* Ballantyne, Tony : Divergence
(Bantam Spectra 0-553-58930-X, $6.99, 389pp, mass market paperback, May 2007, cover art John Blackford)

SF novel, sequel to Recursion (2004 UK, 2006 US) and Capacity (2005 UK, 2007 US), about a 23rd-century Earth controlled by an AI called Watcher. In this book a passenger on a spaceship learns that she isn't human, and is destined to destroy the Watcher.
• Bantam's website has this description and an excerpt.
• The author's website has descriptions of the two earlier books, but nothing yet about this one.
• Amazon has a book description, and a review by Harriet Klausner.

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* Berg, Carol : Flesh and Spirit
(Roc 978-0-451-46088-2, $15, 418pp, trade paperback, May 2007, cover painting Luis Royo)

Fantasy novel, first of two set in the land of Navronne, about the rebellious son of a family of sorcerers who discovers secrets in his grandfather's magical book of maps.
• The author's site has a people, places, and pronunciations guide, and an excerpt.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, which concludes "Like much fantasy marketed as 'adult' today, this well-written novel is suitable for readers as young as middle-schoolers, though some preteens may find it a bit too dark and slow for their tastes."

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Boston, Bruce, & Marge Simon : Night Smoke
(Kelp Queen Press 978-0-9689934-6-0, $18, 64pp, chapbook, May 2007, cover art Marge Simon)

Collection of 27 collaborative poems by Boston and Simon, with illustrations by Simon.
• The publisher's site has this description with sample illustrations and ordering information.
• This is apparently a reissue of the volume published by Miniature Sun Press in 2002 and nominated for the 2003 Bram Stoker Award.

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* Dann, Jack, & Gardner Dozois, eds. : Wizards
(Berkley 978-0-425-21518-0, $25, 10+400pp, hardcover, May 2007, jacket illustration John Jude Palencar)

Anthology of 18 original stories about wizards. Authors are Neil Gaiman, Garth Nix, Mary Rosenblum, Kage Baker, Eoin Colfer, Jane Yolen, Tad Williams, Patricia A. McKillip, Elizabeth Hand, Andy Duncan, Peter S. Beagle, Nancy Kress, Jeffrey Ford, Tanith Lee, Terry Bisson, Terry Dowling, Gene Wolfe, and Orson Scott Card.
• The publisher's site has this description.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, which says "Veteran fantasists weave a variety of imaginative spells in this fine anthology of 18 original wizardry-themed tales" and concludes "overall this magical brew will enchant young adult readers and their elders as well."
• Locus Magazine published reviews of the book by Nick Gevers in its March issue and by Rich Horton in its May issue. Gevers especially recommended the stories by Duncan, Ford, Williams, and Wolfe, and concluded "Wizards is compelling reading almost throughout and is likely to earn the laurel of fantasy anthology of the year." Horton recommended the Duncan and Gaiman stories, saying "It is a very strong book top to bottom."

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* Falbe, Tracy : Judgment Rising
(Brave Luck Books 978-0-9762235-4-2, $14.95, 357pp, trade paperback, May 2007, cover art Brian Hagan)

Fantasy novel, third in "The Rys Chronicles", about leaders of two kingdoms threatened by the ghosts of a long dead civilization.
• The publisher's site -- "where strong characters take chances" -- has descriptions of the four books in the series, including forthcoming volume The Borderlands of Power, plus a free fantasy fiction, the this book's prologue.
• The author writes blog Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Tracy Falbe.

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* Hines, Jim C. : Goblin Hero
(DAW 0-756-40442-8, $6.99, 343pp, mass market paperback, May 2007, cover art Mel Grant)

Fantasy novel, follow-up to last year's Goblin Quest, about a near-sighted goblin faced with living up to his new heroic healer status.
• The author's site has this description, and a PDF first chapter download.
• Amazon has posts by the author.

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* Hunter, Faith : Seraphs
(Roc 0-451-46147-9, $14, 356pp, trade paperback, May 2007)

Post-apocalyptic fantasy novel, second in a series following Bloodring, about neomage Thorn St. Croix in a world where winged seraphs have appeared on Earth, triggering an ice age and religious strife.
• The author's site has a description and excerpt.
• Amazon has the book description and several reader reviews.
• Carolyn Cushman reviews the book in the upcoming June issue of Locus Magazine: "Thorn's your classic hero type, unprecedentedly powerful and working for good, yet rejected by the very people she's trying to save. It's the world in which she operates that makes this series something special, with the nature and objectives of the seraphs a tantalizing mystery behind the fast-paced plot."

