* Brite, Poppy Z. : Second Line
(Small Beer Press 978-193152060-7, $16, 259pp, trade paperback, October 2009)

Collection, subtitled "Two Short Novels of Love and Cooking in New Orleans", about chefs Rickey and G-man, subjects of Brite novels Liquor, Prime, and Soul Kitchen.
• The stories are "The Value of X" and "D*U*C*K", both first published by Subterranean Press.
• The publisher's site has this order page and description, with reader comments and a link to an excerpt at BSCreview.

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* Brown, John : Servant of a Dark God
(Tor 978-0-7653-2235-7, $25.99, 448pp, hardcover, October 2009, jacket art Raymond Swanland)

Fantasy novel, first in the "Dark Gods" series and the author's first novel, set in a world where godlike Divines harvest people's life forces.
• Tor's site has this description.
• The author's site has this page with links to reviews and a PDF excerpt of the first eight chapters.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Brown's narrative takes a few hundred pages to get up to speed, but the latter parts are breakneck-paced and action-packed. Patient readers will be rewarded with a thoroughly enjoyable fantasy adventure."

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* Connolly, Harry : Child of Fire
(Del Rey 978-0-345-50889-8, 343pp, mass market paperback, October 2009, cover illustration Chris McGrath)

Urban fantasy novel, subtitled "A Twenty Palaces Novel", about a mysterious society that hunts down renegade magicians. It's the author's first novel.
• Del Rey's site has this description and an excerpt.
• Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review -- "Unique magical concepts, a tough and pragmatic protagonist and a high casualty rate for innocent bystanders will enthrall readers who like explosive action and magic that comes at a serious cost." -- and included it on its Best Books of 2009 list (under mass market).
• Faren Miller reviewed it in the October issue of Locus Magazine: "This strong debut could spawn some interesting sequels."

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* Doctorow, Cory : Makers
(Tor 978-0-7653-1279-2, $24.99, 416pp, hardcover, November 2009)

SF novel about two technogeeks, Perry and Lester, their invention of "New Work", interactive theme park rides, and 3-D printers, and the journalist/blogger who covers them.
• The publisher's site has this description.
• Doctorow's site has this section with posts about the book, with links to reviews and free downloads.
• Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review: "In this tour de force, Doctorow uses the contradictions of two overused SF themes -- the decline and fall of America and the boundless optimism of open source/hacker culture -- to draw one of the most brilliant reimaginings of the near future since cyberpunk wore out its mirror shades."
• Adrienne Martini reviewed it in the October issue of Locus Magazine: "If your idea of great science fiction is the Bruce Sterling sort, where the goal is to fling as many nifty thoughts into the void as possible just to see which stick, then Makers is a great book. What Doctorow does, he does well."

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* Farland, David : Chaosbound
(Tor 978-0-7653-2168-8, $25.99, 351pp, hardcover, October 2009, jacket art Kekai Kotaki)

Fantasy novel, eighth volume in "The Runelords" series, following The Sum of All Men aka The Runelords (1998), The Brotherhood of the Wolf (1999), Wizardborn (2001), The Lair of Bones (2003), Sons of the Oak (2006), Worldbinder (2007), and The Wyrmling Horde (2008).
• Tor's website has this description.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "As the series grows in complexity, its appeal narrows, mostly drawing readers who like philosophy and complex machinations soaked in mud and blood."

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* Gunn, James, Marleen S. Barr & Matthew Candelaria, eds. : Reading Science Fiction
(Palgrave 978-0-230-52718-8, $30, 15+265pp, trade paperback, December 2008)

Nonfiction anthology of essays on the "history, concepts and contexts necessary to understand" science fiction.
• Contributors include Eric S. Rabkin, H. Bruce Franklin, Brian Stableford, George Zebrowski, Orson Scott Card, Carl Freedman, Gregory Benford, Pamela Sargent, Bruce Sterling, and the editors.
• The book includes a bibliography and index.
• The publisher's site has this description with the table of contents, and a PDF sample of 15 pages of the book.
• Despite Amazon's and the publisher's indicated publication dates of December 2008, the book apparently appeared only recently and is probably actually a 2009 publication.

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* Jordan, Robert, & Brandon Sanderson : The Gathering Storm
(Tor 978-0-7653-0230-4, $29.99, 783pp, hardcover, November 2009, cover art Darrell K. Sweet)

Fantasy novel, 12th volume in Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, completed by Sanderson after Jordan's death. It's the first of three books that will conclude the series, with the overall title "A Memory of Light".
• Tor's site has this description, with several video interviews with "Team Jordan", Brandon Sanderson, et al, and an audio excerpt.
• Amazon has over 100 5-star reader reviews.

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* Kilpatrick, Nancy, & David Morrell, eds. : Tesseracts Thirteen
(Hades/EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy 978-1-894063-25-8, $16.95, 317pp, trade paperback, September 2009, cover illustration Chad Michael Ward)

Anthology of 23 original stories by Canadian writers, thirteenth volume in the series that uses different editors for each volume. This one has the subtitle "Chilling Tales from the Greath White North".
• Authors include Kevin Cockle, Edo van Belkom, Suzanne Church, Bev Vincent, Kelley Armstrong, David Nickle, Jean-Louis Trudel, and Alison Baird. There's also a 35 page essay on the history of Canadian dark fantasy and horror by Robert Knowlton.
• The publisher's site has this description.
• The Publishers Weekly review said "While the stories sometimes feel a little thematically and stylistically similar and some suffer from vague endings, this installment of the Tesseracts series is overall strong, and essential reading for anyone interested in the status of Canadian genre writing."

