Welcome to another round of 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, crocodiles, and podcasts, sign up to our AISFP Wormhole newsletter.
Long time readers, if you were disappointed by the lack of an opening gag reference this week, make a post below with a suggestion and you might see it next time!
A Borrowed Man
by Gene Wolfe
It is perhaps a hundred years in the future, our civilization is gone, and another is in place in North America, but it retains many familiar things and structures. Although the population is now small, there is advanced technology, there are robots, and there are clones.
E. A. Smithe is a borrowed person. He is a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a public library, and his personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased mystery writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human.
A wealthy patron, Colette Coldbrook, takes him from the library because he is the surviving personality of the author of Murder on Mars. A physical copy of that book was in the possession of her murdered father, and it contains an important secret, the key to immense family wealth. It is lost, and Colette is afraid of the police. She borrows Smithe to help her find the book and to find out what the secret is. And then the plot gets complicated.
Carter & Lovecraft
by Jonathan L. Howard
Daniel Carter used to be a homicide detective, but his last case?the hunt for a serial killer?went wrong in strange ways and soured the job for him. Now he’s a private investigator trying to live a quiet life. Strangeness, however, has not finished with him.
First he inherits a bookstore in Providence from someone he’s never heard of, along with an indignant bookseller who doesn’t want a new boss. She’s Emily Lovecraft, the last known descendant of H.P. Lovecraft, the writer from Providence who told tales of the Great Old Ones and the Elder Gods, creatures and entities beyond the understanding of man.
Then people start dying in impossible ways, and while Carter doesn’t want to be involved, he’s beginning to suspect that someone else wants him to be. As Carter reluctantly investigates, he discovers that H. P. Lovecraft’s tales were more than just fiction, and he must accept another unexpected, and far more unwanted, inheritance.
Creeping Crawlers
Anthology edited by Allen Ashley
What is this lingering fear of insects, arachnids, arthropods, crustaceans and those that slither… is it a hangover from the survival battles in the savannah or does it go deeper and further back than that in our evolutionary heritage? Unchallenged, the locusts, the maggots, the worms, the flies, the aphids and the termites may consume and destroy all that we have and hold dear. Creeping, slithering, crawling horror, science fiction & fantasy stories by nineteen of today’s top authors.
- David Birch
- Gary Budgen
- Adrian Cole
- Storm Constantine
- Andrew Darlington
- Pauline E. Dungate
- Dennis Etchison
- Edmund Glasby
- John Grant
- Terry Grimwood
- Andrew Hook
- Mark Howard Jones
- Alan Knott
- Robin Lupton
- Ralph Robert Moore
- Richard Mosses
- Marion Pitman
- David Rix
- David Turnbull
The Dread Wyrm
by Miles Cameron
Some are born to power. Some seize it. And some have the wisdom never to wield it.
The Red Knight has stood against soldiers, armies and the might of an empire without flinching. He’s fought on real and magical battlefields alike, and now he’s facing one of the greatest challenges yet. A tournament.
A joyous spring event, the flower of the nobility will ride against each other for royal favor and acclaim. It’s a political contest — one which the Red Knight has the skill to win. But the stakes may be higher than he thinks. The court of Alba has been infiltrated by a dangerous faction of warlike knights, led by the greatest knight in the world: Jean de Vrailly — and the prize he’s fighting for isn’t royal favor, but the throne of Alba itself…
Book three in the Traitor Son Cycle
Envy of Angels
by Matt Wallace
In New York, eating out can be hell.
Everyone loves a well-catered event, and the supernatural community is no different, but where do demons go to satisfy their culinary cravings?
When a heavenly delicacy is brought to the kitchen, newcomes Lena and Darren put their very souls on the line.
Welcome to Sin du Jour–deviled eggs never tasted so wicked!
The Explorers Guild: A Passage to Shambhala
by Kevin Costner and Jon Baird, illustrated by Rick Ross
Behind the staid public rooms of an old world gentlemen’s club operates a more mysterious organization: The Explorers Guild, a clandestine group of adventurers who bravely journey to those places in which light gives way to shadow and reason is usurped by myth. The secrets they seek are hidden in mountain ranges and lost in deserts, buried in the ocean floor and lodged deep in polar ice. The aim of The Explorers Guild: to discover the mysteries that lie beyond the boundaries of the known world.
