+ Bear, Greg : Quantico
(Madison Park Press/SFBC 1-58288-217-7, $14.99, 355pp, hardcover, March 2006)
(First edition: UK: HarperCollins UK, November 2005)

Contemporary SF thriller about three FBI agents, graduates of the academy in Quantico, Virginia, and their involvement in a new round of terrorist attacks against the US and international targets.
• Bear's website has this description from the cover flap.
• This is the first US edition of the book; Madison Park Press is a Bookspan imprint used for original books being released by various BOMC and Doubleday book clubs, in this case including not only the SFBC but also the Quality Paperback Book Club, Mystery Guild, American Compass (a conservative book club), and Military Book Club, according to Bear's website. In April Publishers Weekly ran this article about the imprint.
• The SFBC site has this description.
• Gary K. Wolfe reviews the book in the January issue of Locus Magazine: "Quantico is by far the most stripped-down and linear of Bear's near-future thrillers, and the one most willing to play with the clich‚s and conventions of the genre..."

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* de Lint, Charles : Widdershins
(Tor 0-765-31285-9, $27.95, 560pp, hardcover, May 2006, jacket art John Jude Palencar)

Fantasy novel in de Lint's ongoing Newford sequence; according to de Lint's site, it's "a stand-alone novel of fairy courts set in shopping malls and the Bohemian street scene of Newford's Crowsea area" about Jilly Coppercorn and Geordie Riddell, who met in one of the first Newford stories, "Timeskip" (1989).
• The author's site has this page with a description and excerpt.
• Amazon has reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist; the former concludes "In the background, a great war is brewing between Native American spirits and those that came over with the white men, a situation that inevitably recalls Neil Gaiman's American Gods, to which this more intimate and folksy book compares favorably", while the latter's starred review comments "De Lint weaves the individual characters' stories into a tight-knit whole, accompanied by music, love, pugnacity, frustration, and healing. Many of his faithful readers see the people he has created as kin they want to keep up with."

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+ Douglass, Sara : Druid's Sword
(Tor 0-765-30543-7, $27.95, 606pp, hardcover, May 2006, jacket art Luis Royo)

Fantasy novel, fourth and final book in the "Troy Game" sequence following Hades' Daughter (2003), God's Concubine (2004), and Darkwitch Rising (2005). This volume is set during the London Blitz.
• The author's website has this page describing the series and this page about this particular book, plus an extract, and a history of the Troy Game.
• Amazon has a description, and reader reviews. The Publishers Weekly website just posted a starred review: "The meaty, suspenseful final book of Douglass' Troy Game series will both horrify and delight readers enthralled by his combative, perpetually reincarnated characters. ... Douglass wraps her millennia-spanning epic with a dark, pitch-perfect finale."

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* Meyer, Kai : Pirate Curse
(McElderry 1-4169-2421-3, $15.95, 320pp, hardcover, June 2006, jacket illustration Rick Sardinha)

YA fantasy novel, first in the "Wave Walkers" trilogy, about pirate kids called "polliwogs" who can walk on water. It was first published in German in 2003, with this edition translated by Elizabeth D. Crawford.
• The author's website has a description, plus a link to a wordless graphic novel adaptation of several scenes from the book.
• The publisher's website has this description.

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* Novik, Naomi : Black Powder War
(Ballantine Del Rey 0-345-48130-5, $7.5, 365pp, mass market paperback, June 2006, cover illustration Dominic Harman)

Fantasy novel, third in the "Temeraire" trilogy following His Majesty's Dragon and Throne of Jade.
• Del Rey's site has this description and an excerpt.
• The author's website has this page for the book, with links to reviews.
• Amazon has the starred Booklist review, which concludes "Novik's magical eighteenth century, peopled with sympathetic characters, induces avid reading. Long may she write!".
• The April issue of Locus Magazine has Carolyn Cushman's review of all three novels.

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* Resnick, Mike : A Gathering of Widowmakers
(Meisha Merlin 1-59222-085-1, $23.95, 263pp, hardcover, December 2005, cover art Jim Burns)

SF novel, fourth in the "Widowmaker" series following The Widowmaker (1996), The Widowmaker Reborn (1997), and The Widowmaker Unleashed (1998), about a galactic bounty hunter, who wants to retire, and a conflict between his two clones.
• The publisher's website has this page about the book, with a link to an excerpt.
• Amazon has the Booklist review by Roland Green: "Resnick's usual gifts for hard-boiled space opera, including even plausible future weaponry and not too much cynicism, keep things humming toward an ending indicating possible sequels."
• While the published book indicates a December '05 publication date, copies of the book appeared in stores only this past month.

