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Acevedo, Mario :
The Undead Kama Sutra
(Eos 978-0-06-083328-2, $13.95, 368pp, trade paperback, March 2008)
Vampire detective novel, third in the series following The Nymphos of Rocky Flats and X-Rated Bloodsuckers, about an ex-soldier who became a vampire while serving in Iraq. In this volume PI Felix Gomez deals with aliens who covet earth women.
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HarperCollins has this page for the book, with its Browse Inside function.
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The author's website includes an excerpt.
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Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review.
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Armstrong, Kelley :
Personal Demon
(Bantam Spectra 978-0-553-80661-8, $20, 371pp, hardcover, April 2008)
Supernatural fantasy novel, eighth in the "Women of the Otherworld" series following Bitten, Stolen, Dime Store Magic, Industrial Magic, Haunted, Broken, and No Humans Involved. In this book, Hope Adams goes undercover to infiltrate a gang of bored supernaturals in Miami.
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Bantam's site has this description, and an excerpt.
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The author's website has this page about the book, with a description and links to various editions.
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Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Armstrong excels in depicting Hope's transformations, but new readers might want to read earlier books to get context for all the mayhem."
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De Abaitua, Matthew :
The Red Men
(UK: Snowbooks 978-1-905005-58-1, £7.99, 377pp, trade paperback, October 2007)
Literary SF novel about a new technology that enables Red Men, digital simulations of rich and powerful people.
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The book appeared last year and has been shortlisted for this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award.
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The publisher's site has this description and background on the author.
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Sci Fi Wire has an interview with the author in which he describes the book as "autobiography done as science fiction" and cites Tipler's Physics of Immortality as inspiration.
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Strange Horizons ran this review by Martin Lewis in January: "This isn't a novel you can get an easy grip on; like the famous elephant surrounded by blind men, its shape and texture suggest differing beasts depending on where you grab it. Literary thriller and domestic drama, thought experiment and drug trip, cyberpunk and technopagan, satire and prophecy. It is almost as if de Abaitua is worried that he will only get one chance and has consequently crammed all his ideas into one novel..."
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Drake, David :
When the Tide Rises
(Baen 978-1-4165-5527-8, $25, 356pp, hardcover, March 2008, cover by Stephen Hickman)
Military SF novel, sixth in the "RCN" series following With the Lightnings, Lt. Leary, Commanding, The Far Side of the Stars, The Way to Glory, and Some Golden Harbor. In this book Leary is assigned to the frontier planet looking to Cinnabar for aid.
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Baen's Webscriptions site has this description with links to several chapters.
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Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Drake has always been known for his ultrarealistic depiction of combat and its aftermath, and he's at the top of his form."
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Duncan, Dave :
The Alchemist's Code
(Ace 978-0-441-01562-7, $14, 308pp, trade paperback, March 2008, cover art Jim Griffin)
Fantasy novel, second in the series following The Alchemist's Apprentice, about an alchemist named Nostradamus, set in an alternate 17th-century Venice. This book concerns a spy and an encrypted code.
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Duncan's website has this page about the book with an excerpt.
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Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "The level of detail occasionally stifles the flow of Duncan's prose, an effect offset by the energy of the twisting plot."
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Faren Miller reviews the book in the April issue of Locus Magazine: "Oh, and magic too. Here Duncan is at his cleverest, for some of the Renaissance alchemy, pyromancy and sessions of tarot reading genuinely work and some don't. ... Nostradamus finally explains all, in a masterful exercise of Holmesian logic."
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Egan, Greg :
Dark Integers and Other Stories
(Subterranean Press 978-1-59606-155-2, $25, 232pp, hardcover, March 2008, jacket illustration Steve Montiglio)
Collection of five stories: 1998 novella "Oceanic", winner of the Hugo and Locus Awards; 2006 novella "Riding the Crococile"; 1995 novelette "Luminous"; and two 2007 novelettes, "Dark Integers" (sequel to "Luminous") and "Glory", both of which are on this year's Hugo Awards ballot.
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Egan provides an introduction explaining the mathematical concepts behind "Luminous" and "Dark Integers".
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The publisher's site has this order page for the book.
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Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Egan is renowned for bringing the most abstract concepts of physics and philosophy to life, and these diamond-hard science fiction stories ably showcase his talent."
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Russell Letson reviews the book (along with Egan's forthcoming novel Incandescence) in the April issue of Locus Magazine: "Despite the speculative metaphysics and the miraculous technologies, these stories retain the feel of hard SF, thanks to the rigor with which Egan approaches his materials. ... But my personal delight remains Egan's head-on engagement with the philosophical questions that arise from his scenarios."
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Hall, Steven :
The Raw Shark Texts
(Canongate 978-1-84195-911-5, $24, 428pp, hardcover, April 2007)
Metaphysical SF novel about a man who's lost his memory and is told he's victim of "dissociative condition" since his girlfriend drowned three years before.
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The book appeared last year and has been shortlisted for this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award.
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Book website http://www.rawsharktexts.com/ reproduces some of the graphics from the book's text, and includes an excerpt.
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Amazon has a guest review by Audrey Niffenegger -- "There's echoes of Cyberpunk, Borges, Auster; there is adventure on the high seas, lost love, an exploration of what it means to be human in the age of intelligent machines" -- and the Publishers Weekly review: "...the end result is a fast-moving cyberpunk mashup of Jaws, Memento and sappy romance that's destined for the big screen."
