Week of September 24th in Books – Sci Fi/Fantasy

a star shall fallA Star Shall Fall by Marie Brennan

The Royal Society of London plays home to the greatest minds of England. It has revolutionized philosophy and scientific knowledge. Its fellows map out the laws of the natural world, disproving ancient superstition and ushering in an age of enlightenment. 

To the fae of the Onyx Court, living in a secret city below London, these scientific developments are less than welcome. It is now 1757 and magic is losing its place in the world. Science threatens to expose the fae’s hidden city to hostile eyes.

In 1666, a Great Fire burned four-fifths of London to the ground. The calamity was caused by a great Dragon—an elemental beast of flame. Incapable of destroying something so powerful, the fae of London banished it to a comet moments before the comet’s light disappeared from the sky. Now the calculations of Sir Edmond Halley have predicted its return in 1759. 

So begins their race against time. Soon the Dragon’s gaze will fall upon London and it will return to the city it ravaged once before. The fae will have to answer the question that defeated them a century before: How can they kill a being more powerful than all their magic combined? It will take both magic and science to save London—but reconciling the two carries its own danger….

· ISBN-13: 9780765364500

· Pages: 448

alchemysticAlchemystic by Anton Strout

AN OLD FRIEND OF THE FAMILY…

Alexandra Belarus is a struggling artist living in New York City, even though her family is rich in real estate, including a towering Gothic Gramercy Park building built by her great-great-grandfather. But the truth of her bloodline is revealed when she is attacked on the street and saved by an inhumanly powerful winged figure. A figure who knows the Belarus name…

Lexi’s great-great-grandfather was a Spellmason—an artisan who could work magic on stone. But in his day, dark forces conspired against him and his, so he left a spell of protection on his family. Now that Lexi is in danger, the spell has awoken her ancestor’s most trusted and fearsome creation: a gargoyle named Stanis.

Lexi and Stanis are equally surprised to find themselves bound to each other. But as they learn to work together, they realize that only united can they save the city they both love…

· ISBN-13: 9781937007799

· Pages: 304

ashes of a black frostAshes of a Black Frost (Iron Elves Series #3) by Chris Evans

Amidst a sea of carnage on a desert battlefield blanketed in metallic snow, Major Konowa Swift Dragon sees his future, and it is one drenched in shadow and blood. Never mind that he has won a grand victory for the Calahrian Empire; he has failed in the search for his lost regiment of elves. But Konowa knows, as do the Iron Elves, that a far more important battle looms on the twisted, darkening path to the Hyntaland—the final confrontation with the dreaded Shadow Monarch.

Konowa’s ultimate journey is fraught with escalating danger: monstrous creatures spawned from a vast, black forest; the Shadow Monarch’s vengeful and maniacally unstable former emissary; reluctant hero Private Alwyn Renwar, who struggles to maintain his connection between the living and the dead; and Konowa’s former love, Visyna Tekoy, who is fighting for her life against the very elves he so desperately wants to find.

And so Konowa sets off to pursue his freedom from a curse that has cast his life in darkness. For though his long, violent trek may indeed lead him to his destiny, he is ill-prepared for the discovery he will make . . . with the fate of the Iron Elves, and the world, hinging on the courage of one wrathful elf.

· ISBN-13: 9781439180679

· Edition description: Reprint

· Pages: 464

awakeningsAwakenings by Edward Lazellari

Cal MacDonnell is a happily married New York City cop with a loving family. Seth Raincrest is a washed-up photographer who has alienated even his closest friends. The two have nothing in common—except that they both suffer from retrograde amnesia. It’s as if they just appeared out of thin air thirteen years ago, and nothing has been able to restore their memories. Now their forgotten past has caught up to them with a vengeance.

Cal's and Seth’s lives are turned upside down as they are stalked by otherworldly beings who know about the men's past lives. But these creatures aren't here to help; they're intent on killing anyone who gets in their way. In the balance hangs the life of a child who might someday restore a broken empire to peace and prosperity. With no clue why they're being hunted, Cal and Seth must accept the aid of a strange and beautiful woman who has promised to unlock their secrets. The two must stay alive long enough to protect their loved ones, recover their true selves—and save two worlds from tyranny and destruction.

