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Anon., ed. :
Fairy Song, Volume One
(SFBC 0-86562-133-0, $19.99, 64pp, hardcover, 2005, jacket art Arantza)
Anthology of erotic fairy drawings and paintings. Artists include Arantza, Enrique Villagran, Pedro Cuevas, Perla Perlucky, Anibal Maraschi, Santiago Caruso, and Marcelo Sosa.
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The edition, a laminated hardcover without a dust jacket, is available exclusively from the Science Fiction Book Club, whose site has this page about the book -- "Here are wood sprites, water nymphs, pixie vixens and winged warriors -- all a feast for the eye. Buxom and beautiful, these fairy maidens will frolic in your memory long after the last page is turned...."
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Asher, Neal :
The Voyage of The Sable Keech
(UK: Macmillan/Tor UK 1-4050-0140-2, £17.99, 506pp, hardcover, February 2006, jacket illustration Steve Rawlings)
SF novel, sequel to Asher's 2002 novel The Skinner, set on the watery world Spatterjay. In this book policeman Sable Keech has been returned to life, and a cult engages on a pilgrimage in an immense ship hoping to emulate his resurrection.
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The publisher's site has this page for the book, with a game and a contest to win signed copies.
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Online reviews include Cheryl Morgan's, who finds it "more of the same, but less so" compared to the earlier book, Peter D. Tillman's SF Site review, and this one at Green Man Review.
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Russell Letson reviews the book in the March issue of Locus Magazine, concluding "it's the sort of ingenious, entertaining, non-stop roller-coaster/grand guignol I have come to expect from Asher."
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Borski, Robert :
The Long and the Short of It
(iUniverse 0-595-38645-8, $14.95, 143pp, trade paperback, 2006)
Collection of 14 essays on the fiction of Gene Wolfe, follow-up to the author's Solar Labyrinth (2004), which was about The Book of the New Sun. Sample chapters in the new book are "Wolves in the Fold", "The Werwolf as Hero", "Marschian Sexuality", and "Penumbrae of the Short Sun". There's also a bibliography.
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The book is also availble as a hardcover and as an ebook.
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The publisher's site has this order page with the back cover description.
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Brockmeier, Kevin :
The Brief History of the Dead
(Pantheon 0-375-42369-9, $22.95, 252pp, hardcover, February 2006)
Literary fantasy novel interweaving tales about a city inhabited by the recently dead, and a woman who's trapped in an Antarctica research station. It's expanded from a 2003 New Yorker short story that was a finalist for the Nebula Award in 2004.
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The publisher/author's site has a description, author Q&A, excerpt, reading guide, and an interactive 'enter the city' window.
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Amazon has the starred Publishers Weekly review, from its December 19th '05 issue, saying that the author "meditates throughout on memory's power and resilience, and gives vivid shape to the city, a place where a giraffe's spots might detach and hover about a street conversation among denizens."
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Other prominent reviews include this one at Slate by Meghan O'Rourke, and this negative report by Patrick McGrath in the New York Times.
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Nick Gevers reviews the book in the February Locus: "What is really going on in Brockmeier's story can perhaps readily be guessed; but whether the reader is clued in or ignorant, the novel's climax is of extraordinary impact, fantasy and SF mingling in eloquent judgment on the simultaneous glory and emptiness of human life, its wonderful particularity and its casual evanescence"
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Ford, Jeffrey :
The Cosmology of the Wider World
(UK: PS Publishing 1-904619-82-7, £11.99, 7+173pp, trade paperback, November 2005, cover by Kim Deitch)
Fantasy short novel about a minotaur named Belius who has writer's block trying to finish his philosophical work 'The Cosmology'. Introduction is by Jeff VanderMeer.
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The publisher's site has this description. The book is also available in hardcover.
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It's listed as a novella on Locus Magazine's 2005 Recommended Reading List.
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Locus Magazine ran reviews by Faren Miller, who called it "a wry postmodern hybrid", and Rich Horton, who said in the December '05 issue "The book is a great deal of fun, and at the same time quite moving. Belius is a convincing and sad character. The prose is typical of Ford at his more extravagant... This book as a whole is fabulous in multiple senses of the word."
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Harrison, Kim :
This Witch for Hire
(SFBC 0-7394-6380-2, $14.99, 707pp, hardcover, February 2006, jacket art Chris McGrath)
Omnibus of two humorous fantasy novels bounty hunter and witch Rachel Morgan, Dead Witch Walking (2004) and The Good, the Bad, and the Undead (2005), both first published in paperback by HarperTorch.
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This hardcover edition is available exclusively from the Science Fiction Book Club, whose site has this page about the book, with a description and several member reviews.
