New Books, 12 January 2016
* Cobley, Michael : Ancestral Machines
(Orbit 978-0-316-22118-4, $15.99, 496pp, trade paperback, January 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 12 Jan 2016
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9780316221207
• Humanity’s Fire #4
SF space opera novel, a stand-alone novel in the same world as the “Humanity’s Fire” trilogy: Seeds of Earth (2009), The Orphaned Worlds (2010), and The Ascendant Stars (2011), about a huge structure harnessing two hundred worlds to an artificial sun.
• Hachette’s site has this description with a preview function.
• The UK edition, published on the 14th, is a hardcover.
• The Publishers Weekly review notes that “Cobley’s space opera is plainly influenced by the works of Joss Whedon and the late Iain M. Banks…”
• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound
• (Directory Entry)
* Foster, Emily : The Drowning Eyes
(Tor.com 978-1-4668-9193-7, $12.99, 144pp, trade paperback, January 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 12 Jan 2016
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9781466891937
• Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 9781427273727
Short fantasy novel about magicians called Windspeakers, whose ability to protect their archipelago from ravagers has been stolen.
• Macmillan’s site has this description.
• The Publishers Weekly review concludes, “The matriarchal society is the basis for a unique take on a piratical world, leaving the reader wanting more adventure when the abrupt ending fails to satisfy.”
• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound
• (Directory Entry)
* Miéville, China : This Census-Taker
(Del Rey 978-1-101-96732-4, $24, 224pp, hardcover, January 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 12 Jan 2016
• Ebook ISBN [link to Amazon Kindle edition]: 9781101967331
• Audiobook ISBN [link to Amazon]: 9780399567254
Short fantasy novel about an isolated boy who becomes assistant to a mysterious census-taker.
• Penguin Random House’s site has this description with a preview function.
• Publishers Weekly gives it a starred review: “Fans of Miéville’s work will recognize and relish his sharp, probing storytelling. Sparse language and a minimalist approach make this intellectual vivisection best suited to readers who are willing to work for meaning.”
• Gary K. Wolfe reviews it in the January issue of Locus Magazine: “While this ambiguity, and the generally understated tone of the narrative, may disappoint some looking for the usual Miéville fireworks, it may well haunt those readers who have valued his fierce intelligence and provocative nuances as much as his more baroque fancies.”
• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound
• (Directory Entry)
* Ward, Patricia : Skinner Luce
(Skyhorse/Talos 978-1-940456-35-5, $24.99, 352pp, hardcover, January 2016)
• Nominal Publication Date: Tue 12 Jan 2016
SF novel about a young woman who discovers she is a serv, a slave created by an alien race that feeds off humanity.
• Talos’ site has this description.
• The Publishers Weekly review concludes, “Ward delivers a gut-punching novel, consistently taut and bleak. Readers will feel Lucy hanging on by her fingernails just beneath the human world and bloodied by every hard climb upward as she tries straddling two lives while fitting into neither.”
• Purchase this book from Amazon | Indiebound
• (Directory Entry)
Monitor listings are based on publisher schedules and availability on Amazon (rather than on confirmation of physical publication via purchase, review copies, or sightings in bookstores). Titles are listed only once they are published (with rare exception). We do not list galleys or advance reading copies.
Page counts are based on publisher or Amazon/B&N listings, and typically only approximate the bibliographic page counts of finished books.
* = first edition
+ = first US edition
Date with publisher info is official publication month.
‘Nominal Publication Date’ is the day of publication, typically as indicated by Amazon.com.
If physical copies have been seen or received, that date is given following the book description.
