New SF, Fantasy, and Horror books seen : April 2005 Week 3

Collection of 31 'list' poems reprinted from Asimov's, Strange Horizons, and other publications. Titles include "Signs Your Parents Are Being Replaced by Automatons", "Things Not to Say When You Meet a Famous SF Writer", "The Car of the Future", "Signs You Could Be a Clone", and "New Year's Resolutions: 2223". Illustrations by Marge Simon.
• Available from Project Pulp, whose webpage for the book has a complete table of contents.

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SF novel about an average man in his 20s who finds himself a Player in a multiverse Contest of Worlds.
• The publisher's site has a description, but you'll have to search for it, since a direct link to that page doesn't seem permitted.
• The Amazon page (click on title or cover image) has the same description, plus Publishers Weekly's review: "The more he learns of other worlds, the less he can be sure of-but the more his decisions matter. As things get increasingly serious for August, the story's tone remains wry, packed with offhand literary references and bookish puns."
• Gary K. Wolfe's review will appear in the May issue of Locus Magazine; exploring the author's references to Zelazny, Leiber, and his idea of a 'computational cosmos', he concludes "it's among Broderick's most ambitious novels to date, and certainly his most pointed attempt to meld the virtues of the old and the new SF."

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Fantasy novel, book one of a new series, The Chronicles of Kydan, about one of the few members of a royal family who cannot access the realm of magic.
• DAW's website has this slightly longer description.
• Voyager Australia's site has this author profile and Q&A, while eidolon.net hosts this rather out-of-date Simon Brown homesite.
• Amazon has a five-star review by Harriet Klausner.

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Fantasy novel, third in the Scepter of Mercy trilogy, following The Bastard King (2003) and The Chernagor Pirates (2004).
• Parent publisher Penguin Putnam's site has this very brief description.
• Amazon has the PW review, which calls it a "good-natured, leisurely final installment" and "The author excels at characterization, in particular of the pair of down-to-earth Avornis kings: Grus, the thinking man's head of warfare, and Lanius, the thinking man's thinker." -- as well as the Booklist review by Frieda Murray.

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Dark fantasy novel about a couple heading home from a Halloween party who give a young girl a lift home, a girl who changes their lives.
• Bantam's site has this description, with blurbs from Stephen King and Peter Straub, and this excerpt.
• Amazon has the PW review: "this above-average stab at Stephen King-style horror draws the reader irresistibly into its mystery."
• Cemetery Dance Publications has published a limited edition hardcover.

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Dark fantasy erotic mystery, fourth in the Meredith Gentry series following A Kiss of Shadows (2000), A Caress of Twilight (2002), and Seduced by Moonlight (2004).
• The publisher's site has this description, and an excerpt.
• Amazon has the same description, and a couple reader reviews.

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SF novel, sequel to Warchild and Burndive, about a boy trained as a secret weapon in an interstellar conflict.
• The publisher's site has a description and brief excerpt.
• Amazon has several mostly-positive reader reviews.

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Fantasy novel, second in the Boreal Moon sequence following Conqueror's Moon (2004).
• Amazon has the PW review, which cites the book's "Vivid characterization and deft world building" and concludes "The author's usual brisk pacing will keep readers turning the pages of this well above average high fantasy."

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Fantasy novel, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty.
• The parent publisher's site has this very brief description.
• Amazon has the starred Booklist review by Paula Luedtke: "Romantics, rejoice! McKiernan's retelling of Sleeping Beauty is the way it should have been done the first time around."

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Humorous fantasy novel that plays off fairy tale cliches.
• The publisher's site has this description, which also appears on the author's webpage.

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Fantasy novel set in a realm resembling 16th century England. It's the author's first solo novel in over five years, and the last completed before her death. According to CNN, "Norton's publisher, Tor Books, rushed to have one copy printed so that the author, who had been sick for almost a year, could see it."
• Andre Norton org has this page about the book.
• Amazon has the PW review: "While aimed primarily at younger readers, older fantasy fans will be charmed as well."
• Science Fiction Weekly ran this review by Paul Di Filippo: B.

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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 dust jacket description, information on the author, and this excerpt.
• The Chicago Sun-Times ran this review by Dan Miller under the headline "Bradbury a Luddite?" Amazon has the starred Booklist review: "More scholarly and literary biographies will follow, but none will have the vitality and intimacy of this living portrait."
• Gary K. Wolfe reviews the book in the April issue of Locus Magazine, calling 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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Nonfiction anthology of 20 essays. Authors include John Shirley, Stephen Baxter, Cory Doctorow, Adam Roberts, Jacqueline Carey.
• The publisher's site has a brief description.

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There's a world I know where the women are a head taller than the men, and file their ferocious teeth to points. The men are just as fierce.

The night of the masquerade was a kind of mad, risque waltz, the voices louder and the laughter giddier than anyone would have expected. That was the nature of masks.

I hate press conferences. but I especially hate them when I've been ordered to hide large portions of the truth. The order had come from the Queen of Air and Darkness, ruler of the dark court of faerie. The Unseelie are not a power to be crossed, even if I was their very own faerie princess. I was Queen Andais's niece, but the family connection had never bought me much. I smiled at the nearly solid wall of reporters, fighting to keep my thoughts from showing on my face.