![](\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51t%2BzIVf3pL._SL500_AA300_.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLet\u2019s take a quick look to see what\u2019s arrived at the Geek Compound.<\/p>\n
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Kings of the North<\/span><\/a> Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n Elizabeth Moon returns to the fantasy world of the paladin Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter\u2014Paks for short\u2014in this second volume of a new series filled with all the bold imaginative flights, meticulous world-building, realistic military action, and deft characterization that readers have come to expect from this award-winning author. In Kings of the North<\/span>, Moon is working at the very height of her storytelling powers.<\/p>\n Peace and order have been restored to the kingdoms of Tsaia and Lyonya, thanks to the crowning of two kings: Mikeli of Tsaia and, in Lyonya, Kieri Phelan, a mercenary captain whose royal blood and half-elven heritage are resented by elves and humans alike. <\/p>\n On the surface, all is hope and promise. But underneath, trouble is brewing. Mikeli cannot sit safely on his throne as long as remnants of the evil Verrakaien magelords are at large. Kieri is being hounded to marry and provide the kingdom with an heir\u2014but that is the least of his concerns. A strange rift has developed between him and his grandmother and co-ruler, the immortal elven queen known as the Lady. More problematic is the ex-pirate Alured, who schemes to seize Kieri\u2019s throne for himself\u2014and Mikeli\u2019s, too, while he\u2019s at it. Meanwhile, to the north, the aggressive kingdom of Pargun seems poised to invade. <\/p>\n Now, as war threatens to erupt from without and within, the two kings are dangerously divided. Old alliances and the bonds of friendship are about to be tested as never before. And a shocking discovery will change everything.<\/p>\n \n Hidden Cities<\/span><\/a> Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n The mythic beasts and glorious legends of feudal China illuminate a world at war in this, the conclusion to Daniel Fox\u2019s critically acclaimed series.<\/p>\n Whatever they thought, this was always where they were going: to the belly of the dragon, or the belly of the sea.<\/p>\n More by chance than good judgment, the young emperor has won his first battle. The rebels have retreated from the coastal city of Santung\u2014but they\u2019ll be back. Distracted by his pregnant concubine, the emperor sends a distrusted aide, Ping Wen, to govern Santung in his place. There, the treacherous general will discover the healer Tien, who is obsessed with a library of sacred mage texts and the secrets concealed within\u2014secrets upon which, Ping Wen quickly realizes, the fate of the whole war may turn.<\/p>\n As all sides of this seething conflict prepare for more butchery, a miner of magical jade, himself invulnerable, desperately tries to save his beautiful and yet brutally scarred clan cousin; a priestess loses her children, who are taken as pawns in a contest beyond her comprehension; and a fierce and powerful woman commits an act of violence that will entwine her, body and soul, with the spirit of jade itself. Amid a horde of soldiers, torturers, and runaways, these people will test both their human and mystical powers against a violent world. But one force trumps all: the huge, hungry, wrathful dragon.<\/p>\n \n Kraken<\/span><\/a> 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<\/span> 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 \nPart I<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Books received 3\/13\/11 Del Rey edition Part II<\/a> was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let\u2019s take a quick look to see what\u2019s arrived at the Geek Compound. Kings of the North by Elizabeth Moon Promo copy: Elizabeth Moon returns to the fantasy world of the paladin Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter\u2014Paks for short\u2014in this second volume of … Continue reading
\nby Elizabeth Moon<\/span><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51jQF-4ZoxL._SL500_AA300_.jpg\")
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\nby Daniel Fox<\/span><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51knpAvEQaL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg\"){kind=icon}
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\nby China Mi\u00e9ville<\/span><\/p>\n