Anthony, Piers : Pet Peeve
(Tor 0765343118, $6.99, 361pp, mass market paperback, October 2006)
(First edition: Tor, October 2005)

Humorous fantasy novel, 29th in the long-running, pun-filled "Xanth" series. This one concerns an abominable army of automatons that invades Xanth.
• The next volume is Stork Naked, to be published in hardcover the end of this month.
• Amazon's "search inside" feature includes an excerpt.

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Dietz, William C. : Runner
(Ace 0-441-01409-7, $7.99, 424pp, mass market paperback, October 2006)
(First edition: Ace, October 2005)

SF novel about an interstellar courier involved with a future religious leader and a long-lost secret to interstellar travel.
• The second book in the series, Logos Run, has just been published in hardcover. The author's website has a description of the new book.
• Amazon has reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist; the latter's Roland Green says "Dietz's honorable addition to depictions of the far future, from Wells' Time Machine (1894) to Asimov's Pebble in the Sky (1950) to more recently the works of Clarke and Baxter, is distinguished by the brisk pacing and fleshed-out action scenes that have already made him a respected name in military sf."

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Ellis, Bret Easton : Lunar Park
(Vintage 0-375-72727-2, $13.95, 400pp, trade paperback, August 2006)
(First edition: Knopf, August 2005)

Literary novel by the author of Less Than Zero and American Psycho, about a writer named Bret Easton Ellis who's given a second chance at his career.
• The novel is currently a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, whose winners will be announced in early November.
• The publisher's site has this description, while the publisher-sponsored author site has an excerpt.
• Metacritic.com has this summary of reviews (with links to each review); readers liked it better than critics.
• Wikipedia has this page.

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Fallon, Jennifer : Wolfblade
(Tor 0-765-34869-1, $7.99, 618pp, mass market paperback, September 2006, cover art Paul Youll)
(First edition: Australia: HarperCollins Voyager, July 2004)

Fantasy novel, first in a new trilogy and fourth book in "The Hythrun Chronicles" following the "Demon Child" trilogy (Medalon, Treason Keep, and Harshini).
• The second book in the trilogy, Warrior, has just been published by Tor in hardcover.
• The author's site has this page about the Hythrun Chronicles, and this page about the current books, and an extract.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Fallon sets the stage for another lively fantasy saga full of intriguing characters, smart dialogue and twisty plotting."

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Gabaldon, Diana : A Breath of Snow and Ashes
(Delta 0-385-34039-7, $15, 980pp, trade paperback, September 2006)
(First edition: Delacorte, October 2005)

Historical time-travel fantasy novel, sixth in the "Outlander" series, about 18th-century Scotsman Jamie Fraser and his 20th-century wife Claire. This volume takes place in 1772, on the eve of the American revolution.
• The novel just won a Quill Award as the best SF/Fantasy/Horror book of 2005.
• The publisher's site has this description and excerpt.
• Amazon has the Booklist review: "...readers will find every expectation fulfilled in the sixth book of the popular Outlander series. ... Gabaldon's ability to invoke the heroic and the harrowing writ large, while also creating moments where you dare not take a breath for fear of missing something tiny and fine, is her hallmark."

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Gaiman, Neil : Anansi Boys
(HarperTorch 0-06-051519-8, $7.99, 387pp, mass market paperback, October 2006)
(First edition: HarperCollins/Morrow, September 2005)

Humorous fantasy novel a man who discovers, after the death of his father, that he has a brother, Spider, and that both of them have inherited their father's godlike powers.
• The author's site has this page about the book, with a link to an excerpt.
• The novel has won the British Fantasy Award, the Mythopoeic Award, and the Locus Award. (It was nominated for the Hugo Award, but withdrawn by the author.)
• Gary K. Wolfe's said last year in Locus Magazine: "It's a delerious performance that consistently carries with it the exhilarating feel of improvisation, and even with its darker edges -- or more likely because of them -- it's Gaiman's most assured, unified, and sheerly enjoyable adult novel to date."

