* Aguirre, Forrest, ed. : Text:UR: The New Book of Masks
(Raw Dog Screaming 978-1-933293-39-4, $15.95, 226pp, trade paperback, March 2007, cover art Carrie Anne Baade)

Anthology of 20 original stories. Authors include Brian Evenson, Lance Olsen, Tamar Yellin, Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold, Sarah Totton, and Jason Erik Lundberg.
• The publisher's site has this page about the book, with the jacket description, table of contents, and quotes from reviews. A hardcover edition is also available.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly and Booklist reviews. The former says "Fantasy fans looking for familiar themes and names among the 20 stories in Aguirre's boldly original anthology will be disappointed. Those who like experimental fiction that's not always readily accessible will be richly rewarded." Booklist's Carl Hays writes "With diverse and intriguing themes, ranging from the unique problems of immortal humans to the fate of an alien who can answer only six questions put by its earthling hosts, the 20 stories here display remarkable degrees of creativity and craftsmanship. ... Readers looking for speculative fiction that defies classification as either sf or fantasy will find it in this captivating volume."

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Beard, Steve : Meat Puppet Cabaret
(Raw Dog Screaming Press 978-1-933293-31-8, $15.95, 235pp, trade paperback, January 2007, cover art Terry Rentzepis)

Alternate history fantasy novel about Allegra, the daughter of Princess Diana, rescued as an embryo from the Paris car crash by a demonic Jack the Ripper.
• The publisher's site has this page about the book with quotes from reviews and blurbs by Michael Moorcock and others. The edition listed here is the first paperback; the publisher issued the hardcover in August 2006.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Beard (Digital Leatherette) uses dream sequences, interviews, reality TV/game scripts, net-influenced formats and more to deliver a perverse nightmare of jolting, surreal rhythms and dark despair. His more lurid imagery is sure to repulse some readers."

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* Boston, Bruce : The Guardener's Tale
(Sam's Dot 1-933556-78-1, $19.95, 273pp, trade paperback, May 2007, cover art Jan Lellehei)

Dystopian SF novel about a "love triangle in a society gone mad".
• SFWA Pressbook has this post about the book, with blurbs from Mary A. Turzillo (quoted above) and Paul Di Filippo: "As inexorable as fate and twice as surprising, Boston's novel will resonate long after its final sentence carries the reader down the memory hole."
• Boston's website has this page for the book with additional blurbs and links to order the book from Amazon and other retailers.

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+ Courtenay Grimwood, Jon : 9Tail Fox
(Night Shade Books 978-1-59780-078-5, $14.95, 259pp, trade paperback, May 2007, cover art Jon Foster) First US edition (UK: Gollancz, October 2005)

Near-future SF crime novel about a San Francisco policeman who investigates his own murder, including the mystery of why he's being haunted by a nine-tailed albino fox.
• This is the first US edition. Night Shade's website has this order page with a description.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, which says the author "manages a new wrinkle on a classic noir plot line with this intriguing paranormal mystery."
• Gary K. Wolfe's review in Locus Magazine said "9 Tail Fox is principally a brisk and efficient murder mystery with a key SF concept at its center."

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* Crowley, John : Endless Things
(Small Beer Press 978-1-931520-22-5, $24, 341pp, hardcover, May 2007)

Contemporary fantasy novel, fourth volume in the Ægypt tetralogy following Ægypt (1987), Love & Sleep (1994), and Dæmonomania (2000), following scholar Pierce Moffett in his search for the magical reality behind the writings of historical figures John Dee and Giordano Bruno.
• The publisher's site has this page about the book, with a description, and news that paperback editions of the novels from Overlook Press will retitle the first one The Solitudes. That book and the second, Love & Sleep, were World Fantasy Award finalists.
• Crowley's Live Journal includes among recent posts "a sort of Key to the reading of Endless Things" which some readers may want to skip, or not.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "With astonishing dexterity, Crowley (Lord Byron's Novel) parallels multiple story lines spread across centuries and unobtrusively deploys recurring symbols and motifs to convey a sense of organic wholeness. Even as Pierce's quest ends on a fulfilling personal note, this marvelous tale comes full circle to reinforce its timeless themes of transformation, re-creation and immortality."
• Graham Sleight's review of the book from the May issue of Locus Magazine is posted here online; "It goes without saying that Endless Things is gracefully written, beautifully characterised, moving, and thought-provoking. (It probably also goes without saying that it's not a work that will give anything like its full rewards to someone who's not read the previous books.) It's borderline fantastic, for those who mind about such things, in the same way its predecessors were. Indeed, one way of describing what it's about is that it's an enormously full description of how we make stories, and fantasies in particular."

