Dorothy sat up and noticed that the house was not moving; nor was it dark, for the bright sunshine came in at the window, flooding the little room. She sprang from her bed and with Toto at her heels ran and opened the door.
The little girl gave a cry of amazement and looked about her, her eyes growing bigger and bigger at the wonderful sights she saw.
The cyclone had set the house down very gently–for a cyclone–in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of greensward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the SFF Book Releases This Week!
If you are an indie or small press author and would like your book included in this list, email us at adventuresinscifipublishing [at] gmail [dot] com. If you love free books, reviews, lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!) and podcasts, sign up to our AISFP Wormhole newsletter.
Please note that, while most of the books listed are on sale today, a few have slightly later release dates noted in the parentheses below their book cover image.
Charlotte’s Story
by Laura Benedict
(October 15)
The fall of 1957 in southern Virginia was a seemingly idyllic, even prosperous time. A young housewife, Charlotte Bliss, lives with her husband, Hasbrouck Preston “Press” Bliss, and their two young children, Eva Grace and Michael, in the gorgeous Bliss family home. On the surface, theirs seems a calm, picturesque life, but soon tragedy befalls them: four tragic deaths, with apparently simple explanations.
But nothing is simple if Bliss House is involved. How far will Charlotte go to discover the truth? And how far will she get without knowing who her real enemy is? Though Bliss House may promise to give its inhabitants what they want, it never gives them exactly what they expect.
The second book in the Bliss House series.
Season of the Cats
by Pamela Sargent
(October 15)
Gena and Don seemed an ideal couple. Young. In love. Playful and imaginative. They often pretended to be cats, purring and playing and taking on pretend roles in their made-up cat-world of “Cat”-alonia! When they move into their first house and money becomes tight, management of household finances — what the shared Household account pays for versus what share goes to personal expenses — becomes a contention point. And their imaginary world takes a darker turn, with Household becoming an evil that threatens the harmony of their beloved Catalonia. But Catalonia and its feline residents have become so real that they begin to intrude into Gena and Don’s world, appearing as stray cats — with a mission of their own. And they aren’t going to let the young couple destroy their world, at any cost!
Hell’s Foundations Quiver
by David Weber
Centuries ago, the human race fought its first great war against an alien race-and lost. A tiny population of human beings fled to distant Safehold. Centuries later, their descendants have forgotten their history; for them, life has been an eternal Middle Ages, ruled by the Church of God Awaiting, whose secret purpose is to prevent the re-emergence of industrial civilization.
But not all of Safehold’s founders were on board with this plan. Those dissidents left behind their own secret legacies. One of those is Merlyn Athrawes, cybernetic avatar of one of Earth’s long-dead defenders, now reawakened after a thousand years to restart human progress and reclaim our place in the universe. Merlyn has intervened in the small Safeholdian realm of Charis, seeding it with ideas and innovations and helping it to rise to challenge the hegemony of the Church.
It’s been a long and bloody fight, but aided by a stream of inventions–breech-loading rifles, signal rockets, claymore mines, new approaches to manufacturing and supply-Charis and its few allies seem to have finally gained the upper hand. Now major realms have begun to consider switching sides.
To all these ends, Merlyn Athrawes has been everywhere, under multiple disguises and wielding hidden powers. The secret of who and what he is has been closely held. But a new player has arrived, one who knows many secrets-including Merlyn’s own.
The sixth book in Weber’s Safehold series
The King’s Justice: Two Novellas
by Stephen R. Donaldson
In The King’s Justice, a stranger dressed in black arrives in the village of Settle’s Crossways, following the scent of a terrible crime. He even calls himself “Black,” though almost certainly that is not his name. The people of the village discover that they have a surprising urge to cooperate with this stranger, though the desire of inhabitants of quiet villages to cooperate with strangers is not common in their land, or most lands. But this gift will not save him as he discovers the nature of the evil concealed in Settle’s Crossways.
The “Augur’s Gambit” is a daring plan created by Mayhew Gordian, Hieronomer to the Queen of Indemnie, a plan to save his Queen and his country. Gordian is a reader of entrails. In the bodies of chickens, lambs, piglets, and one stillborn infant he sees the same message: the island nation of Indemnie is doomed. But even in the face of certain destruction a man may fight, and the Hieronomer is utterly loyal to his beautiful Queen–and to her only daughter. The “Augur’s Gambit” is his mad attempt to save a kingdom.