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Kenyon, Kay :
A World Too Near
(Pyr 978-1-59102-642-6, $25, 425pp, hardcover, March 2008, cover illustration Stephan Martiniere)
Far-future SF novel, second book of "The Entire and the Rose" following Bright of the Sky (2007), set in a parallel universe in which a former star pilot from Earth faces the destruction of the great engine of Ahnenhoon, built to sustain the Entire, but which would destroy Earth's own universe.
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Pyr's site has a description and sample chapters.
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The author's site has this page about the universe.
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Amazon has the starred Publishers Weekly review, from its January 7th issue: "Tangled motivations, complex characters and intriguing world-building will keep readers on the edges of their seats."
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Keyes, Greg :
The Born Queen
(Ballantine Del Rey 978-0-345-44069-3, $26, 448pp, hardcover, April 2008, jacket illustration Paul Youll)
Fantasy novel, conclusion of "The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone" following The Briar King, The Charnal Prince, and The Blood Knight.
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Del Rey's site has this description and excerpt.
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The author's site has the jacket summary and links to two PDF excerpts.
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McDonald, Sandra :
The Stars Down Under
(Tor 978-0-7653-1644-8, $24.95, 334pp, hardcover, March 2008, jacket art Donato)
Military SF novel, sequel to The Outback Stars (2007), about a married couple, officer and enlisted, who are assigned to repair alien artifacts that enable spaceship to travel from world to world.
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Tor's website -- note that www.tor-forge.com URLs are now being redirected to http://us.macmillan.com/TorForge.aspx -- has this page for the book, with a description and excerpt.
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The author's site says this book "is full of more heroes, more romance, cliff diving, crocodile women, true love torn apart and more ... It's my own little The Empire Strikes Back".
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Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Military SF thriller, xeno-archeological adventure, interstellar romance and shamanistic vision quest combine in this ambitious but flawed sequel to 2007's The Outback Stars..."
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Moore, Moira J. :
Heroes Adrift
(Ace 978-0-441-01598-6, $7.99, 340pp, mass market paperback, March 2008, cover art Aleta Rafton)
Fantasy novel, third in the series following Resenting the Hero (2006) and The Hero Strikes Back. In this book the hero and his shield search for a missing heir to the empire.
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The author's site has an excerpt.
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Carolyn Cushman reviews the book in the April issue of Locus Magazine: "Add some interesting new romantic developments and a very promising new character, and it's a lively installment in a consistently entertaining series."
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Murphy, C. E. :
House of Cards
(Luna 978-0-373-80263-0, $14.95, 408pp, trade paperback, March 2008)
Paranormal romance novel, second in the "Negotiator Trilogy" following Heart of Stone, about a lawyer who serves members of the Old Races who live in New York City.
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Luna's site has this description with a link to a pop-up excerpt.
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Carolyn Cushman reviewed the book in the March issue of Locus Magazine: "Violent confrontations add action on top of tense intrigue in this involving, even thrilling, middle book in a divertingly different contemporary fantasy romance series."
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Roberts, Adam :
Swiftly
(UK: Gollancz 978-0-575-07589-4, £18.99, 359pp, hardcover, March 2008)
SF novel, a sequel to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, set in 1848, when the British Empire, which has enslaved Lilliputians, is threatened by invasion from France, whose army include Brobdingnagians.
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Roberts' website has this page for the book, with the dust jacket description and a Chapter Four excerpt. Blog posts on Roberts' main page link reviews, including Nick Gevers' review at SF Site: "Swiftly may be Roberts's best novel so far. It is a book he had in mind for a long time, and its maturity of conception is impressive."
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Amazon UK's page has a 'search inside' feature, but the feature directs to the Roberts 2004 collection of the same name, not the novel.
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Stemple, Adam :
Steward of Song
(Tor 978-0-7653-1630-7, $23.95, 288pp, hardcover, March 2008, jacket art Michael Kaluta)
Fantasy novel, sequel to Singer of Souls, about an American musician living in Edinborough, now ruler of the Daoine Sidhe.
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Tor's (Macmillan) website has this page for the book, though the description seems to be that for the previous novel.
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Stemple's website has this page of background describing the difficulties writing the book.
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Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review: "Stemple riffs off Native American and Celtic myths with ease while skillfully depicting a world where any move can have dire consequences."
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Strahan, Jonathan, ed. :
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Two
(Night Shade Books 978-1-59780-124-9, $19.95, 457pp, trade paperback, March 2008, cover art John Berkey)
Anthology of 24 science fiction and fantasy stories first published in 2007. Authors include Ted Chiang, Greg Egan, Jeffrey Ford, Bruce Sterling, Neil Gaiman, Ken MacLeod, Michael Swanwick, Elizabeth Hand, and Kelly Link. Strahan provides an introduction to the book and introductions to each of the stories.
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The publisher's site has this order page for the book, with the complete table of contents.
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Amazon has the Publishers Weekly, which says that the book "is too small to hold all the great speculative stories of 2007, but it provides an excellent sampler, focusing on the recent trend of interstitiality..."
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Gary K. Wolfe reviews the book in the April issue of Locus Magazine, examing the stories in details and concluding that this volume is "more rewarding than even last year's auspicious first volume."
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