September was such a busy month for me, so I am a bit late with the list for October. This month has releases from some big names of the genre writing circle. And also some relative newcomers as well. These are my picks from the promising stuff.
"The Thrice-Bound Fool (Blacktongue #2)" by Christopher Buehlman from Tor Books/ Gollancz
Galva, veteran of the goblin wars and death’s sworn handmaiden, has vowed to protect Kinch while he mines the book for its dark magic and even darker secrets. She does so not for Kinch’s sake—though the cheeky bastard is growing on her—but because the book is the key to stopping the shadowy tyrants out to kill the queen she serves, and loves.
The ruthless, all-seeing Taker’s Guild dogs their every step, and thief and knight must flee the known world entirely if they hope to succeed in their mission. But trouble finds Kinch wherever he goes, and the pair may have traded the devil they know for horrors far darker and hungrier as they enter lands unknown.
[ I still haven't read the first book yet, but meaning to check out this highly acclaimed series. ]
"Legacies of Betrayal (The Tales of Witness #3)" by Steven Erikson from Tor Books / Bantam UK
Year by year, month by month, week by week, day by day, moment by moment. Skills are honed to deadly precision, the secret language of the soldier in a world drowning in perpetual discontent, the eternal conflict against the fates. And we should forget the seemingly inevitable interference of mischievous gods and more often than not, the resurrected remains of ancient and once believed long-dead entities.
As a new holy war starts sparked in the fire-blackened cauldron of Seven Cities, the Fifth and Sixth squads are about to embark a mission they don't want for a cause they don't care about. Not that anybody asked their opinion. They can only hope that their objective isn't as hopeless as it seems, and that they aren't simply being used as pawns—a strategic sacrifice, if you will, in the machinations of their betters.
So what's life like as a marine in the Malazan Army?
Well, let's see, shall we...
"Off the Reservation (The Only Good Indians #2)" by Stephen Graham Jones from Saga Press / Titan Books
Five years have passed since the massacre on the Blackfeet reservation in Stephen Graham Jones’s breakout bestseller The Only Good Indians. Nathan Yellow Tail, one of the survivors of the revenge murders, finds himself in the hospital after a terrible accident that should’ve killed him and that nearly killed his best friend, Sebby, who is hanging on to life in a room a few doors down.
Nate’s life is out of balance, so when he is given the chance to reset his life, and maybe save Sebby in the process, Nate steps up, again. This time it’s into a camper van that is almost as run down as his broken body, filled with three older Blackfeet, to find the bones of the lone Blackfeet boy who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School—where many Indigenous children were abused—and repatriate this boy home. The problem is, when they get the bones, something terrible has escaped with them.
By turns terrifying and deeply moving, Off the Reservation is a haunting American Indian novel of survival, reckoning, and redemption, shining light on the dark corners of this country’s history while also showing the desperate choices people make when they’re put up against a wall.
[ The second book in another acclaimed series. Should read this soon as well, I think.]
"Find Me Where It Ends" by Cassandra Khaw from Tor Nightfire / Titan Books
Antigone is no stranger to death.
For the women of her family, death always comes in the form of a black dog.
When Antigone’s own black dog arrives, she isn’t afraid. She invites it inside, where it soon becomes a daily source of companionship and comfort. It also forces her to reflect on the life she’s led—the parts of herself she’s hollowed out for the sake of others, and the bone-deep exhaustion that’s hounded her every step.
Her Death’s arrival must be a sign, permission to finally let go. To rest. Because while mortality is inevitable, living is a choice.
But a good death comes at a price.
"Frankenstein Rex" by Adam Roberts from Gollancz
Frankenstein is the name of the maker, but we always think of the monster...
And what a monster he is. Frankenstein is a splendid creature, in almost every respect superior to humanity: smarter, stronger, and able to endure extremes of heat and cold that would kill a normal person. He is also effectively immortal.
Such a being, released into our world, would sooner or later come to rule it. Welcome to FRANKENSTEIN REX.
The monster's ugliness is a positive advantage: his towering height and ghastly face scream power; and people, who understand that power is never pretty, that it is brute and unpleasant and that our best chance is to have it on our side rather than set against us, flock to follow him. In a few years the monster conquers Europe, and in a matter of decades he rules the whole world.
But although generations come and go believing their world-dictator to be immortal, the creature himself now understands that he is dying. The creature re-opens Frankenstein's original research, to re-discover those lost skills and techniques and so to create for himself an heir.
[ Well, this has a very interesting premise. Somehow I feel like I am going to enjoy this.]
"The Fist of Memory" by Whole Talabi from DAW books / Gollancz
Fist Of Memory is simultaneously a near-future thriller and a meditation on the nature of memory, legacy, and connectedness.
When a strange and non-communicative alien spacecraft suddenly appears in the night sky, approaching Earth at an impossible velocity, the established world order is thrown into turmoil.
But for Tope, a principled and extremely effective Nigerian assassin with a bionic arm and talent for lethality who works for anyone willing to pay her oga - the mysterious witchdoctor known only as 'Baba' - it's all just business as usual. That is, until a routine job goes sideways, and she gets caught up in a high stakes game of power and politics.
Tope is joined by Itumeleng, a South African astronomer who has seen her and the alien craft in his dreams and, like her, is haunted by a complicated past. Now they must both survive long enough to navigate their way through the maze of competing agendas and understand how they, and all of humanity, are connected to the alien craft before it lands and the world changes forever.
But it won't be easy. There are powerful, sinister forces determined to kill them, including a strange and motivated supernatural assassin obsessed with a single memory . . .
[ Another one with such a well thought out setting and characters, at least it seems so on the surface. Hopefully it is as good as it sounds. ]
"The Scarlet Ball" by Nghi Vo from Tor Books / Del Rey
Pick a face, pick a fate.
Judith Ban, former convent girl, courtesan, and failed thief, is on the lookout for her next identity. The daughter of a Vietnamese adventuress and a French naval officer, she’s no stranger to risk, but she’s unprepared for the secrets of New York’s legendary Four Hundred, or for the women who build their power at the city’s heart through blood-soaked, gold-etched rituals of demonic marriage.
In exchange for enough wealth to outrun her past, Judith strikes a deal with the matriarch of the powerful Howard family: she will stand in for the missing Howard granddaughter, who was poised to make her debut when she disappeared. With Miss Iphigenia Marshall’s face stitched over her own, Judith is white, rich, and about to risk body and soul in the deadly games that determine which girls will find a match—and which will be devoured. If she can keep her wits and her life, her reward will be a husband with undreamt-of power who will be hers to command... so long as she can keep his infinite hungers fed. But to survive the season, Judith will have to seduce a storm in the shape of a man, before the night to which everything has been leading—the Scarlet Ball where the demons choose their brides.
