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Baker, Kage :
Gods and Pawns
(Tor 0-765-31552-1, $24.95, 335pp, hardcover, January 2007, jacket art Paul Youll)
Collection of 7 stories, two of them original to this book, in the author's long-running series about "The Company". The original stories are novellas "The Hellfire Club" and "To the Land Beyond the Sunset", while novella "The Angel in the Darkness" was originally published as a chapbook by Golden Gryphon Press in 2003.
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The author's website has this page about the book, with brief descriptions of the stories.
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Green Man Review has this review by Cat Eldridge.
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Nick Gevers reviews the book in the February '07 issue of Locus Magazine, especially recommending the novella "Hellfire at Twilight".
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Bhumi, James :
June 2508
(Outskirts Press 1-4327-0045-6, $14.95, 333pp, trade paperback, January 2007)
SF novel about a scientific breakthrough in the 26th century and a young man who emigrates to Mars.
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The author provides a foreword, where he describes his work as 'Prospective Fiction' in the manner of Isaac Asimov.
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The book's website has a description and editorial reviews -- "In a few centuries, man's continuing quest for ever-more prosperity, longevity, and conquest of territory culminates in a drastic scientific breakthrough. It's something terrifying. And it's terrible. Yet nothing else will do it all." Also available as an e-book.
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Briggs, Patricia :
Blood Bound
(Ace 978-0-441-01473-6, $7.99, 292pp, mass market paperback, February 2007, cover art Daniel Dos Santos)
Fantasy novel, second in a series, following Moon Called (2006), about Mercedes Thompson, a coyote shapeshifter who's also a VW mechanic. In this book Mercy battles an evil vampire/sorcerer.
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The author's website has the author's description, a sample chapter, and a map of the tri-cities area of Washington State where it takes place.
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Carolyn Cushman reviewed it in the February issue of Locus Magazine, calling it "better than ever" and concluding "In the increasingly crowded field of kick-ass supernatural heroines, Mercy stands out as one of the best."
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Campbell, Jack :
The Lost Fleet: Fearless
(Ace 0-441-01476-3, $6.99, 295pp, mass market paperback, February 2007, cover art Pat Turner)
Military SF novel, second in a series following Lost Fleet: Dauntless, about an Alliance Fleet in enemy territory.
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The publisher's site has this brief description.
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The author is John G. Hemry writing as Jack Campbell.
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The author's site has a description, titles of the next two books, and a link to an excerpt.
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Cherryh, C. J. :
Deliverer
(DAW 978-0-7564-0414-7, $25.95, 357pp, hardcover, February 2007, jacket painting Donato Giancola)
SF novel in Cherryh's long-running Foreigner series about humans and the alien atevi; it's the 3rd book in the 3rd Foreigner sequence, following last year's Pretender. This volume concerns the kidnapping of the atevi ruler's young heir.
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Wikipedia's C.J. Cherryh entry has lists of the author's series and titles.
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Amazon has the Publishers Weekly, which concludes "As always, Cherryh alternates complex political maneuvering with pell-mell action sequences in an intensely character-driven SF novel sure to appeal to the many fans of this series."
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Clark, G. O. :
25c Rocket Ship to the Stars
(Dark Regions Press 1-888993-43-x, $6.95, 50pp, chapbook, January 2007, cover art Marge Simon)
Collection of 35 poems, many previously published, some in slightly different form, in magazines and web-zines ranging from Asimov's and Star*Line to Strange Horizons and Ideomancer.
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Order from the publisher, whose website has a brief description.
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The author's site has several sample poems.
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Czerneda, Julie E., & Jane Paniccia, eds. :
Under Cover of Darkness
(DAW 0-756-40404-5, $7.99, 311pp, mass market paperback, February 2007)
Anthology of 14 original stories about "secret agents and organizations that have left their mark on time and space".
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Authors include Larry Niven, Nick Pollatta, Tanya Huff, and Janny Wurts.
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DAW's website has this brief description.
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De Winter, Corrine :
Tango in the Ninth Circle
(Dark Regions Press 1-888993-42-1, $6.95, 43pp, chapbook, January 2007)
Collection of 27 poems, edited by Bobbi Sinha-Morey, with an introduction by Denise Dumars and illustrations by Matt Taggart.
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The author won a 2005 Bram Stoker Award for previous poetry collection The Women at the Funeral.
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Order from the publisher, whose website has a brief description.
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The author's website has background and descriptions of earlier books.
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Del Franco, Mark :
Unshapely Things
(Ace 0-441-01477-1, $7.99, 305pp, mass market paperback, February 2007, cover art Jaime DeJesus)
Urban fantasy novel, the author's first novel, in which Boston police call in a druid to investigate murders of fairy prostitutes.
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The author's website has a description and first chapter excerpt. The author has a livejournal.
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Amazon has a description and several 5-star reader reviews.
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Hogan, James P. :
Echoes of an Alien Sky
(Baen 1-416-52108-9, $24, 317pp, hardcover, February 2007, cover illustration Bob Eggleton)
SF novel about colonists from Venus arriving on Earth, where they investigate the remains of the extinct race that once lived there.
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Baen's Webscription site has this description, with links to several chapter excerpts.
