* Ashby, Madeline : iD: The Second Machine Dynasty
(Angry Robot 978-0857663115, $14.99, trade paperback, July 2013, cover art Martin Bland)
Nominal Publication Date: Tue 25 Jun 2013
Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780857663122
Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 978-1469271767
UK edition: 978-0857663108 (Thu 4 Jul 2013)
The Machine Dynasty #2

SF novel, second in a series following the author’s first novel vN (2012), about self-replicating humanoids.
• Angry Robot’s site has this description with quotes from reviews of the first book.
• The first book was a Kitschies finalist for best first novel.
• John Scalzi’s blog has this Big Idea post today with the author.

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* Berman, Steve : Bad Seeds: Evil Progeny
(Prime Books 978-1607013938, $15.95, 360pp, trade paperback, July 2013)
Nominal Publication Date: Tue 25 Jun 2013

Anthology of 27 stories about evil children.
• Authors include Stephen King, Charles Grant, Lisa Tuttle, Jeffrey Ford, Hal Duncan, and Peter Straub.
• Prime Books’ site has this description with the table of contents.

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* Elliott, Kate : Cold Steel
(Orbit 978-0-316-08090-3, $18, 624pp, trade paperback, June 2013)
Nominal Publication Date: Tue 25 Jun 2013
Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780316215152
UK edition: 978-1841498850 (Tue 25 Jun 2013)
Spiritwalker #3

Fantasy novel, third book in the “Spiritwalker” trilogy following Cold Magic (2010) and Cold Fire (2011), set in a pseudo-Victorian Europe where mages struggle for power.
• Hachette’s site has this description with a preview function.
Publishers Weekly gives this a starred review: “Elliott pulls out all the stops in this final chapter to a swashbuckling series marked by fascinating world-building, lively characters, and a gripping, thoroughly satisfying story.”

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* Extence, Gavin : The Universe Versus Alex Woods
(Hachette/Redhook 978-0-316-24657-6, $26, 416pp, hardcover, June 2013)
Nominal Publication Date: Tue 25 Jun 2013
Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780316246606
Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 9781478978305

Young adult associational novel, the author’s first novel, about a teenaged boy, famous for having been struck by a meteorite when he was 10 years old, whose friendship with a widower leads him to start book club called the Secular Church of Kurt Vonnegut.
• Hachette’s site has this description with a preview function.
Publishers Weekly gives it a starred review: “Extence’s engaging coming-of-age debut skillfully balances light and dark, laughter and tears.”

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* Gafla, Ofir Touché : The World of the End
(Tor 978-0-7653-3356-8, $24.99, 368pp, hardcover, June 2013)
Nominal Publication Date: Tue 25 Jun 2013
Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9781466803206

Fantasy novel about a man who kills himself in order to join his beloved wife in the Other World, which he discovers to be a vast realm of cities and the deceased from all ages.
• The novel was first published in Jerusalem in 2004; the translation is by the author.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt and quotes from reviews. The author description mentions that the book was a bestseller in Israel an won the 2005 Geffen Award for the best fantasy/science fiction novel of the year.
Publishers Weekly gives this a starred review, calling it “part romance, part mystery, and part science fantasy” and concluding, “Gafla creates an interconnected puzzle of living and dead characters and their stories that will shock, amuse, and illuminate the nature of humans and their inevitable end.”

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* Greer, Andrew Sean : The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
(Ecco 978-0-06-221378-5, $26.99, 304pp, hardcover, June 2013)
Nominal Publication Date: Tue 25 Jun 2013
Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780062213846

Literary fantasy novel about a woman in 1985 whose electroconvulsive therapy triggers time travel to other versions of herself in 1918 and 1941.
• HarperCollins’ site has this description with a preview function.
• Greer is best-known for 2004 novel The Confessions of Max Tivoli, about a man who ages backward.
• The Publishers Weekly review concludes, “…the novel’s central questions—how does experience change us, and which relationships are worth sacrificing for—work to bridge its chronological jumps.”

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* Haley, Guy : Crash
(Solaris 978-1781081211, mass market paperback, July 2013)
Nominal Publication Date: Tue 25 Jun 2013
UK edition: 978-1781081204 (Thu 4 Jul 2013)

SF novel in which the demands of the Market for endless economic expansion inspires an interstellar colony, which becomes marooned on a tidally-locked planet.
• Solaris’ site has this description.

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* Joyce, Graham : The Year of the Ladybird
(UK: Gollancz 978-0575115316, £12.99, 272pp, hardcover, June 2013)
Nominal Publication Date: Thu 20 Jun 2013
Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780575115330

Fantasy novel, subtitled “A Ghost Story”, about a man who takes a holiday camp job during the summer of 1976, amidst political and racial tensions.
• Gollancz’ site has this description.
• Amazon’s page has a “Look Inside” preview function.
• No US edition is yet scheduled.
• This SFX review by Dave Golder mentions that the ladybird invasion of that year alluded by the title really happened, and it concludes, “It’s another utterly beguiling tale from Joyce, as much about social history as spooks. A slight novel, it feels less like a ‘story’ and more like a literary snapshot, but Joyce’s ability to evoke the hazy, edgy, politically-charged, lethargically surreal summer of ’76 is all the reason you need to read it.”

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* Kemp, Paul S. : A Discourse in Steel
(Angry Robot 978-0857662538, $7.99, 352pp, mass market paperback, July 2013)
Nominal Publication Date: Tue 25 Jun 2013
Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780857662545
Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 978-1469271750
UK edition: 978-0857662521 (Thu 4 Jul 2013)
Tales of Egil & Nix #2

Fantasy sword & sorcery novel, second of a series following The Hammer and the Blade (2012), about an adventurer and a priest whose attempts to retire keep getting interrupted.
• Angry Robot’s site has this description with blurbs and quotes from reviews.

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* McCullough, Kelly : Blade Reforged
(Ace 978-0425262320, $7.99, 304pp, mass market paperback, July 2013)
Nominal Publication Date: Tue 25 Jun 2013
Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9781101592502
Fallen Blade #4

Fantasy novel, fourth in a series following Broken Blade (2011), Bared Blade (July 2012), and Crossed Blades (Dec. 2012), about a swordsman and his familiar whose goddess has been murdered.
• Penguin’s site has this description.
• The author’s site has this page about the book with a description and excerpt.

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* Nickle, David : The ‘Geisters
(ChiZine Publications 978-1771481434, $16.95, 300pp, trade paperback, June 2013, cover art Erik Mohr)
Nominal Publication Date: Tue 25 Jun 2013
Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: B00BATWOCC

Fantasy novel about a woman, possessed by a poltergeist since childhood, who now feels other forces struggling to take away her control of it.
• ChiZine’s site has this description.
• Amazon’s “Look Inside” function provides a preview.
• Cory Doctorow posted this review last week: “The story is a white-knuckler from page one, and Nickle is a master of luring you into thinking that the supernatural can be rationalized and systemized, only to reveal, time and again, that the orderly patterns we try to make of the irrational are figments of our imagination. I was off-balance and more than a little scared throughout.”

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* Niven, Larry, & Matthew Joseph Harrington : The Goliath Stone
(Tor 978-0-7653-3323-0, $24.99, 320pp, hardcover, June 2013)
Nominal Publication Date: Tue 25 Jun 2013
Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9781429960717

SF novel in which renegade nanomachines, sent 25 years ago to mine an asteroid, now direct a larger asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.
Publishers Weekly gives it a starred review: “As nanites make the protagonists younger, healthier, and sexier, they engage in fast, funny, and gloriously self-referential repartee, with repeated homage paid to classic science-fiction writers and their work. The hard science can be dense, but it never gets in way of the breezy mood that gives this delightful romp its wings.”

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* Priest, Christopher : The Adjacent
(UK: Gollancz 978-0-575-10536-2, £12.99, 419pp, hardcover, June 2013)
Nominal Publication Date: Thu 20 Jun 2013
Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780575105393
Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: B00D7ERB0I

SF/slipstream novel concerning a terrorist attack in near-future London, a World War I era meeting between a stage magician and a science fiction writer, a woman pilot who escapes the Nazis in 1943, and a present day scientist who creates an ‘adjacency’.
• Gollancz’s site has this description.
• Amazon’s “Look Inside” function provides a preview.
• SFX has a five star review by Jonathan Wright: “Priest isn’t being tricksy. It’s not that what you’re reading at any point isn’t significant in the development of the book, it’s more that its significance may not be immediately apparent. The proof of this is the way that, gradually, as the novel’s finale approaches, it becomes increasingly apparent that Priest knows precisely where the heart of his story lies. … One of the best novels of the year.”
• Amazing Stories ran a two-part interview with Priest about this and other books.

(Mon 24 Jun 2013)
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* Roman, Peter : The Book of Cross: The Mona Lisa Sacrifice
(ChiZine 978-1-77148-145-8, $16.95, 300pp, trade paperback, June 2013)
Nominal Publication Date: Tue 25 Jun 2013
Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: B00BATWN5U
The Book of Cross #1

Urban fantasy novel, first of a series, about Cross, a mortal soul trapped in Christ’s body, summoned by an angel to find the real life woman who inspired the painting Mona Lisa.
• ChiZine’s site has this description.
• The Publishers Weekly review comments, “Traversing a landscape that owes much to the work of Richard Kadrey and Neil Gaiman, Cross pursues his target through encounters with faeries, a homicidal mummy, and a resurrected Princess Diana.” The review concludes, “Fans of the genre will find one of its ultimate expressions here, but the casual conflation of Christ, sasquatches, Greek myth, and the TV show Supernatural may be a bit much for others.”

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* Wolverton, Dave, ed. : L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XXIX
(Galaxy 978-1-61986-200-5, $7.99, 586pp, mass market paperback, June 2013)
Nominal Publication Date: Sat 22 Jun 2013
Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: B00CE2CC30

Anthology of 13 original stories, with illustrations, by winners and runners-up of the 2013 Writers and Illustrators of the Future contests.
• There are also essays about writing and art by L. Ron Hubbard, Nnedi Okorafor, and Larry Elmore.
• Wolverton provides an introduction, and a summary of the year’s quarterly contest results.
Publishers Weekly gives this a starred review: “Eschewing tried-and-true space opera and epic fantasy, these stories explore new mysteries and ideas.”

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