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Hogan, James P. : Kicking the Sacred Cow
(Baen 1-416-52073-2, $7.99, 515pp, mass market paperback, July 2006)
(First edition: Baen, July 2004)

Nonfiction collection of essays addressing various scientific topics the author feels have become dogmatized, including Darwinism, the Big Bang, relativity, Velikovsky, global warming, and AIDS.
• The author's site has this page about the book, with links to background, summary (table of contents), samples, and comments.
• Baen's site has this description, with links to numerous excerpts.
• Amazon has a couple very detailed reader reviews.

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Hogan, James P. : Mission to Minerva
(Baen 1-416-52090-2, $7.99, 549pp, mass market paperback, October 2006, cover art Bob Eggleton)
(First edition: Baen, May 2005)

SF novel, fifth in the "Giants" series that began with Hogan's first novel Inherit the Stars (1977), in which a 40,000-year-old spacesuit-clad human is found on the Moon. This volume concerns alternate realities that enable a mission to be sent back in time.
• Hogan's site has this title page for the book, with links to background, a summary, chapter excerpts, and reader reviews and comments.
• Baen's site has a description and numerous chapter excerpts.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Readers who like their science hard will find this one a diamond."

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Kostova, Elizabeth : The Historian
(Back Bay Books 0-316-15454-7, $15.99, 676pp, trade paperback, October 2006)
(First edition: Little, Brown, June 2005)

Fantasy thriller about a historian's quest to find Dracula, and the historian's daughter who goes in search of him when he disappears. It's the author's first novel, and was on bestseller lists for six months after publication.
• It was given a Book Sense Book of the Year Award as best adult fiction for 2006.
• Wikipedia has this entry.
• Amazon has a review of its own by Regina Marler -- "If your pulse flutters at the thought of castle ruins and descents into crypts by moonlight, you will savor every creepy page of Elizabeth Kostova's long but beautifully structured thriller The Historian...."

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Lubar, David : Invasion of the Road Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales
(Starscape 0-765-35325-3, $5.99, 184pp, trade paperback, September 2006, cover art Bill Mayer) ERROR -- 1st edition not found

Yound-adult collection of 35 stories, follow-up to In the Land of the Lawn Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales (2003). "Road weenies" are joggers who never smile.
• Stories range from "the silly and offbeat to flat-out horrifying" according to the back cover copy.
• The author's site has this brief description.
• Amazon has School Library Journal and Booklist reviews; the former says "What if you discovered, for example, that when you recorded over your dad's boring videotapes of a family vacation or a school play, those events suddenly had never occurred? And what if you accidentally erased the videotape of your mother giving birth to you? Oh oh. Not for the sensitive or easily frightened..."

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MacLeod, Ian R. : The House of Storms
(Ace 0-441-01342-2, $14, 457pp, trade paperback, August 2006)
(First edition: UK: Simon & Schuster UK, February 2005)

Alternate history SF novel, sequel to The Light Ages (2003), set in a Dickensian England in which the discovery of 'aether' has brought about a different kind of industrial revolution, set a century after the earlier book.
• The author's website has this page about the book.
• Amazon has the starred PW review, which said "Full of detailed descriptions of landscapes and complex human feelings, this rich, leisurely novel bears some similarities to the more frenetic fiction of China Mi‚ville, though the author's affinity to A.S. Byatt is even stronger. This is a major work by a master writing at the top of his form."

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MacLeod, Ken : Learning the World
(Tor 0-765-35177-3, $7.99, 354pp, mass market paperback, October 2006, cover art John Harris)
(First edition: UK: Time Warner UK/Orbit, August 2005)

SF novel, subtitled "a scientific romance", about a generation starship that detects electronic signals from its planetary destination.
• The book was a Hugo Award finalist this year, and was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. It won this year's Prometheus Award from the Libertarian Futurist Society.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, which called it "perhaps the finest novel of first contact since Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky". Its 'search inside' feature includes an excerpt.
• Locus Magazine reviewer Damien Broderick called it "perhaps Ken MacLeod's most frolicsome novel to date" while fellow reviewer Gary K. Wolfe said "By the time the novel reaches its conclusion -- in which MacLeod offers what seems to be a completely original solution to Fermi's Paradox -- the articulate and engaging voice of Atomic Discourse Gale takes on an unexpected poignancy, and the tale itself, in the best dual-perspective MacLeod fashion, both celebrates and subverts the familiar conventions of the generation-starship tale and the first contact scenario."