An Apprentice to Elves
by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette
The warrior culture of the Iskryne forbids many things to women–and most especially it forbids them bonding to one of the giant telepathic trelwolves. But as her father Isolfr was no ordinary boy, Alfgyfa is no ordinary girl.
Her father has long planned to send Alfgyfa to Tin, a matriarch among the elves who live nearby, to be both apprentice and ambassador, and now she is of age to go. But Alfgyfa is a child with her own mind.
The third book of the Iskryne series
Embers
by Ronie Kendig
(October 16)
Haegan and Kaelyria Celahar are royal heirs of the Nine Kingdoms, but Haegan is physically crippled. What chance does he have against Poired Dyrth, the greatest enemy the kingdom has ever faced, who wields fire with a power none can match?
Their only hope is forbidden: Kaelyria must transfer her fire-harnessing abilities to Haegan. When she does it comes with a terrible price: Haegan’s disability is healed, but only by being transferred to Kaelyria. This act unleashes their father-king’s wrath.
Haegan must flee the kingdom alone with two impossible tasks: Find a cure for Kaelyria and stop the coming war with the omnipotent Poired Dyrth.
In the Land of Two-Legged Women
by Huey Helene Alcaro
(October 15)
In Ramprend, at the onset of puberty, girls’ right legs are amputated in the Beautification Ritual. In this dystopian novel, female stumps are desirable to men. Solanj’l hates her inability to move freely and makes a wooden leg to enable her to walk, or step-drag: an extraordinary thing to do because no artificial limbs exist in Ramprend. Her husband sees commercial possibilities in his wife’s invention and begins producing Glom’s Glamor Legs, while the ability to move more or less on two legs, no matter how uncomfortably, opens new ways of thinking for the women. When items start disappearing in Ramprend and it is learned that women who live in the mountains outside the city have two legs and operate independently, Solanj’l and some of her friends are determined to put an end to the Beautification, no matter the cost.
Chaos Unleashed
by Drew Karpyshyn
Four unlikely champions, each touched with Chaos magic at birth, are all that can stop the return of Daemron the Slayer, a hero who became a god—and then a demon. Exiled by the Old Gods, Daemron has long plotted his vengeful return. Now that moment is at hand, as the barrier imprisoning him—the Legacy—crumbles.
Armed with mighty Talismans, the four champions—Keegan, a wizard beset with self-doubt; Cassandra, a seer terrified by her own future; Scythe, a peerless warrior whose only weak spot is a broken heart; and Vaaler, a prince without a kingdom—seek the Keystone, a fabled place where, or so it is said, the Legacy can be restored.
But the plots of the Slayer are cunning and deep, and even the most noble heart can be twisted by the tainted magic of Chaos—as Keegan, Cassandra, Scythe, and Vaaler will soon discover.
Gold Throne in Shadow
by M.C. Planck
Christopher, raised from the dead and promoted to a moderate rank, takes command of the army regiment he trained and equipped. Sent south to an allegedly easy posting, he finds himself in the way of several thousand rabid dog-men. Guns and fortifications turn back the horde, but Christopher has other problems that cannot be solved with mere firepower: a wicked assassin; hostile clergymen; dubious allies including a bard, Lalania, with a connection to a mysterious group of scholars; and worst of all his own impolitic tongue. But all of these pale into mere distractions once he discovers the true enemy: an invisible, mind-eating horror who plays the kingdom like a puppet-master’s stage. Lalania claims she can help–but will it be enough?
Boundary Lines
by Melissa F. Olson
Fitting into the Old World isn’t going very well for Boulder boundary witch Allison “Lex” Luther: she may have earned a place in a vampire’s service, but now it seems as if every supernatural creature in town has found a reason to hate her. And when Lex and her partner are assigned to investigate the suspicious disappearance of two vampires during the night of the full moon, they find themselves with more questions than answers.
Was it murder…or mutiny?
