Welcome to another edition of SF Book Releases This Week. I was gone most of last week for ICON, so I didn’t see any Indie authors releasing something. If I’ve missed your title, let me know and I’ll get it in. The vote on our Facebook page chose Tad Williams for our next podcast interview, so I’ll get that up Wednesday night. Almost Human debuted on TV last night. Did anyone watch that? Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy this week’s releases!
Random House / Osprey
Enjoy this pseudo-nonfiction, ‘how-to’ military handbook for aliens intending to conquer the Earth. Science fiction elements are satirized and then connected to real-world science, history, and military technique to show how it should be done.
It goes without saying that any military campaign must be planned in ways depending upon some basic factors: The logistics of where your enemy is in relation to your own forces, environmental factors, and, most importantly, ‘why’ you’re fighting this campaign. This book intends to take these basic factors, and apply them to the purpose of conquering the planet known to the natives as Earth.
There are, of course, many possible reasons for launching a military campaign against such a planet. The form of your campaign, and the formation of its strategic and tactical policies will very much depend on your reason. Obviously the campaign to destroy all sentient life on a planetary surface will be very different in character to a campaign to, say, bring the local population into the fold of your empire or federation – and, frankly, a lot simpler.
Once the reason for conquest, or destruction, has been determined, the book will take a step-by-step approach to the best way to annihilate humanities resistance and bring them to their knees.
It is 1895 and the future depends not upon the actions of governments but upon those of the Adventuring Companies, and will be shaped by countless engagements in city streets, ancient ruins, dense jungles, high mountains and boundless deserts. In America, good men fight to preserve their hard-won liberty and the great drive west is stalled by Native American mystics and powerful outlaw gangs. In Africa, native forces fight to push back the Pax Britannica no longer is a Lee-Metford rifle and a disciplined resolve enough to put the foe to flight. In Europe, darkness gathers around the Austro-Hungarian court and the Great Powers watch warily, knowing its fall could precipitate a war to end all wars. Heroes, Villains and Fiends presents new Companies, from the rebellious Zulu and Apache to the spies of the Okhrana and Secret Service, and the mysterious forces of such groups as the Knights Templar and the sinister Hellfire Club. With equipment, Talents and Mystical Powers, additional scenarios and a sample campaign, Heroes, Villains and Fiends opens up new possibilities for In Her Majesty’s Name.
The greatest hero of Ancient Greece, Hercules battled gods, men and monsters in a lifetime of violence and destruction. Today, Hercules is best known for his ‘twelve labors’, a series of near-impossible tasks assigned to him as punishment for the killing of his wife and children. During those tasks, he slew the multi-headed hydra, wrestled with Cerberus, hound of the underworld, and stole the girdle of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. Yet even when his labours were done, his adventures continued. Hercules led armies, sacked cities, fought against the gods, and then joined forces with the gods in the great war known as ‘The Gigantomachy’. This book tells the complete story of this legendary warrior, including information on the classical sources, his deification and cult, and his continuing popularity as a character in film, television and comic books.
Spectrum
Challenging, controversial, educational, and irreverent, the award-winning Spectrum series reinforces both the importance and prevalence of fantastic art in today’s culture. With exceptional images by extraordinary creators, this elegant full-color collection showcases an international cadre of creators working in every style and medium, both traditional and digital. The best artists from the United States, Europe, China, Australia, South America and beyond have gathered into the only annual devoted exclusively to works of fantasy, horror, science fiction, and the surreal, making Spectrum one of the year’s highly most anticipated books.
Featured in SPECTRUM 20 are 300 diverse visionaries, many of them world-renowned, including Michael Whelan, Sam Weber, Donato Giancola, Leo & Diane Dillon, Kinuko Craft, James Gurney, Peter de Sève. With art from books, graphic novels, video games, films, galleries, and advertising, Spectrum is both an electrifying art book for fans and an invaluable resource for clients looking for bright new talent. The entire field is discussed in an invaluable, found-nowhere-else Year In Review. Contact information for each artist is included in a handy index.
Skyscape
In this sequel to the bestselling fantasy thriller, Angelfall
, the survivors of the angel apocalypse begin to scrape back together what’s left of the modern world. When a group of people capture Penryn’s sister Paige, thinking she’s a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken.
Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels’ secret plans, where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go.
Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can’t rejoin the angels, can’t take his rightful place as one of their leaders. When faced with recapturing his wings or helping Penryn survive, which will he choose?
Tachyon Publications (Free US Shipping)
Combining complex science with skillfully executed prose, these edgy, award-winning tales explore the shifting border between the known and the alien. The beauty and peril of technology and the passion and penalties of conviction merge in narratives that are by turns dark, satiric, and introspective. Among these bold storylines: a seemingly humanized monster from John Carpenter’s The Thing reveals the true villains in an Antarctic showdown; an artificial intelligence shields a biologically enhanced prodigy from her overwhelmed parents; a deep-sea diver discovers her true nature lies not within the confines of her mission but in the depths of her psyche; a court psychologist analyzes a psychotic graduate student who has learned to reprogram reality itself; and a father tries to hold his broken family together in the wake of an ongoing assault by sentient rainstorms. Gorgeously saturnine and exceptionally powerful, these collected fictions are both intensely thought-provoking and impossible to forget.
Wizards of the Coast
Magic: The Gathering: Holiday Gift Box
What do you get the planeswalker who has everything?
Enchant the Magic™ player in your life with the Magic: The Gathering® Holiday Gift Box, containing four booster packs from the Theros™ expansion, 20 basic land cards, and a premium card featuring an illustration unique to this gift box.
The box itself can hold an arcane arsenal of over 2,000 cards. (Gift box does not contain 2,000 cards)
47North
The frozen wasteland of Snow World—known as Southern California before an alien invasion decimated civilization—is home to warring steampunk clans. Crankshafts, Imperials, Tinskins, Brineboilers, and many more all battle one another for precious supplies, against ravenous mutant beasts for basic survival, and with the mysterious Founders for their very freedom.
Through this ruined world soars the Pneumatic Zeppelin, captained by the daring Romulus Buckle. In the wake of a nearly suicidal assault on the Founders’ prison city to rescue key military leaders, both the steam-powered airship and its crew are bruised and battered. Yet there’s little time for rest or repairs: Founders raids threaten to shatter the fragile alliance Buckle has risked everything to forge among the clans.
Even as he musters what seems a futile defense in the face of inevitable war, Buckle learns that the most mysterious clan of all is holding his long-lost sister in a secret base—and that she holds the ultimate key to victory over the Founders. But rescuing her means abandoning his allies and praying they survive long enough for there to be an alliance to return to.
Tor
The Elysium Chronicles, J.A. Souders’ riveting SF series for teens which began with the psychological thriller Renegade, continues in Revelations.
Six weeks after her arrival on the Surface, Evelyn Winters is no closer to unlocking the memories lost in her subconscious than she was when she first came. Isolated in a strange new society, Evie has only Gavin Hunter to remind her of who she once was.
But even with a clean slate, it’s easy to see that Evie doesn’t fit in on the Surface. And as her differences make her feel more and more alone, she can’t help but yearn for that place she doesn’t remember: the isolated city hidden in the depths of the ocean. Elysium. Home.
But she can’t exactly tell Gavin what she’s feeling. Not when he’s the one who helped her escape Elysium in the first place, and has the scars to prove it. Though the doctors say otherwise, Gavin believes that Evie just needs time. And if her memories don’t come back, well, maybe she’s better off not remembering her past.
But the decision may be out of their hands when Evie’s ever-elusive memories begin to collide with reality. People and images from her past appear in the most unlikely places, haunting her, provoking her…and making her seem not only strange but dangerous.
Evie and Gavin can’t wait around for her memories to return. They’ll have to journey across the Outlands of the Surface to find help, and in the end, their search may just lead them back to the place it all started…
Kickstarters
—————————————————————————————————————————————————
Timothy C. Ward
Subscribe to Adventures in SciFi Publishing podcast on: iTunes | Stitcher Radio (Android users) | RSS | Website RSS
About Timothy C. Ward
Spectrum 20 is wonderful. I’ll be doing a full review soon. Cathy and Arnie Fenners’ parting remarks (the series torch has been passed to John Fleskes of Flesk Publications) are worth the price alone and the art is amazing, more so than ever.