Friday, January 27, 2017

Promising Sci-fi, horror & Fantasy - January 2017

While January may not be a month to be over-excited about in terms of books, it does have some works by well known and capable authors as well as a surprise sequel I wasn't really expecting among the releases.

"Passing Strange" by Ellen Klages from Tor.com

San Francisco in 1940 is a haven for the unconventional. Tourists flock to the cities within the city: the Magic City of the World’s Fair on an island created of artifice and illusion; the forbidden city of Chinatown, a separate, alien world of exotic food and nightclubs that offer “authentic” experiences, straight from the pages of the pulps; and the twilight world of forbidden love, where outcasts from conventional society can meet.
Six women find their lives as tangled with each other’s as they are with the city they call home. They discover love and danger on the borders where mystery, science, and art intersect.
Inspired by the pulps, film noir, and screwball comedy, Passing Strange is a story as unusual and complex as San Francisco itself from World Fantasy Award winning author Ellen Klages.






[ An unorthodox release by Tor.com which intrigues me just enough to check it out. Who knows, it just might turn out way better than I am expecting. ]

"Home (Binti #2) by Nnedi Okorafor from Tor.com

The thrilling sequel to the Nebula-nominated Binti.
It’s been a year since Binti and Okwu enrolled at Oomza University. A year since Binti was declared a hero for uniting two warring planets. A year since she left her family to pursue her dream.
And now she must return home to her people, with her friend Okwu by her side, to face her family and face her elders.
But Okwu will be the first of his race to set foot on Earth in over a hundred years, and the first ever to come in peace.
After generations of conflict can human and Meduse ever learn to truly live in harmony?
  


[ Another Tor.com novellas and a sequel I was not expecting. While I wasn't really blown away by the plot of 'Binti', the prose was excellent and exploring the world could be a lot of fun. ] 
  


"Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day' by Seanan McGuire from Tor.com

When her sister Patty died, Jenna blamed herself. When Jenna died, she blamed herself for that, too. Unfortunately Jenna died too soon. Living or dead, every soul is promised a certain amount of time, and when Jenna passed she found a heavy debt of time in her record. Unwilling to simply steal that time from the living, Jenna earns every day she leeches with volunteer work at a suicide prevention hotline.
But something has come for the ghosts of New York, something beyond reason, beyond death, beyond hope; something that can bind ghosts to mirrors and make them do its bidding. Only Jenna stands in its way.
 


[ Three promising releases from Tor.com in one month? Wow! But, who can pass up a standalone from Seanan McGuire, which is sure to be a delight. ]




"The Last Sacrifice (The Tides of War #1) by James A. Moore from Angry Robot

Since time began, the Grakhul – immortal servants of the gods – have taken human sacrifices to keep the world in balance and the gods appeased. When they choose the family of warrior Brogan McTyre, everything changes.

Brogan begins the toughest battle of his life to free his family from their terrible fate. But when you challenge the gods, you challenge the very fabric of society. Declared an outcast, Brogan and his kin are hunted like criminals – but nothing will stand in his way.


[ New series from James A. Moore, who is a writer I admire a lot due to his ability of magnificent world-building and face paced story telling. I know he won't disappoint me this time as well. ]






"Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero (Primarchs #3) by Graham McNeill from Black Library

Fighting in the Great Crusade beside his staunchly anti-mystical brother Perturabo, the psychic primarch Magnus and his Legion of knowledge-seekers must walk a fine line between their mission and their own desire to learn forbidden secrets.
Lord of the mystical and uncanny, Magnus the Red has long studied the ancient crafts of sorcery. A psyker without peer, save only for the Emperor himself, he commands his loyal followers of the Thousand Sons Legion in the Great Crusade, though also vigilant for any lost knowledge they might recover from the remains of dead human civilisations. Now, fighting alongside his brother Perturabo of the Iron Warriors, Magnus begins to foresee an approaching nexus of fate - will he remain true to their mutual aims, or divert his own efforts towards furthering his own mastery of the warp?
Graham McNeill returns to a character he defined in the Horus Heresy series to tell a definitive tale of the one-eyed primarch.
 


(PS: This is only a limited edition, the general wide-scale publication will be on April, but I try to always stick to the first published date rule, so...)

[ The third in the Primarchs series, and one focusing on a character I am meaning to learn more about for a while now, should be a treat into the rich lore of Black Library. ] 

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