· ISBN-13: 9780765366313

· Pages: 352

bad glassBad Glass by Richard E. Gropp

Something has happened in Spokane. The military has evacuated the city and locked it down. Even so, disturbing rumors and images seep out, finding their way onto the Internet, spreading curiosity, skepticism, and panic. For what they show is—or should be—impossible: strange creatures that cannot exist, sudden disappearances that violate the laws of physics, human bodies fused with inanimate objects, trapped yet still half alive. . . .

Dean Walker, an aspiring photographer, sneaks into the quarantined city in search of fame. What he finds will change him in unimaginable ways. Hooking up with a group of outcasts led by a beautiful young woman named Taylor, Dean embarks on a journey into the heart of a mystery whose philosophical implications are as terrifying as its physical manifestations. Even as he falls in love with Taylor—a woman as damaged and seductive as the city itself—his already tenuous hold on reality starts to come loose. Or perhaps it is Spokane’s grip on the world that is coming undone.

Now, caught up in a web of interlacing secrets and betrayals, Dean, Taylor, and their friends must make their way through this ever-shifting maze of a city, a city that is actively hunting them down, herding them toward a shocking destiny.

· ISBN-13: 9780345533937

· Pages: 432

blood ridersBlood Riders by Michael P. Spradlin

The Western Territories, 1880. For four years, Civil War veteran and former U.S. Cavalry Captain Jonas P. Hollister has been rotting in a prison cell at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. His crime: lying about the loss of eleven soldiers under his command . . . who he claims were slaughtered by a band of nonhuman, blood-drinking demons.

But now a famous visitor, the detective Allan Pinkerton, has arrived with an order for Hollister's release. The brutal murder of a group of Colorado miners in a fashion frighteningly similar to the deaths of Hollister's men has leant new credence to his wild tale. And suddenly Jonas Hollister finds himself on a quest both dangerous and dark—joining forces with Pinkerton, the gunsmith Oliver Winchester, an ex-fellow prisoner, a woman of mystery, and a foreigner named Abraham Van Helsing, who knows many things about the monsters of the night—and riding hell for leather toward an epic confrontation . . . with the undead.

· ISBN-13: 9780062023094

· Pages: 400

boyfriend from hellBoyfriend from Hell by Jamie Quaid

They say justice is blind. But Justine isn’t.

Justine (Tina) Clancy is just an ordinary law student with a faulty arrest record, a part-time job in Baltimore’s radioactive Zone, and a family secret so bizarre even she doesn’t believe it. That is, until in a fit of fury she damns her boyfriend to hell—and it’s exactly where he ends up.

Much to her surprise, Tina is apparently one of Saturn’s daughters, with the power to wield vigilante justice. But poor Max didn’t deserve to go up in flames, even if he did almost run her over with her own car. Tina’s convinced someone cut the brakes—and now a relentless nemesis is stalking her through the Zone’s back alleys, where buildings glow, statues move, and chemical waste exposure comes with interesting consequences. Tina’s usually a loner, but now she needs a posse like no other: a shape-shifting kitten, an invisible thief, a biker gang, a snake-charming private detective, a well-meaning cop, and her sleazy, sexy boss. But in between freeing Max from hell, saving her own neck, and solving a mystery that threatens the Zone and her newfound friends, how is she ever going to study for finals?

· ISBN-13: 9781451656350

· Pages: 400

cold commandsThe Cold Commands by Richard K. Morgan

The otherworldly Kiriath once used their advanced technology to save the world from the dark magic of the Aldrain, only to depart as mysteriously as they arrived. Now one of the Kiriath’s uncanny machines has fallen from orbit, with a message that humanity once more faces a grave danger: the Ilwrack Changeling, a boy raised to manhood in the ghostly realm of the Gray Places. Wrapped in sorcerous slumber on an island that drifts between this world and the Gray Places, the Ilwrack Changeling is stirring. When he wakes, the Aldrain will rally to him and return in force. But with the Kiriath long gone, humankind’s fate now depends on warrior Ringil Eskiath and his few, trusted allies. Undertaking a perilous journey to strike first against the Ilwrack Changeling, each of them seeks to outrun a haunted past and find redemption in the future. But redemption won’t come cheap. Nor, for that matter, will survival.

