![](\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/510m74PQbTL._SL500_AA300_.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLet\u2019s take a quick look to see what\u2019s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe<\/span><\/a> by Charles Yu<\/span><\/p>\n Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n National Book Foundation 5 Under 35<\/a> Award-winner Charles Yu delivers his debut novel, a razor-sharp, ridiculously funny, and utterly touching story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space-time.<\/p>\n Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time-travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That\u2019s where Charles Yu, time travel technician\u2014part counselor, part gadget repair man\u2014steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he\u2019s not taking client calls, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a onehour cycle, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog named Ed, and using a book titled How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe<\/span> as his guide, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. <\/p>\n Wildly new and adventurous, Yu\u2019s debut is certain to send shock waves of wonder through literary space-time.<\/p>\n \n Dragongirl<\/span><\/a> by Todd McCaffrey<\/span><\/p>\n Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n Young Fiona, rider of the gold queen Talenth, has returned from the past, where she and a group of dragons and riders fled so that the wounded could heal from their previous battles with Thread and the younger dragons could safely grow to fighting age. Gone only three days, yet aged more than three years, Fiona is no longer a child but a woman prepared to fight against the Thread that threatens to destroy her world.<\/p>\n Fiona\u2019s life takes a pivotal turn when a shocking tragedy thrusts her into a position of authority. Now she finds herself leading weyrfolk who have a hard time trusting a senior Weyrwoman who is both young and an outsider.<\/p>\n But even greater challenges lie ahead: Thread is falling and there are too few dragons to stem the tide. Many have died from the recent plague, and even with the influx of newly mature dragons from the past, the depleted fighting force is no match for the intensifying Threadfall. Fiona knows that something must be done, and what she proposes is daring and next to impossible. But if her plan succeeds, it just might save them all.<\/p>\n With a cast of familiar characters from previous Pern novels\u2014including Lorana, who sacrificed her own queen dragon so that all the dragons of Pern would have a chance to survive, and Kindan, the harper Fiona has loved her whole life\u2014Dragongirl<\/span> is another triumph for Todd McCaffrey, and a riveting new chapter for the Dragonriders of Pern.<\/p>\n \n Wolf’s Cross<\/span><\/a> by S. A. Swann<\/span><\/p>\n Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n S. A. Swann continues to reinvent the werewolf myth in this fantastic new novel set in the medieval world of the celebrated Wolfbreed<\/span><\/a>. Like its predecessor, Wolf\u2019s Cross is unafraid to cross boundaries and break taboos to tell an unforgettable story of romance and adventure that will forever change how you think about werewolves.<\/p>\n Maria lives a simple life in a small Polish village, working for the lord of the nearby fortress. Motherless since birth, Maria has been raised by her father and stepmother. Around her neck she wears\u2014as she has always worn\u2014a silver crucifix, to protect her from the devil. Or so her father tells her.<\/p>\n But when a contingent of badly mauled Teutonic knights, including a handsome and gravely wounded young man named Josef, ask for succor at the fortress, Maria\u2019s quiet and comfortable world shatters. For the knights are Wolfj\u00e4gers, an order dedicated to the extermination of werewolves, and Maria, unknowingly, is one of the creatures they hunt. Only the crucifix about her neck prevents her body from changing into a lethal killing machine.<\/p>\n When Maria meets Darien, a wolfbreed bent on exacting a terrible revenge on humans, she will learn the truth about herself, and find her loyalties\u2014and her heart\u2014torn in two.<\/p>\n \n The City & The City<\/span><\/a> by China Mi\u00e9ville<\/span><\/p>\n Promo copy:<\/span><\/p>\n NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES<\/span>, THE SEATTLE TIMES<\/span>, AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY<\/span><\/p>\n When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borl\u00fa of the Extreme Crime Squad. To investigate, Borl\u00fa must travel from the decaying Beszel to its equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the vibrant city of Ul Qoma. But this is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a seeing of the unseen. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, Borl\u00fa is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman\u2019s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them more than their lives. What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma–and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.<\/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. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu Promo copy: National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award-winner Charles Yu … Continue reading ![](\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/519Gc0G7ISL._SL500_AA300_.jpg\")
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