* Card, Orson Scott, & Aaron Johnston : Earth Awakens
(Tor 978-0-7653-2906-6, $25.99, 400pp, hardcover, June 2014)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 Jun 2014
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9781429948814
• Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 978-1-4272-4101-6
• UK edition: Little, Brown UK/Orbit 978-0356502762 (Tue 10 Jun 2014)
• The First Formic War #3


SF novel, third in a prequel trilogy to Card’s Ender’s Game, following Earth Unaware (2012) and Earth Afire (2013), set 100 years earlier as Earth fights invading Formic aliens.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.
• The Publishers Weekly review concludes, “Card and Johnston intensify their complex intergalactic mythos with emotional intensity and widening thematic scope. Everyday desires are as deadly as the Formics’ flesh-eating acid in this collision of space opera and big-bug epic. This breakneck thriller is a dark and lively addition to the Enderverse.”

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* Carey, M. R. : The Girl with all the Gifts
(Orbit 978-0-316-27815-7, $25, 407pp, hardcover, June 2014)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 Jun 2014
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780316278140
• Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 9781478953593

Fantasy thriller set after the zombie apocalypse, about a young girl in a hospital where scientists are trying to cure affected children.
• Hachette’s site has this description with a preview function.
• Orbit’s site has this sample.
• The Publishers Weekly review concludes, “Although Carey piles on the clichés … he builds well-constructed characters—particularly Melanie, one of the zombified children, who comes across as cognitively and emotionally different from the other characters, without feeling like an offensive parody of a person with Asperger’s. The requisite action sequences are also well constructed, and the book will appeal to fans of zombie fiction.”

(Mon 2 Jun 2014)
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* Horton, Rich, ed. : The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2014 Edition
(Prime Books 978-1607014287, $19.95, 576pp, trade paperback, June 2014)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 Jun 2014
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: B00KRGW89I

Anthology of 35 stories first published in 2013.
• Authors include Ian R. MacLeod, E. Lily Yu, Peter Watts, James Patrick Kelly, Yoon Ha Lee, Geoff Ryman, and Lavie Tidhar.
• Prime Books’ site has this description with the table of contents.
• Amazon’s “Look Inside” function provides previews.

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+ Itäranta, Emmi : Memory of Water
(Harper Voyager 978-0-06-232615-7, $14.99, 272pp, trade paperback, June 2014)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 Jun 2014
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780062326164

Young adult SF novel, the author’s first novel, about a 17-year-old girl in a global warming future in which China occupies Europe and wars are waged over water.
• HarperCollins’ site has this description with a preview function. The book was released in the UK on May 8th (Amazon UK).
• Publishers Weekly gives this a starred review: “Where Itäranta shines is in her rejection of conventional plots and in her understated but compelling characters. The work is a deceptively tranquil examination of a world of dust and ashes where the tenacious weed of hope still survives.”

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* Johansen, K. V. : The Leopard
(Pyr 978-1-61614-903-1, $18, 460pp, trade paperback, June 2014, cover illustration Raymond Swanland)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 Jun 2014
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: B00HBQIFU8
• Marakand #1

Fantasy novel, part one of a two-book set, about an assassin eager to die in order to free himself of a curse.
• Pyr’s site has this description.
• The Publishers Weekly review remarks, “Although clearly the first installment in an ongoing series, an introduction rather than a complete novel, the work highlights Johansen’s strengths. A surprising number of characters and plot threads are deftly interwoven and tucked into comparatively few pages.”

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+ Mann, Phillip : The Disestablishment of Paradise
(Gollancz 978-0-575-13263-4, $15.95, 336pp, trade paperback, June 2014)
• Nominal Publication Date: Sun 1 Jun 2014
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780575132641

First US edition (UK: Gollancz, 2013)

Ecological SF thriller about settlers who defy an order to abandon a human colony on a planet where their crops won’t grow, and who set off on a journey across the planet.
• This is a US distribution of the UK title published last year (it has the same ISBN). The novel was a finalist for both this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award and John W. Campbell Memorial Award.
• Gollancz’ site has this description.
• Publishers Weekly gives this a starred review: “This novel, Mann’s first in 15 years, manages to be simultaneously exciting, romantic, and contemplative—quite a remarkable performance.”

