+ Barnes, Jonathan : The Domino Men
(Eos 978-0-06-167140-1, $24.95, 382pp, hardcover, February 2009) First US edition (UK: Gollancz, February 2008)

Supernatural thriller, the author's second novel following The Somnambulist (2008), about a London file clerk faced with the consequences of a bargain made long before by Queen Victoria.
• The publisher's site has this description.
• Publishers Weekly gave it starred review: "Thanks to Barnes's evocative prose, readers will easily suspend disbelief. Those who enjoy the grafting of fantasy elements onto contemporary urban landscapes will be more than satisfied."
• Graham Sleight reviewed it in the November '08 issue of Locus Magazine: "It's worth noting how quickly the book escalates into horror-comedy territory. It's not a restrained novel, and it frequently goes for vivid, graphic effects to cap a sequence, but it is well paced, accelerating inexorably towards the ending..."

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* Beagle, Peter S. : We Never Talk About My Brother
(Tachyon Publications 978-1-892391-83-4, $14.95, 15+209pp, trade paperback, March 2009)

Collection of 10 stories, including the "rediscovered classic" "The Unicorn Tapestries" (first published in the World Fantasy Convention program book of 1981), and previously unpublished stories "The Stickball Witch" and "By Moonlight".
• The introduction is by Charles de Lint.
• The publisher's website has this description with an excerpt and praise from reviewers.
• Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review: "Impressively diverse themes, styles and subject matter make this collection addictive."

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* Canavan, Trudi : The Magician's Apprentice
(Orbit 978-0-316-03788-4, $24.99, 593pp, hardcover, February 2009, jacket illustration Steve Stone)

Fantasy novel, prequel to the author's Black Magician trilogy.
• The author's website has this extract.

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+ Goodman, Alison : Eon: Dragoneye Reborn
(Viking 978-0-670-06227-0, $19.99, 531pp, hardcover, December 2008, jacket illustration Sammy Jr. Yuen) First US edition (Australia: HarperCollins, August 2008)

Young adult novel, first of the Dragoneye Reborn duology, about a 16-year-old girl disguised as a boy named Eon, who attempts to become a dragon master.
• The book was first published in Australia as The Two Pearls of Wisdom, where is just won an Aurealis Award for best fantasy novel.
• Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review: "Goodman's characters hold built-in appeal for fans of Tamora Pierce (particularly of her Song of the Lioness Quartet), but they go further than Pierce's in staking out their sexuality; the author's plotting is elaborate, smart and capable of taking the audience by surprise."
• Carolyn Cushman reviewed it in the November '08 issue of Locus Magazine: "The girl-in-disguise plot gets some interesting added twists -- Eon pretends to be a eunuch for a while, and even tries a steroid-style drug to enhance her male qualities -- and the interestingly blended Asian atmosphere adds plenty of color, combining to make an entertaining adventure, the first volume in a series of two."

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* Hartley, A. J. : Act of Will
(Tor 978-0-7653-2124-4, $24.95, 334pp, hardcover, March 2009)

Fantasy novel, first of a series, about a medieval actor and playwright who joins a band of outlaws.
• Tor's site has this description, and this author background.
• Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review: "Hartley (On the Fifth Day) deftly proves that people you shouldn't trust at your back can be the best ones to have at your side."

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* Horton, Rich, ed. : Science Fiction: The Best of the Year: 2008 Edition
(Prime Books 978-0-8095-7250-2, $13.95, 365pp, trade paperback, August 2008, cover art Bob Eggleton)

Anthology of 18 science fiction stories that were first published in 2007.
• Authors include Greg Egan, Bruce Sterling, Michael Swanwick, Ken MacLeod, Nancy Kress, and Robert Reed, as well as Karen Joy Fowler's Nebula Award winner "Always".
• The publisher's site has this page about the book.