Set against the backdrop of World War I, with Western Civilization on the edge of calamity, the first installment in The Explorers Guild series, A Passage to Shambhala, concerns the Guild’s quest to find the golden city of Buddhist myth. The search will take them from the Polar North to the Mongolian deserts, through the underground canals of Asia to deep inside the Himalayas, before the fabled city finally divulges its secrets and the globe-spanning journey plays out to its startling conclusion.
NOTE: Yes, he’s that Kevin Costner. -Byron
For the Memory of Dragons
by Julie Wetzel
What do you do when a dragon crash-lands in your backyard?
That’s the question Terra’s faced with when one of these creatures plows down into her cornfield. Should she help out the hunk of a man the dragon turns into, or turn him over to the trigger-happy ‘authorities’ that have come looking for him? The deciding factor?he has no memory. Giving him up just doesn’t seem right… at least until she knows the truth of who he is.
Alex has forgotten a thing or two?his name being one of them?but he knows there is something important that he needs to remember, if he could just get his battered brain to work properly. A little rest might help, but there’s no time for that when the bullets start flying.
Now he has to follow the few clues he has to discover who he is, and why people are trying to kill him. But that’s the easy part. The hard part will be keeping his hands off the lovely lady helping him.
Book Two of the Dragons of Eternity series
Gatefather
by Orson Scott Card
Danny North is the first Gate Mage to be born on Earth in nearly 2000 years, or at least the first to survive to claim his power. Families of Westil in exile on Earth have had a treaty that required the death of any suspected Gate Mage. The wars between the Families had been terrible, until at last they realized it was their own survival in question. But a Gate Mage, one who could build a Great Gate back to Westil, would give his own Family a terrible advantage over all the others, and reignite the wars. So they all had to die. And if the Families didn’t kill them, the Gate Thief would-that mysterious Mage who destroyed every Great Gate, and the Gate Mage, before it could be opened between Earth and Westil.
But Danny survived. And Danny battled the Gate Thief, and won.
What he didn’t know at the time was that the Gate Thief had a very good reason for closing the Great Gates-and Danny has now fallen into the power of that great enemy of both Earth and Westil.
Book three of the Gatefather series
Hanzai Japan: Fantastical, Futuristic Stories of Crime From and About Japan
by Haikasoru (Editor), Nick Mamatas (Editor), Masumi Washington (Editor)
A murderer doing time in hell. A girl who just wants to win her high school band contest…no matter what it takes. Sumo wrestlers with a supernatural secret. A future Tokyo where vampires are menial laborers nursing long-held grudges against humanity. And even a very conscientious, if unstable, Universal Transverse Mercator projection. These crime and mystery stories from and about Japan explore myth, technology, the sharpness of a sleuth’s mind, and the darkness in the hearts of criminals. Read these stories and learn that hanzai means crime!
- Ray Banks
- Libby Cudmore
- Brian Evenson
- Kaori Fujino
- Jyouji Hayashi
- Naomi Hirahara
- Yumeaki Hirayama
- Violet LeVoit
- Yusuke Miyauchi
- S.J. Rozan
- Hiroshi Sakurazaka
- Setsuko Shinoda
- Jeff Somers
- Genevieve Valentine
- Carrie Vaughn
- Chet Williamson
Homefront
by Scott James Magner
In the 27th century, the Transgenic virus has redefined what it means to be human. The exiles of Earth’s Outer Colonies have evolved distinct genetic advantages over their ancestors, and they are coming home to claim their birthright. Commander Jantine leads an infiltration force of soldiers, scientists, and engineers on a mission to establish a new colony on the planet that cast them forth so many years before.
Lieutenant Mira Harlan of the System Defense Force is part of a clandestine fleet stationed just outside Earth’s orbit. She doesn’t know it yet, but there is a priceless secret onboard her ship—a young girl whose genetic code might unlock the mysteries of the Transgenic virus. When Jantine and her crew emerge violently from hyperspace, they collide with a centuries-old conflict that could tear the home system apart . . . unless Harlan can master the secrets of her priceless cargo before even her own humanity becomes a casualty of war.
