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Brown, Eric :
Kéthani
(Solaris US 978-1-84416-473-8, $15, 311pp, trade paperback, May 2008, cover art John Harris)
SF novel about aliens who bring immortality to humans.
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Portions of the book were first published as short stories in Postscripts, Interzone, and elsewhere; Brown's bibliography indicates them with '(K)'.
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Solaris' website has this page about the book with a description and a PDF sample chapter.
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Chabon, Michael :
Maps and Legends: Essays on Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
(McSweeney's 978-1-932416-89-3, $24, 222pp, hardcover, April 2008, cover art Jordan Crane)
Nonfiction collection of essays, many of which explore genre fiction categories and their relation to the literary world.
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The opening essay is excerpted here by the Los Angeles Times.
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The McSweeney's site has this description with quotes from reviews.
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Cory Doctorow blogs about the remarkable, three-layer dust jacket by Jordan Crane.
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Amazon has reviews from Publishers Weekly and Harper's.
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Flint, Eric, & Marilyn Kosmatka :
Time Spike
(Baen 978-1416555384, $24, 467pp, hardcover, May 2008, cover by David Mattingly)
SF novel, first of a series, about a maximum-security prison thrown back to the Mesozoic Era.
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Baen's site has this description with links to several chapters.
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Amazon has mostly enthusiastic reader reviews.
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Kerr, Katharine :
The Shadow Isle
(DAW 978-0-7564-0476-5, $24.95, 403pp, hardcover, May 2008, jacket art Jody A. Lee)
Fantasy Novel, third book of "The Silver Wyrm" following The Gold Falcon (2006) and The Spirit Stone (2007), and 14th book in the overall Deverry cycle, which began in 1986 with Daggerspell, and has just one more book to go after this.
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The publisher's site has this description: "... Only the magic of Dallandra and Valandario and the might of the powerful dragons, Arzosah and Rori, can reveal the secrets that can save the Northlands and themselves from conquest."
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The author's website has this page about all the previous books in the Deverry sequence.
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Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "With multiple simultaneous plot lines, many of them dealing with relationships in past incarnations, pacing and continuity wallow, and the ending is merely an arrangement of chess pieces for the complex endgame of the final volume (tentatively titled The Silver Mage)."
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Marr, Melissa :
Ink Exchange
(HarperTeen 978-0061214684, $16.99, 325pp, hardcover, May 2008)
Young adult fantasy novel about a teenage girl whose attraction to a beautiful tattoo leads to involvement in a battle in the faery world.
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The publisher's site has this description with a 'search inside' function providing an excerpt.
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Amazon has a video interview with the author.
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The author's site has this description with links to the starred Publishers Weekly review -- "Compulsive enough to give the Twilight series a run for its money, and dizzyingly more sinister." -- the book's prologue, and an iTunes playlist for the book.
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Melton, Henry :
Roswell or Bust!
(Wire Rim Books 978-0-9802253-0-3, $12.95, 320pp, trade paperback, April 2008)
SF novel about the teenaged son of motel owners who sets off on a 1000-mile road trip to help stranded aliens from Roswell.
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The publisher's site has this page with a description and links to the author's blog and others works.
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Amazon's 'search inside' function includes an excerpt.
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Sagan, Nick, Mark Frary & Andy Walker :
You Call This the Future?
(Chicago Review Press 978-1-55652-685-5, $14.95, 160pp, trade paperback, April 2008)
Nonfiction, subtitled "The Greatest Inventions Sci-Fi Imagined and Science Promised", detailing the actual evolution of 50 popular science fiction inventions, from jetpacks and flying cars to wormholes and robot pets.
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The book has extensive color illustrations, and an index.
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The publisher's site has this description.
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Sagan's blog has a couple posts about the book.
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Sniegoski, Thomas E. :
A Kiss Before the Apocalypse
(Roc 978-0-451-46205-3, $14, 292pp, trade paperback, May 2008)
Urban fantasy novel, the author's first adult novel, about an angel who comes to Earth in human form as a private investigator named Remy Chandler.
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The publisher's site has this description.
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Amazon has blurbs from Christopher Golden. The Publishers Weekly review concludes "Fans of urban fantasy and classic detective stories will enjoy this smart and playful story."
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Vandermeer, Ann, & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. :
Steampunk
(Tachyon Publications 978-1-892391-75-9, $14.95, 10+373pp, trade paperback, May 2008)
Anthology of 13 stories and excerpts on the theme that combines Victorian elegance and modern technology. Authors include Neal Stephenson, Ted Chiang, Michael Chabon, Michael Moorcock, Paul Di Filippo, and Ian R. MacLeod.
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Also included are an introduction by Jess Nevins, a "pop-culture survey" by Rick Klaw, and a survey of steampunk in comics by Bill Baker.
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Tachyon's site has this description with a link to Jeff VanderMeer's interview on Australian public radio.
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The starred Publishers Weekly review calls it "another outstanding theme anthology" from the editors, "a superb introduction to one of the most popular and inventive subgenres in science fiction."
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