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* McCammon, Robert : The River of Souls
(Subterranean Press 978-1596066304, $24.95, 264pp, hardcover, June 2014, jacket art Vincent Chong)
• Nominal Publication Date: Sat 31 May 2014
• Matthew Corbett #5

Historical non-supernatural thriller, fifth in a series following Speaks the Nightbird (2002), The Queen of Bedlam (2007), Mister Slaughter (2010), and Providence Rider (2013), about 18th-century investigator Matthew Corbett.
• Subterranean’s site has this description with an excerpt from the $125 limited edition.
• The Publishers Weekly review concludes, “McCammon resorts to a few credibility-stretching gambits in the closing chapters, but, as usual, he nicely evokes America’s colonial past and deftly straddles the boundary between the explicable and the supernatural.”

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* McCleary, Carol : No Job for a Lady
(Forge 978-0-7653-3440-4, $24.99, 304pp, hardcover, June 2014)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 Jun 2014
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9781466811058
• Nellie Bly #4

Historical fantasy novel, four in a series about Nellie Bly, “the world’s first female investigative reporter”, who battles ancient gods and dark magic in 1886 Mexico.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.
• The Publishers Weekly review concludes, “The plot meanders and lags as it moves south of the border, but Nellie’s distinctive narrative voice, very much of its time, ensures that readers keep turning the pages.”

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* McMann, Lisa : Gasp
(Simon Pulse 978-1442466302, $17.99, 288pp, hardcover, June 2014)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 3 Jun 2014
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9781442466326
• Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 9781442376458
• Visions #3

Young adult fantasy novel, third in a series following Crash and Bang (both 2013), about a teenaged girl haunted by visions.
• Simon & Schuster’s site has this description with a preview function.

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* Morrow, James : The Madonna and the Starship
(Tachyon Publications 978-1-61696-159-6, $14.95, 179pp, trade paperback, June 2014)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 Jun 2014

Short SF novel set in 1953 New York City, about producers of a live TV show who are confronted by a pair of extraterrestrial fans, who threaten a massacre unless they can be convinced that Earth is a secular and rational world.
• Tachyon’s site has this description.
• Amazon’s “Look Inside” function provides previews.
• Publishers Weekly gives this a starred review: “Jonathan Swift meets Buck Rogers in this hilarious send-up of the golden ages of television and pulp sci-fi.”
• Gary K. Wolfe reviews it in the June issue of Locus Magazine: “Ideas like that might echo Morrow’s more serious novels like The Last Witchfinder, but for the most part the novel’s freewheeling tone echoes not so much earlier Morrow, or even Vonnegut, but the work of another SF writer actually working during this era – Frederic Brown, whose Martians, Go Home, with its heckling, sarcastic alien invaders and parody of SF writers, came to mind more than once.”

(Mon 2 Jun 2014)
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* O’Kane, Lisa Ann : Essence
(Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry Us 9781783450121, $6.99, 322pp, ebook, June 2014)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 3 Jun 2014
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9781783450121

Young adult novel about a 16-year-old girl in San Francisco who abandons a cult which taught that emotions drain one’s Essence and lead to an early death.
• Strange Chemistry’s site has this description with a preview function.
• Note that Strange Chemistry apparently is publishing only an ebook edition, while Amazon lists a self-published trade paperback edition published May 23rd.

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* Shea, Kieran : Koko Takes a Holiday
(Titan 978-1-7811-686-08, $14.95, 336pp, mass market paperback, June 2014)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 Jun 2014

SF novel, the author’s first novel, about a brothel owner on an artificial archipelago 500 years from now.
• Titan’s site has this description.
• Adrienne Martini reviews it in the June issue of Locus Magazine, calling it “a really great ride.”

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* Van Eekhout, Greg : California Bones
(Tor 978-0-7653-2855-7, $24.99, 304pp, hardcover, June 2014)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 Jun 2014
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9781429946858

Fantasy novel set in an alternate Los Angeles about an osteomancer, who who consumes bones to gain power. It’s based on the author’s 2006 short story “The Osteomancer’s Bones”.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.
• The Publishers Weekly review concludes, “…the story will excite readers who love magical showdowns, and will tease them with an ending that sets up a sequel.”
• Adrienne Martini reviews the book in the June issue of Locus Magazine: “But what pushes this tale from fun to fantastic is how van Eekhout isn’t content with a simple coming of age story. He pushes his hero further than he has to…”

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