The crusade for answers will lead Lex all over the Colorado Old World, from a prison cell for a broken werewolf to a haunted Denver brothel. And when Lex determines the responsible party, the hunt is just beginning: something has been awakened in Boulder, something as old and powerful as it is terrifying. Only the woman with death in her blood can stop what’s coming.
The second book in the Boundary Magic series
King of Shards
by Matthew Kressel
Across the ineffable expanse of the Great Deep float billions of shattered universes: the Shards. Populated with vengeful demons and tormented humans, the Shards need Earth to survive just as plants need water. Earth itself is kept alive by 36 righteous people, 36 hidden saints known as the Lamed Vav. Kill but a few of the Lamed Vav and the Earth will shatter, and all the Shards that rely upon it will die in a horrible cataclysm.
When Daniel Fisher is abducted on his wedding day by the demon king, Ashmedai, he learns he is a Lamed Vav, one of the hidden righteous upholding the world. The demon Mashit has usurped the throne of demonkind from Ashmedai and has been systematically murdering the Lamed Vav. On a desert-covered Shard teeming with strange creatures, pursued by a fearsome demon army, Daniel and Ashmedai, saint and demon, must join forces to stop Mashit before she destroys all of existence. Daniel’s survival means he must ally with evil Ashmedai. Yet who but a saint—a Lamed Vav—can save the world?
The begging of the Worldmender series. Kameron Hurley could not be reached for comment.
Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper
by David Barnett
In an alternate nineteenth century where a technologically advanced Britain holds sway over most of the known world and the American Revolution never happened, young Gideon Smith is firmly established as the Hero of the Empire.
Back in London, Gideon and his colleagues: journalist Aloysius Bent, airship pilot Rowena Fanshawe, and Maria, the mechanical girl to whom Gideon has lost his heart, are dragged into a case that is confounding the Metropolitan Police. For the city is on the edge of mass rioting due to the continuing reign of terror by the serial killer known only as Jack the Ripper, who is rampaging though London’s less salubrious quarters.
While chasing the madman, a villain from their past strips Gideon Smith of his memory and is cast adrift in the seedy underbelly of London, where life is tough and death lurks in every shadowy alley.
With mob rule threatening to engulf London, the Empire has never needed its hero more…but where is Gideon Smith?
The third Gideon Smith adventure
Three Days in April
by Edward Ashton
Anders Jensen is having a bad month. His roommate is a data thief, his girlfriend picks fights in bars, and his best friend is a cyborg…and a lousy tipper. When everything is spiraling out of control, though, maybe those are exactly the kind of friends you need.
In a world divided between the genetically engineered elite and the unmodified masses, Anders is an anomaly: engineered, but still broke and living next to a crack house. All he wants is to land a tenure-track faculty position, and maybe meet someone who’s not technically a criminal—but when a nightmare plague rips through Hagerstown, Anders finds himself dodging kinetic energy weapons and government assassins as Baltimore slips into chaos. His friends aren’t as helpless as they seem, though, and his girlfriend’s street-magician brother-in-law might be a pretentious hipster—or might hold the secret to saving them all.
The Society of Blood
by Mark Morris
Transported through time to the dank streets of Victorian London, Alex Locke seeks to unravel the mysteries of the Obsidian Heart, the enigmatic object to which his fate is inextricably bound. When a string of grisly murders takes place across the capital, Alex follows a trail that will lead him through the opium dens of Limehouse into the dark and twisted world of the Society of Blood, and ever closer to unlocking the secret of the Heart.
The second book in the Obsidian Heart series
Of Sorrow and Such
by Angela Slatter
Mistress Gideon is a witch. The locals of Edda’s Meadow, if they suspect it of her, say nary a word-Gideon has been good to them, and it’s always better to keep on her good side. Just in case.
When a foolish young shapeshifter goes against the wishes of her pack, and gets herself very publicly caught, the authorities find it impossible to deny the existence of the supernatural in their midst any longer; Gideon and her like are captured, bound for torture and a fiery end.
Should Gideon give up her sisters in return for a quick death? Or can she turn the situation to her advantage?
Byron Dunn is an AISFP Contributor, a friend to werewolves, and today is his birthday! You should give him a gift. (Cash only, no checks or gift cards.)
He also really, really, really likes The Wizard of Oz. Never mind that he lives in Missouri.
Three Days in April! Awesome book!