Anderson, Kevin J. : Metal Swarm
(Orbit 978-0-316-02175-3, $7.99, 639pp, mass market paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: UK: Simon & Schuster, July 2007)

SF novel, sixth in the "Saga of Seven Suns" series following Hidden Empire, A Forest of Stars, Horizon Storms, Scattered Suns, and Of Fire and Night, concerning interstellar war among humans, renegade robots, and various alien races.
• The final volume, The Ashes of Worlds, is due in July from Orbit.
• Anderson's website has this description, plus an excerpt from the final volume.

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Bear, Elizabeth : New Amsterdam
(Subterranean Press/New Territories 9781596061637, $14.95, 267pp, trade paperback, June 2008, cover art Patrick Arrasmith)
(First edition: Subterranean Press, May 2007)

Alternate history/dark fantasy collection of seven stories about detective/sorceress Abigail Irene Garrett set in the colony of New Amsterdam at the turn of the 20th century.
• The publisher's site has this order page, with a description and quotes from reviews.
• Last year's hardcover original was on Locus' 2007 Recommended Reading List.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Bear's tales are not only ingeniously mysterious but also richly textured with details that bring the society and history of her alternate America to vivid life. Readers who like the grit of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake novels and the historical heft of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's vampire tales will find similar pleasures here."

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Buckell, Tobias S. : Ragamuffin
(Tor 978-0-765-35410-5, $7.99, 328pp, mass market paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: Tor, June 2007)

SF novel, follow-up to the author's first novel Crystal Rain (2006), about an empire of worlds linked by wormholes, where pirate descendants of humans called Raga, or Ragamuffins, have been targeted for extermination by the ruling Satrapy.
• It was a finalist in this year's Nebula Awards.
• The author's site has this page for the book, with links to the first 13 chapters (1/3 of the book) and to reviews.
• Tor's website has this description and an excerpt.
• The author's next novel, Sly Mongoose, is due from Tor in August.

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Carey, Mike : The Devil You Know
(Grand Central 978-0-446-61870-0, $6.99, 504pp, mass market paperback, June 2008)

Dark fantasy novel about Felix Castor, a London exorcist who decides to accept one last assignment.
• The publisher's site has this descritpion and excerpt.
• The next book in the series is Vicious Circle, due in August.

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Dann, Jack, & Gardner Dozois, eds. : Wizards
(Berkley 978-0-441-01588-7, $15, 10+400pp, trade paperback, May 2008)
(First edition: Berkley, May 2007)

Anthology of 18 original stories about wizards. Authors are Neil Gaiman, Garth Nix, Mary Rosenblum, Kage Baker, Eoin Colfer, Jane Yolen, Tad Williams, Patricia A. McKillip, Elizabeth Hand, Andy Duncan, Peter S. Beagle, Nancy Kress, Jeffrey Ford, Tanith Lee, Terry Bisson, Terry Dowling, Gene Wolfe, and Orson Scott Card.
• Gaiman's story, "The Witch's Headstone", is currently a Locus Awards finalist for best novelette.
• Nick Gevers' review last year in Locus Magazine concluded "Wizards is compelling reading almost throughout and is likely to earn the laurel of fantasy anthology of the year."

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Di Filippo, Paul : Harp, Pipe and Symphony
(Cosmos 978-0843960709, $6.99, 288pp, mass market paperback, February 2008, cover art Desiree Isphording)
(First edition: Wildside Press/Prime Books, February 2005)

Fantasy novel in which Thomas Rhymer encounters the Queen of Faerie, among his many adventures.
• The 2005 hardcover looks like this.
• Amazon's "search inside" features an excerpt; Amazon also has the Publishers Weekly review of this edition, which notes that this is "Di Filippo's lyrical debut fantasy novel, conceived when he was 18 and written a decade later, features an innocent young hero much in the mold of Voltaire's Candide." The review concludes "This amiable apprentice work will be of most interest to fans of Di Filippo's more sophisticated fiction (The Steampunk Trilogy; A Mouthful of Tongues; etc.) curious to see a lighter side of this versatile author."