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* See, Carolyn : There Will Never Be Another You
(Random House 0-679-46317-8, $24.95, 242pp, hardcover, May 2006)

Literary novel set in near-future Los Angeles, concerning post-9/11 anxiety among doctors and students at the UCLA Medical Center.
• See is the author of literary/SF novel Golden Days in 1986. Her website has this page about the book, with reviews from LA Times and others.
• The publisher's site has this description and an excerpt.
• Gary K. Wolfe reviews the book in the upcoming June issue of Locus Magazine, commenting "[W]hat See has done is somewhat similar to Doris Lessing's futuristic narrative shifts in the novels prior to her full-fledged SF ... But See's pellucid tone is entirely her own, and when the novel shifts back to Edith's remarkable voice at the end, it concludes with an almost astonishing note of hope and connection, echoed by the old Harry Warren-Mack Gordon jazz classic, heard by Edith on an ill-fated date, that provides the book's title and becomes its anthem. Life, the music seems to say, is a game of improvisation and connection, and even when See moves her story into almost purely SF territory, that connection remains."

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* Sussex, Lucy : Absolute Uncertainty
(Aqueduct Press 1-933500-06-9, $9, 147pp, trade paperback, May 2006)

Collection of 7 stories, 3 of them original to this book, and an interview with the author by Maureen Kincaid Speller. It's the Australian author's first book to be published in the US.
• The publisher's site has this description and background on the author.
• The author has this homepage.

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* Traviss, Karen : Star Wars: Republic Commando
(SFBC 0-7394-6686-0, $12.99, 612pp, hardcover, May 2006)

Omnibus of two Star Wars novels, Hard Contact (2004) and Triple Zero (2006), both first published by Ballantine Del Rey. The volume also includes the official Star Wars Timeline, a story "Omega Squad: Targets" first published in Star Wars Insider #81 in 2005, and a glossary.
• This edition is available exclusively from the Science Fiction Book Club, whose website has this description and review.
• The author's website indicates (click on 'novels') three more Star Wars novels forthcoming. Traviss has this blog.

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* Turtledove, Harry : Fort Pillow: A Novel of the Civil War
(St. Martin's 0-312-35520-3, $24.95, 329pp, hardcover, May 2006)

Historical -- not alternate history -- novel about the 1864 Civil War battle at Fort Pillow in western Tennessee.
• Steven H Silver has posted this review, noting that "Fort Pillow is the first straight historical fiction Harry Turtledove has written under his own name (he has published five novels under the pseudonym H.N. Turteltaub)."
• Amazon has the PW review and the starred Booklist review by Frieda Murray, which concludes "Turtledove's most impressive novel uses known facts and persons and extremely plausible extrapolations to paint a picture of one of America's least glorious affrays. After reading it, one is convinced that it happened that way. Turtledove also depicts the people of the time and place very vividly, making the novel a true window into history."

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+ Voake, Steve : The Dreamwalker's Child
(Bloomsbury 1-58234-661-5, $16.95, 300pp, hardcover, April 2006, jacket illustration Tony Sahara) First US edition (UK: Faber and Faber, January 2005)

Young adult SF/fantasy novel about a boy who wakes from a coma in an alternate world.
• The US publisher's site has this page for the book and an excerpt.
• BBC has this article about the author, former headmaster of a boy's school in Somerset. This book is the author's debut YA novel.
• Carolyn Cushman reviewed the book in the May issue of Locus Magazine, concluding "There are some fantasy elements, but for the most part this is a rousing, old-fashioned SF adventure, complete with giant bugs and mad science, hairbreadth escapes, explosions, chases, crashes, and aerial battles."

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* Westerfeld, Scott : Specials
(Simon Pulse 0-689-86540-6, $15.95, 372pp, hardcover, June 2006)

YA SF novel, third in the "Uglies" trilogy following Uglies (2005) and Pretties (2005), set in a future in which teenagers undergo surgery to look beautiful. As the author explains in an interview posted on his site, the series was inspired by an exchange with Ted Chiang about his story "Liking What You See: A Documentary".
• The publisher's site has this description and an excerpt.
• Amazon has an excerpt, and reader reviews.
• Gary K. Wolfe reviewed all three books in the trilogy in the May issue of Locus Magazine.

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