· ISBN-13: 9780345493071

· Pages: 512

count to a trillionCount to a Trillion by John C. Wright

After the collapse of the world economy, a young boy grows up in what used to be Texas as a tough duellist for hire, the future equivalent of a hired gun. But even after the collapse, there is space travel, and he leaves Earth to have adventures in the really wide open spaces. But he is quickly catapulted into the more distant future, while humanity, and Artificial Intelligence, grows and changes and becomes a kind of superman.

· ISBN-13: 9780765367457

· Pages: 416

crown thiefCrown Thief by David Tallerman

Meet Easie Damasco: Thief, swindler and lately, reluctant hero.
But whatever good intentions Damasco may have are about to be tested to their limits, as the most valuable - and dangerous - object in the land comes within his light-fingered grasp.  Add in some suicidally stubborn giants, an old enemy with dreams of empire and the deadliest killers in two kingdoms on his heels, and Damasco's chances of staying honest - or even just surviving - are getting slimmer by the hour.

· ISBN-13: 9780857662507

· Pages: 416

dark light of dayDark Light of Day by Jill Archer

Armageddon is over. The demons won. And yet somehow…the world has continued. Survivors worship patron demons under a draconian system of tributes and rules. These laws keep the demons from warring among themselves, and the world from slipping back into chaos.

Noon Onyx grew up on the banks of the river Lethe, the daughter of a prominent politician, and a descendant of Lucifer’s warlords. Noon has a secret: She was born with waning magic, the dark, destructive, fiery power that is used to control demons and maintain the delicate peace among them. But a woman with waning magic is unheard of, and some would consider her an abomination.

Noon is summoned to attend St. Lucifer’s, a school of demon law. She must decide whether to declare her powers there…or to attempt to continue hiding them, knowing the price for doing so may be death. And once she meets the forbiddingly powerful Ari Carmine—who suspects Noon is harboring magic as deadly as his own—Noon realizes there may be more at stake than just her life.

· ISBN-13: 9780425257159

· Pages: 384

earth to hellEarth to Hell (Journey to Wudang, Book One) by Kylie Chan

It is eight years since Xuan Wu, God of the Northern Heavens, living in Hong Kong as wealthy businessman John Chen, was exiled from the mortal realm. Emma Donahoe and Simone, John's daughter, are facing a new series of threats, while their best fighter, Leo, sits in Hell. They must persuade him to come home . . . but, in Hell, nothing is as it appears.

On Earth, Simon Wong, the Demon King's son, is no longer around to trouble them, but his associates have taken over Simon's underworld activities. The otherworldly stones are being targeted and are in danger of their kind being completely destroyed.

It seems that the Demon King is the only one Emma can turn to for help . . .

· ISBN-13: 9780062021434

· Pages: 624

firebirdFirebird by Jack McDevitt

Forty-one years ago, the renowned physicist Dr. Christopher Robin vanished. Before his disappearance, his fringe science theories about the existence of endless alternate universes had earned him both admirers and enemies.

Now his widow has died and Alex Benedict has been asked to handle the auction of the physicist’s artifacts—leading the public to once again speculate on the mystery surrounding Robin’s disappearance. Did he finally find the door between parallel universes that he had long sought?