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The author's recently enhanced website has this page for the book, with links to pages of background, summary, and excerpts. The site's homepage quotes newspaper articles from the 1890s onward citing fears of global cooling, warming, cooling, and warming.
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Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, which calls it a "lackluster tale" -- "The plot -- a mix of exposition, polemics and pseudoscience -- follows a predictable path to its predictable conclusion."
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Jones, Frewin :
The Faerie Path
(Eos 0-06-087102-4, $16.99, 312pp, hardcover, February 2007, jacket art Ali Smith)
Young adult fantasy novel about a teenaged girl who discovers she is the lost daughter of Oberon and Titania, whose re-appearance revives the world of Faerie.
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The publisher's site has this description and text excerpt.
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Amazon has the Booklist review: "The writing is occasionally awkward, and the book's setting and characters are typical fantasy fare. Even so, there's enough mystery, suspense, and romance to carry readers to the inevitable happy ending, and girls fond of magical princess stories won't be disappointed."
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Kay, Guy Gavriel :
Ysabel
(Roc 0-451-46129-0, $24.95, 421pp, hardcover, February 2007, jacket art Larry Rostant)
Contemporary fantasy novel about a photographer at a medieval French cathedral in Provence whose 15-year-old son encounters supernatural figures out of the structure's past.
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The author's website has this description, with the prologue, a letter to the reader, and an author interview.
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Among online reviews are John Clute's for SF Weekly -- "Ysabel is beyond honed. It reads like a perfectly cut jewel of singleton, with not a single turn untold..." -- and Cat Eldridge's for Green Man Review -- "If for no other reason, read Ysabel to see how one can accurately depict fifteen year-old characters...."
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Amazon has the starred Publishers Weekly review, from its November 20th '06 issue: "Kay departs from his usual historical fantasies to connect the ancient, violent history of France to the present day in this entrancing contemporary fantasy. ... The author's historical detail, evocative writing and fascinating characters -- both ancient and modern -- will enthrall mainstream as well as fantasy readers."
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Pratt, Deborah :
The Vision Quest, Book One: The Age of Light
(VGM Publishing 0-9787309-0-9, $21.54, 366pp, hardcover, January 2007)
SF novel, the author's first novel, about a young man from the "newly risen continent of Atlantia" who pursues secret powers -- "held throughout human history by the likes of Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad and Edgar Cayce" -- after witnessing the deaths of his father and 2700 innocent people.
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The author has worked in Hollywood as an actress, writer, director, and producer of Quantum Leap, Airwolf, Magnum P.I. and other shows.
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The book's website includes a press kit, a newsletter, a review, and a PDF excerpt.
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Raban, Jonathan :
Surveillance
(Pantheon 0-375-42244-7, $24, 258pp, hardcover, January 2007)
Near-future SF novel about a terrorist-obsessed US in which a journalist suspects that a bestselling author has faked his autobiography, by a British author best-known as a travel writer of books including Bad Land and Passage to Juneau.
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The publisher's site has this description and an excerpt.
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Amazon has Publishers Weekly's starred review, calling it a "clever, unsettling novel set in a near-future Seattle" and concluding "An air of suspenseful dread hangs over every page of this intelligent, provocative book, and when the end finally rolls in, readers will be stunned and, in some cases, outraged." Reader reviews, perhaps predictably, are mixed.
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Thompson, Kate :
The New Policeman
(Greenwillow 0-06-117427-0, $16.99, 442pp, hardcover, January 2007)
First US edition (UK: The Bodley Head, June 2005)
Young adult fantasy novel about an Irish boy who tries to find his mother more time in the day, a place where time stands still, and a new policeman who appears when the boy vanishes.
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The publisher's site has this description and an excerpt.
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The author's website has this description of the original UK edition, with quotes from reviews, an audio music excerpt, and a note that the book was "Winner of The Guardian Children's Book Prize, the Whitbread Children's Book Award and the Dublin Airport Authority Children's Book of the Year Award for 2005."
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Amazon has the publisher's description and several 5-star reader reviews.
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Urbanski, Heather :
Plagues, Apocalypses, and Bug-Eyed Monsters
(McFarland 0-7864-2916-x, $35, 255pp, trade paperback, January 2007)
Nonfiction critical study, subtitled "How Speculative Fiction Shows Us Our Nightmares". Topics include nuclear war, information technology, biology, power of the state, monsters and aliens, and progress.
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The author includes a preface, an introduction, an afterword, chapter notes, 21 pages of works cited, and an index.
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The publisher's site has this description, with the complete table of contents.
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Weber, David :
Off Armageddon Reef
(Tor 1-4272-0065-3, $59.95, CD, January 2007, cover by Stephen Youll)
Audio-book edition of Weber's new novel, in which human survivors of a war with aliens sacrifice human rights and scientific inquiry in order to survive.
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It's read by Oliver Wyman, and is unabridged on 25 CDs.
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Tor's site has this page for Weber and the book, with a description, excerpt, bio, video interview, etc.
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Amazon has the starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist; the latter concludes "Shifting effortlessly between battles among warp-speed starships and among oar-powered galleys, Weber brings the political maneuvering, past and future technologies, and vigorous protagonists together for a cohesive, engrossing whole."
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