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* King, Stephen : Under the Dome
(Scribner 978-1-4391-4850-1, $35, 1074pp, hardcover, November 2009)

Supernatural horror novel about a mysterious, transparent dome that appears over a small town in Maine, and the consequences of their isolation on the people living inside.
• The publisher's site has this description, with a "Browse Inside" function and an audiobook excerpt.
• Wikipedia has this entry for the book, summarizing critical reception thus far.
• Amazon has a video interview with King, and exclusive review by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan, background on the book's wraparound cover art, and a color version of the map of Chester's Mill, Maine.
• Publishers Weekly gives it a starred review: "Readers will recognize themes and images from King's earlier fiction, and while this novel doesn't have the moral weight of, say, The Stand, nevertheless, it's a nonstop thrill ride as well as a disturbing, moving meditation on our capacity for good and evil."

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* Lima, Maria : Blood Kin
(Juno 978-1-4391-5676-6, $7.99, 322pp, mass market paperback, November 2009)

Fantasy/paranormal/mystery novel, third in the Blood Lines series following Matters of the Blood (2007) and Blood Bargain (2008), about a woman from a paranormal family in Texas.
• In this book Keira Kelly rejoins her Sidhe family in northwest Canada.
• The publisher's site has this description and an excerpt.
• Carolyn Cushman reviews it in the November issue of Locus Magazine: "It's a heck of a lot of fun, enough to send me looking for the previous books in the series that I missed."

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* McDevitt, Jack : Time Travelers Never Die
(Ace 978-0-441-01763-8, $24.95, 371pp, hardcover, November 2009, jacket illustration Tony Mauro)

SF novel about a physicist who vanishes, leaving behind a time travel device, whose son takes his friend on a search through history to find him.
• It's an expansion of novella "Time Travelers Never Die" (1996), a Hugo and Nebula finalist.
• Amazon has the publisher's description, and reader reviews.
• The Publishers Weekly review concludes "As the paradoxes begin to pile up and their luck in dodging some of history's villains runs out, McDevitt ingeniously handles a tricky denouement that will leave readers satisfied."
• Russell Letson's review will appear in the December issue of Locus Magazine.

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* Rich, Clélie, ed. : Escape Clause
(Canada: Ink Oink Art Inc. 978-0-9732141-2-3, C$19.95, 277pp, trade paperback, October 2009)

Anthology of 26 original stories of speculative fiction, first of a planned annual series.
• Authors include Ari Goelman, David Kopaska-Merkel, Eileen Kernaghan, James Dorr, Elaine Isaak, Robert and Timalyne Frazier, and Grá Linnaea.
• The publisher's site has background on the editors and guidelines for submissions for future volumes, and an order page.
• Some of the stories are available for download on iPhone.

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* Scholes, Ken : Canticle
(Tor 978-0-7653-2128-2, $25.99, 384pp, hardcover, October 2009, jacket art Gregory Manchess)

Fantasy novel, second in the "Psalms of Isaak" series following the author's debut novel Lamentation, about the destruction of the great city Windwir and a mechoservitor, Isaak, who may know why it happened.
• Tor's site has this description and an excerpt.
• Publishers Weekly gives it a starred review: "Abounding in prophecy, myth and mystery, this grand-scale saga is a towering storytelling tour de force."
• Gary K. Wolfe and Faren Miller both reviewed the book in Locus Magazine; Wolfe, in the October issue, remarks "Scholes adds layers of complexity to the tale both in terms of setting and character, and from the latter point of view Canticle is actually a stronger novel than Lamentation."

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* Sherman, Delia, & Christopher Barzak, eds. : Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing
(Small Beer Press/Interstitial Arts Foundation 978-193152061-4, $16, 17+302pp, trade paperback, November 2009, cover art Alex Myers)

Anthology of 21 original stories, with an introduction by Henry Jenkins and an interview/afterword by Colleen Mondor.
• Authors include Jeffrey Ford, M. Rickert, Ray Vukcevich, Lavie Tidhar, Amelia Beamer, Alan DeNiro, Theodora Goss, and David J. Schwartz.
• The publisher's site has this description with the full table of contents, links to reviews, and reader comments.
• It's on Amazon.com's list of Best SF & Fantasy Books of 2009.

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* VanderMeer, Jeff : Finch
(Underland Press 978-0-9802260-1-0, $14.95, 339pp, trade paperback, November 2009, cover illustration John Coulthart)

Fantasy novel set in Ambergris, setting of earlier novels City of Saints & Madmen and Shried: An Afterword, now ruled by the sentient fungi, gray caps.
• It concerns a detective, Finch, faced with a double murder of a human and a fungus.
• The publisher's site has this description with a PDF excerpt, and a link to indie band Murder by Death's website, where a soundtrack for the novel is available.
• The Publishers Weekly review concludes "VanderMeer's stark tone is brutally powerful at times, and his deft mix of genre-blurring style with a layered plot make this a joy to read. Though the book stands well on its own, fans of the earlier Ambergris novels will appreciate it even more."
• Faren Miller reviews it in the November issue of Locus Magazine: "Finch has the kind of complex, surprise-filled plot that defies much discussion in a review: spiraling back on itself, delving into secret histories (including that of the title character), extending some tendrils back to the past while others wriggle toward potential futures. If at times it defies logic, the strength of VanderMeer's imagination and the breadth of his vision can turn the seemingly irrational into something that combines the functional surrealism of slipstream with the powerful metaphors of political dystopias."

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