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Haynes, Simon :
Hal Spacejock: Second Course
(Australia: Fremantle Arts Centre Press 1-92106-466-8, A$19.95, 363pp, mass market paperback, March 2006)
Humorous space opera novel, second in the series following Hal Spacejock (2005), about a down-on-his-luck operator of an intergalactic cargo business.
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The series' official site has this page for the second book, with a description and sample chapter.
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The first book will be available from Amazon in May. Both books are available from Australian online bookseller Dymocks, which has this page for the second book.
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Sterling, Bruce :
Visionary in Residence
(Thunder's Mouth Press 1-56025-841-1, $15.95, 294pp, trade paperback, March 2006, cover design David Riedy)
Collection of 13 stories first published from 1999 to 2005, divided into eight groups ("Science Fiction", "Fiction About Science", "Design Fiction", etc.) with Sterling providing brief introductory remarks for each section. Stories include Sturgeon Award shortlisted "In Paradise", as well as "Luciferase", "The Scab's Progress" (with Paul Di Filippo), "Junk DNA" (with Rudy Rucker), and two stories on Locus's 2005 Recommended Reading List, "The Blemmye's Strategem" and "The Denial".
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The other stories include one original, with the others from various non-genre sources including Nature magazine.
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The publisher's page has a brief description and an excerpt from "In Paradise".
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Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Sterling is that rare author who writes witty, humorous thought-experiments centered on great ideas."
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Sullivan, Kathryn :
Talking to Trees
(Amber Quill Press 1-59279-760-1, $13.5, 186pp, trade paperback, January 2006, cover art Trace Edward Zaber)
Fantasy novel about a girl whose brother's bracelet gives access to another world.
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It's a sequel to The Crystal Throne, winner of a 2002 Eppie Award (for e-books) as best fantasy.
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The publisher's site has a page about the author and this page about the book, with a description and short excerpt.
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Thompson, Ted, ed. :
Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe...
(McSweeney's 1-932416-35-8, $22, 202pp, hardcover, October 2005)
Anthology of 11 mixed-genre stories, nine of them original to this book, the full title of which is Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creatures From the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf, and One Other Story We Couldn't Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out.
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Included are two stories on Locus Magazine's 2005 Recommended Reading List, Kelly Link's "Monster" and Neil Gaiman's "Sunbird". Other authors include George Saunders, Jeanne DuPrau, and Jonathan Safran Foer, and there's an amusing introduction full of story cliches by Lemony Snicket.
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The publisher's site has this description and order page.
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Amazon has the Booklist review, which calls it "a charming, funny anthology"
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Rich Horton reviewed the book in the January issue of Locus Magazine, calling Gaiman's story "an overt homage to R. A. Lafferty" that "turns at the end in a surprising and wonderful direction", and Link's story "the collection's jewel".
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VanderMeer, Jeff :
Shriek: An Afterword
(UK: Macmillan/Tor UK 1-405-05360-7, £10.99, 370pp, trade paperback, January 2006, cover illustration Jonathan Edwards)
Fantasy novel set in VanderMeer's city of Ambergris (subject of City of Saints and Madmen), concerning the obsessed historian named Duncan Shriek.
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The Amazon UK page has the back cover description. The US edition comes out from Tor in August.
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Guardian published this review by Jon Courtenay Grimwood: "Jeff VanderMeer's latest is as complicated, impressive and exasperating as anything he has written." Elsewhere online about the book is this SF Site interview with VanderMeer and Cheryl Morgan's review -- "Shriek is not just a great book; it is a great book with a very serious point to make. You can't ask for much more than that."
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Nick Gevers reviewed it in the January issue of Locus Magazine, calling it "an exceptional novel, a tapestry of fine writing, deep psychological insight, and acute narrative excitement."
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Williams, Sean, & Shane Dix :
Geodesica
(SFBC 0-7394-6391-8, $12.99, 644pp, hardcover, February 2006, jacket art Chris Moore)
Omnibus of two SF novels, Geodesica: Ascent (2005) and Geodesica: Descent (2006), about the 24th century discover of a "vast hyperspatial labyrinth" called Geodesica.
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The two books were first published in paperback by Ace; the book club omnibus is their first hardcover edition. The volume includes a glossary of names, a timeline, a table of planetary names, and maps.
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The club's page for the book has a description.
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Wright, T. M. :
A Spider on My Tongue
(Nyx Books 0-9776681-2-6, $12, 123pp, trade paperback, April 2006, cover by Robert Sammelin)
Fantasy novella about a man who can see ghosts.
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The publisher's page for the book (also available in hardcover) has a description: "It is said that if ghosts were real, they'd be everywhere -- at shopping malls, parking lots, in the parlor, the bathroom, on the sidewalks and boulevards ..."
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The author has written numerous previous novels, including House on Orchid Street and Laughing Man.
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