A flood of books has hit the studio since the podcast’s return, and it’s past time we share some love. Here are the books that have captured our collective eye. Check em’ out!
This Crooked Way, by James Enge
Morlock Ambrosius returns! Traveling alone in the depths of winter, Morlock Ambrosius (bitterly dry drunk, master of all magical makers, wandering swordsman, and son of Merlin Ambrosius and Nimue Viviana) is attacked by an unknown enemy. To unmask his enemy and end the attacks he must travel a long crooked way through the world: past the soul-eating Boneless One, past a subtle and treacherous master of golems, past the dragon-taming Khroi, past the predatory cities of Sarkunden and Aflraun, past the demons and dark gnomes of the northern woods. Soon he will find that his enemy wears a familiar face, and that the duel he has stumbled into will threaten more lives than his own, leaving nations shattered in its chaotic wake. And at the end of his long road waits the death of a legend.
Stalking the Dragon, by Mike Resnick
The freshness and imagination on display in 1987’s Stalking the Unicorn and 2008’s Stalking the Vampire are renewed for this noirish mystery that mixes offbeat humor and the supernatural. Hard-boiled PI John Justin Mallory, stuck in a parallel Manhattan occupied by demons and wizards, takes an especially offbeat assignment in homage to Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story Silver Blaze. On the eve of the Eastminster Dragon Show, Fluffy, a toy dragon and the favorite for Best in Show, is kidnapped. Aided by his usual motley assortment of assistants, including catlike Felina and obsequious gremlin Jeeves, Mallory races the clock to get her back to the show before the award goes to another dragon. Resnick’s light touch will leave readers grinning and eager for more.
Chasing the Dragon, by Justina Robson
Lila Black returns in the fourth volume of high-octane, high-magic, high-tech adventures.
Ever since the Quantum Bomb of 2015 things have been different; the dimensions have fused and suddenly our world is accessible to elves, demons, ghosts and elementals and their worlds are open to us. Things have been different for Special Agent Lila Black too: tortured and magic-scarred by elves, rebuilt by humans into a half-robot, part-AI, nuclear-fueled walking arsenal, married to a demon and in love with a recently-deceased elf. It was confusing enough before she was catapulted fifty years into her own future.
Returning to the life of a guns-blazing secret agent, Lila finds herself having inherited all of her former boss’s old offices and whatever mysteries they contain, as the elf has done a runner some fifty years previously. Appointed head of the new android division, she can see all too clearly what lies in store for her if the growth of the alien technologies in her cyborg body continue unchecked.
But there are more immediate concerns. Like resurrecting her lover, Zal. And her husband, the demon Teazle, is embroiled in a fatal plot in Demonia, and her magic sword is making itself happy as a pen whose writing has the power to affect other worlds. The world is off its rocker and most everyone is terrified of faeries.
And all the while, she hears the voices of the machine material projections of an immaterial form, The Signal. The Signal talks constantly if only she knew what it meant.
Chasing the Dragon is bright, fast moving and accessible SF that mixes in fantasy and a cool cult-lit sensibility to create a series that will appeal to all fans of Laurrell K. Hamilton and Peter Hamilton alike.
A Grey Moon Over China, by Thomas A. Day
First published in 2006 by Black Heron Press, Day’s intense debut opens in the year 2027 with the world on the verge of economic and environmental collapse as nations wage war over a rapidly diminishing oil supply. Army engineer Eduardo Torres accidentally discovers plans for a quantum battery, which could solve Earth’s energy crisis. Instead of sharing it, Torres sets up his own rogue state, builds a fleet of starships and takes them through a wormhole to the Holzstein System, only to be attacked first by other humans and then by what appear to be aliens determined to destroy humankind. Though marred by a few technological improbabilities, this well-written, decidedly grim novel is replete with strong, thorny characters, fast-paced action sequences and rich descriptions of human folly and true heroism.
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