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Martin, George R. R. : A Feast for Crows
(Bantam Spectra 0-553-58202-X, $7.99, 1060pp, mass market paperback, October 2006)
(First edition: UK: HarperCollins/Voyager, October 2005)

Fantasy novel, fourth book in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series that began with A Game of Thrones in 1996.
• Bantam's website has this page about the book, with a description, quotes from reviews, and an excerpt.
• The novel was a Hugo Award nominee this year.
• Lisa Goldstein's review in Locus Magazine said: "Martin's world is a real place, filled with vivid complexity, a true journey into another realm. A place you can almost feel you're visiting, at least for the duration of the novel. We're about halfway through the series now, far enough to see what a breathtaking achievement it all is, what a grand canvas Martin is working on. We're lucky enough to be at the birth of a classic, something that will be read and reread for years to come."

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McBain, Ed, ed. : Transgressions
(Forge 0-765-34751-2, $7.99, 10+304pp, mass market paperback, September 2006) ERROR -- 1st edition not found

Anthology of two novellas, Stephen King's "The Things They Left Behind" and John Farris' "The Ransome Women", first published with eight other novellas in 2005 hardcover Transgressions.
• Ed McBain provides an introduction.
• Cemetery Dance has this review of the original book.

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Niven, Larry, & Jerry Pournelle : Burning Tower
(Pocket 0-7434-1692-9, $7.99, 655pp, mass market paperback, October 2006)
(First edition: Pocket, February 2005)

Fantasy novel, follow-up to The Burning City (2000), set in a prehistorical Los Angeles and in the universe of Niven's "Magic Goes Away" series, in which magic is a finite resource and the civilizations that depend on it are threatened with extinction.
• The publisher's site has this description, and an excerpt.
• Amazon has a post from Pournelle, who directs readers to his site.

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Pike, Christopher : The Shaktra
(Tor 0-765-34961-2, $6.99, 334pp, mass market paperback, September 2006, cover art Daniel Dos Santos)
(First edition: Tor, October 2005)

Young-adult fantasy novel, second in the trilogy that began with Alosha (2004), about a teenaged girl who discovers she is a faerie princess. In this volume she searches for her missing mother, while a sinister being called the Shaktra threatens the elemental world.
• The third volume, The Yanti, is due this month from Tor Teen in hardcover.
• Amazon has the book description, and reader reviews.
• Wikipedia has this page about the author, whose real name is Kevin McFadden, his pseudonym chosen after the Star Trek character.

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Willett, Edward : Lost in Translation
(DAW 0-7564-0340-5, $6.99, 297pp, mass market paperback, October 2006, cover art Steve Stone)
(First edition: Five Star, February 2005)

SF novel about two translators, one human and one of the alien S'sinn, sent to negotiate their species' competing claims over a new planet.
• The author's website has this page about the book, with quotes from reviews and an excerpt.
• Amazon has reader reviews.

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Zahn, Timothy : Night Train to Rigel
(Tor 0-765-34644-3, $7.99, 326pp, mass market paperback, October 2006)
(First edition: Tor, October 2005)

SF novel about an Earth agent investigating a threat to the Twelve Empires while on an interstellar train ride to Rigel.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Seeing a new chunk of the truth fall into place about every hundred pages, [the agent] carries comic-strip action to dizzying extremes in this highballing romp. Situations predictable from tough-guy PI fiction and characters straight out of Dick Tracy (even though some wear chipmunk fur and others inhabit telepathic coral colonies) make this night train a juicily familiar joyride."
• Rich Horton's SF Site review is also on Amazon: "Zahn redeems some of the weaknesses of the beginning by the end, and I ended up a pleased, but not really thrilled, customer."

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