Intrigued, Benedict and Chase Kolpath embark on their own investigation as they follow the missing man’s trail into the unknown to uncover the truth—a truth people are willing to kill to protect… 

· ISBN-13: 9781937007805

· Pages: 368

hitchersHitchers by Will McIntosh

Two years ago, on the same day but miles apart, Finn Darby lost two of the most important people in his life: his wife Lorena, struck by lightning on the banks of the Chattahoochee River, and his abusive, alcoholic grandfather, Tom Darby, creator of the long-running newspaper comic strip Toy Shop. Against his grandfather's dying wish, Finn has resurrected Toy Shop, adding new characters, and the strip is more popular than ever, bringing in fan letters, merchandising deals, and talk of TV specials. Finn has even started dating again.When a terrorist attack decimates Atlanta, killing half a million souls, Finn begins blurting things in a strange voice beyond his control. The voice says things only his grandfather could know. Countless other residents of Atlanta are suffering a similar bizarre affliction. Is it mass hysteria, or have the dead returned to possess the living? Finn soon realizes he has a hitcher within his skin... his grandfather. And Grandpa isn't terribly happy about the changes Finn has been making to Toy Shop. Together with a pair of possessed friends, an aging rock star, and a waitress, Finn races against time to find a way to send the dead back to Deadland... or die trying!

· ISBN-13: 9781597803373

· Pages: 283

into the hinterlandsInto the Hinterlands by David Drake, John Lambshead

#1 in a new series from a military science fiction master with over 3 million books in print. A young hero comes of age in the crucible of war and galactic struggle.

When Allen Allenson, scion of a noble family that has fallen on hard times, gets a mission to roust the power-hungry Terrans from a “wild” star sector where they’re encroaching, he jumps at the chance to show his individual worth, improve his family’s fortunes – and gather enough lucre to make a good marriage. But the wily Terrans are not so easily persuaded by a young colonial they think of as a rube.

Worse, Riders, the beings who naturally ply the wilderness between the stars, are playing their own deadly political games – against the Terrans, against the colonials, and against one young greenhorn commander in particular: naÏf young Allen, whom they figure they can manipulate to do their bidding. The one thing nobody has counted on is the fact that Allen, while young and inexperienced, and much to his own amazement, happens to be a hero in the making.

· ISBN-13: 9781451638424

· Edition description: Reprint

· Pages: 544

janusJanus by John Park

In the near future, Jon Grebbel arrives on the colony world of Janus, and finds himself mysteriously without memory of his life on Earth. It seems that the long journey has caused severe memory loss in many of Janus's colonists. While Grebbel wants to start his new life, he also wants his memory back, and starts treatments to restore his past. But they only leave him angry and disturbed and he begins to doubt the glimpses of the past the treatments reveal. Grebbel meets Elinda, an earlier arrival, whose lover, Barbara, vanished and then was found lying in the woods, apparently brain-damaged. Elinda has also lost her memories of Earth, but unlike him she has abandoned the effort to recover them. Now their meeting brings each of them a glimpse of an experience they shared back on Earth. Investigating Barbara's fate and their own, the two find their love and their search for justice turning toward bitter self-discovery and revenge, even as they begin to uncover the darkness at the heart of their world.

· ISBN-13: 9781927469101

· Pages: 300

the indigo pheasantThe Indigo Pheasant: Longing for Yount, Volume 2 by Daniel A. Rabuzzi

London 1817. Maggie Collins, born into slavery in Maryland, whose mathematical genius and strength of mind can match those of a goddess, must build the world's most powerful and sophisticated machine - to free the lost land of Yount from the fallen angel Strix Tender Wurm. Sally, of the merchant house McDoon, who displayed her own powers in challenging the Wurm and finding Yount in The Choir Boats, must choose either to help Maggie or to hinder her. Together - or not - Maggie and Sally drive to conclusion the story started in The Choir Boats - a story of blood-soaked song, family secrets, sins new and old in search of expiation, forbidden love, high policy and acts of state, financial ruin, betrayals intimate and grand, sorcery from the origins of time, and battle in the streets of London and on the arcane seas of Yount.

· ISBN-13: 9781927469095

· Pages: 350

the knights of breton courtThe Knights of Breton Court by Maurice Broaddus

From the drug gangs of downtown Indianapolis, the one true king will arise.

The King Arthur myth gets dramatically retold through the eyes of street hustler King, as he tries to unite the crack dealers, gangbangers and the monsters lurking within them to do the right thing.