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* Drake, David : Balefires
(Night Shade Books 978-1-59780-071-6, $26.95, 303pp, hardcover, June 2007, jacket illustration Richard Pellegrino)

Collection of 24 fantasy and horror stories, including "Men Like Us", "Something Had to be Done", and World Fantasy Award finalist "The Barrow Troll".
• The publisher's site has this order page with a description and complete table of contents. A limited edition, with a comprehensive bibliography and signed by the author, is also available.
• Amazon has reviews from Publishers Weekly -- "Drake is perhaps at his best in tales like "The Red Leer" and "The Barrow Troll," which deal with the changes that violence brings about in its wielders. Illuminating introductory author notes explore each story's origins." -- and Booklist's Roland Green: "Drake's career began in fantasy and horror, with his first sale being to August Derleth of horror specialty publisher Arkham House, and he didn't entirely give up those genres after his Vietnam experience allowed him on-location research on the realities in which his military sf is based. ... Like much of Drake's later work, this stuff isn't for the weak of stomach or those averse to high body counts. It's high-quality storytelling, nonetheless."

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* Greene, Nancy O. : Portraits in the Dark
(iUniverse 0-595-39280-6, $9.95, 78pp, trade paperback, August 2006)

Collection of nine stories, all apparently previously unpublished, that "delve into the darker side of human existence".
• The publisher's site has this description with an excerpt from "The Affair".
• Amazon has posts by the author, including a link to an interview on website The Writing Show.

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* Haffner, Stephen, ed. : In Memory of Wonder's Child: Jack Williamson
(Haffner Press 9781893887268, $15, 111pp, trade paperback, April 2007)

Nonfiction anthology of tributes and obituaries of Jack Williamson, who died in 2006 at the age of 98.
• Included are the obituary from the December '06 issue of Locus Magazine, Dennis McClellan's obituary from the Los Angeles Times, and John Clute's obituary from The Independent.
• Tributes, most of which first appeared in Locus Magazine, are by Frederik Pohl, Robert Silverberg, Frank Robinson, Connie Willis, Charles N. Brown, Patrice Caldwell, James Frenkel, Bradford Lyau, Rick Hauptmann, Elizabeth Anne Hull, James Gunn, Joe Haldeman, Greg Bear, Mike Resnick, Walter Jon Williams, Stephen R. Donaldson, Michael Swanwick, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, David Brin, and Kevin J. Anderson.
• Also included are two stories by Williamson, "Nonstop to Mars" (1939) and his last-published story "The Mists of Time" (2006), Williamson's introduction to the JSA (Justice Society of America), a photomontage, and Rick Haupmann's report from the memorial service.
• Proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to the Jack and Blanche Williamson Scholarship Fund.
• The publisher's site include a scan of the back cover, with a page from 1954 comic strip Beyond Mars.

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* Haldeman, Philip : Shadow Coast
(Hippocampus 978-0-9771734-7-X, $15, 255pp, trade paperback, June 2007)

Dark fantasy novel about a man who survives a shipwreck off the Olympic Peninsula coast of Washington while searching for his wife, who's working an archaeological dig that's uncovered secrets from ancient Indian mythology.
• The publisher's site has this page about the book.
• Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review in its April 23rd issue: "Admirers of atmospheric, subtle horror will relish Haldeman's intelligent and chilling debut, which succeeds in evoking the spirit of H.P. Lovecraft without resorting to cheap imitation. ... The author's vivid evocation of the bleakness and isolation of the remote Pacific Northwest will remind some of Algernon Blackwood's classic tale 'The Wendigo.' "

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* Hand, Elizabeth : Generation Loss
(Small Beer Press 1-931-52021-6, $24, 265pp, hardcover, April 2007)

Literary thriller about a has-been punk photographer assigned to interview a reclusive photographer living off the coast of Maine.
• The publisher's site has this page for the book, with links to the first chapter and to a later chapter excerpt.
• The author's website has numerous links to reviews and to her reading of the first chapter and to a YouTube interview.
• Amazon has the starred Publishers Weekly review, which says that Hand "explores the narrow boundary between artistic genius and madness in this gritty, profoundly unsettling literary thriller. ... The novel's final chapters, in which Cass confronts a horrifying embodiment of the extremes to which her own artistic inclinations could lead, are a terror tour-de-force that testify to the power of great fiction to disturb and provoke."
• Locus Magazine published reviews of the novel by Nick Gevers in March and Gary K. Wolfe in April; acknowledging the "only tangential supernatural elements" Gevers concludes "Generation Loss is a fine 'associational' book: something of a departure for the author, but fully as elegant and significant as her overtly fantastic works. There is grave beauty here, and great thematic power."

