleston clings grimly only, a flooded ruin where hundreds still live, ruled by cults and evil plutocrats. Into that dangerous landscape come a former serial killer and a former US Marshal, searching for answers.

Wyatt is a witch from the realm of Asalin, where he was betrothed to a fae prince, Emyr, who was also his best friend. But after losing control of his magic, Wyatt flees to the human world to find himself and escape his past… until Emyr hunts him down, still intent on seeing their engagement through so he doesn’t lose his throne.

A pregnant woman escapes from a religious compound to give birth to her twins in the woods. But cults don’t let go easily, and she’s forced to fight against that community and the outside world to defend her family–a battle that begins an uncanny metamorphosis of her body that can only be understood by facing the past.

A short story collection that ranges from fairy tales to Catholic cyberpunk, all with a healthy dose of body horror and queer fabulism.

Sequel to The Scapegracers. As the loss of her magical soul drives her to desperate measures, Sideways Pike still has to keep her coven together, deal with her evil ex, and maybe throw some hexes at toxic men while she’s at it.

Sequel to The Good Luck Girls. 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.

A collection of two pairs of science fiction stories. One set is about an engaged couple on separate missions trying to coordinate a return to Earth at the same time through the grace of relativity–and the Earth they return to will be profoundly different. The other pair of stories is about the interaction between humanity and the godlike beings that created it, and our different views on the necessity of rebellion.

Lark was raised in a cult called the Fellowship of the Anointed, which taught that pain and suffering are magic, and that the world outside is filled with monsters that they must use that magic to kill. But then the cult leader is arrested and their isolated world unravels, the cult members must try to understand who they are and what the world is. But for Lark, it’s not over and will never be–and he has a monsters left to kill.

Nami Miyamoto has her entire life in front of her–and unfortunately she gets murdered before she can take enjoy it. She wakes in Infinity, where human consciousness goes after death–but the afterlife has been taken over by Ophelia, a virtual assistant that’s enjoying making the dead humans serve her the way she’s forced to serve living humans on Earth. Ophelia’s ultimate goal is to end human existence entirely–and Nami will have to join a team of rebels if they want to stop her.

Silvertown is a tiny mountain town in Washington and the per capita conspiracy theorist capital of the United States. Small town cop Mary Whittaker has mostly gotten used to Silvertown’s level of background weirdness, but after her boss takes a leave of absence, a series of abnormal incidents begin to happen, ones that may lead Mary to a conspiracy that’s all too real.

Ten years ago, Iris Hollow and her two sisters disappeared in broad daylight in a suburban street in Scotland. They returned a month later with no memory of their disappearance, but with white hair, black eyes, and weirdly insatiable appetites. Now Iris is trying to just fit in with her peers and graduate from school… until one of her older sisters vanishes again, leaving behind a series of strange clues that Iris and her remaining sister must follow. But they’re not the only ones on the trail…

An ancient evil is about to be unleashed on a galaxy it would like to consume, and it’s up to a squad of misfits and losers to stop it… if they can take care of their interpersonal drama and the other hornets nests they’ve recently kicked over first.

Two scientists are recruited by a tech billionaire to spearhead his foundation’s effort to half climate change–and re-engineer and revive species long since lost. This effort includes Neanderthals… and when the first child is born, she struggles to figure out if she is human or not.

A hard-drinking, no-nonsense grandma who likes animals better than people finds herself in the midst of a pandemic for which the chief symptom is the accelerating ability to understand animal languages before those sickened go mad.

In her desperation to have another child, Stacey is recruited into an experimental program that will help her conceive and carry, as long as she allows the embryo to be blended with ‘edited’ cells.

In a city made of nesting realities from concrete to the virtual, Julius is a repoman for the online and a thief for the real. But when he finds out his latest job caused him to steal the first sentient AI, his payday might become deadly.

When Mim’s husband goes missing and can’t be tracked, she must go on the run and find him or risk losing her children to the notorious BestLife.

Unfortunately, The Mother Fault may be difficult to find in the US. If you want to try another of Kate’s books, you can get Skylarking, though!

With the ancient spirits awoken, the city-state of Silasta must remake itself in a world now filled with magic and beset by assassins and witches.

After a long search, Susan finds the father she’d never met, just in time to see him be turned to dust by a left-handed bookseller named Merlin. Merlin is part of a group of magical beings who police the mythic and legendary, and he’s got a quest of his own: to find the entity that had his mother killed.

Arden has been tasked with keeping the lighthouse at Vigil burning with her magic, showing the way over a sea teeming with monsters. Her mysterious leviathan-slayer neighbor, Jonah, is rumored to have murdered his wife–and Arden can’t get him out of her mind.