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Douglass, Sara : The Serpent Bride: Darkglass Mountain, Book 1
(Eos 978-0-06-088214-3, $7.99, 679pp, mass market paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: Eos, May 2007)

Fantasy novel, first in the "DarkGlass Mountain" trilogy that follows the six-volume The Wayfarer Redemption novels. It concerns a Serpent Cult that reads the future from the bowels of human males.
• The second book in the series, The Twisted Citadel, was just published in hardcover (described here).
• The author's website has this page about the series, with a map and a description of this book.

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Gibson, William : Spook Country
(Berkley 978-0-425-22141-9, $15, 373pp, trade paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: Putnam, August 2007)

High-tech contemporary thriller, loose sequel to the author's previous novel Pattern Recognition (2003), and like it set in the present. It concerns a reporter for a magazine that doesn't exist researching an art form that exists only in virtual reality, a shadowy agent pursuing a Cuban-Chinese criminal named Tito, and a mysterious cargo container ship that appears and disappears on the Global Positioning Network.
• The author's official site has this page for the book, with the description, quotes from reviews, and a video interview with Gibson, in which he describes the book as about "cultural changes in the United States" since 9/11.
• Amazon's "search inside" function includes an excerpt, and its page includes an interview with Gibson.
• The book is currently a finalist for this year's Locus Award for best SF novel.
• Russell Letson wrote last year in Locus Magazine: "Gibson is not quite leaving science fiction behind, but he is certainly emphasizing here the other side of his literary heritage -- the tale of high-energy and low-life crime and intrigue. What drives Spook Country is not the notion of locative art (though it is both an enabling device for the McGuffin hunt and a crucial metaphor) but the assembly of the puzzle pieces, the converging pursuits, and the fun that comes when the characters finally collide -- and, even more, that we care about the fates of those characters."

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Grossman, Austin : Soon I Will Be Invincible
(Vintage 978-0-307-27986-6, $14.95, 318pp, trade paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: Pantheon, June 2007)

Comic SF novel about superheroes and an evil genius called Doctor Impossible.
• The publisher's site has this description with quotes from reviews and an excerpt.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Grossman dabbles in a host of themes -- power, greed, fame, the pitfalls of ego -- in this engrossing page-turner, broadening the appeal of an already inviting scenario."

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Huff, Tanya : The Heart of Valor
(DAW 978-0-7564-0481-9, $7.99, 404pp, mass market paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: DAW, June 2007)

Military SF novel, third in the "Confederation" series following Valor's Choice (2000) and The Better Part of Valor (2002). In this book Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr visits a training planet, which seems to come under attack.
• The fourth book, Valor's Trial, was just published in hardcover (described here).
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, which says that the book "examines how an interplanetary confederation might unite several distinctive species into an effective military organization despite widely differing physiologies, customs and mores", and concludes "The intriguing and well-designed aliens and intricate plotting keep the reader guessing."

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Kostova, Elizabeth : The Historian
(Little, Brown 978-0-316-06794-2, $9.99, 909pp, mass market paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: Little, Brown, June 2005)

Fantasy thriller about a historian's quest to find Dracula, and the historian's daughter who goes in search of him when he disappears.
• This is the first mass market paperback edition (it's one of those extra-tall rack-size paperbacks), though there was an earlier trade paperback edition in 2006.
• Wikipedia has this entry with a detailed plot summary and analysis.

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MacLeod, Ken : The Execution Channel
(Tor 978-0-765-32067-4, $14.95, 285pp, trade paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: UK: Orbit, April 2007)

Near-future SF novel about an series of terrorist attacks on Britain triggered by what seems to be a nuclear bombing of a US airbase in Scotland.
• Tor's website has this description.
• It was included on Locus' 2007 Recommended Reading List.
• Amazon has an excerpt via its "search inside" feature, and it has the starred Publishers Weekly review: "Dizzying plot twists and a variety of fascinating, believable technological breakthroughs make this perhaps MacLeod's most compulsively readable novel to date."
• Gary K. Wolfe's Locus Magazine review, posted here online, says the book "is pure SF. It not only draws on traditions of the disaster novel, the alternate-world scenario, and the cyberthriller, but early on begins dropping hints that something more radical may be at stake..."