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* Klages, Ellen : Portable Childhoods
(Tachyon Publications 978-1-892391-45-2, $14.95, 14+210pp, trade paperback, April 2007)

Collection of 16 stories, three of them original to this book, with an introduction by Neil Gaiman. Original stories include the title novelette.
• Contents include Nebula Award winner "Basement Magic", Nebula finalist "Flying Over Water", Hugo and Nebula finalist "Time Gypsy", and 2004 story "The Green Glass Sea", basis for her award-winning 2006 novel The Green Glass Sea. The author provides an afterword.
• The publisher's site has this page for the book with lots of review quotes and blurbs by Connie Willis, Cory Doctorow, Peter Straub, et al.
• Amazon has the Booklist review -- "Klages creates wonder-filled and beautiful worlds in her short stories, making this a tremendously satisfying collection." -- and posts by the author.
• Locus Magazine published reviews in its April issue by Gary K. Wolfe and Faren Miller. Wolfe notes that "Klages isn't really an SF writer at all, but she writes about things SF readers like to read about -- such as bright kids and misappropriated childhoods -- and does it so well that, like Bradbury (who she sometimes echoes), she can get away with essentially mainstream stories that take us into an imaginative space that carries the resonance of fantasy." Miller's review, posted here online, similarly concluded "As a whole, Portable Childhoods moves so fluidly between genre and non-genre, such distinctions seem to vanish."

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* Klima, John, ed. : Logorrhea
(Bantam Spectra 978-0-553-38433-8, $13, 10+433pp, trade paperback, May 2007)

Anthology, subtitled "Good Words Make Good Stories", of 21 original stories. Authors include Hal Duncan (chiaroscuro), Clare Dudman (eczema), Michael Moorcock (insouciant), Anna Tambour (pococurante), Tim Pratt (autochthonous), Elizabeth Hand (vignette), Matthew Cheney (elegiacal), Paolo Bacigalupi (macerate), Theodora Goss (dulcimer), and Jeff VanderMeer (appoggiatura).
• Bantam's website has this description and an excerpt (from Hal Duncan's story).
• Locus Magazine published reviews in its May '07 issue by Rich Horton and Nick Gevers; Horton called it "A delightful anthology", singling out the stories by Daniel Abraham and Theodora Goss, while Gevers said "Logorrhea is a fine anthology, weird and versatile, a wonderful concept rewardingly realized", and recommended the stories by Daniel Abraham, Theodora Goss, and Jay Lake.

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* Lambshead, John : Lucy's Blade
(Baen 978-1-4165-2121-1, $24, 371pp, hardcover, May 2007, cover art Clyde Caldwell)

Fantasy novel set in Elizabethan England, about a court wizard who summons the demon possessing one Lucy Dennys with the aid of the Necronomicon.
• Baen's site has this description and links to the prologue and several chapters.
• The author is a research scientist in marine biodiversity at the Natural History Museum in London, among other things.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review.

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* McDonald, Ian : Brasyl
(Prometheus/Pyr 1-591-02543-5, $25, 357pp, hardcover, May 2007, cover illustration Stephan Martiniere)

SF novel set in past, present, and future Brazil, with three separate stories that eventually merge as strands of a single quantum multiverse.
• Pyr's website has this description -- "Think Bladerunner in the tropics..." -- with excerpts from reviews and sample chapters.
• Amazon has the starred Publishers Weekly review, from its March 26th issue, which calls it "an edgy, post-cyberpunk free-for-all" and concludes "Chaotic, heartbreaking and joyous, this must-read teeters on the edge of melodrama, but somehow keeps its precarious balance."
• Locus Magazine published reviews by Gary K. Wolfe, in the February issue, and Nick Gevers, in the April issue. Wolfe's review, posted here online, comparing this book to McDonald's previous novel, noted that "Brasyl is no more like River of Gods than Brazil is like India" and concluded "A few years ago, in an academic book titled Brazilian Science Fiction, M. Elizabeth Ginway employed a term invented by the Brazilian critic Roberto de Sousa Causo to describe an emerging tradition of high-tech postcolonial SF then emerging in Brazil. "Tupinipunk," an amalgam of cyberpunk and the name of an indigenous tribe, was characterized by "iconoclasm, sensuality, mysticism, politicization, humanism, and a Third World perspective". With his very enjoyable Brasyl, McDonald may have given us the first tupinipunk novel to appear from outside the borders of Brazil itself."

