Asher, Neal : Cowl
(Tor 0-765-35279-6, $7.99, 422pp, mass market paperback, April 2006)
(reprint of 1st US edition: Tor, May 2005)
(First edition: Macmillan/Tor UK, March 2004)

SF time travel novel in which enemies of the 4th millennium Dominion have escaped into the past.
• The author's website has this description.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, which quotes David Hartwell as describing Asher as "Kage Baker on steroids".
• Locus Magazine's Russell Letson described Asher's approach to adventure: "pump it full of performance-enhancing substances and send it crashing through a gigantically expanded version of its traditional milieu, exploding the big sets and sending body-parts flying in all directions..."

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Bordhi, Cat : Treasure Forest
(Ace 0-441-01369-4, $14, 288pp, trade paperback, April 2006, cover art Keith Birdsong)

YA fantasy novel about a family that moves into a magical forest to live in the house of their late Grandma.
• This is a reprint of a December 2003 hardcover by small press publisher Namaste, which according to the PW on the Amazon page, "won the Nautilus Award at the 2004 BEA".
• The author's website, Magical Knitting, has this description of the book, with a PDF preview.

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Clarke, Arthur C., & Stephen Baxter : Sunstorm
(Ballantine Del Rey 0-345-45251-8, $7.99, 357pp, mass market paperback, March 2006)
(First edition: Ballantine Del Rey, March 2005)

SF novel, second in the Time Odyssey sequence following Time's Eye (2004), about alien Firstborn (who created the historical patchwork of Earth in the first book) and evidence that a sunstorm is building that will scour Earth of all life.
• Del Rey's site has this description, an author Q&A, and an excerpt.
• Amazon has reviews from PW and Booklist, plus its 'search inside' feature with an excerpt.
• Locus Magazine's Gary K. Wolfe said the book "gets its job done as an efficient and readable thriller, if not as a particularly challenging work of SF."

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Ishiguro, Kazuo : Never Let Me Go
(Vintage 1400078776, $14, 288pp, trade paperback, March 2006)
(reprint of 1st US edition: Knopf, April 2005)
(First edition: UK: Faber and Faber, March 2005)

Literary SF novel set in an alternate 1990s England about young people in an isolated boarding school who don't realize they are clones being raised for organ donation.
• The publisher's site has this description, plus a reader's guide and an excerpt.
• The novel is a finalist for this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award (winner to be announced April 26th).

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Jensen, Jane : Dante's Equation
(Ballantine Del Rey 0-345-43038-7, $7.99, 592pp, mass market paperback, April 2006)
(First edition: Del Rey, August 2003)

Mass market paperback edition of the book that, in its trade paperback first edition, won a special citation in the 2004 Philip K. Dick Awards.
• It's an SF thriller concerning, among other things, "the discovery of a physical law that defines good and evil".
• The author's website has this page about the book, with a link to this excerpt.
• Del Rey's site has this description and an excerpt.

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Lanagan, Margo : Black Juice
(HarperCollins/Eos 0-06-074392-1, $5.99, 261pp, mass market paperback, March 2006, cover by Amy Ryan)
(reprint of 1st US edition: HarperCollins/Eos, March 2005)
(First edition: Australia: Allen & Unwin, March 2004)

First US paperback of the short story collection by the Australian author whose lead story, "Singing My Sister Down", is currently a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and has already won the World Fantasy, Aurealis, and Ditmar Awards. The book itself has also won the World Fantasy and Ditmar Awards.
• HarperCollins' site has this description and an excerpt from "Singing My Sister Down".
• Reactions from Locus Magazine reviewers included "genius (not too strong a word)" from Faren Miller and "nothing short of brilliant" from Gary K. Wolfe.

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Le Guin, Ursula K. : Gifts
(Harcourt Children's Books 0152051244, $7.95, 274pp, mass market paperback, April 2006, cover illustration Larry Rostant)
(First edition: Harcourt, September 2004)

Young adult fantasy novel about mountain clans who possess various psychic 'gifts'. First of a trilogy, whose next volume is Voices, due in September.
• The publisher's site has this description, and an excerpt.
• Locus Magazine reviewer Gary K. Wolfe concluded "As she's consistently suggested in her later works (such as 2000's The Telling), the real magic in the world lies in the stories that make it, and the point is made here as subtly and gracefully as in any of Le Guin's recent, more 'adult' works."

