Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.
Nebula Awards Showcase 2013
Edited by Catherine Asaro
Cover by Julie Dillon
Promo copy:
The Nebula Awards Showcase volumes have been published annually since 1966, reprinting the winning and nominated stories in the Nebula Awards, voted on by the members of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America®. The editor selected by SFWA’s anthology committee (chaired by Mike Resnick) is two-time Nebula winner, Catherine Asaro.
This year’s volume includes stories and excerpts by Connie Willis, Jo Walton,
Kij Johnson, Geoff Ryman, John Clute, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Ferrett Steinmetz, Ken Liu, Nancy Fulda, Delia Sherman, Amal El-Mohtar, C. S. E. Cooney, David Goldman, Katherine Sparrow, E. Lily Yu, and Brad R. Torgersen.
Shield of Sea and Space
(The Chaos Knight Book Three)
by Erin Hoffman
Cover by Dehong He
Promo copy:
Vidarian Rulorat, called the Tesseract, a powerful magic-user whose abilities spread across multiple elements, finds himself at war with the Alorean Import Company, a powerful cabal of merchants wealthy enough to buy nations. By opening the gate between worlds, Vidarian released the Starhunter, goddess of chaos. With her coming, wild magic returned to the world of Andovar, bringing with it shape- changers and strange awakened elemental technologies, including many-sailed ships powered by air magic, and mechanical automata lit from within by earth and fire. Now, Vidarian discovers that the Alorean Import Company is determined to eliminate two- thirds of this new life on Andovar in the hopes of hoarding more magic for themselves in a new, worldwide plutocracy. Along with his human, gryphon, and shapechanger allies, he must stop the Company if he is to safeguard any future for the diverse life of Andovar, including his and Ariadel’s newborn daughter. With the existence of whole species hanging in the balance, Vidarian is locked in a race for the future of the world.
In Thunder Forged: Iron Kingdoms Chronicles
(The Fall of Llael Book One)
by Ari Marmell
Cover by Jon Sullivan
Promo copy:
The first novel based upon the award-winning WARMACHINE® steam-powered fantasy wargame and the world of the Iron Kingdoms™ Role Playing Game is an action-packed steam-tech fantasy that combines elements of epic wartime adventure with thrilling cloak-and-dagger espionage. The Iron Kingdoms are at war-a war fought with machine guns and magic, knights of valor, and earth shaking titans of steam and steel. And now that war may hinge entirely on nothing more than a sheaf of papers. An alchemical formula, stolen by an ally they thought they could trust, could cost the brave soldiers of Cygnar everything. Their only hope: a cunning spy, a knight out of her element, and a frighteningly small unit of the best that Cygnar has to offer. Arrayed against them is not only a single, devious enemy, but the combined intelligence apparatus-and possibly the full military might-of the most brutal martial power Cygnar has ever known.
Earth Girl
by Janet Edwards
Cover by Himitsuhana
Promo copy:
A sensational YA science fiction debut from an exciting new British author!
Just because she’s confined to the planet, doesn’t mean she can’t reach for the stars.
2788. Only the handicapped live on Earth. Eighteen-year-old Jarra is among the one in a thousand people born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets. Sent to Earth at birth to save her life, she has been abandoned by her parents. She can’t travel to other worlds, but she can watch their vids, and she knows all the jokes they make. She’s an ape, a throwback, but this is one ape girl who won’t give in.
Jarra makes up a fake military background for herself and joins a class of norms who are on Earth for a year of practical history studies excavating the dangerous ruins of the old cities. She wants to see their faces when they find out they’ve been fooled into thinking an ape girl was a norm. She isn’t expecting to make friends with the enemy, to risk her life to save norms, or to fall in love.
Reaper’s Legacy
(Toxic City Book Two)
by Tim Lebbon
Cover by Steve Stone
Promo copy:
Heroes and monsters clash with government forces in an apocalyptic London. Two years after London is struck by a devastating terrorist attack, it is cut off from the world, protected by a large force of soldiers (known as Choppers), while those in the rest of Britain believe that their ex-capital is now a toxic, uninhabited wasteland. Jack and his friends know that the truth is very different. The handful of survivors in London are developing strange, fantastic powers. Evolving. Meanwhile, the Choppers treat the ruined city as their own experimental playground. Jack’s own developing powers are startling and frightening, though he is determined to save his father, the brutal man with a horrific power who calls himself Reaper. Jack must also find their friend Lucy-Anne, who went north to find her brother. What Lucy-Anne discovers is terrifying-people evolving into monstrous things and the knowledge that a nuclear bomb has been set to destroy what’s left of London. And the clock is ticking.