Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
by Charles Yu
Promo copy:
From a 5 Under 35 winner, comes a razor-sharp, hilarious, and touching story of a son searching for his father … through quantum space-time.
Every day in Minor Universe 31 people get into time machines and try to change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician, steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls, Yu visits his mother and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. The key to locating his father may be found in a book. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and somewhere inside it is information that will help him. It may even save his life.
Down to the Bone (Quantum Gravity, Book 5)
by Justina Robson
Cover by Larry Rostant
Promo copy:
Lila Black faces her greatest challange yet as she takes herself, her dead lover and the AI in her head into death’s realm. The Quantum Gravity series, set in a world where our reality mixes with other dimensions that are the homes to Faeries, elementals and demons, is unique in modern SF – a series that is willing to incorporate legend, myth and magic while maintaining a rigorous approach to scientific and pyschological reality. And in Lila Black Justina Robson has created an enduringly strong yet quirkily human and flawed heroine.
City of Ruin
by Mark Charan Newton
Cover by Scott Grimando
Promo copy:
In the frozen north of a far-flung world lies Villiren, a city plagued by violent gangs and monstrous human/animal hybrids, stalked by a serial killer, and targeted by an otherworldly army. Brynd Lathraea has brought his elite Night Guard to help Villiren build a fighting force against the invaders. But success will mean dealing with the half-vampyre leader of the savage Bloods gang. Meanwhile, reptilian rumel investigator Rumex Jeryd has come seeking refuge from Villjamur’s vindictive emperor—only to find a city riddled with intolerance between species, indifference to a murderer’s reign of terror, and the powerful influence of criminals. As the enemy prepares to strike, and Villiren’s defenders turn on each other, three refugees—deposed empress Jamur Rika, her sister Eir, and the scholar Randur Estevu—approach the city. And with them they bring a last, desperate hope for survival … and a shocking revelation that will change everything.
Books received 6/18/11 Part III was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon