Acevedo, Mario : Werewolf Smackdown
(Eos 978-0-06-156720-9, $7.99, 354pp, mass market paperback, December 2010)
(First edition: Eos, March 2010)

Vampire detective novel, fifth in the series following The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, X-Rated Bloodsuckers, The Undead Kama Sutra (2008), and Jailbait Zombie (2009), about an ex-soldier who became a vampire while serving in Iraq.
• In this volume PI Felix Gomez deals with a battle among werewolves in Charleston, South Carolina.
• HarperCollins has this page for the book, with a preview function.
• The author's website has this page about the book, with a PDF excerpt.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Plenty of cliffhangers keep the story moving in this horror fan's perfect vacation read."

|

Butcher, Jim : First Lord's Fury
(Ace 978-0-441-01962-5, $9.99, 759pp, mass market paperback, December 2010)
(First edition: Ace, December 2009)

Fantasy novel, sixth in the "Codex Alera" following Furies of Calderon (2004), Academ's Fury (2005), Cursor's Fury (2006), Captain's Fury (2007), and Princeps' Fury (2008), set in a realm where adults have bonds with magical spirits that provide defenses and talents.
• The author's website has this page about the book, with a Chapter 5 excerpt.
• Amazon has 60 5-star reader reviews.

|

Englehart, Steve : The Long Man
(Tor 978-0-7653-5661-1, $7.99, 491pp, mass market paperback, December 2010)
• Max August #2
(First edition: Tor, March 2010)

Fantasy novel, sequel to The Point Man (1981) about DJ Max August.
• This book concerns zombies and an organization called the Free Range Coalition trying to take over the world.
• Tor's website has this description.
• The author's website has this page with a longer description, with links to several prose samples. A tab suggests a third title, The Plain Man, forthcoming.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, which notes the book's "unintentionally absurd plot", and a couple enthusiastic reader reviews.

|

Erikson, Steven : Dust of Dreams
(Tor 978-0-7653-4886-9, $9.99, 1276pp, mass market paperback, December 2010)
(First edition: UK: Bantam UK, August 2009)

Fantasy novel, ninth and penultimate book of the "Malazan Book of the Fallen" series following Gardens of the Moon, Deadhouse Gates, Memories of Ice, House of Chains, Midnight Tides, The Bonehunters, Reaper's Gale, and Toll the Hounds, concerning the Malazan empire and its numerous enemies.
• Tor's website has this description.
• The series' website, www.malazanempire.com, has background on the author and the books. Wikipedia has this detailed entry about Malazan Book of the Fallen.
• The tenth and final book, The Crippled God, is due March 2011.
• Amazon has Publishers Weekly's review, which calls it "dizzyingly complex" and which concludes "Erickson begins to reel in the long lines of his huge plot, giving enough hints to leave readers impatient for the 10th volume."

|

Henderson, C. J. : Brooklyn Knight
(Tor 978-0-7653-6052-6, $7.99, 309pp, mass market paperback, November 2010)
(First edition: Tor, January 2010)

Urban fantasy thriller about the curator at the Brooklyn Museum, who specializes in arcane and paranormal artifacts.
• Tor's website has this description, and an excerpt.
• The next book, Central Park Knight, is due in May 2011.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, and reader reviews.

|

McCaffrey, Anne, & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough : Catalyst
(Ballantine Del Rey 978-0-345-51377-9, $14, 307pp, trade paperback, December 2010)
(First edition: Ballantine Del Rey, January 2010)

SF novel, first in the "Tale of the Barque Cats" series, about a breed of cats who have become prized crewmembers on interstellar starships.
• The publisher's site has this description and an excerpt.
• The second book in the series, Catacombs, was just published in hardcover.
• Amazon has reader reviews.

|

McDevitt, Jack : Time Travelers Never Die
(Ace 978-0-441-01955-7, $7.99, 385pp, mass market paperback, November 2010)
(First edition: Ace, November 2009)

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 Publishers Weekly review, which 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 reviewed the book last year in Locus Magazine, commenting that McDevitt's "characters struggle with the problems generated around the edges of the big questions, doing the best they can, dealing with what is in front of them. This juxtaposition of the ordinary-practical and the overwhelmingly, cosmically significant is what makes McDevitt 'McDevitt.' If there are great final answers, they emerge from or are implied by responses to immediate and urgent problems."

|

Scalzi, John : Agent to the Stars
(Tor 978-0-7653-5700-7, $7.99, 385pp, mass market paperback, December 2010)
(First edition: Subterranean Press, July 2005)

Humorous SF novel about a Hollywood agent called in to negotiate between humans and the ugly, smelly alien Yherajk.
• Tor's website has this description.
• Amazon's "Look Inside" function provides an excerpt. Amazon has nearly 50 reader reviews, all but two rating it 4 or 5 stars.
• The book is available online for free, from Scalzi's site, at http://www.scalzi.com/agent/, along with some background by the author.

|

Stephenson, Neal : Anathem
(Harper Perennial 978-0-06-169494-3, $16.99, 981pp, trade paperback, December 2010)
(First edition: Morrow, September 2008)

Science fiction novel about a monastic order on the planet Arbre that maintains secular knowledge, threatened by an extraterrestrial force that portends global disaster.
• The publisher's site has this description, with a preview function.
• There was an earlier mass market paperback edition, published in 2009.
• Gary K. Wolfe wrote in Locus Magazine: "For readers willing to sit through alternate-philosophy seminars as prerequisites for intellectual space opera, or readers who may be hypnotized by the elegance of these classic ideas as Stephenson re-imagines them, Anathem will more than repay the demands it makes, and will almost certainly become the topic of endless online seminars of its own. For others, it may become one of those classic philosophical fictions more browsed than read, more admired than engaged. In either case, its brilliance is undeniable..."
• The book the 2009 Locus Award for Best SF Novel, and was a finalist for the Hugo, Clarke, Campbell, and British SF Association awards.

|

Turtledove, Harry : Liberating Atlantis
(Roc 978-0-451-46320-3, $7.99, 452pp, mass market paperback, December 2010)
(First edition: Roc, December 2009)

Alternate history novel, third in a series following Opening Atlantis (2007) and The United States of Atlantis (2008), about the 15th century European discovery of a continent located between Europe and the east coast of Terranova (North America).
• The publisher's site has this description.
• Amazon has the starred Booklist review by Roland Green, which concludes, "In the end, readers may, overwhelmingly, join in joyously launching their hats skyward."
• A collection of related stories, Atlantis and Other Places, just appeared in hardcover.

|

Zahn, Timothy : Cobra Alliance
(Baen 978-1-4391-3404-7, $7.99, 374pp, mass market paperback, December 2010)
(First edition: Baen, December 2009)

Military SF novel, first in the "Cobra War" series follwing earlier trilogy Cobra (1985), Cobra Strike (1986) and Cobra Bargain (1988), about nano-tech enhanced warriors built to defend humanity against aliens called Trofts.
• Now a new menace appears that requires the Cobra warriors.
• Baen's site has this description with links to several chapters.
• The second book in the current series, Cobra Guardian, will appear in January.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, which says "Zahn emphasizes the stern values of duty, honor, planetary group, and suggests that peace comes only through oft-displayed strength. The rough-and-tumble combat crackles like fingertip laser implants..."

|