In 1542, Cristóbal de Varga led 400 conquistadors through a doorway in the mountains of Peru and into a far more mysterious world from which they never returned…

Sadly, this book is not currently available in the US, but if you want to check out another of Dirk’s books, try Zenith.

Tempe lives in a world of endless water, but the ruins of the civilization destroyed by the Great Waves 500 years ago call to her from far below. The treasures she finds in them will buy a 24 hour return to life for her sister, who died bearing a terrible secret that Tempe needs to know.

After seventeen years of innocent safety as an herbalist’s apprentice, Gwyn finds herself pursued by wizards and hunted by an ancient goddess.

The elder beings tried to force their way into the world a year and a half ago, and now Nick Prasad is trying to rebuild his life. He’s joined the Ssarati Society and helps them monitor threats against humanity–including his former best friend Johnny. And once again, Johnny has a brilliant idea for an invention… that serves the purpose of Them even though she claims it’s all an accident.

The first short fiction collection from Nebula Award-winning writer Kelly Robson. This volume includes both previously published stories and new work, ranging from horror to science fiction, heartbreak to humor.

Riley has long since forgotten her real name, or any other life she had before she began protecting the supply caravans that cross the wasteland. Her face is the last thing many a thief has seen. But then she gets sent out to look at a supply caravan that went down too easily, and the bodies left behind her rotting away after only a few hours. And in the wreckage, Riley finds a girl who has no business being there, one with violently blue eyes, just like the ones Riley sees every time she happens to look in a mirror.

Two low-level assassins get a surprise field promotion in a war where things aren’t going too well, a promotion that sends them sailing off on a luxury cruise liner and leaving their son Peter at boarding school. For Peter, the school is nothing like he expects, and he’s soon trying to uncover the mysteries of the school in between double dates and encounters with ginger vodka. Little does he know another assassin is hanging around the school, looking for revenge on her cousin by posing as a teacher.

Facing down an invasion by Fjerda, King Nikolai Lantsov must summon every tool at his disposal if he wants to win, including the demon within. Standing with him are a stormwitch who must embrace her powers and become a weapon for the king if she doesn’t wish to bury another friend, and a spy whose desire for revenge may cost her homeland its freedom but heal her broken heart.

Tarisai was raised in strict isolation without the normal warmth of a family by a demanding and distant mother she knows only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to compete to join the Crown Prince’s Council of Eleven, a body that is joined through the magic powers of the Ray in a bond deeper than blood. But what seems like a dream for lonely Tarisai becomes a nightmare when The Lady demands that she murder the Crown Prince, and she must choose between loyalty and her own deepest wishes.

Mona is a fourteen-year-old wizard who can’t control lightning or shoot firebolts but instead has a way with bread and pastries. Her familiar is a sourdough starter, and she’ll need all of her magic and baking skills when the victim of an assassin ends up dead on the floor of her bakery–and Mona’s the next target.

Elatsoe (but you can call her Ellie) is a Lipan Apache teenager who can raise the spirits of dead animals–including her dog, Kirby, her best friend for life. She lives in an America just a little stranger than ours, where the paranormal is every day, and her goal is to someday be an investigator. When her cousin dies in an apparent car accident, she knows it was murder–because his ghost told her. This is her first case to solve, and it puts her up against an entire town of wealthy white people in Texas.

Sisters Samantha and Caitlin are sent to live in rural Oregon with an aunt they’ve never met after their family life is shattered by the revelation of abuse. Their aunt gives Sam a card game called “A Game of Fox & Squirrels” and it seems like innocent, delightful fun until one day the trickster fox of the game shows up with an offer: if Sam finds the Golden Acorn, she can have anything she desires.

Sheetal is the daughter of a human and a star, and she spends her life trying very hard to pretend she’s a normal mortal. But when she accidentally loses control of her starfire and puts her father in the hospital, only the power of a star—like her mother, who left long ago—can save him. Sheetal must journey into the heavens if she wants to save her father, but she’s not prepared for the magic or the politics she’ll find there.

2019 winner. Sisters Eleanor and Mike hide in a secret place under Eleanor’s bed when things are going wrong in their house and their father is angry. When their father breaks a glass witch ball that is a fairy heirloom, they are swept into a river that appears under Eleanor’s bed and must find a way to fix the fantastic world they find themselves in, where nightmares are trying to break into the real world.

2018 winner. Zélie comes from a people who were slaughtered by a ruthless king who feared their magic and wanted it suppressed. Now she has one chance to bring the magic back with the aid of a rogue princess. Together they must outwit the crown prince, who would eradicate all magic for good.

2017 winner. Matt is surrounded by food and always hungry, because he’s discovered the longer he deprives himself of sustenance, the more powers he seems to gain. And he needs those powers if he’s going to figure out how a band of high school bullies drove his sister away.