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* Kress, Nancy : Steal Across the Sky
(Tor 978-0-7653-1986-9, $25.95, 317pp, hardcover, February 2009, jacket art John Jude Palencar)

SF novel about alien Atoners who claim to have wronged humanity, and who invite human witness to travel to distant worlds to understand their crime.
• Tor's website has this description.
• Russell Letson reviewed the book in the February '09 issue of Locus Magazine, not wanting to give away surprises: "Take my word that the issues are as strongly felt as any in the Beggars or Probability sequences, and as difficult to resolve..."

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* McDonald, Ian : Cyberabad Days
(Pyr 978-1-59102-699-0, $15, 279pp, trade paperback, February 2009, cover illustration Stephan Martiniere)

Collection of seven stories set in the future India of McDonald's 2004 novel River of Gods.
• Contents include Hugo nominee "The Little Goddess" and Hugo winner "The Djinn's Wife", with one story original to this book, novella "Vishnu at the Cat Circus".
• Pyr's website has this description of the book and the stories, plus Paul McAuley's Introduction.
• Faren Miller reviews the book in the February '09 issue of Locus Magazine: "The richness of imagination that made River an almost overwhelming immersion in a mix of history and culture flung toward the middle of the 21st century is not so much tamed by shorter forms as transformed into something both lucid and emotionally intense...."

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* McIntosh, Fiona : Royal Exile
(Eos 978-0-06-158268-4, $7.99, 449pp, mass market paperback, January 2009)

Fantasy novel, first book of the Valisar Trilogy, about a young Crown Prince of Penraven facing an invading warlord who seeks the fabled Valisar Enchantment.
• The publisher's site has this description.

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+ Morgan, Richard K. : The Steel Remains
(Ballantine Del Rey 978-0-345-49303-3, $26, 416pp, hardcover, January 2009, jacket illustration Courteney Thomas) First US edition (UK: Gollancz, August 2008)

Fantasy novel (the author's first, after five SF novels), about veteran warrior Ringil Eskiath, half-breed lady kir-Archeth, and steppe-nomad Egar the Barbarian, who are drawn together in service of their Empire.
• Del Rey's website has this description with an excerpt.
• Amazon has the Publishers Weekly review, which calls it a "promising but obscenity-laden epic fantasy" and concludes "The intriguing conclusion to the dark, gritty tale will have readers hoping for a more plot-heavy and less visceral sequel."
• Charles N. Brown, in his March Locus Magazine editorial, says "The prose is tense and the horror and battle scenes capture Robert E. Howard with a dash of Kuttner/Moore filtered through Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword and Moorcock's Elris stories perfectly."

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* Sheckley, Alisa : The Better to Hold You
(Ballantine Del Rey 978-0-345-50587-3, $6.99, 323pp, mass market paperback, March 2009, cover illustration Gene Mollica)

Paranormal romance novel about a Manhattan veterinarian whose husband returns from a trip to Romania mysteriously changed.
• Del Rey's website has this description, with a blurb by Neil Gaiman.
• Amazon's "Look Inside" feature includes an excerpt.

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* Simmons, Dan : Drood
(Little, Brown 978-0-316-00702-3, $26.99, 777pp, hardcover, February 2009)

Historical thriller based on the last five years of Charles Dickens' life and his uncompleted novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, as narrated by fellow novelist Wilkie Collins.
• The publisher's site has this description with a link to an excerpt.
• Suvudu.com highlights the Subterranean Press edition of the novel.
• Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review: "Despite the book's length, readers will race through the pages, drawn by the intricate plot and the proliferation of intriguing psychological puzzles, which will remind many of the work of Charles Palliser and Michael Cox."
• Gary K. Wolfe reviewed the novel in the January '09 issue of Locus Magazine: "Drood reads quickly and generates the suspense of a classic thriller, and the various descriptions of literary politics, stagecraft, and the minutiae of Victorian publishing only serve to amplify the impact of the periodic Awful Revelations; things seem to settle down for several chapters while Collins writes and produces a new play, for example, and then, wham."