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May, Julian : Ironcrown Moon
(Ace 0-441-01299-X, $7.99, 450pp, mass market paperback, April 2006)
(reprint of 1st US edition: Ace, April 2005)
(First edition: UK: HarperCollins/Voyager, October 2004)

Fantasy novel, second in the Boreal Moon sequence following Conqueror's Moon (2004).
• The publisher's site has this description.
• Amazon has the PW review, which concludes "The author's usual brisk pacing will keep readers turning the pages of this well above average high fantasy", as well as it's 'search inside' feature with an excerpt.
• Rambles posted this review by Laurie Thayer.

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Metzger, Robert A. : CUSP
(Ace 0-441-01301-5, $7.99, 517pp, mass market paperback, April 2006)

SF novel, a "hard space opera" novel concerning energy jets from the Sun that create rings around the Earth in 2031, and subsequent efforts to save the Earth via a supercomputer called CUSP (Controllable Universal Sentient Plasma) to transform humans into posthuman superbeings.
• The publisher's site has this description.
• Paul Di Filippo reviewed it for SF Weekly and gave it an A.
• Amazon's 'search inside' feature includes an excerpt.

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Phillips, Holly : In the Palace of Repose
(Prime Books 0809556235, $14.95, 222pp, trade paperback, February 2006, cover art Linda Bergkvist)
(First edition: Prime Books, February 2005)

Collection of 9 stories, 7 of them original to this book, by a Canadian author who's an editor for On-Spec magazine; with an introduction by Sean Stewart.
• The publisher's site has this description.
• Amazon has reviews from PW and Booklist.
• Locus Magazine reviewer Rich Horton said about last year's hardcover edition,"It is really exciting to see a debut collection of this quality", while Gary K. Wolfe commented that the author "demonstrates a unique voice and an eclectic, often understated approach to the fantastic that often echoes mainstream short story construction more than genre tropes".

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Ringo, John : Against the Tide
(Baen 1-416-52057-0, $7.99, 550pp, mass market paperback, April 2006)
(First edition: Baen, February 2005)

Military SF novel with fantasy elements, about a future war between the United Free States and the tyrannical New Destiny. Sequel to There Will Be Dragons and Emerald Sea.
• Baen's site has this description with links to several chapters.

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Sarrantonio, Al, ed. : Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy
(Roc 0-451-46099-5, $7.99, 414pp, mass market paperback, April 2006)
(First edition: Roc, June 2004)

Second of two mass market paperback reprints splitting the original 2004 hardcover anthology of 30 original fantasy stories. The first mass market volume appeared in February.
• This volume has stories by Orson Scott Card, Neil Gaiman, Patricia A. McKillip, Gene Wolfe, and others. Gene Wolfe's novella "Golden City Far" won the 2005 Locus Award for best novella.
• Amazon has the PW and Booklist reviews of the original edition.

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Stephenson, Neal : Odalisque
(HarperTorch 0-06-083318-1, $7.99, 444pp, mass market paperback, April 2006)
(First edition: Morrow, September 2003)

Mass market edition of the final third of Stephenson's hardcover novel Quicksilver, here labeled "The Baroque Cycle #3".
• The novel won the 2004 Arthur C. Clarke Award as best SF novel published that year in the UK.
• The publisher's site has this description and an excerpt.

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Straub, Peter : In the Night Room
(Ballantine 0-345-49132-7, $7.99, 368pp, mass market paperback, April 2006)
(First edition: Random House, October 2004)

Horror novel, thematic sequel to lost boy, lost girl (2003), in which Tim Underhill, a writer whose nephew was apparently murdered in the first book, now discovers a character he's created in his journals has come into existence.
• This novel won a Bram Stoker Award in 2005.
• The publisher's site has this description, and an excerpt.
• Locus Magazine reviewer Gary K. Wolfe called it "one of the stronger works of Straub's career" and remarked that "the boldness with which he interrogates the nature of narrative itself; the novel literally does things that I've seen few other novels even attempt."

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Weller, Sam : The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury
(Harper Perennial 0-06-054584-4, $15.95, 384pp, trade paperback, February 2006)
(First edition: William Morrow, April 2005)

Biography of Ray Bradbury, based mostly on interviews with the author. Includes reference notes, bibliographies, index, and 16 pages of black and white photos.
• The publisher's site has this description, and a chapter excerpt. This trade paperback edition has 18 pages of additional features at the end of the book.
• Locus Magazine reviewer Gary K. Wolfe called it a "pop biography" that "reads very much like an extended magazine profile: rich in anecdote and appreciation, alarmingly thin in analysis and contextualization, and breezy as a pennant. It is, paradoxically, a fan biography written by someone with little actual experience of fandom, or of the SF world in general."

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