Barker, Clive : The Scarlet Gospels
(St. Martin’s Griffin 978-1250056177, $16.99, 368pp, trade paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 17 May 2016

(First edition: St. Martin’s, May 2015)

Horror novel involving two of Barker’s most famous characters: detective Harry D’Amour and the priest of hell Pinhead.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.
• Stefan Dziemianowicz reviewed it last year in Locus Magazine: “Where the machinations of Barker’s Hell are somewhat ordinary and something of a disappointment, its architecture and layout are something else. Barker’s vision of Hell is Dantesque in scale and scope, and he employs the same powers of description that he uses to fix unsettling images of carnage in the minds of readers to convey the awesome otherworldliness of its environs.”

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Bledsoe, Alex : Long Black Curl
(Tor 978-0765376558, $16.99, 384pp, trade paperback, April 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 26 Apr 2016
• Tufa #3

(First edition: Tor, May 2015)

Fantasy novel, third in a series following The Hum and the Shiver (2011) and Wisp of a Thing (2013, about people descended from Irish fairies who live in Appalachia.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.

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Bova, Ben : Power Surge
(Tor 978-0765370211, $8.99, 384pp, mass market paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 3 May 2016

(First edition: Tor, August 2015)

Contemporary thriller about a science advisor in Washington DC fighting special interests.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.

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Brooks, Terry : The Darkling Child
(Ballantine Del Rey 978-0345540812, $7.99, 368pp, mass market paperback, April 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 26 Apr 2016
• The Defenders of Shannara #2

(First edition: Ballantine Del Rey, June 2015)

Fantasy novel, second in a series following The High Druid’s Blade (2014), set hundreds of years after the “Dark Legacy of Shannara” series (Wards of Faerie (2012), Bloodfire Quest (2013), and Witch Wraith (2013)).
• Penguin Random House’s site has this description with a preview function.

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Cambias, James L. : Corsair
(Tor 978-0765379115, $15.99, 336pp, trade paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 May 2016

(First edition: Tor, May 2015)

SF novel, the author’s second novel, about two former MIT students who are on opposite sides of schemes to return shipments from space mining back to Earth.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.
• Liz Bourke reviewed it last year in Locus Magazine: “… you might find Corsair to be an entertaining near-future thriller. Its subgenre is one that should be appealingly familiar to readers of Walter John Williams’ Deep State or Tobias Buckell’s Hurricane Fever…”

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Campbell, Jack : The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan
(Ace 978-0425260555, $7.99, 352pp, mass market paperback, April 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 26 Apr 2016
• The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier #5

(First edition: Ace, May 2015)

Military SF novel, fifth in the series following Dreadnaught (2011), Invicible (2012), Guardian (2013), Steadfast (2014), and six earlier books in the “Lost Fleet” series.
• Penguin’s site has this description.

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Chu, Wesley : Time Salvager
(Tor 978-0765377197, $15.99, 400pp, trade paperback, April 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 26 Apr 2016

(First edition: Tor, July 2015)

SF novel about a time traveler from a desperate future traveling into Earth’s past to recover resources without affecting the timeline.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.

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Conroy, Robert : 1882: Custer in Chains
(Baen 978-1476781426, $7.99, 512pp, mass market paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 26 Apr 2016

(First edition: Baen, May 2015)

Alternate history novel in which General Custer survives the battle at Little Big Horn and becomes president.
• Baen’s site has the description with links to several sample chapters.

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Corey, James S. A. : Nemesis Games
(Orbit 978-0316334716, $16.99, 576pp, trade paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 May 2016
• The Expanse #5

(First edition: Orbit, June 2015)

Space opera novel, fifth book of “The Expanse” following Leviathan’s Deep (2011), Caliban’s War (2012), Abaddon’s Gate (2013), and Cibola Burn (2014).
• James S.A. Corey is a pseudonym for authors Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham.
• Hachette’s site has this description with an OpenBook excerpt.

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Gilman, Carolyn Ives : Dark Orbit
(Tor 978-0765336309, $15.99, 304pp, trade paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 May 2016

(First edition: Tor, July 2015)

SF novel about the exploration of a planet inhabited by a blind, sentient species.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.
• Karen Burnham reviewed it last year in Locus Magazine: “In many ways this feels like a very old-fashioned kind of SF story. … Gilman is sophisticated in her development of both the sociological and physical implications and complications raised by the contact between the research team and the planet’s humans…”

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Gladstone, Max : Last First Snow
(Tor 978-0765379412, $16.99, 384pp, trade paperback, April 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 26 Apr 2016
• Craft Sequence #4

(First edition: Tor, July 2015)

Fantasy novel, fourth in a series following Three Parts Dead (2012), Two Serpents Rise (2013), and Full Fathom Five (2014), about a magical Craftswoman in the city of Alt Coulumb.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.

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Haydon, Elizabeth : The Hollow Queen
(Tor 978-0765344762, $8.99, 496pp, mass market paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 3 May 2016
• Symphony of Ages #8

(First edition: Tor, June 2015)

Fantasy novel, eighth volume in a series following Requiem for the Sun (2002), Elegy for a Lost Star (2004), and The Assassin King (2007), and The Merchant Emperor (2014).
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.

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Maas, Sarah J. : A Court of Thorns and Roses
(Bloomsbury 978-1619635180, $10.99, 448pp, trade paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 3 May 2016

(First edition: Bloomsbury, May 2015)

Young adult fantasy novel, first book in a series, about a 19-year-old huntress, Feyre, who is abducted to the world of immortal faeries.
• Bloomsbury’s site has this description.