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* Sterling, Bruce : Caryatids
(Ballantine Del Rey 978-0-345-46062-2, $25, 295pp, hardcover, March 2009, jacket illustration Raphael Lacoste)

Near future SF novel about four female clones whose war criminal mother is exiled in orbit, and who are now summoned together to save the world from environmental catastrophe.
• Del Rey's site has this description.
• Publishers Weekly ran a signed review by Greg Bear, who concluded "In John Brunner's 1968 masterpiece, Stand on Zanzibar, excerpts from fictional author Chad C. Mulligan's 'The Hipcrime Vocab' provide sharp, street-smart and world-wise commentary on the culture of 2010. Bruce Sterling is the closest we've come to Mulligan in the actual 21st century. His international perspective is rare in science fiction, which often suffers from Amerocentric bias. A new novel from Sterling is a guarantee of something wild and tasty, and The Caryatids amply fulfills that promise."
• Gary K. Wolfe reviewed the book in the January '09 issue of Locus Magazine: "In one sense, The Caryatids represents one of the most sophisticated and evocative uses of clones as a way of thematically organizing a novel that I've seen since Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang. In another, it represents one of Sterling's most ambitious and chilling scenarios of what might go wrong with the world and how society might reorganize itself around those catastrophes..."

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* Strahan, Jonathan, ed. : Eclipse Two
(Night Shade Books 978-1-59780-136-2, $14.95, 287pp, trade paperback, October 2008, cover art Donato Giancola)

Anthology of 15 original stories, subtitled "New Science Fiction and Fantasy".
• Several stories are on Locus Magazine's 2008 Recommended Reading List: Stephen Baxter's "Turing's Apples", Peter S. Beagle's "The Rabbi's Hobby", Daryl Gregory's "The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm", Alastair Reynolds' "Fury", Ted Chiang's "Exhaltation", Terry Dowling's "Truth Window: A Tale of the Bedlam Rose", Jeffrey Ford's "The Seventh Expression of the Robot General", and Ken Scholes' "Invisible Empire of Ascending Light".
• The publisher's site has this page for the book, with a description and complete table of contents.

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+ Tan, Shaun : Tales from Outer Suburbia
(Scholastic/Levine 978-0-545-05587-1, $19.99, 96pp, hardcover, February 2009, jacket art Shaun Tan) First US edition (Australia: Allen & Unwin, June 2008)

Collection of short stories and art about surburban life.
• It's his first book since winning the World Fantasy Award as Best Artist for The Arrival (which also won two Aurealis Awards). This book has just won an Aurealis Award for best illustrated book or graphic novel.
• It's listed on the 2008 Locus Recommended Reading List.

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* Vandermeer, Ann, & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. : Best American Fantasy 2
(Prime Books 978-0-8095-7325-7, $14.95, 347pp, trade paperback, February 2009, cover art Oliver Wetter)

Anthology of 19 fantasy stories first published in 2007; second and somewhat shorter volume in the annual series.
• Initially scheduled for 2008 publication, it seems to have been delayed until February '09. The anthology's blog lists the table of contents and announces the guest editor for volume 3, Kevin Brockmeier.
• Meanwhile, VanderMeer has announced on his blog that the series if moving to Underland Press.
• Stories in this volume are by Bruce Holland Rogers, Kage Baker, M. Rickert, Rick Moody, Peter S. Beagle, Jedediah Berry, Jeffrey Ford, Kelly Link, and others.
• Mark R. Kelly reviewed the book in the January '09 issue of Locus Magazine: "a better if less surprising book than its predecessor, retaining its eccentric approach to what fantasy is all about, and providing a good number of stories and authors likely to be unfamiliar to genre fantasy readers."

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* Wilson, N. D. : Dandelion Fire
(Random House 978-0-375-83883-5, $16.99, 466pp, hardcover, February 2009, jacket illustration Jeff Nentrup)

Young adult fantasy novel, Book 2 of the 100 Cupboards following 100 Cupboards (2008), about 12-year-old Henry York, sent to live with his cousins in Kansas, who discovers an attic full of cupboard doors that lead to another world.
• The publisher's site has this description and an excerpt.
• Amazon has several mostly positive reader reviews.

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