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<\/p>\nLet\u2019s take a quick look to see what\u2019s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound. <\/p>\n
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Kraken<\/span><\/a> by China Mi\u00e9ville<\/span><\/p>\n Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n With this outrageous new novel, China Mi\u00e9ville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this\u2014or any other\u2014year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about\u2014or prevent\u2014the End of All Things.<\/p>\n In the Darwin Centre at London\u2019s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre\u2019s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux\u2014better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy\u2019s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.<\/p>\n As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens\u2014human and otherwise\u2014are adept in magic and murder.<\/p>\n There is the Congregation of God Kraken, a sect of squid worshippers whose roots go back to the dawn of humanity\u2014and beyond. There is the criminal mastermind known as the Tattoo, a merciless maniac inked onto the flesh of a hapless victim. There is the FSRC\u2014the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit\u2014a branch of London\u2019s finest that fights sorcery<\/p>\n with sorcery. There is Wati, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a ragtag union of magical familiars. There are the Londonmancers, who read the future in the city\u2019s entrails. There is Grisamentum, London\u2019s greatest wizard, whose shadow lingers long after his death. And then there is Goss and Subby, an ageless old man and a cretinous boy who, together, constitute a terrifying\u2014yet darkly charismatic\u2014demonic duo.<\/p>\n All of them\u2014and others\u2014are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.<\/p>\n \n Without Warning<\/span><\/a> by John Birmingham<\/span><\/p>\n Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n In Kuwait, American forces are locked and loaded for the invasion of Iraq. In Paris, a covert agent is close to cracking a terrorist cell. And just north of the equator, a sailboat manned by a drug runner and a pirate is witness to the unspeakable. In one instant, all around the world, everything will change. A wave of inexplicable energy slams into the continental United States. America as we know it vanishes. From a Texas lawyer who happens to be in the right place at the right time to an engineer in Seattle who becomes his city\u2019s only hope, from a combat journalist trapped in the Middle East to a drug runner off the Mexican coast, Without Warning<\/span> tells a fast, furious story of survival, violence, and a new, soul-shattering reality. <\/p>\n \n Unholy Magic (Downside Ghosts, Book 2)<\/span><\/a> by Stacia Kane<\/span><\/p>\n Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n ENEMIES DON\u2019T NEED TO BE ALIVE TO BE DEADLY.<\/p>\n For Chess Putnam, finding herself near-fatally poisoned by a con psychic and then stopping a murderous ghost is just another day on the job. As an agent of the Church of Real Truth, Chess must expose those looking to profit from the world\u2019s unpleasant little poltergeist problem\u2014humans filing false claims of hauntings\u2014all while staving off any undead who really are looking for a kill. But Chess has been extra busy these days, coping with a new \u201ccelebrity\u201d assignment while trying on her own time to help some desperate prostitutes.<\/p>\n Someone\u2019s taking out the hookers of Downside in the most gruesome way, and Chess is sure the rumors that it\u2019s the work of a ghost are way off base. But proving herself right means walking in the path of a maniac, not to mention standing between the two men in her life just as they\u2014along with their ruthless employers\u2014are moving closer to a catastrophic showdown. Someone is dealing in murder, sex, and the supernatural, and once again Chess finds herself right in the crossfire.<\/p>\n \n Tongues of Serpents: A Novel of Temeraire<\/span><\/a> by Naomi Novik<\/span><\/p>\n Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n A dazzling blend of military history, high-flying fantasy, and edge-of-your-seat adventure, Naomi Novik\u2019s Temeraire novels, set in an alternate Napoleonic era in which intelligent dragons have been harnessed as weapons of war, are more than just perennial bestsellers\u2014they are a worldwide phenomenon. Now, in Tongues of Serpents<\/span>, Naomi Novik is back, along with the dragon Temeraire and his rider and friend, Capt. Will Laurence.<\/p>\n Convicted of treason despite their heroic defense against Napoleon\u2019s invasion of England, Temeraire and Laurence\u2014stripped of rank and standing\u2014have been transported to the prison colony at New South Wales in distant Australia, where, it is hoped, they cannot further corrupt the British Aerial Corps with their dangerous notions of liberty for dragons. Temeraire and Laurence carry with them three dragon eggs intended to help establish a covert in the colony and destined to be handed over to such second-rate, undesirable officers as have been willing to accept so remote an assignment\u2014including one former acquaintance, Captain Rankin, whose cruelty once cost a dragon its life.<\/p>\n Nor is this the greatest difficulty that confronts the exiled dragon and rider: Instead of leaving behind all the political entanglements and corruptions of the war, Laurence and Temeraire have instead sailed into a hornet\u2019s nest of fresh complications. For the colony at New South Wales has been thrown into turmoil after the overthrow of the military governor, one William Bligh\u2014better known as Captain Bligh, late of HMS Bounty. Bligh wastes no time in attempting to enlist Temeraire and Laurence to restore him to office, while the upstart masters of the colony are equally determined that the new arrivals should not upset a balance of power precariously tipped in their favor.<\/p>\n Eager to escape this political quagmire, Laurence and Temeraire take on a mission to find a way through the forbidding Blue Mountains and into the interior of Australia. But when one of the dragon eggs is stolen from Temeraire, the surveying expedition becomes a desperate race to recover it in time\u2014a race that leads to a shocking discovery and a dangerous new obstacle in the global war between Britain and Napoleon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let\u2019s take a quick look to see what\u2019s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound. Kraken by China Mi\u00e9ville Promo copy: With this outrageous new novel, China Mi\u00e9ville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest … Continue reading ![](\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51olqGkJ0gL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg\"){kind=icon}
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