From the drug gangs of downtown Indianapolis, the one true king will arise. The King Arthur myth gets dramatically retold through the eyes of street hustler King, as he tries to unite the crack dealers, gangbangers and the monsters lurking within them to do the right thing. Broaddus' debut is a stunning, edgy work, genuinely unlike anything you've ever read.

Collecting the sensational urban fantasy series, and comprising all three volumes: King Maker, King's Justice, and King's War.

· ISBN-13: 9780857662569

· Pages: 896

the martian warThe Martian War by Kevin J. Anderson

What if the Martian invasion was not entirely the product of H.G. Wells's vivid imagination? What if Wells witnessed something that spurred him to write The War of the Worlds as a warning?

From drafty London flats to the steamy Sahara, to the surface of the moon and beyond, The Martian War takes the reader on an exhilarating journey with Wells and his companions.

· ISBN-13: 9781781161722

· Pages: 400

the moon maze gameThe Moon Maze Game by Larry Niven, Steven Barnes

The Year: 2085. Humanity has spread throughout the solar system. A stable lunar colony is agitating for independence. Lunar tourism is on the rise....

Against this background, professional “Close Protection” specialist Scotty Griffin, fresh off a disastrous assignment, is offered the opportunity of a lifetime: to shepherd the teenaged heir to the Republic of Kikaya on a fabulous vacation. Ali Kikaya will participate in the first live action role playing game conducted on the Moon itself. Having left Luna—and a treasured marriage—years ago due to a near-tragic accident, Scotty leaps at the opportunity.

Live Action Role Playing attracts a very special sort of individual: brilliant, unpredictable, resourceful, and addicted to problem solving. By kidnapping a dozen gamers in the middle of the ultimate game, watched by more people than any other sporting event in history, they have thrown down an irresistible gauntlet: to “win” the first game that ever became “real.” Pursued by armed and murderous terrorists, forced to solve gaming puzzles to stay a jump ahead, forced to juggle multiple psychological realities as they do...this is the game for which  they’ve prepared  their entire lives, and they are going to play it for all it’s worth.

· ISBN-13: 9780765365446

· Pages: 368

phobosPhobos by Steve Alten

Immanuel Gabriel travels to the end of the world and back again for one last shot at global salvation...

Immanuel, the surviving hero twin foretold in the Mayan creation story, finds his world rocked after an encounter with his deceased grandfather, archaeologist Julius Gabriel. Julius reveals everything the Mayans knew and feared—from the very secrets of creation to the presence of extraterrestrial benefactors; from mankind's intended purpose to the preordained End of Days.  

If Immanuel is to thwart Judgment Day, he must act swiftly.

· ISBN-13: 9780765368126

· Pages: 528

scholarScholar by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

Hundreds of years before the time of Imager, the continent of Lydar is fragmented. Years of war have consolidated five nations into three—Bovaria, Telaryn, and Antiago. Quaeryt is a scholar and a friend of Bhayar, the young ruler of Telaryn. Worried about his future and the escalating intrigues in Solis, the capital city, Quaeryt persuades Bhayar to send him to Tilbor, conquered ten years earlier by Bhayar’s father, in order to see if the number and extent of occupying troops can be reduced so that they can be re-deployed to the border with warlike Bovaria.

Quaeryt has managed to conceal the fact that he is an imager, since the life expectancies of imagers in Lydar is short. Just before Quaeryt departs, Bhayar’s youngest sister passes a letter to the scholar-imager, a letter that could well embroil Quaeryt in the welter of court politics he had hoped to leave behind. On top of that, on his voyage and journey to Tilbor he must face pirates, storms, poisonings, attempted murder, as well as discovering the fact that he is not quite who he thought he was. To make it all worse, the order of scholars to which he belongs is jeopardized in more ways than one.

· ISBN-13: 9780765367716

· Pages: 672

seeds of earthSeeds of Earth by Michael Cobley

The first intelligent species to encounter mankind attacked without warning. Merciless. Relentless. Unstoppable. With little hope of halting the invasion, Earth's last roll of the dice was to dispatch three colony ships, seeds of Earth, to different parts of the galaxy. The human race would live on ... somewhere.