Honour Guard
by Dan Abnett
In disgrace after a catastrophic war, Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the Tanith First are sent to retrieve precious artefacts from a world lost to Chaos. With enemy all around them and time against them, Gaunt’s Ghosts and their allies must prevent the holy relics of Saint Sabbat from falling into their foes’ hands – and as mysterious events begin to occur, Gaunt begins to suspect that the Saint herself might be aiding them from beyond the grave.
Part of the Warhammer universe
How to Pass as Human
by Nic Kelman
“How to Pass as Human” is an attempt on the part of the world’s first android to understand the irrational, unpredictable, eclectic creatures known as human beings. Written in the form of a field guide, complete with sketches, graphs, flowcharts, and other reference materials, Android Zero (aka “Zach”) has compiled a variety of useful information for future androids on how to pass undetected as human beings. Along the way, he also attempts to solve the mystery of his own creation with the help of Andrea, a human female who has taken an interest in him that may be more than friendly, and eventually leading him to “meet his maker” and discover the surprising purpose of his existence.
News from the Clouds
by Robert Llewellyn
Gavin Meckler has slipped sideways in time again to a far more treacherous future than he has ever faced before.
Ever since Gavin left the world of 2011 and landed 200 years in the future, he has navigated the garden lands of Gardenia, escaped a world run by women in the Squares, and now finds himself in a floating city in the Clouds. In this possible alternative future, the planet is ravaged by a brutal climate — crippling storms, sweeping winds and an unforgiving sun. Earth’s inhabitants have had to adapt, creating a highly sophisticated society where the human race has two options: to live on the earth’s scarred surface in enormous culverts, reinforced to withstand the ravages of the weather… or to float above it all.
It is a classless society where everyone must experience life both on the earth and in the clouds… and where they claim to know how and why Gavin has travelled 200 years beyond his own time.
Will Gavin finally understand the truth behind his journey? Can he find his way back to the life he left behind in 2011?
Is there even a world to go back to?…
The finale of the News From trilogy.
Our Lady of the Ice
by Cassandra Rose Clarke
In Argentine Antarctica, Eliana Gomez is the only female PI in Hope City—a domed colony dependent on electricity (and maintenance robots) for heat, light, and survival in the icy deserts of the continent. At the center is an old amusement park—now home only to the androids once programmed to entertain—but Hope City’s days as a tourist destination are long over. Now the City produces atomic power for the mainland while local factions agitate for independence and a local mobster, Ignacio Cabrera, runs a brisk black-market trade in illegally imported food.
Eliana doesn’t care about politics. She doesn’t even care—much—that her boyfriend, Diego, works as muscle for Cabrera. She just wants to save enough money to escape Hope City. But when an aristocrat hires Eliana to protect an explosive personal secret, Eliana finds herself caught up in the political tensions threatening to tear Hope City apart. In the clash of backstabbing politicians, violent freedom fighters, a gangster who will stop at nothing to protect his interests, and a newly sentient robot underclass intent on a very different independence, Eliana finds her job coming into deadly conflict with Diego’s, just as the electricity that keeps Hope City from freezing begins to fail…
From the inner workings of the mob to the story of a revolution to the amazing settings, this story has got it all. Ultimately, however, Our Lady of the Ice questions what it means to be human, what it means to be free, and whether we’re ever able to transcend our pasts and our programming to find true independence.
Predator – Incursion
by Jana Harris
Predator ships stream into human space in unprecedented numbers. The Colonial Marines, controlled by Weyland-Yutani, respond to the incursion, thus entering the Rage War.
This terrifying assault by the Yautja cannot go unchallenged, yet the cost of combat is high. Predators are master combatants, and each encounter yields a high body count. Then when Lt. Johnny Mains and his marines—the VoidLarks—enter the fray, they discover an enemy deadlier than any could imagine.
Part of the Aliens vs. Predator universe. This begins Rage War trilogy which will include an Aliens novel and an Aliens vs Predator finale.