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* Park, Greg : Cleansing Hunt
(Bladestar Publishing 0-9787931-9-6, $24.95, 512pp, hardcover, May 2007, cover illustration Melissa Ann Douglas)

Fantasy novel, Book Two of "The Earthsoul Prophecies" following Veil of Darkness, in which "the allied nations of the Nine Lands begin preparations for a prolonged war against the refleshed dreadlord Throy Shadan".
• The publisher's site has these descriptions -- "Brilliantly conceived, with more than six thousand years of history, The Earthsoul Prophecies is a magnificent tale of a dying world's struggle for survival and an insightful look into mankind's proven capacity for good and evil." -- noting that the author, a high school English teacher, has written these books to help him "reach the reluctant readers among his students and have opened the way for the kinds of writing instruction that normally would have been met with a weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. In a world where traditional literacies are falling victim to electronic mass media, getting young people excited about reading and writing is truly magical."
• The site also has previews of both books.

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* Pratt, Tim : Hart & Boot & Other Stories
(Night Shade Books 978-1-59780-053-2, $14.95, 211pp, trade paperback, March 2007, cover art Richard Marchand)

Collection of 13 stories, one original to this book ("Komodo"). The author provides story notes at the end of the volume.
• The publisher's site has this description, which notes that "The title story, 'Hart & Boot' was selected for Best American Short Stories 2005 by Michael Chabon." Also included is current Hugo Award nominee "Impossible Dreams".
• Amazon has reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist; the former says "Pratt's straightforward style, ordinary Joe protagonists and often hackneyed plots render his bizarre landscapes all the more plausible and the emotional connections all the more wrenching."
• Faren Miller reviewed the book in the April issue of Locus Magazine: "He portrays the world of modern 20- and 30-somethings in all its grunge and clamor -- spoiled relationships, AIDS tests, the latest incarnations of loud rock and sexuality -- but it doesn't dominate every story. ... The book ends with 'Dream Engine', a marvelous mix-up of genres -- steampunk, Vancian SF, serial-killer mystery and the intriguing strangeness of unearthly genders and dimensions. This one may lead to sequels; I hope so, for Pratt is just as much at home in this wild realm of the imagination as he is in our own times, with their tough women and bewildered, lovesick men."

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* Resnick, Mike, ed. : Alien Crimes
(SFBC 978-1-58288-223-9, $14.99, 487pp, hardcover, April 2007, jacket art Donato Giancola)

Anthology of six original crime stories. Authors are Pat Cadigan, Mike Resnick, Harry Turtledove, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Gregory Benford, and Walter Jon Williams.
• Resnick's introduction explains that, in contrast to his previous anthology Down These Dark Spaceways of "hard-boiled science fiction detective novellas", this volume was conceived to "show that the infinitely adaptable field of science fiction is able to encompass all kinds of mysteries."
• The book is an original publication by the Science Fiction Book Club, whose site has this description.
• Nick Gevers reviews the book in the upcoming June issue of Locus Magazine, especially recommending the story by Walter Jon Williams, "Womb of Every World", "a dexterously constructed entertainment that begins as an uproarious sword-and-sorcery adventure and concludes as high-concept messianic science fiction".

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* Williams, Sean : Saturn Returns
(Ace 0-441-01493-3, $7.99, 319pp, mass market paperback, May 2007, cover art Stephan Martiniere)

SF novel set in the 43rd millennium of human history, concerning a murder plot to destroy the intergalactic transport system called the Continuum.
• The author's website lists this as first in the "Astropolis" series, to be followed by Earth Ascendant and Remaining in Light.
• Amazon has the brief publisher's description and a review by Harriet Klausner.

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