150 years later, the planet Darien hosts a thriving human settlement, which enjoys a peaceful relationship with an indigenous race, the scholarly Uvovo. But there are secrets buried on Darien's forest moon. Secrets that go back to an apocalyptic battle fought between ancient races at the dawn of galactic civilization. Unknown to its colonists, Darien is about to become the focus of an intergalactic power struggle where the true stakes are beyond their comprehension. And what choices will the Uvovo make when their true nature is revealed and the skies grow dark with the enemy?

· ISBN-13: 9780316213981

· Pages: 640

starman jonesStarman Jones by Robert A. Heinlein

The stars were closed to Max Jones. To get into space you either needed connections, a membership in the Guild, or a whole lot more money than Max, the son of a widowed, poor mother, was every going to have. What Max does have going for him are his uncle’s prized astrogation manuals—book on star navigation that Max literally commits to memory word for word, equation for equation. When Max’s mother decides to remarry a bullying oaf, Max takes to the road, only to discover that his uncle Chet’s manuals, and Max’s near complete memorization of them, is a ticket to the stars. But serving on a spaceship is no easy task. Duty is everything, and a mistake can mean you and all aboard are lost forever. Max loves every minute of his new life, and he steadily grows in the trust of his superior officers, and seems to be on course for a command track position. But then disaster strikes, and it’s going to take every trick Max ever learned from his tough life and his uncle’s manuals to save himself and the ship from a doom beyond extinction itself.

· ISBN-13: 9781451638448

· Edition description: Reprint

· Pages: 336

the tainted cityThe Tainted City by Courtney Schafer

Dev is a desperate man. After narrowly surviving a smuggling job gone wrong, he’s now a prisoner of the Alathian Council, held hostage to ensure his friend Kiran — former apprentice to one of the most ruthless mages alive — does their bidding.

But Kiran isn’t Dev’s only concern. Back in his home city of Ninavel, the child he once swore to protect faces a terrible fate if he can’t reach her in time, and the days are fast slipping away. So when the Council offers Dev freedom in exchange for his and Kiran’s assistance in a clandestine mission to Ninavel, he can’t refuse, no matter how much he distrusts their motives.

Once in Ninavel the mission proves more treacherous than even Dev could have imagined. Betrayed by allies, forced to aid their enemies, he and Kiran must confront the darkest truths of their pasts if they hope to save those they love and survive their return to the Tainted City.

· ISBN-13: 9781597804035

· Pages: 380

thirstThirst: The Vampire Legacy Series by Karen E. Taylor

Surrender to the seductive world of Karen E. Taylor's Vampire Legacy series with these novels of two vampires who share blood in more ways than one...

Vivienne Courbet may have lost her innocence over three centuries ago, yet in the eyes of those who sustain her with their delicious blood, she is a young, desirable beauty. But the eternal life Viv has reveled in is now facing a dire threat, one that has separated her from her blood sister, Deirdre, and may mean the end of their kind. For a dangerous cross-breed known as the Others has declared war on the vampire fellowship--and the fatalities have begun. . .

Having fled to a small New England town, Deirdre Griffin and her lover, Mitch, have found a temporary respite in a place flowing with tourist dollars--and tourist blood. But when the Others inevitably close in, they won't go down without a fight--the bloodier the better. And when the battle calls for Viv and Deirdre to join forces, they will have to summon every morsel of hot, hungry, deadly thirst to live another lifetime...

· ISBN-13: 9780758274878

· Pages: 416

the wrong goodbyeThe Wrong Goodbye by Chris F. Holm

Meet Sam Thornton, Collector of Souls.

Because of his efforts to avert the Apocalypse, Sam Thornton has been given a second chance - provided he can stick to the straight and narrow.

Which sounds all well and good, but when the soul Sam's sent to collect goes missing, Sam finds himself off the straight-and-narrow pretty quick.

· ISBN-13: 9780857662217

· Pages: 400

                typhon pactgrasslandsshadows of treacheryrevan

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