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Millar, Martin : The Good Fairies of New York
(Tor 978-0-765-35854-7, $6.99, 273pp, mass market paperback, June 2008)

Urban fantasy novel about two Scottish fairies who are transported to Manhattan.
• The novel was first published in 1992 in the UK by Fourth Estate, then in 2006 by US small press Soft Skull. Martin Millar is better known by his pseudonym, Martin Scott, author of the Thraxas novels, the first of which won a World Fantasy Award in 2000.
• Tor's website has this description.
• Amazon's "search inside" feature includes an excerpt. Amazon also has the Publishers Weekly review: "British author Millar offers fiercely funny (and often inebriated) Scottish fairies, a poignant love story as well as insights into the gravity of Crohn's disease, cultural conflicts and the plight of the homeless in this fey urban fantasy."

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Odom, Mel : Boneslicer
(Tor 978-0-765-35425-9, $6.99, 294pp, mass market paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: Tor, March 2007)

Fantasy novel about two magician-librarians and a search for three journals and the three magical weapons that they describe.
• It's the fourth in a series following The Rover, The Destruction of the Books, and Lord of the Libraries, and was published last year as the first part of the hardcover titled The Quest for the Trilogy.
• Tor's site has this description.

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Putney, Mary Jo : A Distant Magic
(Ballantine Del Rey 978-0-345-47692-0, $6.99, 406pp, mass market paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: Ballantine Del Rey, July 2007)

Historical romantic fantasy novel, follow-up to A Kiss of Fate (2004) and Stolen Magic (2005), about magic-wielding Guardians in 18th-century England. This volume concerns a pirate captain fighting slavery, and a freed slave who time travels from future London.
• The author's site has a description and a link to a PDF excerpt.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "The mix of magic, time travel, history, adventure, romance and social consciousness will delight series fans, but may strike some readers as an incongruous blend."

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Reynolds, Alastair : Galactic North
(Ace 978-0-441-01600-6, $7.99, 374pp, mass market paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: UK: Gollancz, October 2006)

Science fiction collection of 8 stories, set in the "Inhibitor" (or Revelation Space) future universe of the author's novels Revelation Space, Chasm City, Redemption Ark, and Absolution Gap. Three of the stories, "Weather", "Grafenwalder's Bestiary", and "Nightingale", are original to this book. Previously published stories include "Great Wall of Mars", "A Spy in Europa", and title story "Galactic North".
• Amazon's 'search inside' feature includes an excerpt of "Great Wall of Mars".
• Locus Magazine's Gary K. Wolfe wrote that Reynolds' approach to human destiny, "with his mostly self-contained tales and decidedly more poetic voice, sees it in terms of legend and romance."

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Sanderson, Brandon : The Well of Ascension
(Tor 978-0-765-35613-0, $7.99, 781pp, mass market paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: Tor, August 2007)

Fantasy novel, second in "The Final Empire" series following Mistborn (2006). This book is about what happens to the victors after they've defeated the powerful Lord Ruler.
• Tor's website has this description, with quotes from reviews.
• The third book in the series, The Hero of Ages, is due from Tor in October.

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Van Name, Mark L. : One Jump Ahead
(Baen 978-1-4165-5557-5, $7.99, 393pp, mass market paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: Baen, June 2007)

Military SF novel, the author's first novel, about a nano-enhanced warrior and his AI tank.
• The book recently won the Compton Crook Award, presented by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society to the best first novel of the year.
• Baen's site has this description, which calls it "the first novel in the Jon & Lobo series" and has blurbs from Orson Scott Card, Jack McDevitt, John Ringo, and others, plus links to 8 chapters.
• The next book in the series, Slanted Jack, is due from Baen this July.

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Wilson, Robert Charles : Axis
(Tor 978-0-765-34826-5, $7.99, 355pp, mass market paperback, June 2008)
(First edition: Tor, September 2007)

SF novel, sequel to Hugo Award-winning Spin (2005), set on a planet called Equatoria created to support human life by mysterious Hypotheticals and connected to Earth via an enormous Arch over the Indian Ocean.
• Tor's website has this description.
• The book was on Locus' 2007 Recommended Reading List.
• Gary K. Wolfe's review last year in Locus Magazine, posted here, concludes "Rather than take the expected route of dazzling us with more and bigger billion-year perspectives and alien machines like we saw in Spin, Wilson has chosen depth over expansion, and the result is arguably what a middle novel in a trilogy should be, adding weight and density to the narrative instead of merely offering a place-holding intermezzo for the fireworks to come."

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