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Moore, Christopher : Secondhand Souls
(Harpercollins/Morrow 978-0061779794, $15.99, 368pp, trade paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 May 2016
• A Dirty Job #2

(First edition: HarperCollins/Morrow, August 2015)

Humorous fantasy novel, sequel to A Dirty Job (2006), in which the souls of the dead in San Francisco are disappearing.
• HarperCollins’ site has this description with a preview function.

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Okorafor, Nnedi : The Book of Phoenix
(DAW 978-0756410780, $15, 240pp, trade paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 3 May 2016

(First edition: DAW, May 2015)

SF novel, prequel to the author’s World Fantasy Award winner Who Fears Death, about a genetically-accelerated woman who realizes her home in New York’s Tower 7 is a prison.
• Penguin’s site has this description with a preview function.
• The book is currently shortlisted for this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award.

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Reed, Kit : Where
(Tor 978-0765379832, $15.99, 240pp, trade paperback, April 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 19 Apr 2016

(First edition: Tor, May 2015)

SF novel about a couple, David and Merrill, who are separated when everyone in their South Carolina town except David disappears.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.
• Gary K. Wolfe reviewed it last year in Locus Magazine: “Too much resolution can seem trite and facile (as in Stephen King’s Under the Dome), while too little can leave readers simply frustrated. Reed brings off the balancing act pretty well, but her main concern – as was King’s in his novel – lies in exploring the reactions of individual characters, and in particular in the relationship of the individual to the community.”

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Robinson, Kim Stanley : Aurora
(Orbit Us 978-0316098090, $9.99, 528pp, mass market paperback, April 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 26 Apr 2016

(First edition: Orbit, July 2015)

SF novel about a generation ship on its way to Tau Ceti.
• Hachette’s site has this description.
• Orbit’s site has an excerpt.
• Gary K. Wolfe reviewed it last year in Locus Magazine: “Kim Stanley Robinson novels are never about only one thing, so when he addresses a familiar SF trope or subgenre, you can expect matters to get slippery. He interrogates and unpacks assumptions, asks previously unasked questions, and often rethinks the mode of storytelling itself.”
• The book is currently a finalist for this year’s Locus Awards.

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Stephenson, Neal : Seveneves
(Harpercollins/Morrow 978-0062334510, $17.99, 880pp, trade paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 17 May 2016

(First edition: Morrow, May 2015)

SF novel about a handful of survivors who escape the annihilation of Earth, and their progeny 5000 years later who return.
• HarperCollins’ site has this description with a preview function.
• Gary K. Wolfe reviewed it last year in Locus Magazine, concluding that by the end “mostly we get some surprising plot developments back on the slowly reviving Earth. Those are surprises that might lie just on the sharp edge of credibility, like that question of whether he can bring humanity back from its radically underpopulated brink, but it’s an edge that Stephenson has been treading throughout the novel, and which in the end lends it a genuinely moving, tragic, and epic scope.”
• The book is a currently a finalist for this year’s Hugo and Locus awards.

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Stirling, S. M. : The Change: Tales of Downfall and Rebirth
(Roc 978-0451467577, $16, 650pp, trade paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 3 May 2016

(First edition: Roc, June 2015)

Anthology of 16 original stories set in the editor’s “Change” (aka “Emberverse”) series of novels, in which humanity rebuilds following an apocalypse in which all technology has disappeared.
• Authors include Harry Turtledove, Walter Jon Williams, John Barnes, Jane Lindskold, and John Birmingham.
• Penguin’s site has this description.

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Tremblay, Paul : A Head Full of Ghosts
(Harpercollins/Morrow 978-0062363244, $14.99, 320pp, trade paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 10 May 2016

(First edition: William Morrow, June 2015)

Horror novel in which a 14-year-old girl’s descent into madness results in a hit reality TV show.
• HarperCollins’ description compares it to Mark Z. Danielewski, John Ajvide Lindqvist, and Shirley Jackson.
• The book just won this year’s Bram Stoker Award for best novel.

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Weber, David : The Sword of the South
(Baen 978-1476781273, $18, 560pp, trade paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 3 May 2016
• Sword of the South #1

(First edition: Baen, August 2015)

Fantasy novel, first book in a series set in the author’s Bahzell Bahnakson/War God universe.
• Baen’s site has this description with links to several chapters.

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West, Michelle : Oracle
(Daw 978-0756410100, $8.99, 784pp, mass market paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 3 May 2016
• House War #6

(First edition: DAW, May 2015)

Fantasy novel, sixth in “The House War” series following The Hidden City (2008), City of Night (2009), House Name (2011), Skirmish (2012), and Battle (2013) about a city besieged by worshippers of the Lord of the Hells.
• Penguin’s site has this description.

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Wilson, Robert Charles : The Affinities
(Tor 978-0765384447, $15.99, 304pp, trade paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 3 May 2016

(First edition: Tor, April 2015)

Near-future SF novel in which increasingly powerful social media groups, called Affinities, threaten traditional social and political institutions.
• Macmillan’s site has this description with an excerpt.
• Gary K. Wolfe reviewed it last year in Locus Magazine: “Wilson has always written strongly humanistic tales of relationships within SF frameworks, and sometimes the SF itself is mostly a way of exploring the ways in which we cope, or fail to cope, with change. This may be Wilson’s grand theme, and it’s no less skillfully handled here than in his more spectacular slingshot novels.”

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Zahn, Timothy : Cobra Outlaw
(Baen 978-1476781433, $7.99, 448pp, mass market paperback, May 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 26 Apr 2016
• Cobra Rebellion #2

(First edition: Baen, February 2015)

SF novel, second in a new series, following Cobra Slave (2013), about the Cobra, nano-tech enhanced warriors built to defend humanity against aliens.
• Baen’s site has this description with links to several chapters.

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