Radiance
by Catherynne M. Valente
Severin Unck’s father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1986 in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father’s films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn from classic science fiction in which all the planets are inhabited and we travel through space on beautiful rockets. Severin is a realist in a fantastic universe.
But her latest film, which investigates the disappearance of a diving colony on a watery Venus populated by island-sized alien creatures, will be her last. Though her crew limps home to earth and her story is preserved by the colony’s last survivor, Severin will never return.
Told using techniques from reality TV, classic film, gossip magazines, and meta-fictional narrative, Radiance is a solar system-spanning story of love, exploration, family, loss, quantum physics, and silent film.
The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School
by Kim Newman
A week after Mother found her sleeping on the ceiling, Amy Thomsett is delivered to her new school, Drearcliff Grange in Somerset. Although it looks like a regular boarding school, Amy learns that Drearcliff girls are special, the daughters of criminal masterminds, outlaw scientists and master magicians. Several of the pupils also have special gifts like Amy’s, and when one of the girls in her dormitory is abducted by a mysterious group in black hoods, Amy forms a secret, superpowered society called the Moth Club to rescue their friend. They soon discover that the Hooded Conspiracy runs through the School, and it’s up to the Moth Club to get to the heart of it.
Time’s Divide
by Rysa Walker
The Cyrists are swiftly moving into position to begin the Culling, and Kate’s options are dwindling. With each jump to the past or the future, Kate may trigger a new timeline shift. Worse, the loyalties of those around her—including the allegiances of Kiernan and the Fifth Column, the shadowy group working with Kate—are increasingly unclear.
Kate will risk everything, including her life, to prevent the future her grandfather and the Cyrists have planned. But, when time runs out, it may take an even bigger sacrifice to protect the people she loves.
Time of the Dragons
by James A. Owen
John and Jack, two of the Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica, have discovered a plea for help on an ancient medieval parchment—it is not only addressed to them, but seems to have been written by their friend, Hugo Dyson. Yet before they can discover the origin of the strange book, Hugo walks through a door in time—and vanishes into the past. And, just like that, the world begins to change.
The only hope to restore the proper order of things lies in a forgotten island at the edge of the Archipelago, where a time travel device left by Jules Verne must be used to race through history itself—from the Bronze Age to ancient Alexandria and the founding of the Silver Throne. But even if all of the legendary Caretakers from past and present are able to answer the oldest mystery in the world and save Hugo, darker forces may still be gathering against them, and a greater crisis may be at hand. Together with a new enemy, the Imperial Cartological Society, the Shadow King may be unstoppable. The only hope may in the Grail Child, Rose Dyson, and her companions’ desperate quest to find the only weapon capable of defeating their enemies and the Spear: the broken sword Caliburn.
The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves The World Again
by A.C. Wise
When the world is endangered, there’s no point in sparing the spangles, spilling the drinks, or withholding the glitter. In this collection of whimsical stories of fierce femmes and brave butches, the Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron is a phone call away.
Warrior of Fate
by Debra Mullins
Warrior Adrian Gray has dedicated his life in service to his people, and has never doubted his calling…until now. Three mystical Atlantean power stones were assumed lost for centuries, but one by one the Seers of Atlantis have tracked them down in a tireless race against the extremist Mendukati. Adrian’s mission? To ensure that the stones are acquired and protected by the right people?his people.
Adrian has always been uncompromising in his dedication to the cause. But the True Seer Tessa Montana proves a sensual distraction in his quest, and he soon finds his discipline wavering. Torn between his sacred duty to the Warriors and his desire for Tessa, will Adrian and his secrets cost them the war?
Book three of The Truthseers series
Welcome to Night Vale
by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.
Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked “KING CITY” by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can’t seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels.
Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton’s son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane’s started to see her son’s father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it.
Diane’s search to reconnect with her son and Jackie’s search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: “KING CITY”. It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures…if they can ever find it.
The first novel from the Welcome to Night Vale podcast universe.
Byron Dunn is an AISFP Contributor, a friend to werewolves, and really wants Star Wars tickets but only if they’re in good seats because he does NOT do the stiff-neck row up in the front. Nosirreebob.
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