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* Moore, Leslie Ann : Griffin's Daughter
(Avari Press 978-1-933770-01-7, $18.95, 335pp, trade paperback, January 2007, cover art Matt Hughes)

Romantic fantasy novel about a 17-year-old human/elven orphan with magical elven powers who travels to the elven lands and falls in love with a prince.
• It's the author's first novel. The publisher's order page for the book has a long synopsis.
• Amazon has several five-star reader reviews.

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* Schimel, Lawrence : Fairy Tales for Writers
(A Midsummer Night's Press 978-0-9794208-0-1, $6.5, 30pp, chapbook, June 2007)

Chapbook collection of 13 poems, all but one original to this book, which cast "the joys and struggles of the creative process and the writing life" as revisions of famous fairy tales.
• The publisher's site has a description and links to two examples: The Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty.

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* Schoen, Lawrence M., & Michael Livingston, eds. : Prime Codex: The Hungry Edge of Speculative Fiction
(Paper Golem 978-0-9795349-0-4, $13.95, 205pp, trade paperback, May 2007, cover illustration David Ho)

Anthology of 15 stories by up-and-coming writers, including James Maxey, Cat Rambo, Elaine Isaak, Tobias S. Buckell, Ruth Nestvold, and David W. Goldman.
• This is the first book from new small press Paper Golem, which was founded "to address an under-served niche: the vast pool of tremendously talented up-and-coming writers, as well as many already arrived writers who are still brushing off their shoes." The site has this page for ordering the book.

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* Shepard, Lucius : Softspoken
(Night Shade Books 978-1-59780-073-0, $23.95, 179pp, hardcover, May 2007, jacket art J. K. Potter)

Gothic fantasy novel about a couple in a haunted family mansion in South Carolina.
• The publisher's site has this order page with the book's description. A limited edition, with bonus material and signed by the author, is also available.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "This memorable short novel careens through the mundane realities of a Southern small town, from bizarre revelations of decadent family history and strange supernatural theory to a violent and unexpected conclusion."
• Nick Gevers reviewed the book in the March issue of Locus Magazine: "His new short novel, Softspoken, is one of his most desolating works yet ... Softspoken is Southern Gothic of a high order, a meditation on the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death that leaves Poe in the dust."
• The book is among Locus' New and Notable Books for June.

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* Shipp, Jeremy C. : Vacation
(Raw Dog Screaming Press 978-1-933293-41-7, $13.95, 159pp, trade paperback, March 2007)

Contemporary fantasy novel about a man who goes on a "yearlong corporate-sponsored odyssey" that becomes a surreal adventure involving terrorists and drug wars.
• The publisher's site has this page about the book with a brief description and numerous cover blurbs, from Gary A. Braunbeck, Kealan Patrick Burke, Jeff VanderMeer, Piers Anthony, and others.
• The author's site, Haunted House Dressing, has an interview with the author, and a link to this review in The Harrow: "Vacation irresistably reminds the reader of Chuck Palahniuk's acerbic social commentary, but with less gore and more science fiction trappings. The novel deftly points out discomfiting truths about American society and the global tourist industry while keeping the reader entertained by Johnson's misadventures through a world in which nothing is what it seems. Jeremy Shipp delivers a first novel that is surprisingly readable and thought-provoking; one worthy of being included in a college course on dystopian fiction."

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* Simon, Marge : Like Birds in the Rain
(Sam's Dot 1-933556-69-2, $8.5, 51pp, chapbook, May 2007, cover illustration Marge Simon)

Collection of 23 prose poems, 11 of them original to this book, with illustrations by the author. Titles include "The Private Lives of Lizards", "The Moon Complements My Shadow", and "A Motel of Many Rooms".
• Available from Genremall.com, whose entry for the book has a blurb from Michael Arnzen: "Simon, a masterful visual artist, always brings a painter's eyes to her fiction and her poetry. In this outstanding new collection she dapples her brush across an emotional canvas to reveal an interior landscape unlike anything she has gifted us with before."

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* Wilson, D. Harlan : Dr. Identity
(Raw Dog Screaming Press 978-1-933293-32-5, $14.95, 205pp, trade paperback, March 2007, cover art Morten Bak)

Satiric SF novel about a college professor whose robot doppelganger kills his entire class, prompting the two of them to flee into the cityscape of Bliptown.
• The publisher's site has this page about the book, with quotes from reviews and blurbs from Larry McCaffery and Steve Aylett.
• The book itself opens with several pages of blurbs from Franz Kafka, Ernest Hemingway, Condoleeza Rice, Horselove Fat, John W. Campbell, and many others.
• Amazon has the Booklist review by Carl Hays: "Wilson's sardonic, riotously imaginative vision of the future holds a mirror up to our own increasingly chaotic society and makes provocative entertainment."

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